Quotes of the Day:

Campaigning to Gain Military Advantage, Enhance Deterrence, and Address Gray Zone Challenges. The Department will actively campaign across domains and the spectrum of conflict. Campaigning initiatives will improve our baseline understanding of the operating environment and seek to shape perceptions, including by sowing doubt in our competitors that they can achieve their objectives or conduct unattributed coercive actions. They will disrupt competitor warfighting advantages while reinforcing our own, and enhance interoperability and access. Working with Allies and partners, we will build and exercise force elements needed in crisis or conflict, such as infrastructure, logistics, command and control, dispersal and relocation, and mobilization. National Defense Strategy, 2022, Page 12

"Irregular Warfare is conducted “in support of predetermined United States policy and military objectives conducted by, with, and through regular forces, irregular forces, groups, and individuals participating in competition between state and non-state actors short of traditional armed conflict.”  2017 NDAA

“U.S. dominance in conventional warfare has given prospective adversaries, particularly non-state actors and their state sponsors, strong motivation to adopt asymmetric methods to counter our advantages. For this reason, we must display a mastery of irregular warfare comparable to that which we possess in conventional combat.” National Defense Strategy 2008, Page 4

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 13 (Putin's War)

2. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (13.11.22) CDS comments on key events

3. Biden’s new national security strategy points to China’s ‘intent to reshape the international order.’ - One expert calls it ‘the first superpower summit of the Cold War Version 2.0.’

4. Assessment of the Risk of a Nuclear Exchange with Russia: Is the U.S. Whistling Past the Nuclear Graveyard?

5. Biden, Xi stress need to work together as they meet for talks

6. Zelenskiy visits recaptured Kherson, residents recount abuse by Russian forces

7. End the Ukraine war well

8. Missile Defense Is More Urgent Than Ever

9. DOD making progress in information operations but more improvement is needed, experts say

10. Special Operations News Update - Nov 14, 2022 | SOF News

11. Congress seeks to arm Taiwan quickly as China threat grows

12. Biden's past promises for US to defend Taiwan under microscope in meeting with China's Xi

13. Joe Biden Is Making China Squirm over Taiwan Before Their Summit

14. Live Updates: Biden and Xi Meeting Ends as U.S.-China Tensions Rise

15. Why China Will Play It Safe

16. Reconceiving U.S. Economic Strategy

17. Ukraine claims sniper has broken record for second-longest ranged kill

18. With Over 2000 Pilots Killed, China Is Struggling With Its Aviators Despite Three Aircraft Carriers & An Enormous Air Force

19. Indonesia: No proxy wars in Southeast Asia

20. The Right Wing’s Loyalty Test for the U.S. Military

21. Extremists in Uniform Put the Nation at Risk

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 13 (Putin's War)

Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-13

Key inflections in ongoing military operations on November 13:

• Wagner Group Financer Yevgeny Prigozhin asked the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office to open a case against St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov for high treason amid viral footage of Wagner forces murdering one of their own.[19] Prigozhin and Russian nationalist milbloggers largely supported the murder of the alleged traitor.[20]
• The Russian military grouping stationed in Belarus continues to generate social tensions among Belarusians.[21]
• Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the direction of Kreminna and Svatove.[22]
• Ukrainian forces continued to consolidate control over the right bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast.[23] Ukrainian forces struck a Russian military base in Chaplynka, Kherson Oblast, 50km south of Beryslav on the eastern bank of the Dnipro.[24]
• Russian forces continued to conduct offensive operations in the directions of Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Vuhledar.[25] The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that Russian forces captured Mayorsk, southeast of Bakhmut.[26]
• Russian forces continued routine indirect fire against frontline settlements in Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts.[27] Russian forces struck Zaporizhzhia City with an Iskander missile.[28]
• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the demobilization of mobilized students in Russian-occupied Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, likely as part of an ongoing effort to integrate proxy forces into the Russian Armed Forces.[29]
• Russian forces and occupation officials are forcibly mobilizing men in Russian-occupied Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast, and forcing them to construct trenches and defensive fortifications in the city.[30]
• Ukrainian officials stated that Russian forces are withdrawing from the left bank of the Dnipro River and concentrating forces and equipment in Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast, and Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast.[31]
• Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed an amendment to a draft law that would allow Russian officials to revoke Russian citizenship for disseminating “false” information about the Russian military, participating in extremist or undesirable organizations, or calling for violations of Russian “territorial integrity.”[32]

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 13

Nov 13, 2022 - Press ISW

understandingwar.org

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 13

Frederick W. Kagan

November 13, 3:30 pm ET

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

ISW is publishing an abbreviated campaign update today, November 13. This report discusses the likely evolution of the war following Ukraine’s operational success in regaining control of western Kherson Oblast. The Russians are not setting conditions for a relaxation of hostilities for the rest of the fall and into the winter but rather are launching a new offensive in Donetsk Oblast. The Ukrainians will likely use combat power recouped from the liberation of western Kherson to reinforce their ongoing counter-offensive in Luhansk Oblast or to open a new counter-offensive drive elsewhere. This is not the time to slow down aid or press for ceasefires or negotiations, but rather the time to help Ukraine take advantage of its momentum in conditions that favor Kyiv rather than Moscow.

Ukraine has won an important victory in the campaign that liberated western Kherson Oblast, culminating in the withdrawal of Russian forces completed on November 11.[1] Russian President Vladimir Putin had been determined to hold this key terrain, possession of which would have allowed him to renew his invasion of unoccupied Ukraine from positions on the west bank of the Dnipro River. That consideration was likely more important in Putin‘s calculations than the symbolic value of retaining the only oblast capital his forces had seized since February 24, 2022. (Russia had already taken Luhansk City and Donetsk City in its 2014-2015 invasion.) Putin had committed substantial Russian forces to the defense of western Kherson, including many of the remaining elite airborne units available to the Russian military.[2] He also committed reinforcements generated by the partial mobilization of reservists he had ordered on September 21.[3] Those forces had dug in and fought hard to hold their ground, taking many losses. Ukraine’s success despite this Russian determination and allocation of scarce elite units is in many respects even more impressive than its victory in Kharkiv Oblast in mid-September.[4]

Ukraine’s success resulted in large part from the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ (UAF’s) innovative use of the US-provided HIMARS precision rocket system to disrupt Russian supply lines. The HIMARS munitions the US has given Ukraine are not suitable for destroying bridges—their warheads are too small and are not optimized for such strikes. The UAF developed a tactic to work around that limitation by conducting multiple precision strikes across the key Antonivskiy Bridge and the road that ran atop the Kakhovka Dam in such a way as to break the roadways in a line across them, rendering them unusable without actually destroying the bridges’ infrastructure (or badly damaging the dam).[5] The UAF continued to strike the bridges as the Russians sought to repair them, targeting the repair equipment as well as the roadways until the Russians finally gave up. The Russians attempted to construct a pontoon bridge under the Antonivskiy Bridge as a mitigation, but the UAF attacked that effort as well, causing the Russians to abandon it.[6] The Russians were left at the end with barges ferrying supplies, equipment, and reinforcements from the east to the west bank.[7] The UAF attacked the barges and landing areas as well, but the ferry system was in any case insufficient to supply the 20,000-some Russian mechanized troops trying to hold their lodgment on the western bank of the river.[8]

It was clear that the Russians would be unable to defend that lodgment by the time Russian Army General Sergey Surovikin took command of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on October 8.[9] Surovikin signaled his intention to withdraw from western Kherson almost immediately and likely began setting conditions to retreat within a couple of weeks.[10] It is not clear whether Putin authorized Surovikin to abandon western Kherson fully at that time or whether Surovikin had to continue working to persuade Putin of the hopelessness of any effort to hold on in western Kherson. However that may be, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu met with Surovikin on November 9 in a staged, public setting and ordered him to withdraw, which Surovikin promptly did.[11]

Putin likely elevated Surovikin and let him withdraw from western Kherson on condition that he take the rest of Donetsk Oblast using Russian forces recouped from western Kherson as well as newly-arriving mobilized servicemen.[12] This observation offered by Andriy Zagorodnyuk, chairman of the Ukrainian Center of Defense Strategies, is the likeliest explanation for the resumption in the intensity of Russian offensive operations first around Bakhmut and then to the southwest around the Vuhledar area that began on October 28.[13] These offensive efforts otherwise make little operational sense. They are far from operationally significant locations apart from Bakhmut and were launched during a difficult muddy time by inadequately prepared mobilized servicemen before Russian commanders in the area had amassed enough combat power for decisive operations.[14] Surovikin likely ordered them to start when they did as an earnest sign of his commitment to Putin.

Russian offensive operations in Donetsk Oblast will intensify in the coming weeks as additional mobilized servicemen arrive along with forces withdrawn from western Kherson. Ukrainian forces in the area will find themselves hard-pressed, and Kyiv will very likely have to divert troops to defend against these renewed Russian offensives. The Russians are not likely to make operationally significant gains despite their renewed efforts, although they could conceivably take Bakhmut over time at enormous cost. Russian mobilized servicemen have shown themselves to be inadequately trained, poorly equipped, and very reluctant to fight.[15] They are not arriving in cohesive units but rather are being sent largely as individual or small unit replacements to units that have been fighting without rest for nine months, have suffered devastating losses in men and equipment, and are largely demoralized themselves.

Russian forces operating in Donetsk Oblast include conventional units of the regular Russian Armed Forces, mobilized servicemen, Wagner Private Military Company troops, BARS (Russian volunteer reserve) formations, militia units from the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, soldiers from Ramzan Kadyrov’s Chechen units, and volunteer battalions.[16] This bizarre congeries of combat forces will have considerably less effective combat power than would a grouping of regular units of similar size. It is extremely unlikely that Surovikin will be able to forge it into a force able to conduct large-scale offensive mechanized maneuver warfare, particularly since he is not even taking (or being allowed to take) the time to build a coherent strike force before hurling it into the attack. This weird mix of forces will likely make some gains through sheer weight of numbers, but Ukrainian defenders, likely reinforced, will most probably force it to a halt over the next few months not far from its starting points.

Ukraine will also likely recoup combat power from western Kherson and redeploy it to other areas for both defensive and counter-offensive operations. The UAF could conceivably try to chase the Russians across the Dnipro River at various points but is unlikely to do so because the logistics of supporting a Ukrainian lodgment on the eastern bank are very daunting. The UAF is therefore more likely to consolidate its control of the western bank, leave enough force to deter any Russian attempt to cross the river again, and reallocate forces to other areas. The Russian offensive in Donetsk Oblast will likely require the UAF to divert some forces to defend in that area, but the UAF will likely send at least part of the recouped combat power either to reinforce its ongoing counter-offensive in Luhansk Oblast or to open another counter-offensive somewhere else (we will not speculate about where that might be).

Ukrainian forces have continued to make limited gains in Luhansk Oblast and will likely be able to make more gains if they are reinforced by troops from western Kherson. The Russians are also reinforcing their defensive positions in Luhansk Oblast, to be sure, but the UAF has been grinding forward nevertheless, and there is no reason to forecast that the ill-trained, ill-equipped, and low-morale Russian reservists will be able to stop Ukrainian troops, buoyed by their victories, from advancing.

A cessation or prolonged slowing of combat operations over the next few months is therefore very unlikely. The Russians are emphatically not attempting to establish and strengthen defensive positions all along the line but are rather renewing offensive operations in Donetsk Oblast.[17] The Ukrainians will almost certainly continue their counter-offensive operations already underway. Both sides are already fighting in very muddy conditions. They will not likely stop fighting when winter freezes the ground and makes it even more conducive to large-scale mechanized maneuver warfare. Combat is more likely to intensify than to slacken as temperatures drop.

Any attempt at a ceasefire or cessation of hostilities at this time would overwhelmingly favor Russia. Putin should desire such a ceasefire in his own interest. He should recognize that he needs to give his forces time to recover and allow the reservists flowing into the theater time to integrate into their units, train up, and prepare for serious combat. He should want to stop the Ukrainians from capitalizing on the emotional lift of their recent victories. The fact that Putin continues to whip his generals to offensives in these circumstances is thus a grave error from a military perspective. It likely results from whatever psychological factors led Putin to order the invasion in the first place but also increasingly from Putin’s need to show his toughness to the hardline faction led, at least in public, by Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin. Putin is unlikely to be willing to seek a ceasefire, therefore, unless it is accompanied by tremendous Ukrainian or international concessions.

Napoleon famously quipped: Never interrupt your enemy whilst he is in the midst of making a mistake. That aphorism has never been truer—Ukraine and its backers should take advantage of Putin’s error by continuing to press the counter-offensive in circumstances far more favorable to Kyiv than to Moscow.

Ukraine has by no means liberated the minimum territory essential to its future security and economic survival even with the victory in western Kherson, finally. The city of Melitopol and surrounding areas, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, land on the east bank of the lower Dnipro River, and territory in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts are all vital terrain for Ukraine, as ISW has previously argued.[18] Discussions about the future of Crimea and other Ukrainian lands illegally occupied by Russia after 2014 are premature. Ukraine must liberate tens of thousands of square kilometers short of those areas if it is to be able to defend itself against future Russian attacks and reestablish a functional economy.

Ukrainians and the West must bend every effort to enabling the liberation of those lands as rapidly as possible before worrying about what lies beyond them. Momentum is an important factor in war. Ukraine has it now. Kyiv and its partners must make the most of it.

Key inflections in ongoing military operations on November 13:

• Wagner Group Financer Yevgeny Prigozhin asked the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office to open a case against St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov for high treason amid viral footage of Wagner forces murdering one of their own.[19] Prigozhin and Russian nationalist milbloggers largely supported the murder of the alleged traitor.[20]
• The Russian military grouping stationed in Belarus continues to generate social tensions among Belarusians.[21]
• Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the direction of Kreminna and Svatove.[22]
• Ukrainian forces continued to consolidate control over the right bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast.[23] Ukrainian forces struck a Russian military base in Chaplynka, Kherson Oblast, 50km south of Beryslav on the eastern bank of the Dnipro.[24]
• Russian forces continued to conduct offensive operations in the directions of Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Vuhledar.[25] The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that Russian forces captured Mayorsk, southeast of Bakhmut.[26]
• Russian forces continued routine indirect fire against frontline settlements in Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts.[27] Russian forces struck Zaporizhzhia City with an Iskander missile.[28]
• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the demobilization of mobilized students in Russian-occupied Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, likely as part of an ongoing effort to integrate proxy forces into the Russian Armed Forces.[29]
• Russian forces and occupation officials are forcibly mobilizing men in Russian-occupied Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast, and forcing them to construct trenches and defensive fortifications in the city.[30]
• Ukrainian officials stated that Russian forces are withdrawing from the left bank of the Dnipro River and concentrating forces and equipment in Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast, and Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast.[31]
• Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed an amendment to a draft law that would allow Russian officials to revoke Russian citizenship for disseminating “false” information about the Russian military, participating in extremist or undesirable organizations, or calling for violations of Russian “territorial integrity.”[32]

[3] http://en dot kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69390

[11] https://tass dot ru/armiya-i-opk/16283583; https://tass dot ru/armiya-i-opk/16283573

[29] https://ria dot ru/20221113/demobilizatsiya-1831176175.html

[30] https://sprotyv dot mod.gov.ua/2022/11/13/na-zaporizhzhi-okupanty-skladayut-spysky-cholovikiv-dlya-prymusovoyi-praczi/

[32] https://www.kommersant dot ru/doc/5666902

understandingwar.org

2. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (13.11.22) CDS comments on key events

CDS Daily brief (13.11.22) CDS comments on key events

Humanitarian aspect:

As of the morning of November 13, 2022, the official number of child victims has not changed -

430. The number of injured children has increased to more than 830, the Prosecutor General's Office reported.

National energy generating company "Ukrenergo" reported that on Sunday, November 13, schedules of emergency electricity shutdowns were introduced in the city of Kyiv and seven oblasts, namely Kyiv, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Kharkiv, Poltava, and Sumy. The introduction of emergency shutdowns does not cancel the scheduled hourly shutdowns, which will continue to operate after stabilizing the situation in the regions mentioned above. No blackouts are expected in other areas of Ukraine.

The State Emergency Service of Ukraine strongly recommends that Ukrainians who want to return to their de-occupied hometowns wait for permission from local authorities who check the de-occupied area with pyrotechnic units. There are many cases when the retreating Russian army mined residential buildings, civilian cars, and even the bodies of the dead, the SES stressed.

The head of the Kherson Oblast Military Administration, Yaroslav Yanushevich, called on the residents of the liberated territories to evacuate due to the high risk of Russian shelling. He also stressed that before fleeing, the Russian troops caused severe damage to the city's critical infrastructure, which provides electricity, heat, and water supply to make the city uninhabitable in winter.

In Kherson Oblast, 16 schools were completely destroyed, and 48 were damaged, making it impossible to resume classes. Russian forces also burned Ukrainian books and destroyed furniture purchased for the New Ukrainian School, Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Andriy Vitrenko said. Currently, 157 Ukrainian schools operate in Kherson Oblast, working in the online format. More than 65,000 students are presently studying the Ukrainian curriculum in the region.

In the liberated territory of Kherson Oblast, torture chambers organized by the occupiers were discovered, in particular, in police stations, First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Yevgeny Yenin said. He said that media representatives would be invited to visit as soon as the territory is made safe.

The Russian military continued shelling Ukrainian residential areas and critical infrastructure. According to the heads of respective Oblast Military Administrations (OMA),

•       At night on November 13, the Nikopol district of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast was again affected by the Russian enemy MLRS and artillery fire. Nikopol was hit the hardest. Two women, aged 46 and 82, were injured. More than 40 high-rise and private buildings, more

than two dozen commercial buildings, and several gas pipelines and power lines were damaged.

•       At 2 a.m., the Russian forces shelled one of the villages of the Zaporizhzhia district with MLRS, damaging power lines, residential buildings, and cars.

•       In Toretsk, Donetsk Oblast, the Russian military fired at a hospital, a maternity hospital, and a prophylactic clinic. Fortunately, there were no casualties, but the buildings were seriously damaged.

•       Border areas of Sumy and Chernihiv Oblasts were also shelled, but no damage or victims were reported.

The water pipeline from Kherson to Mykolaiv is damaged in four places. There is also damage to the  pumping  station  at  the  water  intake  location,  but  it  can  be repaired. Mykolaivvodokanal utility provider is waiting for the Mykolaiv Oblast State Emergency Service of Ukraine to clear the area of mines to start the repairs. Mykolayiv has been without a centralized water supply since the first days of the occupation.

On November 12, law enforcement officers discovered the bodies of 2 people who died during the occupation in Yampol and Yarova, the head of Donetsk OMA Pavlo Kyrylenko said. During the day, the Russians killed two more civilians in Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast. Since the beginning of the war, more than 1,200 civilians have been killed in the region, and more than 2,500 have been wounded.

Occupied territories:

Russian occupying forces take out the Ukrainian harvest from all granaries and elevators in the Mariupol district with grain trucks. Grain trucks bear number codes "23" and "26", which denote Russian Krasnodar and Stavropol regions. Stolen grain is transported through Mariupol to Rostov- on-Don, Petro Andryushchenko, adviser to the Mariupol mayor, said.

According to Luhansk Oblast Military Administration, in some districts of Rubizhne, Lysychansk, and Sievierodonetsk [occupied by Russians], the Russian authorities had claimed that the provision of certain utilities was renewed; however, none of these cities has water, electricity, gas, and heating even in half of the households. In Lysychansk, "the local occupation authorities ordered not to wait for water and electricity until spring and learn to live in winter without these benefits of civilization, like most Russians. Potable water is delivered once a week - 20 liters per person. Everyone chooses to drink or wash, Luhansk OMA stressed.

Operational situation

(Please note that this section of the Brief is mainly on the previous day's (November 12) developments)

It is the 263rd day of the strategic air-ground offensive operation of the Russian Armed Forces against Ukraine (in the official terminology of the Russian Federation – "operation to protect Donbas").

Over the past 24 hours, units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces repelled the enemy attacks in the areas of Stelmakhivka and Novoselivske in Luhansk Oblast and Torske, Bakhmut, Bilohorivka, Spirne, Toretsk, Krasnohorivka, Pervomaiske, Maryinka, Novomykhailivka and Pavlivka in Donetsk Oblast.

Stabilization measures are ongoing in the liberated towns and villages of Kherson Oblast. The Russian forces continued to build engineering fortification of the defensive lines on the left bank of the Dnipro River.

Over the past day, the Russian forces have launched 4 missile strikes and 16 air strikes and fired over 40 MLRS rounds. Areas around more than 30 towns and villages in Zaporizhzhia, Cherkasy, Kharkiv and Donetsk Oblasts were affected. Near the state border, the villages of Ternova, Bologhivka, Vilkhuvatka, Zelene, Kolodyazne, Ohirtseve and Starytsia were shelled with mortars and barrel artillery.

The Russian-Belarusian grouping of troops on the territory of the Republic of Belarus continues to form. Social tension is increasing significantly in Brest Oblast, especially in the areas where the incoming units of the Russian Armed Forces are stationed. In particular, local hospitals are overloaded with Russian servicemen, many of whom fall ill due to unsatisfactory living conditions in tent camps. Doctors are forced to deny service to citizens of the Republic of Belarus who need treatment.

Over the past day, the aviation of the Ukrainian Defense Forces made 13 strikes against the enemy, hitting eight areas of weapons and military equipment concentration and five anti- aircraft missile systems positions.

Kharkiv direction

• Topoli - Siversk section: approximate length of combat line - 154 km, number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 23-28, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 5.5 km;

•  Deployed enemy BTGs: 26th, 153rd, and 197th tank regiments (TR), 245th motorized rifle regiment (MRR) of the 47th tank division (TD), 6th and 239th TRs, 228th MRR of the 90th TD, 25th and 138th separate motorized rifle brigades (SMRBr) of the 6th Combined Arms (CA) Army, 27th SMRBr of the 1st Tank Army, 252nd and 752nd MRRs of the 3rd MRD, 1st, 13th, and 12th TRs, 423rd MRR of the 4th TD, 201st military base, 15th, 21st, 30th SMRBrs of the 2nd CA Army, 35th, 55th and 74th SMRBrs of the 41st CA Army, 275th and 280th MRRs, 11th TR of the 18th MRD of the 11 Army Corps (AC), 7th MRR of the 11th AC, 80th SMRBr of the 14th AC, 2nd and 45th separate SOF brigades of the Airborne Forces, 3rd and 14th separate SOF brigades, military units of the 1st AC of so-called DPR, 2nd and 4th SMRBrs of the 2nd AC, PMC

The Russian military fired at the positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in the areas around Novoselivske, Stelmakhivka, Rozdolivka, Siversk, Kyselivka, Nevske, Makiivka, Ploschanka and Tabaivka.

A Russian intelligence group was spotted in an attempt to cross the state border of Ukraine in the area of Ternova. After being subjected to fire damage, the enemy retreated.

Units of the Russian occupation troops tried to carry out assault operations in the direction of Lysychansk - Bilohorivka (Luhansk Oblast), Lysychansk Refinery - Verkhnokamyanske and in the area of Bilohorivka (Donetsk Oblast), but failed. The Russian military tried to storm the positions of the Ukrainian Joint Forces in the area of Stelmakhivka from the side of Kryvoshiyivka and in the area of Torske from the side of Dibrova, but they did not succeed. Fighting continues in the area of Spirne and Novoselivske.

The Russian military has increased the volume of ammunition supplies and the movement of the Russian occupation troops' servicemen. Intensive transportation of construction materials and concrete structures has been observed in the last week.

Donetsk direction

● Siversk - Maryinka section: approximate length of the combat line - 144 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 13-15, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 9.6 km;

● Deployed BTGs: 68th and 163rd tank regiments (TR), 102nd and 103rd motorized rifle regiments of the 150 motorized rifle division, 80th TR of the 90th tank division, 35th, 55th, and 74th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 41st Combined Arms Army, 51st and 137th parachute airborne regiment of the 106 airborne division, 31st separate airborne assault brigade, 61st separate marines brigade of the Joint Strategic Command "Northern Fleet," 336th separate marines brigade of Baltic Fleet, 24th separate SOF brigade, 1st, 3rd, 5th, 15th, and 100th separate motorized rifle brigades, 9th and 11th separate motorized rifle regiment of the 1st Army Corps of the so-called DPR, 6th motorized rifle regiment of the 2nd Army Corps of the so-called LPR, PMCs.

The Russian military shelled the areas around Yakovlivka, Soledar, Bakhmut, Bakhmutske, Mayorsk, Ozaryanivka, Ivanhrad, Verkhnokamyanske, Zelenopillya, Spirne, New York, Avdiivka, Maryinka, Vodyane, Kamianka, Krasnohorivka and Novomykhailivka with tanks and artillery.

