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Quotes of the Day:
“It is hard for me to understand a culture that not only hates and fights his brothers but even attacks Nature and abuses her. Man must love all creation or he will love none of it. Love is something you and I must have. We must have it because our spirit feeds upon it. Without our courage fails. Without love we can no longer look out confidently at the world. Instead we turn inwardly and begin to feed upon our own personalities and little b little we destroy ourselves.
- Chief Dan George
“The way to secure peace is to be prepared for war. They that are on their guard, and appear ready to receive their adversaries, are in much less danger of being attacked, than the supine, secure, ad negligent”
- Benjamin Franklin
"If you lost the capacity to read, or play music, you would think it was a disaster, but you think nothing of losing the capacity to be honest, decent and civilized."
- Marcus Aurelius
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 21 (Putin's War)
2. A Russian soldier’s journal: ‘I will not participate in this madness’
3. Applications to Service Academies Plummet Amid Recruitment and Pandemic Woes
4. Russia’s ‘most hidden crime’ in Ukraine war: Rape of women, girls, men and boys
5.The Easy Way to Reset Saudi Ties: Sanction the Houthis Again
6. China Hasn’t Reached the Peak of Its Power
7. Afghanistan’s Terrorist Threats to America Are Growing
8. Analysis: Thirty hour long hotel siege emblematic of Somalia’s remaining security challenges
9. The Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis Is Just Starting
10. Taliban Appoints Former Guantanamo Bay Detainee to Lead Fight in Panjshir
11. Will the Drone War Come Home? Ukraine and the Weaponization of Commercial Drones
12. This is what spy fiction leaves out about the CIA
13. "This is what a loophole looks like," says veteran who does not qualify for help under new burn pit law
14. Turkey’s Erdogan Is Down But Not Out
15. VMI’s male cadets were berating her. The 1997 Hell Week photo went viral.
16. Dugin Assassination Plot: Here’s What We Know Thanks to a Source
17. Kremlin Claims Monkeypox Could Be a Secret U.S. Bioweapon
18. China's Belt and Road is facing challenges. But can the US counter it?
19. China/Taiwan Crisis Shows We Need To Arm our Allies
20. Analysis | Six months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the world is on a knife edge
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 21 (Putin's War)
Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-21
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 21
understandingwar.org
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 21
Kateryna Stepanenko, Grace Mappes, Layne Philipson, and Frederick W. Kagan
August 21, 9:30 pm ET
Click here to see ISW's interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
Russian forces’ momentum from territorial gains around Bakhmut and Avdiivka in late July is likely exhausted, and Russian attacks in eastern Ukraine are likely culminating although very small Russian advances will likely continue. Russian forces seized Novoluhanske and the Vuhlehirska Thermal Power Plant (TPP) southeast of Bakhmut on July 25 and 26, respectively, consolidating Russian control around difficult water features after many weeks of fighting. Russian sources celebrated these gains as a significant military victory without noting that Ukrainian military Ukrainian forces successfully broke contact and withdrew from the area.[1] Russian forces also celebrated the capture of Ukrainian fortifications around the Butivka Coal Mine ventilation shaft southwest of Avdiivka, after Ukrainian forces withdrew from the area on July 30.[2] Russian forces capitalized on these gains to a limited extent and have been attacking toward Bakhmut from the northeast and southeast, and around Avdiivka, but these attacks are now stalling. Russian forces have not made significant territorial gains around Bakhmut or Avdiivka since their advances through Novoluhanske, the power plant, the Butivka Coal Mine, and a few small settlements near those areas.
Russian forces’ failure to capitalize on prior gains around Bakhmut and Avdiivka is an example of a more fundamental Russian military problem—the demonstrated inability to translate tactical gains into operational successes. Russian forces have consistently failed to take advantage of tactical breakthroughs to maneuver into Ukrainian rear areas or unhinge significant parts of the Ukrainian defensive lines. They therefore continually give the Ukrainians time to disengage tactically and re-establish defensible positions against which the Russians must then launch new deliberate attacks. This phenomenon helps explain the extremely slow rate of Russian advances in the east and strongly suggests that the Russians will be unable to take much more ground in the coming months unless the situation develops in unforeseen ways. Russian forces will likely remain unable to commit enough resources to any one offensive operation to regain the momentum necessary for significant territorial advances that translate to operational successes. Russian forces will also need to generate and commit additional assault groups, equipment, and morale to resume even these limited territorial advances yielding small tactical gains.
Russian forces likely face issues repairing combat aircraft due to Western sanctions and may be attempting to bypass these sanctions by leveraging Belarusian connections with less severe sanctions. The Ukrainian Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) stated that the Russian and Belarusian Defense Ministries signed “urgent” contracts on August 20 to repair and restore Russian military aviation equipment on Belarusian territory reportedly for further use in Ukraine.[3] Western sanctions against Russia have largely banned the transfer of equipment to the state of Russia as a whole, while sanctions against Belarus largely target individual Belarusian entities.[4] Western countries have previously sanctioned Belarusian industrial-military complex entities producing radar systems, automobiles, and repairing tracked vehicles, but it is unclear to what extent the sanctions impacted Belarusian import of aviation repair parts.[5] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces transferred some unspecified air defense equipment to Belarus from Russia on August 21. The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Russian forces will close certain sections of Russian airspace in the Lipetsk, Voronezh, and Belgorod Oblasts from August 22-25.[6] The Russian-Belarusian agreement may suggest that Russian officials are attempting to circumvent sanctions on Russia, as it may be easier to import repair parts to Belarus than to Russia.
Key Takeaways
- Russian offensive operations in eastern Ukraine have likely exhausted the limited momentum they gained at the end of July and are likely culminating. The Russian military has shown a continual inability to translate small tactical gains into operational successes, a failing that will likely prevent Russia from making significant territorial advances in the coming months barring major changes on the battlefield.
- Ukrainian military intelligence reports that Russia and Belarus have reached an “urgent” agreement for Belarus to repair damaged Russian aviation equipment for re-use in Ukraine. This agreement could be part of a Russian effort to use the looser sanctions regime on Belarus to circumvent sectoral sanctions on Russia.
- Russian forces attempted several unsuccessful ground assaults southwest and southeast of Izyum.
- Russian forces launched a ground attack southeast of Siversk and northeast and south of Bakhmut.
- Russian forces made limited gains west of Donetsk City but did not conduct any ground assaults on the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast administrative border.
- Russian forces attempted unsuccessful ground assaults southwest of Donetsk City and continued attacking settlements northwest and southwest of Avdiivka.
- Russian forces conducted several assaults on the Kherson-Mykolaiv frontline and made partial advances east of Mykolaiv City.
- Russian forces are likely not training new recruits in discipline, creating an entitled force engaging in disorderly conduct in Russia and illegal conduct in Ukraine.
- Russian occupation authorities intensified filtration measures and abductions in occupied territories ahead of Ukraine’s Independence Day on August 24.
We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
- Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and two supporting efforts);
- Subordinate Main Effort—Encirclement of Ukrainian Troops in the Cauldron between Izyum and Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts
- Supporting Effort 1—Kharkiv City
- Supporting Effort 2—Southern Axis
- Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
- Activities in Russian-occupied Areas
Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine
Subordinate Main Effort—Southern Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk Oblasts (Russian objective: Encircle Ukrainian forces in Eastern Ukraine and capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian forces conducted several assaults southwest and southeast of Izyum on August 21, likely in an effort to reverse Ukrainian counterattacks or regain control over Ukraine-liberated territories in the area. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully conducted a reconnaissance-in-force operation in the direction of Pasika-Bohorodychne and launched a failed assault in the direction of Dovhenke-Dolyna, both directions southeast of Izyum.[7] Russian forces also launched an unsuccessful reconnaissance-in-force attempt in the direction of Petropillia-Dmytrivka and failed to advance in the directions of Nova Dmytrivka, Dibrivne, and Kranaukhivka (all southwest of Izyum).[8] ISW previously assessed that Ukrainian forces liberated Bohorodychne, Dmytrivka, and Dibrivne, and Russian attacks in these directions may indicate that Russian forces are attempting to regain lost territories and prevent Ukrainian forces from advancing from these liberated positions further into Russian-held territory.
Russian forces launched a ground attack southeast of Siversk but failed to advance towards the settlement on August 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted to advance from Berestove to Ivano-Daryivka, approximately 17km and 12km southeast of Siversk, respectively.[9] Russian and Ukrainian sources reported that Russian forces shelled Siversk, Hryhorivka, Verkhnokamyanske, and Ivano-Daryivka.[10]
Russian forces continued to wage battles northeast and south of Bakhmut on August 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian ground assaults on Bakhmutske (about 11km northeast of Bakhmut) and Zaitseve (about 8km southeast of Bakhmut).[11] Russian forces also launched airstrikes near Zaitseve, Bakhmut, and Soledar (approximately 13km northeast of Bakhmut).[12] Geolocated footage published on August 20 showed Ukrainian artillery striking Russian infantry in the southeastern outskirts of Soledar, which likely indicates that Russian forces are still operating in the vicinity of the Knauf Gips Donbas gypsum factory.[13] The Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Territorial Defense claimed that Ukrainian forces are shelling Zaitseve from their positions southwest of the settlement, after DNR officials previously claimed that Russian forces seized the settlement on August 20.[14] Russian and DNR sources have claimed to control major areas of Zaitseve since August 10, and ISW cannot independently confirm these claims.[15] Geolocated footage also showed fire and smoke reportedly after Ukrainian forces struck an ammunition depot in Horlivka.[16]
Russian forces made limited territorial gains west of Donetsk City and continued attacking settlements northeast and southwest of Avdiivka on August 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces were “partially successful” when advancing in the direction of Lozove-Pisky, 12km west and northwest of Donetsk City, respectively.[17] Russian forces also attempted to advance to Nevelske (about 18km due northwest of Donetsk City) but retreated. Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted to improve their tactical positions in the direction of Novoselivka Druha-Krasnohorivka (northeast of Avdiivka) and conducted a failed reconnaissance-in-force attempt in the direction of Opytne (about four kilometers southwest of Avdiivka).[18] Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov claimed that Russian forces consolidated control over Pisky and are currently clearing the settlement of Ukrainian mines.[19] Kadyrov also claimed that Russian forces are continuing to advance with “minimal risk to civilian population and infrastructure,” despite geolocated footage previously showing Russian forces firing TOS-1A thermobaric artillery systems at Pisky.[20] The Russian Defense Ministry has also claimed that Russian forces “fully liberated” Pisky on August 13.[21]
Russian forces attempted to advance southwest of Donetsk City and did not conduct offensive operations on the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast administrative border on August 21. Russian forces launched unsuccessful assaults on Mariinka (about 24km southwest of Donetsk City) and Pobieda, approximately four kilometers west of Mariinka.[22] Russian forces continued to launch airstrikes on Novomykhailivka and Pavlivka, approximately 30km and 52km southwest of Donetsk City, respectively.[23] Social media footage showed the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Vuhledar (about 49km southwest of Donetsk City) following Russian artillery fire on the settlement.[24]
Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv City (Russian objective: Defend ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum and prevent Ukrainian forces from reaching the Russian border)
Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground assaults along the Kharkiv City Axis on August 21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted an airstrike near Staryi Saltiv, approximately 45km northeast of Kharkiv City.[25] Russian forces continued using tank, tube, and rocket artillery to shell Kharkiv City and settlements to the north, northeast, and southeast and conducted aerial reconnaissance near Velyki Prokhody, approximately 28km north of Kharkiv City.[26]
Supporting Effort #2—Southern Axis (Russian objective: Defend Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts against Ukrainian counterattacks)
Russian forces conducted several assaults on the Mykolaiv-Kherson line on August 21. Ukrainian sources reported that Russian forces again tried and failed to advance to Tavryiske, about 38km northwest of Kherson City, and to Potomkyne, south of Kryvyi Rih on the T2207 highway.[27] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces made partial advances towards Blahodatne, east of Mykolaiv City.[28] Russian sources made various claims that Russian forces control part or all of Blahodatne.[29] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that Russian forces struck industrial and military infrastructure in Mykolaiv City with S-300 anti-aircraft missiles.[30] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted at least seven airstrikes along the line of contact, including near Lozove and Bila Krynytsia, likely targeting the Ukrainian bridgehead over the Inhulets River.[31] Ukrainian forces shot down three Russian UAVs in unspecified areas of Kherson Oblast.[32] Russian forces continued shelling throughout the Kherson-Mykolaiv line of contact.[33]
Russian forces are using barges to transport equipment across the Dnipro River in occupied Kherson Oblast. Geolocated satellite imagery shows that Russian forces have repaired barges and are using them to transport unknown materials across the Dnipro River close to Kherson City, confirming ISW’s August 17 assessment.[34] Russian forces have had to resort to other methods of maintaining ground lines of communication (GLOCs) across the Dnipro after consistent Ukrainian strikes have successfully rendered unusable both road bridges into western Kherson Oblast. These large barges likely require dedicated dock infrastructure to load and unload on both sides of the Dnipro River, which Ukrainian forces will likely target with further HIMARS strikes.[35]
Russian forces did not attempt any reported ground assaults in Zaporizhia Oblast on August 21. Russian forces conducted airstrikes on Hulyaipole and east of the city near Olhivske and Chervone.[36] The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that Russian forces struck a Ukrainian ammunition depot in Charivne, southwest of Hulyaipole.[37] Russian forces also targeted Nikopol, Marhanets, Vyshchetarasivka, and Illinka on the right bank of the Dnipro River, Myrivske on the northern outskirts of Kryvyi Rih, and the Zelendolsk and Apostolove hromadas, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast overnight on August 20-21 with heavy MLRS fire.[38] Russian forces continued heavy shelling throughout the line of contact.[39]
Ukrainian officials expressed continued concern about a possible Russian provocation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in the coming days. Ukrainian nuclear energy company Energoatom reported that Russian forces again shelled the ZNPP on August 20, damaging a personnel overpass into the power units.[40] Energoatom also warned on August 21 that the ZNPP remains at risk of radiation leakage but stated that the plant continues to operate.[41] Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that Russian occupation authorities extended a short-term break for Ukrainian ZNPP employees and have brought in Russian nuclear energy company Rosatom employees and more military equipment to the ZNPP grounds.[42] GUR warned that Russian forces may be trying to disconnect the ZNPP from Ukrainian power systems, which GUR claims could increase the risk of a disaster at the plant.[43] Ukrainian Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov stated on August 20 that Russian forces transported powerlines and oil barrels to Melitopol to prepare to connect the ZNPP to the Russian energy system, stealing energy from Ukraine.[44]
Russian forces launched five Kalibr missiles toward Odesa Oblast overnight on August 20-21. Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that Ukrainian air defenses intercepted two missiles and that the remaining three missiles struck open land and did not start fires.[45] The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that Russian forces struck complexes containing HIMARS in Maiorske, Odesa Oblast, but there is no evidence that the missiles struck military targets.[46]
Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)
Russian military recruiters are likely allowing Russian volunteers to behave in a lawless and disorderly way during their training and prior to their deployment to Ukraine so as to not discourage the limited number of interested recruits. Russian opposition outlet Verstka interviewed 12 residents of Mulino, Nizhny Novgorod, and compiled social media complaints from locals who discussed volunteers' behavior around the town. Mulino is home to a massive Russian military training area and reportedly is the base for the new 3rd Army Corps.[47] Locals told Verstka that ”several thousand servicemen” arrived in Mulino prior to deploying to Donbas and six groups of unspecified size have already rotated out of training (and presumably into Ukraine) since July.[48] Locals stated that these volunteers are largely between the ages of 40 to 50, which confirms ISW’s previous observations that some recruits appeared to be older than the traditional age for new and raw recruits.[49] Mulino residents reported that volunteers are committing robberies, harassing women, instigating fights, and heavily abusing alcohol after their training days end at seven o'clock at night.[50] Mulino authorities reportedly began patrolling the town as of last week, but residents speculate that the local police are likely releasing arrested volunteers because they are needed for deployment to Ukraine. One resident stated that these volunteers are ”meat” for deployment, while other social media users expressed concern that rowdy and lawless volunteers will harm Russian servicemen at the frontlines.
Verstka’s report likely indicates that Russian military authorities are unwilling to discipline these new recruits, lured into service at great cost and effort. Indiscipline and de facto immunity from discipline during training will very likely translate into a poorly trained and entitled volunteer force that is used to committing crimes and getting away with it. Such behavior among volunteers may lead to conflicts with fellow Russian servicemen, disobedience, alcohol and drug abuse, looting, and potential victimization of Ukrainians in occupied areas. The report also further confirms that Russian forces have deployed some unspecified groups of volunteers to Ukraine after a short training period. The ages of volunteers and reported criminal and addictive behaviors also indicate that Russian military recruiters are scrambling for any volunteers regardless of criminal background, age, or military experience. The negative comments by locals about the recruits can also harm public perception of the Russian Armed Forces by Russians in the future, potentially further reducing the already-low proclivity to serve among Russians.
Russian opposition outlet Novaya Gazeta reported that 33 Russian federal subjects are forming 52 volunteer battalions and military units. Novaya Gazeta also found that the Kremlin is forming 10 other military formations – within private military companies (PMC) Wagner and Redut, Cossack detachments, the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR), and Russian Combat Army Reserve (BARS) - that are competing for volunteers.[51] Novaya Gazeta reported that the Russian Defense Ministry is overseeing the recruitment for regional volunteer battalions, the BARS program (which includes the units ”Rusich,” ”Imperskiy Legion,” ”Russkiy Legion,” and ”Soyuz Dobrovoltsev Donbassa”), and Redut (which includes the ”Veterany” Battalion and the ”Don” Cossack Brigade). Wagner is also selectively recruiting volunteers, while the DNR and LNR are forming the ”Sparta” Volunteer Battalion and the ”Pyatnashka” Volunteer Brigade. The report identified that Russian volunteer units are training in the following areas: Olgino, Severyanin, and Luga (all near St.Petersburg); Mulino; Kazan Higher Tank Command School training ground; southeast of Tambov; Totskoye; and Bambyrovo and Ussuriyskiy Zaliv (both in Primorsky Krai). PMC volunteers undergo training near Rostov-on-Don, Molkino (Krasnodar Krai), and at the SPETSNAZ University in Chechnya.
Russian military recruiters continued to promise extravagant rewards to men who sign military contracts to fight and are part of units that make territorial gains in Ukraine. Armavir City Military Recruitment Center in Krasnodar Krai posted an advertisement that calculated that a private could earn 1.9 million rubles (about $32,000) in one month if the unit he is in advances one kilometer per day in Ukraine.[52] The recruiters promised each serviceman 50,000 rubles (about $840) for each kilometer that the recruit advances on the frontline. Russian federal subjects on average seek to recruit a volunteer unit composed of 350 people, and if the whole hypothetical unit advances by a kilometer (and everyone in it survives) the Kremlin would owe payment of 17.5 million rubles (about $294,000) to the entire unit. This ad reveals several important things about how Russia is fighting this war and seeking to find soldiers to continue doing so. First, it assumes daily rates of advance similar to World War I patterns -30 kilometers advance in a month is an incredibly slow rate of forward progress for a mechanized force, but in line with the rate of advance Russian forces have sustained in recent months when they have advanced at all. Second, it shows how desperately recruiters are trying to lure men to join volunteer units and how hard they are finding it. Third, it shows that the Kremlin is still trying to solve its manpower problems by throwing money at them to incentivize voluntary service rather than by considering coercion.
