Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
-John F. Kennedy

“There is nothing nobler than risking your life for your country.”
- Nick Lampson

“Who kept the faith and fought the fight; The glory theirs, the duty ours.”
- Wallace Bruce


1. PODCAST: A Hard Look at War with Veterans Fatima and Jason
2. To Honor Our Vietnam Veterans, Help At-Risk Afghans Today
3. Xi’s third term is not yet a done deal
4. Xi, Biden call will have Taiwan front and center
5. Honor Veterans by Having the Will to Win a War
6. How Army special ops can push back against Russian aggression
7. 100 years of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
8. Department of Defense Releases Annual Demographics Report — Modest Increase of Women in the Active Duty Force
9. China's leader Xi warns against 'Cold War' in Asia-Pacific
10. New camera footage from Niger ambush bolsters case for medal upgrades, moms of fallen soldiers say
11. Opinion | Veterans of the Afghanistan war deserve their own parade
12. CYBERCOM has conducted 'hunt-forward' ops in 14 countries, deputy says
13. The U.S. Military Isn’t Ready to Confront China
14. In Defense of Competition (Irregular Warfare and Competitive Statecraft in Strategic Competition)
15. When the War Ended, My Life as a Veteran Began
16. Most Americans don’t know how long the Global War on Terror has lasted: poll
17. Analysis | ‘I think we should throw those books in a fire’: Movement builds on right to target books
18. CACI Wins $785 Million Task Order with U.S. Army Special Operations Command
19. Taiwan hits back after Paul Keating says its status ‘not a vital Australian interest’
20. Air Force special operations general visits Japan to gain insight on seaplanes
21. The World Is Fed Up With China’s Belligerence
22. Hollywood is already making a movie about the Afghanistan withdrawal
23.  “Thank You For Your Service” is More than Enough
24. Not the 1990s Again: Rethinking US Strategy for Afghanistan Under the Taliban



1. PODCAST: A Hard Look at War with Veterans Fatima and Jason

A must listen podcast. Access it HERE
Please listen as Veterans Fatima and Jason describe their moving and riveting firsthand experience in helping Afghan Allies, Veterans and First Responders deal with the pain and agony of war through organizations like Shona Ba Shona (Shoulder To Shoulder) and Spartan Sword.
 
(Note: Please consider supporting their efforts to aid, evacuate, and integrate Afghan refugees through Shona ba Shona HERE).
 
EP 31 | A HARD LOOK AT WAR WITH VETERANS FATIMA AND JASON
Cavalry Agency, Navy Federal Credit Union, Purdue University Global and Veterans United Home Loans proudly present Your Next Mission™ podcast with the 12th Sergeant Major of the Army and Co-Founder of the American Freedom Foundation, Jack L. Tilley.

Your Next Mission™ is a new program initiative of the American Freedom Foundation. where you will be listening and enjoying outstanding and interesting guests who will provide insights and real take-a-ways for our Veterans, military service members, military spouses and families as it relates to their transition from military to civilian life. We'll be addressing topics and issues either you, a family member or friend may already be dealing with; this podcast will be a place where we can laugh and cry together and have frank and honest conversations about questions we’re all trying to answer and have some fun along the way.

To learn more about the Your Next Mission, please visit YourNextMission.org. You can even send SMA Tilley a message by leaving him a message or sending him an email. He'd love to hear from you! Send him your questions and stories.

Message | 844.424.1134

2.  To Honor Our Vietnam Veterans, Help At-Risk Afghans Today
My Veterans Day essay.

To Honor Our Vietnam Veterans, Help At-Risk Afghans Today
19fortyfive.com · by ByDavid Maxwell · November 10, 2021
As we reflect on American military history on this Veterans Day we can draw a simple parallel between our attempts at peace with honor in both Vietnam and Afghanistan. The chaotic and tragic end to both wars has much in common. However, a major difference is that there was no “decent interval” between the declaration of the end of the war and the collapse of the military and government in Afghanistan. We are still seeing the effects play out in Afghanistan. What is most heartbreaking is that so many were left behind in both countries who suffered at the hands of despotic regimes. But what is heartening is that great efforts were and are being made by veterans to evacuate people in the hope of giving them a better life.
A major difference between Vietnam and Afghanistan is the treatment of veterans at the end of war. Vietnam veterans were treated in despicable ways by Americans from being spit on to being called baby killers. Since then a “thank you for your service culture” has arisen that has all but eliminated public displays of disdain and disrespect. On the other hand, what remains a common trait of veterans of both wars is their desire to help those left behind. Talk to both a Vietnam and Afghan veteran and they will tell you about their service with their allies and the relationships they built through their experiences fighting a common enemy and their desire to ensure the safety and well-being of those they fought with and fought for.
As Americans, we have a collective guilt over the way our Vietnam veterans were treated. Thanking veterans for their service today does not absolve us of our guilt and we can never wash away the national stain of such treatment. However, we can honor and remember those Vietnam veterans by contributing to the veteran effort that is taking place today to help at-risk Afghans. Vietnam veterans are again doing what they did in the 1970s and helping their fellow veterans from Afghanistan to aid, evacuate, and integrate refugees who are at great risk. Any American who wishes to honor veterans of Vietnam can make a difference today and contribute to the various organizations that are helping Afghan refugees.
Americans might wonder why we should help refugees. Here are three examples of refugees from conflicts who have gone on to become great Americans and have given back to America in ways most of us could not.
Sergeant Major El Sar is now the Command Chaplain Sergeant Major for the U.S. Army Japan. He and his family escaped from Cambodia after surviving the Killings Fields and refugee camps in Cambodia and Thailand. He has served the U.S. around the world including multiple assignments in support of ministering to Special Forces troops in three Special Forces Groups. I had the honor of serving with him in 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) in Okinawa and I know him to be a great American.
At the age of nearly two and three Lan-Dinh and Danielle Ngo experienced the fall of Saigon with their family. They were among the last to make it to Tan Son Nhat air base for evacuation. Their father served as an officer in the South Vietnamese Army and trained with U.S. Special Forces, but they have never learned what happened to him. Danielle graduated from the University of Massachusetts and was commissioned as an Engineer. Lan-Dinh went to West Point. Danielle became the first female company commander in a combat engineer battalion directly assigned to a brigade combat team and led troops in combat in Iraq. She is now a Colonel and the executive officer to the U.S Army Inspector General.
Fatima Jaghoori is an Afghan refugee, a former U.S. Army medic who fought in Iraq, a Gold Star wife, and is now a student at Kansas State University. Her father was killed by the Taliban for helping American NGOs escape to Pakistan in the 1990s. Most importantly, today she is a key member of Shona ba Shona, an organization dedicated to helping Afghans escape to safety. You can listen to her describe her life and work with the 12th Sergeant Major of the Army, Jack Tilley, on his “Your Mission Continues” podcast. She and fellow veteran and founder of Shona ba Shona, Jason Ghormley, describe their experiences and the work they are doing to help Afghan refugees.
Like refugees before them in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, there are many Afghans who need to be given the opportunity to live in freedom. There are myriad veteran organizations committed to helping refugees just as their Vietnam veteran brothers and sisters did and continue to do today. While we honor today’s veterans, we can honor Vietnam veterans as well by following their example as great Americans to help those who deserve to live with dignity and respect and in freedom. Every American can help.
David Maxwell, a 1945 Contributing Editor, is a member of the board of directors of Shona ba Shona. He is a retired US Army Special Forces Colonel who has spent more than 20 years in Asia and specializes in North Korea and East Asia Security Affairs and irregular, unconventional. and political warfare. He is the editor of Small Wars Journal and a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
19fortyfive.com · by ByDavid Maxwell · November 10, 2021
3. Xi’s third term is not yet a done deal

Excerpts:
On top of all of this, China’s economy has been slowing in a manner that will be concerning Beijing central planners; although the point is well made that the country’s economic growth should be regarded as a multiple of a much larger economy these days than in the past when double-digit growth rates were the norm.
Central Committee delegates are unlikely to dwell this week on the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of 1978. But its shadow will extend over deliberations in the sense that China would not have moved as far and as fast as it has without that event’s endorsement of a process of “reform and opening.”
It was at the third plenum that Deng and his supporters weaponized the phrase “seek truth from facts” to face down Maoist holdouts who were standing in the way of a process of economic liberalization and opening to the outside world.
Four decades later, Xi will seek to build on that process by championing his “common prosperity” theme, which itself owes much to Deng’s aim of building a “moderately prosperous” China.
The phrase “common prosperity”, given weight by Xi in the October 16 edition of the party theoretical Qiushi Journal, will color the resolutions of the sixth plenum.
In that contribution, Xi provided more than a hint that he plans to be around for quite some time. He set 2035 as a target for the realization of his efforts to correct China’s income inequality and achieve his goal of providing more equal access to basic services.
That benchmark date, 2035, is two further five-year cycles of the National Party Congress. In 2035, Xi would be 82, having ruled China for 20 years.
Xi’s third term is not yet a done deal
Chinese leader may appear all-powerful but ongoing Communist Party plenary could yet upend his plans and legacy
asiatimes.com · by Tony Walker · November 10, 2021
History is weighing heavily on a hotel in the western suburbs of Beijing this week, as the 300 members of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party chart a course for China’s next five-year political cycle.
Not least of the tasks before the ruling Communist elite will be to endorse the consolidation of Xi Jinping’s position as China’s most powerful leader, certainly since Deng Xiaoping and possibly since Mao Zedong himself.
Those deliberations will be rubber-stamped at the 20th National Party Congress to be held next year.
Over the next few days, world attention will turn towards Xi’s anointing and resolutions of this sixth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee. China scholars, intelligence analysts and diplomatic representatives will scrutinize every last word that emanates from Beijing’s propaganda machine.
History is being etched in these deliberations, which will ripple beyond China’s borders. It is hard to exaggerate the significance of these few days in Beijing, in which issues like China’s mission to achieve Taiwan’s reunification with the mainland will be canvassed.
In this centenary year of the founding of the party in Shanghai in 1921, the sixth plenum will rank with three other critical moments in Communist Party history.
These three moments include two sixth plenums. In the first in 1945, Mao vanquished his party opponents to become sole leader. In the second in 1981, Deng removed the ideological debris of the destructive Mao era.
The other event of particular importance in Communist Party history is the third plenum of the 11th Central Committee in 1978. In that year, a recently rehabilitated Deng re-emerged to take control of his party and his country and ultimately shift the world away from a hitherto American-dominated axis.
Both the 1945 and 1981 plenums were enshrined in historical documents that served a political purpose.
In Mao’s case, the aim was to remove and sideline his political opponents. In Deng’s, he used the 1981 sixth plenum to bury the excesses of Maoism in a historical document. It resolved that Mao had made serious mistakes, but recognized his achievements.
So historical documentation has long been a weapon of choice for Chinese Communist Party leaders seeking to impose their will on a party and a country.
In 2021, a contemporary historical reckoning will dwell not so much on the past but on the future in the world’s most populous country, second-largest economy and rival to US power and influence.
In 1945, Mao’s “coup” against his party opponents largely went unnoticed in a world consumed by the last days of the second world war.
In 1981, Deng’s artful burying of Maoism, while not jettisoning Mao’s revolutionary contribution, garnered world attention. But this maneuver was not seen as a harbinger of what has proved an extraordinary leap forward in China’s economic development.
Combination portrait of Chinese leader Xi Jinping and former leader Deng Xiaoping. Image: Facebook / Getty
In 1981, not even the most committed Sinophiles were predicting that within a generation China would upset a global status quo and transform itself from a development backwater to one that challenged the West on many different fronts.
Sixth plenums of central committees are aimed at building consensus and clearing the decks of outstanding differences before party congresses. Xi may appear all-powerful to the outside world, but internal party disputation, maneuvering and infighting is part and parcel of the world’s largest political organization, with some 95 million members.
Much comment has attached to the fact Xi has not traveled outside China since 2020. It’s seen as a possible indication that he is not entirely confident of his grip on power.
However, it is more likely that, apart from the constraints on travel in a pandemic, China’s leader will have used his time to prepare for this sixth plenum, in what will have been an exhaustive process of consultation and consensus-building.
Having buried a requirement that would have prevented him from serving a third five-year term as China’s new emperor, Xi is no doubt leaving little to chance in his continuing efforts to consolidate his rule and root out potential naysayers.
His anti-corruption campaign early in his tenure, and more recently his moves against Chinese billionaires like Alibaba’s Jack Ma as part of efforts to close the gap between rich and poor, are part of this process.
Xi’s “common prosperity” drive is central to his efforts to distinguish his era from the past. This includes Deng’s unleashing of Chinese entrepreneurial instincts with such sayings as “to get rich is glorious” and “it doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.”
In this latest period, Xi is facing a different set of challenges from his inspirational predecessor. In Deng’s case, his mission was to foster the creative energies of a country that had been subjected to a rolling series of disasters, culminating in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of 1966-76.
In Xi’s case, his challenges are perhaps no less than Deng’s in transforming China from an export-led low-wage economy to one driven by its vast consumer market.
These challenges have been exposed in recent months by the near-collapse of Evergrande, China’s biggest property developer, the precariousness of others in the same space, and power generation shortages and blackouts.
The Evergrande Center building in Shanghai is becoming emblematic of China’s wider economic risks. Photo: AFP / Hector Retamal
On top of all of this, China’s economy has been slowing in a manner that will be concerning Beijing central planners; although the point is well made that the country’s economic growth should be regarded as a multiple of a much larger economy these days than in the past when double-digit growth rates were the norm.
Central Committee delegates are unlikely to dwell this week on the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of 1978. But its shadow will extend over deliberations in the sense that China would not have moved as far and as fast as it has without that event’s endorsement of a process of “reform and opening.”
It was at the third plenum that Deng and his supporters weaponized the phrase “seek truth from facts” to face down Maoist holdouts who were standing in the way of a process of economic liberalization and opening to the outside world.
Four decades later, Xi will seek to build on that process by championing his “common prosperity” theme, which itself owes much to Deng’s aim of building a “moderately prosperous” China.
The phrase “common prosperity”, given weight by Xi in the October 16 edition of the party theoretical Qiushi Journal, will color the resolutions of the sixth plenum.
In that contribution, Xi provided more than a hint that he plans to be around for quite some time. He set 2035 as a target for the realization of his efforts to correct China’s income inequality and achieve his goal of providing more equal access to basic services.
That benchmark date, 2035, is two further five-year cycles of the National Party Congress. In 2035, Xi would be 82, having ruled China for 20 years.
Tony Walker is vice-chancellor’s fellow at Australia’s La Trobe University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
asiatimes.com · by Tony Walker · November 10, 2021
4. Xi, Biden call will have Taiwan front and center

