Quotes of the Day:
"Political action means taking on responsibility. This cannot happen without power. Power is to serve responsibility."
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people. Such a program constitutes cultural invasion, good intentions notwithstanding."
- Paulo Freire
"A wise man ought to realize that health is his most valuable possession."
- Hippocrates
1. Opinion | President Biden: What America Will and Will Not Do in Ukraine
2. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MAY 31 (PUTIN'S WAR)
3. US to Send Ukraine Advanced Rockets; Kyiv Promises Not to Fire Into Russia
4. Biden administration to send long-range rocket system to Ukraine as part of new aid package
5. Documents Reveal Alleged Russian PSYOP Instructions For Dealing With Ukrainians
6. Leaked Audio Footage Reveals How Russian Troops, Fed Up With Putin’s War, Nearly Blew Up Their General
7. Send In the Marines for a Modernization By Seth Moulton and Mike Gallagher
8. China president warned Biden democracy is dying: "You don't have the time"
9. A former president of Estonia predicted Russia would invade Ukraine
10. Three More Nations Join Ukraine Planning Cell Run By Army Special Forces
11. The Ukrainian Missile "Crisis"
12. Russian Military Is Repeating Mistakes in Eastern Ukraine, U.S. Says
13. U.S. reinserts troops in Somalia after long-awaited elections are completed
14. Why Ukraine is pleading with the US for rocket artillery
15. Don’t Let Iran Humiliate the IAEA Again
16. Lebanon Has an Opposition Movement Again
17. 'I was wrong': Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen concedes she misread threat of inflation
18. Combat white supremacist violence using sanctions
19. Why Is Israeli-Palestinian Violence Returning to Jenin?
20. Twelve propositions on the state of the world
21. War Is Still War: Don’t Listen to the Cult of Cyber
22. The Xinjiang Police Files Should Prompt Action Against Uyghur Genocide
23. Inside a Biden White House adrift
24. America’s Interests in Ukraine
1. Opinion | President Biden: What America Will and Will Not Do in Ukraine
Guidance from the CINC. I wonder how many local papers across the country have published this editorial from the President. Not so many people read the NY Times in 'flyover country."
I am glad he wrote this (as well as recent his WSJ OPED on inflation and the economy). He must communicate with the people.
He lays out what is the acceptable durable political arrangement for region:
America’s goal is straightforward: We want to see a democratic, independent, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine with the means to deter and defend itself against further aggression.
I also very much agree with this statement:
My principle throughout this crisis has been “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” I will not pressure the Ukrainian government — in private or public — to make any territorial concessions. It would be wrong and contrary to well-settled principles to do so.
My criticism of the Ukraine plan is this. As we know all strategies are based on assumptions. We are basing our restraint and emplacing constraints on the Ukrainians based on the assumption that such restraints will prevent Putin from escalating and that we can help Ukraine defend itself only within its borders. What we are doing is providing Russian forces sanctions and allowing them advantage of interior lines as they prosecute the war in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainians should strike legitimate targets in Russia, e.g., if Russia is attacking Ukraine with long range missiles launched from Russian territory Ukraine has the right of self defense.
If the assumption about Russian escalation fails we need to be prepared to adjust our strategy. We need to prepare for the worst rather than hope for the best (what are Russia's most likely and mist dangerous courses of action?).
We are also making the implied assumption that Ukraine can successfully defeat Russia by only conducting operations and fighting within its borders and that even with the sanctuary we are de facto providing in Russia, Ukraine will prevail.
And related to all of this is that by showing restraint we assume that such restraint will somehow moderate Putin's behavior and decision making. I think we have seen his "immoderate behavior: in places such as Bucha and I fear his interpretation of our restraint means he has license to conduct his war for as long as it takes no matter the cost in blood and treasure to both the Russian and Ukrainian people. The war will in fact be prolonged by our self restraint.
This is the excerpt that concerns me:
So long as the United States or our allies are not attacked, we will not be directly engaged in this conflict, either by sending American troops to fight in Ukraine or by attacking Russian forces. We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders. We do not want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on Russia.
Although opening phrase provides an important caveat, we are undercutting our diplomatic instrument and informational instruments of power by self limiting our military instrument based on what I believe is an erroneous assumption about Putin and his war.
I think this would be an outstanding OpEd (and guidance to the forces and coalition) if three sentences were removed. I think the argument for restraint may be appropriate for the current time but we should not telegraph that restraint and we should always keep the use of force on the table, both ours and the Ukrainian's. We are limiting our leverage for any diplomatic action.
Opinion | President Biden: What America Will and Will Not Do in Ukraine
Guest Essay
President Biden: What America Will and Will Not Do in Ukraine
May 31, 2022
Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
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By
Mr. Biden is president of the United States.
The invasion Vladimir Putin thought would last days is now in its fourth month. The Ukrainian people surprised Russia and inspired the world with their sacrifice, grit and battlefield success. The free world and many other nations, led by the United States, rallied to Ukraine’s side with unprecedented military, humanitarian and financial support.
As the war goes on, I want to be clear about the aims of the United States in these efforts.
America’s goal is straightforward: We want to see a democratic, independent, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine with the means to deter and defend itself against further aggression.
As President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has said, ultimately this war “will only definitively end through diplomacy.” Every negotiation reflects the facts on the ground. We have moved quickly to send Ukraine a significant amount of weaponry and ammunition so it can fight on the battlefield and be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.
That’s why I’ve decided that we will provide the Ukrainians with more advanced rocket systems and munitions that will enable them to more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield in Ukraine.
We will continue cooperating with our allies and partners on Russian sanctions, the toughest ever imposed on a major economy. We will continue providing Ukraine with advanced weaponry, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger antiaircraft missiles, powerful artillery and precision rocket systems, radars, unmanned aerial vehicles, Mi-17 helicopters and ammunition. We will also send billions more in financial assistance, as authorized by Congress. We will work with our allies and partners to address the global food crisis that Russia’s aggression is worsening. And we will help our European allies and others reduce their dependence on Russian fossil fuels, and speed our transition to a clean energy future.
We will also continue reinforcing NATO’s eastern flank with forces and capabilities from the United States and other allies. And just recently, I welcomed Finland’s and Sweden’s applications to join NATO, a move that will strengthen overall U.S. and trans-Atlantic security by adding two democratic and highly capable military partners.
We do not seek a war between NATO and Russia. As much as I disagree with Mr. Putin, and find his actions an outrage, the United States will not try to bring about his ouster in Moscow. So long as the United States or our allies are not attacked, we will not be directly engaged in this conflict, either by sending American troops to fight in Ukraine or by attacking Russian forces. We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders. We do not want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on Russia.
My principle throughout this crisis has been “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” I will not pressure the Ukrainian government — in private or public — to make any territorial concessions. It would be wrong and contrary to well-settled principles to do so.
Ukraine’s talks with Russia are not stalled because Ukraine has turned its back on diplomacy. They are stalled because Russia continues to wage a war to take control of as much of Ukraine as it can. The United States will continue to work to strengthen Ukraine and support its efforts to achieve a negotiated end to the conflict.
Unprovoked aggression, the bombing of maternity hospitals and centers of culture, and the forced displacement of millions of people makes the war in Ukraine a profound moral issue. I met with Ukrainian refugees in Poland — women and children who were unsure what their lives would be, and whether the loved ones who stayed behind in Ukraine would be OK. No person of conscience could be unmoved by the devastation of these horrors.
Standing by Ukraine in its hour of need is not just the right thing to do. It is in our vital national interests to ensure a peaceful and stable Europe and to make it clear that might does not make right. If Russia does not pay a heavy price for its actions, it will send a message to other would-be aggressors that they too can seize territory and subjugate other countries. It will put the survival of other peaceful democracies at risk. And it could mark the end of the rules-based international order and open the door to aggression elsewhere, with catastrophic consequences the world over.
I know many people around the world are concerned about the use of nuclear weapons. We currently see no indication that Russia has intent to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, though Russia’s occasional rhetoric to rattle the nuclear saber is itself dangerous and extremely irresponsible. Let me be clear: Any use of nuclear weapons in this conflict on any scale would be completely unacceptable to us as well as the rest of the world and would entail severe consequences.
Americans will stay the course with the Ukrainian people because we understand that freedom is not free. That’s what we have always done whenever the enemies of freedom seek to bully and oppress innocent people, and it is what we are doing now. Vladimir Putin did not expect this degree of unity or the strength of our response. He was mistaken. If he expects that we will waver or fracture in the months to come, he is equally mistaken.
Joseph R. Biden Jr. (@POTUS) is the 46th president of the United States.
2. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MAY 31 (PUTIN'S WAR)
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MAY 31
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 31
Kateryna Stepanenko, Karolina Hird, and Frederick W. Kagan
May 31, 5:45pm ET
Moscow’s concentration on seizing Severodonetsk and Donbas generally continues to create vulnerabilities for Russia in Ukraine’s vital Kherson Oblast, where Ukrainian counter-offensives continue. Kherson is critical terrain because it is the only area of Ukraine in which Russian forces hold ground on the west bank of the Dnipro River. If Russia is able to retain a strong lodgment in Kherson when fighting stops it will be in a very strong position from which to launch a future invasion. If Ukraine regains Kherson, on the other hand, Ukraine will be in a much stronger position to defend itself against future Russian attack. This strategic calculus should in principle lead Russia to allocate sufficient combat power to hold Kherson. But Russian President Vladimir Putin has chosen instead to concentrate all the forces and resources that can be scraped together in a desperate and bloody push to seize areas of eastern Ukraine that will give him largely symbolic gains. Continuing successful Ukrainian counter-offensives in Kherson indicate that Ukraine’s commanders recognize these realities and are taking advantage of the vulnerabilities that Putin’s decisions have created.
The Ukrainian leadership has apparently wisely avoided matching Putin’s mistaken prioritization. Kyiv could have committed more reserves and resources to the defense of Severodonetsk, and its failure to do so has drawn criticism.[1] Ukrainian forces are now apparently withdrawing from Severodonetsk rather than fighting to the end—a factor that has allowed the Russians to move into the city relatively rapidly after beginning their full-scale assault.[2] Both the decision to avoid committing more resources to saving Severodonetsk and the decision to withdraw from it were strategically sound, however painful. Ukraine must husband its more limited resources and focus on regaining critical terrain rather than on defending ground whose control will not determine the outcome of the war or the conditions for the renewal of war.
Sound Ukrainian prioritization of counter-offensive and defensive operations pushed the Russians almost out of artillery range of Kharkiv City and have stopped the Russian advances from Izyum—both of which are more important accomplishments than the defense of Severodonetsk. Ukraine’s leadership has had to make incredibly difficult choices in this war and has generally made the right ones, at least at the level of strategic prioritization and in the pace, scale, and ambitiousness of its counter-offensives. That is why Ukraine still has a good chance to stop and then reverse the gains Russia is currently making.
Russian forces are likely attempting to exploit Belarusian equipment reserves to compensate for heavy material losses in Ukraine. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on May 31 that Belarusian forces are moving tanks and infantry fighting vehicles from storage facilities in Belarus to Russia to replenish combat losses.[3] This report corroborates previous reporting that Russian forces have largely exhausted their own reserves and indicates that the Kremlin is still leveraging its influence over Belarus in order to use Belarusian equipment.
Some pro-Russian milbloggers began to capture the frustrating realities of limited warfare, which may further intensify societal tensions in Russia. Pro-Russian political figure and self-proclaimed “People’s Governor of Donetsk Oblast” Pavel Gubarev said that the limited mobilization of Russians for war has divided Russian society into two groups: a small proportion that is involved in the war and the “peacetime Russians” who distance themselves from the war effort and are inconvenienced by foreign sanctions.[4] Gubarev blamed the “peacetime Russians” for failing to start collecting donations for Russian equipment, while criticizing the Kremlin for increasing propaganda about Russian successes during the “special military operation” in Ukraine. Gubarev also blamed the “peacetime Russians” for slowing down rotation rates due to fear of conscription. Guberev noted that mass mobilization could resolve the divide in society but opined that Russian commanders will not order such a mobilization to avoid mass casualties of unprepared conscripts as occurred, he notes, in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR).
Gubarev is accurately capturing a phenomenon that is normal in a limited war that nevertheless generates high casualties. Resentment by those fighting such a war and their families against those who are untouched by the horrors of combat can grow even in an all-volunteer professional military, as Western countries experienced during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It is likely to be even more pronounced in Russia, whose military relies so heavily on conscripts and involuntarily-recalled reservists. This resentment can erode morale and will to fight as well as the propensity to volunteer for military service.
Russian citizens continued to conduct a series of attacks on Russian military recruitment centers in late May, likely in protest of covert mobilization. Russian Telegram channel Baza reported that the Russian Federal Security Service arrested a former Moscow artist and opposition figure, Ilya Farber, for Molotov Cocktail attacks on military recruitment centers in Udmurtia in the Urals on May 21.[5] A Russian court had previously sentenced Farber to an eight-year prison sentence for a bribery case. The case gained Farber significant support from Russian opposition leaders.[6] Farber admitted to committing arson in court on May 30. Baza also reported two more attacks on recruitment centers in Simferopol and Tula Oblast on May 28 and May 31, respectively.[7]
Key Takeaways
- Russian forces are increasingly focused on advancing on Slovyansk from the southeast of Izyum and west of Lyman.
- Russian forces are making gains within and around Severodonetsk.
- Russian forces are likely hoping to advance on Lysychansk from Toshkivka in order to avoid having to fight across the Severskyi Donets River from Severodonetsk.
- The Russian grouping in Kherson Oblast is likely feeling the pressure of the limited Ukrainian counteroffensive in northwestern Kherson Oblast, especially as much of the Russian operational focus is currently on the capture of Severodonetsk.
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 four primary efforts Russian forces are engaged in at this time. We have stopped coverage of Mariupol as a separate effort since the city’s fall. We had added a new section on activities in Russian-occupied areas:
- Main effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and three supporting efforts);
- Subordinate main effort- Encirclement of Ukrainian troops in the cauldron between Izyum and Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts
- Supporting effort 1—Kharkiv City;
- Supporting effort 2—Southern axis;
- Activities in Russian-occupied areas
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 continued to regroup and prepare for renewed offensives southeast of Izyum and made minor, unsuccessful attacks towards Slovyansk on May 31.[8] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces attempted to attack Dovhenke, 20 kilometers south of Izyum, but were unsuccessful.[9] Russian forces additionally shelled Ukrainian positions to the southwest and southeast of Izyum and struck Dovhenke, Virnopillya, Husarivka, and Velyka Komyshuvakha in order to prepare for resumed offensives.[10] A Russian Telegram channel claimed that Russian forces are fighting in Bohorodychne, Svyatohirsk, and Schurove, settlements between the southeast of Izyum and northwest of Slovyansk.[11]
Russian forces are additionally pushing westward towards Slovyansk from the Lyman area.[12] A Russian Telegram channel indicated that Russian forces now control the road through Raihorodok and are advancing westward from Raihorodok and eastward from Izyum to drive on Slovyansk.[13] Recent renewed offensives towards Slovyansk likely indicate that Russian forces intend to attempt to take full control of Donetsk Oblast by seizing Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, although their ability to do so is far from clear.
Russian forces continued ground assaults in and around Severodonetsk on May 31.[14] Russian forces, including Chechen units, now control up to 70% of the city and continue to make gains within the city center.[15] Ukrainian troops are reportedly withdrawing from the center of the city. [16] Head of Luhansk Regional State Administration Serhiy Haidai stated that Russian forces will begin clearing the villages around Severodonetsk in the coming days, likely in order to support the encirclement of the area.[17] The Ukrainian General Staff additionally reported that fighting is on-going in Toshkivka, to the south of Severodonetsk.[18] Russian advances north of Toshkivka are likely intended to support the capture of Lysychansk and would allow Russian forces to advance on Lysychansk from the south as opposed to fighting westward across the Siverskyi Donets River from Severodonetsk. Russian forces failed to advance across the Siverskyi Donets River from Bilohorivka and are likely eager to avoid another costly river crossing.