Activity in Russian-occupied Areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of occupied areas; set conditions for potential annexation into the Russian Federation or some other future political arrangement of Moscow’s choosing)
Russian occupation authorities escalated measures to increase control of occupied areas in Ukraine through increased filtration and the abduction of civilians. Ukrainian Kherson Oblast Administration Head Yaroslav Yanushevych warned on August 21 that Russian occupation authorities have intensified filtration efforts in Kherson Oblast ahead of Ukraine’s Independence Day on August 24.[53] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Russian forces have increased kidnappings and abductions throughout the occupied territories, emphasizing that Russian forces are targeting volunteers and local Ukrainian officials who refuse to cooperate with occupation authorities.[54]
Russian occupation authorities continued efforts to strengthen control of the youth population in occupied areas of Ukraine in support of broader efforts to extend administrative control of occupied territories. Head of Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Denis Pushilin claimed on August 21 that Russian authorities have already delivered more than 200,000 of the planned 3.3 million textbooks to occupied cities in Donetsk Oblast in preparation for the upcoming school year.[55] Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) officials reported on August 21 that Novoderkul, Luhansk Oblast, hosted the first oath-taking ceremony of the Russian Young Army Cadets National Movement (Yunarmia) in the occupied territories.[56] ISW previously assessed on July 17 that new Yunarmia formations are unlikely to enter combat for some time as the organization recruits volunteers ages eight to eighteen.[57]
Russian officials continued encountering widespread resistance from Ukrainian teachers and parents who refuse to participate in the Russian-controlled education system. Kherson Oblast Administration Advisor Serhiy Khlan stated on August 21 that Kherson Oblast teachers and parents have increased pressure on Russian occupation authorities and continue to disrupt plans to integrate the region into the Russian Federation.[58] Deputy of the Nova Kakhovka City Council Irena LePen reported on August 20 that only one child and one tutor were present at the “Ivonka” kindergarten’s opening ceremony in Nova Kakhovka.[59]
Kherson Oblast Administration Advisor Serhiy Khlan reported on August 20 that Russian occupation authorities have yet to conduct full-fledged preparations for the Kherson Oblast pseudo-referendum to join Russia (reportedly to occur in exactly three weeks as of August 20).[60] Khlan stated that Russian officials may reschedule the referendum for the fourth time due to lack of adequate preparations.[61]
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.
[3] https://gur dot gov.ua/content/biloruski-spetsialisty-vidnovliuiut-rosiiski-boiovi-litaky.html
[5] https://news dot zerkalo.io/economics/14481.html; https://tass dot ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/11764751
[42] https://gur dot gov.ua/content/na-zaes-prodovzhyly-vykhidni-dlia-ukrainskoho-personalu.html
[43] https://gur dot gov.ua/content/na-zaes-prodovzhyly-vykhidni-dlia-ukrainskoho-personalu.html
[48] https://verstka dot media/mulino-kontraktniki/
[50] https://newtimes dot ru/articles/detail/219318; https://verstka dot media/mulino-kontraktniki/
[51] https://novayagazeta dot eu/articles/2022/08/10/pekhota-pushche-nevoli
[54] https://sprotyv dot mod.gov.ua/2022/08/21/chomu-potribno-vyyizhdzhaty-z-tot-okupanty-posylyly-teror-czyvilnyh/
[57] https://yunarmy dot ru/headquarters/about/; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...
understandingwar.org
2. A Russian soldier’s journal: ‘I will not participate in this madness’
Authentic? Fake? Propaganda? It seems like he has been able to leave Russia and hopefully is safe (though I would be on the lookout for umbrellas with poison tips).
Excerpts:
The document describes an army in disarray: commanders clueless and terrified, equipment old and rusty, troops pillaging occupied areas in search of food because of a lack of provisions, morale plummeting as the campaign stalled. He tells of soldiers shooting themselves in the legs to collect the $50,000 promised by the government to injured servicemen. He describes units being wiped out by friendly fire. He blasts Russian state media for trying to justify a war that the Kremlin had no “moral right” to wage.
“They simply decided to shower Ukraine with our corpses in this war,” he wrote.
In an exchange of messages on Telegram this week with The Washington Post, Filatyev said he knew that posting his views carried risks. Though technically still in the army, he left Russia this week with the help of the human rights organization Gulagu.net. He declined to give his location because of security concerns.
With his permission, The Post is publishing excerpts of his writings; they have been edited only for conciseness and clarity. The Post has not been able to independently verify his account. But Filatyev provided his military ID as proof that he served in the 56th Guards Air Assault Regiment based in Crimea, as well as documents showing that he was treated for an eye injury after his return from the front.
“It may not change anything,” he wrote, “but I will not participate in this madness.”
A Russian soldier’s journal: ‘I will not participate in this madness’
The Washington Post · by Mary Ilyushina · August 21, 2022
RIGA, Latvia — Russian paratrooper Pavel Filatyev spent more than a month fighting in Ukraine after his poorly equipped unit was ordered to march from its base in Crimea for what commanders called a routine exercise.
In early April, the 34-year-old Filatyev was evacuated after being wounded. Over the next five weeks, deeply troubled by the devastation caused by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bloody invasion, he wrote down his recollections in hopes that telling his country the truth about the war could help stop it.
His damning 141-page journal, posted this month on Vkontakte, Russia’s equivalent of Facebook, is the most detailed day-by-day account to date of the attacks on Kherson and Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine as seen through the eyes of a Russian soldier.
The document describes an army in disarray: commanders clueless and terrified, equipment old and rusty, troops pillaging occupied areas in search of food because of a lack of provisions, morale plummeting as the campaign stalled. He tells of soldiers shooting themselves in the legs to collect the $50,000 promised by the government to injured servicemen. He describes units being wiped out by friendly fire. He blasts Russian state media for trying to justify a war that the Kremlin had no “moral right” to wage.
“They simply decided to shower Ukraine with our corpses in this war,” he wrote.
In an exchange of messages on Telegram this week with The Washington Post, Filatyev said he knew that posting his views carried risks. Though technically still in the army, he left Russia this week with the help of the human rights organization Gulagu.net. He declined to give his location because of security concerns.
With his permission, The Post is publishing excerpts of his writings; they have been edited only for conciseness and clarity. The Post has not been able to independently verify his account. But Filatyev provided his military ID as proof that he served in the 56th Guards Air Assault Regiment based in Crimea, as well as documents showing that he was treated for an eye injury after his return from the front.
“It may not change anything,” he wrote, “but I will not participate in this madness.”
Feb. 15: Gearing up before the invasion
I arrived to the training ground [in Stary Krym, Crimea]. Our entire squadron, about 40 people, all lived in one tent with plank boards and one makeshift stove. Even in Chechnya, where we only lived in tents or mud huts, our living conditions were organized better. Here we had nowhere to wash up and the food was horrible. For those who arrived later than the rest, me and about five other people, there was neither a sleeping bag, nor camo, armor, or helmets left.
I finally received my rifle. It turned out that it had a broken belt, was rusty and kept getting stuck, so I cleaned it in oil for a long time trying to put it in order.
Around February 20, an order came for everyone to urgently gather and move out, packing lightly. We were supposed to perform a forced march to some unknown location. Some people joked that now we would attack Ukraine and capture Kyiv in three days. But already then I thought it is no time for laughter. I said that if something like this were to happen, we would not capture anything in three days.
Feb. 23: Bracing for something serious
The division commander arrived and, congratulating us on the [Defender of the Fatherland] holiday, announced that starting from tomorrow, our salary per day would be $69. It was a clear sign that something serious is about to happen. Rumors began spreading that we are about to go storm Kherson, which seemed to be nonsense to me.
Everything changed that day. I noticed how people began to change, some were nervous and tried not to communicate with anyone, some frankly seemed scared, some, on the contrary, were unusually cheerful.
Feb. 24: Rolling into war with no plan
At about 4 a.m. I opened my eyes again and heard a roar, a rumble, a vibration of the earth. I sensed an acrid smell of gunpowder in the air. I look out of the truck and see that the sky is lit bright from volleys.
It was not clear what is happening, who was shooting from where and at whom, but the weariness from lack of food, water and sleep disappeared. A minute later, I lit up a cigarette to wake up, and realized that the fire is coming 10-20 kilometers ahead of our convoy. Everyone around me also began to wake up and smoke and there was a quiet murmur: ‘It’s started.’ We must have a plan.
The convoy became animated and started to slowly move forward. I saw the lights switch on in the houses and people looking out the windows and balconies of five-story buildings.
It was already dawn, perhaps 6 a.m., the sun went up and I saw a dozen helicopters, a dozen planes, armored assault vehicles drove across the field. Then tanks appeared, hundreds of pieces of equipment under Russian flags.
By 1 p.m. we drove to a huge field where our trucks got bogged down in the mud. I got nervous. A huge column standing in the middle of an open field for half an hour is just an ideal target. If the enemy notices us and is nearby, we are f---ed.
Many began to climb out of the trucks and smoke, turning to one from another. The order is to go to Kherson and capture the bridge across the Dnieper.
I understood that something global was happening, but I did not know what exactly. Many thoughts were spinning in my head. I thought that we couldn’t just attack Ukraine, maybe NATO really got in the way and we intervened. Maybe there are also battles going on in Russia, maybe the Ukrainians attacked together with NATO. Maybe there is something going on in the Far East if America also started a war against us. Then the scale will be huge, and nuclear weapons, then surely someone will use it, damn it.
The commander tried to cheer everyone up. We are going ahead, leaving the stuck equipment behind, he said, and everyone should be ready for battle. He said it with feigned courage, but in his eyes I saw that he was also freaking out.
It was quite dark and we got word that we are staying here until dawn. We climbed into sleeping bags without taking off our shoes, laying on boxes with mines, embracing our rifles.
Feb. 25: Collecting corpses from the road
Somewhere around 5 in the morning they wake everyone up, telling us to get ready to move out.
I lit a cigarette and walked around. Our principal medical officer was looking for a place to put a wounded soldier. He constantly said that he was cold, and we covered him with our sleeping bags. I was told later that this guy had died.
We drove on terrible roads, through some dachas, greenhouses, villages. In settlements we met occasional civilians who saw us off with a sullen look. Ukrainian flags were fluttering over some houses, evoking mixed feelings of respect for the brave patriotism of these people and a sense that these colors now somehow belong to an enemy.
We reached a highway at around 8 a.m. and … I noticed the trucks of the guys from my squadron. They look kind of crazy. I walk from car to car, asking about how things are. Everyone answers me incomprehensibly: “Damn, this is f---ed up,” “We got wrecked all night,” “I collected corpses from the road, one had his brains all out on the pavement.”
We are approaching a fork and signs point to Kherson and Odessa. I am thinking about how we will storm Kherson. I don’t think the mayor of the city will come out with bread and salt, raise the Russian flag over the administration building, and we’ll enter the city in a parade column.
At around 4 p.m. our convoy takes a turn and settles in the forest. Commanders tell us the news that Ukrainian GRAD rocket launchers were seen ahead, so everyone must prepare for shelling, urgently dig in as deep as possible, and also that our cars almost ran out of fuel and we have communication problems.
I stand and talk with the guys, they tell me that they are from the 11th brigade, that there are 50 of them left. The rest are probably dead.
Feb. 26-28: Advancing on Kherson
Filatyev’s convoy made its way to Kherson and surrounded the local airport, looting stores in villages along the way. On the third day, the convoy received the order to enter Kherson. Filatyev was told to stay behind and cover the front-line units with mortar fire if necessary. He recounted hearing distant fighting all day. The southern port city would become the first major Ukrainian city that Russia captured in its invasion.
March 1: Acting like savages
We marched to the city on foot … [around 5:30 p.m.] we arrived at the Kherson seaport. It was already dark, the units marching ahead of us had already occupied it.
Everyone looked exhausted and ran wild. We searched the buildings for food, water, showers and a place to sleep, someone began to take out computers and anything else of value.
Walking through the building, I found an office with a TV. Several people sat there and watching the news, they found a bottle of champagne in the office. Seeing the cold champagne, I took a few sips from the bottle, sat down with them and began to watch the news intently. The channel was in Ukrainian, I didn’t understand half of it. All I understood there was that Russian troops were advancing from all directions, Odessa, Kharkov, Kyiv were occupied, they began to show footage of broken buildings and injured women and children.
We ate everything like savages, all that was there was, cereal, oatmeal, jam, honey, coffee. … Nobody cared about anything, we were already pushed to the limit.
March 2-6: Wandering in the woods
Filatyev’s exhausted convoy was ordered to push ahead to storm Mykolaiv and Odessa, though the Russian campaign had already begun to stall. Filatyev described how his unit wandered in the woods trying to reach Mykolaiv, about 40 miles away. He recalled asking a senior officer about their next movements. The commander said he had no clue what to do.
The first reinforcements arrived: separatist forces from Donetsk, mostly men over 45 in shabby fatigues. According to Filatyev, they were forced to go to the front lines when many regular Russian army soldiers refused.
Into mid-April: Holding from front-line trenches
From now on and for more than a month it was Groundhog Day. We were digging in, artillery was shelling us, our aviation was almost nowhere to be seen. We just held positions in the trenches on the front line, we could not shower, eat, or sleep properly. Everyone had overgrown beards and were covered in dirt, uniforms and shoes began to fray.
[Ukrainian forces] could clearly see us from the drones and kept shelling us so almost all of the equipment soon went out of order. We got a couple of boxes with the so-called humanitarian aid, containing cheap socks, T-shirts, shorts and soap.
Some soldiers began to shoot themselves … to get [the government money] and get out of this hell. Our prisoner had his fingers and genitals cut off. Dead Ukrainians at one of the posts were plopped on seats, given names and cigarettes.
Due to artillery shelling, some villages nearby practically ceased to exist. Everyone was getting angrier and angrier. Some grandmother poisoned our pies. Almost everyone got a fungus, someone’s teeth fell out, the skin was peeling off. Many discussed how, when they return, they will hold the command accountable for lack of provision and incompetent leadership. Some began to sleep on duty because of fatigue. Sometimes we managed to catch a wave of the Ukrainian radio, where they poured dirt on us and called us orcs, which only embittered us even more. My legs and back hurt terribly, but an order came not to evacuate anyone due to illness.
I kept saying, “God, I will do everything to change this if I survive.” … I decided that I would describe the last year of my life, so that as many people as possible would know what our army is now.
By mid-April, earth got into my eyes due to artillery shelling. After five days of torment, with the threat of losing an eye looming over me, they evacuated me.
Aftermath: Remaining silent no longer
I survived, unlike many others. My conscience tells me that I must try to stop this madness. … We did not have the moral right to attack another country, especially the people closest to us.
This is an army that bullies its own soldiers, those who have already been in the war, those who do not want to return there and die for something they don’t even understand.
I will tell you a secret. The majority in the army, they are dissatisfied with what is happening there, they are dissatisfied with the government and their command, they are dissatisfied with Putin and his policies, they are dissatisfied with the Minister of Defense who did not serve in the army.
The main enemy of all Russians and Ukrainians is propaganda, which just further fuels hatred in people.
I can no longer watch all this happen and remain silent.
The Washington Post · by Mary Ilyushina · August 21, 2022
3. Applications to Service Academies Plummet Amid Recruitment and Pandemic Woes
Applications to Service Academies Plummet Amid Recruitment and Pandemic Woes
military.com · by Thomas Novelly · August 19, 2022
Applications to the service academies dropped significantly this past year -- ranging from 10% to nearly 30% -- as the military continues to grapple with recruitment woes amid a national dip in college enrollment across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This past year, 8,393 people applied to be a part of the Air Force Academy's class of 2026, a 28% drop from the year before. Officials point to strict COVID-19 rules across the country that didn't allow them to host or attend many in-person recruiting events to drum up interest.
"A lot of schools did not allow us access to a lot of gatherings and a lot of conferences. ... A lot of those things were canceled," Col. Arthur Wayne Primas Jr., the academy's director of admissions, told Military.com in an interview. "So we really had to shift for the class of 2026 onto a virtual platform."
And it's not just the Air Force Academy seeing the decline. The U.S. Naval Academy saw a 20% application drop for the recently reported Class of 2026, according to Elizabeth B. Wrightson, an academy spokeswoman.
"Due to our unique mission, the Naval Academy relies heavily on in-person outreach, whether hosting potential candidates at the Naval Academy or our many in-person outreach events across the nation," Wrightson said in an emailed statement. "This in-person outreach was significantly restricted during the height of the pandemic (we held our summer programs -- key to our recruiting -- virtually last year) and played a major role in the application reduction."
The U.S. Military Academy at West Point saw 12,589 applications for the class of 2026, about a 10% decrease from the prior year of 13,984 applicants. That application total is still, notably, higher than the number of applications for the recent 2022 and 2023 classes.
"The academy is not concerned about this nominal drop-off in applications since we had record high applications in the 2024 cycle," said Francis J. DeMaro Jr., a West Point spokesman. "The downturn in applications is more of a result of pandemic issues associated with higher education across the board and an increase in taking a 'gap year' amongst high school graduates."
Chaitra M. Hardison, a researcher for Rand Corp., a nonprofit think tank that specializes in military research, told Military.com that the pandemic is an anomaly and has brought never-before-seen changes to everything from military enlistment to applications to the service academies.
But she said larger themes, such as overall interest in the military, should be considered too.
"I think that any dip in applications is something that they should take a look at," Hardison said.
The decline in service academy applications mirrors a trend seen in the civilian word, albeit at an elevated level. Undergraduate enrollment declined by more than 662,000 students -- 4.7% -- from spring 2021 at civilian colleges, according to a report by the nonprofit National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
To date, the undergraduate student body has dropped by nearly 1.4 million students, or 9.4%, during the two years of the pandemic.
Officials at the service academies said they're competing for the same students as other universities, and are feeling the same effects.
"As the Air Force Academy admissions office, we obviously have to stay in tune with the higher education enterprise and those trends ... because this is a four-year institution and we are all competing for the same talent," Primas said. "So, we believe, part of it is those that may feel like college is no longer part of their future career path."
Acceptance to a service academy, and graduating from it, is far different than getting a degree from any other institution. It's a debt-free education and also has a guaranteed job with substantial career advancement.
But the military lifestyle has become less appealing to younger generations, even with the benefits a service academy education offers. Additionally, fewer young adults would qualify.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee personnel panel, said during an April hearing -- citing Pentagon information -- that just 8% of young Americans have seriously considered joining the military.
Only about one-quarter of young Americans are even eligible for service these days, a shrinking pool limited by an increasing number of potential recruits who are overweight or are screened out due to minor criminal infractions, including the use of recreational drugs such as marijuana. Those eligibility standards apply to students at the service academies just as they do to those immediately shipping out to boot camp.
