Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"The measure of a man is what he does with power."

- Plato

"The first generation of the young people of our revolution took up arms following Comrade Kim Il Sung and fought the bloody anti-Japanese struggle, thus achieving the historic cause of national liberation."

- Kim Jong-un

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 16 (Putin's War)

2. DoD must 'think very differently' about armed conflict, cyber in light of Ukraine war: Official

3. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (16.11.22) CDS comments on key events

4. Russia launches more missile strikes, fighting rages in east Ukraine

5. Doomed to Failure — Russia’s Efforts to Restore its Military Muscle

6. Ukraine using French mobile DNA lab to investigate Russian war crimes

7. Wartime Ukraine’s Achilles’ Heel

8. G20's criticism of Russia shows the rise of a new Asian power. And it isn't China

9. Opinion: Will China and Co. really dominate the 21st century? Asian decline is more likely

10. Giving OSINT A Seat at The Defense Intelligence Table

11. Mark Milley and the Coming Civil-Military Crisis

12. Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 267 of the invasion

13. McCarthy threatens to hold up key defense bill until next year

14. G20 delivers hard-fought declaration for peace

15. Letter to Certain Congressional Committees on Changes to the Legal and Policy Frameworks for the United States' Use of Military Force and Related National Security Operations

16. Without A Robust Sealift Capability, The U.S. Is No Superpower

17. Integrated deterrence: An excuse to spend less on defense?

18. AFSOC Commander Slife Nominated to Become Deputy Chief for Operations

19. CIA director met Zelensky in Kyiv as Russian missiles targeted capital

20. Milley tried to speak with Russian counterpart on Tuesday but was ‘unsuccessful’

21. Taiwan shows off military drones amid tensions with China

22. The Bias For Capability Over Capacity Has Created a Brittle Force

23. The New Cato Handbook Is Now Online

24. Air Force “Diversity” of Languages: A Strategic Concern

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 16 (Putin's War)

Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-16

Key Takeaways

Russian sources and proxy officials are flagrantly touting the forced adoption of Ukrainian children into Russian families.
Ukrainian sources continued to clarify the damage caused by the massive November 15 Russian missile strike across Ukraine.
The Russian information space largely followed the official Kremlin framing of the missile strike on Polish territory as a Western provocation.
Wagner Group financer Yevgeny Prigozhin is continuing to establish himself as a central figure in the pro-war ultranationalist community likely in pursuit of ambitious political goals.
Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the directions of Svatove and Kreminna.
Russian forces continued ground attacks near Bakhmut and Avdiivka, and in western Donetsk Oblast.
Ukrainian forces continued targeting Russian forces and logistics nodes in southern Ukraine.
Multiple reports indicate that the morale and psychological state of Russian forces in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts are exceedingly low.
Russian officials continued their efforts to replace proxy officials in occupied territories with Russian officials, forcibly relocate residents, and integrate occupied areas with Russia.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 16

Nov 16, 2022 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

understandingwar.org

Karolina Hird, Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, Madison Williams, Yekaterina Klepanchuk, and Frederick W. Kagan

November 16, 6:45pm 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.

Russian sources and proxy officials are flagrantly touting the forced adoption of Ukrainian children into Russian families. Prominent Russian milbloggers began circulating a multi-part documentary series on November 9 featuring several Ukrainian children from Donbas after being adopted into Russian families.[1] The documentary series claims that Russian officials have evacuated over 150,000 children from Donbas in 2022 alone.[2] It is unclear exactly how Russian sources are calculating this figure, and Ukrainian officials previously estimated this number to be 6,000 to 8,000.[3] Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov additionally stated he is working with Russian Federation Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova to bring “difficult teenagers” from various Russian regions and occupied Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts to Chechnya to engage in “preventative work” and “military-patriotic education.”[4] Lvova-Belova has continually advocated for deportations and adoptions of Ukrainian children and herself adopted a child from Mariupol.[5] Forced adoption programs and the deportation of children under the guise of vacation and rehabilitation schemes likely form the backbone of a massive Russian depopulation campaign that may amount to a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and constitute a wider ethnic cleansing effort, as ISW has previously reported.[6]

Ukrainian sources continued to clarify the damage caused by the massive November 15 Russian missile strike across Ukraine. The Ukrainian General Staff stated on November 16 that Russian forces launched over 90 Kh-101 and Kalibr cruise missiles and 11 drones over the course of November 15 and targeted critical infrastructure in a number of oblasts.[7] Ukrainian Air Force Command reported that Ukrainian air defense and ground forces shot down 75 missiles and 10 Shahed-136 drones.[8] US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin noted on November 16 that the US-provided National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) had a 100% success rate in intercepting Russian missiles.[9] As ISW previously reported, Russian forces likely used a substantial portion of their high-precision weapon systems in the November 15 attack.[10]

The Russian information space largely followed the official Kremlin framing of the missile strike on Polish territory as a Western provocation. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) stated on November 16 that Ukrainian and other foreign officials' statements about Russian missiles in connection with the strike on Polish territory constitute a “deliberate provocation with the aim of escalating the situation.”[11] Russian Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev accused the West of moving closer to world war by waging a hybrid attack against Russia following the strike on Polish territory.[12] Russian milbloggers widely accused Western and Ukrainian officials of trying to falsely blame Russia for the strike in order to justify increased support to Ukraine and further escalation in Eastern Europe.[13] Some Russian sources also asserted that Ukrainian and Western officials were trying to use the incident to either pressure Russia to end its coordinated missile campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure or to justify sending “better” air defenses to Ukraine.[14] The Russian milbloggers’ support of the Kremlin framing of the strike as a Western provocation is to be expected of a Russian information space that widely views the conflict in Ukraine as a Western operation aimed at degrading Russia as a regional and global power.

Wagner financer Yevgeny Prigozhin is continuing to establish himself as a central figure in the pro-war ultranationalist community, likely in pursuit of ambitious political goals. Russian opposition media outlet Meduza reported on November 16 that two sources close to the Kremlin stated that Prigozhin is thinking about creating a “conservative movement” that may become a political party.[15] Meduza’s sources reported that Prigozhin has established an information campaign of constant anti-elite rhetoric modeled after jailed opposition figure Alexei Navalny’s social media campaign against Russian corruption, but to a very different effect.[16] Meduza’s sources reported that Prigozhin intends to simultaneously use the anti-elite social media campaign to cast himself as a populist figure while currying favor with Russian President Vladimir Putin by intimidating elites that may be viewed as insufficiently loyal to Putin.[17] ISW has previously reported that Prigozhin is attempting to appeal to a constituency in Russia that is both interested in Russia’s claimed national superiority and Soviet brutalist strength and opposed to Russian elite corruption.[18] Prigozhin has previously denied that he is attempting to cast himself as a politician or that he intends to create a political party or movement.[19] ISW has previously reported that Prigozhin is also pursuing the creation of parallel military structures to advance his influence in the ultranationalist pro-war community.[20] Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) representative Andriy Chernyak reported on November 15 that Prigozhin initially began constructing parallel military structures to suppress potential uprisings in Russia but capitalized upon the Kremlin’s need for more capable forces in Russia's offensive campaign in Ukraine.[21] ISW has previously assessed that Prigozhin’s personal army serves his own personal political goals first and the Russian war effort in Ukraine second.[22] Prigozhin will likely continue efforts to establish parallel military structures and form an anti-elite campaign to cement himself as the central figure of an ultranationalist pro-war political movement in Russia.

Key Takeaways

Russian sources and proxy officials are flagrantly touting the forced adoption of Ukrainian children into Russian families.
Ukrainian sources continued to clarify the damage caused by the massive November 15 Russian missile strike across Ukraine.
The Russian information space largely followed the official Kremlin framing of the missile strike on Polish territory as a Western provocation.
Wagner Group financer Yevgeny Prigozhin is continuing to establish himself as a central figure in the pro-war ultranationalist community likely in pursuit of ambitious political goals.
Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the directions of Svatove and Kreminna.
Russian forces continued ground attacks near Bakhmut and Avdiivka, and in western Donetsk Oblast.
Ukrainian forces continued targeting Russian forces and logistics nodes in southern Ukraine.
Multiple reports indicate that the morale and psychological state of Russian forces in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts are exceedingly low.
Russian officials continued their efforts to replace proxy officials in occupied territories with Russian officials, forcibly relocate residents, and integrate occupied areas with Russia.

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

Ukrainian Counteroffensives—Eastern Ukraine
Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and two supporting efforts);
Russian Subordinate Main Effort—Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
Russian Supporting Effort—Southern Axis
Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
Activities in Russian-occupied Areas

Ukrainian Counteroffensives (Ukrainian efforts to liberate Russian-occupied territories)

Eastern Ukraine: (Eastern Kharkiv Oblast-Western Luhansk Oblast)

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the directions of Svatove and Kreminna on November 16. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian airstrikes prevented Ukrainian forces from conducting assaults within 20km northwest of Svatove near Berestove and Kolisnyvka in Kharkiv Oblast and Novoselivske, Luhansk Oblast.[23] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations 14km northwest of Svatove near Kuzemivka, with one milblogger claiming that Ukrainian forces attempted to cut off a section of the road and railway in the area.[24] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are conducting reconnaissance-in-force operations along the Pischane-Stelmakhivka line northwest of Svatove.[25] The Russian MoD also claimed that Russian artillery units repelled Ukrainian assaults towards Russian positions near Kolomyichykha, Luhansk Oblast (10km west of Svatove).[26] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces are continuing attempts to cut off a part of the Svatove-Kreminna highway and that Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups are operating within 6km northwest of Kreminna near Chervonopopivka.[27] A Russian milblogger also claimed that fighting is ongoing within 12km south of Kreminna in Bilohorivka.[28] A BARS-13 (Russian Combat Reserve) source cited a Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) People’s Militia officer who claimed that Ukrainian forces launched an offensive along the entire line from Popasna, Luhansk Oblast to Kharkiv Oblast and are accumulating tank groups near the line of contact.[29] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are accumulating along the Orlianka-Zatishne-Svatove line northwest of Svatove in preparation for a future large offensive, although ISW offers no assessment about claims regarding future Ukrainian operations.[30]

Ukrainian forces continued to target Russian military concentrations and logistics in Luhansk Oblast on November 16. Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces struck Mirne, Perevalsk, and Zimohiria with HIMARS rockets on November 16.[31] Geolocated footage posted on November 16 shows Ukrainian forces purportedly striking Russian positions in Bilourakyne north of Starobilsk.[32] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that a November 15 Ukrainian strike on Russian concentrations near Denezhnykove (between Starobilsk and Luhansk City) killed and wounded at least 50 Russian military personnel.[33]

Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces continued ground assaults near Bakhmut and Avdiivka on November 16. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian ground attacks northeast of Bakhmut near Bilohorivka and Vesele, and south of Bakhmut near Kurdiumivka.[34] A Russian source posted footage of Wagner Group forces attacking fortified Ukrainian positions on the southeastern outskirts of Bakhmut.[35] The Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) People’s Militia posted footage of LNR aviation striking Ukrainian positions northeast of Bakhmut near Soledar and northeast of Soledar near Spirne.[36] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that half of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) 1st Horlivka Battalion were dead or wounded following the battle for Mayorsk (south of Bakhmut) and suffered low morale, prompting DNR leadership to disband the unit.[37] Russian sources notably claimed that Russian troops took control of Mayorsk on November 13, and the Ukrainian General Staff statement suggests that the cost of doing so was steep, which is consistent with ISW’s assessment that Russian forces will continue costly operations for small and operationally insignificant settlements.[38] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Avdiivka, north of Avdiivka near Novokalynove, west of Avdiivka near Pervomaiske, and south of Avdiivka near Vodyane.[39] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces made marginal gains toward Nevelske, Vodyane, and Pervomaiske.[40] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian counterattacks near Kurdyumivka, near Avdiivka, west of Avdiivka near Hryhorivka, and in western Donetsk Oblast near Staromykhailivka.[41]

Russian forces conducted limited ground assaults in western Donetsk Oblast on November 16. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian ground assault near Vremivka and Novomykhailivka in western Donetsk Oblast.[42] The Russian MoD claimed that Russian artillery fire repelled a Ukrainian ground assault toward Stepne (21km east of Vuhledar).[43] A Russian source claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted a HIMARS strike against Volnovakha at the intersection of the N20 and T0509, 18km behind the front line and southeast of Vuhledar.[44]

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

Note: ISW will report on activities in Kherson Oblast as part of the Southern Axis in this and subsequent updates. Ukraine’s counteroffensive in right-bank Kherson Oblast has accomplished its stated objectives, so ISW will not present a Southern Ukraine counteroffensive section until Ukrainian forces resume counteroffensives in southern Ukraine.

Russian forces continued to fortify and regroup on the left bank of Dnipro River on November 16. Ukraine’s Operational Command South reported that Russian forces continued to equip fortifications and defensive positions and conducted defensive operations along the left bank of the Dnipro River.[45] Ukrainian and Russian sources reported that Russian forces shelled Dudchany, Kachkarivka, and Prydniprovskyi, Kherson Oblast, and Illinka, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast—all on the right bank of the Dnipro River.[46]

Ukrainian forces continued targeting Russian forces and logistics nodes in the rear areas of Zaporizhia Oblast and Kherson Oblast. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on November 16 that Ukrainian forces struck Russian positions near Skadovsk (at the R57 and T2213 highway intersection), Novomykolaivka (on the R57 highway), and Nova Mayachka (near the T2210 highway) on November 15.[47] Ukraine’s Operational Command South stated that Ukrainian forces conducted over 50 artillery strikes against Russian positions on the left bank of the Dnipro River on November 15, destroying two Russian ammunition depots in Nova Kakhovka and Oleshky, injuring 17 personnel, and damaging 15 armored vehicles.[48] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed on November 16 that Russian forces intercepted HIMARS rounds near Kalanchak (near E97 the highway) and Novomykolaivka.[49] A Russian source claimed that residents reported explosions in Kalanchak and Chaplynka (on the T2202 highway).[50] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian strikes rendered a rail bridge unusable in Chernihivka, Zaporizhia Oblast.[51] Odesa Military Administration Spokesperson Serhiy Bratchuk stated that Ukrainian forces struck a Russian military warehouse in Tokmak, and an image posted on November 16 shows a fire supposedly in Tokmak overnight.[52]

Russian forces continued routine fire west of Hulyaipole and in Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts on November 16. The Ukrainian Zaporizhia Oblast Military Administration reported that Russian forces struck Zaporizhia City with three S-300 air defense missiles.[53] Ukrainian officials stated that Russian forces shelled Nikopol, Marhanets, and Chervonohryhorivka in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.[54] Russian sources claimed that Russian drones flew over Kryvyi Rih overnight but that there were no reports of strikes or damage.[55] Russian sources expressed continued concern about a possible Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Hulyaipole-Orikhiv area.[56] Zaporizhia Oblast occupation official Vladimir Rogov claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian attempt to break through Russian lines towards Vasylivka, Zaporizhia Oblast, but ISW has not observed indications of a major battle in this area and is unable to confirm the veracity of Rogov’s claim.[57]

Geolocated imagery posted on November 15-16 shows that Russian forces are building secondary defensive lines along a canal near Armyansk, Crimea.[58] As ISW has previously reported, construction of defensive fortifications on secondary lines of defense is standard military procedure and is not an indicator that Russian forces expect to defend Crimea from a Ukrainian offensive in the near future.[59]

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

Multiple reports indicate that the morale and psychological state of Russian forces in the Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts are exceedingly low. Significant losses on the battlefield, mobilization to the front lines without proper training, and poor supplies have led to cases of desertion. The independent Russian media outlet ASTRA reported that Russian authorities are holding about 300 Russian mobilized men in a basement in Zaitseve, Luhansk Oblast, for refusing to return to the front lines.[60] ASTRA reported it has identified at least seven such holding locations in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts for Russian citizens. Lipetsk Oblast Governor Igor Artamonov reported that relatives of mobilized personnel specifically appealed to him about poor conditions near Svatove, Luhansk Oblast.[61] Artamonov stated that mobilized personnel reached the front lines without training or proper equipment and experienced severe losses.

Russian occupation authorities continued mobilization efforts in the Ukrainian temporarily occupied territories. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Russia is preparing for the mobilization of Russian passport holders in the southern occupied territories after being unable to find volunteers and stated that Russian occupation authorities mobilized 70% of the communal workers in Makiivka and Donetsk City in the Donetsk Oblast.[62] The Luhansk Oblast Military Administration reported that Russian occupation authorities are conducting a door-to-door mobilization effort in Kadiivka and are extorting Luhansk residents who want to avoid mobilization at the same time.[63]

Russia continues to face cases of social backlash due to partial mobilization. A Russian source reported that mobilized personnel from the Patriot Center near Moscow expressed discontent about poor preparations for the front lines.[64] Multiple sources reported the mobilization of men with health problems and relayed that authorities are not responding to their complaints, claiming that the Russian army does not owe anyone anything.[65] Russian sources reported that a court rejected the claim of a Saint Petersburg citizen, drafted not according to his military specialty, and shared that wives of mobilized men from Krasnodar Krai appealed to the local administration for help with food and equipment on the front lines.[66]

At the same time, the Russian military is reportedly concentrating on expanding training capabilities under the direction of experienced instructors with combat experience. The Russian MoD shared videos of training sessions for men mobilized in Leningrad, Sakhalin, Khabarovsk, and in training centers of the Southern Military District.[67] The Russian MoD reported that more than 400 mobilized paratroopers from the Ulyanovsk region departed for the rear areas of the front line, joining a group of mobilized men reportedly sent out from Omsk on November 15.[68] The Russian MoD stated that mobilized servicemembers from the Saratov region received a full monetary allowance and reportedly promised mobilized servicemembers bonuses of up to 300,000 rubles for the destruction of Ukrainian equipment.[69]

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

Russian officials continued their efforts to replace proxy officials in occupied territories with Russian officials on November 16. Multiple Russian media outlets reported that Russian officials detained Kherson Oblast occupation deputy head Ekaterina Gubareva, who previously served as a Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) foreign minister and later a DNR parliament member, for unspecified economic crimes.[70] As ISW has previously reported, Russia has been importing Russian civil servants and bureaucrats to fill roles in occupation administrations, partially due to a lack of reliable collaborators and partially to streamline the administrative frameworks of occupied areas with the Russian Federation. [71] Russian officials similarly replaced the proxy head of Mariupol with a Russian government official on November 5, and Gubareva’s alleged detention is likely an attempt to set conditions to fill her position with an imported Russian official.[72]

Russian occupation officials continued to forcibly relocate residents and control civilian movement in occupied territories on November 16. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Russian occupation authorities in Markivka, Luhansk Oblast forced at least 40 residents onto a bus and deported them to an unknown location under the guise of evacuation.[73] Ukrainian Mayor of Enerhodar, Zaporizhia Oblast, Dmytro Orlov also reported that Russian occupation authorities constantly hold Enerhodar residents captive and noted that at least 70 residents are in Russian captivity as of November 15.[74] Russian occupation officials will likely continue forced evacuation and detention measures of Ukrainian residents in occupied territories for the foreseeable future, partially as part of a wider depopulation scheme[75]

Russian occupation officials continued efforts to integrate occupied areas of Ukraine into Russian administrative and economic frameworks on November 16. A Russian news source reported that Russian officials have started giving out certificates for purchasing houses in Crimea to residents of occupied Kherson Oblast even if they do not have Russian passports.[76] This is likely an attempt to coerce evacuated Kherson residents to relocate to Russian-occupied Crimea. A Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) official also reported that Irkutsk Oblast officials are sponsoring restoration projects in Holubivka, Luhansk Oblast.[77] Ukrainian Luhansk State Administration reported on November 16 that Russian banks in Luhansk are offering residents a special deal on loans if they show a Russian passport, likely in an attempt to incentive Ukrainian residents to obtain Russian passports.[78]

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

[8] https://www.facebook.com/kpszsu/posts/pfbid028rM22wAaW31zUjgULCqczHbKSZQ...(dot)com.ua/2022/11/16/najmasovanishyj-udar-po-ukrayini-bilshist-raket-rosarmiya-vypustyla-z-litakiv-strategichnoyi-aviacziyi/

[21] https://gur dot gov.ua/content/armii-pryhozhyna-ta-kadyrova-stvoriuvaly-dlia-prydushennia-potentsiinykh-povstan-v-rosii.html

[62] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2022/11/15/kreml-gotuye-yurydychnu-bazu-dlya-mobilizacziyi-na-pivdni/ ; https://sprotyv dot mod.gov.ua/2022/11/16/cherez-mobilizacziyu-voroga-zirvano-opalyuvalnyj-sezon-u-makiyivczi-ta-doneczku/

[66] https://t.me/paperpaper_ru/30739 ; https://www.yuga dot ru/news/465497-mobilizovannye-krasnodarcy-pozhalovalis-na-nekhvatku-ekipirovki-i-edy/

[72] https://isw.pub/UkrWar111222; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrou... https://tass dot ru/obschestvo/16250653

[73] https://sprotyv(dot)mod.gov.ua/2022/11/16/rosiyany-vyvezly-40-selyan-na-luganshhyni-v-nevidomomu-napryamku/

understandingwar.org

2. DoD must 'think very differently' about armed conflict, cyber in light of Ukraine war: Official

DoD must 'think very differently' about armed conflict, cyber in light of Ukraine war: Official - Breaking Defense

Pentagon cyber official Mieke Eoyang said cyber ops have been dwarfed by physical destruction, and that Russia "underperformed" in cyberspace.

breakingdefense.com · by Jaspreet Gill · November 16, 2022

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy Mieke Eoyang speaks during Cybercon, virtually, at the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., Nov. 10, 2021. (DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Brittany A. Chase)

WASHINGTON — After watching Ukraine take on Russia in both the real world and in cyberspace, a top American cyber official said the Defense Department must “think very differently” about how it will fight in both realms in the future.