Russian forces continued ground assaults to the east of Bakhmut on May 31.[19] The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Russian troops are fighting in Zolote, Komyshuvakha, Nyrkove, Berestove, Pokrovske, and Dolomitne, all settlements along the eastern arc of Bakhmut.[20] Russian forces likely intend to keep pushing to gain access to the Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to the northeast of Bakhmut to support their seizure of the Severodonetsk-Lysychansk area. Russian forces reportedly made incremental gains near the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border and took control of Blahodatne and Neskuchne.[21] Russian troops additionally claimed to have made marginal gains north of Donetsk City in the direction of Niu York and reportedly took control of Novoselivka Druha on May 31.[22]
Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv City (Russian objective: Withdraw forces to the north and defend ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum)
Russian forces continued to fire on Kharkiv City and its environs and did not make any confirmed advances on May 31.[23] The Ukrainian General Staff noted that the Russian grouping in this area is comprised of elements of the Western Military District, which are focusing on preventing further Ukrainian advances towards the international border.[24] Head of Kharkiv Regional State Administration Oleg Synegubov stated that Russian forces conducted artillery strikes against the Osnovyanskyi and Kyivskyi districts of Kharkiv City, Korotych, Udy, Zolochiv, and Chkalovske.[25]
Supporting Effort #2—Southern Axis (Objective: Defend Kherson and Zaporozhia Oblasts against Ukrainian counterattacks)
Ukrainian forces continued a counteroffensive in northwestern Kherson Oblast on May 31 and are pushing Russian forces east of the Inhulets River. Ukrainian forces launched several localized counterattacks west of the Inhulets River in the past few days.[26] Ukraine’s Office of Strategic Communications published images of destroyed Russian artillery equipment in Davydiv Brid, an operationally significant settlement that sits astride the Russian-controlled T2207 highway.[27] The T2207 highway loops around the northeastern Kherson Oblast boundary until it connects with the parallel T0403 highway to Krvyyi Rih and Zaporizhia City in the east. Russian forces have struggled to consolidate control over the eastern segment of the T2207 due to Ukrainian counteroffensives in the area. The Ukrainian counteroffensive on Davydiv Brid could hinder Russia’s ability to support units north of the settlement where they face Ukrainian counteroffensives from further north. The Ukrainian General Staff did not confirm that Ukrainian forces liberated Davydiv Brid, but numerous social media videos and reports suggest that Russian forces may have withdrawn from the settlement on May 31.[28] The Ukrainian General Staff also confirmed that Ukrainian forces liberated another settlement on the eastern segment of the T2207 highway.[29] Russian Telegram channels expressed concern for the possible increase of Ukrainian troops in the area, likely seeing the risk of increasing Ukrainian counteroffensives in the Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih directions.[30] The Russian prioritization of the Battle of Severodonetsk and the Donbas offensive operation continues to create vulnerabilities in the critical terrain of Kherson Oblast.
Activity in Russian-occupied areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of occupied areas; set conditions for potential annexation into the Russian Federation or some other future political arrangement of Moscow’s choosing)
Russian occupation authorities continued to loot and set conditions for permanent societal control in occupied Ukrainian settlements. Mariupol Mayor’s Adviser Petro Andryushenko reported that Russian forces began to “nationalize” the Port of Mariupol, which included seizing the remaining 34 Ukrainian ships there.[31] Russian forces in Mariupol and Melitopol began accepting documents for Russian citizenship and have aimed a simplified passport procedure specifically at orphans.[32] Russian forces are also continuing mass burials, with geolocated video footage suggesting that they have already buried 22,000 to 45,000 Mariupol residents.[33]
Russian forces continued to face significant challenges in their attempts to consolidate occupation authority on May 31. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that the Russian-appointed mayor of Melitopol Halyna Danylenko resigned due to partisan activity in the city.[34] The Ukrainian Resistance Center added that Ukrainian entrepreneurs stopped the operation of the Kupyansk Dairy Cannery in northeastern Kharkiv Oblast and are refusing to use Russian banks and currency.[35]
[4] https://army dot ru/ryadovoj-gubarev-kakaya-nam-nuzhna-mobilizacziya/
[6] https://www dot timesofisrael.com/anti-jewish-undertones-grab-spotlight-at-russian-trial/
[27] https://nv dot ua/ukraine/events/hersonskaya-oblast-zsu-unichtozhili-voennyh-rf-v-sele-davydov-brod-50246612.html
[34] https://sprotyv dot mod.gov.ua/2022/05/31/gaulyajter-melitopolya-nalyakana-j-hoche-jty-u-vidstavku/
[35] https://sprotyv dot mod.gov.ua/2022/05/31/na-harkivshhyni-pidpryyemstva-sabotuyut-spivpraczyu-z-okupantamy/
3. US to Send Ukraine Advanced Rockets; Kyiv Promises Not to Fire Into Russia
The right of self defense should never be denied. What we are saying is that Russia can fire at will from its territory while Ukraine can only attack targets within Ukraine.
US to Send Ukraine Advanced Rockets; Kyiv Promises Not to Fire Into Russia
The fourth large arms package announced by the administration includes HIMARS for defensive use only, as Biden eyes “negotiating table.”
The United States plans to send Ukraine advanced long-range artillery that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had requested for weeks, but Biden administration officials said would only be armed with limited-range munitions and would not be used to strike targets inside of Russia.
White House officials on Tuesday announced that the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, would be part of new $700 million arms package for Ukraine, which has received increasingly more advanced and lethal weapons to fight Russia’s invasion.
“At this time, we've decided not to provide the longer range of munitions,” a senior administration official said.
On Monday, President Joe Biden told reporters that his administration will “not…send to Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia,” according to a White House pool report.
But medium-range rockets could reach Russia, if fired from positions near its border.
In the later briefing with reporters, the senior administration official said, “The Ukrainians have given us assurances they will not use these systems against targets in Russian territory.”
“We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders,” Biden wrote in an op-ed published Tuesday in The New York Times. He wrote that the weapons sent to Ukraine were intended to help Zelenskyy “fight on the battlefield and be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.”
The aid package also includes additional helicopters, counterfire radars, air surveillance radars, Javelin anti-tank weapons, and more artillery rounds for the more than 100 howitzers the United States has already provided. The package will also include vehicles and spare parts to maintain all of the weapons already provided, the official said.
This is the fourth major tranche of weapons to be sent to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February. The White House announced three $800 million weapons packages to aid Ukraine between March 16 and April 21.
After exhausting the funds Congress had allotted for Ukraine, Biden last month asked Congress for an additional $33 billion to keep weapons flowing to Kyiv, in addition to providing money for economic aid, humanitarian recovery efforts, and restocking American weapons stockpiles.
Lawmakers surpassed the president’s request and overwhelmingly approved a $40 billion supplemental funding bill on May 19. Biden signed the bill during his trip to Asia.
4. Biden administration to send long-range rocket system to Ukraine as part of new aid package
Excerpts:
The senior administration officials said the Pentagon would also provide air surveillance radars, additional javelins, as well as anti-armor weapons. The HIMARS rocket system has a range of about 70 kilometers or roughly 43 miles, according to the Pentagon. This is the eleventh security package that the Biden administration has sent to Ukraine.
...
The package, which Biden signed on a plane during his trip to Asia earlier this month, is intended to get Ukraine through September as the Russian invasion approaches its fourth month.
The aid package included more than $20 billion for the Pentagon to provide weapons, intelligence and training, and nearly $14 billion for the State Department for food aid, refugee assistance and other diplomatic programs.
Biden administration to send long-range rocket system to Ukraine as part of new aid package
| USA TODAY
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State Department briefing highlights Ukraine, Iran
State Department officials say the Biden administration is concerned over Russian President Vladimir Putin's attempts to "institutionalize control" over Ukraine's Kherson region. (May 31)
AP
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden said Tuesday his administration would send advanced, long-range rocket systems to Ukraine to combat Russian forces, even as he vowed the U.S. has no intention of trying to oust Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In perhaps the clearest statement yet of America's role in the war, Biden promised more advanced weaponry and financial assistance for Ukraine and deeper isolation for Russia. But in a New York Times op-ed, Biden also spelled out what the U.S. will not do.
“As much as I disagree with Mr. Putin, and find his actions an outrage, the United States will not try to bring about his ouster in Moscow," the president wrote. "We do not seek a war between NATO and Russia."
The op-ed landed as the White House agreed to send precision-strike, long-range weapons systems to Ukraine – something the country's leaders have been pleading for amid Russia’s escalating attacks in the eastern part of the country. Those weapons would be part of a new $700 million security package that will be formally announced on Wednesday.
Biden's op-ed comes a day after he said the U.S. was not going “to send to Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia.”
Senior administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Tuesday the U.S. would be sending HIMARS (High Mobility Rocket Systems) to Ukraine. The officials said in a call with reporters that Ukrainian officials assured the United States the rockets would only be used to repel Russian forces in Ukraine and not to attack Russian territory.
“We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders,” Biden wrote in the op-ed. “We do not want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on Russia.”
The senior administration officials said the Pentagon would also provide air surveillance radars, additional javelins, as well as anti-armor weapons. The HIMARS rocket system has a range of about 70 kilometers or roughly 43 miles, according to the Pentagon. This is the eleventh security package that the Biden administration has sent to Ukraine.
Biden and his advisers have sometimes sent mixed messages about America's aims as it seeks to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia's invasion.
Biden raised eyebrows in March during a trip to Poland when he said Putin “cannot remain in power,” which appeared to suggest he supported the Russian leader's ouster. White House aides scrambled to clarify the president’s comments, saying the administration did not have a strategy of regime change in Russia.
In April, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the United States wanted to see Russia "weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine." Other Biden advisers have since declined to clarify those remarks.
In Tuesday's op-ed, Biden reiterated his commitment to not send American troops to fight in Ukraine or to attack Russian forces – as long as the United States and members of the NATO alliance are not attacked.
“America’s goal is straightforward: We want to see a democratic, independent, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine with the means to deter and defend itself against further aggression,” Biden wrote.
"So long as the United States or our allies are not attacked, we will not be directly engaged in this conflict, either by sending American troops to fight in Ukraine or by attacking Russian forces," the president wrote.
Biden said the new long-range weapons and munitions would help the Ukrainian forces "to more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield in Ukraine." And he said the U.S. would continue to work with its allies to isolate Russia politically and economically.
The package, which Biden signed on a plane during his trip to Asia earlier this month, is intended to get Ukraine through September as the Russian invasion approaches its fourth month.
The aid package included more than $20 billion for the Pentagon to provide weapons, intelligence and training, and nearly $14 billion for the State Department for food aid, refugee assistance and other diplomatic programs.
Contributing: Jeanine Santucci and Ella Lee
Reach Rebecca Morin at Twitter @RebeccaMorin_
Zelenskyy rejects Kissinger plan to concede parts of Ukraine to Russia
Henry Kissinger urged Ukraine to concede occupied territory, telling the West not to pursue a defeat of Russia to facilitate an end to the conflict.
Damien Henderson, Associated Press
5. Documents Reveal Alleged Russian PSYOP Instructions For Dealing With Ukrainians
Excerpts:
Blame everything on Ukrainians themselves. More specifically, the current Ukrainian government and the United States.
“We do not blame “Khokhlov” (an ethnic slur for Ukrainians) or Ukrainians for everything. We blame the puppets Poroshenko, Zelensky, and their puppeteers of the USA,” a section reads.
...
However, Russian soldiers are instructed to avoid saying “that people are being fired at in [Russian controlled] Donbas.” The document notes, “Locals do not take this well.”
Instead, the PSYOP document instructs Russian soldiers to portray a delusory alternate reality in which the shelling, missile strikes, and fighting for the past three months have all been the work of a corrupt Ukrainian nationalist regime.
“We bring humanitarian aid and food since your government abandoned you,” soldiers are told to respond if asked, “Why are you here?”
Documents Reveal Alleged Russian PSYOP Instructions For Dealing With Ukrainians - The Debrief
Kremlin documents purportedly reveal instructions to Russian soldiers on conducting effective psychological operations, or PSYOP, when dealing with Ukrainians in occupied territories.
The documents were recently discovered after being abandoned by Russian troops near the Kyiv suburb of Dymer.
Based on the documents, Moscow’s plans for winning over the hearts and minds of Ukrainians whose lives have been in constant peril since Russia launched its invasion over three months ago are relatively straightforward.
Blame everything on Ukrainians themselves. More specifically, the current Ukrainian government and the United States.
“We do not blame “Khokhlov” (an ethnic slur for Ukrainians) or Ukrainians for everything. We blame the puppets Poroshenko, Zelensky, and their puppeteers of the USA,” a section reads.
First page of instructions to Russian soldiers on conducting effective PSYOPs, when dealing with Ukrainians in occupied territories. (Image Source: Melaniya-Mariya Podolyak/ Telegram)
The documents chart eight key themes that should be avoided regarding questions Ukrainians might pose to Russian soldiers. Further sections cover the appropriate or “essential” responses and explanations for how a message supports the Kremlin’s PSYOP goals. In some instances, additional supplementary notes are provided for added clarification.
If confronted with questions about pets, looters, or territorial defense fighters killed by Russian forces, soldiers are instructed to avoid the terms “shot,” “liquidated,” or “killed.” The document notes these terms “[have] an extremely negative effect on the representatives of the local population.”
Instead, Russian soldiers are told to reply, “The problem has been solved.”
Many themes show that a central tenet of the Kremlin’s PSYOP focus involves shifting blame for the war on the current Ukrainian government.
If asked why troops are armed or locals express fear towards Russian authorities, soldiers are instructed to avoid mentioning the word “war” and say they are “temporarily replacing the police that has abandoned you.” The document says an emphasis should be placed on locals being abandoned by the “Kyiv police.”
An element of fear is added by instructing soldiers to tell the populace that bands of looters and “criminals armed by Zelensky” are roaming the streets.
When it comes to the underlying PSYOP message, the document states, “The main task is to sow thoughts to the people how weak the Ukrainian authorities are and how they have abandoned them without food, pensions, [and] salaries.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has steadfastly claimed the reason for the invasion of Ukraine- or as he terms it a “special military operation” – has been “denazification” and to protect the pro-Russian separatist regions of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.
However, Russian soldiers are instructed to avoid saying “that people are being fired at in [Russian controlled] Donbas.” The document notes, “Locals do not take this well.”
[Full English Translation of the Documents Below]
Instead, the PSYOP document instructs Russian soldiers to portray a delusory alternate reality in which the shelling, missile strikes, and fighting for the past three months have all been the work of a corrupt Ukrainian nationalist regime.
“We bring humanitarian aid and food since your government abandoned you,” soldiers are told to respond if asked, “Why are you here?”
If concerns are raised about a lack of electricity, Russian troops are told to remind locals that they are equally without electric power while shifting blame for the outages on “retreating police and administrations [who] undermined substation and don’t care about their own population.”
A second option is provided in which soldiers can tell an aggrieved populace that, “The entire north of Ukraine was de-energized by order of the authorities from Kyiv.”
Contradicting the laughable idea that Russia’s invasion is some kind of humanitarian mission, a cornerstone of the Kremlin’s PSYOP motif seemingly involves shifting any responsibility for rebuilding areas ravaged by war from Russia onto the Ukrainian people.
Four of the eight themes outlined in the PSYOP document discuss shifting responsibility or “burden” onto the local population.
In fact, Russian troops are specifically told to avoid telling locals to “forget Ukraine” because occupied areas are now Russian-controlled. Instead, soldiers should say, “The people will decide on their own how to live and who to choose.”
“It will allow shifting the vector of responsibility from Russia to the local population and their ability to take responsibility for themselves up to a certain point,” the document reads.
In one section, soldiers are told to invoke religion to avoid the question of whether they are Ukrainians or Russians. “We are both Ukrainian and Russian, but the main thing is that we are Orthodox [Christians], and we have no divides.”
Being against “gay parades, the split of Orthodoxy, and the sale of land to foreigners” are given as examples that can be used to establish a thread of commonality between soldiers and locals.
The PSYOP directive explains why it is essential to invoke Orthodox Christianity when influencing the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of locals toward the Russian occupying forces.
“Nine years of propaganda equated the image of Russians to that of an invader. The image of an Orthodox Christian is spotless.”
Second page of instructions to Russian soldiers on conducting effective PSYOPs, when dealing with Ukrainians in occupied territories. (Image Source: Melaniya-Mariya Podolyak/ Telegram)
On Telegram, the Project Manager of the Lviv Media Forum, Melaniya-Mariya Podolyak, reported that the two-page set of PSYOP instructions was found in Dymer by employees of the National Museum of History of Ukraine after it had been abandoned by previously occupying Russian troops.