In response, the services have offered a wide range of financial incentives and choices about career progression to better appeal to a younger generation.
"I think a lot of times the military thinks about monetary benefits," Hardison said. "But there are other things that factor into people's decision, and that includes quality of life and job satisfaction and interests."
Some of the service academies believe there will be a small dip in applications for a short period of time, but that it will be temporary as COVID-19 worries begin to ease.
"We do anticipate based on census data that we will see (along with all institutions of higher education) a decrease in applicants in the next several years -- but do not see a decrease in the quality of those applicants," DeMaro told Military.com. "We do not translate this as a decreased interest in West Point or Service Academies as a whole, but more of a dynamic of the higher education landscape at this time."
-- Thomas Novelly can be reached at thomas.novelly@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomNovelly.
military.com · by Thomas Novelly · August 19, 2022
4. Russia’s ‘most hidden crime’ in Ukraine war: Rape of women, girls, men and boys
Such depravity and brutality. There will need to be war crimes trials after Ukraine wins this war.
Russia’s ‘most hidden crime’ in Ukraine war: Rape of women, girls, men and boys
Los Angeles Times · by Laura King · August 21, 2022
MAKARIV, Ukraine —
The Russian soldier taunted her: Your friend, he sneered, is lying on the floor, raped and naked and dead.
S., a Ukrainian writer and government worker in her early 60s, froze at his words. Her neighbor Tetiana, a bold, dark-haired 37-year-old widow, had quickly attracted the attention of Russian soldiers who, within days of the Feb. 24 invasion, captured and occupied the small town of Makariv, about 30 miles west of the capital, Kyiv.
“She would defy them,” said S., still shaken and sorrowful as she described the harrowing events of five months earlier, before late-winter chill gave way to spring, then high summer. “She would tell them: ‘I’m not afraid of you.’”
S. holds the door of her home, which was kicked in by Russian forces.
(Kyrylo Svietashov / For The Times)
Weeks would pass before the outside world learned of the horrors that occurred in streets and basements and back gardens of these once-tranquil suburbs and satellite towns, which were occupied for roughly a month before Russian forces in early April broke off a failed bid to seize the capital.
Townspeople who were unable or unwilling to flee endured the first wave of what Western governments and Ukrainian officials would later describe as a systematic campaign of atrocities by Russian forces against civilians: torture, execution-style killings, starvation.
And rape.
Little by little, month by month, investigators have laid the groundwork for what are now more than 25,000 active cases of suspected war crimes, covering a wide variety of offenses.
Investigators compile narratives from witness testimony, from forensic examinations of mutilated corpses that are still regularly turning up — outside Kyiv, one body was recently found stuffed beneath a manhole cover — from intercepted communications by Russian soldiers describing their own acts, or from surveillance cameras that before the war monitored traffic and deterred shoplifters.
As the war nears the six-month mark, however, cases involving sexual assault are proving particularly resistant to documentation.
A woman on a bicycle passes the home of S.'s slain neighbor in Makariv, Ukraine.
(Kyrylo Svietashov / For The Times)
The prosecutor general’s office said last week there are “several dozen” criminal proceedings underway involving sexual violence committed by Russian military personnel. But police, prosecutors and counselors say the true number is likely far larger, in part because of reluctance to report such attacks.
“Sexual violence in this war is the most hidden crime,” Ukrainian civil-society activist Natalia Karbowska told the U.N. Security Council in June.
A complex tangle of reasons underpins that silence. Some, like Tetiana, did not live to tell their stories. Some fled the country, joining an enormous exodus, and are not in contact with Ukrainian authorities. Others feel ashamed, clinging to the belief that they could somehow have prevented what befell them. Or a sexual attack might have taken place in the context of separate, overwhelming wartime loss: a home destroyed, a loved one killed.
Still others look to the near-industrial-scale atrocities occurring elsewhere — daily bombardment of civilian areas; the deaths of dozens of Ukrainian POWs last month in what evidence suggests was a deliberate mass execution by Russian forces; reports of torture, detention and abductions in currently occupied areas – and convince themselves that they ought to quietly put their private agonies behind them.
“They think others suffered more,” said Nadiia Volchenska, a 32-year-old Kyiv psychologist who co-founded a network that connects sexual assault victims with counselors. She said people who had been raped or sexually abused in the course of this conflict — most are women and girls, but many are men and boys — are often reluctant to speak even in confidence with a therapist, let alone go to police or other investigators and provide a detailed account.
A fence damaged by Russian forces sits in front of S.'s home in Makariv, which was under Russian occupation early in the war on Ukraine.
(Kyrylo Svietashov / For The Times)
“Quite often, after making a first contact with us,” she said, “people will simply vanish.”
::
Rape as a weapon is as old as war itself. The objective, say those who deal with such cases, is to humiliate and degrade, to break the spirit of defenders, to shatter families and communities, to instill a sense of hopelessness and despair. It often leaves wreckage too profound to repair.
“Of course it is not about sexual gratification,” said Natalya Zaretska, a military psychologist by training who is currently a volunteer in the Territorial Defense Forces, working with people in the formerly occupied territories in the Kyiv oblast, or province. “Rape is one instrument that is used to try to achieve this goal of subjugation.”
Ukrainian officials believe a Russian campaign of terrorism against civilians was sanctioned at the highest levels, rather than the work of rogue troops. The Kremlin has derided well-documented atrocities in occupied areas as a fabrication, so for Ukraine, compiling proof and moving ahead with prosecutions is considered vital, even if such a reckoning takes many years.
“Evil must be punished, or it will spread,” said Andriy Nebytov, the police chief for the Kyiv region.
Authorities are circumspect about the specifics of sexual assault cases under investigation, but in a statement in response to written questions from the Los Angeles Times, the prosecutor general’s office cited a few representative examples.
In the town of Chernihiv, north of the capital, a Russian unit commander used “physical and psychological violence” against a 16-year-old girl, threatening to kill family members if she resisted his sexual advances, or to hand her over to others to be gang-raped instead. In Brovary, east of Kyiv, a serviceman has been indicted in absentia for repeatedly raping the wife of a slain civilian. In another case in that same district, soldiers singled out one woman for assault, herding others into a locked basement. Another, Ukrainian officials say, was raped with her young child nearby.
In carefully couched language, the prosecutor’s office cited obstacles faced by investigators, including the need to protect the privacy of minors and to avoid re-traumatizing survivors. But sheer stigma was described as the overriding factor.
“Women who have been raped,” the statement said, “do not want to spread such information about themselves.”
::
Those who lived under Russian occupation earlier in the war describe a nauseating sense of constant fear.
A damaged home in Makariv, Ukraine.
(Kyrylo Svietashov / For The Times)
S., who did not want even her full first name used because some of the troops who occupied Makariv back in March are still in Ukraine, is working with the authorities to try to identify those involved in Tetiana’s assault and death. Some of the occupiers addressed one another by names or nicknames, aiding in this process.
On her smartphone, S. showed photos of individual soldiers sent to her by prosecutors, who for months have tracked the unit’s activities and obtained images of the suspects from social media and elsewhere. She recognized several, including ones who came regularly to her house and to Tetiana’s simple brick home next door to loot and carouse and threaten. She particularly feared one, a Chechen, whose erratic behavior made her think he was on drugs.
When the Russians first arrived, S. was caring for her 90-year-old mother, who was in fragile health and adamantly refused to leave. But in the ensuing weeks, the soldiers’ violence and volatility persuaded her that they must seize any chance to escape.
A neighbor man was shot by soldiers, eventually dying of his wounds, and S. was told his wife had been sexually assaulted. (That woman declined to speak with journalists about what had happened.) One day, a young soldier came to S.’s own house and tried to get her to go upstairs with him. Fearing he intended to rape her, she tried to dissuade him by noting the 30-year disparity in their ages.
In the midst of this, other soldiers came to the house, telling the would-be assailant he was needed elsewhere, and he eventually left with them. S. felt a rush of terrified relief.
On the day that she, her mother, Tetiana and a home health aide had been promised a ride to safety with a neighbor, her friend was nowhere to be found. Troops again burst into S.’s house, with one of them behaving bizarrely and demanding a bandage for an injury. After downing a shot of vodka, he blurted out news of her friend’s fate.
In Makariv, S. still thinks often of her neighbor Tetiana, of her humor, her quirks, her determination. S. looks out at the house her friend once lived in, trying to picture her vibrant and alive.
(Kyrylo Svietashov / For The Times)
Soldiers refused to let her see Tetiana’s body, S. said. Eventually, a serviceman she believed to be an ethnic Buryat from Siberia offered to let her speak to someone he said knew the full story. That soldier told S. that Tetiana had been raped by several others, and that the Chechen was the one to stab and kill her. Ordered to bury the naked corpse, the soldier told S. they first wrapped the body in a blanket.
“I felt shame that she is dead and I am still alive,” she said months later on a heat-heavy summer afternoon, brewing tea for visitors and keeping an eye on her mother dozing in an armchair nearby. “I have that guilt.”
Rape counselors say that with many instances of assault having taken place early in the war, some of those people may be recovering their equilibrium enough to talk about what happened to them.
“Sometimes we see this around six months later, the beginning of a willingness to open up,” said Volchenska, the Kyiv therapist. “But now we expect a wave of similar cases from Kherson” — a southern city seized by Russia early in the invasion, which Ukrainian forces hope to retake.
“The problem is that you need to feel safe to talk,” she said. “And really nowhere in the country is safe.”
In Makariv, S. still thinks often of Tetiana — her humor, her quirks, her determination. Every day, she looks out on the now-empty house her friend once lived in, trying to picture her vibrant and alive. She remembers Tetiana telling her about a dream she’d had, during the frightening days of occupation.
“In it, she was on the cloud, flying,” S. said. “It was so peaceful. It was so good.”
Los Angeles Times · by Laura King · August 21, 2022
5. The Easy Way to Reset Saudi Ties: Sanction the Houthis Again
Excerpts:
Currently, the administration’s decision to keep the Houthis off the terrorist list is purely political. The White House has repeatedly used the term “terrorist” to describe Houthi attacks. The Biden Administration is shackled by its own policy, fearful of backtracking on a hasty and domestically motivated decision. Indeed, the initial move was designed to placate progressives in Congress who have an axe to grind with Riyadh, and who cheered unraveling any policy implemented by Donald Trump.
Looking back, the administration’s claim that de-listing the Houthis would enable aid to flow more easily now also rings hollow. The White House now concedes that the Houthis are among the actors blocking that aid. There are ample mechanisms to manage Yemen’s humanitarian assistance flows. This includes the Department of Treasury’s licensing authority for transactions that may run afoul of sanctions, and the State Department’s mechanism to exempt humanitarian transactions.
In visiting Saudi Arabia last month, the president vowed to seek a reset. It’s time to follow through. The White House has an opportunity to correct an errant policy and make good on the promise to tackle Iran’s malign regional activities. Should the Biden Administration fail to do so, Congress should issue legislation mandating sanctions on Ansar Allah, while still ensuring the flow of humanitarian aid in Yemen.
The Easy Way to Reset Saudi Ties: Sanction the Houthis Again
19fortyfive.com · by Matthew Zweig and Jonathan Schanzer · August 19, 2022
President Biden’s travel to Saudi Arabia last month yielded little improvement in the relationship between the Biden administration and the Saudi government under Crown Prince Muhammed Bin Salman. Distrust lingers. Yet, the Biden administration could take a unilateral step that would not only help mend the rift between the US and Saudi Arabia, but correct a foreign policy mistake: redesignate the Yemeni Houthi organization, also known as Ansar Allah, for terrorism sanctions.
Admittedly, U.S. policy is not the only thing that needs correcting. The Saudis have their own sins for which they must atone. The country’s human rights record is still not where it should be. And Riyadh has yet to fully account for the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi. But if Washington is serious about a reset with Saudi Arabia, motivated by a need to get more oil on the market or a desire to counter China’s regional ambitions, taking action against the Houthis is the best bet.
The Saudis would cheer the move. The Houthis continue to wage a brutal war for control of Yemen to their south. Currently, Ansar Allah is using a fragile ceasefire to rearm, refit, and refinance (thanks to Iran) in preparation for another round of fighting. When ceasefire inevitably ends, the group is all but guaranteed to resume attacking Saudi Arabia, as the Yemen has spilled over into the rest of the region. Acknowledging these facts with two straightforward bureaucratic maneuvers would set US policy on the right course and immediately help rebuild ties with the energy-rich desert kingdom.
Recent history is worth briefly revisiting. In January 2021, the Trump administration designated Ansar Allah as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that if Ansar Allah “did not behave like a terrorist organization, we would not designate it as an FTO and SDGT.” The evidence included the support that Ansar Allah receives from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is itself a US-designated a terrorist organization.
The Trump administration’s decision was almost immediately reversed by the Biden administration in February 2021, citing risks that sanctions posed to humanitarian aid in war-torn Yemen. In so doing, the White House ignored the activities of the Houthis themselves. After a series of high-profile attacks since then, including attacks on Saudi oil installations, pressure has been building on the White House to reimpose the FTO designation and SDGT sanctions. Ansar Allah has repeatedly threatened international shipping, and it has targeted civil aviation facilities, including those frequently utilized by US citizens. Just last month, British authorities seized missiles bound for Yemen from Iran, thwarting a high profile attack.
The Saudis, Emirates, and some Yemeni human rights activists are imploring the Biden administration to relist the Houthis. This is unsurprising; they are the ones in the crosshairs of Houthi violence. They correctly note that Houthi terrorism has steadily worsened since the administration’s misstep of last year. Since the ill-fated delisting last year, the group has engaged in more violence, not less.
Acting against the Houthis is not simply smart diplomacy. Slapping the FTO and SDGT designations would strengthen Washington’s ability to target Ansar Allah, both financially and politically. An FTO designation institutes a visa ban, requires U.S. banks to block the assets of the designated organization, and establishes an extraterritorial application of criminal prohibitions on U.S. persons who provide the FTO with material support. The SDGT authority enables the Treasury Department to target terrorist financiers who access the U.S. financial system. In 2019, the Trump administration expanded the authority to include secondary sanctions on individuals and businesses that allow an SDGT to use their services.
Currently, the administration’s decision to keep the Houthis off the terrorist list is purely political. The White House has repeatedly used the term “terrorist” to describe Houthi attacks. The Biden Administration is shackled by its own policy, fearful of backtracking on a hasty and domestically motivated decision. Indeed, the initial move was designed to placate progressives in Congress who have an axe to grind with Riyadh, and who cheered unraveling any policy implemented by Donald Trump.
Looking back, the administration’s claim that de-listing the Houthis would enable aid to flow more easily now also rings hollow. The White House now concedes that the Houthis are among the actors blocking that aid. There are ample mechanisms to manage Yemen’s humanitarian assistance flows. This includes the Department of Treasury’s licensing authority for transactions that may run afoul of sanctions, and the State Department’s mechanism to exempt humanitarian transactions.
In visiting Saudi Arabia last month, the president vowed to seek a reset. It’s time to follow through. The White House has an opportunity to correct an errant policy and make good on the promise to tackle Iran’s malign regional activities. Should the Biden Administration fail to do so, Congress should issue legislation mandating sanctions on Ansar Allah, while still ensuring the flow of humanitarian aid in Yemen.
Dr. Jonathan Schanzer is senior vice president for research at FDD, where he oversees the work of the organization’s experts and scholars. He is also on the leadership team of FDD’s Center on Economic and Financial Power, a project on the use of financial and economic power as a tool of statecraft.
Matthew Zweig is a Senior Fellow at FDD. From July 2019 to December 2020, Matt served as the Senior Sanctions Advisor in the Office of the Special Representative for Syria Engagement.
19fortyfive.com · by Matthew Zweig and Jonathan Schanzer · August 19, 2022
6. China Hasn’t Reached the Peak of Its Power
Conclusion:
For years to come, the United States is more likely to face a confident, capable China than an insecure, reckless one. Washington will not emerge victorious from this contest because Beijing steps out of the race, as Moscow did at the end of the Cold War. To secure its interests in Asia, therefore, the United States must prepare for a war with China, whether tomorrow or two decades down the road.
China Hasn’t Reached the Peak of Its Power
Why Beijing Can Afford to Bide Its Time
August 22, 2022
Foreign Affairs · by Oriana Skylar Mastro and Derek Scissors · August 22, 2022
As relations between the United States and China have spiraled down to a half-century low, a frightening new narrative has taken hold among some U.S. analysts and policymakers. It supposes that China’s window of opportunity to “reunify” Taiwan with the mainland—one of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s core foreign policy objectives—is closing rapidly, intensifying the pressure on Beijing to act swiftly and forcefully while it still has the chance.
This narrative rests on the belief that China’s rise is nearing its end. Unprecedented demographic decline, a heavy debt burden, uneven innovation, and other serious economic problems have slowed China’s growth and are likely to slow it even further, leaving the country without the military power or political influence to challenge the United States. Beijing is aware of these headwinds, the thinking goes, and is therefore likely to act soon, before it is too late. As the scholars Hal Brands and Michael Beckley have argued in Foreign Affairs, “China is tracing an arc that often ends in tragedy: a dizzying rise followed by the specter of a hard fall.” In their view, it is now or never if China wants to redraw the world map.
But such analysis is misguided. True, China’s economic ascent has slowed and will eventually reverse, impeding Beijing’s military and political aspirations. But a “hard fall” is not in the cards. Any decline from China’s economic peak is likely to be gradual—and possibly eased by heavy spending on research and development explicitly aimed at partially offsetting the country’s demographic and debt-related woes. In fact, current income and defense spending trajectories suggest that China will have more resources to compete militarily with the United States over the next ten years than it has had over the last 20. As a result, Beijing will become more—not less—capable of projecting power while the United States will have difficulty countering Chinese military challenges in Asia. Far from a narrow window to achieve their geopolitical ambitions, then, China’s leaders have space to bide their time.
DEMOGRAPHY, NOT DESTINY
Demographic decline all but guarantees China’s eventual economic decline. But this process is likely to be gradual, not sudden, and the timing remains uncertain. China’s labor force is probably shrinking and it will continue to shrink indefinitely because the population is about to start shrinking, if it has not started to do so already. In 2021, Chinese birth rates fell to a record low. The median age in China is about half a year older than in the United States, and by 2042 it will be almost seven years older, or on a par with Japan today. China’s population will decline more quickly later this century, falling by more than 200 million people by 2060, according to one UN projection. As this decline unfolds, genuine economic growth will be essentially impossible.
But even in the midst of this demographic contraction, China will be at worst the world’s third-largest national economy, as it was in the first decade of this century but with wealth and technological abilities that are closer to those of the United States. More likely, China will be the second-largest economy in the world. For the rest of this decade and the next, a peaking population will not necessarily translate into a rapid economic decline. The dwindling of China’s labor force has probably already been underway for a decade, but its economic growth has still outpaced that of the United States. No one believes that China’s economic capabilities peaked in 2012 or, for that matter, in 2018. While labor force decline will eventually be a major problem for China, it is not clear when that will be. China’s median age in 2032 is projected to be the same as the United States’ in 2052. If demography is destiny, the United States will have declined sharply by then, too. But in reality, the United States’ economic health, like China’s, depends on many other factors.
