Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners



Quotes of the Day:


"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like."
- Lao Tzu

"To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."
-Archimedes



1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MAY 14 (PUTIN'S WAR)
2. Putin coup is underway and 'impossible to stop,' says Ukraine's military intelligence chief
3. Report to Congress on U.S. Special Operations Forces
4. How Bremerton's Blythe Blakistone became Navy's first woman commanding special forces
5. Secret British ‘black propaganda’ campaign targeted cold war enemies
6. How a Magazine Called ‘Amerika’ Helped Win the Cold War
7. Ukrainian forces hold off Russians in Donetsk Oblast
8. Opinion | Biden’s sanctions against Russia are a double-edged sword
9.  US spy chiefs see China as vanguard of anti-West crusade
10. Fears of a Marcos Government Courting China Are Overblown
11. Escape From Hong Kong
12. Lithuania designates Russia as a terrorist country, a global first
13. Special Operations ‘Vigilant’ Against Growing Threats
14. Ukraine: The spy war within the war
15. Russian troops are proving that cell phones in war zones are a very bad idea
16. The Work Required to Have an Opinion



1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MAY 14 (PUTIN'S WAR)
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MAY 14
May 14, 2022 - Press ISW

Kateryna Stepanenko and Frederick W. Kagan
May 14, 7:00 pm ET
The Ukrainian destruction of significant elements of a Russian motorized rifle brigade that tried to cross a pontoon bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River on May 11 has shocked prominent Russian milbloggers. Those bloggers have begun commenting on the incompetence of the Russian military to their hundreds of thousands of followers. The attempted river crossing showed a stunning lack of tactical sense as satellite images show (destroyed) Russian vehicles tightly bunched up at both ends of the (destroyed) bridge, clearly allowing Ukrainian artillerymen to kill hundreds and destroy scores of vehicles with concentrated strikes. The milbloggers who have hitherto been cheering on the Russian military criticized Russian armed forces leadership for failing to learn from experience in the war. They also expressed the concern that the constant pushing of Russia’s propaganda lines was making it hard for them to understand what was actually going on.
The effects of this change in tone and discourse by these milbloggers are uncertain but could be potent. People living under tightly censored regimes often trust individuals who seem to be independent of but generally aligned with the government more than the government line (even more than do citizens of democratic societies). The commentary by these widely read milbloggers may fuel burgeoning doubts in Russia about Russia’s prospects in this war and the competence of Russia’s military leaders (at least).
The destruction of the motorized rifle elements may also severely disrupt Russian efforts to isolate Severodonetsk and Lysychansk from the north. Russian troops made no attempts to advance in that area in the last 24 hours.
Russian forces continued operations to set conditions for the Battle of Severodonetsk from the south, however, advancing on the town of Zolote, roughly 30 km south of Severodonetsk. Russian troops likely seek to secure the highway north from Zolote to Severodonetsk for their advance, but they may also seek to cut the last highway linking Severodonetsk with the rest of Ukraine via Bakhmut. They could try to strike northwest across the country from their current positions to cut that highway closer to Lysychansk and Severodonetsk. The Russians are extremely unlikely to be able to take Bakhmut but they may be able to cut or render unusable the highway from Bakhmut to Severodonetsk if they can advance far enough along either of these possible routes.
Ukrainian forces will likely conduct counteroffensive operations to dislodge the Russians from around Izyum, according to Ukrainian officials. We have previously noted that Russian artillery fire directed to the west from around Izyum was more likely intended to disrupt such a counter-offensive than to set conditions for a Russian attack.
Russian forces continued their withdrawal from Kharkiv Oblast but will likely seek to hold a line east of Vovchansk to secure the ground line of communication (GLOC) running from Belgorod through Vovchansk to Izyum. The terrain in this area generally favors the defender, and the Russians have other GLOCs with which to supply Izyum, so the Ukrainians may not try to advance much farther to the east at this time.
Ukrainian defenders continued to fight in the Azovstal Plant in Mariupol despite horrific conditions and continued Russian attacks. The Ukrainian defense of Azovstal is still tying down Russian combat forces and inflicting casualties.
Key Takeaways
  • Catastrophic Russian losses in a failed river crossing and the military incompetence displayed in that crossing have shaken the confidence of some prominent Russian milbloggers.
  • Russian forces continue shaping operations for the Battle of Severodonetsk from the south even though those losses have at least temporarily disrupted their efforts from the north.
  • Ukrainian forces announced that they will conduct a counteroffensive around Izyum.
  • Russian forces continued to withdraw from northern Kharkiv Oblast, but will likely seek to hold a line defending their ground lines of communication from Belgorod via Vovchansk to Izyum.

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.
ISW has updated its assessment of the five primary efforts Russian forces are engaged in at this time:
  • Main effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and four supporting efforts);
  • Subordinate main effort- Encirclement of Ukrainian troops in the cauldron between Izyum and Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts
  • Supporting effort 1—Mariupol;
  • Supporting effort 2—Kharkiv City;
  • Supporting effort 3—Southern axis;
  • Supporting effort 4—Sumy and northeastern Ukraine.
Main effort—Eastern Ukraine
Subordinate Main Effort—Southern Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk Oblasts (Russian objective: Encircle Ukrainian forces in Eastern Ukraine and capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian forces did not conduct active offensive operations around Izyum, continuing to shell and reconnoiter Ukrainian positions south and west of the settlement.[1] Kharkiv Oblast Administration Head Oleg Synegubov announced on May 14 that Ukrainian forces launched a counteroffensive likely northwest of Izyum and forced Russian forced to retreat in some unspecified areas.[2] Future Ukrainian counteroffensives from Kharkiv City or western directions may force Russians to halt their advances to Slovyansk to defend Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs).
Russian forces made significant tactical mistakes during the attempted large-scale crossing of the Siverskyi Donets River from Kreminna. The Russian command reportedly sent 550 servicemen of the 74th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 41st Combined Arms Army to cross the Siverskyi Donets River in order to encircle Ukrainian forces near Rubizhne from the northwest.[3] Ukrainian artillery destroyed the Russian pontoon bridges and tightly-concentrated Russian troops and equipment around them on May 11, which reportedly resulted in 485 casualties and damages to over 80 pieces of equipment.[4] The 74th Motorized Rifle Brigade had previously attempted a river crossing (over the Desna River in Chernihiv Oblast on March 8) without suffering such setbacks.[5] The unit’s command and staff may have failed to recognize the dangers that Ukraine’s improving artillery capabilities posed two months later, or may simply have been incompetent or unable to control their troops.
Prominent pro-Russian Telegram channels (with approximately 300 thousand followers) largely criticized Russian General Staff for failing to learn from previous combat mistakes and expressed concern that censorship and self-censorship was depriving them of situational awareness.[6] Other pro-Russian Telegram channels noted the slow pace of Russian offensive operations in northern Kharkiv Oblast, blaming it in part on ineffective aerial reconnaissance and the negative effects of bad morale within the Russian military.[7] Some Telegram channels reported receiving criticism for “misrepresenting” the performance of the Russian military.[8] The Russian Defense Ministry posted a video that it claimed showed that Russian forces in turn destroyed Ukrainian pontoon crossings on May 14, although we have no independent confirmation of these claims.[9]
Russian forces attempted to advance east of Popasna, likely continuing to set conditions for the Battle of Severodonetsk. Luhansk Oblast Administration Head Serhiy Haidai reported that Russian forces attempted to secure access to the T1303 Lysychansk-bound highway east of Popasna on May 13.[10] Haidai noted that Ukrainian artillery continues to repel Russian advances on Severodonetsk itself from the north but noted that Russians had accumulated a large amount of equipment in the area to break Ukrainian resistance.[11]
Russian forces continued to conduct assaults near Avdiivka in an effort to break through Ukrainian defenses in the region. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces were partially successful during an assault in the vicinity of Avdiivka.[12] The Donetsk People’s Republic also claimed that Russian infantry made farther advances using transmitted coordinates of Ukrainian positions in the area of Avdiivka.[13] Avdiivka social media users reported that Russians did not enter Avdiivka, but attempted to advance from the north on May 13 and continued mortar shelling.[14] ISW does not have sufficient information available in the open-source to confirm or refute these claims, but Ukrainian forces are likely maintaining their fortifications in the town itself.

Supporting Effort #1—Mariupol (Russian objective: Capture Mariupol and reduce the Ukrainian defenders)
Russian forces conducted ground, air, and artillery assaults on the Azovstal Steel Plant on May 14.[15] Ukraine’s Azov regiment said that Russian forces used heavy artillery, tanks, and infantry to launch an assault on Azovstal but that Ukrainian forces continued to hold defensive positions at the plant and its outskirts.[16] A Donetsk Oblast Police Representative reported that there are over 600 wounded Ukrainian servicemen surviving in unsanitary conditions at the Azovstal.[17] Ukrainian officials are attempting to negotiate the evacuation of 60 medical professionals and heavily wounded servicemen as of May 14.[18]
Russian occupation authorities continued to intensify control over the rest of Mariupol. Mariupol Mayor’s Advisor Petro Andryushenko reported that Russian authorities are providing limited amounts of food to the remaining 150,000 Mariupol residents.[19] Satellite imagery from April 7 to May 8 also showed that Russian authorities are speeding up mass burials.[20]

Supporting Effort #2—Kharkiv City (Russian objective: Withdraw forces to the north and defend ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum)
Russian forces continued to withdraw from the region north of Kharkiv City on May 14. Russian forces will likely focus on defending their ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum that pass through Vovchansk, roughly 60 km northeast of Kharkiv City. Kharkiv Oblast Administration Head Oleg Synegubov reported that Russian forces did not shell Kharkiv City but instead fired at Ukrainian positions in northeastern Kharkiv Oblast.[21] Ukrainian forces likely pushed Russian forces closer to the border and claimed to have liberated an unnamed settlement located “only hundreds of meters away” from the Russian border.[22] Ukrainian social media videos show Ukrainian units operating in liberated settlements to target remaining Russian servicemen and clear out mines.[23]

Supporting Effort #3—Southern Axis (Objective: Defend Kherson against Ukrainian counterattacks)
Russian forces did not conduct offensive operations along the southern axis but continued artillery fire on Ukrainian positions throughout the region.[24] Zaporizhia Oblast Military Administration reported that Russian forces have dug trenches in northwestern Zaporizhia Oblast approximately 20 kilometers from the highway to Zaporizhia City.[25] Russian forces may be preparing for further offensive operations on Zaporizhia City, which is unlikely, or could be further fortifying access to Kherson Oblast from the north and east. Ukrainian forces reportedly destroyed a Russian field depot near Polohy, about 45 kilometers from the Donetsk Oblast border.[26]
Russian occupation authorities continue to face administrative problems that prevent Russia from establishing full control over occupied territories. The Ukrainian Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that the Kremlin is planning a referendum in Kherson Oblast on September 11, adding that Russian forces will attempt to recruit local collaborators throughout the summer.[27] The wildly varying reports of possible dates for a referendum in Kherson (and denials that there will be any annexation) suggest considerable confusion within the Russian leadership at various levels about Russia’s prospects for securing the area and, possibly, the best way forward. The GUR also reported that Russian forces are conducting covert mobilization in Crimea and are requiring residents to donate blood.[28]
Russian forces began to strengthen air defense systems at Snake Island located off the Romanian coast in response to Ukrainian strikes on the island.[29] The GUR reported that recent Ukrainian attacks wounded or killed 32 servicemen on Snake Island.[30] Russian vessels may have been unable to evacuate Russian servicemen in a timely fashion due to the Ukrainian missile and drone threat, contributing to the high casualties.[31] Two Russian vessels reportedly left Snake Island on May 14.[32]

The Ukrainian General Staff also noted that Transnistrian forces returned to normal operations while Russian forces remained on high alert, which could indicate disagreements between the self-declared Transnistrian government and Russia over Transnistria’s involvement in the war.[33]

Supporting Effort #4—Sumy and Northeastern Ukraine: (Russian objective: Withdraw combat power in good order for redeployment to eastern Ukraine)
Immediate items to watch
  • Russian forces will likely complete their withdrawal from the vicinity of Kharkiv City but attempt to hold a line west of Vovchansk to defend their GLOCs from Belgorod to Izyum. It is unclear if they will succeed.
  • The Russians will continue efforts to encircle Severodonetsk and Lysychansk at least from the south, possibly by focusing on cutting off the last highway connecting Severodonetsk-Lysychansk with the rest of Ukraine.
  • A Ukrainian counteroffensive around Izyum will likely begin soon.
  • The Battle of Mariupol will, apparently and surprisingly, continue.
[2] https://t dot me/stranaua/42104
[10] https://t dot me/luhanskaVTSA/2582; https://tdot me/luhanskaVTSA/2588
[11] https://t dot me/luhanskaVTSA/2582
[16] https://t dot me/polkazov/4484; https://t dot me/mariupolnow/10306; https://t.me/andriyshTime/873
[17] https://t dot me/mariupolnow/10317; https://t dot me/mariupolnow/10330
[18] https://t dot me/mariupolnow/10289; https://t dot me/mariupolnow/10303
[21] https://t dot me/stranaua/42104; https://t dot me/synegubov/3179
[22] https://www dot newsroom.kh.ua/news/v-harkovskoy-oblasti-osvobodili-ot-rashistov-selo-vblizi-granicy-s-rf; https://t dot me/stranaua/42115
[25] https://t dot me/zoda_gov_ua/7754
[26] https://t dot me/zoda_gov_ua/7754




2. Putin coup is underway and 'impossible to stop,' says Ukraine's military intelligence chief

Circular reporting. I have not seen any credible assessments in the open source news. But just in case this does turn out to be true we need to keep our eye on this. I wonder what the IC is assessing? 