How the documents were discovered is somewhat ironic, given PSYOP instructions repeatedly tell Russian soldiers to reinforce the idea that Ukrainian authorities have abandoned them.
Speaking under a condition of anonymity, an official with Ukraine’s Security Services (SBU) told The Debrief that they weren’t familiar with these specific documents. However, there was no reason to doubt their authenticity.
“Everything mentioned is entirely consistent with Russian messaging in temporarily occupied territories.”
From the start of Russia’s invasion to mid-March, Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, claimed Moscow had no intentions to occupy or seize Ukrainian territory.
“Our plans are not to occupy Ukraine. We do not plan to impose ourselves on anyone,” said Putin on February 24, during an early morning television address announcing the start of a “special military operation” to “denazify” and “demilitarize” Ukraine.
However, similar to the previous claims that Russia had no intention of invading Ukraine, Putin’s promises are often not abiding.
In early May, a senior pro-Russian official in the occupied Ukrainian region of Kherson, Kirill Stremousov, told NPR he fully expected Russia to annex the currently occupied areas in southern Ukraine, including Kherson and Mariupol.
More recently, Stremousov said that current Ukrainian counter-attacks in the area could delay a formal bid for Kherson to join Russia.
“It won’t happen by autumn. We’re preparing an administrative system, and then towards next year, we will see what the situation is like,” Stremousov was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Other abandoned Russian military documents discovered in the northeastern town of Trostyanets in Sumy Oblast revealed Putin had initially hoped to seize all of Ukraine.
“[SBU found] important documents of soldiers of the Russian Federation’s Armed Forces that give a clear understanding that Russia was preparing to seize all the territory of Ukraine,” Oleksiy Sukhachev, the director of Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation, said in a statement.
The recently discovered PSYOP instructions seemingly support the idea that Russia’s long-term goals involve eradicating Ukrainian sovereignty and a sense of self-identity.
“First of all, before the formation of a state apparatus and the legislative framework, we will be forced with the concepts of “Ukraine” and “Ukrainians,” the document reads.
Tim McMillan is a retired law enforcement executive, investigative reporter and co-founder of The Debrief. His writing covers defense, national security, and the Intelligence Community. You can follow Tim on Twitter: @LtTimMcMillan. Tim can also be reached by email: tim@thedebrief.org or through encrypted email: LtTimMcMillan@protonmail.com.
English Translation of instructions to Russian soldiers on conducting effective PSYOPs, when dealing with Ukrainians in occupied territories. (Image Source: The Debrief)
English Translation of instructions to Russian soldiers on conducting effective PSYOPs, when dealing with Ukrainians in occupied territories. (Image Source: The Debrief)
English Translation of instructions to Russian soldiers on conducting effective PSYOPs, when dealing with Ukrainians in occupied territories. (Image Source: The Debrief)
6. Leaked Audio Footage Reveals How Russian Troops, Fed Up With Putin’s War, Nearly Blew Up Their General
Excerpt:
The frustrated soldier then added, “Our brigade can’t capture anything because there’s f*cking nothing left of it.”
It’s certainly a sobering reminder of how Putin’s ego pushed him to launch a war that his army wasn’t prepared for, nor do some of them appear to be onboard at this point. And the resulting clash has not only left Putin without his Botox supply, but also with a failed silly parade to celebrate a victory that hasn’t happened in Ukraine.
Leaked Audio Footage Reveals How Russian Troops, Fed Up With Putin’s War, Nearly Blew Up Their General
Vladimir Putin’s imperialistic war on Ukraine isn’t going as planned, all after he thought that Russian troops could immediately descend and swiftly rise victorious. Instead, molotov cocktail-wielding grandmas have illustrated the will of the Ukrainian people, as has President Volodymyr Zelensky’s refusal to be airlifted out. Months later (and with massive loss of life on both ends), Putin has fired over 100 FSB Secret Agents over his embarrassment, and reports indicate that Putin’s inner circle is maneuvering to install a successor in light of the ongoing disastrous, dismal conflict.
As for the Russian troops, many of them weren’t even aware of formal directions or why they were sent to impose Putin’s will upon the Ukraine people. It’s a move that has left the Russian people in economic tatters due to near-global sanctions, and Business Insider now points toward a phone call, reportedly between a Russian soldier and his wife. The audio was published on YouTube by Ukraine’s Secret Services and translated by Business Insider. Here’s how the soldier narrated the near-debacle on the battle field when the battery declined to follow an order from Gen. Valeriy Solodchuk:
“Almost all of our battery refused. He [Solodchuk] started waving his gun and shooting … He says ‘I’ll whack you if you don’t f*cking go there! …’,” the man says in the recording.
“Then, a kid says to him: ‘Go ahead, whack!’ F*ck, he pulled out a grenade, pulled a pin and says: ‘Come on, shoot me! We’ll blow up together.’ That’s it. The special forces guys also started pointing their guns at us. So, we pointed our guns at them.”
“In short, we almost shot each other, for f*ck’s sake. He got on his bobik [a type of Russian Jeep] and left,” the voice said.
The frustrated soldier then added, “Our brigade can’t capture anything because there’s f*cking nothing left of it.”
It’s certainly a sobering reminder of how Putin’s ego pushed him to launch a war that his army wasn’t prepared for, nor do some of them appear to be onboard at this point. And the resulting clash has not only left Putin without his Botox supply, but also with a failed silly parade to celebrate a victory that hasn’t happened in Ukraine.
You can listen to the non-translated audio footage above.
7. Send In the Marines for a Modernization By Seth Moulton and Mike Gallagher
Support for the Commandant's modernization plan.
Conclusion:
We don’t have time for incremental change. China is rapidly modernizing, and a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could happen before 2030. If anything, the Marine Corps should be moving faster.
As Marine veterans in Congress, we understand the legacy of the Corps, and want to preserve what makes it special. Force Design 2030 ensures the Marines can meet the demands of the current moment, while remaining the finest and deadliest infantry in our nation’s arsenal. The plan restores the Marines to their original and most sacred mission: the maritime defense of America and its allies. And it ensures that even in a new era of warfare the Marines are still first to the fight.
Send In the Marines for a Modernization
WSJ · by Seth Moulton and Mike Gallagher
Force Design 2030 ensures they will still be first to the fight.
By Seth Moulton and Mike Gallagher
May 30, 2022 4:53 pm ET
U.S Marines participate in an urban assault exercise in Townsville, Australia, July 27, 2021.
Photo: Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images
On paper the Russians have every advantage. A million more soldiers in uniform, more than 10 times the military budget, 10 times the aircraft, six times the tanks. But a much smaller Ukrainian force resolutely repelled Russia’s attack on and around Kyiv and it continues to stymie Russian forces with small infantry units equipped with modern weapons, the latest training, the best intelligence and the courage of troops fighting for freedom.
Most commentators have been surprised, but Ukraine’s successful principles are the same as those in the U.S. Marine Corps’ plan to modernize. The Marines understand something the Kremlin did not: In the face of technological change, the future of warfare won’t be like its past.
Adapting new technologies and tactics faster than our adversaries is essential, which is exactly why the Marines’ Force Design 2030 modernization plan is the most aggressive of any service—except perhaps the Chinese military. The plan addresses everything from personnel to warships. It shifts resources from armor, artillery and manned aircraft to invest in longer-range missiles and unmanned aerial systems, better sensors and surveillance, and the development of new cyber forces.
The loudest opponents of this modernization plan have claimed the Marines will become less lethal, but Ukraine proves the opposite. A platoon of Marines armed with the latest loitering munitions, drones and missiles, along with modern intelligence capabilities, is much more maneuverable than artillery and more of a threat to the enemy.
Other critics have said that the Marines’ plan has a narrow focus on China. Certainly China is the greatest long-term threat that the U.S. faces. But the Marine Corps will be able to meet our national-defense priorities while also becoming combat capable everywhere else in the world. The plan will make Marines more effective everywhere they go.
We don’t have time for incremental change. China is rapidly modernizing, and a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could happen before 2030. If anything, the Marine Corps should be moving faster.
As Marine veterans in Congress, we understand the legacy of the Corps, and want to preserve what makes it special. Force Design 2030 ensures the Marines can meet the demands of the current moment, while remaining the finest and deadliest infantry in our nation’s arsenal. The plan restores the Marines to their original and most sacred mission: the maritime defense of America and its allies. And it ensures that even in a new era of warfare the Marines are still first to the fight.
Mr. Moulton, a Democrat, represents Massachusetts’s 6th congressional district. Mr. Gallagher, a Republican, represents Wisconsin’s 8th congressional district. This piece is co-signed by Reps. Salud Carbajal (D., Calif.), Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.), Jared Golden (D., Maine), Conor Lamb (D., Penn.), Greg Pence (R., Ind.) and Sen. Todd Young (R., Ind.). All are Marine veterans.
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the May 31, 2022, print edition.
8. China president warned Biden democracy is dying: "You don't have the time"
I would like to know more about Xi's comments to POTUS. We should all understand this threat and we should be united in trying to prevent his prediction from coming true (unless we desire to live under an authoritarian regime). I would have incorporated Xi's comments in our national level strategic influence campaign (if we had one).
China president warned Biden democracy is dying: "You don't have the time"
Newsweek · by Katherine Fung · May 27, 2022
President Joe Biden revealed that after being elected to the White House, Chinese President Xi Jinping cautioned him that democracies are on the decline and that one day "autocracies will run the world."
"We're living through a global struggle between autocracies and democracies," Biden said during his commencement address to the U.S. Naval Academy's graduating class.
"I've met more with Xi Jinping than any other world leader has. When he called me to congratulate me on Election Night, he said to me what he said many times before," the president said on Friday. "He said democracies cannot be sustained in the 21st century, autocracies will run the world. Why? Things are changing so rapidly. Democracies require consensus, and it takes time, and you don't have the time."
President Joe Biden said his Chinese counterpart told him that "democracies cannot be sustained in the 21st century, autocracies will run the world." Above, Biden participates in a virtual meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on November 15, 2021, in Washington, D.C. Alex Wong/Getty
"Xi [is] wrong. Each of you, as you go out into the world, will not only be a proud member of the Armed Forces of the United States of America, you'll be representatives and defenders of our democracy," Biden said to the 2022 graduates gathered in Annapolis, Maryland.
"Sounds corny, but literally our democracy," he continued. "That's why you swear an oath, not to me as your commander-in-chief or any political leader, but to the Constitution. Our nation is placing in you great trust and great faith."
Outlining the contributions made by various nations to help Ukraine, as well as sanction Russia, during the three-month-long invasion, Biden said, "We're seeing the world align not in terms of geography—east and west, Pacific and Atlantic—but in terms of values."
"America leads not only by the example of its power but the power of its example. Think of why most nations agreed to support us," Biden said.
"The most powerful tool that you'll wield is our unmatched network of global alliances and the strength of our partnership," he said to the crowd.
Newsweek · by Katherine Fung · May 27, 2022
9. A former president of Estonia predicted Russia would invade Ukraine
An excellent interview. This is why we should pay attention to the assessments of our allies.
A former president of Estonia predicted Russia would invade Ukraine
NPR · by Jenna McLaughlin · May 30, 2022
Former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who shepherded Estonia into the EU and NATO in the early 2000s, hopes the world is finally waking up to the dangers Russia poses.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Russia's war in Ukraine has finally driven both Finland and Sweden to abandon decades of neutrality and seek NATO membership. Estonia joined the alliance nearly 20 years ago. Its former president, Toomas Ilves, has long been a voice of caution when it comes to the Kremlin. And he still has a message for both the West and NATO. NPR cybersecurity correspondent Jenna McLaughlin recently visited Ilves at his family farm in Estonia.
JENNA MCLAUGHLIN, BYLINE: We follow the GPS to a pair of coordinates in the middle of the forest in southern Estonia to the family home of former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. The birds are chirping. The farm is peaceful, in direct contrast to the war in Ukraine, raging less than a thousand miles south of us. Ilves' family first got here in the mid-1700s but fled in the 1940s. He's been fixing it up for the last few decades.
TOOMAS HENDRIK ILVES: This is what I saw when I got here - collapsed buildings.
MCLAUGHLIN: But it's not just Ilves living here, at least not for the last month or so.
ILVES: One of them DM'd me on Twitter.
MCLAUGHLIN: Ilves has been hosting two Ukrainian refugees.
ILVES: Picked them up on the side of the road.
MCLAUGHLIN: It might sound crazy for a former president to pick up a few strangers from the internet and have them stay with him. But for Ilves, this is all deeply personal. In this region, you grew up hearing about Russian atrocities.
ILVES: We thought these were the kinds of stories that grandma told you, and turns out that grandma was not exaggerating.
MCLAUGHLIN: He means Russian massacres like the one in Bucha, the Ukrainian city on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, in March.
ILVES: Bucha was not a surprise to us.
MCLAUGHLIN: His own family were refugees who fled to Sweden, where he was born. He lived all over the world, including the U.S. He learned to program computers when he was 16 in New Jersey. Later in life, he became one of the first Estonian ambassadors to the United States, the foreign minister, and finally the president of Estonia.
But we wanted to visit Ilves, who left office in 2016, because he's one of the smartest guys there is when it comes to Russia. He's actually met Putin. He was not surprised about the invasion.
ILVES: The war itself was something that no one thought would happen, aside from a few nervous people like me.
MCLAUGHLIN: Estonia gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Afterwards, Ilves was a key figure in shepherding the young country into the European Union and NATO, safeguarding his home from Russian aggression. For Ilves and most Estonians, it was a matter of life and death. But that took years of hard work. Ilves recalled facing a lot of skepticism, even at home, that joining the EU was the best path forward, including from the prime minister.
ILVES: We're flying back and - he liked to drink his gin and tonics. And then we're flying back in the plane. He goes, Ilves, are you serious about this EU thing? I said, yeah, yeah. I think we have a chance.
MCLAUGHLIN: By getting on the same page as Europe, Ilves knew it would be almost impossible to keep Estonia out of NATO. But then other members still felt Estonia was too alarmist about Russia, even after a major Russian cyberattack hit Estonia in 2007.
ILVES: We went to NATO and said, we're being attacked. And one of the countries there said, oh, you're just being Russophobic.
MCLAUGHLIN: The war in Ukraine might be changing things. Even countries known for their neutrality - Finland and Sweden - have applied to join NATO. Still, Ilves' skeptical attitudes will change long-term because Estonia has been sounding the alarm about Russia, and it didn't prevent this war.
ILVES: We told you so. Yeah, yeah, we did. But it hasn't made any difference. The attitudes have not changed, I don't think.
MCLAUGHLIN: He says Eastern Europe has been painted with a broad brush as corrupt and, as a result, not taken as seriously.
ILVES: The West Europeans have been patronizing, arrogant and dismissive of East European, NATO and EU member concerns for 20 years.
MCLAUGHLIN: Estonia does get a lot of calls these days, though, particularly on how to defend against Russian cyberattacks. And over the years, Ilves has had a lot of visitors. He walks us around the sprawling farm, giving us a tour.
ILVES: The government from 2008 brought a tree in. That's the Dutch tree.
MCLAUGHLIN: There's a tradition that started back in the early 2000s after Estonia joined the EU and NATO. Everyone that visits brings a tree.
ILVES: All of the trees you see here, except basically the big, big spruce there, I have planted in the past 30-plus years.
MCLAUGHLIN: It's been a little while since a new tree was planted.
ILVES: I think this is the most recent tree that was planted here was - Turkey came and planted a tree 'cause they're in NATO.
MCLAUGHLIN: But with so many countries interested in following in their footsteps, it's a good thing there's plenty of room to grow here.
Jenna McLaughlin, NPR News, Estonia.
(SOUNDBITE OF BONOBO'S "BLACK SANDS")
NPR · by Jenna McLaughlin · May 30, 2022
10. Three More Nations Join Ukraine Planning Cell Run By Army Special Forces
Three More Nations Join Ukraine Planning Cell Run By Army Special Forces
Army secretary says U.S. intelligence may help Ukrainian convoys evade Russians.
Three more countries have joined a coordination effort set up by U.S. Army special forces to help Ukraine, the Army secretary said Tuesday.