In Mariupol, Russian personnel are increasing (probably due to the arrival of units that retreated from the Kherson direction). The newly arrived units are quartered in the empty houses and apartments of Mariupol residents.

The Russian military launched massive attacks in many directions and partially succeeded in Pokrovske – Bakhmut direction. Units of the Ukrainian Joint Forces were forced to leave three platoon strong points. Battles continue in the directions of Zaitseve – Ozaryanivka and Ivanhrad – Opytne. Joint Forces' units hold back the enemy's advance in Yakovlivka, Soledar, Bakhmutske, and the Mayorsk railway station.

The Russian forces conduct intensive assault operations, trying to find a place to break through the defense of the Joint Forces. The command of the Russian occupation troops continues to implement the intention of encircling Avdiyivka from the north and southwest and advancing to the Krasnohorivka area and further to Berdychi (from the northern direction), Tonenke area and

further to Orlivka (from the southwestern direction). The Russian military carried out assaults in Novoselivka Druga - Vesele and Oleksandrivka - Mar'inka directions. They were stopped and retreated.

Zaporizhzhia direction

●  Maryinka – Vasylivka section: approximate length of the line of combat - 200 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 17, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 11.7 km;

● Deployed BTGs: 36th separate motorized rifle brigade (SMRBr) of the 29th Combined Arms (CA) Army, 38th and 64th SMRBrs, 69th separate cover brigade of the 35th CA Army, 5th separate tank brigade, 37th of the 36th CA Army, 135th, 429th, 503rd and 693rd motorized rifle regiments (MRR) of the 19th motorized rifle division (MRD) of the 58th CA Army, 70th, 71st and 291st MRRs of the 42nd MRD of the 58th CA Army, 136th SMRB of the 58 CA Army, 46th and 49th machine gun artillery regiments of the 18th machine gun artillery division of the 68th Army Corps (AC), 39th SMRB of the 68th AC, 83th separate airborne assault brigade, 40th and 155th separate marines brigades, 22nd separate SOF brigade, 1st AC of the so-called DPR, and 2nd AC of the so- called LPR, PMCs.

The Russian military shelled positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in the areas of Vremivka, Vuhledar, Novoukrainka, Pavlivka, Poltavka, Paraskoviivka and Prechystivka, Hulyaipole, Zaliznychne, Shcherbaky, Malynivka, Novodanilivka, Novopil, and Olhivske.

The Russian command is intensifying its efforts in the Vuhledar direction. Units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continued their offensive in the Pavlivka area, trying to gain full control over the village. The Russian forces continued their attempts to advance in Novomykhailivka but failed.

In the areas of Kostyantynivka, Marfopil, Stepanivka, Mezhyrich, Polohy, Voskresenka, Kamianka, Komysh-Zorya, Hryhorivka, Shevchenkove, Basan, Chkalove, Novozlatopil, Vyshneve, Stepove (Polohy district), Staromlynivka, Novopetrykivka, Stepne (Donetsk Oblast) the Russian military is concentrating forces and means, building ammunition and oil & lubricant warehouses, building artillery firing positions. In addition, the Russian occupiers are redeploying troops from the Berdyansk direction to the Kamianka, Hryhorivka area (Polohy district).

The Russian forces conducted aerial reconnaissance by UAVs to track changes in the position of AFU units, adjust artillery fire and prepare for offensive actions. Enemy EW units operated from the Stepnohorsk area (Vasylivka district).

The Russian forces systematically use the Melitopol - Tokmak, Chernihivka - Tokmak railway, and the Melitopol - Vasylivka, Melitopol - Tokmak highways to move military cargo. The Ukrainian Defense Forces inflicted damage on Russian units in the Svitlodolinske area and damaged railway communications on the Melitopol - Tokmak section, interrupting train traffic.

On November 12, another reinforcement from mobilized Russian citizens arrived in occupied Melitopol. After arriving in the city, the above category of enemy servicemen buys out food, civilian clothes, and a large volume of alcoholic beverages.

A significant number of personnel and equipment from Kherson Oblast arrived in Myrne, Obilne, Spaske, and Melitopol. The movement of fuel tanks, tented trucks, and engineering equipment through Melitopol has increased. The Russian military is building new fortifications, mining the terrain and bridges, and has intensified measures to protect important objects and patrolling.

Tavriysk direction

• Vasylivka – Stanislav section: approximate length of the battle line – 296 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 39, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 7,5 km;

• Deployed BTGs of: the 8th and 49th Combined Arms (CA) Armies; 11th, 103rd, 109th, and 127th rifle regiments of the mobilization reserve of the 1st Army Corps (AC) of the Southern Military District; 35th and 36th CA Armies of the Eastern Military District; 3rd AC of the Western Military District; 90th tank division of the Central Military District; the 22nd AC of the Coastal Forces; the 810th separate marines brigade of the Black Sea Fleet; the 7th and 76th Air assault divisions, the 98th airborne division, and the 11th separate airborne assault brigade of the Airborne Forces.

The Russian military shelled the areas of Mylove, Zolota Balka and Mykhailivka with artillery.

In the area of Dnipryany, a building where up to 500 enemy soldiers were stationed was hit with a high-precision strike. As a result, the occupiers took two trucks of dead invaders to Tavriysk. 56 seriously injured people were taken to the nearest hospital, of which another 16 died soon after.

Azov-Black Sea Maritime Operational Area:

The forces of the Russian Black Sea Fleet continue to stay ready to carry out two operational tasks against Ukraine:

•       to project force on the coast and the continental part of Ukraine by launching missile strikes from surface ships, submarines, coastal missile systems, and aircraft at targets in the coastal zone and deep into the territory of Ukraine and readiness for the naval amphibious landing to assist ground forces in the coastal direction;

•       to control the northwestern part of the Black Sea by blocking Ukrainian ports and preventing the restoration of sea communications (except for the areas of the BSGI "grain initiative") by carrying out attacks on ports and ships and concealed mine laying.

The ultimate goal is to deprive Ukraine of access to the Black Sea and extend and maintain control over the captured territory and Ukraine's coastal regions.

The Russian fleet keeps 18 surface ships and boats at sea. They are located along the southwestern coast of Crimea. Among them, one ship (Buyan-M type corvette) is on patrol carrying 8 Kalibr missiles.

In the Sea of Azov, the Russian military continues to control sea communications, keeping 1 ship and 1 boat on combat duty.

Russian aviation continues to fly from the Crimean airfields of Belbek and Hvardiyske over the northwestern part of the Black Sea. Over the past day, ten combat aircraft from Belbek and Saki airfields were involved.

The Grain initiative: Currently, 33 vessels are being processed in the ports of Greater Odesa. 920,000 tons of Ukrainian agricultural products are loaded onto them. On November 12, 2 ships with 27,000 tons of agricultural products left the port of Chornomorsk for Asian countries.

Since September 1, 444 ships have left the ports of Greater Odesa, exporting 10.3 million tons of Ukrainian food to the countries of Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Ukraine is interested in the continued functioning of the "grain corridor", but Russia must stop the sabotage to impede its operation, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba said on the telethon air on Friday, November 11. "Ukraine is interested in extending these agreements," Kuleba emphasized that stalling the agreement is a silent sabotage that Russia engages in daily. According to Kuleba, in the days when the "grain agreement" worked without Russian inspectors, the number of ships that passed, loaded with grain and left increased critically. "As soon as Russia returned, problems began. Therefore, there are two tasks. It is not enough to leave Russia in the grain corridor; it must also be forced to stop the silent sabotage of this initiative from within," the minister added.

During a conversation with journalists, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the "grain initiative" could pave the way for a "peace corridor" between the Russian Federation and Ukraine.

Russian operational losses from 24.02 to 13.11

Personnel - almost 80,860 people (+650);

Tanks 2,840 (+2)

Armored combat vehicles – 5,742 (+12);

Artillery systems – 1,837 (+8);

Multiple rocket launchers (MLRS) - 393 (0); Anti-aircraft warfare systems - 206 (+1); Vehicles and fuel tanks – 4,295 (+16); Aircraft - 278 (0);

Helicopters – 261 (0);

UAV operational and tactical level – 1,507 (+1); Intercepted cruise missiles - 399 (0);

Boats/ships - 16 (0).

International diplomatic aspect

Democrats' control over the Senate decreases worries about tangible changes in the Congressional support for Ukraine. Though it was President Trump's national security team that abandoned Obama's de facto ban on arms supply and started sending defensive weapons to Ukraine, a fraction of Republican populists began to question the Ukrainian policy. More traditional Republicans don't believe in isolationism and support Ukraine's fight for survival as an independent nation against revisionist Russia.

The shocking video of a Wagner mercenary smashing the head of another "soldier of fortune" with a sledgehammer as the punishment for his betrayal and Prigozhin's approval of the inhumane execution means the following:

Firstly, it's a natural behavior for Russian mercenaries and many regular units. There was even more brutal footage of the torture and beheading of a Syrian POW, as well as evidence of torture and murder of soldiers and civilians in Mali, the Central African Republic, and elsewhere Wagner mercenaries operate. While those war crimes are primarily the focus of humanitarian organizations, the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, with the support of international partners, gather evidence of war crimes committed by Russians, including Wagner mercenaries, in Ukraine for future trial.

Secondly, Russia is a lawless entity, and there won't be any serious investigation or punishment for the brutal murder. The dehumanization of Ukrainians and appeals to commit atrocities of a genocidal scale is a recurring theme on Russian TV and even more on social networks. Igor Mangushev performed on stage with a scull of allegedly Ukrainian Azovstal fighter. Alexey Milchakov publicly admitted he was a Nazi and loved killing Ukrainians. None of them was investigated for these actions.

Thirdly, this kind of "corrective" measure is aimed at coping with low discipline and morale among mercenaries and regular units. In no way would such actions lead to better fighting. They instead might result in more willingness to surrender and stay as a POW in Ukraine.

Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor, clarified the US position on negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow after several articles in the US press had claimed that the Administration was pushing Ukraine towards negotiations and concessions. He rejected the allegation about the push and repeated the position that it's up to Ukraine to decide when and what desirable outcomes to pursue in talks with Russians. The National Security Advisor believes peace is based on the principles of sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Ukraine. He doesn't believe in Russia's readiness to find a diplomatic solution because of the new illegal annexations. Mr. Sullivan reiterated the Biden Administration's unwavering support for Ukraine, including arms supply, which puts Ukraine in the best position on the battlefield and at the negotiations' table when the right time comes.

Russia, relevant news

About 700,000 Russian citizens left for Georgia after Vladimir Putin announced "partial" mobilization in the country, Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili said.

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3. Biden’s new national security strategy points to China’s ‘intent to reshape the international order.’ - One expert calls it ‘the first superpower summit of the Cold War Version 2.0.’

Excerpts:

Even so, the recent declarations surrounding Mr. Xi’s appointment to a third term and Mr. Biden’s newly released national security, defense and nuclear strategies have described an era of growing global uncertainty heightened by competition — economic, military, technological, political — between their countries.

“It may not be the Cold War, with a capital C and capital W, as in a replay of the U.S.-Soviet experience,” Professor Medeiros said. But, he added, “because of China’s substantial capabilities and its global reach, this cold war will be more challenging in many ways than the previous one.”

Despite their differences, Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi want to avoid pent-up tensions exploding into a crisis that could wreak economic havoc. Mr. Biden said last week that he was “looking for competition, not — not conflict. And Mr. Xi — who wants to put China’s growth back on track after heavy blows from Covid restrictions and problems in the housing market — told the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations that he wants to “find the right way to get along.”

Nov. 14, 2022, 4:33 a.m. ET3 hours ago

3 hours ago

David E. Sanger

Biden’s new national security strategy points to China’s ‘intent to reshape the international order.’

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/11/14/world/biden-xi-meeting#bidens-new-national-security-strategy-points-to-chinas-intent-to-reshape-the-international-order

Image

President Biden made clear last month that he was more worried about China’s moves than he was about a declining Russia.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times

Last month, President Biden released his 48-page national security strategy, which focused relentlessly on China even as Russia wages war in Ukraine. In the document, which every new administration is required to issue, Mr. Biden made clear that over the long term he was more worried about China’s moves to “layer authoritarian governance with a revisionist foreign policy” than he was about a declining, battered Russia.

“Russia and the P.R.C. pose different challenges,” Mr. Biden wrote, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China. “Russia poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly flouting the basic laws of the international order today, as its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has shown.”

But more than eight months after the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military appears less fearsome than it did when the first drafts of the document circulated in the White House in December.

China “is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to advance that objective,” the president wrote.

The document paved the way for the Pentagon to publish its National Defense Strategy paper a few weeks later, which declared that China “remains our most consequential strategic competitor for the coming decades.”

The anxieties have been magnified by China’s plans to expand and modernize its still relatively limited nuclear arsenal to one that could reach at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, according to the Pentagon. China sees threats in American-led security initiatives, including proposals to help build nuclear-powered submarines for Australia.

SECURITY STRATEGYRead the full article about President Biden’s strategy document, which focused on the threat posed by China.

Show less

Nov. 14, 2022, 4:12 a.m. ET3 hours ago

3 hours ago

Keith BradsherReporting from Beijing

Ahead of the summit, China urged the United States to work together to manage differences between the sides and improve relations. “We hope that the United States will meet China halfway,” a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Mao Ning, told reporters in Beijing on Monday.

Nov. 14, 2022, 4:01 a.m. ET3 hours ago

3 hours ago

Chris Buckley and David E. Sanger

One expert calls it ‘the first superpower summit of the Cold War Version 2.0.’

Image

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, with Joe Biden in 2015, when he was vice president, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md.Credit...Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press

The meeting between President Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on neutral ground in Bali, has a Cold War feel: more about managing potential conflict than finding common ground. The rancor between the United States and China on a range of issues means that even short-term stabilization and cooperation on shared challenges — climate change, containing North Korea’s nuclear program or stopping pandemics — could be fragile.

“This is in a sense the first superpower summit of the Cold War Version 2.0,” said Evan S. Medeiros, a Georgetown University professor who was President Barack Obama’s top adviser on Asia-Pacific affairs. “Will both leaders discuss, even implicitly, the terms of coexistence amid competition? Or, by default, will they let loose the dogs of unconstrained rivalry?”

Neither side calls it a Cold War, a term evoking a world divided between Western and Soviet camps bristling with nuclear arsenals. And the differences are real between that era and this one, with its vast trade flows and technological commerce between China and Western powers.

The Apple iPhone and many other staples of American life are assembled almost entirely in China. Instead of trying to build a formal bloc of allies as the Soviets did, Beijing has sought to influence nations through major projects that create dependency, including wiring them with Chinese-made communications networks.

Even so, the recent declarations surrounding Mr. Xi’s appointment to a third term and Mr. Biden’s newly released national security, defense and nuclear strategies have described an era of growing global uncertainty heightened by competition — economic, military, technological, political — between their countries.

“It may not be the Cold War, with a capital C and capital W, as in a replay of the U.S.-Soviet experience,” Professor Medeiros said. But, he added, “because of China’s substantial capabilities and its global reach, this cold war will be more challenging in many ways than the previous one.”

Despite their differences, Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi want to avoid pent-up tensions exploding into a crisis that could wreak economic havoc. Mr. Biden said last week that he was “looking for competition, not — not conflict. And Mr. Xi — who wants to put China’s growth back on track after heavy blows from Covid restrictions and problems in the housing market — told the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations that he wants to “find the right way to get along.”

WHAT TO EXPECTRead the full article about how President Biden and Xi Jinping could use the summit to set terms in the troubled U.S.-China relationship.

4. Assessment of the Risk of a Nuclear Exchange with Russia: Is the U.S. Whistling Past the Nuclear Graveyard?

Excerpt:

Each of these U.S.-internal sources of risk causes concern because if a Russian nuclear attack in Ukraine is a frightening, then the thought of a nuclear exchange between Russia and the U.S. is altogether more terrifying. Deterrence seems to be holding but, as Colin Gray famously argued, there is “no objectively correct answer” to questions of nuclear risk[20]. Assessing nuclear risk is extremely difficult[21]. Putin clearly deserves blame for provoking the crisis and, though there is no moral equivalency between Putin’s actions and potential U.S. responses, U.S. policymakers would gain from remaining strategically humble and assess themselves as source of risk, too.

Assessment of the Risk of a Nuclear Exchange with Russia: Is the U.S. Whistling Past the Nuclear Graveyard?

divergentoptions.org · by Divergent Options · November 14, 2022

Neil Snyder is a U.S. Army Colonel. The views expressed in this article are his own. His research focuses on national security decision-making and civil-military relations. He earned a PhD in Political Science from Stanford University as a Goodpaster Scholar of the United States Army Strategic Plans and Policy Program (ASP3). Follow him on Twitter @neilsny. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title: Assessment of the Risk of a Nuclear Exchange with Russia: Is the U.S. Whistling Past the Nuclear Graveyard?

Date Originally Written: November 11, 2022.

Date Originally Published: November 14, 2022.

Author and / or Article Point of View: The author believes that risk of a nuclear exchange in Ukraine is not solely due to Putin’s aggression. Instead, risk is a consequence of strategic interaction between the U.S. and Russia, meaning a consequence of both Putin’s actions and U.S. decision-making.

Summary: There is uncertainty over how the U.S. might respond to Putin’s threats of nuclear weapon use in Ukraine, which raises curiosity about the sources of nuclear risk. This risk includes three aspects of U.S. policymaking: presidential leadership, creativity and engagement of forward-thinking nuclear planners, and the flexibility of the bureaucracy in the face of crisis. The conclusion is that the U.S. may own some of the risk of a nuclear exchange over Ukraine.

Text: Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, prompting comparisons to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis[1]. Fortunately, Putin has recently issued statements tempering the threat[2], but the war in Ukraine is not over. Russia appears to be losing badly, suggesting Putin might play the one (nuclear) card he has left.

Unfortunately, the risk of nuclear exchange over Ukraine is not widely understood because the public discourse has been confusing. Some reporting suggests that Putin’s threats are real[3], but prominent commentators have also dismissed the threats[4]. There is also uncertainty over how the U.S. might respond to Russian nuclear aggression. U.S. Army General (Retired) David Petraeus recently argued that the U.S. would most likely respond to Russian nuclear action with a massive conventional response[5]. Even so, it is not clear how a massive conventional response would not trigger further escalation, given Russia’s already precarious strategic position.

One narrative is that Putin is singularly responsible for the current nuclear risk because of his blatant attempt at nuclear blackmail[6] and his “record of folly and recklessness[7].” Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is clearly a moral wrong and he precipitated the crisis, but the U.S. may nonetheless contribute to the risk of this crisis in unforeseen ways. A rigorous assessment requires considering both Putin’s aggression and how the U.S responds.

Seventy years of U.S. nuclear planning for Russian, Chinese, North Korean, and terrorist-related contingencies has not prepared the U.S. well for the current crisis. Ukraine is not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine does not encumber the U.S. with the same obligations as an attack on a formal ally. It is not altogether clear how the U.S. should respond to an attack on a partner, especially if Russia employs low-yield weapons, performs a nuclear demonstration, or takes other actions lower on the so-called nuclear ladder[8].

This highly contingent situation motivates a closer look into the black box of U.S. nuclear response planning to see how the U.S.’s own nuclear structures might contribute to today’s risk. U.S. presidential leadership, policy advocacy (or lack thereof) by nuclear policy analysts, and the bureaucratic politics of the U.S. defense enterprise all affect how the U.S. has responded to prior nuclear crises.

U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s management of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis is perhaps the canonical example of presidential leadership amidst a nuclear crisis. Graham Allison’s Essence of Decision illustrates how Kennedy’s personal leadership was necessary to structure decision-making and tamp down escalation risk[9]. Kennedy challenged advisors’ assumptions, forced the Executive Committee or “ExComm” to generate alternatives to the escalatory options advisors initially favored, and expanded the bargaining range with Nikita Khrushchev, the Premier of the Soviet Union. Kennedy’s intrusive leadership during the crisis was necessary to reduce escalation risk over Cuba, following the model of the “unequal dialogue” advanced by Elliot Cohen[10].

However, Kennedy’s steady hand may be more the exception than the rule. Multiple presidents have taken the U.S. to the nuclear brink. President Dwight Eisenhower contemplated nuclear escalation in Korea. President Richard Nixon made multiple proposals to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam. Most recently, President Donald Trump threatened “Fire and Fury” against North Korea. As Keith Payne has observed, leaders have pursued “surprising goals and risked national security in ways…considered highly unlikely and even irrational at the time[11].”

U.S. Presidents’ personal management style, experiences[12], and heuristics affect U.S. nuclear risk during crises[13]. Even “ideal” presidents have limits because they are human. Kahneman and Tversky’s seminal work illustrates that all decision-makers suffer from debilitating cognitive biases[14]. The late Robert Jervis argued that leaders’ misperceptions could increase the probability of nuclear conflict in some situations[15]. All of the preceding suggests taking a close look at how the White House and the National Security Council is weathering the current crisis in Ukraine. Unfortunately for the public, presidents’ deliberations over sensitive national security matters are normally done behind a wall of secrecy (which, ironically, could be another source of risk).

Even clear-eyed U.S. presidents rely on the options developed by the national security bureaucracy. Those nuclear response options (or the lack thereof) have frequently been a source of risk for escalation. Fred Kaplan’s remarkable book on the ebbs and flows of U.S. nuclear policy reveals that, throughout U.S. nuclear history, true progress and reform of nuclear plans depended on the actions of a small number of enterprising defense intellectuals who challenged assumptions and led change[16]. Entrepreneurial defense experts are key to the risk equation during nuclear crises because, as Tom Nichols recently pointed out, the “military and the nuclear establishment are resistant to change[17].” Without experts’ advocacy and influence from within the national security bureaucracy, U.S. presidents are likely to have fewer and less suitable response options.

Furthermore, a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine does not map cleanly to the kinds of situations nuclear planners have historically focused on. As Scott Sagan has observed, the defense establishment often relies on rigid plans[18]. It should not surprise readers that the defense establishment relies on standard operating procedures instead of doing the hard work to chart a new course. And today’s crisis in Ukraine exists within the rich context of the U.S. Defense Department’s ongoing operations, activities, and investments. Skepticism that this vast U.S. national security enterprise has the organizational agility to adapt quickly in the face of a dynamic crisis like the situation in Ukraine is healthy. That lack of strategic agility is evident today, as routine exercises have been identified as a source of increasing risk[19].

Each of these U.S.-internal sources of risk causes concern because if a Russian nuclear attack in Ukraine is a frightening, then the thought of a nuclear exchange between Russia and the U.S. is altogether more terrifying. Deterrence seems to be holding but, as Colin Gray famously argued, there is “no objectively correct answer” to questions of nuclear risk[20]. Assessing nuclear risk is extremely difficult[21]. Putin clearly deserves blame for provoking the crisis and, though there is no moral equivalency between Putin’s actions and potential U.S. responses, U.S. policymakers would gain from remaining strategically humble and assess themselves as source of risk, too.

Endnotes:

[1] “Russia’s Lavrov Needles Biden over Cuban Missile Crisis and Ukraine,” Reuters, October 30, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-lavrov-needles-biden-over-cuban-missile-crisis-ukraine-2022-10-30/.

[2] “Putin Says ‘no Need’ for Using Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine,” PBS NewsHour, October 27, 2022, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/vladimir-putin-rules-out-using-nuclear-weapons-in-ukraine.

[3] Helene Cooper, Julian E. Barnes, and Eric Schmitt, “Russian Military Leaders Discussed Use of Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Officials Say,” The New York Times, November 2, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/02/us/politics/russia-ukraine-nuclear-weapons.html.

[4] Greg Myre, “How Likely Is a Russian Nuclear Strike in Ukraine?,” NPR, October 4, 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/10/04/1126680868/putin-raises-the-specter-of-using-nuclear-weapons-in-his-war-with-ukraine; Timothy Snyder, “How Does the Russo-Ukrainian War End?,” Thinking About… (blog), October 5, 2022, https://snyder.substack.com/p/how-does-the-russo-ukrainian-war.

[5] Olafimihan Oshin, “Petraeus Predicts US Would Lead NATO Response to ‘Take out’ Russian Forces If Putin Uses Nuclear Weapon,” The Hill, October 2, 2022, https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/3671100-petraeus-predicts-us-would-lead-nato-response-to-take-out-russian-forces-if-putin-uses-nuclear-weapon/.

[6] Andriy Zagorodnyuk, “Bowing to Putin’s Nuclear Blackmail Will Make Nuclear War More Likely,” Atlantic Council (blog), October 18, 2022, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/bowing-to-putins-nuclear-blackmail-will-make-nuclear-war-far-more-likely/.