And if it turns out to be true have we wargamed our next actions? Are we anticipating this and what will we do if/when it happens?

Putin coup is underway and 'impossible to stop,' says Ukraine's military intelligence chief
Business Insider · by Joshua Zitser

Russian President Vladimir Putin leaves Red Square after the Victory Day military parade in central Moscow on May 9, 2022
KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images
  • A coup to overthrow Russian President Vladimir Putin is underway, according to Ukraine's military intelligence chief.
  • The coup is "impossible to stop," Major General Kyrylo Budanov told Sky News.
  • The Russian leader is in "a very bad psychological and physical condition," Budanov said.
Get a daily selection of our top stories based on your reading preferences.

A coup to overthrow Russian President Vladimir Putin is underway and can't be stopped, according to Ukraine's military intelligence chief.
Speaking to Sky News, Major General Kyrylo Budanov said that a Russian military defeat would result in Putin's removal and the country's eventual collapse.
"It will eventually lead to the change of leadership of the Russian Federation," Budanov said, per Sky News. "This process has already been launched."
Budanov said "yes" when pressed by Sky News international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn on if this means that a coup attempt is currently in motion.
"They are moving in this way and it is impossible to stop it," he added.
Insider previously reported that all of the grievances that traditionally motivate a coup in Russia are in place, but Putin has spent decades making his regime "coup-proof."
A poor military performance, floundering morale, and a struggling economy make a coup against the Russian dictator more likely, Insider reported, but the existence of the FSB, the FSO, and The Rosgvardia serve to protect him.
In the exclusive Sky News interview, Budanov claimed that Putin is in "a very bad psychological and physical condition and he is very sick."
It follows a report that an unnamed Russian oligarch linked closely to the Kremlin was recorded saying that Putin is "very ill with blood cancer."
There has been a great deal of speculation on whether the Russian leader is unwell. Video footage emerged in late April, showing Putin shaking "uncontrollably," sparking suggestions that he might have Parkinson's disease.
Commentators have also pointed to his unusually puffy face as a sign of steroid use, and possible illness, as well as the use of a blanket to keep warm during Russia's Victory Day military parade last week.
Business Insider · by Joshua Zitser



3. Report to Congress on U.S. Special Operations Forces


What is interesting in this routine periodic report from CRS is that the potential issues for COngress focus on SOF in Europe with a focus on Russia and Ukraine.

As always this report provides a detailed overview of USSOCOM and the forces of all the service SOF components.


Report to Congress on U.S. Special Operations Forces
news.usni.org2 min
View Original
The following is the May 11, 2022 Congressional Research Service report, U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues for Congress.

From the report
Special Operations Forces (SOF) play a significant role in U.S. military operations and have been given greater responsibility for planning and conducting worldwide counterterrorism operations. U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has about 70,000 Active Duty, National Guard, and reserve personnel from all four services and Department of Defense (DOD) civilians assigned to its headquarters, its four service component commands, and eight sub-unified commands.

In 2013, based on a request from USSOCOM (with the concurrence of Geographic and Functional Combatant Commanders and the Military Service Chiefs and Secretaries), the Secretary of Defense assigned command of the Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOCs) to USSOCOM. USSOCOM has the responsibility to organize, train, and equip TSOCs. While USSOCOM is responsible for the organizing, training, and equipping of TSOCs, the Geographic Combatant Commands will have operational control over the TSOCs. Because the TSOCs are now classified as sub-unified commands, the services are responsible to provide non-SOF support to the TSOCs in the same manner in which they provide support to the Geographic Combatant Command headquarters.

The Unified Command Plan (UCP) stipulates USSOCOM responsibility for synchronizing planning for global operations to combat terrorist networks. In 2016, USSOCOM was assigned the leading role in coordinating DOD’s efforts to counter WMDs, a mission previously assigned to U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). USSOCOM is also the DOD proponent for Security Force Assistance and recently was assigned the mission to field a Trans Regional Military Information Support Operations (MISO) capability.

USSOCOM’s FY2022 budget request was for $12.6 billion, representing a decrease of $495 million (4%) of the FY2021-enacted position of $13.1 billion.

A potential issue for Congress includes potential implications of the Ukraine Conflict for U.S. SOF.

Download the document here.



4. How Bremerton's Blythe Blakistone became Navy's first woman commanding special forces

Not to lessen the Commander's important accomplishment but some will take issue with the accuracy of the headline.

Some would rewrite this to say first women commanding a special operations enabling force. 

Again, an incredibly important position and providing critical support to SOF that should in no way be minimized, she deserves recognition but the headline writer illustrates either an ignorance of SOF or is simply focused on a certain agenda.

How Bremerton's Blythe Blakistone became Navy's first woman commanding special forces
kitsapsun.com · by Josh Farley
Navy Cmdr. Blythe Blakistone capped a long Naval career by leading 'the voice of the nation's most elite fighters.'
| Kitsap Sun
BREMERTON — Blythe Blakistone's love for science was apparent when, as a teenager, she'd venture to Armin Jahr Elementary School to tutor younger kids in her free time.
But where could she place that passion in a career? Through some friends in the Navy, she once visited residences housing top brass at Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton, built in the late 19th century.
"I said to myself, 'I want to live in one of those one day,'" Blakistone said in a recent interview with the Kitsap Sun.
More than 20 years later, Blakistone has made history in her own Navy career. Praised by her colleagues for that enduring enthusiasm, the 1997 Bremerton High grad and Navy commander became the first woman to command a tactical communications team supporting San Diego-based Navy SEALs and other military special forces.
"It feels really good to be part of that," said Blakistone, who just transitioned out of the command following two years at the helm.
Tactical Communications Command 1 or TCC, is part of the Naval Special Warfare Group that "mans, trains and equips" the nation's most elite sailors. Blakistone's role was in leading the team that supports those SEALs and all the Navy's forces by "providing tactical communications in all environments and levels of conflict."
“We are the voice of the nation’s most elite warfighters,” Blakistone said in a news release. “I am privileged to be in a position overseeing sailors operating at the forefront of technology to maintain an edge over our adversaries.”
Blakistone said her role isn't just about women rising to leadership. Those with different backgrounds bring a "unqiue perspective" and provide what she called an "operational edge."
Blakistone also bears the distinction of being from Bremerton. Many sailors come to Bremerton in the Navy. She joined it here and followed the service elsewhere.
Her family has deep roots in Bremerton; her great-grandfather, Ole Oraker, emigrated to the city from Norway. She still has the sword he received for his service in the Spanish-American War.
After graduating from the Naval Academy, Blakistone served on the USS Chosin, a Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser, and the USS Kidd, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, during and after the Iraq War. She also served as a combat systems officer on the USS Abraham Lincoln, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.
In 2013, she decided to switch paths in the Navy, redesignating as an information warfare officer. That set the stage for her to break the gender barrier at a special forces command.
"I made the change because I wanted better technology, bringing technology to the fleet, and then also the cyber aspect. At (TCC-1) I love that we are doing experimentation and bringing that new technology forward to the mission," she said.
Blakistone's next duty will be in a supporting role of Information Warfare Command at North Island in San Diego. She noted that she couldn't do the job without the support of her family.
“It has been incredible to watch Blythe lead over the past two years,” said Capt. David Abernathy, commander of Naval Special Forces Warfare Group 1. “She is exactly the officer we need in our toughest situations — her strong character, sharp intellect, and innovative spirit are second to none.”
Today, there are more than 135,000 active and reserve duty and civilian women that serve in the Navy. Increasing numbers of positions have become available to women in recent years, including serving aboard submarines.
kitsapsun.com · by Josh Farley



5. Secret British ‘black propaganda’ campaign targeted cold war enemies

One form of psychological warfare, psychological operations. strategic influence.

This is what the revisionist (China, Russia) and revolutionary/rogue (Iran, north Korea) powers accuse the western powers, democratic nations of doing to this day. Gerasimov in his writings on non-linear warfare accused the US and the west of fomenting the color revolutions and the Arab spring and other unrest in order to justify military intervention. In reality the revisionist/revolutionary/rogue powers conduct various forms of these kinds of operations against us a a matter of routine.


Secret British ‘black propaganda’ campaign targeted cold war enemies
Britain stirred up tensions, chaos and violence in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, according to declassified papers
The Guardian · by Jason Burke · May 14, 2022
The British government ran a secret “black propaganda” campaign for decades, targeting Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia with leaflets and reports from fake sources aimed at destabilising cold war enemies by encouraging racial tensions, sowing chaos, inciting violence and reinforcing anti-communist ideas, newly declassified documents have revealed.
The effort, run from the mid-1950s through to the late 70s by a unit in London that was part of the Foreign Office, was focused on cold war enemies such as the Soviet Union and China, leftwing liberation groups and leaders that the UK saw as threats to its interests
The campaign also sought to mobilise Muslims against Moscow, promoting greater religious conservatism and radical ideas. To appear authentic, documents encouraged hatred of Israel.
Recently declassified British government documents reveal hundreds of extensive and costly operations.
“These releases are among the most important of the past two decades. It’s very clear now that the UK engaged in more black propaganda than historians assume and these efforts were more systemic, ambitious and offensive. Despite official denials, [this] went far beyond merely exposing Soviet disinformation,” said Rory Cormac, an expert in the history of subversion and intelligence who found the material when researching his new book, How to Stage a Coup: And Ten Other Lessons from the World of Secret Statecraft, to be published next month.
The Information Research Department (IRD) was set up by the post-second world war Labour government to counter Soviet propaganda attacks on Britain. Its activities mirrored the CIA’s cold war propaganda operations and the extensive efforts of the USSR and its satellites.

Alec Douglas-Home, who asked the IRD to target Ghana in 1964. Photograph: Express/Getty Images
The Observer last year revealed the IRD’s major campaign in Indonesia in 1965 that helped encourage anti-communist massacres which left hundreds of thousands dead. There, the IRD prepared pamphlets purporting to be written by Indonesian patriots, but in fact were created by British propagandists, calling on Indonesians to eliminate the PKI, then the biggest communist party in the non-communist world.
But the thousands of declassified documents studied by Cormac give by far the most extensive insight yet into the IRD’s disinformation operations.
“The British were only one actor among many, and a fairly minor actor too, compared with the quantity of material being produced and disseminated by the bigger players,” said Cormac, professor of international relations at Nottingham University.
“The UK did not simply invent material, as the Soviets systematically did, but they definitely intended to deceive audiences in order to get the message across.”
The IRD employed 360 people at its height in the mid-60s. However, its highly secretive Special Editorial Unit, responsible for the black propaganda effort, was much smaller. From its base in a nondescript office in Westminster, the unit used a variety of tactics to manipulate opinion.
One was to produce “reports” sent to warn other governments, selected journalists and thinktanks about “Soviet subversion” or similar threats.
The reports comprised carefully selected facts and analysis often gleaned from intelligence provided by Britain’s security services, but appeared to come from ostensibly independent analysts and institutions that were in reality set up and run by the IRD. One of the first of these, set up in 1964, was the International Committee for the Investigation of Communist Front Organisations.
Another tactic was to forge statements by official Soviet institutions and agencies. Between 1965 and 1972, the IRD forged at least 11 statements from Novosti, the Soviet state-run news agency. One followed Egypt’s defeat in the 1967 six-day war against Israel and underlined Soviet anger at Egypt’s “waste” of so much of the arms and materiel Moscow had supplied to the country.
The IRD also forged literature purporting to come from the Muslim Brotherhood, a mass Islamist organisation that had a significant following across the Middle East. One pamphlet accused Moscow of encouraging the 1967 war, criticised the quality of Soviet military equipment, and called the Soviets “filthy-tongued atheists” who saw the Egyptians as little more than “peasants who lived all their lives nursing reactionary Islamic superstitions”.
The IRD also created an entirely fictive radical Islamist organisation called the League of Believers, which attacked the Russians as non-believers and blamed Arab defeats on a lack of religious faith, a standard trope among religious conservatives at the time.
“Why is the Arab nation at this time afflicted by so much sorrow and disaster? Why were the brave forces defeated in the jihad by the evil heathen Zionists?… The answers are [easily] to be found … we are departing fast from the right path, we are following the course chosen for us by the communist-atheists for whom religion is a form of social disease,” it read.
Such claims became increasingly widespread in Egypt in the ensuing years, as a resurgence of religion swept the key strategic state.
Nor was the IRD above encouraging opposition to Israel if it made its forgeries more convincing, Cormac told the Observer.