“When Russia went into Ukraine in late February, we sent the 10th Special Forces Group to develop a coalition planning cell that enabled us to bring together 20 different nations to coordinate information with international [special operations forces] partners and allies,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said during a virtual event with the Atlantic Council. “And that has again, I think, contributed significantly with the effectiveness and the speed of the assistance and training that we've been able to provide.”
The planning cell had 17 members in April, when Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, the commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command, testified to senators.
Wormuth said the cell has helped coordinate the shipment of weapons and equipment within Ukraine.
“As the Ukrainians try to move that around and evade the Russians potentially trying to target convoys, you know, we are trying to be able to help coordinate moving all of those different sort of shipments,” she said.
“Another thing I think we can help with,” Wormuth said, “is intelligence about where the threats to those convoys may be.”
She did not name the members of the planning cell or further detail its actions.
With one battalion based in Stuttgart, Germany, the 10th Special Forces Group has been part of the U.S. special operations effort to help Ukrainian forces build their resilience and resistance capabilities since Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, Wormuth said.
“I think we see the return on that investment very much with what we're seeing right now,” she said.
National Guardsmen have also helped to train Ukrainian troops. While U.S. training stopped before the invasion, it was restarted outside the country as more complex equipment was being sent to Ukraine. Members of the Florida National Guard moved to Germany and have helped train Ukrainian forces on the M777 towed howitzers.
11. The Ukrainian Missile "Crisis"
A view contrary to mine that is worth considering.
Excerpts:
Just as an objective matter, Biden has been correct. Perhaps not about everything, but about enough things to push the outcomes to be almost exactly what we would have hoped for on February 24, when Russia sought to overrun all of Ukraine.
I suspect that the decision to stick to GMLRS rockets and not give Ukraine ATACMS missiles will also prove correct, because functionally there is little difference in how they will help achieve Ukrainian war aims. And politically they keep Putin in his box.2
The Ukrainian Missile "Crisis"
The Biden administration makes the smart choice, again.
20 hr ago
Editors don’t have favorite writers in the same way that parents don’t have favorite children. So I’m not going to say that Ted Johnson’s piece on Memorial Day is my favorite essay we’ve ever run at The Bulwark. But it’s probably the most beautiful, just as a matter of pure writing.
I can already tell that I’m going to come back to this piece many times in the coming years. If you haven’t read it yet, I hope you’ll do so right now.
An M28 Reduced Range Practice Rocket (RRPR) is launched from a HIMARS. (Wikipedia)
1. Russian Gains
Russian forces continued to incrementally capture areas of Severodonetsk but have not yet fully encircled the city.
Russian forces focused on regrouping near Izyum to renew offensives towards Slovyansk and Barvinkove and conducted only minor, unsuccessful, attacks. Russian forces are making incremental advances towards Slovyansk and seek to assault the city itself in the coming weeks, but are unlikely to achieve decisive gains.
Russian forces in Kharkiv continue to focus efforts on preventing a Ukrainian counteroffensive from reaching the international border between Kharkiv and Belgorod, and Ukrainian forces have not conducted any significant operations in the area in recent days.
The limited Ukrainian counterattack in northern Kherson Oblast did not take any further ground in the last 48 hours but has disrupted Russian operations. Russian forces launched several unsuccessful attacks against the Ukrainian bridgehead on the east bank of the Inhulets River.
And here’s the cost side:
Mounting casualties among Russian junior officers will likely further degrade Russian capabilities and lead to further morale breakdowns. The UK Ministry of Defense stated on May 30 that Russian forces have suffered devastating losses amongst mid and junior ranking officers. The UK MoD reported that battalion and brigade level officers continue to deploy forwards and into harm's way—rather than commanding from rear areas and delegating to lower-ranking officers—due to senior Russian officers holding them to an “uncompromising level of responsibility” for their units. The British Defense Ministry further reported that junior officers are in charge of low-level tactical operations due to a lack of professionalism and modernization within the Russian Armed Forces and that the continued losses of these junior officers will complicate command and control efforts, particularly in Battalion Tactical Groups (BTGs) cobbled together from the survivors of multiple other units.
Nothing here alters the strategic balance—Russia is playing tactical games while holding a losing strategic hand. But they are making advances:
The ongoing replenishment of troops in the Izyum area and persistent attempts to advance to the southeast indicates Russian forces are likely reprioritizing attempts to advance towards Slovyansk, though they are increasingly attempting to simultaneously advance from two directions—southeast from Izyum and west from Lyman. Donetsk People’s Republic . . .
Russian forces are making incremental advances towards Slovyansk and seek to assault the city itself in the coming weeks. However, Russian advances remain limited and are unlikely to increase in pace in the near term, particularly as Russian forces continue to prioritize assaults on Severodonetsk at the cost of other lines of effort.
Russian forces continued ground assaults in and around Severodonetsk on May 30. Russian forces reportedly control the northeast and southeast outskirts of the city and are continuing to gain ground within the city.
A few takeaways:
Russian forces are benefitting from shorter supply lines now that they’re operating close to their own border.
Ukrainian forces in the immediate area are overmatched.
Mounting Ukrainian counter-offensives against grouped forces will be harder than defending against an over-extended enemy.
Ukraine continues to need Western weaponry.
2. Missiles
The Biden administration plans to provide Ukraine with a guided-rocket system capable of hitting targets from a distance of more than 40 miles, according to U.S. officials, providing new details on plans first reported last week. . . .
The Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System the U.S. plans to send has roughly twice the range of the M777 howitzers that the U.S. has provided to Ukraine. . . .
Officials said late Monday that the goal in sending the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System—or GMLRS—is to boost Ukraine’s firepower against Russian troops who have invaded the country’s Donbas region, without enabling Kyiv to expand the war deep into Russian territory. [JVL: The bolding here is mine]
The key here is that final clause: The Biden administration is once again trying to titrate how to give effective weaponry to Ukraine in such a manner as will make it hard for Russia to declare a wider war.
Here’s what this decision is all about:
The question then becomes what kind of munitions we give Ukraine to pair with the launch system.
We have GMLRS rockets, which are GPS-guided rockets with an effective range from 9 miles to 43 miles. Or the HIMARS platform can be outfitted with the ATACMS missile, which has a range of up to 190 miles.
That’s a pretty big difference. A rocket with a 40-mile range is designed to impact the battlefield. A missile with 190-mile range could be wielded as a strategic threat against Russian population centers: Kharkiv to Voronezh is about 200 miles. Donetsk to Volgograd isn’t much further.
At every turn the Biden administration has sought to give Ukraine the maximum effective combat power that can be achieved while boxing in Putin so that any escalation would impose the maximum political and economic costs on Russia.
So far that calculus has been balanced very well. This isn’t just my opinion. We have outcomes. Russia has been pushed back. Most of Ukraine’s war aims to date have been met. Putin has not escalated.
Just as an objective matter, Biden has been correct. Perhaps not about everything, but about enough things to push the outcomes to be almost exactly what we would have hoped for on February 24, when Russia sought to overrun all of Ukraine.
I suspect that the decision to stick to GMLRS rockets and not give Ukraine ATACMS missiles will also prove correct, because functionally there is little difference in how they will help achieve Ukrainian war aims. And politically they keep Putin in his box.2
12. Russian Military Is Repeating Mistakes in Eastern Ukraine, U.S. Says
What did Bonaparte say about mistakes? Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake, or something like that.
Russian Military Is Repeating Mistakes in Eastern Ukraine, U.S. Says
May 31, 2022, 4:08 p.m. ET
Gen. Aleksandr V. Dvornikov was appointed by President Vladimir V. Putin to revamp Russia’s war campaign in Ukraine.Credit...Vasily Deryugin/Kommersant/Sipa, via Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Russian military, beaten down and demoralized after three months of war, is making the same mistakes in its campaign to capture a swath of eastern Ukraine that forced it to abandon its push to take the entire country, senior American officials say.
While Russian troops are capturing territory, a Pentagon official said that their “plodding and incremental” pace was wearing them down, and that the military’s overall fighting strength had been diminished by about 20 percent. And since the war started, Russia has lost 1,000 tanks, a senior Pentagon official said last week.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia appointed a new commander, Gen. Aleksandr V. Dvornikov, in April in what was widely viewed as an acknowledgment that the initial Russian war plan was failing.
Soon after his arrival, General Dvornikov tried to get disjointed air and land units to coordinate their attacks, American officials said. But he has not been seen in the past two weeks, leading some officials to speculate as to whether he remains in charge of the war effort.
Russian pilots also continue to demonstrate the same risk-averse behavior they did in the early weeks of the war: darting across the border to launch strikes and then quickly returning to Russian territory, instead of staying in Ukrainian air space to deny access to their foes. The result is that Russia still has not established any kind of air superiority, officials said.
The Russian military has made some progress in the east, where concentrated firepower and shortened supply lines have helped its forces fight intense battles in recent days. After three bloody months, Russia finally took Mariupol in mid-May, potentially creating a land bridge from the Russian-controlled Crimean Peninsula to the south.
As Russia struggles to move forward, Ukraine has also suffered setbacks. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine recently said that as many as 100 Ukrainian servicemen might be dying every day in the fighting. And on Tuesday, Russian troops advanced toward the center of Sievierodonetsk, a city that has become a central focus for the military since it shifted its attention to the east.
But some of the areas that Russian forces managed to seize have been quickly contested again, and sometimes retaken, by Ukrainian troops.
Consider Kharkiv. Russia spent six weeks bombarding the eastern city, once home to 1.5 million people, as troops encircled it.
A school destroyed by bombardment in the village of Vilkhivka, which is east of Kharkiv.Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times
But by May 13, control of the city had flipped again. “The Russians took Kharkiv for a short period of time; the Ukrainians counterattacked and took Kharkiv back,” Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said at a news conference at the Pentagon last week. “We’ve seen them really proceed at a very slow and unsuccessful pace on the battlefield.”
Ukraine is now pushing Russian troops north and east from Kharkiv, “in some cases all the way back to Russia,” said retired Gen. Philip Breedlove, the former supreme allied commander for Europe. “So now Ukrainians are threatening to cut off Russian lines of supply and pushing their forces to the rear.”
Cutting off Russian supply lines east of Kharkiv would put Russian troops in the same situation they were in after their advance on Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, at the beginning of the war, officials said. Ukrainian units carrying shoulder-fired Javelin antitank missiles picked off Russian soldiers as miles-long Russian convoys near Kyiv stopped moving forward. The invasion stalled, and thousands of Russian troops were killed or injured. Russia then refocused its mission on the east.
In the early weeks of the war, Russia ran its military campaign out of Moscow, with no central war commander on the ground to call the shots, American and other Western officials said. In early April, after Russia’s logistics and morale problems had become clear, Mr. Putin put General Dvornikov in charge of a streamlined war effort.
General Dvornikov arrived with a daunting résumé. He started his career as a platoon commander in 1982 and later fought in Russia’s brutal second war in Chechnya. Moscow also sent him to Syria, where the forces under his command were accused of targeting civilians.
In Ukraine, he established a more streamlined process. Russian pilots began coordinating with troops on the ground toward a similar objective in the eastern region of Donbas, and Russian units were talking to one another about shared goals.
But the invasion is not “proceeding particularly differently in the east than in the west because they haven’t been able to change the character of the Russian army,” said Frederick W. Kagan, a senior fellow and director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. “There are some deep flaws in the Russian army that they could not have repaired in the last few weeks even if they had tried. The flaws are deep and fundamental.”
Russia-Ukraine War: Key Developments
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On the ground. Fighting raged in Sievierodonetsk, the last city in the Luhansk region to remain outside Russian control since the war efforts shifted to the east of the country. Though most of the city’s civilian population has fled in the past few weeks, 12,000 people, many of them elderly, are said to be trapped there in appalling conditions.
Russian oil embargo. European Union members finally reached an agreement on a Russian oil embargo and new sanctions against Russia. The long-delayed deal effectively exempts Hungary, which had opposed the embargo, from the costly step the rest of the bloc is taking to punish Russia.
Second war crime trial. A Ukrainian court sentenced two Russian soldiers to 11 and a half years in prison for shelling a town in the country’s northeast during the war. It was the second guilty verdict handed down by Ukrainian courts for war crimes since the invasion began.
At the top of that list is the Russian army’s lack of a noncommissioned officers corps empowered to think for itself, Pentagon officials said. American troops have sergeants and platoon leaders and corporals who are given tasks and guidelines and left to accomplish those tasks as they see fit.
But Russia’s military follows a Soviet-style doctrinal method in which troops at the bottom are not empowered to point out flaws in strategy that should be obvious or to make adjustments.
The Ukrainians, after seven years of training alongside troops from the United States and other NATO countries, follow the more Western method and have proved particularly agile at adapting to circumstances, American military officials said.
A two-week fighting pause after the Russian military gave up the fight for Kyiv was not long enough to turn the campaign around, even with a more limited goal, General Breedlove said. General Dvornikov’s “new tactics, resetting the command and control so there was a focused decision maker — all that was right or proper,” he said.
But, General Breedlove added: “Even our army would be hard-pressed to refit, refurbish and reorganize in two weeks after having received such a sound whipping.” When General Dvornikov took control, “the force was thrust back into the battle too quickly. That decision had to have come from Moscow.”
After renewing an assault on the Donbas, Russia has pounded cities and villages with a barrage of artillery. But troops have not followed that up with any kind of sustained armored invasion, which is necessary if they will hold the territory they are flattening, military officials say. That means that Russia may find itself struggling to hold on to gains — as it did in Kharkiv.
Evelyn Farkas, a former senior Pentagon official for Ukraine and Russia in the Obama administration, said Mr. Putin was still too involved in the fight.
“We keep hearing accounts of Putin getting more involved,” said Ms. Farkas, who is now executive director of the McCain Institute. “We know that if you have presidents meddling in targeting and operational military decisions, it’s a recipe for disaster.”
13. U.S. reinserts troops in Somalia after long-awaited elections are completed
Excerpts:
Ultimately, the impact of the US redeployment will depend on how committed the administration is to the war in Somalia. If it deems Shabaab to be a critical threat and commits adequate resources and effort to bolstering the Somali government and degrading the jihadist threat, the addition of American trainers and resumed counterterrorism operations is more likely to help turn the tide in the SNA’s favor.
However, if the U.S. is content to merely have a presence in country and kill the occasional insurgent commander without devising a viable strategy to eradicate Shabaab and stabilize Somalia, this mission will simply become another half-hearted attempt to win the so-called ‘War on Terror.’
U.S. reinserts troops in Somalia after long-awaited elections are completed | FDD's Long War Journal
On May 15, Somalia completed its election process, selecting Hassan Sheikh Mohamud as the new president. Sheikh previously served as president of Somalia from 2012 until 2017 and defeated the incumbent President Farmajo in a long-awaited and contentious election.
Somalia’s elections were originally scheduled for Feb. 8, 2021. However, the date passed with no elections, sparking mass protests within Mogadishu.
President Farmajo, also known as Mohamed Abdullahi, was deemed illegitimate by his opponents due to the delayed elections that left him without a mandate, sparking continued disputes between the factions. These disputes turned violent on occasion and security forces associated with Farmajo or the opposition frequently engaged in an attempt to secure their party’s interests.
For the past year, Somali elections have been scheduled and rescheduled multiple times, with politicians on all sides accusing each other of corruption and manipulation of the electoral process. The electoral delays have been exacerbated by Shabaab terrorist attacks, as the Al Qaeda branch has aimed to disrupt the process in order to demonstrate its influence. The most notable of these attacks was the suicide attack on March 24, in which Shabaab killed dozens in a polling center in Beledwayne. In its statements, the jihadist organization decried the democratic process, proudly claiming credit for killing the “apostate officials.”
The election of Hassan Sheikh marks the end of Farmajo’s rule in Mogadishu. Farmajo leaves office with a mixed record, presiding over tremendous internal strife and Shabaab’s rapid expansion. His tenure saw an intensification of infighting among the highest levels of Somali government, with the drama peaking following his Dec. 2021 attempted suspension of Prime Minister Roble. The use of armed forces to secure political interests and attempt to sway the electorate undermined Somalia’s counterinsurgency effort against Shabaab, enabling the jihadists to expand.