Excerpts:
A few hours after the landing of the US warplane in Taipei, the Eastern Theater Command of the PLA issued a statement that it had organized a patrol mission in the Taiwan Strait.
On Wednesday, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a video speech during the Symposium on Global Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance 2021 that some countries tried to maintain maritime hegemony by showing off at sea and forming an alliance to hurt other countries’ legal rights.
The United States is reportedly going to hold a Summit for Democracy on December 9-10, for which it has invited more than a 100 countries and governments including Taiwan to attend this virtual meeting. China, Russia and Hungary have not been extended invitations, according to a list obtained by Politico.
Ju Feng, a columnist of Guancha.cn, wrote in an article that the Summit for Democracy underscored America’s political manipulations. Ju said the US invited India and the Philippines, both of which have seen deteriorating democratic conditions, as both were China’s neighbors.
He said it was unreasonable that the US tried to define democracy by itself by referring to “China’s Taiwan province” a democratic government.
Xi, Biden call will have Taiwan front and center
US-Chinese leaders expected to meet virtually as early as next week as tensions swirl on a variety of fronts
asiatimes.com · by Jeff Pao · November 10, 2021
US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to hold a virtual meeting as early as next week to discuss topics ranging from bilateral trade relations to rising tremors around Taiwan. It’s not clear to most observers, however, if the call will serve to aggravate or alleviate tensions.
Significantly, the meeting will be held after the sixth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which ends this Thursday and is expected to agree to give General Secretary Xi a third five-year term as president.
Preparations for the plenary prevented Xi from attending the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference, or COP26 summit, in Glasgow, United Kingdom this month. On November 2, Biden criticized China as well as Russia for their lack of participation in the summit.
If the call goes through, the two leaders will have plenty to discuss. Since last month, Chinese state media has started to promote the Winter Olympics, which will be held in Beijing in February 2022. Calls for a boycott of the Games over China’s human rights record are gathering resonance in various Western nations.
Tensions in the Taiwan Strait, meanwhile, spiked this week after a delegation of US Congress members arrived in Taipei on Tuesday on an unannounced visit aboard a US Navy aircraft. The surprise visit was slammed by officials at the Chinese Ministry of Defense and the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office.
On September 10, Xi and Biden held a 90-minute phone call and reportedly agreed that China and the US should resume dialogue in the spirit of equality and mutual respect. The White House said the phone call was part of the US’s ongoing efforts to responsibly manage US-China competition in various realms.
Earlier high-level diplomatic exchanges have ended in acrimony. Top US and Chinese diplomats openly rebuked each other at a face-to-face meeting in Alaska in March. US officials said at the time they could not discuss matters with their Chinese counterparts, who adopted “wolf warrior” attitudes, while Chinese officials complained US officials spoke down to them.
After the Xi-Biden phone call in September, Yang Jiechi, director of the Office of the CPC Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, met with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan for six hours in Zurich, Switzerland. They reportedly discussed a possible virtual meeting between Xi and Biden for later this year.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (2nd R), joined by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan (R), speaks while facing Yang Jiechi (2nd L), director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office, and Wang Yi (L), China’s Foreign Minister at the opening session of US-China talks at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska on March 18, 2021. Photo: AFP / Frederic J Brown / Pool
Later, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He held a virtual meeting with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai on October 9 and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on October 26. State media said the Liu-Yellen meeting, which reportedly entailed deeper and more concrete discussions, was more pragmatic than the Liu-Tai one.
On Tuesday, Chinese media reports acknowledged a virtual Xi-Biden meeting would be held as soon as next week but that so far no date had been fixed.
On the same day, Xi told a group of US former officials and businessmen in a letter that China was ready to work with the US to address regional and international issues as well as global challenges on the condition of “mutual respect.”
“Right now, China-US relations are at a critical historical juncture,” Xi said. “Both countries will gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation. Cooperation is the only right choice.”
The letter was read in English by China’s ambassador to the US, Qin Gang, during the annual gala dinner of the National Committee on US-China Relations in New York on November 9.
Xi’s conciliatory message to the US business community coincided with the landing of a US Navy Air Logistics Office plane carrying US congressmen at Taipei Songshan Airport. Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said in a statement that the US lawmakers’ relevant itinerary was coordinated with the American Institute in Taiwan, the US’ de facto embassy on the island.
MOFA said it was providing administrative assistance to the delegation and coordinating with the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on relevant epidemic prevention measures.
In Beijing, officials of China’s Ministry of Defense and State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office, criticized the Taiwanese administration and the US congressmen for the incident.
Beijing strongly opposes any official and military ties between the US and Taiwan, Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson of the Taiwan Affairs Office, said in a media briefing on Wednesday.
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was doomed to failure if it relied on the US to seek Taiwan independence, Zhu said, adding that US lawmakers should not send wrong signals to the island’s separatists.
The fact that the People’s Liberation Army sent fighter jets to fly over Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone more than 700 times was a result of the DPP and Taiwan independence proponents publicly promoting the “two-state” theory, Zhu said. Military tensions in the Taiwan Strait would not decrease if Taiwan independence proponents continued to stir trouble, she said.
Military helicopters carrying large Taiwan flags do flyby rehearsals on October 5 ahead of National Day celebrations amid escalating tensions between Taipei and Beijing. Photo: AFP / Ceng Shou Yi / NurPhoto
She said mainland China was willing to achieve unification with Taiwan peacefully. Zhu said after unification the fortunes created by Taiwanese people would be used to improve people’s livelihoods instead of buying weapons and international friendships.
Tan Kefei, spokesperson for China’s Ministry of National Defense, said the US had to stop their provocative actions in the Taiwan Strait, which he said interfered in China’s internal affairs and undermined China’s sovereignty.
A few hours after the landing of the US warplane in Taipei, the Eastern Theater Command of the PLA issued a statement that it had organized a patrol mission in the Taiwan Strait.
On Wednesday, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a video speech during the Symposium on Global Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance 2021 that some countries tried to maintain maritime hegemony by showing off at sea and forming an alliance to hurt other countries’ legal rights.
The United States is reportedly going to hold a Summit for Democracy on December 9-10, for which it has invited more than a 100 countries and governments including Taiwan to attend this virtual meeting. China, Russia and Hungary have not been extended invitations, according to a list obtained by Politico.
Ju Feng, a columnist of Guancha.cn, wrote in an article that the Summit for Democracy underscored America’s political manipulations. Ju said the US invited India and the Philippines, both of which have seen deteriorating democratic conditions, as both were China’s neighbors.
He said it was unreasonable that the US tried to define democracy by itself by referring to “China’s Taiwan province” a democratic government.
asiatimes.com · by Jeff Pao · November 10, 2021

5. Honor Veterans by Having the Will to Win a War

Excerpt:

On Veterans Day, we should thank the men and women who served in Afghanistan and the families who gave their last full measure of devotion. We should assure them that America’s war in Afghanistan was a just response to the most devastating terrorist attack in history.
Honor Veterans by Having the Will to Win a War
If civilian leaders send troops into battle without a commitment to victory, who will sign up to serve?
WSJ · by H.R. McMaster
If leaders send men and women into battle without dedicating themselves to achieving a worthy outcome, who will step forward to volunteer for military service? Who will offer to endure hardship, take risk and make sacrifices? Winning in Afghanistan meant ensuring that Afghanistan never again became a haven for jihadist terrorists. America and its coalition partners had the means to do so with a low, sustained level of support for Afghans who were bearing the brunt of the fight on a modern-day frontier between barbarism and civilization.
But three presidents in a row told the American people that the war in Afghanistan wasn’t worth continued sacrifice. It became typical for citizens to profess support for the troops but not the war. That sentiment was preferable to the derision directed at veterans who fought under difficult conditions in Vietnam. But American warriors won’t long trust a society that doesn’t believe in what the nation is fighting for—as they kill others and risk their own lives.
Winning in war also means convincing the enemy that he is defeated. America’s quick-fix approach to Afghanistan, with persistent promises of imminent withdrawal, made the war longer and more expensive than it needed to be. It weakened Afghan allies; it strengthened the Taliban, their terrorist allies and their Pakistani sponsors.
Winning in war also requires consolidating military gains to achieve an enduring political outcome. In Afghanistan this meant an Afghan government hostile to jihadist terrorists, with security forces capable of withstanding the regenerative capacity of the Taliban. But the Obama and Trump administrations stopped actively targeting the Taliban, gave the enemy a timeline for U.S. withdrawal, and then pursued a negotiated settlement. To rationalize their ambivalence about the outcome of the war, civilian leaders and even some generals used terms like “responsible end” as a substitute for victory. Many leaders simply didn’t show the same determination to win as the warriors they sent into combat.
The long war against jihadist terrorist organizations isn’t over; it is entering a new, more dangerous phase. America’s rivals—including China, Russia, North Korea and Iran—are emboldened. They are watching a Defense Department that seems to focus more on climate change than being prepared to fight, one that promotes postmodernist theories that undermine the warrior ethos and valorize victimhood. Our leaders have an obligation to protect the warrior ethos and build America’s military capabilities, rather than promote destructive philosophies and attempt to solve problems better handled by other departments.
On Veterans Day, we should thank the men and women who served in Afghanistan and the families who gave their last full measure of devotion. We should assure them that America’s war in Afghanistan was a just response to the most devastating terrorist attack in history.
As President George W. Bush observed on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, “You have shielded your fellow citizens from danger. You have defended the beliefs of your country and advanced the rights of the downtrodden. You have been the face of hope and mercy in dark places. You have been a force for good in the world. Nothing that has followed—nothing—can tarnish your honor or diminish your accomplishments. To you and the honored dead, our country is forever grateful.”
But we might also ask American veterans to serve again on the day designated to honor them. Veterans are best equipped to explain to those on active duty that they are part of a living historical community that is proud of them for volunteering to serve at a critical time. Veterans might tell young warriors that we need them to remain ready to fight because wars don’t end when one party disengages.
And we might ask veterans to explain to those considering military service the intangible rewards, especially being part of an endeavor larger than themselves and working on a team that takes on the qualities of a family. America needs our best young men and women to volunteer to serve in the armed forces—even more after our withdrawal from one theater in a war that continues.
Mr. McMaster, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, served as White House national security adviser, 2017-18. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of “Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World.”
WSJ · by H.R. McMaster

6. How Army special ops can push back against Russian aggression


My snarky summary response: Learn, know, apply, and adapt traditional Special Forces, PSYOP, and Civil Affairs doctrine to support indigenous forces and populations and learn to lead with influence to effectively contribute to competing with revisionst and rogue powers in the Gray Zone of Strategic Competition. (And SOCEUR has demonstrated this capability with the development of the Resistance Operating Concept and this has application in most theaters around the world).



How Army special ops can push back against Russian aggression
militarytimes.com · by Meghann Myers · November 9, 2021
With an ever-diminishing role in counterterror, special operations troops are in transition, moving back toward a traditional supporting role in a larger effort to deter countries with navies and air forces and other capabilities more on par with the U.S.
Army special operations forces in particular have a role to play in countering Russia, according to an Army Special Operations Command-funded Rand Corp. report released Monday, but they’ll need more concrete direction to be useful going forward.
“Although U.S. strategic guidance proclaims that the United States has entered a new era of great-power competition, concepts for succeeding in that competition remain underdeveloped,” according to the report.
So what can Army special operations bring to the fight? By returning to its roots, particularly for Special Forces, Army special operations can work with allies to strengthen their capabilities against foes like Russia, while at the same time giving the U.S. situational awareness of conditions on the ground.
“In conditions of more intensified competition, when the risk of armed conflict is high, ARSOF can help to defend against proxy forces used by U.S. adversaries,” according to the report. “ARSOF can also be used to disrupt adversary operations in denied environments or to impose costs on adversaries, although the most aggressive uses of ARSOF—unconventional warfare intended to overthrow adversary governments—have traditionally been high-risk activities with relatively low rates of success.”
In order to be successful, the authors wrote, Army SOF needs a few things:
  • Army doctrine, specifically Multi-Domain Operations, needs to include specific guidance for SOF.
  • Special Operations Command and the assistant defense secretary for special operations/low-intensity conflict should do regular reviews of Army SOF activities to make sure they are in line with the change in focus to “strategic competition.”
  • SOF should only engage directly with Russia, through unconventional or information warfare, in rare circumstances.
  • Special operations troops should be embedded with allies as part of a “long-term political-military strategy,” as their progress tends to be incremental and measured by the successes of those partner nations in their own strategies.
“There may well be specific contexts in which UW and aggressive uses of [operations in the information environment] are appropriate tools for the United States to compel Russia to cease certain activities or to disrupt and degrade its ability to pursue them,” the report found. “But the potential benefits of such instruments must be carefully weighed against the costs, risks, and likelihood of success.”
About Meghann Myers
Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members. Follow on Twitter @Meghann_MT

 
7. 100 years of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Remember on Veterans Day.

100 years of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Stars and Stripes · by Nikki Wentling · November 8, 2021
The first military guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on March 25, 1926. To prevent visitors from climbing or stepping on the tomb, soldiers from Fort Myer, Va., were assigned to guard it during daylight hours beginning in 1926. In 1937, the guard became a 24/7 presence. (Library of Congress)

WASHINGTON — A casket containing the unidentified remains of a World War I soldier was carried in a horse-drawn wagon through Washington, D.C., across the Potomac River, and into Arlington National Cemetery on Nov. 11, 1921.
Thousands of dignitaries, veterans and American citizens packed into the Memorial Amphitheater at the cemetery, where then-President Warren G. Harding led a state funeral for the unknown soldier. When the ceremony began at noon, bells tolled, and Americans across the country observed two minutes of silence for the fallen man.
“The name of him whose body lies before us took flight with his imperishable soul,” Harding said. “We know not whence he came, but only that his death marks him with the everlasting glory of an American dying for his country. He might have come from any one of millions of American homes.”
Thursday marks 100 years since the remains were entombed at Arlington, creating the iconic Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The tomb, which attracts millions of visitors every year, now includes the remains of soldiers from World War II and the Korean War. In the past 100 years, it has become a symbol of American service and sacrifice, as well as a place for mourning and reflection.
To mark the anniversary, Arlington National Cemetery planned a series of events, including a procession Thursday that is intended to evoke elements of the unidentified soldier’s funeral procession from 1921. For the first time in decades, visitors to the tomb this week will be allowed to approach it and place flowers near its base.
“One hundred years ago, we laid to rest an unidentified American who fell in the First World War. He has been in our charge ever since,” said Karen Durham-Aguilera, executive director of Army National Military Cemeteries. “The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier stands, physically and symbolically, at the heart of the cemetery — and the heart of the nation.”
The idea for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier came from Britain and France, which created similar tombs in 1920. Unidentified remains of fallen World War I soldiers were buried that year at Westminster Abbey in London and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. In both countries, one unidentified soldier symbolized all the unknown troops who were killed in action.
In December 1920, New York Congressman Hamilton Fish Jr., a World War I veteran, proposed legislation that ordered the entombment of one unidentified American soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. Its purpose was to “bring home the body of an unknown American warrior who in himself represents no section, creed or race in the late war and who typifies … the soul of America and the supreme sacrifice of her heroic dead,” according to the legislation.
Congress approved the burial on March 4, 1921. In October of that year, four bodies of unidentified soldiers were exhumed from American military cemeteries in France. Sgt. Edward Younger, a World War I veteran, selected the soldier who would be sent to Arlington National Cemetery by placing white roses on one of the caskets. Younger was given the honor because of his superior service record.
The remains arrived in Washington by ship on Nov. 9, 1921. The casket lay in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Nov. 10, where about 90,000 people came to pay their respects before the remains were taken to Arlington the following day.
A White House military aide places President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Memorial Day, May 30, 1940. (Library of Congress)
More remains added
More remains were interred at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the following decades, first in 1958 and then in 1984.
After World War II, Americans supported the idea of adding remains to the tomb that would represent the unidentified dead from that conflict. However, the start of the Korean War delayed those plans.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved the idea in 1956 to entomb unidentified remains from World War II and the Korean War. The Army started an extensive process in 1958 to select the remains that would represent World War II soldiers.
Five bodies were exhumed from cemeteries in Hawaii and the Philippines to represent the Pacific theater of the war. To represent the Atlantic theater, 13 bodies were exhumed from cemeteries across North Africa and Europe. Officials selected one casket from each group, and they met on the USS Canberra off the coast of Virginia.
William Charlette, a Navy hospital corpsman who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his service in the Korean War, chose one of the caskets to be entombed at Arlington. The others received burials at sea.
About the same time, the Army exhumed four unidentified bodies from the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii to represent a soldier from the Korean War. Army Master Sgt. Ned Lyle, a recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, selected one.
The caskets of the World War II and Korean War soldiers arrived in Washington on May 28, 1958, and lay in state at the Capitol for two days. They were then transported to Arlington National Cemetery, where they were placed in crypts beside the World War I soldier.
Years later, following the end of the Vietnam War, Congress faced pressure to designate an unknown soldier from the war to place in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. A set of remains was chosen in 1984, and a casket with the remains was entombed on Memorial Day that year.
Following the entombment, work continued at the Defense Department to identify remains recovered from Vietnam. Through those efforts, scientists found evidence that suggested the remains placed in the Tomb of the Unknown soldier were Air Force 1st Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie, a pilot who had been shot down in 1972.
Blassie’s family requested the Pentagon exhume the remains. They were removed from the tomb in 1998 and positively identified as Blassie’s using DNA testing. Blassie’s family had him reinterred at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis.
The crypt meant for a Vietnam War soldier remains vacant. It was rededicated in 1999 to honor all missing U.S. service members from the Vietnam War.
According to Arlington National Cemetery, there are no plans to inter any more service members in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
“Due to the advancement of mitochondrial DNA sequencing and other forensic technologies, along with improved and faster recovery of fatalities in theater, unidentified American casualties are now exceedingly rare,” cemetery officials said in a statement. “There are no current plans to place unknowns from recent wars.”
President Warren G. Harding addresses the nation during the funeral service for the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery on Nov. 11, 1921. (Library of Congress)
President Joe Biden adjusts a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day, Monday, May 31, 2021, in Arlington, Va. (Alex Brandon/AP)
Changes through the years
In its early years, the tomb was a simple marble slab.
Congress acted in 1926 to finish the tomb, kicking off a national design competition to do so. The tomb, as it is today, was designed by two World War I veterans — architect Lorimer Rich and sculptor Thomas Hudson James. They submitted a design for a white marble sarcophagus with neoclassical carvings.
Construction on their design began in 1929 and was completed in 1932. The tomb was decorated with three wreaths on each side panel. Three figures on the front represent peace, victory and valor. On the back is the inscription, “Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.”
About the time Congress acted to finish the tomb, another change happened — it was given a guard.
By then, visitors began to treat the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier as a tourist attraction. The Army decided in 1925 to post a civilian guard near the tomb to discourage people from climbing or stepping on it.
One year later, soldiers from nearby Fort Myer, Va., were assigned to guard the tomb. At the time, they guarded it only during daylight hours.
The tradition started in 1937 of guards always standing watch over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, day and night. Now, soldiers who volunteer to become guards must undergo a strict selection process. They’re trained on precise rituals meant to honor the unidentified soldiers entombed there.
During the “changing of the guard” ceremony, guards take 21 steps to the rear of the tomb, then turn to face east for 21 seconds. They then turn to face north for 21 seconds before taking another 21 steps back to the start. The number 21 symbolizes the 21-gun salute, the highest symbolic military honor.
The guards also perform a “shoulder-arms” movement as part of the ceremony during which they place their weapon on the shoulder closest to visitors, signifying they stand between the tomb and any possible threat.
This week is the only time in recent history that visitors have been allowed close to the tomb to place flowers. The public flower-laying ceremony will last through the day on Tuesday and Wednesday. Flowers will then be collected and placed at headstones throughout the cemetery.
In addition to a procession, the cemetery will hold a Veterans Day observance at the tomb Thursday.
Nikki Wentling
Nikki Wentling has worked for Stars and Stripes since 2016. She reports from Congress, the White House, the Department of Veterans Affairs and throughout the country about issues affecting veterans, service members and their families. Wentling, a graduate of the University of Kansas, previously worked at the Lawrence Journal-World and Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The National Coalition of Homeless Veterans awarded Stars and Stripes the Meritorious Service Award in 2020 for Wentling’s reporting on homeless veterans during the coronavirus pandemic. In 2018, she was named by the nonprofit HillVets as one of the 100 most influential people in regard to veterans policymaking.