Any decline from China’s economic peak is likely to be gradual.
One of those factors is debt. Debt already weighs on Chinese growth, but the problem is chronic, not acute. Total Chinese credit to the nonfinancial sector has increased substantially over the last decade, starting mainly in response to the 2008–9 global financial crisis. As of the end of 2019, this measure of outstanding debt stood at 263 percent of GDP, slightly higher than the U.S. share of 255 percent. China has been more prudent during the COVID-19 pandemic, but its debt burden could swell even larger as its population ages and it must care for a greater number of retirees. Still, the weight of China’s debt will limit growth in a steady fashion, not causing a steep fall. As a result, China will have plenty of money on hand for military and related investments. According to the World Bank, China spent $6.2 trillion on infrastructure, land, and machinery in 2019—$1.6 trillion more than the United States spent. U.S. capital is more productive than Chinese capital, but there is little doubt that even with its high debt burden China will have considerable resources at its disposal long into the future.
Another factor that will shape China’s economic trajectory is innovation. As ever, the Chinese Communist Party’s need for control will limit the pace of innovation. On that score, Xi’s regime has not performed well. It has attacked private technology firms and generally discouraged competition. But Beijing can afford to spend heavily on new technologies that will give it a moderate and enduring economic boost. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, China spent roughly $515 billion on research and development in 2019 while the United States spent $633 billion. China’s R&D spending is likely to rise for the rest of the decade, even as its economy slows. Beijing will also continue to coerce the transfer of technology from private companies doing business in China or to steal it outright. With its current economic system, China cannot become a leading innovator, but it has already caught up to the rest of the world in key fields such as 5G telecommunications and energy storage. Maintaining technological parity with the United States in at least some important areas over the next two decades will be easier than it was to close the previous technological gap.
MORE WITH LESS
Military trends are similarly favorable to China, at least over the next decade. That is in part because flagging economic prospects will take time to affect defense and in part because China has proven able to compete with fewer resources overall. China’s military spending as a percentage of GDP has been decreasing since 2010, and the country has never spent more than 1.9 percent of GDP on national defense. (The United States spent 3.7 percent of GDP on defense in 2020.) For the last three decades, China’s military spending has been a third of the United States’. And yet, largely because it has focused on acquiring asymmetric capabilities and limited its military ambitions to Asia, it has built a military that can now defeat the United States in a conflict over Taiwan.
And the future is bright for the People’s Liberation Army. Although some of its modernization efforts remain unfinished, the PLA has made significant progress toward professionalizing its noncommissioned officer corps and hiring capable civilians to fulfill vital support roles. It is also recruiting more and more college graduates, improving its ability to conduct complex joint operations in a high-tech, information environment.
Over the next ten years, China’s ability to project power throughout Asia will grow. By 2030, it will have four aircraft carriers, a network and space infrastructure that enhances the connectivity and thus the lethality of its forces, ground- and space-based weaponry capable of threatening U.S. military and civilian satellite constellations, and an air force that can challenge U.S. air superiority in Asia. It will have more naval ships than the United States and a nuclear arsenal that is larger, more survivable, and better able to threaten targets around the globe thanks to Chinese advancements in hypersonics. Any remnants of U.S. military superiority in Asia, such as Washington’s better submarine capabilities, are disappearing. China has invested heavily in developing so-called antisubmarine warfare capabilities, including advanced helicopters and ship-based sonar systems that will be ready for action in the next ten years.
The future is bright for the People’s Liberation Army.
Of course, the U.S. military will not stand still as the PLA advances. The United States is building resilient space infrastructure and capabilities. It plans to deploy intermediate-range ballistic missiles to the Indo-Pacific now that Washington is no longer bound by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. And it plans to add new unmanned ships as well as more manned ships to the U.S. naval fleet to counter China. Headlining these efforts is the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, a Pentagon plan to enhance U.S. competitiveness in the Indo-Pacific. In this its inaugural year, the PDI includes approximately $6 billion for new integrated command-and-control systems, drone capabilities, electronic warfare, F-35 fighters, ships to counter Chinese low-level aggression and provocation, and support systems and equipment for U.S. Marines and other ground forces.
But even with these investments, U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific will have vulnerabilities that China can exploit for asymmetric advantage. For instance, the United States will be unable to defend its forward bases from Chinese missile attacks or its space assets from Chinese counterspace operations. Current procurement and acquisition plans reveal that in ten years, the United States will not have significantly more forces to deploy to the region than it has now. The U.S. Navy is modernizing, but it will not have its planned fleet of between 450 and 500 ships until 2045—a fleet size that China will have in just ten years.
All of this suggests that China has not yet reached its position of maximal military advantage vis-à-vis the United States. It is telling that although Western scholars such as Brands and Beckley suggest that a relatively stagnant economy should influence Chinese leaders’ strategic calculus, encouraging them to act now or lose their chance, there is no evidence of this line of thinking in Chinese political or military writings, according to textual analyses carried out by natural language processing and analytics tools. Indeed, most Chinese strategists are sanguine about China’s future. As former Chinese diplomat Zhen Bingxi wrote in a journal published by the People’s Daily Press, China is “well on its way to becoming a global superpower,” even if it will continue to lag behind the United States in certain areas. Some Chinese media commentators have explicitly pushed back against American rhetoric about “peak China,” noting that the country “has long defied the pessimistic predictions of American media outlets and academia,” as one journalist put it in a pro-Beijing Hong Kong media outlet.
The United States is more likely to face a confident, capable China than an insecure, reckless one.
Some might dismiss these comments as predictable attempts to rebut a narrative of Chinese decline. But no authoritative Chinese military writings consider the argument that China needs to take Taiwan now because the window of opportunity is closing, even though Chinese security commentators regularly debate other sensitive topics such as the effectiveness of China’s efforts at peaceful unification with Taiwan. Such writings suggest that Chinese leaders increasingly believe they could take Taiwan by force and that peaceful unification is not working. Xi’s rhetoric, moreover, indicates that he may want to achieve unification to seal his legacy. Once he is confident that the PLA is ready, therefore, he may move swiftly to take Taiwan—not because he will not have another chance but because the future is always uncertain.
If this is Xi’s thinking, he is right. Even if its growth stagnates over the next decade, China will still likely be the world’s second-largest economy. Any austerity measures instituted then would take many years to reach the military. And one thing is certain: China will be more capable militarily in 2035 than it is today.
CONFIDENT CHINA, CAPABLE CHINA
An anxious China at the peak of its power and a confident China still on the military ascent can be expected to act in similar ways. Both will be more aggressive, especially when it comes to territorial issues such as Taiwan. But these different motivations for Chinese aggression suggest different strategic responses from the United States: a peaking China will be the most dangerous over the next decade, whereas a still ascendant one will be a threat for much longer than that. The United States should be wary of short-term solutions that undermine its ability to compete in the long term and prepare equally for a war in 2027 and 2037.
There is a silver lining, however. A peaking power may fight to the death since it has only one chance to remake the international order. But a power that knows it will have more opportunities to get its way may be more willing to back down from a military confrontation that does not go as planned. For example, if Xi made a move for Taiwan and met resistance, he could still claim victory, perhaps after seizing an offshore island or merely after declaring that he has taught a lesson to “separatists” in Taiwan and “imperialists” in the United States. A confident power is also less likely to be provoked into starting a war. Although it conducted concerning large-scale military exercises near Taiwan after U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visited the island this month, China refrained from more aggressive actions—intercepting Pelosi’s aircraft, for instance—that might have risked igniting a conflict. That may be because the best war for a confident China is one in which the PLA moves quickly against Taiwan and gives little warning to the United States.
For years to come, the United States is more likely to face a confident, capable China than an insecure, reckless one. Washington will not emerge victorious from this contest because Beijing steps out of the race, as Moscow did at the end of the Cold War. To secure its interests in Asia, therefore, the United States must prepare for a war with China, whether tomorrow or two decades down the road.
Foreign Affairs · by Oriana Skylar Mastro and Derek Scissors · August 22, 2022
7. Afghanistan’s Terrorist Threats to America Are Growing
Seth Jones is advocating a form of unconventional warfare that focuses on disrupting and coercing a government or occupying power. COL (RET) Mark Boyatt (the father of the "through, with, and by" concept as the foundational concept of Special Forces operations long before it was adopted by the greater military) would argue this is an incorrect application of UW and that it should only be focused on the overthrow of a government or occupying power and anything less than that creates a moral hazard when supporting a resistance movement or insurgency. The resistance movement or insurgency may not be interested in coercing or disrupting except insofar as it contributes to the overthrow which is likely its sole objective. Mark Boyatt would argue that this is an ethical dilemma if we are using the resistance movement or insurgency only to support our interests without supporting theirs.)
(Unconventional warfare consists of activities to enable or support a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow a government or occupying power through and with an underground, auxiliary, or guerrilla force in a denied area.>
Excerpts:
The main goal should not be to overthrow the Taliban, but to collect intelligence on terrorist networks operating in Afghanistan. Those U.S. partners—which could range from supporters of the National Resistance Front to the Afghanistan Freedom Front—can provide valuable information on terrorist leaders, training camps, and other activities, which the United States should supplement with intelligence collected from other sources. In addition, there is deep opposition to the Taliban among some Pashtun tribes and subtribes, such as Barakzais and Popalzais, that U.S. intelligence and military units could leverage.
The second component should be to negotiate basing access in the region, especially for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. The United States should jumpstart negotiations with countries in the region—such as Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and possibly even India—to house manned and unmanned aircraft to conduct intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance over Afghan territory.
The Biden administration has started those discussions, but they will be difficult. Allowing the U.S. military or intelligence community to fly strike aircraft could be too politically risky for many of these governments. In addition, Russia has already voiced strong opposition to U.S. bases in Central Asia. But surveillance aircraft could be more politically acceptable for some countries.
A failure to improve the U.S.’s counterterrorism capabilities and posture—particularly by establishing relations with local partners in Afghanistan and negotiating additional bases—will put the United States and its partners at growing risk of a terrorist attack. U.S. intelligence agencies now assess that Al Qaeda and ISIS-K could develop external operations capabilities later in 2022 or 2023. This reality makes it important for the United States to move expeditiously—before the next attack.
Afghanistan’s Terrorist Threats to America Are Growing
A failure to improve the U.S.’s counterterrorism capabilities and posture will put the United States and its partners at growing risk of a terrorist attack.
The National Interest · by Seth G. Jones · August 20, 2022
One year after the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration faces a complex counterterrorism challenge. The successful U.S. strike in July 2022 that killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul was a blow to Al Qaeda. But with the Taliban’s continuing close relationship with Al Qaeda and the deterioration of Afghanistan into a terrorist sanctuary, the United States needs to rethink its counterterrorism strategy.
Afghanistan is the only country in the world today with a close, working relationship with Al Qaeda. According to one recent United Nations Security Council assessment, Al Qaeda’s leadership “plays an advisory role with the Taliban, and the groups remain close.” In addition, the location where Zawahiri was killed—a safe house apparently owned by an aide to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s acting minister of interior—highlights the intimacy between the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda does not yet have the ability to plan and execute terrorist attacks in the U.S. homeland, according to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. But there are several concerning developments that should alarm U.S. and other Western officials.
First, core Al Qaeda and its local affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), remain active in Afghanistan. AQIS has as many as 400 fighters, including a presence in southern and eastern Afghanistan. Following the U.S. strike against Zawahiri, Taliban leaders—who were furious at the United States for the attack—may allow Al Qaeda more room to maneuver. Even before the attack, U.S. Central Command assessed that the Taliban would likely loosen its restrictions on Al Qaeda and allow the group greater freedom of movement and the ability to train, travel, and rebuild its external operations capability.
Second, Afghanistan is home to numerous other terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-K). A U.S. Department of Defense report concluded that “ISIS-K remained the top terrorist threat in Afghanistan with approximately 2,000 members operating in the country.” The group is led by Sanaullah Ghafari (alias Shahab al-Muhajir) and has conducted hundreds of attacks in Afghanistan since the departure of U.S. from Afghanistan. The goal of ISIS-K leaders remains to use Afghanistan as a base for expanding its footprint in the region and creating a broader, pan-Islamic caliphate.
There are also numerous other groups—including terrorist groups—in Afghanistan, such as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Jamaat Ansarullah. The TTP, which is led by Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud, has between 3,000 and 4,000 fighters in Afghanistan, making it one of the largest terrorist groups in Afghanistan. There are also over a dozen anti-Taliban groups throughout the country.
Third, the Taliban is unable to deliver basic goods and services in Afghanistan, a significant worry since failed states are often a necessary, though not a sufficient, condition for terrorism. Afghanistan’s economy is in shambles, thanks to Taliban incompetence and continuing international economic sanctions. The country’s gross domestic product is projected to decline by 34 percent by the end of 2022, compared to 2020, the last full year of the Ashraf Ghani government. The humanitarian situation is also dire, with approximately 24.4 million people, or 59 percent of the population, in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.
In sum, the terrorism landscape in Afghanistan is alarming because of the Taliban’s close relationship with Al Qaeda, the proliferation of terrorist and other non-state groups, and the collapse of governance in Afghanistan. In this environment, the United States has left itself with few options.
In contrast to virtually every other U.S. counterterrorism campaign since 9/11, the United States has no partner force on the ground in Afghanistan. The United States worked with the Counter Terrorism Service and other Iraqi forces in Iraq; local militias in Libya; the Somali government, African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) forces, and clans in Somalia; and the Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria. In Afghanistan today, however, the Taliban is a U.S. enemy, not an ally.
The United States also has few intelligence capabilities in Afghanistan. The United States shut down its embassy and CIA station when it withdrew military forces in August 2021. U.S. military intelligence organizations—such as the Defense Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency—also withdrew most of their intelligence collection capabilities. As the head of U.S. Central Command acknowledged several months ago, “we’re probably at about 1 or 2 percent of the capabilities we once had to look into Afghanistan,” making it “very hard” to understand what is happening there.
Finally, the United States has no military bases in the region to fly aircraft for intelligence collection or strike missions. The United States withdrew from all bases in Afghanistan, such as Bagram Air Base and Kandahar International Airport, and does not have bases in Central Asia or South Asia. Instead, the United States has been forced to utilize locations such as Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which is approximately 2,500 miles from Kabul.
The lack of partner forces, scant intelligence, and no nearby bases leave the United States severely hamstrung in conducting counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan. Consequently, the United States should develop a more robust counterterrorism campaign that has at least two major components.
The first is to work with local forces inside and outside Afghanistan to rebuild the U.S.’s intelligence architecture against terrorist groups. The U.S. military and CIA have a long history of working with local Afghan forces—including Hazara, Tajik, Uzbek, and some Pashtun militias—to collect intelligence and conduct counterterrorism operations. Some U.S. activities were orchestrated as covert action programs under Title 50 of U.S. Code, which allows the United States to conduct political, economic, and military activities abroad that are not acknowledged publicly.
The main goal should not be to overthrow the Taliban, but to collect intelligence on terrorist networks operating in Afghanistan. Those U.S. partners—which could range from supporters of the National Resistance Front to the Afghanistan Freedom Front—can provide valuable information on terrorist leaders, training camps, and other activities, which the United States should supplement with intelligence collected from other sources. In addition, there is deep opposition to the Taliban among some Pashtun tribes and subtribes, such as Barakzais and Popalzais, that U.S. intelligence and military units could leverage.
The second component should be to negotiate basing access in the region, especially for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. The United States should jumpstart negotiations with countries in the region—such as Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and possibly even India—to house manned and unmanned aircraft to conduct intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance over Afghan territory.
The Biden administration has started those discussions, but they will be difficult. Allowing the U.S. military or intelligence community to fly strike aircraft could be too politically risky for many of these governments. In addition, Russia has already voiced strong opposition to U.S. bases in Central Asia. But surveillance aircraft could be more politically acceptable for some countries.
A failure to improve the U.S.’s counterterrorism capabilities and posture—particularly by establishing relations with local partners in Afghanistan and negotiating additional bases—will put the United States and its partners at growing risk of a terrorist attack. U.S. intelligence agencies now assess that Al Qaeda and ISIS-K could develop external operations capabilities later in 2022 or 2023. This reality makes it important for the United States to move expeditiously—before the next attack.
Seth G. Jones is senior vice president, Harold Brown Chair, and director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He was a plans officer and adviser to the commanding general, U.S. Special Operations Forces, in Afghanistan, as well as the author of In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (W.W. Norton).
Image: DVIDS via Flickr.
The National Interest · by Seth G. Jones · August 20, 2022
8. Analysis: Thirty hour long hotel siege emblematic of Somalia’s remaining security challenges
Excerpts:
Some 500 US special operations forces have since returned to Somalia, though their mission remains limited to training and advising the Somali National Army. US-trained units, including the Alpha Group, one of Somalia’s top counter-terrorism units, were involved in ending the recent hotel siege. It is unclear, however, if any US personnel played any direct advisory role during the counter-assault.
Despite some setbacks in recent years, Shabaab continues to be one of al Qaeda’s most effective branches. Though its fortunes have ebbed and flowed over the past decade, it has shown the capacity to weather numerous offensives from an array of local, regional, and international actors, including the United States.
Shabaab’s hotel siege, and the slow progress made by Somali security forces to end it, thus acts as a microcosm for the conflict against the group writ large. Mogadishu, and by extension Washington, continue to struggle in efforts to effectively contain al Qaeda’s largest branch while progressing with the status quo.
Analysis: Thirty hour long hotel siege emblematic of Somalia’s remaining security challenges | FDD's Long War Journal
longwarjournal.org · by Caleb Weiss · August 21, 2022
On Friday, Shabaab, al Qaeda’s branch in East Africa, launched a coordinated suicide assault on the Hayat Hotel in Somalia’s capital of Mogadishu. Almost 30 hours later it was ended by Somali security forces, constituting the longest hotel siege in the jihadist group’s history. More worrying, however, is that the assault acts a deadly symbol for Mogadishu’s continued lack of security.
Somali outlets have reported that at least 21 people were killed in the siege, though this number is expected to rise. It is also unclear if this number includes security personnel or just civilians. At least 117 other people were wounded in the long assault.
Local sources and Shabaab itself reported on Friday that the group began the assault on the Hayat Hotel, a popular hotel with Somalia’s security establishment, with two suicide car bombs before an assault team breached the perimeter and entered the hotel. This modus operandi of a suicide assault is a common tactic used by Shabaab, as well as other jihadist groups around the globe.
The gunmen then laid siege to the building, where the militants holed up for over 30 hours, exchanging gunfire with security services between floors. As security and emergency personnel arrived on the scene, a third suicide bomber then struck at the emergency services.
Somali troops, including US and Turkish-trained special forces units, quickly started a rescue operation, saving several civilians from the jihadists’ onslought. Video reportedly from the hotel documents almost two dozen civilians fleeing the perimeter after being freed by Somali forces.
Additional explosions, identified as grenades, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), or additional possible suicide bombings were recorded throughout the long gunfight as security forces slowly advanced throughout the hotel.