Yemeni fighters belonging to the British protectorate in the south of the country, in the early 1960s. Photograph: Getty Images
A statement released by the IRD in February 1967 also purported to come from the Muslim Brotherhood, and attacked Egypt for using chemical weapons in its battle against a coalition of religious conservatives and tribes in Yemen backed by Britain and Saudi Arabia.
The IRD’s leaflets echoed other claims made by radical Islamists, arguing that military misdeeds should not be blamed on “the atheists or the imperialists or the Zionist Jews” but on “Egyptians who are supposed to be believers”.
“These Egyptian murderers have gone too far in their hypocrisy unpunished, but they can no longer pretend to be believers in God and in His Prophet and in His sacred book,” a leaflet read, asking: “If the Egyptians have to go to war and fight, why don’t they direct their armies against the Jews?”
Cormac said that, as with much of the IRD’s output, the claims made were factually accurate, but the tone and fake source were designed to mislead. The leaflets about Yemen aimed to put pressure on the Egyptian leadership to accept a ceasefire.
Other material highlighted the poor view that Moscow took of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the limited aid offered by the Soviets to Palestinian armed nationalist groups. This was contrasted with the more supportive stance of the Chinese, in a bid to widen the split between the two communist powers.
One major initiative focused on undermining Ian Smith’s regime in Rhodesia, the former colony that unilaterally declared its independence from the UK in 1965 in an attempt to maintain white minority rule.
The IRD set up a fake group of white Rhodesians who opposed Smith. Its leaflets attacked him for lying, creating “chaos” and crippling the economy. “The whole world is against us … We must call a halt while we can still save our country,” one said.
Attempts to isolate African nationalists sometimes involved incitement of racial tension. In early 1963, the IRD forged a statement from the World Federation of Democratic Youth, a Soviet front organisation, which denounced Africans as uncivilised, “primitive” and morally weak. The forgery received press coverage across the continent, with many newspapers reacting intemperately.

Ian Smith, Rhodesia’s premier, centre, in 1965, another target of IRD’s activities. Photograph: Bettmann Archive
A similar forgery in 1966 underlined the “backwardness” and “political immaturity” of Africa. Another, a statement purportedly from Novosti, blamed poor academic results at an international university in Moscow on the quality of the black African students enrolled there. The IRD sent more than 1,000 copies to addresses across the developing world.
Cormac said there is little doubt that senior British policymakers knew about the IRD’s work.
In 1964, the Conservative prime minister, Alec Douglas-Home, told the IRD to target Ghana over fear that its mercurial president, Kwame Nkrumah, was tilting towards Moscow. Months later, the new Labour foreign secretary, Patrick Gordon Walker, encouraged the Foreign Office to maintain a “black propaganda potential and from time to time produce black material”. Walker was particularly interested in fomenting racial tensions between Africans and the Chinese.
As with most such efforts, the impact of the IRD’s campaigns was often difficult to judge. On one occasion, IRD officials were able to report that a newspaper in Zanzibar printed one of their forgeries about Soviet racism, and that the publication prompted an angry response. This was seen as a major achievement. Officials were also pleased when Kenyan press used fake material about the 1967 six-day war, and when newspapers across much of the Islamic world printed a fake Novosti bulletin on the conflict. Occasionally, western newspapers unwittingly used IRD materials, too.
Though the IRD was shut down in 1977, researchers are now finding evidence that similar efforts continued for almost another decade.
“The [new documents] are particularly significant as a precursor to more modern efforts of putting intelligence into the public domain.
“Liz Truss has a ’government information cell’, and defence intelligence sends out daily tweets to ‘pre-but’ Russian plots and gain the upper hand in the information war, but for much of the cold war the UK used far more devious means,” Cormac said.
The Guardian · by Jason Burke · May 14, 2022



6. How a Magazine Called ‘Amerika’ Helped Win the Cold War

This, as opposed to the article on British propaganda in the Guardian, is an example of another way to conduct psychological warfare, psychological operations, and strategic influence. It requires time, consistency, intellectual capital, and patience in political leaders.

As an aside, you can criticize the UN all you like but the universal declaration of human rights is an excellent starting point for a foundational message of values. The international community has agreed these are the unalienable rights of all human beings (in 30 articles) 

Universal Declaration of Human Rights
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages. The UDHR is widely recognized as having inspired, and paved the way for, the adoption of more than seventy human rights treaties, applied today on a permanent basis at global and regional levels (all containing references to it in their preambles). 


How a Magazine Called ‘Amerika’ Helped Win the Cold War
By STEVE JOHNSON
05/15/2022 07:00 AM EDT
Steve Johnson, a freelance writer in Chicago, is a former longtime Chicago Tribune television critic.
Magazine
For decades, the U.S. government battled Soviets on their own turf. Their weapon of choice: A glossy magazine extolling the glories of life in America. Guess what? It worked.

POLITICO illustration/photos via Eli Attie
By Steve Johnson
05/15/2022 07:00 AM EDT
Steve Johnson, a freelance writer in Chicago, is a former longtime Chicago Tribune television critic.
The September 1992 issue of the glossy Amerika was very much a newsmagazine of its moment. It dissected the resurgent American popularity of Malcolm X ahead of the release of the Spike Lee biopic starring Denzel Washington. It excerpted “Earth in the Balance,” the save-the-environment manifesto written by then-Senator Al Gore, who was running for Vice President alongside Bill Clinton. And it profiled a couple of average Americans, a Baltimore judge and an entrepreneurial Missouri hairstylist.
But in another way, this edition of the magazine was something radical, even, you could argue, confrontational.

The whole issue forswore the usual Russian text to publish — for the first time — in Ukrainian. Distributed at newsstands throughout the freshly independent country, it retailed a high-gloss version of American life to a nation that had until recently been under the thumb of the Soviet Union. The issue didn’t offer a direct political message to its Ukrainian readers, but the subtext could not have been more clear: “The West is your friend, and you’ll like what you find there.”

It was the latest stratagem in the near half-century publishing history of a magazine that — although now largely forgotten and rarely seen by actual Americans — played an underappreciated role in piercing the Iron Curtain and pushing through Western influences.
Amerika — published primarily in Russian, printed by the U.S. government in Manila, and distributed most colorfully by U.S. diplomats scattering copies on Soviet public transportation — delivered admirable aspects of America to an eager audience of Soviet citizens. It took them backstage to tour the radically interracial new show called “Sesame Street”; provided peeks into the lives of Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, explored both Superman and everyman; and served up an exclusive interview with the United States’ first foreign-born poet laureate, the Russian dissident Joseph Brodsky. In return, the USSR got to peddle the — by most accounts — drab and text-heavy Soviet Life to the U.S.
Today, the information war between the former Cold War superpowers occupies center stage in our national security conversation, and it looks vastly different: Russian hackers interfere directly with American politics and media, and an American-built tech platform like Twitter can instantly spread the inspiring anti-Putin speeches of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to a global audience.

But the indirect, “soft power” pitch of Amerika speaks of a different era when citizens rarely encountered each other in person, never mind having hip-pocket access to their social media posts. Though the U.S. was allowed to print just 50,000 Russian copies a month for most of its run, the magazine helped shape Soviets’ views of the supposed arch-enemy in subtle but meaningful ways.
The U.S. government’s first crack at Amerika came in 1945, when the Cold War was replacing World War II as the great international conflict. Averell Harriman, then the ambassador to Moscow, argued for permission to distribute an illustrated magazine about the U.S. — in the belief that displaying America’s virtues was better than attacking the Soviet system.
The result, Amerikamodeled itself on LIFE magazine, the oversize, picture-heavy glossy that was an American newsstand hit throughout the mid-20th Century. Often referred to as America Illustrated for U.S. audiences, Amerika was, Time magazine reported, “hot stuff. (The Russians) liked its eye-filling pictures of Arizona deserts, TVA dams, the white steeples of a Connecticut town, Radio City…” And Russian women, whipping up their own clothes at home, would copy the styles they saw in its pages, according to veteran U.S. Foreign Service officer Yale Richmond, who briefly outlines the origin story in his 2010 book, “Cultural Exchange and the Cold War: Raising the Iron Curtain.”
Thumbing through some of those early issues, you see all the determination to present American capitalism as a real system that raises the standard of living for the common person. On display in big, bold photographs are the discount bounty of a supermarket, oil derrick workers beaming as they take a lunch break, a modernist home showcasing accessible domestic style, fireworks and a Ferris wheel for entertainment, and not just waves but amber oceans of grain. All that, plus some diagrams of how American football plays work.
A Time article from 1949 as Amerika prepared its first Czech-language edition claims — without attribution — that the propaganda periodical’s 50,000 Russian-language copies had a pass-along rate that meant 1 million Soviets were reading each one.
Maybe that figure itself is propaganda fed to a magazine reporter, but “the magazine’s success… was too much for the Soviet authorities,” Richmond wrote, and Soviets kept returning allegedly unsold copies (which went for the prestige price of 10 rubles, or $1.23) to the U.S. embassy. So in 1952, he says, the U.S. “reluctantly discontinued” the magazine. This came even as The New York Times editorialized against the cessation because Amerika gave Russians “a glimpse of American life and American aims in refutation of Soviet lies,” according to a 2010 article in American Diplomacy magazine entitled, “The Full-Format American Dream: Amerika as a key tool of Cold War public diplomacy.”
Amerika roared back to life under a new U.S.-Soviet cultural exchange agreement in 1956, and in this iteration, it regained the power it had held earlier and earned added respect for the sophistication of its visual presentation. In the process, it became a touchstone for young American Foreign Service workers.
Today, “the tools are new. But the aim isn’t new because very much in the Soviet era, there was an attempt at outreach directly, people to people,” says Rose Gottemoeller, a former U.S. diplomat working in the Soviet Union who became Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019. “Amerika magazine grew out of those efforts to speak directly to the Soviet people.”
Gottemoeller recalls early in her career visiting libraries in the Soviet satellite republics and seeing copies of the magazine frayed from heavy readership — part of a considerable body of evidence refuting the official USSR line that Amerika just wasn’t popular.
At the time, the magazine’s publisher, the U.S. Information Agency, also put on traveling exhibitions with displays about life in America, which Gottemoeller helped produce, including staffing an exhibition on American photography in Kyiv in 1976. Diplomats would take the returned, allegedly unsold copies of Amerika to give away at such shows. “They went out the door like hotcakes,” Gottemoeller recalls.
The peek at a country people would likely never visit was a draw, of course, but the formatting itself helped make the case, she says.
“It was high, high quality compared to Soviet publishing at the time. If you got Soviet magazines, they didn’t have pretty, glossy, color pictures in them. And they were grainy looking and not printed on high-quality paper,” Gottemoeller says. “So one of the reasons they were so wildly popular is they embodied in some way for a Soviet audience the glamor and the richness of the West.”
Those with more detached viewpoints reached similar conclusions.
“Amerika was a minor expense, but a major success, in the cold war of ideas,” concluded Richmond in “Cultural Exchange and the Cold War.” He, too, noted the “dog-eared copies” Americans witnessed when visiting Soviet homes — a phenomenon that led the USIA to use heavier stock and thicker staples — and “the extreme measures taken by the Soviet authorities to limit its distribution.”
About those “extreme measures”: In researching his 2007 book “The American Mission and the ‘Evil Empire’,” Rutgers historian David Foglesong found evidence in a Soviet archive dating to the late 1950s, the Nikita Khrushchev era, that the Soviet government was wary of the magazine’s potential impact in the hinterlands, entrusting it mostly to the urban elites and Communist Party members.
“They specifically prohibited distribution in the Baltic states, and in other peripheral areas of the Soviet Union… where the loyalty of people was already questionable,” Foglesong says.
Amerika was, in a sense, the good cop in U.S. public diplomacy efforts. Direct critiques of the USSR came from some of the government’s Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe broadcasts beamed across the Iron Curtain. But Amerika — along with the exhibitions program Gottemoeller referenced — presented a relentlessly upbeat view of life in the states.
The positive tone of the stories “was something the Soviet government and the Communist Party hated,” says Michael Hurley, who retired from the State Department in 2015 after 30 years, including three stints in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. “The articles were, I like to say, USA propaganda-lite.”
Bobby Fischer made an Amerika cover in March 1972, months ahead of him defeating Boris Spassky to beat the Soviets at their game and become the first American world chess champion. Other cultural coverage featured dancers, classical musicians and writers, evidence that the U.S. was not a land of rubes.
“This was always very important to me as a public affairs officer, to demonstrate to Russians and to Soviets that we do have a culture,” says Hurley, one that went beyond “rock and roll, hamburgers and jeans.”
But for all the text in the articles — some by freelancers, much of it translated and reprinted from U.S. magazines — the splashy photos, many taken by top photographers, were key to the enterprise. The photo spreads were a more convincing depiction of life in America than any written article could be.
“We had graphic designers and photo editors who were among the best out there,” says Howard Cincotta, a writer and editor for the magazine from 1975 to 1980. Soviet readers “didn’t necessarily believe what we might write in Amerika, but photographs were something else. They didn’t lie.”
Elio Battaglia became the magazine’s photo editor in the late 1960s, and he says that even though it was a politically motivated government publication, he found it a much freer environment to work in than his previous job at National Geographic.
“It was an excellent magazine,” he says. “John Jacobs, who was the editor, just injected so much life. He gave us free range to illustrate and allowed us to use full pages, just like Life magazine was.”