Stars and Stripes · by Nikki Wentling · November 8, 2021

8. Department of Defense Releases Annual Demographics Report — Modest Increase of Women in the Active Duty Force


The interactive dashboards for the report are at this link: https://demographics.militaryonesource.mil/
Department of Defense Releases Annual Demographics Report — Modest Increase of Women in the Active Duty Force
Immediate Release
Nov. 10, 2021

While the overall size and racial diversity of our military remained steady, the number of women serving in the active duty force, both enlisted and officers has grown slightly, according to the newly released 2020 Demographics Profile of the Military Community report.
The demographics profile of the military community is an annual report on the demographic makeup of the military community, including service members and their dependents. This year’s release of official DoD data is fully interactive, enabling users to customize how they view the latest data on the military community.
"The annual demographics report provides a meaningful way to highlight the changing nature of our military. DoD remains committed to ensuring that our ranks are inclusive and reflect the country we serve,” said Gilbert R. Cisneros, Jr., undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.
Data highlighted in the report includes information from all services, including gender, race, age, education, family members, pay grades and other important facts. The 2020 report’s interactive dashboard allows users to view the data by various criteria, such as service branch, gender, pay grade and state of current residence.
“Many policymakers and research organizations — really, all organizations that contribute to the military community — rely on this report to support recommendations that impact programs and policies for our service members and their families,” said deputy assistant secretary of defense for military community and family policy, Mrs. Patricia “Patty” Montes Barron. “The information in the report ultimately highlights our diversity and supports the well-being of the military community.”
The annual demographics report is available on Military OneSource.
About Military Community and Family Policy
Military Community and Family Policy is directly responsible for establishing and overseeing quality of life policies and programs that help our service members, their families and survivors be well and mission-ready. Military OneSource is the gateway to programs and services that support the everyday needs of the 5.2 million service members and immediate family members of the military community. These DoD services can be accessed 24/7/365 around the world.


9. China's leader Xi warns against 'Cold War' in Asia-Pacific
Even Xi takes a narrow geographic view. If there is a Cold War it will be global and not limited to the Asai-Pacific region. Of course perhaps where he would like us to focus while he conducts nefarious activities in Latin America and Africa and the Middle East.

China's leader Xi warns against 'Cold War' in Asia-Pacific
AP · by NICK PERRY and JIM GOMEZ · November 11, 2021
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping warned Thursday against letting tensions in the Asia-Pacific region cause a relapse into a Cold War mentality.
His remarks on the sidelines of the annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum came weeks after the U.S., Britain and Australia announced a new security alliance in the region which would see Australia build nuclear submarines. China has harshly criticized the deal.
And in a separate illustration of strains within APEC, one Southeast Asian delegate told The Associated Press that the group had so far failed to reach agreement on a U.S. bid to host the 2023 summit due to unmet demands from Russia.
Xi spoke in a pre-recorded video to a CEO Summit at APEC, which is being hosted by New Zealand in a virtual format. Xi is scheduled to participate in an online meeting with other Pacific Rim leaders including U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday.
In his speech, Xi said attempts to draw boundaries in the region along ideological or geopolitical lines would fail. His reference to the Cold War echoes Beijing’s oft-stated position that the U.S. should abandon that way of thinking in dealing with China.
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“The Asia-Pacific region cannot and should not relapse into the confrontation and division of the Cold War era,” Xi said.
Xi also said the region should make sure to keep supply lines functioning and to continue liberalizing trade and investment.
“China will remain firm in advancing reform and opening up so as to add impetus to economic development,” he said.
The most pressing task in the region is to make an all-out effort to fight the pandemic and to emerge from its shadow as soon as possible, he said.
Meanwhile, the Southeast Asian delegate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss the issue, said Russia had refused to support the U.S. bid unless some of its diplomats were removed from a U.S. blacklist or allowed to enter the U.S. to participate in the APEC meetings.
The delegate said the U.S. is unlikely to agree to Russia’s demands because issues involving America’s security are considered “non-negotiable.” The delegate added that China had stayed silent on the U.S. offer.
If the 21 APEC leaders fail to reach a consensus on the U.S. bid by Friday, the delegate said, a paragraph in a draft of the summit communique welcoming the U.S. offer would have to be deleted.
New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said earlier this week that APEC was founded on consensus and that there was not yet a confirmed host for 2023.
Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney also spoke at the CEO summit, saying she believed that liberal democracies could improve global human rights by pressuring autocratic nations. She said businesses also needed to play a role.
“If you can’t battle evil, you can at least try to tackle apathy,” Clooney said. “And if you can’t rely on liberal governments to solve global issues, you have to try and inspire the private sector to step in.”
In all, APEC members account for nearly 3 billion people and about 60% of the world’s GDP. But deep tensions run through the unlikely group of 21 nations and territories that include the U.S., China, Taiwan, Russia, and Australia.
Many of the countries in Asia endeavor to balance Chinese and U.S. influences on the economic and geopolitical fronts.
China claims vast parts of the South China Sea and other areas and has moved to establish a military presence, building islands in some disputed areas as it asserts its historic claims.
Both Taiwan and China have applied to join a Pacific Rim trade pact, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, with Beijing saying it will block Taiwan’s bid on the basis that the democratically governed island refuses to accept that it’s part of communist-ruled China.
Officials say they have made significant progress during some 340 preliminary meetings leading up to this week’s leaders’ meeting. APEC members have agreed to reduce or eliminate many tariffs and border holdups on vaccines, masks and other medical products important to fighting the pandemic.
___
Gomez reported from Manila, Philippines
AP · by NICK PERRY and JIM GOMEZ · November 11, 2021

10. New camera footage from Niger ambush bolsters case for medal upgrades, moms of fallen soldiers say
 Note the downgrade recommendations.

“You hear Jeremiah and Dustin make the decision to stand with Brian and fight,” Criscio said. “So they knew [the danger].”
Wright was initially recommended for the Medal of Honor in August 2018. But Maj. Gen. Marcus Hicks, who led Special Operations Command-Africa at the time, downgraded the recommended decoration to a Distinguished Service Cross in September of that year, according to award approval records Meek shared with Army Times.
Raymond Thomas III, the Army general helming SOCOM at the time, then downgraded the award again to a Silver Star in December 2018, the records showed.
The leader of the Green Beret team on the ground, Capt. Michael Perozeni, was also initially recommended for a Bronze Star with Valor. That was downgraded to an Army Commendation Medal by Thomas in early 2019.
The new footage, as well as the scrutiny placed on the military’s inquiry into the mission, offers an opportunity for the awards and the investigation to be reevaluated, according to Gannon and Criscio.
“I plan to talk to my senators and my congressman and I plan to reach out to the Senate [armed services committee],” Criscio said. “So whether [military leaders] do it or not, I know that I and Debbie are going to push for it.”
New camera footage from Niger ambush bolsters case for medal upgrades, moms of fallen soldiers say
armytimes.com · by Kyle Rempfer · November 11, 2021
The mothers of two of the four soldiers killed in a 2017 ambush in Niger say recently discovered video from the battle is more proof that their sons’ valor awards should be reevaluated.
The 45-minute video, filmed by one of those 3rd Special Forces Group soldiers, sheds new light on the final actions of the fallen troops.
The military should “upgrade all those boys, especially after seeing that,” said Debbie Gannon, the mother of Sgt. 1st Class Jeremiah Johnson.
The new video was quietly recovered during a French operation to kill the leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara this summer. The footage shows Johnson and Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright defending a fatally shot Staff Sgt. Bryan Black as dozens of ISIS fighters bound toward them, the mothers of Wright and Johnson told Army Times. Both women were shown the new video by 3rd Group officials in October.
“Jeremiah composed himself after being shot three times and he was still helping Dustin, telling him where the [ISIS] shots were coming from, and he was still shooting,” Gannon said.
“You don’t see them running away from the battle,” Terri Criscio, the mother of Wright, agreed. “You see them holding their ground until they cannot hold it any longer.”
U.S. Special Operations Command left the possibility open for award upgrades when reached for comment.
“Based on the new video, soldiers’ awards could be reevaluated,” said SOCOM spokesman Col. Curtis J. Kellogg. “It would be inappropriate to speculate about or presuppose any decision related to the awards process.”
A much shorter, edited version of the video was disseminated by ISIS propagandists a year after the fatal ambush near the village of Tongo Tongo. But the entire video may bolster the case for award upgrades, as well as renew focus on the botched mission that led the 3rd Group team into an ambush.
The winding tale of how the lightly armed team ended up in the melee, and why the military’s investigation placed primary blame on the ground force rather than senior leaders, is the subject of a new ABC documentary, 3212 UN-REDACTED, by investigative journalist James Gordon Meek, which premiers Thursday on Hulu.
RELATED

Michelle Black, widow of a Green Beret killed in the 2017 Niger ambush, has interviewed many of the mission’s survivors and questioned inconsistencies in the official report.
By Michelle Black
The fact that more helmet camera footage was recovered by French forces came to light during a Question & Answer session for the documentary’s premier in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
U.S. Africa Command received the video for analysis in mid-August from a foreign military, Kellogg confirmed to Army Times. He declined to name the partner force since U.S. troops did not participate in the mission, but family of the fallen said they were told the video was secured by the French.
“Our primary concern is with the families of our fallen soldiers who were notified about the video last month after appropriate agencies were able to determine what the footage depicted,” Kellogg said. “To protect the privacy of the families and out of respect for their loss, DoD is not releasing the video or a description of its contents.”
In addition to Jeremiah Johnson, Wright and Black, Sgt. La David Johnson was also killed Oct. 4, 2017, when the ISIS militants led by Dondou Chefou ambushed the special operations team.
RELATED

“Yes, this is a rare event. It is the only case like this in recent history that [Army Human Resources Command] has in its files,” one official said.
La David Johnson was only briefly on the helmet camera footage, family members said, because he was tasked to a different vehicle when the gun battle unfolded. He was also eventually separated from the larger U.S. team when he and two Nigerien partners were unable to reenter their vehicle due to concentrated enemy fire.
Cr.                                               
RELATED

Four soldiers were killed in the ambush on Oct. 4, 2017.
“You hear Jeremiah and Dustin make the decision to stand with Brian and fight,” Criscio said. “So they knew [the danger].”
Wright was initially recommended for the Medal of Honor in August 2018. But Maj. Gen. Marcus Hicks, who led Special Operations Command-Africa at the time, downgraded the recommended decoration to a Distinguished Service Cross in September of that year, according to award approval records Meek shared with Army Times.
Raymond Thomas III, the Army general helming SOCOM at the time, then downgraded the award again to a Silver Star in December 2018, the records showed.
The leader of the Green Beret team on the ground, Capt. Michael Perozeni, was also initially recommended for a Bronze Star with Valor. That was downgraded to an Army Commendation Medal by Thomas in early 2019.
The new footage, as well as the scrutiny placed on the military’s inquiry into the mission, offers an opportunity for the awards and the investigation to be reevaluated, according to Gannon and Criscio.
“I plan to talk to my senators and my congressman and I plan to reach out to the Senate [armed services committee],” Criscio said. “So whether [military leaders] do it or not, I know that I and Debbie are going to push for it.”
About Kyle Rempfer
Kyle Rempfer is an editor and reporter whose investigations have covered combat operations, criminal cases, foreign military assistance and training accidents. Before entering journalism, Kyle served in U.S. Air Force Special Tactics and deployed in 2014 to Paktika Province, Afghanistan, and Baghdad, Iraq.