Mieke Eoyang, deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, told the Aspen Institute Cyber Summit today that the war “is a really important conflict” for DoD to understand, and one of the things she’s seeing “is the context of the armed conflict dwarfs the cyber impacts” of the war.

“When you think about the physical destruction relative to the cyber disruption of what happens here, things that Russians tried to disrupt via cyber… did not have the strategic impact that they wanted, and they sought to destroy those things physically,” she continued.

Still, Eoyang said DoD is now thinking about cyber operations in the context of armed conflict in four ways:

Making sure government-to-government communications and networks are secure, shown in how DoD’s communications with Ukraine have helped enable its defense and intelligence sharing.
The importance of secure communications within the military, like how Ukraine’s military has been able to share information with forward commanders.
In the informational space, thinking about what it means for Ukrainian citizens to be able to communicate with the world and tell their stories through social media platforms like TikTok, Twitter and Facebook, which “has denied Russian the information environment that they want to prosecute this conflict.”
The inherent value in ensuring “essential” government functions. “As you look at attempts to destroy the kind of essential data that makes a country a country…such as passport records, birth records, property records…What do governments need to be able to continue to operate its essential function?” Eoyang said.

“As we think about that in the Department of Defense, those first two things are things that we have a lot of expertise in and can help countries deal with,” she said. “Some of those other things are new to us and are part of whole of government efforts. But I think that we have to think very differently about how we think about armed conflict and cyber in light of this conflict.”

Eoyang added one of the things that make the Ukraine conflict “different” is the “tremendous influence of non-state actors, both the private sector’s assistance to Ukraine, but also individuals who have, not wearing the uniform of any particular country, who are coming to the assistance of one side or another.”

One of those efforts includes the all-volunteer hacktivist group IT Army of Ukraine, established during the onset of the war Feb. 16 that has amassed over 200,000 subscribers on Telegram (though it’s unclear how many are actively engaged in cyber operations) to address attacks that targeted Ukrainian government and bank websites.

In pre-recorded remarks shown at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit in September, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Digital Transformation Mykhailo Federov said the IT Army during the first three days of the war allegedly shut down a number of Russian websites and propaganda TV channels and on a weekly basis attacks a number of websites.

Prior to the invasion, Ukraine didn’t have an established cyber force like other countries, Georgii Dubsynskyi, Ukraine’s deputy minister of digital transformation, said at a panel during the summit. “Maybe it was our mistake, but we just decided to do that before the war,” he said.

Still, Russia underperformed on the cyber front, Eoyang said.

“I think we were expected much more significant impacts than what we saw,” she said. “And I think it’s safe to say that Russian cyber forces, as well as their traditional military forces, underperformed expectations.”

3. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (16.11.22) CDS comments on key events

CDS Daily brief (16.11.22) CDS comments on key events

Humanitarian aspect:

As of November 15, in Ukraine, as a result of the full-scale armed aggression of the Russian Federation, 431 children died, and 835 were injured, the Prosecutor General's Office reported with reference to the data of juvenile prosecutors.

103 children who were forcibly removed from Ukraine by the Russians have already been returned, stated the deputy head of the Juvenile Prevention Department of the National Police, Yaroslav Shanko, at a briefing at the Ukraine-Ukrinform Media Center. According to the National Information Bureau, 11,129 children were illegally deported to the territory of the Russian Federation. Of them, 103 children were returned.

On November 15, 2022, the Russian occupiers attacked Ukraine with 96 air and sea-based cruise missiles, according to the updated information from the Air Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. 75 cruise missiles (Kh-101, Kh-555, Kalibr), two Kh-59 guided air missiles, 10 Shahed-136/131, one Orion UAV and one Orlan-10 were shot down.

November 15 attack was the largest attack in the energy industry's history, which affected all regions of Ukraine, reported Ukrenergo. The most challenging situation is in the west of Ukraine and the central and northeastern regions. Emergency shutdown schedules were used to stabilize the power system. This made it possible to prevent a complete blackout in the country. But the next few days will be difficult, the company says.

Emergency power outages continue in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Up to 300,000 households remain without electricity, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk Military Administration, Valentyn Reznichenko, reported.

On November 15, Russian troops fired 13 cruise missiles over Lviv Oblast. Most of them were shot down, but the rest critically damaged three energy infrastructure facilities, leaving about 700,000 subscribers [households] without power, Maksym Kozytsky, head of Lviv Military Administration, reported. According to him, energy crews worked throughout the night, and as of now, electricity and water supply in the Lviv Oblast have been fully restored. Kozytsky noted that the man injured during the attack remains in a serious but stable condition in the hospital.

In Kyiv Oblast, emergency shutdowns are applied after a massive attack on the energy infrastructure. Throughout the night, electricians and all necessary services worked to eliminate the consequences of the shelling. Around 3:00 a.m., 20,000 subscribers [household] in the Bucha District were restored. About 34,000 more subscribers have recovered as of now. Work continues.

Two residential buildings in Kyiv were damaged during yesterday's massive attack. An elderly woman died in one of them, said city mayor Vitaliy Klitschko.

Yesterday, an enemy missile killed a resident of Plesetske village in the Kyiv Oblast, National Police reported. During the air attack, a 69-year-old woman was at the cemetery, honoring the memory of her husband and died due to a fatal wound from the rocket fragments, the report said.

As a result of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation over the past day, November 15, 6 civilians were killed in Ukraine, 17 more were injured, reported Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, citing data from regional military administrations.

Liberated and occupied territories

Collaborator Dmitry Trukhin, who was in charge of the communal property of the so-called Military Administration, was blown up in occupied Melitopol. The explosion of a homemade bomb occurred when he was leaving the house. The collaborator was hospitalized with serious injuries.

Starting November 16, residents of Kherson will be able to access banking operations. The Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories informed that [two] branches of Oschadbank and PrivatBank are starting to work [in Kherson]. In the near future, other branches of these banks will also return to work.

The Ministry of Digital Transformation sent 210 Starlink terminals to the liberated Kherson to provide the local population with communication, announced Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov in Telegram. The minister added that another 60 Wi-Fi points with the Internet would be organized throughout the region in the next two weeks. Also, part of the terminals will be transferred to hospitals, police and emergency services.

During stabilization measures in liberated Kherson, SBU employees found classified FSB documents containing information about their agents-collaborators. It is noted that among the confiscated documents, there are agents' handwritten "obligations" about confidential cooperation with the FSB; agents' case studies; notification of agents about the results of their missions; "search protocols" in the residences of Kherson residents. The SBU reported that representatives of the Russian special service left secret documents on the territory of a local garage cooperative while fleeing from a counteroffensive of the Defense Forces.

Operational situation

(Please note that this section of the Brief is mainly on the previous day's (November 15) developments)

It is the 266th 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"). The enemy is trying to restrain the actions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces, continues

to equip defensive lines on the left bank of the Dnipro river, and does not stop offensive actions in the Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Novopavlivka directions.

Over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian troops have repelled enemy attacks in the areas of Bilohorivka, Kurdyumivka, Novokalynivka, Vesele, Avdiivka, Pervomaiske, Vodyane, Novomykhailivka, and Vremivka in Donetsk Oblast.

On November 15, the Russian Federation launched a massive missile attack on Ukraine's military and civilian infrastructure. Residential buildings of citizens and objects of critical infrastructure in Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Poltava, Lviv, Khmelnytskyi and other regions of Ukraine were affected. The enemy launched more than 90 Kh-101 and Kh-555 missiles and more than ten attack UAVs. According to detailed information, Ukrainian Defense Forces destroyed 77 cruise missiles, 10 Shahed-136 attack drones and one Orion UAV.

On November 15, a rocket fell in the border village of Przewodow, Poland, 7.5 km from the state border with Ukraine, killing two citizens.

The enemy does not stop shelling the positions of Ukrainian troops and towns and villages along the contact line. Thus, during the past 24 hours, the Russian forces carried out 43 airstrikes and carried out more than 40 shelling from rocket launchers. Near the state border, the enemy shelled Krasnopillia, Ryzhivka, Kindrativka, and Slavgorod of Sumy Oblast, Vovchansk, Kam'yanka, Starytsia, Strilecha, Hlyboke, Ternova, Kozacha Lopan, and Hoptivka in Kharkiv Oblast.

The cases of desertion in enemy units increased, and the morale and psychological state deteriorated significantly in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts in connection with significant losses during hostilities. Thus, after the battles in the area of Mayorsk, the 1st Horlivka Territorial Battalion lost its combat capability, with losses amounting to over 50 percent killed and wounded. Servicemen's morale and psychological condition were deemed unsatisfactory, and the enemy command disbanded the mentioned unit. The remaining personnel are distributed among other military units.

During the past day, the Defense Forces' aircraft launched 14 strikes against the enemy, hitting 11 areas of manpower, weapons and military equipment concentration, and 3 positions of the enemy's anti-aircraft missile systems.

Ukrainian missile forces and artillery over the past day struck 3 areas of concentration of enemy manpower, weapons and military equipment, the electronic warfare station and the enemy ammunition depot.

The press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, Peskov, emphasized that Russia will still consider the liberated Kherson the capital of the Russian-occupied Kherson region.

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 enemy shelled the Defense Forces' positions near Berestove, Novoselivske, Stelmakhivka, Nevske, Terny, Ploshanka, Kyslivka, Makiivka, Zarichne, Bilohorivka, and Spirne.

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.

Russian military shelled from tanks and artillery the areas of Soledar, Andriivka, Bakhmut, Bakhmutske, Kurdyumivka, Ozaryanivka, Zelenopillia, Yakovlivka, New York, Opytne, Avdiivka, Vodyane, Maryinka, Nevelske, Novomykhailivka, Novokalynivka.

The high costs of the enemy attack on Pavlivka increased the criticism of the Russian military leadership, which is trying to blame the commander of the Pacific Fleet's 40th separate marines brigade for the "deplorable results" because he "improperly" supported the 155th separate marines brigade.

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 enemy shelled the Defence Forces' positions in Bohoyavlenka, Velyka Novosilka, Vremivka, Vuhledar, Pavlivka, Prechystivka, Zaliznychne, Shcherbaky, Temyrivka, Stepnohirsk, Biloghirya, Dorozhnianka, Malynivka, Olhivske, Novopil, Hulyaipole.

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 enemy fired at the positions of the Defense Forces near Illinka, Dudchany, Kachkarivka and Prydniprovske.

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 enemy has 8 surface ships and a submarine at sea. They are located along the southwestern coast of Crimea. Among them are three missile carriers with a total of 20 Kalibr missiles.

In the Sea of Azov, the enemy continues to control sea communications, keeping 1 ship and 2 boats on combat duty.

Enemy aviation continues to fly from Crimean airfields Belbek and Gvardiyske over the northwestern part of the Black Sea. Over the past day, 14 combat aircraft from Belbek and Saki airfields were deployed.

On November 15, a massive missile attack involved ships of the Russian Navy, which launched 20 Kalibr cruise missiles over Ukraine from the Sevastopol raid.

Grain initiative: Russia supports continuing the "grain agreement," Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told the Russian mass media. He noted that the Russian delegation at the G20 summit declared that it was in favor of extending the "grain agreement" but on the condition that the grain goes to countries that need it and not to Western countries. The Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine, commenting on the "grain agreement", said that Russia hinders the passage of ships due to lengthy inspections: 40 vessels were inspected without the Russian Federation and up to ten with it. Turkey, through whose mediation the "grain agreement" was concluded, wants to extend its duration for a year.

Russian operational losses from 24.02 to 16.11

Personnel - almost 82,710 people (+630);

Tanks - 2,871 (+10)

Armored combat vehicles – 5,797 (+24);

Artillery systems – 1,860 (+10);

Multiple rocket launchers (MLRS) - 393 (0); Anti-aircraft warfare systems - 209 (+1); Vehicles and fuel tanks – 4,360 (+9); Aircraft - 278 (0);

Helicopters – 261 (0);

UAV operational and tactical level – 1,525 (+14); Intercepted cruise missiles - 474 (+75);

Boats/ships - 16 (0).

Ukraine, general news:

On Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky held another meeting of the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief regarding the consequences of Russian missile strikes and the situation at the front, reported the President's press service. "Participants analyzed information on the nature of damage caused by recent Russian missile strikes and considered the course of action to eliminate the consequences of these terrorist attacks. Strengthening the protection of critical infrastructure facilities and improving the effectiveness of the air defense of Ukraine were also discussed," the message reads. According to the President's Office, decisions were made in the context of further de-occupation of Ukrainian territories.

The Verkhovna Rada adopted laws on the approval of the decrees of the President of Ukraine regarding the extension of martial law and general mobilization for 90 days - until February 19, 2023.

On the initiative of the Minister of Energy Herman Galushchenko, an extraordinary meeting of the International Energy Advisory Council of high level was held, at which the issue of providing

Ukraine with additional energy equipment was considered. Representatives agreed to hold the next meeting on November 17 at the level of technical specialists. The High-Level International Energy Advisory Council under the Ministry of Energy was created to provide support and assistance to Ukrainian energy companies in overcoming the challenges and threats posed by the undisguised energy terrorism of the Russian Federation. It included representatives of the relevant ministries of Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Great Britain, and the USA, as well as the Secretariat of the Energy Community and the International Energy Agency.

If scheduled power outages continue in November-December, the additional aggregate losses of the economy may amount to 1-2% of GDP, which may lead to a drop in the economy this year to 35%, Bohdan Danylyshyn, a member of the National Bank of Ukraine Council, wrote on his Facebook page.

At its meeting on Tuesday, the Cabinet of Ministers allocated 100 million hryvnias for liquidating the consequences of hostilities and the restoration of critical infrastructure of Kherson Oblast, reported by the press service of the Ministry of Economy.

Ukraine has suspended the pumping of oil from the Russian Federation through the Druzhba oil pipeline in the direction of Hungary due to a voltage drop. Such a statement was made by the Russian company Transneft.

International diplomatic aspect

With 96 cruise missiles, air-to-surface guided missiles, and drones, the Kremlin showed no interest in stopping its unjust and illegal war. As President Zelensky pointed out, Vladimir Putin responded with ten missiles per each of his peace plan points. Though most of the missiles and drones were intercepted, some 21 hit the targets, badly damaging the electricity supply to Kyiv and other major cities. So, the attack proved that terrorizing civilians was the only strategy remaining in Putin's hands after failing on the battlefields.

However, history shows that the application of the doctrine of air terror and deliberate destruction of critical infrastructure, transportation infrastructure, and administrative centers bring opposite results – national unity and determination to win the war. Bombings of London, the siege of Leningrad, and carpet bombings in Vietnam failed to achieve meaningful results. Russia's actions are aimed at degrading Ukraine's industrial potential for years to come. Yet, the infrastructure is being mended now, and the international community is committed to reconstructing it after the war.

"Following Russia's bombardment against the Ukrainian energy system in the last hour, one of the power lines that ensures the transport of electricity for our country has been disconnected," Moldova's Infrastructure Minister said in a statement. "This has led to massive power outages across the country." Besides indirect damage to the country, it's not unusual for Russian missiles to overfly Moldovan territory and even fall onto it, as was the case on 31 October

"We condemn the barbaric missile attacks that Russia perpetrated on Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure on Tuesday. We discussed the explosion that took place in the eastern part of Poland near the border with Ukraine. We offer our full support for and assistance with Poland's ongoing investigation," reads the joint statement of NATO and G7 Leaders on the margins of the G20 Summit in Bali.

"There is no indication that this was an intentional attack on Poland," Polish President said before an emergency meeting of the National Security Council. "Ukrainian forces, countering a massive Russian attack, launched their missiles yesterday to shoot down Russian missiles. There are many indications that one of these missiles fell on Polish territory without any intention on either side," the Polish Prime Minister said.

However, the Ukrainian side believes that the situation isn't that straight. "We call for a further study as detailed as possible of this incident together with our partners. We are ready to hand over to our partners the evidence of the Russian trace that we have," the Secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council said. President Zelenskyy believes that neither it was not a Ukrainian missile nor it was not a Ukrainian strike. He says that only one case coincides with debris falling out of 25 strikes on Polish territory. According to the Ukrainian military, this missile exploded in the air on Ukrainian territory and couldn't cause such a huge crater.

The US National Security Council's spokesperson expressed his "full confidence in the Polish government's investigation" and stated the absence of evidence that might "contradicts President Duda's preliminary assessment that this explosion was most likely the result of a Ukrainian air defense missile." Yet he confirmed that the US "continue to stay in close touch with the Ukrainians regarding any information they have to fill out the picture." Whatever the final conclusions may be, he said that "it is clear that the party ultimately responsible for this tragic incident is Russia, which launched a barrage of missiles on Ukraine specifically intended to target civilian infrastructure."

Whether there's a Russian trace or not, Moscow has been testing the ground. Most importantly, Russians closely watched NATO's resolve for possible retaliation and the path and pace of decision-making. It might not be the best time because leaders of major allied powers happened to be in one place, so there was no delay in their communications. The diplomatic side of the issue is reassuring.

It is to be seen whether there were military preparations beyond Poland and whether and how the European Interceptor Site was involved. Poland hosts US missile defense complex elements, including SM-3 Block IIA interceptors.

While Russia was hitting Ukrainian cities with the barrage of missiles, the CIA Director was in Kyiv. Though there wasn't much information about the agenda, he was likely sharing his impression about the nuclear blackmail after meeting Russia's chief spy in Ankara.

