Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quote of the Day:

"All arms of political war involve subversion in one sense or another, with the choice of degree of openness or clandestinity depending on the tactical requirements of the situation. It is important to remember that clandestinity is a mode of political war, not its defining characteristic. Counterpropaganda and counterinsurgency commanders who attempt to define political war and its various arms solely in terms of clandestinity will often find themselves in difficulties. Legislators, particularly in democratic polities, who fall into this trap make their societies vulnerable to the many and ingenious techniques of legal maneuver which suggest themselves.

The propaganda arm, by its nature, is an overt activity. But the origin of propaganda, and the agenda which informs its practitioners, may or may not be overt. Paramilitary operations in early stages may be completely covert, as in the case of a surreptitious assassination masked as an accident. In later stages, paramilitary force is usually noisy, indeed explosively obvious to all. Classic subversion, as in converting a high government official to function as an agent of influence, remains (it is hoped) completely clandestine.

The creation, deployment, and commitment to battle of these arms of political war are a function of statecraft and of high command. Unlike conventional military force, these arms often involve civilian or at least out-of-uniform personnel. All may involve high percentages of volunteers, who usually bring with them a level of disciplinary and command and control problems unknown to modem military commands. The constitutional framework, particularly in democratic societies, may be unknown to the broader public and unclear to the legislative bodies which must provide the funding for war or preparation for war. Some states, as we will see, maintain ongoing capabilities for political war, others develop them ad hoc; many claim to have nothing to do with political war, and some few actually mean it. All states, in extremis, revert to political warfare in one form or another. Those who practice it most frequently usually conduct it most effectively.

As in the establishments devoted to conventional war, the allocation of priorities among service arms often creates difficulties. Confusion in the popular mind regarding the various roles and missions of ideology, propaganda, organizational weapons, subversion, sabotage, and paramilitary forces may lead to confusion in legislative and executive branches of government. Debate over the ethical principles of this and other forms of war, and doubts as to the efficacy of any or all of them in advancing a nation's national security, may often be heated and misinformed. Policy may frequently be vulnerable to manipulation."

-Paul Smith, On Political War

1. Intelligence leak exposes U.S. spying on adversaries and allies

2. Leaked Documents Reveal Depth of U.S. Spy Efforts

3. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 8, 2023

4. Can We No Longer Believe Anything We See? (AI altered photos)

5. What happens to TikTok? Six ways the fight to ban it could play out

6. U.S. Faces Challenge in Striking Prisoner Exchange Deals for Americans Held in Russia

7. U.S. Pushes to Assess Damage From Leak of Purported Files on Ukraine War

8. Blumenthal: Congress could pressure Pentagon over selection of Sikorsky rival for helicopter contract

9. US military sites in the Philippines: a gamble after a failed hedge

10. Indo-Pacific Maritime Security: What Does the Future Look Like?

11. China expert predicts where US will 'see the next war start'

12. At least 44 killed in Burkina Faso attacks

13. Will We Call Them Terrorists?

14. Fed fingerprints all over ‘dollar-is-doomed’ talk

15. Twitter removes NPR's 'state-affiliated' designation, replaces it with 'government funded' label

16. How to Revitalize the World Bank, the IMF, and the Development Finance System

17. Leaked documents detail dire assessments of Ukrainian army: reports

18. If You Didn’t See Chaos in Kabul, Where Were You Looking?

19. Why a bill that could ban TikTok is raising privacy concerns

20. The bipartisan plot to save TikTok

1. Intelligence leak exposes U.S. spying on adversaries and allies

This goes without saying that this appears to be a significant intelligence compromise on multiple levels.

All the major media outlets are providing rather extensive reporting on this.

I wonder how our allies will take this, not only the compromise of intelligence against adversaries but also the discussion of alleged "spying" on friends. However, I think Harris and Lamothe have it right -the alleged spying on allies is most likely normal diplomatic reporting that all countries do, though connection of signals intelligence and South Korea does not bode well for the alliance relationship.

But in terms of Korea I wonder if this information below is what led to the regimation (firing) of the National Security Advisor.

Excerpts:

Those reports appear offered as routine updates to policymakers. But another, which purports to derive from signals intelligence and “diplomatic reporting,” offers a dim assessment on behalf of the U.S. intelligence community of the IAEA’s ability to carry out its nuclear security mission.

Other reports provide updates on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, including missile tests. And in a reminder that the United States also spies on its allies, another document reports that South Korea’s National Security Council in early March “grappled” with a U.S. request that the country provide artillery ammunition to Ukraine, without unduly provoking Moscow. South Korea’s national security adviser suggested possibly selling the munitions to Poland, which controls the main weapons supply routes, since it was the U.S. goal to get the material to Ukraine quickly, the report said, citing signals intelligence.

The original source of the leak remains unclear. The Post identified the user that shared the images in February and March who, according to a review of previous social media posts, is based in southern California. A Twitter account using the same handle and avatar image as the Discord account wrote on Friday they had “found some info from a now banned server and passed it on.”

A man who answered the door at a house registered to the Discord user’s father on Friday evening declined to comment. “I’m not talking to anyone,” he said, closing the door of the family’s home at the edge of a cul-de-sac.

About three miles away, at a townhouse registered to the user’s mother, a knock at the door went unanswered. The parents did not respond to calls or messages.

Intelligence leak exposes U.S. spying on adversaries and allies

U.S. and European officials scrambled to understand how dozens of classified documents covering all manner of intelligence gathering had made their way online with little notice

By Shane Harris and Dan Lamothe

April 8, 2023 at 7:48 p.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Shane Harris · April 8, 2023

On Saturday, as U.S. officials and their foreign allies scrambled to understand how dozens of classified intelligence documents had ended up on the internet, they were stunned — and occasionally infuriated — at the extraordinary range of detail the files exposed about how the United States spies on friends and foes alike.

The documents, which appear to have come at least in part from the Pentagon and are marked as highly classified, offer tactical information about the war in Ukraine, including the country’s combat capabilities. According to one defense official, many of the documents seem to have been prepared over the winter for Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other senior military officials, but that they were available to other U.S. personnel and contract employees with the requisite security clearances.

Other documents include analysis from U.S. intelligence agencies about Russia and several other countries, all based on information gleaned from classified sources.

The series of detailed briefings and summaries open a rare window on the inner workings of American espionage. Among other secrets, they appear to reveal where the CIA has recruited human agents privy to the closed-door conversations of world leaders; eavesdropping that shows a Russian mercenary outfit tried to acquire weapons from a NATO ally to use against Ukraine; and what kinds of satellite imagery the United States uses to track Russian forces, including an advanced technology that appears barely, if ever, to have been publicly identified.

Officials in several countries said that they were trying to assess the damage from the disclosures, and many were left wondering how they had gone unnoticed for so long. Photographs of at least several dozen pages of highly classified documents, which looked to have been printed and then folded together into a packet, were shared on Feb. 28 and March 2 on Discord, a chat platform popular with gamers. The documents were shared by a user to a server called “Wow Mao.”

Some of the documents appear to be detailed Ukraine battlefield assessments prepared over the winter for senior Pentagon leaders. But officials only became aware that the documents were sitting on a public server around the time that the New York Times first reported the leak, on Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an unfolding investigation.

Senior Pentagon leadership restricted the flow of intelligence Friday in response to the revelations, two U.S. officials said. One described the clampdown as unusually strict and said it revealed a high level of panic among Pentagon leadership.

A European intelligence official worried that if Washington restricts allies’ access to future intelligence reports, it could leave them in the dark. Many of the leaked documents are labeled “NOFORN,” meaning they cannot be released to foreign nationals. But others were cleared to be shared with close U.S. allies, including the Five Eyes alliance of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. U.S. intelligence about British and Canadian activities is contained in some of the documents, suggesting that the fallout from the leaks will not be limited to the United States.

“We need to manage this well both internally and externally,” a second defense official said. “There are lot of institutions and agencies involved.”

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak. A spokeswoman for Discord, where the earliest known copies of the images were posted, declined to comment.

The full extent of the leak was unclear. The second defense official said that what had appeared online was likely the result of a single disclosure from one tranche of documents, but officials were not yet certain of that.

The 5o pages reviewed by The Washington Post involved nearly every corner of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. The documents describe intelligence activities at the National Security Agency, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, law enforcement agencies and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) — arguably the most secretive intelligence agency in the government, responsible for a multibillion dollar constellation of spy satellites.

The documents primarily concern the war in Ukraine and demonstrate how the United States is making assessments about the state of the conflict and where it’s headed. That analysis informs major policy decisions by the Biden administration, including what weapons to provide Ukraine and how to respond to Russia’s battlefield strategy.

For instance, a Feb. 23 overview of fighting in Ukraine’s Donbas region forecasts a “grinding campaign of attrition” by Russia that “is likely heading toward a stalemate, thwarting Moscow’s goal to capture the entire region in 2023.”

That confident statement, which is printed in boldface type, is supported by information obtained from “NRO-collected and commercial imagery,” a new generation of infrared satellites, signals intelligence and “liaison reporting,” a reference to intelligence from a friendly government, about the high rate of Russian artillery fire, mounting troop losses and the military’s inability to make significant territorial gains over the past seven months.

The fact that the United States bases its assessments on many sources is no secret. But U.S. officials said these more detailed disclosures could help Moscow thwart some avenues for collecting information. For example, the Feb. 23 battlefield document names one of its sources as “LAPIS time-series video.” Officials familiar with the technology described it as an advanced satellite system that allows for better imaging of objects on the ground and that could now be more susceptible to Russian jamming or interference. They indicated that LAPIS was among the more closely guarded capabilities in the U.S. intelligence arsenal.

The documents also demonstrate what has long been understood but never publicly spelled out this precisely: The U.S. intelligence community has penetrated the Russian military and its commanders so deeply that it can warn Ukraine in advance of attacks and reliably assess the strengths and weaknesses of Russian forces.

A single page in the leaked trove reveals that the U.S. intelligence community knew the Russian Ministry of Defense had transmitted plans to strike Ukrainian troop positions in two locations on a certain date in February and that Russian military planners were preparing strikes on a dozen energy facilities and an equal number of bridges in Ukraine.

The documents reveal that U.S. intelligence agencies are also aware of internal planning by the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. One document describes the GRU planning a propaganda campaign in African countries with the goal of turning public support against leaders who support assistance to Ukraine and discrediting the United States and France, in particular. The Russian campaign, the report states, would try to plant stories in African media, including ones that tried to discredit Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

The documents point to numerous intelligence successes by the United States. But they also show how depleted Ukrainian forces have become after more than a year at war.

A senior Ukrainian official on Saturday said the leaks had angered Kyiv’s military and political leaders, who have sought to conceal from the Kremlin vulnerabilities related to ammunition shortages and other battlefield data. The official said he was also concerned that more revelations of classified military intelligence were forthcoming.

In the meantime, some of the now public intelligence could ignite diplomatic controversies.

The documents show that the United States has gained access to the internal plans of Russia’s notorious Wagner Group, a private military contractor that has supplied forces to Russia’s war effort, and that Wagner has sought to purchase arms from Turkey, a NATO ally.

In early February, Wagner personnel “met with Turkish contacts to purchase weapons and equipment from Turkey for Vagner’s efforts in Mali and Ukraine,” one report states, using a variation on the spelling of the group’s name. The report further states that Mali’s interim president, Assimi Goïta, “had confirmed that Mali could acquire weapons from Turkey on Vagner’s behalf.”

It’s unclear from the report what the Turkish government may have known about the efforts by Wagner or if they proved fruitful. But the revelation that a NATO ally may have been assisting Russia in its war on Ukraine could prove explosive, particularly as Turkey has sought to block the addition of Sweden into the ranks of the trans-Atlantic military alliance.

A spokesperson for the Turkish government declined to comment. Mali’s Embassy in Washington didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Two other pages from the leaked intelligence file speak to Wagner’s plans for hiring Russian prisoners to fight in Ukraine and note that the Russian military has become dependent on the private soldiers. Like the report on meetings involving Turkey, these cite their sources as coming from “signals intelligence,” a reference to electronic eavesdropping and communications intercepts. Officials generally view those as among the most productive forms of intelligence-gathering, but they are potentially perishable if they are exposed.

Other intelligence reports among the leaked trove reflect on the geopolitical ramifications of the war in Ukraine. A summary of analysis from the CIA’s World Intelligence Review, a daily publication for senior policymakers, says that Beijing is likely to view attacks by Ukraine deep inside Russian territory as “an opportunity to cast NATO as the aggressor,” and that China could increase its support to Russia if it felt the attacks were “significant.”

U.S. and European officials have eyed warily the alliance between Moscow and Beijing. So far, officials have said there is no indication that China has granted Russia’s request for lethal military aid. However, a Ukrainian attack on Moscow using weapons provided by the United States or NATO would probably indicate to Beijing that “Washington was directly responsible for escalating the conflict” and provide possible justification for China to arm Russia, the analysis concludes.

The documents also show that Washington is keeping a close eye on Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon. One briefing from February succinctly notes that in recent days Iran had conducted tests of short-range ballistic missiles. Another takes stock of a newly published report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s efforts to expand its facilities for enriching uranium.

Those reports appear offered as routine updates to policymakers. But another, which purports to derive from signals intelligence and “diplomatic reporting,” offers a dim assessment on behalf of the U.S. intelligence community of the IAEA’s ability to carry out its nuclear security mission.

Other reports provide updates on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, including missile tests. And in a reminder that the United States also spies on its allies, another document reports that South Korea’s National Security Council in early March “grappled” with a U.S. request that the country provide artillery ammunition to Ukraine, without unduly provoking Moscow. South Korea’s national security adviser suggested possibly selling the munitions to Poland, which controls the main weapons supply routes, since it was the U.S. goal to get the material to Ukraine quickly, the report said, citing signals intelligence.

The original source of the leak remains unclear. The Post identified the user that shared the images in February and March who, according to a review of previous social media posts, is based in southern California. A Twitter account using the same handle and avatar image as the Discord account wrote on Friday they had “found some info from a now banned server and passed it on.”

A man who answered the door at a house registered to the Discord user’s father on Friday evening declined to comment. “I’m not talking to anyone,” he said, closing the door of the family’s home at the edge of a cul-de-sac.

About three miles away, at a townhouse registered to the user’s mother, a knock at the door went unanswered. The parents did not respond to calls or messages.

On Wednesday, images showing some of the documents were also circulating on the anonymous online message board 4chan and made their way to at least two mainstream social media platforms, Telegram and Twitter. In at least one case, it appears a slide which initially circulated on Discord was doctored to make it look like fewer Russian soldiers have been killed in the war than the Pentagon assesses.

There was no indication that other documents, including those that dealt with countries besides Ukraine, had been altered.

John Hudson, Alex Horton, Dalton Bennett, Samuel Oakford and Evan Hill in Washington and Reis Thebault in California contributed reporting.

The Washington Post · by Shane Harris · April 8, 2023

2. Leaked Documents Reveal Depth of U.S. Spy Efforts

So far I have not seen any reporting in the Korean English language press. But it is coming I am sure.

Leaked Documents Reveal Depth of U.S. Spy Efforts

Leaked Pentagon documents show spies are deeply ingrained in Russian intelligence services and Putin's army is ravaged after a year of fighting - but also reveal US is spying on ALLIES including South Korea, Ukraine and UK

America's extensive spying operations across the globe were revealed on social media in a severe intelligence breach
Classified documents leaked on social media indicate the Pentagon has been spying on allied nations including South Korea, Ukraine, Israel and the UK
The trove of reports also offered the clearest picture yet of the true state of Russia's invasion of Ukraine

By WILL POTTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 20:47 BST, 8 April 2023 | UPDATED: 23:58 BST, 8 April 2023

Daily Mail · by Will Potter For Dailymail.Com · April 8, 2023

A trove of leaked documents has revealed the depth of America's spying apparatus around the world, detailing how the US continues to infiltrate allied nations amid heightening global tensions.

The documents, which provided the clearest picture yet of the Kremlin's depleted military capacity, were telling as to the extent to which US espionage tactics have effectively penetrated Vladimir Putin's war machine.

However, the intelligence breach, which included reports from late February to early March but have only been leaked online in recent days, also unearthed probes in a variety of nations, including South Korea, Iran and the UK, per the Wall Street Journal.

South Korea, Israel, Ukraine and the United Kingdom are among the allies the US is said to be keeping tabs on, the WSJ reported.

Now, US military officials are able to provide real-time warnings to their Ukrainian counterparts about impending strikes in exact locations, indicating exhaustive intelligence gathering in the region.

While the breach underscored America's ability to infiltrate Moscow's upper echelons, it has also sparked fears that Russian intelligence may now have a clearer understanding of exactly what the US does and does not already understand, providing an opportunity to cut off sources of information.

The leak comes amid speculation that a wave of classified document breaches could be being orchestrated by Russia, in what was described by a senior intelligence official as 'a nightmare for the Five Eyes' - a reference to the intelligence sharing agreement between the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Joe Biden, seen in Washington DC on Tuesday. His administration confirmed the leaked documents were real, but said some aspects had been doctored

The documents revealed the extent to which US officials have penetrated Russian intelligence. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 6, 2023

Notably, the documents covered intimate details about the spread of US military spying across the globe. Per multiple reports, this included classified information about Iran's nuclear program and North Korea's missile systems.

In Ukraine, the documents suggested a misalignment between US and Ukrainian military strategies, with intelligence reports appearing to show the US continues to spy on top military and political leaders in the region.

American officials told the New York Times that while the leak underscores the Pentagon's capacity to collect information on Russia's strategies, it remains to be seen whether their sources of information will be hampered by the revelations.

Officials told the outlet that the Pentagon has issued a swift lock down of sensitive briefing documents following the leak.

However, the scandal is already being noted as one of the most damaging national security breaches in recent memory, which may have further implications into the legitimacy of US espionage into the future.

Per the outlet, a senior Western intelligence official said the release could curb intelligence sharing between agencies, as trust over secretive information collaborations could be lost.

Assurances over the validity of the US military's spying apparatus is set to be further disrupted by revelations that America's focus extends far beyond its Russian enemies.

Allied nations, such as South Korea, have also reportedly been the subject of spying by the Pentagon, raising questions as to the diplomatic impact the leak could have at a time of deteriorating global ties.

The intelligence breach could have a drastic impact upon the landscape of the conflict in Ukraine. US President Biden, left, is pictured meeting Ukrainian President Zelensky on February 20, 2023

The document leak indicates that the US has been spying on Ukrainian allied officials. Pictured: A Ukrainian serviceman in training exercises in Donetsk

The documents, which were posted on social media sites including Twitter, Discord and Telegram, have also highlighted the devastating impact the war in Ukraine has had on both sides of the conflict.

Despite the Biden administration pouring almost $200 billion into the Ukrainian military, the leak revealed that its stockpiles are severely depleted and it is low on air defense ammunition.

But with Russian forces also found to be struggling, reports indicate a renewed push backed by western forces in the coming months.

One of the leaks, reportedly posted to Telegram, detailed 'a secret plan to prepare and equip nine brigades of the Amed Forces of Ukraine by the US and NATO for the spring offensive.'

The Biden administration has not denied the legitimacy of the leak, but it did claim that certain documents had been doctored.

An FBI probe was launched Friday to determine the source of the leak, however a senior official told The New York Times that tracking down the perpetrator could prove difficult because a large number of officials have the security clearances needed to access the information.

According to the Wall Street Journal, US officials scrambled Saturday to assess the potential fallout of the scandal.

A wide-ranging, multi-agency investigation into the intelligence breach is set to be escalated, with officials reportedly fearing that US national security matters could be significantly compromised.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin pictured at the Pentagon on March 30, 2023

The documents have revealed the efficacy of US efforts to infiltrate Russian intelligence. Pictured: Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, April 6, 2023

On Friday, a series of documents were posted on controversial message board 4Chan that covered both the war efforts in Ukraine as well as operations in China and the Middle East.

The reports included photographs of charts of weapons that are set to be transported to Ukraine, alongside determinations into the strength of ground troops in the region.

Among the documents leaked Friday was a map depicting the impact of the war in the Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, which has been the center of fierce fighting for six months.

It was not clear if the map had been altered, as American authorities have claimed about some of the leaked information.