Shabaab was quick to claim credit for the siege, additionally contending earlier yesterday, Aug. 20, that its rampage has “eliminated dozens of officials, officers, and security personnel” and that “bodies of the dead are strewn through the rooms and courtyard of the three story hotel.”
For his part, Shabaab’s military spokesman, Abdulaziz Abu Musab, claimed the militants killed at least 40 “apostates.”
At least two prominent Somali security officials, including the chief of Mogadishu’s intelligence apparatus and one of Mogadishu’s top police officers, were wounded in the assault. It is unclear if the intelligence chief was the specific target or if his presence was a coincidence. The owner of the Hayat Hotel was also reportedly among the killed victims.
Further Shabaab statements also allege that the militants inside the hotel remained in contact with the group’s senior leadership and media apparatus throughout the siege.
For instance, a statement released on Saturday around the 24 hour mark of the siege stated that “Jaabir, one of the inghamasi’s [commandos] inside the Hayat Hotel, informed through an audio recording that he and his brethren are well and the attack continues.” Gunshots can additionally be heard in the short audio recording released by the group.
The fact that the militants involved in the attack remained in contact with Shabaab’s leadership during the siege is not surprising. This was also the case in the group’s infamous 2013 attack at Nairobi’s Westgate Mall. Other terrorist groups, such at the Haqqani Network and Lashkar-e-Taiba, have used the same tactic. It allows a group’s leadership to remain in the know regarding the progress of the assault, while also allowing for the relaying of tactical knowledge to the attackers.
Before Somali troops officially ended the siege, Shabaab claimed that some of the fighters involved in the assault were able to escape the hotel perimeter and reach the group’s safehouses in Mogadishu. This reporting, however, is unconfirmed and likely propaganda. Somali officials reported that all gunmen were killed inside the hotel.
Hotel siege as a deadly symbol of Somalia’s hefty security challenges
Shabaab routinely conducts attacks, both large and small-scale, inside Mogadishu. However, this is the group’s first hotel assault in the capital since Jan. 2021. That attack, which involved a similar modus operandi of suicide car bombs followed by gunmen, left at least nine people dead at the Afrik Hotel, a hotel also near the Hayat in Mogadishu’s K-4 junction.
Moreover, the siege on the Hayat Hotel, lasting for over 30 hours, is the group’s longest hotel siege in its history of attacks inside the Somali capital. That the jihadist group was able to not only penetrate a highly-secured area of Mogadishu, but remain fighting in the hotel for that long demonstrates Shabaab’s strength and capabilities.
Over the past several years, Shabaab has also raided Mogadishu’s SYL Hotel on multiple occasions, Elite Hotel, Maka al Mukarama Hotel, Dayah Hotel, Beach View Hotel, Ambassador’s Hotel, Central Hotel, Al Sahafi Hotel, and Jazeera Hotel.
Elsewhere, Shabaab has also struck hotels in Kismayo and in Kenya’s capital of Nairobi.
Friday’s three bombings brings the total number of suicide bombings conducted by Shabaab this year to 27, according to data compiled by FDD’s Long War Journal. The group has carried out at least 82 suicide bombings inside Somalia since 2020.
This number could rise if additional suicide bombings are confirmed to have taken place inside the Hayat Hotel.
Newly elected Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who is serving a second non-consecutive term, faces a severe challenge from Shabaab and to a relatively lesser extent Islamic State.
Regarding the former, President Mohamud recently stated he intended to combat Shabaab through both military and non-military means, while opening the door for any potential talks with the group. These comments, that the door for negotiations and President Mohamud’s desire to wage “economic and ideological war” against the group, were reiterated during the siege.
However, Shabaab itself appears to have shot the idea of negotiations down. The group’s aforementioned spokesman, Abdulaziz Abu Musab, stated that the siege on the Hayat Hotel was a direct response to President Mohamud’s statements about his administration’s plan for Shabaab. The jihadi spokesman stated in a message posted to Shabaab’s Radio al Andalus website:
“This operation came while the apostates, especially the leader of the group Hassan Gurguurte [a derogatory name for Hassan Sheikh], shouted to his Crusader allies saying that he will destroy and end the Mujahideen. Today, it has changed that the members of the government and government employees will be killed and mourned there [at the Hayat Hotel]. We know that Gurguurte is a stupid fool, who declared war against us and is not ready for it.”
The hotel siege also further showcases the severe challenges that remain in the United States’ effort to curtail the al Qaeda branch. The hotel assault comes as the United States has increased its tempo of airstrikes against the al Qaeda branch. The US military has conducted at least 6 strikes against the group since June 3.
At least two of those airstrikes are related to ongoing operations conducted by the Somali National Army in Somalia’s central Hiraan Region. Those operations are in-turn a response to Shabaab’s recent major incursions into Ethiopian territory mounted from Hiraan and nearby Bakool.
And while the US has launched hundreds of airstrikes against Shabaab since 2007, the group continues to effectively wage its jihad throughout most of Somalia, including the heavily fortified capital.
The Biden Administration returned US troops to Somalia earlier this year, reversing the Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw US forces in late 2020. The Biden Administration argued it was necessary to return US troops to combat Shabaab as it was growing in strength following the initial US withdrawal.
Some 500 US special operations forces have since returned to Somalia, though their mission remains limited to training and advising the Somali National Army. US-trained units, including the Alpha Group, one of Somalia’s top counter-terrorism units, were involved in ending the recent hotel siege. It is unclear, however, if any US personnel played any direct advisory role during the counter-assault.
Despite some setbacks in recent years, Shabaab continues to be one of al Qaeda’s most effective branches. Though its fortunes have ebbed and flowed over the past decade, it has shown the capacity to weather numerous offensives from an array of local, regional, and international actors, including the United States.
Shabaab’s hotel siege, and the slow progress made by Somali security forces to end it, thus acts as a microcosm for the conflict against the group writ large. Mogadishu, and by extension Washington, continue to struggle in efforts to effectively contain al Qaeda’s largest branch while progressing with the status quo.
Caleb Weiss is a research analyst at FDD's Long War Journal and a senior analyst at the Bridgeway Foundation, where he focuses on the spread of the Islamic State in Central Africa.
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longwarjournal.org · by Caleb Weiss · August 21, 2022
9. The Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis Is Just Starting
Excerpts:
Looking forward, there are steps all sides should take to minimize the damage and avoid conflict. The underlying military balance across the strait has changed, Chinese nationalism has taken on an ugly militarist tone, and Xi has implied some need for “progress” on the Taiwan issue. Clearly, the United States cannot unilaterally “solve” the crisis without abandoning an important regional partner. But provocations should serve strategic purposes. Selling man-portable surface-to-air missiles and potent coastal defense cruise missiles will certainly provoke the ire of Beijing, but their benefits in maintaining the cross-strait military balance will outweigh that. By contrast, flashy F-16 sales do little to defend Taiwan from China’s missile force. More realistic military policy and vastly increased budgets coupled with diplomatic efforts to reduce Beijing’s fear of abrupt pro-independence initiatives can help lower tensions. And, of course, if policymakers in Beijing are reading, they should also show greater restraint in place of the provocative attitude that has marked the last decade.
Whatever happens, the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis will be regarded as another important milestone in the deterioration of Sino-American relations. We have already crossed a number of worrisome thresholds, and the two main actors continue to posture for various strategic and domestic reasons. China, in particular, seeks to prevent a slow but steady shift in Taiwan’s status, while the United States seeks to reassure Taiwan and other allies. With careful statesmanship and a little luck, outright war can be avoided — but neither of these is ever guaranteed.
The Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis Is Just Starting - War on the Rocks
warontherocks.com · by Christopher P. Twomey · August 22, 2022
The Chinese military exercises that began on Aug. 3, 2022, have initiated the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis. The most immediate reason for this was Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei. But this is a bigger crisis, driven by bigger factors. There has been a steady erosion in Sino-American relations and — not unrelated — a shift in the nature of U.S.-Taiwan relations that Beijing finds deeply threatening. As a result, expectations of a rapid resolution to the crisis are chimeric, as too are blithe expectations of a quick return to the status quo ante.
Like the previous three Taiwan Strait Crises, this will likely mark a turning point in Sino-American relations. As in previous crises, domestic political dynamics among all three participants will drive opportunism and complicate crisis management and diplomacy, extending its duration. This creates further potential for misperceptions, miscalculations, and mistakes, all increasing the risk of inadvertent escalation. Leaders in Beijing, Washington, and Taipei should recognize the dangers inherent in this crisis and engage in both selective restraint and cautious diplomacy.
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Origins of the Current Crisis
All the previous Taiwan crises had important implications for regional security, and we should expect the same today. The First Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1954-1955 had the most potential to escalate. It involved intense shelling of offshore islands, nuclear saber rattling by the United States, and successful amphibious operations by the People’s Liberation Army that led to the seizure of several small islands. The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, in 1958, involved such bravado from Mao Zedong that even Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was put off, contributing to the Sino-Soviet rift. The Third Taiwan Strait Crisis erupted out of Chinese anger at Taiwanese President Lee Denghui’s visit to the United States in 1995. Although it arguably had limited potential to escalate given the relevant military balance across the Taiwan Strait at the time, there were major implications nonetheless: It sparked double digit growth in China’s military budget and led the People’s Liberation Army to develop anti-access, area-denial doctrines to threaten U.S carriers deployed during future incidents. When it is finally resolved, the current crisis will likely have had similarly significant effects.
Thankfully none of the previous crises escalated into a major Sino-American war, and there are reasons to be hopeful that this crisis will not either. China has a great need for stability in the run up to the Party Congress in the fall, and Beijing recognizes that initiating a military offensive would be highly unpredictable.
Nonetheless, we are in the early stages of the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis: It is likely to continue for weeks and months and even now it is more severe than the third. Already, events have surpassed important thresholds. Some five to nine missiles passed over Taiwan en route to targets east of the main island. Portions of two of the initial exercise boxes fell within territorial waters claimed by Taiwan, and one comes within just a few miles of a small Taiwanese island. The initial set of six declared boxes bracket the island as a whole and key ports, much more than the closure zones in 1995 and 1996. Five missiles targeted areas within Japan’s claimed exclusive economic zone beyond those that China disputes. Although violations of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone have become more common in recent years, they too have intensified in the past weeks. Chinese helicopters have buzzed Taiwan’s offshore islands, two Chinese carriers have been put to sea, and additional exercises have been announced.
Beyond China, the military involvement of other actors has also been significant. The United States has gathered substantial naval capabilities in Northeast Asia, far more than a routine deployment. According to the U.S. Naval Institute, of the 114 ships currently operationally deployed across the entire globe, 59 are attached to the Seventh Fleet, the forward-based fleet originally ordered to patrol the Taiwan Strait in 1950. This includes one super carrier and two smaller carriers, with an additional super carrier and another smaller carrier finishing Rim of the Pacific exercises near Hawaii. All of those are capable of launching F-35 strike aircraft. Beyond this, a B-2 taskforce is deployed in Australia, a rotational deployment of F-35s arrived in Korea last month, and a 12-day command and control exercise centering on the Southern Pacific began on Aug. 3. Some of these deployments may have been long planned (China’s carrier deployment may have been as well). But others, including one of the small carriers put to sea in recent days, are clearly reactions to Chinese escalations. The result is a major concentration of forces available to monitor the situation surrounding Taiwan. And on top of all this, an additional congressional delegation visited the island later in the month.
Of course, Taiwan’s military is also monitoring the situation and on high alert. The overflight of Taiwanese airspace obviously increases the need for monitoring and the potential for direct engagement of forces. During China’s exercises, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense announced that its missile defense capabilities “have been activated.” In addition to conducting pre-scheduled exercises aimed at repulsing amphibious assaults, other capabilities are in higher states of readiness as well. Finally, Japan’s military has actively monitored the situation as well, vociferously protesting China’s missile tests.
Not only has the military component of this crisis already escalated beyond the last one, but China has also escalated diplomatically and economically as well. A severe statement was released by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Pelosi landed. The U.S. ambassador in Beijing, Nicholas Burns, was called into the Foreign Ministry to receive a formal démarche late that evening as well. Beijing also suspended or cancelled a series of planned bilateral exchanges. A set of well-crafted economic sanctions were levied against Taiwan, including several that appeared optimized to target the more assertive Democratic People’s Party constituencies. Basic distributed denial-of-service attacks have shut down official and media web pages in Taiwan intermittently since Pelosi’s visit. A polished white paper on the Taiwan issue was released, laying out the contemporary elements of China’s policy. This coordinated activity is a significant achievement within the stove-piped Chinese political system, suggesting Beijing clearly planned well for the first stage of the crisis.
These are just the opening weeks. The historical record and current context suggest the situation is unlikely to settle quickly, even if Beijing wraps up its next round of military exercises in short order. In all of the previous Taiwan Strait crises, tensions and military activity ebbed and flowed. The first and third crises lasted approximately eight months, and the second over three.
International Factors
Today, international and domestic factors will interact to further complicate crisis management. All three primary actors will assess the messages they have sent and received and may conclude that additional signaling of resolve is necessary. China is trying to use military signals to dissuade the United States and Taiwan from continuing past policies. The United States and Taiwan are trying to show that they are not being deterred from continuing what they see to be rightful and consistent policies.
At first, China’s actions were driven by the simple question of whether Pelosi would visit Taiwan or not. Going forward, Beijing will be responding to much more complicated questions. For instance, how “official” were Pelosi’s activities in Taiwan? Does Japan’s responses suggest Tokyo’s policy is also shifting? If so, how much? In classic security dilemma fashion, Beijing may find that it has provoked more official engagement between Japan and Taiwan.
More fundamentally, Beijing sees Washington as moving away from its “One China Policy” and increasingly creating an official relationship with Taiwan. This undermines a core strategic interest for Beijing. Beginning with a cabinet level visit under the Trump administration and revision of rules for diplomatic engagement signed by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Beijing began to worry Washington was violating the commitments it made in establishing relations with the People’s Republic of China during the Cold War. Public discussion of U.S. military forces in Taiwan, repeated off-the-cuff statements from President Biden, and changing language on official State Department web pages all, in Beijing’s view, provide further evidence of this shift. Thus, an important goal for Beijing in the crisis is to deter further such salami slicing of the U.S. “One China Policy” more generally, as well as protesting the specific sliver that Pelosi’s visit represents. This raises the stakes in the crisis and makes bringing it to a quick resolution less likely.
Furthermore, just as with economic sanctions leveled against Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, China’s economic tools will take time to exact costs on the Taiwanese economy. There will be a strong logic for Beijing to retain these in place in the absence of any concession from Taipei. This too will keep tensions escalated.
America’s national security apparatus will also be loath to let the appearance of Chinese military coercion go unchallenged. This is important for Washington’s continued (if strategically ambiguous) support for Taiwan but also to help assure allies in the region, some of whom will be far more concerned with the Chinese exercises than U.S. domestic audiences. The mere presence of U.S. deployments discussed above will help on this front, but may, in themselves, be deemed insufficient. Indeed, the United States has already started talking about imminent Taiwan Strait transit missions and has deployed additional capital ships.
Another complication, from Beijing’s side, is that the bureaucratic Chinese political system — not least the national security apparatus — remain sclerotic. This will make maintaining an integrated and coordinated response more challenging for Beijing as the pace of actions and reactions increase. Slow decision-making in Beijing characterized previous crises, such as the EP-3 incident in 2001 and the Belgrade embassy bombing of 1999. If the United States, Taiwan, and China intensify the tempo of military activity as the crises continues, such inertia will be dangerous.
Domestic Political Factors
Domestic factors in China, Taiwan, and the United States have also played a key role in creating this crisis and will continue to drive it. The Chinese Communist Party’s reliance on nationalism in general, and specifically as related to Taiwan, will create pressure on the regime to live up to its self-proclaimed status as defender of China’s unity. This will be particularly important from now through the fall when Xi Jinping, in a move unprecedented since the 1980s, plans to be reappointed to lead the party. There is some social media grumbling about Beijing’s response inside China already. While censorship and repression can contribute to managing public opinion, Chinese leaders remain sensitive to it nonetheless.
In the United States, maintaining a confrontational approach to China now has bipartisan backing. As demonstrated by the recent passage of the CHIPS bill, treating China as a threat to be confronted is one of the few things that garners support from both sides of the aisle. This makes it harder for the United States to back down, just as it complicated internal discussions to dissuade Pelosi from going in the first place.
Finally, the Taiwanese people’s deepening identification as Taiwanese rather than Chinese will make managing the cross-strait relationship even more difficult. This will color Taiwan’s local electoral campaigns in the fall and in the more distant 2024 elections for president. It has already put the Democratic Progressive Party — which is committed to creating more “international space” apart from Beijing — in full control of most elements of Taiwan’s government.
Risks of Escalation
While both strategic and political elements will exacerbate this crisis, it is not a prelude to a Chinese invasion. The timing is not suitable given China’s political calendar, the Chinese military is too early in its modernization for an adventurous amphibious assault, and there is no sign of wholesale military mobilization. There is, as a result, no prospect of imminent U.S. preemption either. But despite this, there will be a lot of force posturing and militarized signals over the coming weeks and months. Inadvertent escalation is a concern, and the exacerbation of the existing security dilemma is guaranteed.
Inadvertent escalation can come in many forms. At the simplest level, human errors might occur. These are more likely during periods of high stress and long hours. Relatively junior officers have tremendous responsibilities in the U.S. military, and the Chinese system relies on rigid top-down command and control. Both raise risks in this regard. Misperceptions of military signals sent by opposing forces is also a major concern. One could imagine a variety of scenarios: Close monitoring, whether shadowing naval vessels or observing missile flights, will require high tempo operations. China engaged in a series of “unsafe” intercepts of U.S. and allied aircraft earlier this year. Those practices would presumably have been approved at high levels within the military and restraining them in a time of crisis will be challenging. Again, while not likely to lead directly to war, any escalation of tensions that is not deliberate serves no one’s interest. In the longer term, we should expect a ratchet effect from this crisis. Beijing will certainly face future provocations that it will want to respond to. In those cases, China will view its response this time as a baseline and try to “do more.”
This crisis will also inevitably exacerbate mutual suspicions in Washington and Beijing. There has already been a deterioration of relations between both sides, arguably beginning in 2008 and certainly accelerating since 2018. This crisis will deepen tensions and reify beliefs on both sides that the relationship is one of military competition.
Looking forward, there are steps all sides should take to minimize the damage and avoid conflict. The underlying military balance across the strait has changed, Chinese nationalism has taken on an ugly militarist tone, and Xi has implied some need for “progress” on the Taiwan issue. Clearly, the United States cannot unilaterally “solve” the crisis without abandoning an important regional partner. But provocations should serve strategic purposes. Selling man-portable surface-to-air missiles and potent coastal defense cruise missiles will certainly provoke the ire of Beijing, but their benefits in maintaining the cross-strait military balance will outweigh that. By contrast, flashy F-16 sales do little to defend Taiwan from China’s missile force. More realistic military policy and vastly increased budgets coupled with diplomatic efforts to reduce Beijing’s fear of abrupt pro-independence initiatives can help lower tensions. And, of course, if policymakers in Beijing are reading, they should also show greater restraint in place of the provocative attitude that has marked the last decade.
