Quotes of the Day:

“It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out moral evil than by men intent on doing evil.” 

- F.A. Hayek

“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” 

- Pablo Picasso

“In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria.” 

- Benjamin Franklin

1. Against the Odds: Lessons from the Ukrainian Resistance Movement

2. Judge limits Biden administration in working with social media companies

3. China accuses US of turning Taiwan into a powder keg with its latest sales to self-governing island

4. Hong Kong leader says 8 pro-democracy activists who escaped to the West 'will be pursued for life'

5. House, Senate China Hawks Concerned White House Will Let TikTok Stay in the US

6. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 4, 2023

7. The U.S. Funds Shadow Police Units All Over the World

8. ‘We Don’t Want to Carry Out Senseless, Suicidal Orders’ – Russian Soldiers Complain About Heavy Losses

9. US Military’s Recruiting Woes Are a National-Security Crisis ByJames Stavridis

10. Ukraine hails U.S. Patriot's "record" five Russian aircraft hits in one day

11. Taiwan’s Impossible Choice: Be Ukraine or Hong Kong

12. Michael Quinlan Was Right: The Enduring Relevance of Nuclear Deterrence

13. NATO again extends Stoltenberg's mandate, happy with a safe pair of hands as the war drags on

14. Spot troops on your street? It’s likely a parade, not martial law.

15. Army watercraft company with 13 ships will be based in Japan, Pacific commander says

16. Recent Chinese cyber intrusions signal a strategic shift

17. Russia has 'lost nearly half' of its combat effectiveness since invading Ukraine, UK defense official says

18. Inside Ukraine's tech push to counter Russian 'suicide' drone threat

19. China Upping Bullying Tactics Against Neighbors, Says Top State Department Diplomat

20. He was the CIA whiz kid in 'Charlie Wilson's War.' His new book offers advice for the US in Ukraine

21. Remaking US Naval Power for the 21st Century

22.  How America Broke Its War Machine

23. Special Operations News Update - July 5, 2023 | SOF News

24. How China's SOF Modernization Shifts Global Power Dynamics

1.Against the Odds: Lessons from the Ukrainian Resistance Movement

Per the subtitle this is worthy of greater attention but like irregular warfare it will be dismissed by most.

But this is a very important article. And Special Forces must take a hard look at the second lesson (and all three of them) and then a hard look at themselves.

Does SWCS still teach the unconventional warfare network development course? If so, this article needs to be required reading. I heard that it has canceled the irregular warfare campaign planners course.

Excerpt:

Secondly, the involvement of members of the resistance movement in direct actions in the conditions of a modern military conflict is limited due to the high threat of network disclosure, as well as the possibility of using artillery and missile systems to destroy targets in the occupied territories, together with UAVs, which are significantly more effective compared to ambushes and raids by small groups. At the same time, the resistance movement remains an effective tool for carrying out sabotage of critical infrastructure, particularly objects relating to railway transport. In this regard, more attention should be paid to identifying objects that may be important to disable, as well as to the development of appropriate methods for carrying out sabotage actions when training members of the resistance movement. It is also evident that special forces operators – who have spent a significant part of their careers developing individual combat skills – often lack the knowledge and skills necessary to create and administer underground networks whose main tasks are intelligence gathering and sabotage. Moreover, even the training of members of the resistance movement involved in direct action usually requires qualities other than the high level of individual combat skills possessed by special forces fighters.

Against the Odds: Lessons from the Ukrainian Resistance Movement

Given the difficult conditions under which it must operate, the nature and development of the resistance movement in Ukraine’s occupied territories is worthy of greater attention.

Oleksandr V Danylyuk4 July 2023

8 Minute Read

rusi.org

After Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, a large part of the territory of Ukraine – and thus millions of Ukrainian citizens – came under the control of Russian troops. The participation of the residents of the occupied territories in the resistance movement, their interaction with the Defence Forces of Ukraine (all of the defence, security and intelligence institutions involved in the defence of Ukraine) and their contribution to the success of Ukrainian operations are extremely significant. At the same time – as the experience of Ukraine has shown – in the conditions of modern war, the nature and tasks of a resistance movement differ from those of a traditional one. The study of the Ukrainian resistance movement therefore deserves special attention, as it can help in adapting existing doctrines and training programmes for resistance movement specialists to the realities that they will have to face.

First of all, it should be noted that in the conditions of a major conventional confrontation between Ukraine and Russia, where Ukraine also has the means of long-range fire damage, the main function of the resistance movement in the occupied territories is the collection and transmission of intelligence information – particularly on the location of the most important Russian military objects – as well as carrying out fire adjustments on such targets. Since the population of the occupied territories of Ukraine is extremely hostile to Russia and wants to liberate its settlements as soon as possible, it was not difficult for the Defence Forces of Ukraine to identify people who were ready to participate in the resistance. Tens of thousands of people are involved in the networks that operate in the occupied territories, the vast majority of whom are involved in the collection of intelligence information necessary for the effective operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

According to Ukrainian law, the formation and management of the resistance movement is the prerogative of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; however, Ukrainian intelligence and law enforcement agencies have also created their own networks in the occupied territories. This is natural given that the intelligence agencies, as well as the operational units of law enforcement agencies, have more practical human intelligence experience and a significantly larger number of specialists who are able to ensure the selection and recruitment of resistance members as well as the direction and organisation of their activities, taking into account the need to maintain a high level of tradecraft. In addition, the intelligence agencies are able to more effectively direct the intelligence-gathering activities of the resistance movement, as they have the ability to assess the intelligence situation and analyse any changes that occur. Another important element of the intelligence agencies’ success in this regard is the presence of a pre-prepared apparatus of agents who have already undergone basic training and acquired the practical skills necessary for effective operation in the occupied territories. This is especially important for agent penetration of the occupation administrations and other structures formed by the Russians in the occupied territories.

Despite the fact that acts of sabotage and direct actions account for a smaller percentage of resistance movement operations compared to the collection of intelligence information, they also deserve attention. In the case of sabotage, considering the traditional high dependence of Russian military logistics on railway transport, actions to disable railway infrastructure – especially those causing damage to rolling stock (disabling locomotives) – can be particularly fruitful. Such sabotage is significantly more effective compared to ordinary damage to the railway track, as it takes much longer for the enemy to restore functioning. Carrying out such actions requires agents to be stationed at enterprises that ensure the functioning of railway transport, including among the employees of railway depots.

Tens of thousands of people are involved in the networks that operate in the occupied territories, the vast majority of whom are involved in the collection of intelligence information

The role of direct actions in the occupied territories is relatively low, and the actions themselves are mainly carried out by the Special Operations Forces and special units of the intelligence agencies, occasionally with some support from members of the resistance movement. With the presence of artillery and missile weapons capable of targeting the enemy’s entire operational depth, as well as strike UAVs capable of hitting targets at a distance of more than 1,000 km, the need for direct actions has significantly decreased, and is reduced to extremely niche tasks and objectives. The involvement of members of the resistance movement in direct actions is not appropriate, since it requires additional combat and tradecraft training, the deployment of additional infrastructure – which increases the risk of exposing networks – as well as the scaling of the actions themselves.

The role of members of the resistance movement in distributing propaganda among the population of the occupied territories as well as among the Russian armed forces is also of a limited nature. A much more effective and safer way of influencing such audiences is the use of social networks and digital media, as well as sending messages to smartphones – which, despite all prohibitions, are actively used by Russian military personnel. Under such conditions, the participation of the resistance movement in propaganda activities is reduced to painting anti-Russian graffiti in public places, which is aimed at demonstrating the presence of the resistance, as well as supporting the morale of the population in the occupied territories and encouraging them to engage in civil disobedience.

The resistance movement’s involvement in the organisation of non-violent protests against the Russian occupation – which were widespread at the beginning of the invasion – had become negligible by the end of 2022. The harsh occupation regime established by Russia, accompanied by the large-scale kidnapping, imprisonment, torture and murder of pro-Ukrainian activists, made open forms of protest practically impossible. Russian repression also forced a significant part of the active population to leave the occupied territories, which greatly simplified the task of the Russian-installed police and counterintelligence regimes.

Although there are prerequisites for the deployment of the resistance movement with the involvement of Russian citizens in Russia itself, Ukraine is not conducting such operations. Special operations on Russian territory are limited to raid operations by the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces and special units of the intelligence agencies, during which the operators carry out sabotage actions on transport and military infrastructure. Informational and psychological influence on the Russian population in the vast majority of cases is carried out through social networks and involves refuting the narratives of Russian propaganda, by conveying true information about the course of the war, the losses incurred by the Russian armed forces, and so on. Measures to form a non-violent anti-war movement within Russia, as well as among Russian citizens in other countries – despite their obvious necessity – are not being carried out. To a large extent, the reason for the lack of tangible efforts in this direction is that the need to prepare for a long-term total confrontation with Russia was neglected prior to the outbreak of war, a fact characteristic of both the leadership of Ukraine and its Western partners.

The resistance movement remains an effective tool for carrying out sabotage of critical infrastructure, particularly objects relating to railway transport

Summarising the experience of the Ukrainian resistance movement, the following elements stand out. First of all, for the effective formation and application of a resistance movement, it is necessary to involve experienced human intelligence specialists. This is due to the high level of tradecraft required for handling agent networks, as well as the fact that the main product of a resistance movement in the conditions of a peer-to-peer confrontation is the intelligence information collected by its members. This necessitates a review of the role of intelligence agencies in the organisation of the resistance movement, as well as a significant increase in the capabilities of the Special Operations Forces in the field of conducting human intelligence operations.

Secondly, the involvement of members of the resistance movement in direct actions in the conditions of a modern military conflict is limited due to the high threat of network disclosure, as well as the possibility of using artillery and missile systems to destroy targets in the occupied territories, together with UAVs, which are significantly more effective compared to ambushes and raids by small groups. At the same time, the resistance movement remains an effective tool for carrying out sabotage of critical infrastructure, particularly objects relating to railway transport. In this regard, more attention should be paid to identifying objects that may be important to disable, as well as to the development of appropriate methods for carrying out sabotage actions when training members of the resistance movement. It is also evident that special forces operators – who have spent a significant part of their careers developing individual combat skills – often lack the knowledge and skills necessary to create and administer underground networks whose main tasks are intelligence gathering and sabotage. Moreover, even the training of members of the resistance movement involved in direct action usually requires qualities other than the high level of individual combat skills possessed by special forces fighters.

Thirdly, especially in conditions where the theatre of conventional military operations is mostly limited to the territory of Ukraine, the deployment of the resistance movement (as a movement of citizens against the regime) on Russian territory is a necessary and practically unavoidable step. The creation of such a resistance movement would make it possible to organise both an underground anti-war network – capable, among other things, of carrying out sabotage actions against the enterprises of the Russian defence industry – and an open anti-war movement, which could significantly reduce the level of support for the aggression against Ukraine among Russian citizens.

The views expressed in this Commentary are the author’s, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution.

Have an idea for a Commentary you’d like to write for us? Send a short pitch to commentaries@rusi.org and we’ll get back to you if it fits into our research interests. Full guidelines for contributors can be found here.

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2. Judge limits Biden administration in working with social media companies

Quite an "indictment."

We do need to learn the lesson that censorship is not the solution to adversary propaganda.

Excerpts:

Doughty cited “substantial evidence” of a far-reaching censorship campaign. He wrote that the “evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’ ”Doughty cited “substantial evidence” of a far-reaching censorship campaign. He wrote that the “evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’ ”

...

The ruling listed several government agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the FBI, that are prohibited by the injunction from discussions with social media companies aimed at “encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

The order mentions by name several officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and others.

Doughty allowed several exceptions, such as informing social media companies of postings involving criminal activity and conspiracies; as well as notifying social media firms of national security threats and other threats posted on platforms.The ruling listed several government agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the FBI, that are prohibited by the injunction from discussions with social media companies aimed at “encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

The order mentions by name several officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and others.

Doughty allowed several exceptions, such as informing social media companies of postings involving criminal activity and conspiracies; as well as notifying social media firms of national security threats and other threats posted on platforms.

Judge limits Biden administration in working with social media companies

AP · July 4, 2023

BY JIM SALTER

Published 4:49 PM EDT, July 4, 2023

ASSOCIATED PRESS

A judge on Tuesday prohibited several federal agencies and officials of the Biden administration from working with social media companies about “protected speech,” a decision called “a blow to censorship” by one of the Republican officials whose lawsuit prompted the ruling.

U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana granted the injunction in response to a 2022 lawsuit brought by attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri. Their lawsuit alleged that the federal government overstepped in its efforts to convince social media companies to address postings that could result in vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic or affect elections.

Doughty cited “substantial evidence” of a far-reaching censorship campaign. He wrote that the “evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’ ”

Other news

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Elon Musk put new limits on tweets. Users and advertisers might go elsewhere

TikTok and Instagram users can scroll with abandon. But Twitter owner Elon Musk has put new curfews on his digital town square, the latest drastic change to the social media platform that could further drive away advertisers and undermine its cultural influence as a trendsetter.

Elon Musk imposes daily limits on reading posts on Twitter

Elon Musk has limited the number of tweets that Twitter users can view each day. He described the restrictions as an attempt to prevent unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data from the social media platform.

Why social media is being blamed for fueling the riots in France

Social media companies are once again under scrutiny, this time in France as the country’s president blames TikTok, Snapchat and other platforms for helping fuel widespread riots over the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old driver.

Republican U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, who was the Missouri attorney general when the lawsuit was filed, said on Twitter that the ruling was “a huge win for the First Amendment and a blow to censorship.”

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said the injunction prevents the administration “from censoring the core political speech of ordinary Americans” on social media.

“The evidence in our case is shocking and offensive with senior federal officials deciding that they could dictate what Americans can and cannot say on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms about COVID-19, elections, criticism of the government, and more,” Landry said in a statement.

The Justice Department is reviewing the injunction “and will evaluate its options in this case,” said a White House official who was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

“This administration has promoted responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our elections,” the official said. “Our consistent view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to take account of the effects their platforms are having on the American people, but make independent choices about the information they present.”

The ruling listed several government agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the FBI, that are prohibited by the injunction from discussions with social media companies aimed at “encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

The order mentions by name several officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and others.

Doughty allowed several exceptions, such as informing social media companies of postings involving criminal activity and conspiracies; as well as notifying social media firms of national security threats and other threats posted on platforms.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit also included individuals, including conservative website owner Jim Hoft. The lawsuit accused the administration of using the possibility of favorable or unfavorable regulatory action to coerce social media platforms to squelch what it considered misinformation on masks and vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also touched on other topics, including claims about election integrity and news stories about material on a laptop owned by Hunter Biden, the president’s son.

Administration lawyers said the government left it up to social media companies to decide what constituted misinformation and how to combat it. In one brief, they likened the lawsuit to an attempt to put a legal gag order on the federal government and “suppress the speech of federal government officials under the guise of protecting the speech rights of others.”

“Plaintiffs’ proposed injunction would significantly hinder the Federal Government’s ability to combat foreign malign influence campaigns, prosecute crimes, protect the national security, and provide accurate information to the public on matters of grave public concern such as health care and election integrity,” the administration says in a May 3 court filing.

___

Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri. Associated Press journalists Kevin McGill in New Orleans and Cal Woodward, Colleen Long and Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

AP · July 4, 2023

3. China accuses US of turning Taiwan into a powder keg with its latest sales to self-governing island

Admit nothing, deny everything, and make counter accusations.

Excerpt:

While China’s vast military dominates Taiwan’s in almost every category, part of the island’s strategy is to hold off Chinese forces long enough for outside help to arrive.

China accuses US of turning Taiwan into a powder keg with its latest sales to self-governing island

AP · by Published [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year] · July 5, 2023

BEIJING (AP) — China’s Defense Ministry accused the United States of turning Taiwan into a powder keg Wednesday with its latest sales of military equipment to the self-governing island democracy worth a total of $440.2 million.

The U.S. State Department approved of the sale of 30 mm ammunition and related equipment, along with spare parts for Taiwan’s vehicles, small arms, combat weapon systems, and logistical support items. Defense Ministry spokesperson Col. Tan Kefei responded that “the U.S. ignores China’s core concerns, crudely interferes in China’s internal affairs, and deliberately escalates tensions across the Taiwan Strait.”

China claims Taiwan as its own territory to be conquered by force if necessary and Tan said “stern representations” had been lodged with the U.S.

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Honduras opens embassy in China after breaking off ties with Taiwan

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US confirms China has had a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019

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“This is tantamount to accelerating the transformation of Taiwan into a ‘powder keg’ and pushing the Taiwanese people into the abyss of disaster,” he said in a statement carried on the ministry’s website.

Using force to seek independence is wishful thinking and is doomed to failure, he said, using standard Chinese terminology, adding that the People’s Liberation Army was always ready and would maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

The U.S. maintains a “One China” policy under which it does not recognize Taiwan’s formal independence and has no formal diplomatic relations with the island in deference to Beijing. Nonetheless, U.S. law requires a credible defense for Taiwan and for the U.S. to treat all threats to the island as matters of ''grave concern.”

China regularly sends warships and planes across the center line in the Taiwan Strait that provides a buffer between the sides, as well as into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, in an effort to intimidate the island’s 23 million people and wear down its military capabilities.

During a transit stop in the U.S. by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in April, during which she met with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, China staged three days of large-scale drills around the island, simulating a blockade. China opposes any exchanges at the official level between Taiwan and other governments.

On Wednesday, 26 PLA aircraft and 4 Chinese navy ships were detected around Taiwan, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry said. Aircraft, navy vessels and land-based missile systems were monitoring the situation, it said.

Few Taiwanese seem fazed by such displays, with the vast majority favoring maintaining the island’s current status of de-facto independence. The island split from mainland China amid civil war in 1949.

In its announcement of the sale, the State Department said it “serves U.S. national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient’s continuing efforts to modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability.”

“The proposed sale will help improve the security of the recipient and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance, and economic progress in the region,” it said. The ammunition and associated equipment will maintain the effectiveness of Taiwan’s CM34 Armored Vehicles while “further enhancing interoperability with the United States.”

In addition to purchasing military hardware from the U.S. — with an estimated $19 billion of F-16 fighter jets and other items on backorder — Taiwan has been revitalizing its domestic defense industries, overhauling training and extending compulsory national service for all men from four months to one year.

While China’s vast military dominates Taiwan’s in almost every category, part of the island’s strategy is to hold off Chinese forces long enough for outside help to arrive.

AP · by Published [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year] · July 5, 2023

4. Hong Kong leader says 8 pro-democracy activists who escaped to the West 'will be pursued for life'

Beware the long arm of China.

Hong Kong leader says 8 pro-democracy activists who escaped to the West 'will be pursued for life'

BY KANIS LEUNG

Published 12:51 AM EDT, July 4, 2023

AP · July 4, 2023

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Share

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s leader said Tuesday that eight pro-democracy activists who now live in the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia will be pursued for life for alleged national security offenses, dismissing criticism that the move to have them arrested was a dangerous precedent.

Chief Executive John Lee expressed his support for police efforts to arrest the eight. At his weekly media briefing, Lee said anyone, including their friends and relatives, who offered information leading to their arrests would be eligible for rewards offered by the police.

“The only way to end their destiny of being an abscondee who will be pursued for life is to surrender,” he said.

The arrest warrants were issued for former pro-democracy lawmakers Nathan Law, Ted Hui and Dennis Kwok, lawyer Kevin Yam, unionist Mung Siu-tat and activists Finn Lau, Anna Kwok and Elmer Yuen. They were accused of breaching the Beijing-imposed National Security Law by committing offenses such as collusion with foreign powers and inciting secession.

More than 260 people have been arrested under the law, which was enacted in 2020 as part of a broad crackdown on dissent in the territory, but the rewards of 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($127,600) for information leading to each arrest are the first offered under the legislation.

The move quickly drew criticism from the U.S. and British governments, which took issue with the extraterritorial application of the security law. The U.S. said it marked a dangerous precedent that threatened human rights. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong tweeted that her country was “deeply concerned” by reports of Hong Kong authorities issuing arrest warrants for democracy advocates.

But Lee insisted that extraterritorial power exists in the security laws of many countries. He said his government will not be swayed by comments by overseas officials and politicians.

“I’m not afraid of any political pressure that is put on us because we do what we believe is right,” he said.

In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said China strongly deplored other countries’ “flagrant slandering” of its National Security Law for Hong Kong. “Justice will never be delayed or absent,” she said.

The row reflects a fresh source of contention between Beijing and the West over the alleged overseas reach of China’s enforcement agencies. China was reported to be running secret overseas police stations across North America, Europe and in other countries where Chinese communities include critics of the Communist Party who have family or business contacts in China. Beijing denied they are police stations, saying they exist mainly to provide citizen services such as renewing driver’s licenses.

Hong Kong Secretary for Security Chris Tang doubled down on the crackdown against the eight activists, saying authorities are seeking to cut access to their finances including freezing and confiscating their assets. Investigations will be conducted to find those who support them financially in Hong Kong and overseas, Tang said.

He warned that anyone who assists them in endangering national security may be violating the law.

Hong Kong’s action did not stop the activists from speaking up.

Law, who is accused of foreign collusion and inciting secession, said on Facebook that he was again being targeted by China’s Communist Party and that he felt the “invisible pressure.” However, he refused to surrender.

“All I did was reasonable, justifiable and peaceful advocacy work,” the British-based activist said.

Mung said in an online interview that even though he is not facing imminent arrest because he is now based in the U.K., he worries that the warrant could trigger some Chinese nationalists in Britain to threaten him. Still, he pledged to continue his advocacy work.

“The Chinese government is ... trying to spread the fear not only in Hong Kong, but also outside Hong Kong,” he said. “If we just give up because of this kind of suppression, then it will ... encourage the regime to do more suppression to silence the people.”

Yam told Australian media that the move was not completely unexpected. “The only remaining voices of dissent are now outside Hong Kong, and that’s where they’re expanding to next,” he said.

Anna Kwok tweeted that she would not back down. She reiterated her call to bar Lee, who was sanctioned by Washington over his involvement in the harsh crackdown on rights in Hong Kong, from attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings in November in the U.S.

Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997, has come under increasingly tight scrutiny by Beijing following months of mass pro-democracy protests in 2019.

Police on Monday acknowledged they will not be able to arrest the eight if they remain overseas.

Eunice Yung, a pro-Beijing lawmaker and the daughter-in-law of Yuen, supported the police move and said she cut ties with Yuen last August.

“All his acts have nothing to do with me,” she said on Facebook.

AP · July 4, 2023

5. House, Senate China Hawks Concerned White House Will Let TikTok Stay in the US

Excerpts:

The lawmakers said the final rule watered down previously proposed language for reducing identified risks from “addressed” to “mitigated,” which they warned could enable TikTok to reach a compromise with the Biden administration to continue operating across the country.

Calling Project Texas “the most famous example of an attempted ‘mitigation’ agreement,” the lawmakers underscored their concerns that “TikTok cannot safely operate in the U.S. while controlled by a foreign adversary.

“The national-security threat posed by TikTok cannot be mitigated, and we urge you to abandon any course of action that stops short of fully addressing that threat,” Gallagher and Rubio wrote.

House, Senate China Hawks Concerned White House Will Let TikTok Stay in the US

defenseone.com · by Edward Graham

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., co-authored a letter with Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., warning that a new Commerce Department rule would not alleviate security concerns around TikTok. Drew Angerer / Getty Images

Key Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate warned that tweaked language in a new Commerce Department rule could lay the groundwork for TikTok’s proposal to store U.S. users’ data in the country.

By Edward Graham

Staff Reporter, Nextgov/FCW

July 2, 2023 07:00 AM ET

• Congress
• China
• Technology

Two leading China hawks in Congress warned that the Biden administration is preparing to sign off on an agreement that would allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States, despite concerns about the popular video app’s reported ties to the Chinese government and Beijing’s potential access to the data of users.

In a June 23 letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis.—who chairs the House Select Committee on China—and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.—who serves as vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee—said a final rule issued by the department earlier this month “has renewed our concerns” that the Biden administration is preparing to accept TikTok’s proposal for managing U.S. users’ data.

The intelligence community, White House officials and lawmakers have all voiced concerns that TikTok users’ personal information—including browsing histories, locations and biometric data—could be shared with Beijing.