Much of the material was borrowed via an appeal to the creator’s patriotism: He became friends with the fashion photographer Richard Avedon this way, Battaglia says. David Attie, a New York photographer who had the same teacher and mentor as Avedon, also worked frequently for Amerika, including doing the Fischer and “Sesame Street” shoots.
“It was what some would call propaganda,” Battaglia allowed. “But, you know, propaganda simply means diffusing the kind of truth that you believe in.”
George Clack would be Amerika’s final editor, and the demise still seems to gnaw at him.
Although the magazine eventually shrank its oversize format to one more like Time magazine’s, its distribution allowance had grown to 250,000 by the time Clack joined, in 1989.
This was during the glasnost era, the opening up under the final Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev — a man who as “a young party secretary in Stavropol,” Yale Richmond noted, was on the U.S. Embassy’s mailing list to receive copies of Amerika.
The magazine kept kicking past the end of the USSR and the Cold War and the arrival of its Ukrainian edition — until USIA budget cuts finally put the magazine to bed for good in 1994.
Clack says he argued strongly against the shutdown. “The modern word would be ‘brand.’ We had a huge brand,” he says. “But people in the United States didn’t really understand the historical efforts that had been made.”
The poet Brodsky did, Clack learned when he interviewed the man. “He told me a number of things about the magazine as a young man in Saint Petersburg,” Clack says. “One of the most amazing things he says to me was, ‘Amerika gave us the truth and the illusion of America.’ For Brodsky, the illusion of America — that there was such a place as America — was just as important as the truth.”





7. Ukrainian forces hold off Russians in Donetsk Oblast

From the Kyiv Independent. Images at the link.


Ukrainian forces hold off Russians in Donetsk Oblast
May 13, 2022 11:46 am by Igor Kossova

Ukrainian servicemen stand in a trench near the town of Lyman in Donetsk Oblast on April 28, 2022. (Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP via Getty Images)
KRAMATORSK, Donetsk Oblast – The perfect sunny spring morning in Donetsk Oblast was marred by the constant explosions going off every few minutes a dozen kilometers away. 
The blasts were varied, coming from artillery and rocket barrages from both sides. A half-dozen soldiers held this outpost a short distance away from the front lines, north of the city of Sloviansk. Military cars hurried by, toward or away from the ongoing battle.
The woods seem packed with Ukrainian tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery and other heavy weapons, concealed by the young green foliage.
Dark track marks could be seen on the paved roads, suddenly swerving into dirt furrows plunging into the woods. Driving through the forest, one can sometimes see the camouflaged outlines of the occasional Ukrainian combat vehicle, with servicemen resting, eating or being vigilant. 
In a rare moment of silence, one could hear the hum of thousands of flies and mosquitoes hovering among the trees that cast dappled shadows onto the road. This was swiftly interrupted by violent detonations in the distance. 
“Minus one village,” said one of the soldiers, turning his head in that direction. 
The date was May 9, the anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany during World War II, the last time Europe saw an offensive on such a large scale. Some expected the attacks to intensify for the occasion. But fighting’s been such a regular presence here since the war began that the holiday didn’t seem to come with a noteworthy escalation.
“The enemy is firing along the entire line of contact and trying to strike deep into the defenses of our troops,” Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, a Ministry of Defense spokesman, said at a May 9 briefing.
“Well, it’s a special day for them,” said one of the soldiers at the outpost. But another took a dismissive tone: “It’s been a special day for them for three months.”  
The Russian offensive in Donbas has bogged down, making at-best modest progress. While the soldiers at the outpost acknowledged that they’ve tactically withdrawn from at least one village recently, they continue to hold the line. 
Since the latest Battle of the Donbas began, Russian forces have tried to execute a massive push along the highway leading from the city of Izium in Kharkiv Oblast to Slovyansk in Donetsk Oblast. It was supposed to link up with another push from the south and cut the Ukrainian forces off from their supply lines and the rest of the country. Over several weeks of fighting, the Russians advanced by no more than 20-30 kilometers along their attack axes. 
Significant Russian forces remain north of the Siverskyi Donets River, which they are having trouble crossing, according to Volodymyr, a retired Ukrainian Lieutenant Colonel from Izium, who now lives in the city of Kramatorsk.
The southern banks of this river are considerably steeper than the northern banks, creating a difficult boundary, Volodymyr pointed out. This is especially apparent in the village of Bohorodychne, where a demolished bridge across the river sags into the water. The Ukrainian-held bank towers over its opposite, bristling with trees.
According to British Intelligence’s May 13 tweets, the Ukrainian forces are halting the Russians’ attempts to cross the river and forced them to take heavy losses during a fording attempt west of Sieverodonetsk.
“Images indicate that during the crossing of the Siverskyi Donets river… Russia lost significant armored maneuver elements of at least one Battalion Tactical Group,” the British Intelligence statement read.
OSINT analyst Blue Sauron wrote that the Russians lost 73 combat vehicles.

A view of the Siverskyi Donets river seen from the village of Bohorodychne. Russians control the left side and Ukrainians control the right. The Russians are having trouble fording the river, reportedly losing significant armor assets from at least one Battalion Tactical Group according to British Intelligence. (The Kyiv Independent.)
The road into Bohorodychne is flanked by several plain, wooden orthodox crosses that look like they’ve been planted recently. “Eternal memory” one of them reads, the local version of the ‘RIP’ placed on gravestones. “Save and protect us,” says another.
A retiree named Volodymyr Semenets, sitting on the bench near his home in Bohorodychne, said the Ukrainian forces told him that Russians are unlikely to occupy this village, even though it practically straddles the line between the two opposing armies. Semenets hears daily exchanges of fire. Most munitions fly over the village but not all, as multiple broken windows and damaged houses can attest.
“This area is usually wreathed in smoke,” Semenets said. “How could (the Russians) see what they are shooting at? They just shoot and that’s it.”
Despite the danger, he and his wife refuse to abandon their property and animals for the uncertainty of western Ukraine. Humanitarian aid reaches them once a week, he said. Some other towns and villages along Russia’s attack path have it worse, with many cut off from regular supplies or medical professionals, said doctors in the city of Kramatorsk.
According to Brigadier General Oleksiy Hromov’s May 11 briefing, the town of Lyman is now seeing some of the region’s fiercest battles. 
As they awaited their eventual turn in the meat grinder, soldiers smoked and discussed recent news, such as the visit to the country by actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie. One young soldier, nicknamed the Merry Milkman for his love of condensed milk, said that rather than munching croissants in Lviv, Jolie should come to hang out at their checkpoint. 
“Isn’t she a little old for you?” quipped one of his fellows. “Are you going to be chasing pensioners next?”
Another soldier asked if it’s true that Russian President Vladimir Putin is severely ill. Everyone’s seen the Russian leader clutching furniture, limping, coughing and being covered with a blanket in his recent video appearances. But Putin’s proximity to death’s door is not something this journalist could confidently confirm — only hope he’s getting there quickly.
“Yes, everyone hopes that,” the soldier said. 
Author: Igor Kossov
Igor is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent. He has previously covered conflict in the Middle East, investigated corruption in Ukraine and man-made environmental damage in Southeast Asia. He has a Master’s in Journalism from the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and was published in the Kyiv Post, USA Today, The Atlantic, Daily Beast and Foreign Policy


8. Opinion | Biden’s sanctions against Russia are a double-edged sword

The headline for this is too narrow. This is really about the dollar being the US' economic superpower and about how sanctions threaten that.

Conclusion:

The dollar maintains its crucial role in the international system because the United States has the world’s largest economy. It also has the most liquid debt markets, its currency floats freely, and, crucially, it is regarded as a country based on the rule of law and not one prone to arbitrary and unilateral actions. That last criterion is not one that Washington has lived up to in recent years. Biden should make sure that, in fighting this battle against Russia, he does not erode America’s unique financial superpower.

Opinion | Biden’s sanctions against Russia are a double-edged sword
The Washington Post · by Fareed Zakaria · May 12, 2022
The Biden administration deserves huge credit for the tough economic sanctions it has been able to impose on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine. As Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Megan Hogan note in a March essay, they “are the most comprehensive imposed against a major power since the Second World War.” On a “punishment scale of 1 to 10” — the two authors give the sanctions a ranking of at least an 8.
But the unprecedented nature of these measures is producing concerns around the world that the United States has “weaponized” its financial power and could lead, over time, to the decline of the dollar’s dominance, which is what gives America its financial superpowers in the first place.
I’ve been hearing about this firsthand from three sources I trust. The first, in New Delhi, recently told me about a conversation that took place at the highest levels of India’s government. The topic: how to make sure that the United States could never do to India what it has just done to Russia. The second, from Brussels, where staff at the European Commission has been tasked — even while working with Washington on the sanctions — with finding ways to reduce the role of the dollar in its energy imports. The third, an Asian observer of China, speculated that the overly severe lockdowns in Shanghai — which involved the rationing of food and basic supplies — might be part of an effort by Beijing to experiment with a scenario in which it faced economic sanctions from Washington (perhaps after an invasion of Taiwan).
A debate is raging around the world about whether the dollar’s total dominance of the international financial system is waning. Even Goldman Sachs and the IMF have warned that that might well happen. I tend toward the opposite view: Namely, that you can only beat the dollar if you have an effective alternative, which so far does not exist.
Follow Fareed Zakaria's opinionsFollow
But it’s clear that many countries — from hostile powers such as China and Russia to friendly nations such as India and Brazil — are working hard on ways to reduce their vulnerability to Washington’s whims. None of these efforts has so far gained much traction, though it is worth noting that the share of global foreign exchange reserves held in dollars has declined from 72 percent to 59 percent over the past two decades.
Partly this is because the United States appears less stable and predictable in the use of its extraordinary privilege. In the two decades preceding Russia’s invasion, Washington massively ramped up sanctions for all kinds of reasons — by more than 900 percent. Many of these measures were overreactions and should be rolled back. After 9/11, Washington put in place highly intrusive measures aimed at tracking money going to terrorists. It has inflicted harsh punishments on banks that did not adhere to all U.S. sanctions. It has imposed sanctions on IranVenezuelaNorth KoreaCuba and other countries often simply to satisfy domestic critics who wanted to “do something” without paying much of a price. This type of economic warfare has failed to change the regimes in these countries but has caused widespread misery for ordinary people in them. Sanctions against Russia are aimed at policy change, not regime change, and therefore could be more effective.
Economic sanctions increased sharply during the Trump administration, which unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and then threatened to impose sanctions on any firms that traded with Iran — even though Tehran had adhered to the agreement, which took place under a U.N. framework. And then there are the fines pursued domestically by American regulators and judges, such as the almost $9 billion penalty against the French bank BNP Paribas in 2014. Again, such measures work only because of the power of the dollar.
I support the sanctions against Russia, but President Biden needs to make a speech explaining them. He needs to make clear that the Russian invasion of Ukraine marks the most serious assault on the rules-based international system in decades. If it succeeds, it could tear that system apart. That is why Washington has worked with its allies to impose these extraordinary measures. The president needs to detail the legal basis for the actions taken by the United States and its allies.
How exactly can governments seize privately owned property for which the owner, even if he is a Russian oligarch, has clear legal title? How can people be sure these powers will not be abused? Biden needs to emphasize that the United States will only take such measures in the future when there are blatant violations of international law, on the scale of Russia’s actions.
The dollar maintains its crucial role in the international system because the United States has the world’s largest economy. It also has the most liquid debt markets, its currency floats freely, and, crucially, it is regarded as a country based on the rule of law and not one prone to arbitrary and unilateral actions. That last criterion is not one that Washington has lived up to in recent years. Biden should make sure that, in fighting this battle against Russia, he does not erode America’s unique financial superpower.
The Washington Post · by Fareed Zakaria · May 12, 2022


9. US spy chiefs see China as vanguard of anti-West crusade

Presumably this is the intelligence upon which our policy makers and strategists are developing policy and strategy.