11. Opinion | Veterans of the Afghanistan war deserve their own parade


Opinion | Veterans of the Afghanistan war deserve their own parade
The Washington Post · by Max BootColumnist Today at 2:50 p.m. EST · November 10, 2021
Veterans of the Civil War, World War I, World War II and the Gulf War got victory parades. What do the 800,000 veterans of the Afghanistan war get?
They fought with awe-inspiring dedication and great sacrifice across nearly two decades, but in the end could not establish a sustainable status quo. The government of Afghanistan disintegrated in just a matter of days in August. The Taliban — the violent extremists that U.S. troops had been fighting for nearly 20 years — are now in control of the entire country. Tens of thousands of Afghans who worked with U.S. forces have been evacuated, but the majority of those who applied for “Special Immigrant Visas” have been left behind.
The acting interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is a “specially designated global terrorist” with a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head. The Kabul province’s governor, known as Qari Baryal, is an associate of al-Qaeda who used to carry out deadly attacks against U.S. soldiers and civilians in the capital. There is no way to sugarcoat it: This is what defeat looks like.
It is perfectly understandable for those who served in Afghanistan to wonder on this Veterans Day: Was it worth the lives of 2,352 U.S. service members and the wounding of nearly 21,000 more — to say nothing of the psychological traumas that afflict so many of those who serve in any war? There is no good answer to that question. If it offers any solace to those who served, however, this is not a new dilemma.
Some version of these same agonizing questions was asked by veterans of the Korean War, which ended in an unsatisfying stalemate, and the Vietnam War, the only previous war that the United States lost.
Even veterans of the Great War, despite their ostensible victory in 1918, came to question their sacrifice after it became clear that U.S. involvement had neither made the world safe for democracy nor ended all wars. Instead, World War I sowed the seeds of another, even larger conflict just 21 years later. Adding insult to injury, destitute veterans who marched on Washington in 1932, demanding early payment of a bonus they had been promised, were rebuffed by Congress and violently routed by Army troops.
We like to imagine that when U.S. troops go into battle, the inevitable result is total victory, but reality has always been messier. Yes, federal forces won the Civil War, but they lost the peace. After the end of Reconstruction, Southern Whites were able to subjugate African Americans with Jim Crow laws. Yes, U.S. forces won World War II, but they could not prevent all of Eastern Europe from falling under the iron grip of Joseph Stalin, a tyrant whose evil arguably rivaled Adolf Hitler’s, and the outbreak of a Cold War that threatened nuclear annihilation.
No defeat was as traumatizing as the one in Vietnam. I wrote a book about Edward Lansdale, the legendary covert operative who helped to create the state of South Vietnam — and who was anguished to see its collapse in 1975. He expressed “a deep-seated feeling of grief over my failure to accomplish enough in my 1965-1968 service in Vietnam to have helped the people there prevent the tragedy which eventually overcame them.”
No doubt, many veterans who fought in Afghanistan feel the same way today.
There are many failures in Afghanistan that need to be judged before the court of history. These include President George W. Bush’s decision to shift resources to an unnecessary war in Iraq; President Barack Obama’s decision to mount an ill-fated, time-limited troop surge; President Donald Trump’s decision to conclude a terrible, one-sided deal with the Taliban; and, finally, President Biden’s decision to pull all U.S. forces out despite widespread predictions of the disaster that would follow.
America’s generals also need to be held to account for their Pollyanna-ish assessments of the war effort and the state of the Afghan security forces, the many offensives they ordered that incurred great costs for only transitory gains, and all of the corrosive effects of too much U.S. money (which fueled corruption) and too much U.S. firepower (which caused needless deaths and created new enemies).
But none of those failures should detract from the heroism and dedication of the ordinary Americans who served on the front lines. On numerous visits to Afghanistan from 2008 to 2017, I often came away uncertain whether we were winning but certain that the U.S. troops I met were a credit to their country. They were, in fact, the best of us. The same was true of the diplomats, aid workers, intelligence officers and other unsung heroes who served alongside the men and women in uniform.
There were no battles in Afghanistan as decisive as Gettysburg, Midway or D-Day, but those who fought displayed just as much valor and commitment. Even though the war was lost, those who served should forever remain proud of their service — and those of us who did not serve should spend this Veterans Day, and every day, honoring those who did. Maybe they should get a parade after all.
The Washington Post · by Max BootColumnist Today at 2:50 p.m. EST · November 10, 2021

12. CYBERCOM has conducted 'hunt-forward' ops in 14 countries, deputy says

Excerpts:
Moore did not quantify exactly how many adversary operations CYBERCOM has stopped.
Moore also indicated the command’s wish for more resources. He said CYBERCOM will never raise its hand and say it doesn’t need more resources. If CYBERCOM had more, “we’d be doing even more of these hunt-forward operations,” he said.
As it stands now, Moore noted that CYBERCOM has requested more resources for hunt-forward operations and to staff more teams as part of its Cyber Mission Force.
Moore said half the new teams are slated to be involved in defending the Defense Department’s space assets, which has become an increasing focus of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Moore predicted that the new teams could be integrated with Space Command by the end of 2024.

CYBERCOM has conducted 'hunt-forward' ops in 14 countries, deputy says - Breaking Defense
Lt. Gen. Moore didn't provide details, but later said, "China is the number one priority for DoD. Therefore, it's [CYBERCOM chief] Gen. Nakasone's number one priority."
breakingdefense.com · by Brad D. Williams · November 10, 2021
The seals of the U.S. Cyber Command, the National Secrity Agency and the Central Security Service greet employees and visitors at the campus the three organizations share March 13, 2015 in Fort Meade, Maryland. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON: US Cyber Command’s deputy commander said today that its “hunt-forward” operations have been “very effective” in blending offensive and defensive cyber operations, revealing that the command has conducted more than a couple dozen of the operations in 14 countries over the last few years.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles “Tuna” Moore said that since 2018 CYBERCOM has conducted “well over” 24 hunt-forward operations in 14 countries, during which it has discovered approximately 30 new pieces of malware, which the command has shared with US partners.
While CYBERCOM did not respond to Breaking Defense’s request for specifics beyond Moore’s comments, Moore said the new, aggressive stance has prompted increased demand for partnerships from foreign nations.
CYBERCOM Commander Gen. Paul Nakasone has previously characterized hunt forward as deploying CYBERCOM teams to allied nations to help proactively identify adversary operations and cyber vulnerabilities on their networks. That information is then shared with partners and used to bolster US defenses. Hunt forward can also entail elements of offensive and information operations, as Moore alluded today and Nakasone has hinted in the past.
Hunt forward is one of two “constructs” of persistent engagement, Nakasone has said. Persistent engagement is the CYBERCOM doctrine that total cyber deterrence is futile, and the best defense is, in part, a good offense. Or, as Moore said today, the US has to be in “constant contact” with adversaries in cyberspace.
“Without a doubt, our operations to get forward into [overseas] networks — where we’ve been able to uncover our adversaries’ intentions, infrastructure, tools, malware, weapons — we’ve been able to locate a lot of those kinds of things and expose a lot of those things. We’ve been able to stop attacks,” Moore said at the 2021 C4ISRNet CyberCon virtual event.
Moore also discussed how persistent engagement, which was formalized in the 2018 National Cyber Strategy, has influenced CYBERCOM’s thinking on offensive and defensive cyber.
Although CYBERCOM in the past has said, rather paradoxically, that hunt forward is strictly defensive, the fact is it can be difficult to draw a hard line between offense and defense in cyberspace. For instance, if CYBERCOM disrupts an adversary’s infrastructure ahead of a suspected attack against the US, is that an offensive or a defensive operation?
Moore likened CYBERCOM’s evolution from that of a football team where only the offense or defense is on the field at one time to more like a hockey team, where any given line change plays both an offensive and defensive role.
“Cyber is a domain best utilized when you’re operating in that manner,” Moore observed. “In execution of those offensive operations, it’s given us an opportunity to impose costs. Measurements in this space can be challenging, but when we know there was something we stopped, that’s something we can measure.”
Moore did not quantify exactly how many adversary operations CYBERCOM has stopped.
Moore also indicated the command’s wish for more resources. He said CYBERCOM will never raise its hand and say it doesn’t need more resources. If CYBERCOM had more, “we’d be doing even more of these hunt-forward operations,” he said.
As it stands now, Moore noted that CYBERCOM has requested more resources for hunt-forward operations and to staff more teams as part of its Cyber Mission Force.
Moore said half the new teams are slated to be involved in defending the Defense Department’s space assets, which has become an increasing focus of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Moore predicted that the new teams could be integrated with Space Command by the end of 2024.
Moore also said CYBERCOM is also closely tracking China, which he said continues its operations focused on stealing intellectual property, including data from the US defense industrial base.
“China is the number one priority for DoD. Therefore, it’s Gen. Nakasone’s number one priority,” Moore said. “We’re working with INDOPACOM to see what types of cyber effects are needed.” But, he noted, it’s not just within Indo-Pacific region. “China has aspirations from a global perspective,” Moore said, adding, “They also have vulnerabilities from a global perspective.”

13.  The U.S. Military Isn’t Ready to Confront China

Blame it in COIN? Really? But oh does the pendulum swing. Or is it our strategic failure to anticipate?

Excerpts:
The defense budget is again focusing on the systems that make the United States a great power.
It goes back well before that. In the century after the Napoleonic Wars, Britain focused on small wars in places like, well, Afghanistan. By the early 1900s, its military was not well equipped for a confrontation with a peer adversary like Germany. Actor Rowan Atkinson’s Captain Blackadder, of the BBC series Blackadder Goes Forth, said it best: “I’d had 15 years of military experience, perfecting the art of ordering a pink gin and [propositioning women] in Swahili, and then suddenly, 4 1/2 million heavily armed Germans hoved into view. That was a shock, I can tell you.”
The situation today is merely another example of this phenomenon. The Afghanistan withdrawal was poorly executed and a human tragedy. But the Trump and Biden administrations both made the same wise decision: to get the U.S. military out of wars that have nothing to do with superpower confrontation or even major geopolitical concerns. Afghanistan isn’t even particularly relevant to counterterror operations these days, as counterterrorism expert Paul R. Pillar recently argued in Foreign Policy. But most of all, there are pressing concerns in the Pacific.

The U.S. Military Isn’t Ready to Confront China
Two decades of counterinsurgency didn’t do it any favors.
Foreign Policy · by Richard Aboulafia · November 9, 2021
Major weapons-related news grabbed headlines twice over the past few months. First, a small horde of light aircraft and other weapons was left behind in the hasty U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Then, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom partnered together in an effort known as AUKUS to create a small fleet of nuclear-powered submarines for Australia’s navy.
These developments illustrate the two ends of the conflict spectrum: counterinsurgency and great-power competition. They also show how global conflict and weapons procurement often follow a cyclical pattern: For centuries, great powers have swung back and forth between these two poles. Now, as its “pivot to Asia” takes shape, the United States is in the middle of exactly this cycle—and its past two decades of prioritizing weapons for counterinsurgency warfare hasn’t done it any favors as the risk of confrontation with China only grows. The Pacific is no place for short-range counterinsurgency systems, after all, and those weapons are useless deterrents against China.
The weapons in Afghanistan are perfect illustrations of what’s needed for one end of the conflict spectrum. Abandoned light military transports, old-model helicopters, tactical unmanned aircraft systems, and propeller light attack aircraft are the kind of relatively inexpensive equipment used for low-intensity conflicts in remote locations—also known as counterinsurgency warfare, nation building, or (way back when) Queen Victoria’s Little Wars. These weapons don’t have any deterrent effect. They are simply used for fighting, and, once abandoned, they have nearly zero use. Their technology is unsophisticated, and without spare parts, they quickly become nonoperational.
Major weapons-related news grabbed headlines twice over the past few months. First, a small horde of light aircraft and other weapons was left behind in the hasty U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Then, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom partnered together in an effort known as AUKUS to create a small fleet of nuclear-powered submarines for Australia’s navy.
These developments illustrate the two ends of the conflict spectrum: counterinsurgency and great-power competition. They also show how global conflict and weapons procurement often follow a cyclical pattern: For centuries, great powers have swung back and forth between these two poles. Now, as its “pivot to Asia” takes shape, the United States is in the middle of exactly this cycle—and its past two decades of prioritizing weapons for counterinsurgency warfare hasn’t done it any favors as the risk of confrontation with China only grows. The Pacific is no place for short-range counterinsurgency systems, after all, and those weapons are useless deterrents against China.
The weapons in Afghanistan are perfect illustrations of what’s needed for one end of the conflict spectrum. Abandoned light military transports, old-model helicopters, tactical unmanned aircraft systems, and propeller light attack aircraft are the kind of relatively inexpensive equipment used for low-intensity conflicts in remote locations—also known as counterinsurgency warfare, nation building, or (way back when) Queen Victoria’s Little Wars. These weapons don’t have any deterrent effect. They are simply used for fighting, and, once abandoned, they have nearly zero use. Their technology is unsophisticated, and without spare parts, they quickly become nonoperational.
The AUKUS submarines, by contrast, are at the opposite end of the conflict spectrum. They are useful for deterrence against—and, if necessary, conflict with—peer adversaries, such as China. They have much greater ranges, firepower, and, most of all, survivability. Tracking submarines is something of a black art—one Beijing has very little experience in and very little dedicated equipment to accomplish.
There is no overlap between these two types of newsworthy weapons. Nuclear submarines have little or no place in a counterinsurgency fight with, say, the Taliban. Neither do high-end fighter jets, hypersonic missiles, or stealth bombers. And the small transports, aging Black Hawk helicopters, and Super Tucano turboprops abandoned in Afghanistan have zero relevance in a great-power confrontation. They’d be liabilities in a Pacific war, not assets.
These two types of weapons and the news that bring them to your newspaper reflect the conflict cycle—not just in the United States but in other great powers. After a major conflict, such as the Napoleonic Wars, the World Wars, or the Cold War, many states believe big enemies have somehow been permanently vanquished and peer and near-peer adversaries are no longer a problem. They assume that given global security needs and resource constraints, weapons and force structure decisions should focus on counterinsurgency. Then, a more serious adversary comes along that reveals all of these assumptions to be a colossal mistake.
Consider the past 20 years in U.S. defense. After a post-Cold War decade of shrunken defense budgets, defense spending soared after 9/11. Adjusted for inflation, the federal budget for fiscal year 2000 was $464 billion. This increased to $820 billion by fiscal year 2011. It has since stayed relatively high—above $700 billion for the past few years, including the Biden administration’s first budget.
Most of this growth went to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Consider the Air Force and Navy, the two military services least involved in those wars. According to the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, between fiscal years 1990 and 2003, the Air Force’s budget averaged 24 percent of total U.S. Defense Department spending (minus the space and other spending over which the Air Force has little control, much of which has now been transferred to the Space Force). In the same period, the Navy’s share was 31 percent of the budget. The Army got 25 percent.
But after the defense budget surged, these budget shares changed radically. Between fiscal years 2004 and 2013, the Army’s share grew to an impressive 34 percent. The Air Force, deducting most space spending, fell to just 20 percent, and Air Force leaders who attempted to preserve funding for great-power systems lost their jobs.
The Navy’s share of the budget fell to 26 percent, and very little went to heavy weapons like ships and aircraft. That share would have fallen further if it wasn’t rescued by Marine Corps spending—the Navy pays for the Marines, and since Iraq and Afghanistan were mostly land wars, the Marines, along with the Army, did the bulk of the fighting.
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A budget shortfall can be solved by a well-established financial route.
Today, as U.S. troops are out of Afghanistan and largely out of Iraq, there is strong, growing bipartisan concern over China as a rising power. As with past cycles that saw great powers surprised by the emergence of a peer adversary, such as Britain and France with Germany in the decades leading up to World War I, the consensus on China as a threat—rather than as an emerging market or non-threatening but rising power—has been relatively sudden. As billionaire George Soros wrote in an August Wall Street Journal opinion piece, “relations between China and the U.S. are rapidly deteriorating and may lead to war.”
The U.S. military is not particularly well prepared for a confrontation with a strong and growing possible adversary. Over the last 20 years, heavy spending went to lightly armored vehicles, body armor, tactical and short-range reconnaissance systems, and short-range transport helicopters. Little was spent on the kind of strategic tools that make a great power great.
The Air Force is the best example of this. In the 1990s, the United States created the world’s best air dominance combat aircraft: the F-22. Rather than buy 750 of these—the original plan—production ended at just 187 aircraft, with the last one delivered in 2012, largely due to the counterinsurgency wars taking priority. Indeed, over the past decade, the argument that “it hasn’t even been used in Iraq or Afghanistan” was made by people against the F-22 and against funding other high-tech weapons. Similarly, the remarkable B-2 stealth bomber was terminated at 21 aircraft, down from the original 132. As a result of these and other cuts, the average age of Air Force aircraft is nearly 30 years old. This means increasing sustainment costs, massive bills for upgrade work to keep aircraft effective with modern technology, safety concerns due to aging airframes and systems, and of course the massive bill awaiting Washington when the geriatric jets need to be replaced.
Washington’s current situation is just the latest round of strategic amnesia by a great power. In the 1960s, the United States committed prodigious resources to fight communist guerrillas in Vietnam, even as Soviet power became a serious threat to Western Europe. Meanwhile, U.S. forces in Europe were at mere “tripwire” levels; it was generally believed that since the United States committed only weak forces to NATO, the only recourse to a Soviet invasion of Europe was the use of nuclear weapons—which may, or may not, have been true.
To this day, some believe the biggest question about the Vietnam War was how the United States could have won with better counterinsurgency techniques rather than the far more important question of whether Vietnam was a better use of resources than defending close Western allies against a direct peer adversary. If Americans had paid more attention to the latter, Vietnam could have become a useful lesson about the dangers of being strategically diverted by counterinsurgency.
U.S. and U.K. military postures reflected a similar pattern before World War II. After several decades of fielding small forces around the globe for relatively minor contingencies, the rise of Germany and Japan as serious strategic threats proved a major shock.
The defense budget is again focusing on the systems that make the United States a great power.
It goes back well before that. In the century after the Napoleonic Wars, Britain focused on small wars in places like, well, Afghanistan. By the early 1900s, its military was not well equipped for a confrontation with a peer adversary like Germany. Actor Rowan Atkinson’s Captain Blackadder, of the BBC series Blackadder Goes Forth, said it best: “I’d had 15 years of military experience, perfecting the art of ordering a pink gin and [propositioning women] in Swahili, and then suddenly, 4 1/2 million heavily armed Germans hoved into view. That was a shock, I can tell you.”
The situation today is merely another example of this phenomenon. The Afghanistan withdrawal was poorly executed and a human tragedy. But the Trump and Biden administrations both made the same wise decision: to get the U.S. military out of wars that have nothing to do with superpower confrontation or even major geopolitical concerns. Afghanistan isn’t even particularly relevant to counterterror operations these days, as counterterrorism expert Paul R. Pillar recently argued in Foreign Policy. But most of all, there are pressing concerns in the Pacific.
Now, the defense budget is again focusing on the systems that make the United States a great power. The last Trump administration budget and the first Biden administration budget feature all-time, record-high spending on research development test and evaluation, the part of the budget that creates new, high-tech weapons and the technology base for creating new systems. The Air Force will get its Next Generation Air Dominance fighter and its B-21 bomber, making good those drastic F-22 and B-2 cuts. The nuclear triad—land-launched missiles, submarines, and aircraft—will be recapitalized. And every Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in the country will have its pick of lightly armored vehicles—perfect for counterinsurgency and exactly nothing else—as lawn ornaments.
This strong defense budget trajectory, with a renewed emphasis on more capable, high-tech programs and other strategic tools, is part of a historical cycle. It also represents an opportunity for the United States to reflect on this cyclical pattern, learn from past mistakes, and hopefully stay focused on serious, long-term national interests.
Foreign Policy · by Richard Aboulafia · November 9, 2021