Whatever happens, the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis will be regarded as another important milestone in the deterioration of Sino-American relations. We have already crossed a number of worrisome thresholds, and the two main actors continue to posture for various strategic and domestic reasons. China, in particular, seeks to prevent a slow but steady shift in Taiwan’s status, while the United States seeks to reassure Taiwan and other allies. With careful statesmanship and a little luck, outright war can be avoided — but neither of these is ever guaranteed.
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Christopher P. Twomey is an associate professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, where he focuses on Chinese foreign policy and East Asian security issues. He authored The Military Lens: Doctrinal Differences and Deterrence Failure in Sino-American Relations (Cornell University Press, 2010) and articles in journals such as Security Studies, Journal of Contemporary China, and Asian Survey. Dr. Twomey received his Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his undergraduate and M.A. degrees from UC San Diego, and conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard. This essay represents his personal views and does not reflect any U.S. government or military office.
Image: China Military Online
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warontherocks.com · by Christopher P. Twomey · August 22, 2022
10. Taliban Appoints Former Guantanamo Bay Detainee to Lead Fight in Panjshir
Excerpts:
The Taliban’s naming of Zakir to combat the National Resistance Front, which is led by Ahmad Massoud, is a clear indication that the NRF is challenging the Taliban’s primacy in central and northern Afghanistan. FDD’s Long War Journal has compiled information on the fighting, and assesses seven districts as contested (four in Panjshir, two in Baghlan, and one in Takhar) and 14 more as having significant guerrilla activity.
Zakir, who is also known as Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, was captured in Afghanistan in December of 2001 and transferred to Afghanistan six years later in December of 2007. He quickly rejoined the Taliban and was appointed to senior positions in the Taliban’s military structure in the south.
Taliban Appoints Former Guantanamo Bay Detainee to Lead Fight in Panjshir | FDD's Long War Journal
longwarjournal.org · by Bill Roggio · August 22, 2022
The Taliban named Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir as its military commander in the restive central Afghan province of Panjshir. Zakir, who was held at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility for six years, is considered to be one of the Taliban’s most effective and dangerous military commanders.
Zakir’s appointment to lead the fight against the National Resistance Front (NRF) in Panjshir and the district of Andarab in the neighboring province of Baghlan was announced on Aug. 21 by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.
The Taliban’s naming of Zakir to combat the National Resistance Front, which is led by Ahmad Massoud, is a clear indication that the NRF is challenging the Taliban’s primacy in central and northern Afghanistan. FDD’s Long War Journal has compiled information on the fighting, and assesses seven districts as contested (four in Panjshir, two in Baghlan, and one in Takhar) and 14 more as having significant guerrilla activity.
Zakir, who is also known as Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, was captured in Afghanistan in December of 2001 and transferred to Afghanistan six years later in December of 2007. He quickly rejoined the Taliban and was appointed to senior positions in the Taliban’s military structure in the south.
After he was released by the Afghan government in 2008, Zakir served as the head of the Taliban’s Gerdi Jangal Regional Military Shura, a military command that oversaw operations in Helmand and Nimroz provinces. In this capacity, he worked closely with Al Qaeda.
Zakir led the fight against the U.S. surge in the south, and in 2010 was appointed as the head of the Taliban’s military commission. He resigned in 2014 but remained on the Taliban’s Quetta Shura and led military forces in the south. Zakir played a key role in organizing the Taliban’s military and directing its strategy of contesting and seizing rural districts in the south in preparation for the Taliban’s push to take control of the population centers in the summer of 2021.
In 2020, Zakir was appointed to serve as a deputy to military commission chief Mullah Yacoub, the son of Mullah Omar who also serves as one of the Taliban’s two deputy emirs along with Sirajuddin Haqqani. After the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan on Aug. 15, 2021, Zakir was appointed as the Taliban’s deputy minister of defense.
For more information on Mullah Zakir, see LWJ reports, The Taliban’s surge commander was Gitmo detainee and The Taliban’s surge commander was Gitmo detainee.
Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.
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longwarjournal.org · by Bill Roggio · August 22, 2022
11. Will the Drone War Come Home? Ukraine and the Weaponization of Commercial Drones
Excerpts:
Moving Forward
As commercial drones become increasingly advanced, accessible, and cheap, the threat from direct and indirect AVBIEDs will become more acute. It is only a matter of time before a state proxy, terrorist group, or lone wolf launches another attack on a high-ranking government official, as a group of rebels attempted in Venezuela in 2018, or an iconic target using an AVBIED. Even if the assault causes minimal casualties, such an event would leave a lasting effect on the public psyche. Large public gatherings and celebrations from the Super Bowl to a Wembley Stadium concert would become instant targets necessary to defend. More sophisticated actors could stage massed and coordinated attacks on the battlefield or on Broadway, where AVBIEDs could swarm a target from multiple directions and overwhelm security forces.
NATO and the governments of its member states should capitalize on recent momentum to organize a study of defensive systems and identify vulnerabilities. NATO could establish a dedicated center of excellence to research, educate, and train member and partner nations on responding to AVBIEDs. Governments must look no further than Ukraine to learn lessons on the threats AVBIEDs will pose in the future of irregular war.
Will the Drone War Come Home? Ukraine and the Weaponization of Commercial Drones - Modern War Institute
Benjamin Fogel and Andro Mathewson | 08.22.22
mwi.usma.edu · by Benjamin Fogel · August 22, 2022
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Hours after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense appealed for civilian drone owners to donate or fly their commercially bought drones to help defend Kyiv. Donations poured in and consumer unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) took to the skies amid Russia’s advance. Throughout the war, commercial UAVs have been used by Ukrainian regular and special operations forces, Belarusian partisans, Russian infantry, and Russian-led separatists; they demonstrate the challenges, opportunities, and threats emerging from the proliferation of consumer drones. The most common are small, light, and inexpensive rotary-wing quadcopters produced by the Chinese drone maker DJI.
Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and homemade drones can offer low-cost and low-risk intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities and are commonly used for target acquisition and for directing artillery or mortar fire. These drones can also be converted into delivery vehicles for improvised explosive devices (IEDs), capable of precision impacts and profound psychological effects. Shortly into the conflict, videos emerged of Ukrainian forces dropping munitions on Russian targets from commercial UAVs, including one popular example where a bomblet was dropped through the sunroof of a Russian vehicle. These aerial attacks employed modernized RKG-3 antitank grenades and VOG-17 fragmentation grenades and successfully targeted and destroyed mechanized and infantry forces.
Ukraine established an impromptu UAV unit following the 2014 Russian invasion when volunteer IT professionals and drone hobbyists came together to form the Aerorozvidka unit. While primarily used for intelligence collection, Aerorozvidka also modifies commercial drones for kinetic strikes, marking Ukraine as one of the first states to develop and use such a tactic. Employment of lethal COTS drones is neither new nor unique to Ukraine or the region. For example, in 2020, Ukrainian forces reported an attack in Donetsk from a COTS drone–dropped grenade, and in the fall of 2021 the Belarusian resistance claimed to have bombed a Minsk police station with a COTS UAV.
The proliferation of small commercial drones represents a dangerous asymmetric threat that Western governments are ill-prepared to counter. The post-9/11 era coincided with information and digital technology revolutions that lowered the barriers of entry for the modification and use of COTS drones. In turn, smaller states and nonstate actors—including terrorist groups, guerrillas, and lone wolves—have developed precision capabilities previously monopolized by advanced militaries. The very nature of commercially available technology means that innovation is diffusing and any creative actor can develop this capability, eroding the advantage of large states and posing new military and security challenges. Cheap commercial drones carrying self-fashioned explosive devices will not remain limited to theaters of war. In essence, these types of drones have become aerial vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (AVBIEDs).
Counter-AVBIED capabilities are few and far between and existing techniques have not been effectively tested. The materials to create AVBIEDs are cheap, readily accessible, and easily concealed, and can be legally purchased or effortlessly smuggled into Riga, Prague, Stockholm, or Brussels. A malicious actor could attempt a high-profile attack on a busy intersection or crowded marketplace to achieve the psychological effects of a London- or Nice-style terrorist attack that could leave civilians looking to the skies in terror for the rest of their lives. Western governments must learn a critical technical lesson from Ukraine: how to counter AVBIEDs once unleashed on civilian population centers.
The AVBIED: When the Drone Hobbyist Seeks Terror
Terrorist attacks primarily rely on readily available weapons and materials such as small arms and improvised explosives. Remotely detonated IEDs and vehicle-borne IEDs—car bombs—were two attempts to innovate new asymmetric weapons. Since the development of modern drones in the mid to late twentieth century, their use has been monopolized by national militaries. As small drones entered commercial markets in the early 2000s, the remote precision targeting gap has narrowed.
With the emergence of commercially available drones, a new terrorist tool was created—the AVBIED. Unlike their grounded counterparts, AVBIEDs can target remote and restricted areas by navigating a permissive air environment. They are cheap, mobile, and flexible, and in the hands of a relatively skilled operator they can be precise and deadly. Importantly, their missions are not necessarily suicidal for machine or operator. While drones can be employed in single-use, one-way missions (direct AVBIEDs), they can also be outfitted with remotely released explosive ordnance and deployed for multiple missions (indirect AVBIEDs). These latter AVBIEDs can be built with simple, independent release mechanisms to deliver a payload on target and return to a staging area to be resupplied and reused.
Direct AVBIEDs
Direct AVBIEDs conduct kamikaze-style attacks in which the machine is expected to detonate on impact. This crude delivery mechanism dates back to the Cold War, when, in 1971, the Jewish Defense League planned to use a “drone airplane” to target the Soviet Mission to the UN. Another early attempt came in 1977, when according to German media, the Red Army Faction sought to target German politician Franz Josef Strauss with a remote-controlled aircraft.
Many cases of planned attacks with direct AVBIEDs have surfaced over the past two decades, but they were often dismissed as unrealistic or exaggerated. For example, months before he orchestrated the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden was believed by some intelligence officials to have been planning an attack on the July 2001 G8 Summit in Italy, targeting President George W. Bush and other world leaders. In another example, during the Second Intifada, the Palestinian Authority reportedly redirected hundreds of toy planes intended for Palestinian children to bomb makers for AVBIED research and development. Both the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and Hamas also began to explore AVBIED programs, though neither became operational. The most significant plot was disrupted in 2011, when al-Qaeda sympathizer Rezwan Ferdaus became the first terrorist convicted and imprisoned for attempting to use a direct AVBIED in an attack on American soil. Ferdaus sought to equip multiple remote-controlled aircraft with explosives to target the US Capitol and Pentagon buildings.
It was not until the Syrian Civil War and the rise of the Islamic State that weaponized drones were successfully deployed by nonstate actors. Although ISIS’s drone program dates back to early 2013, it accelerated rapidly beginning in 2015, when the group stood up a dedicated research and development division. In 2016, ISIS carried out several drone attacks in Iraq, killing two Kurdish fighters and injuring two French soldiers. The tactics spread to groups in Syria, where rebels have attempted to mass direct AVBIED attacks against government forces, and to Mexico, where cartels have adopted AVBIEDs as a tool of intimidation and targeted assassination.
Indirect AVBIEDs
Indirect AVBIEDs are distinguished by the use of an independent release mechanism that enables the drone to drop its munitions and return to the operator. It can thus be reequipped and reused. These AVBIEDs can deliver conventional munitions or can serve as platforms to mount other weapons such as firearms or aerosolized spraying devices. Indirect AVBIEDs are more likely to be used in attacks against smaller or weaker targets due to limited payload, though as demonstrated in Ukraine, they can be effective against vehicles.
The first attempt to develop indirect AVBIEDs occurred in 1995, when Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo acquired “at least two radio controlled drone aircraft” in a plan to disperse sarin gas or aerosolized anthrax throughout Tokyo. The next supposed case arose in 2003, when alleged al-Qaeda associate Moazzam Begg was accused of plotting to use a drone for a chemical weapons attack on the British House of Commons. A decade later, Iraq arrested five men planning to use a remote-controlled helicopter to release mustard gas.
Although early attempts to develop indirect AVBIEDs focused on turning UAVs into weapons platforms, today they are primarily used to release conventional munitions. In 2016, Hezbollah first employed commercial UAVs in Aleppo and dropped Chinese-manufactured MZD-2 cluster munitions on Syrian rebel positions. On the other side, Syrian jihadists were also mastering indirect AVBIEDs and modified drones to drop ordnance on proregime forces in Hama. More recently, in Myanmar, the People’s Defense Force has targeted government police stations and training camps grenades with stabilizing tail fins resembling 3D-printed shuttlecocks from drones, while Houthis have bombed progovernment forces in Yemen with grenade-carrying, DJI Mavic 2 quadcopters.
Commercial Drones in Ukraine
The war in Ukraine has advanced commercial drone war. Even before 2022, Aerorozvidka, the Ukrainian drone unit, was integrated into Ukraine’s armed forces and formally brought weaponized COTS drones into state military services. It developed two types of indirect AVBIEDs: quadcopters generally designed for smaller munitions, such as antipersonnel hand grenades, and octocopters capable of carrying heavier antitank grenades or mortars. Smaller quadcopters can cost less than $1,000, while larger octocopters cost between $5,000 and $20,000. By 2020, Aerorozvidka announced it had successfully attached 3D-printed stabilization fins to RKG-3 antitank grenades to create the RKG-1600. The newly printed tail increased the accuracy of the munitions and enabled the user to drop them from a greater height, reducing the threat of detection, and with greater precision.
Since the war began, innovation in indirect AVBIED capabilities has accelerated, as both sides have found new ways to independently release munitions from COTS UAVs. For example, some Ukrainian units began modifying a piece of fishing gear called tackle feeders to act as a release mechanism for grenades to prevent premature detonation, while Russian-led fighters in the Donbas have begun dropping grenades held in plastic cups. AVBIEDs were used to attack Russian convoys outside of Kyiv and improvised fixed-wing UAVs have also been found. Russian Telegram channels, which have boasted about Russia’s indirect AVBIED capabilities since the start of the war, frequently share videos of Russian service members crudely modifying DJI quadcopters to carry grenades. Large quantities of DJIs have been captured. The conflict has inspired others to create new AVBIED capabilities: Dutch engineers, for example, have designed drum magazine release mechanisms for dropping mortar shells. But the conflict also highlights the need to create counter–small UAV capabilities as states begin to respond to the threat of weaponized consumer drones.
Capabilities to Counter the Threat
Countering these emerging capabilities involves two broad elements: monitoring and countermeasures. Monitoring equipment can be active, passive, or a combination that detects, classifies, locates, and tracks drones in range. Small commercial UAVs are hard to monitor because they are often no bigger than a large bird and possess a low radar signature. Monitoring gear generally cannot distinguish between armed and surveillance drones, but detecting drones and their movement is the first step to providing effective AVBIED responses.
Countermeasures aim to neutralize or destroy a hostile drone. Drones can be neutralized with directional radio frequency jammers, GPS spoofers, or high-power microwave devices; they can be destroyed by high-energy lasers, small arms fire, net guns, or even trained birds of prey. While these are effective against unarmed commercial drones, it becomes more complex with AVBIEDs, depending on payload and range from the target. Since AVBIEDs carry explosive munitions, they are likely to cause damage and casualties unless neutralized or destroyed at a significant distance from an intended target and away from populated areas.
The Ukrainian front lines are seeing the first widespread battlefield testing of counter-AVBIED capabilities. Both small arms fire and directional jammers are being used, with Ukrainian forces introducing the DroneDefender, manufactured by the US company Dedrone, and the Lithuanian “Sky Wiper” EDM4S as nonlethal antidrone jamming guns.
Specific counter-AVBIED tactics, techniques, and procedures cannot be found in publicly available sources. The UK Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Strategy does not mention the word “explosive,” while the US Department of Homeland Security Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems Technology Guide only references that commercial drones can carry explosives. The US Department of Defense Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Strategy recognizes the importance of responding to the threat of commercial drones but does not explicitly mention the danger of AVBIEDs. With the increasing use of COTS drones for targeted attacks, developing cost-efficient and sustainable countermeasures must become a priority.
Additionally, as advances in commercial technologies continue, we will see increased use of unmanned and autonomous systems. For example, underwater drones are already being used as vehicles for IEDs; last year Hamas attempted to destroy Israeli offshore installations with an explosives-carrying uncrewed submersible. Developing precise and specific countermeasures is a necessity to prevent both targeted attacks against authorities and indiscriminate attacks against civilians.
Moving Forward
As commercial drones become increasingly advanced, accessible, and cheap, the threat from direct and indirect AVBIEDs will become more acute. It is only a matter of time before a state proxy, terrorist group, or lone wolf launches another attack on a high-ranking government official, as a group of rebels attempted in Venezuela in 2018, or an iconic target using an AVBIED. Even if the assault causes minimal casualties, such an event would leave a lasting effect on the public psyche. Large public gatherings and celebrations from the Super Bowl to a Wembley Stadium concert would become instant targets necessary to defend. More sophisticated actors could stage massed and coordinated attacks on the battlefield or on Broadway, where AVBIEDs could swarm a target from multiple directions and overwhelm security forces.
NATO and the governments of its member states should capitalize on recent momentum to organize a study of defensive systems and identify vulnerabilities. NATO could establish a dedicated center of excellence to research, educate, and train member and partner nations on responding to AVBIEDs. Governments must look no further than Ukraine to learn lessons on the threats AVBIEDs will pose in the future of irregular war.
Benjamin Fogel is a graduate student at Johns Hopkins SAIS, with experience at the UN, European Union, and NATO Allied Air Command on Ramstein Air Base. He was named junior ambassador to the 2020 Munich Security Conference and 2022 GLOBSEC young leader.
Andro Mathewson is a research officer at the HALO Trust, focusing on the conflict in Ukraine. He completed his master’s degree in international relations at the University of Edinburgh where he explored the proliferation of underwater drones. Before that, he was a fellow at Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania. He is starting his PhD in War Studies at Kings College London in September 2022.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense, or that of any organization the authors are affiliated.
Image credit: Gunnery Sgt. Melissa Marnell, US Marine Corps
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mwi.usma.edu · by Benjamin Fogel · August 22, 2022
12. This is what spy fiction leaves out about the CIA
Conclusion:
I am sure that the countless authors and screenwriters out there who write CIA fiction know what they are doing when crafting entertaining espionage narratives. I myself enjoy a lot of their work. However, maybe they can incorporate some of the above into future works, you know, between gun battles and explosions.
This is what spy fiction leaves out about the CIA
sandboxx.us · by Frumentarius · August 21, 2022
I usually love a good piece of fiction about CIA operations. That is despite the fact that many of them are mostly inaccurate in depicting the reality of intelligence work. Sure, some get things right, some of the time. The film Zero Dark Thirty, for example, does a pretty good job of showing the years-long process of finding Osama bin Ladin, even if it got it wrong in the number of people actually involved, or the complexity of the work. In reality, it took far more than one determined analyst to lay the groundwork for Neptune Spear.