TikTok has been negotiating with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States for several years to address national security concerns largely stemming from its ownership by China-based parent company ByteDance. To allay the worries of officials and lawmakers, TikTok has proposed a plan to regulators—known as Project Texas—that would enable the app to store U.S. users’ information on domestic servers overseen by Oracle.

Gallagher and Rubio’s letter took issue with the wording of Commerce's new supply chain security rule, which outlined criteria for the department to consider when reviewing whether “connected software applications present undue or unacceptable risk.”

The lawmakers said the final rule watered down previously proposed language for reducing identified risks from “addressed” to “mitigated,” which they warned could enable TikTok to reach a compromise with the Biden administration to continue operating across the country.

Calling Project Texas “the most famous example of an attempted ‘mitigation’ agreement,” the lawmakers underscored their concerns that “TikTok cannot safely operate in the U.S. while controlled by a foreign adversary.

“The national-security threat posed by TikTok cannot be mitigated, and we urge you to abandon any course of action that stops short of fully addressing that threat,” Gallagher and Rubio wrote.

The two Republicans asked Commerce to provide them with documents related to its updated regulations by June 30, including discussions between department officials and TikTok, other federal agencies and third-party firms regarding “legal authorities to impose restrictions on TikTok.”

6. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 4, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations:  https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-4-2023

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian forces appear to be focusing on creating an asymmetrical attrition gradient that conserves Ukrainian manpower at the cost of a slower rate of territorial gains, while gradually wearing down Russian manpower and equipment. The current pace of Ukrainian operations is not indicative of a stalemate or evidence that Ukraine cannot retake large areas.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least four sectors of the front and advanced on July 4.
• Russian and Ukrainian officials escalated their rhetoric surrounding the situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) on July 5, but Russia is likely focused on accusing Ukraine of irresponsible actions around the ZNPP including setting conditions for a possible false flag attack. Russia remains unlikely to generate a radiological incident at the ZNPP at this time.
• The reported reorganization of Russian internal security organs suggests that the Kremlin has not yet concluded that it has effectively neutralized the threats of future armed rebellions following the Wagner Group’s June 23-24 rebellion.
• Russian authorities are absolving Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin of financial responsibility for damages caused by the Wagner Group rebellion and reportedly returned significant liquid assets to Prigozhin, possibly as part of the deal negotiated between Putin, Prigozhin, and Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.
• The official Chechen response to an attack against a Russian opposition journalist in Chechnya may impact Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov’s standing in the Russian ultranationalist information space.
• Kadyrov’s prominence in the broader Russian information space will likely force Kadyrov to choose between preserving his regime and his support in the ultranationalist information space, however.
• Russia is reportedly forming a new combined arms army as part of the Northern Fleet, likely in order to posture its preparedness against NATO.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted a drone attack on Moscow Oblast and Novaya Moskva on July 4.
• Russian conducted limited ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line and south of Kreminna.
• Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line.
• Russian and Ukrainian forces escalated ground attacks in the Bakhmut area.
• Russian forces continued ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on July 4.
• Russian and Ukrainian forces conducted ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast.
• Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations near Orikhiv in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• Russia continues efforts to mobilize its defense industrial base (DIB).
• Russian officials continue to deport Ukrainian children to Russia under the guise of providing pediatric healthcare.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 4, 2023

Jul 4, 2023 - Press ISW

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 4, 2023

Karolina Hird, Grace Mappes, Nicole Wolkov, Angelica Evans, and Frederick W. Kagan

July 4, 2023, 8:35pm ET

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

Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.

Note: The data cutoff for this product was 2pm ET on July 4. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the July 5 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Ukrainian forces appear to be focusing on creating an asymmetrical attrition gradient that conserves Ukrainian manpower at the cost of a slower rate of territorial gains, while gradually wearing down Russian manpower and equipment. Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov reported on July 4 that Ukrainian forces are performing their main task of destroying Russian manpower, equipment, fuel depots, artillery, and air defenses and that a “war of destruction is equal to a war of kilometers.”[1] Danilov’s assessment underlines the prioritization of Ukraine’s ongoing campaign to attrit Russian manpower and assets over attempting to conduct massive sweeping mechanized maneuvers to regain large swaths of territory rapidly. NATO Military Committee Chair Admiral Bob Bauer reported on July 3 that Ukrainian forces are correct to proceed cautiously and avoid high casualties in the counteroffensive and acknowledged that the counteroffensive is difficult due to landmines and other obstacles up to 30km deep into Russian-occupied territory.[2] Bauer stated that Ukrainian forces should not face criticism or pressure for moving slowly.

Ukrainian forces have liberated territory in multiple areas of the front since the start of the counteroffensive in early June. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported on July 3 that Ukrainian forces have liberated a total of 37.4 square kilometers in eastern and southern Ukraine in the past week.[3] Ukrainian forces are continuing to make steady, gradual advances.

The current pace of Ukrainian operations is not indicative of a stalemate or evidence that Ukraine cannot retake large areas. Ukrainian forces conducted slow and gradual interdiction campaigns against Russian concentration areas in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast and limited ground attacks on the west (right) bank between August and November of 2022, before finally forcing the Russian withdrawal from the right bank in mid-November.[4] The situation in southern Ukraine is different, of course, because there is no natural bottleneck of the sort created by Russian reliance on the two bridges over the Dnipro. The Ukrainian counter-offensive in Kherson nevertheless alternated phases of relatively rapid advance with long periods of preparation, combat focused on attritting Russian forces, and limited gains that ultimately made Russian positions on the west bank of the river untenable. By contrast, the Russian winter-spring offensive culminated in just over one month without making significant gains along the Luhansk-Kharkiv Oblast border.[5] The current Ukrainian counter-offensive is less dramatic and rapid than the one that liberated much of Kharkiv Oblast, more successful than the failed Russian winter offensive, and generally most like the slower but ultimately successful Kherson counteroffensive in its pace and initial progress.

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least four sectors of the front and advanced on July 4. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian ground attacks in the Lyman direction.[6] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continue counteroffensive operations in the Bakhmut area, in the western Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast.[7] Ukrainian military officials stated that Ukrainian forces have made some unspecified advances on Bakhmut’s northern and southern flanks, and a prominent Russian milblogger also claimed that Ukrainian forces advanced north of Bakhmut.[8] Ukrainian Tavrisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Valery Shershen stated that Ukrainian forces advanced up to two kilometers in the western Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and a Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces reached Pryyutne, 15 kilometers southwest of Velyka Novosilka in western Donetsk Oblast.[9] Geolocated footage confirms that Ukrainian forces made additional advances south of Orikhiv in western Zaporizhia Oblast.[10]

Russian and Ukrainian officials escalated their rhetoric surrounding the situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) on July 4, but Russia is likely focused on accusing Ukraine of irresponsible actions around the ZNPP including setting conditions for a possible false flag attack. Russia remains unlikely to generate a radiological incident at the ZNPP at this time. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on July 4 that Ukrainian officials have begun preparations for a potential Russian provocation at the ZNPP “in the near future” and warned that Russian forces placed objects “resembling explosive devices” on the outer roofs of the ZNPP’s third and fourth reactors in order to blame damage to these areas on Ukrainian shelling.[11] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky echoed this statement in his nightly address on July 4, and other Ukrainian military sources warned of possible Russian provocations at the plant.[12] As ISW has previously reported, it is unlikely that limited Russian sabotage at the ZNPP that Russia could hope to blame on Ukraine would be able to generate a massive radiological incident, as the ZNPP’s reactors were constructed to withstand considerable damage.[13] Ukrainian military sources reiterated this assessment and noted that even if the purported explosive devices detonate, the damage would not harm the reactor but would rather create the false impression that Ukrainian forces had shelled the reactors.[14] Advisor to the head of Russian nuclear energy operator Rosenergoatom, Renat Karchaa, also claimed on July 4 that Ukraine is planning to strike the ZNPP overnight on July 4-5.[15] ISW has previously assessed that such provocative Russian statements, and even the possibility of a tangible provocation at the plant, are likely part of a Russian wider information operation meant to accuse Ukraine of irresponsibility at the ZNPP ahead of the upcoming NATO summit and dissuade Ukrainian forces from conducting counteroffensive operations against occupied Zaporizhia Oblast.[16]

The reported reorganization of Russian internal security organs suggests that the Kremlin has not yet concluded that it has effectively neutralized the threats of future armed rebellions following the Wagner Group’s June 23-24 rebellion. Russian outlet Vedomosti reported on July 3, citing internal law enforcement sources, that Russian law enforcement authorities are considering reassigning the “Grom” special units of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service (part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) to Rosgvardia (Russian National Guard).[17] Vedomosti noted that this reported change follows Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with heads of various Russian law enforcement agencies on June 26 in the wake of the Wagner armed rebellion.[18] Several Russian sources spoke out against the reported transfer of ”Grom” to Rosgvardia, citing overall poorer equipment, training, and leadership quality.[19] Vedomosti claimed that Alexander Khinstein, former advisor to Rosgvardia Head Viktor Zolotov, warned that the assignment of ”Grom” units to Rosgvardia would be a ”dangerous experiment.”[20] The alleged restructuring of Russia’s internal security forces suggests that the Kremlin is working to build an effective anti-rebellion force following Wagner’s armed rebellion. The fact that these purported changes are happening following the rebellion indicates that the Kremlin was correctly dissatisfied with the performance of security forces, which failed to stop or even contest Wagner’s march on Moscow, and suggests that the Kremlin has not ruled out the risk of future such rebellions.

Russian authorities are absolving Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin of financial responsibility for damages caused by the Wagner Group rebellion and reportedly returned significant liquid assets to Prigozhin, possibly as part of the deal negotiated between Putin, Prigozhin, and Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. The Rostov-on-Don administration claimed that the total damages from Prigozhin’s rebellion amounted to 92.5 million rubles (roughly $1 million), and that the administration will not recover damages from Prigozhin or the Wagner Group.[21] St. Petersburg news outlet Fontanka claimed, citing internal sources, that Russian authorities returned over 10 billion rubles (roughly $111 million) in cash, five gold bars, and hundreds of thousands of US dollars in cash to Prigozhin on July 2 that authorities had seized from Prigozhin-affiliated facilities in St. Petersburg on June 24.[22] Fontanka claimed that authorities only reversed their decision to hold onto Prigozhin‘s liquid assets on July 2 but did not specify a reason for the reversal. The legal basis that Russian authorities would have had for seizing Prigozhin’s assets remains unclear in any case, as Russian authorities dropped criminal charges against Prigozhin for the rebellion.[23] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that part of Prigozhin’s liquid assets were supposed to be compensation to the families of Russian pilots whom Wagner forces killed during the rebellion, but it is now uncertain whether Wagner will make those payments.[24] The milblogger assessed that Wagner will likely use at least part of the returned assets to support transferring Wagner Group personnel to Belarus.

The official Chechen response to an attack against a Russian opposition journalist in Chechnya may impact Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov’s standing in the Russian ultranationalist information space. Russian opposition outlet Novaya Gazeta reported on July 4 that unspecified, masked actors in Grozny, Chechnya intercepted a car containing one of its journalists, Yelena Milashina, severely assaulted Milashina, destroyed her equipment and documents, and warned Milashina against writing “anything.”[25] Milashina traveled to Chechnya in order to cover the trial of Zarema Musayeva, the mother of an exiled Chechen opposition activist, and the attackers also assaulted Musayeva’s lawyer, Alexander Nemov, who was in the car with Milashina. Chechen courts sentenced Musayeva to five and a half years in prison on July 5 for alleged fraud and attacking Chechen authorities, but some Russian opposition voices claimed that Chechen authorities prosecuted Musayeva due to her son‘s activism.[26] Prominent Russian ultranationalist voices seized on Milashina’s attack despite its lack of relevance to the war in Ukraine likely out of concern for broader press censorship.[27] The voices condemned attacks against journalists – including Milashina – as unacceptable even though they disagree with Milashina.[28] The Russian Union of Journalists and the Russian Human Rights Council both issued statements of condemnation and opened investigations into the attack.[29]

Kadyrov’s prominence in the broader Russian information space will likely force Kadyrov to choose between preserving his regime and his support in the ultranationalist information space, however. Kadyrov’s response was a brief acknowledgment that the relevant Chechen authorities are investigating the ”incident” - a response inconsistent in tone and content with Kadyrov’s usual flamboyant, long-winded messaging.[30] Kadyrov previously condemned Milashina as a ”terrorist” and demanded her detention, which is largely consistent with his overall effort to retain his authoritarian rule in Chechnya.[31] If Kadyrov supports the investigation into Milashina’s attack, he risks undermining his domestic regime and crackdowns against Chechen opposition voices. But if Kadyrov refuses to support the investigation, then he risks undermining his standing within an information space that is hypersensitive to the prospect of increased censorship. Kadyrov already struggles to balance these dual aims in his force arrayment in Ukraine; Kadyrov portrays Akhmat forces as capable fighters against Ukraine but has simultaneously largely avoided committing them intensive and attritional combat, and some Russian milbloggers have complained that Chechen forces are distracted posing online while other Russian forces actually fight.[32] Chechen forces notably failed to engage Prigozhin’s rebels despite ostentatiously mobilizing and moving ostensibly to fight them, although Putin might have directed Kadyrov to avoid combat with Wagner forces.[33]

Russia is reportedly forming a new combined arms army as part of the Northern Fleet, likely in order to posture its preparedness against NATO. Russian news outlet Izvestia reported that Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) sources claimed that the existing 14th Army Corps of the Northern Fleet will be reformed into the new combined arms army with motorized rifle brigades, divisions, and regiments subordinate to it.[34] Izvestia suggested that the 14th Army Corps‘ 200th and 80th Brigades will be reorganized into a division under the new combined arms army.[35] Russian army corps before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine existed only within fleets and largely performed the same functions as combined arms armies. The reported decision to form a new combined arms army is thus likely posturing ahead of the NATO summit on July 11-12 intended to show Russia’s military response to the accession of Finland and possibly Sweden to the alliance. The promotion of the 14th Army Corps to a combined arms army level will not by itself increase Russian combat capacity, and it is unclear where the Russian military leadership could find the personnel and equipment that would be needed for the new organization to generate a material difference.

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted a drone attack on Moscow Oblast and Novaya Moskva on July 4. The Russian MoD claimed that Russian air defenses shot down and electronic warfare suppressed five of five Ukrainian drones.[36] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian air defenses destroyed two drones near Valuevo, electronic warfare suppressed one in the Odinstovo Raion, one drone fell near Krivosheino, and one flew toward a military unit in Kubinka - likely the Russian airbase there.[37] One Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces may have intended to strike Vnukovo Airport, and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced that Russian authorities temporarily redirected some flights from Vnukovo Airport in response to the drones.[38] Another milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces may have conducted the drone attack in retaliation for an alleged Russian strike on a Ukrainian Security Services (SBU) building in Sumy Oblast.[39]

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian forces appear to be focusing on creating an asymmetrical attrition gradient that conserves Ukrainian manpower at the cost of a slower rate of territorial gains, while gradually wearing down Russian manpower and equipment. The current pace of Ukrainian operations is not indicative of a stalemate or evidence that Ukraine cannot retake large areas.
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least four sectors of the front and advanced on July 4.
• Russian and Ukrainian officials escalated their rhetoric surrounding the situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) on July 5, but Russia is likely focused on accusing Ukraine of irresponsible actions around the ZNPP including setting conditions for a possible false flag attack. Russia remains unlikely to generate a radiological incident at the ZNPP at this time.
• The reported reorganization of Russian internal security organs suggests that the Kremlin has not yet concluded that it has effectively neutralized the threats of future armed rebellions following the Wagner Group’s June 23-24 rebellion.
• Russian authorities are absolving Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin of financial responsibility for damages caused by the Wagner Group rebellion and reportedly returned significant liquid assets to Prigozhin, possibly as part of the deal negotiated between Putin, Prigozhin, and Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.
• The official Chechen response to an attack against a Russian opposition journalist in Chechnya may impact Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov’s standing in the Russian ultranationalist information space.
• Kadyrov’s prominence in the broader Russian information space will likely force Kadyrov to choose between preserving his regime and his support in the ultranationalist information space, however.
• Russia is reportedly forming a new combined arms army as part of the Northern Fleet, likely in order to posture its preparedness against NATO.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted a drone attack on Moscow Oblast and Novaya Moskva on July 4.
• Russian conducted limited ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line and south of Kreminna.
• Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line.
• Russian and Ukrainian forces escalated ground attacks in the Bakhmut area.
• Russian forces continued ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on July 4.
• Russian and Ukrainian forces conducted ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast.
• Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations near Orikhiv in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• Russia continues efforts to mobilize its defense industrial base (DIB).
• Russian officials continue to deport Ukrainian children to Russia under the guise of providing pediatric healthcare.

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

• Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
• Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Activities in Russian-occupied areas

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast) 

The Ukrainian General Staff reported on July 4 that Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups made unsuccessful attempts to cross the northern international border between Ukraine and Russia in unspecified areas in the Siversk and Slobozhansk directions.[40]

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line and south of Kreminna on July 4. Geolocated footage published on July 4 shows that Russian forces made limited advances east of Nevske (18km northwest of Kreminna).[41] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Novoselivske (15km northwest of Svatove), Novovodyane (16km southwest of Svatove), Dibrova (7km southwest of Kreminna), the Serebrianske forest area (10km south of Kreminna), and Vesele (30km south of Kreminna).[42] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian and Ukrainian forces attempted to advance in the Svatove direction and that Russian forces conducted attacks near Kuzemivka (14km northwest of Svatove).[43] Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty reported on June 3 that Russian forces have about 180,000 troops in the area of responsibility of the Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces, 120,000 of which are operating in the Kupyansk-Lyman direction, including Airborne (VDV) forces, mechanized units, BARS (Russian Combat Reserve) units, Territorial Defense units, and Storm-Z assault units.[44] Footage published on July 4 purportedly shows the 123rd Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Luhansk People’s Republic Army Corps) operating near Spirne (25km south of Kreminna).[45]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on July 4. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian attack near Novoselivske, Novovodyane, and Yampolivka (16km west of Kreminna).[46] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful ground attacks from Torske (16km west of Kreminna) and that artillery and UAV units of the Russian 120th Guards Artillery Brigade (41st Combined Arms Army, Central Military District) repelled Ukrainian attacks near Dibrova.[47] 

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Donetsk Oblast (Russian Objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)

Russian and Ukrainian forces escalated ground attacks in the Bakhmut area on July 4. Ukranian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported that the situation in Bakhmut has escalated, and that Russian and Ukrainian forces are dueling for the initiative and control of terrain.[48] Malyar also stated that Ukrainian forces are advancing on the southern flank of Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut) and that fighting continues on Klishchiivka’s northern flank.[49] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled nine Russian attacks near Hryhorivka (8km northwest of Bakhmut), Bohdanivka (5km northwest of Bakhmut), Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut), west of Yahidne (2km north of Bakhmut), and southeast of Bila Hora (15km southwest of Bakhmut).[50] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations north and south of Bakhmut, entrenching themselves in new positions.[51] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces advanced near Dubovo-Vasylivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut).[52] A Russian milblogger also claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations near Klishchiivka, Ozarianivka (16km southwest of Bakhmut), and Kurdiumivka (12km southwest of Bakhmut).[53] The milblogger claimed that Russian forces held their positions and counterattacked from Berkhivka (6km north of Bakhmut) and along the M-03 highway in the direction of Minkivka (13km northwest of Bakhmut).[54] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that units of the Russian Southern Group of Forces repelled 10 Ukrainian attacks near Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut), Yahidne, and Klishchivka.[55]

Pervasive issues with Russian combat capabilities likely continue to affect the ability of Russian forces to defend against Ukrainian counterattacks in the Bakhmut area. Former Russian officer and prominent critical milblogger Igor Girkin claimed that Ukrainian forces are advancing north of Bakhmut where understaffed units of the Russian 3rd Army Corps (Western Military District) have been deployed.[56] ISW previously reported the formation and failure of the 3rd Army Corps, a new formation created in 2022 that was decimated during its first deployment to Kharkiv Oblast in September 2022 and again in its subsequent deployments to the Bakhmut area.[57] ISW previously assessed that issues with the ad hoc commitment of various depleted force groupings to the Bakhmut axis, alongside apparent command and control failures, were likely preventing Russian forces in the area from conducting sound defensive operations and would likely offer Ukrainian forces opportunities to exploit with limited counterattacks.[58]

Russian forces continued ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on July 4. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces defended against Russian offensive operations near Avdiivka and repelled 15 Russian ground attacks near Marinka (on the southwestern outskirts of Donetsk City).[59] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations in the Avdiivka direction.[60] Another milblogger claimed that Russian forces carried out unsuccessful offensive operations in Marinka and on the southwestern approach to Avdiivka.[61]

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

Russian and Ukrainian forces conducted ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast on July 4. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Rivnopil, 10km southwest of Velyka Novosilka along the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border.[62] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks in the Vuhledar area east of Velyka Novosilka and south of Velyka Novosilka near Urozhaine.[63] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces reached the borders of Pryyutne, 15km southwest of Velyka Novosilka in eastern Zaporizhia Oblast.[64] Ukrainian Tavrisk Direction Spokesperson Valeriy Shershen noted on July 4 that Ukrainian forces have advanced up to 2km into Russian defenses in an unspecified area of the Berdyansk (western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia oblasts) direction.[65]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations near Orikhiv in western Zaporizhia Oblast on July 4. Geolocated footage posted on July 4 shows elements of the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade (Black Sea Fleet) and 58th Combined Arms Army (Southern Military District) shelling Ukrainian positions south of Orikhiv, indicating that Ukrainian forces have advanced to within 2km north of Robotyne.[66] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces continued attacks towards Robotyne but that elements of the 70th Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) repelled Ukrainian attacks west of Robotyne.[67] Russian milbloggers additionally claimed that several small Ukrainian assault groups launched an attack southwest of Orikhiv towards the Pyatykhatyky-Zherebryanky line (about 25km southwest of Orikhiv) and reported that elements of the Crimea and Sudoplatov volunteer battalions and the 429th Motorized Rifle Regiment (19th Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) are defending in this area.[68]

Ukrainian forces conducted a strike in the Russian rear of occupied Zaporizhia Oblast on July 4. Geolocated footage posted on July 4 shows the aftermath of a reported Ukrainian Storm Shadow missile strike on an unspecified Russian warehouse facility in Yakymivka, about 23km southwest of Melitopol along the T2209 Melitopol-Chonhar highway.[69] Russian sources additionally claimed that Ukrainian forces struck Vasylivka (35km north of Melitopol along the E105 highway).[70]

Russian sources continued to claim that Ukrainian forces are active near the Antonivsky Bridge on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast despite the Russian MoD’s efforts to claim that Russian forces have full control of this area.[71] One Russian milblogger claimed that there are heavy battles ongoing near the Antonivsky Bridge, and another warned that Ukrainian troops are regrouping and replenishing units to prepare for further attacks across the Dnipro River.[72] The Russian MoD claimed on July 1 that Russian troops fully restored their positions along the eastern shoreline of the Dnipro River, but milbloggers have continued to warn that Ukrainian forces maintain a presence on the east bank and are preparing for additional attacks.[73] Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Nataliya Humenyuk also noted that Russian forces near the Dnipro River are trying to retake positions previously flooded by the explosion of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (KHPP) dam.[74]

An influx of Russian tourists to Crimea is generating serious traffic jams along one of Russia’s most important ground lines of communication, prompting Putin and other senior Russian officials to direct state resources to help tourists move closer to a zone of active hostilities. Russian Transport Minister Vitaly Saveliev met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 4 to report on the situation at the entrance to the Kerch Strait Bridge and to ask for increased ferry crossings to reduce traffic jams.[75] Putin called for maximizing the use of ferries to ”normalize” the transport situation across the Kerch Strait and indicated that the Russian MoD should also lend transport assets to the area.[76] A Russian milblogger claimed that the traffic at the entrance of the Kerch Strait Bridge in Krasnodar Krai has increased by 40% since July 1 and is expected to increase further in the coming days as the summer tourist season is in full swing.[77] Another Russian milblogger called on the Black Sea Fleet to provide two large landing ships for the crossing of civilian vehicles to solve traffic issues and emphasized that Russian authorities have seriously underestimated the desire of Russians to continue vacationing in occupied Crimea despite ongoing hostilities.[78] Russian authorities are dealing with pervasive civilian and transport issues to Crimea partially because of their continued refusal to fully mobilize Russian society onto a wartime footing, resulting in the continued promotion of tourism to occupied Crimea despite the fact it is a legitimate rear-area target for continued Ukrainian strikes.