However, the day before, another image circulated online appeared to have exaggerated the scale of Ukrainian deaths and minimized the Russian losses.

While claiming that 16,000 to 17,500 Russian soldiers had been killed, the slide alleged that Ukraine had suffered as many as 71,500 troop deaths.

The Pentagon and other analysts estimate that Russia has seen approximately 200,000 killed and injured - double the figure for Ukraine.

The leaked documents also referred to U.S. analysis of the situation in the Middle East and China, and terrorist threats worldwide.

Daily Mail · by Will Potter For Dailymail.Com · April 8, 2023

3. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 8, 2023

Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-8-2023

Key Takeaways

Ukrainian and Russian sources discussed the decreased rate of Russian offensive operations along the entire frontline on April 8, supporting ISW’s assessment that the overall Russian offensive is approaching culmination.
The dynamics of battlefield artillery usage in Ukraine reflect the fact that Russian forces are using artillery to offset their degraded offensive capabilities.
Former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin launched a new effort likely aimed at protecting the influence the Russian pro-war faction within the Kremlin.
The “Club of Angry Patriot’s” reveals several key implications about the Kremlin dynamics and the perceived danger to Putin’s regime.
Girkin may be advancing the political goals of unnamed figures within Russian power structures possibly within the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
Russian nationalists seized on assassinated Russian milblogger Maxim Fomin’s funeral to promote pro-war narratives.
Russia’s missile campaign to degrade Ukraine’s unified energy infrastructure has failed definitively, and Russia appears to have abandoned the effort.
The Kremlin is likely intensifying legal punishments for terrorism-related crimes as part of a larger effort to promote self-censorship and establish legal conditions for intensified domestic repressions.
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) may be setting conditions for a false flag attack in Sumy Oblast.
Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
Russian forces have continued to make gains around Bakhmut, and tensions between the Wagner Group and conventional Russian forces over responsibility for tactical gains in Bakhmut appear to be intensifying.
Russian sources continued to speculate about the planned Ukrainian counteroffensive in southern Ukraine, including hypothesizing about the possibility of a Ukrainian amphibious landing across the Kakhovka Reservoir.
The Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) on April 6 proposed a defense industrial base (DIB) deregulation reform that could expedite defense production but will more likely facilitate corruption and embezzlement.
Ukrainian officials reported that 31 children returned to Ukraine after having been deported to Russia as Russian officials continue to discuss the adoption of Ukrainian children into Russian families.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 8, 2023

Apr 8, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 8, 2023

Karolina Hird, Kateryna Stepanenko, Riley Bailey, Angela Howard, Nicole Wolkov, and Frederick W. Kagan

April 8, 6pm 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.

Ukrainian and Russian sources discussed the decreased rate of Russian offensive operations along the entire frontline on April 8, supporting ISW’s assessment that the overall Russian offensive is approaching culmination.[1] Council of Reservists of the Ukrainian Ground Forces Head Ivan Tymochko reported on April 8 that Russian forces are fighting along the entire frontline, but that Russian offensive potential continues to decline and that current Russian attacks are focused on distracting and dispersing Ukrainian troops in anticipation of counteroffensive operations.[2] Tymochko stated that Russian forces are not making serious advances anywhere on the frontline, noting that the pace of attacks in and around Bakhmut has slightly decreased in some areas and stagnated entirely in others.[3] Tymochko also assessed that the Russian offensive on Avdiivka has “choked” and reported that Russian forces still do not control Marinka despite having reduced the city to rubble.[4] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that the pace of Russian offensive operations along the entire Avdiivka-Donetsk City frontline has decreased over the past day and emphasized that Russian forces are struggling to advance anywhere in Ukraine.[5] Several Russian commentators are emphasizing Russian preparations for an anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive, suggesting that the overall focus of the Russian information space is shifting away from discussing Russian offensive capabilities and towards assessing Ukraine’s potential to regain significant ground.[6]

The dynamics of battlefield artillery usage in Ukraine reflect the fact that Russian forces are using artillery to offset their degraded offensive capabilities. Former Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Security Minister and current Vostok Battalion commander Alexander Khodakovsky reported that the Russian command has decided to stop the daily issue of ammunition to areas of the front where there are no active offensive operations almost entirely.[7] Khodakovsky noted that the artillery shortage on the frontline results in part from preparations for a Ukrainian counteroffensive.[8] Khodakovsky’s statement indicates that the Russian command must prioritize artillery ammunition supplies rigorously due to shortages. High demand for shells indicates that Russian forces are still heavily relying on artillery to offset key shortcomings in combat capability, including poor Russian targeting skills, insufficient ground assault capabilities, and inadequate availability of airpower in Ukraine. Russian forces use heavy artillery barrages to flatten settlements before seizing them with ground attacks, offsetting the need to conduct effective infantry attacks or to conduct an airstrike using scarce precision munitions and putting airframes and pilots at risk of Ukrainian air defenses. Continuing Russian shortages in artillery ammunition will undermine the Russian military’s ability to continue offsetting its other weaknesses and limitations. The Washington Post reported on April 8 that by contrast, Ukrainian forces are using one-third as many shells as Russian forces and that Ukrainian forces are conserving shells by carefully prioritizing targets.[9] Ukrainian forces are more accurate in their targeting, but also likely benefit from being on the defensive in most areas--offensive operations normally generate increased artillery requirements.

Former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin launched a new effort likely aimed at protecting the influence of the Russian pro-war faction within the Kremlin. Girkin formed the “Club of Angry Patriots” social movement along with seven prominent proxy and ultranationalist figures on April 1 seeking to help Russia to win the war and avoid an internal conflict within Russia.[10] Members of the club stated that Russia will imminently face defeat in Ukraine and may experience a pro-Western coup or civil war if Moscow does not drastically improve the situation on the frontlines. The members claimed that Russian officials are unable to improve the war effort and its effects on Russian society because most Kremlin officials belong to an anti-war faction. The anti-war faction reportedly advocates for a peace settlement with the West to regain access to its oversees wealth and is not actively attempting to improve the war effort – not out of a fundamental disagreement with war aims or genuine desire for peace. The club claimed that it seeks to help Russian authorities – likely implying the pro-war grouping within the Kremlin – complete the “special military operation” in a timely manner, claiming that a protracted war in Ukraine could prompt the anti-war officials to revolt. The group also stated that it is attempting to build a defense network to resist a coup in Russia in such an event. The members declared that the group is functioning within the framework of Russian law and will not engage in armed conflict, but will instead focus on raising public awareness in Russia so that Russian executive officials realize the danger to the Russian regime. Members of this club had previously warned Russian President Vladimir Putin in May and September 2022 about the negative repercussions on the battlefield if Russia did not immediately declare mobilization.[11]

Girkin’s movement is already reportedly facing resistance from Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Head Denis Pushilin. A Russian milblogger claimed Pushilin ordered DNR officials to spread rumors about the “Club of Angry Patriots,” claiming bizarrely that the movement is preparing a pro-Western coup.[12] A member of the movement also accused Pushilin’s administration of discrediting the movement.[13]

The “Club of Angry Patriot’s” creation may offer several important insights into Kremlin dynamics and the danger to Putin’s regime elements within his inner circle fear. ISW previously reported that successful Ukrainian counteroffensives in Kharkiv Oblast and Lyman in September-October 2022 exposed a rift between the Kremlin’s anti-war and pro-war factions.[14] Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin also made similar remarks about the schisms among Kremlin officials.[15] The club’s preoccupation with the anti-war faction may indicate that the rift within the Kremlin deepened during the failed Russian winter offensive campaign or ahead of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The concern over the expansion of the anti-war faction may also indicate that there is concern that Putin may be driven to accept a peace settlement by the threat of replacement. The group may be attempting to preempt the anti-war faction’s efforts to reduce the urgency of full-scale war in Ukraine.

Girkin may be advancing political goals of unnamed figures within Russian power structures, possibly within the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Girkin has been ruthlessly criticizing Putin throughout the war, and it is likely that he is receiving some protection from a silovik. Russian independent outlet The Insider and Bellingcat have previously reported that Girkin had been consistently using passports under fictitious names that he received from the FSB.[16] While it is unclear which silovik is protecting Girkin and what his motivations might be, Girkin’s protector may be attempting to gain Putin’s attention and shape his decisions via public discourse. Prigozhin and Wagner had previously showed that the Kremlin monitors and reacts to the public’s attitudes, which prompted notable changes within the Russian military command in the fall of 2022.[17] Prigozhin similarly announced plans for a Wagner-affiliated social movement on April 4.[18]

Russian nationalists seized on assassinated Russian milblogger Maxim Fomin’s (also known as Vladlen Tatarsky) funeral to promote pro-war narratives. Footage from Fomin’s funeral at Troekurovsky Cemetery in Moscow shows hundreds to thousands of people in attendance including Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russian Liberal Democratic Party Leader Leonid Slutsky.[19] Images showing the Order of Courage medal, Wagner awards, and an engraved sledgehammer at Fomin’s coffin circulated in Russian nationalist media.[20] Prigozhin commended the “difficult work” of war reporters and claimed that he would do everything to ensure that Fomin’s work continues to resonate.[21] Former Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Spokesperson Eduard Basurin used Fomin’s funeral to reiterate the narrative that Russia must reject negotiations and pursue the unconditional surrender of Ukraine.[22] Footage from the funeral service and burial show Russian forces giving Fomin military honors.[23] Fomin’s funeral could be the first instance of a Wagner-affiliated funeral receiving official Russian military honors.

Russia’s missile campaign to degrade Ukraine’s unified energy infrastructure has failed definitively, and Russia appears to have abandoned the effort. Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko announced on April 8 that Ukraine is resuming energy exports for the first time since October 11, 2022.[24] Russian authorities began efforts in October to degrade Ukrainian energy infrastructure to a significant extent by the end of winter, which Russians consider March 1;[25] however, the series of large-scale Russian missile strikes on energy infrastructure failed to achieve the assessed Russian aims of causing a humanitarian disaster, weakening Ukrainian military capabilities, and forcing Ukraine to negotiate. State-run Russian media acknowledged this failure on March 1.[26] Russia likely abandoned the effort soon after. The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (UK MoD) noted on April 8 that the frequency of Russian large-scale, long-range attacks on energy infrastructure has decreased since March 2023. The UK MoD assessed that Russia continues small-scale strikes (strikes using fewer than 25 munitions) with predictably less effect.[27] Russia maintains the capability to renew such strikes though, if it so desired. Halushchenko stated that Ukraine has the flexibility to adjust Ukrainian energy exports if the situation changes.[28]

The Kremlin is likely intensifying legal punishments for terrorism-related crimes as part of a larger effort to promote self-censorship and establish legal conditions for intensified domestic repressions. Duma Chairman of the Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption Vasily Piskarev stated on April 7 that the State Duma has introduced amendments to increase prison terms for committing acts of terrorism, assistance to terrorist activities or organizations or participation in a terrorist community, sabotage, and acts of international terrorism.[29] Russian President Vladimir Putin also recently signed two bills expanding legal punishment for the discreditation of all Russian personnel fighting in Ukraine and for the misappropriation of Russian military assets, likely to promote sell-censorship and facilitate crackdowns on anti-war dissent.[30] Russian sources have previously reported that the Federal Security Service (FSB) is increasingly detaining Russian civilians under suspicions of financially assisting Ukrainian forces and that Russian authorities appear to be cracking down against bars in urban areas that host Russian civil society groups.[31] The Kremlin has introduced indefinite terrorism warning regimes in occupied territories and maximum, medium, and elevated levels of martial law in many western Russian oblasts, and Russian authorities in these areas may more readily apply the expanded terrorism terms to further stifle resistance to occupation authorities as well as dissent in Russia itself.[32]

Russian authorities are likely planning to further expand what they deem to be terroristic and extremist affiliations to encourage self-censorship. Duma Deputy Head of the Committee on Information Policy Oleg Matveichev stated on April 4 that he has prepared a bill to recognize feminism as an extremist ideology and argued that feminists overwhelmingly oppose the “military operation” in Ukraine.[33] Matveichev argued that Ukrainian feminism consists of women serving together with men fighting against Russians and alleged that the woman accused of killing of Russian milblogger Maxim Fomin (Vladlen Tartarsky) was motivated by feminist ideology.[34] Matveichev has not specified how the bill would define feminism, and the bill may use a vague overarching definition in order to further promote widespread self-censorship. Russian authorities may increasingly portray other ideologies and groups not explicitly aligned with the Kremlin as being against the war in Ukraine in order to set conditions for increased crackdowns and self-censorship. Ukrainian “feminism” would appear to be giving Ukraine an advantage in this war since, as Matveichev notes, it has brought many talented and determined Ukrainian women into the fight.

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) may be setting conditions for a false flag attack in Sumy Oblast. The Russian MoD claimed on April 8 that Ukrainian forces have been delivering dead bodies from morgues to Okhtyrka, Sumy Oblast and applying toxic chemicals to the remains and the area in order to allege that Russian forces used chemical weapons.[35] Russian forces may be attempting to set informational conditions for future chemical weapons attacks in Sumy Oblast or to justify previous chemical weapons use, although ISW has not observed Russian forces recently using chemical weapons in the area. It is unclear what overarching effect the Kremlin intends to achieve with increasingly outlandish and ineffective Russian information operations alleging Ukrainian false flag attacks.

Key Takeaways

Ukrainian and Russian sources discussed the decreased rate of Russian offensive operations along the entire frontline on April 8, supporting ISW’s assessment that the overall Russian offensive is approaching culmination.
The dynamics of battlefield artillery usage in Ukraine reflect the fact that Russian forces are using artillery to offset their degraded offensive capabilities.
Former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin launched a new effort likely aimed at protecting the influence the Russian pro-war faction within the Kremlin.
The “Club of Angry Patriot’s” reveals several key implications about the Kremlin dynamics and the perceived danger to Putin’s regime.
Girkin may be advancing the political goals of unnamed figures within Russian power structures possibly within the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
Russian nationalists seized on assassinated Russian milblogger Maxim Fomin’s funeral to promote pro-war narratives.
Russia’s missile campaign to degrade Ukraine’s unified energy infrastructure has failed definitively, and Russia appears to have abandoned the effort.
The Kremlin is likely intensifying legal punishments for terrorism-related crimes as part of a larger effort to promote self-censorship and establish legal conditions for intensified domestic repressions.
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) may be setting conditions for a false flag attack in Sumy Oblast.
Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
Russian forces have continued to make gains around Bakhmut, and tensions between the Wagner Group and conventional Russian forces over responsibility for tactical gains in Bakhmut appear to be intensifying.
Russian sources continued to speculate about the planned Ukrainian counteroffensive in southern Ukraine, including hypothesizing about the possibility of a Ukrainian amphibious landing across the Kakhovka Reservoir.
The Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) on April 6 proposed a defense industrial base (DIB) deregulation reform that could expedite defense production but will more likely facilitate corruption and embezzlement.
Ukrainian officials reported that 31 children returned to Ukraine after having been deported to Russia as Russian officials continue to discuss the adoption of Ukrainian children into Russian families.

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 continue to fortify Russian border regions. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces continue to construct fortifications in areas of Kursk Oblast that border Ukraine and maintain a presence in border areas of Kursk and Belgorod oblasts.[36] ISW previously assessed that Russian forces may be constructing fortifications in Russian oblasts bordering Ukraine to support the information operation to frame the war as an existential threat to Russia, as well to disperse Ukrainian forces by pinning them to border areas away from the frontline.[37]

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line on April 8. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Kreminna itself, Kuzmyne (3km southwest of Kreminna), the Serebrianska forest area (10km south of Kreminna), and Verkhnokamianske (18km south of Kreminna).[38] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted ground attacks near Terny (17km northwest of Kreminna) and Nevske (20km northwest of Kreminna).[39] Another Russian milblogger claimed that a newly-formed artillery battalion of the 2nd Luhansk People‘s Republic (LNR) Army Corps comprised of volunteers operate on the Kreminna-Bilohorivka line.[40]

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

Russian forces have continued to make gains in Bakhmut as of April 8. Geolocated footage published on April 7 indicates that Russian forces likely advanced close to the T0504 highway in southwestern Bakhmut.[41] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced in southern and central Bakhmut.[42] A Russian source claimed on the night of April 7 that Wagner forces had entirely captured Bakhmut and that Ukrainian forces were retreating to Chasiv Yar, but later retracted the claim on April 8 and stated that Ukrainian forces only retreated from the central part of Bakhmut to the western parts of the city.[43] ISW has not seen visual confirmation of Russian claims that Wagner forces control all of central Bakhmut, and the relatively decreased rate of Wagner’s advance in the center of the city indicates that Ukrainian forces are still actively defending their positions in that part of the city. Other Russian milbloggers claimed that Wagner fighters are attempting to advance from the south and east towards Bakhmut city center to pressure Ukrainian forces to withdraw from the area.[44]

Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut on April 8. A Russian milblogger claimed that Wagner fighters conducted assaults near Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut), Bohdanivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut), and Bila Hora (14km southwest of Bakhmut).[45] Another Russian milblogger claimed on April 7 that Russian forces continued offensive operations west of Klishchiivka (6km southwest of Bakhmut) and Kurdyumivka (13km southwest of Bakhmut) and that Russian and Ukrainian forces are both unable to advance near Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut) and along sections of the T0504 highway southwest of Bakhmut.[46] Russian sources widely claimed that Wagner forces have started to heavily interdict or completely cut off all Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) into Bakhmut.[47] A Russian milblogger added that muddy road conditions are constraining Ukrainian abilities to supply their grouping in Bakhmut.[48] Previous Russian claims about the ability of Russian forces to interdict Ukrainian GLOCs in the Bakhmut area have been exaggerated, and Ukrainian forces likely do not need to move heavy equipment into Bakhmut itself to conduct the current urban combat operations occurring in the city. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Bohdanivka and Ivanivske.[49]

Tensions between the Wagner Group and conventional Russian forces over responsibility for tactical gains in Bakhmut appear to be intensifying. Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin responded to advisor to the head of Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Yan Gain’s claims about that Russian forces captured the Bakhmut-1 railway station and stated that he is little aware of Russian forces’ actions in Bakhmut since he did not see conventional Russian forces there.[50] Prigozhin claimed on April 7 that Wagner fighters are still engaged in fierce fighting near the railway station, likely in an effort to portray himself as a reliable and pragmatic source for tactical information in Bakhmut in comparison to other overly optimistic Russian sources.[51] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) previously faced intense backlash over claims that Russian forces captured Soledar (12km northeast of Bakhmut) after Wagner forces captured the settlement on January 11.[52] Tensions over responsibility for tactical success in Bakhmut will likely continue to feed into the conflict between Prigozhin and the Russian MoD.

The tempo of Russian offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City frontline has reportedly decreased. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on April 8 that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Novokalynove (13km north of Avdiivka) and within 32km southwest of Avdiivka near Sieverne, Pervomaiske, Marinka, and Pobieda.[53] The Ukrainian Head of the Council of Reservists of Ground Forces, Ivan Tymochko, reported that Russian advances on Avdiivka have stalled but that Russian forces are maintaining their operational tempo near Marinka (27km southwest of Avdiivka).[54] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted roughly a quarter of all their assaults in Ukraine in the Marinka area on April 8.[55] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces attempted to advance through forest areas north and south of Marinka.[56] Another Russian milblogger claimed on April 8 that the tempo of Russian operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City frontline has noticeably decreased over the past day.[57]

Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast on April 8.

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

Ukrainian special forces, intelligence, and naval sources revealed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attempted to stage an amphibious landing on the east (left) bank of the Dnipro River on October 19, 2022, to liberate the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).[58] Ukrainian officials told The Times that about 600 Ukrainian servicemen on 30 armored boats attempted to land near the ZNPP, but that only one Ukrainian group was able to reach occupied territory due to the Russian artillery fire and Russian use of tanks to repel Ukrainian advances. The group retreated back to the west (right) bank of the Dnipro River after three hours of close combat on the outskirts of Enerhodar. Ukrainian sources stated that Ukrainian special forces anticipated that Russians would engage in infantry combat out of concern for the safety of the ZNPP and revealed that Russian forces set up dense defensive lines and mined the territory nearby. ISW reported on October 19 that Russian sources accused Ukrainians of attempting land near the ZNPP but failed to assess that a landing had taken place at that time.[59] Ukrainian state nuclear energy company Energoatom reported on April 8 that Russian forces are installing additional fences around the ZNPP and are restricting the movement of vehicles on the territory of the plant.