[7] “Putin Threatens Nuclear War. The West Must Deter Disaster.,” Washington Post, October 3, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/03/putin-nuclear-war-ukraine-deter/.

[8] Michael Fitzsimmons, “The False Allure of Escalation Dominance,” War on the Rocks (blog), November 16, 2017, https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/false-allure-escalation-dominance/; Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960).

[9] Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Longman, 1999).

[10] Eliot A. Cohen, Supreme Command (New York, NY: Free Press, 2002).

[11] Keith B. Payne, “The Great Divide in US Deterrence Thought,” Strategic Studies Quarterly Summer (2020): 16–48.

[12] Michael C. Horowitz and Allan C. Stam, “How Prior Military Experience Influences the Future Militarized Behavior of Leaders,” International Organization 68, no. 3 (2014): 527–59.

[13] Elizabeth N. Saunders, Leaders at War: How Presidents Shape Military Interventions (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011).

[14] Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011).

[15] Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976).

[16] Fred Kaplan, The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2020).

[17] Tom Nichols, “The Nuclear Question America Never Answers,” The Atlantic, November 1, 2022, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/biden-nuclear-posture-review-2022/671949/.

[18] Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Norton, 2003).

[19] Kate Hudson, “NATO, Russia War Games Are Making Nuclear Risks Worse,” Al Jazeera, October 24, 2022, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/10/24/biden-is-making-putins-nuclear-threat-worse.

[20] Colin Gray, Strategy and Defence Planning: Meeting the Challenge of Uncertainty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 2.

[21] Amy J. Nelson and Alexander H. Montgomery, “How Not to Estimate the Likelihood of Nuclear War,” Brookings (blog), October 19, 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/10/19/how-not-to-estimate-the-likelihood-of-nuclear-war/.

divergentoptions.org · by Divergent Options · November 14, 2022

5. Biden, Xi stress need to work together as they meet for talks

Biden, Xi stress need to work together as they meet for talks

Reuters · by Nandita Bose

• Summary
• Companies
• Biden, Xi meet in Bali ahead of G20
• Both leaders stress need to get ties back on track
• Indonesia seeking concrete progress on global economy at G20
• Ukraine's Zelenskiy due to address G20 on Tuesday

NUSA DUA, Indonesia, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden met on Monday for long-awaited talks that come as relations between their countries are at their lowest in decades, marred by disagreements over a host of issues from Taiwan to trade.

The two, holding their first in-person talks since Biden became president, met on the Indonesian island of Bali ahead of a Group of 20 (G20) summit on Tuesday that is set to be fraught with tension over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

They smiled as they shook hands warmly in front of a row of Chinese and U.S. flags in a ballroom at the luxury hotel Mulia on Bali's Nusa Dua bay.

"It's just great to see you," Biden told Xi as he put an arm around him, adding in remarks delivered in front of reporters that he was committed to keeping lines of communication open on a personal and government level.

"As the leaders of our two nations, we share responsibility, in my view, to show that China and the United States can manage our differences, prevent competition from ... turning into conflict, and to find ways to work together on urgent global issues that require our mutual cooperation."

He mentioned climate change and food insecurity as problems the world expected their two countries to address.

Responding to Biden, Xi said the relationship between their two countries was not meeting global expectations.

"So we need to chart the right course for the China-U.S. relationship. We need to find the right direction for the bilateral relationship going forward and elevate the relationship," Xi said.

"The world expects that China and the United States will properly handle the relationship," he said, adding he looked forward to working with Biden to bring the relationship back on the right track.

Neither leader wore a mask to ward off COVID though members of their delegations did.

Their main topics of discussion are expected to be Taiwan, Ukraine and North Korea's nuclear ambitions, issues that will also loom over the G20 that is being held without Russian President Vladimir Putin in attendance.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will represent Putin at the G20 summit - the first since Russia invaded Ukraine in February - after the Kremlin said Putin was too busy to attend. Russia's foreign ministry said a report that Lavrov was taken to hospital after arriving in Bali was fake news.

On Sunday, Biden told Asian leaders in Cambodia that U.S. communication lines with China would stay open to prevent conflict, with tough talks almost certain in the days ahead.

Relations have been roiled in recent years by growing tensions over issues ranging from Hong Kong and Taiwan to the South China Sea, trade practices and U.S. restrictions on Chinese technology.

But U.S. officials said there have been quiet efforts by both Beijing and Washington over the past two months to repair ties.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told reporters in Bali earlier that the meeting was "intended to stabilise the relationship between the United States and China, and to create a more certain atmosphere for U.S. businesses".

She said that Biden had been clear with China about national security concerns regarding restrictions on sensitive U.S. technologies and had raised concern about the reliability of Chine supply chains for commodities like minerals.

NUCLEAR 'IRRESPONSIBILITY'

Biden and Xi, who have held five phone or video calls since Biden became president in January 2021, last met in person during the Obama administration when Biden was vice president.

Monday's meeting was unlikely to produce a joint statement, the White House has said.

G20 summit host President Joko Widodo of Indonesia said he hoped the gathering on Tuesday could "deliver concrete partnerships that can help the world in its economic recovery".

However, one of the main topics at the G20 will be Russia's war in Ukraine and Biden will be "unapologetic" in his defence of the European nation, U.S. officials said last week.

Xi and Putin have grown increasingly close in recent years, bound by their shared distrust of the West, and reaffirmed their partnership just days before Russia invaded Ukraine. But China has been careful not to provide any direct material support that could trigger Western sanctions against it.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang emphasised the "irresponsibility" of nuclear threats during the summit in Cambodia, suggesting China was uncomfortable with strategic partner Russia's nuclear rhetoric, the Biden administration official said.

The West has accused Russia of making irresponsible statements on the possible use of nuclear weapons since its February invasion of Ukraine. Russia has in turn accused the West of "provocative" nuclear rhetoric.

Russia's Lavrov said on Sunday the West was "militarising" Southeast Asia in a bid to contain Russian and Chinese interests.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he would address the G20 by videolink on Tuesday.

Reporting by Nandita Bose, Fransiska Nangoy, Leika Kihara, David Lawder and Simon Lewis in Nusa Dua, Tian Lun Ye and Ryan Woo in Beijing ; Writing by Kay Johnson and Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Robert Birsel and Tom Hogue

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Nandita Bose

6. Zelenskiy visits recaptured Kherson, residents recount abuse by Russian forces

The masterclass in strategic communications continues.

Did you see his Veterans Day message to America? Short video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-DzRz-UIpA

Zelenskiy visits recaptured Kherson, residents recount abuse by Russian forces

Reuters · by Jonathan Landay

• Summary
• Companies
• War crimes uncovered after Russians pulled out-Zelenskiy
• Kherson residents recount abuse by Russian forces
• De-mining of Kherson and power restoration underway
• Fighting rages in eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions

KHERSON, Ukraine, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday visited the newly recaptured southern city of Kherson, the biggest prize yet won by Ukrainian forces, where he has accused Russian forces of committing war crimes before they fled last week.

"We are moving forward," he told troops standing in formation in front of the administration building in the city's main square, where parents had also turned out with children, some pushing baby strollers, some waving Ukrainian flags or draped in them. "We are ready for peace, peace for all our country."

Zelenskiy thanked NATO and other allies for their ongoing support in the war against Russia and said the delivery of rockets from the United States had made a big difference for Kyiv.

"I'm really happy, you can tell by the reaction of the people, their reaction is not staged," the president said.

Minutes before he arrived, nearby shelling could be heard from the centre of Kherson, and after he finished speaking several more blasts of artillery echoed over the city.

Kherson residents have greeted arriving Ukrainian troops with joy since Friday, when Russia abandoned the only regional capital it had captured since Moscow launched its invasion.

In an overnight televised address, Zelenskiy said investigators had already documented more than 400 war crimes committed by the Russia's during their eight month occupation.

"Bodies of dead civilians and servicemen have been found," he said. "The Russian army left behind the same savagery it did in other regions of the country it entered."

Reuters has spoken to residents in formerly occupied parts of Kherson region in recent days who have described killings and abductions of civilians, but has not verified such reports independently.

Russia denies its troops intentionally target civilians or have committed atrocities in occupied areas. Mass burial sites have been found in several other parts of Ukraine previously occupied by Russian troops, including some with civilian bodies showing signs of torture, which Kyiv blames on Moscow.

'INVITED INTO A CELLAR'

Residents interviewed by Reuters said they had tried to minimize contact with the Russians and knew of people who were arrested and abused for any discernable Ukrainian patriotism.

Russian soldiers "would approach you in the street and ask if you were Ukrainian or Russian. If you said Ukrainian, they would take you away," Natalia Papernaya, a 43-year-old clothing designer, said on Sunday.

The Russians, she said, had arrested her friend for taking a photo of a neighbour's home to reassure the owners it had survived a nearby shell blast. The troops had pulled her friend's hood over her eyes, taped it in place, put her in a cellar for a day and demanded to know for whom she was taking pictures.

"They didn't touch her," Papernaya said, but the friend heard the screams of other detainees and some who were forced to shout out praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"There were many people in there, women and men," she said.

Yana Shaposhnikova, 36, another clothing designer, said she had buried her yellow and blue Ukrainian flag.

[1/5] Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks to people after Russia's retreat from Kherson, in central Kherson, Ukraine November 14, 2022. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

"If you wore anything yellow and blue you could be shot or invited into a cellar where you would be tortured," she said.

A volunteer she knew who was delivering humanitarian aid to outlying areas had been taken to an underground jail, deprived of sleep and interrogated for three days about whether she was reporting on Russian positions, she said.

Residents have described other abductions and killings to Reuters, including one account of a neighbour shot dead and three of people carried off by troops in the village of Blahodatne north of Kherson.

It was not possible to verify the accounts.

SANCTIONS

The United States will announce new sanctions on Monday against 14 individuals and 28 entities that have worked to procure military technologies for Russia's war in Ukraine, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.

Russia has managed to procure drones from Iran that have been used to attack cities and power infrastructure in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is not attending the summit, instead sending his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, who became subject to speculation about his health after reports he was taken to an Indonesian hospital.

The governor of Bali, Wayan Koster, told Reuters Lavrov, 72, had gone to a hospital for a "check-up" after arriving for the summit, but was in good health. Russia released a video showing Lavrov sitting outside in shorts and a T-shirt, denying he was ill and blaming the health reports on Western media.

Ukraine's recapture of Kherson marked Moscow's third major retreat of the war and the first to involve yielding such a large occupied city.

Russian forces who retreated across the Dnipro River continued to fire on Ukrainian troops and newly retaken settlements from new positions on the opposite bank, the Ukraine Armed Forces' southern command said on Monday.

Regional governor Yaroslav Yanushevych said a curfew would be maintained from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. and people would be banned from leaving or entering the city for a few days for security.

"The enemy mined all critical infrastructure," he said.

Zelenskiy also warned Kherson residents about Russian mines. "I am asking you please not to forget that the situation in Kherson region remains very dangerous," he said.

Ukraine's defence ministry said it had recaptured 179 settlements and 4,500 square km (1,700 square miles) along the Dnipro River since the beginning of the week.

In eastern Ukraine, its forces have faced relentless Russian onslaughts. Ukraine's armed forces' general staff on Monday said fighting was fierce in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

"The enemy does not stop shelling settlements and the positions of our units along the front line ... It continues to strike critical infrastructure and civilian homes," it said.

Reporting by David Ljjungren, Jonathan Landay, Gleb Garanich, Pavel Polityuk and Ron Popeski; Writing by Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Peter Graff

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Jonathan Landay

7. End the Ukraine war well

"sufficiently (or acceptable) durable, political arrangement." 

Excerpts:

Before negotiations, Ukraine, the U.S. and NATO must agree to the answers to this question: Where is the trade space between what Putin seeks and Zelensky wants? Whatever the answers to this question are, it begs another: Can Putin be trusted to live up to his side of whatever bargain he agrees to? 

To bound the confrontation between Ukraine and Russia, the war’s end must include firm guarantees concerning Ukraine’s future physical security and assistance to help the Ukraine people recover their economic prosperity. Russia is unlikely to agree to such guarantees unless it is forced to do so. But that’s the price of their aggression. Should there be negotiations between Ukraine and Russia? Yes, but that time has not yet come. Should fighting continue? Yes. To negotiate now risks Putin’s aggression being rewarded, his quest to subjugate Ukraine remaining possible, and the global principle of non-aggression meaning little.

End the Ukraine war well

BY JAMES M. DUBIK, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 11/13/22 1:00 PM ET

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3731575-end-the-ukraine-war-well/

Ending the Ukraine war requires not just stopping the fighting but also creating a sufficiently durable, political arrangement that addresses the underlying confrontation between Russia and Ukraine and sets the conditions for a better peace. 

The conflicting objectives between Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin are stark and longstanding. Zelensky desires self-determination for Ukraine — a future in which the people of Ukraine can determine their own political and economic interests. Putin wants Ukraine as a Russian vassal. 

In an address at the Cooper Union in February 1860, Abraham Lincoln asked, “What will satisfy them [the people of America’s south]?” His answer, “This and this only: Cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right.” Lincoln would not agree to that. And we know what will satisfy Putin — but neither Ukraine, the U.S., nor NATO can agree to that.

Ukraine wants only what it is entitled to: self-determination, political sovereignty, and territorial integrity. Like other states, it can legitimately defend these rights against illegal aggression. Further, any state has a right to assist Ukraine in its justified self-defense. The Ukraine war is not a proxy war. It’s a war of self-defense and defense of others — both clearly permitted by international law.

Putin has been trying to undermine Ukraine’s self-determination and political sovereignty for almost 20 years. He first tried to manipulate domestic Ukrainian affairs by promoting false narratives about the 2004 Orange Revolution and later about the 2013 Euromaidan Revolution. He backed pro-Russia Viktor Yanukovych as Ukraine’s president, first in 2004 (Yanukovych lost that election) then again in 2010 when he won. Putin believed these indirect means would get what he wanted: a compliant Ukraine controlled by Moscow. 

When indirect means failed, he blamed American dominance for Ukraine’s movement away from Russian control and took direct action by invading and annexing parts of the Donbas and all of Crimea in 2014. That was not enough to stop Ukraine from exercising its political sovereignty, so Putin again invaded in 2022, intending to topple the Zelensky government and install one that would bend to his will. 

A ceasefire en route to negotiations now would provide Putin with the strategic pause he desperately needs. When his quick-win plan failed, he moved to Plan B: partition Ukraine by force, strangle it economically by seizing all but one of its major ports, and destroy its social-political-cultural infrastructure by physical destruction and forced deportation. Putin believes that — with winter setting in and the allies’ resolve possibly weakening — he has set the conditions to succeed in the long run. He’s not going to give up on this aim after a few months of brutal war, multiple war crimes, and threats of nuclear weapons. For him, Russia may be on its heels, but is not yet knocked down.

Ukraine and its supporting allies should not provide Putin the breathing space he seeks. The Zelensky administration must negotiate from a position of strength. The successful counteroffensive in Ukraine’s north and east, as well as the recent Russian withdrawal from Kherson, certainly improves Zelensky’s position. But Russia still holds territory along Ukraine’s southern coast that is directly related to Ukraine’s economic prosperity. Fighting is what improved Zelensky’s bargaining power, and more fighting is necessary to put Putin in the right frame of mind for any potential serious negotiations. Force compelled the Russians to withdraw from Kyiv, from Kharkiv, and from Kherson. Force — or the threat of its successful continuation — will eject Russia from southern Ukraine. With this done, Putin will be compelled to realize his 2022 invasion failed and his 2014 annexations are at risk.

This is a hard line, but war is hard business. A durable, political solution to the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine will not result from Putin believing he can dictate the timing and terms of negotiations or still has ways to limit Ukraine’s political sovereignty. Putin brought war and war crimes to Ukraine and Europe; he cannot reap reward from the death and destruction he caused. Peace in Ukraine must rest on sufficiently addressing the underlying confrontation. To do this, Ukraine may be willing to compromise on some of what it deserves, maybe even on portions of its territory. But no negotiations should demand eroding its core rights to self-determination. 

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Before negotiations, Ukraine, the U.S. and NATO must agree to the answers to this question: Where is the trade space between what Putin seeks and Zelensky wants? Whatever the answers to this question are, it begs another: Can Putin be trusted to live up to his side of whatever bargain he agrees to? 

To bound the confrontation between Ukraine and Russia, the war’s end must include firm guarantees concerning Ukraine’s future physical security and assistance to help the Ukraine people recover their economic prosperity. Russia is unlikely to agree to such guarantees unless it is forced to do so. But that’s the price of their aggression. Should there be negotiations between Ukraine and Russia? Yes, but that time has not yet come. Should fighting continue? Yes. To negotiate now risks Putin’s aggression being rewarded, his quest to subjugate Ukraine remaining possible, and the global principle of non-aggression meaning little.

James M. Dubik, Ph.D., a retired lieutenant general of the U.S. Army, is a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War. He served in military command and operational roles in Bosnia, Haiti and Iraq, and helped train forces in Afghanistan, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Honduras, and many NATO countries

8. Missile Defense Is More Urgent Than Ever

Yes, there are no perfect systems.

Excerpts:

We don’t need perfect systems to influence enemy risk calculations about taking offensive action against the U.S. Nonetheless, there is a significantly higher risk of missile strikes on the American homeland today than two decades ago, and our capabilities haven’t improved correspondingly. The U.S. needs greater accuracy in antimissile systems, and far more of them. Our defenses need to be deployed to deal with rogue-state threats, as well as China and Russia, and against all phases of hostile launches: boost, midcourse and terminal.

Such efforts will need to be far more ambitious than previous attempts. When Mr. Bush withdrew from the ABM Treaty 20 years ago, he created a missile-defense program to defend against “handfuls” of incoming missiles from rogue states and accidental launches from Russia and China, as was entirely appropriate for the threats at the time. Today, rogue state capabilities are more sophisticated, Russian rhetoric is becoming more belligerent, and China’s nuclear arsenal is growing rapidly. In response we must urgently increase our homeland missile defenses across the board, which will also have the collateral benefit of aiding our allies. The technology we develop to protect ourselves can be deployed to defend them too.

Today’s threat environment leaves no room for further delay and failure. Homeland missile defense should command top priority in our national security strategy.

Missile Defense Is More Urgent Than Ever

As rogue states and powerful rivals grow more dangerous and belligerent, even Biden acknowledges its necessity.

By John Bolton

Nov. 13, 2022 3:33 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/missile-defense-is-more-urgent-than-ever-national-security-russia-china-iran-north-korea-icbm-hypersonics-rogue-state-11668349181?utm_campaign=dfn-ebb&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sailthru&SToverlay=2002c2d9-c344-4bbb-8610-e5794efcfa7d

Iran now boasts that it possesses hypersonic ballistic missiles capable of defeating existing missile defenses—even in the U.S. While skepticism of the regime’s claims is warranted, it might not be bluffing. Russia’s military desperation in Ukraine has reportedly led it to supply Iran with captured U.S. and U.K. weapons in exchange for drones and to purchase arms from North Korea.

It is a small step for Russia from violating these international taboos to offering military assistance to rogue-state allies. Given China’s historical support for nuclear and missile proliferation and its enormous demand for oil and gas, you can imagine Beijing’s doing the same. And, unfortunately, it’s true that current U.S. missile defenses would be woefully inadequate to defend against significant ballistic missile strikes. But Washington must make enhancing our missile defenses a priority.

Even President Biden seems to understand what a vital task this is. As a senator, he stridently opposed George W. Bush’s decision in 2001 to scrap the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and build out missile defenses. The Bush administration’s plans were, in Mr. Biden’s view, equivalent to “raising the starting gun that will begin a new arms race in the world.” But times change. The Biden administration’s Missile Defense Review, released late last month, attests to the “expanding and accelerating risk” missile technologies pose to the U.S., its forces abroad and our allies, as well as the heightened need for missile defense.

Mr. Biden’s mind has been changed by more than Iran, which accompanied its claims of missile advancements with a threat that those who meddle in the state will “pay the price.” As experts speculate that North Korea is readying a seventh nuclear test (its first since 2017), the administration worries that Pyongyang might graduate from testing nuclear weapons to using one against an adversary. A sign of this fear: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently threatened that such a strike would mean “the end of the Kim Jong Un regime.”

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North Korea’s missile-delivery systems, which like Iran’s are based originally on Russian SCUD missile technology, are improving rapidly as well. Tehran’s recent claims of advanced missile capabilities and its nuclear program in general have benefited from Pyongyang’s technical assistance. Iran is simply following North Korea’s lead. Pyongyang has been testing at a steeply accelerated pace, including a record-breaking 23 launches on Nov. 2, one of which landed near South Korean territorial waters. Subsequent North Korean tests included an intercontinental ballistic missile, which caused Japanese authorities to order civil-defense measures, although that launch was ultimately determined to have failed.

China and Russia pose a growing nuclear danger too. Both have made increasingly belligerent references to nuclear arms and offensive war. Yet the limited defenses America has built up have been consistently inadequate and are now simply not fit to meet that threat.

Washington has no excuse for how sparse its national missile defenses remain, two decades after freeing itself from the ABM Treaty. As our enemies pursued hypersonics and other threatening new technologies, America’s operational capacities for deterrence—and its will to retaliate with military force as deterrence requires—have declined. North Korea’s recent testing has led some pearl-clutchers to argue that we should acknowledge the dictatorship as a nuclear-weapons state. Yet it doesn’t take a hawkish attitude to see the immense value in improving our missile defenses. They are designed and deployed for defensive purposes and to protect the lives of innocent civilians. No president would hesitate to employ missile defenses in the event of an attack, especially a nuclear one, even if he feared retaliating against our adversary—contrary to our national security interests and deterrence policy.

We don’t need perfect systems to influence enemy risk calculations about taking offensive action against the U.S. Nonetheless, there is a significantly higher risk of missile strikes on the American homeland today than two decades ago, and our capabilities haven’t improved correspondingly. The U.S. needs greater accuracy in antimissile systems, and far more of them. Our defenses need to be deployed to deal with rogue-state threats, as well as China and Russia, and against all phases of hostile launches: boost, midcourse and terminal.

Such efforts will need to be far more ambitious than previous attempts. When Mr. Bush withdrew from the ABM Treaty 20 years ago, he created a missile-defense program to defend against “handfuls” of incoming missiles from rogue states and accidental launches from Russia and China, as was entirely appropriate for the threats at the time. Today, rogue state capabilities are more sophisticated, Russian rhetoric is becoming more belligerent, and China’s nuclear arsenal is growing rapidly. In response we must urgently increase our homeland missile defenses across the board, which will also have the collateral benefit of aiding our allies. The technology we develop to protect ourselves can be deployed to defend them too.

Today’s threat environment leaves no room for further delay and failure. Homeland missile defense should command top priority in our national security strategy.

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

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WSJ Opinion: The U.S. Military’s Growing Weakness

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Review and Outlook: The Heritage Foundation's latest 'Index of U.S. Military Strength' warns of declining power in the U.S. Navy and Air Force. Images: Department of Defence/Heritage Foundation Composite: Mark Kelly

9. DOD making progress in information operations but more improvement is needed, experts say

Notice that psychological operations are buried among two lists of capabilities and are apparently only considered as an afterthought. I would argue that our disdain for and marginalization of psychological operations is a contributing reason as to why we are not effective in influence. We chase the shiny things of technology, social media, and cyber without sufficient understanding of the human domain and how to influence target audiences. What we fail to consider is that psychological operations is one of the most important elements of integrated deterrence.

Excerpts:

“I’m pleased with the momentum right now because frankly, the momentum really wasn’t there a few years ago when we were looking at the state of their implementation planning and their strategies,” he said. “The temptation for them was just every time they did a strategy and they couldn’t really follow through on it … Rather than trying to get that implementation going, they just stopped and started rewriting a strategy again. This time, they seem to be a lot more serious about the implementation part … That’s in no small degree due to the fact that they’ve been getting a lot of pressure from Congress to do just that.”

The Joint Staff in September updated its doctrine for Information in Joint Operations, which Kirschbaum also welcomed.

He explained that while not the most glamorous topic, once doctrine is established, it lays the foundation for how to fight, allowing the DOD to move forward in establishing training, capabilities and policy, among other focus areas.

Others noted that while this is a positive step, the proof will be in the pudding in terms of how it actually gets implemented and adopted by commanders.

Similarly, other services have either published or are readying strategies and doctrine in this space to include the June publication of Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication-8, Information, the Air Force’s Operations in the Information Environment Strategic Plan — which was released in early 2022 but is not publicly released yet — and the Army’s information advantage doctrine, which officials say should be published at the end of next year.