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

Russia continues efforts to mobilize its defense industrial base (DIB). Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov, and unspecified other military leaders and DIB representatives discussed the implementation of the Russian state defense order to increase DIB production, but the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) did not provide details on the topics discussed or agreed plans.[79] Yelabuga, Tatarstan regional entity “Alabuga Start” advertised a program for women aged 16 to 22 to develop careers building drones.[80] The program claims to offer benefits including a 52,000 ruble ($577) monthly salary, training, housing, relocation aid, and opportunities for further education. ISW has previously reported that a Russo-Iranian contract is providing for the manufacture of Shahed drones in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone (SEZ).[81]

Russian officials continue to posture Russia as able to generate enough manpower to maintain the war effort in Ukraine. Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev claimed that Russian forces have recruited over 185,000 contract and conscripted personnel since January 1, 2023, 109,000 of whom are in reserve.[82] Medvedev claimed that Russian forces recruited 1,400 people per day for contract service in June 2023.

Russia continues efforts to expand international military cooperation. Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief Nikolai Yevmenov and Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu met in Beijing on July 3 and discussed ongoing mutual cooperation and organizing joint military exercises.[83] Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Alexander Fomin met with Kuwaiti Army Assistant Chief of Staff Brigadier General Fawaz Al-Harbi in Moscow on July 4 and confirmed Russian and Kuwaiti intent to further defense cooperation.[84]

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

Russian officials continue to deport Ukrainian children to Russia under the guise of providing pediatric healthcare. Russian Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova claimed on July 4 that Russian authorities sent 23 disabled children from occupied Donetsk Oblast to a rehabilitation center in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast and 12 children to a rehabilitation center in Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast.[85] Lvova-Belova claimed that Russian authorities plan to send about 370 more children in at least four more trips to rehabilitation centers by the end of 2023.[86] Lvova-Belova did not specify if the children have returned or will return to occupied Donetsk Oblast. ISW has previously reported on Russian authorities using access to pediatric healthcare as a guise to deport children in occupied Ukraine to Russia.[87]

Significant activity in Belarus (Russian efforts to increase its military presence in Belarus and further integrate Belarus into Russian-favorable frameworks).

ISW will continue to report daily observed Russian and Belarusian military activity in Belarus, as part of ongoing Kremlin efforts to increase their control over Belarus and other Russian actions in Belarus.

Nothing significant to report.

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

7. The U.S. Funds Shadow Police Units All Over the World

Surprisingly there is no mention of China. Although apples and oranges, I am sure we will see Chinese propaganda using this report to justify their "overseas police stations."

The U.S. Funds Shadow Police Units All Over the World

They pursue matters ranging from heroin smuggling to protecting pangolins, pursuing American interests when regular cops can’t be trusted

https://www.wsj.com/articles/law-enforcement-police-developing-countries-856c41e2?utm

By Michael M. Phillips

July 4, 2023 5:30 am ET

NAIROBI—The sting operation went off perfectly. Kenyan police detectives subsidized by the U.S. government pretended to be in the market for a live pangolin, an endangered, armadillo-like animal whose scales and meat fetch a high price in parts of Asia.

A Kenyan undercover agent flashed a wad of cash and invited the alleged ringleader of the poaching gang to close the sale inside a black Land Cruiser, rented with funds from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Within moments, Kenyan police surrounded the SUV and arrested three suspects. An officer designated as pangolin-handler donned leather gloves, seized the animal, which curled up into a defensive ball, and secured it in a wooden crate padded with fabric.

The arrest of the alleged pangolin traffickers in August, on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast, was a tiny victory for wildlife conservation. Some 2.7 million pangolins are poached in Africa each year, pushing them to the edge of extinction, according to the African Wildlife Foundation.

It was also a prime example of how U.S. law-enforcement agents operate behind-the-scenes overseas. In more than a dozen developing countries where the U.S. believes police agencies are so riddled with corruption that they can’t be trusted, American embassy personnel handpick their own local law-enforcement units, screen them for misconduct and, to a large degree, assign them missions aligned with U.S. interests.

The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs says it has vetted members of 105 police units worldwide for agencies including the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security.

A pangolin rescued from alleged traffickers in a sting operation last August in Kenya. PHOTO: DIRECTORATE OF CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS

Because some agencies do their own vetting, the State Department said it was unable to provide a global count of U.S.-aligned units or the officers they employ. It said there was no central office tracking all of the units’ activities or the total government spending that goes into them.

The State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security alone says it has 16 vetted units established under agreements with governments from Peru to the Philippines. The Fish and Wildlife Service funds police in Uganda and Nigeria.

In Kenya, the FBI, Homeland Security, Drug Enforcement Administration and Fish and Wildlife Service each have their own vetted detectives from the Kenyan Directorate of Criminal Investigations. The units pursue matters ranging from heroin smuggling to passport and visa forgery to human trafficking and criminal abuse of American citizens. American agents stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi don’t have arrest powers in Kenya, but their local partners do.

Kenyan officials stress that the units ultimately answer to Mohamed Amin, Kenya’s director of criminal investigations, in keeping with local law and the U.S.-Kenyan agreements that established them. In practical terms, the Kenyan detectives often take strong guidance from U.S. embassy officials.

“We, for the most part, have operational control,” said Supervisory Special Agent Ryan Williams of the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security, who directed a five-person Kenyan police unit out of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi. Kenyan detectives undergo a polygraph test before being offered a position in the unit.

 The global spread of U.S.-vetted foreign police units is little known and faces little public scrutiny. Some Kenyans who do know of the units’ existence bridle at the notion that foreigners wield so much influence in domestic law enforcement. 

 “They don’t have autonomy,” Murigi Kamande, lawyer for the alleged pangolin traffickers, said of the vetted officers. “They basically work at the behest of a foreign nation. It’s not right.” 

Ryan Williams, a supervisory special agent with the State Department, with a 16-year-old Somali American, at the Gigiri Police Station in Nairobi. PHOTO: MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The DEA pioneered the strategy during the cocaine wars in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru in the 1980s. Resident American narcotics agents, frustrated by the drug cartels’ influence over local police, took it upon themselves to identify officers they felt they could trust, according to research conducted at the time by Ethan Nadelmann, then a Princeton University professor. At the time, the DEA’s ability to keep vetted units clean and effective depended on extensive diplomatic pressure from the U.S. government, Nadelmann found.

Now the practice has become routine and global for law-enforcement agencies throughout the U.S. government. The units operate under memorandums of understanding between the U.S. and local authorities.

 In May, a vetted American embassy unit in the South American country of Guyana helped track down and arrest a man wanted in the U.S. for sexual assault of a child, according to the State Department. A Colombian unit dismantled a seven-city human-smuggling operation that was charging $4,000 to $5,000 a head to provide migrants with fake documents to secure U.S. visas, according to Colombian and U.S. authorities.

Kenyan officers who win positions in vetted units get upgraded training, the prestige of working in an elite squad and, depending on the unit, as much as twice their usual pay. U.S. agencies provide intelligence they might not share with ordinary Kenyan police.

“The benefits of such collaborations and partnerships are immense, and the most important being the assurance of the safety and security of the people we serve,” said Inspector Mike Mugo, a spokesman for the Kenyan Directorate of Criminal Investigations, or DCI.

Vetted units tend to perform significantly better than their un-vetted counterparts, securing higher arrest, prosecution and conviction rates, according to a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Nairobi.

There have been a few instances in which detectives from vetted units have proven corrupt, but the embassy spokesman said the “bad actors were quickly identified, removed and replaced before there could be significant impacts.” Those Kenyan officers were usually exposed through repeated lie-detector testing, the spokesman said.

Mugo, the Kenyan DCI spokesman, said he knew of no cases in which vetted officers had compromised investigations or otherwise been corrupted.

In recent months, DCI chief Amin has appeared alongside U.S. Ambassador Meg Whitman to announce American reward money for wanted terror suspects and to preside over the destruction of tons of allegedly smuggled sandalwood, an endangered tree.

U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Meg Whitman and Mohamed Amin, director of the Kenyan Directorate of Criminal Investigations. PHOTO: YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

The Kenyan National Police Service has been criticized by civil-society groups and politicians for rampant corruption and other serious problems. Traffic officers routinely demand bribes from drivers. The country’s president, William Ruto, accused the DCI’s elite Special Services Unit of extrajudicial killings and closed it down last year.

“We cannot deny the fact that we have a few rogue police officers in the service, just like we have errant officers in other professions,” said Mugo, the DCI spokesman.  

Still, the first rule for the elite Kenyan units assigned to the U.S. Embassy is that they don’t tell other police the plan. The vetted officers know that if word of an operation leaks, the chances are that when they arrive, the elephant ivory would be hidden or the fake U.S. passports destroyed.

 “Even police are our own enemies sometimes,” said Inspector Josphine Korir, who runs the nine-officer Kenyan wildlife-crime unit. Her team is funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is required by U.S. law to combat trafficking in protected species.

The Kenyan diplomatic-security team directed by Agent Williams of the U.S. Embassy focuses on gangs that forge U.S. passports. Increasingly the officers have been rescuing young Somali-Americans from centers that market themselves to desperate diaspora parents as experts in drug treatment and Islamic education, but can be abusive. 

In September, Williams got a tip that U.S. citizens were being held against their will at Mustaqim Rehabilitation Centre in Nairobi’s heavily Somali Eastleigh neighborhood. The U.S. Embassy considers the densely populated area too dangerous for Americans and Williams himself couldn’t go on the raid.

His Kenyan team assembled unmarked SUVs at a nearby police station, but didn’t tell the station commander the details of their operation. Twice before, the unit had raided rehab centers only to find staff had been tipped off and moved the Americans elsewhere.

This time, a Kenyan reconnaissance team loitered outside of the rehabilitation center in the morning, watching who came and who went. Then the police raiding team pulled up, pretending to be health officials conducting a routine welfare check.

The officers pushed their way into the padlocked inner courtyard, where dozens of young men wandered aimlessly or knelt in prayer.

A Kenyan detective assigned to the U.S. Embassy, left, talks with Ahmed Mohamed Abdi, director of Mustaqim Rehabilitation Centre. PHOTO: MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The detectives demanded the staff identify the foreign residents. Among them was a slender 16-year-old in a North Face hoodie. He was born in Minneapolis and said his mother had had him taken in handcuffs to Mustaqim six weeks earlier due to his errant teenage behavior.

“She thought it was a good place,” the boy said.

Instead, residents complained to police that they were routinely beaten and chained up.

The center’s director, Ahmed Mohamed Abdi, dismissed their allegations. “As long as someone is here, they’ll complain about something,” he said, although he acknowledged that residents who don’t comply with Islamic teachings are locked in a punishment room.

The detectives bundled two Americans and two Britons into the vehicles and drove them to a police station. They left young Somali-Kenyan men and women at the center, despite their pleas to leave. The U.S. Embassy contacted the U.K. High Commission to care for the Britons and offered the Americans hotel rooms for the night and tickets back to the U.S.

A U.S. embassy Criminal Fraud Investigator, right, escorts American and British youths out of Mustaqim Rehabilitation Centre. PHOTO: MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Inspector Korir, commander of the U.S.-financed wildlife unit, grew up in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, where she would scan the plains for impalas and dik-diks, skittish minuscule antelope with implausibly large eyes.

She studied wildlife management and joined the police in 2013 when she heard there were positions for graduates with wildlife and forestry degrees.

Advising her team is a former agent for the U.K. National Crime Agency, paid by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through a New York nonprofit, Focused Conservation.

A year ago, the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi announced a $1 million reward for information leading to the capture of Abdi Hussein Ahmed, who had been indicted in a New York federal court on charges of trafficking 10 tons of elephant tusks, 420 pounds of rhino horn and 22 pounds of heroin.

Ahmed, a Kenyan, was allegedly the last member of a five-man smuggling gang still at large. Kenyan intelligence agents discovered he was hiding out in Meru, a town on the slopes of Mt. Kenya.

In early August, a Kenyan intelligence officer, joined by a Fish and Wildlife agent from the U.S. Embassy and the British adviser, briefed Korir’s unit at its secret headquarters in Nairobi. She dispatched a team to Meru and waited by the phone. “When your colleagues are out, you don’t sleep,” she said.

That night, one of her men called with news that the team had arrested Ahmed in a $3-a-night rental house, seizing his phone, clothing and Quran as possible evidence. Korir immediately thought about the State Department reward, only to realize later that police aren’t eligible.

The team rushed Ahmed back to Nairobi, where American DEA, FBI and Fish and Wildlife agents participated in the interrogation. A month later, three U.S. Fish and Wildlife agents escorted Ahmed on the flight to New York City. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to traffic in wildlife and narcotics, according to court records. He was sentenced in May to four years in prison.

Sandalwood set ablaze at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations headquarters in Nairobi. PHOTO: DANIEL IRUNGU/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Korir’s unit, which also investigates trafficking in endangered plants, scored another win in September when the police got a tip that Calvin Juma Boy Ombata, a senior DCI officer who wasn’t part of a U.S.-vetted unit, was smuggling sandalwood in Samburu County, Kenya.

Sandalwood, which is used in perfume, soap and traditional medicine, has been virtually wiped out in Uganda and Tanzania, and is listed as endangered in Kenya. Korir assembled a team of her officers and drove seven hours to Samburu. They found 13.5 tons of sandalwood in two vehicles at Juma’s home, along with a military rifle and ammunition, Korir said.

Juma pleaded not guilty and is currently standing trial in Nairobi. He could face a fine of about $21,000 or five years in prison, according to his attorney. Juma said the wood wasn’t his, and that much of it was evidence from a smuggling case he himself was investigating, the attorney said.

The three alleged pangolin poachers arrested in August pleaded not guilty in Kenyan court. They face a minimum of three years in prison if convicted, according to their lawyer.

Like most Kenyans, the presiding judge had never seen a pangolin. During one hearing, the U.S.-funded police adviser googled “pangolin” and approached the bench to show the judge what the case was all about. The animal, which weighed 29 lbs., had a street value of $30,000, according to a court document.

Wildlife officials tagged the rescued pangolin with a tracking device and released it into a forest. Later the pangolin was spotted alive, but without the device; officials suspect a hyena chewed it off.

Write to Michael M. Phillips at Michael.Phillips@wsj.com

Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the July 5, 2023, print edition as 'U.S. Funds Police All Over the World'.

8. ‘We Don’t Want to Carry Out Senseless, Suicidal Orders’ – Russian Soldiers Complain About Heavy Losses

Can this be effectively exploited?

‘We Don’t Want to Carry Out Senseless, Suicidal Orders’ – Russian Soldiers Complain About Heavy Losses

kyivpost.com

Russian conscripts are refusing to fight in Ukraine because their units are suffering heavy losses and commanders are sending them to a certain death.

by Kyiv Post | July 4, 2023, 3:15 pm |

A view of the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine on June 14, 2023. Olga MALTSEVA / AFP

Russian troops, many of them pressed into service involuntarily or under the false pretense of only being territorial guards, reveal that they are refusing to go to the front lines after their comrades are killed on suicide missions. On recent Telegram posts, the Russian soldiers, suffering from poor morale, say they are not deserting but that they will not willingly go to certain death by Ukrainian artillery.

On July 2, the Russian local news Telegram channel Ostorozhno Novosti published a video appeal from soldiers of Russia’s 1428th regiment. The mobilized men were supposed to serve in the territorial defense are instead being sent on assaults near Bakhmut without training and normal equipment.

The Russian recruits say in the video they had been coerced into “volunteering” for territorial defense and had never consented to front-line fighting when signing their enlistment contract. “We don’t want to carry out senseless and suicidal orders,” they complained.

The impressed enlistees say they are not deserting but refuse to follow suicidal orders. They say the situation “became obvious when [their] comrades were [killed by Ukrainian artillery fire] when approaching the front lines in a convoy.”

Another similar appeal was published on Telegram on June 23: Mobilized Russian men from Zaporizhzhia complained about heavy losses after the Ukrainian counteroffensive began.

According to the Russian fighters, they had previously served on the second line of defense. After June 8, the command sent them to the front line, where they suffered significant losses.

“Within two weeks, several hundred men were out of action. Most of them didn’t even see the enemy and were taken out by shelling from a distance.”

The soldiers said they have to hold open positions with almost no protection where they are shot at by the Ukrainian forces.

“The Ukrainians are hitting directly into the trench. There’s no point in just sitting there,” said a Russian serviceman. He also claimed that many of his comrades “were left lying wounded at their postss because soldiers had to be evacuated in unsuitable passenger cars – under shelling, on mined terrain.”

According to the reports, many Russian troops are refusing to carry out tasks they consider “suicidal.”

Every four days, these new Russian conscripts are sent to the forward positions to fight alongside a unit of ex-prisoners who have signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense as part of “Storm Z.” Suffering from severely low morale, many now say they simply won’t go.

9. US Military’s Recruiting Woes Are a National-Security Crisis ByJames Stavridis

US Military’s Recruiting Woes Are a National-Security Crisis

A struggle to entice even the most surefire candidates — the children of veterans — puts the future of the all-volunteer force in doubt.

ByJames Stavridis

July 4, 2023 at 8:00 AM EDT

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-07-04/us-military-recruiting-crisis-is-a-national-security-emergency?sref=hhjZtX76

America’s armed services are failing to meet their recruiting goals, with the Army in particular suffering the worst shortfalls in five decades. There are many reasons behind this, but one is very surprising: veterans themselves.

Recent reporting and anecdotal evidence indicate the likelihood that children of service members will sign up, or be urged to do so by their families, is at a nadir. Given that 80% of new recruits have a relative who served in uniform, there is no understating the crisis.

When I came out of high school in 1972, the draft had just ended and America was embarking on a great experiment: an all-volunteer force. As someone who grew up in the military (my father was a career infantry officer in the Marines, retiring as a colonel in 1970 after distinguished combat in Korea and Vietnam), following the family trade was a foregone conclusion. But as I entered the Naval Academy on a hot summer’s day half a century ago, it was entirely unclear if the volunteer force would succeed.

After a bumpy post-draft period, the military was rejuvenated under President Ronald Reagan in early 1980s, becoming the highly successful force that fought the nation’s battles from Panama to the Persian Gulf. Yet the foundations of that all-volunteer military feel shakier than they have for decades. What can the Pentagon do about it?

The first step is to understand why recruiting is down. The biggest factor is probably today’s very strong civilian job market. In so many ways, life is “compared to what?” If someone can make a starter wage of $20-plus an hour, perhaps with a decent healthcare plan and a 401K, it is simply much harder to convince them to shave their head, report to a steaming Parris Island boot camp, meet rigorous physical standards, get up before dawn every day, and prepare for long separations from their friends and family, often in risky conditions.

Another factor, counterintuitively to many, is the withdrawal of the US from large-scale, active war. Some young people have always been drawn to what they see as the enormous life-test of combat, as well as the adventure of deploying to distant lands. The dispiriting images of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 shattered that image for many.

Additionally, the bar to get into the military is high. Only 25% of the nation’s youth can meet the standards: a high school diploma or equivalent; reasonably high standardized test scores; physical fitness; no drug use or arrest record; mental stability. The Pentagon is competing with universities and the private sector for a small segment of each year’s high-school graduates. It didn’t help that recruiters were unable to go onto campuses for two years during the Covid pandemic.

Additionally, the right-wing media hypes and decries the supposedly “woke” activities of the armed forces. Many critics on the left characterized the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan as imperialistic misadventures. Neither of those narratives is accurate, but they have a discouraging effect on recruiting.

Finally, the growing sense of political division across the nation is diminishing the young person’s faith in America. This may be the most disturbing factor of all, and the one that ultimately defeats the all-volunteer force. The respect for the military overall, still atop the list of the country’s institutions, has been dropping sharply. Fewer than half of Americans now say they “trust” the armed forces, down from 70% just five years ago.

The Pentagon needs to reverse these trends or there will be grave risk to national security in an era of great-power competition. Fortunately, planning and executing complex campaigns is something the Department of Defense is very good at.

First, just as any good company knows when it needs to focus on marketing and advertising in the face of falling market share, the military must send its brightest and most impressive personnel to lead recruiting efforts; provide additional resources to generate leads (artificial intelligence can perhaps help); re-tailor marketing campaigns to appeal directly to the most promising and untapped communities; assign inspirational two-star generals and admirals to lead the services’ recruiting commands; and provide incentives for success — give the most successful recruiters the choice of their next assignment, for example.

As for quality-of-life criticisms: Barracks need to be spotless and well run; food in the chow halls must be plentiful and reflective of new trends and appetites; medical treatment has to be first-rate; and pay/benefit packages must more than keep pace with inflation. (Fortunately, Congress just approved a 5% pay raise, the biggest in two decades).

The Pentagon could also broaden the recruiting base in innovative ways. During my career, many of the best sailors I encountered were from the Philippines, who had been convinced to join the Navy as a path to citizenship. There were strong historical reasons for that program — including the pre-World War II colonial relationship, not America’s finest hour. It’s time to think about a broader program along those lines, perhaps looking to Central and South America.

Above all, we as a nation we need to do more to encourage the idea of service. A pledge to honor the Constitution rises above the rancor and bitter divisions in the country — something America’s veterans know but seem to be less willing or able to instill in their children. On this Independence Day especially, we need to thank our troops for their sacrifice, sincerely and continuously. America’s security in a dangerous world depends on it. 

More From James Stavridis Bloomberg Opinion:

• Cuban Spy Base or Not, China Is Looking at the Caribbean
• Best Place for the Navy to Test Secret Drones? Lake Michigan
• Near-Collisions at Air and Sea Show China’s New Recklessness

Want more Bloomberg Opinion? OPIN <GO>. Or you can subscribe to our daily newsletter.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:

James Stavridis at jstavridis@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:

Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net

US Military’s Recruiting Woes Are a National-Security Crisis

A struggle to entice even the most surefire candidates — the children of veterans — puts the future of the all-volunteer force in doubt.

ByJames Stavridis

July 4, 2023 at 8:00 AM EDT

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-07-04/us-military-recruiting-crisis-is-a-national-security-emergency?sref=hhjZtX76

America’s armed services are failing to meet their recruiting goals, with the Army in particular suffering the worst shortfalls in five decades. There are many reasons behind this, but one is very surprising: veterans themselves.

Recent reporting and anecdotal evidence indicate the likelihood that children of service members will sign up, or be urged to do so by their families, is at a nadir. Given that 80% of new recruits have a relative who served in uniform, there is no understating the crisis.

When I came out of high school in 1972, the draft had just ended and America was embarking on a great experiment: an all-volunteer force. As someone who grew up in the military (my father was a career infantry officer in the Marines, retiring as a colonel in 1970 after distinguished combat in Korea and Vietnam), following the family trade was a foregone conclusion. But as I entered the Naval Academy on a hot summer’s day half a century ago, it was entirely unclear if the volunteer force would succeed.

After a bumpy post-draft period, the military was rejuvenated under President Ronald Reagan in early 1980s, becoming the highly successful force that fought the nation’s battles from Panama to the Persian Gulf. Yet the foundations of that all-volunteer military feel shakier than they have for decades. What can the Pentagon do about it?

The first step is to understand why recruiting is down. The biggest factor is probably today’s very strong civilian job market. In so many ways, life is “compared to what?” If someone can make a starter wage of $20-plus an hour, perhaps with a decent healthcare plan and a 401K, it is simply much harder to convince them to shave their head, report to a steaming Parris Island boot camp, meet rigorous physical standards, get up before dawn every day, and prepare for long separations from their friends and family, often in risky conditions.

Another factor, counterintuitively to many, is the withdrawal of the US from large-scale, active war. Some young people have always been drawn to what they see as the enormous life-test of combat, as well as the adventure of deploying to distant lands. The dispiriting images of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 shattered that image for many.

Additionally, the bar to get into the military is high. Only 25% of the nation’s youth can meet the standards: a high school diploma or equivalent; reasonably high standardized test scores; physical fitness; no drug use or arrest record; mental stability. The Pentagon is competing with universities and the private sector for a small segment of each year’s high-school graduates. It didn’t help that recruiters were unable to go onto campuses for two years during the Covid pandemic.