Russian sources continued to speculate about the planned Ukrainian counteroffensive in southern Ukraine, including hypothesizing about the possibility of a Ukrainian amphibious landing across the Kakhovka Reservoir. Prominent Russian milbloggers amplified The Times’ report, which further corroborates that Russian forces have heavy military equipment in the immediate vicinity of the ZNPP.[60] Another prominent milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces can reach occupied Zaporizhia Oblast via the Kakhovka Reservoir in one to three minutes in certain areas.[61] The milblogger stated that a Ukrainian landing is unlikely due to Russian fortifications and mining, and because a combined regiment of personnel from the Republic of Bashkortostan and elements of an unspecified Far Eastern airborne unit will repel Ukrainian attacks. The milblogger claimed, however, that such a landing could pose a threat to Russian grouping of forces in western Zaporizhia Oblast if Ukrainians attempt to simultaneously advance in another area. Zaporizhia Oblast occupation official Vladimir Rogov amplified Sentinel-2 imagery showing a Russian 70km-long anti-tank ditch about 50km east of Melitopol claiming that Russians are prepared to resist Ukrainian counteroffensives.[62] Another milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are intensifying reconnaissance-in-force operations in Zaporizhia Oblast.[63]

Russian occupation officials and sources claimed that Russian air defenses shot down a Ukrainian missile over Feodosiya in southeastern Crimea on April 8.[64] Geolocated footage showed an explosion near the Russian anti-aircraft missile base in Feodosiya.[65] Russian milbloggers and news aggregators speculated that Ukrainian forces may have used the Ukrainian Hrim-2 short-range ballistic missile or US-provided ATACMS long-range missile systems, despite the fact that US has not sent such systems to Ukraine.[66]

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

The Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) on April 6 proposed a defense industrial base (DIB) deregulation reform that could expedite defense production but will more likely facilitate corruption and embezzlement. The FAS proposed that the state release state defense order executors and customers from the requirement to notify the department of an increase in material and service prices, a requirement theoretically controlling the artificial inflation of prices.[67]

The Russian defense industry likely heavily relies on Chinese components to support domestic drone production. A major Russian news source cited on April 7 the anonymous head of an unspecified kamikaze drone assembly facility in Khanty-Mansiysk, Khanty-Mansy Autonomous Okrug stating that the organization orders its main components in China for assembly in Khanty-Mansiysk.[68] A Russian milblogger claimed on April 7 that he received information about a factory in China that received an order for 100,000 units of kamikaze drone batteries.[69] If this report is true, Russian actors likely ordered these batteries.

Russian prioritization of military needs at the expense of domestic needs appears to be causing limited domestic discontent. A regional opposition news source reported on April 7 that ambulance drivers in Cheboksary, Chuvashia recorded a video complaint that they must purchase spare parts at their own expense when the Chuvashia Ministry of Health provided four ambulances for service on the front lines.[70] Regional Russian governments and organizations continue to make routine “donations” to the war effort, likely at the request of higher authorities.[71]

Russian authorities continue to rhetorically distance the spring conscription effort from the ongoing war in Ukraine, supporting ISW’s previous assessment that Russian authorities are concerned about the potential domestic response to the deployment of conscripts and are unlikely to use conscripts to fill personnel needs at the front. A St. Petersburg news source reported on April 7 that Western Military District Organizational Mobilization Department Headquarters Acting Head Colonel Igor Golovach denied that the Western Military District has called up more conscripts than usual due to the war. Golovach claimed that the “slightly higher” number of conscripts is due to an overall increase in the size of Russia’s armed forces.[72] A regional news source reported that Krasnodar Krai Governor Veniamin Kondratyev met with the Kuba military commissar on April 7 and stressed that Russian authorities will not send any of the territory’s spring conscripts to war.[73]

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

Russian occupation officials continue efforts to coerce residents of occupied Ukraine to obtain Russian passports. The Kherson Oblast occupation multifunctional center (center for the provision of state and municipal services) outlined the requirements for application for the compulsory health insurance policy, which includes a Russian passport and Russian SNILS (individual insurance account number issued by the Russian Pension Fund).[74] Occupation authorities in Kherson Oblast are institutionalizing coercive passportization measures by forcing residents to obtain Russian passports and register for SNILS numbers in exchange for mandatory enrollment in health insurance plans. The Ukrainian Resistance Center similarly reported on April 8 that Russian occupation officials are issuing housing certificates in an amount of 2.9 million rubles ($35,713) that would hypothetically allow Ukrainians to live in Russia in order to encourage Ukrainians to receive Russian passports.[75] Russian occupation officials may be pushing passportization efforts in part in order to facilitate the depopulation of occupied areas and bring large populations of Ukrainians to Russian regions.

Ukrainian officials reported that 31 children returned to Ukraine after being deported to Russia as Russian officials continue to discuss the adoption of Ukrainian children into Russian families. The “Save Ukraine” foundation announced on April 8 that 31 children returned to Ukraine following a fifth rescue mission led by “Save Ukraine.”[76] Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova praised Moscow Oblast residents on April 7 for taking in the largest number of children from occupied Donetsk Oblast.[77] Moscow Oblast Commissioner for Children’s Rights Ksenia Mishonov noted that she has personally visited 114 Moscow Oblast families who have adopted Ukrainian children from Donetsk Oblast.[78] The adoption of Ukrainian children into Russian families is likely further complicating Ukrainian efforts to repatriate deported children as adoption legally and administratively integrates deported children into Russian families.

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

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

Nothing significant to report.

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

[1] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[2] https://suspilne dot media/439395-ce-vze-ne-ataki-dla-prorivu-golova-radi-rezervistiv-rozpoviv-pro-dii-rf-na-fronti/

[3] https://suspilne dot media/439395-ce-vze-ne-ataki-dla-prorivu-golova-radi-rezervistiv-rozpoviv-pro-dii-rf-na-fronti/

[4] https://suspilne dot media/439395-ce-vze-ne-ataki-dla-prorivu-golova-radi-rezervistiv-rozpoviv-pro-dii-rf-na-fronti/

[5] https://t.me/wargonzo/11833

[6] https://t.me/dva_majors/12656; https://t.me/aleksandr_skif/2654; https://www.kp dot ru/daily/27488.5/4745350/; https://t.me/sashakots/39235; https://t.me/sashakots/39234; https://t.me/wargonzo/11847; https://t.me/wargonzo/11841

[7] https://t.me/aleksandr_skif/2654

[8] https://t.me/aleksandr_skif/2654

[9] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/08/ukraine-ammunition-short...

[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iUs1OIsBZc

[11] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[12] https://t.me/soldiers_truth/8685; https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1644633301083123713

[13] https://t.me/pgubarev/608; https://t.me/strelkovii/4458

[14] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign... https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[15] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[16] https://theins dot ru/politika/253140

[17] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[18] https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-ass...

[19] https://t.me/NeoficialniyBeZsonoV/24062 ; https://t.me/RtrDonetsk/16569 ; https://t.me/NeoficialniyBeZsonoV/24056 ; https://t.me/boris_rozhin/82529; https://t.me/readovkanews/56482; https://t.me/readovkanews/56483; https://t.me/readovkanews/56484; https://t.me/readovkanews/56481; https://t.me/readovkanews/56478; https://t.me/readovkanews/56477; https://t.me/basurin_e/629; https://meduza dot io/news/2023/04/08/v-moskve-prohodit-tseremoniya-proschaniya-s-voenkorom-vladlenom-tatarskim

[20] https://t.me/ok_spn/23873; https://t.me/rusvarg/1944; https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1644658412238565378?s=20; https://t.me/voenkorKotenok/46644 ; https://t.me/boris_rozhin/82527; https://t.me/cyber_frontZ/10746

[21] https://t.me/basurin_e/629

[22] https://t.me/basurin_e/628

[23] https://t.me/miroshnik_r/10986; https://t.me/cyber_frontZ/10763

[24] https://suspilne dot media/439248-ukraina-vidnovlue-eksport-elektroenergii-vitik-sekretnih-danih-sodo-ukrainskogo-kontrnastupu-409-den-vijni-onlajn/

[25] https://www.bbc.com/russian/news-65222115; https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1644578263853932546; https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1631259048384372739; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[26] https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1631259048384372739;

[27] https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1644578263853932546

[28] https://suspilne dot media/439248-ukraina-vidnovlue-eksport-elektroenergii-vitik-sekretnih-danih-sodo-ukrainskogo-kontrnastupu-409-den-vijni-onlajn/

[29] https://t.me/vasilii_piskarev/674;

[30] https://isw.pub/UkrWar0318723

[31] https://isw.pub/UkrWar040223 ; https://isw.pub/UkrWar032223

[32] https://isw.pub/UkrWar020323 ; https://isw.pub/RusCampaignOct19

[33] https://www.kommersant dot ru/doc/5914178

[34] https://www.kommersant dot ru/doc/5914178

[35] https://t.me/mod_russia/25472

[36] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0242JWNs2T7T9moW8p89...

[37] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[38] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02g34BLKj4wzggiVuJeK... https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid026X7dyboc8SrCdHkCeh...

[39] https://t.me/wargonzo/11833

[40] https://www.kp dot ru/daily/27488.5/4745350/; https://t.me/sashakots/39235; https://t.me/sashakots/39234

[41] https://twitter.com/War_cube_/status/1644394335452921861; https://twitter.com/War_cube_/status/1644394664194080802; https://twitter.com/Marek65234278/status/1644397229396959250; https://t.me/z_arhiv/20152?single; https://t.me/marksman_osman/1216

[42] https://t.me/rybar/45600 ; https://t.me/z_arhiv/20165; https://t.me/z_arhiv/20152; https://t.me/grey_zone/18087

[43] https://t.me/readovkanews/56462 ; https://t.me/readovkanews/56488 ;

[44] https://t.me/wargonzo/11833 ; https://t.me/rybar/45600

[45] https://t.me/wargonzo/11833

[46] https://t.me/voenkorKotenok/46633

[47] https://t.me/readovkanews/56488 ; https://t.me/milchronicles/1750 ; https://t.me/boris_rozhin/82526

[48] https://t.me/milchronicles/1750

[49] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid026X7dyboc8SrCdHkCeh... ; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02g34BLKj4wzggiVuJeK...

[50] https://t.me/concordgroup_official/706

[51] https://t.me/concordgroup_official/706

[52] https://isw.pub/UkrWar011323

[53] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid026X7dyboc8SrCdHkCeh... ; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02g34BLKj4wzggiVuJeK...

[54] . https://suspilne dot media/439395-ce-vze-ne-ataki-dla-prorivu-golova-radi-rezervistiv-rozpoviv-pro-dii-rf-na-fronti/

[55] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid026X7dyboc8SrCdHkCeh... ; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02g34BLKj4wzggiVuJeK...

[56] https://t.me/rybar/45585

[57] https://t.me/wargonzo/11833

[58] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukrainian-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-...

[59] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[60] https://t.me/sashakots/39233; https://t.me/epoddubny/15440

[61] https://t.me/Sladkov_plus/7503

[62] https://t.me/vrogov/8613;

[63] https://t.me/russkiy_opolchenec/36277

[64] https://t.me/Aksenov82/2325 ; https://t.me/voenkorKotenok/46640 ; https://t.me/voenkorKotenok/46641; https://t.me/russkiy_opolchenec/36278

[65] https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1644623462852354050 ; https://twitter.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1644676957315932160 ; https://twitter.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1644676957315932160 ; https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1644622904519192576

[66] https://t.me/rybar/45593; https://t.me/rybar/45592; https://t.me/readovkanews/56487; https://t.me/readovkaru/2985

[67] https://t.me/sotaproject/56665; https://regulation dot gov.ru/projects#npa=137308; https://gkgz dot ru/fas-predlagaet-osvobodit-ispolnitelej-i-zakazchikov-gosoboronzakaza-ot-neobhodimosti-uvedomlyat-vedomstvo-o-povyshenii-tsen-na-materialy-i-uslugi/

[68] https://neft dot media/vse-regiony/news/v-stolice-hmao-nachali-delat-dronov-kamikadze-dlya-nuzhd-svo; https://notes.citeam.org/mobilization-apr-6-7

[69] https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1644451615477231621; https://t.me/MishaDonbass/627

[70] https://t.me/ChuvashiaDream/6722; https://notes.citeam.org/mobilization-apr-6-7; https://t.me/ChuvashiaDream/6664; https://t.me/arh_29ru/6668

[71] https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1644588605032001537; https://t.me/news_86ru/949; https://t.me/ChuvashiaDream/6722; https://notes.citeam.org/mobilization-apr-6-7; https://t.me/ChuvashiaDream/6664; https://t.me/arh_29ru/6668

[72] https://t.me/fontankaspb/37424; https://t.me/paperpaper_ru/35068

[73] https://93 dot ru/text/gorod/2023/04/07/72202346/

[74] https://t.me/mfc_kherson/259

[75] https://sprotyv.mod dot gov.ua/2023/04/08/okupaczijni-administracziyi-prodovzhuyut-zahody-spryamovani-na-masovu-pasportyzacziyu-meshkancziv-tot-hersonskoyi-oblasti/

[76] https://t.me/UkraineMediaCenterKyiv/5285 ; https://suspilne dot media/439248-ukraina-vidnovlue-eksport-elektroenergii-vitik-sekretnih-danih-sodo-ukrainskogo-kontrnastupu-409-den-vijni-onlajn/

[77] https://t.me/malvovabelova/1299

[78] https://t.me/ostorozhnodeti/3622;

Can We No Longer Believe Anything We See?

By Tiffany Hsu and Steven Lee Myers

April 8, 2023

The New York Times · by Steven Lee Myers · April 8, 2023

By Tiffany Hsu and

April 8, 2023

Seeing has not been believing for a very long time. Photos have been faked and manipulated for nearly as long as photography has existed.

Now, not even reality is required for photographs to look authentic — just artificial intelligence responding to a prompt. Even experts sometimes struggle to tell if one is real or not. Can you?

Which image was created by artificial intelligence? Click on your guess

The rapid advent of artificial intelligence has set off alarms that the technology used to trick people is advancing far faster than the technology that can identify the tricks. Tech companies, researchers, photo agencies and news organizations are scrambling to catch up, trying to establish standards for content provenance and ownership.

The advancements are already fueling disinformation and being used to stoke political divisions. Authoritarian governments have created seemingly realistic news broadcasters to advance their political goals. Last month, some people fell for images showing Pope Francis donning a puffy Balenciaga jacket and an earthquake devastating the Pacific Northwest, even though neither of those events had occurred. The images had been created using Midjourney, a popular image generator.

On Tuesday, as former President Donald J. Trump turned himself in at the Manhattan district attorney’s office to face criminal charges, images generated by artificial intelligence appeared on Reddit showing the actor Bill Murray as president in the White House. Another image showing Mr. Trump marching in front of a large crowd with American flags in the background was quickly reshared on Twitter without the disclosure that had accompanied the original post, noting it was not actually a photograph.

Experts fear the technology could hasten an erosion of trust in media, in government and in society. If any image can be manufactured — and manipulated — how can we believe anything we see?

“The tools are going to get better, they’re going to get cheaper, and there will come a day when nothing you see on the internet can be believed,” said Wasim Khaled, chief executive of Blackbird.AI, a company that helps clients fight disinformation.

Artificial intelligence allows virtually anyone to create complex artworks, like those now on exhibit at the Gagosian art gallery in New York, or lifelike images that blur the line between what is real and what is fiction. Plug in a text description, and the technology can produce a related image — no special skills required.

Often, there are hints that viral images were created by a computer rather than captured in real life: The luxuriously coated pope had glasses that seemed to melt into his cheek and blurry fingers, for example. A.I. art tools also often produce nonsensical text. Here are some examples:

Jordan Rhone, a lawyer in Pennsylvania, said he had created this image using Midjourney to highlight the resilience of conspiracy theories like the one that claims the moon landings were staged.Credit...A.I.: Jordan Rhone

Some hints that this is not a real photo: The faces of the “astronauts” are indistinct, as are other details. The lander differs significantly from the Eagle that landed in 1969.Credit...A.I.: Jordan Rhone

This image of four people walking down a street, created by Andrés Guadamuz, looks like a standard snapshot.Credit...A.I.: Andrés Guadamuz

The shop signs in the background feature nonsensical lettering. A.I. image creators report that many tools struggle to generate legible and understandable text.Credit...A.I.: Andrés Guadamuz

A photograph of the former British prime minister Boris Johnson dancing is not implausible.Credit...Eliot Higgins

Still, the distortions in his hands, and those of some of the onlookers, are a giveaway. A.I. tools have struggled to get hands and feet right.Credit...Eliot Higgins

Rapid advancements in the technology, however, are eliminating many of those flaws. Midjourney’s latest version, released last month, is able to depict realistic hands, a feat that had, conspicuously, eluded early imaging tools.

Days before Mr. Trump turned himself in to face criminal charges in New York City, images made of his “arrest” coursed around social media.They were created by Eliot Higgins, a British journalist and founder of Bellingcat, an open source investigative organization. He used Midjourney to imagine the former president’s arrest, trial, imprisonment in an orange jumpsuit and escape through a sewer. He posted the images on Twitter, clearly marking them as creations. They have since been widely shared.

The images weren’t meant to fool anyone. Instead, Mr. Higgins wanted to draw attention to the tool’s power — even in its infancy.

A New Generation of Chatbots

Card 1 of 5

A brave new world. A new crop of chatbots powered by artificial intelligence has ignited a scramble to determine whether the technology could upend the economics of the internet, turning today’s powerhouses into has-beens and creating the industry’s next giants. Here are the bots to know:

ChatGPT. ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence language model from a research lab, OpenAI, has been making headlines since November for its ability to respond to complex questions, write poetry, generate code, plan vacations and translate languages. GPT-4, the latest version introduced in mid-March, can even respond to images (and ace the Uniform Bar Exam).

Bing. Two months after ChatGPT’s debut, Microsoft, OpenAI’s primary investor and partner, added a similar chatbot, capable of having open-ended text conversations on virtually any topic, to its Bing internet search engine. But it was the bot’s occasionally inaccurate, misleading and weird responses that drew much of the attention after its release.

Bard. Google’s chatbot, called Bard, was released in March to a limited number of users in the United States and Britain. Originally conceived as a creative tool designed to draft emails and poems, it can generate ideas, write blog posts and answer questions with facts or opinions.

Ernie. The search giant Baidu unveiled China’s first major rival to ChatGPT in March. The debut of Ernie, short for Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration, turned out to be a flop after a promised “live” demonstration of the bot was revealed to have been recorded.

Midjourney’s images, he said, were able to pass muster in facial-recognition programs that Bellingcat uses to verify identities, typically of Russians who have committed crimes or other abuses. It’s not hard to imagine governments or other nefarious actors manufacturing images to harass or discredit their enemies.

At the same time, Mr. Higgins said, the tool also struggled to create convincing images with people who are not as widely photographed as Mr. Trump, such as the new British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, or the comedian Harry Hill, “who probably isn’t known outside of the U.K. that much.”

Midjourney was not amused in any case. It suspended Mr. Higgins’s account without explanation after the images spread. The company did not respond to requests for comment.

The limits of generative images make them relatively easy to detect by news organizations or others attuned to the risk — at least for now.

Still, stock photo companies, government regulators and a music industry trade group have moved to protect their content from unauthorized use, but technology’s powerful ability to mimic and adapt is complicating those efforts.

Some A.I. image generators have even reproduced images — a queasy “Twin Peaks” homage; Will Smith eating fistfuls of pasta — with distorted versions of the watermarks used by companies like Getty Images or Shutterstock.

This is a photo from a Premier League match between Tottenham and Liverpool in August 2016.

In its lawsuit, Getty argued that Stable Diffusion diluted the value of the Getty watermark by incorporating it into images that ranged “from the bizarre to the grotesque.”

In February, Getty accused Stability AI of illegally copying more than 12 million Getty photos, along with captions and metadata, to train the software behind its Stable Diffusion tool. In its lawsuit, Getty argued that Stable Diffusion diluted the value of the Getty watermark by incorporating it into images that ranged “from the bizarre to the grotesque.”