Moulton noted other bureaucratic challenges.

DOD making progress in information operations but more improvement is needed, experts say

defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · November 4, 2022

The Department of Defense is taking action to elevate and further incorporate information operations and information warfare into its strategy and planning. However, some experts say more work needs to be done.

Over the past couple of decades, the DOD divested much of its capabilities and tactics in this realm, ceding the ground to others such as Russia and China and forcing the Pentagon to play catch-up, according to some observers.

“Fundamentally, information operations is a critical part of modern warfare. Our enemies are using it. We’ve actually used it effectively in the past. But our current capabilities are way behind the times. We are losing the information warfare fight,” Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., a member on the House Armed Services Committee, told DefenseScoop.

In his view, the DOD doesn’t sufficiently approach information operations as a critical warfighting function, but as just “one minor tool” in its toolkit.

Others say the Pentagon has had trouble with implementation.

“What we found a lot of times is that the department has been really great strategy-wise. They’ve set out a vision and they’ve set out the things they really want to do — and in some ways, what they need to do to get there,” Joseph Kirschbaum, a director in the Government Accountability Office’s defense capabilities and management team, told DefenseScoop. “The way I always put that in shorthand terms is the department tends to be long on strategy and short on implementation. That’s where the struggle has been definitely in the information environment area is the ability to implement the vision that they’ve set out for themselves.”

The DOD has taken some steps recently to begin shining the light on information operations again, including highlighting its importance in the newly updated National Defense Strategy, which was publicly released Oct. 27.

“Deterrence depends in part on competitors’ understanding of U.S. intent and capabilities. The Department must seek to avoid unknowingly driving competition to aggression. To strengthen deterrence while managing escalation risks, the Department will enhance its ability to operate in the information domain — for example, by working to ensure that messages are conveyed effectively. We will work in collaboration with other U.S. Federal departments and agencies along with Allies and partners,” the document said in a section about the role of information in deterrence.

Moreover, the strategy notes that tailored information operations can be used to support and maybe even lead the DOD’s response to adversaries’ coercion attempts.

The department is also still working to meet several mandates Congress directed in the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. The provision, which created the principal information operations adviser, among other things, directs the DOD to update the 2016 Strategy for Operations in the Information Environment and designate a joint force trainer for information operations and a joint force provider for information operations — much how U.S. Cyber Command is the joint force trainer and provider for cyber.

The draft 2023 strategy “reinforces many of the same themes from the 2016 strategy to include people and organizations, programs, policies and governance and partnerships,” a DOD spokesperson told DefenseScoop, adding they expect to publish it this year.

One top official said DOD needs more time to experiment before identifying a joint force trainer and provider.

“We’ve been required to identify a joint IO force trainer and joint IO force provider, in much the same way as U.S. Cyber Command is the joint force trainer and joint force provider for cyber forces, but we can’t do that until we’ve experimented more with these different capabilities with the right mix of space, cyber, electronic warfare and psychological operation forces to do these types of missions,” Maj. Gen. Matthew Easley, deputy principal information operations advisor in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, said at an NDIA-hosted event on Oct. 12.

Since information operations, along with the much larger information environment, are so all-encompassing, what Congress is likely looking for with this provision is to integrate all facets together, Kirschbaum said.

The information environment “involves offensive, defensive elements, protecting individual, it crosses elements of operational security, information security … it crosses over into cyber and [electromagnetic spectrum operations] areas,” he said. “That is a huge, daunting task to think about in terms of integrating existing plans, existing doctrines, and existing training in order to make sure that the joint force is getting the right consistent training across those areas so they understand where all the integrations are. They can test them out, they can find out where things aren’t working and then make changes and immediately test them again.”

Part of the concern for Congress and others is the confusion of lexicon. Information warfare, more broadly, encompasses a raft of capabilities such as information operations, cyber, electronic warfare, psychological operations and others. However, there is no set definition for the term.

In fact, each of the services has gone down its own path regarding terminology, with the Marine Corps opting for “operations in the information environment,” the Air Force and Navy “information warfare,” and the Army “information advantage.”

Kirschbaum noted that it can be tough to get all the services on the same page.

“It’s also true that DOD continues to have a hard time running herd on individual services because they will go their own way and use the term. Some services will absolutely want to use the term ‘information warfare’ all the time. Some want to use ‘information operations’ and some want to just use ‘operations in the information environment,’” he said. “They are all roughly talking about the same things. It is hard to expect that the department will always have a universally accepted lexicon for those things.”

However, Congress is now trying to force the military to develop the same lexicon. It has so far failed to do so as outlined in the same NDAA provision that created the principal IO adviser office. As a result, in this year’s NDAA, the House side will be withholding travel funds if the department doesn’t develop joint terms.

“Information operations have been a real focus area for our members, particularly given what’s going on in Ukraine. Right now, each service defines information operations differently,” a committee aide told reporters in June. “If you were to go to the Army and say, ‘How do you define information operations?’ that would actually be different than how the Navy defines it, which makes synchronizing these capabilities often very difficult.”

“As a nudge and a push, we’re doing a funding limitation of the office of the secretary of Defense travel … to encourage and really push the department to do that work, which we’ve seen is really important and important to the members,” the aide added.

Congressional concern

In the fiscal 2020 NDAA, Congress outlined several directives DOD must meet to bolster its prowess in the information domain. For many members, the Pentagon simply hasn’t been doing enough.

“I am concerned the Department leadership has been slow to adapt to the changing nature of warfare in this domain,” Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., the chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems, said in opening remarks during a hearing last year.

“Too often, it appears the Department’s information-related capabilities are stove-piped centers of excellence with varied management and leadership structures, which makes critical coordination more difficult. Further, the Pentagon has made limited progress implementing its 2016 Operations in the Information Environment Strategy, which raises questions about the Department’s information operations leadership structure,” he added.

Moulton, who has taken a keen interest in this space, had a sharp line of questioning for DOD officials during an April hearing, asking if the department has the right organizational structure for information operations. The official noted that they’d have to get back to the committee.

“You saw from that line of questioning how the DOD was completely unprepared to answer even the most basic questions about how information operations is structured within the department,” he told DefenseScoop. “This is not just a theoretical problem. One of the most common themes I hear from commanders in the field is that they’re doing great work and they have no way to communicate it effectively to the broader environment, to the people and the places they’re operating. And I’ve heard this all over the world.”

Moulton is also concerned that information ops is too nestled within the cyber domain.

The DOD has “subordinated it under cyber, when really cyber is just one of many delivery methods for information operations,” he said.

Signs of improvement

It’s not all bad news, however, as some believe there is progress being made.

Kirschbaum pointed to the office of the principal IO adviser and the activities that office is undertaking.

“I’m pleased with the momentum right now because frankly, the momentum really wasn’t there a few years ago when we were looking at the state of their implementation planning and their strategies,” he said. “The temptation for them was just every time they did a strategy and they couldn’t really follow through on it … Rather than trying to get that implementation going, they just stopped and started rewriting a strategy again. This time, they seem to be a lot more serious about the implementation part … That’s in no small degree due to the fact that they’ve been getting a lot of pressure from Congress to do just that.”

The Joint Staff in September updated its doctrine for Information in Joint Operations, which Kirschbaum also welcomed.

He explained that while not the most glamorous topic, once doctrine is established, it lays the foundation for how to fight, allowing the DOD to move forward in establishing training, capabilities and policy, among other focus areas.

Others noted that while this is a positive step, the proof will be in the pudding in terms of how it actually gets implemented and adopted by commanders.

Similarly, other services have either published or are readying strategies and doctrine in this space to include the June publication of Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication-8, Information, the Air Force’s Operations in the Information Environment Strategic Plan — which was released in early 2022 but is not publicly released yet — and the Army’s information advantage doctrine, which officials say should be published at the end of next year.

Moulton noted other bureaucratic challenges.

“I spoke with a [Marine Expeditionary Unit] commander, who certainly recognized the criticality of these resources, but I still didn’t see any department-level coordination, or I didn’t see effective department-level coordination for what’s going on,” he said. “What that means is that someone at a junior level can have something to communicate to people in the area he or she is operating [in] and it often takes too long to coordinate or approve what they want to send out.”

Moulton would like to see a better and faster structure to be more adaptive to this dynamic environment.

“What they need to develop is a structure that is especially nimble and fast,” he said. “Right now, approvals for information operations can take days or weeks. The end result of these reforms has to be that we’re not only good at information operations, but we’re fast.”

defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · November 4, 2022

10. Special Operations News Update - Nov 14, 2022 | SOF News

Special Operations News Update - Nov 14, 2022 | SOF News

sof.news · by SOF News · November 14, 2022

Curated news, analysis, and commentary about special operations, national security, and conflicts around the world.

Photo: U.S. Army 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) teamed up with special operations personnel from Spain and performed exploratory dives during their joint-training in the Mediterranean Sea. The partnership allowed for cross-training in combat diving tactics, techniques, and procedures. Photo by SSG Breanne Donnell, SOCEUR, 21 July 2022.

Do you receive our daily newsletter? If not, you can sign up here and enjoy it five (almost) days a week with your morning coffee (or afternoon tea depending on where in the world you are).

SOF News

Evolution of ARSOF. A revealing article spells out some of the doctrinal and organizational changes that are currently underway or being considered for the future of Army special operations forces. New developments in aligning the capabilities of space and cyber with that of special operations are underway. In addition, the organizational and supporting relationships of Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations is getting a closer look. Force structure changes and new technology-oriented career fields are being considered. For instance, there is currently one company of Special Forces in each SF group that has six 16-man operational detachment alphas (ODAs). After the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR) worked with the Ukrainian military and helped them develop ways to resist further Russian aggression – something very akin to the Resistance Operating Concept. What was surprising was how well the Ukrainians integrated technology and space capabilities into their resistance plans. Read more in “Inside the ongoing ‘evolution’ of Army special operations”, Army Times, November 9, 2022.

Al-Tanf – SF Base in Syria. A tiny outpost just inside the Syria border is home to almost 200 U.S. soldiers and a larger contingent of partner forces. The base has been the target of rocket, drone, and artillery attacks. “The Small Special Forces Base in Al-Tanf, Syria Has Large Implications for Regional Security”, SANDBOXX, November 7, 2022.

Former SOF Win House Seats. Former Navy SEAL and Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke won his race to represent a Congressional district in Montana. He had previously served in Congress from 2015 to 2017. Zinke served 23 years in the military. Former Navy SEAL Derrick Van Orden took a seat in Wisconsin. Former Navy SEAL Eli Crane won a house seat in Arizona; he served with SEAL Team 3 and has several combat deployments. Morgan Luttrell, another former SEAL will represent a district in Texas. Keith Self, a former SF soldier, will represent a Texas district. Green Beret Mike Waltz was re-elected to his house seat in Florida. Joe Kent, a retired Green Beret, lost his bid for a seat in the U.S. House. As did, Don Bolduc, a retired Green Beret, who lost his bid for a New Hampshire Senate seat. “Republicans Inch Closer to Majority as Navy SEAL Former Trump Official Wins Hotly Contested Seat”, The Western Journal, November 10, 2022.

A Lot Less AC-130J Ghostriders. New gunships were expected to be delivered to AFSOC . . . but now the fleet will likely be smaller. The Pentagon has decided to cut procurement of the special operations gunships – reducing the numbers from 37 to 30. The newest J-model has the ability to carry 30mm and 105mm cannons, Griffin and Hellfire missiles, and GBU-39 bombs. “Special ops airmen get fewer new gunships than promised”, Defense News, November 10, 2022.

1st SFG Soldier Dies in Motorcycle Crash. A member of the 1st Special Forces Group was killed in a motorcycle accident on Okinawa on November 7, 2022. (Stars and Stripes, Nov 7, 2022).

Defense Strategies Institute presents SOF & Worldwide Operations, December 7-8, 2022, Tampa, Florida. The 11th Annual SOF & Worldwide Symposium will convene senior level leaders and decision makers from across the Special Operations Community, regional combatant commands, Department of State, intelligence community, academia, and industry.

Mini-Sub Mishap. An investigation is underway by the U.S. Navy over an incident in the Pacific Ocean when a Mark 8 SEAL Delivery Vehicle suffered an ‘allision’ during a routine training event. The Mark 8 is currently being programmed out with replacement by the Mark 11. “Navy Probing Super-Secret SEAL Mini-Sub Mishap, LCS Glitch”, Coffee or Die Magazine, November 3, 2022.

CoC Ceremony – SBT-22. A change of command ceremony took place at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi – home of the Special Boat Team 22. (Navy.mil, Nov 10, 2022).

SOCPAC, Tech, and Comms. Special Operations Command Pacific is learning to leverage key technologies to enable its operations across the vast expanse of the Indo-Pacific region. A few of these efforts include the use of a cloud-based tactical network, high-frequency communications, and QR codes. “Special Operations Pacific Goes to the Cloud”, SIGNAL, November 2, 2022.

Fusing SOF and Cyber. USSOCOM and Cyber Command share global areas of responsibility with missions that span the gap between peacetime and war. A major part of SOF’s mission is in the information domain. The author of this article proposes a new organizational structure that would help USSOCOM project cyber capabilities forward. Perhaps establishing a Special Operations Command Cyber of SOCCYBER. This would provide Cyber Command with a central cadre of expertise for special operations support to Cyber Command. “Byte, With, and Through: How Special Operations and Cyber Command Can Support Each Other”, War on the Rocks, November 11, 2022.

International SOF

North Korea’s Special Forces. Harrison Kass describes how the Korean People’s Army (KPA) has built a special forces capability that can conduct asymmetrical warfare against its opponents. The Korean SF has five primary missions: reconnaissance, supporting CF, deep penetration, internal security, and countering US and ROK SOF activities in North Korea’s rear areas. The special forces units can be found in a variety of places within the North Korean military; to include the Army, Navy, Air Force. “What Makes North Korea’s Special Forces So Dangerous”, 1945, November 8, 2022.

UK Ranger Regiment Trains in U.S. Troops from the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States took part in an exercise that demonstrated the integration of cutting-edge technology. Project Convergence 2022 took place at Fort Irwin in California. Elements of the 7th Special Forces Group trained with the UK and Aussie troops. (UK Ministry of Defence, Nov 10, 2022).

New Slovak SOF Cdr. Colonel Jaroslav Kram has been appointed as the new commander of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic (SSO OS SR). The unit was engaged in the evacuation of civilians during the Kabul NEO of August 2021 and is playing a role in the Ukraine Russia conflict.

SO/LIC and Lithuania. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, Christopher Maier, recently met with a high official in the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense. (DoD News, Nov 10, 2022).

Special Department RENEA. U.S. Special Forces elements recently trained with the elite RENEA unit of Albania during a JCET that lasted five weeks. The counterterrorism exercise by the Green Berets and elite police unit encompassed C2 processes, surveillance methods, targeting, and events in urban and rural areas. Read more in “RENEA Forces Conduct Joint Exercise with US Green Berets”, Albanian Daily News, November 8, 2022.

Ukraine Conflict

Podast – Interview of Ukraine’s SOF Commander. The roles and missions of Ukraine’s special operators are discussed in a meeting between Brig. Gen. Viktor Khorenko and Ryan Evans. War on the Rocks, November 14, 2022, 12 minutes.

Retreat from Kherson. The Russians have withdrawn from Kherson (Google maps) across the Dnieper River and are now fortifying the eastern banks of the river. Advanced elements of the Ukrainian military – said to be special operations forces – are already in parts of the city. This is a disastrous defeat for the Russian military. Ukraine’s president made a visit to the newly liberated city that was occupied by the Russians for the last eight months.

SOF and Drones From Above. One concerning development that has the attention of United States Special Operations Command is the use of drones on the battlefield by Russia and Ukraine. The unmanned aircraft have been used for ISR, dropping munitions, guiding artillery fire, and destroying tanks and armored vehicles. Over the past two decades, U.S. SOF have not been threatened by the use of drones by adversaries on a large scale; but the Ukraine conflict has opened some eyes. Drones, large and small, can now be deployed in great numbers. “After 40 years of safe skies, US special operators have to worry about threats from above, SOCOM commander says”, Business Insider, November 10, 2022.

U.S. Troops in Ukraine? There are, it seems, small teams of U.S. military personnel in Ukraine working to provide security assistance to the Ukrainian military. “US Troops in Ukraine is an Open Secret”, SOFREP, November 6, 2022.

Commentary

Teaching IW. Elena Pokalova, a professor at the National Defense University, argues that expertise in Irregular Warfare is grounded in six basic competencies . . . and that they should be part of the curriculum of professional military education institutions. “Teaching Irregular Warfare in the Era of Strategic Competition”, Modern War Institute, November 7, 2022.

The Leader Who Stepped in Front of the Parade. A retired Special Forces officer who currently serves as a strategist at United States Special Operations Command has penned an opinion piece on how the nature of instability has changed. Governments now lack the ‘control’ they used to be able to exert over populations. With the advent of new technologies in an ‘information age’, the population has more control over events. Grievances that are not addressed lead to the formation of movements – many in search of a leader. Thus, the emergence of Donald Trump. This article isn’t really about Trump; it is about the nature of instability and the new era we find our nation in. Read “The Problematic Symptom of Donald J. Trump”, by Robert Jones, Small Wars Journal, November 7, 2022.

Sahel and U.S. Policy. A long essay argues that the United States lacks a coherent policy for one of the most troubled regions of Africa. Starvation, drought, terrorists, jihadist groups, military coups, and rebellions are a constant fact of life in the Sahel. The author believes that the U.S. puts too much emphasis on ‘security solutions’ and less on development and diplomacy approaches. He thinks that the counterterrorist programs and covert deployments should be scaled back. Humanitarian and development aid should be increased. The author thinks the training and support of special forces units in the militaries of West African countries have a negative impact – creating intra-military rivalries and elevating coup risks. “An Alternative Approach to U.S. Sahel Policy”, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, November 27, 2022.

National Security

Report – GPC. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has published a report entitled Great Power Competition: Implications for Defense – Issues for Congress, November 8, 2022, PDF, 86 pages. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R43838

Arctic Force Posture. The successful defense of United States interests in the Arctic requires upgraded air defense capabilities and the military ability to rapidly deploy forces to that remote region. The U.S. should upgrade its military infrastructure in the Arctic. The establishment of ports and airfields will provide the capability of maintaining a persistent presence. “Combating the Gray Zone: Enhancing America’s Arctic Force Posture”, by Matthew Revels, Georgetown Security Studies Review, November 11, 2022.

US Brigades to Europe. Units from Fort Carson, Fort Campbell, and Hunter Army Airfield will be heading to take part in the Atlantic Resolve deterrence mission. “Army announces next three brigades deploying to Europe”, Army Times, November 10, 2022.

France Ends COIN Mission in Sahel. Operation Barkhane in West Africa has ended. However, the French will continue to offer equipment, training, intelligence, and operational partnership with countries in the region. At one time France was the lead for Task Force Takuba – a special operations task force comprised of several European SOF units. “France Ends Counterinsurgency Mission in the Sahel”, National Interest, November 10, 2022.

Upcoming Events

November 14, 2022

A Salute to SOF Gala – Washington, D.C.

The Honor Foundation (THF)

November 17, 2022

JSOU Webinar – Degrade and Destroy (War against ISIS)

Joint Special Operations University

November 17-18, 2022

33rd Annual NDIA SO/LIC Symposium

NDIA

December 7-8, 2022

SOF & Worldwide Operations

Defense Strategies Institute (DSI)

SOF News welcomes the submission of articles for publication. If it is related to special operations, current conflicts, national security, or defense then we are interested.

Books, Pubs, and Reports

Book – The Secret History of the Five Eyes: The Untold Story of the International Spy Network. Dougla Wise reviews this book about the about a little-know institution that was established in the aftermath of World War II and in the early days of the Cold War. The ‘network’ has had its successes and failures. The author of the book, Richard Kerbaj, provides a strategic perspective on the shadowy world of clandestine operations and intelligence. “Reviewing The Secret History of the Five Eyes”, The Cipher Brief, November 7, 2022.

Book – Black Ops: The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior. Enrique “Ric” Prado as been a life-log veteran of America’s clandestine fight to suppress oppression. The book author is interviewed about his early life, time in the Air Force’s pararescue unit, and then subsequent career with the Central Intelligence Agency. “Shadow Warrior: CIA Paramilitary Officer and Bestselling Author Ric Prado Lifts the Curtain on America’s Secret Wars”, Recoilweb.com, November 11, 2022.

Sentinel. The November 2022 issue of the Sentinel by Chapter 78 of the Special Forces Association is now online. Articles cover the Special Forces Association convention recently held in Colorado, sacrifices of Green Beret families, a SF dentist in Thailand on a dental civic action project, a Green Beret with the Sandinistas, and a tribute to SGM (Ret.) Bruce Long. (PDF, 32 pages).

https://www.specialforces78.com/chapter-78-newsletter-for-november-2022/

GAO Report – Weapon System Sustainment. Aircraft mission capable goals were generally not me and sustainment costs varied by aircraft. GAO-23-106217, November 2022, PDF, 352.

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-106217.pdf

Podcasts and Videos

Podcast – American Legionaire. Veteran’s Day sees the ‘G Base’ host an American veteran, Jack Herra, who volunteered to serve in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion and shares his story and unique perspective with listeners. Pinelander Podcast, November 11, 2022, one hour.

https://pinelander.podbean.com/e/episode-049-american-legionaire-november-11-2022/

Podcast – Mozart’s Mission in Ukraine. A group of former special operations soldiers from eleven different countries are providing assistance, advice, equipment, and training to the Ukrainian military. Foundation for the Defense of Democracy (FDD), November 4, 2022, one hour.

https://www.fdd.org/podcasts/2022/11/04/mozarts-mission-in-ukraine/

Video – The Ethics of Special Operations. Dr. Roger Herbert discusses the unique ethical challenges that special operators face. In a lecture to Midshipmen, Herbert presents some of the takeaways from his forthcoming book – The Ethics of Special Operations: Raids, Reconnaissance, Recovery, and Rebels. the event is hosted by the Naval Academy’s Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership. CAPT (Ret.) Herbert is a former commander of SEAL Delivery Team 2, Naval Special Warfare Unit 3, and the Naval Special Warfare Center. The Stockdale Center, YouTube, November 9, 2022, 40 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VIJFABHLU0

Video – What’s in a Norwegian arctic field ration? A French soldier and Norwegian arctic trooper swap meals in the field. Military Times, November 7, 2022, YouTube, 3 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb1tJX2LnN4

sof.news · by SOF News · November 14, 2022

11. Congress seeks to arm Taiwan quickly as China threat grows

​I wonder about the discussion between President Biden and Xi about this issue.

Congress seeks to arm Taiwan quickly as China threat grows

Lawmakers are pushing an unprecedented package of military aid to Taipei. But allocating the money for it is in question.

The Washington Post · by Ellen Nakashima · November 13, 2022

Mindful of lessons learned from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Congress is pushing to arm and train Taiwan in advance of any potential military attack by China, but whether the aid materializes could depend on President Biden himself.

Deliberations on an unprecedented package of billions of dollars in military assistance to the self-governing island democracy come as Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping meet in Bali on Monday, with maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait a top item of discussion.

The bipartisan effort would enable the U.S. military to dip immediately into its own stocks of weapons such as Javelins and Stingers — something done at this scale only for Ukraine, officials said — and provide weapons for the first time to Taiwan through the foreign military financing program, paid for by the United States.

Through these provisions, Taiwan could receive weapons and equipment such as anti-ship cruise missiles and anti-air defense systems, self-detonating drones, naval mines, command-and-control systems, and secure radios.

The idea is essentially to do for Taipei what is being done for Kyiv — but before the bullets start flying, lawmakers said.

“One of the lessons of Ukraine is that you need to arm your partners before the shooting starts, and that gives you your best chance of avoiding war in the first place,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), a Marine veteran who serves on the House Armed Services Committee.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said in September on a Bloomberg show that it “remains a distinct threat that there could be a military contingency around Taiwan.”

The Democratic leaders of the House and the Senate support the provisions to arm Taipei, but it is not clear that the lawmakers who control the purse strings — the appropriations committees — are convinced of the need to allocate the funds.

Currently, there is no money for this package in the 2023 budget proposal that Congress is working to pass, and if appropriators don’t find cuts to cover the weapons assistance, Biden will have to submit an emergency request to finance the spending for Taiwan and make the case for why it’s necessary, congressional aides say.

Administration officials declined to say whether they would do so.