Additionally, the right-wing media hypes and decries the supposedly “woke” activities of the armed forces. Many critics on the left characterized the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan as imperialistic misadventures. Neither of those narratives is accurate, but they have a discouraging effect on recruiting.

Finally, the growing sense of political division across the nation is diminishing the young person’s faith in America. This may be the most disturbing factor of all, and the one that ultimately defeats the all-volunteer force. The respect for the military overall, still atop the list of the country’s institutions, has been dropping sharply. Fewer than half of Americans now say they “trust” the armed forces, down from 70% just five years ago.

The Pentagon needs to reverse these trends or there will be grave risk to national security in an era of great-power competition. Fortunately, planning and executing complex campaigns is something the Department of Defense is very good at.

First, just as any good company knows when it needs to focus on marketing and advertising in the face of falling market share, the military must send its brightest and most impressive personnel to lead recruiting efforts; provide additional resources to generate leads (artificial intelligence can perhaps help); re-tailor marketing campaigns to appeal directly to the most promising and untapped communities; assign inspirational two-star generals and admirals to lead the services’ recruiting commands; and provide incentives for success — give the most successful recruiters the choice of their next assignment, for example.

As for quality-of-life criticisms: Barracks need to be spotless and well run; food in the chow halls must be plentiful and reflective of new trends and appetites; medical treatment has to be first-rate; and pay/benefit packages must more than keep pace with inflation. (Fortunately, Congress just approved a 5% pay raise, the biggest in two decades).

The Pentagon could also broaden the recruiting base in innovative ways. During my career, many of the best sailors I encountered were from the Philippines, who had been convinced to join the Navy as a path to citizenship. There were strong historical reasons for that program — including the pre-World War II colonial relationship, not America’s finest hour. It’s time to think about a broader program along those lines, perhaps looking to Central and South America.

Above all, we as a nation we need to do more to encourage the idea of service. A pledge to honor the Constitution rises above the rancor and bitter divisions in the country — something America’s veterans know but seem to be less willing or able to instill in their children. On this Independence Day especially, we need to thank our troops for their sacrifice, sincerely and continuously. America’s security in a dangerous world depends on it. 

More From James Stavridis Bloomberg Opinion:

• Cuban Spy Base or Not, China Is Looking at the Caribbean
• Best Place for the Navy to Test Secret Drones? Lake Michigan
• Near-Collisions at Air and Sea Show China’s New Recklessness

Want more Bloomberg Opinion? OPIN <GO>. Or you can subscribe to our daily newsletter.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:

James Stavridis at jstavridis@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:

Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net

10. Ukraine hails U.S. Patriot's "record" five Russian aircraft hits in one day

Videos at the link: https://www.newsweek.com/russia-five-aircraft-bryansk-ukraine-patriot-air-defense-system-1810688

Ukraine hails U.S. Patriot's "record" five Russian aircraft hits in one day

Newsweek · by Ellie Cook · July 4, 2023

Ukraine's air force has appeared to confirm that a U.S-made Patriot missile system was behind the downing of five Russian aircraft in one day in May 2023.

A video posted on Monday shows "kill" markings on the side of a Patriot air defense system that indicate it claimed three helicopters and two jets on May 13. If accurate, this would be a record for a Patriot system in a single day.

The precise circumstances around the destruction of the aircraft are still unclear. On May 14, Ukraine's air force said Russia had lost three helicopters and two aircraft the previous day in the Russian border region of Bryansk. However, Kyiv appeared to suggest that Russia's own air defenses were responsible for the loss of the aircraft.

At the time, Russian state media reported four aircraft had been lost, rather than five. Russian outlet Kommersant said four aircraft—an Su-34 and Su-35 fighter jet as well as two Mi-8 helicopters—were shot down "almost simultaneously" on May 13.

The model or type of the contested fifth aircraft, which would be a helicopter by Kyiv's tally, is not known, although Forbes has suggested it could be a search-and-rescue helicopter.

A Russian Su-35 at an air show at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul on September 17, 2019. Russian outlet Kommersant said four aircraft, an Su-34 and Su-35 fighter jet as well as two Mi-8 helicopters, were shot down "almost simultaneously" on May 13. Yasin AKGUL/AFP via Getty Images

In an article referencing the video showing the markings on the Patriot missile system, Ukrainian military reporter Yuri Butusov said "this is the most effective Patriot battery attack since the creation of this anti-aircraft missile system."

According to data provided by the U.S. think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies, bringing down five targets in less than 24 hours would indeed be a record for the Patriot system. Newsweek has reached out to the Pentagon and the Ukrainian Defense Ministry for comment via email.

The two fighter jets were planning to strike Ukraine's Chernihiv region with missiles and bombs, Russian media reported at the time. The helicopters were "to secure them" and rescue the fighter jet crews should they be shot down by Ukraine, according to the Kommersant report from mid-May.

There had been speculation that a Patriot system had been used to take out the aircraft, despite the Russian state news agency Tass saying one of the helicopters had crashed due to an engine malfunction. Tass also confirmed the Su-34 crash in a later report, citing Russian emergency services.

Ukraine has received at least two Patriot systems, including one sent by the U.S. In late April, Ukraine's military confirmed two Patriot batteries were operational in the country.

Air defense systems have ranked highly on Ukraine's list of military aid demands, and Kyiv's defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, praised the arrival of Patriots as a "dream."

"Our beautiful Ukrainian sky becomes more secure because Patriot air defense systems have arrived in Ukraine," Reznikov said on April 19. "Our air defenders have mastered them as fast as they could."

Newsweek · by Ellie Cook · July 4, 2023

11. Taiwan’s Impossible Choice: Be Ukraine or Hong Kong

Are those the only two choices? Aren't there other options?

But the very first paragraph is extremely troubling. It seems to send the message that there are those in Taiwan who would rather acquiesce or submit rather than suffer a war of resistance. Those who say anything is better than war are doomed to become subjects of an occupying power. As long as a significant number of people in Taiwan feel that way (or that China believes a significant number do) then there is no chance of an unconventional deterrence (where the extreme cost of occupation and the inability to pacify the population may deter an attack). If the Taiwan people are willing to compromise their freedom to prevent war then we all need to rethink our support to Taiwan. We cannot want their freedom more than they do. 

Taiwan’s Impossible Choice: Be Ukraine or Hong Kong

Taiwan draws two opposite lessons from Russian invasion of Ukraine

https://www.wsj.com/articles/taiwan-china-ukraine-russia-hong-kong-military-war-517b87d?mod=hp_lead_pos7

By Yaroslav TrofimovFollow and Joyu WangFollow

July 5, 2023 12:01 am ET

TAIPEI, Taiwan—People in Taiwan have been following every twist of the war in Ukraine. But, while their sympathy for the Ukrainian cause is near-universal, the conclusions for the island’s own future widely diverge.

To some, the takeaway is that even a seemingly invincible foe can be defeated if a society stands firm, an inspiration for Taiwan’s own effort to resist a feared invasion by China. Others draw the opposite lesson from the images of smoldering Ukrainian cities. Anything is better than war, they say, and Taiwan should do all it can to avoid provoking Beijing’s wrath, even if that means painful compromises.

These two competing visions will play out in Taiwan’s presidential elections, slated for January, and shape how the island democracy revamps its defenses as China’s military might expands. The soul-searching inside Taiwan, and the determination with which it will strengthen its armed forces, is also bound to affect the extent to which the U.S. will get involved militarily should Beijing try to capture the island, home to 24 million people—and most of the world’s advanced semiconductor production capacity.

While Taiwan has been living under a threat of invasion ever since China’s Communist Party took control of the mainland in 1949, the Russian thrust into Ukraine drove home to many Taiwanese that war can erupt with little notice. Chinese leaders have intensified their rhetoric around Taiwan, repeating that they won’t rule out using force to achieve what they call “national reunification.” Beijing has also ramped up naval and air probes around the island that wear out Taiwanese defenses. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency estimates that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has set 2027 as the deadline for his military to be ready to take the island.

“What Ukraine has underscored is that it’s not a remote possibility that an aggressive neighbor can unilaterally decide to take action against you. It’s a wake-up call,” said Enoch Wu, founder of the Forward Alliance, a nongovernmental organization that has started training Taiwanese civilians in emergency response and first aid. “The threat that we face is an existential one, and so our defense mission has got to involve the entire society.”

Military academy graduates attend a graduation ceremony in Taipei in June. PHOTO: SAM YEH/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

In a firing drill Tuesday, Taiwanese soldiers launched a FIM-92 Stinger missile on a beach off the coast of Taiwan’s Pingtung county. PHOTO: JOYU WANG/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wei has already moved to increase the length of compulsory military service starting next year, to one year from four months, and is boosting military spending as Taipei purchases new weapons from the U.S., such as hundreds of Harpoon antiship missiles. While Tsai isn’t eligible to run again, the presidential candidate from her ruling party—current Vice President Lai Ching-te—has similarly pledged to safeguard the island’s autonomy and resist Beijing’s growing intimidation.

“I don’t think anybody rational could look at this and say dialogue is going to change Xi or the CCP,” said Vincent Chao, a former national-security official and Lai’s spokesman, referring to China’s Communist Party. “They see the subjugation of Taiwan as part of their national rejuvenation, as something inherently connected to their political legitimacy. It’s incumbent upon any candidate to be realistic about the situation.” Ukraine, he added, has given Taiwan a “brilliant lesson” in how to defend itself—and how to build coalitions with like-minded democracies.

The main opposition Nationalist Party, known as the Kuomintang, holds a different view. “We want to talk to the Chinese. We believe that we can have a dialogue with the Chinese. That will certainly de-escalate the tension, to make sure no accidental war, and for sure no intentional war, happens,” Kuomintang vice chairman Andrew Hsia said in an interview before departing on a trip to China in June, his second this year. 

Ukraine’s tragedy has made an outreach to Beijing even more vital, he added: “In the past we talked about war, but now for the first time we saw in our living rooms, on television, all this destruction. Are we ready for that? I don’t think we are, I don’t think we are that resilient.”

The Kuomintang’s presidential candidate, Hou Yu-ih, pledged this week that he would return the compulsory military service length to four months after improving ties with Beijing.

While the Kuomintang performed well during local elections last fall, opinion polls so far show Lai in the lead, though the presidential race is too volatile to call. A third candidate, Ko Wen-je, the centrist former mayor of Taipei, is also polling high, further confounding predictions. 

Chinese leaders have watched with alarm how the Russian military stumbled in Ukraine, suffering high casualties and a series of setbacks that helped trigger the brief mutiny by the Wagner paramilitary group last month. But there is no indication that Xi, who has already squelched the autonomy and civil liberties enjoyed by Hong Kong, has become less determined to take Taiwan because of Russia’s difficulties, U.S. officials say.

A formidable natural barrier—more than 80 miles of water—separates Taiwan from the Chinese mainland, making any invasion far more complicated than Russia driving columns of tanks across the Ukrainian border in February 2022. Chinese troop-carrying ships and planes would be targeted by Taiwanese missiles, and initial casualties of any invading force are likely to be high.

An amphibious landing drill in Yilan, Taiwan. The fact that Taiwan is an island makes securing ammunition and vital supplies more complicated. PHOTO: ANNABELLE CHIH/GETTY IMAGES

The fact that Taiwan is an island, however, also makes securing ammunition and vital supplies, such as fuel to power its electricity plants, more complicated. The island’s small size—it occupies merely 6% of Ukraine’s surface area—provides little strategic depth should the Chinese military succeed in establishing some beachheads, as most wargames forecast will happen.

“For Taiwan, the situation is like David facing Goliath,” said Maj. Gen. Sun Li-fang, the spokesman for Taiwan’s military. “But this is our home country here, and the lifestyle of democracy and freedom is part of our values. We will protect it with whatever it takes.”

While the U.S. has no binding obligation to defend Taiwan and has long maintained a policy of strategic ambiguity on the issue, President Biden repeatedly cautioned that, unlike in Ukraine, the U.S. military would intervene directly should China attempt to seize the island by force. Before American troops deploy, however, the island would have to resist the first blows on its own. So far, despite recent improvements, it is far from ready, many U.S. officials and analysts say.

“The Taiwanese have to be committed 100%, because if they are not, there is no reason for the U.S. or any other nation to come to their aid,” said ret. U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Arlington, Va. “There needs to be a sense of urgency. America is not going to spill the blood of her sons and daughters over Taiwan if the Taiwanese are not willing to wholeheartedly prosecute the defense of their island and their people.”

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Taiwan’s military carried out live fire drills on the island’s southern coast on Monday, firing missiles from armored cars to destroy targets close to shore in a simulation of repelling invading forces. Photo: Ann Wang/Reuters

While augmented over the past year, Taiwan’s military budget is still only 2.4% of the GDP—compared with well over 3% for the U.S., Poland’s 4% and about 5% in Israel. The professionalism and motivation of Taiwan’s military are a particular concern, Western officials say. The island’s main officer training school was originally established as Whampoa Military Academy in southern China in the 1920s, with heavy reliance on Soviet instructors. Outdated Soviet-style military culture and doctrine still persists in the ranks, defense analysts say. 

Despite the recent increase in the length of conscription, education deferrals mean that most draft-age Taiwanese won’t serve the entire year until 2028—and it remains unclear to what extent the current training of draftees, which according to many soldiers produces few useful skills, will be modernized. 

Currently, most draftees spend their time cleaning floors and picking weeds rather than learning how to repel Beijing’s People’s Liberation Army, said ret. Adm. Lee Hsi-min, a former chief of Taiwan’s military who has become a vocal critic of the island’s military preparedness. 

“If you just do the same things for a year instead of four months, then you have a problem and a bad reputation,” he said. “The problem is the training content, not the training period. How you do it is much more important than how long you do it.” The military says it is working to improve the training.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen (standing, center) watched training at a military base in May. She is boosting military spending. PHOTO: RITCHIE B. TONGO/SHUTTERSTOCK

Taiwanese reservists line up inside a military base in Taoyuan. PHOTO: RITCHIE B. TONGO/SHUTTERSTOCK

Taiwan has also had trouble retaining its professional troops, including highly trained Air Force pilots. Taiwan’s defense ministry said in a recent report that roughly 20% of its career soldiers over the past five years have decided to leave the military before their contracts were scheduled to end. Just last year, more than 3,700 soldiers asked to quit, according to the report.

“A lot of young people who signed up for the four-year volunteer force decided to pay a penalty and dropped out early because they say they had come for the money—not to fight and not to die,” said Alexander Huang, the Kuomintang’s director of international affairs.

Taiwan’s troubled history with its own armed forces is part of the reason. The Kuomintang-led army and government led by Chiang Kai-shek escaped to Taiwan when Mao Zedong’s Communist forces ousted them from the Chinese mainland in 1949. Chiang’s military dictatorship attempted to suppress Taiwan’s sense of identity, seen as tainted by decades of Japanese rule over the island, and engaged in decades of what has since been called a “White Terror,” during which thousands of dissidents were killed.

President Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party, in power since 2016, emerged from the pro-democracy campaign against the Kuomintang’s rule in the 1980s, appealing in part to the Taiwanese sense of being distinct from the people of the mainland. 

“In the past, Taiwan’s civilians were not very close with our military because our old military came from the outside, didn’t derive from inside the country. There was a giant gap between civilian people and military guys,” said DPP lawmaker Wang Ting-yu, a senior member of the Taiwanese parliament’s defense committee.

“But I have to say this is an old situation,” he added, saying that, under Tsai, Taiwan’s civilian-military relationship has transformed: “She made the military realize you need to defend democracy.” The government, he said, has increased pay for the troops and is modernizing the training programs, in part by bringing in foreign instructors and sending some Taiwanese units for exercises in the U.S.

These changes, however, have yet to translate into new attitudes among the general public, where service in the armed forces holds little prestige or appeal. Wang Chung-wei, a draftee who is heading to the military in the coming weeks, said that he, like most young Taiwanese men, wasn’t looking forward to the experience. “Not at all. It will be a total waste of time,” he said, adding he would rather stay home and work in the family business. “It doesn’t matter to me if China takes over. Our families have arrived here from China anyway.”

A shopping area in Taipei in June. Among the general public, attitudes toward military service are mixed. PHOTO: AN RONG XU FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Phil Pi, 21, who served in Taiwan’s army last year, said he learned next to nothing during his stint. Because of Covid rules, the conscripts didn’t even go for a run since exercise with masks was deemed to be too grueling, he said. The men did, however, practice shooting at a range a handful of times.

“It was not a very useful experience. I was not trained to fight,” Pi said, adding that he and his friends won’t volunteer to go to the front line should China invade: “There would be no hope.”

Several other young people interviewed in Taipei’s Ximending shopping district echoed the sentiment, saying they saw little point in sacrificing their lives given China’s immense power.

“The young people are the ones who don’t want unification with China,” said ret. Lt. Gen. Chang Yan-ting, a former deputy commander of Taiwan’s air force. “But if you want independence, you need to fight, and they also don’t want to fight. Therein is the conflict.”

Yi-hao, a student in Taiwan’s National Defense University, was an exception. “Before the war in Ukraine, we were taught that Russia’s military power is stronger than China’s, and Taiwan’s military was stronger than Ukraine’s,” he said. “If they were able to resist this long, Taiwan will definitely be able to hold out.” He didn’t want his surname used because he wasn’t authorized by the military to speak.

Lai Yi-chi, who became a lieutenant after graduating from the Naval Academy in June, said that she had been inspired by the bravery and resilience of Ukrainian soldiers, something often discussed in her classes. “We should also embody such spirit and determination,” she said.  

People gathered in Taipei to commemorate victims of the 1989 military crackdown on protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. PHOTO: WIKTOR DABKOWSKI/ZUMA PRESS

An actor played the role of a pedestrian in a car accident at a training run by Forward Alliance. The group is a nongovernmental organization that is training Taiwanese civilians in emergency response and first aid. PHOTO: AN RONG XU FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Bypassing the official armed forces, some volunteer groups have decided to act on their own, preparing fellow citizens for a possible war. One such group is Kuma Academy, which received a $100 million donation from Robert Tsao, the founder of the United Microelectronics, one of the world’s biggest semiconductor companies.  

“We don’t intend to build up a private army,” Tsao said. “But I think their effort will probably increase the resilience of Taiwan’s society. If we know how to hide, how to help each other, how to retain communication, we can pretty much reduce the damage in wartime.” Some of the students also like to learn more martial skills, such as shooting, Tsao said, but Taiwan’s strict gun laws make it difficult. Some 25,000 Taiwanese have been trained at Kuma.

Nico Li, a 60-year-old retired musician attending a Kuma class, said she was unnerved by growing risks coming from China, and wanted to arm herself to avoid being a burden to her children. “Taiwan is an island of treasure. I don’t want to hand it over to others without a fight,” Li said, referring to what she sees as the Taiwanese values of freedom and democracy. “If I have the ability, I would even go and fetch a gun if necessary.”

At another training session, run by the Forward Alliance, dozens of Taiwanese practiced how to stop arterial bleeding with tourniquets and stabilize major wounds. “There is a sense of impending doom, of feeling very hopeless,” said one of the students, Eric Lin. “So, instead of sitting at home and browsing the negative news, I wanted to come here—so that I would be able to do something.”

Chen Mei-Yi, center, brought her children to participate in a Forward Alliance first-aid training session. PHOTO: AN RONG XU FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com and Joyu Wang at joyu.wang@wsj.com

12. Michael Quinlan Was Right: The Enduring Relevance of Nuclear Deterrence

Conclusion:

Thus, if we are to resist nuclear coercion by authoritarian states, reassure nervous publics and bring more balance to the debate on arms control, it behooves us to revisit the clear, sober-minded writings of Sir Michael Quinlan, adapt them as needed and engage in publicly defending the practice of nuclear deterrence with the same elan he exhibited throughout his life of service.

Michael Quinlan Was Right: The Enduring Relevance of Nuclear Deterrence - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Gregory Giles · July 5, 2023

After a bit of a lull, officials, experts and commentators in Russia are again talking up the possibility, if not the imperative, of Russia using nuclear weapons against Ukraine or countries in the NATO alliance. In response to this latest wave of commentary and Russia’s deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, President Joe Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons is “real.” All of this was just before an armed rebellion by the Wagner mercenary group cast further doubt on the command and control of the Russian military. In troubled times such as these, rigorous thinking about Western deterrence strategy is needed to keep the nuclear wolves at bay. To that end, there are many thought leaders to draw upon, such as Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling, whose works are both foundational and adaptable. Among this cadre is someone perhaps not as well known in the United States, Sir Michael Quinlan.

If nuclear deterrence is a religion, as some critics contend, then Sir Michael surely is one of its patron saints. He capped off a long career of government service as the United Kingdom’s permanent secretary to the Ministry of Defence — the top civil servant — from 1988 to 1992. He was widely recognized within the British establishment and NATO as a preeminent thinker about nuclear deterrence and steered some of the biggest decisions of the day, such as the United Kingdom’s acquisition of the Trident strategic deterrent and the modernization of NATO’s long-range theater nuclear forces. Sir Michael left us far too soon, in 2009 due to cancer, but his framework for thinking about deterrence offers a clear, adaptable guide for safely navigating today’s nuclear currents.

Become a Member

Throughout his career, Sir Michael helped educate policymakers at all levels on the fundamentals of nuclear policy and doctrine, going beyond the tendency to think only of weapons systems. He equally was keen to engage with skeptics to explain why nuclear deterrence was both essential and reliable. Quinlan also gave generously of his time to aspiring analysts in the field, myself included. Sir Michael was of enormous help to me in understanding U.K. nuclear deterrence policy in the early 2000s. A tribute publication to him in 2011 reads as a “who’s who” of Western strategists. Lately, I find myself wondering what Sir Michael would make of the nuclear deterrence scene today and what advice he might have for us. Fortunately, he left us a substantial paper trail, intentionally it seems, from which to extrapolate. That legacy attests to the enduring relevance and durability of nuclear deterrence.

The “Big Q”

To understand the import of Sir Michael’s views and how they bear on us, we first should know more about his character. He was not, as some might assume by nature of his position, a hawk. His support for nuclear deterrence had limits. He once opined that if it ever came to a choice for the United Kingdom between funding its nuclear deterrent or a viable conventional force posture, he would lean toward the latter. He was a Jesuit-educated devout Catholic who grappled with the morality of nuclear deterrence and found it acceptable compared to the alternatives and within certain narrow bounds. He publicly opposed the 2003 Iraq War as an unjustifiable war of choice.

Central to Sir Michael’s effectiveness as a thought leader and senior policy advisor was his focus on the merits of an argument. In this, he was formidable. He was above all a very decent man, one not given to ad hominem attacks. Reminiscing some years ago with a senior U.K. official who had worked for Sir Michael, dare say I detected a misting of the eyes beneath that British reserve. Such is the respect that Sir Michael — “Big Q,” as they referred to him — garnered.

So, what would Sir Michael make of the nuclear deterrence scene today? Generally, he would find the contours of 2023 very familiar to the Cold War — a totalitarian Russia wielding nuclear threats to dominate its neighbors and intimidate NATO alongside activist calls for the West to unilaterally relinquish its nuclear deterrent. Three aspects of the contemporary landscape bear further exploration with a Quinlan lens: deterring Russian nuclear use, the latest U.S. nuclear posture review and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Deterring Russian Nuclear Use

For Michael Quinlan, the vast destructive power of nuclear weapons made any notion of military victory in a nuclear war an absurdity. Even as the Cold War was receding, he made a point of reminding the Soviet general staff that it had no hope of ever winning a nuclear war in a remarkable lecture he gave in Moscow in 1990. Quinlan also placed great stock in the taboo on the use of nuclear weapons:

From as long ago as the 1950–53 Korean War this taboo has increasingly meant that any thought of initiating the use of nuclear weapons would be burdened with huge global political costs, quite aside from any other consideration (and that has almost certainly been one of the reasons why, as the Korean and Vietnam Wars illustrated, any superpower use of nuclear weapons against small states or for non-vital interests can have virtually no credibility or purchase).

Against this backdrop, Sir Michael would likely be cautioning the United States and its allies against over- or under-reacting to Russia’s nuclear threats in the Ukraine War. That is, Putin is probably bluffing, but we cannot take that for granted; we should remain vigilant and be prepared to respond. Indeed, such prudent contingency planning, properly communicated to the Russian government, could further diminish the prospects for Russian nuclear use in Ukraine.