As another example, Six Days of the Condor, a great spy novel in its own right, has a relatively absurd plot revolving around a deadly conspiracy within the CIA. However, the depiction of analysts and their daily work at the beginning of the novel gets the atmospherics right. The movie Charlie Wilson’s War, probably my favorite CIA movie of all time, gets all kinds of things right, from the crusty old case officer and his battle with Headquarters drones to its depiction of how lethal arms might be provided to foreign insurgents. It’s still not perfect, though.
The CIA you won’t see in fiction
With a few exceptions, most fictional CIA stories revolve around gun battles, fistfights, cool tech, assassinations, sabotage, and harrowing clandestine meetings in hostile environments. Those are by no means unheard of events in the CIA’s history, but they do not define the day-to-day reality of most intelligence work.
Being a civil servant
Aviation Maintenance Administrationman 3rd Class Juan Romo, from Chicago, assigned to USS Gerald R. Ford’s (CVN 78) aircraft intermediate maintenance department, maintains his divisional workcenter records. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Brett Walker) (This image has been altered by blurring out documents for security purposes)
So what are these works of fiction leaving out? First, most CIA fiction never shows us the intrepid clandestine officer writing intelligence reports and operational cables. We have a saying at the Agency, and that is: if you don’t write it, it didn’t happen. CIA officers in the operations directorate write a ton of cable traffic. They have to document meetings with sources, intelligence information received, and how things are going in their efforts to recruit a foreign spy. For every one hour of operational activity, there are about two hours of writing involved. I do not remember ever seeing Jason Bourne sitting behind his computer at Headquarters, banging out a report.
You also rarely ever see CIA officers having to do basic administrative tasks. In the real world, CIA officers have to account for the money they hand out, and their travel expenses. They also have to occasionally battle with HR over pay and benefits. Mundane? Sure. But the CIA is a bureaucracy. It is a highly streamlined and effective bureaucracy, but still, it gets hung up on some of the same things that all bureaucracies get hung up on.
Asset recruitment
Maj. Gen. Alcides Barbacovi, Brazil (Left), and Colonel Ronier Ramirez, Ecuador (Right), speak to each other during the foreign defense attachés visit aboard Marine Corps Base Hawaii, April 26, 2017. (U.S. Marine Corps Photo by Lance Cpl. Matthew Kirk)
Another piece often missing is asset recruitment. I have said it a few times, usually in partial jest, but one of the best depictions of developing and recruiting an asset I have seen on film is in the third Star Wars prequel, Revenge of the Sith. In the movie, we see Emperor Palpatine play on Anakin Skywalker’s fears, motivations, and desires, to convince him to come over to the Dark Side. Those scenes are not far off in terms of the accuracy of convincing someone to spy on their country on behalf of the United States. We rarely see that delicate dance on film or in books, probably because it is slow, deliberate, drawn out, and subtle. It would probably make for a better romance movie plot than it would for a spy film.
Going deeper into the weeds of intelligence work, once a source is fully recruited, actively on the books, and regularly reporting intelligence information to the CIA, the case officer’s job is not done. In fact, in many ways, it has just begun. Not only does the CIA officer have to conduct a clandestine relationship with the source, and document the intelligence they provide, but the officer also has to go about making sure the asset is reliable, provides accurate information, and is not trying to deceive the CIA. It is a sensitive area, so I will not go into it too much but the CIA case officer has to put some effort into validating the source for honesty, access to information, and reliability. It is methodical and detailed work, and rarely ever shown in CIA fiction.
Preparation work for an operation
National Guardsmen with Company A, 2nd Battalion, 20th Special Forces Group (Airborne) prepare to exit a C-130 Hercules during a night training mission over Muscatatuck, Ind., Monday, Aug. 3, 2015. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Jeremiah A. Runser, Indiana National Guard)
We also don’t often see the prep work that goes into CIA operations. Sure, we see the cool-guy op carried out, but the hours of preparation that went into that single operational act are rarely ever appreciated in fiction. There are surveillance detection preparations and measures to employ, intelligence and operational reports to review, communications plans to tweak, and future meeting arrangements to work out. CIA operations work is detailed and meticulous, and that level of planning hardly ever makes it onto the page or screen.
Relationships with foreign intelligence agencies
A scene from the spy thriller “Zero Dark Thirty.” (Sony Pictures)
Finally, CIA fiction rarely ever depicts what is called “liaison work” in the intelligence world. Relationships between the American intelligence community and foreign intelligence services all over the world are critical to America’s national security, and to the CIA’s work. Foreign liaison services — those countries’ intelligence services — are a force multiplier for the United States, and the CIA takes those relationships with the utmost seriousness and purpose. We could not do many of the things we do without the help of our foreign partners. There is a lot of on-the-ground work that goes into those relationships, and we do not usually see it in CIA fiction.
I am sure that the countless authors and screenwriters out there who write CIA fiction know what they are doing when crafting entertaining espionage narratives. I myself enjoy a lot of their work. However, maybe they can incorporate some of the above into future works, you know, between gun battles and explosions.
Feature Image: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier takes a photograph of a mock enemy during a training exercise, Boston, Mass., Apr. 28, 2021. USSF, known by many as the Green Berets, are among the most elite Soldiers in the U.S. Military and specialize in Unconventional Warfare tactics, foreign internal defense, special reconnaissance, direct action, and counter-terrorism. (U.S. Army Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Justin P. Morelli)
Frumentarius
Frumentarius is a former Navy SEAL, former CIA officer, and currently a Captain in a career fire department in the Midwest.
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sandboxx.us · by Frumentarius · August 21, 2022
13. "This is what a loophole looks like," says veteran who does not qualify for help under new burn pit law
Damn loopholes.
Photos at the link: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/injured-veteran-burn-pit-law/?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dfn-ebb&SToverlay=2002c2d9-c344-4bbb-8610-e5794efcfa7d
"This is what a loophole looks like," says veteran who does not qualify for help under new burn pit law
BY CATHERINE HERRIDGE
AUGUST 22, 2022 / 1:06 AM / CBS NEWS
CBS News · by Catherine Herridge
A leading veterans advocate who is now sick from toxic exposure including after overseas deployments in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, will not benefit from the recently passed PACT Act, according to medical records reviewed by CBS News.
The legislation's title is an acronym for "Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics," and it is supposed to expand health care benefits for veterans who developed illnesses because of their exposure to toxic substances from burn pits on U.S. military bases during their service.
"This is what a loophole looks like," Army veteran Mark Jackson said from his hospital bed in Florida, after recent emergency surgery for a rare infection.
Army veteran Mark Jackson is in a hospital bed in Florida after recent emergency surgery for a rare infection. Photo provided by Mark Jackson
On the same day President Biden signed the PACT Act, Jackson said he was notified by Blue Cross/Blue Shield that it was denying coverage for an osteoporosis medication that costs about $4,800 per month without insurance.
Jackson earlier shared his medical records with CBS News, which undertook a six-month investigation into veterans' toxic exposure during their service. He said his doctors believe toxic exposure during deployments to Afghanistan and Uzbekistan are to blame for his thyroid disorder, anemia, rare infections and brittle bones.
"A few hours after (President) Biden signed the PACT Act, the very piece of legislation I have advocated for…and encouraged countless others to support, even though I knew it came nowhere near what was needed," Jackson explained, "I received in the mail a letter from Blue Cross/Blue Shield a letter wherein they unceremoniously and without explanation denied my claim for the daily injection that thus far has impeded further progress of my osteoporosis."
Mark Jackson, undated photo Photo provided by Mark Jackson
The Veterans Affairs Department says that after 9/11, about 10,000 troops passed through K2 over a four-year period, supporting missions hunting al Qaeda. But while stationed there, some say they were surrounded by dangerous toxic waste at the base's running track and at a site nicknamed "Skittles Pond" for its vivid changing colors. Jackson is among hundreds of veterans who reported rare cancers and other illnesses with an onset at strikingly young ages.
"In the few years we've communicated I've worked very hard to remove myself from the emotional side of toxic exposures, K2, etc. I always considered my ambivalence a side effect of my exceptional health insurance and my relatively moderate health issues," Jackson said..
"Today, BlueCross/BlueShield have determined I do not deserve this medication. Today, the PACT Act determined I do not deserve this medication. Long ago, the VA determined I do not deserve this medication. So, after all of this, I can pay about $50,000 a year for medicine my doctor says will save me," Jackson said.
Jackson's case was part of an earlier CBS News investigation that revealed severe toxic exposure at a base in Uzbekistan used by U.S. Special Operations teams to launch classified missions into Afghanistan after 9/11. The six-month investigation drove congressional legislation that recognized the U.S. service members who served at the base, known as K-2 or Karshi-Khanabad, as well as an executive order that recognized veterans who had served at the toxic military base in Uzbekistan and mandated a comprehensive study of any health consequences related to toxic exposure at the base.
Asked by CBS News why the drug was denied, and whether the medical review team considered Jackson's military service and toxic exposure, a spokesperson for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Federal Employee Program said, "We do not comment on the personal information of our members in accordance with our privacy standards. Members have the right to request reconsideration of decisions they disagree with using the instructions outlined in our communications to them."
Once he is discharged from the hospital, after suffering another joint infection stemming from his weakened immune system, Jackson says he will talk with his doctor about the next steps, including an appeal.
Catherine Herridge is a senior investigative correspondent for CBS News covering national security and intelligence based in Washington, D.C.
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CBS News · by Catherine Herridge
14. Turkey’s Erdogan Is Down But Not Out
Excerpt:
Instead what we see is a level of complacency on the part of the Nation Alliance leaders who often make grand speeches with entrances such as “when we come to power, we will…” Erdogan is weakened politically, but in addition to having disproportionate benefits of being the incumbent president, he is also getting a second wind from a largely disconnected and disorganized political opposition. Turkey is a very flawed democracy, to say the least, and there is much speculation about what undemocratic measures Erdogan may use to stay in power. Given the opposition’s lack of a principled stance, Erdogan may not have to resort to much chicanery to get the result he desires. At present, a seemingly aloof political opposition is helping Erdogan secure another five years as president.
Turkey’s Erdogan Is Down But Not Out
What does the opposition coalition stand for beyond defeating Erdogan? The answer to this is unclear.
The National Interest · by Sinan Ciddi · August 20, 2022
Observers of Turkish politics are fixated on the likelihood of Turkey’s next presidential elections being free and fair. The election, which has to be held before July 2023, is widely perceived to be the last chance to vote President Recep Tayyip Erdogan out of power and rebuild Turkey as a democracy. Erdogan has ruled the country since 2003 and these elections are equally consequential for him. In the event he loses power, there is a decent chance Erdogan and his family will be prosecuted for charges related to corruption and abuse of power. This has led analysts to speculate that Erdogan will resort to just about any measure to remain in power, democratic or otherwise. The odds of him winning are not in his favor, as the country’s economy has been in a freefall. Voters are understandably angry and many demand change. While attention is focused on what Erdogan may do to stay in power, Turkey’s political opposition and its inability to offer voters a viable alternative path and candidate to replace the incumbent may be Erdogan’s greatest advantage for remaining in power.
To defeat Erdogan, Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) took the lead in building an alliance of opposition parties, bringing together six parties. The thinking was that to defeat a popular leader such as Erdogan would require the collaboration of all opposition parties. The CHP chairman, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who has held his position since 2010, is credited for bringing together political actors of different persuasions to achieve this task. The imperative for establishing the so-called “Nation Alliance” is to restore Turkey as an institutional democracy which they blame Erdogan for undermining.
There is little doubt that Erdogan has done much to undermine Turkey’s democratic institutions, harm its economic growth, and damage its relationships with its Western partners. Since the coup attempt of 2016, Erdogan has focused on concentrating executive power in the hands of a revamped presidency that many international observers have cited as the end of rule of law in the country. Endemic corruption and mismanagement have resulted in Turkey having the third highest level of inflation in the world, presently running at almost 80 percent. Under Erdogan, Turkey has also alienated itself as a respected and valued member of the Western alliance, mainly due to his close relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
One would think this level of dysfunction could easily motivate voters to vote for a new president but this is not the case in Turkey. International observers of Turkey’s elections in the recent past including the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and Freedom House have documented significant government interference that ensures that Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have a privileged position when it comes to staying in power. This includes the lack of press freedoms that allow voters to have access to unrestricted information; government restrictions on opposition parties such as the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) whose leadership is in prison; and a civil bureaucracy and judiciary which is loyal to Erdogan and his cause. Under normal circumstances, the above should provide plenty of fodder to galvanize and spur the political opposition. Unfortunately for Turkish voters, this is not the case.
For one thing, the alliance is not focused on nominating the best candidate to defeat Erdogan. It appears as though Kilicdaroglu will insist he be the alliance’s nominee for president. Although the CHP is the largest member of the alliance, it does not necessarily follow that the party’s chairman should be the alliance’s candidate. Instead, critics argue that if the alliance is to have any real shot at removing Erdogan from office, it should put its best foot forward by nominating the strongest candidate. This would likely mean nominating the CHP’s mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu. A bright and charismatic individual, Imamoglu is likely to be Erdogan’s nightmare to run against. He is well-spoken, compassionate, and young. He also sucker punched Erdogan and the AKP back in 2019, when he won the Istanbul mayor’s race, much to Erdogan’s chagrin. There is no real reason to not field Imamoglu against Erdogan other than to satisfy Kilicdaroglu’s ego. Polls consistently show that Imamoglu has the best numbers to defeat Erdogan. In contrast, Kilicdaroglu appears worn down and has very little by way of electoral victories against Erdogan since becoming chairman in 2010.
In addition to the candidate problem is the issue of who to include as members in the Nation Alliance. The HDP has so far been excluded from membership, largely due to its Kurdish identity. This is a significant omission from the Nation Alliance’s strategy. The reason for excluding the HDP is relatively simple: alliance members do not want to be tarred with the brush of being perceived as sympathizers of the Kurdish cause in Turkey—a charge which Erdogan would almost certainly levy against the alliance if they include the HDP as the seventh member. While this may be understandable, it doesn’t make sense. The HDP consistently polls close to 13.5 percent which makes it a considerable source of strength for the alliance’s presidential candidate. If the HDP is forced to field its own presidential candidate, this will likely split the opposition vote and indirectly empower Erdogan.
Finally, the alliance has a messaging problem. What does it stand for beyond defeating Erdogan? The answer to this is unclear. Turkey’s problems are substantial and much could be done to take an example from the AKP when it ran for office for the first time in 2002. At the time, the AKP published an “Emergency Action Plan” that contained a list of priorities it said needed to be implemented immediately upon taking office. Issues ranged from economic measures to foreign policy and welfare. In other words, the AKP built momentum and gave voters a reason to vote for them. Kilicdaroglu and his alliance colleagues are relying on the anger of voters and hoping this will generate political change in Turkey. They have not given a tangible reason as to why they should vote for the alliance’s candidate. Moreover, the Nation Alliance has no formal policy platform to speak of. Instead, it has made a vague promise of rebuilding Turkey as a democracy, mainly by re-institutionalizing a return to a parliamentary system of governance (Turkey became a presidential system of government following a public referendum in 2017). No plans have been made public as to how the alliance will tackle questions relating to the economy, foreign policy, and other significant portfolios. Needless to say, this does not engender confidence in voters.
Instead what we see is a level of complacency on the part of the Nation Alliance leaders who often make grand speeches with entrances such as “when we come to power, we will…” Erdogan is weakened politically, but in addition to having disproportionate benefits of being the incumbent president, he is also getting a second wind from a largely disconnected and disorganized political opposition. Turkey is a very flawed democracy, to say the least, and there is much speculation about what undemocratic measures Erdogan may use to stay in power. Given the opposition’s lack of a principled stance, Erdogan may not have to resort to much chicanery to get the result he desires. At present, a seemingly aloof political opposition is helping Erdogan secure another five years as president.
Sinan Ciddi is a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he contributes to FDD’s Turkey Program and Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP). He is also an Associate Professor of Security Studies at the Command and Staff College-Marine Corps University and Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He tweets @sinanciddi.
Image: Reuters.
The National Interest · by Sinan Ciddi · August 20, 2022
15. VMI’s male cadets were berating her. The 1997 Hell Week photo went viral.
Photos at the link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/08/18/vmi-women-25th-anniversary-/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook
VMI’s male cadets were berating her. The 1997 Hell Week photo went viral.
The Washington Post · by Ian Shapira · August 18, 2022
The photo of Megan Smith, one of Virginia Military Institute’s first female freshmen, captured the school’s struggle to accept women into its ranks 25 years ago
By
August 18, 2022 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
Megan Smith was lost.
It was Aug. 20, 1997, a landmark week at the Virginia Military Institute. After a fierce battle that had gone all the way to the Supreme Court, the nation’s oldest state-supported military college had finally admitted women.
Smith was one of them. Inside the school’s Gothic Revival barracks, the 17-year-old from Colorado was trying to survive Hell Week and VMI’s “rat line” — the intense boot camp-style training for freshmen, known on the Lexington campus as “rats.”
But when Smith hustled the wrong way along an open porch overlooking the barracks courtyard, she was suddenly surrounded. Four beefy male upperclassmen in gray tunic-style uniforms and crisp white pants got in her face. The 5-foot-4, 120-pound freshman — one of 30 women at a school that had admitted only men for nearly 158 years — looked straight ahead as the cadets berated her. One man’s mouth was fully open in a scream. A second upperclassman was so irate that a thick furrow puffed up over his eyebrows. A third man’s vein bulged from his ear to the top of his buzz-cut.
Why, they demanded, are you not with members of your company, F-Troop? What are you doing with Golf, an all-male company?
The exchange lasted maybe a minute. But Nancy Andrews, then a Washington Post staff photographer, caught the moment in an image seen around the world that symbolized VMI’s struggle to accept women into its ranks.
Twenty-five years later, the woman in the photo — who now goes by her married name, Megan Portavoce — thinks many people misinterpret what was happening to her.
“When people look at that photo, they say I looked liked a plucked chicken and that I was scared. But I didn’t feel scared,” said Portavoce, 42, a European patent attorney who lives in southern France, near the city of Marseille. “I think the photo is often taken out of context. It’s used as proof of harassment towards women. But it was equal opportunity harassment that day.”
The male freshmen were being verbally abused, too, she said. “Everyone gets yelled at. They just find something to needle you with, to get under your skin. It’s part of the system of testing everyone.”
But she acknowledged that the test for women didn’t end after Hell Week or their time as freshman rats. She and her female classmates encountered resistance and misogyny all four years on campus.
And women at VMI still face hostility a quarter-century later, a state-ordered investigation last year found, even as the school prepares to mark the anniversary of coeducation next month and works to make the campus more welcoming to female cadets.
“Sometimes,” Portavoce recalled, “my classmates and I, we’d say, ‘Why did we come here? Why did we want to do this?’ ”
One of her roommates, Rachel Peterson, remembers male cadets whispering slurs in their ears or shouting at them indiscriminately in the barracks.
Among the ugly names once hurled at Portavoce: “Whore” and “slut.”