“Our engagement with Congress has been focused on ensuring that legislation that moves forward is clearly consistent with our policy framework that has helped maintain peace and stability across the [Taiwan] Strait,” said a senior administration official, who like several others interviewed for this report spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

The assistance package, the details of which are being finalized now in the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act, has been crafted with White House input, congressional aides said. It would allow the provision annually to Taiwan of $1 billion worth of stockpiled U.S. munitions — what’s known as “presidential drawdown authority” — and up to $2 billion worth of weapons annually for five years paid for with U.S. tax dollars. Only Israel gets more on an annual basis.

Congressional advocates say the aid would be consistent with the United States’ obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act, which states that it is U.S. policy to provide Taiwan arms to enable its self-defense.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), an Armed Services Committee member, said the goal is to “make the Taiwanese a formidable military force that can defend itself, like the Ukrainians, or at least make it very hard for the People’s Liberation Army to attack them.”

But skeptics question whether the assistance would further Taiwan’s defensive capabilities in the near term.

The proposed assistance comes at a fraught time. China has stepped up provocative military maneuvers in the waters and skies near Taiwan in the wake of an August visit to Taipei by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). It also recently concluded a momentous 20th Communist Party Congress, at which Xi secured an unprecedented third term as party general secretary and consolidated his iron grip on power.

Beijing claims Taiwan as an inalienable part of its territory, and says “peaceful reunification” is its goal. But at last month’s party congress, Xi reiterated the vow to “never commit to abandoning the use of force” toward that end, and said he was willing “to take all necessary measures” to do so.

U.S. military leaders have been warning for years of China’s growing threat to the region. In March 2021, Adm. Philip S. Davidson, then the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, noted during Senate testimony a string of concerning actions taken by China: a rapid and massive military buildup of ships, aircraft and long-range rockets; crackdowns in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet; border clashes with India; and militarization of islands in the disputed South China Sea.

China has long said it wants to achieve great-power status by its centenary in 2049. “Taiwan,” Davidson said in March 2021, “is clearly one of their ambitions before then, and I think the threat is manifest during this decade, in fact, in the next six years.”

His remarks created a stir, with some observers interpreting them to mean China would invade by 2027.

In an interview, Davidson said that while China could mount an attack, there are other ways Beijing could bring pressure to bear on Taiwan. “That could be a blockade, missile barrage, profound cyberattacks on Taiwan infrastructure,” he said. “I do think this is the decade of concern, and I’m still concerned about the next six years.”

Sen. Sullivan, a colonel in the Marine Corps reserve, said a military takeover or blockade of Taiwan by China would result in “enormous” damage to the world economy, particularly as it would affect the global supply chain for computer chips. Taiwan is the world’s leading supplier of advanced chips that power artificial intelligence and supercomputers.

The Biden administration, which is seeking to “responsibly manage” its relationship with Beijing, treads carefully when it comes to Taiwan. When Pelosi planned to travel to Taiwan in August, the Biden administration mounted an intense behind-the-scenes effort, arguing that a visit by such a senior U.S. official so close to the party congress would be seen as provocative and an affront to Beijing. Still, when Xi himself asked Biden to find a way to dissuade her, Biden said he could not oblige, as Congress is an independent branch of government.

Shortly after Pelosi’s visit, Beijing imposed some trade sanctions on Taiwan and stepped up military drills in the waters surrounding the island. It simulated a blockade and sent jets repeatedly across the “center line,” an unofficial barrier in the strait dividing Taiwan and China that for decades was seen as a stabilizing feature — actions that in the view of analysts represent a change by Beijing in the status quo.

Washington followed up by announcing the launch of talks on a formal trade agreement with Taiwan, and in September announced its intention to sell $1.1 billion in arms to Taipei. That package includes Harpoon anti-ship missiles and Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. Such sales, though, generally take several years to be delivered because of larger structural challenges arising out of how foreign military sales are completed.

Some congressional aides say the use of foreign military financing would not speed up the weapons delivery. Others argue that with such a tool, the U.S. government will be able to more quickly negotiate transactions and make decisions about the direction of Taiwan’s defense strategy and how it fits in with U.S. military capabilities.

The advantage to drawdown authority is speed — at least for weapons that are currently in U.S. stockpiles, including shoulder-fired antitank Stingers and anti-ship cruise missiles, said one aide.

A key difference with Ukraine is that Taiwan, being an island, would be harder to resupply in a conflict and essentially can only fight with what it has on hand when a conflict starts. “So surging and stockpiling as many critical munitions to Taiwan — and generally west of the international date line — is our best chance of preserving the peace and making Xi Jinping think twice,” Gallagher said.

Still, the debate over whether to finance the military assistance package is unresolved.

“We need to be clear we have broad support for any new initiative and what the trade-offs will be, especially at a time when senior Republicans are questioning whether we will sustain our support for Ukraine,” said one Democratic lawmaker familiar with ongoing discussions.

Congress traditionally has been more hawkish in its support of Taiwan than presidential administrations. The military assistance was part of a larger bill, the Taiwan Policy Act, that included several symbolic provisions that the Biden team found objectionable and that angered Beijing.

That bill, co-sponsored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and ranking Republican James E. Risch (Idaho), for instance called for designating Taiwan a “major non-NATO ally” for the purpose of expediting arms sales and renaming Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington from the “Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office” to the more official-sounding “Taiwan Representative Office.”

The White House lobbied hard to get those provisions removed or watered down, but, congressional aides said, it provided guidance on the military assistance portion.

“There are elements of that legislation, with respect to how we can strengthen our security assistance to Taiwan, that are quite effective and robust, that will improve Taiwan’s security,” Jake Sullivan told financier David Rubenstein on the Bloomberg show in September. “There are other elements that give us some concern.”

Both parties in Congress have closed ranks on the package amid Beijing’s aggressive military maneuvers. “We are on the final stages of negotiations,” Menendez said. “But authorizing billions alone in military assistance will not be enough. Both Washington and Taipei will need to continue to take steps to ensure that the right capabilities are delivered in a timely fashion.”

The leaders of both chambers voiced confidence the measures would pass. “The Democratic House is committed to helping Taiwan defend itself in the face of aggression from the [People’s Republic of China],” said a Pelosi spokeswoman, Shana Mansbach.

“This legislation will strengthen military cooperation with Taiwan and show that the United States will not stand by as President Xi seeks to isolate and coerce Taiwan,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it was grateful for Congress’s efforts to enhance the island’s defenses. “It is our responsibility to ensure national security, and only after we can depend upon ourselves can we expect help from others,” spokesman Sun Li-fang said.

Davidson, who retired last year, said that besides continuing to help arm and train Taiwan, the United States needs to strengthen diplomatic, economic and military capabilities in the region. “Our conventional deterrent is eroding,” he said. “The main reason is the staggering growth in China’s air and maritime forces, its rocket forces, its nuclear program, and the development of weapons like hypersonic missiles.”

“If Xi can draw back the curtain and see what the United States looks like out in the region, economically, diplomatically and militarily,” and sees U.S. engagement and a potent military, said Davidson, “he’ll have to say, ‘I don’t want to mess with that,’ and close the curtain. That’s what winning looks like.”

Christian Shepherd and Vic Chiang in Taipei contributed to this report.

The Washington Post · by Ellen Nakashima · November 13, 2022​

12. Biden's past promises for US to defend Taiwan under microscope in meeting with China's Xi

Biden's past promises for US to defend Taiwan under microscope in meeting with China's Xi | CNN Politics

CNN · by Kevin Liptak · November 14, 2022

Bali, Indonesia CNN —

When President Joe Biden first declared that the United States had an obligation to protect Taiwan should China move on it, his words were written off by some as a casual, if unfortunate, mischaracterization of American policy.

The fourth time Biden made the same statement, it was evident he wasn’t simply speaking out of hand.

Self-governing Taiwan has emerged as the sorest subject in an increasingly frosty relationship between Washington and Beijing. It is certain to be one of the more contentious points of discussion between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping as they meet here Monday for their first face-to-face encounter since Biden took office. The meeting began just after 5:30 p.m. local time on Monday with what could be interpreted as a pointed message from Xi.

“A statesman should think about and know where to lead his country,” Xi said through a translator. “He should also think about and know how to get along with other countries and the wider world.”

Senior US administration officials said ahead of the meeting that Biden would be “honest” in voicing his views on Taiwan, a signal the conversation would not gloss over the two men’s deep disagreements.

For his part, Xi is fond of using a specific metaphor to warn Biden against overstepping: “Those who play with fire will perish by it,” he told the US president over the telephone in July as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was preparing to visit Taiwan with a congressional delegation.

That trip, which the Biden administration quietly sought to dissuade Pelosi from taking, prompted a steep decline in relations between the US and China. In response, Beijing launched military drills around the island and shut off nearly all communication with US officials, including through military channels meant to prevent unintentional conflict.

Pelosi’s visit and the ensuing furor from China highlighted concerns within Biden’s administration over Beijing’s designs on Taiwan. Even before the speaker touched down in Taipei in August, Beijing had stepped up its rhetoric and aggressive actions toward the island, including sending warplanes into Taiwan’s self-declared air defense identification zone several times.

US officials have expressed concern that those moves could be precursors to even more aggressive steps by China in the coming months meant to assert its authority over the island. Under Biden, the US has sent defensive weapons to Taiwan it hopes will create a massive stockpile in the event China moves on the island.

Biden’s repeated statements on the American obligation to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion have done little to lower the temperature. The latest came during an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” in September.

Biden was asked whether “US forces, US men and women, would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion,” a prospect US officials privately fear is becoming more likely.

“Yes,” he responded.

Each time Biden vows direct US military involvement should China attempt to take Taiwan by force, the White House has quickly clarified that no US policy has changed. But it has also not denied that Biden’s remarks contain little of the ambiguity that has long been the guiding principle toward Taiwan.

Taiwan lies fewer than 110 miles (177 kilometers) off the coast of China. For more than 70 years, the two sides have been governed separately, but that hasn’t stopped China’s ruling Communist Party from claiming the island as its own – despite having never controlled it.

Xi has said that “reunification” between China and Taiwan is inevitable and has refused to rule out the use of force. Tensions between Beijing and Taipei are at the highest they’ve been in recent decades, with the Chinese military holding major military drills near the island.

Under the “One China” policy, the US acknowledges China’s position that Taiwan is part of China but has never officially recognized the Communist Party’s claim to the self-governing island of 23 million. The US provides Taiwan with defensive weapons but has remained intentionally ambiguous on whether it would intervene militarily in the event of a Chinese attack.

Biden repeated his commitment to those policies in the “60 Minutes” interview.

“We agree with what we signed on to a long time ago. And that there’s ‘one China’ policy, and Taiwan makes their own judgments about their independence. We are not moving – we’re not encouraging their being independent. … That’s their decision,” he said.

But asked if US forces would defend the island, he said they would: “Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack.”

It was the fourth time he’d made such a remark since taking office. He said while visiting Tokyo earlier this year that the US would intervene militarily if China attempts to take Taiwan by force. And he told a CNN town hall in 2021 that the US would protect the island in the event of a Chinese attack.

“Yes, we have a commitment to do that,” he said.

Whether Biden makes a similar statement as he sits down with Xi on Monday remains to be seen. Asked during a news conference ahead of his trip whether he would reiterate his commitment to defend Taiwan militarily directly to his counterpart, Biden demurred.

“I’m going to have that conversation with him,” he said.

CNN · by Kevin Liptak · November 14, 2022

13. Joe Biden Is Making China Squirm over Taiwan Before Their Summit

Excerpts:

Xi Jinping at the Communist Party’s 20th National Congress last month empowered the most belligerent elements in the Chinese capital. For instance, he picked what is now called a “war cabinet.” The militarization of the Chinese political system has occurred while he has been implementing one of the fastest rearmaments in history and also mobilizing China’s civilians for war.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the Western democracies placed faith in agreements with bellicose powers. Now, it is hard to see how similar pacts will restrain a Chinese regime also bent on forcible annexation.

Joe Biden Is Making China Squirm over Taiwan Before Their Summit

19fortyfive.com · by Gordon Chang · November 13, 2022

Biden Angers Xi Jinping on Taiwan Before G20 Summit. Good: Beijing expressed anger at Washington, just days before the long-awaited summit in Bali between President Joe Biden and Chinese ruler Xi Jinping.

Excellent.

Let China fume. It’s good for China’s aggressive leader to feel upset and disrespected at this crucial moment. The summit will not be productive if he goes into the event feeling happy and secure.

The Taiwan Issue

We have National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to thank for setting the right tone. On Thursday, he told reporters that the Biden administration would brief Taiwan about the upcoming China summit to make the island republic feel “secure and comfortable.”

Friday, the Chinese foreign ministry expressed indignation. Spokesperson Zhao Lijian called the American action “egregious in nature” and said the advance briefing was a violation of Washington’s long-standing promises to China to keep contacts with Taiwan unofficial.

“Privately briefing Taiwan on U.S.-China leader-level exchanges is standard operating procedure,” Brookings scholar Ryan Hass tweeted Friday. “Publicly and preemptively announcing plans to do so is a new wrinkle.”

The wrinkle, pronounced Paul Frandano on Twitter, is not only “new” but also “needlessly provocative.” And borrowing imagery attributed to former Admiral Dennis Blair, Frandano added this: “Nothing like tossing a turd in the punch bowl before Xi-Biden meeting.”

Frandano, who identifies himself as a former CIA official, is correct that Sullivan was provocative but wrong about him being needlessly provocative.

It is now time to provoke China.

Biden Must Push Back on Taiwan

The summit is not a good idea—Biden, among other reasons, should be using his precious time in Bali to talk with friends, not an enemy—but if the event must occur the administration is right to put China on the back foot.

As an initial matter, it is important to draw boundaries for Beijing. Showing China that the relationship with Taiwan is strong goes some way to doing that.

Moreover, Xi Jinping, on the eve of his G20 summit, needed to see the Biden administration was not afraid of him. Biden and predecessors have previously gone to great lengths to not upset Chinese leaders over Taiwan, and that has proven to be counterproductive.

By catering to Beijing, American policymakers have effectively given it a veto: Chinese leaders have noticed Washington’s hesitance to offend and have accordingly hardened their positions. Isn’t it time to force China to be the one to adjust positions?

Biden in his November 9 press conference stated that the primary purpose of the summit with Xi was to determine China’s “red lines.” Really? The American president, who continually brags about his good relationship with China’s supremo, should know by now how Xi feels about the Republic of China, the formal name of the country everyone calls “Taiwan.”

Xi, however, needs to hear the firmness of the American position. Biden at his press conference said he would not make any “fundamental concessions.” Taiwan’s territorial integrity is certainly fundamental to American security.

Why Taiwan Matters

After all, Taiwan makes most of the semiconductors that run America. One business there, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, accounts for 92% of the world’s most advanced chips.

Even more important, Washington for more than a century has drawn America’s western defense perimeter off the coast of East Asia, and Taiwan sits in the center of that line, where the South China Sea meets the East China Sea. Taiwan blocks the Chinese navy and air force from surging into the Pacific.

Moreover, the United States cannot allow China’s militant regime to destroy any democracy—and especially one as crucial as Taiwan’s—at a time when the Communist Party is relentlessly attacking democracy itself.

Finally, in the wake of Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and the failure to deter Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine, Taiwan has become the test of American credibility.

For many reasons, the United States and the rest of the international community need a strong and independent Taiwan. How does Washington assure its future? “As the United States and Taiwan pursue efforts to make the island harder to invade, the best strategic bet is to play for time,” sensibly argues Cornell University’s Jessica Chen Weiss, in an essay last week in Foreign Affairs.

Chen’s proposals are open to question, however. She recommends negotiating “coordinated measures taken in reciprocal fashion” to deescalate tension.

That recommendation sounds good to the ear, but it is hard to see how such a deal could work to Taiwan’s advantage. “In the course of the past three months, Xi Jinping has used the People’s Liberation Army to conduct a Taiwan invasion dress rehearsal and has maintained daily tactical military operations around the island,” James Fanell, a retired U.S. Navy captain who served as director of Intelligence and Information Operations of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, told 19FortyFive. “As such, it is highly doubtful President Biden would be able to extract any concessions from General Secretary Xi, especially now that Xi has cemented his power domestically.”

China Prepares for a Showdown

Xi Jinping at the Communist Party’s 20th National Congress last month empowered the most belligerent elements in the Chinese capital. For instance, he picked what is now called a “war cabinet.” The militarization of the Chinese political system has occurred while he has been implementing one of the fastest rearmaments in history and also mobilizing China’s civilians for war.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the Western democracies placed faith in agreements with bellicose powers. Now, it is hard to see how similar pacts will restrain a Chinese regime also bent on forcible annexation.

A 19FortyFive Contributor, Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and The Great U.S.-China Tech War. Follow him on Twitter @GordonGChang.

19fortyfive.com · by Gordon Chang · November 13, 2022

14. Live Updates: Biden and Xi Meeting Ends as U.S.-China Tensions Rise

We will hear from President Biden this morning.

Live Updates: Biden and Xi Meeting Ends as U.S.-China Tensions Rise

Amid growing disputes over Taiwan, Ukraine, technology and divergent visions of the world order, the leaders of the two superpowers are held their first face-to-face presidential talks.

nytimes.com · by David E. Sanger Katie Rogers Chris Buckley Christopher Buckley Katie Rogers Katie Rogers Katie Rogers David E. Sanger Keith Bradsher David E. Sanger Alan Rappeport · November 14, 2022

BALI, Indonesia — In their first face-to-face meeting as top leaders, President Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, signaled an openness on Monday to repairing a bilateral relationship that has sunk to its lowest point in half a century, amid tensions over Taiwan, technology, the war in Ukraine and starkly divergent visions of the global order.

“I look forward to working with you, Mr. President, to bring China-U.S. relations back to the track of health and stable development for the benefit of our two countries and the world as a whole,” Mr. Xi told Mr. Biden at the start of their summit in Indonesia, on the eve of a gathering of Group of 20 leaders. Mr. Biden said it was important to “manage our differences” and “prevent competition from becoming conflict.”

Their meeting comes months after China brandished its military potential to choke off Taiwan and the United States imposed trade restrictions designed to hobble China’s ability to produce the most advanced computer chips. Mr. Biden has cast China as a strategic adversary with “the intent to reshape the international order,” while Mr. Xi has warned of an increasingly perilous world in which unnamed foes — implicitly, the United States and its allies — aim to “exert maximum pressure on China.”

Compounding tensions is Beijing’s partnership with Moscow, which has remained steadfast even after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Senior White House officials said on Monday morning that the meeting was scheduled after a month of “quiet diplomacy” and intense planning. The delicate final negotiations continued through late Sunday evening, after the president arrived in Bali for the G20 summit.

Still, expectations of any substantial agreement are modest: The president and several senior White House officials have framed the meeting as an attempt to “set the floor” between the two countries rather than find common ground. The pair will not release a joint statement afterward. Mr. Biden is scheduled to hold a news conference at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, after he meets with Mr. Xi.

Daniel R. Russel, a former senior American diplomat who accompanied Mr. Biden on meetings with Mr. Xi when Mr. Biden was vice president, said both sides were seeking “to lower the temperature in an overheated relationship.”

What else to know:

• The two men, who have known each other since Mr. Biden was vice president, have talked by phone or video five times in the past 18 months. Mr. Xi has repeatedly warned Mr. Biden against what he sees as meddling in affairs related to Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims. The acrimony rose after Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August, prompting Beijing to launch a flurry of military drills.
• Tensions over technology restrictions are also likely to be on the agenda, after the Biden administration announced sweeping new limits on the sale of semiconductor technology seen as essential to China’s ambitions.
• U.S. officials will watch to see what Mr. Xi says about Russia, and whether he repeats any version of the comments he made this month to the visiting German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, that China opposes “the threat or use of nuclear weapons.”
• Mr. Xi comes to the meeting as the most powerful Chinese leader in decades, weeks after a Communist Party congress gave him a groundbreaking third term in office.

Last month, Xi Jinping laid out his priorities for a breakthrough third term in power in a key report to a Communist Party congress. The omission of two phrases exposed his anxieties about an increasingly volatile world where Washington is contesting China’s ascent as an authoritarian superpower.

For two decades, successive Chinese leaders have declared at the congress that the country was in a “period of important strategic opportunity,” implying that China faced no imminent risk of major conflict and could focus more on economic growth. For even longer, leaders have said that “peace and development remain the themes of the era,” suggesting that whatever may be going wrong in the world, the grand trends were on China’s side.

But the two slogans, so unvarying that they rarely drew attention, were not in Mr. Xi’s report to the weeklong congress. Not in his 104-minute speech summarizing the report. Nor in the 72-page Chinese full version given to officials and journalists.

Their exclusion, and Mr. Xi’s somber warning of “dangerous storms” on the horizon, indicated that he believed international hazards have worsened, several experts said. Mr. Xi sees a world made more treacherous by American support for the disputed island of Taiwan, Chinese vulnerability to technology “choke points,” and the plans of Western-led alliances to increase their military presence around Asia.

“Our country has entered a period when strategic opportunity coexists with risks and challenges, and uncertainties and unforeseen factors are rising,” Mr. Xi said. Although China has room for international growth and initiative, he added, “the world has entered a period of turbulence and transformation.”

Christopher Buckley

Katie Rogers

Last month, President Biden released his 48-page national security strategy, which focused relentlessly on China even as Russia wages war in Ukraine. In the document, which every new administration is required to issue, Mr. Biden made clear that over the long term he was more worried about China’s moves to “layer authoritarian governance with a revisionist foreign policy” than he was about a declining, battered Russia.

“Russia and the P.R.C. pose different challenges,” Mr. Biden wrote, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China. “Russia poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly flouting the basic laws of the international order today, as its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has shown.”

But more than eight months after the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military appears less fearsome than it did when the first drafts of the document circulated in the White House in December.

China “is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to advance that objective,” the president wrote.

The document paved the way for the Pentagon to publish its National Defense Strategy paper a few weeks later, which declared that China “remains our most consequential strategic competitor for the coming decades.”

The anxieties have been magnified by China’s plans to expand and modernize its still relatively limited nuclear arsenal to one that could reach at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, according to the Pentagon. China sees threats in American-led security initiatives, including proposals to help build nuclear-powered submarines for Australia.

Keith Bradsher

The meeting between President Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on neutral ground in Bali, has a Cold War feel: more about managing potential conflict than finding common ground. The rancor between the United States and China on a range of issues means that even short-term stabilization and cooperation on shared challenges — climate change, containing North Korea’s nuclear program or stopping pandemics — could be fragile.

“This is in a sense the first superpower summit of the Cold War Version 2.0,” said Evan S. Medeiros, a Georgetown University professor who was President Barack Obama’s top adviser on Asia-Pacific affairs. “Will both leaders discuss, even implicitly, the terms of coexistence amid competition? Or, by default, will they let loose the dogs of unconstrained rivalry?”

Neither side calls it a Cold War, a term evoking a world divided between Western and Soviet camps bristling with nuclear arsenals. And the differences are real between that era and this one, with its vast trade flows and technological commerce between China and Western powers.

The Apple iPhone and many other staples of American life are assembled almost entirely in China. Instead of trying to build a formal bloc of allies as the Soviets did, Beijing has sought to influence nations through major projects that create dependency, including wiring them with Chinese-made communications networks.

Even so, the recent declarations surrounding Mr. Xi’s appointment to a third term and Mr. Biden’s newly released national security, defense and nuclear strategies have described an era of growing global uncertainty heightened by competition — economic, military, technological, political — between their countries.

“It may not be the Cold War, with a capital C and capital W, as in a replay of the U.S.-Soviet experience,” Professor Medeiros said. But, he added, “because of China’s substantial capabilities and its global reach, this cold war will be more challenging in many ways than the previous one.”

Despite their differences, Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi want to avoid pent-up tensions exploding into a crisis that could wreak economic havoc. Mr. Biden said last week that he was “looking for competition, not — not conflict. And Mr. Xi — who wants to put China’s growth back on track after heavy blows from Covid restrictions and problems in the housing market — told the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations that he wants to “find the right way to get along.”

BALI, Indonesia — Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said on Monday that she hopes China is able to roll out a more effective vaccination campaign to combat the coronavirus. Thus far, Beijing has largely contained its spread with strict lockdowns and travel restrictions that have slowed its economy and weighed on global economic growth.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Group of 20 gathering, ahead of a meeting between President Biden and China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, Ms. Yellen said the United States was prepared to help China in its efforts to stop the spread of the virus.

“I believe that we have offered China American mRNA vaccines, and I believe that they have not been interested in taking us up on that,” Ms. Yellen told reporters, referring to the vaccine technology that was first developed in the West and has been adopted in many countries.

Ms. Yellen added: “To the extent that it might be helpful to them, certainly we want to see them be able to deal effectively with the pandemic, both for their own sake and the sake of the entire world. So we certainly stand ready to be of assistance.”