G20 came out with the Leader's Declaration with pretty strong language on Russia. Unwilling to criticize Russia directly, leaders signed up under the UN General Assembly's Resolution that "deplores in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine and demands its complete and unconditional withdrawal from the territory of Ukraine." The division between the two camps was shown in dividing opinions: "Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy – constraining growth, increasing inflation, disrupting supply chains, heightening energy and food insecurity, and elevating financial stability risks." Russia and their friends agreed to be mentioned as "there were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions."

President Joe Biden is asking Congress to provide more than $37 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine. Spain voiced its readiness to train as many as 2,400 Ukrainian soldiers annually in Toledo Military Academy facilities within the EU assistance initiative

Russia, relevant news

The United States has imposed sanctions against the Wagner PMC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the manufacturers and transporters of Shahed drones, and two individuals involved in supplying Iranian drones to Russia.

Russians massively buy property in Turkey. According to the National Institute of Statistics, citizens of the Russian Federation purchased 2,023 units of real estate, which is several times higher than the number of transactions with representatives of other countries. The most popular cities for the acquisition of real estate by foreigners are Antalya and Istanbul.

The American corporation Arconic, producing products from light metals, including aluminum, sold its business in Russia, reported Reuters. Arconic Corporation has reportedly sold its Russian divisions to Russian state-owned steel company VSMPO-AVISMA for $230 million.

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4. Russia launches more missile strikes, fighting rages in east Ukraine

I do not understand the CJCS. Why would he publicly express these opinions? I would think they are counterproductive.

Negotiations must be conducted from a position of strength. The CJCS' comments undermine a Ukrainian position of strength.

Excerpt:

The top U.S. general, Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, played down chances of any outright military victory for Kyiv in the near term, saying Russia still had significant combat power in Ukraine despite setbacks.

Russia launches more missile strikes, fighting rages in east Ukraine

Reuters · by Dan Peleschuk

Summary
Companies
Russia again targets power infrastructure - Ukraine's PM
Redeployed Russian forces challenge Ukraine in east
Ukraine seeks to restore power after Russian strikes on grid
NATO, Poland believe missile was Ukrainian stray
Top U.S. general does not see near-term Ukrainian war victory

KYIV, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Russia launched more missile strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure on Thursday and its forces pressed attacks in the eastern Donetsk region, reinforced by troops pulled from Kherson city in the south which Kyiv recaptured last week.

NATO and Poland concluded that a missile that crashed in Poland on Tuesday, killing two people, was probably a stray fired by Ukraine's air defences. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy contested this view in a rare public disagreement with his Western allies.

As the winter's first snow fell in Kyiv, authorities said they were working hard to restore power nationwide after Russia earlier this week unleashed what Ukraine said was the most intense bombardment of civilian infrastructure of the nine-month war.

Explosions were heard again on Thursday morning in several parts of Ukraine, including the southern port of Odesa, the capital Kyiv and the central city of Dnipro, and civilians were urged to take shelter as air raid warnings were issued.

Local officials said two people were killed in a missile attack overnight on the southeastern region of Zaporhizhzhia, three were wounded in an attack on the northeastern city of Kharkiv and three were hurt in Odesa.

"Missiles are flying over Kyiv right now," Interfax Ukraine news agency quoted Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal as saying at a conference. "Now they are bombing our gas production, they are bombing our enterprises in Dnipro and Yuzhmash (missile factory)."

On a brighter note, Ukraine's infrastructure ministry said agreement had been reached on extending by 120 days a deal that allows for the export of food and fertilisers from Ukraine's Black Sea ports via a protected sea transit corridor.

The Black Sea grain initiative, first agreed in July, has helped to alleviate global food shortages and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres welcomed Thursday's announcement.

MISSILE BLAST IN POLAND

NATO ambassadors held emergency talks on Wednesday to respond to Tuesday's blast at a grain facility in Poland, near the Ukrainian border, the war's first deadly extension into the territory of the Western alliance.

"From the information that we and our allies have, it was an S-300 rocket made in the Soviet Union, an old rocket and there is no evidence that it was launched by the Russian side," Polish President Andrzej Duda said, however.

"It is highly probable that it was fired by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defence."

Russia and Ukraine both use the Soviet-era missile.

Nevertheless, NATO's chief said Russia, not Ukraine, was still to blame for starting the war with its February invasion and launching scores of missiles on Tuesday that triggered Ukrainian defences.

"This is not Ukraine's fault. Russia bears ultimate responsibility as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels.

[1/19] A view shows damages after an explosion in Przewodow, a village in eastern Poland near the border with Ukraine, in this image obtained from social media by Reuters released on November 15, 2022. /via REUTERS

Stoltenberg also said the missile was likely to have originated from Ukrainian air defence.

Ukraine's Zelenskiy demurred, saying, "I have no doubt that it was not our missile", Ukrainian media said on Wednesday. He said he based his conclusion on reports from Ukraine's military which he "cannot but trust".

U.S. President Joe Biden disputed Zelenskiy's assertion that the missile was not Ukrainian in comments to reporters at the White House on Thursday following his return from a trip to Asia. "That's not the evidence," Biden said.

Moscow had denied responsibility, and Russia's Foreign Ministry said the "mayhem" around accusations of Russian involvement in the missile were "part of a systematic anti-Russian campaign by the West".

DONETSK FIGHTING

Following the latest wave of Russian missile attacks, Zelenskiy said late on Wednesday that technicians were working nonstop to restore electricity.

"We are talking about millions of customers. We are doing everything we can to bring back power. Both generation and supply," he said.

Fighting was heavy in the eastern Donetsk region, including the towns of Pavlivka, Vuhledar, Maryianka and Bakhmut, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said in an online video.

Ukrainian forces repelled attacks on the Donetsk towns of Avdiivka and Bilohorivka, Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhadnov said in comments posted on YouTube.

Moscow's forces retreated from the southern city of Kherson last week after a Ukrainian counteroffensive. It was the only regional capital Russia had captured since its Feb. 24 invasion, and the pullback was the third major Russian retreat of the war.

Investigators in the Kherson region uncovered 63 bodies bearing signs of torture after Russian forces left the area, Ukraine's interior minister was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Interfax Ukraine news agency quoted the minister, Denys Monastyrsky, as telling national television: "The search has only just started, so many more dungeons and burial places will be uncovered."

Russia denies its troops target civilians or have committed atrocities. Mass burial sites have been found in other parts previously occupied by Russian troops, including some with civilian bodies showing signs of torture.

Redeployed Russian forces have also gone on the attack in the southern Zaporizhzhia region as well as in the east, and may also be planning to launch another offensive in Kharkiv in the north, where they were pushed back by Ukraine earlier in the conflict, Arestovych said.

Vladimir Rogod, a Russian-installed official in the Russian-controlled part of Zaporizhzhia, said a Ukrainian missile struck a village there, killing two people and wounding nine.

The top U.S. general, Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, played down chances of any outright military victory for Kyiv in the near term, saying Russia still had significant combat power in Ukraine despite setbacks.

Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Cynthia Osterman, Simon Cameron-Moore and Gareth Jones; Editing by Stephen Coates, Clarence Fernandez and Alex Richardson

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Dan Peleschuk

5. Doomed to Failure — Russia’s Efforts to Restore its Military Muscle

Conclusion:

Nevertheless, the problem here is not only a lack of imported components, technology, and industrial equipment, but also a lack of human capital. The Russian authorities estimate the total current workforce deficit in the defense sector at 400,000 people.

As a result, the losses of Russia’s military during its invasion of Ukraine are irreversible.

Doomed to Failure — Russia’s Efforts to Restore its Military Muscle

November 15, 2022

Pavel Luzin

After almost nine months of aggression against Ukraine, Russia has burned through, and seen destroyed, enormous stocks of arms and munitions. It cannot fully replace them.

cepa.org · by Sarah Krajewski · November 15, 2022

Faced with an acute loss of advanced components and industrial equipment as a result of Western sanctions, the Russian defense industry will simply be unable to compensate for its losses in the foreseeable future. The Kremlin is adopting measures to restore some of its lost military power by giving priority to quantity instead of quality in its arms manufacturing efforts. Yet increasing the productivity of domestic defense corporations is hard, if not impossible.

Much is revealed by examining Russia’s defense budget. The planned 2022 national defense (ND) budget was 3.51 trillion rubles ($57.4bn), which rose to 3.85 trillion rubles after the all-out invasion began. In addition, 2.82 trillion rubles were planned for national security and law enforcement (NSLE.)

This latter element plays a significant role in the analysis of Russia’s military spending, because the Russian national guard (Rosgvardia) including its Chechen units, plus some units of the FSB and other law enforcement agencies, are directly involved in the war. Presumably, Russian mercenaries like the Wagner group are indirectly and at least partly funded by this element of the budget, which may amount to a third of the NSLE spend. The rest, some 60%–65%, is usually earmarked for the ministry of internal affairs (police, migration service, etc.), the ministry of justice, emergency providers, prisons, prosecutors, and other services mostly absent from Ukraine.

In ruble terms, the budget is higher than in previous years and inevitably so; that is due to the huge materiel losses in Ukraine, continuing defense industry financial losses and the Kremlin’s decision to make Russia more authoritarian in economic as well as political terms.

The aggression has changed the fragile balance of the defense budget. Monthly updates of defense and national security spending have been classified since June, but before this national defense spending in January-April alone was 1.6 trillion rubles, around 500 billion rubles monthly in March–April. This was significantly higher than in previous years and its extrapolation gives an annual total of at least 5.5–5.6 trillion rubles by the year’s end. Despite a recent leak from the Russian government indicating national defense spending would reach 4.68 trillion rubles this year, additional spending for arms procurement alone was officially estimated to be at least 600bn–700bn rubles (pre-war, the share of arms procurement was to be 1.8 trillion rubles for all of 2022.) Russia’s real national defense spending will inevitably be much higher; it is equally reasonable to suppose that the national security and law enforcement spending will be much higher too.

This financial turbulence may become even worse as the budget deficit grows. Fiscal revenues were originally planned to be 25 trillion rubles, with spending at 23.69 trillion rubles. Yet in November, planned revenues were unchanged while total spending is now planned to be 29 trillion rubles.

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The Kremlin’s budgetary planning for 2023 shows no improvement. In October, the budget proposal assumed 4.98 trillion rubles for national defense and 4.42 trillion rubles for national security and law enforcement, huge increases on the 3.5 trillion rubles and 2.97 trillion rubles in the 2023 preliminary planning a year ago. By November, planned national defense spending for 2023 had exceeded 5.1 trillion rubles, a rise of 46% on the original figure.

The share of arms procurement here is significant, but it cannot become a “game changer” in restoring Russia’s military power.

Officials and defense sector managers declare that the defense industry is ready to make up all losses as the government increases its arms procurement budget.

Sources: Official statements, expert estimates, and SIPRI

In 2022, arms procurement will total at least 2.5 trillion rubles after all known budgetary corrections, and may even exceed this figure. Arms procurement in 2023 will be no less than 2.5–2.6 trillion rubles according to current information, and may also be higher. However, part of this spending will have to compensate for probable declines in arms exports.

In August, Rosoboronexport, the subsidiary of the Rostec state-owned defense corporation and the country’s arms trade monopoly, was expecting less than $11bn in arms sales by the end of 2022 (for comparison, it was $13 billion in 2020), and total arms exports will barely surpass $12 billion.

Moreover, Russia supports arms exports through subsidized loans, offering its customers the opportunity to delay payments for years, while converting export contracts from less stable national currencies (actually, into rubles.) Therefore, annual figures for arms exports do not translate into real revenue.

Meanwhile, the Russian defense industry has been generating net losses for years. For instance, the volume of the industry’s non-performing loans surpassed 1.7 trillion rubles in 2016–2020, with the ultimate responsibility lying with the government. There is no evidence that defense companies improved their economic efficiency in 2021–2022. Consequently, even if the arms budget rises, it changes little in the economics of Russian defense manufacturing ⸺ it merely plugs the holes in the industry’s already dismal financial balance sheet.

Officials are now traveling intensively from one defense factory to another trying to manage multiple problems arising on production lines. The main challenge is how to maintain productivity; any hopes of actually raising it look almost impossible. The only way to do so would be to simplify manufacturing and give priority to obsolete armaments. Thus, Russia is going to modernize 800 T-62 battle tanks in the next three years. These tanks were first introduced in 1961, the same year that construction began on the Berlin Wall.

This same approach is a hypothetical possibility only for battle tanks and armored vehicles, not for combat aircraft, helicopters, missiles, artillery, and other systems. For example, if Russia can produce 15 Ka-52 combat helicopters annually, it cannot rapidly raise this figure to 20–25 helicopters to cover losses in Ukraine (which total at least 27.) This is especially true considering Russia’s continuing dependence on supplies of Ukrainian-made helicopter engines.

Nevertheless, the problem here is not only a lack of imported components, technology, and industrial equipment, but also a lack of human capital. The Russian authorities estimate the total current workforce deficit in the defense sector at 400,000 people.

As a result, the losses of Russia’s military during its invasion of Ukraine are irreversible.

Pavel Luzin, Ph.D. in international relations (IMEMO, 2012), is a visiting fellow at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation with a focus on research of Russia’s foreign policy and defense, space policy, and global security issues. In 2017–2018, he was a consultant on the armed forces, law enforcement agencies, and defense industry issues for Alexei Navalny’s presidential campaign.

Ukraine using French mobile DNA lab to investigate Russian war crimes

France donated the vehicle and trained Ukrainian experts who are scrutinizing mass graves outside Kharkiv.

Dan Vergano, Science Reporter, and Kseniia Lisnycha, Freelance ReporterNovember 16, 2022

grid.news · by Dan Vergano, Science Reporter, and Kseniia Lisnycha, Freelance Reporter

Ukrainian forensic scientists investigating Russian war crimes are — in a wartime first — using a mobile DNA lab van, a bid to better preserve evidence of atrocities committed on civilians this year in eastern Ukraine.

“This is the first use of mobile DNA in a war context,” said Lieutenant Colonel Sylvain Hubac of France’s National Gendarmerie (IRCGN), a branch of the country’s military, speaking late last month at the International Symposium on Human Identification in Washington, D.C., about the van forensic team’s findings.

Using the van, a French gendarme team investigated victims of the Russian occupation of Bucha, north of Kyiv, in April and May — sequencing the DNA of victims’ remains and of people searching for missing and presumed dead family members. Now newly trained Ukrainian investigators have deployed the van to investigate mass graves found in Izium, outside Kharkiv, uncovered in September. In testing at the mass grave site behind St. Andrew’s Orthodox Church in Bucha, victim samples produced identifiable DNA in 98 percent of cases tested by the mobile lab, Hubac reported, calling the on-site analysis “very efficient, fast, and easy to use.”

Typically, in wars, investigators must wait for fighting to stop, weeks or months in which bodies degrade and forensic evidence disappears, especially when bodies are piled up in mass graves. Performing the analysis instead in a mobile lab speeds the time of identification to help other investigators, eliminates travel time to morgues that degrades evidence, and replaces government labs destroyed by war.

The van contains a full, sealed laboratory for analyzing genetic results from victims. Even burned, co-mingled remains yielded good and distinct genetic profiles from swabs of the victims, the team found. Those results were matched against those of relatives to confirm the identities. The final number of victims identified in Bucha is confidential to Ukraine’s investigation. But Hubac reported that the van investigated the remains or bodies of 184 people and collected DNA for comparison from 73 relatives.

“The use of [the] mobile lab changes war-crime investigations not in the future, [but] right now,” he said in an email to Grid.

Cataloging crime scenes

In other settings, portable DNA kits have rapidly identified victims of California wildfires or migrants who died along the U.S.-Mexico border, said Tom White, an editor of “Silent Witness: Forensic DNA Evidence in Criminal Investigations and Humanitarian Disasters.”

“But the French Gendarmerie effort seems unique in conducting the forensic DNA in a mobile DNA lab and combining that with teaching Ukrainian scientists traditional forensic methods on-site,” White said.

In the last century, the prosecution of war crimes has played an increasing role in historical reckoning with warfare, most notably in the Nuremberg trials after World War II. Conflicts in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia led to war-crimes trials more recently — with DNA evidence playing a role, for example, in investigation of the massacre of thousands in Srebrenica, Bosnia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for war-crimes trials of Russian military units, and President Joe Biden also suggested in April that Russia’s Vladimir Putin should also face a war-crimes tribunal. The advent of a mobile DNA lab aiding forensic investigators on the scene of war atrocities marks a step forward in these kinds of investigations, suggested experts.

“These are crime scenes,” said forensic anthropologist Nicholas Marquez-Grant of the United Kingdom’s Cranfield University. “There is a real need to identify victims as soon as possible because of the risk of samples degrading, and in a way that preserves the chain of custody of evidence.”

Last chapters

France sent the mobile lab and its equipment to Kyiv, a roughly $1 million donation, in response to Zelenskyy’s call for investigations after the massacres at Bucha were discovered in April. The mobile DNA lab, emblazoned with a Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office sign, helped investigate some 450 initially unidentified bodies found at Izium, according to Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office spokesman Dmytro Chubenko. The van has helped to identify 150 of them, so far.

“The mobile van is very useful in DNA sampling and DNA analysis,” Chubenko told Grid, because quickly identifying the victims helps investigators trace their movements and tie them to sites of crimes. “This is especially important in wartime.”

The mobile DNA lab provided by French authorities is seen Nov. 4 in Izium, where Ukrainian scientists have been trained to take DNA from bodies to identify them and to gather evidence for potential war-crimes trials. (Anadolu Agency/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Besides the French investigators, who trained 11 Ukrainian forensic scientists in using the DNA lab van, Dutch investigators are also helping Ukraine document atrocities, said Chubenko, and working with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands. “Our top priority right now is war crimes,” he added, suggesting that investigation of thousands of suspected atrocities outside Kharkiv would take several years.

Ukraine is better positioned for war-crimes investigations in some ways than other locations, said Eric Stover, faculty director of the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, who participated in investigations in Argentina and Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia, where DNA first produced solid war-crime evidence in the 1990s. Ukraine has recaptured territory from Russia weeks to months after the invasion, rather than years, and it took Hubac’s gendarme team only two days to first drive the van from Paris to Kyiv in April.

The key to successful war-crimes prosecutions, Stover added, will be meticulous cooperation with the ICC and bodies like the International Commission on Missing Persons (which Chubenko said is occurring). As well, Ukrainian officials need to carefully involve families in the recovery of their relatives’ bodies for proper burial.

“Everyone should be counted, and everyone is accountable,” said Stover. “When you’re going and you’re investigating a grave, you’re writing the last chapter of somebody’s life, and you want to get it right.”

The DNA lab van is now back in Kharkiv awaiting full supplies, with Ukraine hoping to acquire another mobile DNA van to help in future investigations, as reports grow of abuses in the recently liberated Kherson region. France intends to donate a second mobile lab van early next year, according to Hubac.

“The analysis is very accurate,” said Chubenko. “The problem we are facing is a large number of samples. One laboratory is not able to cover them all.”

Thanks to Dave Tepps for copy editing this article.

grid.news · by Dan Vergano, Science Reporter, and Kseniia Lisnycha, Freelance Reporter

7. Wartime Ukraine’s Achilles’ Heel

Aid to Ukraine.

Excerpts:

Aid to Ukraine will not dry up, nor will the Ukrainian economy collapse, but Western governments may find it harder, politically if not economically, to keep sending billions of dollars to Kyiv while their own citizens endure rising prices and increasing joblessness. Poland, Germany and Hungary are now struggling to accommodate more Ukrainian refugees, and the mood in Europe has become less welcoming just when the outflow from Ukraine has picked up, following Russia’s ramped-up attacks on cities.