14. In Defense of Competition (Irregular Warfare and Competitive Statecraft in Strategic Competition)

Excerpts:
Gallagher here is giving voice to a perpetual false choice we frame between conventional and irregular capabilities. But as the IW Annex said, competing in the contested space “does not require significant new resources… it requires new ideas and new means of employing existing capabilities.” The limiting factor is not in our pocketbooks, it’s between our ears. Educating for IW may not lead to great photo-ops, but it could lead to better outcomes below the threshold of major war, which would be worth a great deal more. Unfortunately, after our inglorious exit from Afghanistan, it seems we are determined to repeat what the Annex called “the ‘boom and bust’ cycle that has left the United States underprepared for irregular warfare in both Great Power Competition and conflict.”
With all respect to Secretary Austin, an integrated deterrence worth its name would be integrated both vertically and horizontally. Vertically, it would supplement our nuclear and conventional deterrence with unconventional deterrence to provide creative and seamless response options other than “do nothing” and “all-out war.” Horizontally, along with allies and partners, it would integrate military force with the other instruments of U.S. national power.
But here is another point on which the critics are right: neither integrated deterrence nor holistic competition can be led by the Pentagon. That is why the White House must lead with a National Security Strategy that doesn't abandon competition but rather frames it properly as a whole-of-government/whole-of-society concern to which the military is just one—and usually not the lead—contributor.
We need not ignore the reality of a competitive international environment but rise to the challenges it presents through Competitive Statecraft, the integration and synchronization of all instruments of national power during both peace and war to secure the nation's interests advancing its values. Of course, that requires some level of consensus on our interests and values, and the Pentagon can't do that, either—the White House must lead.
In Defense of Competition
realcleardefense.com · by Ryan Shaw
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As the Pentagon readies its new National Defense Strategy, the commentariat—unsurprisingly—has some thoughts. While the perspectives are, no doubt, as varied as the array of think tanks and universities from which they spring, there seems to be a significant piling on against both the “Great Power Competition” that animated Trump-era guidance and the (allegedly distinct) “Strategic Competition” terminology advanced by the Biden administration. But “competition” is a rare instance of bipartisan continuity because it speaks to real and important dynamics in the international system, and it has led to important new thinking in our approach to national security. We should not be so quick to discard it.
The critics are right that Great Power Competition (“GPC”) has become a vacuous catch-all, a magic word, as CNAS’s Wasser and Pettyjohn tell it, that can justify “every force, capability, or resource request.” But that’s a perennial bureaucratic tendency; the same was true of CT and then COIN in the Bush and Obama years, and probably any number of terms du jour in prior eras. We should always work to minimize these abuses, but we won't eliminate them as long as we use words to describe our priorities. Other critiques are less valid and far less helpful.
The idea that an emphasis on competition precludes the possibility of cooperation is an unhelpful reductio ad absurdum. Pundits may not be able to sustain two competing ideas at once, but the international system always does, and the military clearly can: emerging U.S. doctrine envisions a competition continuum, in which “the joint force… campaigns through a mixture of cooperation, competition below armed conflict, and armed conflict calculated to achieve the desired strategic objectives.” As Daniel H. Nexon points out, “Even during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union worked out a variety of formal and informal rules that helped them manage competition, limit nuclear proliferation, and otherwise structure international relations.” (It is unclear how Nexon intends this observation to support his argument against competition.)
Equally unhelpful is the common complaint that the phrase “‘strategic competition’ reflects uncertainty about what that competition is over and what it means to win.” Here again, while it might stymie the pundits, this intellectual hurdle seems not to have tripped up our military leaders—they have been consistent in identifying the stakes of this competition as the “rules-based international order that brought prosperity and relative peace for the last seven decades.”
And “what it means to win” is just the wrong question—that’s the whole point. Echoing George Kennan ("We have been handicapped … by a popular attachment to the concept of a basic difference between peace and war…"), the competition discussion is enabling the military to finally—against all odds—shed the idea of war as a finite game that starts with an opening salvo of munitions and ends with a ceasefire and a treaty. The fixation on “winning” breeds fatal short-termism—see the common refrain that we didn't fight a twenty-year war in Afghanistan, but rather twenty one-year wars.
What all these simplistic critiques miss is the simple old truth that the enemy gets a vote. Nexon wants us to consider competition as a means rather than an end. But it’s neither—it’s just a plain fact of our strategic environment, and the last round of guidance intended to highlight it as the most salient one for U.S. strategy. It may or may not have been true, but we operated for much of the last thirty years as though we did not have any real competitors, ideologically or materially. The “end of history” trope after the Cold War was premised on the absence of an ideological alternative to liberal democracy; and if 9-11 proved that wrong, the “asymmetric” modifier we appended to the “warfare” of the Global War on Terror reassured us that proponents of radical Islam lacked the resources to make their vision an existential threat.
But the long-term ascendency of liberal, democratic ideals and rules-based international order is neither inevitable nor irreversible. There are alternatives on offer, and they are actively being pursued by adversaries whose capabilities across many domains threaten to eclipse our own in the not-so-distant future. These are the facts, and they demand our attention. The last NSS and NDS were right to frame them that way.
We must prevent the loss of our competitive advantage and deterrent capacity in conventional and nuclear warfare—competition should not prevent that; properly conceived, competition demands it. (The Pentagon understands this, too.) But the most pernicious element of these arguments against competition is the insinuation—or the outright assertion—that we can or should focus on high-end capabilities to the exclusion of all else. This requires a willful disregard of everything we have learned about the gray zone/hybrid warfare/choose-your-appellation. After all, while our high-end advantage has eroded, it is not gone. We have so far deterred major conventional and nuclear war, but our adversaries—especially those near-peer “great powers”—have found countless ways to improve their strategic position and degrade ours without triggering a conventional military response. High-end deterrence is necessary, but it’s clearly not sufficient. The accumulation of minor setbacks can be existential, not just because of their obvious and immediate effects, but because they can degrade our long-term ability to generate and project conventional power.
For all its emphasis on GPC, the last NDS recognized the interrelated nature of threats at all points on the competition continuum. This was made especially clear in the Irregular Warfare Annex: “State adversaries and their proxies increasingly seek to prevail through their own use of irregular warfare, [suggesting] the need for a revised understanding of IW to account for its role as a component of great power competition.”
What we need is not a narrower concept of deterrence but a broader one that focuses not just on the future conflict we could lose but also on the ongoing competition we are currently losing. Perhaps this is where Secretary Austin’s nascent “integrated deterrence” idea is headed. He seems to want to integrate across domains and technologies and with allies, and who could argue? Well, lots of people, including Representative Mike Gallagher (R, WI), who has apparently been reading his Pettyjohn: “What we actually need to integrate is more conventional hard power—more ships, more long-range missiles and more long-range bombers in the Indo-Pacific.”
Gallagher here is giving voice to a perpetual false choice we frame between conventional and irregular capabilities. But as the IW Annex said, competing in the contested space “does not require significant new resources… it requires new ideas and new means of employing existing capabilities.” The limiting factor is not in our pocketbooks, it’s between our ears. Educating for IW may not lead to great photo-ops, but it could lead to better outcomes below the threshold of major war, which would be worth a great deal more. Unfortunately, after our inglorious exit from Afghanistan, it seems we are determined to repeat what the Annex called “the ‘boom and bust’ cycle that has left the United States underprepared for irregular warfare in both Great Power Competition and conflict.”
With all respect to Secretary Austin, an integrated deterrence worth its name would be integrated both vertically and horizontally. Vertically, it would supplement our nuclear and conventional deterrence with unconventional deterrence to provide creative and seamless response options other than “do nothing” and “all-out war.” Horizontally, along with allies and partners, it would integrate military force with the other instruments of U.S. national power.
But here is another point on which the critics are right: neither integrated deterrence nor holistic competition can be led by the Pentagon. That is why the White House must lead with a National Security Strategy that doesn't abandon competition but rather frames it properly as a whole-of-government/whole-of-society concern to which the military is just one—and usually not the lead—contributor.
We need not ignore the reality of a competitive international environment but rise to the challenges it presents through Competitive Statecraft, the integration and synchronization of all instruments of national power during both peace and war to secure the nation's interests advancing its values. Of course, that requires some level of consensus on our interests and values, and the Pentagon can't do that, either—the White House must lead.
Ryan Shaw is a Senior Advisor and Professor of Practice in History and Strategy at Arizona State University. A retired Army officer, Ryan served in uniform as a cavalry leader and a strategist.
realcleardefense.com · by Ryan Shaw

15. When the War Ended, My Life as a Veteran Began



When the War Ended, My Life as a Veteran Began - War on the Rocks
warontherocks.com · by Brian Mongeau · November 11, 2021
Though I became a veteran by definition when I separated from the Army four years ago, it has been difficult to view myself as a veteran in actuality. Veterans were the grizzled old men who fought in Vietnam, or maybe former Green Berets who deployed to Iraq. While I got out, my teammates were returning to Afghanistan for second, third, and fourth tours. “Veteran” connotes the past, but my past was not the past to me because it was the present of my former teammates — friends with whom I share some of the deepest bonds possible.
My cognitive dissonance ended suddenly and terribly as Kandahar, then Helmand, then Uruzgan — places I dared to think we had made a difference — all fell within a matter of weeks. Until then, it had felt foreign to live a civilian life while the friends I fought with continued the mission. Now I can no longer pretend that I am neither soldier nor veteran, as if there is a purgatory in between. I have had to take a deep and critical look at what my time in service was worth and what, if anything, it achieved. It is very difficult to point to much of a positive impact for the world or my country when all the patriotism-based premises upon which I based my early adult life fell apart, seemingly in an instant.
Veterans Day is different this year. With the sudden and cataclysmic end of the war in Afghanistan, or at least its American-led chapter, there is a jarring sense of finality. Personally, the war’s end represents an immediate break between my past as soldier and my present as civilian.
Perhaps self-preservation is the reason I have abhorred questions about the politics of the U.S. withdrawal or debates on counterinsurgency since August. Participating in these impersonal debates, at least for me, generates a sense of painful helplessness in which my lack of agency is only too clear, while the sacrifices of the men and women who, along with their families, gave so much, are cheapened by abstractions and political ambitions. Maintaining a sense of self-worth and an ability to fully participate day-to-day as a husband, father, and employee requires that I avoid the fray of the withdrawal discourse for now.
Maybe someday I will be interested in the strategy debates, though it is hard to ever imagine diving into the often toxic political rhetoric. The other possibility, however, and the one that to me is much more profound and provides empowerment beyond mere self-preservation, is that the personal elements of my experience as a soldier are what truly gave me purpose, long-lasting direction, and a small sense of existential control.
My purpose, or at least my hope, is that I played a role in my teammates coming back alive. Not that I did anything unique or distinctly noteworthy — I did not. But perhaps my wholly unremarkable individual actions were a small part of a tremendous collective mission to bring each other home. We all knew each other’s wives, children, parents, hopes, dreams, and fears. We all knew one another’s stories, stories that are ours together, but not mine alone to share.
If I have any fear now, it is that my life does not live up to their hopes and expectations, after they endeavored to allow me to live it.
It may seem cliche, or it may just be the next step in a search for meaning after a failed war, but there was never any higher and more tangible sense of purpose than the unity I felt as part of a team of Green Berets. That purpose was not strategic, nor even patriotic perhaps, but was instead a mission to fulfill our duties to each other. The feeling has extended into my current life and beyond my former unit — I have been most comfortable and at ease when visiting former teammates, participating in the veterans’ club during graduate school, or attending Green Beret Foundation events.
I know that people want a clear answer on what Veterans Day means to former servicemembers. The reality is that I’m still struggling with my own understanding of the holiday. When I was younger, being a veteran seemed like it ought to come with satisfaction from fulfilled service to the country, which we celebrated as a nation on Veterans Day. But the events of August introduced gnawing doubts about having centered prime years of my family’s life around a war that ended so disastrously. Once I reflected on what mattered to me about my time in service, however — the camaraderie, the bonds, the team — my understanding of what it means to be a veteran crystalized somewhat.
What I have come to realize is that Nov. 11 is a day for veterans to celebrate each other — not what we sought to achieve for our country, but what we mean to one another.
What I know now is that the veteran community — an extension in the civilian world of the unit in the military sphere — provides me the space and support to sort through struggles so that I can chart a path forward. Shared bonds that we forged in diverse units extend well beyond our time in uniform and continue to give me a sense of communal purpose as a civilian.
My evolving sense of camaraderie is probably what makes this Veterans Day different. As long as my buddies were still in combat in a country to which we deployed together, I could not conceive of myself as a veteran. I felt more like a deserter. My friends continued to return to Afghanistan, but I chose to go back to school. I did not feel that I had quit on the national mission — by the time I was in Afghanistan, it was clear there would be no ticker-tape parade celebrating a grand victory on that score. Instead, I harbored a deep fear that I had quit on my teammates. We had fought for each other downrange, but I had chosen a path that took me out of the fight. The guilt of leaving my friends who would have to go back into harm’s way was crushing and constant for as long as they would have to return to Afghanistan. The reality, of course, was different. My teammates were some of my biggest supporters. They all still check in on how my family is doing, how school is progressing, what new job or internship I have lined up. Their support only made the guilt worse.
Now that our war is over, though, I will finally move on, looking toward the future as a veteran rather than the past as something else. But I will still need my veteran brothers and sisters. Not to bring me home this time, but to remind me that duty is about each other, which means the mission continues even out of uniform.
Brian Mongeau is a former U.S. Army Special Forces (“Green Beret”) non-commissioned officer and deployed to Afghanistan in 2017. He will soon be joining First In as a principal. First In is a veteran-led venture capital firm focused on cyber security and dual-use technologies and investing in veteran founders. Brian is a native of Massachusetts, recently graduated Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, can be found on Twitter at @bamongeau, and now resides in Boston with his wife and daughter.
warontherocks.com · by Brian Mongeau · November 11, 2021
16. Most Americans don’t know how long the Global War on Terror has lasted: poll
Most Americans don’t know how long the Global War on Terror has lasted: poll
militarytimes.com · by Leo Shane III · November 10, 2021
How long has the War on Terror been going on? Long enough that most Americans can’t remember exactly when it started, according to a new poll out this week.
The report, commissioned by the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation, found that only 35 percent of individuals surveyed could correctly point to Sept. 11, 2001 as the start of America’s ongoing military engagement against terrorist groups worldwide.
Almost a quarter of 1,019 individuals polled said they thought the conflict had been going on for at least 30 years. Another 39 percent said they could not identify how long the effort has lasted.
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The Fallen Heroes Memorial, sponsored by Veterans and Athletes United and Tunnel to Towers, will be displayed at the Lincoln Memorial from 7 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. Nov. 11, during which the names of the 7063 servicemembers who made the ultimate sacrifice during the Global War on Terror will be read.
The report comes as officials from the foundation are pushing to build a memorial to the troops who served in the War on Terror on the National Mall, an idea that 63 percent of respondents supported.
“This year’s Veterans Day celebrations are tempered by the sobering reality of a national knowledge gap about the Global War on Terrorism,” said Foundation President and CEO Marina Jackman in a statement.
“Our nation needs a memorial on the National Mall to give the millions of Americans who visit Washington, D.C. every year — especially young Americans — the opportunity to learn about an essential piece of modern American history.”
All U.S. forces departed from Afghanistan at the end of August, ending the nearly 20-year military presence there. But several hundred U.S. troops are still deployed around the world in support of anti-terrorism operations including in places like Iraq and Syria.
At least 7,063 U.S. service members have died in operations related to the War on Terror.
Congress approved plans for a Global War on Terror Memorial in 2017, even before plans for a military exit from Afghanistan were underway. At the time, organizers argued that waiting until the end of all related military operations before building the memorial was impractical, because of the open-ended nature of the conflict.
For the last few months, supporters have held a series of rallies and demonstrations on Capitol Hill to push for the memorial to be located on the National Mall, arguing the military sacrifices of the last two decades warrant inclusion in the place of prominence.
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Another Armistice Day beckons on Nov. 11 and the outlook remains bleak.
But doing so would require intervention from Congress. In 2003 — just a few years after the war in Afghanistan began — lawmakers approved the Commemorative Works Act, which prohibited any construction on the National Mall. Only a few exceptions to the rule have been made since then.
Jackman said that locating the memorial on the site would honor veterans who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and other related locations “in the same way as our patriots who fought in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.”
The poll also found that 42 percent of respondents did not know anyone who had served in overseas operations during the War on Terror. Officials said that “likely deprived them of first-hand knowledge about the significance of GWOT veterans’ efforts.”
About Leo Shane III
Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.