My assessment from a few years ago:

"China seeks to export its authoritarian political system around the world in order to dominate regions, co-opt or coerce international organizations, create economic conditions favorable to China alone, and displace democratic institutions."

And a friend and colleague offered this which I think provides us with the dilemma with which we have to deal:

 "Chinese unification by force is untenable., Chinese peaceful unification is impossible. So the only option is unification by coercion."

However, the above does not mean the Chinese may not try to use force to unify China as it is the ultimate coercive tool.

US spy chiefs see China as vanguard of anti-West crusade
At same time top spooks believe the Ukraine war has given China ‘less confidence’ in a successful invasion of Taiwan

asiatimes.com · by More by Daniel Williams · May 15, 2022
More and more the United States views Russia’s war on Ukraine as a pivotal episode in a global contest that pits Washington not only against Moscow but against a group of active adversaries – with China at the group’s core.
At a briefing convened by the US Senate’s Armed Services Committee last week, China shared top billing with Russia and the conflict in Ukraine as a talking point. In particular, attention centered on China’s military plans vis-a-vis a possible takeover of Taiwan.
The two top intelligence agency heads – civilian and military – put China atop a list of four countries they viewed as effectively joined in an anti-Western crusade. China was followed by Russia, Iran and North Korea.

“All four governments have demonstrated the capacity and intend to promote their interests … that cut against US and allied interests,” Avril Haines, who oversees US intelligence agencies in President Joe Biden’s administration, said.
Director of US intelligence Avril Haines speaking before a Senate committee. Photo: AFP
Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, highlighted threats that he said emanated from each country: China’s threats against Taiwan, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Iran’s proxy warfare in the Middle East and North Korea’s presumed dangers to the Western Pacific and western American mainland.
In the US view, an implicit duel – pitting China, Russia, Iran and North Korea against the US, NATO, the European Union and Japan – has the makings of global warfare.
Major democratic countries have yet to take sides. Haines singled out India, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa and some unnamed “Global South” countries as laggards.
“Much of the world is still not with us,” said Berrier. “They may not be with Russia, but they are not subscribing to our call for a global coalition of democracies.” He added, “The US still has very friendly relations with them, but we have not been able to get them to join the Ukrainian cause.”

Haines noted that Russia and China are trying to woo authoritarian, oil-rich United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia away from longstanding, close relations with the United States. The UAE is eyeing expanded energy and technology trade with China.
Saudi Arabia is unhappy both with US support for democracy promoted during Arab Spring protests of the 1990s and also with American outrage over the killing of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. His murder took place within a Saudi diplomatic compound in Turkey
Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have rebuffed the Biden administration’s calls for them to expand fossil fuel production in order to curb rising prices.
Some dictatorships have criticized Russia’s invasion, even if they have not joined in placing economic sanctions on Moscow. Former Soviet republic Uzbekistan is an example.
Senators took interest in the Ukraine war’s effect on China. They wondered whether Beijing would invade Taiwan while the US and its allies are preoccupied with Ukraine.

The intelligence chiefs expressed optimism that China would make no moves in the short term. The Ukraine war may give China “less confidence” in a military outcome should Beijing invade Taiwan, Haines surmised.
The unified allied approaches to Ukraine including an array of economic sanctions is something Beijing “obviously will be looking at in the context of Taiwan,” she added.
“The intelligence agencies have not assessed that the Russia-Ukraine crisis is accelerating their plan vis-a-vis Taiwan,” Haines concluded.
Haines and Berrier both set 2027 as the year China believes it could successfully invade. However, they advised, Beijing might shorten the timetable. They counseled Taiwan to prepare better defenses by purchasing new arms and improving its military organization.
Iran and North Korea each made cameo appearances in the briefing. Senators queried whether the US focus on Ukraine might embolden either to take unexpected military action.

The intelligence chiefs suggested the US is on guard against such possibilities. “We’re always thinking about Iran and their actions,” Berrier said, “within the region against our neighbors and certainly our forces there.”
Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, pictured in 230l20 as he took over as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Photo: US Navy / Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Chris Gaines
In addition, the US “is worried about North Korea, for sure,” Haines interjected. She pointed to Pyongyang’s “ballistic missile development timeline, as well as potential nuclear testing” as concerns.
Senators pressed Haines and Berrier to lay out their expectations about the future course of the Ukraine war, which is almost three months old. The Biden administration had predicted it would end with a Russian victory within a matter of a few weeks. That made some lawmakers skeptical about official predictions.
Berrier said the war had reached a stalemate. Haines said the conflict would become more and more “unpredictable,” but played down the likelihood that Putin would order the use of nuclear weapons to crush resistance.
There is no “imminent potential” for Russian leader Vladimir Putin to “use nuclear weapons,” she declared.
The future depends on Russia’s immediate strategy, Berrier said. “If Russia doesn’t declare war and mobilize, the stalemate is going to continue for a while,” he said.
If, on the other hand, Russia intensifies its ground assault, “That would bring thousands more soldiers … and a whole lot more ammunition to the fight.”
From the testimony, it was unclear who has more to fear from the outcome: the West, if Ukraine is defeated; or China, if its nominal ally Russia is routed.
The Biden administration is pouring billions of dollars worth of weaponry into the fray, as are European allies. Yet no one asked how Ukraine’s Western allies would respond if Russia indeed intensified the war and what it would cost.
Much less did anyone probe how China might react if Russia should find itself in danger of defeat, or for instance, whether Beijing would help if Moscow requested weapon supplies to fill depleted stocks.
asiatimes.com · by More by Daniel Williams · May 15, 2022



10. Fears of a Marcos Government Courting China Are Overblown

I hope the authors are correct.

Fears of a Marcos Government Courting China Are Overblown
Even if Marcos were to actively engage Beijing – and that’s not a given – there are hard limits to Chinese influence in the Philippines.
By Andrew Yeo and Enrico Gloria
May 13, 2022
thediplomat.com · by Andrew Yeo · May 13, 2022
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China’s increasing assertiveness in the military, economic, and diplomatic realm has been reason for concern among its neighbors. Significant attention has focused on coercive forms of Chinese influence ranging from “gray zone” tactics and disinformation campaigns to economic pressure. In addition to wielding sticks, however, China has also relied on carrots, ramping up public diplomacy and development finance efforts in Southeast Asia in recent years.
With Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos securing a landslide victory in the 2022 Philippine national elections, some Filipinos fear that Marcos will seek closer ties to Beijing. Like President Rodrigo Duterte, Marcos may continue courting Chinese businesses and investment to the Philippines. However, our research suggests that Chinese economic and public diplomacy efforts in the Philippines have thus far been negligible.
Chinese Public Diplomacy Efforts in the Philippine
Compared to previous administrations, the Duterte presidency saw China undertake more proactive public diplomacy efforts in various fronts. For instance, major print news outlets hosted articles produced by Chinese state media, while government-owned radio and television networks in the country dedicated space to Chinese content.

China also increased the number of scholarships allotted to Filipinos to study abroad under the China Government Scholarship (CGS), and the Chinese Ambassador Scholarship program. Recipients of the CGS increased from only seven awardees in 2013 to 80 awardees in 2019, while CAS beneficiaries doubled in number between 2017 to 2020. Cultural diplomacy through Confucius Institutes in the Philippines has also intensified as the institutes began offering training programs to government personnel across various agencies. In short, under the Duterte government, the Philippines experienced greater institutionalization of Chinese public diplomacy efforts.
Limits to Chinese Influence
Despite an uptick in Chinese public diplomacy, ordinary Filipinos have not exactly embraced China’s charm offensive. Even under the pro-China Duterte leadership, Beijing’s public diplomacy efforts have not had their intended effect. Public opinion polls indicate that the majority of Filipinos disagree that China’s intentions are benign toward Filipinos. In 2020, nearly twice as many Filipinos (80 percent) had favorable impressions of the U.S. compared to favorable views of China (42 percent).
China’s financial diplomacy, big infrastructure projects, and increased media presence have been undermined by Beijing’s own coercive and predatory actions in the Philippines. China’s sovereignty claims and frequent incursions by military and commercial fishing vessels in Philippine-claimed areas of the South China Sea have led to several anti-China protests. The renaming of waters within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone from the South China Sea to the West Philippine Sea in 2012 was itself a direct nationalist response to Chinese claims over Scarborough Shoal.
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In addition to Chinese maritime claims, Chinese online gaming businesses in the Philippines have generated “economic and social exclusions” that also drive anti-Chinese sentiment. Prior to the pandemic, the proliferation of Chinese online gaming businesses in the Philippines had brought an influx of Chinese workers, leading to rising real estate prices and loss of housing for Filipino renters who could not afford higher rent.
Expensive Chinese-financed infrastructure projects such as the Kaliwa Dam project have also received much skepticism from the Filipino public. Concern over Chinese “debt traps” in other countries have also emerged in the Philippines. Thus, rather than boost Filipino attitudes toward China, Chinese public diplomacy and influence operations have on the whole not translated into strengthened China-Philippine strategic ties.
Foreign Policy Under Bongbong
Marcos led his main rival, Vice President Leni Robredo, by double digits in polls leading up to the elections. Although there are real concerns with a Marcos presidency – for instance questions about his qualifications to leadcorruption allegations, and his campaign’s reliance on disinformation – fears of the Philippines courting the Chinese under a potential Marcos government must be qualified.
First, even if Marcos were to actively engage Beijing, as suggested by our research, the Philippines would not necessarily become more susceptible to Chinese influence. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the national security establishment remain cautious if not critical of Beijing. Moreover, ordinary Filipinos or the masa, the core constituency of Marcos, continue to largely distrust China. With the Filipino public weary of the current administration’s foreign policy shortcomings, and given an increasingly vocal opposition critical of China’s encroaching presence, Marcos would risk eroding his popular support should he simply continue Duterte’s failed legacy.
Second, Marcos has yet to present a clear foreign policy agenda. Unlike Duterte, who openly expressed his personal disdain for the United States and admiration for Xi Jinping early on during the 2016 campaign, Marcos has simply acknowledged, albeit in very few instances, the importance of the Philippine-U.S. alliance and the country’s renewed partnership with China. This could be an indication that Marcos will unlikely jeopardize the alliance in the same way Duterte did. But it is also notable that Marcos has been heavily criticized for the lack of clear platforms compared to other presidential candidates.
Marcos’ policy vagueness at this point could serve as an opportunity for the Filipino public to proactively shape the direction of Philippine foreign policy. Similar to other ASEAN nations, Marcos may opt for a middle ground, leaning strategically toward Washington, but economically toward Beijing.
Third, domestic issues, most notably the Philippines’ economic recovery from the pandemic, will remain the new Philippine government’s top priority. Deepening economic relations with China may be part of the solution, but the new government will need to work broadly with other regional actors, including the United States and Western aid and development organizations, to boost economic growth while fighting the pandemic. Many students in the Philippines continue to attend schools online (or not at all) more than two years into the pandemic creating a looming human capital crisis.
Marcos has stated that his foreign policy outlook is neither pro-U.S. nor pro-China, but rather represents a pro-Philippine position. That may be a cause for consternation in Washington as Marcos seems willing to maintain friendly relations with Beijing, even if means undercutting Manila’s own strategic position in the South China Sea or ignoring corruption fueled in part by Chinese investments. However, the fear that the Philippines may completely fall under Beijing’s sphere of influence under Marcos is hard to justify. The institutionalization of the Philippine-U.S. alliance, particularly among the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the national security establishment, and robust Philippine nationalism act as buffers against Chinese influence and will keep Marcos from drifting deep into Beijing’s orbit.
GUEST AUTHOR
Andrew Yeo
Andrew Yeo (@AndrewIYeo) is a senior fellow and SK-Korea Foundation Chair at the Brookings Institution and professor of politics at The Catholic University of America. He was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of the Philippines, Diliman in 2020.
GUEST AUTHOR
Enrico Gloria
Enrico Gloria is assistant professor of international relations at the University of the Philippines, Diliman.
thediplomat.com · by Andrew Yeo · May 13, 2022