Furthermore, the I.M.F. and World Bank will receive distress calls from other parts of the world, including low- and even middle-income countries whose debt repayments are surging as global interest rates keep rising. According to the U.N., 54 of them already have “severe debt problems.” The economic pain could get worse as the dollar appreciates, due to the Fed’s interest rate hikes, and pushes up the price of imported food.

The West has vowed to support Ukraine until Russian troops leave its territory — just this week, President Biden asked Congress to authorize $37.7 billion in emergency economic and military assistance for Kyiv — but achieving that outcome could take a long time and soak up far more resources than anticipated in the early months of this war. Ukrainians, for their part, have resisted the Russian invasion with remarkable tenacity and ingenuity. But they may find that the economic problems produced by the war prove far more intractable.

Wartime Ukraine’s Achilles’ Heel

nytimes.com · by Rajan Menon · November 17, 2022

By Rajan Menon

Mr. Menon directs the grand strategy program at Defense Priorities and is a senior research scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University.

Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

Despite the Ukrainian Army’s battlefield advances and Russia’s retreats, most recently from parts of Kherson Province, Ukraine’s economy has been left in tatters. A prolonged war of attrition — which seems likely — will subject it to additional strain. For the Kyiv government, the cost of prosecuting the war while also meeting the material needs of its citizens will mount even if the Ukrainian Army keeps gaining ground. Worse, winter looms and Russia, frustrated by the serial military failures it has experienced since September, seems bent on crippling Ukraine’s economy by taking the wrecking ball to its critical infrastructure. On Tuesday alone, an estimated 90 Russian missiles rained down across Ukraine.

Ukraine’s biggest problem may not be the military threat posed by Mr. Putin’s army, significant though that will remain, but rather coping with the destruction Russia’s attacks wreak on its economy — and at a time when the prospects for the large and continuing flow of aid Kyiv desperately needs could diminish because of deteriorating economic conditions in the West.

Despite its recent military reverses, Russia retains immense destructive power. Just within recent weeks, its missiles and drones have struck 40 percent of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, triggering rolling blackouts across the country. Missile barrages left about 4.5 million Ukrainians without electricity. Eighty percent of Kyiv’s denizens were deprived of water; 350,000 homes lost power. As this week’s missile strikes show, Russia is not about to let up.

Amid all this, Ukraine’s leaders must meet the many basic needs of their people, whose lives have been upended. The United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported this month that six million Ukrainians are now “internally displaced” (another seven million have sought refuge abroad). Unemployment had reached 35 percent by the second quarter of this year, according to the National Bank of Ukraine. The poverty rate, 2.5 percent in 2020, may approach 25 percent by December, and twice that by the end of next year. Wartime upheaval and destruction have been especially hard on children; nearly half a million more in Ukraine have been pushed into poverty, the second-largest share in the region.

Ukraine’s plight reflects the historical pattern. Protracted wars often devastate the economies of combatants, and the ill effects linger long after the fighting ends. Estimates for reconstructing postwar Ukraine range from $349 billion to $750 billion — even before the full extent of the destruction can be foreseen. Though there has been talk of using impounded Russian assets to help defray the costs, this could run into myriad legal obstacles.

That’s for the future; but the Kyiv government has more immediate problems.

The World Bank projects that Ukraine’s G.D.P. will shrink by 35 percent this year, and other estimates predict that the contraction could be as much as 40 percent. Though Ukraine’s National Bank expects economic expansion to resume in 2023, even a return to a pre-war G.D.P. will require many years of rapid growth.

Ukraine’s monthly budget deficit totals $5 billion, and the government has been forced to seek emergency assistance from the West and the International Monetary Fund. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said recently that given the anticipated gap between expenditures and revenues, his country will need $42 billion in aid for 2023. President Volodymyr Zelensky added another $17 billion for rebuilding damaged or destroyed power plants and housing. Together, these amounts equal nearly 30 percent of Ukraine’s current G.D.P.

The war has also caused Ukraine’s trade to plummet. By the end of September the trade deficit had more than doubled to reach $6.1 billion. Agricultural exports — which netted $27.8 billion in 2021 and comprised 41 percent of total exports — were particularly hard hit because Russia seized Ukrainian ports on the Sea of Azov and some on the Black Sea and mined others, bottling up 20 million tons of grain plus other food products earmarked for export.

Though food exports picked up following a deal between Russia and Ukraine brokered by the U.N. and Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July — more than 11 million tons of Ukrainian grain and other foodstuffs have been exported since then — Russia can still interrupt them, as it showed this month when it left the accord, quickly rejoined it, but warned that it reserved the right to leave again. Moreover, though the deal made it possible for Ukraine to resume corn and wheat exports, the volume amounts to half what it was before the war.

Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s economic assets are not new, but they have reached new heights following Ukraine’s Oct. 8 attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge connecting Russia and Crimea. That same day, Mr. Putin appointed Gen. Sergei Surovikin to run the “special operation” in Ukraine. General Surovikin, notorious for his pitiless aerial assault on Aleppo while commanding Russian forces in Syria in 2017, was quick to implement his signature strategy. He most likely ordered the relentless attacks across Ukraine that singled out electricity grids, dams, waterworks, sewage treatment plants, and thermal power stations.

The electricity grid has already been a prime target for the Russians, and they can damage it further by choking off the fuel supplies required to keep it running. Already, Ukraine, which had planned to earn 1.5 billion euros next year from electricity sales to the European Union, has had to suspend exports and may have to rely on foreign suppliers to meet domestic needs.

As Ukraine’s leaders have scrambled to manage the economic crisis created by Russia’s invasion, they have received substantial assistance from multiple sources. The U.S. Congress authorized — in March, May, and September — nearly $20 billion in various types of economic and humanitarian aid (part of a $54 billion package in economic and military assistance). The Biden administration has delivered $8.5 billion in economic help so far and plans to add another $4.5 billion. The E.U. has done less well, pledging 11 billion euros but disbursing only 27 percent — and unlike the United States, mainly in loans, albeit at concessional rates. Other benefactors include Britain, which had contributed 1.6 billion pounds by mid-year, the World Bank, which had provided $6 billion in emergency funding by July, part of the $13 billion it has secured to help Ukraine, and the I.M.F., which mobilized additional billions.

Given Ukraine’s economic predicament, it desperately needs a continued flow of vast sums of aid, but this lifeline could be threatened by worrisome economic trends in the West.

Those trends owe in part to the blowback that followed the imposition of sanctions on Russia, particularly soaring energy prices created by Moscow’s retaliation through draconian cuts in natural gas sales to Europe. The eurozone’s annual inflation rate has increased to 10.7 percent and exceeds 20 percent in the three Baltic States. In the United States, despite positive news about some key economic indicators, it’s 7.7 percent, in Britain 11.1 percent. And with central banks already raising interest rates in response, Western economies could tip into recession.

Aid to Ukraine will not dry up, nor will the Ukrainian economy collapse, but Western governments may find it harder, politically if not economically, to keep sending billions of dollars to Kyiv while their own citizens endure rising prices and increasing joblessness. Poland, Germany and Hungary are now struggling to accommodate more Ukrainian refugees, and the mood in Europe has become less welcoming just when the outflow from Ukraine has picked up, following Russia’s ramped-up attacks on cities.

Furthermore, the I.M.F. and World Bank will receive distress calls from other parts of the world, including low- and even middle-income countries whose debt repayments are surging as global interest rates keep rising. According to the U.N., 54 of them already have “severe debt problems.” The economic pain could get worse as the dollar appreciates, due to the Fed’s interest rate hikes, and pushes up the price of imported food.

The West has vowed to support Ukraine until Russian troops leave its territory — just this week, President Biden asked Congress to authorize $37.7 billion in emergency economic and military assistance for Kyiv — but achieving that outcome could take a long time and soak up far more resources than anticipated in the early months of this war. Ukrainians, for their part, have resisted the Russian invasion with remarkable tenacity and ingenuity. But they may find that the economic problems produced by the war prove far more intractable.

Rajan Menon (@rajan_menon_) directs the grand strategy program at Defense Priorities and is a senior research scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University.

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

nytimes.com · by Rajan Menon · November 17, 2022

8. G20's criticism of Russia shows the rise of a new Asian power. And it isn't China

G20's criticism of Russia shows the rise of a new Asian power. And it isn't China | CNN

CNN · by Rhea Mogul · November 17, 2022

Hong Kong CNN —

When world leaders at the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, issued a joint statement condemning Russia’s war in Ukraine, a familiar sentence stood out from the 1,186-page document.

“Today’s era must not be of war,” it said, echoing what Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Russian leader Vladimir Putin during a face-to-face meeting in September.

Media and officials in the country of 1.3 billion were quick to claim the inclusion as a sign that the world’s largest democracy had played a vital role in bridging differences between an increasingly isolated Russia, and the United States and its allies.

“How India united G20 on PM Modi’s idea of peace,” ran a headline in the Times of India, the country’s largest English-language paper. “The Prime Minister’s message that this is not the era of war… resonated very deeply across all the delegations and helped bridge the gap across different parties,” India’s Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra told reporters Wednesday.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Indonesia's President Joko Widodo hold hands during the handover ceremony at the G20 leaders' summit, in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, November 16, 2022.

Willy Kurniawan/Reuters

The declaration came as Indonesian President Joko Widodo handed over the G20 presidency to Modi, who will host the next leaders’ summit in the Indian capital New Delhi in September 2023 – about six months before he is expected to head to the polls in a general election and contest the country’s top seat for a third time.

As New Delhi deftly balances its ties to Russia and the West, Modi, analysts say, is emerging as a leader who has been courted by all sides, winning him support at home, while cementing India as an international power broker.

“The domestic narrative is that the G20 summit is being used as a big banner in Modi’s election campaign to show he’s a great global statesmen,” said Sushant Singh, a senior fellow at New Delhi-based think tank Center for Policy Research. “And the current Indian leadership now sees themselves as a powerful country seated at the high table.”

India bridges ‘multiple antagonists’

On some accounts, India’s presence at the G20 was overshadowed by the much anticipated meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden, and the scramble to investigate the killing of two Polish citizens after what Warsaw said was a “Russian-made missile” landed in a village near the NATO-member’s border with Ukraine.

Global headlines covered in detail how Biden and Xi met for three hours on Monday, in an attempt to prevent their rivalry from spilling into open conflict. And on Wednesday, leaders from the G7 and NATO convened an emergency meeting in Bali to discuss the explosion in Poland.

Modi, on the other hand, held a series of discussions with several world leaders, including newly appointed British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, ranging from food security and environment, to health and economic revival – steering largely clear of condemning Putin’s aggression outright, while continuing to distance his country from Russia.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi hold a bilateral meeting on November 16, 2022 in Nusa Dua, Indonesia.

Leon Neal/Getty Images

While India had a “modest agenda” for the G20 revolving around the issues of energy, climate, and economic turmoil as a result of the war, Western leaders “are listening to India as a major stakeholder in the region, because India is a country that is close to both the West and Russia,” said Happymon Jacob, associate professor of diplomacy and disarmament at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi.

New Delhi has strong ties with Moscow dating back to the Cold War, and India remains heavily reliant on the Kremlin for military equipment – a vital link given India’s ongoing tensions at its shared Himalayan border with an increasingly assertive China.

At the same time, New Delhi has been growing closer to the West as leaders attempt to counter the rise of Beijing, placing India in a strategically comfortable position.

“One of the ways in which India had an impact at the G20 is that it seems to be one of the few countries that can engage all sides,” said Harsh V. Pant, professor in international relations at King’s College London. “It’s a role that India has been able to bridge between multiple antagonists.”

‘Voice of the developing world’

Since the start of the war, India has repeatedly called for a cessation of violence in Ukraine, falling short of condemning Russia’s invasion outright.

But as Putin’s aggression has intensified, killing thousands of people and throwing the global economy into chaos, analysts say India’s limits are being put to the test.

Observers point out Modi’s stronger language to Putin in recent months was made in the context of rising food, fuel and fertilizer prices, and the hardships that was creating for other countries. And while this year’s G20 was looked at through the lens of the war, India could bring its own agenda to the table next year.

“India’s taking over the presidency comes at a time when the world is placing a lot of focus on renewable energy, rising prices and inflation,” Jacob from JNU said. “And there is a feeling that India is seen as a key country that can provide for the needs of the region in South Asia and beyond.”

US President Joe Biden, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indonesia's President Joko Widodo, Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and China's leader Xi Jinping attend the G20 leaders' summit in Bali, Indonesia, on November 15.

Dita Alangkara/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Soaring global prices across a number of energy sources as a result of the war are hammering consumers, who are already grappling with rising food costs and inflation.

Speaking at the end of the G20 summit on Wednesday, Modi said India was taking charge at a time when the world was “grappling with geopolitical tensions, economic slowdown, rising food and energy prices, and the long-term ill-effects of the pandemic.”

“I want to assure that India’s G20 presidency will be inclusive, ambitious, decisive, and action-oriented,” he said in his speech.

India’s positioning of next year’s summit is “very much of being the voice of the developing world and the global South,” Pant, from King’s College London, said.

“Modi’s idea is to project India as a country that can respond to today’s challenges by echoing the concerns that some of the poorest countries have about the contemporary global order.”

All eyes on Modi

As India prepares to assume the G20 presidency, all eyes are on Modi as he also begins his campaign for India’s 2024 national election.

Domestically, his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) populist politics have polarized the nation.

While Modi remains immensely popular in a country where about 80% of the population is Hindu, his government has been repeatedly criticized for a clampdown on free speech and discriminatory policies toward minority groups.

Amid those criticisms, Modi’s political allies have been keen to push his international credentials, portraying him as a key player in the global order.

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with China's President Xi Jinping at the G20 Leaders' Summit in Bali, Indonesia, November 16, 2022.

Adam Scotti/Prime Minister's Office/Reuters

China's Xi Jinping lectures Justin Trudeau over alleged leaks

“(The BJP) is taking Modi’s G20 meetings as a political message that he is bolstering India’s image abroad and forging strong partnerships,” said Singh, from the Center for Policy Research.

This week, India and Britain announced they are going ahead with a much anticipated “UK-India Young Professionals Scheme,” which will allow 3,000 degree-educated Indian nationals between 18 and 30 years old to live and work in the United Kingdom for up to two years.

At the same time, Modi’s Twitter showed a flurry of smiling photographs and video of the leader with his Western counterparts.

“His domestic image remains strong,” Singh said, adding it remains to be seen whether Modi can keep up his careful balancing act as the war progresses.

“But I think his international standing comes from his domestic standing. And if that remains strong, then the international audience is bound to respect him.”

CNN · by Rhea Mogul · November 17, 2022

9. Opinion: Will China and Co. really dominate the 21st century? Asian decline is more likely

Excerpts:

Perhaps most importantly, concentration holds down innovation. As innovation will have to be the driver of Asia’s growth, this is a very serious impediment. The way this happens is not necessarily by entrenched companies failing to innovate themselves. They are often quite dynamic in this respect. But innovation is held back in the rest of the economy. Few other companies outside the business groups innovate due to lack of access to finance, skills and other reasons. This – rather than business groups acting as lotus eaters or rent takers – is the main channel by which innovation is restrained.

The vise-like grip of the Connections World in Asia needs to be challenged. Tax policies need to be changed to force business owners to shift away from the business group format. Substantial inheritance taxes – as have been imposed in South Korea – can also be an effective way of discouraging dynastic control. Competition policy needs to be nudged toward monitoring overall measures of concentration, not just concentration in specific markets.

And a slew of measures, including audited registers of interests and donations, are essential if the pressure is to be put on politicians to step away from these networks of influence and preferment. None of these measures are easy to introduce, particularly in the face of well-entrenched and powerful interests. But without such changes, Asia’s 21st century will be far less rosy than many people have predicted.

Opinion: Will China and Co. really dominate the 21st century? Asian decline is more likely

The Globe and Mail · by Simon Commander · November 16, 2022

An Indian schoolgirl wears a mask of Chinese President Xi Jinping to welcome him on the eve of his visit in Chennai, India, Oct. 10, 2019.R. Parthibhan/The Associated Press

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Simon Commander is managing partner of Altura Partners and visiting professor of economics at IE Business School. Saul Estrin is professor of managerial economics at the London School of Economics. They are the authors of The Connections World: The Future of Asian Capitalism (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Close ties linking Asia’s business dynasties to politicians and political power will derail the continent’s economic success if left in place.

This sobering fact runs counter to the common refrain that the 21st century belongs to the Asia, not least its growth beacon, China.

From barely 9 per cent of world GDP in 1970 to more than 40 per cent now, Asia has surely been the rising economic force. And as Asian incomes per capita are still low compared with Canada and other advanced economies, the scope for future growth is clearly still enormous.

Yet Asia’s future success is far from predetermined – in fact, some of the very factors and forces that explain the continent’s success now stand in its way. Its achievements have been built not just on using more capital and labour – what economists call extensive growth – but also on the way in which its main businesses are organized and their copious interactions with politicians and the state.

These features have laid a deep and common imprint on Asia’s many economies. That imprint holds less promise for the future than it has in the past.

At the centre of the action lies the way in which Asian politicians and business interact. Their interactions are always highly transactional, often with a strong streak of reciprocity. Politicians get campaign and other contributions, jobs for themselves or their families, as well as for constituents, at propitious moments. Businesses get public contracts, licences, access to funding and other material rewards – often significant ones. This is the fertile interaction we term the Connections World.

That world operates throughout Asia, but with local features. For example, in China, it is mostly about the ties running between the various levels of the Chinese Communist Party, the government and business. In recent decades, an important component has been the mutually supportive interaction between large private companies – Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent and others – and the party and government.

Although many economies have some similar features, these webs of association have a dimension that is largely confined to Asia and one with major implications for how the region’s economies look and perform. Specifically, the business landscape is dominated by large business groups, often owned by families with a dynastic component. This format is infrequently found outside of Asia and almost never in the rich world.

There are a variety of reasons why businesses organize themselves this way. One is to deal with difficulties in accessing funding, management and skilled workers – something economists refer to as missing markets. Companies then create internal structures that can substitute. Even so, we could have expected that as Asia has developed and institutions have evolved, these motives would have faded away.

Not a bit of it. A more convincing explanation is that business groups persist because their owners find them very suitable for maintaining control, for allocating resources as they wish and, critically, as highly suitable vehicles for transacting with politicians. The complexity of these business groups’ structures – a feature throughout Asia, including China – gives their owners much bargaining power, as well as shielding their companies from predators, commercial or political.

The mutual and reinforcing interests of the business group owners and politicians ensure that both sides benefit. But those interactions also have a consequence that is altogether more disturbing for Asia’s prospects. That consequence is manifest in the extraordinary way in which many markets have come to be dominated by entrenched business groups. Strikingly, this is as true of the landscape in so-called socialist economies, such as Vietnam and even in China, as it is elsewhere.

A good way of capturing entrenchment is to calculate how much concentration has emerged in Asia. By concentration we mean the share of national income (GDP) accounted for by the revenues of the five or 10 largest companies in a country. With few exceptions, the largest companies are all parts of business groups or are owned by the state.

A head cast in the likeness of Chinese President Xi Jinping is placed over a pile of effigies representing the dead from minority communities in China, during a street protest in Dharmsala, India, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020.Ashwini Bhatia/The Associated Press

In India and China, the concentration ratio (CR5) is around 11 per cent. In South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam it ranges between 25 and 35 per cent, while elsewhere concentration is also significant. Certainly, far higher than either Canada (1.5 per cent) or the United States (3 per cent), let alone most advanced economies. For the top 10 companies, the numbers are even more stark: In South Korea their share tops 40 per cent, and in India and China over 15 per cent.