17. Analysis | ‘I think we should throw those books in a fire’: Movement builds on right to target books

Banning books? So 1984. So Fahrenheit 451.

Yep, McAuliffe's sound bite was awful. But banning books is the real despicable thing. Anyone who advocates banning books .... well I cannot think of something worth saying about such a person.

“Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“A word to the unwise.
Torch every book.
Char every page.
Burn every word to ash.
Ideas are incombustible.
And therein lies your real fear.”
― Ellen Hopkins

“What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.”
― Salman Rushdie

“If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries. These libraries should be open to all—except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well as our liberty.
[Response to questionnaire in Saturday Review, October 29 1960]”
― John F. Kennedy

“If there's one American belief I hold above all others, it's that those who would set themselves up in judgment on matters of what is "right" and what is "best" should be given no rest; that they should have to defend their behavior most stringently. ... As a nation, we've been through too many fights to preserve our rights of free thought to let them go just because some prude with a highlighter doesn't approve of them."
[Bangor Daily News, Guest Column of March 20, 1992]”
― Stephen King
Analysis | ‘I think we should throw those books in a fire’: Movement builds on right to target books
The Washington Post · by Aaron BlakeSenior reporter Yesterday at 4:44 p.m. EST · November 10, 2021
Perhaps the most infamous quote of the 2021 Virginia governor’s race — and indeed of any 2021 race — belongs to Democrat Terry McAuliffe: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
What many people might not have fully processed is that the quote stemmed from a debate about books in schools. Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin (R) had attacked McAuliffe for, as governor, vetoing a bill to allow parents to opt their children out of reading assignments they deem to be explicit. The impetus was a famous book from Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, “Beloved,” about an enslaved Black woman who kills her 2-year-old daughter to prevent her from being enslaved herself.
While that effort took place years ago, it was rekindled as a political issue at a telling time. Not only are conservatives increasingly targeting school curriculums surrounding race, but there’s also a building and often-related effort to rid school libraries of certain books.
The effort has been varied in the degree of its fervor and the books it has targeted, but one particular episode this week showed just what can happen when it’s taken to its extremes. Shortly after the election result in Virginia, a pair of conservative school board members in the same state proposed not just banning certain books deemed to be sexually explicit, but burning them.
As the Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star reported Tuesday:
Two board members, Courtland representative Rabih Abuismail and Livingston representative Kirk Twigg, said they would like to see the removed books burned.
“I think we should throw those books in a fire,” Abuismail said, and Twigg said he wants to “see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”
Abuismail reportedly added that allowing one particular book to remain on the shelves even briefly meant the schools “would rather have our kids reading gay pornography than about Christ.”
It’s easy to caricature a particular movement with some of its most extreme promoters. And there is a demonstrated history of efforts to ban books in schools, including by liberals. Such efforts have often involved classics such as “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Of Mice and Men” for their depictions of race and use of racist language more commonly used at the time the books were written. More recently, conservatives have often challenged books teaching kids about LGBTQ issues.
But advocates say what’s happening now is more pronounced.
“What has taken us aback this year is the intensity with which school libraries are under attack,” said Nora Pelizzari, a spokeswoman at the National Coalition Against Censorship.
She added that the apparent coordination of the effort sets it apart: “Particularly when taken in concert with the legislative attempts to control school curricula, this feels like a more overarching attempt to purge schools of materials that people disagree with. It feels different than what we’ve seen in recent years.”
Even as the news broke Tuesday in Virginia, another school board just outside Wichita, announced that it was removing 29 books from circulation. Among them were another Morrison book, “The Bluest Eye,” and writings about racism in America including August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Fences,” as well as “They Called Themselves the K.K.K.,” a history of the white supremacist group. The books haven’t technically been banned, but rather aren’t available for checking out pending a review.
“At this time, the district is not in a position to know if the books contained on this list meet our educational goals or not,” a school official said in an email.
The day before, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued an executive order calling on state education officials to review the books available to students for “pornography and other obscene content.” Abbott indicated before the order that such content needed to be examined and removed if it was found. He reportedly did not specify what the “obscene content” standard for books should be.
Abbott added Wednesday that the Texas Education Agency should report any instances of pornography being made available to minors “for prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.”
The effort builds upon a review launched last month by state Rep. Michael Krause (R), who is running for state attorney general. Krause is targeting books that “contain material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”
Krause doesn’t say what he intends to recommend about such books, but he accompanied his inquiry with a list of more than 800 of them, including two Pulitzer Prize winners: “The Confessions of Nat Turner” by William Styron and “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
There has also been an effort by Republicans in Wisconsin not focused on books, but broadly on the use of certain terminology in teaching students. As the Hill’s Reid Wilson reported about the state GOP’s particular effort to ban critical race theory from schools:
[State Rep. Chuck] Wichgers (R), who represents Muskego in the legislature, attached an addendum to his legislation that included a list of “terms and concepts” that would violate the bill if it became law.
Among those words: “Woke,” “whiteness,” “White supremacy,” “structural bias,” “structural racism,” “systemic bias” and “systemic racism.” The bill would also bar “abolitionist teaching,” in a state that sent more than 91,000 soldiers to fight with the Union Army in the Civil War.
The list of barred words or concepts includes “equity,” “inclusivity education,” “multiculturalism” and “patriarchy,” as well as “social justice” and “cultural awareness.”
Back in September, a school district in Pennsylvania reversed a year-long freeze on certain books almost exclusively by or about people of color. A similar thing happened in Katy, Tex., near Houston, where graphic novels about Black children struggling to fit in were removed and quickly reinstated last month. Many such fights have been concentrated in Texas.
There has also been a recent effort by a conservative group in Tennessee to ban books written for young readers about the civil rights struggle. Supporters cite the anti-critical race theory law the state passed earlier this year. And school officials in Virginia Beach recently announced they’d review books, including ones about LGBTQ issues and Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” after complaints from school board members.
Indeed, oftentimes the books involved are the same.
As the Los Angeles Times reported this week, such battles are part of a much larger debate over excluding books that has been injected with new intensity amid the anti-critical race theory push and now, apparently, with the demonstrated electoral success of that approach.
The Spotsylvania County, Va., example is an important one to pick out. While the two members floating burning books have aligned with conservatives, the vote was unanimous. It was 6-0 in favor of reviewing the books for sexually explicit content. School officials expressed confidence in their vetting process but acknowledged it’s possible certain books with objectionable content got through that process.
The question, as with critical race theory, is in how wide a net is cast. Sexually explicit content is one thing; targeting books that make students uncomfortable or deal in sensitive but very real subjects like racial discrimination is another.
There is clearly an audience in the conservative movement for more broadly excluding subjects involving the history of racism and how it might impact modern life. And while it’s difficult to capture the targeting of books on a quantitative level nationwide, this is an undersold subplot in the conservative effort to raise concerns about what children might learn in school.
The Washington Post · by Aaron BlakeSenior reporter Yesterday at 4:44 p.m. EST · November 10, 2021


18. CACI Wins $785 Million Task Order with U.S. Army Special Operations Command


I look forward to seeing the return on investment at the SFODA, PSYOP team, and Civil Affairs team level for conducting irregular warfare, leading with influence, and supporting strategic competition in the gray zone.

Three quarters (+) of a billion dollars should go a long way to train, educate, and optimize these forces for irregular warfare - influence, governance, and support to indigenous forces and populations.

CACI Wins $785 Million Task Order with U.S. Army Special Operations Command
RESTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CACI International Inc (NYSE: CACI) has been awarded a new five-year single-award task order worth potentially $785 million for Special Operations Forces Emerging Threats, Operations, and Planning Support (SOFETOPS). CACI will provide expertise in integrated information warfare (IW) and electronic warfare (EW) solutions, training, readiness, and modernization to advance U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) missions.
John Mengucci, CACI President and Chief Executive Officer, said, “CACI’s mission expertise in operational support, intelligence analysis, technology integration, and training will help Special Operations Forces adapt to the current and future threat environment. Our experts will leverage advanced solutions for our mission partners and deliver training models based on first-hand experiences to prepare trainees with realistic scenarios.”
This task order expands CACI’s support to USASOC, its strategic partners, and other special operations commands by offering new capabilities driven by emerging needs and continually evolving mission requirements. CACI will also further refine and improve interoperability, coordination, and synchronization between USASOC and its strategic partners. It has a one-year base period of performance, four one-year options, and was awarded under the General Services Administration (GSA) One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services (OASIS) multiple award indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract vehicle.
About CACI
CACI’s approximately 22,000 talented employees are vigilant in providing the unique expertise and distinctive technology that address our customers’ greatest enterprise and mission challenges. Our culture of good character, innovation, and excellence drives our success and earns us recognition as a Fortune World's Most Admired Company. As a member of the Fortune 500 Largest Companies, the Russell 1000 Index, and the S&P MidCap 400 Index, we consistently deliver strong shareholder value. Visit us at www.caci.com.
There are statements made herein which do not address historical facts, and therefore could be interpreted to be forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are subject to factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from anticipated results. The factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated include, but are not limited to, the risk factors set forth in CACI’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021, and other such filings that CACI makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. Any forward-looking statements should not be unduly relied upon and only speak as of the date hereof.
CACI-Contract Award

19. Taiwan hits back after Paul Keating says its status ‘not a vital Australian interest’
What was Keating thinking? Kowtowing tothe PRC?

Taiwan hits back after Paul Keating says its status ‘not a vital Australian interest’


China’s aggression destabilises the region and threatens democratic freedoms, Taipei says

The Guardian · by Helen Davidson · November 10, 2021
Taiwan has hit back at the former Australian prime minister Paul Keating after he said Taiwan was “not a vital Australian interest” and labelled it a “civil matter” for China.
In an appearance at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Keating dismissed global concerns about China’s aggression towards Taiwan and criticised Australia’s growing bipartisan pushback.
“Taiwan is not a vital Australian interest,” he said. “We have no alliance with Taipei. There is no piece of paper sitting in Canberra which has an alliance with Taipei.”
He urged Australia not to be drawn into a military engagement over Taiwan, “US-sponsored or otherwise”, and said Taiwan was “fundamentally a civil matter” for China. He also referred to Taiwan as China’s “front doorstep”.
In response, a spokesperson for Taiwan’s ministry of foreign affairs told Guardian Australia that Taiwan and Australia were important partners, sharing universal values and common strategic interests and that China’s aggression had far-reaching implications.
“The crisis in the Taiwan Strait is by no means a domestic matter between Chinese, and the security of the Taiwan Strait involves the stability and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region, but also the global peace, stability and development,” Joanne Ou said.
Ou said the Australian government had demonstrated the importance it attached to the issue in regional dialogues and other multilateral partnerships.
“A peaceful and stable Indo-Pacific region is in the interest of Australia, Taiwan and other countries.”
There is growing international concern about Beijing’s military capability and potential plans for Taiwan, which it claims as a province of China that must be retaken. Under the rule of the Chinese Communist party leader Xi Jinping, Beijing rejects criticism as interference in its “internal affairs”.
It has increased acts of aggression and rhetoric towards Taiwan, including near-daily sorties of warplanes into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone, peaking with 149 over four days last month.
The US, which has strong ties to Taiwan and commitments to help it defend itself, has increased its military presence in the region, which has added to tensions.
In his appearance, Keating rejected the labelling of the Chinese flights as “incursions” and said: “The only time the Chinese will attack or be involved in Taiwan is if the Americans and the Taiwanese try and declare a change in the status of Taiwan.”
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Taiwan’s government has repeatedly said it seeks to maintain the status quo, and has no intention to be “adventurous”. President Tsai Ing-wen says the island is already a sovereign nation with no need to declare independence.
“The Chinese government has never stopped its military threats and diplomatic crackdowns on Taiwan, and has continued to engage in [disinformation] operations against Taiwan and to invade Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ),” Ou said.
“In addition to trying to reduce Taiwan’s space for international affairs, China has also continued to intrude on its neighbours … in the East and South China Seas.
“The Taiwanese government and people are defending not only the way of life of Taiwan’s 23.5 million people, but also the values of democratic freedom that global democracies jointly defend.”
Keating said the “general point” of Xi and previous leaders was that they would “harmoniously lead the Chinese people into coming to terms with one another”. But successive polling shows a growing majority of Taiwanese people do not wish to be ruled by China and, while Xi has stated he hopes “reunification” will occur peacefully, he has not ruled out annexing Taiwan by force.
Keating also incorrectly stated that Australia has “always seen [Taiwan] as a part of China”.
“The whole world has regarded China and Taiwan as one country, the Taiwanese have regarded it as one country, the Chinese, one country,” he said.
Fourteen countries recognise Taiwan as a sovereign nation, while more than 70 others have informal diplomatic ties. Beijing claims Taiwan as a province under its one-China principle but the principle is not universally recognised, including by Australia.
Australia’s one-China policy, like the US’s, only acknowledges Beijing’s claim and does not recognise or reject it.
A Lowy Institute senior fellow, Richard McGregor, told the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age that Keating’s narrative about Taiwan had been out of date “for decades”.
“Our military interest is not in fighting a war over Taiwan but in helping ensure we don’t have to,” he said.
Wen-ti Sung, a lecturer on China-Taiwan-US relations at the Australian National University, said Taiwan was important to Australia “for ideological affinity and for ensuring the credibility of the US’s values-based coalition-building, without which US withdrawal from the Indo-Pacific, and weakened Australia-US relationship, will become more likely”.
“Good people can disagree on whether that makes Taiwan per se a vital strategic interest to Australia, but a strong and dependable US regional engagement certainly is a vital interest for Australia. And Taiwan is an important part of that puzzle.”
The Guardian · by Helen Davidson · November 10, 2021

20. Air Force special operations general visits Japan to gain insight on seaplanes


Air Force special operations general visits Japan to gain insight on seaplanes
Stars and Stripes · by Jonathan Snyder · November 10, 2021
Capt. Koichi Washizawa of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force gives a tour of the ShinMaywa US-2 seaplane to the deputy commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, Maj. Gen. Eric Hill, at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021. (Jonathan Snyder/Stars and Stripes)

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan – The deputy commander of Air Force Special Operations Command made a quick trip to this base near Hiroshima on Tuesday to learn more about Japan’s ShinMaywa US-2 seaplane, a version of which the Air Force is also developing.
“The US-2 seaplane is definitely of interest to Air Force Special Operations,” Maj. Gen. Eric Hill told Stars and Stripes on Tuesday. “We’ve been working a number of issues to try and think about how we get to runway independence.”
“If you think about the area here, the South China Sea for instance, if we can turn that into a landing zone for special operation forces, there might be a lot of opportunity there,” Hill said.
The Air Force, like its sister services, is developing a doctrine to help it counter a rising challenge in the region from China. Runway independence means an aircraft does not require an established runway; in this case a body of water allows a pilot to put an aircraft down almost anywhere.
The Air Force version of a seaplane, in the development stage, is a modified MC130-J Commando II, the special operations version of the venerable Super Hercules airlifter, Hill said.
Hill visited the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s Fleet Air Wing 31 to give the US-2 a look.
Special Operations Command partnered with the Air Force Research Laboratory to design a seaplane based on the MC-130J.
Capt. Koichi Washizawa of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force gives a tour of the ShinMaywa US-2 seaplane to the deputy commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, Maj. Gen. Eric Hill, at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021. (Jonathan Snyder/Stars and Stripes)
The Air Force version of a seaplane, in the development stage, is a modified MC130-J Commando II, the special operations version of the venerable Super Hercules airlifter. (U.S. Air Force)
The command and its private sector partners are using virtual reality to test amphibious prototypes created by digital design, according to the Air Force.
The command plans to produce a demonstration model of the amphibious Super Hercules before the end of 2022, Hill said in September at the Air Force Association convention, according to DefenseNews.com.
“We are starting into development of that aircraft, so we think partnering with our allies here and learning from them, seeing that they’re on their second variant of a seaplane,” Hill said Tuesday, “and I think there is a lot of education we can share back and forth.”
The Japanese use the US-2 for search and rescue, airlift missions and reconnaissance for identifying hostile ships and anti-submarine warfare. It took eight years to develop and incorporates spray suppressors and spray strips that prevent damage to the airframe on water landings. Also, because it can cruise at extremely low speeds, the US-2 can take off and land on waves up to 9 feet high, according to ShinMaywa Industries.
“I think we are a little early to tell the direction we may go with this, whether we procure and finish developing our own capability or whether we look at something that is already in play,” Hill said. “Or we might do some combination of both in the future.”
Runway independence is something the Air Force is looking at as it focuses on employing its agile combat employment doctrine in the Pacific region. This doctrine includes launching, recovering and maintaining aircraft from multiple dispersed forward operating locations in concert with allies and partners.
“The partnership here is really strong, there is a willingness military-to-military level – to work together on very complex problems that are presented here in this region by a number of competitors both for the Japanese and for the U.S.,” Hill said. “I think that this strong partnership that we have will create momentum for the future to get after a number of capabilities to ensure defense as well as the ability to operate in this vast ocean.”
Jonathan Snyder

Stars and Stripes · by Jonathan Snyder · November 10, 2021
21. The World Is Fed Up With China’s Belligerence

Hmmmm...if the world is so fed up with it, what are countries going to do about it?