Getty said the “brazen theft and freeriding” was conducted “on a staggering scale.” Stability AI did not respond to a request for comment.

Getty’s lawsuit reflects concerns raised by many individual artists — that A.I. companies are becoming a competitive threat by copying content they do not have permission to use.

Trademark violations have also become a concern: Artificially generated images have replicated NBC’s peacock logo, though with unintelligible letters, and shown Coca-Cola’s familiar curvy logo with extra O’s looped into the name.

In February, the U.S. Copyright Office weighed in on artificially generated images when it evaluated the case of “Zarya of the Dawn,” an 18-page comic book written by Kristina Kashtanova with art generated by Midjourney. The government administrator decided to offer copyright protection to the comic book’s text, but not to its art.

“Because of the significant distance between what a user may direct Midjourney to create and the visual material Midjourney actually produces, Midjourney users lack sufficient control over generated images to be treated as the ‘master mind’ behind them,” the office explained in its decision.

The threat to photographers is fast outpacing the development of legal protections, said Mickey H. Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association. Newsrooms will increasingly struggle to authenticate content. Social media users are ignoring labels that clearly identify images as artificially generated, choosing to believe they are real photographs, he said.

Generative A.I. could also make fake videos easier to produce. This week, a video appeared online that seemed to show Nina Schick, an author and a generative A.I. expert, explaining how the technology was creating “a world where shadows are mistaken for the real thing.” Ms. Schick’s face then glitched as the camera pulled back, showing a body double in her place.

The video explained that the deepfake had been created, with Ms. Schick’s consent, by the Dutch company Revel.ai and Truepic, a California company that is exploring broader digital content verification.

The companies described their video, which features a stamp identifying it as computer-generated, as the “first digitally transparent deepfake.” The data is cryptographically sealed into the file; tampering with the image breaks the digital signature and prevents the credentials from appearing when using trusted software.

An online video seemed to show Nina Schick, an author and a generative A.I. expert, explaining how the technology was creating “a world where shadows are mistaken for the real thing.”

The companies hope the badge, which will come with a fee for commercial clients, will be adopted by other content creators to help create a standard of trust involving A.I. images.

“The scale of this problem is going to accelerate so rapidly that it’s going to drive consumer education very quickly,” said Jeff McGregor, chief executive of Truepic.

Truepic is part of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, a project set up through an alliance with companies such as Adobe, Intel and Microsoft to better trace the origins of digital media. The chip-maker Nvidia said last month that it was working with Getty to help train “responsible” A.I. models using Getty’s licensed content, with royalties paid to artists.

On the same day, Adobe unveiled its own image-generating product, Firefly, which will be trained using only images that were licensed or from its own stock or no longer under copyright. Dana Rao, the company’s chief trust officer, said on its website that the tool would automatically add content credentials — “like a nutrition label for imaging” — that identified how an image had been made. Adobe said it also planned to compensate contributors.

Last month, the model Chrissy Teigen wrote on Twitter that she had been hoodwinked by the pope’s puffy jacket, adding that “no way am I surviving the future of technology.”

Last week, a series of new A.I. images showed the pope, back in his usual robe, enjoying a tall glass of beer. The hands appeared mostly normal — save for the wedding band on the pontiff’s ring finger.

Additional production by Jeanne Noonan DelMundo, Aaron Krolik and Michael Andre.

The New York Times · by Steven Lee Myers · April 8, 2023

5. What happens to TikTok? Six ways the fight to ban it could play out

150 million American users want to know.

What happens to TikTok? Six ways the fight to ban it could play out

The uncertainty around a TikTok ban has left the app’s millions of users and critics with an open question: What’s going to happen to it?

NBC News · by David Ingram and Daysia Tolentino

TikTok is in a kind of limbo.

The Biden administration has threatened to ban the popular video app in the United States because of security concerns with its Chinese owners. But there’s no deadline for the White House to make a decision, and Congress might want to have a say in the matter.

The uncertainty has left the app’s millions of users and its critics with an open question: What’s going to happen to TikTok?

There are a handful of possibilities, and while the timeline is unclear, here’s a guide to six plausible paths forward.

Scenario 1: Congress dooms TikTok

Then-President Donald Trump tried to ban TikTok in 2020 and failed in large part because courts ruled he didn’t have the legal authority. Now, Congress is thinking of giving that power to President Joe Biden.

A bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill last month that would give the U.S. commerce secretary broad power to regulate or ban technology from six countries including China. They’re calling it the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats That Risk Information and Communications Technology Act, or RESTRICT Act.

There are lots of questions about how a TikTok ban might work, but the RESTRICT Act is sweeping in its language, saying the commerce secretary “shall take action” to mitigate certain risks. The bill also doesn’t leave much wiggle room for deliberation, saying the secretary shouldn’t take more than 180 days to determine if something is an “unacceptable risk.”

Bipartisan opposition to banning TikTok emerges on Capitol Hill

March 30, 202303:38

In defending this path forward, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., one of the sponsors, said similar laws are proliferating globally.

“Nations across the globe have made steps to mitigate foreign tech. The U.S. isn’t the only country acting on this,” he tweeted Thursday.

The bill is a long way from becoming law, but it already has the backing of a quarter of the Senate. In this scenario, if the House and Senate pass it, a ban could become a reality less than a year after Congress acts.

Scenario 2: Congress doesn’t act, but Biden bans it anyway

Not every senator is rushing to endorse a TikTok ban. Last month, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., blocked an attempt to fast-track the RESTRICT Act, citing free expression.

“Have faith that our desire for freedom is strong enough to survive a few dance videos,” Paul said.

If Congress doesn’t pass the bill, the Biden administration could still try to restrict or ban TikTok using its current legal authority. A federal government board known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has already privately demanded that TikTok’s Chinese owners sell their stakes in the app, The Wall Street Journal has reported, citing anonymous sources whom it described as people familiar with the matter. NBC News has not confirmed that reporting.

The next step, in this scenario, might be an executive order from Biden echoing what Trump issued in 2020. State governors have already been going down that path.

But this path involves a lot of legal and political risk for the White House. It would likely need to defend the ban in court — something Trump tried and failed to do in 2020 — and it wouldn’t have the political cover of acting in concert with Congress.

Scenario 3: Biden does something small, or nothing at all

The idea of a TikTok ban has been floating around since before Biden took office more than two years ago, and he hasn’t done it. So, one scenario is that he never does.

The administration and TikTok have been locked in negotiations for years over a potential written agreement that would lay out certain steps for TikTok to follow to help secure the data of Americans and prevent the flow of Chinese propaganda. It could be that those talks result in something that satisfies Biden.

Or it could be that other parts of the U.S.-China relationship — the future of Taiwan or the competition for artificial intelligence — take precedence, and the threat of TikTok fades.

TikTok has been bolstering its defenses in hopes of reaching a deal. TikTok creators have visited Washington, D.C.; TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has testified before Congress; and TikTok has pushed an endeavor that it calls Project Texas — working with Austin-based Oracle to store Americans’ data on U.S. soil.

Scenario 4: Judges protect TikTok

The courts came to TikTok’s rescue in 2020 when the Trump administration tried to restrict the app, as two federal judges in separate lawsuits said the administration had likely overstepped its legal authority and blocked the restrictions.

Judge Wendy Beetlestone, an Obama appointee in Philadelphia, sided with TikTok users who were concerned about free expression, while Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee in Washington, D.C., based his ruling on federal regulatory law in a suit that TikTok itself filed.

Similar concerns would likely be at issue again if TikTok or its users were to sue, either after a White House move or ahead of time in order to pre-empt it.

“Banning TikTok would violate the First Amendment,” Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement last month. “The government can’t impose this type of total ban unless it’s necessary to prevent extremely serious, immediate harm to national security.”

TikTok’s success in court isn’t guaranteed, but if it could at least delay any restrictions, that would be some kind of win.

And if TikTok or its users wanted to take that path again, they’ll have even more legal muscle the second time around: TikTok has been on a hiring spree for lawyers in the past three years and has plans to hire many more lawyers, Bloomberg Law reported last month, citing eight recent hires and more open positions listed on a TikTok jobs board.

Scenario 5: ByteDance sells it

A spinoff of TikTok’s U.S. business from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, would in some ways be the easiest path to take. It would avoid the messy political and legal fights over a ban, and users might not notice a difference.

And ByteDance is already owned mostly by outsiders. More than 60% of shares are in the hands of “Western investment firms” such as Sequoia Capital, Fidelity and BlackRock, according to congressional testimony last year from Vanessa Pappas, TikTok’s chief operating officer. Founders and employees own “most of the rest,” she said. G42, an investment firm from the United Arab Emirates, bought shares last month, Bloomberg News reported, citing people with knowledge of the deal.

China hopes to block this path. Beijing has said it would “resolutely oppose” a sale, arguing it would damage investors and hurt confidence for others investing in the United States. China also imposed export restrictions in 2020 that might complicate the transfer of TikTok’s algorithms, although how the rules might apply isn’t clear, according to CNBC.

TikTok’s leadership considers a sale a last resort, Bloomberg News reported last month, citing people familiar with the matter. Its U.S. business could pursue either an initial public offering as a standalone company or a sale to a large tech firm such as Microsoft at a valuation of perhaps $40 billion to $50 billion, the news service said.

Scenario 6: Congress passes a privacy law for all apps

As privacy advocates are always quick to note, the U.S. doesn’t have a national law for privacy on the internet as some other countries do. One scenario is that Congress passes one in the near future, possibly taking some of the heat off TikTok.

It’s not entirely far-fetched. Negotiators in the Senate have bargained for years on a possible bipartisan data privacy law, and they seemed to get close to a breakthrough last summer before splintering over how such a law would be enforced.

India McKinney, director of federal affairs at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocacy group based in San Francisco, said a privacy law wouldn’t have the constitutional issues that a ban might.

“If the government is actually concerned with the amount of data that foreign companies like TikTok are collecting on Americans and then using it for whatever, then what they actually really need to do is have a comprehensive data privacy rule because that is what will prevent the collection of the information in the first place,” McKinney said in an interview.

It’s not clear whether such a law would satisfy security concerns about TikTok, and it doesn’t preclude simultaneous actions like a TikTok ban, but supporters of the idea say it would put TikTok on similar footing to competitors such as Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat.

NBC News · by David Ingram and Daysia Tolentino

6. U.S. Faces Challenge in Striking Prisoner Exchange Deals for Americans Held in Russia

U.S. Faces Challenge in Striking Prisoner Exchange Deals for Americans Held in Russia

For detainees like Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, release often rests on identifying Russian prisoners to swap them for

By Louise RadnofskyFollow

, Georgi KantchevFollow

and Nancy A. YoussefFollow

Updated April 8, 2023 9:10 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-faces-challenge-in-striking-prisoner-exchange-deals-for-americans-held-in-russia-8ca7b2

A stream of Russians in recent months has been accused of espionage in places like Slovenia and Brazil. Then last week, Russia detained an American journalist, The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich, while he was on a reporting trip, and accused him of espionage—an allegation that the Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny.

Now, the fate of Mr. Gershkovich, the accused Russians or others could be decided in the recently revived, and coldly transactional, universe of international prisoner exchanges. The primary question is what form such a deal would take—and how difficult it would be to agree upon.

Such trades have burst into the public eye over the past year as two Americans who the U.S. considered to be wrongfully detained in Russia—former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed and basketball star Brittney Griner—were handed over for Russians convicted of crimes in the U.S. Those exchanges were struck at a time when relations between the two countries were at historic lows because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

READ EVAN GERSHKOVICH’S WORK

A sampling of the WSJ reporter’s coverage of Putin’s Russia and a country at war

Yet as transactions are an option, they are also perennially difficult to strike—and may be growing more so. Paul Whelan, a Michigan man, has been held as a prisoner by Russia since 2018 and subsequently convicted of espionage. The U.S. deems him wrongfully detained and is seeking his release. The challenge in all cases is to line up trade candidates on the Russian side who are valuable enough to Moscow to demand, and yet palatable enough to Washington to release.

Preview

That is a daunting enough mission, but making deals that involve Russians held in countries outside the U.S. is nearly unprecedented. For example, an attempt last year to involve a Russian prisoner held in Germany, in a possible version of a trade also involving Ms. Griner, was considered by U.S. officials to be out of their power.

A more straightforward option could be a prisoner exchange for a Russian detained in the U.S. But in the wake of the exchanges that returned Mr. Reed and Ms. Griner to the U.S., the most prominent remaining Russian trade candidates have all been accused or convicted of cybercrimes.

That could hinder the ability for Russia to portray a trade for Mr. Gershkovich, held on an allegation of espionage, as evenly matched. Mr. Gershkovich was accredited to work as a journalist in Russia by the country’s foreign ministry at the time of his detention.

At the same time, U.S. officials have said many Russian hackers have ties either to the Kremlin or to Russian oligarchs, and can be forced into working for an intelligence service if they are brought home to Russia.

Paul Whelan arrives for his trial at a court in Moscow in January 2019. He has been held as a prisoner by Russia since 2018.

PHOTO: SEFA KARACAN/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES

The recent revival of prisoner exchanges began with Mr. Reed, who was convicted in Russia of assaulting two police officers. He was swapped last year for Konstantin Yaroshenko, who had been sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2011 for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the U.S.

Ms. Griner, convicted of drug smuggling and possession, was traded for Viktor Bout, who had been sentenced in 2012 to serve 25 years for conspiring to sell weapons to people he believed represented Colombia’s FARC rebels but were actually U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents.

In both cases, advocates for the U.S. detainees believed that their prospects hinged on Russia’s desire for an exchange that it saw as symmetrical—even as officials inside parts of the U.S. government quietly raged over the idea there could be any symmetry in a swap with Russia of people convicted of crimes in the U.S. legal system.

Talks over Mr. Whelan, who like Mr. Reed is a former U.S. Marine, stalled at various points when Russian officials continued to ask for something the U.S. couldn’t give. That something was Vadim Krasikov, a Russian serving a life sentence in Germany for murder, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

But the idea that it would be impossible for the U.S. to reach a deal involving a third country appears to have receded since then. A senior White House official indicated this week that the U.S. is open to creative solutions to reach a deal, both for Mr. Whelan and Mr. Gershkovich.

“Within that which is legally available, we are constantly looking to see what might be relevant or what might be useful,” the official said.

Trevor Reed, who was detained in Russia in 2019 and later convicted of assaulting police officers, was swapped last year for Konstantin Yaroshenko.

PHOTO: TATYANA MAKEYEVA/REUTERS

Still, there are no signs that it would be easy to facilitate a trade deal involving three countries or more, under the glare of attention around Mr. Gershkovich’s detention.

When Israeli backpacker Naama Issachar was detained by Russia on drug charges in 2019, Russia demanded that Israel free Alexei Burkov, an alleged Russian hacker who had been detained in Israel since 2015 at the request of the U.S., according to U.S. and Israeli officials. Mr. Burkov was extradited to the U.S. and Israel ended up securing Ms. Issachar’s release two months later.

He was released from U.S. custody in 2021 at least a year before his sentence was expected to finish, a development that surprised some current and former U.S. officials at the time.

The identification of alleged Russian spies in recent weeks—at least some of whom are currently being held in Slovenia and Brazil—has prompted some observers to see them as clear potential exchange collateral.

Slovenian authorities arrested two people in December and have charged them with spying for Russia. The two individuals, whose names haven’t been released by the authorities, allegedly ran a business in the Central European country under false identities with illegally obtained foreign ID documents as they were performing undercover intelligence activities, a police spokesman said.

The pair is now currently in pretrial detention, and the proceedings in the case are classified, said Katarina Bergant, senior prosecutor in Ljubljana. Both are charged with criminal offenses of espionage and providing false information in documents.

In Latvia in January, authorities detained Marat Kasem, the editor in chief for the Lithuanian edition of the Kremlin-controlled Sputnik news outlet, according to Russian state media. The outlet is banned in EU member states. Mr. Kasem is a Latvian citizen but lived in Russia for several years. He was detained after he went back to Latvia at the end of last year.

Sputnik Lithuania editor in chief Marat Kasem was detained in Latvia in January.

PHOTO: ANTON NOVODEREZHKIN/TASS/ZUMA PRESS

According to a statement by Latvia’s State Security Service in January, it “detained a citizen of Latvia on the grounds of suspicion of providing economic resources to a Kremlin propaganda resource.”

Moscow has protested his detention. Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said in January that the detention was “the revenge of dictatorial regimes for his freedom, for his truth, for his adherence to principles.”

Latvia’s State Security Service didn’t respond to a request for comment. A lawyer for Mr. Kasem didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In the days before Mr. Gershkovich was detained while on a reporting trip in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, the U.S. unveiled charges against a man in Brazilian custody whom they accuse of being a Russian spy, Sergey Cherkasov. Mr. Cherkasov has been sentenced by a Brazilian court to 15 years in prison for forging a public document, committing identity fraud.

A Brazilian Supreme Court Justice last month tentatively agreed to a Russian request for Mr. Cherksasov to be extradited there. However, the approval was conditioned on the completion of a federal police investigation related to possible espionage activities, money laundering and corruption.

A criminal complaint released by the Justice Department identifies Sergey Cherkasov in this photograph from September 2012, circled in red while blurring the faces of others not identified in the complaint.

PHOTO: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department has indicated that it is also interested in seeking Mr. Cherkasov’s extradition to the U.S. A spokesman declined to comment on the status of that request.

Speculation has mounted in Brazil, ahead of a mid-April planned visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, that he could try to make a deal there. Mr. Lavrov is due to meet with Celso Amorim, the top foreign-policy adviser to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Mr. Amorim has recently traveled to Moscow and Paris to assess the possibility of Brazil mediating talks between Russia and Ukraine.

There is no obvious Russian citizen charged with espionage who is currently in U.S. custody.

But there are other U.S.-imprisoned Russian citizens, the most high-profile of whom have been accused or convicted of cybercrimes. Their candidacy for any swap could hinge on the extent to which their advocates can effectively campaign for their inclusion, to both U.S. and Russian audiences.

One of them is Roman Seleznev, the son of a member of the Russian parliament, who was described by prosecutors as “one of the most prolific credit-card thieves in history.” He was convicted in 2016 by a federal jury in Seattle on charges of hacking into hundreds of businesses and selling stolen data online, resulting in more than $169 million in fraud losses. He has an official release date of 2036.

Officials walk past photos of Roman Seleznev in 2017 in Seattle, after he was sentenced to 27 years in prison.

PHOTO: TED S. WARREN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

A lawyer for Mr. Seleznev, Igor Litvak, said he believed his client was “somebody they would want back really bad,” and whom Russians consider to be wrongfully detained in the U.S.

“Right now as far as I know, he is the only Russian they would want back,” said Mr. Litvak, although he noted that he had had no recent conversations about the prospect.

He pointed to Mr. Seleznev’s family connections, but also concerns over his health, the length of his remaining sentence and anger over the way he was arrested on U.S. charges while on vacation in the Maldives, in a way that Russians perceive as a kidnapping.

Then there is Vladislav Klyushin, who was extradited from Switzerland in 2021, and convicted by a federal jury in Boston in February of what the Justice Department described as a scheme that netted $90 million through securities trades based on nonpublic information stolen from U.S. computer networks. Mr. Klyushin is set to be sentenced in May. His lawyer didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

A third Russian citizen, Alexander Vinnik, has been accused by the U.S. of operating an illicit cryptocurrency exchange. He has been detained since 2017, first in Greece and then in France, before his extradition to the U.S. His lawyers have openly pushed for their client’s inclusion in any prisoner exchange.

Sadie Gurman, Luciana Magalhaes and Dustin Volz contributed to this article.

7. U.S. Pushes to Assess Damage From Leak of Purported Files on Ukraine War

U.S. Pushes to Assess Damage From Leak of Purported Files on Ukraine War

Justice Department starts probe amid fears over classified documents’ impact on global security

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-pushes-to-assess-damage-from-leaked-classified-files-464e64a4?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1

By Nancy A. YoussefFollow

, Yaroslav TrofimovFollow

and Sadie GurmanFollow

Updated April 8, 2023 5:27 pm ET

The U.S. pressed on Saturday to assess the damage of a widespread intelligence breach, as the Pentagon and the Justice Department seek answers to how dozens of images that purport to show highly classified documents on the war in Ukraine and other international matters surfaced online.