Such concentration, and the market power that tends to accompany it, brings many unwelcome consequences. While boosting incumbents’ profitability, it suppresses the entry of new ventures to the market. Most innovative economies are marked by large amounts of entry and exit of companies. That traction is generally absent in Asia. One consequence is that a very limited number of high productivity jobs are being created throughout the economy. Most individuals stay stuck working in the huge, but largely unproductive, informal economy.

Perhaps most importantly, concentration holds down innovation. As innovation will have to be the driver of Asia’s growth, this is a very serious impediment. The way this happens is not necessarily by entrenched companies failing to innovate themselves. They are often quite dynamic in this respect. But innovation is held back in the rest of the economy. Few other companies outside the business groups innovate due to lack of access to finance, skills and other reasons. This – rather than business groups acting as lotus eaters or rent takers – is the main channel by which innovation is restrained.

The vise-like grip of the Connections World in Asia needs to be challenged. Tax policies need to be changed to force business owners to shift away from the business group format. Substantial inheritance taxes – as have been imposed in South Korea – can also be an effective way of discouraging dynastic control. Competition policy needs to be nudged toward monitoring overall measures of concentration, not just concentration in specific markets.

And a slew of measures, including audited registers of interests and donations, are essential if the pressure is to be put on politicians to step away from these networks of influence and preferment. None of these measures are easy to introduce, particularly in the face of well-entrenched and powerful interests. But without such changes, Asia’s 21st century will be far less rosy than many people have predicted.

The Globe and Mail · by Simon Commander · November 16, 2022

10. Giving OSINT A Seat at The Defense Intelligence Table

I am a strong believer in OSINT. Journalists are also some of the most effective "collectors" with the ability to elicit information from a wide range of sources. And of corus OSINT is more than reporting by the media. It can now also include social media and all the individual "collectors" out there with a smartphone and a blog.

Giving OSINT A Seat at The Defense Intelligence Table

By Evan Smith

November 17, 2022

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/11/17/giving_osint_a_seat_at_the_defense_intelligence_table_865356.html

Throughout America’s involvement in modern warfare, intelligence analysts have been tasked with curating accurate information into actionable intelligence for use in various theaters of war. While analysts often leverage five key sources of military intelligence -- human intelligence (HUMINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), imagery intelligence (IMINT), measurement and signatures intelligence (MASINT), the value of open-source intelligence (OSINT) is often overlooked amidst a culture that generally prefers classified sources.

When OSINT first formally emerged during WWII, it was derived from media such as magazines, newspapers, TV and radio broadcasts, and photographs. Recent unfettered access to technology across global populations has led to critical intelligence being generated in novel spaces and means. OSINT now includes publicly available information from a multitude of online social media sites and web platforms and its utility to the warfighter has expanded accordingly. Commanders can uniquely leverage open-source intelligence to further situational awareness, conduct battle damage assessment, tip and cue collection from other sources, gauge population sentiment, provide targeted insights on violent extremist organizations communications, and more.

Filling Intelligence Gaps

Every commander faces intelligence gaps. Whether it’s technical limitations or resource allocation, they routinely encounter challenges that keep them from understanding the operating environment to some degree. Historically, decision makers have relied on classified information to answer priority intelligence requirements, but the increasing complexity and multipolarity of the battlespace requires accessing and analyzing as much data as possible to better understand the operating picture. The fusion of all five intelligence disciplines ensures accurate and comprehensive data that furthers the commander’s situational awareness.

The utility of OSINT can be seen within the level of detail that publicly available information provides. Images, videos, or posts on social media often give the analyst a unique perspective that can help uncover previously unknown threats. For example, poor operational security on behalf of adversarial military personnel can reveal insights into military operations. When Russia first intervened in the Syrian Civil War, sailors aboard the logistics vessels employed by the Russian Federation Navy posted pictures onboard the ships and even posed with different weaponry being delivered. While using this type of data to make high value decisions may seem counterintuitive due to its unclassified means of collection, it can prove useful and deliver a strategic edge for the military.

Another area where public information has proven beneficial is in identifying and reporting asymmetric forces and violent extremism organizations’ communications and radicalization efforts online. Social media has opened a plethora of ways for extremists of all types to interact and plan, and this information is not accessible in many other spaces or from other sources.

In addition, from a management perspective, leveraging OSINT as an initial source in a collection plan can ensure effective and efficient use of resources. OSINT has a lower barrier to entry compared to other intelligence sources and can inform the collection efforts through SIGINT, HUMINT, IMINT, and MASINT. Incorporating OSINT into a comprehensive plan can ensure sound and informed decision making for the agency. This enables OSINT to provide a level of insight to operations previously unavailable to the relevant agencies.

Challenges and Ensuring Source Validation

Prior to OSINTs adaption within the Intelligence Community, there are challenges that must be addressed before the value of publicly available information can be fully realized and its ability to fill the gaps in intelligence can be achieved.

First, its paramount that national security interests and the safety of intelligence analysts is upheld when data is being collected from open sources. Digital intelligence in particular presents unique attribution challenges that must be addressed before the data is exploited. The usefulness of the vast amount of information is limited without a comprehensive understanding of what’s there and how to safely access, filter and analyze it.

Second, the overwhelming amount of publicly available information, the variety of data structures and sources, and the velocity at which it appears and disappears from the digital arena necessitates a culture change on the part of defense intelligence analysts. For analysts to recognize the value of OSINT, they must first receive the proper training and tools needed to review massive amounts of data. Fortunately, the analytical skills necessary can largely be transferred from existing training and understanding of other forms of intelligence. In addition, military intelligence organizations need to embrace artificial intelligence and other forms of data analytics, both of which are cost effective means to enhance an analyst’s ability to conduct data exploitation and analytic techniques. None of the technologies, such as optical character recognition, automated translation, and “big data” analytics, add significant cost, but they greatly increase the value and utility of the publicly available data.

Third, information and data transmitted through social media and web platforms can include misleading, conflicting, and even purposefully designed disinformation. It’s essential for the analysts to use a holistic approach when conducting OSINT. They should layer it with other sources of intelligence including IMINT, HUMINT, SIGINT, and MASINT to validate and rate confidence in the information and derived assessments. Additionally, it’s important that analysts proactively collect and identify purposefully designed disinformation as it contains critical insights on alternative narratives, what other operatives are attempting to conceal or manipulate, and how that will affect the operational space.

Lastly, the U.S.’ involvement in conflicts and geopolitical tensions around the world has added to the workload of intelligence teams. The Great Power Competition, Ukraine, countering Iranian influence in the Middle East, and counter-terrorism operations in Africa are a few examples of such conflicts. The ever-increasing areas of interest have forced analysts to generate more intelligence assessments with relatively strained resources. To mitigate this shortfall, publicly available information and AI/ML enabled collection and assessment solutions can help fill the gaps and be used in conjunction with other means of collection while requiring minimal additional resources.

Strategic Value

Overall, the nexus between publicly available information and the aforementioned technologies helps analysts better understand the battlespace and identify essential information regarding adversarial capabilities. Online activities and dialogue often demonstrate intent of enemies and allow decision makers to allocate resources where they’re most beneficial.

Unlike other forms of intelligence which often provide time-late data, OSINT can provide persistent near-real-time intelligence and help corroborate other assessments derived from classified means. This method of collection can help streamline military action by providing the commander with a comprehensive understanding of adversarial force disposition and operations. The rapid decision making required on the battlefield is aided by the near-immediate availability of information to identify threats and collection opportunities.

Information from the public – whether from someone with a microblog feed or from a warfighter directly – should never be discounted. While classified information has long been the backbone of intelligence in modern warfare, the availability of critical information online marks a new era for intelligence collection and presents an opportunity for decision makers to better understand the operating environment. The expertise needed to understand threat patterns in various regions of the world is only truly possible when all five forms of intelligence – including publicly available information – are combined to deliver a comprehensive perspective. Leveraging modern technology and a rigorous analyst training pipeline to address the large volume of available information will provide insights previously left unreported. As the U.S. continues to monitor conflicts worldwide, the need for OSINT and the value it offers will grow exponentially in the years ahead.

Evan Smith is a tradecraft advisor at Fivecast (www.fivecast.com), a global provider of digital intelligence solutions used by the national security, law enforcement, defense, corporate security, and financial intelligence sectors. Prior to joining Fivecast, he spent six years as a defense intelligence analyst working for NATO’s Maritime Command and the Department of Defense’s Central Command (CENTCOM). Evan holds a B.A. degree in East Asian Studies from the University of Maryland Global Campus and has various certifications in Geospatial Intelligence analysis. Contact him at evan.smith@fivecast.com

11. Mark Milley and the Coming Civil-Military Crisis

Troubling.

Excerpts:

The recent proliferation of retired military officers at the highest echelons of government has changed the situation. Mr. Trump’s first two national security advisers were general officers, of whom one (H.R. McMaster) was still serving. Mr. Trump’s first chief of staff, Gen. John Kelly, also was a recently retired officer. The most glaring example of civil-military conflation is the Pentagon, where two of the three most recent defense secretaries have been recently retired general officers.

This pattern points neither to intentional political behavior nor to a military officer’s lack of fitness for political roles. Gen. McMaster was a fine national security adviser, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is by all accounts a dedicated soldier. It is to say that it has become normal for high-ranking officers to wield great political power immediately after leaving the service.

The U.S. is at risk of a perfect civil-military storm, in which an empowered Gen. Milley succeeds Secretary Austin or takes another senior role in the Biden administration. Gen. Milley’s strategic instincts are as dim as his political ambition is effulgent. Placing general officers in such critical positions has created the opportunity for a serious civil-military rupture and for partisan inclinations to infect the U.S. military. Decisions about U.S. policy goals in the Ukraine war are—and should be—left to elected officials.

Mark Milley and the Coming Civil-Military Crisis

His recent comments about the Ukraine war reveal the risks of elevating general officers to positions of political prominence.

By Seth Cropsey

Nov. 16, 2022 7:03 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mark-milley-and-the-coming-civil-military-crisis-joint-chiefs-ukraine-negotiation-russia-politics-president-11668634194?mod=hp_opin_pos_4#cxrecs_s

Gen. Mark Milley apparently thinks Ukraine should negotiate with its Russian aggressors and the U.S. should shift its policy toward Kyiv. That’s the upshot of a New York Times piece, published last week, about remarks the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff made at the Economic Club of New York. Such views aren’t merely strategically irrational. They also demonstrate the risks of elevating general officers to positions of political prominence. As partisanship continues to plague American politics, we need a new chairman to repair the military’s fractious relationship with civilian authorities.

This suggests the current territorial balance is a reasonable starting point for negotiations. But that contention is absurd. By retaking the right-bank Kherson region, Ukraine has regained some control over the North Crimea Canal and another major port. But even with such gains, Russia would still be able to regulate Ukrainian trade if the Dnieper divides the two in the south. Russia would keep Ukraine’s most lucrative export locations in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and establish a commanding position in the Black Sea, securing its long-term ability to pressure the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s eastern flanks. There is no logic in Ukraine’s negotiating before it recaptures at least the Kherson region, thereby providing Kyiv with a minimally viable economic export route in the long term.

Gen. Milley’s comments almost certainly were prompted by fears of a Ukrainian offensive against Crimea and Russian escalation, nuclear or otherwise. But if Ukraine ceded Crimea, President Volodymyr Zelensky would lose credibility. Talks might pre-empt a Ukrainian attempt to establish a cease-fire along pre-Feb. 24 lines, though even that would involve far more territory than Gen. Milley appears to see Ukraine gaining. Regardless, the U.S. has an interest in keeping the Crimea question alive. Doing so increases the pressure on Russia and might allow the U.S. to wrest back Crimea, thereby destroying Russia’s Black Sea position.

U.S. interests would be better served by providing Ukraine with support to retake more territory from Russia and declaring Ukrainian victory the aim of U.S. policy. At some point there might be negotiations in which Russia gains something. Yet these talks should be undertaken only when Ukraine has a superior position.

Though Gen. Milley isn’t the only voice in favor of negotiations, his case is unique. An adept political operator, he survived the Trump administration and fashioned himself into an ostensibly nonpartisan general officer. The U.S. military has become, through no fault of its own, a political football. But there is no reason for officers to join the fray. American flag and general officers—especially service chiefs and the Joint Chiefs chairman—are uniquely powerful, not least because our military is the sole American institution that retains bipartisan trust.

The current civil-military environment makes this a particularly dangerous situation. Civil-military relations have been fractious since the Vietnam War. In 1973, the U.S. Army began a campaign to limit political freedom of action, first by using the National Guard as a hand brake on rapid military deployments. The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 shifted the bureaucratic environment, creating a powerful Joint Staff to direct the military. The Army then capitalized. It resorted to the actions of the first Joint Chiefs chairman post-Goldwater-Nichols reform, which asserted his bureaucratic power to ensure long-term control over U.S. defense policy. There were exceptions to this creeping civil-military imbalance—such as Donald Rumsfeld’s second tenure at the Pentagon (2001-06)—but strategic miscalculations eliminated any chance of a shift back to civilian control as understood, say, by Harry S. Truman.

The recent proliferation of retired military officers at the highest echelons of government has changed the situation. Mr. Trump’s first two national security advisers were general officers, of whom one (H.R. McMaster) was still serving. Mr. Trump’s first chief of staff, Gen. John Kelly, also was a recently retired officer. The most glaring example of civil-military conflation is the Pentagon, where two of the three most recent defense secretaries have been recently retired general officers.

This pattern points neither to intentional political behavior nor to a military officer’s lack of fitness for political roles. Gen. McMaster was a fine national security adviser, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is by all accounts a dedicated soldier. It is to say that it has become normal for high-ranking officers to wield great political power immediately after leaving the service.

The U.S. is at risk of a perfect civil-military storm, in which an empowered Gen. Milley succeeds Secretary Austin or takes another senior role in the Biden administration. Gen. Milley’s strategic instincts are as dim as his political ambition is effulgent. Placing general officers in such critical positions has created the opportunity for a serious civil-military rupture and for partisan inclinations to infect the U.S. military. Decisions about U.S. policy goals in the Ukraine war are—and should be—left to elected officials.

Mr. Cropsey is founder and president of the Yorktown Institute. He served as a naval officer and as deputy undersecretary of the Navy and is author of “Mayday” and “Seablindness.”

12. Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 267 of the invasion

Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 267 of the invasion

A missile that crashed inside Poland was probably a stray fired by Ukraine’s air defences, say Warsaw and Nato

The Guardian · by Samantha Lock · November 17, 2022

A missile that crashed inside south-eastern Poland, killing two, was probably a stray fired by Ukraine’s air defences and not a Russian strike, Poland and Nato have said. Polish president, Andrzej Duda, said there is no evidence to suggest the missile was an intentional attack or was launched by Russia but was probably fired as part of Ukraine’s air defences and “unfortunately fell on Polish territory”.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, confirmed that initial analysis suggested the incident was “likely caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory” against Russian cruise missile attacks. “Let me be clear: this is not Ukraine’s fault,” he added. “Russia bears the ultimate responsibility as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine.” Meanwhile Nato allies met in Brussels to discuss their reactions to the incident.
The US president, Joe Biden, also said the missile was unlikely to have been fired from Russia due to its trajectory. Biden’s defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said the US had not seen anything that contradicted Poland’s preliminary assessment that Tuesday evening’s missile was the result of a Ukrainian air defence missile.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said he is convinced that the missile was not Ukrainian. Speaking to reporters, Zelenskiy said he had received reports from the command of Ukraine’s armed forces and air force and “cannot but trust them”.
Ukraine is requesting “immediate access” to the site of the explosion in eastern Poland, a senior Ukrainian defence official said. Oleksiy Danilov said Ukraine wanted a “joint study” of Tuesday’s incident with its partners. Duda said both Poland and the US would have to agree before Ukraine could take part in the investigation.
The Russian defence ministry said that on Tuesday, it had not targeted anywhere within 35km (22 miles) of the Ukraine-Poland border. The ministry said statements about “Russian missiles” falling in Przewodów were “a deliberate provocation with the aim of escalating the situation”.
Duda met US central intelligence agency director William Burns in Warsaw on Wednesday evening, the head of Poland’s national security bureau said. Jacek Siewiera said the conversation “concerned the general security situation” and “the context of recent events came up.”
The UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has blamed Russian president Vladimir Putin’s “cruel and unrelenting” war for destabilising the world economy, while calling for Nato allies to wait for the results of “a full investigation into the circumstances behind missiles falling in Poland yesterday”. The British PM and his Canadian counterpart, Justin Trudeau, spoke with Zelenskiy and said in a readout afterwards that “whatever the outcome of that investigation [into the explosion in Poland], Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is squarely to blame for the ongoing violence”.
A vital deal allowing Russian and Ukrainian wheat and fertilisers to be exported through the Black Sea is expected to continue, according to the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The deal was scheduled to expire on Saturday but Erdoğan said he was confident the deal was going to be renewed for a year, bringing relief to some of the poorest countries in the world.
A draft declaration from G20 leaders said “most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine”, and demanded Russia’s “complete and unconditional withdrawal” from its neighbour’s territory. The reference to war is a rejection of Russia’s claim that it is involved in a “special military operation”. But it also said “there were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions”, reflecting the divisions among G20 states over Russia.
Ukrainian investigators have uncovered a claimed “torture room” in Kherson city where dozens of men were allegedly detained, electrocuted, beaten and some of them killed. Police said Russian soldiers took over the juvenile detention centre in around mid-March and turned it into a prison for men who refused to collaborate with them or who were accused of partisan activity.

The Guardian · by Samantha Lock · November 17, 2022

13. McCarthy threatens to hold up key defense bill until next year

Huh? Good for Defense? Good for our national security?

Excerpts:

“If you kick it off four, five, six months, you are really damaging the United States military,” Smith said later on Wednesday at the Politico Defense Summit. “I hope Kevin McCarthy understands that.”

Before McCarthy publicly threatened to stall the NDAA, Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama – the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee – told reporters that the informal negotiations with the Senate have gone “very well.”

“But who knows, it could come off track,” he said.

McCarthy threatens to hold up key defense bill until next year

Defense News · by Bryant Harris · November 16, 2022

WASHINGTON — Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California is threatening to delay passage of the fiscal 2023 defense-authorization bill until January when Republicans take control of the House – and likely make him speaker.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has decided to cancel a floor vote on the upper chamber’s version of the legislation and instead proceed directly to a compromise bill with the House. This would mark the second year in a row that the Senate has not held a vote on its own version of the bill.

If lawmakers do not a pass a compromise version of the NDAA by the end of the year, it would mark the first time in 61 years that Congress has not passed its hallmark defense bill.

“I’ve watched what the Democrats have done on many of these things, especially the NDAA – the woke-ism that they want to bring in there,” McCarthy told reporters on Tuesday after House Republican leadership elections, where the majority of his caucus nominated him to serve as speaker in the next Congress. “I actually believe the NDAA should hold up until the 1st of this year – and let’s get it right.”

The Republican leader — who joined 149 House Republicans in voting to pass his chamber’s version of the bill 329-101 in July — did not specify what specific provisions in the legislation he considers to be “woke.”

A handful of progressives typically vote against the NDAA – objecting to the defense budget topline – and 39 Democrats voted against the $839 billion House bill in July. This means that Democrats likely need at least some Republican support to pass the compromise bill, and McCarthy could forestall that if he whips enough of his caucus to vote against final passage.