Quinlan would generally approve of NATO’s response to these threats thus far. The warnings that the United States has conveyed to the top levels of the Russian leadership seem to be vague enough to keep them second-guessing yet clear enough to raise in their minds that use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine will transform the conflict, elevating our stake in its outcome and probably opening the door to direct U.S. intervention. As Quinlan explained:

[D]eterrence does not require a precise specification of what form [a threatened response] will take. It requires only that it be made plain that the objectionable action will not be allowed to stand; that there is ample power to prevent its doing so; and that there is also the resolve to use robustly … whatever is found necessary for the purpose. Over-exact advance specification of intended means may actually weaken deterrence. For instance, it may help the adversary in one way or another to calculate how to evade or head off the response.

At the same time, Quinlan would have been quite concerned that Putin’s ability to objectively weigh the benefits and costs of limited nuclear use was being skewed by the information bubble in which he seems to reside:

[S]ome leaders — especially autocrats not well supported by candid counsellors — may be apt to let over-optimism or even fatalism cloud their sense of the weight and likelihood of medium- or long-term penalties compared with nearer-term ones like losing face domestically. Such possibilities have to be studied carefully and borne in mind by others seeking to build frameworks of deterrence to constrain states like these.

Quinlan was a consummate user of intelligence and later a senior advisor to the U.K. government on intelligence reform. I imagine he would likely favor how U.K. defense intelligence has been declassifying and publicizing its intelligence on the war in Ukraine to expose and thus deter Russian false flag operations. Arguably, this declassification may also help inject some “inconvenient truths” into the Kremlin information bubble; recently Putin acknowledged publicly Russian shortages of high-precision munitions and drones, as well as losses of armor in the unfolding Ukrainian counteroffensive.

The 2022 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review

Turning to nuclear policy more broadly, the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review aligns well with Quinlan’s writing style. It is a concise document, saying what it needs to, but just. Quinlan was the master of the “bureaucratic brief,” which he impressed upon his staff at the expense of much red ink, they would recall.

Substantively, however, Sir Michael would likely have been troubled by the Nuclear Posture Review’s assertion that “the fundamental role of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack on the United States, our Allies, and partners” and that the United States retained the goal of one day declaring that the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons was to deter nuclear attack. For Quinlan, nuclear weapons served a larger purpose. He long ago recognized that the most likely path to the use of nuclear weapons was escalation from a conventional conflict:

Most discussion of deterrence has understandably tended to center upon the immense reality of nuclear weapons. But it must not be supposed either that preventing their use is the sole aim of deterrence, or that they are its sole instruments. The imperative has been to prevent all war between major powers, not just nuclear war.

[N]on-nuclear war is not just appalling in itself. It is also the likeliest route to nuclear war. In practice, indeed, it is the only likely route since … scenarios of the holocaust being launched by accident or through technical malfunction are far-fetched to the point of fantasy. The risk would be at its highest when bitter conflict had already broken out at a lower level. War prevention needs therefore to operate on all levels of military conflict between nuclear capable states.

In short, Quinlan concluded that the central purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter conventional conflict between nuclear-armed rivals. The 2022 Nuclear Posture Review acknowledges elsewhere that U.S. nuclear weapons serve to deter regional aggression by China and Russia but not in the direct manner that Quinlan would have preferred.

Sir Michael very much believed that having a wide range of potential nuclear response options was critical to convincing the adversary of the credibility of our deterrent. He would be dismayed to see that Russia had rearmed itself with all manner of theater-range nuclear delivery systems, violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to do so, while NATO’s only nuclear delivery system on the European continent was a relatively small number of tactical aircraft. Indeed, it was Sir Michael’s concern over the “penetrativity” (not “penetrability,” as he once corrected me) of such aircraft against modern air defenses that led him successfully to advocate within NATO during the late 1970s for the deployment of new theater-range missiles.

It follows that Quinlan would be keen for the United States to redress that balance today. While the incoming F-35 has formidable stealth capabilities, NATO dual-capable aircraft remain tied to a small number of vulnerable air bases, another concern of Quinlan’s in the late 1970s. Though Quinlan was not particularly perturbed by Russian threats to walk out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in the early 2000s, now that it had been accomplished, it is not unreasonable to suggest that he would once again support new missile deployments by NATO. He may well have been agnostic as to whether they were mobile land-based missiles or were deployed on attack submarines in the European theater. Regardless, the 2022 Biden administration’s cancellation of the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile leaves NATO with one less option to redress the nuclear imbalance in Europe.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

It is with great vigor that Sir Michael would have engaged the latest incarnation of the nuclear abolition movement, which remains fixated on getting the West to disarm unilaterally. Foremost, I sense that if he were with us, Quinlan would lay to rest any suggestions that after the Cold War ended, he had somehow lost confidence in nuclear deterrence and saw real hope for disarmament.

In part, such perceptions are a function of presentation and circumstances. Sir Michael’s interests in the early 2000s reflected the world at that time — Western defense establishments had turned their attention from nuclear deterrence to the global war on terrorism, and hopes were raised in Western Europe that remaining U.S. tactical nuclear weapons could be withdrawn. Running counter to those currents, India and Pakistan were openly nuclearizing and embarking on a deterrence relationship of their own. Sir Michael thus applied his immense intellectual talents to the situation in South Asia and to the downstream requirements of global disarmament. But it would be a mistake, not to mention a disservice, to suggest that Quinlan was somehow on the road to embracing nuclear abolition. Rather, Russian revanchism, not to mention China’s and North Korea’s rapid build-up of nuclear capabilities and coercive strategies, would have Sir Michael reminding us today of the indispensability of nuclear deterrence to the preservation of Western democracies.

While he refrained from personal invective, Sir Michael did not have high regard for disarmament activists, referring to them as “campaigners.” In part, this was because he believed that they did not bear or appreciate the responsibility for ensuring national survival. He also saw their fear-mongering as potentially undermining public support in the West for nuclear deterrence, the centerpiece of major power war prevention.

On his watch in the British government, Quinlan had to contend with activists’ dire warnings that “technological advance was accelerating, and that by the 1990s it would be possible for either side to destroy the entire military capability of the other (including submarines) in a single first strike, thus undermining the basis for deterrence; and that this lent great urgency to the need for early progress on arms control/disarmament.” Thirty years later, that world still has not materialized, yet little has changed in such clarion calls.

Quinlan was neither complacent about nor consumed by the risk of inadvertent nuclear use, noting:

The history of the nuclear age does not bear out suppositions that risks of accident, mistake, or overreaction leading to weapon launch are acute. Such risks of these kinds as do exist could and should be alleviated by less drastic and complex but more practical measures to ease alert states.

Sir Michael refuted the notion that NATO’s 1983 Able Archer exercise nearly provoked Soviet nuclear use, as some nongovernment analysts had contended relying mainly on a subsequently declassified U.S. Air Force intelligence report. A more recent assessment of the exercise using a wider collection of declassified and authoritative U.S., Russian, and European sources seems to bolster Quinlan’s conclusion.

It is true that he gave serious thought – he did not know how to do otherwise — to the practicalities of disarmament. On a couple of points, he was crystal clear. First, there was no easy escape from nuclear weapons — they simply could not be dis-invented, and the temptation to redeploy them in a war would be strong. Second, to pave the road to disarmament, there would have to be fundamental change in how nations conducted their affairs with one another. In this regard, I believe Sir Michael would be deeply disappointed by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. He would find its absence of verification means the sure sign of an unserious endeavor.

Quinlan would doubtless have been deeply disappointed at the conduct of the first meeting of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons state parties in June 2022, as well. There, rather than rightfully condemn Russia by name for its irresponsible and reckless threats to use nuclear weapons in its war against Ukraine, signatory states’ parties equivocated and piously asserted that all nuclear weapons threats were unacceptable. This would have saddened Sir Michael on two accounts. First, reliance on nuclear weapons to safeguard freedom and national survival in the West is patently not morally equivalent to their exploitation by an authoritarian regime in conducting a brutal war of national extermination. Second, by conforming to diplomatic conventions not to call out transgressors by name, the treaty actually missed a major opportunity to effect the kind of systemic change that Quinlan said will be needed if we are to realize nuclear disarmament.

In this regard, Sir Michael left us with a clear and enduring message:

We have to seek unremittingly, through arms control and otherwise, for better ways of ordering the world [than deterrence]. But the search may be a very long one. No safer system than deterrence is yet in view, and impatience would be a catastrophic guide in the search. To tear down the present structure, imperfect but effective, before a better one is firmly within our grasp would be an immensely dangerous and irresponsible act.

Toward a Revival of “Quinlanism”

In fact, Michael Quinlan left us with much more. Particularly after retirement from government service, he published widely, and his extensive personal correspondence on nuclear issues resides in the Liddell Hart Military Archives at King’s College London. In his final publication, Quinlan seems to have anticipated that the West would one day need to restore its “nuclear IQ”:

I should like also, if I can, to help ease the task of generations later than my own in positions of public responsibility for nuclear-weapon issues. They may have to face difficult decision-making about such issues from a basis of relevant experience and discussion less extensive and continuous than my generation had occasion to accumulate.

[T]here has clearly been, on both sides of the Atlantic, much less attention to issues of nuclear policy than there was in the Cold War, and even a good deal of forgetting the thinking that was developed and the lessons that were learned. There are risks in that.

Thus, if we are to resist nuclear coercion by authoritarian states, reassure nervous publics and bring more balance to the debate on arms control, it behooves us to revisit the clear, sober-minded writings of Sir Michael Quinlan, adapt them as needed and engage in publicly defending the practice of nuclear deterrence with the same elan he exhibited throughout his life of service.

Gregory Giles is a senior director with Science Applications International Corporation. For more than three decades, he has been advising U.S. government clients on issues related to deterrence, nonproliferation, and the Middle East.

The views expressed in this article represent the personal views of the author and are not necessarily the views of Science Applications International Corporation, the Department of Defense, or Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Gregory Giles · July 5, 2023

13. NATO again extends Stoltenberg's mandate, happy with a safe pair of hands as the war drags on

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NATO again extends Stoltenberg's mandate, happy with a safe pair of hands as the war drags on

BY LORNE COOK

Published 5:22 AM EDT, July 4, 2023

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BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will stay in office for another year, the 31-nation military alliance decided on Tuesday.

Stoltenberg said in a tweet that he is “honoured by NATO Allies’ decision to extend my term as Secretary General until 1 October 2024.”

“The transatlantic bond between Europe and North America has ensured our freedom and security for nearly 75 years, and in a more dangerous world, our Alliance is more important than ever,” he said.

Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, has been NATO’s top civilian official since 2014. His term had been due to expire last year but was extended then to keep a steady hand at the helm after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

U.S. President Joe Biden and his NATO counterparts had been due to name a successor when they meet in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 11-12. But the world’s biggest security organization makes decisions by consensus, and no agreement could be found on a new candidate.

“With his steady leadership, experience, and judgement, Secretary General Stoltenberg has brought our Alliance through the most significant challenges in European security since World War II,” Biden said in a statement. “Today, our Alliance is stronger, more united and purposeful than it has ever been.”

Stoltenberg’s fellow countryman, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, welcomed the news, saying that it was “good, important and reassuring.”

“It is also important that this was now clarified before the summit in Vilnius next week,” Gahr Støre was quoted as saying by the Norwegian news agency NTB. He said that NATO’s unity “is particularly crucial in a troubled time of war in Europe.”

Most NATO countries had been keen to name a woman to the top post, and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was thought to be a favorite after a meeting with Biden last month.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, ruled out her candidacy. Other possible names floated, but never publicly named as in the running, were Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace.

It’s the fourth time Stoltenberg has had his mandate extended. He’s the second-longest serving NATO secretary-general after former Dutch foreign minister Joseph Luns, who spent almost 13 years at the helm from 1971.

Quizzed repeatedly in recent weeks over whether he would agree to have his term renewed, Stoltenberg said that he was not seeking to stay and had no plans other than to continue to carry out his duties and wrap his time at the helm in September.

NATO secretaries-general are responsible for chairing meetings and guiding sometimes delicate consultations between the member countries to ensure that compromises are found so that an organization that operates on consensus can continue to function.

They also ensure that decisions are put into action and speak on behalf of all nations with one voice.

Stoltenberg has managed to tread a very fine line, refraining from criticizing members led by more go-it-alone presidents and prime ministers, like former U.S. President Donald Trump, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan or Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

With NATO’s historical adversary, Russia, locked in a war with Ukraine, the process of naming a new secretary-general has become highly politicized.

Poland opposes the next secretary-general coming from a Nordic state after Stoltenberg’s long tenure, and that of his predecessor, Anders Fogh Rasmussen from Denmark. Polish officials wanted someone from a Baltic state. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas was a preferred candidate.

But other countries are wary of accepting a nominee from the Baltics or Poland, given what appears to be their unconditional support for Ukraine, including on NATO membership, which the U.S. and Germany, among others, insist should not happen before the war ends.

In naming Fogh Rasmussen, a former Danish premier, their 12th secretary general in 2009, NATO’s leaders signaled that they wanted a government leader or president at the head of their organization. This has made the path almost impossible for Wallace.

___

Associated Press writer Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen contributed to this report.

14. Spot troops on your street? It’s likely a parade, not martial law.

An important article. One of the best I have read on conspiracy theories. (and not just because I am quoted below).

Spot troops on your street? It’s likely a parade, not martial law.

By Allison P. Erickson and Nikki Wentling

 Jul 3, 10:35 AM

militarytimes.com · by Allison Erickson · July 3, 2023

Videos of troops and military equipment moving through downtown Philadelphia spread online last month, sparking false claims on social media platforms that the U.S. government was preparing to invoke martial law. The posts spread quickly, garnering millions of views and thousands of shares.

What was really happening? Parade preparations for Flag Day and the U.S. Army’s birthday in historic Philadelphia. The military vehicles were on the move as part of the city’s annual Stars and Stripes Festival, held this year on June 14, when members of the Pennsylvania National Guard showed off military equipment to the public, according to Maj. Travis Mueller, a Pennsylvania National Guard public affairs officer.

Heading into the July Fourth holiday Tuesday, more troops and military equipment will be present in urban areas as part of citywide celebrations, including the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular, the National Independence Day Parade in Washington, D.C., and the Armed Forces River Parade in San Antonio. Military flyovers are being planned for events across Oregon, Colorado and Vermont, among other states.

These celebrations offer more opportunity for the spread of rumors like those that took hold in Philadelphia. One way to stand down the panic? If you see military troops in your city or town, check out local law enforcement and local military bases’ social media accounts, or states’ National Guard pages on Twitter and Facebook, where public affairs officers often post about service members and equipment appearing in public before planned activities.

The unsubstantiated rumors of martial law sparked by troops spotted on Philly streets is just one of many incidents of such images spawning disinformation online. Such conspiracies go back to the 1970s, when so-called “black helicopters” became a symbol of a military takeover of the U.S. But they’ve grown in frequency since 2020, when myths about voter fraud eroded the public’s confidence in U.S. democracy, experts said.

“The whole idea is quite preposterous. We’re so far from any situation in which martial law would be declared that it’s laughable,” said William Banks, a Syracuse University law professor who wrote a book about the domestic role of the U.S. military. “The fact that it’s become a part of disinformation campaigns is concerning.”

In addition to parades and other public events sparking concerns, the arrival of summer – annual training season for the National Guard and Reserve – means more troops on the move and more conjecture about a military takeover.

“What people are seeing now is what people have seen every summer for as long as I’ve been alive,” Banks said. “Folks are taking their summer National Guard duty right now and riding convoys to wherever they’re going to be. For many of us, it’s a regular scene in the summer on the highways.”

Rumors spread online this month when a military convoy was spotted on state roads near Idaho Falls. The Idaho National Guard had posted the planned movement on its Facebook page on June 13, alerting the public that its 148th Field Artillery Regiment would be moving tracked vehicles the next day from its training area back to its armory. “Don’t be alarmed!” the post warned. Still, a video of the convoy was posted by a worried onlooker and went viral on social media. One post that received more than one million views warned, “BREAKING NEWS! Tank group on the highway in Idaho falls today!”

The Idaho Army National Guard's 148th Field Artillery Regiment conducted direct-fire training at the Orchard Combat Training Center in Boise, Idaho, on June 8. Videos of the unit's equipment being moved from the training area back to the armory on June 13 was one of several recent military movements that sparked false claims online of the looming invocation of martial law. (Crystal Farris via DVIDS)

A few days later, some social media accounts shared videos of low-flying helicopters in the Bay Area, describing their presence as an “undeclared military drill.” The MV-22 Ospreys and Sikorsky White Hawks seen over Marin County, California, on June 16, were security for President Joe Biden’s planned fundraising visit, the San Francisco Gate reported.

In February, false reports spread that combat had come to San Diego’s shores, when the U.S. Army Special Operations Command conducted training around the city. This despite the city’s high concentration of military bases and routine exercises, and an advisory issued in advance by Naval Base Coronado. Residents told local television stations they were caught off guard by low-flying helicopters and explosions.

Adding to the confusion? Several social media accounts – some of them verified on Twitter and boasting tens of thousands of followers – have falsely claimed that all of these movements are signs the military is preparing for an impending violent event and the invocation of martial law.

“Inconceivable” and “utterly absurd” is how legal expert and retired Army officer Geoffrey Corn describes the various martial law conspiracies. If ever anyone tried to illegally invoke martial law, it would be stopped by military leaders, Congress and the courts, said Corn, director of the Center for Military Law and Policy at Texas Tech University.

“The leaders of the DOD would look at this and say, ‘We don’t have legal authority to do what you’re asking,’” Corn said, adding that “As soon as Congress got wind of it, it would create a political crisis,” and the federal courts would shut it down.

A rise in martial law conspiracies

The presence of military equipment has been a long-standing trigger for conspiracies. Stories of black helicopters and their role in covert operations started in the ‘70s but gained more attention in 1995, when former Rep. Helen Chenoweth, R-Idaho, held congressional hearings about black helicopters allegedly targeting ranches in the rural West.

False claims about alleged government preparations to declare martial law are becoming an uncomfortable American tradition. In 2015, U.S. Army Special Operations was preparing to hold what it called a routine multi-state training exercise called Operation Jade Helm, spurring rumors of a covert effort to impose martial law. Such was the widespread panic that the Texas governor deployed the Texas state guard to monitor special operations troops. In 2018, former CIA director Michael Hayden attributed the Jade Helm panic to Russian disinformation targeting Texas, according to the Texas Tribune.

While these types of conspiracies date back decades, rumors of the government invoking martial law have been on the rise since former national security adviser Michael Flynn publicly called for former President Donald Trump to impose martial law to force a new election after his 2020 loss, said Syracuse University law professor Banks. Flynn’s status in the conservative movement and experience as an Army lieutenant general lent weight to his espoused theories that ballot tampering had lost Trump the election – theories proven false by multiple state and federal investigations.

At the time, Flynn retweeted an ad from a conservative political organization that called on Trump to suspend the Constitution, declare martial law and order the military to oversee a new election.

“Flynn called over and over and over again in 2020 for the invocation of martial law,” Banks said. “He’s a widely followed guy in certain circles and by virtue of his rank, he had a lot of credibility.”

The Covid-19 pandemic also gave rise to false claims about martial law being declared to invoke a nationwide quarantine – some of the rumors reaching so many people that the National Security Council spoke out to debunk them. “Text message rumors of a national #quarantine are FAKE. There is no national lockdown,” the NSC tweeted.

The Pentagon also debunked other viral claims about impending martial law in 2020, including one Twitter post that showed a video of Army equipment being moved by rail with the comment, “Coming soon?” Then-Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Rath Hoffman said the video showed joint light tactical vehicles being transported by Army Material Command from a factory in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to then-Fort Bragg, now-Fort Liberty, North Carolina.

Former Illinois Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard, has been working to counter some of the conspiracies he sees online, while battling his own frustration that so many fellow Americans could be so gullible.

“I think there is a real importance in exposing the ludicrous-y of it,” he told Military Times.

Kinzinger put that in practice, responding sarcastically, he thought, to a tweet about the alleged impending military takeover of Philadelphia. “As a Guardsman let me just say, this is exactly what you think it is and not drill weekend or summer training. No, it’s a takeover of whatever you love by whoever you hate.” That sarcasm was lost on some, who took his post to be confirmation of their worst fears.

Kinzinger has battled what he sees as a flood of disinformation that has enveloped his party, including debunked claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. He was one of only two Republicans on the congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, and ultimately left Congress over his party’s embrace of such claims.

“You can fight to try to tell the truth, you can fight against the cancer in the Republican Party of lies of conspiracy of dishonesty,” Kinzinger told ABC “This Week” when he announced he was leaving Congress.

He wants to see the military be similarly pro-active to spot disinformation about military activities online, and act swiftly to correct the record.

“I think it’s important for people to see that when they hear something like the government is going to take over Philadelphia, that they actually are aware of what that conspiracy is before they just take someone’s word for it,” he said.

Retired Army colonel David Maxwell, a former U.S. Army Green Beret, cautioned against vilifying or attacking believers in unfounded conspiracy theories.

“We are naturally suspicious of the government,” said Maxwell of his fellow American citizens.

“This disinformation reinforces that idea that we have to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, but we don’t realize that the enemy that is attacking us is not our government, not our military, but the outside forces. That is the real paradox,” said Maxwell, now a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank, Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

He suggested attacking the baseless claims themselves with a four-pronged strategy, represented by the somewhat unwieldy acronym R-U-E-A: recognizing adversarial strategies, understanding how those adversaries implement their plans, exposing those plans to the affected public and finally attacking the bad actor’s strategy to undermine its efforts.

On the positive side, the U.S. has “very engaged citizenry,” he said. But it’s “informed by bad ideas and influenced by Russia and China, Iran and North Korea,” as well as other bad actors.

A brief history of U.S. martial law

Since the United States was founded on July 4, 1776, martial law has been enacted at least 68 times. The figure varies because one state’s governor allegedly declared martial law 30 times, but official records don’t show all of these declarations. A few of these declarations made their mark on what the U.S. could see today.

General Andrew Jackson declared martial law for the first time in U.S. history in 1814 before the Battle of New Orleans to guard Louisiana territory from British attack. Local authorities and members of the press criticized the general’s controversial actions.

Until the mid-1800′s, martial law couldn’t be declared because it was incompatible with the U.S. Constitution, according to Joseph Nunn, counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, a non-partisan law and policy institute. In a seminal case, Luther v. Borden, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1849 to rule in favor of an entity attempting to declare martial law to prevent a state government overthrow. Based on that case, all U.S. states theoretically have the legal ability to declare martial law when warranted, which helps explain why 57 of those 68 cases of martial law were declared by states.

Nunn said the federal level is a different story. The U.S. government has declared martial law 11 times since 1776, but that was more than two centuries ago, and the Supreme Court hasn’t clearly defined whether it currently has the legal authority to do so.

“Martial law is a historical phenomenon … largely confined to the period between the start of the Civil War and the end of World War II,” Nunn said.

On Dec. 7, 1941, immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii’s governor declared martial law on the islands. U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt approved the move, and the islands remained under military rule for nearly three years. Civilians charged with crimes went before military tribunals and the military controlled more mundane aspects of life, like traffic, parking and trash pickup.

After Hawaii, the use of state- or territory- level martial law ticked up, particularly as civil unrest grew during the Civil Rights Movement, but the actual implementation of martial law looked less like all-out military rule and more like a state governor calling upon the national guard for riot control.

When groups peddle claims that a military exercise schemes to declare martial law, Nunn said they likely think of the military rule in Hawaii and not the more frequently exhibited use of controlling riots. The most recent declaration of martial law in U.S. history happened in Maryland about 60 years ago, when the government imposed martial law that lasted over a year in the town of Cambridge, during the racially-charged civil unrest known as the Cambridge Riot of 1963.

Unlikelihood of martial law in modern-day U.S.

What stands in the way of declaring martial law? All the federal and state bodies that are already in charge, enforcing their own laws with their own forces, like the police departments that now exist in all 50 states, Nunn said. “Their resources are so large and so heavily armed… you don’t necessarily need the military to come to a situation with federal force,” he added.

“Martial law is the absence of law,” legal scholar Banks said. “So, if martial law should ever be invoked, it should be in situations of a very extreme breakdown in civil authority, where the government isn’t operating and can’t operate normally, and where the courts are no longer open and operating.”

That would only conceivably happen in cases like a catastrophic nuclear attack or a plague that kills a majority of the population, said retired Army officer Corn.