Determining the source of the leak and its implications has dominated the attention of leadership at the Pentagon, defense officials said, as a wide-ranging internal government probe gathered steam over a U.S. holiday weekend.

While some of the documents are roughly two months old, their disclosure could affect the conduct of the war in Ukraine because they purport to spell out potential battlefield vulnerabilities and the composition of parts of Ukraine’s forces, U.S. officials said. The documents also appear to include intelligence on internal matters in a variety of nations, including allies Israel, South Korea and the U.K. The leak is likely to have an impact on U.S. national security worldwide, officials said.

The Wall Street Journal wasn’t able to independently authenticate the documents, but they contain enough detail to give them credibility. Defense officials have said they believe some of the documents could be authentic, though some also appear to have been altered.

Taken together, the document dump, initially made in a small forum on the Discord messaging platform, is shaping up to be one of the most damaging intelligence breaches in decades. The unauthorized disclosure of highly sensitive information has alarmed not only top U.S. security officials but also allies with whom the U.S. shares secret intelligence.

Some U.S. security partners are playing down the impact of the breach on operations covered in the documents.

Andriy Chernyak, a spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence, described the leaked documents as an “operation by Russia’s special services.”

“This will in no way affect our continued cooperation with allies,” he said. Asked about the Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces expected in coming weeks, he said military operations will be carried out according to plans set out by the military command.

Still, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday, after the first reports of the breach emerged, that Kyiv has decided to adopt new measures to prevent unauthorized disclosure of its military plans ahead of the counteroffensive.

Some experts who have studied the documents are doubtful the breach is part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

Aric Toler, head of research and training at the Bellingcat investigative consortium, which has done several high-profile probes of Russian intelligence operations, said Saturday that he had traced the original source of the posting to a small group of users called Thug Shaker Central on Discord. Hundreds of files were posted there in January, February and March. Later, some of these documents were reposted by users to a bigger group, uniting fans of the Minecraft game. The original group has since been wiped clean, as was the much bigger document trove.

A Ukrainian attack against Russian positions.

PHOTO: EVGENIY MALOLETKA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

“I really doubt this is some Russian op, so there’s a good chance only a few internet weirdos saw the hundreds of documents,” said Eliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat. “It’s really only something you’d find if you were terminally online.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department launched a probe into the leak on Friday at the request of the Defense Department. Investigators are trying to quickly identify the source of the breach.

Justice Department officials said they had been in touch with officials at the Defense Department as their investigation got under way. Such probes usually begin by determining who had access to the documents, current and former officials said, which in this case could be difficult, as potentially hundreds of government employees have security clearances that would give them the ability to view the documents.

Justice Department spokespeople declined to comment Saturday on the investigation.

The U.S. is considering a range of possibilities over how the breach occurred, including that someone with top-secret security clearance leaked the information or that U.S. intelligence systems were hacked, U.S. officials said Saturday.

U.S. congressional leadership hasn’t been briefed about a leak but has requested one, a congressional aide said. “We don’t know the scope of this so it is hard to assess,” the aide said.

A Ukrainian serviceman inside a helicopter in Ukraine.

PHOTO: OLEG PETRASYUK/SHUTTERSTOCK

The White House was concerned about the damage caused by the leaks, U.S. officials said. One official said some of the documents appeared to be manipulated but that the Biden administration was still gathering information about the matter.

The images were marked with “Top Secret” and other classifications indicating they represent highly sensitive U.S.-produced intelligence.

The documents, which appear to originate from within the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, include details about the disposition of Ukrainian forces, air defenses and military equipment, classified information about arms and support the U.S. has provided to Kyiv in its fight against Russia, and intelligence on internal matters in several nations.

In addition to documents pertaining to the war in Ukraine, the leaked files included purported copies of the daily intelligence report provided to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley, Central Intelligence Agency reports on leaders of Israel’s Mossad spy service, and intelligence on discussions within the government of South Korea on sales of artillery ammunition to Kyiv.

Because the documents appear to be images of printed presentation slides, the investigation will likely focus on that possible method of transferring them from a classified system. Classified documents can only be printed on approved systems, which can be tracked.

In 2017, the government quickly identified Reality Winner, at the time a contractor for the National Security Agency, who printed out top-secret material and sent it to a news organization. The government was able to track that only six people had printed the document since it was published to a classified computer network, and then quickly narrowed it down to Ms. Winner, who later pleaded guilty to leaking the information.

In another leak to the media, Terry Albury, an FBI special agent, tried to avoid detection by cutting and pasting information from different classified documents into a new one, and then printing it, according to the government. He also, the government said, took pictures of classified documents from his computer screen, so as to avoid printing them. He was identified and pleaded guilty in 2018 to unauthorized retention and transmission of classified information.

Ms. Winner and Mr. Albury, both of whom served time in prison for their disclosures, said they leaked information to the media in the hopes of turning public attention to important issues. Ms. Winner said the document she leaked was intended to prove Russian interference in the 2016 elections, while Mr. Albury has described his disclosures as intending to cast light on what he alleged were FBI abuses.

Ms. Winner declined to comment. Mr. Albury deferred to his attorney, who didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

—Matthew Luxmoore and Sharon Weinberger contributed to this article.

Write to Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com, Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com and Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com

8. Blumenthal: Congress could pressure Pentagon over selection of Sikorsky rival for helicopter contract

Blumenthal: Congress could pressure Pentagon over selection of Sikorsky rival for helicopter contract

americandefensenews.com · April 8, 2023

Apr. 7—As Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin mull whether to seek a reversal in federal court of a massive Army contract to rival Bell, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Friday in Hartford that Congress could apply pressure as well by limiting funding for the procurement of the Bell aircraft if it deems it to be the wrong choice from a fiscal perspective.

Sikorsky took a major hit Thursday after the Government Accountability Office declined to overturn a U.S. Army decision last December to award Bell a contract estimated at an initial $7.1 billion to produce the V-280 Valor. The Bell tilt-rotor would take on missions performed today by the Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopter, which has been in the Army fleet for more than a half-century.

With Sikorsky having produced more than 5,000 Black Hawk helicopters and variants, it is a major loss for Lockheed Martin and Connecticut where Sikorsky is among the five largest employers with roughly 8,000 workers at last report. Late last year, an Army official estimated at $70 billion or more the value of the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft program, and possible derivative aircraft for other military branches.

For the time being, Sikorsky’s Stratford plant has steady work in the next decade and beyond making Army Black Hawks and variant helicopters for the U.S. Air Force and Navy, and the new CH-53K King Stallion helicopter for the Marine Corps.

But Lockheed Martin had counted on the Sikorsky-Boeing Defiant-X to pick up the slack from there, with a possible added boost if Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin land an Army contract for a new armed scout helicopter.

Speaking Friday on the steps of the Connecticut State Capitol in Hartford, Blumenthal said there was precedent for Congress using its purse strings to influence the Department of Defense during prior administrations to reconsider major decisions on strategic or tactical weapons programs. While Blumenthal said there is a need for “robust” defense spending in the current age, he suggested that spending needs to go to systems that provide the best bang for the buck.

“We have an oversight responsibility,” said Blumenthal. “We go through the defense budget literally line by line. The National Defense Authorization Act is approved by Congress only after a really exacting process. And make no mistake — defense budgets are going to have to be subject to even higher level of scrutiny.”

While acknowledging the possibility of Sikorsky winning the armed scout helicopter contract, Blumenthal said that if Sikorsky disputes the methodology for the V-280 Valor procurement, it should pursue a claim in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

The armed scout helicopter program has been pushed back a year to 2024 as GE Aviation develops the engine that will be installed on either the Sikorsky or Bell model the Army picks. Bell has proposed a traditional helicopter design for that program, with Sikorsky sticking with a coaxial rotor model similar to the Defiant-X it proposed as the Black Hawk replacement in partnership with Boeing.

Blumenthal told CT Insider keeping the Stratford workforce intact is a significant strategic consideration as well for the U.S. military and its allies. While Bell has a solid commercial helicopter business — it built more than 150 last year — Sikorsky is dependent on government sales.

“The trained workforce that is at Sikorsky right now, frankly, are the best helicopter makers in the world, and it’s potentially endangering that defense industrial base by going with Bell,” Blumenthal said. “This decision on the future of vertical-lift aircraft has ramifications across the globe — not just to our NATO allies, but to partners who depend on American helicopter manufacturing, whether it’s in the Middle East or the Far East.”

In a written statement Friday, Gov. Ned Lamont referenced “additional competitions coming down the road” for Sikorsky.

While the Army deliberated on the V-280 Valor versus the Defiant-X, NATO has a similar competition under way for a new helicopter or tilt-rotor fleet, which would be smaller than the Army’s Future Long Range Assault Aircraft program won by Bell, but still significant. Sikorsky and Bell have signaled interest with their respective aircraft for the NATO program, as have European manufacturers Leonardo and Airbus.

Defiant-X features dual sets of rigid rotor blades that spin in opposite directions, providing vastly improved maneuverability compared to traditional helicopters like the Black Hawk. Sikorsky and Boeing have played up those capabilities for both the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft program won by Bell, and the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft program for the Army scout helicopter, with Sikorsky calling that prototype Raider-X.

Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky have yet to indicate whether they will pursue a challenge of the Army FLRAA decision in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the last avenue to get a second chance at the program. Sikorsky has an existing case in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, alleging the U.S. government underpaid it for research and development expenses by applying a cost-accounting standard improperly.

In their GAO protest, Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky claimed the Army did not properly factor factor the higher cost of the Bell V-280 Valor in the selection. GAO asserted that Sikorsky fell short on “architectural detail” the Army required, without providing immediate specifics.

Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky have yet to indicate whether they will pursue a last remaining option — a lawsuit challenging the Bell award in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

Sikorsky has an existing case in the court against the U.S. government, claiming it was underpaid for research and development costs it incurred over 10 years through 2017, with Sikorsky having prevailed in a U.S. Court of Federal Claims lawsuit filed in 2012 after the government levied an extra $64 million charge on a dispute over accounting assumptions.

Cost-accounting rules are at the center of the more recent dispute as well, with court documents redacting the specific amounts Sikorsky claims it should have received. Programs covered in the lawsuit include the Black Hawk, the CH-53K and the new Jolly Green II rescue helicopter Sikorsky is now building in Stratford for the U.S. Marine Corps, as well as the “Future Vertical Lift” effort that produced the Defiant-X prototype.

Sikorsky landed the Jolly Green II contract after a successful GAO protest from 15 years ago that allowed to wrest away the program from Boeing, which had proposed a modernized version of its tandem-rotor Chinook helicopter that is still used by the Army today.

[email protected]; @casoulman

___

Visit The Hour (Norwalk, Conn.) at www.thehour.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

americandefensenews.com · April 8, 2023

9. US military sites in the Philippines: a gamble after a failed hedge

The Philippines may be as strategically important as it was when it became a US colony after the Spanish American War. (Of course it would have been strategically important in WWII if we had held it in 1941-42 or after we retook it and were going to have to conduct an assault on mainland Japan (which fortunately we did not have to do)).

US military sites in the Philippines: a gamble after a failed hedge

naval-technology.com · by Andrew Salerno-Garthwaite · April 6, 2023

US and Philippine troops operate a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) during live fire exercises as part of US-Philippines army-to-army joint drills on March 31, 2023 in Laur, (Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)

The United States and the Philippines have extended their Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), effective as of February 1, 2019, to include provisions for the expansion of four new military sites in the Philippines.

“The announcement of new bases in Philippines, is anticipated to lead to an expanded US military presence in the archipelago,” said Abhijit Apsingikar, senior aerospace, and defence analyst at GlobalData.

The recent extension of the EDCA sites to cover northern Luzon holds significant strategic value in the event of a Taiwan contingency. This development underscores the Philippines’ crucial role in the region as the only country that faces both the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits.

The Philippines is noteworthy in that no other country provides such extensive access, and its status as a treaty-ally underscores its importance.

Strategic location against vectors of attack against Taiwan

The establishment of military sites in northern Luzon could potentially complicate China’s strategic calculations in a Taiwan scenario, while also fulfilling a crucial contingency requirement for the United States, explained Euan Graham, senior fellow of the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS).

In the event of a potential attack, whether primary or secondary, originating from a southern vector, northern Luzon is potentially within land-based anti-ship missile range. The investment made by the US in adding runways and other infrastructure is a noteworthy value-add, despite the political risks involved in utilising hard currency for this purpose.

“The access to air bases, although they may be rather rough and ready, would certainly set a dispersal objective for the US if they needed to disperse their assets from vulnerable bases in Japan and or South Korea in a hurry,” said Graham.

“[The Philippines] is an ever more important piece of the Pacific, given the way that Beijing is focused on Taiwan as an essential piece of its strategy,” said Jonathan Ward, author of the Decisive Decade and China’s Vision of Victory.

“And Chinese maritime strategy in the Indo-Pacific is much broader than the South China Seas and Taiwan. They seek to create a long-standing presence in what they call the three maritime corridors,” continued Ward, outlining China’s strategic vision for victory as one that includes a focus on the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands.

A Department of Defence press release described the establishment of these sites will enhancing regional readiness, as well as offering ideal locations for joint and combined training.

The US forces stationed at these sites will be rotational. Even with troops stationed on a rotational basis the expanded presence of US military personnel on these bases, coupled with prepositioning of US equipment, materials, and supplies, explained Apsingikar, are likely to trigger Chinese concerns and may provoke aggressive actions over the coming years.

The missing location

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh announced on 3 March that four new sites will be established by the US military. These sites include Naval Base Camilo Osias in Santa Ana, Cagayan; Camp Melchor Dela Cruz in Gamu, Isabela; Balabac Island in Palawan; and Lal-lo Airport in Cagayan.

“The US was angling for five bases – the obvious missing site here is Subic Bay. I think shows that this isn’t an open-ended agreement from the Philippines,” said Graham.

Subic Bay served as a US fleet base for over 50 years, providing crucial access for the US Navy between Japan and Singapore. With the South China Sea being a focal point of strategic concerns in the Indo-Pacific, having guaranteed base access in this region would be highly advantageous for the US.

“There may be a work around,” suggests Graham. “Subic Bay has been subject to an investment deal from a US private consortium. I think that private consortium has clearly got the nod from the US Government, and I think that that will maybe pave the way for some more maintenance and repair for the US Navy.

“But it won’t mark a resumption of the old fleet access, and I think that shows that the Philippines is also mindful of the Chinese reaction and also sensitive to the history of the Philippines as a former colonial colony of the US.”

The EDCA agreement already includes several other locations, namely Cesar Basa Air Base in Pampanga, Fort Magsaysay Military Reservation, Lumbia Air Base, Antonio Bautista Air Base, and Mactan Benito Ebuen Air Base.

In addition to these five existing bases and military reservations, Singh stated that the additional locations “will strengthen the interoperability of the United States and Philippine armed forces and allow us to respond more seamlessly together to address a range of shared challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, including natural and humanitarian disasters.”

Duterte’s failed hedge for the Philippines

Singh stated that in order to swiftly advance modernisation projects at these locations, the Defence Department “will work in lockstep” with the Philippine Department of National Defence and armed forces. “The amounts allocated to this $130m in the first tranche and then $82m to this expanded set. So, it’s not a small change, that’s a significant investment in infrastructure.”

This year had been billed as one of significant change for US forward defence posture in the western Pacific. “In this context,” said Graham, “the EDCA can be seen as a significant down payment on that.”

In reinforcing the EDCA, the current administration of the Philippines has made the decision to strengthen its partnership with the United States.

“The development also marks a key shift away from the policy adopted during the Rodrigo Duterte regime,” said Apsingikar. “It had tried to maintain an a relatively stand-off US policy in order to assuage Chinese security concerns and prevent provoking Chinese ire.”

However, the smooth addition of four new sites cannot be guaranteed, and this development will require close monitoring as it has potential implications for local politics in the Philippines. Cagayan, a province in the Philippines, is home to two of the four additional sites, and has elected a governor for the province who is known for his pro-China stance. “I don’t think we should take this as something that will automatically roll out,” said Graham.

This move comes as a result of the country’s recognition that it lacks the necessary capability and capacity to prevent China from encroaching on its maritime boundaries, that had been observed throughout the Duterte administration. “The experiment in accommodating China was run, and I think was shown to have failed. It didn’t stop China from continuing incremental below-the-threshold-of-conflict advance in the South China Sea,” said Graham.

Chances of Chinese provocation against Philippines territory

China operations within maritime areas claimed by the Philippines have for many years been largely defined as within the ‘grey zone’ of activities below sanction, including using its maritime militia to appear in territorial waters, forcing the Philippines to react to a physical challenge.

However, China has also crossed this threshold at times, including using its coastguard to harass the resupply of Second Thomas Shoal, and other features within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines. A 2016 arbitral tribunal showed international law to be on the side of the Philippines.

“Ultimately, if we’re talking about the potential use of force, I think the Philippines has no realistic means to respond to that other than through the US alliance,” said Graham.

The recent developments in the South China Sea, particularly the artificial islands, have provided China with greater ease in deploying its maritime capabilities, including the maritime militia, Coast Guard, and Navy.

“That’s the strategic picture for the Philippines: the penny has finally dropped that they need the US and they’re prepared to invest in that.

“It’s a geopolitical admission of the fact that Philippines is in a tight spot and the only thing that will really change the balance is an increased US presence.”

Ward sees this perspective as representative of a wave of thought through national leaderships in the Indo-Pacific. “The fact that the region is becoming more and more serious about the threat, is, as is often said, a ratchet the turns in one direction. People just have to deal with reality.”

Share this article

naval-technology.com · by Andrew Salerno-Garthwaite · April 6, 2023

10. Indo-Pacific Maritime Security: What Does the Future Look Like?

Comments on the Joint Com=cept for Competing.

Excerpts:

In the end, I am reserving judgment about the Joint Concept. We simply don’t know enough to reach a firm verdict on it. I suspect this umbrella document will be followed up by a series of directives tailored to various theaters and competitors, providing the concreteness the concept needs to be actionable. For instance, one would imagine the sea services, including the U.S. Coast Guard, would take the lead in the South China Sea, backed up by ground-based implements of sea power. That division of labor might be quite different from elsewhere on the map. Once we have such a family of documents, we may be on to something.

Indo-Pacific Maritime Security: What Does the Future Look Like?

19fortyfive.com · by James Holmes · April 8, 2023

Editor’s Note: Dr. James Holmes, our Naval Diplomat, delivered the following remarks at a panel on “Indo-Pacific: Maritime Security,” Navy League Sea Air Space Expo, National Harbor, MD, April 3, 2023.

Question: On the nature of the Chinese gray-zone challenge to the freedom of the sea and the rule of international law in the South China Sea. How can we “win without fighting,” and how can we best focus our efforts to shift the dynamics at work here?

Answer: I want everyone to undertake an act of imagination this afternoon: imagine how the situation in the South China Sea looks through the eyes of a Philippine or Vietnamese fisherman, coastguardsman, or sailor. It looks grim; to succeed we need to make things look less grim. Our strategic goal should be to give Southeast Asian mariners heart in the face of Communist Chinese coercion. We should strive to give that fisherman the confidence to go out and make a living for himself and his family without undue fear of abuse at the hands of a domineering coastal state that’s asserting itself unlawfully—but effectively—in defiance of international law.

Now imagine what that fisherman sees around him on a daily basis: the Chinese fishing fleet, the maritime militia embedded in it, and the world’s largest coast guard, all backed up by the PLA Navy and shore-based aircraft and missiles. This force utterly outmatches his coast guard and navy, his ostensible protectors. A U.S. Navy task force puts in an appearance once in awhile and looks impressive, only to soon steam away—leaving Chinese maritime forces in possession of disputed waters. Our mariner is once again subject to that abuse we want to guard against. He could well be disheartened.

And our strategy will have fallen short of its goal.