The incoming president will not inherit an enviable position, as Shabaab continues to operate throughout the country. Despite special forces raids by the elite, US-trained Danab units, the SNA has proven unable to hold most of southern Somalia. In early May, Shabaab launched one of its largest attacks in years against an AU base in Middle Shabelle occupied by Burundian troops, killing between 30 and 170 soldiers. This raid, preceded by a large suicide car bomb (VBIED or vehicle-borne improvised explosive device), illustrated the insurgents’ lasting ability to challenge the Somali government and their AU backers for control of the state.
Hassan Sheikh, the first Somali president to serve a second term, also must manage the transition of the African Union mission that will see the 22,000-troop coalition withdraw by 2024. AU troops have been instrumental in staving off Shabaab advances while the SNA has struggled to contain the threat; however, with the shift to ATMIS, AU troops will be pulled from combat roles into a purely training mission.
During his first term, Hassan Sheikh forged closer relations with Western and regional partners, which Somalia hopes will help offset the loss of AU forces. These ties are evident in the resumption of the U.S. deployment to Somalia announced by the Biden administration just one day after Hassan Sheikh was elected.
In 2020, the Trump Administration pulled special forces from Somalia, where the 700 American troops In country trained the SNA, accompanied Somali troops on select operations, and collected intelligence for drone strikes. This decision was made against the recommendation of military advisors, who asserted that withdrawing American forces would jeopardize Somalia’s ability to counter the Shabaab threat, while also putting American troops in harm’s way. From the withdrawal until Biden’s reversal, American troops continued to train Somali forces periodically, operating from outside the country in what AFRICOM officials described as dangerous “commuting to work.”
On May 16, following the conclusion of the Somali election, the Biden administration authorized US forces to redeploy to Somalia to resume its training mission in person. The deployment will consist of approximately 450 special forces, a decline from the original 700 deployed prior to 2020. The decision, made in early May but not announced until Somalia had elected its new president, aims to enable “a more effective fight against Al Shabaab”.
On May 21, General Stephen Townsend, the head of US Africa Command (AFRICOM), met with the newly elected Somali president to discuss how the partners can work together to mitigate the threat posed by Shabaab. Hassan Sheikh voiced his support for the return of American troops in Somalia, inviting drone strikes against Shabaab leaders and forces.
Though the administration’s redeployment of troops is a welcome acknowledgement of the threat posed by Shabaab and the American stake in Somalia’s stability, the estimated 450 troops for training and advising is likely insufficient to make a critical impact in Somalia’s long war.
In Afghanistan, the U.S. deployed thousands of troops for this purpose over 20 years but was unable to sufficiently arm the Afghan security forces to repel the Taliban. Further, during the U.S. deployment to Somalia from 2017 until 2020, Shabaab expanded its territorial control, indicating that the 700 U.S. troops were insufficient to degrade and defeat the jihadist insurgents. With considerably less troops, it is unlikely that the U.S. deployment will reverse the current trend of Shabaab expansion.
The White House also authorized the targeting of a dozen Shabaab leaders in its May 16 announcement. Since Biden took office, the U.S. has conducted five confirmed strikes against Shabaab in Somalia, mostly in defense of local partner forces. In its most recent drone strike in Feb. 2022, the U.S. struck Shabaab forces in conjunction with SNA assaults against Shabaab bases in Middle Shabelle, killing at least three militants.
Under the May 16 authorization, the US will resume counterterrorism operations in Somalia to relieve pressure on the beleaguered SNA. Voice of America’s Harun Maruf reports that Biden aims to eliminate Shabaab leadership through these strikes, as opposed to the low-level foot soldiers targeted under the previous administration’s strikes. Along with killing Shabaab leadership, U.S. drones are critical for aerial surveillance and intelligence collection in Somalia which can improve the SNA’s ability to effectively respond to the rising Shabaab threat.
Ultimately, the impact of the US redeployment will depend on how committed the administration is to the war in Somalia. If it deems Shabaab to be a critical threat and commits adequate resources and effort to bolstering the Somali government and degrading the jihadist threat, the addition of American trainers and resumed counterterrorism operations is more likely to help turn the tide in the SNA’s favor.
However, if the U.S. is content to merely have a presence in country and kill the occasional insurgent commander without devising a viable strategy to eradicate Shabaab and stabilize Somalia, this mission will simply become another half-hearted attempt to win the so-called ‘War on Terror.’
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14. Why Ukraine is pleading with the US for rocket artillery
Why Ukraine is pleading with the US for rocket artillery
"You just don’t want to be slugging it out via tube artillery."
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Despite the massive influx of military aid from the United States and other NATO partners, the Ukrainians say they still lack weapons systems that would give them a chance against the Russian invaders: Rocket artillery.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has personally appealed to several members of Congress for the United States to provide Ukraine with multiple-launch rocket systems, said a congressional staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
President Joe Biden recently caused a bit of confusion when he said the U.S. government will not give Ukraine any “rocket systems that can strike into Russia.”
A senior administration official subsequently clarified that the United States is still considering giving the Ukrainians multiple-launch rocket systems, but not with long-range artillery rockets that hit targets beyond the battlefield.
Soldiers from Able Battery, 3rd Battalion, 321st Field Artillery Regiment, conduct a live-fire training exercise on Oct. 25, 2016 with their Jordanian counterparts from the 29th Royal HIMARS Battalion. (Sgt. Benjamin Parsons/U.S. Army)
Notably, the Biden administration has decided not to include any Army Tactical Missile Systems, which have a range of roughly 186 miles, in the next tranche of military assistance to Ukraine, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Because the Russians have plenty of multiple-launch rocket systems and they are well skilled at using them, the Ukrainians need comparable rocket artillery “to have a fighting chance,” said Marine Col. Jay Frey, who has extensive experience with both tube artillery and rocket systems.
During the Cold War, the Soviets developed multiple-launch rocket systems that could outrange and outgun U.S. tube artillery and also “wipe out a grid square early on,” said Frey, who is also a senior military fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, D.C.
“The Ukrainians want to have an equal or greater capability than the Russians because you just don’t want to be slugging it out via tube artillery,” Frey told Task & Purpose. “You would like to have an equivalent or better counter than what the Russians have – and they currently are really good at their rocket systems.”
U.S. Marines fire their M777 Howitzer during Exercise Alligator Dagger, Dec. 18., 2016. (Lance Cpl. Zachery C. Laning/U.S. Marine Corps)
“My observation has been it hits exactly where you tell it to,” Frey said. “I think a big thing too is the minimal crew. You have quite a few people around tube artillery. But the GMLRS normally have a crew of only about three that fit in the vehicle.”
Rocket systems are also much more mobile than howitzers, so the crew can set up and fire within a minute and then quickly change positions, he said. That means rocket artillery crews are much less exposed to the enemy than tube artillerymen.
Frey estimated that it could take about two weeks of training for Ukrainian troops to learn how to use the guided rocket system. The more complicated task for the Ukrainians would be putting into place a command and control system to determine the targets’ coordinates and make sure the rockets don’t hit any aircraft along the way.
“The U.S., obviously this is our bread and butter,” Frey said. “We have the Advanced Field Artillery Data Tactical System that you can target, update, and send these coordinates at your fingertips. That’s what we’d have to set up for the Ukrainians and I’m just sure on that C2, how it’s set up.”
U.S. officials had no comment on Tuesday when asked about what weapons systems will be included in the Biden administration’s next weapons assistance package to Ukraine.
One thing is clear: The Russians are winning in Ukraine’s Donets Basin, known as the Donbas. Russian. Chechen, and separatist forces have reportedly captured about half of Severodonetsk, the last city in Ukraine’s eastern province of Luhansk that is still under government control.
Russian leaders are becoming increasingly confident that the war will turn out in Russia’s favor, according to Meduza, an independent Russian news site now based in Latvia.
“We’ll grind them [the Ukrainians] down in the end,” an unnamed Kremlin source told Meduza for a May 27 story. “The whole thing will probably be over by the fall.”
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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.
15. Don’t Let Iran Humiliate the IAEA Again
Excerpts:
If Iran conducted undeclared nuclear weapons work at several sites, the IAEA board would be wise to ask where the associated materials and equipment are stored today. The board should also ask whether Iran has concealed other sites from the agency. How, after all, can any nuclear deal fully verify that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful without a full accounting of all past and present activities?
Grossi has undoubtedly asked these questions of Iran since he replaced Amano in 2019. But without any pressure from his board of governors, the U.N. Security Council, or individual member states, Iran has no incentive to cooperate with the IAEA’s safeguards investigation. Last week, U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that prospects for reaching a deal with Tehran were now “tenuous at best,” following President Biden’s decision to reject Iran’s request to remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list.
That’s welcome news. After all, Grossi had already warned there could be no genuine return to the 2015 accord due to Iran’s irreversible gain of technical knowledge on advanced centrifuges. “You cannot put the genie back into the bottle,” Grossi said last year.
President Biden avoided making a massive strategic mistake by keeping the IRGC on America’s terror list. He can avoid another by defending the IAEA and the NPT—by delivering consequences to a rogue regime that breaches its international treaty obligations.
Don’t Let Iran Humiliate the IAEA Again
New reporting and an IAEA assessment reveal that Iran is in violation of both the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the JCPOA.
May 31
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi (Photo by Askin Kiyagan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images.)
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Board of Governors will meet next week in Vienna to consider a new assessment from the U.N. agency’s chief nuclear watchdog that suggests Iran is concealing undeclared nuclear sites and material in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The United States and the rest of the 35-nation board should respond forcefully—rejecting any sanctions relief for the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism until Tehran submits to a complete and verifiable accounting of all its nuclear activities.
In addition to the latest stunning report from IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, the agency’s upcoming board meeting takes place against the backdrop of last week’s shocking revelation by the Wall Street Journal that Iran obtained confidential files outlining what the U.N. agency knew about Tehran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program. Iran then used that information to develop false but plausible narratives to deceive inspectors. This mendacity mirrors revelations in Iran’s secret nuclear archive, part of which Israel’s Mossad seized from a Tehran warehouse in early 2018, that document Tehran’s orders to falsify records and conceal the regime’s work on nuclear weapons.
The Journal’s newly discovered documents, like the archive, underscore two basic truths. First, Iran was violating the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), from the very start by hiding its nuclear weapons-related activities and sites from what was supposed to be the most intrusive verification regime in history. Second, while the JCPOA had many fatal flaws, including allowing Iran to retain a domestic enrichment program alongside expiration dates on clauses banning key nuclear activities, its most fundamental failing was allowing any deal to proceed without first obtaining a complete and verifiable accounting of all the Islamic Republic’s past and present nuclear activities—especially the program’s possible military dimensions.
The archive led the IAEA to discover at least four previously unknown sites, including three where inspectors found traces of man-altered uranium—likely sourced to Iran’s work to develop and test its military nuclear program. Parties to the NPT are required to declare nuclear material and activities to the IAEA, and the agency’s findings could lead its Board of Governors to declare Iran in non-compliance with its treaty obligations. The board’s pronouncement would mark the first political step in forwarding the file to the U.N. Security Council, which could then reimpose international sanctions.
When Israel first exposed Iran’s nuclear archive, supporters of the nuclear deal downplayed its significance, arguing it merely contained details of a nuclear weapons program that no longer exists—that it was nothing but a historical record of a program abandoned in 2003. But the discovery of uranium particles at the undeclared sites, where commercial satellite imagery also showed recent efforts to destroy buildings and dig out contaminated dirt, suggests an ongoing concealment campaign—one that has led the IAEA’s top watchdog to repeatedly sound an alarm. And as the Journal’s recent report demonstrates, Iran’s sophisticated cheating machine is years in the making.
In March, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi announced he would give Iran one last chance to explain how seemingly undeclared nuclear material showed up at undeclared nuclear sites—with an eye toward presenting his conclusions at the agency’s June board meeting. Grossi on Monday reportedly circulated his findings to the board, stating that despite “numerous opportunities” to do so, “Iran has not provided explanations that are technically credible. Nor has Iran informed the Agency of the current location(s) of the nuclear material and/or equipment contaminated with nuclear material.”
Barring an unexpected outpouring of transparency and forthrightness by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Grossi’s report next week should give the IAEA board a choice. It can either defend the integrity of the NPT or sacrifice the backbone of the international nonproliferation regime for the sake of a political agreement that tacitly accepts the concealment of nuclear work, ignores Iran’s ongoing deception, and otherwise provides little nonproliferation value.
In 2015, Grossi’s predecessor, the late Yukiya Amano, left a permanent stain on the IAEA when he allowed Iran to stonewall the agency’s requests, pursuant to the JCPOA, for access to key nuclear personnel and records. Weeks later, under American and European pressure, Amano issued a report whitewashing questions about the past military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program—the JCPOA’s key predicate for lifting sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Now, seven years later, with President Joe Biden eyeing a revival of the JCPOA, Grossi has refused to buckle under similar pressure. He has all but declared Iran in violation of its Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement and the NPT. The onus to demand transparency and accountability now shifts to Grossi’s board. The ball is in Biden’s court.
If Iran conducted undeclared nuclear weapons work at several sites, the IAEA board would be wise to ask where the associated materials and equipment are stored today. The board should also ask whether Iran has concealed other sites from the agency. How, after all, can any nuclear deal fully verify that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful without a full accounting of all past and present activities?
Grossi has undoubtedly asked these questions of Iran since he replaced Amano in 2019. But without any pressure from his board of governors, the U.N. Security Council, or individual member states, Iran has no incentive to cooperate with the IAEA’s safeguards investigation. Last week, U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that prospects for reaching a deal with Tehran were now “tenuous at best,” following President Biden’s decision to reject Iran’s request to remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list.
That’s welcome news. After all, Grossi had already warned there could be no genuine return to the 2015 accord due to Iran’s irreversible gain of technical knowledge on advanced centrifuges. “You cannot put the genie back into the bottle,” Grossi said last year.
President Biden avoided making a massive strategic mistake by keeping the IRGC on America’s terror list. He can avoid another by defending the IAEA and the NPT—by delivering consequences to a rogue regime that breaches its international treaty obligations.
Jacob Nagel is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a visiting professor at the Technion Aerospace faculty. He previously served as acting national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and as head of the National Security Council. Richard Goldberg is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He previously served as the White House National Security Council’s director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction, and as the lead Senate Republican negotiator for several rounds of congressionally enacted sanctions against Iran.
16. Lebanon Has an Opposition Movement Again
Excerpts:
The May 15 elections showed that Lebanese voters have soured on Aoun, whose Free Patriotic Movement-led Christian bloc has stood as the main obstacle to a united anti-Hezbollah front. Aoun’s son-in-law and aspiring successor Gebran Bassil saw his faction in parliament shrink from 23 to 18 seats. Even in Hezbollah’s electoral stronghold, the South III district bordering Israel, the militia’s opponents won two seats, despite harassment and intimidation.
This year’s elections also showed that Lebanon’s Christians, Druze, Sunni, and a considerable number of Shiite voters are fed up with the dual afflictions of corruption and Hezbollah. Iran birthed the Shiite militant group in the 1980s and has provided it with weapons and extensive financial support ever since. The problem for Lebanon is that Tehran and its Lebanese proxies prioritize militancy over what the country needs most: reform, civil liberties, and recovery from today’s deep economic crisis.
Hezbollah might well deploy violence against those who threaten its dominant position—in the same way Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have attacked opponents since taking a beating in elections last October. The people of Lebanon will have to decide if they are prepared to face that risk.
Washington, for its part, should endorse Rahi’s vision for national sovereignty and comprehensive reform and consider inviting him to the White House, just as then-U.S. President George W. Bush received Rahi’s predecessor Sfeir. The United States is already pouring hundreds of millions of dollars of humanitarian aid into Lebanon. But the need will only grow unless Washington sides firmly with the advocates of sovereignty and reform.
Lebanon Has an Opposition Movement Again
A new coalition could check—or even dislodge—Hezbollah and its iron grip.
By Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former managing editor at the Daily Star.
Lebanon has become a failed state and a global source of narcotics, terrorism, and, once again, a growing number of refugees. Washington, stung by its failure to spread democracy in the Middle East and tiptoeing around everything connected to Iran, has limited its Lebanon policy to crisis management. But Lebanon’s parliamentary elections on May 15 saw the first stirrings of a potential coalition capable of checking—and perhaps eventually dislodging—Hezbollah and its iron grip over the country. Hezbollah and its allies lost their parliamentary majority and now face the biggest opposition since 2009—a loose coalition of the Lebanese Forces party and various independents with as many as 60 out of a total 128 seats.