In any other instance, Corn believes a declaration of martial law would prompt immediate legal challenges, and that troops would balk.

“I think military leadership would refuse to obey,” Corn said. “The military’s oath is to the Constitution, and we would expect that any military leaders – advised on what the limits of their legal authority are domestically – would step up and not follow such an order.”

Allison Erickson is a journalist and U.S. Army Veteran. She covered military and veterans' affairs as the 2022 Military Veterans in Journalism fellow with The Texas Tribune and continues to cover the military community. She has written and reported on topics such as migration, politics, and health.

Nikki Wentling covers disinformation and extremism for Military Times. She's reported on veterans and military communities for eight years and has also covered technology, politics, health care and crime. Her work has earned multiple honors from the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, the Arkansas Associated Press Managing Editors and others.

15. Army watercraft company with 13 ships will be based in Japan, Pacific commander says

The Army: more watercraft than the NAvy and more aircraft than the Air Force.

Army watercraft company with 13 ships will be based in Japan, Pacific commander says

Stars and Stripes · by Seth Robson · July 3, 2023

The USAV Calaboza transports a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, during Balikatan training in the Philippines, April 23, 2023. (Paley Fenner/U.S. Marine Corps)

CAMP ZAMA, Japan — A U.S. Army watercraft unit equipped with more than a dozen transport vessels will be homeported in Japan, the commander of U.S. Army Pacific told soldiers during a recent visit to this base in Kanagawa prefecture.

“We have a composite watercraft company with 13 ships and 285 Army mariners permanently coming to Japan,” Gen. Charles Flynn said at Camp Zama, 26 miles southwest of central Tokyo, on June 20. Flynn revealed the move while presiding over a ceremony that saw Maj. Gen. Joel “JB” Vowell relinquish command of U.S. Army Japan to Maj. Gen. David Womack.

U.S. Army Japan declined a request to photograph the watercraft or interview soldiers about the vessels and referred questions about the unit to U.S. Army Japan and U.S. Forces Japan. USFJ didn’t respond to emailed questions last week and U.S. Army Pacific couldn’t be reached over the long holiday weekend.

A composite watercraft company includes five landing craft utility vessels, two tugboats, four maneuver support vessels and a harbormaster operations detachment to provide maintenance, according to an Army news release from May 24, 2021.

Japanese troops toured an Army landing craft utility vessel — the USAV Calaboza — at Yokohama North Dock in January, the Army announced in a news release at the time.

The USAV Calaboza transports a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, during Balikatan training in the Philippines, April 23, 2023. (Paley Fenner/U.S. Marine Corps)

LCUs — used for getting personnel, gear and supplies to shore — are small but boast the same payload capacity as seven C-17 Globemaster III aircraft, according to release. One LCU can carry up to five M1 Abrams tanks, 24 double-stacked shipping containers or 400 combat-equipped troops.

Japan’s army doesn’t have watercraft and relies on its Maritime Self-Defense Force and civilian ships to transport troops and equipment by sea, according to the January release.

“Today’s visit is kind of a lesson learned for us,” Col. Motokazu Suzuki, operations chief for Japan’s Central Army, who toured the vessel, said in the release. Japan’s army is considering acquiring watercraft, he added.

The U.S. Army operated 127,000 watercraft during World War II, according to the 2021 news release, which stated that the total force in the Indo-Pacific had since declined to six operational watercraft and 35 pre-positioned stock vessels.

In recent years, Army watercraft have been involved in training in Japan, Guam and Australia, transporting equipment such as the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, according to the release.

“Army watercraft are useful boats for moving people, equipment, and supplies between scattered islands — especially in fairly close together archipelagoes,” said Grant Newsham, a senior researcher with the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies in Tokyo.

“They aren't very big so they can get into places and operate closer to the shore — if not right up on the shore — than can bigger more 'conventional' transports,” he told Stars and Stripes in an email June 27. “Also, they don't attract so much attention since they are small and non-descript.”

Such vessels could meet the Marine Corps’ requirement to transport small units to far-flung islands in a conflict, Newsham added.

“But the Army doesn't want to share or give up its resources,” he said. “That's not surprising, since the US Army is angling big-time for a role in a future fight in the Pacific. And they don't mind, and some would say are trying, to displace the US Marine Corps and its role in the Pacific.”

Stars and Stripes · by Seth Robson · July 3, 2023

16. Recent Chinese cyber intrusions signal a strategic shift

Excerpts:

There has been some debate among the experts about how the TRBs fit into the joint command structure of the theatre commands and the SSF. However, the consensus is that because the theatre commanders have managed to remain the foci in a slow-changing bureaucracy, most TRBs are more closely associated with them than with the SSF.

This is the assumption that the Volt Typhoon disclosure seems to challenge. It was undoubtedly a strategic operation and its prepositioning extends far beyond China’s near abroad. Its scope is a sign that the integration of joint information warfare forces into the PLA has matured. The military cyber elements seem to have been extricated from the stovepipes of the theatre commands and are ready to produce strategic effects extending beyond the Indo-Pacific. And the integration isn’t just militaristic but also political: the PLA is the Chinese Communist Party’s army. Strategic cyber operations are directly sanctioned by the Central Military Commission and ultimately authorised by Xi.

An alternative hypothesis is that the MSS or a team of contractors were tasked with gathering intelligence to prepare for a future battlefield. The MSS and its privateers have gone beyond their remit in the past. The 2020–21 exploitation of Microsoft Exchange, for example, which aggressively targeted many Western organisations, is thought to have been orchestrated by a regional bureau of the MSS and so wouldn’t have gone through PLA channels to the top.

That said, the Chinese cyber apparatus also relies on decentralisation and outsourcing to maintain deniability. And while the Volt Typhoon intrusion could have been the result of private contractors’ reckless manoeuvring, such a move would have been deemed risky by the Chinese political establishment, which is keenly aware of the risk of escalation in cyber operations.

Recent Chinese cyber intrusions signal a strategic shift | The Strategist

aspistrategist.org.au · by Pukhraj Singh · July 5, 2023

On 25 May, Australia and its partners in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network—Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US—made a coordinated disclosure on a state-sponsored cyber hacking group dubbed ‘Volt Typhoon’. The group has been detected intruding on critical infrastructure since 2021, but the nature of recent intelligence on its behaviour hints at worrying developments in the Chinese cyber establishment. While the Five Eyes’ disclosure is direct in its attribution of Volt Typhoon to the Chinese government, there are many layers that need to be peeled away to reveal the true nature, and implications, of the threat.

State-aligned or state-sponsored cyber threats emerging from China can be grouped under two broad government structures: the Ministry of State Security and the Strategic Support Force. The MSS is China’s peak foreign intelligence, counterintelligence and political security agency, and the SSF is the joint information warfare command of the People’s Liberation Army’s, akin to US Cyber Command. While its US counterpart focuses solely on military cyber operations, the SSF has a broader mandate covering electronic warfare, strategic military cyber operations and political warfare. The SSF was founded in 2015 as part of structural reforms to the PLA spearheaded by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The most recent intrusion highlighted by the Five Eyes isn’t the type of espionage that is the veritable background noise of enduring competition among states. Chinese cyber operators have become notorious for intellectual property theft, but their cyber espionage activity has gradually shifted to meeting other strategic imperatives, as the Volt Typhoon case shows.

Offensive cyber intrusions for specific strategic effects usually require the preplacement of technical implants and long-term access to the adversary’s network well in advance of the operation. Former White House cybersecurity adviser Chris Inglis has called these implants intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms that are ‘ubiquitous, real-time and persistent’. Volt Typhoon appears to have been performing just such a preplacement operation.

The commercially available intelligence on Chinese cyber activity can be confusing. The MSS and even the SSF use the services of politically influential private contractors to develop their offensive toolchains. The contractors may also moonlight as criminals, unabashedly using the same toolchains. This operational and infrastructural overlap means that commercial intelligence analysts end up grouping China-linked cybercrime, cyber espionage and military cyber activity into big clusters known in the industry by names such as Winnti, APT40, APT41, Barium and Hafnium. That has greatly muddied the waters.

However, it is possible to unpack these clusters. The MSS and its affiliates have been spotted on global networks and linked with sophisticated political and economic espionage operations. The SSF, working with the five geographically aligned theatre commands of the PLA, has been mainly active in China’s near abroad. After the 2015 reforms, the theatre commands inherited the old, inertial bureaucracies of the PLA and their integration into the joint information warfare command of the SSF is said to be a work in progress.

The technical reconnaissance bases (previously known as bureaus), or TRBs, are the numerous detachments hailing from the legacy structures of the PLA’s signals intelligence setup. Most of them have been reorganised into the theatre commands and are responsible for various cyber missions. The TRBs rely on a mixture of bespoke toolchains and toolchains shared with contractors and the MSS. One example is ShadowPad, which is thought to be behind one of China’s first known prepositioning operations, RedEcho. RedEcho was discovered in the Indian power grid in 2021 during the height of the Indo-China border standoff and is most likely the handiwork of a TRB under the Western Theatre Command.

A de-clustering of Chinese cyber operations undertaken for groups active in China’s near abroad and associated with the PLA was able to link intrusions to TRBs. According to this analysis, which was based on commercially available and open-source intelligence, the ‘Tonto Team’ was related to Unit 65016, a TRB of the Northern Theatre Command; ‘Naikon’ was linked to the Southern Theatre Command; and ‘Tick’ was related to Unit 61419, which is likely a TRB directly under the SSF.

There has been some debate among the experts about how the TRBs fit into the joint command structure of the theatre commands and the SSF. However, the consensus is that because the theatre commanders have managed to remain the foci in a slow-changing bureaucracy, most TRBs are more closely associated with them than with the SSF.

This is the assumption that the Volt Typhoon disclosure seems to challenge. It was undoubtedly a strategic operation and its prepositioning extends far beyond China’s near abroad. Its scope is a sign that the integration of joint information warfare forces into the PLA has matured. The military cyber elements seem to have been extricated from the stovepipes of the theatre commands and are ready to produce strategic effects extending beyond the Indo-Pacific. And the integration isn’t just militaristic but also political: the PLA is the Chinese Communist Party’s army. Strategic cyber operations are directly sanctioned by the Central Military Commission and ultimately authorised by Xi.

An alternative hypothesis is that the MSS or a team of contractors were tasked with gathering intelligence to prepare for a future battlefield. The MSS and its privateers have gone beyond their remit in the past. The 2020–21 exploitation of Microsoft Exchange, for example, which aggressively targeted many Western organisations, is thought to have been orchestrated by a regional bureau of the MSS and so wouldn’t have gone through PLA channels to the top.

That said, the Chinese cyber apparatus also relies on decentralisation and outsourcing to maintain deniability. And while the Volt Typhoon intrusion could have been the result of private contractors’ reckless manoeuvring, such a move would have been deemed risky by the Chinese political establishment, which is keenly aware of the risk of escalation in cyber operations.

The intelligence that has trickled through from the Five Eyes points to interesting doctrinal and strategic developments in the Chinese cyber establishment, especially the extent and success of its integration with the PLA. A rigorous, transparent assessment by interdisciplinary experts, aided by governments, is required to fully understand these developments and their potential consequences.

aspistrategist.org.au · by Pukhraj Singh · July 5, 2023

17. Russia has 'lost nearly half' of its combat effectiveness since invading Ukraine, UK defense official says

I think a lot of the BDA remains suspect.

Russia has 'lost nearly half' of its combat effectiveness since invading Ukraine, UK defense official says

Business Insider · by Charles R. Davis

A Ukrainian soldier standing on an abandoned Russian tank on the outskirts of Izyum, Ukraine, on September 11, 2022.JUAN BARRETO/AFP via Getty Images

• Russia has "lost nearly half" its combat power since invading Ukraine, a UK defense official says.
• Admiral Sir Tony Radakin said Russia was now "so weak" that it couldn't wage a counteroffensive.
• A classified US assessment said Russian forces might have suffered more than 200,000 casualties.

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A top British defense official says Russia's combat abilities have been slashed in half since last year's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the formal head of the UK's armed forces who is the chief military advisor to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, told a parliamentary hearing that Russia was now "so weak" that it could no longer wage a military counteroffensive of its own.

"Russia has lost nearly half the combat effectiveness of its army," Radakin said, according to the Financial Times. "Last year, it fired 10 million artillery shells, but at best, can produce 1 million shells a year. It has lost 2,500 tanks and, at best, can produce 200 tanks a year."

He then defended Ukraine's counteroffensive, which has been criticized for not making enough progress.

Radakin said Kyiv's strategy to "starve, stretch, and strike" was gradually eroding Russia's defenses. However, he did acknowledge that Russian mines, Ukraine's insufficient air defenses, and the lack of equipment Ukraine requested had weighed on operations.

"The question is, how do you take a front line that is more than a thousand kilometers long and turn it into more of a problem for Russia than for Ukraine?" he said. "That is why you are seeing multiple axes being probed and feints by Ukraine."

Radakin's statement about Russia's combat losses in Ukraine was roughly in line with previous reporting.

In February, the open-source intelligence group Oryx said at least 1,000 Russian tanks had been destroyed in Ukraine — and another 500 captured. A classified US military assessment, leaked earlier this year, suggested that as many as 43,000 Russian soldiers had been killed and another 180,000 wounded since February last year.

When Russia invaded last year, PBS reported that it had more than 400,000 contract soldiers.

Experts said the losses had taken a huge toll, particularly on Russia's elite infantry and armored fighting brigades.

"They've been decimated," Jeffrey Edmonds, a Russia expert at the Center for Naval Analyses who is a former CIA military analyst, told Insider's Jake Epstein earlier this year, describing it as a "blow to Russian's ground force's combat power."

Business Insider · by Charles R. Davis

18. Inside Ukraine's tech push to counter Russian 'suicide' drone threat

Inside Ukraine's tech push to counter Russian 'suicide' drone threat

Reuters · by Tom Balmforth

• Summary
• Ukraine and Russia are in wartime technology arms race
• Kyiv aims to innovate way to down Russian drones cheaply
• Ukrainian drone output booming despite Russian attacks
• State programme hopes to procure 200,000 drones in 2023

KYIV, July 5 (Reuters) - In a basement in downtown Kyiv late last month, away from prying eyes, hundreds of engineers and innovators met senior military officials to brainstorm ways to better neutralise the cheap Russian suicide drones that still devastate Ukrainian cities.

It was a rare, close-up glimpse into Ukraine's technology arms race with Russia that draws on private sector innovation seeded with state venture capital, and which is pumping out thousands of combat drones in a booming wartime industry.

"The war today is technological, with changes in technology and on the battlefield happening every day," Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's deputy prime minister and minister for digital transformations, said on the sidelines of the gathering.

Reuters was the only media outfit invited to the event, where high-ranking army officials and ministers mingled with engineers and eccentric enthusiasts. One man arrived in shorts and a baseball cap with a large drone under his arm.

Organisers distributed $3 million in prize money among three teams of experts deemed to have presented the best drones or electronic warfare technology against Russia's "Shahed", drones of Iranian origin which cruise in swarms to their targets and detonate on impact.

In May, Russia attacked Ukraine with a record monthly total of more than 300 drones, official data shows, a challenge for planners anxious to protect energy supplies this winter. Last winter Russia tried to cripple the power grid with air strikes.

"We want to prepare for the... next winter to respond to these challenges," Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said.

The Iranian drones fly so low that they can avoid detection by air defences, while their navigation systems are robust enough to make it hard to take them down with anti-drone electronic warfare weapons that disrupt radio frequencies.

The West has supplied sophisticated air defence systems to counter missile attacks, but taking down swarms of drones that cost $50,000 a piece with $1 million missiles is not ideal, officials say.

"That's not profitable, so we need to constantly cut the cost of the tools we use to destroy Shaheds," said Fedorov.

"We're talking about detection (of drones) using acoustic as well as other means, and also about actual destruction."

The event's organisers asked Reuters not to disclose the surnames of participants for security reasons.

One of them, Oleksandr, said his team was presenting a "quadrocopter" that has wings in addition to being propeller-powered. He said it could fly much faster and longer than other drones.

"It'll be a drone that will... take off vertically to intercept or catch up with drones, shoot them down or jam them," he said.

Another participant, Yuriy, an engineer and deputy head of a Ukrainian company, said his team presented designs for new anti-drone electronic warfare systems that would be more effective against Shaheds.

'WAR OF DRONES'

Drones have been used widely in wars in Yemen, Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh, but never more than in Ukraine, officials say.

"This really is an unprecedented war of drones," Fedorov said, adding that Ukraine's military technology innovation had boomed since Russia's invasion.

Ukraine launched a crowdfunding project last year aimed at creating an "Army of Drones" that has grown into a state programme covering everything from the production of uncrewed aerial vehicles to the training of drone pilots.

"A few months after the full-scale invasion began, everyone realized that the most effective way to conduct reconnaissance and defeat the enemy was uncrewed aerial vehicles," said brigadier general Yurii Shchyhol.

Shchyhol, who oversees procurement for the state programme, said it had purchased 15,000 drones so far, with more coming in via the Defence Ministry and others being supplied by foreign assistance and volunteers.

The total number of drones used by Ukraine on the battlefield is not known.

"Our goal this year is to buy more than 200,000 strike and large reconnaissance drones... We will buy as many drones as are available for purchase on the market," Shchyhol said.

Fedorov said drone production was now taking place all over Ukraine despite the threat of Russian air strikes, adding that manufacturers had been told to spread work over different sites and to use bomb shelters for parts of the production process.

"We see that today this approach works and all producers continue working and missiles are not hitting production. They (strikes) do happen, but not on such a scale," he said.

More than 80% of procured drones are Ukrainian-made and assembled in Ukraine, Fedorov added.

Anatoliy Khrapchynskyi, who works for a firm developing electronic warfare technology, contrasted Ukraine's approach to technological innovation with Russia's.

While Russia's approach is top-down and dominated by state organisations, he said, Ukraine's is driven by the private sector and involves many smaller-sized companies.

"There were seven companies that could sell drones to the state when we began this project last year. Today it's 40 and it will be 50 by the end of the year," said Fedorov.

He said state venture capital was helping to expand domestic production and that Ukraine had an edge over Russia because it could share technology with foreign partners and did not have to worry about sanctions.

"Thanks to the funds, companies are starting to localise production. Today we do buy parts across the world, including in China. But localisation is gradually happening," Fedorov said.

Reporting by Tom Balmforth; editing by Mike Collett-White and Gareth Jones

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Tom Balmforth

19. China Upping Bullying Tactics Against Neighbors, Says Top State Department Diplomat

Excerpts:

To foster regional stability, Washington is building a “latticework” of relationships with allies like Japan, the Philippines, Australia and Korea; partners like Singapore; and friends, many of whom are in the Association of South East Asian Nations, Kritenbrink said.

He added that the Quad, the informal grouping of the United States, Japan, India and Australia, is playing an increasingly important role diplomatically, economically and militarily in the Indo-Pacific. He called the Quad the “most significant strategic development” in his decades-long diplomatic career.

One idea the four members of the Quad are supporting with technology and funds is building smaller nations’ real-time maritime awareness to “protect their own rights” over fishing and mineral and energy extraction. Building that capacity, using low-orbit commercially available satellites and linking that data regionally has been a Quad priority.

“We’re in this together,” Kritenbrink said. “We’re not in the business of forcing countries to choose” between Washington and Beijing.

China Upping Bullying Tactics Against Neighbors, Says Top State Department Diplomat - USNI News

news.usni.org · by John Grady · July 3, 2023

People’s Liberation Army Navy guided-missile destroyer CNS Suzhou (132) cuts across the bow of USS Chung-Hoon (DDG-93) during a Taiwan Strait transit on June 3, 2023. US Navy Photo

China is increasingly harassing ships and aircraft operating in international waters and airspace as it ups its bully tactics against neighbors, the State Department’s top diplomat for East Asia and the Pacific said last week.

Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary for the region, said the United States made clear in its recent meetings with top Chinese foreign ministry officials that it “rejects the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China’s] claims in the South China Sea.”

Kritenbrink referred to China’s rejection of a 2016 international arbitration panel’s denial of its territorial claims to waters and maritime features like reefs close to the Philippines while speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Kritenbrink said the U.S. has stepped up Freedom of Navigation Operations and joint presence patrols with the Philippines close to the Spratly Islands in support of the ruling.

“FONOPS challenge unwarranted territorial claims” like China’s, he said, adding that another reason for these maritime operations and flight equivalent missions is to demonstrate to all nations that “big and small countries [must] play by the same rules.”

Kritenbrink added that China’s harassment isn’t confined to international or contested waters. He used Manila as an example of provocative maneuvers, citing the May incident when a Chinese corvette nearly collided with a Philippine Coast Guard vessel that was on a routine patrol in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

Washington’s positions in all territorial disputes is to have them resolved peacefully, Kritenbrink said. Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan also claim the Spratlys.

A top goal of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s meeting in Beijing with his Chinese counterpart and President Xi Jinping was “to re-open lines of communication” between the two powers to reduce the “risk of miscalculation.” One example Kritenbrink cited as potential miscalculation occurred earlier this month when a Chinese warship cut across the bow of an American guided-missile destroyer transiting the Taiwan Strait.

While predicting more high-level cabinet meetings with China, Kritenbrink said it “was most disappointing that we haven’t re-established [military-to-military communications]. We always need to talk to each other” in this “consequential and complex relationship.”

“But we’re sticking” to re-establishing the military communications links, he said.

Blinken’s original meeting in Beijing was postponed in the winter when a Chinese spy balloon entered American air space before the U.S. military shot it down off the South Carolina coast.

Shortly after Blinken and the delegation, including Kritenbrink, left Beijing, China sent an aircraft carrier and its escorts through the Taiwan Strait. An American Coast Guard cutter transited the strait before the Chinese ships entered.

This is a “particularly sensitive time” in cross-strait relations, Kritenbrink said. The Taiwanese are voting on a new president next year. President Tsai Ing-wen is barred constitutionally from a third term. He said the U.S. does not favor a unilateral move in Taipei to declare independence and opposes any move by Beijing to take the self-governing democracy by force.

To foster regional stability, Washington is building a “latticework” of relationships with allies like Japan, the Philippines, Australia and Korea; partners like Singapore; and friends, many of whom are in the Association of South East Asian Nations, Kritenbrink said.

He added that the Quad, the informal grouping of the United States, Japan, India and Australia, is playing an increasingly important role diplomatically, economically and militarily in the Indo-Pacific. He called the Quad the “most significant strategic development” in his decades-long diplomatic career.

One idea the four members of the Quad are supporting with technology and funds is building smaller nations’ real-time maritime awareness to “protect their own rights” over fishing and mineral and energy extraction. Building that capacity, using low-orbit commercially available satellites and linking that data regionally has been a Quad priority.

“We’re in this together,” Kritenbrink said. “We’re not in the business of forcing countries to choose” between Washington and Beijing.

Related

news.usni.org · by John Grady · July 3, 2023

20. He was the CIA whiz kid in 'Charlie Wilson's War.' His new book offers advice for the US in Ukraine

He was the CIA whiz kid in 'Charlie Wilson's War.' His new book offers advice for the US in Ukraine

BY NOMAAN MERCHANT

Published 9:01 AM EDT, July 4, 2023

AP · July 4, 2023

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WASHINGTON (AP) — After the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan in 1989, defeated by an insurgency equipped and guided by the U.S., a two-word cable arrived at CIA headquarters: “WE WON.”

It was one of the last moments of the Cold War, credited with helping push the Soviet Union to collapse two years later. But the U.S. would leave behind a country that rapidly fell into civil war, eventually becoming al-Qaida’s training grounds for the Sept. 11 attacks and the site of a two-decade war that ended in U.S. withdrawal and defeat.

Decades later, one of the architects of the covert strategy against the Soviets has published a memoir that calls on President Joe Biden’s administration to do more to support Ukraine’s resistance against Russia. In “By All Means Available,” Michael Vickers also reviews what the U.S. can learn from its past missteps and missed warnings in Afghanistan.

In the 2007 movie “Charlie Wilson’s War,” which depicts the top-secret U.S. effort in 1980s Afghanistan, Vickers is shown as the CIA’s in-house weapons expert who quickly knows what’s needed by the American-backed Islamic fighters known as mujahedeen. He’s also portrayed as a whiz kid who can beat multiple opponents in chess without looking at their boards. (In real life, he writes, he doesn’t play chess, but grew up playing football and baseball.)