11. Escape From Hong Kong


A long interesting read. Thought provoking and inspirational.
Escape From Hong Kong
‘UNDERNEATH, EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED’
Three prodemocracy activists on the run from Beijing, three wild and bizarre journeys to—and through—America
MAY 13, 2022
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The Atlantic · by Timothy McLaughlin · May 13, 2022
To avoid drawing unwanted attention, Tommy and the four others dressed as if they were heading out for a leisurely day. It was July 2020, and the weather was perfect for some time on the water. The young men acted as though they knew one another well, and were excited to reconnect. But inside, Tommy felt panicked and desperate. He was about to attempt an escape from Hong Kong, where he faced a near-certain jail sentence for his role in the prodemocracy protests there. He feared that he, or one of these strangers, might have been tailed by police to the docks.
In the scenario that kept replaying in his head, officers closed in on the men as they stood next to their boat, a roughly 20-foot rigid speedboat laden with jugs of extra fuel and fishing equipment. Tommy—who asked to be identified by a nickname—didn’t allow himself to relax until the boat sped away from land, the coastline shrinking behind them and the blue sky stretching out in front.
As the boat’s hull slapped against the rolling swells, the life vests the men carried flew overboard, but they didn’t bother to turn back. One leaned over the edge and peeled identifying numbers off the boat’s bow, hoping for an extra layer of anonymity. They took turns driving—the young men had learned their elementary boating skills from watching videos on YouTube and had practiced a handful of times. No matter who was behind the wheel, they kept the engine throttle wide open and scanned the horizon for trouble. The whipping wind and the din of the motors made communication nearly impossible. The sun set. The lights of fishing boats and enormous shipping vessels bobbed up and down.
Tommy lost track of how long they’d been driving the boat—at least 10 hours. When the GPS unit showed the vessel leaving Hong Kong waters, they finally eased off on the throttle. “We knew we were safe,” Tommy later told me. They passed around snacks and water, then introduced themselves to one another, sharing their real names for the first time and explaining their reasons for undertaking such a perilous journey: All were prodemocracy activists looking for safety on the island of Taiwan. Their bid for freedom, however, would soon draw in the United States.
Hours earlier, one of Tommy’s green Vans sneakers had sailed over the side of the boat and into the water. No one had considered stopping to retrieve it. Now, in spontaneous, rowdy celebration of their nearly completed escape, the group peed on the remaining shoe, then kicked it overboard—a memory that Tommy would laugh about later.
Their plan had been fairly simple: If they made it this far, they would turn off their engines, and call a contact in Taiwan who would alert the coast guard to their presence. When the authorities arrived, they would claim they had run out of fuel on a fishing trip and needed to be towed to shore. Only once on land would they divulge their true stories. Tommy gazed upward as they waited for the coast guard to arrive. The light pollution radiating from Hong Kong normally obscured his view of the stars. But here, in the open water, he could see the whole sky.
When the Taiwanese coast guard appeared, the five men waved flashlights to attract attention. Their plan fell apart almost as soon as the authorities reached their boat. The coast guard had extra fuel on hand, and initially offered to simply transfer it over, then send the wayward boat on its way. As the coast guard crew spoke to the young men, however, they grew suspicious. What were the five doing in the area? Why were they carrying so few supplies and traveling in an unmarked boat? “They knew that we weren’t just out fishing,” Tommy told me.
The young men fessed up, telling the sailors their real intentions. They had been among huge crowds of people who since the spring of 2019 had taken to the streets to call for democracy in Hong Kong. Now they feared for their safety as Beijing not only stamped out the protests, but moved to decimate all dissent in the city. The Taiwanese coast guard brought the group ashore where they were questioned by military officials. The next day, they were moved again by ship. Tommy slept on and off. He wasn’t sure where they were heading.
Eventually, he and the others were deposited in rooms that reminded him of the dorms at his university back in Hong Kong. They had no computers and no internet access. Government officials—Tommy isn’t sure who they were—came and went, asking more questions. Eventually, the five men were allowed to watch TV and read articles from Apple Daily, the now-defunct prodemocracy newspaper. As their confinement stretched into months, Tommy, who had been an arts student before he abandoned his studies, sketched to pass the time.
Some of the young men wanted to stay in Taiwan, but others hoped to resettle elsewhere. They were given English lessons by a tutor. The materials, for reasons none of them understood, covered the history and geography of Boston, and how to navigate the city on public transportation. To mark New Year’s Eve, Tommy shaved off his long hair. He wanted a symbolic new start. Two weeks later—about six months after he’d fled Hong Kong—the journey to freedom that started on a small boat would end on a commercial flight that touched down in the United States.
Hong Kong was long a magnet for people seeking opportunity and running from persecution. Residents of mainland China fleeing the violence and political purges of the Cultural Revolution swam toward the city’s lights—Tommy’s grandmother among them. In the late 1970s, thousands packed into ships, many of which were cramped wooden fishing boats, to escape to Hong Kong from Vietnam as that country’s war ended. After the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, student activists from China snuck into Hong Kong.
Now the fleeing has reversed, as Beijing’s crusade to strip Hong Kong of its defining freedoms has created a wave of exiles. “It is still beautiful,” Kwok Ka-ki, a former prodemocracy lawmaker, told me of the city, “but underneath, everything has changed.” Soon after we spoke, he was arrested, and now faces charges under a draconian national-security law imposed in 2020, an effort to extinguish any form of political opposition wholesale.
At Hong Kong’s airport—even as it is crippled by stringent COVID regulations—crowds gather nightly to board flights abroad, aiming to join the tens of thousands who have already left. Among them are parents worried about the city’s more nationalistic curriculum, activists escaping the ever-shrinking space for dissent, and former prodemocracy legislators who have seen their colleagues locked up.
Over the course of several years living in and covering Hong Kong, I have met countless such exiles. Some want nothing more than anonymity in their new countries, hoping to put the movement behind them. Others remain deeply involved in activism from abroad, setting up organizations and creating online initiatives. They share an acute feeling of isolation and sadness, unmoored from a place they once believed they could help save.
Three in particular are fleeing almost certain jail time after joining in prodemocracy demonstrations and agitation, their stories highlighting the gulf between Hong Kong’s promise and its reality today. They either escaped aboard a tiny boat, ultimately crossing a vast distance, or tested U.S. border policy by illegally slipping into America on land. One later spent months walking from New York to Florida on foot to raise awareness of Hong Kong’s plight. “You think this is crazy?” Tommy said to me when I marveled at the riskiness of his trip. “Imagine how I feel.”
The exiles—all of whom, like Tommy, asked to be identified by nicknames to avoid retribution from Beijing and pro-China groups—are each grappling with their newfound freedom in different ways, at times clashing with other members of the Hong Kong diaspora over how best to help their home city, and wrestling with guilt for those left behind. They have put their fate in the hands of the U.S., a country they still see as a beacon in their fight against China.
Almost as soon as Tommy and his fellow travelers were escorted ashore in Taiwan, officials there began working to resolve the geopolitical dilemma the group had inadvertently set off. Beijing had baselessly accused the U.S. and Taiwan of fomenting the Hong Kong protests, so a public announcement about the five could further inflame tensions. Taiwan—which lives under Beijing’s constant threat of forceful reunification with mainland China—sought American help. The State Department worked with a Hong Kong lobbyist in Washington, D.C., to begin planning the group’s transfer to U.S. soil.
In January 2021, the men boarded a flight from Taipei to New York City. Through all those months in limbo in Taiwan, Tommy had been unable to directly contact his family. He had rehearsed cracking a joke to tell them he was fine, but when he landed in the U.S. and finally spoke to them on the phone, he broke down crying.
Adams Carvalho
On the surface, Tommy and Ray have a lot in common. Both have family members who fled mainland China for the relative safety of Hong Kong (albeit decades apart), and both grew up on tales of Chinese Communist Party abuse. And though the men’s paths did not cross in Hong Kong, they were both active participants in the city’s protest movement. Tommy had been among those who broke into the Legislative Council building; Ray was one of the students who occupied a university campus in a days-long siege.
But the two are also very different. Tommy is a wiry, bespectacled 24-year-old, whereas Ray, 20, is stocky and gregarious, a bit of a smartass. Tommy was riven with fear and uncertainty during the months it took him to plan his escape from Hong Kong; Ray seemed to me to be totally unbothered by the risks he had taken.
Ray fled Hong Kong aboard a plane bound for London in August 2020. After arriving and looking up Britain’s asylum-acceptance rates, he turned his sights to the United States. But the Trump administration had banned flights from Europe as part of efforts to curtail the coronavirus pandemic, so after a few months in Britain, and some scheming with an eccentric Chinese activist and immigration lawyer he connected with on Twitter, he boarded another flight, this one bound for Mexico. He would cross into the U.S. on foot.
Ray first attempted the crossing soon after arriving, in January 2021. He walked for hours after being dropped near a crossing point by a smuggler. It was frigid and windy. To avoid detection, he trekked in complete darkness. But no one stopped him, and eventually he arrived at a gas station in Southern California, where a contact met him. He fell asleep during the car ride north and awoke only when the driver announced, “Welcome to L.A.”
From there, he initiated an asylum claim, which likely would have inched through the bureaucracy were it not for Ray’s own impatience. Holed up in an Airbnb east of Los Angeles, he killed time watching cable news. He was particularly infatuated with debates over immigration. On one show, liberal-leaning politicians claimed the American system was so dysfunctional that migrants detained after attempting to enter the U.S. would likely be granted asylum faster than those who arrived without incident. Hearing this, Ray devised a new plan.
In early February, he headed back to the border, walked into Mexico, and then, after a few days, tried crossing into the U.S. again. This time, he hiked across a stretch of hills outside Mexicali and used a flashlight to catch the attention of a group of border guards. When they got ahold of him, he explained his situation in English, hoping to find a compassionate audience. Instead, the oldest-looking of the three turned him around, menacingly warned him not to try crossing again, and watched as Ray trudged into Mexico. Again.
Undeterred, Ray waited a few days and revised his tactics. He took a new route and this time, after flagging down some border guards, pretended not to understand English, speaking to them in Cantonese, the dominant language of Hong Kong. Carrying only his mobile phone and a few other possessions, he feigned ignorance—and had to stifle a laugh—when one of the agents said, “I caught a ninja!” The border guards finally resorted to using a translation app to pepper him with questions.
Authorities took him to a detention center where he was held for eight days with about 20 other men. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in San Diego where he was soon transferred was far better. After interviews with U.S. officials, he walked out of Otay Mesa Detention Center in mid-April 2021. The asylum process typically takes from six months up to several years, according to the National Immigration Forum, an advocacy group. It took Ray just 63 days.
Since the start of the 2019 protests, the U.S. has consistently called for China to preserve Hong Kong’s independent press, judiciary, and rule of law. Time and again, American officials and politicians have criticized Beijing for its crackdown. Congress passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act in 2019, which put the city’s special trading privileges with the U.S. under greater scrutiny, and compelled the U.S. to level sanctions against Hong Kong officials responsible for human-rights abuses. If these measures were designed to curtail China’s actions, however, they failed. Beijing has brushed them off as little more than a nuisance.
Stories such as Tommy’s and Ray’s suggest the U.S. is fulfilling its obligation to Hong Kong’s prodemocracy movement. The means they took to get to the U.S., though, were drastic and almost impossible to replicate. A truer test of American mettle is the countless others like them who remain in limbo, victims of a broken and deeply politicized American immigration system. These people stood up to Beijing’s authoritarian might and, knowing they would likely lose, fought for their freedoms anyway. Yet U.S. lawmakers from both parties who once cheered them seem to have largely moved on.
The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act passed the House of Representatives by a 417–1 vote in November 2019, but the bipartisanship was fleeting. At the time, few were more eager to bash China than Senator Ted Cruz, who flew to Hong Kong at the height of the protests and dressed in all black out of “solidarity” with the demonstrators. The marches were “inspiring,” Cruz said then. About a year after he proclaimed Hong Kong to be the “new Berlin,” however, he showed the limits of his support. In December 2020, he killed a bill that included provisions for temporary protected status for Hong Kongers and expedited certain refugee and asylum applications. It had previously passed in the House.
A few months before Cruz shot down the bill, saying it was a ploy by Democrats who support “open borders” to make “all immigration legal,” a group of Hong Kongers, among them an American citizen, sought protection in the city’s U.S. Consulate but were turned away. One was arrested by the Hong Kong authorities and sentenced to three years and seven months in jail.
Last August, the Biden administration made a small concession, blocking the enforced removal of many Hong Kong residents from the U.S. for a period of 18 months. The White House said in a memo that “offering safe haven for Hong Kong residents who have been deprived of their guaranteed freedoms in Hong Kong furthers United States interests in the region.” Getting in, however, remains a challenge.
Adams Carvalho
Kenny, a 27-year-old former civil engineer, took the same route as Tommy to flee Hong Kong; he was on the same boat. But while Tommy soon decided that he liked New York, Kenny felt restless.
Kenny had stayed fervently involved in the Hong Kong prodemocracy movement when he was resettled, initially in Arlington, Virginia. He joined protests and tried to spread his message on social media. But he wanted to do more, and staying planted in Arlington while trying to sound the alarm seemed ineffective. So he settled on the most American of pastimes, a road trip—but without that most American of possessions, a car. His first walk was a 10-day trek from the White House to New York City. He hoped that by speaking to ordinary Americans, he could raise awareness of the crackdown under way in his home city. A few months later, Kenny set off on an even more ambitious route, from the Pentagon all the way to Miami. In all, he estimated, he would walk more than 1,000 miles.
Kenny documented his movements on Instagram, posting videos and photos of the people he encountered and the places he passed through. He snapped pictures fit for a tourism ad for rural America: rolling cornfields, Amish families standing near their horse-drawn buggies, red-painted barns. He embarked on his walk with his face completely covered by a reflective sunglass shield that looked like it was borrowed from the prop closet on a cyberpunk film set, and a thin flag pole jutting from his backpack adorned with two black banners that read Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times, one in Chinese and another in English.
His unusual appearance attracted attention, not all of it welcoming. In Maryland, someone called the police on him as he knocked on doors looking for bandages. On the eighth day of his walk to Miami, a stranger pulled a gun on him as he tried to hide near the man’s garage during a rainstorm.
As he moved farther south, Kenny found people to be more accommodating, which he’d expected, and more informed about the prodemocracy movement, which he hadn’t. Often, though, he was downbeat, discovering that many Americans had the luxury of not knowing or caring what was happening on the other side of the world.
He felt more optimistic when a worker at a sports bar in Moncure, North Carolina, told him he had followed the news about Hong Kong, and gave Kenny slices of pizza and an orange soda. In Glynn County, in southeastern Georgia, Kenny spent the night with firefighters who let him sleep in the firehouse. In Florida in mid-October, a woman invited him to sleep at her house. He stayed for three days, met her family, and joined them on a trip to a park where he spotted a manatee in the water. He documented the sighting with an Instagram post punctuated by a string of exclamation points. In all, the walk lasted 66 days.
As he navigated America’s roadways, a court case about him in Hong Kong carried on. Kenny had been among a group of demonstrators who, rallying against a government decision to ban face masks at marches, had assaulted a police officer after the officer grabbed a protester. Video of the skirmish, filmed by a passenger on a nearby bus, was picked up by international news outlets. Kenny was arrested but released on bail, which is when he began trying to escape Hong Kong by boat, eventually succeeding on his fifth or sixth try. (Earlier failed efforts cost him a small fortune.)
Days after his outing to the park in Florida, sentences were handed down against two of Kenny’s co-defendants. One was given seven years in jail, the other sent to a rehabilitation center. Kenny told me he had no regrets about fleeing, that he wanted to look forward. “This is why I decided to walk—because I don’t want to think back or live in a constant state of regret,” he said. He later admitted that he did at times feel guilt about leaving, but he tried to bury it, preferring to focus on forward action. “I’m thinking: What can I do on their behalf?” he said. “This is my purpose.”
In some—extremely limited—respects, he has succeeded, telling individual Americans about a fight for freedom half a world away that many of them are unaware of. I spoke with one of the people who met Kenny on his walking tour, Nicholas Kiernan, who said he had initially driven past Kenny in Northern Virginia in late August while on his way to work. Kenny’s peculiar appearance caught Kiernan’s attention. He resembled “a Google mapping device,” Kiernan told me. “He looked wild.” About a half hour later, Kiernan, a land surveyor, was still thinking about the odd character from his morning commute when Kenny stumbled onto Kiernan’s worksite. Intrigued, Kiernan hopped out of his truck to ask Kenny what he was up to.
Kenny showed him photos of the Hong Kong protests, explaining to Kiernan, who knew nothing about what was happening there, about how police had cracked down on demonstrators. “It was thought-provoking stuff,” Kiernan recounted. But perhaps more than anything, Kiernan said he was impressed by Kenny’s courage—sleeping in a tent and carrying a heavy backpack for miles at a time, speaking to total strangers in a foreign language in a new country. “It takes heart to be able to do something like that.”
Additional reporting by Karina Tsui.
The Atlantic · by Timothy McLaughlin · May 13, 2022