So my basic insight today is very basic: you have to step onto the field of competition and stay there for the duration of the contest if you hope to prevail. It’s the same principle as in sports. I doubt my Georgia Bulldogs would have won two straight national championships had they only shown up on the gridiron once in awhile to display their awesomeness. The same goes for UConn and San Diego State on the court tonight. Similarly, come-and-go operations such as freedom-of-navigation operations and military exercises are helpful in many ways, but they apply a feeble deterrent at best in the gray zone. To embolden that fisherman to ply his trade, and to empower his nation to exercise its sovereign rights at sea, we and our partners need to stage a constant presence in force.

Coming and going is not enough. We have to go and stay.

That’s what Admiral J. C. Wylie meant in his book Military Strategy when he proclaimed that the “man on the scene with a gun”—the soldier, marine, or sailor toting superior firepower—is the final arbiter of who controls something. And controlling something is the goal of military strategy, in wartime and peacetime alike.

Control is how you win.

And it’s only prudent to try to control that something, in this case maritime geographic space, with the least violence possible—preferably none at all. Our Chinese friends are always talking about “winning without fighting.” That sounds cuddly. But make no mistake: aggressors love peace, as Clausewitz teaches and as Chinese strategists confirm. They would love for the aggrieved to give in without a fight, and save China all of the costs, dangers, and hardships warfare entails. Never forget that win takes precedence over without fighting in that simple formula, or that peace is war without bloodshed for China.

Now, we can win without fighting if we convince our opponent, our allies and partners, and third parties able to influence the outcome of the competition that we would win with fighting if it came to that. If we make that absolutely clear to all parties, our opponent should scale back its provocations as a losing effort, and the region can deescalate to beneath the gray zone. Allies and partners would gain the confidence to stand up for themselves. I doubt we can deter China for all time given the importance it attaches to its claim to “indisputable sovereignty” over regional waters and landmasses; but we may be able to deter it day by day. That may be the best we can do.

And who knows, good things may happen if we can do it long enough.

As far as what kinds of forces we should stage in the region to compete to good effect, this is a law-enforcement challenge as much as a military challenge. It’s about sovereignty, meaning who makes the rules, where. So in a sense we should take a page from China’s book and make coast guards—law-enforcement services—and light naval forces our implements of choice, backing them up with heavier naval forces and shore fire support should things go sideways. That’s why recent news of our return to the Philippines is so welcome, as are reports that multinational coast-guard patrols may soon take to the sea. Let’s experiment with how to harness joint and combined maritime forces along with geography for strategic and political effect—giving comfort to our hypothetical fisherman.

Question: The other week you published an article in 19FortyFive examining the recently released Joint Concept for Competing. Tell us more about your reactions to that document and where we need to go from here as we better develop our understanding of maritime competition short of armed conflict in joint and service doctrine.

Answer: I’m going to be like President Truman’s three-handed economist here and veer from critique to praise and back again. My general critique was that it’s hard to judge the concept from what you see on the page. It describes itself as “adversary agnostic,” prescribing a general approach for the joint force to integrate its efforts with fellow U.S. government agencies and foreign partners to face down gray-zone aggression. It’s not tailored to any theater or competitor, and thus it feels unmoored from strategic and operational reality. It’s also service agnostic, treating the “joint force” as an undifferentiated unit rather than an alliance of supported and supporting arms of military might that play their parts in different proportions and different ways depending on the contingency. And it reads as though it’s all about us, much like “capabilities-based planning” and other overly abstract approaches that ignore the fact that the adversary gets a vote in the success of our strategy and will undoubtedly try to veto it. It’s about what we intend to do rather than how we will interact with friends, partners, and potential foes to get our way.

In that sense the concept is astrategic, if that’s a word, neglecting the interactive nature of human affairs.

But don’t get me wrong; there is much goodness here. Strategic competition is a curious beast, isn’t it? Challengers compete for high stakes. In the South China Sea the stakes could hardly be higher; the nature of the international maritime order as codified in the law of the sea is at issue. And yet Beijing deploys minimal means in hopes of accomplishing these grand aims over time. And time is the key. China is prosecuting what Admiral Wylie calls a “cumulative” campaign, an effort that chips away at an antagonist by conducting small-scale tactical actions unrelated to one another in place or time. None of these actions amounts to much on its own, but many small things can add up to something big. Which is the idea. It takes time to wear down an opponent bit by bit. Though the Joint Concept for Competing doesn’t couch things in quite such theoretical terms, the notion that we confront a strategy of gradualism comes through clearly in the document. That’s a tonic for those of us who are used to thinking in terms of a sharp divide between peace and war.

That being said, let me swerve back to critique. One thing that does worry me about the document is that despite describing competition as a seamless continuum, it still makes it sound as though the Pentagon sees an either/or tradeoff between competing strategically and preparing for war. It talks repeatedly about the opportunity costs of competing in terms of operational readiness. It seems to say that if we are competing, we’re not preparing for war. But as George Washington advised, riffing on the ancients such as Vegetius: if you want peace, prepare for war. I would add that you should prepare for war in such a way that you impress on all parties able to influence the outcome of a competition that you would win if a dispute came to blows. If you convince them of that, you gain a strategic advantage. Which is what it’s all about.

So readiness is competing (and vice versa) if we do it right. China must be able to harbor no doubt about our capability and our resolve to use it under conditions we say we will.

In the end, I am reserving judgment about the Joint Concept. We simply don’t know enough to reach a firm verdict on it. I suspect this umbrella document will be followed up by a series of directives tailored to various theaters and competitors, providing the concreteness the concept needs to be actionable. For instance, one would imagine the sea services, including the U.S. Coast Guard, would take the lead in the South China Sea, backed up by ground-based implements of sea power. That division of labor might be quite different from elsewhere on the map. Once we have such a family of documents, we may be on to something.

Dr. James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College and a Nonresident Fellow at the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs. The views voiced here are his alone.

19fortyfive.com · by James Holmes · April 8, 2023

11. China expert predicts where US will 'see the next war start'

Conclusion:

"It's up to the American people to put pressure on Biden so that he cannot get away with doing the minimum. This is critical right now," Chang said. "China is doing so many different things that are really ominous. And yet, people in the Pentagon, people in the Oval Office, they're just pretending not to notice."

China expert predicts where US will 'see the next war start'

foxbusiness.com · by Kristen Altus

video

China doing so many 'ominous' things: Gordon Chang

Gatestone Institute senior fellow and author Gordon Chang discusses Speaker Kevin McCarthy's meeting with the Taiwanese president, Biden's handling of China's aggression, GOP lawmakers meeting with Silicon Valley CEOs and the U.S. border

China is ready for war and America is ill-prepared for it, according to one foreign policy expert who also warned it could happen on U.S. soil.

"The one thing that we know is that China is making fast preparations for war now," Gatestone Institute senior fellow and "The Great U.S.-China Tech War" author Gordon Chang said on "Mornings with Maria" Monday.

"Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, just about 24 hours ago said all of this was overheated rhetoric, the way he put it. But the point is, China is preparing to kill Americans and we've got to prepare to defend ourselves," Chang continued. "And the Defense Department is making slow, really slow, molasses-slow preparations to oppose China."

Chang’s comments were made just before an NBC News report revealed the Chinese spy balloon which traversed the continental U.S. earlier this year gathered sensitive information as it flew over American military sites, despite the White House’s efforts to block it, according to two senior officials and one former Biden administration official.

TED CRUZ WARNS BIDEN'S FOREIGN POLICY AGENDA IS ‘GREAT FOR ENEMIES OF AMERICA’

The officials further claimed China collected the information through electronic signals which were sent back to Beijing in real time, Fox News confirmed.

China is reportedly making "fast preparations for war" against the U.S., Gatestone Institute senior fellow Gordon Chang warned on "Mornings with Maria" Monday, April 3, 2023. (Fox News)

Noting the U.S. stands at an "inflection point" with China, Chang further argued that when a war breaks out in Asia, it may also break out within American borders.

"The real risk here is at the Darién Gap," the expert said referring to the peninsula which connects North to South America. "Michael Yon, a war correspondent, is saying that he is seeing [Chinese] males of military age who are unattached to family groups. Those, I believe, are saboteurs. And on the first day of a war in Asia, that will be fought on American soil as these saboteurs try to take down our grid, poison our water, detonate bombs in shopping centers."

"The administration should be looking at those males," Chang added, "because I think that that is where we are going to see the next war start, those guys acting on our soil."

Image 1 of 4

U.S. military forces fired a missile on Feb. 5, 2023, off the Carolina coast which ended the days-long flight of what the Biden administration says was a surveillance operation that took the Chinese balloon near U.S. military sites. | Getty Images

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick expressed concerns to host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday over the surge of Chinese migrants crossing the southern border.

"These people are mostly educated, young adults that China is sending here to eventually go to our colleges, work in our business, steal secrets [and] send them back to China," Patrick said.

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE

video

US must achieve a 'win in the economic arena' vs China: Jonathan DT Ward

Atlas Organization founder Jonathan D.T. Ward argues America's foreign policy stance is 'out of whack,' and we're 'losing time rapidly' to maintain an economic stronghold.

Fox News chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin spoke to U.S. officials Monday who reportedly pushed back against any suggestion that the intelligence the Chinese were able to gather was of significant value, standing by their original statements that any signals or electronic intelligence that the balloon gathered was of "limited intelligence value."

"It's up to the American people to put pressure on Biden so that he cannot get away with doing the minimum. This is critical right now," Chang said. "China is doing so many different things that are really ominous. And yet, people in the Pentagon, people in the Oval Office, they're just pretending not to notice."

At least 44 killed in Burkina Faso attacks | CNN

CNN · by Maija Ehlinger,Joseph Ataman · April 9, 2023

CNN —

At least 44 civilians were killed in two separate attacks on villages in northern Burkina Faso, authorities there said.

A local governor, Rodolphe Sorgho, blamed terrorists for the “despicable and barbaic” attacks, without naming a specific group.

In a statement Sorgho gave his “sincere condolences to the grieving families and wishes a rapid recovery to the wounded.”

Few other details were available about the incidents, but a resident of one of the villages told AFP “a large number of terrorists” attacked late on Thursday, with gunfire sounding throughout the night.

Burkina Faso is one of the world’s poorest counties and has become the epicenter of violence carried out by Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

The violence began in neighboring Mali in 2012 but has since spread across the arid expanse of the Sahel region south of the Sahara Desert.

Large areas of the north and east of Burkina Faso have become ungovernable since 2018. Millions have fled their homes, fearing further raids by gunmen who frequently descend on rural communities on motorbikes. Thousands have been killed.

CNN · by Maija Ehlinger,Joseph Ataman · April 9, 2023

13. Will We Call Them Terrorists?

Part movie review and part national security discussion and part consideration of the future looking back on our present time as history.

Will We Call Them Terrorists?

The New York Times · by Peter C. Baker · April 5, 2023

Screenland

“How to Blow Up a Pipeline” is a thriller rooted in a timely fear: We do not know how the future will see us.

Send any friend a story
As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.

Credit...Photo illustration by Mark Harris

April 5, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

A group of young people sit around a dilapidated living room. They’re on couches, on chairs, on the floor. The lovers among them are nestled close. People are drinking from red Solo cups. Someone has a flask. A joint is circulating. There’s laughter and passionate debate and easy alternation between the two. With the sound turned off, the scene would be so familiar — just young adults, relaxing — that you would never guess the question they’re working through together: Are we terrorists? Do we feel like terrorists?

“Of course I feel like a [expletive] terrorist!” one young man says, laughing. “We’re blowing up a goddamn pipeline!”

No viewer will be surprised to hear this. It’s right there in the movie’s title: “How to Blow Up a Pipeline.” But the man himself seems shocked, as if he can’t quite believe what he’s saying. He and the film’s other main characters are hiding in an abandoned house in West Texas. They plan to strap homemade explosives to an oil pipeline the next day, hoping to reveal the industry’s fragility, encourage more ecosabotage and ultimately make fossil-fuel extraction untenable. “They’re going to call us revolutionaries,” one young woman suggests, waving the joint for effect. “Game changers.” Not so, another counters. “They’re going to call us terrorists. Because we’re doing terrorism.”

The talk turns to history and the way tactics considered beyond the pale are often played down in retrospect. The Boston Tea Party — weren’t they terrorists, intentionally destroying key economic materials for political purposes? Martin Luther King Jr. was on an F.B.I. watch list; today he’s an American hero. Someone suggests that having the government call you a terrorist might mean you’re doing something right. Someone else suggests that when terrorism “works,” the forces of authority just lie and say change came entirely via “passive, nonviolent, kumbaya” actions. Someone argues that, hey, they’re not going to hurt anyone, to which someone else objects — sure they are; the plan is to create a spike in oil prices, which will have an immediate effect on the lives of poor people. “Revolution has collateral damage,” a handsome young man says with the timeless confidence of a handsome and slightly drunk young man with an audience.

The scene is saturated with uncertainty, and nothing anyone says can make that uncertainty go away. The would-be saboteurs don’t even know for sure that their bombs will go off, let alone what effect they will have if they do. They don’t know if they will be caught. Above all, they cannot know how others, now or in the future, will view their actions. Will they be remembered — if they’re remembered at all — as brave warriors justified by the righteousness of their aims? As ordinary villains, sowing destruction and chaos to flatter their own radical impulses? Or as well-intentioned fools whose actions only made it harder, not easier, to achieve the changes they desired?

The question is cranked up to 11 by the mass of explosives just yards away.

The question of what the future will make of us — what distant generations, looking back, will think of our choices — has probably been invoked for as long as humans have debated what to do next. But the climate issue has made this question inescapable. Decisions we are making right now are determining not just how much hotter and more polluted the world gets, but also how prepared future generations will be to live in the hotter, more polluted world we leave them. This line of thinking feels, at first, galvanizing: What will our descendants, our literal and metaphorical children, wish we had done to make their lives better?

The film “How to Blow Up a Pipeline,” directed by Daniel Goldhaber, was loosely adapted from a 2021 manifesto of the same name by the Swedish political theorist Andreas Malm. The book’s argument is simple: If the climate movement is serious about reducing fossil-fuel emissions at the necessary speed and scale, Malm contends, it will have to make room for strategies long dismissed as too extreme, including the illegal destruction of fossil-fuel infrastructure. Just a few years ago, this argument would only have appeared in organs of mainstream opinion so it could be condemned. Instead, the book received respectful coverage from outlets around the world. Now, surprisingly, it is a movie, one with prominent distribution and a cast featuring familiar faces from prestige TV.

Two of its young protagonists, we learn, met when one saw the other browsing through Malm’s book in a store. Their group sees itself as converting Malm’s argument into action, and the fact that the film treats this perspective with sympathy — respect, even — makes it a strange kind of cultural landmark. Until now, ecologically minded saboteurs have generally been presented onscreen either as villains or, at best, as lost souls, unserious radicals who, in their impatience and naïveté, go too far. Goldhaber’s film does contain several critiques of its young protagonists’ scheme, but it remains open to — and, in some moments, palpably excited by — the possibility that they are right and that their plan will work exactly as they hope.

But this is only a possibility. Thrillers work by planting questions and making us itch for answers. What makes “Pipeline” so interesting is the way it intertwines plot questions (will the explosives work?) with the uncertainty inherent in judging your actions by the standards of the future. Try as we might, we cannot always know the effects of our individual choices; we cannot know how they will relate to the actions of others or the currents of history; we cannot know how future generations will understand their world or through what lenses they will look back on ours. This uncertainty is the always-present shadow of every decision we make. It would be one thing to see a group of young adults drinking and debating Malm’s arguments in a dormitory; it is another to see them do it with bombs in a van outside. Like all of us, they are wondering what history will make of them, but the question is cranked up to 11 by the mass of explosives just yards away.

The movie itself tries something similar; it seems to be going out of its way to feel as though it is already about a historical event. Structurally, it uses flashbacks to give each character a back story that sketches his or her motivations. Stylistically, Goldhaber makes frequent nods to the paranoid political thrillers of the 1970s. The effect is both electrifying and disorienting: This insistently contemporary story ends up feeling like something from the past, seen from the future, underlining the way the uncertainties faced by the saboteurs are the same ones faced by the film itself. What are the chances that, years from now, “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” might be seen as something like “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” a catalyst for historical change? What are the chances that its legacy might be widespread condemnation and draconian crackdowns on “terrorist” climate protests? What are the chances that it receives little notice at all and looks like just another example of our era talking about climate change but not halting it?

“Pipeline” does not have those answers. By the final frame, we do know what has become of the saboteurs’ plan. In a traditional thriller, the resolution of the plot would be a cathartic release from uncertainty, but here we’re plunged back into all the questions the movie knows can’t be resolved. We cannot see the future until it arrives; it can go too many ways. This fact of life can be frightening. It’s nice to be reminded that it can also underline the moral stakes of our decisions in a way that gives them heft and energy.

Source photographs: Neon; iStock/Getty Images

The New York Times · by Peter C. Baker · April 5, 2023

14. Fed fingerprints all over ‘dollar-is-doomed’ talk

Excerpts:

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speaks for many when she calls the oil cartel’s decision an “unconstructive act.” Clearly, it makes life harder for her team to rebuild trust in the dollar at a moment when the biggest holders of US debt are anxious to find alternatives.

China, especially. Already high tensions with Washington are soaring anew as Biden limits Chinese access to vital technology and US officials meet with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. As Chinese state mouthpiece Global Times argued in an April 5 op-ed: “China’s retaliation will be resolute and strong, and instigators will not be spared.”

Could that retaliation extend to dumping US Treasuries? Remember that back in August 2011, China mulled doing just that as then-US president Barack Obama cozied up to Taiwan. At the time, China’s state-run People’s Daily declared: “Now is the time for China to use its ‘financial weapon’ to teach the US a lesson if it moves forward” with arms sales to Taipei.

It falls to the Powell-led Fed to regain global trust in the dollar. As global markets are demonstrating, that trust is in diminishing supply.

Fed fingerprints all over ‘dollar-is-doomed’ talk

China’s yuan won’t displace the dollar anytime soon but trust is falling in Fed’s management of the globe’s reserve currency

asiatimes.com · by William Pesek · April 7, 2023

As China draws down dollar holdings and the yuan trumps the US greenback in Russia, more and more economists are asking if an inflection point has been reached.

Count Nobel laureate Paul Krugman firmly in the “no” camp. “The dollar’s dominance isn’t under threat,” the New York Times columnist argues.

Others aren’t so sanguine as Asia’s biggest economy reduced its stockpile of US Treasury securities for a sixth straight month in January, the latest for which there is data on Beijing’s reserve holdings.

This week brought news that, in February, the Chinese yuan topped the dollar in trading volume in Russia for the first time. Daily transaction data at the Moscow Exchange suggest volumes rose even more significantly in March.

There’s no shortage of theories why. They include President Joe Biden’s White House “weaponizing the US dollar and the global payment system” amid the Russia-Ukraine crisis, as strategist John Mauldin at Millennium Wave Advisors, puts it.

That, he notes, “will force non-US investors and nations to diversify their holdings outside of the traditional safe haven of the US.”

Others point to the US letting inflation soar to 40-year highs. Political chaos in Washington — from the January 6, 2021 insurrection to today’s debt limit brawl — is doing America’s credit rating no favors.

Yet economist Mohamed El-Erian argues the real problem is how the Federal Reserve has lost more than just the economic plot. It’s losing the trust of central banks that took for granted that the dollar would outshine all alternatives indefinitely.

“The Fed’s problems should worry everyone,” says El-Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz. “A loss of credibility directly affects its ability to maintain financial stability and guide markets in a matter consistent with the dual mandate of maintaining price stability and supporting maximum employment.”

After falling behind the inflation curve in 2021, the Fed has tightened aggressively since. Its most assertive tightening cycle since the mid-1990s is now pushing banks over the edge.

Recent banking turmoil “is casting doubt on America’s ability to maintain its leadership of the global monetary system,” notes economist Diana Choyleva at Enodo Economics. It now falls to Washington “to take decisive steps to shore up confidence, including extending dollar credit lines to a clutch of Asian countries.”

The “collapse of Silicon Valley Bank after a sharp rise in interest rates over the past year slashed the value of the bank’s bond holdings and put the spotlight on other weak banks,” Choyleva notes.

Credit Suisse’s “rapid demise” only added to the sense of global turmoil, she says. Yet, Choyleva says, the “longer-term ramifications” of the wrecking-ball dynamic the Fed has unleashed will have significant fallout over time.