McCarthy’s remarks came in spite of a series of meetings this week between the top Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees to prepare a compromise NDAA with the goal of passage in early December.

House Armed Services Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., told CSPAN on Wednesday that he’s “pretty sure” the negotiations would produce a bicameral bill by the end of the week.

“If you kick it off four, five, six months, you are really damaging the United States military,” Smith said later on Wednesday at the Politico Defense Summit. “I hope Kevin McCarthy understands that.”

Before McCarthy publicly threatened to stall the NDAA, Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama – the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee – told reporters that the informal negotiations with the Senate have gone “very well.”

“But who knows, it could come off track,” he said.

‘Other legislative priorities’

Senate Armed Services Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I., also said that the informal discussions with the House “have made progress.”

Reed said that the Senate “didn’t have a lot of time” to pass its own $847 billion version of the NDAA this week, as initially planned, “because of other legislative priorities” during the lame duck session of Congress.

Instead, Schumer is looking to use what little Senate floor time remains to confirm more of President Joe Biden’s nominees and pass legislation relating to same-sex marriage protections, a debt ceiling increase and a government funding bill.

Schumer argued that Republicans could block fast-track procedural mechanisms that would allow the Senate to quickly amend and pass the NDAA. He pointed to last year when Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., held up the bill and forced leadership to pull it off the floor because it did not include his China sanctions amendment over the Uighur genocide.

“The floor is so tied up because you can get a single Republican to knock out all the amendments,” Schumer told Defense News. He added that “we can get more done” by skipping a separate vote on the Senate NDAA and proceeding directly to final passage of a compromise bill.

Still, the decision deprives individual senators such as Tim Kaine, D-Va., the opportunity to introduce their own amendments to the behemoth bill. Kaine had hoped for a vote on his bipartisan amendment to repeal the 2002 military authorization to invade Iraq – an amendment that the House has already added to its version of the NDAA.

“For the second year in a row, not to do an NDAA with amendments would be a big mistake,” said Kaine.

The decision also forgoes a Senate vote on a massive package of 75 bipartisan NDAA amendments. Those amendments include $10 billion in Taiwan military aid and foreign military sale reforms, $841 million for a third Coast Guard icebreaker in the Arctic, and wartime contracting authorities for the Pentagon to buy large amounts of high-priority munitions with multi-year contracts – many of which have been sent to Ukraine.

The Senate NDAA also includes $2 billion to accelerate munitions production and $1 billion to more than double the net worth of the national critical minerals reserve with the aim of lessening the defense industrial base’s reliance on adversaries such as China – far more than the House version has allocated for either purpose.

Despite McCarthy’s threat to hold the NDAA in the House, and the Senate skipping a vote on its own version, Senate Armed Services ranking member James Inhofe, R-Okla., struck an optimistic note that Congress would pass a final bill by January.

“We’re exactly where we’ve been every year at this point,” said Inhofe.

Leo Shane III contributed to this report.

About Bryant Harris

Bryant Harris is the Congress reporter for Defense News. He has covered U.S. foreign policy, national security, international affairs and politics in Washington since 2014. He has also written for Foreign Policy, Al-Monitor, Al Jazeera English and IPS News.

14. G20 delivers hard-fought declaration for peace

G20 delivers hard-fought declaration for peace

Indonesian leader Widodo scores surprise diplomatic win with strongly worded accord condemning Russia’s war in Ukraine

asiatimes.com · by John McBeth · November 17, 2022

JAKARTA – Stung by the loss of the strategic city of Kherson, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s concerted missile barrage on Ukraine the previous night appears to have been responsible for the surprisingly strong final declaration emerging from the Group of Twenty (G20) Summit in Bali on Wednesday.

With Moscow’s delegation leader, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, abruptly flying out of the island resort the night before, the leaders condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the Russian invasion and its impact on global food and energy supply lines.

President Joko Widodo said negotiating the declaration had been extremely difficult, with diplomats working until midnight on the wording. But he hailed the 52-paragraph accord for condemning the war “because it has violated borders and the integrity of the region.”

A communiqué is slightly more nuanced than a declaration, but in both cases they seek to capture the sense of an event. As one diplomat put it: “Indonesia will come away from this feeling very pleased with themselves. It is absolutely more than they thought it could get.”

Point 3 of the Bali document referred to the March 2, 2022, United Nations General Assembly resolution, passed in a majority vote, that deplored Russian aggression against Ukraine and demanded its complete and unconditional withdrawal.

“Most members strongly condemned the war,” it says. “It is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing frailties in the global economy, constraining growth, increasing inflation, disrupting supply chains, heightening energy and food insecurity and elevating financial stability risks.”

The declaration acknowledged there were “other views and different assessments of the situation and related sanctions,” but added: “Recognizing that the G20 is not the forum to resolve security issues, we acknowledged that security issues can have significant consequences for the global economy.”

It said upholding international law and the multilateral system was essential to safeguarding peace and security, including defending the principles and purposes in the UN Charter and adhering to international humanitarian law – along with the protection of civilians and infrastructure.

“The use of or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible,” it went on. “The peaceful resolution of conflicts, efforts to address crises, as well as dialogue and diplomacy are vital. Today’s era must not be of war.”

The leaders called on Russia to renew the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which has so far allowed the export of 11 million metric tons of Ukrainian grain, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he planned to meet with Putin to help avert a looming global shortage of chemical fertilizers.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov left the Bali G20 Summit early. Image: Twitter

With Brazil and Mexico missing from the summit meeting altogether, Widodo said the 17 remaining leaders adopted the declaration unanimously – despite what he called “heated debate” and widespread reports that Lavrov had rejected the draft from the start.

Diplomatic sources say that suggests his replacement, veteran Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, eventually rolled over on the wording instead of “blowing up” the whole process, as has happened at some previous summits where contentious issues have arisen.

For Chinese President Xi Jinping, the overnight strikes may have been the last straw. In recent weeks, there have been signs he is growing increasingly unhappy with Putin’s nuclear rhetoric and the impact of the war on the global economy.

But he did get in a few jibes against the West. Clearly addressing the US, Xi declared: “Drawing ideological lines or promoting group politics and bloc confrontation will only divide the world and hinder global development and human progress.”

“No one should engage in beggar-thy-neighbor practices, building a ‘small yard with high fences,’ or creating closed and exclusive clubs,” he said in a reference to security pacts created over the past year between Washington and its Asian allies.

On Monday, China was also among 14 countries that voted against a UN resolution calling for Russia to be held responsible for paying reparations for the damage caused during the war. Indonesia and three other G20 nations abstained.

The sources believe Indonesia’s independent foreign policy, the obvious goodwill shown toward the hosts as they sought to steer a path through the geopolitical minefield – and Bali’s ambiance – contributed to the success of the summit.

It was not without the want of trying. Guided by Dian Triansyah Djani, a former ambassador to the UN and special adviser to Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, the G20 diplomats had actually started their work five days before the summit convened.

Indonesia Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi is widely seen as one of Southeast Asia’s most seasoned and credible diplomats. Image: G20 Website

His forces unable to make inroads on the ground, Putin has in recent weeks increasingly turned to a scorched-earth strategy aimed at destroying Ukraine’s power stations and other infrastructure as the bitterly cold winter months approach.

Immediate attention focused on a Russian-made missile landing in Poland, but after an emergency meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanual Macron, US President Joe Biden said it wasn’t clear it had come from Russia.

US officials thought it may have been a Ukrainian anti-aircraft rocket fired at an incoming Russian missile, one of more than 100 that rained down on cities in the west, east and south and left half of Kiev, the capital, without power.

“I call on all parties to refrain from escalating tensions,” President Joko Widodo said in his closing statement. “I have always said that war will only bring devastation, therefore we must stop the war.”

Cast in the unfamiliar role of statesman, Widodo made the same appeal in his opening remarks on Tuesday, effectively conceding that the war had spoiled Indonesia’s efforts to make the gathering a showcase for attracting more foreign investment.

Where it did score points was on the sidelines of the summit, where state-owned utility Perusahaan Listrik Negara and the Asian Development Bank agreed to a deal in which they will refinance and retire a 660-megawatt coal-fired power plant on Java’s north coast.

The 10-year-old station, owned by a Marubeni Corp-led consortium, is the first to be earmarked for early closure under a regionwide ADB Energy Transition Mechanism to help phase out coal, which contributes to more than half of Indonesia’s power generation.

Indonesia will benefit from a US$20 billion climate finance package, pledged by the eight-nation Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) that will reduce emissions, expand renewable energy and support workers most affected by the transition away from coal.

Indonesia is looking to burn less coal. Image: Facebook

According to a JETP statement, the aim is to have renewables contribute 34% of all power generation by 2030 and to ensure the sector reaches net zero emissions by 2050, a decade earlier than the government has targeted.

Indonesian commentators were also quick to home in on one article in which the G20 countries agreed to do more to implement an agreement made in 2009 to phase out and rationalize subsidies that it said only encouraged more wasteful fuel consumption.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who played a prominent role in some of the summit’s side meetings, has said that the cost of Indonesia’s energy subsidies and compensation could surpass this year’s budgeted US$34 billion, despite a recent increase in fuel prices.

asiatimes.com · by John McBeth · November 17, 2022

15. Letter to Certain Congressional Committees on Changes to the Legal and Policy Frameworks for the United States' Use of Military Force and Related National Security Operations

I have not found the unclassified Presidential Policy Memorandum. This could be an interesting development.

Letter to Certain Congressional Committees on Changes to the Legal and Policy Frameworks for the United States' Use of Military Force and Related National Security Operations | The White House

whitehouse.gov · by The White House · November 15, 2022

Dear Mr. Chairman: (Dear Madam Chair:)

In accordance with section 1264(b) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (Public Law 115-91), as amended, 50 U.S.C. 1549(b), I am transmitting notice of changes to the legal and policy frameworks for the United States’ use of military force and related national security operations.

I am enclosing a copy of the unclassified notice and its classified annex, which includes the Presidential Policy Memorandum outlining the changes.

Sincerely,

JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

whitehouse.gov · by The White House · November 15, 2022

16. Without A Robust Sealift Capability, The U.S. Is No Superpower

A strategic achilles heel?

Without A Robust Sealift Capability, The U.S. Is No Superpower

19fortyfive.com · by Daniel Goure · November 16, 2022

What are the measures of a superpower? Is it the number and diversity of its nuclear weapons and delivery systems? Is it the size of its Army? Or the number of ships in its fleet? These are necessary, but not sufficient, measures of a nation’s military capabilities.

A unique strategic advantage for the U.S. is its capacity to move large amounts of forces and supplies across oceans and sustain them while engaged in combat, often for years. This is essential for the military’s ability to achieve integrated deterrence, conduct expeditionary and humanitarian operations, and provide reassurance to friends and allies. Should deterrence fail, moving forces to a fight and sustaining their presence is vital. That makes sealift an important measure of U.S. military power.

How does the U.S. military deploy overseas? Personnel and some equipment can go by air. But around 90 percent of the military’s equipment and supplies, particularly for the Army and Marine Corps, move by sea. Even though the Air Force and Navy can to some extent, self-deploy, they need to be supported in transit by aerial and at-sea refueling. Once deployed, they also need to rely on sea-based transport for munitions, spare parts, and other critical supplies. As one former senior official with the Maritime Administration (MARAD) observed: “This is how we move our forces from [the continental United States] to anywhere else in the world. We can stuff some of it in the back of a C-17 [aircraft] but not a whole lot…If you’re going to take real combat power someplace, it’s got to be in a ship.”

Even at the height of the Cold War, when a significant fraction of the U.S. military was deployed overseas, the ability to reinforce and resupply those forces from the continental United States via sealift was an essential element of this nation’s deterrent posture and warfighting capability. The need to deploy forces abroad actually increased in the post-Cold War era, as the bulk of overseas forces were brought home. Today, the requirement for projecting power has made sealift more important in the Biden administration’s National Security Strategy, which identifies Russia and China as simultaneous major threats. What makes the requirement to project power all the more challenging is the United States’ desire to deter and defend forward, both in Eastern Europe and the Western Pacific.

The United States will not be able to support its national security objectives without a robust capability to move enormous amounts of equipment and supplies anywhere in the world. The trouble is that the U.S. military is reliant on a dwindling, aging sealift capability to provide global mobility. For years, defense publications have published reports on the declining state of U.S. sealift, government-owned and commercial components alike.

The military sealift fleet, simply put, is about to go off a waterfall. All four components of the sealift fleet – prepositioned ships (prepo), surge sealift ships, the Ready Reserve Fleet (RRF), and U.S.-flagged commercial vessels that are part of the Maritime Security Program (MSP) – are facing serious challenges. The U.S. government’s sealift fleet suffers from a combination of obsolescence, deferred maintenance, and a lack of skilled crews. The Navy warned years ago that unless aggressive action is taken now to recapitalize prepositioned and RRF ships by 2035, the military sealift fleet will only be able to deliver half the necessary volume of equipment and supplies.

The Navy, Department of Defense, and Congress have struggled for some years to define a pathway to ensuring a viable public sealift capability. The solution now generally agreed upon can be characterized as rolling recapitalization. This would involve acquiring used commercial ships, refurbishing them, and placing them in the prepo fleet. The now excess prepositioned ships would be cascaded into the surge fleet and RRF. The Navy also is pursuing a service life extension program for the newest prepositioned and RRF ships.

There has been concern expressed in Congress that the Navy is not moving fast enough with sealift recapitalization. Several members of Congress, notably Representative Rob Wittman, have suggested turning over the responsibility for refurbishing the surge sealift force to MARAD.

But even with a modernized fleet of government-owned sealift assets, the U.S. will be dependent on U.S.-flagged commercial vessels in the event of a large-scale conflict. This is the purpose of the MSP, which pays a retainer incentive to the operators of member vessels in exchange for their availability during times of need. For example, private U.S. shipping companies such as Crowley Maritime have played a vital role in support of U.S. humanitarian relief efforts in places like Haiti and West Africa.

The U.S.-flagged commercial fleet on which the military relies for surge sealift is also under constant pressure from cheaper foreign competitors. The national security interest of the U.S. in maintaining a viable commercial sealift capability is the critical reason for measures such as the Jones Act and cargo preference.

The Jones Act requires that all vessels carrying cargo on inland waters or between U.S. ports be U.S.-flagged and -crewed. Providing incentives for U.S. companies to stay in the commercial sealift business is a relatively cheap way of ensuring the survival of this sector. Despite criticisms that the Jones Act impedes responses to humanitarian crises, this has not been proven to be the case. Rather, the Jones Act helps preserve the critical national security capabilities that both ships and trained crews provide.

The same is true for cargo preference, which refers to the U.S. laws, regulations, and policies that require the use of U.S.-flagged vessels in the movement of cargo that is owned, procured, furnished, or financed by the U.S. government. All military cargoes and 50 percent of government agency and agricultural cargoes fall under the umbrella of cargo preference. Cargo preference also helps provide an assured base of business for U.S.-flagged carriers that are available to respond to a national security incident.

U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Austin Cardenas, a food service specialist with Combat Service Support Company, I Marine Expeditionary Force Support Battalion, I Marine Expeditionary Force, wears a full combat load during a field exercise (FEX) at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., Aug. 16, 2018. The FEX exposed battalion Marines to field conditions, and will prepare them to meet operational and training objectives in the upcoming year. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Dalton S. Swanbeck)

The U.S. possesses the world’s most modern and lethal Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. It maintains a globe-girding array of alliances and friendships. But these assets need to be deployed and supported to deter conflict and prevail in war. Ultimately, without a robust sealift capability, the U.S. will cease to be a superpower.

Dr. Daniel Goure, a 1945 Contributing Editor, is Senior Vice President with the Lexington Institute, a nonprofit public-policy research organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. He is involved in a wide range of issues as part of the institute’s national security program. Dr. Goure has held senior positions in both the private sector and the U.S. Government. Most recently, he was a member of the 2001 Department of Defense Transition Team. Dr. Goure spent two years in the U.S. Government as the director of the Office of Strategic Competitiveness in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He also served as a senior analyst on national security and defense issues with the Center for Naval Analyses, Science Applications International Corporation, SRS Technologies, R&D Associates, and System Planning Corporation.

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19fortyfive.com · by Daniel Goure · November 16, 2022

17. Integrated deterrence: An excuse to spend less on defense?

Excerpts:

Integrated deterrence is therefore less about reducing the Pentagon’s investments in crucial technologies or other preparations for great-power rivalry. It is more about being sure we have the option of carrying out a multi-dimensional campaign against Russia or China for scenarios that fall short of all-out war but nonetheless necessitate a resolute response. Beyond strictly military investments, it also requires the nation to build up stockpiles of key commodities, to diversify supply chains for crucial technologies, and otherwise to prepare for the possibility of a prolonged period of economic disengagement from China or Russia should conflict begin.

In this regard, while it was perhaps not signaled adequately before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, and clearly did not deter that aggression, the concept of integrated deterrence has been employed after the fact against Russia. One can hope that decision-makers in Beijing have noticed and realize how we would react to China’s possible aggressions in the western Pacific (or elsewhere).

So, yes, we should continue the healthy debate about the adequacy of U.S. military spending and the proper allocation of funds within the defense budget. But we should not confuse ourselves, or disagree much, about the idea of integrated deterrence. Rather, we should get on with the effort to make it as credible to future would-be aggressors as possible, increasing and expanding the instruments of national power and resilience throughout the government and private sector that would best prepare us for a prolonged multi-dimensional struggle against a great-power aggressor.

Integrated deterrence: An excuse to spend less on defense?

BY MICHAEL O’HANLON, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 11/15/22 11:00 AM ET

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3732302-integrated-deterrence-an-excuse-to-spend-less-on-defense/?utm_campaign=dfn-ebb&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sailthru&SToverlay=2002c2d9-c344-4bbb-8610-e5794efcfa7d

Pentagon defense strategies come along about every four years, under various names and guises, and do not always make headline news. But the Biden administration’s new plan, known as the 2022 National Defense Strategy and released last month after the White House published its broader National Security Strategy, just might.

In one sense, the broad approach of the Biden administration’s strategy is not controversial. With its focus on China as the “pacing challenge” and Russia as the “acute threat,” it builds on the framework established by former Secretary of Defense James Mattis in 2018 in the Trump administration’s 2018 National Defense Strategy. Dr. Colin Kahl, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (the No. 3 job in the Pentagon), said as much in an event at Brookings Institution on Nov. 4. He described the Biden document as an iteration or updating of that earlier document, and noted that for all the differences between the Trump and Biden administrations, defense strategy (at least in theoretical and doctrinal terms) is not really one of them.

Nonetheless, with the 2024 presidential election looming, partisan fault lines are already emerging with regard to American national security policy. As we soon settle into a new political reality in Washington, with Republicans empowered and emboldened — and perhaps another Donald Trump v. Joe Biden showdown looming — it is inevitable that strident debates will emerge.

One key bone of contention is already apparent. The new Biden plan emphasizes a concept that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has been employing in speeches and policy documents since the summer of 2021, known as “integrated deterrence.” According to Austin, and Kohl, and the Biden administration writ large, it is a way to bring all dimensions of warfare (including cyber and space), all allies and security partners, and all parts of the U.S. government into the effort of securing the nation. Economic sanctions, including on trade and financial transactions, as well as measures to improve and harden the economies of the United States and allies against enemy actions, should be central to the effort.

But according to critics, such as Congressman Michael Gallagher (R-Wis.), integrated deterrence is just an excuse for weakening the military. It allows Democrats to spend less on defense. It helps the Pentagon pass the buck to others, rather than accept the responsibility — and demand the resources — needed to deter Russia and China through the instruments of hard power. Critics also contend that integrated deterrence doesn’t work. After all, Vladimir Putin knew that he would be penalized with sanctions if he invaded Ukraine. But he did it anyway.