The Biden administration has provided $40 billion in security assistance to Ukraine as well as intelligence support. It has withheld some missile systems and aircraft sought by Ukraine as it tries to avoid escalating the conflict into a direct war with Russia.

Vickers argues the U.S. can do more to help Ukraine win the war and deliver a strong blow to Moscow.

“The administration hasn’t always been clear about what it really wants in Ukraine,” Vickers said in a recent interview. “Saying, ‘We’ll be with them as long as it takes,’ is not the same thing as ‘We’re going to help them win.’ We ought to help them sooner rather than later.”

Ukraine has begun a long-promised counteroffensive that Western officials believe is making slow and small advancements. Russian forces are thought to control roughly 20% of Ukrainian territory.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also appears weakened after an aborted mutiny by Wagner Group mercenaries who took the military headquarters in a southern city and approached Moscow before agreeing to a settlement.

The insurrection and resulting turmoil in Moscow “certainly open the opportunity space for the Biden administration,” Vickers said. “But I think we’ll have to see what happens.”

The son of an Army Air Corps pilot in World War II, Vickers grew up in California and was the first in his family to attend college. During his final semester, he decided he wanted to try for a job in the CIA by first becoming an Army Green Beret. He would eventually join the agency in 1983, at the age of 30.

Just over a year later, Vickers was called into the office of Gust Avrakotos, who led the CIA’s Afghanistan task force. By then, Soviet troops had been in Afghanistan for five years, ostensibly to support the communist government in the civil war.

In Avrakotos’ office, Vickers writes, was a “mannequin of a Soviet soldier wearing a gas mask, holding an AK-47 assault rifle, and outfitted in full combat gear.”

“The mannequin reminded everyone that the Soviet-Afghan War was being fought with few restraints,” he writes.

The CIA brought together a disparate group to arm the Afghans, who used U.S.-supplied machine guns, mines, and anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons against the better-equipped Soviets.

Saudi Arabia helped finance purchases of weapons and ammunition from Egypt and China that were moved through Pakistan and into Afghanistan. In Washington, Rep. Charlie Wilson of Texas helped push through hundreds of millions of dollars in secret U.S. financing.

Vickers says he oversaw the shipment of more lethal weapons, increased training and intelligence given to the resistance fighters, and ramped up covert influence campaigns. The first full year he was involved, 1985, was the “bloodiest year of the war,” he writes, with more than 4,000 Soviet troops killed.

“In less than a year, I had gone from participating in operations to directing a secret war on an unimaginable scale,” he writes. “Only in CIA could this happen.”

The war’s rising toll led the Soviets to pull back from the war, slowly transferring responsibility to the local communist government and ultimately withdrawing in 1989.

Vickers left the CIA shortly afterward and would go into business and academia. But he rejoined government after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the U.S. would go back into Afghanistan, this time with its own troops, and quickly topple the Taliban.

As a top Defense Department official under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Vickers was involved in the U.S. operation to kill al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, the surge and eventual drawdown of American troops into Afghanistan, and countering the rise of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

The early U.S. victories in Afghanistan were followed by an insurgency that would drag on for two decades as the Taliban regained strength. The war ultimately ended in the failure of the U.S.-backed government in Kabul and a chaotic and bloody withdrawal in August 2021 that continues to stir anger in Washington.

And there were echoes of the 1980s. One of the leaders in the anti-Soviet resistance was the Pashtun commander Jalaluddin Haqqani. His son Sirajuddin became the leader of the so-called Haqqani Network, blamed for attacks on U.S. soldiers and Afghan civilians, and is now interior minister in the Taliban government.

Vickers argues the U.S. had reached an effective stalemate in Afghanistan by the end of Obama’s presidency. He criticizes former President Donald Trump for making a deal with the Taliban that he calls a “surrender agreement” and Biden for following through with the withdrawal.

He remains an influential voice on Russia in Washington, having argued before the invasion last year that the U.S. should try to deter Moscow by moving combat aircraft to Europe and providing anti-armor and anti-aircraft weapons like it did in the 1980s.

Ukraine defied many U.S. predictions that its government would quickly fall to Moscow, and what some expected would be a guerrilla conflict has instead become a more conventional war with two forces dug in across hundreds of miles.

Vickers noted there were some similarities between the two conflicts besides the common opponent in Moscow. One of them, he argued in the recent interview, was that the U.S. would have to help rebuild Ukraine and establish security guarantees after the war ends.

As told in “Charlie Wilson’s War,” U.S. support for Afghanistan fell sharply in the years after the last Soviet general left, setting in motion internal wars and the rise of the Taliban — something Vickers notes today was “not a good series of events.”

“The Ukrainians have been remarkable in how they’ve coalesced around their national identity and to defend their territory and their politics,” he said. “But it’s a crisis right now. And it’s an existential threat. And so one does have to watch for all kinds of things.”

AP · July 4, 2023

21. Remaking US Naval Power for the 21st Century

Conclusion: 

In the final analysis, and chance aside, the outcome of a future major war will be determined before the fighting actually starts. The better postured, better resourced, and better trained fleet is the nation that wins. Ensuring that the U.S. Navy remains ready, vigilant, and postured forward is the best way to deter war and perpetuate the rules-based order that has safeguarded the liberty and prosperity of the United States and others for decades. Executing such a program is ambitious, but the consequences of not rising to the challenge are dire. The United States needs to avoid ceding the world’s maritime and associated prosperity away from future generations.

Remaking US Naval Power for the 21st Century

Insights from Brent Droste Sadler.

thediplomat.com · by Mercy A. Kuo · July 3, 2023

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The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Brent Droste Sadler – senior research fellow for Naval Warfare and Advanced Technology in the Center for National Defense at the Heritage Foundation and author of “U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century: A New Strategy for Facing the Chinese and Russian Threat” (Naval Institute Press 2023) – is the 373rd in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.”

Delineate the scope of the threat that China and Russia pose to the United States.

As China’s economic heft and military power has grown, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership has been less inclined toward accommodation. Meanwhile, China has been building a world class navy with a vengeance, and Western nations have been heading in the opposite direction. It is imperative for the free world to meet this challenge in a way that deters war, ensures freedom of commerce, bolsters maritime security, and anchors a rules-based order that respects the rights of large and small nations alike. Failing this, it could be the United States and the free world that endures 100 years of humiliation.

Explain the correlation between naval statecraft and great power competition.

Navies exist to assure access to markets and influence events on land for political ends. The navy’s role in warfighting is well known; less appreciated is its ability to shape the environment in which security, diplomacy, and economics interact. This is a role the U.S. Navy has performed throughout its history, and if applied in a deliberate fashion against our competitors, affords a more effective approach to protecting and advancing the nation’s interests.

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In 2014, a study was conducted to investigate the potential implications on trade if U.S. military forward presence was measurably reduced. A strong correlation was found between mutual trade and the existence of security agreements that reduced the cost of trade via air and shipping. A reduction of 50 percent in overseas security commitments (troops overseas and agreements) would result in a drop in bilateral trade of 18 percent, or according to 2015 trade data, a loss of $490 billion to U.S. gross domestic product.

The nation is beyond a so-called inflection point; the strategic initiative must be seized in a new approach. This requires enhancing U.S. and like-minded nations’ strengths while leveraging weaknesses of competitors China and Russia. As a consequence, naval operations must be conceptualized in a wider diplomatic and economic context. This would involve a new naval statecraft that leverages and enables naval presence while demonstrating the economic benefits of a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Describe the key elements of a New Model Navy.

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A New Model Navy, featuring profound new capabilities and relationships, is made possible by exciting advances in nanotechnology and bioengineering. Today’s trends point to a future fleet composed of large numbers of autonomous, and likely even bioengineered platforms. Making this possible are tremendous gains anticipated in the near future in genetic engineering, artificial intelligence (AI), and quantum computing ̶ the mighty trio. Some elements of this New Model Navy include:

1. The draft will return – just not how you expect, instead involving robotic systems as well as technical experts.
2. There will be an AI “fog of war” to contend with.
3. The navy will sport globally networked (on-demand) fleets with smaller/optional human crews.
4. Energy weapons will become the standard armament of U.S. Navy ships.
5. Distributed production and autonomous repair will change repair and logistic needs of the fleet.
6. New classes of ships will emerge to meet new naval missions and take advantage of unmanned systems – e.g., unmanned mothership, factory ships, etc.

Examine the relevance and timeliness of instituting a National Maritime Initiative.

The world is at the cusp of a dangerous decade, and the difference in whether it becomes a violent peace or worse is a function of how we as a nation choose to respond. And the United States is vulnerable in ways it has not been in over a hundred years. Annually, thousands of foreign-owned and operated ships conduct U.S. trade that keeps the lights on, grocery stores stocked, and cars on the road. To get some sense of how dependent the United States has become on foreign shippers, consider that in 2015 there were 82,044 visits to U.S. ports conducted by thousands of commercial vessels – and less than 200 were U.S. flagged and crewed.

A successful National Maritime Initiative relies on more than a strategy or crafty oration; action is needed to get a lethargic sector moving in the right direction. On day one national leadership must articulate its vision and commitment to a long-term endeavor to regain global competitiveness in shipping and shipbuilding – a modern-day Trafalgar declaration. But institutions and political leadership will only be galvanized by an early and visible success.

With that in mind, within six months visible demonstrations of proof of concepts for a new inter-modalism for commercial shipping and a new naval exercise demonstrating new concepts of operations such as with manned-unmanned team platforms will be required. In tandem with this early effort, the foundations for changing current institutions and structures like the Goldwater-Nichols Act need to be set. Once this foundation is set, it can be acted on within two years and a clear direction given to change how national security is done.

Assess the long-term consequences of delaying fortification of U.S. naval power vis-à-vis the China and Russia threat.

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Failing to act today in a comprehensive and serious manner will signal weakness at a time that our adversaries are becoming most confident in challenging the United States.

In the final analysis, and chance aside, the outcome of a future major war will be determined before the fighting actually starts. The better postured, better resourced, and better trained fleet is the nation that wins. Ensuring that the U.S. Navy remains ready, vigilant, and postured forward is the best way to deter war and perpetuate the rules-based order that has safeguarded the liberty and prosperity of the United States and others for decades. Executing such a program is ambitious, but the consequences of not rising to the challenge are dire. The United States needs to avoid ceding the world’s maritime and associated prosperity away from future generations.

Mercy A. Kuo

Mercy Kuo is Executive Vice President at Pamir Consulting.

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thediplomat.com · by Mercy A. Kuo · July 3, 2023

22. How America Broke Its War Machine

Read it and weep as they say.

Excerpts:

The preeminent concern among analysts has been how to replenish stockpiles of weapons to ensure the United States does not deplete its overall arsenal. But stockpiling weapons is impossible given the dearth in skilled American labor. Defense contractors have struggled to recruit workers for years in an industry that often requires vocational training or two-year degrees from its employees. Educating and training future defense workers takes time—time that Ukraine does not have at the moment. Weapons production cannot be willed into existence. To achieve a more stable, trained workforce, the United States must support job creation across all employment sectors, not just defense, so that Americans have the requisite skills and training needed in times of crisis. Biden is attempting to address this with the CHIPS and Science Act, which he signed into law in 2022. The impetus for the new law is the United States’ competition with China, and the legislation sponsors grants and loans to students pursuing careers in STEM fields. But the Biden administration can go beyond the program and pursue additional policies that subsidize higher education and job creation in peacetime—to revitalize struggling post-industrial cities that are involved in aiding Ukraine’s defense but will surely experience economic downturns when the war ends, such as Camden, Arkansas, or Troy, Alabama, where over 25 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. The United States should expand its workforce for the long term, for the health of its own democracy, not just for its national security interests related to Russia and China.

This is particularly important given the historical reluctance of the industry to diversify its operations or to quickly adapt to the needs of American troops engaged in conflict. During the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan, U.S. soldiers regularly faced shortages in equipment and ammunition. This had much to do with the fact that, by 2004, only one plant in Missouri produced ammunition for the entire U.S. military, down from five during the Vietnam War, plus there was only one manufacturer of protective body armor. For years, the industry—supported by the Pentagon—has tried to do more with less, to consolidate its operations then ramp up production in times of crisis. But this strategy has not worked for the United States in the past, and it is currently not working for Ukraine.

The United States cannot be an arsenal of democracy to Ukraine, or to any country, if it does not better align its foreign and domestic policies in ways that improve the lives of American citizens. To better serve Ukraine, the United States must invest more in Americans’ futures, not just in its own defense capabilities.

How America Broke Its War Machine

Privatization and the Hollowing Out of the U.S. Defense Industry

By Michael Brenes

July 3, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Michael Brenes · July 3, 2023

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the United States pledged its “unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty.” This support has materialized in over $75 billion in security assistance to date, with the United States committed to aiding Ukraine until the fighting stops. As U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in announcing a new installment of weapons to Ukraine: “The United States and our allies and partners will stand united with Ukraine, for as long as it takes.”

These unlimited commitments to furnishing Ukraine with weapons to counter Russian aggression have invoked parallels to World War II. Weeks after the fighting began, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued that the United States and its allies are “serving as the ‘arsenal of democracy,’ giving the defenders of freedom the material means to keep fighting” in Ukraine. Journalist Elliot Ackerman then wrote that the workers building missiles for Ukraine’s defense “are a key component of America’s arsenal of democracy.” President Joe Biden has also embraced the “arsenal of democracy” analogy. When he visited a Lockheed Martin plant in Troy, Alabama, in May last year, Biden told the audience that the United States “built the weapons and the equipment that helped defend freedom and sovereignty in Europe years ago” and is doing so again today.

But this lofty rhetoric does not match the reality on the ground. Shortages in production, inadequate labor pools, and interruptions in supply chains have hamstrung the United States’ ability to deliver weapons to Ukraine and enhance the country’s defense capabilities more broadly. These problems have much to do with the history of the U.S. defense industry since World War II. Creeping privatization during the Cold War, along with diminished federal investment and oversight of defense contracting since the 1960s, helped bring about the inefficiency, waste, and lack of prioritization that are complicating U.S. assistance to Ukraine today.

After the Berlin Wall fell, major players in the U.S. defense industry consolidated and downsized their operations and labor forces. They also pursued government contracts for expensive, experimental weaponry to obtain larger profits to the detriment of small arms and ammunition production. As a result, the industry has been underprepared in responding to the Ukraine crisis and unmoored from the broader national security needs of the United States and its allies. Although reforms are possible, there are no quick fixes to these self-inflicted injuries.

THE WAY WE WERE

Today’s defense industry bears no resemblance to the U.S. system of military production during World War II. Back then, the industry was predominantly a government-run business. President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal emphasized economic regulation and relied on “alphabet agencies” such as the Works Progress Administration to boost employment, paving the way for later wartime contracting. New Deal agencies inspired the creation of the War Production Board in 1942, which mobilized business and rationed resources for the battlefront. Weapons production was concentrated in shipbuilding and aircraft, with companies based mainly in industrial centers in the Northeast and Midwest in government-owned, government-operated facilities known as GOGO plants. The government owned nearly 90 percent of the productive capacity of aircraft, ships, and guns and ammunition. This is in contrast to today’s climate, where commercial items have comprised over 88 percent of new procurement awards since 2011, and private capital invests over $6 billion a year in the defense industry.

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, federal control over defense production, and the Roosevelt administration’s rapid response to the attack, allowed speedy conversion from civilian to military production at companies such as Ford and General Motors, which went from making automobiles to bombers. Big companies were not the only ones to prosper. The federal government also looked to support small subcontractors that produced war-related materials in government-operated plants. Back then, no small group of powerful contractors dominated the industry, unlike today’s “Big Five”: Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon.

Although the scale of weapons production for Ukraine is nowhere near equivalent to what was needed during World War II, that time period still provides valuable insight into today’s problems. As historian Mark Wilson has shown, the success of military mobilization during World War II—the ability to become an arsenal of democracy—required central planning and government control over industry. This is an essential lesson for those concerned with the U.S. defense industrial base and its ability to provide Ukraine and its allies additional weapons: government-mandated war production was required to provide the Allied powers with the requisite material they needed to defeat the Axis powers and end widespread unemployment created from the Great Depression—not private ingenuity alone.

BIG BUSINESS

The federal effort to spur employment through defense ended in the 1960s. Defense contractors lobbied Congress to relax government regulations to privatize the industry’s operations even before World War II ended. Defense mobilization during the Korean War revealed the growing power of private enterprise in U.S. military affairs. When war broke out in 1950, President Harry Truman relied on both executive orders and congressional legislation (including the 1950 Defense Production Act) to spur private—not public—investment in the military. As historian Tim Barker has pointed out, 90 percent of war production during the Korean War came from private finance.

After the Korean War, the federal government aimed to create jobs in the private defense sector and in universities working on Pentagon-funded projects; it did not focus on public employment. The federal government believed it had an obligation to create jobs to enhance a “cooperation with science and industry,” in the words of President Dwight Eisenhower. The U.S. government also sought to outcompete the Soviet Union in the space and arms race by growing the American labor force. Shocked by the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957, Eisenhower signed into law the 1958 National Defense Education Act, which provided government scholarships and loans to Americans pursuing secondary degrees (including doctorates) in science and technology related to the defense industry. The program raised the fortunes of the middle class, funding students in need who wished to pursue careers in defense. The National Defense Education Act enhanced the livelihoods of Americans, bringing thousands of Americans into the middle class, and setting a precedent for government to subsidize private job creation for the purposes of national security.

During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara instituted a series of reforms that both deemphasized the production of conventional weapons and closed large GOGO facilities. By the time U.S. military operations in Vietnam escalated into a full-fledged war in 1965, most defense installations were no longer government-owned, government-operated plants. In the years to come, the industry increasingly relied on government-owned, contractor-operated plants that gave companies more leeway to oversee their operations. The industry’s growing independence—and reduced accountability—led to a backlash during the Vietnam years. By the late 1960s, members of Congress, particularly William Proxmire, a Democratic senator from Wisconsin, were more vocal about the waste and abuse in the Pentagon budget. “It is discouraging for me, as a citizen and senator, to know that weapons cost far too much, are delivered far too late, and function far below their specifications,” Proxmire said in 1970. Still, Congress proved unable to enforce sustained regulations on the defense industry.

In the decades that followed, the rate of privatization and decline of congressional oversight only quickened. When cost overruns and fiscal management almost forced major companies such as Lockheed to near bankruptcy, defense companies complained of insufficient profits. After Vietnam, there was less pressure on Congress to scrutinize the industry, and the Department of Defense looked to help companies accumulate more profit by encouraging private investment in defense plants and weapons production that set the stage for the 1980s and 1990s.

THE LAST SUPPER

Vietnam was the last major conventional war for the U.S. defense industry. After the war ended in 1973 and the defense budget began to shrink, the industry shifted to foreign arms sales. The rise in arms exports to countries in the global South—from $404 million in 1970 to $9.9 billion in 1974—also coincided with deindustrialization and the outsourcing of defense manufacturing to foreign countries. This caused plant closures and job losses in domestic manufacturing in the United States. More defense parts were made overseas, and U.S. defense manpower declined by 9.8 percent from 1960 to 1975. Areas of the United States like New England saw a 50 percent decrease in civilian and military personnel.

By the 1980s, both the Pentagon and Congress grew increasingly concerned with the overall weaknesses of the defense industrial base. Lawmakers feared that the United States’ “mushrooming dependence on foreign sources,” according to Democratic Representative Richard Ichord of Missouri, would imperil defense preparedness. In 1988, the Pentagon warned that “in a national emergency, the consequences of extensive dependence on foreign sources could be extreme.”

Although President Ronald Reagan pursued a defense buildup, growing spending from $176.6 billion in 1981 to $325.1 billion in 1990 (defense spending climbed to over six percent of GDP between 1982 and 1988), he failed to address these concerns. Instead, defense spending under Reagan prioritized experimental projects such as the MX missile and the Strategic Defense Initiative, a proposed missile defense system that would protect the United States from nuclear attack. Nicknamed the “Star Wars” program, it cost the U.S. government $30 billion before President Bill Clinton canceled it in 1993. The Reagan administration also poured money into advanced aircraft such as the B-2 stealth bomber and the F-22 stealth fighter over other less glamorous purchases of artillery and ammunition.

Reagan also failed to properly modernize defense plants in the United States and revive the manufacturing workforce in the defense sector. The largest defense companies fared the best under Reagan. By 1987, Paul Burnsky of the AFL-CIO warned Congress that “American companies that formed the core of the U. S. defense … are finding little support from the Reagan Administration. Many have gone bankrupt, particularly the subcontractors in the small business community.” Other subcontractors found defense business to be less than lucrative in the 1980s and shifted to other sources of revenue. The Reagan buildup also coincided with an antigovernment ethos that permeated American politics and shaped the decisions on national defense made by both Democrats and Republicans. This ethos even shaped defense acquisition reform in the 1980s. When reporters uncovered rampant waste and abuse within the procurement process— including the discovery that the Navy was paying $600 for toilet seats —the 1986 Packard Commission criticized government inefficiency as the source of the problem. “The nation’s defense programs lose far more to inefficient procedures than to fraud and dishonesty,” wrote the commission. A faith in free trade, cost cutting, and “efficiency” also expedited defense outsourcing, enabling the defense industry to continue to shed American workers. Indeed, the U.S.-based defense workforce would reach its height in the 1980s with 3.2 million people, consistently declining to the present day number of 1.1 million.

The defense industry has been underprepared in responding to the Ukraine crisis.

When the end of the Cold War led to a discussion of a “peace dividend,” and U.S. policymakers began reevaluating how much to spend on defense, military contractors felt they had to make a choice: consolidate or perish. At an infamous 1993 dinner at the Pentagon, which is known among industry insiders as “The Last Supper,” Pentagon leaders warned the CEOs of the country’s biggest defense companies that the defense budget was about to fall precipitously. Deputy Secretary of Defense William Perry told them, “We expect defense companies to go out of business. We will stand by and watch it happen.”

Contractors got the message and began consolidating. Mergers went from being valued at $300 million in 1990 to $20 billion by 1996. The number of contractors for tactical missiles went from 13 to three, and for fixed-wing aircraft, the number went from eight to two. Clinton hoped consolidation would lower costs and streamline the contracting process. Neither materialized. Thousands of jobs were lost, and the Clinton administration offered meager assistance to those newly out of work.

Although defense spending surged again after 9/11, little changed in the defense industry. Consolidation continued to grow during the “war on terror” and has now reached record numbers due the influence of private equity firms. Indeed, recent statistics indicate more than 500 companies have been bought out by private equity in the last two decades, which has lent further instability and unaccountability to defense acquisitions. The high rate of debt held by private equity firms, their lack of accountability to public oversight, and their higher risk of default do not serve U.S. national security interests. In addition to the role of private equity, proliferation of Silicon Valley–based defense startups over the past several years has promised innovation and the modernization of the defense industrial base. But those promises have yet to materialize.

Meanwhile, defense contractors have continued to pursue big-ticket items over purchases of lower-cost munitions. For example, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is estimated to cost $1.6 trillion from start to finish. The production of small parts—rocket motors, ball bearings, tubes, steel casings, and other materials essential for the Ukrainians—is not as profitable and, until recently, had less importance for both the U.S. government and defense contractors. Parochial politics and lobbying have also skewed the Pentagon’s priorities and forced the military to maintain contracts for obsolete programs such as the littoral combat ship. As Undersecretary of Defense William LaPlante told Eric Lipton of The New York Times in March, “[The United States] really allowed production lines to go cold and watched as parts became obsolete.” Despite this, the industry continues to chase investment in high-cost advanced aircraft and missiles such as the B-21 stealth bomber and the LGM-35 Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile, even though these types of programs predictably lead to widespread delays and cost overruns, which American taxpayers have to cover.

THE HOME FRONT

This 70-year history of consolidation, privatization, outsourcing, job cuts, federal inaction, and a hunt for larger profits has created a perfect storm that now hobbles security assistance for Ukraine, and potentially for future conflicts, as well. As reported in Politico and The Wall Street Journal, the United States does not have the necessary labor force to produce the number of Javelin missiles requested by Ukraine, even after Ukraine burned through a putative five-year supply of Javelins in the first six months of the war. It also consumed what was meant to be a six-year supply of Stinger missiles in just ten months. One of the few U.S. government-owned, contractor-operated plants that produced the black powder needed for artillery rounds exploded in 2021 and was never rebuilt because it could not generate enough profit. Interruptions in global supply chains are also expected to plague the defense industry for the foreseeable future. Although the industry expects increased sales and profit margins over the next year, long-standing backlogs, supply disruptions, and cost overruns remain.