Although the reconstituted legislature reelected a Hezbollah ally, Amal party leader Nabih Berri, as speaker of parliament on Tuesday, it did so with only the slimmest of majorities—65 out 128 votes, compared to 98 in 2018. Berri’s tally would not have been possible without votes controlled by Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who played kingmaker. Free Patriotic Movement leader Elias Bou Saab, a Christian ally of Hezbollah, also won 65 votes for deputy speaker. But his contender, independent Ghassan Skaf, picked up 60 votes, showing the size of a potential opposition coalition. At the core of this bloc is the Lebanese Forces, a former Christian militia-turned-political party whose 20 seats put it ahead of Hezbollah’s 13.
While Jumblatt has been loosely aligned with Hezbollah in recent years, the right kind of pressure and incentives could still throw a wrench into Hezbollah’s plans to control the Lebanese government. That’s because Lebanon’s economic collapse is giving Hezbollah’s opponents a new sense of urgency—even after losing the election. The anti-Hezbollah bloc has called on the Shiite party’s extraconstitutional militia, roughly 30,000 fighters closely allied with Iran, to disband—just as the Lebanese Forces did when it surrendered its arms at the end of Lebanon’s civil war in 1991. Since disbanding its military wing, the Lebanese Forces have remained a highly organized and potent political movement, demonstrating that a political party without a militia attached can succeed in Lebanese politics.
Opposition is galvanizing outside politics as well. Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, the leader of the Maronite Church, blames Hezbollah’s militia for undermining stability, repelling foreign investments, and killing economic growth. The way out of Lebanon’s crisis, Rahi argues, is Hezbollah’s disarmament and “regional neutrality,” which entails cutting loose from the influence of Syria and Iran, as well as reviving the 1949 United Nations truce between Lebanon and Israel.
After 1949, the Lebanese economy expanded at astounding rates, with GDP growth averaging 6 percent a year with minimal inflation for much of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Lebanon’s long descent into failed-state status began in 1969, when it invited Palestinian militants to relocate there from Jordan, allowed them to start attacking Israel, and invited reprisals. After Israel finally invaded Lebanon to eject the Palestinians in 1982, Hezbollah inherited the resistance mantle and has kept Lebanon on a war footing ever since, inhibiting economic growth and forcing the state to incur ever higher debts. When Lebanese investors and citizens ran out of money to lend to their state, Beirut defaulted, sending the economy and national currency into free fall.
The right kind of pressure and incentives could still throw a wrench into Hezbollah’s plans to control the Lebanese government.
International organizations conditioned financial help on reform, but Hezbollah’s political allies—protected by its militia—have blocked reform, fearing it will dry out the corrupt money flows to which they’ve grown accustomed. In return, those allies approve keeping Hezbollah in arms. Rahi was one of the first to call public attention to this symbiosis: Reform and economic growth won’t happen without disarming Hezbollah first. With his status as an untouchable religious leader, Rahi has become the voice of the movement demanding Hezbollah’s disarmament.
In his post-election speech, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged that no party or coalition won a majority. But with its ability to intimidate rivals, Hezbollah has the advantage. At the very least, the party (and its militia) can throw a tantrum and paralyze the state until it gets what it wants. Even an outright anti-Hezbollah parliamentary majority in 2005 and 2009 did not manage to oust the party from power.
Forcefully disarming Hezbollah is a bloody endeavor no one is willing to undertake. But the group has an Achilles’ heel: It pretends that its extralegal armed forces have the approval of the elected cabinet. Yet the cabinet is dominated by Hezbollah loyalists.
Hezbollah mimics the tactics of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, whose troops once occupied Lebanon. Whenever the world asked Assad to withdraw, he responded that his army was there at the request from Lebanon’s elected government—a puppet authority that answered to Damascus. During the Syrian occupation, then-Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir demanded a Syrian withdrawal, a call that snowballed into an unprecedented anti-Syrian demonstration on March 14, 2005. The result was the Cedar Revolution, spearheaded by a coalition of anti-Syrian parties. Assad lost his alibi, and, that April, his troops completed their withdrawal.
Realizing that the anti-Syria coalition could eventually turn against Hezbollah as well, the party peeled away the leader of one of the coalition parties, Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun, by promising him the presidency of Lebanon, which Aoun eventually claimed in 2016.
The key to disarming Hezbollah is to rebuild the broad coalition that ejected Syrian forces 17 years ago but failed to force the pro-Iranian militia to surrender its arsenal to the national army as the Christian militia did.
The May 15 elections showed that Lebanese voters have soured on Aoun, whose Free Patriotic Movement-led Christian bloc has stood as the main obstacle to a united anti-Hezbollah front. Aoun’s son-in-law and aspiring successor Gebran Bassil saw his faction in parliament shrink from 23 to 18 seats. Even in Hezbollah’s electoral stronghold, the South III district bordering Israel, the militia’s opponents won two seats, despite harassment and intimidation.
This year’s elections also showed that Lebanon’s Christians, Druze, Sunni, and a considerable number of Shiite voters are fed up with the dual afflictions of corruption and Hezbollah. Iran birthed the Shiite militant group in the 1980s and has provided it with weapons and extensive financial support ever since. The problem for Lebanon is that Tehran and its Lebanese proxies prioritize militancy over what the country needs most: reform, civil liberties, and recovery from today’s deep economic crisis.
Hezbollah might well deploy violence against those who threaten its dominant position—in the same way Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have attacked opponents since taking a beating in elections last October. The people of Lebanon will have to decide if they are prepared to face that risk.
Washington, for its part, should endorse Rahi’s vision for national sovereignty and comprehensive reform and consider inviting him to the White House, just as then-U.S. President George W. Bush received Rahi’s predecessor Sfeir. The United States is already pouring hundreds of millions of dollars of humanitarian aid into Lebanon. But the need will only grow unless Washington sides firmly with the advocates of sovereignty and reform.
17. 'I was wrong': Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen concedes she misread threat of inflation
Rarely do we see such an admission from political leaders. We need more of this. (I mean admitting wrongs not getting things wrong - we could with less of getting things wrong!)
'I was wrong': Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen concedes she misread threat of inflation
| USA TODAY
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Biden hits 'ultra-MAGA' GOP as inflation woes rise
President Joe Biden warns voters unhappy with soaring inflation and his stalled domestic agenda against turning power over to “ultra-MAGA” Republicans. The president is trying to cast ex-President Donald Trump and followers as political foils. (May 10)
AP
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration acknowledged Tuesday that it was wrong to downplay the threat of rising inflation last year as the White House works to combat rising consumer prices that have hampered Joe Biden's presidency.
Yellen in March 2021 said inflation posed only a "small risk." Two months later, she said she didn't anticipate inflation would "be a problem." Earlier that spring, Biden signed his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 rescue plan into a law, providing a boost in spending that his critics blame for accelerating inflation.
"As I mentioned, there have been unanticipated and large shocks to the economy that boosted energy and food prices, and supply bottlenecks, that have affected our economy badly that I, at the time, didn't fully understand," Yellen told CNN. "But we recognize that now."
The secretary's admission is the most direct concession yet from the White House that officials failed to grasp the scale of inflation that would come as the U.S. recovered from the coronavirus pandemic. The administration later predicted the rise in consumer prices would be temporary.
With inflation at a 40-year high, Biden met Tuesday with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and promised to give him the space to tackle surging consumer prices.
"My plan to address inflation starts with a simple proposition: Respect the Fed. Respect the Fed's independence," Biden said in brief remarks ahead of the Oval Office meeting.
Biden this month called tackling inflation his "top domestic priority." Biden and Democrats face major headwinds to maintain control of Congress during November's midterm elections as as result of the price rises that have made many consumers increasingly anxious.
The Consumer Price Index increased 8.3% annually in April, slightly lower than the 8.5% in March, as a drop in gasoline prices offset a continuing run-up in food, rent and other costs. The average price for gasoline Tuesday hit a record $4.62 per gallon, according to AAA, about $1.50 more than drivers were paying last Memorial Day weekend.
The Federal Reserve earlier this month raised its key short-term interest rate by a half percentage point. The Fed was created by Congress as an independent agency, though the members of its Board of Governors, including the Fed chairman, are appointed by the president.
Some economists fear a rising risk of a recession as higher-interest rates prompt consumers to curb their spending.
Brian Deese, director of Biden's National Economic Council, argued the U.S. is "uniquely well positioned" so that steps targeting inflation won't come at the expense of newly added jobs. The unemployment rate fell to 3.6% in April.
"We can actually take on inflation without having to sacrifice all of those gains," he told reporters.
The meeting, which came at Biden's invitation, was his first with Powell since the president nominated him to a second term in November as head of the Federal Reserve and their third meeting overall. Powell was confirmed by Congress earlier this month as chair of the central bank and he was sworn in last week. Yellen and Deese also attended.
The central bank has also said it will begin shrinking its $9 trillion in bond holdings next month, a strategy that will nudge long-term interest rates higher.
Other obstacles to fighting inflation, such as Russia's war in Ukraine and supply-chain issues, remain outside the control of the central bank.
Biden's hands-off approach with the Federal Reserve differs from that of former President Donald Trump, who often railed against the Federal Reserve, oftentimes publicly calling on Powell – whom he nominated in 2017 – to cut interest rates to boost the nation’s economy. Former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton also avoided confrontations with the Fed.
Contributing: Paul Davidson
Reach Joey Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison.
18.Combat white supremacist violence using sanctions
Excerpts:
U.S. designations of these groups would help improve coordination between Washington and its allies, providing a more robust global response to the rise of militant white supremacist extremism. They would deny designated groups access to the U.S. financial system. Moreover, setting up more robust sanctions regimes against violent extremist white supremacist groups would allow Washington to respond more nimbly and quickly to future attacks. Terrorism designations would also allow U.S. authorities to conduct more robust monitoring and tracking of WSE groups’ activities, including their activities online and attempts to recruit or radicalize individuals in the U.S. to violence.
Lastly, designations will be a credible and permanent reminder of Biden’s vow — perhaps a less strategic benefit than the other reasons, but one that will carry weight, particularly with the communities that have suffered from racist attacks.
Designations are a step that State and Treasury do not take lightly, understandably so. But the time has come for a more proactive application of America’s designations power against violent white supremacists. For now, the dust settles from the Buffalo attack, Gendron’s prosecution plays out, and the nation awaits the next possible attack. But to better mitigate the real and lethal threats posed by militant white supremacist extremists, America must sanction them.
Combat white supremacist violence using sanctions
By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Varsha Koduvayur
New York Daily News
•
May 30, 2022 at 5:00 am
The tragic shooting in a Buffalo supermarket has once more brought white supremacist violence to the forefront of national news. Payton Gendron, an 18-year-old self-avowed white supremacist, killed 10 people in a racially motivated attack. In his manifesto, the young man ranted about the declining percentage of white Americans. His horrific rampage has hastened calls for a stronger response against the global rise in violent white supremacist extremism.
To start, Washington should begin deploying one particularly powerful tool in its arsenal, which it is currently sleeping on: terrorism designations and the economic sanctions they trigger.
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Designating violent white supremacist groups as terrorist entities is critical to defanging the threats they pose. Designations enable the State and Treasury departments to curtail the financing and fundraising abilities of white supremacist extremist groups. In making it illegal to give such groups money or material support, designations allow for prosecutions of individuals or networks providing that assistance.
Supporters of the Third Way (III. Weg) far-right political party gather for a rally on May 1, 2021 in Plauen, Germany. The Third Way is a neo-Nazi political party. (jens schlueter/Getty Images)
Designations have played a vital role in the fight against jihadism in the past two decades, as Washington and its allies sought to stem the flow of terrorist financing. Designations also play an important role in intelligence collection, providing critical legal authorization for collection of information on designated groups.
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While U.S. law does not allow the designation of U.S.-based groups or U.S. nationals as terrorists, there are several international violent white supremacist groups — the kinds that Gendron could have drawn inspiration from — that meet the criteria for designation and currently are getting off scot-free as far as Washington is concerned.
Last year, Australia designated The Base, a U.S.-based neo-Nazi group whose goal is to commit violent acts that will foment a civil war, overthrow the U.S. political system, and create a white ethno-state. Australia determined that The Base posed a “credible” threat and was “planning and preparing terrorist attacks” in Australia; indeed, press reports show that The Base had attempted to set up a cell in Australia and even tried to recruit teenagers. Britain and Canada have also so designated The Base.
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Additionally, both the U.K. and Australia have proscribed the Britain-based Sonnenkrieg Division, while the U.K. has also designated the Baltics-based Feuerkrieg Division. Canada has proscribed the U.K.-based white power skinhead group Blood & Honour and its affiliate Combat 18 (C18). Both Canada and Britain have sanctioned the neo-Nazi group National Action. Finland has banned the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM), a Scandinavia-based group whose members have carried out bombings.
Washington has only designated a single WSE group: the Russian Imperial Movement, in April 2020. Despite launching the U.S.’s domestic terrorism strategy last June, the Biden administration has not designated any other WSE groups. The lack of designations is a strategic vulnerability in Biden’s heartfelt vow to ensure that “white supremacy will not have the last word.”
To be sure, some of the groups designated by our allies would not meet the criteria for designation under U.S. law. The Base, Blood & Honour, Combat 18, and Sonnenkrieg Division can likely not be designated as terrorist organizations for various reasons: One is U.S.-based, while the others either lack clear organizational structure or have not engaged in recent violence, and thus do not satisfy U.S. legal requirements for designation. (This conclusion represents an evolution in our previous view of designable WSE groups, as we have further explored nonobvious interpretations that the U.S. government holds regarding its designation authority.) But Feuerkrieg Division and the Nordic Resistance Movement likely are designable, and there are more groups like them cropping up all the time.
U.S. designations of these groups would help improve coordination between Washington and its allies, providing a more robust global response to the rise of militant white supremacist extremism. They would deny designated groups access to the U.S. financial system. Moreover, setting up more robust sanctions regimes against violent extremist white supremacist groups would allow Washington to respond more nimbly and quickly to future attacks. Terrorism designations would also allow U.S. authorities to conduct more robust monitoring and tracking of WSE groups’ activities, including their activities online and attempts to recruit or radicalize individuals in the U.S. to violence.
Lastly, designations will be a credible and permanent reminder of Biden’s vow — perhaps a less strategic benefit than the other reasons, but one that will carry weight, particularly with the communities that have suffered from racist attacks.
Designations are a step that State and Treasury do not take lightly, understandably so. But the time has come for a more proactive application of America’s designations power against violent white supremacists. For now, the dust settles from the Buffalo attack, Gendron’s prosecution plays out, and the nation awaits the next possible attack. But to better mitigate the real and lethal threats posed by militant white supremacist extremists, America must sanction them.
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Gartenstein-Ross is the CEO of Valens Global and leads a project on domestic extremism for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Koduvayur is an analyst at Valens Global, where she focuses on U.S. domestic extremism and geopolitics.
19. Why Is Israeli-Palestinian Violence Returning to Jenin?
Excerpts:
Though investigations are ongoing, the daytime raids by the IDF were a possible contributing factor in casualties, as the IDF usually operates at night, when fewer pedestrians are around. On several occasions, including when Aqleh and an Israeli counter-terrorism officer, Noam Raz were killed, the IDF operated in Jenin during the day.
At the extremes of violence and of (relative) quiet, Jenin, a city with little religious or symbolic importance to either Jews or Arabs, told its own story of conflict.
Once the nest of suicide bombers and Israel’s most aggressive military action in the West Bank, it became an island of calm. The combination of foreign training for Palestinian police, the evacuation of nearby Israeli settlements, and the continued presence of the IDF was something of an experiment in “managing the conflict.” Two months into a renewed wave of violence centered around Jenin again, that experiment might be nearing its end.
Why Is Israeli-Palestinian Violence Returning to Jenin?
Two months into a renewed wave of violence centered around Jenin, the city's experiment in “managing the conflict” might be nearing its end.
The tragic death in Jenin of Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Aqleh has made that city synonymous once again with Israeli-Palestinian violence. Little known outside the northern West Bank city of Jenin is that it had been relatively peaceful for almost fifteen years before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and that the city benefited greatly from Israeli Arab tourism and investment. It is not yet known whether the bullet that killed Aqleh was fired from an Israeli or a Palestinian weapon. Yet even if that mystery were solved, it would not reverse the transition of a once peaceful city to a focal point for militant organizations competing for status as they await the inevitable demise of ill and aged Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.