A Treasury official said that Ms. Yellen was not suggesting that the United States would donate vaccines to China, but rather was noting Beijing’s refusal to import vaccines produced by U.S. drug companies.

China has focused on developing homegrown vaccines but has yet to roll out one with the mRNA technology used in the inoculations that have proved most effective. An mRNA vaccine that China developed was approved for use in Indonesia in September.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany said in Beijing this month that he had been assured that China would accelerate the approval process for Covid-19 vaccines made by the German company BioNTech and that, in turn, he would push for Chinese vaccines to be granted regulatory approval by the European Union.

China has maintained a zero-tolerance approach to Covid, and Ms. Yellen said that Beijing’s pandemic policies were among the reasons that the Chinese economy is slowing. Last week, China softened some of its Covid restrictions, which pleased investors, but a rise in infections has raised questions about whether measures will be tightened again.

The Treasury secretary will be participating in Mr. Biden’s meeting with Mr. Xi later on Monday, and she is expected to meet with Yi Gang, the governor of the People’s Bank of China, later this week. She told The New York Times on Saturday that she hopes the meetings will help “stabilize” the relationship between the United States and China and improve communication between the world’s two largest economies.

“We’ve been very clear that we have national security concerns and would like to address those,” Ms. Yellen said on Monday. Those concerns, she said, include the dependence of American supply chains on China for minerals that are used in batteries and solar panels.

nytimes.com · by David E. Sanger Katie Rogers Chris Buckley Christopher Buckley Katie Rogers Katie Rogers Katie Rogers David E. Sanger Keith Bradsher David E. Sanger Alan Rappeport · November 14, 2022

15. Why China Will Play It Safe

I sure hope he does.

Excerpts:

The Biden administration will need to understand that China’s new leaders are not just warmongering statists if it wants to successfully handle an unbound Xi. Right now, however, it may not. On Taiwan, the administration has touted an ever-shrinking timeline for possible Chinese military action, and it has alleged that the Chinese government is impatient about retaking the island. This messaging may be deliberately alarmist—part of an attempt to tell Beijing that the United States is ready and watching, thereby deterring an attack. But it could create a self-fulfilling prophecy if the resulting support to Taipei hollows out Washington’s official “one China” policy—which recognizes the Chinese position that Taiwan is a part of China and that the mainland is the sole legal government of China—and in turn crosses Beijing’s fundamental redline. Biden officials are more circumspect in describing Xi’s new economic team, but their framing of the Chinese-U.S. rivalry as a competition of economic and governance systems implies that they expect China’s model will ultimately fail—a perspective that earns them few friends in Beijing.

That is not to say Xi’s approach and his new team are the right choices for China or that they inevitably will succeed. And regardless, Biden must understand that Xi’s power equals that of Mao—except during a time when China is far more economically powerful and globally consequential. China’s president is a ruthless and tenacious leader, full of ambitions that will not be subordinated by norms: something the reformist Hu Jintao’s embarrassing and forced exit from the congress meeting clearly illustrated. By appointing a mix of loyal protégés and accomplished technocrats to the Politburo, Xi has also made it clear that he is a man in a hurry, pursuing fast results. He could act rashly and catch Washington off guard.

But that does not mean Xi is itching for a fight. In fact, Xi’s very sense that China faces substantial challenges may encourage him to lower bilateral tensions. Ding, a leading Politburo member, unwittingly hinted as much in a lengthy early November article in the People’s Daily, where he forcefully catalogued China’s many challenges and arduous tasks over the next five years (and beyond) and offered a controversial Mao formulation as the right response. It was, after all, Mao who first lowered tensions with Washington in order to more easily achieve many of his objectives. Xi is not looking for a rapprochement, but he might like some breathing room. Early rumblings that Biden and Xi could hold a lengthy meeting with the trappings of traditional modern summits, where both sides use the gathering to announce commercial deals and other deliverable results, certainly suggested as much. The real question is whether Biden wants to—or can—seize Beijing’s apparent interest in a détente to pump the brakes on the relationship’s downward spiral.

Why China Will Play It Safe

Xi Would Prefer Détente—Not War—With America

By Christopher K. Johnson

November 14, 2022

Foreign Affairs · by Christopher K. Johnson · November 14, 2022

At a time of growing tension between Beijing and Washington, China’s 20th Party Congress in October unsettled many outside observers. During the proceedings, not only did Chinese President Xi Jinping stack China’s all-important Politburo Standing Committee with loyalists and secure a third term in office; he also painted his darkest picture yet of China’s external threats. Xi called for further increasing the quantity and quality of China’s already accelerating defense production. And he appointed a mix of protégés and skilled technocrats to the full Politburo to oversee China’s response to the challenge.

So far, Beijing has withheld escalatory responses that would amount to direct economic warfare against the United States, such as disrupting crucial supply chains of rare-earth metals or using untested Chinese regulatory tools such as its “Unreliable Entity List” and the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, which could penalize foreign companies simply for complying with U.S. regulations. But to many analysts, Xi’s recent moves are a sign of worse to come. Now that Xi is firmly ensconced in his third term, some China observers argue that he could move to retake Taiwan in the next few years, provoking a full-fledged war between the world’s two most powerful states.

But the new Politburo is not a war cabinet. Although there is no question that China’s leadership has grown more prickly and assertive, predictions in the wake of the congress that Beijing could soon launch a military provocation or that Xi will dramatically rein in free-market capitalism in favor of a return to statism are wrong. For all their loyalty to Xi, the party’s new leaders are mostly measured technocrats. Xi has certainly added many close allies, but they also have strong connections to China’s private economy and are unlikely to be pure sycophants. Rather than planning for an aggressive, closed, and highly personalistic China, the United States should expect Beijing to continue to govern in a stable and predictable manner, if only because the China is facing major challenges that make the Politburo crave stability.

THE SPIRIT OF STRUGGLE

The 20th Party Congress is not the first time Xi has spoken about the world in a menacing tone. In May 2019, U.S. talks with China over President Donald Trump’s tariffs collapsed in Washington. Shortly after, Xi traveled to Jiangxi Province on a visit full of symbolism: Jiangxi was the launch pad for the Chinese Communist Party’s fabled Long March in 1934, when CCP forces successfully retreated from advancing Chinese nationalists, regrouped, and then won. “We are now embarking on a new Long March,” Xi said to a cheering crowd at the Long March memorial site, “and we must start all over again.” He doubled down in a Politburo meeting a year later, declaring that China was fighting a “protracted war” against the United States, in a throwback to On Protracted War, Mao Zedong’s 1938 book about defeating a superior foreign enemy.

Yet Xi did not completely upend Chinese doctrine on those occasions. In each instance, he held fast to the judgment that stability and economic growth continued to be the dominant global trends. By declaring that “peace and development remain the themes of the era,” he parroted a phrase first coined by Deng Xiaoping—the father of China’s post-Mao reforms. He also said China was enjoying “a period of strategic opportunity”: an axiom introduced by Jiang Zemin, Deng’s successor and another market-oriented reformist. The idea underlying both concepts is that China enjoys a benign, perhaps even welcoming, global geopolitical climate. This assessment forestalled Chinese military adventurism aimed at reshaping East Asia’s balance of power and instead incentivized the country’s policymakers to focus on economic growth. Both phrases appeared again in critical CCP documents from April and June 2022, reaffirming their canonical standing in party dogma.

That continuity, however, did not stop Xi from changing Chinese foreign policy. Already in November 2014, he gave a speech in which he effectively broke with Deng’s injunction that China should keep a low international profile, even though Xi’s immediate predecessor—Hu Jintao—had offered a full-throated defense of that approach just a few years earlier. Indeed, Xi made it clear that he had little regard for most of his various predecessors’ decisions. In a party resolution passed in November 2021, Xi condemned the rampant corruption and ideological laxity under their rule, and he put his own ideological contribution on par with Mao’s while downgrading Deng’s. This boosting of Xi’s own thoughts at the expense of his predecessors’ continued in the run-up to the party congress. In July 2022, a prominent party theoretician penned an article in the CCP’s flagship People’s Daily extoling Mao’s and Xi’s theoretical achievements while making no mention of Deng, Jiang, or Hu.

China’s new Politburo is not a war cabinet.

This diminution campaign cleared the way for Xi to finally excise both phrases—“peace and development” and “strategic opportunity”—from his political report to the 20th Party Congress. It is unclear exactly why they were removed, but the West’s galvanized response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Politburo’s conclusion that the Biden administration is at least as aggressive toward China as the Trump administration was probably made a difference. These two factors are also part of the reason why Xi has made multiple references to “the spirit of struggle,” a deliberate callback to Maoist rhetoric used when China faced both a hostile West after the Korean War and an antagonistic after the Sino-Soviet split. Although language about peace, development, and strategic opportunities all appear in the political report, the terms are used in isolation and counterbalanced with references to “risks,” “challenges,” and “hegemonic bullying.” Xi almost directly attacked the United States for its tariffs and criticisms, saying China opposes “building walls and fortifications,” “decoupling and breaking links,” and “unilateral sanctions and extreme pressure.”

So far, the main policy implication of Xi’s stiff language has been a campaign to build domestic industrial strength. At the congress, Xi sketched out his plans to create a “fortress economy” that is self-sufficient in food, energy, and core technologies, such as semiconductors and advanced manufacturing. Xi also said he hopes to build supply chains that are safer from Washington’s interference. He seems similarly committed to increasing China’s military strength abroad and the regime’s security at home. In the 20th Party Congress report, his “comprehensive national security concept” had its own standalone section, and mentions of “national security” were up 60 percent over the last report, in 2017. Xi also subtly declared that China must improve its “strategic deterrence”: a likely nod to China’s August 2021 test of a hypersonic glide vehicle—and an indication that China will substantially expand its nuclear force.

Economic development retained its spot as China’s “top priority” in the report. But Xi’s new admonition to “ensure both development and security” puts security on nearly equal footing, potentially creating more friction with Washington. Xi’s proclaimed desire to promote a unique, “Chinese-style of modernization” for developing countries might spark fears that China’s amorphous Global Development and Global Security Initiatives are in fact nefarious joint campaigns to directly challenge the Western international order. Equating development and security also could heighten U.S. concerns about “civil-military fusion” in China’s economy—fears that have already prompted U.S. President Joe Biden to implement a virtual ban on exporting high-end semiconductors to China. If Xi merges departments focused on development and national security at China’s next legislative session—or creates a new structure to improve coordination and cooperation between them—an increase in Chinese-U.S. tensions would become virtually certain.

STEADY AS SHE GOES

In many ways, Xi’s new leadership team matches his protectionist and militaristic language. Several of the new Politburo members are techno-nationalists with expertise in important state-led scientific endeavors that have advanced China’s industrial prowess; they include a nuclear engineer, an expert in material sciences, and four officials with experience in Chinese defense firms. In the security realm, Chen Wenqing is the first former head of China’s civilian foreign intelligence arm to sit on the Politburo. He is joined on the CCP Secretariat—the Politburo’s executive body—by both China’s top cop and a career police officer turned party disciplinarian, creating the largest contingent of security officials on the Secretariat in recent memory. Xi’s new chief uniformed officer and his presumptive next defense minister have both overseen weapons development, highlighting the CCP’s emphasis on continually upgrading China’s capabilities. Xi’s revamped high command also has two officers who saw action in China’s border wars with Vietnam and a third who served extensively in Chinese army units near Taiwan.

Given these appointments, it is understandable why many analysts believe China is preparing to upend the liberal order—perhaps even through violence. Major news outlets across the globe said Xi’s new lineup, especially in the military, proves he is itching for war. But such narratives are overhyped. Xi’s all-loyalist Politburo is not designed for near-term conflict with Taiwan (or any other state) but rather to “harden” China’s system in case war becomes unavoidable. Xi kept an aging top general on the Politburo, for example, because he is a fellow CCP blue blood who can be trusted to enforce Xi’s political grip on the military, not because he fought in China’s disastrous war with Vietnam 40 years ago. Likewise, Xi promoted defense specialists to the Politburo because they achieved previously unattainable technological breakthroughs, like landing rovers on the moon, rather than for their weapons-making prowess. And despite the new language, Xi’s work report still balanced calls for a “fortress economy” with language supporting markets, suggesting he will govern with a precautionary approach instead of marching to war.

The idea that Xi’s new economic team is an incompetent and sycophantic group of statists, also popular among China observers, is similarly off base. The officials’ career paths alone belie that caricature. China’s next premier, Li Qiang, has led all three of China’s top east coast economies and maintains good relations with private-sector entrepreneurs. His stewardship of the wrenching Shanghai lockdown raised reasonable questions about whether loyally following Xi will outweigh his pro-market instincts, but that is nothing new for China: outgoing Premier Li Keqiang, an unquestioned reformist, earned a similar black mark for toeing the party line amid controversies earlier in his career. Li Qiang’s likely economic deputy—Ding Xuexiang—is more of a cipher, but he hails from the financial capital of Shanghai and will be attuned to the markets. As Xi’s longtime chief of staff, Ding knows how to please his boss, but he is also experienced at operating China’s government to address various problems. Finally, He Lifeng—assumed to be the economy’s new operational manager—has substantial experience in several of China’s market-driven special economic zones.

China’s president is a ruthless and tenacious leader.

The Biden administration will need to understand that China’s new leaders are not just warmongering statists if it wants to successfully handle an unbound Xi. Right now, however, it may not. On Taiwan, the administration has touted an ever-shrinking timeline for possible Chinese military action, and it has alleged that the Chinese government is impatient about retaking the island. This messaging may be deliberately alarmist—part of an attempt to tell Beijing that the United States is ready and watching, thereby deterring an attack. But it could create a self-fulfilling prophecy if the resulting support to Taipei hollows out Washington’s official “one China” policy—which recognizes the Chinese position that Taiwan is a part of China and that the mainland is the sole legal government of China—and in turn crosses Beijing’s fundamental redline. Biden officials are more circumspect in describing Xi’s new economic team, but their framing of the Chinese-U.S. rivalry as a competition of economic and governance systems implies that they expect China’s model will ultimately fail—a perspective that earns them few friends in Beijing.

That is not to say Xi’s approach and his new team are the right choices for China or that they inevitably will succeed. And regardless, Biden must understand that Xi’s power equals that of Mao—except during a time when China is far more economically powerful and globally consequential. China’s president is a ruthless and tenacious leader, full of ambitions that will not be subordinated by norms: something the reformist Hu Jintao’s embarrassing and forced exit from the congress meeting clearly illustrated. By appointing a mix of loyal protégés and accomplished technocrats to the Politburo, Xi has also made it clear that he is a man in a hurry, pursuing fast results. He could act rashly and catch Washington off guard.

But that does not mean Xi is itching for a fight. In fact, Xi’s very sense that China faces substantial challenges may encourage him to lower bilateral tensions. Ding, a leading Politburo member, unwittingly hinted as much in a lengthy early November article in the People’s Daily, where he forcefully catalogued China’s many challenges and arduous tasks over the next five years (and beyond) and offered a controversial Mao formulation as the right response. It was, after all, Mao who first lowered tensions with Washington in order to more easily achieve many of his objectives. Xi is not looking for a rapprochement, but he might like some breathing room. Early rumblings that Biden and Xi could hold a lengthy meeting with the trappings of traditional modern summits, where both sides use the gathering to announce commercial deals and other deliverable results, certainly suggested as much. The real question is whether Biden wants to—or can—seize Beijing’s apparent interest in a détente to pump the brakes on the relationship’s downward spiral.

• CHRISTOPHER K. JOHNSON is President and CEO of China Strategies Group, a political risk consultancy, and a Senior Fellow at the Asia Society’s Center for China Analysis.

Foreign Affairs · by Christopher K. Johnson · November 14, 2022

16. Reconceiving U.S. Economic Strategy

Excerpts:

There are three fundamental, structural reasons that make the economic instrument of power different from other instruments and therefore difficult to apply as part of a whole of government strategic approach. The first reason involves an understanding of the government’s provision of services. The U.S. government typically provides two types. One is a “direct” service—a service that the government directly supplies to perform a function. The two exemplary “direct services” that the U.S. government provides are the U.S. postal service and the U.S. military. Both are directed by, and under the control of, the executive branch. Both the postal service and the U.S. military are internally directed by a unified, hierarchical leadership structure within the executive. Far more prevalent in the U.S. government are “indirect” services. These services stabilize, monitor, and overwatch key societal functions, albeit not via direct intervention and action. They are provided via legislation and regulation, and via monitoring and inspecting any number of activities, and they are dispersed across any number of entities. It is evident that it is far easier to “orchestrate” a strategy for something over which one has direct control than for something over which one only has indirect control.[3]

...

Reframing U.S. economic statecraft as operating a complex adaptive system does not mean ending efforts to work with other U.S. governmental instruments of power. To do so would be absurd: economic actions often are taken to achieve non-economic (e.g., diplomatic or even military) ends.[16] But it reconfigures strategic thinking in two ways. First, it shows that the capacity of the U.S. government’s economic instrument of power is structurally limited. Secondly, it shows that operating within a complex adaptive system opens unnoticed possibilities that could further U.S. interests. Indeed, within such a system, because it is non-linear, emergent, and unpredictable, those possibilities are endlessly varied.

Reconceiving U.S. Economic Strategy

Walt Hudson  November 14, 2022

thestrategybridge.org · November 14, 2022

Military doctrine often proposes a whole-of-government approach to overcome what could be a fragmented strategic process. But this approach is elusive and ill-defined. Somehow, a lot of people from different government agencies work collaboratively and with single-minded purpose to devise a strategy. Joint Publication 3-08, for example, states that whole of government effort “involves the integration of U.S. Government efforts through interagency planning that set forth detailed concepts and operations.”[1] But it goes little beyond describing planning efforts in abstract terms. And it admits significant difficulties. For example, civilian departments and agencies have “different cultures and capacities,” and many do not even conduct operational planning.[2] These are indeed obstacles.

The utility of a coherent whole-of-government strategic approach is even more questionable when any strategy involves the use of economic statecraft as an instrument of power. For reasons described below, the mental model of a unified government “orchestrating” the economic instrument of power is fundamentally misleading. Rather, the more appropriate “mental model” to describe the milieu of the economic instrument is as a network of a variety of entities, and even more specifically to describe that milieu as a complex adaptive system. Behaviors in such a system are inherently decentering– no single node in the system predominates. Understanding how the economic instrument can operate in this system also requires understanding the rest of the elements and their interconnected interdependencies.

What Makes the Economic Instrument of Power Different–and Therefore Problematic When Attempting a Whole of Government Approach

There are three fundamental, structural reasons that make the economic instrument of power different from other instruments and therefore difficult to apply as part of a whole of government strategic approach. The first reason involves an understanding of the government’s provision of services. The U.S. government typically provides two types. One is a “direct” service—a service that the government directly supplies to perform a function. The two exemplary “direct services” that the U.S. government provides are the U.S. postal service and the U.S. military. Both are directed by, and under the control of, the executive branch. Both the postal service and the U.S. military are internally directed by a unified, hierarchical leadership structure within the executive. Far more prevalent in the U.S. government are “indirect” services. These services stabilize, monitor, and overwatch key societal functions, albeit not via direct intervention and action. They are provided via legislation and regulation, and via monitoring and inspecting any number of activities, and they are dispersed across any number of entities. It is evident that it is far easier to “orchestrate” a strategy for something over which one has direct control than for something over which one only has indirect control.[3]

The U.S. government specifically conducts economic policymaking via two methods: via fiscal policy, which deals with the raising of taxes and revenues; and via monetary policy, which involves the distribution and control of the monetary supply.

The second reason that makes the economic instrument of power so different is because the U.S. government specifically conducts economic policymaking via two methods: via fiscal policy, which deals with the raising of taxes and revenues; and via monetary policy, which involves the distribution and control of the monetary supply. Neither of these policymaking approaches are directly controlled by the executive branch. By constitutional separation of powers, the legislative branch has primacy over fiscal methods: it raises taxes and spends provides for the government’s budget. By legislation, the U.S. Federal Reserve is essentially independent of the executive and legislative branches and has primacy over monetary policy. Simply put, the agencies primarily responsible for the two most significant policymaking aspects of the economic instrument are not even in the same branches of government as the military instrument.[4]

The third reason that makes the economic instrument different is that the United States is not only, per constitutional arrangement, purposefully divided as stated above it is, to use the terminology of economic and policy historian Chalmers Johnson, a “market rational” state.[5] As opposed to “plan rational” states such as many East Asian nations, (to include China) the United States Government as a rule avoids overt industrial policy. This includes the avoidance of practices such as picking industrial national champions, aiding or subsidizing wide industrial sectors (though the government makes exceptions for defense and agriculture) or setting broad price and wage controls. Unmistakably, the U.S. government has done these things in the past, though almost always during national emergencies and wartime—and often with significant controversy and resistance (sometimes within the U.S. government itself).[6]

The Economic Instrument Within a Network and a Complex Adaptive System

These reasons render a mental model of the economic instrument of national power being orchestrated collectively with other national power instruments in a unified whole of government approach deeply problematic. The more appropriate model to describe the milieu of the economic instrument is as a network of a variety of entities.

What is a network? A standard dictionary definition of a network is a "large system consisting of many similar parts that are connected together to allow movement or communication between or along the parts, or between the parts and a control centre.”[7] This definition, minus the notion of a “control centre,” aptly describes the overall network within which U.S. governmental economic entities operate. A network is any number of parts, connected, not in command-and-control relationships, but through any number of ties that link them together. The entities are not monolithically unified. They are not under a single conductor that orchestrates them as a U.S. government instrument of power.

Often the changes created by the behavior create a total change greater than the sum of changes to individual parts.

This network contains various U.S. governmental entities—the U.S. Congress (and its committees and subcommittees), the Federal Reserve, and various executive agencies (i.e., Departments of Commerce and Treasury, the U.S. Trade Representative Office, the National Economic Council, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, and numerous others). They exist in this network, along with domestic, international, and supranational entities.

The network itself is a complex adaptive system. A complex adaptive system is a network whose behavior is non-linear, emergent, and unpredictable. Non-linear behavior moves in multiple directions at once. Such behavior is variable. Often the changes created by the behavior create a total change greater than the sum of changes to individual parts. Emergence indicates that the system exhibits large-scale patterns that are not found in individual parts and that can lead to new, unpredictable patterns and behaviors.[8] Economic systems are frequently described as complex adaptive systems, as are “living organisms, immune systems, ecologies, societies, … political systems, communications networks (including their users’ behaviors), military organizations, and war itself.”[9]

The idea that U.S. economic entities exist in a complex adaptive system is especially important to policymakers. Given the unpredictability in the system, it becomes apparent that efforts at mastery or control are illusory.

Crucial to understanding complex adaptive systems are the concepts of positive and negative feedback. Certain feedback stabilizes the system and brings it toward equilibrium or homeostasis. Positive feedback, on the other hand, takes a system away from its “desired equilibrium” and creates “runaway processes of change.”[10] Given the nature of a complex adaptive system, positive feedback is a very real and oft-occurring phenomenon, and it is this feedback that generates disproportionately influential outcomes.

The idea that U.S. economic entities exist in a complex adaptive system is especially important to policymakers. Given the unpredictability in the system, it becomes apparent that efforts at mastery or control are illusory. The very nature of this environment obviously constrains action: realizing one operates in such a system may mitigate the temptation to commit grandiose error. At the same time, understanding this system reveals possibilities, because unpredictability cuts two ways. It could also present opportunities that allow for a competitor or adversary to make mistakes.[11]

Mapping the System

An interpretation of the system can be visualized by mapping it, though there should be full recognition that a full and complete mapping of such an open-ended system is not achievable, but always a work in progress.[12] Examples abound of networks that consist of nodes, clusters of nodes, and connecting linkages. This process involves identifying U.S. governmental entities, understanding their functions, and then mapping their connections to other entities throughout the system, domestically and internationally. Collectively, they illustrate many facets of the system.

Stratagems over Strategy

Mapping the system is a necessary step, but calling and depicting something a network or a complex adaptive system, as Richard Rumelt points out, does nothing, because doing so is not strategy, but simply model creation.[13] Nonetheless, viewing U.S. economic entities as operating in a complex adaptive system provides for the possibility not necessarily of grandiose strategies, but of stratagems—smaller scale actions that take advantage of understanding the system and where negative and positive feedback generates effects.

The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a version of a complex adaptive system.

In their recent book, Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, Hal Brands and Michael Beckley propose efforts that the United States could undertake while competing with China. They include “[b]ait-and bleed strategies that “don’t risk war but do trigger the type of blustery overreaction through which Beijing isolates itself” and they call for a “network based structure that allows members [of a US-led economic alliance] to create flexible, issue-based partnerships.”[14] Such ideas can be further developed by being mapped out within an economic complex adaptive system to reveal nodes and connections and relationships between various entities.