The United States cannot rectify these problems in the short term or reverse this history overnight. Comprehensive solutions require government involvement and stronger control over the industry in the immediate and long terms. Defense reform must go beyond acquisition or auditing—although changes are needed on both fronts. Congress must reimagine defense reform, drawing lessons from the last time the United States truly was an arsenal of democracy. A key takeaway from this time is that greater federal intervention in the defense industry is needed if the industry is to produce otherwise “unprofitable” weapons.

Signs of comprehensive bipartisan defense reform are on the horizon. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, has spearheaded legislation that takes on consolidation and monopolization, and her efforts are supported by some Republicans, such as Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa. Their efforts are laudable given that the numerous subcontractors that proved essential to winning World War II do not exist today because they cannot compete with the monopoly power of the “Big Five.”

Although reforms are possible, there are no quick fixes.

The preeminent concern among analysts has been how to replenish stockpiles of weapons to ensure the United States does not deplete its overall arsenal. But stockpiling weapons is impossible given the dearth in skilled American labor. Defense contractors have struggled to recruit workers for years in an industry that often requires vocational training or two-year degrees from its employees. Educating and training future defense workers takes time—time that Ukraine does not have at the moment. Weapons production cannot be willed into existence. To achieve a more stable, trained workforce, the United States must support job creation across all employment sectors, not just defense, so that Americans have the requisite skills and training needed in times of crisis. Biden is attempting to address this with the CHIPS and Science Act, which he signed into law in 2022. The impetus for the new law is the United States’ competition with China, and the legislation sponsors grants and loans to students pursuing careers in STEM fields. But the Biden administration can go beyond the program and pursue additional policies that subsidize higher education and job creation in peacetime—to revitalize struggling post-industrial cities that are involved in aiding Ukraine’s defense but will surely experience economic downturns when the war ends, such as Camden, Arkansas, or Troy, Alabama, where over 25 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. The United States should expand its workforce for the long term, for the health of its own democracy, not just for its national security interests related to Russia and China.

This is particularly important given the historical reluctance of the industry to diversify its operations or to quickly adapt to the needs of American troops engaged in conflict. During the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan, U.S. soldiers regularly faced shortages in equipment and ammunition. This had much to do with the fact that, by 2004, only one plant in Missouri produced ammunition for the entire U.S. military, down from five during the Vietnam War, plus there was only one manufacturer of protective body armor. For years, the industry—supported by the Pentagon—has tried to do more with less, to consolidate its operations then ramp up production in times of crisis. But this strategy has not worked for the United States in the past, and it is currently not working for Ukraine.

The United States cannot be an arsenal of democracy to Ukraine, or to any country, if it does not better align its foreign and domestic policies in ways that improve the lives of American citizens. To better serve Ukraine, the United States must invest more in Americans’ futures, not just in its own defense capabilities.

• MICHAEL BRENES is Interim Director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy and Lecturer in History at Yale University.

Foreign Affairs · by Michael Brenes · July 3, 2023

​23. Special Operations News Update - July 5, 2023 | SOF News

Special Operations News Update - July 5, 2023 | SOF News

sof.news · by SOF News · July 5, 2023

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

Photo / Image: Marines in a Combat Rubber Raid Craft during a boat raid exercise. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Joshua Brittenham, September 14, 2020)

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SOF News

Saying Goodbye to Billy Waugh. A legendary Green Beret was honored in a ceremony recently held at MacDill AFB, Tampa, Florida. The retired CSM had a distinguished career – his early days serving in Korea, then Vietnam, and finally serving for many years in the Central Intelligence Agency’s paramilitary program. While in his early 70s he infiltrated into Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 with a CIA team that linked up with members of the Afghan Northern Alliance. Billy Waugh passed away at the age of 93 and was known by some as “the Yoda of Special Forces”. “A Warrior’s Goodbye”, People Magazine, Jun 29, 2023. See also “The legend of Billy Waugh: Special Forces soldier, CIA contractor”, Army Times, June 30, 2023.

SEALs Seeking New Techologies. The acquisitions people at USSOCOM are always looking for new types of equipment that helps their special operators infiltrate, exfiltrate, and conduct their missions. The command’s Science and Technology Office continually evaluate new products for the SOF units. “Navy SEALs Seek New Tech for Covert Missions”, National Defense Magazine, June 30, 2023.

MARSOC 3 Update. Although manslaughter charges were dropped, two Marine Raiders may find that their special operations career could be coming to an end. The Marines have been fighting allegations stemming from an incident that took place in Erbil, Kurdistan in 2018 where they got into an altercation with an American civilian contractor – a retired Green Beret. The former Special Forces soldier was killed as a result of the incident. “Marines look to boot 2 of MARSOC 3 and take their Raider badge”, Task and Purpose, June 30, 2023.

NSW Center Has New Command Master Chief. CMDCM (SWCC) Joaquin Martinez is the newest command master chief for the Naval Special Warfare Center. He is the first Special Warfare Combatant Crewman (SWCC) operator to take the postion; previous CMDCM’s were members of the SEAL community. (DVIDS, Jun 29, 2023).

New Commander for 24th SOW. Col. Daniel Magruder assumed command of the 24th Special Operations Wing during a ceremony at the Special Tactics Training Squadron on Hurlburt Field on June 29, 2023. The outgoing commander, Col. Jason Daniels, is moving on to serve as the Deputy Director of Operations at headquarters AFSOC. “Magruder takes command of Special Tactics”, AFSOC, July 3, 2023.

AF PJs Need a New Boat. An elite unit of the Air Force is looking for a rigid-hull craft that can drop by parachute in the middle of the ocean from a C-130 or C-17, that can carry a 6-person team up to 300 nautical miles at 35 knots, and that has room for at least 2 ‘soaking wet’ astronauts. “Air Force Pararescue teams are looking for a new boat to rescue astronauts”, Task and Purpose, July 3, 2023.

SEALs in Congress. The number of U.S. Navy SEALs who are in or seeking office in Congress is growing. (The Washington Times, July 3, 2023).

Marine Raiders and the Tech They Need. MARSOC has a lot of unique hardware and software applications with which to perform their various missions. However, one distinct limitation is that these various systems and platforms don’t always ‘mesh’ with each other. “Enough ‘one trick ponies’: Marine special ops specialists want industry to help to fuse tech”, Breaking Defense, June 28, 2023.

GBs Provide Assistance to a Worthy Cause. Former Green Berets provided assistance to a benefit named “Green Beret with a Mission Challenge” recently held in New Hampshire. An endurance, skill, and obstacle course that simulated combat training for participants helped to raise money to support Camp Resilence. The funds raised will be used to provide therapeutic outdoor experiences to military veterans, first responders, and their families. “Green Beret with a Mission builds bridges and raises spirits”, Stars and Stripes, June 28, 2023.

Naval Commando Honored. Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class Art Nicholas was one of the first naval commandos and a celebrated World War II veteran. He was recently recognized with a Trident presentation. “Naval Legend and Original Naval Commando Honored at SEAL Graduation”, DVIDS, June 30, 2023.

Rubber Ducks – a Little History. There are various types of ‘duck insertions’ and they have probably been around since the early 1950s when first practiced by U.S. Army Special Forces. These insertion techniques can be used SOF elements infiltrating by fixed- or rotary-wing aircraft. There are soft ducks, k-ducks, hard ducks, and rolled ducks. Read more in “What Are Navy SEAL ‘Duck’ Insertions and Which One Would You Prefer?”, SANDBOXX, June 27, 2023.

SOF Cuts Ahead? The Army’s special operations community could see some cuts in the years ahead. As the military services shift from CT/COIN missions (and IW?) to a strategic competition focus it has to re-evaluate its force structure and budget. Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth has been setting the stage for a reduction in ARSOF with recent statements. This certainly is concerning and it seems like we are repeating the mistakes of the early 70s. “Army secretary talks force structure cuts, SOF ‘reform'”, Army Times, June 28, 2023.

SEALs: Most Dangerous Weapon? This article describes the physical and mental toughness necessary to become a U.S. Navy SEAL. “The U.S. Navy SEALs: America’s Most Dangerous ‘Weapon’?”, by Kris Osborn, 1945, July 2, 2023.

New SOCKOR Commander Brings Change. Special Operations Command Korea recently had a change of command ceremony which witnessed the departure of Maj. Gen. Michael Martin and the arrival of Brig. Gen. Derek Lipson. Read more in “Brig. General Derek N. Lipson: Pioneering Change in US Special Operations Command – Korea”, SOFREP, July 1, 2023.

International SOF

GBs and Finland’s Utti Jaeger Regiment. The 10th Special Forces Group has been busy training up on its winter warfare skills over the past few months with Finland’s Utti Jaeger Regiment. Now that Finland is part of NATO, Russia has to contend with NATO troops positioned along its very long border in the north. Read more in “US Green Berets are looking to troops from NATO’s newest member as ‘mentors’ for harsh winter combat”, Business Insider, June 28, 2023.

South Korea SOF Visits U.S. SOF-Capable Sub. The commander of SOCKOR and ROK Navy Special Warfare Flotilla paid a visit to the Ohio-class guided-missile submarine USS Michigan during June 2023. The sub is one of four Ohio-class guided-missile submarines. “Michigan Leaves Busan After ROK Special Operations Forces Visit”, DIVDS, June 22, 2023.

Polish CT Police Moves to Border. The relocation of Wagner Group forces from Russia to Belarus following a failed Wagner Group revolt has stoked fears of greater instability in the region. Police from Polish riot patrol and counterterrorism units will deploy along the border, joining 5,000 Polish security guards and 2,000 soldiers already stationed at the border. It is believed that up to 8,000 Wagner Group fighters are now in Belarus. “Poland to send counterterrorism police to Belarus border”, Politico, July 2, 2023.

Greek Amphib Raiders to Get New Speedboats. The Hellenic Amry Amphibious Raider Squadrons of the Joint Special Operations Command is receiving 41 new S1200 Armored speedboats. “Hellenic Army receives S1200 Armored speedboats”, Janes.com, July 4, 2023.

China’s SF. The growth and modernization of Chinese Special Forces represent an ever-growing challenge to U.S. military hegemony. Chinese SOF units have significantly transformed over the past several years. “The Modernization of Chinese Special Forces”, SOFREP, July 3, 2023.

U.S. and Philippine SOF Exercise. The United States Special Operations Command Pacific (SOFPAC) and members of the Philippine Army’s 18th Special Forces Company (18SFC) are in the middle of at five-week long exercise aimed at enhancing the capabilities and readiness of Filipino special forces. The bilateral exercise began on June 12 in the joint operational area of the Western Command. “US-Philippines joint exercise strengthens special forces for enhanced security”, Palawan News, July 2, 2023.

UK SF and War Crimes. Special forces commanders in the United Kingdom allegely destroyed computer data to hid potential evidence of the killing of unarmed Afghan civilians. It is alleged that the SF officers deleted the files prior to a visit by the Royal Military Police as a part of a war crimes investigation. “UK special forces chiefs allegedly deleted war crimes data ahead of probe”, Arab News, July 2, 2023.

SOF History

On June 29, 1990, the 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) was reactivated to cover Special Forces operations in EUCOM’s African region.

On June 30, 1972, the 8th Special Forces Group (Airborne) was redesignated as the 3rd Bn 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) in Panama.

On July 2, 1959, detachments of the 77th Special Forces Group began Project HOTFOOT in Laos. Special Forces personnel, wearing civilian clothes and assuming the role of contracted civilian technicians, trained Laotian Armed forces units on U.S. weapons and individual soldier skills. At the time, Laos was a Cold War ‘hot spot’ facing threats from the Communist Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese Army troops operating inside Laos. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hotfoot_(Laos)

On this day, July 4, 1968, The Green Berets, a film loosely based on a book by Robin Moore, was released starring John Wayne as a colonel in Vietnam and David Janssen as a newspaper correspondent who questioned the war’s wisdom. Much of the film was shot in the summer of 1967 (before the Tet Offensive).

On July 8, 1961, the 20th Special Forces Group (Airborne) was activated in Birmingham, Alabama.

On July 9, 1941, the First Special Service Force was officially activated.

https://armyhistory.org/first-special-service-force/

On July 9, 1961, teams of Green Berets began organizing and training tribesmen in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, forming up the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG).

Ukraine Conflict

Ukraine – Offensive Underway. The slow, steady, and incremental advance of Ukrainian forces along the front lines is continuing – especially in southern Ukraine. There are indications that the Ukrainians are concentrating their long-range fires on strikes deep behind enemy lines – hitting Russian supply depots in the occupied territories. The intent is to set the conditions for a larger scale attack into Russian-held areas of eastern Ukraine.

Russian Attacks. Over the past week Russian forces in eastern Ukraine have attempted some small-scale attacks yielding modest gains amid heavy fighting.

ATACMS for Ukraine? The Ukrainians may soon have an impressive weapon to use in their fight against the Russian invaders. The Biden administration is considering sending advanced long-range missiles to bolster Ukraine’s offensive capability. The ATACMS have a range of 190 miles (or more) and provide a very highly precision strike capability. Another capability needed by Ukraine are dual-purpose improved convention munitions or DPICM. It is an artillery shell that contains submunitions that are highly effective on the battlefield. For the moment, the U.S. has not decided whether to provide the DPICMs.

GIS Arta System. One of the reasons that Ukrainian offensive fires against Russian targets have been so successful is the use of a geographic information system for artillery app. “Uber for Artillery – What is Ukraine’s GIS Arta System?”, The Moloch, 2023.

SF Officer On Training Needed by Ukraine. Rudy Weisz, a U.S. Army Special Forces officer, provides his perspective on the type of training the Ukrainian military needs to be successful. He believes that the U.S. needs to avoid falling into the trap of pushing the Ukraine military to align its doctrine, force structure, and TTPs in lock-step with U.S. doctrine, force structure, and TTPs. And, he offers his opinion on the use of U.S. contractors to provide training as well. “Ukraine Doesn’t Need U.S. Contractors”, War on the Rocks, July 3, 2023.

Americans Fighting in Ukraine. Two former U.S. service members, one a Green Beret and the other a Marine, are profiled in this article by Shannon Vavra entitled “Americans Who Fought Putin Share ‘Horrifying’ War Surprises”, The Daily Beast, July 1, 2023.

Sudan Conflict and Evac of Foreign Nationals

Sudan Conflict Update. The fighting between the Sudanese Army and its rival paramilitary group is now about three months long – with no end in sight. The people of Sudan are in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. Negotiations have not been fruitful and are now dormant. Most civil aviation is cancelled except for humanitarian flights bringing aid into the country.

Royal Marines and the Sudan Evacuation. Military personnel from the UK Commando Force and other British units responded within hours to evacuate British nationals from Sudan as violence and threats rose in that country. They immediately set up operations at the Wadi Seidna Airport just north of Khartoum – flying out hundreds of British nationals as well as citizens of other countries. “Royal Marines mobilised within hours to fly into the ‘extraordinary uncertainty’ of Sudan”, Forces.net, June 30, 2023.

Update on the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF), ceasefire, humanitarian crisis, and evacuation of foreign nationals.

https://www.national-security.info/country/sudan/sudan-neo.html

National Security

More Drama Over Army PT Test. The U.S. Senate may attempt to roll back the U.S. Army’s efforts to update its method of evaluting the physical fitness of its soldiers. The Senate Armed Services Committee advanced legislation that includes restoring the Army’s Physical Fitness Test (APFT) as the test of record. Lawmakers are frustrated with the current Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) that became the official test on October 1, 2022. “Senate committee advances bill that may kill Army Combat Fitness Test”, Army Times, June 26, 2023.

Triple Canopy – Details of a U.S. PMC. The onset of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) witnessed numerous security contracting firms – large and small- that formed up to service the many DoD, DoS, and other U.S. government contracts that required security services in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in other parts of the world. One of the larger PMCs was Triple Canopy founded by former members of the special operations community. This firm has a solid presence around the world even today – despite the withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan by U.S. troops. “Triple Canopy: A Deep Dive”, Grey Dynamics, June 30, 2023.

Border Crisis. Since early 2021, annual encounters involving unaccompanied alien children (UC) at the U.S.-Mexico border by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have remained at record-high levels. Encounters include both apprehensions and expulsions. Since February 2021, UC encounters have consistently exceed 8,500 per month. Increasing Numbers of Unaccompanied Children at the Southwest Border, Congressional Research Service (CRS), CRS IN11638, updated June 28, 2023, PDF, 4 pages. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11638

Mongolia – Assisting in Peace and Security in Northeast Asia. Mongolia is taking a leading role among nations to promote human rights, denuclearization, and the peace process for the Korean penisular. A retired Special Forces officer, Dave Maxwell, recently returned from that country and provides details of this effort in a recently published article. “Mongolia Forum: Peace and security in Northeast Asia through Korean reunification”, The Korea Times, July 4, 2023.

UN Mission in Mali Ends. The United Nations Security Council has opted to end its years-long peacekeeping mission in Mali after the country’s military junta asked for its departure. MINUSMA’s 13,000 strong force will leave a security vacumn that will be filled by 1,000 personnel from the Wagner Group. Mali’s security forces will likely have increased difficulty in handling the Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands of people. The insurgents are linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. For many years the U.S. had Special Forces military training missions in Mali but scaled down their presence due to other worldwide committments. European nations, under French leadership, established Task Force Takuba – a European SOF element – to fill that gap. However, TF Takuba has also departed Mali. “UN ends peacekeeping mission in Mali, US blames Russia’s Wagner”, Reuters, June 30, 2023.

Blacksmith Publishing is a media partner of SOF News. They are a book publishing firm, sell ‘Pinelander Swag’, have a weekly podcast called The Pinelander.

Upcoming Events

July 9, 2023. Sagamore Beach, Massachusetts

13th Annual Blackbeard’s Motorcycle Ride

SSG Matthew Pucino Memorial Foundation

August 5, 2023. Perdido Key, Florida

Deep Dive 2023 Combat Diver Reunion

CDF

August 12, 2023

11th Special Forces Group Reunion

Fort Meade, MD

October 16-20, 2023

SOAR XLVII

Special Operations Association

December 8, 2023

Winter Cruise

Combat Diver Association

October 2024

SFA Caribbean Cruise and Annual Convention

Special Forces Association

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

Books, Pubs, and Reports

Sentinel. Published by Chapter 78 of the Special Forces Association, this monthly publication provides interesting reading for the Special Forces community. The July 2023 issue has several articles of interest to include a book review about the Jedburghs, Paris Davis (MoH recipient), El Salvador, a MAC-V Recondo Advisor, and more. https://www.specialforces78.com/chapter-78-newsletter-for-july-2023/

Book Review – Ballad of the Green Beret. A new book is out about the life and death of SSG Barry Sadler, the Special Forces NCO who’s song of the same name hit number one on the charts in the 1960s. The book covers his time in Vietnam, his stardom, and to his death. The book, 296 pages long, was published in 2023 and is reviewed in Military Review, July-August 2023.

CRS Report – Army’s XM-30 Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle. The Congressional Research Service has published a short brief (3 pages, PDF) about the U.S. Army’s Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) which will likely be designated the XM-30. The OMFV will have the capability to conduct remotely controlled operations while the crew is not in the vehicle. It is being designed to replace the M-2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV). The M-2 Bradley has been in service since 1981 and is used to transprot infantry on the battlefield, provide fire support to dismounted troops, and destroy enemy fighting vehicles. CRS, updated June 27, 2023. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12094

Podcasts, Videos, and Movies

Video – SWCC: Making an Operator. A short video about Special Warfare Combat Crewman (SWCC) training. DVIDS, June 30, 2023, one minute.

https://www.dvidshub.net/video/889036/swcc-making-operator-official-trailer

Podcasts

SOFCAST. United States Special Operations Command

https://linktr.ee/sofcast

The Pinelander. Blacksmith Publishing

https://www.thepinelander.com/

The Indigenous Approach. 1st Special Forces Command

https://open.spotify.com/show/3n3I7g9LSmd143GYCy7pPA

Irregular Warfare Initiative

https://irregularwarfare.org/category/podcasts/

Irregular Warfare Podcast. Modern War Institute at West Point

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/irregular-warfare-podcast/id1514636385

SOF News is not a ‘money making’ enterprise; but we do have administrative, operating, and publishing expenses. Individuals and businesses provide the funds to defray these expenses. Their contributions are deeply appreciated. Learn how you can support SOF News.

sof.news · by SOF News · July 5, 2023

24. How China's SOF Modernization Shifts Global Power Dynamics

How China's SOF Modernization Shifts Global Power Dynamics

sofrep.com · by SOFREP · July 3, 2023

by SOFREP 1 hour ago

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Chinese Special Forces. (Source: 玄史生/Wikimedia Commons)

The Modernization of Chinese Special Forces

In the intricate dance of global power dynamics, the growth and modernization of Chinese Special Forces represent an ever-growing challenge to U.S. military hegemony. Beijing’s methodical expansion and enhancement of its elite military units signal a strategic pivot in its approach to global security issues. This shift warrants close examination and strategic recalibration from the U.S. and its allies.

In the past few decades, the People’s Republic of China has embarked on a comprehensive campaign to modernize its military capabilities, moving away from a numerically dominant but technologically inferior force towards a smaller, agile, and technologically advanced military. A critical component of this shift has been the evolution and modernization of its Special Operations Forces (SOF).

China’s SOF units, part of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), have significantly transformed. From the formidable “Leopard” and “Falcon” units of the PLA’s Ground Forces to the “Jiaolong” (Sea Dragons) of the PLA Navy, Chinese SOF units have seen an increase in their operational capabilities and strategic importance. This shift isn’t merely cosmetic; it reflects a broader change in China’s defense strategy and global ambitions.

Advanced Weaponry and Tactics

This modernization has taken multiple forms. The Chinese SOF units have adopted advanced weaponry, enhanced their physical and tactical training regimes, and incorporated cutting-edge technologies like drones and cyber warfare into their operational playbook. This technological leapfrogging aims to close the gap between the PLA and its Western counterparts.

The shift is not merely technological. The Chinese military doctrine has also evolved, placing a greater emphasis on asymmetric warfare and joint operations. The PLA’s SOF units have been trained to operate in a variety of terrains and conditions, from the urban jungles to the high-altitude landscapes of Tibet, with the capability to execute missions across the spectrum of warfare, including counter-terrorism, reconnaissance, sabotage, and psychological operations.

The modernization of the Chinese SOF is closely tied to China‘s broader geopolitical ambitions. As Beijing seeks to assert its influence across the Indo-Pacific and beyond, a robust and modern SOF becomes an essential tool in its strategic toolkit. This projection of power, whether in the contested waters of the South China Sea or along the contentious Sino-Indian border, is facilitated by a highly trained, technologically advanced, and strategically deployed SOF.

Willingness to Contest the West

This expansion and modernization of the Chinese SOF present a real challenge to U.S. military hegemony. It signals Beijing’s willingness to contest Washington’s dominance in areas previously considered unchallenged, particularly in special operations. This shift necessitates a strategic recalibration from the U.S., not merely in terms of matching capabilities but in understanding and responding to the changing dynamics of global power.

In response, the U.S. and its allies must continue to invest in their own SOF capabilities in terms of technology and personnel. This includes enhancing training regimes, investing in new technologies, and developing strategies to counter potential Chinese SOF operations.

The U.S. Response

Simultaneously, the U.S. must foster and deepen its alliances in the Indo-Pacific region. Leveraging relationships with regional powers like India, Japan, and Australia can help counterbalance China’s growing military assertiveness. These alliances can also provide valuable intelligence sharing and joint training opportunities to counter the threats posed by a modernized Chinese SOF.

The U.S. must focus on ‘winning hearts and minds’ in the region.

Investing in diplomatic initiatives, economic partnerships, and cultural exchanges can help counter China’s assertive military posture and strengthen U.S.’s position.

The modernization of the Chinese SOF represents a significant challenge to U.S. military hegemony. It serves as a stark reminder of China’s growing global ambitions and willingness to invest in its military capabilities to achieve its strategic objectives. In this changing global landscape, the U.S. and its allies must recalibrate their strategies and deepen their cooperation to maintain balance and stability in the region.

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Want to know more? Check this book: “PLA Influence on China’s National Security Policymaking.”

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sofrep.com · by SOFREP · July 3, 2023

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De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com