12. Lithuania designates Russia as a terrorist country, a global first

I missed this earlier this week.

Lithuania designates Russia as a terrorist country, a global first
NPR · by Rachel Treisman · May 10, 2022

Demonstrators protest the Russian invasion of Ukraine at Independence Square in front of the Parliament Palace in Vilnius, Lithuania, on March 24, 2022. Lithuania's parliament has since declared Russia a perpetrator of terrorism and genocide. Petras Malukas/AFP via Getty Images
Lithuania's parliament has designated Russia a terrorist country and its actions in Ukraine as genocide.
The Lithuanian Seimas tweeted Tuesday that its members had passed the resolution unanimously.
This makes Lithuania the first country to declare Russia a perpetrator of terrorism, according to Ukraine's Centre for Strategic Communications and Information Security. It's not the first to formally accuse Russia of genocide: Canadian lawmakers unanimously adopted such a motion last month.
Lithuania's resolution says that Russia's armed forces and mercenaries have committed war crimes in Ukraine, citing the atrocities reported in places Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol, Borodyaka, Hostomel and other cities, according to public broadcaster Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT).
"The Russian Federation, whose military forces deliberately and systematically target civilian targets, is a state that supports and perpetrates terrorism," the resolution reads.
It also recognizes "the full-scale armed aggression — war — against Ukraine by the armed forces of the Russian Federation and its political and military leadership [...] as genocide against the Ukrainian people."

LRT says the resolution describes Russia's intent as destroying Ukraine and breaking its spirit by "killing entire families, including children, abducting and raping people, and mocking them and the bodies of the murdered."
Lawmakers are calling for Russia to be held accountable for alleged war crimes in Ukraine. They are advocating for the establishment of an international tribunal to investigate Russia's actions, and want it to have the power to issue international arrest warrants.
Ukranian officials are praising Lithuania's resolution. Ruslan Stefanchuk, chairman of Ukraine's parliament, described it as "historic" in posts on social media.
"I urge the whole world to pick up the baton so that the memory of the mass murders of Ukrainians has never been erased by the enemy!" he said.
Still, the declaration is not without risks. It could worsen the former Soviet republic's increasingly tense relationship with Russia, as one expert noted on Tuesday.
Samuel Ramani, a geopolitical analyst and associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, tweeted that Lithuania's moves were provoking "harsh reactions in Moscow," with one Russian legislator warning that Russia could completely cut off economic ties with the country.
Lithuania, which is a member of NATO, has taken other concrete steps to distance itself from Russia since the start of its war in Ukraine. In April, it became the first European Union nation to stop Russian gas imports.
And, most recently, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis called for regime change in Russia in a Monday interview with the Associated Press: "As long as a regime that intends to wage wars outside Russian territory is in place, the countries surrounding it are in danger."

This story originally appeared in the Morning Edition live blog.
NPR · by Rachel Treisman · May 10, 2022


13.  Special Operations ‘Vigilant’ Against Growing Threats
Excerpts:
In addition to ongoing threats from Russia, Braga identified China as a major threat to the U.S. He added that the conflict in Ukraine offers lessons in how to respond to future threats.
“As we apply lessons from this crisis to train, organize, equip, deploy and campaign, we remain resolute in our resolve to address our nation’s most consequential strategic pacing challenge: the People’s Republic of China,” he said. “There is no sanctuary from the scope and scale of the threat.”


Special Operations ‘Vigilant’ Against Growing Threats
ausa.org · May 12, 2022
As the U.S. enters a new era of global challenges, it must remain vigilant and bolster partnerships to ensure homeland security, a senior Army special operations leader said.
“We remain vigilant in protecting the homeland,” said Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, commander of the Army Special Operations Command. “It is vital that we address these challenges with strong interagency, international and joint relationships to preserve our advantages over our nation’s adversaries.”
Army Special Operations Command, with its 36,000 personnel, has soldiers serving in 77 countries, Braga said April 27 before the Senate Armed Services emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee.
In addition to ongoing threats from Russia, Braga identified China as a major threat to the U.S. He added that the conflict in Ukraine offers lessons in how to respond to future threats.
“As we apply lessons from this crisis to train, organize, equip, deploy and campaign, we remain resolute in our resolve to address our nation’s most consequential strategic pacing challenge: the People’s Republic of China,” he said. “There is no sanctuary from the scope and scale of the threat.”
Threats from U.S. adversaries will require the Army to rethink how its special operators use their skills and capabilities moving forward, Braga said.
“I’d echo the critical importance of making sure that we work with our international partners. … It’s even more important as we face [the] strategic challenges of China and Russia,” he said. “We have to rethink everything we do. …We are really looking at everything, from our capabilities to how we train people to ensure their survivability.”
The conflict in Ukraine underscores the life-or-death importance of these partnerships, he said. Without providing specifics, Braga said the U.S. is maintaining its “longstanding, generational relationships” across Eastern Europe and alluded to “other partnerships that we are expanding right now.”
“When I mention the scale and the scope of the threat of Russia and China, we won’t be able to do this alone,” he said. “That’s why I talk about the international partners and increasing their capacities and their capabilities is so critical.”
ausa.org · May 12, 2022


14. Ukraine: The spy war within the war



Ukraine: The spy war within the war
BBC · by Menu
By Gordon Corera
Security correspondent, BBC News
Published
1 day ago

The decades-long spy conflict between Russia and the West is intensifying over the Ukraine war. But what are Russia's intelligence services suspected of doing and how will their officials' expulsion from capitals affect Putin's clandestine overseas operations?
When Russia first targeted its military forces on Ukraine in 2014 it also unleashed its intelligence services on the West - from interfering with the US elections using cyber attacks to poisonings and sabotage in Europe.
But in recent months the spy war has intensified as Western countries have sought to hit back and inflict lasting damage on the ability of Russian intelligence to carry out covert operations. This is symbolised by the unprecedented expulsion of 500 Russian officials from Western capitals.
Formally, these officials are described as diplomats, but the majority are believed to be undercover intelligence officers. Some will have been carrying out traditional espionage - cultivating contacts and recruiting agents who can pass on secrets - something Western countries do inside Russia too.
But some were believed to be carrying out what Russians call "active measures". These range from spreading propaganda, to more aggressive covert activity. Poland said the 45 Russians it expelled were involved in actions to "undermine the stability" of the country.
Since 2014, Western intelligence agencies have been working to identify Russian spies involved in such activities. One of those is GRU Unit 29155 of Russian military intelligence, which is believed to be tasked with sabotage, subversion and assassination.
It took nearly seven years to find out the unit were behind a huge explosion that tore apart an ammunition depot in a Czech forest in October 2014. They included some of those later involved in the UK's Salisbury poisonings of 2018.
The same team also tried to poison an arms dealer in Bulgaria who had stored weapons in the Czech depot - one theory was that the blast and poisoning was linked to his supply of weapons for Ukraine where the conflict had just begun.
Members of that unit were also involved in getting pro-Russian leaders out of Ukraine in 2014. It remains closely watched by Western intelligence.
Image source, Metropolitan Police
Image caption,
The Salisbury poisonings suspects - Alexander Petrov (left) and Ruslan Boshirov
But man-marking individual spies is expensive work. While Western spies in Russia have long been subject to round-the-clock surveillance, their Russian counterparts in Western capitals have not.
"The larger the presence is, the more difficult it is to keep a lid on exactly what they are up to," one US official told the BBC.
But this may now be changing. Western officials say the recent expulsions are more than a symbolic gesture of protest but part of the wider push to degrade Russia's capacity to do harm. Some spy-catchers also say the mass expulsion is long overdue. The Russians have been laughing at us for our tolerance of their presence, says one official.
"We are trying to inflict a cost on Russia to reduce its offensive capabilities and its ability to project threat against its neighbours and the West," one official says. "A number of European nations have taken action to reduce the Russian intelligence service capability across Europe. All of these are steps designed to reduce its threats to us."
Some countries are believed to have had a particularly significant presence. Berlin expelled 40 Russians. However, a Western intelligence official said they believed Germany had previously housed closer to 100 Russian intelligence officers, acting like an "aircraft carrier" for their operations.
Why has the UK not expelled anyone? Officials say all of them were kicked out after Salisbury and the only spies left are "declared" officers who act as liaisons for formal contacts. They are likely to be watched by MI5 for any sign they are carrying out any covert acts on the side.
In the US, expulsions are based on investigations into each individual. "All the determinations on who to expel are based on intelligence collected by the FBI based on what they are doing," explains a US official. Western countries have been co-operating to ensure anyone expelled cannot simply apply for a visa in another country.
Image source, Reuters
Image caption,
Intelligence officials hope the large-scale expulsions will make espionage more difficult for the Russians
Security officials say they believe the volume of expulsions over a short period will have a "debilitating" impact on Russian intelligence as it scrambles to work out how operations can be continued and who can be placed where.
Russia has retaliated by expelling Western diplomats. In practice, more of these are likely to be "real" diplomats rather than spies. One of the complaints from Western security services has long been the imbalance in the number of Russian diplomats in Western countries, and the proportion who are spies compared to those from the West serving in Moscow. Russia expelled 40 Germans but that makes up around a third of the entire diplomatic presence in its capital.
The invasion of Ukraine may offer other opportunities. Past events like the crushing of the Prague Spring by Moscow in 1968 caused disillusionment among some within the secret state in Moscow, opening the way for their recruitment as Western agents.
In Washington DC, the FBI has targeted online advertisements to people in close proximity to the Russian Embassy, according to a Washington Post report. They encouraged them to talk to the FBI, using footage of Vladimir Putin publicly embarrassing the head of Russia's foreign intelligence agency, the SVR.
Since 2014, Ukraine has also been the epicentre for a more brutal covert struggle, with each side trying to recruit and root-out spies but also with assassinations of high-ranking Ukrainian officials.
Western intelligence agencies and special forces have also been training Ukrainian counterparts for years, alongside more overt military assistance. They have helped catch Russian spies and offered training in covert action, including by the CIA's Ground Branch.
The spy battles could still escalate, particularly as covert activity presents one option for Moscow to target supply lines bringing in military aid for Ukraine. A missile strike on convoys or facilities in Poland would be highly risky as it could trigger NATO's Article 5 self-defence principle leading to all-out conflict.
But Western intelligence officials say they have concerns that the kind of sabotage operation seen in the Czech Republic in 2014 could be attempted in Poland given its key role as a staging post for supplies going into Ukraine.
These type of clandestine operations are often carried out by Russians who travel in and out of a country rather than diplomats. But embassies provide the enabling infrastructure for their activities to take place, one Western intelligence official explains.
And the hope will be that the large-scale expulsions will make that, as well as traditional spying, much harder now, not least because there will be fewer spies to keep tabs on.
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15. Russian troops are proving that cell phones in war zones are a very bad idea