The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a version of a complex adaptive system. It spans a myriad of Chinese government agencies, state-owned enterprises, and provincial and national banks—not to mention the innumerable public and private entities in the 165 countries where the BRI is extant.

More effective than a grandiose and infeasible counterstrategy to offer some large-scale BRI alternative, understanding and mapping the BRI as a complex adaptive system—to include the relationship of U.S. governmental entities within that system--could be far more effective. Some of this work is currently being done. The William and Mary University affiliated research lab AidData is tracking the BRI and its various feedbacks. For example, it denotes resultant environmental degradation and native health problems that have occurred because of certain BRI projects. Tracking that “feedback” -- and then taking calibrated, appropriate actions by U.S. entities—highlighting bad results of BRI projects, and, conversely, possibly collaborating multilaterally in possibly good results—could have cascading effects far more consequential than larger strategic efforts.[15]

A New Way of Economic Strategic Thinking

Reframing U.S. economic statecraft as operating a complex adaptive system does not mean ending efforts to work with other U.S. governmental instruments of power. To do so would be absurd: economic actions often are taken to achieve non-economic (e.g., diplomatic or even military) ends.[16] But it reconfigures strategic thinking in two ways. First, it shows that the capacity of the U.S. government’s economic instrument of power is structurally limited. Secondly, it shows that operating within a complex adaptive system opens unnoticed possibilities that could further U.S. interests. Indeed, within such a system, because it is non-linear, emergent, and unpredictable, those possibilities are endlessly varied.

Walter M. Hudson is an associate professor at the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, part of National Defense University. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of National Defense University or the Department of Defense.

He would also like to thank Dr. Ben Zweibelson for his assistance regarding some of the issues presented in this article.

The Strategy Bridge is read, respected, and referenced across the worldwide national security community—in conversation, education, and professional and academic discourse.

Thank you for being a part of The Strategy Bridge community. Together, we can #BuildTheBridge.

Header Image: Seal of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Washington DC, 2021 (Tommao Wang).

Notes:

[1] Joint Publication 3-08, Interorganizational Cooperation (12 October 2016), Executive Summary, x.

[2] Id., at II-3.

[3] See, e.g., “Government’s Role in the Economy,” at American History: From Revolution to Reconstruction and Beyond, available at: https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/economy-1991/how-the-united-states-economy-works/governments-role-in-the-economy.php.

[4] Any number of references discuss the separation of power and responsibilities. See, e.g., Mike Moffatt, “The Government's Role in the Economy: Using Fiscal and Monetary Policies to Regulate Economic Activity,” ThoughtCo. (updated July 21, 2019), available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/the-governments-role-in-the-economy-1147544.

[5] See Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925-1975 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1982), 18

[6] Id.

[7] See https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/network(last visited 28 September 2022) for the definition of “network.”

[8] See Keith Green, “Complex Adaptive Systems in Military Analysis”, Institute for Defense Analyses, 2011, 1-1 to 1-9, available at: https://www.ida.org/-/media /feature/publications/c/co/complex-adaptive-systems-in-military-analysis/ida-document-d-4313.ashx

[9] Ahmed, A.S. Elgazzar, A.S. Hegazi, “An overview of complex adaptive systems,” arXiv (28 June 2005), available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/nlin/0506059.

[10] Antoine J. Bousquet, The Scientific Way of Warfare: Order and Chaos on the Battlefields of Modernity (New York and Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2009), 167.

[11] Bousquet, 194

[12] For some good visual depictions of a variety of maps, see Christina Wodtke, “Five Models for Making Sense of Complex Systems,” Medium, 2017, available at: https://cwodtke.medium.com/five-models-for-making-sense-of-complex-systems-134be897b6b3. However, great caution should accompany such mapping–at best some patterns can be visualized, but there should be a clear understanding that the visual map cannot encompass the entirety of the system. See Haridimos Tsoukas, Complex Knowledge: Studies in Organizational Epistemology, UK ed. (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2005), 216-17. My thanks to Dr. Ben Zweibelson, a leading military design theorist and practitioner, in pointing this out as well.

[13] Ferguson, at 43; Richard Rumelt, The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists (New York: PublicAffairs, 2022), 110.

[14] Hal Brands and Michael Beckley, Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China (New York: Norton & Co. 2022), 165, 167.

[15] See the AidData website at: for a detailed and extensive coverage of BRI projects, available at: . https://www.aiddata.org/china-development-finance.

[16] For examples, see Stephen Kirchner, “A Geoeconomic Alliance: the Potential and Limits of Economic Statecraft” United States Study Centre (30 September 2021), available at: https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/a-geoeconomic-alliance-the-potential-and-limits-of-economic-statecraft.

thestrategybridge.org · November 14, 2022

17. Ukraine claims sniper has broken record for second-longest ranged kill

Ukraine claims sniper has broken record for second-longest ranged kill

Ukraine claims one of its snipers has taken out a Russian soldier from 2,710m making it the second longest deadly combat shot ever recorded

• Ukraine claims one of its snipers hit and killed a Russian solider at 2,710m 
• The shot, if confirmed, would be the second-longest range kill in combat  
• Briton Craig Harrison holds the current second-place record at 2,475m
• Longest confirmed sniper kill was by an unnamed Canadian soldier at 3,540m 

By CHRIS PLEASANCE FOR MAILONLINE 

PUBLISHED: 07:20 EST, 14 November 2022 | UPDATED: 09:07 EST, 14 November 2022

Daily Mail · by Chris Pleasance for MailOnline · November 14, 2022

A Ukrainian sniper has claimed to have executed the second-longest combat kill in history, according to Kyiv's military chiefs.

The unnamed sniper felled a Russian soldier at a distance of 2,710m – around 1.7miles – according to Ukraine's military, which published what it claimed was footage of the shot looking down the sniper's scope.

If confirmed, it would see the Ukrainian sharpshooter overtake Briton Craig Harrison who killed two Taliban fighters at a distance of 2,475m in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in 2009.

An unnamed Canadian sniper holds the record for the longest combat kill at 3,540m, after he took out an ISIS militant at an undisclosed location in Iraq in 2017.

Ukraine claims one of its snipers has taken out a Russian solider at 2,710m, which would be the second-longest ranged kill in combat if it is confirmed

Footage published by the Ukrainian armed forces of their kill shows an image of a man moving among trees before the shooter centres their crosshairs on his chest.

The thermal sight jumps upwards, indicating the rifle has been fired, before the figure drops to the ground around three seconds later.

A second figure then comes running over to the first in an apparent attempt to help his wounded comrade, before the sniper fires a second time.

Both figures then slump to the floor.

The Ukrainian military gave no other details about the incident, such as when or where it was filmed, or the weapon or ammunition used.

Some internet users disputed the footage, suggesting that most thermal scopes would not have been able to spot the Russian soldiers at that distance.

A Canadian sniper holds the record for the longest sniper kill on record at 11,614ft - while Briton Craig Harrison holds the official second-place spot

A British sniper team patrolling Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan in 2006. The sniper that killed six Taliban with one shot was on one of the last missions carried out by UK troops in Afghanistan

Others remarked that there was too short a time between the rifle being fired and the soldier slumping to the floor to account for the distance covered.

When the Canadian sniper made his record-breaking kill in 2017, the military said it took around 10 seconds for the bullet to hit its target.

Confirming military kills is a notoriously tricky business that largely relies on self-reporting by soldiers due to the difficulty of getting information from behind enemy lines during a conflict.

Over-reporting of casualties is therefore common and has plagued military tacticians throughout history.

Adolf Hitler was said to have badly miscalculated the strength of the RAF during the Battle of Britain because the Luftwaffe exaggerated their kills by a factor of seven during the early weeks of fighting.

The RAF was later found to have over-counted their own kills by a factor of two.

In the case of Craig Harrison, the Afghan National Police confirmed he had killed two Taliban fighters when they visited the site of the shooting shortly afterwards to try and retrieve the militants' weapons.

Ukrainian soldiers open fire with an artillery gun on Russian positions near the frontlines in Bakhmut, Donetsk, as the war continues

A destroyed Russian military vehicle is seen at Mirolubovka Village in Kherson, which was recently recaptured by Ukrainian forces

An Apache helicopter fitted with a laser range-finder was then sent up over Corporal Harrison's firing position to measure the distance between the two points.

Harrison later said he took the shot using an L115A3 Long Range Rifle and conditions were 'perfect' at the time - no wind, mild weather, and good visibility.

In the case of the record-breaking Canadian shot, it is thought to have been caught on film by a Predator drone circling overhead at the time.

The Canadian military said the shot was taken by a McMillan TAC-50 sniper rifle fired from the upper floors of a high-rise building.

A report by news site SOFREP said the kill took place in Mosul, and that the shooter and his team had recently trained in long-range sniping.

They had been firing at increasing distances over the city for several days leading up to the record-breaking kill.

A second shot by the same sniper at a slightly shorter distance moments after the first missed its target, the site reported.

The Ukrainian military did not say how it had confirmed their sniper's effort.

A separate record is held by another British sniper who killed six Taliban with a single bullet after it hit the trigger switch of a suicide vest he was wearing.

The 20-year-old Lance Corporal, of the Coldstream Guards, pulled off the stunning shot in Kakaran, southern Afghanistan, in December 2013.

His shot travelled 850m to reach its target, but the same shooter had previously taken out a Taliban fighter at 1,340m.

Daily Mail · by Chris Pleasance for MailOnline · November 14, 2022

18. With Over 2000 Pilots Killed, China Is Struggling With Its Aviators Despite Three Aircraft Carriers & An Enormous Air Force

This is an incredible statistic, if accurate.

With Over 2000 Pilots Killed, China Is Struggling With Its Aviators Despite Three Aircraft Carriers & An Enormous Air Force

eurasiantimes.com · by Ashish Dangwal · November 13, 2022

China’s ambitions to develop cutting-edge aircraft achieved a significant turning point when the J-10, a homegrown fourth-generation jet fighter, was introduced in 1998 by the state-owned Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group.

Black Sea To Turn Red? Russian Navy Wants Upgrades & Up Gunning Of Black Sea Fleet To Tackle Ukraine’s Killer USVs

Ukraine’s ‘Aircraft Killer’ Missiles Are Raining Hell On Russian Fighters Jets; Experts Call Them ‘Star Of The Show’

According to a Chinese media report, the J-10 project was greatly aided by a five-person team of Chinese test pilots trained to fly US warplanes aircraft in the UK. This also paved the way for creating the technologically sophisticated J-20 fifth-generation aircraft.

The SCMP report claimed that Lei Qiang, the son of a Korean war pilot and a member of the five-person team, was chosen to fly the first flight of the J-10 on March 23, 1998.

Just six months before that, the report said that Lei and his four companions had learned to operate the American aircraft from an international test pilot academy established by a former flight instructor at the UK’s Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment.

Lei Qiang (with bouquet), the test pilot for the J-10’s maiden flight, and J-10 chief designer Song Wencong (right) on March 23, 1998, after the prototype, landed. Photo: Handout

The report highlighted that Yang Wei, who oversaw design work on the J-20 stealth aircraft, was mentored by Song Wencong, chief designer of the J-10.

Nonetheless, it has been frequently stated that China has had difficulty training its fighter pilots. According to SCMP, the air force lost more than 2,000 pilots in the last six decades, 30 of whom were test pilots.

The Chinese air force’s test pilot school had developed a thorough and organized curriculum based on American publications about the training of test pilots.

Western Pilots Training Chinese Air Force

China reportedly recruited Western-trained fighter pilots to train its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) pilots, providing Beijing’s fast-modernizing air force with in-depth knowledge of Western air warfare tactics.

Several media publications reported that Western pilots had assisted Beijing in advancing its technological know-how and operational strategies. Fat pay cheques were used to entice pilots from the UK, France, and the US to train Chinese pilots.

The recent detention of a retired US Marine Corps pilot in Australia shows how seriously Western nations take such training and how keen they are to protect their military training secrets.

Alman Helvas, a Defense Market & Industry Consultant, told the EurAsian Times that only a small number of nations in the Indo-Pacific region have a lot of pilots with combat experience.

He said that “only Indian and Pakistani pilots have combat experience, while other nations have no such experience yet. That’s why China recruits Western pilots to give their pilots real air warfare experience. While China has adopted more advanced aircraft in recent years, we can’t deny that their pilots have no real combat experience.”

“We don’t know how proficient Chinese pilots are in air combat. That’s why they are actively recruiting Western pilots to have the latest knowledge about current air combat development in the West,” he added.

Similarly, Ben Lewis, a defense Analyst focusing on PLA development and Taiwan security issues, told the EurAsian Times, “China’s recruitment of Western pilots is not surprising given their goals. The PLA hasn’t fought a war since the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese war, and the PLA has undergone massive changes since that time, especially the PLAAF and PLANAF.”

Lewis further said, “the West has continued to engage in conflicts over the last 40 years, providing them with a massive asymmetry in combat experience compared to the PLA.

China is sure that the United States and its allies will intervene in a possible Taiwan confrontation. In that case, their pilots will be expected to hold their own against enemy pilots who have much more experience.”

He emphasized that employing combat pilots from the West with expertise in leading offensive air operations is one way to overcome that disparity. He suggested that having instructors with actual combat experience train pilots offers “invaluable benefits.”

“I also think one could argue that hiring Western pilots allows China to understand how Western air operations function, but I am confident they already have a solid understanding of that. I think that while this development is not necessarily unexpected, it represents a security concern to Western nations that may find themselves involved in a conflict with China,” Lewis added.

Meanwhile, Helvas noted, “we should be aware of Chinese propaganda about their pilot’s proficiency. Look what happen to Russia’s pilot performance in Ukraine. Russian pilots are not proficient. I believe a similar case happened in China.

To some extent, I believe China has exaggerated its pilot proficiency. Unlike Western pilots who have air combat experiences since the civil war in the former Yugoslavia to Iraq and Afghanistan, Chinese pilot has no experience at all in air combat in the last 20 years.”

Need For More Skilled Fighter Pilots

China’s three aircraft carriers, two of which have been commissioned and one launched in June, represent China’s expanding naval might. However, it appears that the country will have difficulty using these carriers as it struggles to keep up with the rising need for skilled ship-based fighter jet pilots.

A Chinese media report, citing an article published in Ordnance Industry Science Technology, a Chinese military magazine, highlighted how the Chinese Navy still doesn’t have a fighter trainer designed for carrier-based operations despite deploying its first aircraft carrier a decade ago.

The report quoted Beijing-based naval expert Li Jie saying that the PLA required at least 200 qualified carrier-based fighter jet pilots to fly 130 ship-borne aircraft after Fujian began sea trials last week. Fujian is China’s third and most advanced aircraft carrier.

While China’s first two carriers had ski-jump designs, the Fujian has advanced electromagnetic catapults. Thus, the Navy must learn a new aircraft launch and recovery system.

“It’s full of challenges,” Jie remarked, “as aircraft design and pilot training are among the world’s most difficult and complicated core technologies – which no one will share with you.”

Dai Mingmeng, one of the first five Chinese pilots to receive ship-borne certification, piloted a J-15 prototype on its debut flight from the deck of the Liaoning on November 3, 2012. At the time, he was 41 years old.

China’s J-15 fighter jet

The report said he is now training the new generation and other senior carrier-capable pilots. Since 2020, the Navy has directly enlisted cadets from high school graduates aged 16 to 19.

The current group of new naval aviation pilot cadets had an average age of 20, making them at least ten years younger than their predecessors. Following the creation of the Naval Aeronautical University in Yantai, Shandong province, in 2017, the PLA Navy began training its pilots rather than selecting competent applicants from the Air Force.

The US Navy also employs a similar strategy to recruit its fighter pilots. Nonetheless, the report describes the difficulties Chinese Navy fighter pilots encounter during their training.

T-7A Red Hawk

Chinese Navy (PLAN) pilots employ a single-engine, twin-seat version of the Chinese-built JL-9G as a carrier trainer. This aircraft was initially unveiled in 2011.

However, it cannot be used to simulate emergency landings on a flight deck due to limitations such as being too light and slow. As a result of these drawbacks, it has been restricted to land-based simulated carrier training.

The report also stated that the United States military had used the T-45 Goshawk carrier-qualified trainer to instruct its pilot cadets for several decades.

The Americans have since built a more sophisticated derivative, the T-7A Red Hawk, allowing for more efficient ship-borne fighter pilot training. The T-7A Red Hawk is outfitted with a more powerful General Electric F404 after-burning turbofan engine.

What Do Analysts Think About The Situation?

Rod Lee, a military enthusiast who closely follows the Chinese Air Force, has different views. He claims that “in 2017, they [China] more than doubled the size of its annual pilot cadet class from the 150-200 neighborhood to 400+. They’ve sustained that 400+ over the past five years.”

He further explained that “with a 50% washout rate (probably closer to 45%) and a five-year training period (closer to 6 w/transition), that means the PLAN brought in an extra 35 pilots starting this year and will continue to do so through 2027. This number is likely allocated to the carrier force.”

He also refutes that the PLAN trained “its pilots – rather than picking qualified candidates from the air force,” stating that “the PLAN actively poached PLAAF pilots.”

Shenyang J-15

He concluded that “most of the article talks about the technical limitations of the PLAN’s lack of a carrier trainer aircraft, but that has nothing to do with struggling to find enough pilots.”

In a similar line, Brian Hart, a fellow with the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said, “Training and retaining talented pilots is a challenge for any military. The PLA has challenges, especially given the demands of expanding naval aviation. But let’s not overhype their challenges/weaknesses.”

China’s Naval J-15 Fighter Jet

The Shenyang J-15, famous as the “Flying Shark,” is a fourth-generation Chinese all-weather twinjet fighter aircraft. It is China’s only ship-borne fighter jet.

The aircraft was mainly designed and developed for the People’s Liberation Army Naval Air Force (PLANAF) to operate on its aircraft carriers by the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (SAC) and the 601 Institute.

This fighter has been labeled the heaviest carrier-borne fighter in the world. It weighs around 17.5 tons and can travel at Mach 2.4, or just over 2,960 km/h. On the other hand, the JL-9G trainer’s top speed is Mach 1.05, and its gross weight is only 7.8 tons.

“The PLA does not have the luxury of owning a trainer like the T-45, so Chinese pilot cadets’ carrier-based training entirely relies on flying the J-15, posing a great challenge to improving their flying skills [because of the absence of a back-seat coach],” the Chinese military magazine said. In April 2016, two J-15 fighters collided, causing one death and one serious injury.

According to Macau-based military researcher Antony Wong Tong, China has built a twin-seat J-15S variant. However, recent footage released by official media revealed that the platform had been transformed into the ship-borne J-15D electronic warfare aircraft.

The twin-seat J-15S is still being tested in China, according to Zhou Chenming, a researcher with the Beijing-based Yuan Wang, a military science and technology think tank. This is akin to how the Americans did it when they produced the twin-seat F-15E Strike Eagle and other variants of the F-15 Eagle.

Nevertheless, some analysts believe the J-15’s heavier weight gives it a competitive advantage in air-to-air combat by enabling it to carry more fuel and a heavier payload of weaponry.

China claims that the J-15 is on par with the US Navy’s F/A-18 and, in some instances, outperforms the US Navy’s primary carrier-based strike fighter. Experts believe that J-15 is capable but would most likely lose if pitted against a F/A-18.

File Image: F-18 Super Hornet

“The US aircraft has superior radar,” Timothy Heath, a RAND Corporation senior defense researcher, said. “That’s a huge advantage being able to shoot from a very long range because you can see the enemy first. That gives the F/A-18 a big advantage, even over a more nimble and faster aircraft,” he added.

“The US is banking on the sensor battle, this idea that the US can see first and shoot first to compensate for general limitations on speed and maneuver and weapons load,” Heath said.

There is no denying that the Chinese Navy has achieved significant strides in the naval sphere. Still, it will inevitably encounter difficulties that it must resolve swiftly if it hopes to rival the US Navy globally.

• Contact the author at [email protected]
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eurasiantimes.com · by Ashish Dangwal · November 13, 2022

19. Indonesia: No proxy wars in Southeast Asia

Indonesia: No proxy wars in Southeast Asia

newsnationnow.com · by The Associated Press · November 13, 2022

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Indonesia’s president vowed Sunday not to let Southeast Asia become the front lines of a new Cold War amid increasing tensions between the United States and China, saying as his country took over the chairmanship of the influential Association of Southeast Asian Nations that it would not become “a proxy to any powers.”

Joko Widodo said the 10-nation bloc with a combined population of some 700 million people “must be a dignified region” and “uphold the values of humanity and democracy” — principles that have been challenged by last year’s military takeover in Myanmar and concerns about human rights in Cambodia.

“ASEAN must become a peaceful region and anchor for global stability, consistently uphold international law and not be a proxy to any powers,” he said. “ASEAN should not let the current geopolitical dynamic turn into a new Cold War in our region.”

As China has grown more assertive in the Asia-Pacific and pressed its claim to the self-governing democracy of Taiwan, the U.S. has pushed back, leading to increasing tensions.

Even as the ASEAN leaders met over the weekend in Phnom Penh, U.S. naval exercises with its partners in the so-called “Quad” group of nations — Australia, India and Japan — were underway in the Philippine Sea, east of Taiwan.

And on Saturday, China’s military flew 36 fighter jets and bombers near Taiwan, ten of which flew across the median line in the Taiwan Strait that separates the island from the mainland, according to Taiwanese officials.

The flights come as part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s stepped up efforts to intimidate Taiwan by regularly flying fighter planes and bombers near the island and firing missiles into the sea around it.

What both sides want from US-China summit

In Sunday’s East Asia Summit, which ran concurrently with the ASEAN meeting and included both the U.S. and China, U.S. President Joe Biden underscored that freedom of navigation and overflight must be respected in the East China and South China seas and that all disputes must be resolved peacefully and according to international law, according to the White House.

Biden said the U.S. will compete vigorously with China while keeping lines of communication open and ensuring that competition does not veer into conflict, while reaffirming the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, the White House said.

The comments came just a day before a highly anticipated meeting between Biden and Xi at the Group of 20 summit in Bali.

In Japan’s meetings with ASEAN leaders, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also singled out China, expressing “serious concern over unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force in the East and South China seas as well as economic coercion,” Japan’s Foreign Ministry said.

“He also pointed out the importance of the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and highly valued ASEAN’s call for utmost restraint.”

Ukraine pledges continued effort to push back Russia

At the opening of the East Asia Summit, Cambodian leader Hun Sen called for unity, telling the gathering attended by Biden, Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that current global tensions have been taking a toll on everyone.

Without singling out any nation by name, Hun Sen said he hoped leaders would embrace a “spirit of togetherness in upholding open and inclusive multilateralism, pragmatism and mutual respect in addressing the existential and strategic challenges we all face.”

“Many current challenges and tensions have been hindering our past hard-earned efforts to promote sustainable development and causing greater hardship to people’s lives,” he said.

Li Keqiang, meantime, told a meeting of ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea that amid a “turbulent” global security situation, “unilateralism and protectionism are surging, economic and financial risks are rising, and global development is confronted with unprecedented challenges.”

As major economies in East Asia, Li said the group needed to “stay committed to promoting peace, stability, development and prosperity in the region and beyond, and to improving the people’s wellbeing.”

The East Asia Summit also included the leaders of Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and others.

Biden raised human rights concerns in Cambodia when he met with Hun Sen on Saturday. In a statement after the meeting, the White House said Biden urged the prime minister — an authoritarian ruler in a nominally democratic nation — to “reopen civic and political space” before its 2023 elections.

• U.S. President Joe Biden speaks to media about the Democrats keeping the Senate before the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
• Middle part, from left, India’s Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attend the ASEAN – East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
• Leaders attend the ASEAN – East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
• New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern listens to speech during the ASEAN – East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
• Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida listens to a speech during the ASEAN – East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
• Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen, center, speaks during the ASEAN Australia-New Zealand Trade Area (AANZTA) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
• From left to right; New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen, Brunei Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, and ASEAN Secretary General Lim Jock Hoi wave during the ASEAN Australia New Zealand Trade Area (AANZTA) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
• Sitting next to South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol, left, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov listens during the ASEAN Australia-New Zealand Trade Area (AANZTA) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
• Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. stands during the ASEAN Australia-New Zealand Trade Area (AANZTA) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
• Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, left, hands over the gavel to Indonesian President Joko Widodo during a transfer of ASEAN Chairmanship during the closing ceremonies of the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
• In this handout photo released by Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov listens during the ASEAN Australia-New Zealand Trade Area (AANZTA) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. (Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service via AP)

Biden, according to the White House, also pushed Hun Sen to release activists including Theary Seng, a Cambodian-American lawyer who was convicted of treason. Biden also raised concerns about activities at Ream Naval Base, whose expansion Cambodian officials have described as a collaborative effort between it and China.