“For it is in Asia,” she observes, “that the United States’ global financial hegemony is being most keenly contested — by China.”

Not that Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s currency is ready to displace the dollar. First, the yuan would have to be fully convertible and the People’s Bank of China would have to be fully independent from Communist Party meddling.

Yet Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s missteps may be hastening this changing of the financial guard.

One irony is that the Fed’s monetary sledgehammer appears to be impeding the kinds of investment the US needs in productivity-enhancing technologies. The sense that the Fed is on the case may also be lulling Biden’s team into complacency on supply-side efforts to increase efficiency.

Yet the more the Fed’s austerity threatens bank blowups, the more Powell’s team chips away at trust in the world’s most powerful central bank. And the more America’s top bankers — most of them in Asia — will start looking for alternatives.

Asia’s top US debt holders are sitting on nearly US$3.5 trillion of Washington’s IOUs. Japan has the most, followed by China. Until now, Asia’s trade-reliant economies had little choice but to load up on dollars, both to facilitate trade and as a shield in times of crisis.

Yet 2023 marks the second time in 15 years that the call came from inside the house. The 2008 “Lehman shock” marked the first time Asia wondered if its savings were safe in US assets.

Since then, Washington’s national debt surged past the $31 trillion mark. Republicans threatening to default on debt now control the House of Representatives. And Biden’s approval ratings are in the 40s, giving him limited political capital to raise America’s economic game.

Add in a Fed that’s failing to read the room where global investors worry the dollar faces a near-perfect storm of threats.

Still, economist Nouriel Roubini notes that “you can’t replace something with nothing.” And it remains unclear which currency is ready to take the mantle of global standard. He cites the observation by former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers that “Europe is a museum, Japan is a nursing home and China is a jail.”

China has the scale, of course, Roubini says. But, he adds, the yuan “can’t become a real reserve currency unless capital controls are phased out and the exchange rate made more flexible. Moreover, a reserve currency country needs to accept — as the US long has — permanent current account deficits in order to issue enough of the liabilities held by non-residents as a counterpart.”

At the same time, Roubini says, “all attempts to create a multipolar reserve currency regime — even an IMF Special Drawing Right basket that includes the renminbi — have so far failed to replace the dollar.”

Force of habit matters. As Krugman argues, “the dollar’s dominance is locked in because these roles are self-reinforcing. It’s easier to do transactions in dollars than in other currencies because so many other people use dollars, and the ease of transactions is one reason so many people use dollars.”

Krugman cites a 1960s observation by Princeton University economist Charles Kindleberger that the dollar’s dominance is akin to the role of English as an international language. Its centrality is a hard habit to break.

Economist Barry Eichengreen at the University of California, Berkeley, notes that much of the migration away from the dollar has been to smaller currencies with little chance of replacing the dollar, including the Australian and Canadian dollars, Swedish krona and South Korean won.

Russia, Eichengreen notes, is pivoting aggressively away from the dollar, and welcoming the yuan as a ready replacement. Yet, he asks, will other countries of scale also move in this direction?

Xi had talked about prodding Saudi Arabia to accept oil payments in yuan. China has also been setting up yuan-clearing arrangements with Pakistan, Argentina, and Brazil. And Iraq’s central bank is allowing direct yuan settlement for its trade with China.

“Yet this kind of broader shift is not yet visible in the data,” Eichengreen says.

Even so, the White House’s perceived weaponization of the world’s reserve currency via sanctions on geopolitical rivals – and the fallout from former president Donald Trump’s trade war – is now boomeranging on Washington while causing officials throughout Asia to worry the US doesn’t appreciate the longer-term consequences.

“The US dollar is a hex on all of us,” says George Yeo, former foreign minister of Singapore who’s now a visiting scholar at the National University of Singapore. “If you weaponize the international financial system, alternatives will grow to replace it” and the US dollar will lose its status.

Yeo says that “when this will happen, no one knows, but financial markets must watch it very closely.”

So must the Powell-led Fed. The recent move by OPEC+ – which includes Russia – to slash production by about 1.2 million barrels per day is a fresh test for the Fed’s tightening cycle.

“The anticipated increase in oil prices for the rest of the year as a result of these voluntary cuts could fuel global inflation, prompting a more hawkish stance on interest rate hikes from central banks across the world,” says analyst Victor Ponsford at Rystad Energy. “That would, however, lower economic growth and reduce oil demand expansion.”

In other words, if the Fed sees OPEC’s maneuver as a reason to continue raising rates, stagnation risks will surge along with turmoil in global markets.

James Bullard, president of the Fed Bank of St Louis, warns OPEC+ is playing with economic fire. “This was a surprise,” Bullard told Bloomberg. “Oil prices fluctuate around. It’s hard to track exactly. Some of that might feed into inflation and make our job a little bit more difficult.”

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speaks for many when she calls the oil cartel’s decision an “unconstructive act.” Clearly, it makes life harder for her team to rebuild trust in the dollar at a moment when the biggest holders of US debt are anxious to find alternatives.

China, especially. Already high tensions with Washington are soaring anew as Biden limits Chinese access to vital technology and US officials meet with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. As Chinese state mouthpiece Global Times argued in an April 5 op-ed: “China’s retaliation will be resolute and strong, and instigators will not be spared.”

Could that retaliation extend to dumping US Treasuries? Remember that back in August 2011, China mulled doing just that as then-US president Barack Obama cozied up to Taiwan. At the time, China’s state-run People’s Daily declared: “Now is the time for China to use its ‘financial weapon’ to teach the US a lesson if it moves forward” with arms sales to Taipei.

It falls to the Powell-led Fed to regain global trust in the dollar. As global markets are demonstrating, that trust is in diminishing supply.

Follow William Pesek on Twitter at @WilliamPesek

asiatimes.com · by William Pesek · April 7, 2023

15. Twitter removes NPR's 'state-affiliated' designation, replaces it with 'government funded' label

Twitter removes NPR's 'state-affiliated' designation, replaces it with 'government funded' label

foxnews.com · by Landon Mion | Fox News

Video

Vince Coglianese: NPR is lying about its funding sources

Radio show host Vince Coglianese joins 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' to assess NPR being labeled a 'state-affiliated media' on Twitter.

Twitter removed the "state-affiliated media" label it placed on National Public Radio's account and replaced it with a label that reads, "government funded media."

NPR was initially slapped with the "state-affiliated media" designation on Tuesday before Twitter faced public pressure to pull the label. Other media outlets with the label include Russian state-owned TASS, Russian state-controlled RT and China's official state news agency Xinhua.

No tweets have been shared from NPR's official account since Twitter added the "state-affiliated media" label, but the news organization's President and CEO John Lansing released a statement condemning the initial designation.

"We were disturbed to see last night that Twitter has labeled NPR as ‘state-affiliated media,’ a description that, per Twitter’s own guidelines, does not apply to NPR," Lansing wrote on Wednesday. "NPR and our member stations are supported by millions of listeners who depend on us for the independent, fact-based journalism we provide. It is unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way. A vigorous, vibrant free press is essential to the health of our democracy."

NPR LABELED 'STATE-AFFILIATED MEDIA' ON TWITTER, SAME AS RUSSIA'S RT AND CHINA'S XINHUA

Twitter removed the "state-affiliated media" label it placed on National Public Radio's account and replaced it with a "government funded media" label. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

After receiving the label, NPR updated its Twitter bio to read, "NPR is an independent news organization committed to informing the public about the world around us. You can find us every other place you read the news."

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also defended NPR against Twitter's designation after a reporter asked her about it in the briefing room on Wednesday.

"Social media companies make their own independent decisions about content rules, so I won't comment on Twitter's rules, but what I will say, more broadly, I'll say there's no doubt of the independence of NPR's journalists," Jean-Pierre said.

"If you've ever been on the receiving end of their questions you know that they have their independence in journalism. NPR journalists work digitally to hold public officials accountable and inform the American people." She continued. "The hard-hitting independence nature of their coverage speaks for itself. And so, I'll leave it there."

Other media outlets with the "state-affiliated" label include Russian state-owned TASS, Russian state-controlled RT and China's official state news agency Xinhua. ( Brooks Kraft LLC/Corbis via Getty Images)

WHITE HOUSE DEFENDS NPR AFTER ‘STATE-AFFILIATED MEDIA’ DESIGNATION BY TWITTER: ‘NO DOUBT OF INDEPENDENCE’

Twitter CEO Elon Musk appeared to endorse the "state-affiliated media" designation for NPR, writing "Seems accurate" in a tweet on Wednesday in response to the label.

The platform's policy defines "state-affiliated media" as outlets where "the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution."

Twitter CEO Elon Musk appeared to endorse the "state-affiliated media" designation for NPR after the news outlet's account received the label. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto, CARINA JOHANSEN/NTB/AFP via Getty Images (Photo illustration))

But Twitter's Help Center explained that "[s]tate-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy."

NPR correspondent David Gura tweeted on Wednesday that Twitter's policy was changed to remove any mention of the news outlet.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

The Help Center's information has since been updated to again include NPR as a "[s]tate-financed" media organization along with the BBC.

Musk acknowledged on Thursday in an exchange with an NPR reporter that the NPR's label may not have been accurate.

"The operating principle at new Twitter is simply fair and equal treatment, so if we label non-US accounts as govt, then we should do the same for US, but it sounds like that might not be accurate here," Musk said in an email, according to NPR.

The "government funded media" label now also appears on the Twitter account of PBS.

foxnews.com · by Landon Mion | Fox News

16. How to Revitalize the World Bank, the IMF, and the Development Finance System

Excerpts:

The covenant between wealthier countries and lower-income ones has always been rooted in a shared interest in living together in a more stable, healthy, and prosperous world. A reimagined development finance system would support that goal, including by giving low-income and middle-income countries the resources they need to address poverty and climate change. Some observers have worried that reforms would risk prioritizing climate adaptation and mitigation at the expense of poverty eradication, which is the overwhelming focus of the poorest countries. But this is not an either-or proposition. With the right reforms, the system can combat both problems at the same time—and benefit everyone by making the world more prosperous, stable, and better able to meet the climate challenge.

Others argue that the prospects for reform are slim, given the world’s focus on Ukraine, growing tensions between great powers, and the longstanding reluctance of some institutional leaders to change. Yet everyone should recognize that, without a more significant multilateral effort, the twenty-first century will be less prosperous and more dangerous for everyone. What happens next week will signal the world’s willingness—or lack thereof—to address today’s crises with a focus on long-term gains rather than short-term payback. Without action this year, the promise at the core of the global economic order may be broken for good. But with the right agenda, the system can be restored and revitalized.

How to Revitalize the World Bank, the IMF, and the Development Finance System

The Urgent Need to Update Institutions Built for a Different Era

By Mia Amor Mottley and Rajiv J. Shah

April 7, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Mia Amor Mottley and Rajiv J. Shah · April 7, 2023

As the world’s finance ministers travel to Washington for the annual spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) next week, humanity’s future hangs in the balance. Climate change threatens to make the world either inhospitable or unhabitable for billions of people. The global economy is creating more poverty, hunger, and despair. And an unjust war in Ukraine is producing disastrous consequences for vulnerable people just after a pandemic that did the same.

Every country is facing this mix of compounding crises, yet every country has not been affected in the same way. Nor does every country have the same means to withstand these challenges, let alone overcome them. Rich-countries, after stoking their economies with trillions in fiscal and monetary support in recent years, have recently raised interest rates to address inflation, so far without suffering the deep recessions that many feared. In contrast, lower-income countries that could not respond to the pandemic with stimulus packages and quantitative easing are now swamped by debt and projected to grow much slower than expected or needed for sustained development. Unsurprisingly, hundreds of millions of people in those countries are falling behind: poverty and hunger have increased while measures of health care, education, and gender equity have dramatically declined.

Unfortunately, despite many warnings and pleas, the World Bank, the IMF, and other international financial institutions—and their wealthy shareholders—have not yet done enough to overcome this inequity. Some of their struggles are understandable. Many of these organizations were established in 1944 to help rebuild countries after World War II; they were not designed to counteract multiple global crises at the same time. But too many of their present-day struggles stem from policy choices. Wealthier countries have neglected to honor previous commitments, including pledges to spend at least 0.7 percent of their GDPs on foreign aid and to mobilize $100 billion a year for climate action in developing countries. And the World Bank and IMF have struggled to tailor their instruments to support countries in this moment of profound need.

As a result, these institutions—which have done so much good in the past and still represent hope to so many—are no longer able to meet their missions. The result is a fundamental breakdown of the nearly 80-year-old covenant between wealthier countries, which have pledged to support institutions such as the World Bank and IMF and to help lift up the most vulnerable and build a more prosperous, stable world for everyone, and poorer ones, which have used this support to invest in development initiatives that promote inclusive growth and bolster their people.

Next week’s meetings are the first of several sessions this year in which countries will have a chance to restore that covenant. Billions of people around the world understandably doubt whether anything can be done. And the meeting’s agendas so far offer little reason for optimism; they barely scratch the surface of what is possible and necessary. Despite a long list of reforms offered by a broad range of individuals and institutions from across the world, a remarkably limited number of proposals is currently up for approval next week.

The World Bank, the IMF, and their shareholders and leaders face a choice: they can build solidarity around common challenges, or they can further sap the trust that has underpinned multilateralism for decades and that will be essential to making the twenty-first century more prosperous, fair, and peaceful. The question next week is whether they truly believe that we are all in this together.

HELP ON THE WAY?

The development finance system was established in response to the world wars of the twentieth century. To make the postwar world prosperous and stable enough to avoid another global calamity, dozens of countries came together in 1944 in the shadows of the White Mountains, near Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to create the World Bank, the IMF, and other institutions and agreements to help countries build or rebuild, withstand economic shocks, and trade freely.

For decades, the system helped support the growth that enabled Europe’s recovery and Asia’s rise and helped billions to climb out of poverty. Yet in recent years, the system has struggled. The problem has not been insufficient dedication on the part of the institutions, which are staffed by people who work tirelessly, often in difficult and dangerous settings. Instead, the difficulties have been due in part to the nature and scope of the current crises, which have affected every country simultaneously and which have in many cases unwound previous progress. The institutions have also been held back by their own layers and layers of obsolete rules and procedures. Despite good intentions and good work, they are falling short.

Take, for example, their performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the height of the pandemic, the IMF, World Bank, and others took heroic actions to ward off economic collapse, but they proved insufficient. With limited external support, low-income countries were able to mount only limited responses to the crisis, mobilizing just two percent of GDP, on average, to stimulate their economies, whereas richer counterparts were mobilizing 24 percent of their GDPs, on average. That discrepancy is one reason why after growing by six percent a year from 2000 to 2010, developing countries are expected to grow by an average of only four percent per year through 2030.

Even that low level of growth is in no way assured, given high levels of debt. For example, according to the World Bank’s analysis, the public and private debt held by countries eligible for its development assistance tripled over the last decade. And the climate crisis will make those balance sheets even worse. Recent analyses reveal that developing countries will require $1 trillion to $2 trillion in finance per year, much of it in the form of investments in climate resilience and resources to make up for loss and damage caused by extreme weather. They are currently receiving only a tiny fraction of that amount.

This data is why the IMF has worried about a “great divergence” and the World Bank has predicted a “lost decade.” Beyond the data and projections, a more profound judgment is clear: when humanity is facing some of the gravest crises in history, an inadequate response has left countries and people feeling increasingly alone. Farmers in Sudan face longer and more intense droughts and floods. Workers at salt pans in India toil in relentlessly rising temperatures. And billions of others across Africa, Asia, and Latin America watch helplessly as livestock die off, food prices soar, and currencies spiral.

A NEW HOPE

In the last few years, however, a new consensus has developed around the belief that one of the best hopes for scaling the investments and innovations required to meet today’s crises is to revitalize and augment the development finance system. A broad, diverse group of current and former government officials, activists in vulnerable communities, aid groups, humanitarian and philanthropy organizations, and scholars have developed specific proposals and reforms.

Last summer, the two of us—together with UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed and the Open Society Foundations—brought together private, public, and philanthropic leaders in Barbados, to discuss revitalizing the system. Together, we launched the Bridgetown Initiative, which seeks to advance and garner support around specific ideas. At the same time, the G20, the V20, and the African Development Bank, among others, are actively advancing some of these proposals. French President Emmanuel Macron is also bringing world leaders to meet in Paris in June for a unique opportunity to discuss this agenda.

The new consensus centers on a few core principles. First, countries need new ways to relieve unsustainable debt levels and invest for the future, instead of simply servicing obligations from the past. One step in this direction would be fixing the G20 Common Framework for Debt Treatments, which is the mechanism for restructuring and reducing debt burdens, in part, by including firm deadlines on the restructurings (several of which have lingered for years unresolved). The G20’s Debt Service Suspension Initiative, which briefly paused principal and interest payments on official bilateral debts during the pandemic, could be extended and enhanced to cover a broader range of debts, including private sector ones. Taken together, these sorts of changes can give states drowning in debt a lifeline and encourage the sorts of investments needed for the twenty-first century.

Without action this year, the promise at the core of the global economic order may be broken for good.

The IMF should also extend the time horizon of its debt sustainability analysis by decades, which would allow countries to borrow more today by assuming longer timelines to manage current and future obligations. The fund should also affirm that not all debt is the same by adopting new metrics that would treat debt incurred from investment in climate resilience as fiscally prudent and therefore encourage the sorts of adaptation and mitigation investments that benefit everyone.

At the same time, countries could do more to help prevent liquidity crunches from becoming debt crises by channeling unused IMF Special Drawing Rights, which can effectively augment member countries’ official reserves, to countries at risk and in need of liquidity today. The fund could also raise access limits to its rapid financing facilities and temporarily suspend interest rate surcharges for heavy borrowers when there are clear signs of international financial stress, as there are today. The IMF moved urgently to assist to Ukraine in its darkest hour, as it should have. Other countries deserve the same urgent response, given the terrible human costs they are facing.

A second principle is that countries need access to additional loans at below-market rates. Thanks to the work of a G20-appointed independent commission, it is clear that multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank, could use their balance sheets much more aggressively to unlock several hundreds of billions in new lending. These banks should increase the amount of capital—including capital that can be lent at lower rates—available for developing economies and offer lending instruments with extended maturities of even up to 50 years. They should also focus more on attracting and leveraging private capital investment in vulnerable and struggling countries.

Finally, the public, private, and philanthropic sectors must work together to expand access to public goods. Technological breakthroughs will continue to benefit humanity. But the free market on its own will too often deliver those advances to the wealthiest first and to the most vulnerable much later—if ever. One way to address this problem is through public-private platforms such as Gavi, which delivers vaccines all over the world by pooling contributions from governments, philanthropies, and institutions to purchase and distribute immunizations at scale. The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet is taking this approach to more equitably distribute renewable energy technologies. Similar initiatives could help scale advances in agriculture and other high-priority sectors.

KEEP THE FAITH

The covenant between wealthier countries and lower-income ones has always been rooted in a shared interest in living together in a more stable, healthy, and prosperous world. A reimagined development finance system would support that goal, including by giving low-income and middle-income countries the resources they need to address poverty and climate change. Some observers have worried that reforms would risk prioritizing climate adaptation and mitigation at the expense of poverty eradication, which is the overwhelming focus of the poorest countries. But this is not an either-or proposition. With the right reforms, the system can combat both problems at the same time—and benefit everyone by making the world more prosperous, stable, and better able to meet the climate challenge.

Others argue that the prospects for reform are slim, given the world’s focus on Ukraine, growing tensions between great powers, and the longstanding reluctance of some institutional leaders to change. Yet everyone should recognize that, without a more significant multilateral effort, the twenty-first century will be less prosperous and more dangerous for everyone. What happens next week will signal the world’s willingness—or lack thereof—to address today’s crises with a focus on long-term gains rather than short-term payback. Without action this year, the promise at the core of the global economic order may be broken for good. But with the right agenda, the system can be restored and revitalized.

MIA AMOR MOTTLEY is Prime Minister of Barbados.
RAJIV J. SHAH is President of the Rockefeller Foundation and served as Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2010 to 2015.