Russian troops are proving that cell phones in war zones are a very bad idea
"If I can find you, I can target you."
BY JEFF SCHOGOL | PUBLISHED MAY 13, 2022 12:50 PM
taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol · May 13, 2022
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It’s been a nightmare scenario for U.S. commanders for years: An amphibious readiness group sails stealthily towards its objective, one reckless Marine or sailor goes topside and uses a personal cell phone to check Facebook, revealing the position of the assault ship. The Chinese or Russians quickly detect the cell phone signal in the middle of the ocean and realize they can’t miss. The enemy fires its anti-ship ballistic or cruise missiles at Pfc./Seaman Schmuckatelli as he posts a meme and suddenly the entire ship along with thousands of sailors and Marines are lying on the ocean floor.
To some, this type of scenario may seem as hyperbolic as warnings that wearing white socks in combat could give away your location to the enemy, but Russian troops in Ukraine have shown the perils of using cell phones in modern-day warzones.
The Ukrainians claim to have killed 12 general Russian officers since late February, in part because the Russians have resorted to using cell phones when their communications systems break down.
“It is not hard to geo-locate someone on a phone talking in the clear,” retired Army Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army Europe, told the New York Times.
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When Russian troops cross into Ukraine, their cell phones emit a roaming signal that connects to Ukraine’s cellular network, allowing the Ukrainians to triangulate where the Russians are by using the closest three cell towers, said Artem Starosiek, CEO of Molfar, an open-source intelligence community based in Kyiv.
“So, the Ukrainian special services automatically receive information with the ID number of the device, roaming number, and, of course, the location of the person,” Starosiek told Task & Purpose. “Fortunately, Russians are quite naive and ignorant about using mobile devices, so they often call home, turning on their phones and connecting to the Ukrainian stations.”
The Russians have also given away their positions by stealing Ukrainian iPhones, which can be tracked using the Find My iPhone app, even when the phones are turned off, Starosiek said.
One Ukrainian man was able to use the “Find My” feature on Apple products to track the Russian troops who stole his AirPods, The Times of London reported. Vitaliy Semenets has posted on Instagram the path of the Russians as they retreated from Kyiv into Belarus and then repositioned in the Russian city of Belgorad, near Ukraine’s eastern border.
Amid numerous reports that the Ukrainians can track and target Russian troops when they use cell phones, one question remains: Why don’t the Russians destroy Ukraine’s cellular network?
The answer: They need it, said James Lewis, a technology expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, D.C.
“That’s ridiculous, but that’s where it is,” Lewis told Task & Purpose. “The Russians need 3G and 4G for their comms to work. They didn’t set up the independent communications networks that the Americans or Chinese might have set up.”
While the Russians had developed encrypted communications handsets for their special operations forces, those handsets were not widely distributed among Russian troops before the latest invasion of Ukraine, Lewis said.
Corruption could be another factor that has played into why the Russian military has proven to be so poor at using secure communications, he said.
“There are good examples – not always public – of the Russians identifying a security goal and then allocating, in one case, $10 billion to it; and $5 billion of it ended up in Switzerland,” Lewis said.
The Russians also did not adequately plan for the invasion because they honestly thought that the Ukrainians would welcome them as liberators, he said. The combined effects of the corruption, poor planning, and resulting logistical problems is that there are now many images online showing Russian troops using cell phones or even the type of unencrypted walkie talkies that you could purchase at toy stores.
More and more evidence is emerging that the Russian forces rely on civilian radios and mobile phones for their communications. Our source in one invading unit confirms this.

This photograph is said to show a civilian radio captured by Ukrainians.https://t.co/ppwYktFsaD
— CIT (en) (@CITeam_en) February 28, 2022
Looking at the Russian failures in Ukraine so far, it’s tempting to think the militaries of NATO members wouldn’t make the same mistake, but they have. In November, Polish troops that had been deployed to the border with Belarus left the dating apps on their cell phones on. Just across the border in the city of Grodno, the Belarusians knew exactly how far away the Polish troops were.
U.S. troops are far from immune to unintentionally revealing their positions by using mobile devices. In 2018, a company that gathers data from consumer fitness devices such as FitBits revealed that American service members were essentially drawing GPS maps of their bases in the Middle East and Afghanistan every time they went running.
Later that year, the Defense Department banned troops from using cell phones, fitness trackers, and other devices that use geolocation features, and now many offices in the Pentagon require people to leave their cell phones in lockers outside. A subsequent New York Times investigation revealed that companies can track people’s smartphones inside the Pentagon by using software on mobile phone apps.
The Russians’ experience in Ukraine is a warning to U.S. troops about what can happen if they act carelessly. In 2020, a bored Marine lance corporal got his entire artillery unit “killed” during an exercise at Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, California, when he used his cell phone to take a selfie, Military.com reported.
“The Marine Corps understands signature management must be incorporated into planning efforts and training,” said Marine spokesman Maj. Gregory Carroll, who added that the Corps will soon release its new doctrine on information warfighting.
“A passive way to deny the opponent vital information is to selectively alter or suppress the visual, electromagnetic, and digital signatures emanating from friendly forces,” Carroll said. “This includes implementing operations security measures, communication discipline, camouflage, counterintelligence, and signature management.”
Soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division surrender their cell phones before deploying to Europe, February 14, 2021, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. (Allison Joyce / AFP via Getty Images)
Soldiers are also trained to turn off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radios when not using them, encrypt sensitive files, and only download trusted apps, said Maj. Andrew Harshbarger, a spokesman for Army Training and Doctrine Command. Soldiers’ mobile devices can also be disabled and confiscated when necessary.
The U.S. military has been concerned about troops inadvertently revealing their positions by using cell phones long before Russia attacked Ukraine in late February.
Commanders have known for years that U.S. troops forces have lost their fieldcraft skills at hiding their electronic, thermal, infrared, and visible signatures, said retired Gen Robert Neller, the former Marine Corps Commandant.
“We need to make the adversary work to find us – we can’t make it easy for them to find us,” Neller told Task & Purpose.
Neller recalled how Marines used to stay in touch with their families while in the field and on deployments by sending and receiving mail. While modern technology has made it easier for troops to stay in touch with loved ones, it has also created a new series of problems.
A few years ago, the I Marine Expeditionary Force conducted an exercise to find out which part of the base had the largest electromagnetic signature, he said.
“The most readily apparent thing from high overhead was the billeting area, where people were living, because they all were using their phones,” Neller said.
While Marines have improved at concealing their electronic signatures, they need to remain concerned about unintentionally revealing their positions, said Neller, who noted that even PlayStations can be detected by adversaries because they are networked.
“I don’t understand why people don’t understand,” Neller said. “If I can find you, I can target you; and if I can target you, I can shoot you; and if I can shoot at you, I can kill you. It’s pretty simple.”
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Jeff Schogol is the senior Pentagon reporter for Task & Purpose. He has covered the military for 15 years. You can email him at schogol@taskandpurpose.com, direct message @JeffSchogol on Twitter, or reach him on WhatsApp and Signal at 703-909-6488. Contact the author here.

taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol · May 13, 2022

16. The Work Required to Have an Opinion

Good advice for all of us. Have we done the work?

The best course I ever took in college was at Georgetown University with Professor William Douglas who taught Ethics in International Affairs. Every paper we wrote had to be a debate in which we argued both sides of an argument. We would choose the argument for debate e.g., "Resolved drones provide an ethical dilemma for the military" and then we had to write out the arguments and talking points for the Pro and the Con. It was one of the most difficult yet enlightening and worthwhile work I ever encountered in college. It is a practical application for the excellent davice in the article below.

As a very unique aside Professor Douglas, a true renaissance man, provided a poem for every class. The poetry was in many forms from verse to Haiku and each on delta with a national security topic. You can download his work at this link: "Special Issue: The Poetry of International Ethics "By William A. Douglas https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/GSSR-Poetry.pdf

The Work Required to Have an Opinion
While we all hold an opinion on almost everything, how many of us actually do the work required to have an opinion?
I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.
— Charlie Munger
The work is the hard part, that’s why people avoid it. You have to do the reading. You have to talk to competent people and understand their arguments. You have to think about the key variables and how they interact over time. You have to listen and chase down arguments that run counter to your views. You have to think about how you might be fooling yourself. You have to see the issue from multiple perspectives. You have to think. You need to become your most intelligent critic and have the intellectual honesty to kill some of your best-loved ideas.
We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your ideas when the time is right is one of the most valuable qualities you can acquire. You must force yourself to consider arguments on the other side.
— Charlie Munger
As Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (1135–1204), commonly known as Maimonides, said: “Teach thy tongue to say I do not know, and thou shalt progress.”
Doing the work required to hold an opinion means you can argue against yourself better than others can. Only then can you say, “I can hold this view because I can’t find anyone else who can argue better against my view.”
Great thinkers, like Charles Darwin, did the work. And it’s one of the biggest reasons he’s buried at Westminster Abbey.
Doing the work required to hold an opinion means you can argue against yourself better than others can.
Doing the work counteracts our natural desire to seek out only information that confirms what we believe we know.
When Darwin encountered opinions or facts that ran contrary to his ideas, he endeavored not only to listen but also not to rest until he could either argue better than his challengers or understand how the fact fit. Darwin did the work. It’s wasn’t easy, but that’s the point.
The difference between the people who do the work and the people who just reel off memorized opinions is huge. When you do the work, you can answer the next question. You know when to follow the rules and when they’ll get you in trouble.
When I did my MBA, I was surrounded by people who could answer the test questions. They got good grades — actually, they got great grades but an odd thing happened after school: a lot of those people couldn’t apply their knowledge to problems they hadn’t seen before.
They were chauffeurs — they knew the memorized answer. They couldn’t answer the next question. We’re all chauffeurs in some aspects of our lives. This is why understanding your circle of competence is so critical to living a rational life.
The ability to destroy your ideas rapidly instead of slowly when the occasion is right is one of the most valuable things. You have to work hard on it. Ask yourself what are the arguments on the other side. It’s bad to have an opinion you’re proud of if you can’t state the arguments for the other side better than your opponents. This is a great mental discipline.
— Charlie Munger
Doing the work means you can’t make up your mind with a high degree of confidence right away.
Doing the work forces you to challenge your beliefs because you have to argue from both sides. You become the somewhat impartial judge. What’s on trial is your opinion.
If you want to work with the world rather than against it, one of the major leverage points you can put effort into is how to distinguish between the people who’ve done the work and those who haven’t. The ones who have will pass the Batesian Mimicry Test.


V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Personal Email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
Web Site: www.fdd.org
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
VIDEO "WHEREBY" Link: https://whereby.com/david-maxwell
Subscribe to FDD’s new podcastForeign Podicy
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Personal Email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
Web Site: www.fdd.org
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Subscribe to FDD’s new podcastForeign Podicy
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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