In the world of Palestinian militancy, Jenin is regarded as the bastion of Palestinian “resistance” in the West Bank, both past and present. It serves as a hub for several U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, along with other Islamist organizations.
During the second intifada, from 2000 to 2005, terrorists used Jenin as a launch point to carry out numerous suicide bombings inside Israeli cities and communities. Due to repeated terrorist attacks originating from the West Bank in 2002, the Israeli government authorized the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to enter Jenin as a part of a broad military operation to remove the threat.
That battle left its scars on all sides. For the Israelis, it was mostly remembered for the high number of combat losses, including an ambush that killed thirteen reservists, by far the IDF’s biggest setback during the entire 2002 offensive. Indignation and frustration with foreign media and human rights organizations reporting on a “massacre” that hadn’t actually happened permanently cemented a skepticism about global public opinion that had until then been a province of parts of the Right alone.
For Palestinians, the battle left memories of effective resistance. Jenin was the one locus of combat where militants put up enough of a fight to do real damage to the Israeli army. But the images of the destruction at the site of the ambush also had a long-term impact, as did the loss of so many militant fighters and leaders.
This trauma defined Jenin’s reputation, but less memorable events steered the city back toward a more peaceful existence. In 2005, the Israelis withdrew from four West Bank settlements in the Jenin region, the same week as the more dramatic Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. It rendered Jenin the only major West Bank town without a real settler presence in its immediate environs.
The absence of settlements changed completely the character of the IDF’s presence. Its troops were, on the one hand, much freer to enter the city and carry out arrests. And at the same time, they were not there protecting settlements or manning checkpoints around roads to settlements. This, combined with extensive U.S. and European involvement in training the local Palestinian police force, brought Jenin a surprising measure of quiet for a period of about fifteen years, buttressed by a quiet stream of Arab Israelis from across the Green Line coming to Jenin to shop, invest, and do business.
All this started coming apart with the pandemic lockdowns in 2020 and the burgeoning internal rivalries of various Palestinian armed factions gearing up for an inevitable succession battle in the Palestinian Authority, as Abbas rounds out his ninth decade and begins the eighteenth year of a four-year term in office.
The Gaza conflict in May last year accelerated the return to violence. The escape of six militants (most of whom are members of PIJ) from a prison in northern Israel, just across the line from Jenin, also rallied fighters across the Palestinian territories. Lastly, IDF operations in the West Bank throughout 2021 resulted in an unusually high number of militant deaths.
These deaths prompted terrorist organizations in Jenin to reorganize and establish a joint operations room to respond to IDF incursions more effectively. The result was a marked increase in clashes with IDF troops.
Exacerbating the problem in Jenin was a wave of high-profile terrorist attacks deep inside Israeli territory beginning in late March this year. In some cases, the attackers were identified as residents of Jenin, which intensified both the almost daily IDF operations in the city and the militant’s response to the added incursions.
Though investigations are ongoing, the daytime raids by the IDF were a possible contributing factor in casualties, as the IDF usually operates at night, when fewer pedestrians are around. On several occasions, including when Aqleh and an Israeli counter-terrorism officer, Noam Raz were killed, the IDF operated in Jenin during the day.
At the extremes of violence and of (relative) quiet, Jenin, a city with little religious or symbolic importance to either Jews or Arabs, told its own story of conflict.
Once the nest of suicide bombers and Israel’s most aggressive military action in the West Bank, it became an island of calm. The combination of foreign training for Palestinian police, the evacuation of nearby Israeli settlements, and the continued presence of the IDF was something of an experiment in “managing the conflict.” Two months into a renewed wave of violence centered around Jenin again, that experiment might be nearing its end.
Shany Mor is an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Follow Shany on Twitter @ShMMor.
Joe Truzman is a research analyst at the Long War Journal, a project of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a nonpartisan research institute. Follow Joe on Twitter @JoeTruzman.
Image: Reuters.
20. Twelve propositions on the state of the world
Very interesting and useful summary. I am going to keep this list handy for reference.
Proposition one: the world is menaced “by the sword, by famine and by pestilence”, as Ezekiel warned: first Covid, then war on Ukraine and then famine, as exports of food, fertilisers and energy have been disrupted.
Proposition two: “it’s the politics, stupid”. James Carville, Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist famously said that it’s “the economy, stupid”.
Proposition three: technology continues its transformative march.
Proposition four: the political divides between the high-income democracies on the one hand and Russia and China on the other, are now deep.
Proposition five: despite the rise of China, the west, defined as the high-income democracies, is hugely powerful.
Proposition six: yet the west is also deeply divided within countries and among them.
Proposition seven: over the long run, Asia is likely to become the dominant economic region of the world.
Proposition eight: the high-income democracies will have to up their political game if they are to persuade emerging and developing countries to side with them against China and Russia.
Proposition nine: global co-operation remains essential.
Proposition ten: The rumours of globalisation’s death are exaggerated. Americans are inclined to think their perspective is the global norm.
Proposition eleven: given the immense political and organisational challenges, the chances that humanity will prevent damaging climate change are slim.
Proposition twelve: inflation has been unleashed in a way not seen for four decades.
Twelve propositions on the state of the world
Global leaders face formidable challenges, from dizzying technological progress and geopolitical tension to climate change
How do we make sense of the world? Time spent in Davos last week crystallised my answers in the form of twelve propositions.
Proposition one: the world is menaced “by the sword, by famine and by pestilence”, as Ezekiel warned: first Covid, then war on Ukraine and then famine, as exports of food, fertilisers and energy have been disrupted. These remind us of our vulnerability to unpredictable — alas, not unimaginable — shocks.
Proposition two: “it’s the politics, stupid”. James Carville, Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist famously said that it’s “the economy, stupid”. The primacy of economics can no longer be assumed. Ours is an age of culture wars, identity politics, nationalism and geopolitical rivalry. It is also, as a result, an age of division, within and among countries.
Proposition three: technology continues its transformative march. The Covid shock brought with it two welcome surprises: the ability to carry out so much of our normal lives online; and the capacity to develop and produce effective vaccines with amazing speed, while failing to deliver them equally. The world is divided in this way, too.
Proposition four: the political divides between the high-income democracies on the one hand and Russia and China on the other, are now deep. Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the survival of an overarching concept of “one world” seemed at least conceivable, however difficult. But wars are transformative. China’s offer of a “no limits” partnership to Russia may have been decisive in Putin’s decision to risk the invasion. His war is an assault on core western interests and values. It has brought the US and Europe together, for the moment. It should be decisive for Europe’s attitude to China: a power that supports such an assault cannot be a trusted partner. The march towards totalitarianism in both of these autocracies must also widen the global split.
Proposition five: despite the rise of China, the west, defined as the high-income democracies, is hugely powerful. According to the IMF, these countries will still account for 42 per cent of global output at purchasing power parity and 57 per cent at market prices in 2022, against China’s 19 per cent, on both. They also issue all the significant reserve currencies. China holds more than $3tn in foreign currency reserves, while the US holds almost none. It can print them, instead. The ability of the US and its allies to freeze a large proportion of Russia’s currency reserves shows what this power means. Yet western power is not just economic. It is also military. How would Russia’s vaunted military have fared against Nato’s?
Proposition six: yet the west is also deeply divided within countries and among them. Plenty of its politicians were enthusiastic supporters of Putin: Marine Le Pen was one of them. In Europe, Viktor Orbán is the most vocal survivor of this troupe. In the US, xenophobic authoritarianism — “Orbanism” — remains a leading set of ideas on the right. Donald Trump’s assault on the fundamental feature of democracy — a transfer of power through fair voting — is also very much alive. Many of these people view Putin’s nationalist autocracy as a model. If they get back into power, western unity will collapse.
Proposition seven: over the long run, Asia is likely to become the dominant economic region of the world. The emerging countries of east, south-east and south Asia contain half of the world’s population, against 16 per cent for all high-income countries together. According to the IMF, average real output per head of these Asian economies will jump from 9 per cent of that of high-income countries in 2000 to 23 per cent in 2022, mostly, but not only, because of China. This rise is likely to continue.
Proposition eight: the high-income democracies will have to up their political game if they are to persuade emerging and developing countries to side with them against China and Russia. Few countries like these autocracies. But the west has lost much support with its failed wars and inadequate help, notably during Covid. Most emerging and developing countries will try hard to stay on good terms with both sides.
Proposition nine: global co-operation remains essential. However deep the rifts become, we share this planet. We still need to avoid cataclysmic wars, economic collapse and, above all, destruction of the environment. None of this is at all likely without at least a minimum level of co-operation. Yet is that at all likely? No.
Proposition ten: The rumours of globalisation’s death are exaggerated. Americans are inclined to think their perspective is the global norm. Frequently, it is not, as on this. Most countries know that extensive trade is not a luxury but a necessity. Without it, they would be miserably impoverished. The more likely prospect is that trade will become less American, less western and less dominated by manufactures. Trade in services is likely to explode, however, driven by cross-border online interaction and artificial intelligence.
Proposition eleven: given the immense political and organisational challenges, the chances that humanity will prevent damaging climate change are slim. Emissions fell in 2020 because of Covid. But the curve remains unbent.
Proposition twelve: inflation has been unleashed in a way not seen for four decades. It is an open question whether central banks will maintain their credibility. High inflation and falling real incomes are a politically noxious combination. Upheaval will follow.
We in the west have to manage profound changes and lethal conflicts at a time of division and disillusionment. Our leaders have to rise to the occasion. Will they do so? One can only hope so.
21. War Is Still War: Don’t Listen to the Cult of Cyber
Perhaps Russia did not fully embrace China's Unrestricted Warfare concepts.
I am not so worried about the "cyber hacker capable of bringing down countries from their basement" as I am about a country like China or north Korea or Iran effectively integrating cyber across the spectrum of conflict.
Excerpts:
The problem with many technologies is that they create new problems while solving other challenges. The internet was created without security in mind; soon, an entire industry was created to solve the problems introduced by the internet. The dominant cultural trait of the cyber warrior is making and solving problems with the same technology.
Those asking why Ukraine did not experience the predicted cyberwar skip the basic question of why we would assume that cyber operations could be leveraged for battlefield effect in the first place. This goes to the heart of the question of the culture of the cyber warrior: those who believe in the ideology of cyberwar expect the battlefield to be transformed by cyber.
Sadly, those with experience in the technology and its uses by governments and militaries will feign shock when the predictions of excited outsiders do not come to fruition. Transformative cyberwar is simply magic, and it is often trumpeted by charlatans. The central cultural trait of the mythical cyber warrior is a belief in magic. There is little difference between Harry Potter’s adventures and the fiction of the cyber hacker capable of bringing down countries from their basement. So, do you believe in cyber magic or not?
War Is Still War: Don’t Listen to the Cult of Cyber
There is a false hope for cyberwarfare to be a sanitizer for the practice of war.
Is there some form of cultural attribute, ethos, or collective ideal of like-minded warriors who push for victory in war? Applied to cyber security, what is the culture of the cyber warrior? Such questions go to the heart of cyber warfare, suggesting there is some collective ethos for the state-based hacker.
Culture can be simply defined as the customs and social practices of a collective group. Besides an obvious preference for hoodies, what cultural practices define and distinguish those who will fight the digital battles of the future?
Unfortunately, there is no real culture for the cyber warrior. Rather, there is a consistent ideology and a system of ideals. That ideology believes in technological solutions to human problems and hypes up the impact of cyber action. Like the telegraph, radio, and television before it, computers were thought to revolutionize world politics. And while cyber, like previous technologies, increases the speed of interactions, it does not revolutionize the battlefield. The ideology of cyber hype is a failing practice that represents something of a modern cult.
The Cult of Cyber Warfare
There is an expectation for cyberwarfare to be a sanitizer for the practice of war, making war easier to wage. A great example comes from an early Star Trek episode in which two opposing sides simulate battles through a computer, with the loser being lined up for incineration. This was supposedly more humane than prolonged conflict. Absent the horrors of war, conflict continued unimpeded until Captain Kirk saved the day by destroying the war simulators.
The central (forgotten) lesson from this example is that you cannot remove the horrors of war from the practice of violence. War has never gone extinct because it serves as an inefficient solution to the issue of political contestation, or who gets what. Doing this through the computer is no shortcut or replacement.
Even so, the cult of the cyber warrior grew around fear. The technical difference between what scholars mean by culture in military affairs and what makes a cult is, in fact, very negligible. Cults are defined by veneration and dedication to some object or idea, and the blind faith in the transformative power of cyber capabilities reflects this.
We have been here before. For example, the period prior to World War I has been described as the cult of the offensive. The idea that offensive doctrines are superior to defense operations led to overconfidence in offensive plans, which slammed right into the reality of trench warfare and machine guns. We are here once again, with expectations of technologies transforming the battlefield in Ukraine crashing into the reality of bogged down battles aided by light weapons and cheap drones.
The Purpose of Cyberwar
Cyber cultists are still searching for the grand example of success in cyberwar. Yet, there remains no central strategic purpose behind cyber warfare. It’s not an effective coercive tactic or a useful form of espionage. Instead, cyberwar is a tool of disruption. Even Russian president Vladimir Putin noted this recently when he complained that “serious attacks [against Russia] were inflicted on the official websites of the authorities. Attempts of illegal penetration into corporate networks of leading Russian companies are also recorded much more often.” In the lead up to the Ukraine war, predictions of dramatic “shock and awe” in cyberspace abounded, but there is little to show for it besides “attempts of illegal penetration.”
Even demonstrating coordination with battlefield operations seems beyond reach for cyber warriors. Microsoft’s special report on Russia’s cyber activity in Ukraine did not demonstrate coordination between cyber actions and conventional attacks despite reports to the contrary. The evidence of coordination is noted by pointing out that cyberattacks come after battlefield failures, which is hardly the evidence of complementary cyber activity many had been expecting.
The hope for the cultists is that cyber operations will replace traditional mortars and bombs, lancing out through the fiber cables to strike at the enemy and bend them to the will of the attacker. It is thought that cyber capabilities provide a state with the means to achieve its objectives without firing a shot. The reality is that attackers hardly demonstrate an impact on weakly protected critical infrastructure, let alone the battlefield.
Cyber capabilities mostly make it easier to communicate and organize. The prime example might be GIS Arta, Ukraine’s “Uber-like” system of allocated military fires on a selected target. Instead of cyber operations providing a direct path to victory, algorithms rather allocate forces based on distance, readiness, and capability, much like the Uber system does when finding a ride in the middle of New York City. While the GIS Arta system solves one problem by quickly allocating force on a contested battlefield, it also makes the user dependent on the system, creating new vulnerabilities.
The problem with many technologies is that they create new problems while solving other challenges. The internet was created without security in mind; soon, an entire industry was created to solve the problems introduced by the internet. The dominant cultural trait of the cyber warrior is making and solving problems with the same technology.
Those asking why Ukraine did not experience the predicted cyberwar skip the basic question of why we would assume that cyber operations could be leveraged for battlefield effect in the first place. This goes to the heart of the question of the culture of the cyber warrior: those who believe in the ideology of cyberwar expect the battlefield to be transformed by cyber.
Sadly, those with experience in the technology and its uses by governments and militaries will feign shock when the predictions of excited outsiders do not come to fruition. Transformative cyberwar is simply magic, and it is often trumpeted by charlatans. The central cultural trait of the mythical cyber warrior is a belief in magic. There is little difference between Harry Potter’s adventures and the fiction of the cyber hacker capable of bringing down countries from their basement. So, do you believe in cyber magic or not?
Brandon Valeriano is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a distinguished senior fellow at the Marine Corps University.
Image: Reuters.
22. The Xinjiang Police Files Should Prompt Action Against Uyghur Genocide
Conclusion:
Not a day should pass that the U.S. and other countries fail to advocate for the Uyghur people, pressing the CCP to close the camps and calling for the release of every last Uyghur held within their ironclad camp doors. The people looking back at us from the Xinjiang Police Files demand that it be so.
The Xinjiang Police Files Should Prompt Action Against Uyghur Genocide
I write about international human rights and national security.