Another topic Biden focused on was Myanmar, where the military junta overthrew the civilian government in February 2021 and arrested its democratically elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. As he met with Hun Sen, Biden stressed that the U.S. was committed to the return of democracy in Myanmar, which had steadily headed toward a democratic form of governance before the coup.

India, US natural allies, says Treasury Secretary Yellen

ASEAN has been struggling to get Myanmar to implement its five-point peace plan. The group has already banned leaders of Myanmar, a member state, from participating in its top-level events, such as the Phnom Penh summit.

ASEAN’s plan calls for the immediate cessation of violence, a dialogue among all parties, mediation by an ASEAN special envoy, provision of humanitarian aid and a visit to Myanmar by the special envoy to meet all sides. Myanmar’s government initially agreed to the plan but has made little effort to implement it.

ASEAN leaders agreed on a plan Friday that largely puts the onus on the upcoming Indonesian chairmanship of the group to develop measurable indicators and a timeline for Myanmar to implement the five-point consensus.

© Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

newsnationnow.com · by The Associated Press · November 13, 2022

20. The Right Wing’s Loyalty Test for the U.S. Military

This is a very troubling excerpt (that military personnel do not know why it is important to follow the rule).)

Excerpts;

While many military personnel are certainly aware of laws, regulation, and conventions that preclude partisan activity, research suggests that they do not always understand why adhering to those rules is important. Senior Pentagon leadership, both civilian and military, should make that case. For example, when they were serving as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey and Admiral Mike Mullen, regularly spoke about the importance of the military remaining apolitical. After the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a memo affirming the military’s commitment to support and defend the Constitution.

Members of Congress, especially those in the Republican Party, should also both publicly and privately warn their colleagues and allies in the media of the consequences of hyperbolic attacks on the military’s supposed wokism and competency. Commentators and journalists in turn should do as much as possible to explain to the public why the military’s nonpartisanship ethic is so essential to the military’s internal cohesion and to the democracy it upholds. Getting out in front of these issues will help ensure the guardrails against politicization remain secure.

The dangers of failure should give pause to even those skeptical that civil-military relations are at risk in the United States. History has repeatedly shown that militaries that privilege political loyalty over merit in the ranks are both less capable on the battlefield and less reliable servants of democracy.

The Right Wing’s Loyalty Test for the U.S. Military

A Dangerous Turn in Civil-Military Relations

By Risa Brooks

November 14, 2022

Foreign Affairs · by Risa Brooks · November 14, 2022

Not that long ago, members of the Republican Party would never dream of criticizing men and women in uniform. But today, it is commonplace.

Take the May 20, 2021, tweet by Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas that “perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea.” Below was a link to a side-by-side comparison of a Russian military-recruitment ad with a U.S. one: the Russian ad showed shirtless men doing push-ups and soldiers shooting guns, while the American ad depicted the true story of a young woman, raised by two mothers, who joined the U.S. Army.

Or take the regular attacks on the U.S. military by the Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, who has pilloried the military’s efforts to recruit and retain women, saying in March 2021 that China’s military was becoming “more masculine” while the United States’ was becoming “more feminine.” Meanwhile Blake Masters, a Republican who lost his campaign for Senate in Arizona last week, tweeted in November 2021, “Our top generals have turned into woke corporate bozos, and our troops deserve better.”

Such comments go well beyond the usual politicization of the military in American politics. Right-wing politicians and members of the media allied with former President Donald Trump are actively undermining the military’s standing in society, while paradoxically claiming its popularity as their own. By condemning generals as politically correct conformists, this group of Republicans is signaling to military personnel that they should be subservient to Trump’s agenda. If Trump and his allies had their wish, the military’s nonpartisan ethic would be replaced by a loyalty test to one faction in U.S. politics.

Should these methods succeed, they would undermine the meritocratic foundations of the officer corps and could even reduce the military’s effectiveness in war. As the historical record shows, militaries that recruit and promote personnel based on their qualifications versus those that require allegiance to a political faction perform better on the battlefield. Those attacking the military may say they are protecting it by keeping it from being undermined by diversity initiatives. In reality though, their attacks weaken the military by undermining its internal unity and support within society.

POLITICIZATION 101

Civilian attempts to draw the military into partisan politics typically take one of several forms. The first builds on the military’s popularity. For decades, the U.S. military has topped polls as the most trusted institution in American society. Small wonder, then, that politicians make over-the-top references to military service in campaign advertising and seek the endorsement of retired officers. To be sure, military service is one among many potentially important experiences that qualifies one for office. But most campaign ads highlighting military service go well beyond that, often amounting to a form of virtue signaling about a candidate’s patriotism or character.

Beyond elections, politicians also seek to associate the military with particular policies, such as when Trump, a week after his inauguration, signed controversial immigration legislation in the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes, a room dedicated to the people who have received the Medal of Honor. These tactics also leverage the military’s expertise in policy debates to neutralize critics and sell controversial moves to the public, such as when David Petraeus, the four-star U.S. Army general who was leading American troops in Iraq, became the principal spokesperson for the troop surge there under President George W. Bush. Politicians may use military opinion and expertise as a cudgel against their opponents. In August 2021, for example, many Republicans criticized President Joe Biden for going against his generals’ advice and removing all U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

At other times, politicians use the military to underscore the gravitas of the moment or as a political prop. Presidents like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama often journeyed to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to announce new foreign policy priorities, while not doing the same at civilian universities. In September 2022, President Biden gave a major speech on challenges to democracy with two Marines standing at attention in the background.

Even more concerning are efforts to portray the military as a partisan constituency. In February 2017, to give one egregious example, Trump told a uniformed crowd at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida that the 2016 election was “wonderful” and that it was clear from the results that “you liked me and I liked you.” Trump’s message: the troops were partisan allies who were expected to view him the same way.

POLITICIZATION 2.0

It is a common refrain on the right that U.S. military wokeness breeds weakness—that is, the military’s efforts to recruit a diverse workforce are undermining the quality of its personnel. In March 2021, Carlson mocked the U.S. military’s introduction of maternity flight suits and said it made the military more effeminate. Before he was elected to the Senate, J. D. Vance, a Republican from Ohio, tweeted a story from the Financial Times about Chinese hypersonic missiles with the comment, “Meanwhile our generals are focused on white rage and the manicure policy of the armed forces.”

Some might protest that these criticisms merely reflect legitimate concerns about current personnel policies in the U.S. military. To be sure, one could debate how much the military can and should mirror society and represent its values in its ranks, as academics have done in the past.

Regardless, today there are important reasons for the U.S. military to recruit and maintain a diverse military. The pool of recruits that meet existing fitness and other standards is dwindling, while recruiting shortfalls have for years been an issue. The right blames these problems on diversity and inclusion initiatives, saying they turn off potential recruits. Today, though, 41 percent of the military identify as coming from a minority group. The real danger to the military is not that it embraces diversity, but that the right’s wokism attacks alienate some groups in American society so that they no longer feel welcome to serve.

A bonus is that as long as the U.S. military continues to recruit from varied demographic groups, it has an advantage in wartime. Scholarship shows that more egalitarian militaries perform better on the battlefield.

Today, 41 percent of the military identify as coming from a minority group.

But all of this also misses the point of these attacks. They are not part of a good-faith effort to debate personnel policy or to ensure the military remains strong. If they were, critics on the right would be more worried about how their inflammatory rhetoric harms the military’s status in American society.

Those critics also would not be undermining the military’s unity by publicly excoriating the country’s generals. After all, Trump and his allies are not only complaining about what they perceive as a leftist agenda being imposed on the military; they are also frequently disparaging the country’s senior officers. Once Trump soured on the generals he had vaunted at the start of his presidency, he resorted to calling them “overrated,” “a bunch of dopes and babies,” and “losers” in charge of failed wars, while lauding enlisted personnel as the country’s true patriots. Trump’s allies have since jumped on the bandwagon, singling out senior officers for their political correctness or alleged incompetence, as Masters’s and Vance’s comments illustrate.

In some ways, these statements are not so different from more familiar efforts to use the military as a wedge issue in U.S. politics. The twist is that instead of playing on the military’s popularity to bolster criticisms of a political opponent, Republican politicians are criticizing the military as weak or too leftist under a Democratic administration in order to do the same.

But there is a more insidious logic and purpose to these comments—one that that goes well beyond using the military as another tool in the partisan wars. Although those making these attacks may not view them as part of a master plan to politicize the military, that is exactly what they do. Such attacks encourage military officers to support the Trump-aligned right’s agenda on policy and other partisan priorities while subduing any opponents who might question the wisdom of doing so.

WHAT OATH?

At first glance, the right’s strategy looks puzzling. The officer corps skews strongly Republican, as surveys have shown for decades. The Republican Party, meanwhile, has long prided itself on its pro-military stance. So why attack military officers as woke leftists, when they in fact are already inclined to sympathize with your worldview and even to vote for you?

The answer is that those attacking the military are not seeking officers’ votes—or at least that is not all they are after. Rather, their attacks on the military signal that loyalty to Trump’s faction of the GOP is an essential prerequisite for success—it is necessary, appropriate, and ultimately beneficial to military officers’ careers and the organization they lead.

Consider the way these attacks politicize the military. For starters, they undermine the military’s overall popularity and trust, especially among the Republican base. This helps neutralize any potential opposition to its politicization that might come from within the military. A public already inclined to doubt the institution is more likely to discount complaints from those in its ranks. The success of these methods can be seen in efforts to delegitimize otherwise well-respected former officers, such as Jim Mattis, a retired Marine general who served as Trump’s first defense secretary. In June 2020, Mattis was belittled for having publicly condemned the use of active-duty military forces against people protesting the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Evidence for this dynamic is also found in the falling popularity of the military, among Republican voters in particular. The Reagan National Defense Survey from February 2021 shows a 17-point drop in confidence in the military among Republicans since 2018.

These tactics also politicize the military by signaling to Trump’s base that it is appropriate, even desirable, for the military to behave as a partisan ally. This encourages the public to think that the military should not strive to be nonpartisan, but instead should advance the values and worldview of a specific political party. Consider the way that Marine Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller was embraced by right-wing politicians and media personalities after he was fired in October 2021 for publicly criticizing his chain of command about the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in a series of viral social media posts. His celebrity status now includes appearances on right-wing podcasts, where he advocates for eliminating teaching the ethics of warfare in military education.

Senior officers should remain attuned to the pressures emanating from those attacking the U.S. military.

Less obvious but equally pernicious is the way these attacks erode the nonpartisan ethic within the military. By arguing that the military should be ideologically aligned with them, politicians and commentators cast doubt on the need for the military to stay on the partisan sidelines. Breaking down professional norms of nonpartisanship is essential to turning the military, or parts of it, into a partisan ally.

Calling some generals “woke” also sends a signal to other officers. Their ability to evade right-wing attacks, protect the organizations they lead, and even safeguard their promotions might depend in the future on their complicity in Trump’s agenda. These pressures will only intensify if his faction gains more power in Washington.

Take the comments by Arizona’s senatorial candidate, Masters. On several occasions, he has said that the country’s currently serving senior officers should be fired for being too woke and that conservative colonels should be promoted to take their place. “I would love to see all the generals get fired,” he said in August 2021. Hyperbole aside, consider the message this sends to those active-duty colonels (and to any senior officers who might push back): if you want to get promoted, you need to toe the ideological line.

STAYING ON THE SIDELINES

Fortunately, there are already some guardrails in place against the politicization of the military. Military law prohibits speaking contemptuous words against a president and certain elected and appointed officials. Department of Defense regulations also ban active campaigning and other overt involvement in many forms of partisan politics. Overall, the military has retained its professional commitment to the nonpartisan ethic.

Still, there are worrying signs of erosion in support for that ethic among some within the military. This includes the election denialism propagated by retired officers, including former Trump national security adviser retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, as well as senatorial candidates in the 2022 election, including retired Brigadier General Don Bolduc and Colonel Doug Mastriano. Flynn also pressured Trump to impose martial law after he lost the 2020 presidential election. Many veterans and even a handful of currently serving military personnel participated in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Active-duty officers have also occasionally been disciplined for crossing the line, not least Scheller. So far though, there are no indications that a partisan cohort in the officer corps is willing to openly profess its loyalty to Trump’s wing of the Republican Party and do its bidding either within the military or in domestic politics more broadly.

Senior officers should nonetheless remain attuned to the pressures emanating from those attacking the U.S. military. They should make sure that their oath to the Constitution remains paramount and, especially, that the meaning and content of the principles and institutions it embodies are understood within the ranks. Some veterans have suggested the military bolster education within the services about the Constitution. Senior military officers can also do more to ensure that the benefits—to the country and to the military—of remaining nonpartisan are fully grasped.

While many military personnel are certainly aware of laws, regulation, and conventions that preclude partisan activity, research suggests that they do not always understand why adhering to those rules is important. Senior Pentagon leadership, both civilian and military, should make that case. For example, when they were serving as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey and Admiral Mike Mullen, regularly spoke about the importance of the military remaining apolitical. After the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a memo affirming the military’s commitment to support and defend the Constitution.

Members of Congress, especially those in the Republican Party, should also both publicly and privately warn their colleagues and allies in the media of the consequences of hyperbolic attacks on the military’s supposed wokism and competency. Commentators and journalists in turn should do as much as possible to explain to the public why the military’s nonpartisanship ethic is so essential to the military’s internal cohesion and to the democracy it upholds. Getting out in front of these issues will help ensure the guardrails against politicization remain secure.

The dangers of failure should give pause to even those skeptical that civil-military relations are at risk in the United States. History has repeatedly shown that militaries that privilege political loyalty over merit in the ranks are both less capable on the battlefield and less reliable servants of democracy.

• RISA BROOKS is Allis Chalmers Professor of Political Science at Marquette University.
• MORE BY RISA BROOKS

Foreign Affairs · by Risa Brooks · November 14, 2022

21. Extremists in Uniform Put the Nation at Risk

Extremists in Uniform Put the Nation at Risk

nytimes.com · by The Editorial Board · November 13, 2022

Credit...Justin Metz

This editorial is the second in a series, “The Danger Within,” urging readers to understand the danger of extremist violence and possible solutions. Read more about the series in a note from Kathleen Kingsbury, the Times Opinion editor.

On May 29, 2020, Steven Carrillo decided that his moment to take up arms against the government had arrived.

It was a Friday in downtown Oakland, Calif., and at 9:44 p.m., Mr. Carrillo opened the sliding door of a white van and, according to court documents, opened fire with a rifle at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building and courthouse. Officer David Patrick Underwood was killed inside a guard booth, and his partner was seriously injured. The van sped away into the night.

About a week later, Mr. Carrillo, who was tied to the antigovernment paramilitary boogaloo movement, was arrested after he ambushed and murdered a police officer and wounded several others with homemade explosives and an assault rifle in another attack some 60 miles away. Mr. Carrillo wasn’t just linked to an antigovernment paramilitary group; he was also an active-duty sergeant in the Air Force. This summer, he was sentenced to 41 years in prison for attacking agents of the government he’d sworn to protect and defend.

There has been a steady rise in political violence in the United States — from harassment of election workers and public officials to the targeting of a Supreme Court justice to an attack on the husband of the speaker of the House of Representatives and, of course, the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6. An alarming number of Americans say that political violence is usually or always justified, and this greater tolerance for violence is a direct threat to democratic governance.

America needs to reduce this threat. In recent years, the majority of political violence has come at the hands of members of right-wing extremist groups or unaffiliated adherents of their white supremacist and antigovernment ideologies. This editorial board argued in the first of this series that better enforcement of state and federal laws banning private paramilitary activity could help dismantle some of the groups at the vanguard of this violence.

One of the most troubling facts about adherents of extremist movements is that veterans, active-duty military personnel and members of law enforcement are overrepresented. One estimate, published in The Times in 2020, found that at least 25 percent of members of extremist paramilitary groups have a military background.

Still, only a tiny number of veterans or members of the active-duty military or law enforcement will ever join an extremist group. Their overrepresentation is partly due to extremist groups focusing on recruiting from these populations because of their skills. But the presence of these elements within the ranks of law enforcement is cause for extra concern. Of the more than 900 people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attacks, 135 had military or law enforcement backgrounds. The Program on Extremism at George Washington University found that among those in policing, 18 are retired, and six are active. One Capitol Police officer who was not on the scene that day but was aware of the attack later advised a participant on how to avoid being caught.

For decades, police departments, the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs have known about the problem, yet they have made only halting progress in rooting out extremists in the ranks.

Jan. 6 changed that. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was so alarmed by the events of that day that he ordered all military commands to reinforce existing regulations prohibiting extremist activity and to query service members about their views on the extent of the problem. The Defense Department standardized its screening questionnaires for recruits and changed its social media policies, so that liking or reposting white nationalist and extremist content would be considered the same as advocating it. Service members could face disciplinary action for doing so. The department also began preparing retiring members to avoid being recruited by extremist groups.

But those reforms were more easily ordered than executed. A department inspector general report released this year found that the Pentagon’s sprawling bureaucracy was unable to identify the scope of the problem across the services because it used numerous reporting systems that were not interconnected. Commanders often didn’t have a clear understanding of what was prohibited. As a result, the department “cannot fully implement policy and procedures to address extremist activity without clarifying the definitions of ‘extremism,’ ‘extremist,’ ‘active advocacy’ and ‘active participation,’” the report concluded.

After 20 years of the war on terrorism, the country is now seeing many veterans joining extremist groups like the Proud Boys.

The end of wars and the return of the disillusioned veterans they can produce have often been followed by a spike in extremism. The white power movement grew after the end of the Vietnam War, with veterans often playing leading roles. Antigovernment activity climbed in the 1990s after the first Iraq war, culminating in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh, an Army veteran who had served in Operation Desert Storm. “These groups can give disaffected veterans a sense of purpose, camaraderie, community once they leave military service,” said Cassie Miller, an extremism researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In 2012, Andrew Turner ended his nine-year Navy career at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center with a shattered hand and loathing of the government. He’d served around the world, from South Korea to Iraq, and the experience had left him disabled and furious. “When the military was done with me, they threw me on a heap. I took it personally and was so angry,” he said in an interview.

In 2013 a fellow service member suggested that he check out a group called the Oath Keepers. Mr. Turner, then 39, joined the Maryland chapter, paid his dues and “initially felt that esprit de corps that I’d missed from the military,” he said. He felt a bond and even spent time with the group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, who is currently on trial and charged with seditious conspiracy for his role in the Jan. 6 attacks. (Mr. Rhodes has denied ordering the group to attack the Capitol and stop the certification of the 2020 election results, as the government contends.) There’s a photo of them at the World War II Memorial in Washington, holding an Oath Keepers banner.

But Mr. Turner soon realized that the group was not the apolitical, service-oriented veterans’ association he thought it to be. In private online forums, discussions were full of racist language, and members flirted with violence. He walked away after six months. “It’s easy to find vulnerable people at their weakest moments. I was naïve, but if anyone joins the Oath Keepers today, they know exactly what they’re getting into,” he said.

Experts in the field recommend some basic steps the military should take that could make a difference. Better training, counseling and discussion of the true nature of extremism are vital and must start long before service members retire and need to continue after they do. Better staff training and better funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs are also critical to meeting this challenge, so that members who are struggling can be coaxed down a different path.

While the military can exert fairly strict control over men and women in uniform, civilian law enforcement agencies face a different set of challenges in addressing extremists or extremist sympathizers in the ranks.

At least 24 current and former police officers have been charged with crimes in relation to the Jan. 6 attacks, and dozens of others have been identified as part of the crowd at the Capitol. Some officers who participated wanted things to go further than they did. “Kill them all,” Peter Heneen, a sheriff’s deputy in Florida, texted another deputy during the attack. The streets of the capital, he wrote, needed to “run red with the blood of these tyrants.”

Experts who track the tactics of extremist movements have been sounding the klaxon about the growing presence of antigovernment and white supremacist groups in law enforcement for years. “Although white supremacist groups have historically engaged in strategic efforts to infiltrate and recruit from law enforcement communities, current reporting on attempts reflects self-initiated efforts by individuals, particularly among those already within law enforcement ranks, to volunteer their professional resources to white supremacist causes with which they sympathize,” an F.B.I. intelligence assessment concluded in 2006.

Last year a leaked membership roster of the Oath Keepers, a violent paramilitary group involved in the Jan. 6 attacks that recruits police officers and military personnel, included some 370 members of law enforcement and more than 100 members of the military, according to an Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism analysis. An investigation by Reuters this year found that several police trainers around the country — who together have trained hundreds of officers — belong to extremist paramilitary groups or expressed sympathy for their ideas. One trainer, for instance, posted on social media that government officials disloyal to Donald Trump should be executed and that the country was on the brink of civil war.

A recent investigation by the Marshall Project found that hundreds of sheriffs nationwide are part of or are sympathetic to the ideas behind the constitutional sheriffs movement, which holds that sheriffs are above state and federal law and are not required to accept gun laws, enforce Covid restrictions or investigate election results. The Anti-Defamation League describes the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association as an “antigovernment extremist group whose primary purpose is to recruit sheriffs into the antigovernment ‘patriot’ movement.”

Identifying members of extremist groups and those sympathetic to their ideology to make sure they don’t join the thin blue line in the first place should be a priority for departments and governments nationwide. Yet most departments don’t have explicit prohibitions on officers joining extremist paramilitary groups, according to a 2020 study by the Brennan Center for Justice.

Since Jan. 6, however, some states have successfully pushed for reforms. This fall, California passed a law that requires law enforcement agencies to screen candidates for participation in groups that promote hate crimes or genocide. In April, Minnesota’s police officer standards board proposed a series of rule changes, including barring people who belong to or support extremist groups from getting a law enforcement license. Public hearings‌, which are set to be held‌ on those changes, deserve support. Other states and communities should look closely at these measures as a model.

Prosecutors in communities all over the United States also have a powerful tool already at their disposal: cross-examination during criminal trial. All defendants in criminal cases have a constitutional right to know about potentially exculpatory evidence. If an arresting officer is a member of a hate group or expresses extremist beliefs, that should be a subject of cross-examination by the defense.

If prosecutors were more aggressive about vetting police officers for extremist views, “defendants will get fairer trials, the public will be informed of problem officers through public trials, and police and prosecutors get the opportunity to identify problematic police officers and take action to rid the force of these officers,” wrote Vida Johnson, a professor at Georgetown Law, in a 2019 law review article.

Americans have a nearly unlimited right to free speech and association, and any effort to stop extremist violence must ensure that those rights are protected. Reforms should be carefully structured to avoid the abuses that occurred in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks — the violations of civil liberties, mass surveillance and the accelerated militarization of the police, to name a few. But protecting freedom of expression need not stand in the way of tackling extremism in police departments.

Officers around the country have rightly been fired for racist or extremist actions. But punishment for harboring extremist sympathies is a finer line, because Americans have the right to believe what they like. So, the treatment of officers with extremist beliefs and extremist connections is often uneven. This year, a New York prison guard who belonged to a right-wing hate group was ultimately fired — not just for membership but also for trying to smuggle hate literature into the prison. This may be a useful model in determining where extremist ideology crosses the line to actions that can be addressed by law or regulation.

Other recent attempts to root out extremism have been less clear-cut. An unidentified police officer in Chicago was given a four-month suspension but was not dismissed after it was discovered that he had ties to the Proud Boys. Last month, a police officer in Massachusetts was found to have been involved in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. He resigned, and the district attorney announced an investigation into all closed and pending cases he had worked on.

Coordinating the efforts of the nation’s roughly 18,000 law enforcement agencies has been notoriously difficult. Federal standards or even guidelines about how to deal with extremism — in recruiting officers, disciplining existing ones or even sharing information — would go a long way toward harmonizing law enforcement’s response. But carrying out such changes would require both local attention to detail and the political will to do so. It would also require staffing law enforcement with people committed to the rule of law, rather than rule by force. As one congressional staff member working on homeland security issues put it: “People have to decide this is a priority. We can't legislate hearts and minds.”

Across the board, extremists and their sympathizers, whether they act on their beliefs or just spread them, erode the public’s trust in the institutions that are designed to keep the country safe. Extremists bearing badges can put at risk ongoing police investigations by leaking confidential information. In the military, extremists pose a threat to good order and discipline. In law enforcement, extremists — particularly white supremacists — pose a threat to the people they are meant to protect, especially people of color. In federal agencies, extremists can compromise national security and make our borders even less secure. Protecting those institutions and the nation they serve demands urgent action.

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nytimes.com · by The Editorial Board · November 13, 2022

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com