Offend without fear! Push back! Stand up to the bully!

The World Is Fed Up With China’s Belligerence
Democracies are no longer as worried as they once were about offending a fragile Beijing.
defenseone.com · by Chris Horton
In Chinese-speaking communities beyond the reach of Beijing’s censorship regime, the song “Fragile” has been an unexpected hit. With more than 26 million views on YouTube since dropping in mid-October, the satirical love song to Chinese nationalism has topped the site’s charts for Taiwan and Hong Kong, its lyrics mocking Chinese Communist Party rhetoric about Taiwan while also taking aim at Xi Jinping and Chinese censors.
In parts, the Mandarin Chinese duet portrays Taiwan as an object of unwanted overtures that simply wants to get along with a hypersensitive and aggressive Beijing. Its chorus goes full it’s-not-you-it’s-me: “Sorry I’m so strong-minded / The truth always upsets you / Maybe I shouldn’t be so blunt / I’m so sorry / I’ve angered you again.”
The song, by the Malaysian rapper Namewee and the Australian singer Kimberley Chen, seems to have hit all the right notes for those tiring of a perpetually offended and angry China—and resulted in the scrubbing of the duo’s Chinese social-media accounts.
In Taiwan, where many pop stars stay out of the political realm to retain access to China’s lucrative market, the song has been greeted as a refreshing, and rare, send-up of its giant neighbor’s refutation of Taiwanese sovereignty. (Beijing claims that Taiwan is its territory, though the CCP has never controlled it, and Taiwanese overwhelmingly reject the idea of unification.)
Yet it is also a sign of something more: Its lyrics and its context mirror the actions of democracies around the world that are growing tired of walking on eggshells to avoid angering a petulant Beijing. Rather than releasing a song, officials in Europe, Japan, and Australia are expanding long-ignored relationships with Taiwan. China’s foreign ministry has lambasted and threatened them all, but echoing the song’s ethos, they are no longer as worried as they once were about offending a fragile Beijing.
In a move likely to anger Beijing …

The phrase—a touchstone of news reports about the Chinese government’s countless and often shifting red lines—will be familiar to anyone who has read about China in the past several years. The context in which it is now used, however, is markedly different.
Not long ago, the Chinese government was economical and targeted with its outrage, typically lashing out only over what even critics might regard as major issues from Beijing’s point of view, such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s meeting with the Dalai Lama in 2008 (the CCP regards him as a Tibetan separatist), or the liberal activist Liu Xiaobo’s being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 (Liu advocated for issues that are anathema to the CCP, such as greater individual political freedoms).
“Now China just picks fights out of arrogance and bullying,” Jorge Guajardo, Mexico’s ambassador to China from 2007 to 2013, told me. When Beijing, immediately following Ottawa’s release of Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, held as part of an extradition case, released two Canadians it had detained and isolated for more than 1,000 days, it seemed a clear message to the world that hostage taking has been added to its diplomatic toolbox.
Where the word Beijing once conjured the image of a confident, rising power, today it represents a frowning, finger-pointing, never-erring crank, its constant stream of vitriol diminishing the effectiveness of Chinese anger. One of the implications of this hyperinflation of hurt feelings has been the effective removal of the deterrent against democracies’ improving their unofficial relations with Taiwan. After all, if most moves are likely to anger Beijing, why hold back from any of them?
The United States has led the way in expanding ties with Taiwan while grappling with an increasingly prickly China. This began under the Trump administration, and has continued under Joe Biden, who in his first year in office has twice said that the U.S. is committed to defending Taiwan from Chinese attack. (For the past four decades, the U.S. has had an unofficial policy of not publicly saying how it would respond to a China-Taiwan conflict, in the hope of not emboldening either side to start one.)

Similar dynamics are changing the minds of leaders elsewhere in the world. Europe offers a prime example of how Beijing’s belligerence has worked against its own diplomatic goals while inadvertently boosting Taiwan’s international profile.
Primarily focused on economic matters, Brussels had served as a reliable counterweight to Washington regarding China policy; Europe was typically less willing to view Beijing as a strategic rival or threat. That has changed. This spring, after China pushed back against European Union criticism of human-rights violations in Xinjiang by slapping sanctions on EU entities and individuals, including five members of the European Parliament, Brussels put a bilateral investment agreement with China on hold.

Politicians on the continent are also showing greater willingness to meet with their Taiwanese counterparts. Last week, Raphaël Glucksmann, one of those hit with Beijing’s sanctions, visited Taipei as part of a delegation of EU parliamentarians, arriving just weeks after he and his colleagues voted to improve ties with Taiwan and lay the groundwork for a bilateral investment agreement. (Prior to boarding his flight to Taiwan, Glucksmann tweeted an airport selfie, commenting in French: “Neither threats nor sanctions will intimidate me. Never. And I will continue, always, to stand with those who fight for democracy and human rights. So there you have it: I’m going to Taiwan.”)
Seeing a rare opportunity to boost its profile in Europe, Taipei is doing what it can to take advantage. In late October, a delegation of more than 60 Taiwanese officials and businesspeople visited Lithuania, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, signing a slew of technology-focused agreements.
At the same time, Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, was barnstorming across the continent, casting his homeland as a partner in the pushback against China’s threat to democracies. His tour included stops in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Poland. While in Prague, which in 2020 became sister cities with Taipei after ending similar ties with Beijing, Wu drank beers with the president of the Czech Senate, who presented him with a medal. He also visited Brussels, and although his meetings there were nowhere near as monumental as Henry Kissinger’s secret visit to China that began the thaw in ties between Washington and Beijing, it nevertheless represents the highest-profile tour of Europe by a Taiwanese minister since Taiwan’s democratization in the ’90s.

Wu’s visit also stole some of the spotlight from his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, who attended the G20 summit in Rome. Just before Wang’s arrival, Wu managed a virtual visit to Rome, addressing the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, an international group of parliamentarians that advocates a tougher approach to China.

“The rise of the People’s Republic of China, as led by the Chinese Communist Party, is the defining challenge for the world’s democratic states,” Wu said. “This warrants our working more closely together.”

As is clear from the various travel schedules, much of Taiwan’s outreach has concentrated on post-Soviet states, and Lithuania has been chief among them in fostering the growing friendship between Europe and Taiwan. Chinese-government diatribes against Vilnius and attempts at economic punishment of the country of 3 million—an EU member state—in recent months have also increased concerns in Brussels about getting too close to Beijing.

“The Chinese Communist Party’s espionage, interference in Europe’s political affairs, and coercive behavior made many countries become more cautious about China,” the Lithuanian lawmaker Matas Maldeikis, who will lead a government delegation to Taiwan in December, told me. “The human-rights situation in China and growing control under Xi Jinping is very negatively seen by many in our society, which still remembers similar persecutions under Soviet rule in our own country.”
The moves were, as the trope goes, likely to anger Beijing, and indeed, they did. Wu’s warm welcome in Prague, beers included, was a “malicious provocative act,” the Chinese foreign-ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said, adding: “The despicable maneuvers by a few individuals in the Czech Republic are doomed to fail. We urge them to promptly change course, otherwise they will end up swallowing the bitter fruit themselves.”

Beyond Europe, countries in China’s own neighborhood are beginning to more openly embrace their unofficial ties to Taiwan as they grow tired of Beijing’s bellicosity. Japan—which colonized Taiwan for a half century until the end of World War II—has declared Taiwan a national-security interest, and defense officials have suggested that Tokyo would intervene, presumably alongside the U.S., in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan. And Australia, which has been subject to Chinese economic coercion ever since Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an independent investigation into the origins of the global coronavirus pandemic, is beginning to look away from Beijing and toward Taipei.
In Australia in particular, warmth to Taiwan is being expressed through semiofficial channels, as well as by the broader public. Polling by the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based think tank, indicates that positive feelings toward Taipei have increased substantially over the past year, and in October, former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott visited the Taiwanese capital. Though he is now a private citizen, no senior officials in Canberra offered any criticism of his travels or his remarks in support of Taiwan’s struggle in the face of Chinese pressure and threats.
For now, in contrast to the hawkish tone of many inside the Beltway, few people elsewhere are openly advocating for confrontation with China. Yet as Beijing continues to threaten countries for not doing its bidding, that may change, and the threat is particularly acute for democratic societies, according to Maldeikis, the Lithuanian parliamentarian.

“Given the Communist Party’s desire to control everything—to impose their agenda, to restrict freedom of thought in academic circles, the infiltration through propaganda—this is not a question of a few concessions,” he told me. “The more concessions you make, the more the Chinese side insists upon. If friendship with China means even more submission, maybe it is more worthwhile to oppose it.”
Lounging in a crop top and jeans in a studio in Taipei’s posh East District, Chen, one of the artists behind “Fragile,” fondly recalls living in Shanghai at the age of 10, when she performed in a local production of The Lion King. Her parents wanted a freer environment for their daughter, though, so they relocated the family to Taipei. There, her career took off: She scored a hit song at 17, and signed a record deal with Sony. For a time, that kind of profile would force her—like any artist hoping to succeed commercially, let alone one performing in Mandarin Chinese—to avoid criticizing China, directly or indirectly.
Chen has, however, outgrown those concerns. When Namewee approached her with “Fragile,” she instantly fell in love with it.

“One reason I love this song so much is because it is not censored, it is not limited, it is not bullshit,” she told me. “It is complete honesty. It’s not sugarcoated in any way, and I feel like that, for me, really represents who I am as a person.”
Then, echoing growing global fatigue with Beijing’s seemingly endless capacity for outrage, she added: “It’s, like, three minutes of telling people, ‘Yeah, I can’t do that anymore.’”
This story was originally published by The Atlantic. Sign up for their newsletter.
defenseone.com · by Chris Horton

22. Hollywood is already making a movie about the Afghanistan withdrawal



Hollywood is already making a movie about the Afghanistan withdrawal
taskandpurpose.com · by James Clark · November 10, 2021
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You know what we really need now, right at this moment, as the United States grapples with the aftermath of its 20-year war in Afghanistan, and before we even have a complete picture of everything that happened in the final days of the U.S. military’s withdrawal from the country? A movie. That’s what we need, a goddamn movie about it.
Well, we’re in luck!
According to Deadline, actors Tom Hardy and Channing Tatum are attached to an unnamed war drama about the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in which they’ll star as former special operations soldiers who return to the country to aid in the evacuation of Afghan civilians from Kabul’s besieged airport.
The pitch, by “The Bourne Ultimatum” screenwriter George Nolfi, was described by Deadline as “a ripped from the headlines fact-based drama about the Afghanistan evacuation.” While details about the project remain scarce, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has remained the focus of intensive reporting in recent months, with a major focus on the mayhem at the Hamid Karzai International Airport, the desperation of Afghan civilians fleeing the Taliban advance, the hardship endured and heroism displayed by U.S. troops, and the work of military veterans on the ground to get Afghan allies out of the country.
Some of that work — like rescuing American civilians and Afghan allies from the Taliban-controlled country — continues today, which sheds light on a potential problem with the proposed film, especially if it’s going to play up the “fact-based” angle: There’s still a lot we don’t know about what happened during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and how it felt to bear witness to the end of a generational war there.
Imagine if Michael Bay came along just three months after Pearl Harbor and said I can’t wait to make a movie about some of the worst days of your life. ‘The Longest Day’ about the D-Day invasion didn’t come out until 18-years later. I don’t know. Definitely mixed emotions. https://t.co/uLJCLjOlo9
— James LaPorta (@JimLaPorta) November 9, 2021
Wars don’t just end when officials say they do — not for those who fought in them, anyway. They take years to process, and America’s longest war just came to a close. Are viewers ready for that story? More to the point, are the people needed to accurately and fully tell that story ready to talk about it so that an authentic version of events can be portrayed on screen?
These are, obviously, open-ended questions made by someone who’s watched too many “rah rah” chest-thumping post-9/11 war movies to react to another with anything short of skepticism. Though there are some notable exceptions, such as Rod Lurie’s account of the Battle of Kamdesh in The Outpost, many films that spotlight America’s recent wars seem to fall into one of two camps: They’re either thinly veiled action flicks masquerading as dramas that focus on larger-than-life special operations forces over conventional troops, or they’re cringe-inducing breathless accounts of trauma, sometimes referred to as PTSD dramas.
It’s not unreasonable to suggest that this film might be before its time, and that it may arrive before those with the perspectives needed to shape the story are able or willing to do so.
“It takes a while for people to reckon with themselves and their own memories, and their social circle,” said C.J. Chivers, an author, New York Times reporter, and Marine veteran, during a 2018 discussion on this topic. “’The Things They Carried’ by Tim O’Brien, you know, that came out in 1990, 15 years after Saigon — 15 years. We’re nowhere near that yet with Afghanistan and Iraq.”
For some additional context, it took years before those who served in Vietnam were ready to transfer their lived experiences at war to the screen, which is evident by the fact that the most critically acclaimed dramas about the conflict premiered long after it had ended. “Apocalypse Now,” “Platoon,” and “Full Metal Jacket,” came out in 1979, 1986, and 1987, respectively — years and in some cases, more than a decade after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. In the case of “The Things They Carried,” it was 30 years after the book was published that the stories therein were greenlit as a film.
As for Hardy and Tatum’s upcoming Kabul evacuation drama, telling the full story of the tragic final days of a war defined by decades of trauma and public neglect will be a tall order. Let’s just hope that it’s no worse than The Hurt Locker.
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is the Deputy Editor of Task & Purpose and a Marine veteran. He oversees daily editorial operations, edits articles, and supports reporters so they can continue to write the impactful stories that matter to our audience. In terms of writing, James provides a mix of pop culture commentary and in-depth analysis of issues facing the military and veterans community. Contact the author here.