As among the first to use the term “integrated deterrence” in a book I wrote in 2019, called “The Senkaku Paradox: Risking Great Power War over Small Stakes,” I have watched this debate with fascination. At one level, integrated deterrence is just a phrase, suggestive of where the United States and its allies should go with future grand strategy. As a slogan, it is far short of a plan of action. Some interpretations of the concept could indeed be vulnerable to the criticisms of Congressman Gallagher and others, if integrated deterrence were truly conceived as a substitute for raw military power and preponderance.

However, that is not the way the term should best be understood. At the Brookings event, Kohl explained that, rather than passing the buck, the Department of Defense under President Biden is trying to do much more to deal with new threats while encouraging other branches of government, and our allies, to do much more as well. That is what I argued in the 2019 book, and it is the right general idea.

Integrated deterrence as a concept simply recognizes two realities. First, American and allied military advantage near the shores of China in particular is unlikely ever again to approach the levels of superiority we enjoyed before China became a high-tech industrial power. Thus, rapid military victory in various scenarios near China’s shores will be much harder to ensure than in the past — even though we should try to sustain and increase whatever edges we can muster. It is not enough for America to continue to wield the world’s most potent military in the abstract. The real question is, how does that superior military achieve combat outcomes very close to the territories of other great powers? Geography plays a crucial role in combat, and we do not generally enjoy home-field advantage.

Second, in some scenarios over small stakes, or in the “gray zone” between peace and war, rapid escalation to all-out conflict will not always be our best option. For example, if China seizes an uninhabited Senkaku island in the East China Sea without firing a shot, the right response may not be to bomb or shoot those invading troops (just because Japan claims and administers the islands at present). A combination of military redeployment and reinforcement, economic punishment of an aggressor, diplomatic efforts to create a strong coalition against the aggressor, and various preparations (ideally before the fact) to enhance resilience at home against the aggressor’s possible economic retaliations may make more sense.

At a minimum, we should develop these tools to give a president more options in any crisis. Instruments of economic warfare also may be our best tools in response to a Chinese partial blockade of Taiwan that falls short of a full-bore invasion attempt and employs only limited amounts of lethal force.

Integrated deterrence is therefore less about reducing the Pentagon’s investments in crucial technologies or other preparations for great-power rivalry. It is more about being sure we have the option of carrying out a multi-dimensional campaign against Russia or China for scenarios that fall short of all-out war but nonetheless necessitate a resolute response. Beyond strictly military investments, it also requires the nation to build up stockpiles of key commodities, to diversify supply chains for crucial technologies, and otherwise to prepare for the possibility of a prolonged period of economic disengagement from China or Russia should conflict begin.

In this regard, while it was perhaps not signaled adequately before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, and clearly did not deter that aggression, the concept of integrated deterrence has been employed after the fact against Russia. One can hope that decision-makers in Beijing have noticed and realize how we would react to China’s possible aggressions in the western Pacific (or elsewhere).

So, yes, we should continue the healthy debate about the adequacy of U.S. military spending and the proper allocation of funds within the defense budget. But we should not confuse ourselves, or disagree much, about the idea of integrated deterrence. Rather, we should get on with the effort to make it as credible to future would-be aggressors as possible, increasing and expanding the instruments of national power and resilience throughout the government and private sector that would best prepare us for a prolonged multi-dimensional struggle against a great-power aggressor.

Michael O’Hanlon is the Philip H. Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy at the Brookings Institution and the author of several books, including “The Art of War in an Age of Peace: U.S. Grand Strategy and Resolute Restraint,” “Defense 101: Understanding the Military of Today and Tomorrow,” and the forthcoming “Military History for the Modern Strategist.” Follow him on Twitter @MichaelEOHanlon.

TAGS CHINA COLIN KAHL GREAT POWER COMPETITION JAMES MATTIS JOE BIDEN LLOYD AUSTIN MILITARY SPENDING NATIONAL DEFENSE STRATEGY NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN

18. AFSOC Commander Slife Nominated to Become Deputy Chief for Operations

AFSOC Commander Slife Nominated to Become Deputy Chief for Operations | Air & Space Forces Magazine

airandspaceforces.com · by Greg Hadley · November 16, 2022

Nov. 16, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife, currently the head of Air Force Special Operations Command, is slated to join the Air Staff. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III announced Nov. 16 that Slife has been nominated by President Joe Biden to become the Air Force’s next deputy chief of staff for operations.

Slife, who has commanded AFSOC since June 2019, will succeed Lt. Gen. Joseph T. Guastella, whose retirement was announced in May.

The deputy chief of staff for operations oversees a broad portfolio but is primarily responsible for “providing policy, guidance, and oversight for … operations, training, and sourcing of [Air Force] capabilities and personnel to support joint operations, and representing [Air Force] operations” to the broader Pentagon, according to Air Force policy.

The deputy chief also assists the Chief of Staff in “providing and allocating operationally ready … forces and capabilities in response to the needs of the combatant commanders.”

Slife comes to the position after more than 30 years in uniform, much of it in special operations. Before leading AFSOC, he served consecutive assignments as chief of staff and vice commander for U.S. Special Operations Command in addition to stints as a top planner for U.S. Central Command. He has also commanded special operations Airmen at the squadron, group, and wing levels.

Under Guastella, the Air Force introduced a new Force Generation Model in which Airmen cycle through four “bins,” each lasting six months for a 24-month cycle. In a September event with the Air & Space Forces Association, Slife extolled the benefits of that model in the context of his own experience in AFSOC, saying it helped him to articulate risk to combatant commanders by simplifying terminology and timelines.

“We’ve been unable to talk about our capacity in a way that resonates with the Joint Force. It becomes too technical and complicated. And so when we migrated to a four-cycle force generation model, it allows us to have these conversations very unemotionally and very fact-based and allows us to articulate risk and capacity in a way that has really eluded us,” Slife said.

At the same time, Slife came out strongly against the centralization of resources, saying he was on a “jihad” against it within AFSOC.

When the Air Force or major commands consolidate all of one capability into one unit, it may seem that there is enough capacity to go around, Slife said. But when “maximum effort and deploying” are required, the shortfall becomes clear.

Instead of organizing units around capabilities, Slife wants to organize around mission sets, which “[highlights] the shortages we have,” he said.

Such a mindset will likely inform his approach to his new job, where he’ll also be responsible for helping guide the Air Force’s transition toward agile combat employment, the operational concept in which smaller teams of Airmen operate out of remote or austere locations, sometimes perform jobs they don’t typically do, and can move quickly as needed.

ACE has become a key part of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.’s push for “multi-capable Airmen” who encourage innovation and change, and at AFSOC, Slife operationalized the concept with Mission Sustainment Teams—groups of Airmen with different speciality codes who can support themselves and other units anywhere in the field.

Slife’s nomination has been submitted to the Senate, where he’ll have to wait for confirmation. The process might take some time, as lawmakers face a lengthy to-do list after the midterm elections but before a new Congress begins in January.

Slife wasn’t the only Air Force nomination announced Nov. 16. Maj. Gen. Steven S. Nordhaus has been tapped to receive a third star and take command of 1st Air Force (Air Forces Northern), as well as the North American Aerospace Defense Command’s continental U.S. region. Nordhaus is currently in the Air National Guard, serving in the National Guard Bureau as the director of domestic operations and force development.

Personnel

airandspaceforces.com · by Greg Hadley · November 16, 2022

19. CIA director met Zelensky in Kyiv as Russian missiles targeted capital

CIA director met Zelensky in Kyiv as Russian missiles targeted capital

CIA Director William J. Burns was in the U.S. Embassy and was not hurt in the assault, which occurred a day after he met with his Russian counterpart in Turkey

By Shane Harris

November 16, 2022 at 12:00 a.m. EST

The Washington Post · by Shane Harris · November 16, 2022

CIA Director William J. Burns met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Tuesday, reaffirming U.S. support for the country on the same day Russian missiles pummeled the capital and sent residents fleeing for cover.

The visit came at a moment of Ukrainian triumph, days after its forces liberated the city of Kherson and Zelensky declared a turning point in the war. But it was a moment of extraordinary tension and uncertainty, too, as a Russian-made missile appeared to land in Poland, raising the question of how the NATO alliance might respond to a possible attack on a member state.

Burns, whom President Biden often has dispatched to speak with Russian and Ukrainian leaders, also met with his Ukrainian intelligence counterparts and discussed a U.S. warning he had delivered on Monday to the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service “not to use nuclear weapons” in its war on Ukraine, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the sensitive discussions.

Burns had met with the Russian official, SVR Director Sergei Naryshkin, in Ankara, the Turkish capital.

In Kyiv, Burns “reinforced the U.S. commitment to provide support to Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression,” the official said. The director was safely inside the U.S. Embassy during the missile strikes, the official noted.

There was no indication the Russian attacks were meant to coincide with Burns’s visit. Russian media disclosed his visit to Ankara, in what has become a routine practice of publicizing Russian officials’ meetings with the CIA director, who customarily keeps his travel schedule private.

Burns, a seasoned diplomat and former ambassador to Russia, went to Moscow last November and met with top Kremlin officials, speaking by phone with President Vladimir Putin. He carried a letter from Biden to Putin and warned the Russian president that should he invade Ukraine, the United States would impose massive consequences.

Burns has cautioned that officials must be on guard to Putin’s threats to use tactical nuclear weapons. “We have to take very seriously [any] kind of threats given everything that’s at stake,” Burns said in an interview with CBS News’s Norah O’Donnell in late September. “And, you know, the rhetoric that he and other senior Russian leaders have used is reckless and deeply irresponsible.”

Burns added that U.S. intelligence agencies had not yet seen “any practical evidence” that Putin was moving closer to using nuclear weapons. That has been the case over the course of the war, with Putin making threats that officials say aren’t reflected in signs that Russia is deploying the equipment and personnel necessary to use such weapons on the battlefield.

Tuesday’s missile strikes on Kyiv followed a two-week lull, and initially many residents ignored them. When explosions reverberated around the city, people sought shelter in basements and corridors.

Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said that “Russian aircraft” had fired the missiles, noting that “for the duration of this campaign, Russia has used a mix of capabilities,” including airborne, ground-based and sea-launched missiles, to target cities and civilian infrastructure.

On Monday, Zelensky visited Kherson, the sole regional capital that Russia had captured following its invasion in February. He declared to hundreds of people gathered in the central square that the city’s liberation marked “the beginning of the end of the war” and pledged that Ukrainian forces would drive Russia from the country entirely.

Liz Sly in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.

The Washington Post · by Shane Harris · November 16, 2022

20. Milley tried to speak with Russian counterpart on Tuesday but was ‘unsuccessful’

Excerpts:

The top general, who earlier on Wednesday met virtually with the Pentagon-led Ukraine Contact Group, also pushed for Ukraine to receive more air defense capabilities, weapons he called “critical” for Ukraine’s future successes.

In addition, Milley stressed that Moscow has failed “every single” objective in the conflict.

“It’s clear that the Russian will to fight does not match the Ukrainian will to fight,” Milley said. “The Russians have failed every single time. They’ve lost strategically, they’ve lost operationally and, I repeat, they lost tactically. What they’ve tried to do, they failed at.”

But he also allowed that “militarily kicking the Russians physically out of Ukraine is a very difficult task” and one that the Ukrainian military will not likely accomplish “anytime soon,” though there may be a political alternative to end the conflict.

“The Russian military is really hurting bad. So you want to negotiate at a time when you’re at your strength and your opponent is at weakness,” Milley said. “It’s possible, maybe, that there’ll be a political solution. All I’m saying is there’s a possibility for it. That’s all I’m saying.”

Milley tried to speak with Russian counterpart on Tuesday but was ‘unsuccessful’

BY ELLEN MITCHELL - 11/16/22 3:33 PM ET

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3738629-milley-tried-to-speak-with-russian-counterpart-on-tuesday-but-was-unsuccessful/?utm_campaign=dfn-ebb&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sailthru&SToverlay=2002c2d9-c344-4bbb-8610-e5794efcfa7d

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley attempted to speak with his Russian counterpart on Tuesday following a missile-caused explosion in Poland but was unable to get through, the top military official revealed Wednesday.

Milley said his staff tried to connect him with Russian Gen. Valery Gerasimov but they were “unsuccessful in getting me linked up.”

He instead spoke several times with his Ukrainian counterpart, with his Polish counterpart and with other chiefs of defense in Europe, Milley told reporters at the Pentagon

U.S. officials are still waiting on more information as to the exact origin of a Soviet-era missile that struck within Poland’s borders on Tuesday, killing two.

Initial assessments from Poland and NATO suggest that the armament was likely a Ukrainian air defense missile that unintentionally struck near the Ukrainian-Polish border in the village of Przewodów.

The incident occurred as Russia began a renewed missile barrage on Ukraine, pounding civilian targets and energy infrastructure ahead of winter.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking alongside Milley on Wednesday, said the Pentagon was still gathering information but has “seen nothing that contradicts [Polish President Andrzej Duda’s] preliminary assessment that this explosion was most likely the result of a Ukrainian air defense missile that unfortunately landed in Poland.”

He added that whatever the final conclusion “the world knows that Russia bears ultimate responsibility for this incident.”

Tuesday’s incident put Western leaders on edge and set off a flurry of calls and meeting between top officials after it appeared that Russia’s attacks on Ukraine had spilled beyond its borders and risked widening the conflict — a long-held concern among NATO members, of which Poland is one.

But the new assessments that emerged Wednesday appeared to calm worries that the strike would cause the nearly nine-month war to escalate, as it didn’t appear Russia had deliberately targeted Poland. Such an occurrence may have drawn NATO into the conflict under Article 5 of the alliance’s treaty, which states that an attack against one member is viewed as an attack on all.

The Polish government, aided with U.S. experts, is now investigating the explosion, and Austin said Washington has “full confidence” in the inquiry.

“They’ve been conducting that investigation in a professional and deliberate manner, and so we won’t get ahead of their work. We’re going to stay in close touch with our Polish counterparts as well as with our NATO allies and other valued partners,” Austin said.

The Pentagon leaders also touched on Russia’s current efforts in its war on Ukraine, with Milley calling Moscow’s latest barrage of between 60 and 100 missiles “likely the largest wave of missiles that we’ve seen since the beginning of the war” and a “war crime.”

“The deliberate targeting of the civilian power grid, causing excessive collateral damage and unnecessary suffering on the civilian population, is a war crime,” Milley said.

The top general, who earlier on Wednesday met virtually with the Pentagon-led Ukraine Contact Group, also pushed for Ukraine to receive more air defense capabilities, weapons he called “critical” for Ukraine’s future successes.

In addition, Milley stressed that Moscow has failed “every single” objective in the conflict.

“It’s clear that the Russian will to fight does not match the Ukrainian will to fight,” Milley said. “The Russians have failed every single time. They’ve lost strategically, they’ve lost operationally and, I repeat, they lost tactically. What they’ve tried to do, they failed at.”

But he also allowed that “militarily kicking the Russians physically out of Ukraine is a very difficult task” and one that the Ukrainian military will not likely accomplish “anytime soon,” though there may be a political alternative to end the conflict.

“The Russian military is really hurting bad. So you want to negotiate at a time when you’re at your strength and your opponent is at weakness,” Milley said. “It’s possible, maybe, that there’ll be a political solution. All I’m saying is there’s a possibility for it. That’s all I’m saying.”

21. Taiwan shows off military drones amid tensions with China

Taiwan shows off military drones amid tensions with China

Defense News · by The Associated Press · November 16, 2022

TAICHUNG, Taiwan — Taiwan displayed its self-developed drone technology Tuesday, amid rising concerns over China’s threats to use force to assert its claim to the self-governing island republic.

The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, which develops military technology, offered a rare look at the Chien Hsiang drone designed to destroy enemy radars, and other unmanned combat aerial vehicles.

A dozen of the single-use drones, officially termed loitering munitions, are carried on a truck. Launched with a built-in rocket, they are guided by a propeller engine before crashing into their targets.

A helicopter drone is flown during a demonstration for members of the media at the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology in Taichung in central Taiwan on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022. (Walid Berrazeg/AP)

Any country that is “confident in itself” will come up with strategies and develop defense technologies, said Chi Li-ping, director of the institute’s Aeronautical System Research Division.

Unmanned combat aerial vehicles are “a future trend,” Chi said. “This is why we are doing research about it and laying out some strategies.”

Taiwan’s army began taking delivery last month of the first of 100 helicopter drones ordered from the institute. Chi emphasized their importance in relaying images to the army’s command and communication systems for analysis and forwarding to combat units.

Taiwan has also developed the Teng Yun, which resembles the American MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle and can stay aloft for up to 24 hours.

While the U.S. and others have long used drones in the targeting of alleged terrorists and others, they have proved especially important in the Russian war on Ukraine. Moscow has imported drones from Iran while Kyiv has found success with inexpensive Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles from Turkey, which carry lightweight, laser-guided bombs.

China, meanwhile, has forged ahead with developing its own drones, some models of which have been exported.

China upped its military threat against Taiwan in August in response to a visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the island. It shot missiles over the island and held live-fire military drills in six self-declared zones in what appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential blockade and invasion of the island that would almost certainly draw in Taiwan’s chief supporter, the United States, along with American allies including Japan and Australia.

22. The Bias For Capability Over Capacity Has Created a Brittle Force

interesting analysis.

Excerpts;

With more procurement dollars, the Pentagon should focus on maxing out production lines in a few key areas. First, it should expand yard capacity and then place orders for more destroyers, oilers, and attack submarines. It should also place orders for large amphibious and amphibious assault ships, and eventually, the light amphibious warship that can rapidly deliver marines in the event of a contingency.

As Ukraine has demonstrated, wars require a massive amount of things that blow up. Munitions production should rise across the board, not only to replenish stocks drawn down to aid Ukraine but to grow reserves. Special attention should be paid to increasing anti-ship weapons, like the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile, currently produced at such a slow rate that the Navy and Air Force will have a paltry 629 combined by 2027.

The military also needs more F-35s and expendable drones, as well as expanded logistics support and long-haul capacity in the form of C-130s. The Army will need more manned cargo and attack helicopters for bridge capacity while it awaits Future Vertical Lift. This isn’t an exhaustive list of investments and reforms that should be made but are first steps to increasing capacity in the Indo-Pacific.

The armed forces need more equipment, higher readiness, and greater urgency to deter Beijing. The imbalance in the three-legged stool of capability, readiness, and capacity is sure to invite the very aggression that trading capacity for capability is intended to avoid.

The Bias For Capability Over Capacity Has Created a Brittle Force - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Mackenzie Eaglen · November 17, 2022

The military brass has been sounding the alarm about the imminence of a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan. But this urgency is not reflected in the Pentagon’s budget. Last month, the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Mike Gilday, said he needs to prepare his service for potential aggression against Taiwan this year. But by prioritizing capability over capacity in its spending, Washington risks inviting the aggression it seeks to deter.

Over the past nine fiscal years, budget after budget has traded away combat power, truncated needed weapons early, and permanently closed production lines. As a result, margins in the force are dangerously low, readiness is still recovering, and America’s conventional and nuclear deterrents are at their nadir. Yet Pentagon leaders continue to sacrifice capacity, as measured by fleets, inventories, and their associated force structure, in the fervent belief that Beijing will not attempt to forcibly reunify Taiwan in the next five years.