Foreign Affairs · by Mia Amor Mottley and Rajiv J. Shah · April 7, 2023

17. Leaked documents detail dire assessments of Ukrainian army: reports

Leaked documents detail dire assessments of Ukrainian army: reports

BY LAUREN SFORZA - 04/09/23 8:30 AM ET

The Hill ·· April 9, 2023

The classified documents apparently leaked last week detail the weaknesses in the Ukrainian army, specifically shortfalls of ammunition and air defense, according to reports.

The Washington Post reported that one of the leaked Pentagon documents detailed that Ukraine’s air defense may not be able to protect the front lines through the end of May. One of the documents included an assessment from February from the Defense Department’s Joint Staff, which said Ukraine’s “ability to provide medium range air defense to protect the [front lines] will be completely reduced by May 23,” according to the Post.

The reported classified document also says once Ukraine’s first layer of defense munitions run out, the “2nd and 3rd Layer expenditure rates will increase, reducing the ability to defend against Russian aerial attacks from all altitudes.”

Both the Justice Department and the Defense Department are investigating the apparent leak of classified documents after Russian sources posted them to online websites, like Twitter. The documents are dated from March or earlier of this year, and appear to include information on Ukrainian training, munition expenditures and estimated casualties from both Ukraine and Russia. The documents do not appear to have plans for a Ukrainian counter offensive expected for this spring.

The Post also reported that another document shows how quickly the Ukraine’s air defense projectiles will deplete, saying that SA-11 systems will be depleted by April 13, NASAMs, made by the U.S., will be expended by April 15 and SA-8s will be gone by May. Another chart appears to suggest that Ukrainian air defense focus on Russian jets and helicopters and ignore smaller threats, like drones, in light of the expected shortfalls, according to the Post.

The New York Times reported that the trove of documents includes an assessment on the state of fighting in Bakhmut, a city in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region that has been under siege for seven months. The Times said that the documents appear to show that the U.S. is spying on Ukraine’s top military and political leaders.

Iowa AG halts state coverage of abortions, emergency contraceptives for rape victims Four things to know about the Texas abortion pill ruling

The document outlined how Ukrainian forces “were almost operationally encircled by Russian forces in Bakhmut,” as of Feb. 25, the Times reported. The documents show top Ukraine leaders offering grim assessments in the ongoing fight for Bakhmut, with General Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s director of military intelligence, saying that the situation was “catastrophic” at the time of the report.

The Times also reported that Roman Mashovets, an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak, said that Ukrainian forces esteem was low in Bakhmut.

“Mashovets reported that, for those reasons, the morale in Bakhmut was low, with the Ukrainian forces under the impression that they were almost operationally encircled,” the assessment read.

The Hill · by Jared Gans · April 9, 2023

18. If You Didn’t See Chaos in Kabul, Where Were You Looking?

Surely Admiral Kirby wishes he could take back those comments. What was he thinking?

If You Didn’t See Chaos in Kabul, Where Were You Looking?

The White House spokesperson John Kirby says he didn’t notice the mayhem involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The rest of us did.

By Emma Salisbury

The Atlantic · by Emma Salisbury · April 8, 2023

“For all this talk of chaos, I just didn’t see it, not from my perch,” John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, said on Thursday at the White House, following the publication of the Biden administration’s report on the Afghanistan withdrawal. That statement made me angry. My perch was a lot lower than his, and I certainly saw chaos.

I had a modest part in the evacuation that was precipitated by the U.S. announcement in July 2021 that it was pulling out all troops by the end of August. At the time, I was working in London for a member of Parliament who had a role liaising between other MPs and the ministerial team at the Home Office. Once the Afghan capital, Kabul, fell to Taliban forces, on August 15, and the evacuation became urgent, those MPs came to our office for help with their constituent cases involving family or friends in Afghanistan. We did what we could to put those cases before the right people in the Home Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the Ministry of Defense. Many Afghans who had worked with the Afghan government or NATO forces now feared retribution from the advancing Taliban.

The job was all-consuming for days. Thousands of people in Kabul needed help to evacuate and didn’t know where to turn. Should they go to the airport? To the Baron Hotel, where the British consular team was then based? To the Americans? Should they cross the border into Pakistan? Did they have the right documents? Was their case in our system? Did we know about the crowds, the danger, the fear?

George Packer: Escape from Afghanistan

I worked flat out, refusing to let myself stop, refusing to let myself be overwhelmed. I sent emails, submitted cases, made calls. I checked off every name, read every story. I made sure I looked properly at every face I saw in the photos sent from Kabul—the photos from the mother who had found the body of her son dumped on her doorstep by the Taliban, from the wife who had found her husband’s shoe in the debris of their living room after he was abducted, from the young man who had been threatened because he had worked for the Western occupiers.

Like everyone else, I was also watching the rolling news reports from Kabul. We all saw that chaos. Crowds of desperate people outside the airport. Parents passing their children over fences. People falling from the wings of planes. Bodies in the streets. And, most horrifying, the suicide-bomb attack on Abbey Gate, which killed 13 American service members, two British nationals, and more than 170 Afghan civilians, and injured hundreds more.

My experience pales in comparison to those who were on the ground in Kabul trying to deal with these circumstances. I greatly admire the military and consular personnel, who did their absolute best with what they had. They saved thousands of lives with no thought for their own safety. The U.S. airlift got more than 122,000 people out, the British airlift 15,000 more. Each of those lives saved is a testament to the courage and the dedication of those diplomats, soldiers, and aircrews.

To say they were doing all of this amid chaos is no detriment to them; in fact, the disservice is not to acknowledge it. The processes and systems set up to facilitate the evacuation were simply not designed to withstand the level of turmoil that occurred after the fall of Kabul. We thought we would have more time. We were meant to have more time. But we didn’t.

Read: Talking to the Taliban

Apportioning blame for this is a difficult task. The Trump administration made a deal with the Taliban for the U.S. withdrawal that excluded the Afghan government, and then, by all accounts, did no planning whatsoever for how that would work. The Biden administration inherited that mess, and did what it could, but it repeatedly failed to see that Kabul was not going to hold long enough to ensure a secure and orderly withdrawal. The British government has had its own reckoning over failures in its processes, but ultimately had to work to the American timetable.

It is easy for armchair generals to pontificate on what they would have done differently—I know I have been guilty of that at times. We should welcome the Biden administration’s recognition that lessons need to be learned for the future. But to willfully ignore the chaos of the Kabul evacuation is to rewrite history. We cannot assess what went wrong by disregarding the experiences of those who were involved. That includes the Afghan civilians crowded outside the airport, the military and consular staff stationed there, and even the bureaucrats like me—safe in their nondescript offices abroad, but witnesses all the same. Those experiences are wildly different, but they share a common thread. They were all touched by chaos.

So my message to John Kirby is this: If you didn’t see chaos during the Kabul evacuation, where the hell were you looking?

The Atlantic · by Emma Salisbury · April 8, 2023

19. Why a bill that could ban TikTok is raising privacy concerns

Excerpts:

“The idea that, ‘well, we need a comprehensive data privacy law and therefore, the RESTRICT Act is bad,’ is ludicrous. We need a comprehensive data privacy law, and we need something in place that deals with this issue of foreign owned apps in countries of concern,” he said.

Pugh, however, said that acting on a measure directed at TikTok or the broader RESTRICT Act without a comprehensive data privacy and security bill “would not solve the underlying problem.”

Why a bill that could ban TikTok is raising privacy concerns

The Hill · by Rebecca Klar · April 9, 2023

A bipartisan bill that aims to give the administration the power to ban apps linked to foreign adversaries, including TikTok, is raising privacy concerns across the political spectrum.

The RESTRICT Act, led by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), is touted by supporters as a way for the administration to review and potentially ban services without solely targeting the controversial video app, the way other GOP-backed bills do.

Although the broader scope may evade issues of targeting one company, digital rights groups, industry officials and privacy experts are sounding the alarm that the RESTRICT Act poses concerns that could limit Americans’ freedom online. Critics argue the proposal is overly broad about what companies it would target and who would be on the receiving end of enforcement.

“There’s a risk of unintended targets. There could be consequences for businesses or individuals that inadvertently get swept up in this,” said Darrell West, a senior fellow with the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution.

How the RESTRICT Act works

A view of the TikTok app logo, in Tokyo, Sept. 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato, File)

The bill doesn’t explicitly set out to ban TikTok or any app, but gives the Commerce Department power to identify and mitigate risks from technology linked to foreign adversaries including China, North Korea, Iran, Russia, Cuba and Venezuela — including by banning the technology.

TikTok is owned Chinese-based company ByteDance, which some lawmakers say poses national security risks involving the storage and sharing of U.S. user data. TikTok has pushed back on the allegations that the app poses any national security risks.

A chief concern raised by critics of the bill is that individuals who seek to use TikTok or any service banned under the rules it lays out would be punished.

The digital rights groups Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fight for the Future, along with the ACLU, have all come out against the proposal. The groups are among critics that argue the bill could potentially punish individuals that seek to gain access to banned apps, possibly through VPNs, or virtual private networks.

Would the bill ban VPNs?

A VPN lets users search online without having an internet service provider or other third parties see what sites they visit or their data. By using a VPN, a user can also access sites that are banned, and is among the technical limitations of enforcing a TikTok ban. It is one way users in other countries that have banned access social media sites have been able to keep using those platforms.

The legislation does not explicitly ban the use of a VPN, but the broad scope of the bill could lead to it being interpreted that way, said Kayla Williams, chief information security officer at Devo, a cloud-native security analytics platform.

The debate centers on a portion of the bill states that “no person may engage in any transaction or take any other action with intent to evade the provisions of this Act.”

“There’s not any clarification of what the implications could be to an individual versus a corporation,” Williams said.

“It’s very concerning to me as a citizen, that I have VPN on my phone, to protect myself. Does that mean that I could potentially face jail for having that technology? It’s too broad, in my opinion,” she added.

Warner says the RESTRICT Act doesn’t target individuals

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) addresses reporters following the weekly policy luncheon on Wednesday, March 22, 2023. (The Hill).

Warner has pushed back strongly on the criticism that individuals could be targeted.

When asked for comment, Warner spokesperson Rachel Cohen directed The Hill to a Twitter thread the senator posted last week that he said aimed to “dispel some myths” about his bill.

“The RESTRICT Act is focused on foreign corporations, not on users. The 1st Amendment protects Americans’ right to share and receive information – and this bill doesn’t alter that,” Warner tweeted.

“Let me say it again: there are NO criminal penalties in this bill for your free speech – you’re even free to drag the RESTRICT Act if you want! I stand firmly with freedom of speech, and my bill doesn’t affect or influence what Americans can say in any way, shape or form,” he added.

Despite Warner’s comments, though, the text of the bill leaves it open to be interpreted in a way that puts individuals at risk, said Lauren Hendry Parsons, privacy advocate and global head of communications of software company ExpressVPN.

“While the intent as spoken by Sen. Warner is clear, and the senator has assured us in the short term that individuals will not be prosecuted, the primary concern that we have is that this is a slippery slope with serious long term implications on privacy rights,” Parsons added.

Brandon Pugh, policy director and resident senior fellow for cybersecurity and emerging threats at R Street Institute, said in an email that the “ambiguity” of the text “combined with the large discretion provided to the secretary of commerce, creates concerns that this law could be used for reasons that extend beyond simply curbing applications like TikTok.”

Other experts say those concerns are overblown.

Roger Cressey, former National Security Council member in the administrations of former President Clinton and George W. Bush , said the criticism that the bill could lead to punishment for individuals who try to evade a ban is a “little hysteria.”

“The criticism always is rooted in the worst case scenarios. And that is the greatest consequence and least probability of happening. It’s about foreign ownership of apps, about ownership of apps from countries that we’re worried about,” Cressey said.

“But if people are worried that you know circumventing what might be the Commerce Department’s policy approach in terms of implementation is going to lead to this type of overreach, I just think it’s excessive and not grounded in what I would call reality,” he added.

What about a data privacy bill?

Critics of the legislation and progressive lawmakers pushing against a TikTok ban have argued that Congress should instead be focused on a comprehensive data privacy bill.

The U.S. lags behind other nations without putting a comprehensive data privacy law on the books, despite bipartisan momentum and support for one proposal last year.

“The best solution would be a national privacy bill, because it would address the confidentiality of people’s records, and create consequences for companies that violate that,” West said.

He said it is “clear” from hearings in Congress that the problem is “not just TikTok, but the whole social media ecosystem,” he said.

Iowa AG halts state coverage of abortions, emergency contraceptives for rape victims Four things to know about the Texas abortion pill ruling

Cressey, though, said it isn’t an “either-or choice.”

“The idea that, ‘well, we need a comprehensive data privacy law and therefore, the RESTRICT Act is bad,’ is ludicrous. We need a comprehensive data privacy law, and we need something in place that deals with this issue of foreign owned apps in countries of concern,” he said.

Pugh, however, said that acting on a measure directed at TikTok or the broader RESTRICT Act without a comprehensive data privacy and security bill “would not solve the underlying problem.”

The Hill · by Rebecca Klar · April 9, 2023

20. The bipartisan plot to save TikTok

The bipartisan plot to save TikTok

BY MICHAEL SOBOLIK, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 04/08/23 7:00 PM ET

The Hill · · April 8, 2023

Is banning TikTok “racist” and “totalitarian”? Only if you ask fringe voices on the Left and Right. Though these voices are less about principles than politics, they are growing louder and jeopardizing Washington’s best chance yet to target Beijing’s Trojan Horse app.

Days before TikTok CEO Shou Chew testified before Congress, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) decried Washington’s scrutiny as “xenophobic.” His colleague Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) called it a “witch hunt.” Days after the hearing, CNN ran a story suggesting that banning TikTok would make Asian-Americans more vulnerable to hate crimes. One of their sources was the chairman of the Committee on 100, an organization with reported links to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) United Front influence operations.

To their credit, some members of the Biden administration have been more honest about their reservations. Look no further than the Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo: “The politician in me thinks you’re gonna literally lose every voter under 35, forever.” Her candor was outmatched only by her authority. The piece of legislation the Biden administration has endorsed, the “RESTRICT Act,” would leave a TikTok ban up to the Commerce Secretary’s discretion. That’s a risky gamble, particularly in light of pleading from Democratic political operatives to keep the app online through the 2024 election.

Even so, Raimondo at least recognizes TikTok as a security threat. Others, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have parroted TikTok talking points about “data privacy” and equate the app to other platforms like Facebook and Twitter. But TikTok isn’t just about privacy; it’s about disinformation. Thanks to the app, Beijing has a highway to the phones of 150 million Americans, many of whom spend over five hours a day on TikTok. It’s a dream scenario for the CCP. What better way to divide Americans and spread false narratives and outright lies than on a popular app with addictive tendencies?

Unfortunately, political opposition to banning TikTok isn’t confined to just one side of the political aisle. In a recent monologue, Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson criticized the “RESTRICT Act” as “part of a strategy to make America much more like China, with the government in charge of what you read and see and with terrifying punitive power at their fingertips.” What Tucker failed to mention was the legislation’s origin. It’s based on a 2019 Trump administration Executive Order that instructed the Department of Commerce to address problematic technological threats from bad actors like China under existing law. Tucker was noticeably quiet four years ago when a Republican White House advanced the exact same policy.

Unfortunately, grandstanding appears to be the preferred approach to the issue. Consider recent comments from Donald Trump, Jr., in which he accused Republicans and Democrats of exploiting a TikTok ban “to control what we do and see.” This suspicion dovetails with similar concerns that the “RESTRICT Act” is the reincarnation of the Patriot Act, and leaves private Americans exposed to government surveillance. These concerns are divorced from the actual text of the bill. Section 5, which some libertarians misread as an invitation to espionage, is nothing of the sort. It’s connected to blocking and divestment provisions that would target problematic apps like TikTok, not individual Americans.

Granted, it’s easy to misread complex legislation. But it should also be easy to avoid repeating Chinese Communist Party (CCP) talking points.

However, Republicans are also falling into this trap. On March 29, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced his opposition to banning TikTok, even in a narrowly-scoped approach. His stated reason? “TikTok is cooperating through Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to make sure all data on Americans is protected from any Chinese government snooping.” Except that they aren’t. CFIUS, the interagency group Sen. Paul references, apparently rejected TikTok’s assurances weeks ago. Of course, TikTok’s CEO, Shou Chew, has continued peddling this talking point to muddy the waters. But why accept TikTok’s fig leaf excuses when American public servants have reportedly rejected them?

Based on Paul’s own remarks, the answer becomes clear: Like AOC, he doesn’t see TikTok as a security threat. In remarks on the Senate floor, he dismissed the app as “a few dance videos.” Noticeably absent from his remarks were any mention of TikTok’s banning of Americans for criticizing the CCP, the surveillance of U.S. journalists by its parent company, ByteDance, or the app’s censorship of content about the genocide against China’s Uighur Muslim minority.

On Easter, some Christians become targets for persecution Cancel vultures attack Will Smith for comments in 7-year-old video clip

All these protestations raise the troubling possibility that America’s leaders lack the political will to roll back Beijing’s malign influence inside our own borders.

Banning TikTok doesn’t make America like the CCP; it preserves our body politic and protects us from Beijing’s predations. The United States cannot counter China around the world if we leave ourselves vulnerable and exposed at home. If we want to keep our country strong, we need to ban TikTok — now.

Michael Sobolik is fellow in Indo-Pacific studies at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington. Follow him on Twitter @michaelsobolik.

The Hill · by Lexi Lonas · April 8, 2023

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

Company Name | Website

Intelligence leak exposes U.S. spying on adversaries and allies

U.S. and European officials scrambled to understand how dozens of classified documents covering all manner of intelligence gathering had made their way online with little notice

Leaked Documents Reveal Depth of U.S. Spy Efforts

Leaked Pentagon documents show spies are deeply ingrained in Russian intelligence services and Putin's army is ravaged after a year of fighting - but also reveal US is spying on ALLIES including South Korea, Ukraine and UK

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 8, 2023

Tags

Can We No Longer Believe Anything We See?

A New Generation of Chatbots

What happens to TikTok? Six ways the fight to ban it could play out

Scenario 1: Congress dooms TikTok

Bipartisan opposition to banning TikTok emerges on Capitol Hill

Scenario 2: Congress doesn’t act, but Biden bans it anyway

Scenario 3: Biden does something small, or nothing at all

Scenario 4: Judges protect TikTok

Scenario 5: ByteDance sells it

Scenario 6: Congress passes a privacy law for all apps

U.S. Faces Challenge in Striking Prisoner Exchange Deals for Americans Held in Russia

For detainees like Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, release often rests on identifying Russian prisoners to swap them for

U.S. Pushes to Assess Damage From Leak of Purported Files on Ukraine War

Justice Department starts probe amid fears over classified documents’ impact on global security

Blumenthal: Congress could pressure Pentagon over selection of Sikorsky rival for helicopter contract

US military sites in the Philippines: a gamble after a failed hedge

Strategic location against vectors of attack against Taiwan

The missing location

Duterte’s failed hedge for the Philippines

Chances of Chinese provocation against Philippines territory

Indo-Pacific Maritime Security: What Does the Future Look Like?

China expert predicts where US will 'see the next war start'

China doing so many 'ominous' things: Gordon Chang

US must achieve a 'win in the economic arena' vs China: Jonathan DT Ward

At least 44 killed in Burkina Faso attacks | CNN

Will We Call Them Terrorists?

The question is cranked up to 11 by the mass of explosives just yards away.

Fed fingerprints all over ‘dollar-is-doomed’ talk

Twitter removes NPR's 'state-affiliated' designation, replaces it with 'government funded' label

How to Revitalize the World Bank, the IMF, and the Development Finance System

The Urgent Need to Update Institutions Built for a Different Era

By Mia Amor Mottley and Rajiv J. Shah

HELP ON THE WAY?

A NEW HOPE

KEEP THE FAITH

Leaked documents detail dire assessments of Ukrainian army: reports

If You Didn’t See Chaos in Kabul, Where Were You Looking?

Why a bill that could ban TikTok is raising privacy concerns

How the RESTRICT Act works

Would the bill ban VPNs?

Warner says the RESTRICT Act doesn’t target individuals

What about a data privacy bill?

The bipartisan plot to save TikTok