taskandpurpose.com · by James Clark · November 10, 2021

23. “Thank You For Your Service” is More than Enough


“Thank You For Your Service” is More than Enough - Modern War Institute
mwi.usma.edu · by Rick Montcalm · November 11, 2021
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in 2017.
Each Veterans Day sees a surge of commentary on everything from the meaning of the holiday to the growing civil-military disconnect to the challenges veterans face when entering the civilian work force. An unfortunately substantial portion of these articles, though, flirt dangerously with the thin line that separates meaningful examination from admonishment about the right way to treat vets.
They are not wrong, by any measure, to call on the government to better fulfill its promises to those who have served or to encourage vibrant private sector engagement to reduce veteran unemployment. These are very real and persistent challenges. But, they do sometimes present a lopsided impression of military service. Pointing out the challenges that remain is vital, but Veterans Day is also an opportunity to address why military service becomes such a defining experience for the veteran. And, while there is a space for articles that discuss how civilians should engage veterans, it is important to remember that there are equally important measures veterans can take to engage those who have not served.
It is borderline axiomatic that military service is a deeply formative, bonding experience based largely on a sense of shared sacrifice. That sacrifice is very real, but what does it mean? The idea that a service member’s life has been placed on hold during military service, for instance, is a fallacy (or, at a minimum, a platitude devoid of critical nuance). If “life,” with all its ups and downs, includes marriages and divorces, families growing, losing loved ones, buying homes, and experiencing career highs and lows, then nothing is put on hold. These things all occur while in service, and in the case of some of the most positive aspects, the stability of serving sometimes makes them more accessible.
And while, again, the element of sacrifice can be very real, there is a corollary of deeply meaningful and unique benefits derived from military service. Veterans do not inherently view their service as a burden, though the demands of the lifestyle are occasionally burdensome. The difficulties of long hours, family separations, and combat experiences are balanced by deep friendships, mentorship by dedicated and talented professionals, and the opportunity to live in different places and engage with other cultures. The experience can be exhausting, and often takes a physical toll, but it is personally and professionally enriching. Serving in combat only deepens the experience.
A particular type of bond is formed among groups of people with shared experiences. While not exclusive to veterans, it is certainly robust among those who have served, as demonstrated by the prevalence of organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the mass attendance of D-Day veterans at annual observances in France after more than seventy years, and an array of other empirical evidence. For anyone who has attended a military unit reunion, there is something incredible about the bond shared between men and women who have worn the same unit patch on their uniform, whether during World War II or in Afghanistan.
Being assigned to a certain unit or a particular base, deploying in the same area, attending the same military schools, or even just wearing a uniform and saluting the same flag—this is the stuff of shared experience. The resulting bonds among veterans will always be unique. But the flipside of the opportunity to experience this bond is that veterans must guard against it becoming a barrier to engaging and establishing relationships with people who have not served.
This leads to an important question that perhaps deserves more attention: How can veterans better engage the civilian community? First, we can demonstrate interest in the unique challenges people face in careers outside the military. Few vets would disagree with the notion that someone who has not deployed cannot fully understand the difficulties of war. Similarly, but on a broader level, veterans cannot always relate to the unique challenges faced by teachers, nurses, firefighters, doctors, or police officers, unless they have served in those roles. A lack of personal understanding does not preclude genuine appreciation, and that appreciation should go both ways.
Second, we can recognize that expressions of gratitude and questions about military service—even when awkwardly worded—are opportunities to tell the military story. Because such a small portion of the population serves or has close connections to the military, the realities of military life can be a foreign concept. While there will always be ways for people to improve how they ask questions, veterans can certainly take ownership and craft a meaningful response to something seemingly insensitive, like, “Have you ever killed anyone?”
This is not in any way intended to gloss over the very real challenges the nation’s veterans continue to confront. A broad community of government organizations, charities, nonprofits, and advocacy groups are working hard to address everything from unemployment and homelessness, to suicide rates, to transition assistance programs. The discourse on funding the Department of Defense to ensure readiness, and the attention given to shortcomings in the Department of Veterans Affairs indicate these are, rightly, matter of concerns for the nation. There is no better way to honor veterans than to keep readiness and resourcing among the top issues discussed by legislative bodies and the media.
Neither is this a call to discourage or devalue expressions of gratitude for veterans. There are millions of American veterans, with experiences in conflicts large and small in areas all across the globe, that are truly deserving of the thanks given to them. But the responsibility to bridge the gap between military and civilians falls equally on the veteran and the civilian.
On this Veterans Day, let a simple “Thank you for your service” be enough to start a conversation.
Lt. Col. Rick Montcalm is the commander of 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment and was formerly the deputy director of the Modern War Institute at West Point. An armor officer, he has served in armor, infantry, and Stryker brigade combat teams, with operational experience in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the US government.
Image credit: Staff Sgt. Robert M. Trujillo, US Air Force
mwi.usma.edu · by Rick Montcalm · November 11, 2021

24. Not the 1990s Again: Rethinking US Strategy for Afghanistan Under the Taliban

Excerpts:

The United States must also be clear-eyed about the fact that given the context of Afghanistan we cannot entirely separate the kinetic strikes of counterterrorism from the political work of counterinsurgency. While President Biden has emphasized this distinction since he was vice president during the Obama administration, and such a separation was part of the Trump administration’s framing of its own withdrawal plans, it is unsustainable. This actually entails a revision of how the US government conceptualizes counterterrorism. Targeted strikes and special operations raids will disrupt networks, but in an Afghanistan where the Taliban rules and other armed groups will contest its authority, the traditional counterterrorism tools will also merely feed the conflict and allow various groups to become more battle-hardened. As odious as it might seem to do so, we must pick sides in Afghanistan and calibrate our counterterrorism efforts to ensure they are supported. In the short run, that may mean working to solidify or at least maintain Taliban control. Doing so, of course, does not and should not mean we cannot address this later if our efforts are able to alter the underlying structure of armed forces in Afghanistan.
Ultimately, US strategy must accept the realities of a post-withdrawal Afghanistan. The Taliban are back in power, but the conditions are changed, and it is certainly not the 1990s again. Frustrating as it might have been to watch the group enter Kabul in August, advancing US interests in the country and the broader region now requires the United States to recognize that the Taliban have their hands on the levers of power, that that power is contested, and positive strategic outcomes will depend on how that contest plays out.
Not the 1990s Again: Rethinking US Strategy for Afghanistan Under the Taliban - Modern War Institute
mwi.usma.edu · by Jack MacLennan · November 10, 2021
Since the completion of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August, two frames have defined the debate surrounding why the accompanying Taliban offensive was so quick and so effective. First, the US withdrawal precipitated a Taliban victory. Having outstayed the US intervention (which many argue was made more likely by repeated attempts to set a specific withdrawal date for military forces), the Taliban was able to realize its goal of taking control of the Afghan state. Second, the Taliban’s successful rout of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the abandonment of the country by the government of Ashraf Ghani signaled a reversion to pre-intervention Afghanistan. Each of these are wide of the mark.
Taliban control was precipitated by, and will now be contested because of, the fractured character of military force in the country. The Taliban was able to successfully contest both the ANA and US control of the country for much of the last five years. In large swaths of territory, either Taliban control was effectively complete, a steady back and forth between ANA and Taliban control ensured any real form of political control was unattainable for either side (which in effect amounts to gain for the Taliban), or the Taliban was at least able to harass government forces to ensure they were in a constant state of stress. Irrespective of the capacity of the ANA this constant stress hobbled the operational effectiveness of what looked to be (on paper) a strong military force. Regardless of the Biden administration’s rhetoric, it’s not that the ANA could fight and didn’t. Fatality and casualty rates among ANA units over the last few years attest to a willingness to fight against the Taliban, meaning the largescale collapse was itself a function of the shifting weight of various groups.
Rather than a simple either-or question of whether the United States should have continued to support the ANA or not, the reality is that the fractured political landscape of Afghanistan accounts for the whiplash change of heart on the part of ANA forces. Having proved willing to fight (and in large numbers die) under poor, often corrupt leadership and with little pay, the calculation seems to be that the government would not be able to contest control. But, we did not see mass desertion to the Taliban either. What likely became clear was that whereas in the 1990s when the Taliban took control during a protracted civil war, local militia leaders and warlords shared at least some incentives to support the group’s control, this is not the case now. Rather than a reversion the US intervention has had a substantive effect on the political context, even if twenty years of misguided operational decisions meant that effect was not democratization.
The Maturation of a Decentered Military System
Contrary to many insinuations that US intervention had no discernable effect on the pattern of armed groups in Afghanistan, and that there is an uninterrupted line between the emergence of the mujahideen during the Soviet invasion through to the modern Taliban, Afghanistan has been undergoing a particular kind of maturation in terms of the nature, quality, and incentives facing the various armed groups that define its politics.
What we see over the last forty-two years in Afghanistan has been the development and maturation of a decentralized, nonhierarchical military structure that now creates the potential for both ongoing conflict and ongoing contestation of Taliban control. Rather than conflict being a function of “ancient hatreds” or indicating a recourse to “tribal allegiances”—two narratives that have been thoroughly debunked—the pattern of violence in Afghanistan is now marked by the empowerment and institutionalization of various forms of armed groups that can all contest the control of others. The comparison that brings this to light is not Tuareg rebellions in Mali or warlordism in Somalia but the character of the Yugoslav National Army and its role in shaping the nature of civil war in the Balkans over the 1990s.
Underlying the emergence of civil conflict and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans was the institutional legacy of Yugoslavia’s policy of “Total National Defense.” As a nonaligned power isolated from the Soviet bloc following the Tito-Stalin split, Yugoslavia channeled its experience in World War II into a specific military doctrine. Military force was decentralized into specific, localized units trained and equipped to fight an ongoing insurgency war against any would-be invader. This decentralization and localization also made the groups difficult to track and allowed them to operate independently, ensuring an insurgency could continue regardless of which units were destroyed. Yugoslavia would thus become a hornet’s nest for any occupying force that dislodged the federal government. While invasion never occurred, these institutionalized and localized units became a foundation for the emergence of ethnic militias following the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Militia groups and the Bosnian Serb Army did not materialize out of thin air or gel simply because arms became available following the departure of the Yugoslav National Army, but because a set of institutional mechanisms already existed for them to be built upon.
The last four decades of Afghan history have created a similar system, if one defined by war and ongoing intervention rather than central government planning. Defining Afghanistan as an indomitable place that has sent empires as far back as Alexander the Great packing misses this fact. The mujahideen comprised a loosely organized collection of groups armed by the United States, but the experiences of Soviet invasion, US support, the civil war preceding Taliban rule, and the subsequent US-led intervention in 2001 have had the effect of creating and maturing a similar context. One must remember that, to much applause, the US intervention was largely predicated on using airpower and special operations forces to empower various anti-Taliban armed factions. This support, and the subsequent channeling of US efforts to realize the security-related goals of nation building over the last twenty years, likely ensconced and refined this network of groups. Much like in the Balkans, the resulting decentralized system will become a foundation for the emergence of myriad armed actors with the capacity to pursue their own goals and contest Taliban control.
The fact that many ANA soldiers did not flock to the Taliban makes this all the more worrying, as does the fact that so much military hardware has been left behind. Rather than these troops and all this materiel flowing to the Taliban, these will likely become resources for myriad other armed groups. This will entrench factionalism, not empower the Taliban.
The Next Year
What this means for the future of Afghanistan, its role in the larger global security environment, and the United States’ ability to exert influence there was on clear display during the military withdrawal. The Taliban will likely maintain at least begrudging acceptance of US interests in Afghanistan and allow it to conduct counterterrorism operations within the country, even if only tacitly. It’s relationship to al-Qaeda notwithstanding, its goal will be to maintain control in the face of other armed groups. Thus, if it can manage to focus US counterterrorism efforts in the country on rival groups like ISIS-K, the effect would be a positive for its strategic outlook.
This explains the seemingly authentic attempts the Taliban have been making to maintain at least a working relationship with the United States (evidenced by their willingness to allow the US evacuation to occur uninhibited and maintain much of the government structure below the executive level) and adopt policies that avoid their full isolation from the international community. To be clear, the Taliban government will be a repressive and violent regime; injustice and moral outrages will occur under its stewardship. Not only is this part of the group’s general approach to rule, but it is also true that it is unlikely that the senior Taliban leadership will be able to fully control its various subunits directly. However, these activities will likely be subdued (or punished) to ensure they stay below a level that would precipitate the breaking of a working relationship with—or attract threats from—the United States and other international actors. That this informs their thinking is not that outlandish given their treatment as a viable negotiating partner by the Trump administration and early overtures from the Biden team.
Incidentally, even ISIS-K might feel incentivized to conform to a similar logic. An effectively planned and conducted counterterrorism campaign against the group could have devastating effects. Of course, the United States is exceedingly unlikely to simply abandon efforts against ISIS-K altogether, but the group might be strongly tempted to avoid targeting direct US interests too heavily in the hopes that the US government might adopt tactics that do not substantially disrupt its capacity to contest the Taliban government. ISIS-K’s goal, in such a scenario, would be to ensure US counterterrorism posture is limited to flashy, marquee events that play well politically but do not actually disrupt the groups capacity to operate. Ultimately, for ISIS-K, like other group, the continued ability to contest is paramount, enabling it to recruit in the face of ongoing violence, grow their capacity, and make gains.
This is only the opening round. Over the next year (or two) this competition between the Taliban and other groups will continue. As the conflict continues, the limits of Taliban control will become clear. At that point, if those limits are insufficient to retain control, we will likely see the mobilization of various other groups, potentially leading to an outright civil war.
What the United States Can Do
At this point it is unlikely that the US can meaningfully change the contest pitting the Taliban against other armed groups from a distance. So what should US strategy be?
For all its heinousness, the Taliban are in a position where the US and international community have far more leverage over them than in the 1990s. It is this fact, not any meaningful change in the group’s ideology, that makes it possible for the United States to influence the group to moderate its behavior and achieve the strategic goal of keeping Afghanistan at least moderately stable (and thus not an open space for terrorist groups to use as an incubator). Strategic efforts should be disciplined by this fact. Understanding that our counterterrorism efforts could just as easily support their rule as scuttle it, we should exact specific, focused concessions from the Taliban leadership. Following Mary Kaldor’s work on what she calls new wars, this should not be done through the lens of how we’ve waged the post-9/11 “war on terrorism” to this point, but with the aim of building a viable civil society structure that can be an alternative to the militarized one outlined above. Twenty years of US-led military intervention failed to achieve this goal of enabling security by building and empowering civil society; that doesn’t mean it can’t be done by influencing the Taliban regime while the opportunity to do so exists.
The United States must also be clear-eyed about the fact that given the context of Afghanistan we cannot entirely separate the kinetic strikes of counterterrorism from the political work of counterinsurgency. While President Biden has emphasized this distinction since he was vice president during the Obama administration, and such a separation was part of the Trump administration’s framing of its own withdrawal plans, it is unsustainable. This actually entails a revision of how the US government conceptualizes counterterrorism. Targeted strikes and special operations raids will disrupt networks, but in an Afghanistan where the Taliban rules and other armed groups will contest its authority, the traditional counterterrorism tools will also merely feed the conflict and allow various groups to become more battle-hardened. As odious as it might seem to do so, we must pick sides in Afghanistan and calibrate our counterterrorism efforts to ensure they are supported. In the short run, that may mean working to solidify or at least maintain Taliban control. Doing so, of course, does not and should not mean we cannot address this later if our efforts are able to alter the underlying structure of armed forces in Afghanistan.
Ultimately, US strategy must accept the realities of a post-withdrawal Afghanistan. The Taliban are back in power, but the conditions are changed, and it is certainly not the 1990s again. Frustrating as it might have been to watch the group enter Kabul in August, advancing US interests in the country and the broader region now requires the United States to recognize that the Taliban have their hands on the levers of power, that that power is contested, and positive strategic outcomes will depend on how that contest plays out.
Jack Adam MacLennan is assistant professor of political science and graduate program director for national security studies at Park University in Parkville, Missouri. His research focuses on how technology and material influences shape national security politics. His most recent work appears in Global Responsibility to Protect.
James R. Horncastle is assistant professor of humanities and Edward and Emily McWhinney professor of international relations at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. He is author of Macedonian Slavs in the Greek Civil War, 1944–1949 (Lexington Press). He has published widely on conflict in the Balkan states.
The authors’ most recent publication together is “Where Eagles Err: Contemporary Geopolitics and the Future of Western Special Operations,” published in the Special Operations Journal in the spring of 2021.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: AhmadElhan
mwi.usma.edu · by Jack MacLennan · November 10, 2021


25.


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

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

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

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