This rosy assumption flies in the face of China’s recent actions and ignores the reality that robust capacity is what the United States needs to bolster deterrence and avoid the war that the United States seeks to win later. Pentagon leaders would be wise to better balance investments for deterrence and the warfight before both are weakened. If military leaders truly believe Beijing is prepared to act sooner than anticipated, they should focus on what can be built and fielded in this decade.

2027 Is Here and Now for Pentagon Bureaucracy

The Pentagon’s 2023 budget request seeks to build just eight new Navy ships while cutting 24. The five-year plans would have the Navy continue to shrink down to 280 ships by fiscal year 2027 — the same year defense civilians say the force must be ready to defend Taiwan. Worse, 16 of the ships proposed to be scrapped still have service life left. Meanwhile, the replacements for these platforms won’t reach operational status until 2030.

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Cutting vast amounts of legacy weapons to pay for bets on developmental technologies suffers from several flaws. First, it discounts developmental risk and focuses on technology before operational concepts. Second, it ignores massive deferred modernization bills coming due now. And third, it underinvests in sustainable equipment choices.

This is more than a strategy of “divest to invest.” The U.S. Navy, in the case of at least one of its modernized Aegis cruisers and some of its more recently procured littoral combat ships, is in effect proposing a strategy of “invest -to-divest.” In terms of the littoral combat ships, that means the Navy has poured billions of dollars into ships that it is now seeking to decommission, even as some of them were put into service as recently as 2019 and 2020.

The Air Force is following the same playbook, seeking to cut needed platforms almost as soon as they reach initial operational capability. Sometimes doctrine changes allow for this shift, but other times it is done simply to meet reduced budget bogies. That is not only a waste of effort but a waste of taxpayer funds. It also launches a knowable acquisition death spiral. Buying fewer units means costs increase, which triggers a Nunn-McCurdy breach, which often leads to schedule slips and more program cuts.

Besides, for a bureaucracy as large as the U.S. military, 2027 is basically the same as today. The process that stretches from desire to planning to requirements to approval to bid to contract award to research to fielding at scale takes three to five years at best. This why it is so problematic that the current wave of early retirements and mass divestments all come when follow-on or replacement capability is frequently stalled or delayed. This creates a gap in combat power at a time when there are no gaps in global threats.

Take the always-busy airborne early warning and control airplane (AWACS). The Air Force wants to retire half the fleet of 31 aircraft this year, but leaders say there will be “a capability gap as new capabilities … are being developed.” The Air Force is cutting its planned purchase of Joint Strike Fighters while doubling its purchase of F-15EXs in this request. But these are two different fighter capabilities that meet separate requirements. Buying more of one tactical fighter doesn’t free up the other one to conduct more missions.

The near-term shrinking and aging is playing out across all the services in the current budget request. The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently confirmed this, stating the forthcoming third iteration of the Joint Warfighting Concept “recognizes gaps in the current force’s capability.” Another official in the Air Force characterized the situation aptly, noting that, “By any measure, we have departed the era of conventional overmatch” vis-à-vis China. Beijing has “advanced so far and so fast in its air and space power that the Air Force’s ability to deter through conventional forces is at risk.”

The Link Between Capacity and Readiness

Volume is crucial to maintain healthier readiness levels across the armed forces. The Congressional Budget Office has shown that both the Navy and the Air Force saw fleet-wide declines in aircraft availability rates between 2001 and 2019. Fewer airframes to employ means pilots fly less, which leads to reduced readiness. In Fiscal Year 2021, active-duty pilots averaged 10.1 flying hours per month, putting them at 121.2 hours per year. That is about 80 fewer hours than the number that the Air Force believes necessary for peak readiness.

Fewer planes available to fly also means fewer planes that can be put into a fight. And in a high-end conflict with a peer adversary like China, the United States would need to deploy as many planes as possible, given the likelihood that nearly half of the Air Force and Navy inventory could be destroyed. Sufficient capacity also depends on sufficient personnel and maintenance periods. In these, too, the services are struggling. The Army came up 25 percent short of its target recruiting goal for FY22. The entire Air Force was down 1,650 pilots in FY2021, while the Navy was short 587 officers in FY22 across both the active force and reserves.

As the military struggles to bring in new talent, units will become overworked and undermanned as they’ll be forced to pick up the tasks that would otherwise have been assigned to new recruits. That will put the military into a retention crisis, further shrinking the force and reducing readiness. To take just one example of how this is playing out, the Pacific Air Forces’ crisis response forces are currently five squadrons short of requirements.

It’s clear that the services need both size and strength as they seek to deter Beijing. All these factors — steep weapons retirements, high operating tempo, and degraded readiness — create reinforcing feedback loops. As fewer aircraft and pilots are available for the same number of missions, for example, existing fleets are driven into the ground as man and machine are worn out faster.

Even though the force is too small to meet global demand and modernize at the same time, the White House is opposed to many provisions in the Senate’s defense policy bill that seek to prop up the capacity of the armed forces until replacements can be fielded later this decade. That opposition is largely due to the Pentagon attempting to resource its defense strategy through a three-Future Years Defense Program approach, which over-weights developing the capabilities of the early 2030s rather than on maintaining and procuring the capabilities of today.

Cull Research and Development, Build New Old Equipment

One cause of this temporary disarmament is an overemphasis on the warfight at the expense of competition and deterrence. If a system doesn’t “survive the threat ring” in Asia, it is on the chopping block for budget cuts. But the U.S. military also prevents wars, and capacity can act as a deterrent in its own right.

Buying less capability now makes little sense when the potential for hostility is increasingly near. What’s more, size matters, not just technology. Relying on capability alone to win the day will only allow America’s armed forces to get smaller, older, and less ready. Instead, mass and attrition should return as foundational force-planning principles for the U.S. military. Putting more mass in theater doesn’t mean that it’s all just cannon fodder. In fact, the aim of purchasing and fielding more platforms is to increase U.S. military capacity precisely in order to deter war.

In other words, the military needs more stuff and it needs it fast. What it doesn’t need are platforms irrelevant for a fight in the Pacific or those that could be fielded, at the earliest, a decade from now. It needs existing capabilities that can not only act as a bridge for next-generation platforms but are useful for winning and deterring war in the Indo-Pacific and maintaining presence forward to prevent conflict.

However, the Defense Department can’t purchase more unless it has enough funds in the right appropriations account. That’s why resetting the procurement to research and development ratio is important. In the administration’s budget request for FY23, that ratio is 1.11 to 1. This is a far cry from the days of the Reagan administration’s buildup, when a ratio of 2.74 to 1.00 produced much of the equipment that our military uses today.

A healthy and feasible ratio is closer to 2.25 to 1. To meet the threat from China, policymakers should shift $45 billion per annum from research and development into procurement over the next five years. Given that ongoing support for Ukraine is straining some key U.S. military supplies, Washington should be concerned that the China fight would demand even more and faster.

Trading away capacity — especially before the promised next-generation technology arrives — results in a force with tiered modernization incapable of carrying out the full ambitions of the defense strategy. Even if the ongoing efforts at transformation succeed, without creating more capacity in the meantime it will lead to an unbalanced military, reduce the efficiency and cost savings of the acquisition system, and leave future policymakers with fewer and worse choices. By narrowly focusing on one future scenario, policymakers are too quick to retire and divest from the so-called legacy systems that maintain deterrence through daily global presence missions.

The Path Forward

Crucially, not all legacy systems are created — or recreated — equal. New technologies often need a platform with which to partner and demo. As the future is fielded, all the military services will be a blended mix of old and new. The Army of 2030 will only modernize about half the total Army when complete. Given the constant mix of new and old — or enduring and legacy — equipment, leaders must carefully consider what legacy systems are worth keeping and updating.

Legacy systems can keep capacity from sliding even further and possibly be useful in war, whether as tech playgrounds or by being updated and given entirely new missions. The Pentagon should avoid throwing aside older weapons systems in favor of wholesale investments in new technologies and platforms. While modernization is necessary, the Department of Defense does not have the time, track record, or funding to rapidly field replacements to legacy systems. Besides, in many cases the Pentagon doesn’t need entirely new systems: It only needs new tech on old stuff. Invention and innovation are not the same thing. The Pentagon was the inventor from the 1940s through the 80s but now must be the innovator — using existing platforms to put things together that already exist to create a different and better outcome.

For instance, the 70-year-old B-52 bomber can carry high-tech standoff munitions, while the 36-year-old B-1 bomber is now being considered to carry hypersonic weapons. Rather than retiring legacy systems before they have a suitable replacement, the services should start thinking creatively about how to employ them now.

With more procurement dollars, the Pentagon should focus on maxing out production lines in a few key areas. First, it should expand yard capacity and then place orders for more destroyers, oilers, and attack submarines. It should also place orders for large amphibious and amphibious assault ships, and eventually, the light amphibious warship that can rapidly deliver marines in the event of a contingency.

As Ukraine has demonstrated, wars require a massive amount of things that blow up. Munitions production should rise across the board, not only to replenish stocks drawn down to aid Ukraine but to grow reserves. Special attention should be paid to increasing anti-ship weapons, like the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile, currently produced at such a slow rate that the Navy and Air Force will have a paltry 629 combined by 2027.

The military also needs more F-35s and expendable drones, as well as expanded logistics support and long-haul capacity in the form of C-130s. The Army will need more manned cargo and attack helicopters for bridge capacity while it awaits Future Vertical Lift. This isn’t an exhaustive list of investments and reforms that should be made but are first steps to increasing capacity in the Indo-Pacific.

The armed forces need more equipment, higher readiness, and greater urgency to deter Beijing. The imbalance in the three-legged stool of capability, readiness, and capacity is sure to invite the very aggression that trading capacity for capability is intended to avoid.

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Mackenzie Eaglen is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. She has previously worked in Congress and at the Defense Department as well as staff to three previous national defense strategy commissions.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Mackenzie Eaglen · November 17, 2022

23. The New Cato Handbook Is Now Online

The handbook can be accessed here: https://www.cato.org/cato-handbook-policymakers/cato-handbook-policymakers-9th-edition-2022

Conclusion:

I am still fond of the Washington Post’s description of the first edition of the Handbook in 1995: “A soup‐to‐nuts agenda to reduce spending, kill programs, terminate whole agencies and dramatically restrict the power of the federal government.” I hope policymakers, policy analysts, and other concerned Americans will find valuable ideas in the ninth edition.

NOVEMBER 16, 2022 8:30AM

The New Cato Handbook Is Now Online

https://www.cato.org/blog/new-cato-handbook-now-online?utm_campaign=Cato%20Today&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=234222371&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_Zq87xqA2h6jQNkIhdFn77R26yOnJPv9a0xcLUHxECriHgeSXztsTsR57_hTCpTG2DkvdagBjkVTqzADypEBpyv2fI8swpBnlKWSsOXMPBu47pjbQ&utm_content=234222371&utm_source=hs_email

By David Boaz

The ninth edition of the Cato Handbook for Policymakers is published online today. A print edition will arrive in due course, but we wanted to make it available now for current and newly elected members of Congress. The Handbook has been published periodically since 1995, to coincide with presidential or midterm elections. In this edition’s 77 chapters my Cato Institute colleagues offer hundreds of policy suggestions for members of Congress, agency and administration officials, and state policymakers. Many chapters propose big, systemic changes that would address fundamental policy problems. Other chapters, and sometimes the same ones, offer very detailed, specific ideas for policy improvement.

The last two editions of this Handbook, published after the elections of 2008 and 2016, observed that whatever one thought of the results of the election, we could take some satisfaction in observing that something normal happened: a party that had given Americans overregulation, slow growth, and endless (if limited) war, led by an unpopular candidate, was defeated. After the 2020 election, however, something abnormal happened, at least for the United States: A defeated president refused to concede that he had lost the election and spent two months making false allegations, filing failed lawsuits, and pressuring state and local election officials, all culminating on January 6 in both public and private efforts to induce the vice president and/or Congress to reject electoral votes and overturn the election. For more than two centuries the United States prided itself on demonstrating to the world the peaceful transfer of power after a vote of the people.

For that reason the most urgent task for our constitutional republic is to foreclose opportunities to interrupt the transfer of power, as Walter Olson outlines in the chapter titled “Election Law.” In particular, Congress should clarify and tighten the poorly crafted Electoral Count Act of 1887, which lays out rules for Congress’s handling of certified electoral votes following a presidential election. State legislators should pursue best practices for both ballot security and voter convenience and ideally adopt tabulation methods that yield a substantially complete result on Election Night, to avert confusion or misrepresentation about which candidate has won.

At the Cato Institute, we stand firmly on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution — on the bedrock American values of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace. Throughout our more than 40 years, we have been willing to criticize officials of both parties when they sought to take the country in another direction. But we have also been pleased to work with administrations and members of Congress of both parties when they seek to expand freedom, limit government, or protect the Constitution. Of course, our scholars will not hesitate to criticize unwise, imprudent, or dangerous initiatives from any source.

I am still fond of the Washington Post’s description of the first edition of the Handbook in 1995: “A soup‐to‐nuts agenda to reduce spending, kill programs, terminate whole agencies and dramatically restrict the power of the federal government.” I hope policymakers, policy analysts, and other concerned Americans will find valuable ideas in the ninth edition.

24. Air Force “Diversity” of Languages: A Strategic Concern

Applies to all services and beons.

Conclusion:

Meanwhile, our competitors, unhindered by such silliness, appreciate the Americans’ help toward achieving their Mackinder-based ambitions around the world. It is time for Air Force leadership to (again) reverse course with its combat aviation advisors and immediately restore a language – and culture-based capability – that holds strategic advantage for the nation.

Air Force “Diversity” of Languages: A Strategic Concern

theroanokestar.com · by stuart

Given the Pentagon’s focus on diversity in recent years, it is odd that the Air Force’s leadership recently approved the inactivation of its only Regular Air Force squadron that deploys Combat Aviation Advisors (CAAs) capable in local languages to U.S. partner nations around the globe. The squadron conducts special operations “by, with, and through” these partners’ air forces.

This unit, the 6th Special Operations Squadron (6SOS), was inactivated last month, its highly trained and experienced personnel either retiring or moving on to other assignments. Its Air Force Reserve counterpart, the 711th Special Operations Squadron, will go away at the end of September 2023. As CAAs explain, the Air Force has no replacement plan for maintaining this institutional knowledge in the future.

Consequently, today, from a high of nearly two hundred advisors, only approximately thirty remain available if needed – a woefully insufficient number.

The implicit assumption that the future Air Force can flourish in an “English only” world is seriously flawed; while English is the predominant language for international civil and military flying, many partner nations and local air forces – particularly those in global hotspots in Africa, the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific region – lack the English skills typically found in, say, the traditional NATO countries. In some newer NATO countries, often only the pilots speak English. A critical specialty such as an aircraft maintenance officer, however, is unlikely to know English. That is true within NATO. Outside of NATO, the language issues are even worse.

This is a strategic issue, and to appreciate its grave implications one need only consider the growing threat China poses to Africa and other regions where combat aviation advisors typically deploy.

A century ago, English geographer Sir Halford John Mackinder advanced what he called the “World-Island” concept. Basically, whoever controlled the World-Island – the linked continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa – would control the world.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has embraced Mackinder’s theory. Flushed with cash from a rapidly growing economy assisted by a combination of helpful U.S./ Western trade policies, intellectual theft and espionage, and unhindered by environmental concerns, they are aggressively building infrastructure – marked by their $1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative – and military bases, increasing their influence in various countries. China is particularly active in Africa, opening, in 2016-17, a base in Djbouti, the PRC’s first “overseas” military base.

And Djbouti was just the first: in December 2021 the European Council on Foreign Relations revealed Biden administration officials had “warned that Beijing plans to establish a permanent military installation in Equatorial Guinea,” one of Africa’s smallest countries, yet possessing huge – and thus hugely attractive – crude oil reserves. One leading military historian views these and other Chinese behaviors as mirroring Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere of the 1930s-to-World-War-Two period, with China now having swapped roles with Japan.

If not engaged in outright base-building, China is not shy about exerting more subtle economic and diplomatic pressures. In 2018, Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta) broke ties with Taiwan and established the same with the PRC, after the Xi regime bought off the pro-Taiwanese element in the former French colony.

One CAA, a field grade officer with extensive experience in Burkina Faso, where Islamist influence especially in the north – in addition to China’s purchased influence – threatens the weak government, called it “a cornerstone country” for the United States in the region. He also assessed that a small investment of U.S. special operations personnel there – half a dozen, perhaps – could make a huge difference in a whole-of-government approach. (Recently, Chinese pressure on the government of the Solomon Islands led to port-entry denials of American and Australian ships, an incredible development given that 80 years ago thousands of Allied sailors, airmen, and soldiers perished while freeing the Solomons from Japanese occupation.)

In the midst of this accelerating U.S.-Chinese competition for global influence several CAAs recounted the importance of language skills not only with the Burkinabe but also with U.S. military counterparts in Mauritania and Niger. For example, in Mauritania on one deployment several years ago, having just one French speaker and one Arabic speaker on the team (of about 15) proved crucial because both languages were used within military circles. In another case, an advisory team fortuitously included a native Spanish speaker who instructed in Spanish because his Mauritanian counterpart had grown up in the Canary Islands where his father, a Spaniard, had taught him that language. While deployed to Mauritania, all of the American advisor’s instruction was conducted, surprisingly, in Spanish.

In addition to the primary advantage of aviation-related instruction, skill in local languages also may enhance advisors’ “force protection.” During 2018 in Burkina Faso, a tense situation following a terrorist attack was defused when a CAA spoke – in French – to a nervous Burkinabe guard, informing him that the men with him were Americans and they were authorized on the flight line. The non-English-speaking guard immediately turned from fingering his trigger to visible relief that the Americans were there to help.

The importance of U.S. aviation advisors building rapport with partner air forces through language capability is greater than for ground advisors. As CAAs explain, air forces in developing countries tend to be manned by the elite class. Many air force personnel enjoy ties with the national leadership through marriage or tribe. When a small team of American advisors arrives in-country and has the ability to engage directly with the partner’s air force without the need for a translator, there is credibility, rapport, and the real opportunity for “buy-in” on the host’s part. The significance of such engagements is, in a word, strategic.

If future circumstances dictate – as they almost certainly will – that we rapidly develop a larger cadre of foreign language speakers, doing so will be far from easy. Language training for combat aviation advisors takes between four and eight months depending on the difficulty level.

This issue is not restricted to Africa. Poland and Estonia are good examples, where CAAs have reported that skill in those nations’ tongues remains a rapport-builder for air advising.

For the last two years, the Air Force has touted its version of diversity non-stop. If the service is, indeed, serious about meaningful diversity, it will immediately recognize its huge mistake in inactivating the U.S. Air Force’s most linguistically-and-culturally-diverse active component squadron and will take the necessary steps to return it to an operational, funded status.

Moreover, there is reason for encouragement. A decade ago, and without any explanation provided to the affected subordinate commanders, within weeks Air Force leadership took the 6SOS from a planned major reduction to a sudden doubling in size.

Nearing the end of 2022, the Air Force remains focused on superficial rather than substantial diversity. It has been more concerned with diversity of color over capability, pigmentation over performance, melanin over merit.

This approach guarantees the continued lowering of U.S. combat readiness.

Meanwhile, our competitors, unhindered by such silliness, appreciate the Americans’ help toward achieving their Mackinder-based ambitions around the world. It is time for Air Force leadership to (again) reverse course with its combat aviation advisors and immediately restore a language – and culture-based capability – that holds strategic advantage for the nation.

– Forrest L. Marion, PhD

theroanokestar.com · by stuart

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

V/R

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow

Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Phone: 202-573-8647

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Web Site: www.fdd.org

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

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FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

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

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

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