May 31, 2022,10:54am EDT
Forbes · by Olivia Enos · June 1, 2022
... [+]Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation's Xinjiang Police Files
Looking through the photos of the 2,884 inmates in the Xinjiang Police Files is not for the faint of heart. You scroll – as you would on Instagram – past face after face of a people unjustly detained by the Chinese government for no other reason than that they are Uyghur.
The first thing I noticed in the photos were their eyes. Some look bewildered, others determined, others tear-filled, others entirely blank.
It is surreal to have photographic evidence of the victims of Beijing’s genocidal campaign—long known to those of us who work in this field. We have listened to the testimony of survivors and analyzed the satellite imagery of camps uncovered by journalists and experts. We didn’t need convincing. We had no doubt the atrocities were happening.
But these photos offer something new. Gazing at those photos, it is impossible to deny the humanity of each and every Uyghur. And it is impossible to deny what the CCP is doing to them today.
Beyond providing photographic evidence of their mass internment, the Xinjiang Police Files include speeches of Chinese leaders outlining plans to reeducate and mass-intern Uyghurs. There are PowerPoints providing security protocols, including shoot-to-kill orders to ensure that no one escapes. And there is a detailed analysis of the composition of the political reeducation camp population.
The speeches alone are damning, as they show a direct linkage between top leaders in the Chinese government and the atrocities being committed. The speech from Zhao Kezhi, China’s minister of public security, included particularly striking revelations, as it directly implicates Xi Jinping in the mass internment Uyghurs.
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Even though the U.S. government already determined that Uyghurs face ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity, the most difficult legal threshold to meet for genocide is demonstrating the Chinese leadership’s “intent to destroy, in whole or in part” a people group. The speeches in the Xinjiang Police Files go a long way toward proving intent and linking those intentions directly to culprits – culprits who should undoubtedly face consequences for their grave and harrowing actions.
Leaders around the globe have no excuse for inaction. The information revealed in these files should lead capitals around the world to strengthen efforts to hold China accountable. In, some cases, it already has.
Additional tranches of sanctions against the officials identified in the Xinjiang Police Files are, of course, in order. But the U.S. government should undertake far more concerted efforts to extend safe haven to Uyghurs by designating them a group of special humanitarian concern and giving them Priority-2 refugee status.
The U.S. cannot act alone. Countries around the globe should band together in offering shelter from the CCP’s human rights violations. At the very least, they should agree not to repatriate Uyghurs at Beijing’s request. Countries must also tighten up their efforts to combat the well-documented use of Uyghur forced labor. Complementary measures to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act signed into U.S. law last year should be implemented all across the world to ensure that no goods produced with forced labor make their way into any market around the globe.
Not a day should pass that the U.S. and other countries fail to advocate for the Uyghur people, pressing the CCP to close the camps and calling for the release of every last Uyghur held within their ironclad camp doors. The people looking back at us from the Xinjiang Police Files demand that it be so.
Forbes · by Olivia Enos · June 1, 2022
23. Inside a Biden White House adrift
Inside a Biden White House adrift
Amid a rolling series of calamities and sinking approval ratings, the president’s feeling lately is that he just can’t catch a break — and that angst is rippling through his party.
NBC News · by Carol E. Lee, Peter Nicholas, Kristen Welker and Courtney Kube · May 31, 2022
WASHINGTON — Faced with a worsening political predicament, President Joe Biden is pressing aides for a more compelling message and a sharper strategy while bristling at how they’ve tried to stifle the plain-speaking persona that has long been one of his most potent assets.
Biden is rattled by his sinking approval ratings and is looking to regain voters’ confidence that he can provide the sure-handed leadership he promised during the campaign, people close to the president say.
Crises have piled up in ways that have at times made the Biden White House look flat-footed: record inflation, high gas prices, a rise in Covid case numbers — and now a Texas school massacre that is one more horrific reminder that he has been unable to get Congress to pass legislation to curb gun violence. Democratic leaders are at a loss about how he can revive his prospects by November, when midterm elections may cost his party control of Congress.
“I don’t know what’s required here,” said Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., whose endorsement in the 2020 Democratic primaries helped rescue Biden’s struggling candidacy. “But I do know the poll numbers have been stuck where they are for far too long.”
Speculation is churning that Biden could shake up the West Wing staff, although that’s not about to happen right away. Multiple people close to the White House said they’ve heard that chief of staff Ron Klain will depart at some point after the midterms, and one has heard him discuss leaving.
Should Klain go, a potential successor is Anita Dunn, a White House adviser and Biden confidant whom he often turns to when his fortunes look bleak. Dunn began working at the White House at the start of the term, then left and returned in early May at Biden’s specific request. No woman or person of color has ever been the White House chief of staff since the position was created after World War II.
Other possible replacements include Steve Ricchetti, a longtime Biden aide who is a counselor to the president, and Susan Rice, the domestic policy chief. After he lost the Virginia governor’s race last year, Terry McAuliffe spoke to the White House about taking a senior role as an adviser to the president, Cabinet secretary or chief of staff, people familiar with the matter said.
The White House didn’t make Klain or Dunn available for comment. Remi Yamamoto, a senior White House communications adviser, said: “As Ron has said publicly, he has not set a time frame, and this is not a discussion on the top of anyone’s mind here.”
This article is based on interviews with more than two dozen current and former administration officials, lawmakers, congressional aides and other Democrats close to the White House who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss the president’s private conversations.
Any assessment of Biden’s performance needs to take into account the epic challenges he faced from the start.
“They came in with the most daunting set of challenges arguably since Franklin D. Roosevelt, only to then be hit by a perfect storm of crises, from Ukraine to inflation to the supply chain to baby formula,” said Chris Whipple, the author of a book about White House chiefs of staff who is now writing a book about the Biden presidency. “What’s next? Locusts?”
Biden wonders the same thing.
“I’ve heard him say recently that he used to say about President Obama’s tenure that everything landed on his desk but locusts, and now he understands how that feels,” a White House official said.
White House chief of staff Ron Klain walks on the South Lawn of the White House on May 1.Stefani Reynolds / AFP - Getty Images
Amid a rolling series of calamities, Biden’s feeling lately is that he just can’t catch a break. “Biden is frustrated. If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” said a person close to the president.
An assumption baked into Biden’s candidacy was that he would preside over a smoothly running administration by dint of his decades of experience in public office. Yet there are signs of managerial breakdowns that have angered both him and his party.
May 13, 202203:09
Biden is annoyed that he wasn’t alerted sooner about the baby formula shortage and that he got his first briefing in the past month, even though the crisis had long been in the making. (The White House didn’t specify when Biden got his first briefing on the formula shortage.) His nominee to head the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Robert Califf, told Congress last week that the agency was sluggish and that it had made “suboptimal” decisions as parents hunted for formula on empty store shelves.
Beyond policy, Biden is unhappy about a pattern that has developed inside the West Wing. He makes a clear and succinct statement — only to have aides rush to explain that he actually meant something else. The so-called clean-up campaign, he has told advisers, undermines him and smothers the authenticity that fueled his rise. Worse, it feeds a Republican talking point that he’s not fully in command.
The issue came to a head when Biden ad-libbed during a speech in Poland that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power.” Within minutes, Biden’s aides tried to walk back his comments, saying he hadn’t called for Putin’s removal and that U.S. policy was unchanged. Biden was furious that his remarks were being seen as unreliable, arguing that he speaks genuinely and reminding his staff that he’s the one who is president.
Asked about the staff’s practice of clarifying Biden’s remarks, the official said: “We don’t say anything that the president doesn’t want us to say.”
Shelves normally meant for baby formula sit nearly empty at a store in Washington, D.C., on May 22.Samuel Corum / AFP - Getty Images
Biden’s angst is rippling through the party. Democratic lawmakers are sparring among themselves and blaming the White House for their dim prospects in November.
Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., said the White House has failed to put forward what she called an “intellectually honest” plan to combat inflation — a burden that ranks first among Americans’ economic concerns, polling indicates. A bill the House passed to crack down on alleged gas price gouging isn’t an answer, she said.
“If I sound frustrated, it’s because I hear from my constituents,” Murphy said. “They’re struggling. This is not a time for political games. It’s not the time for finding bogeymen.”
A spokeswoman for her office said she hasn’t talked about policy with a senior White House official in six months. The White House official countered that Murphy has been in “very regular contact with our staff here.”
Biden has vented to aides about not getting credit from Americans or the news media for actions he believes have helped the country, particularly on the economy. Unemployment rates have dropped to below 4 percent — pre-pandemic levels — but polling indicates most Americans believe the economy is in bad shape. Biden grouses that Republicans aren’t getting their share of the blame for legislative gridlock in Congress, while he’s repeatedly faulted for not getting his agenda passed.
The president has also told aides he doesn’t think enough Democrats go on television to defend him. A particular sore spot is his slumping poll numbers; he’s mystified that his approval rating has dropped to a level approaching that of his predecessor, Donald Trump, ranked by historians as one of the worst presidents in history.
“He’s now lower than Trump, and he’s really twisted about it,” another person close to the White House said.
President Joe Biden listens as Vice President Kamala Harris speaks Wednesday at an executive order signing event for police reform at the White House.Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images
At a meeting with advisers about a month ago, Biden was surprised to see polling that indicated he had dropped among suburban women, according to two people familiar with the meeting. An adviser said Biden gets weekly polling briefings that delve into “key demographics” and that, because he is kept apprised regularly, he didn’t have that reaction. (At a news conference in September, Biden said flatly, “I don’t look at the polls — not a joke.”)
The White House official denied that Biden is feeling frustrated. “What he’s pushing for is to make a sharper case for all that we have accomplished thus far,” this person said.
A few weeks ago, Biden started employing a midterm election tactic that has been a go-to for sitting presidents: villainize the opposition. He has sought to tether Republicans to Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda. But Biden has been leaning on White House aides to come up with a message that captures the stark choice voters face. Biden himself thought up the phrase “Ultra MAGA,” which he and other Democrats have started using in hope of drawing a clear contrast with Trump’s movement.
The phrase tested well in polling reviewed by the White House, but it also had the unintended effect of firing up the Trump faithful. Merchandisers have found a hot market for “Ultra MAGA” T-shirts.
“He shares the view that we haven’t landed on a winning midterm message,” a third person close to the White House said of the president. “And he’s putting a lot of pressure on people to figure out what that is.”
One of Biden’s prescriptions for his political troubles at the start of the new year was to travel outside Washington more. As he has gotten out in the country, he has also gotten an earful from Democrats about what his administration is — or isn’t — doing.
“People confront him,” said a top Democratic donor who has witnessed such conversations at fundraisers. “All he’s hearing is ‘Why can’t you get anything done?’”
It’s no wonder. About three-quarters of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track, a recent NBC News poll found — only the fifth time in the last 34 years that so many Americans have been dissatisfied with the nation’s direction.
There is no respite after the midterms. The 2024 presidential election season begins in earnest once the last races are called. No sitting president wants to be challenged for the party’s nomination; Biden can’t count on a free ride.
“We’re on a track — a losing track,” Faiz Shakir, a senior adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, said of the Democrats.
NBC News · by Carol E. Lee, Peter Nicholas, Kristen Welker and Courtney Kube · May 31, 2022
24. America’s Interests in Ukraine
Excerpts:
I think the U.S. has a fundamental national interest in the war. The United States is secure from land invasion, so the only threats that can arise come from the oceans. Securing the seas has thus been the foundation of U.S. national security since 1900.
History backs this up. It entered World War I after the sinking of the Lusitania. The attack wasn’t the basis for entering the war, of course, but it drove home the point that the conflict would be a naval war too, and that a naval war could threaten fundamental U.S. interests. If Germany had won, it would have controlled the Atlantic, putting the eastern United States at risk.
America’s Interests in Ukraine - Geopolitical Futures
America’s Interests in Ukraine
May 31, 2022
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Nearly every time Russia has been invaded, it has been saved by its strategic depth. Russia can’t truly be defeated without first taking Moscow, and it is a long way to Moscow. From Napoleon to Hitler, invaders from the west had to try to reach the capital city before the brutal winter came – indeed, it helped to arrive before the rains of autumn choked the roads with mud. Russia must therefore keep the starting point of an attack as far away as possible and use its army to delay its advance as much as possible.
Thus is the strategic value of Ukraine to Russia. If Ukraine remains intact, and if it becomes a part of NATO, Moscow would be less than 300 miles (480 kilometers) from the attackers. Many argue that NATO has no intention of invading. I argue that nothing is less reliable than intentions. War planners must plan on capabilities, which are much slower to change than intentions. Considerations such as the rights of sovereign nations have historically always taken a back seat to the need to guarantee the security of a nation.
Some have argued that the U.S. has no interest in Ukraine, or if it does then it’s a moral interest. The moral argument is not sufficient in the hard realities of geopolitics. I think the U.S. has a fundamental national interest in the war. The United States is secure from land invasion, so the only threats that can arise come from the oceans. Securing the seas has thus been the foundation of U.S. national security since 1900.
History backs this up. It entered World War I after the sinking of the Lusitania. The attack wasn’t the basis for entering the war, of course, but it drove home the point that the conflict would be a naval war too, and that a naval war could threaten fundamental U.S. interests. If Germany had won, it would have controlled the Atlantic, putting the eastern United States at risk.
World War II resurrected the problem. The United States was sufficiently alarmed that it agreed to the Lend-Lease Act, whereby Washington would lend the United Kingdom much-needed supplies in exchange for leasing most British bases near North America to Washington. But in a then-secret addendum, London agreed that if it was forced to surrender to Germany (not a far-fetched notion at the time) the British Navy would sail to North America. Put differently, America would help, but its help was contingent on forcing British power away from North America, as well as on a commitment, in the worst-case scenario, to turn the British navy over to the United States.
The Cold War also had a major if overlooked naval component to it. All the land-based conflicts that took place required the infusion of supplies to local forces. NATO supplies, for example, were promised by the United States, and the Soviet Union had an overwhelming interest in stopping them. In a war, Soviet submarines would pass through the GIUK gap (Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom), and Soviet bombers would come out of the Kola Peninsula, hitting air bases in Norway, while also shooting through the GIUK toward convoys containing aircraft carriers and massive anti-air and anti-missile capabilities. For the U.S., the Cold War was as much a naval war as a land war.
To Washington, Soviet expansion into Europe was the same as Soviet expansion into the Atlantic. If the European Peninsula were ever dominated by a single power that could consolidate its human and material resources, it might construct a naval force that could threaten North America.
For the U.S., preventing domination of the European Peninsula by any single power stops a threat before it happens. And this is the crux of its interest in Ukraine. Among other reasons, Russia invaded to limit the threat posed by NATO. Even if Russia subjugates Ukraine, there is yet another NATO ally to its west. A quick victory in Ukraine therefore raised the possibility of more military movement farther west. Russia’s handling of the war has made this outcome more unlikely, of course, but unlikely isn’t the same as impossible.
That’s because for a country like Russia there is safety in distance. It’s reasonable to assume Moscow will push as far west as it reasonably and safely can. And that is very much a threat to U.S. national security. Stopping Russia in Ukraine, with Ukrainian troops doing the fighting and the U.S. providing weapons while waging a parallel economic war, is an efficient check on Russian ambition.
George Friedman is an internationally recognized geopolitical forecaster and strategist on international affairs and the founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures.
Dr. Friedman is also a New York Times bestselling author. His most recent book, THE STORM BEFORE THE CALM: America’s Discord, the Coming Crisis of the 2020s, and the Triumph Beyond, published February 25, 2020 describes how “the United States periodically reaches a point of crisis in which it appears to be at war with itself, yet after an extended period it reinvents itself, in a form both faithful to its founding and radically different from what it had been.” The decade 2020-2030 is such a period which will bring dramatic upheaval and reshaping of American government, foreign policy, economics, and culture.
His most popular book, The Next 100 Years, is kept alive by the prescience of its predictions. Other best-selling books include Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe, The Next Decade, America’s Secret War, The Future of War and The Intelligence Edge. His books have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Dr. Friedman has briefed numerous military and government organizations in the United States and overseas and appears regularly as an expert on international affairs, foreign policy and intelligence in major media. For almost 20 years before resigning in May 2015, Dr. Friedman was CEO and then chairman of Stratfor, a company he founded in 1996. Friedman received his bachelor’s degree from the City College of the City University of New York and holds a doctorate in government from Cornell University.
25.
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