From France, Portavoce (pronounced “POR-ta-vohs”) has followed the fallout from the state-funded investigation, which found last year that VMI had tolerated “a racist and sexist culture” and failed to adequately address sexual assault. Since the probe, VMI has hired its first chief diversity officer, expanded its Title IX staff and plans other initiatives to improve the culture for women, who made up 14 percent of the school’s 1,650 cadets last year.
Last year, the college celebrated the appointment of Kasey Meredith as the corps’ first female regimental commander, VMI’s highest-ranking cadet. But the milestone was tainted after VMI students mocked Meredith relentlessly on the anonymous social media app Jodel, saying she was picked only out of “bull---t politics” or as a “publicity stunt.” Meredith graduated in May and was commissioned in the Marine Corps.
The modern-day misogyny has surprised Portavoce, who graduated from VMI in 2001.
“I did think, over time, it would get better, not worse,” she said. “We expected to have it the worst. And to find out that it’s still like that is disappointing.”
But she doesn’t regret choosing VMI.
“I’m glad I went there,” Portavoce said. “I got a good education. I think it was worth it. Would I go again? I think I would. Whatever people wanted to say about me back then didn’t define the experience. That was their problem, not mine.”
‘I can do this’
Portavoce was still in elementary school when the legal fight began to force VMI to open its doors to women.
It started with an anonymous complaint to the Justice Department in 1989 from a Virginia high school girl who wanted to go to VMI. It ended on June 26, 1996, when the Supreme Court ruled 7-1 that VMI’s all-male policy violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the justice who authored the majority opinion, wrote that although the college “serves the State’s sons, it makes no provision whatever for her daughters. That is not equal protection.”
Now VMI’s Board of Visitors faced what its members viewed as an agonizing choice. The federal service academies had gone coed in 1976. VMI’s chief rival, The Citadel, had reluctantly enrolled its first female student into its corps of cadets in 1995, although she dropped out of the military college in Charleston, S.C., days later.
VMI’s board debated whether the school, founded in 1839, should abandon taxpayer funds and become a private institution to preserve its all-male corps — or remain public and go coed. In September 1996, the divided board opted to stay public and accept women. The vote was 9 to 8.
Once its path was set, the college had to renovate — and recruit. In the fall of 1996, it sent out mailers to more than 35,000 high school girls, according to the 2001 book, “Breaking Out: VMI and the Coming of Women,” by Laura Brodie.
One of the recipients of VMI’s recruitment materials was a teenager at Lewis-Palmer High School in Monument, Colo., about an hour south of Denver.
Portavoce was a senior already gravitating toward a military career. Her father, Edward Smith, had served in the Army and later joined the State Department, taking the family all over the world, from East Germany to Ecuador.
Portavoce wanted to serve her country, too, she said. Although she lived about 15 minutes from the Air Force Academy, she applied to the Naval Academy because of her interest in oceans, engineering and submarines.
Then VMI contacted her, offering a weekend visit for prospective students. She signed up and found herself unfazed at the prospect of being in the first group of students to break VMI’s gender barrier.
“I thought, ‘Okay, I can do this,’ ” Portavoce recalled. “My parents were concerned about sexual harassment and hazing, but they talked with a friend who was teaching there, and he reassured them that VMI was doing everything to prepare for women.”
A week later, she got turned down by the Naval Academy, while VMI promised a free academic ride.
When she arrived on campus in August 1997, she signed her name in VMI’s matriculation book, joining 16,000 male cadets listed in the college’s leather-bound ledgers.
More than 250 journalists, photographers, video cameramen and sound technicians chronicled matriculation day, according to “Breaking Out.”
Two days later, it was time for Hell Week. The new cadets were greeted inside a barracks courtyard with all sorts of taunts from the upperclassmen. “You’re dead!” they shouted. “You’re gonna lose, rat!”
Portavoce and the other rats were hustled up stairs for a series of exercises. That’s when she got mixed up in the wrong company and encountered the four hulking upperclassmen.
Andrews, The Post photographer perched across the barracks courtyard, used a 500mm lens to capture the moment.
“What you’re striving for as a photographer is to feel the event,” said Andrews, now an independent journalist who lives in Pittsburgh. “The guy in the photo with his blood vessel bulging — that is a visual way of showing the intensity.”
Ralph “Woody” Cromley, a 6-foot-2, 190-pound junior from Florida, was the guy with the bulging vein — and the only man in the photo who agreed to talk to The Post.
“You can obviously tell from the picture I was engaged in the conversation,” said Cromley, now a 45-year-old active-duty military officer. “But as long as she was a rat, I wasn’t going to have a casual conversation with her. We weren’t singling her out because she was a woman. We were abiding by our training. And she stood there like any other male rat would have.”
By the standards of 1997, the Hell Week photo went viral.
On Aug. 21, a black-and-white version appeared on the front of The Post’s Metro section. The newspaper also published it, along with several other photos from that day, in a gallery on its nascent website. The image landed in numerous outlets: the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Newsweek and the New York Times.
The next morning, Portavoce was eating breakfast in the cafeteria when an upperclassman plunked The Post down next to her plate. You’re famous, he declared.
“I thought to myself, ‘Oh, great, that’s a problem I don’t need,’ ” Portavoce said.
Back in Colorado, her parents, who had heard from friends in Germany, Japan and England about the photograph, felt a certain a pride in their daughter’s ability to keep her cool.
“She had that determined jaw line,” said her father, Edward Smith, now 84. “She seemed to be saying, ‘I am going to listen to these guys, and I am not going to be cowed by them.’ ”
The photo prompted an outpouring of letters. One man wished Portavoce luck, referred to a John Wayne quote, and, after signing his name, wrote, “P.S. I’m not after a date. I’m married and I’m 74 years old.” A woman from Alaska said her 6-year-old daughter saw the picture on her local newspaper’s front page: “Her comment was, and I quote: ‘She must be one tough girl to stand up to all those boys!’ ”
‘Go home’
Over the next four years, Portavoce and her classmates broke barriers and confronted sexism.
At the end of their sophomore year, in May 1999, VMI expelled a rising senior — who was slated to become the corps’ regimental commander — for “allegedly using his position to pressure freshman women for sex,” The Post reported at the time.
When Portavoce joined the college’s cheerleading team, she and others were frequently taunted by VMI students, who threw peanuts during games and shouted, “You suck” and “Go home.” She remembers being called “whore” and “slut.” According to the school newspaper, the Cadet, a petition delivered to VMI’s superintendent called for “an end to the rat cheerleaders.”
“Sexual tension may arise after upperclassmen see female rats maneuvering while wearing short skirts,” the petition stated.
Rachel Peterson, who shared a room with Portavoce, remembers lots of men wearing “Save the Males” T-shirts. Also popular: a poster of a woman clad in what appears to be a VMI uniform but opened to draw attention to her barely concealed chest and midriff. “Women out of uniform...a gratifying spectacle,” the poster read in all-caps.
“We weren’t permitted to have anything on the walls. [The poster] was more like something that was shown and then put away,” said Peterson, 43, a middle school teacher in North Carolina. “There were plenty of supportive men at VMI, but I would be shocked if any of the women in my class could say they were completely accepted 100 percent.”
At 19, Portavoce apparently triggered male cadets with a wardrobe choice. “Skirt Stirs Up Controversy,” read the Cadet’s front-page headline. According to the article, Portavoce was seen several times on campus wearing a VMI-issued skirt.
“A powder keg erupted,” the student newspaper reported, when a male upperclassman tried to send her up for disciplinary charges on the grounds she was dressed improperly outside of barracks — and that she was possibly violating guidelines that said, “Female cadets will be issued a gray wool skirt for occasions where a skirt is appropriate.”
But within 48 hours, the case fizzled out. The college clarified that skirts could be worn with “any appropriate uniform combination” except for formations. Her roommate, Gussie Lord — now one of three women on the college’s 17-member Board of Visitors — was outraged, telling the Cadet at the time, “I can’t believe this bull----. We didn’t come here to be men.”
Lord, now 42, said she understands why some male cadets pushed back against accommodations for female students, such as permission to wear skirts or certain jewelry. “It’s my understanding that before women came, the corps of cadets was told nothing would change. But you can have slightly different uniforms and still have one standard for a coed corps of cadets. The important things — the honor code, the adversative training method, the spartan barracks — didn’t change,” Lord said. “Navigating VMI as a young woman, and figuring out how to be a young woman in that environment, was challenging.”
Portavoce said she considered leaving VMI as a freshman but stuck it out.
“It was gratifying to get all the way through it,” Portavoce said. “When we got through the rat line, you think the hard part is over, but then you get to the next year, and find out there are new issues with our haircuts or skirts, and then the year after that, with male rats not listening to female upperclassmen. It just felt like we had issue after issue. It wasn’t going to be like the graduation of our class was going to magically end those problems. The resentment would still linger.”
On Saturday, May 19, 2001, she and 12 other women who had entered VMI four years earlier graduated. Some of the original 30 were transfer students who had already gotten their diplomas. Others had dropped out. And two had been expelled for violating the college’s honor code.
It was a momentous day for VMI’s Class of 2001. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) gave the graduation address, acknowledging the “ladies” among the graduates.
That morning, The Post published a new photo of Portavoce, captured as she was practicing for graduation. Once again, she was surrounded by men. But this time, none of them was shouting at her. Instead, she was dressed in uniform, looking at the camera. Her lips were set and her arms were crossed, resting over a belt buckle that read, “VMI.”
Story editing by Lynda Robinson. Photo editing by Mark Miller. Video editing by Amber Ferguson. Design by J.C. Reed.
The Washington Post · by Ian Shapira · August 18, 2022
16. Dugin Assassination Plot: Here’s What We Know Thanks to a Source
Dugin Assassination Plot: Here’s What We Know Thanks to a Source
19fortyfive.com · by Jack Buckby · August 21, 2022
The daughter of Professor Alexander Dugin, the nationalist philosopher known as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spiritual adviser, was killed by a car bomb on the outskirts of Moscow over the weekend. Russian authorities confirmed the death of Darya Dugina on Sunday and revealed that her death was being treated as a homicide.
According to the Russian Investigative Committee, the explosion was planned and the detonation ordered by anti-Kremlin actors. Authorities said that they took into account evidence obtained from the blast as well as other intelligence gathered by the authorities.
“Taking into account the data already obtained, the investigation believes that the crime was pre-planned and was of an ordered nature,” a statement revealed on Sunday.
Dugin’s Toyota Land Cruiser was fitted with an explosive device which was detonated as she traveled on a public road at around 9pm local time on Saturday, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
Dugin’s support of the war in Ukraine is well documented, and the Russian intellectual has long stated his belief that a new Russian empire should include Ukraine.
What Sources Close to the Dugin Family Say
Friends of the Dugin family expressed their grief online and revealed more information on the blast. Marwa Osman, who described herself as a friend of Professor Dugin, said in a public Facebook post that Dugina was traveling home from a traditional family festival during which her father gave a speech about “tradition and history.”
“Darya was coming back home from a traditional family festival in which her father was giving a lecture on ‘Tradition and History,’” Osman said.
“Darya’s innocent blood spilled today is on the hands of NATO and the US.”
A source close to the Dugin family also told 19FortyFive that Dugin may have originally planned to travel in the same car as his daughter, but that his plans changed last minute.
“Originally most people, including me, assumed that Dr. Dugin was the intended target, but some articles pointed out that Daria herself, as an investigative journalist, may very well have had people and groups who wanted her dead as well,” the source told 19FortyFive.
“A Russian friend told me that Dr. Dugin was in a car behind hers and that he is in the hospital now,” the source also said on Sunday.
The claims were supported by a pro-Dugin Telegram account which revealed on Sunday that Dugin was in the hospital and that the pair left the event on Saturday in different cars. Other reports back this up as well.
“The explosion on the turn from the Zvenigorod highway to Mozhayskoye occurred just before his eyes,” the Telegram post reads. “According to Alexander Dugin, he and his daughter have recently received many threats from Ukrainian nationalists through social networks, but did not pay attention to them.”
Ukraine Fears Retaliation
Ukraine denied any involvement in the attack this weekend, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s top adviser Mykhailo Podolyak stating in a national television address that Kyiv does not support acts of terrorism.
“I confirm that Ukraine, of course, had nothing to do with this because we are not a criminal state, like the Russian Federation, and moreover we are not a terrorist state,” Podolyak said.
The Zelenskyy adviser blamed internal power struggles within Russia for the attack, suggesting that the death of Dugina was “karmic” payback for supporters of the war in Ukraine.
President Zelenskyy also warned on Saturday that the attack on Dugin’s family could prompt Retaliation from the Kremlin.
“We should be aware that this week Russia could try to do something particularly ugly, something particularly vicious,” Zelenskyy said, urging Ukrainians to remain vigilant as the country marks its 31st anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union.
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
19fortyfive.com · by Jack Buckby · August 21, 2022
17. Kremlin Claims Monkeypox Could Be a Secret U.S. Bioweapon
Expected Russian propaganda. Remember the HIV/AIDS propaganda.
Kremlin Claims Monkeypox Could Be a Secret U.S. Bioweapon
Foreign Policy · by Ivana Stradner · August 21, 2022
An expert's point of view on a current event.
Washington needs to stop being a pushover in the global info war.
By Ivana Stradner, an advisor to the Barish Center for Media Integrity at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
monkeypox vaccination
A nurse administers a dose of monkeypox vaccine at a vaccination site in East Los Angeles, California, on Aug. 10. Mario Tama/Getty Images
There’s a lot we don’t know about how monkeypox, which had been prevalent in parts of Africa but only started infecting people in the United States and Europe this spring, is spreading. Yet the Russian defense ministry and Kremlin-controlled media outlets have been busy suggesting to audiences around the globe that the outbreak was engineered by U.S. military biological laboratories. Russian Duma Deputy Chair Irina Yarovaya echoed the Kremlin’s latest conspiracy theory earlier this month when she called on the World Health Organization (WHO) to lead an investigation into “the secrets of the U.S. military biolaboratories.”
Russia’s monkeypox narrative is a textbook Kremlin information operation, a reprise of the Russian campaign to link COVID-19 to U.S. biolab activities. It’s long past time for the United States to respond to the Kremlin’s information warfare and debunk these theories. Washington should apply the lessons it learned in the lead-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the Biden administration successfully leveraged its intelligence advantage to neutralize Russian disinformation and expose the Kremlin’s war plans for all the world to see.
The Kremlin’s seasoned information warriors run a sophisticated operation, weaving together unrelated events to establish misleading narratives. Take monkeypox: At last year’s Munich Security Conference, a panel of experts—including government officials from the United States and China—discussed a hypothetical monkeypox outbreak to understand how to reduce high-consequence biological threats. The panel’s hypothetical outbreak, which projected 271 million fatalities, was set for May 2022. The actual outbreak, it turns out, began in May as well.
There’s a lot we don’t know about how monkeypox, which had been prevalent in parts of Africa but only started infecting people in the United States and Europe this spring, is spreading. Yet the Russian defense ministry and Kremlin-controlled media outlets have been busy suggesting to audiences around the globe that the outbreak was engineered by U.S. military biological laboratories. Russian Duma Deputy Chair Irina Yarovaya echoed the Kremlin’s latest conspiracy theory earlier this month when she called on the World Health Organization (WHO) to lead an investigation into “the secrets of the U.S. military biolaboratories.”
Russia’s monkeypox narrative is a textbook Kremlin information operation, a reprise of the Russian campaign to link COVID-19 to U.S. biolab activities. It’s long past time for the United States to respond to the Kremlin’s information warfare and debunk these theories. Washington should apply the lessons it learned in the lead-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the Biden administration successfully leveraged its intelligence advantage to neutralize Russian disinformation and expose the Kremlin’s war plans for all the world to see.
The Kremlin’s seasoned information warriors run a sophisticated operation, weaving together unrelated events to establish misleading narratives. Take monkeypox: At last year’s Munich Security Conference, a panel of experts—including government officials from the United States and China—discussed a hypothetical monkeypox outbreak to understand how to reduce high-consequence biological threats. The panel’s hypothetical outbreak, which projected 271 million fatalities, was set for May 2022. The actual outbreak, it turns out, began in May as well.
The Kremlin has been spinning this coincidence to build an elaborate monkeypox disinformation campaign. The head of the Russian defense ministry’s radiation, chemical, and biological defense troops, Igor Kirillov, implied that monkeypox could have originated in a U.S.-funded Nigerian biolab. Russian media also reported that, according to Kirillov, “Ukraine’s biological laboratories were connected to the Pentagon’s infection system”—whatever that means. Russian media have claimed that a “hasty withdrawal” of U.S. personnel from Ukrainian labs could have led to workers contracting the disease. There is no causal evidence for any of this, but the combination of these bits and pieces on a timeline, then widely disseminated by various media, has the effect of burying the truth under a heap of disinformation.
Washington’s disinclination to take the information fight to its adversaries has allowed Moscow and Beijing to spread their outrageous claims about the provenance of lethal diseases.
Russia’s monkeypox narrative, just like its COVID-19 conspiracy theory, builds on a long history of Russian disinformation about U.S. bioweapons. During the Cold War, the KGB launched Operation Denver, a global disinformation campaign that blamed the U.S. government for synthesizing HIV, which causes AIDS. In particular, the KGB successfully spread the narrative that the CIA was using AIDS to target and kill Black Americans and Africans. This campaign successfully spread via the global media, especially in places like Pakistan, India, Africa, and even some left-wing Western publications. While efforts to spread AIDS disinformation were initially KGB- and Soviet media-led, pro-Soviet foreign journalists helped proliferate disinformation into wider circles. Another KGB disinformation campaign successfully spread the narrative that the United States, in cahoots with South Africa and Israel, had developed “ethnic weapons” engineered to kill only Arabs and Africans.
Today, Russia’s monkeypox information operations are part of a larger bioweapons messaging campaign. Before the monkeypox outbreak, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia accused Ukraine and the United States of a plot to use migratory birds and bats to spread pathogens. Nebenzia also recycled the KGB’s “ethnic weapons” canard, accusing the U.S. Defense Department of collecting Russian genetic information to develop “bioagents capable of selectively targeting different ethnic populations.”
The reason the Russians are doing this is obvious. Moscow seeks to paint Washington as a nefarious actor that would do just about anything to subjugate and exterminate. The Kremlin also hopes, as an added bonus, to undermine Americans’ trust in their government’s efforts to fight monkeypox—and use this kind of disinformation to exacerbate tensions in the run-up to the U.S. midterm elections in November.
Another tack for Russian information warriors will likely be to deploy monkeypox messaging to fan the flames of anti-LGBT discrimination. The WHO reports that 98 percent of all monkeypox cases have been men who have sex with men. Russia will likely use this data to promote its own homophobic agenda. As Russia has already passed legislation criminalizing “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” and added a “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values” section to its National Security Strategy, anti-LGBT monkeypox disinformation could further bolster its reasoning for the persecution of LGBT people and their supporters.
What should Washington do to counter the Russian disinformation onslaught? The Biden administration should repeat the tactics it used during the run-up to the Ukraine war. Making U.S. intelligence on Russian war preparations and attempts to frame Ukraine with false-flag attacks public, the Biden administration successfully got in front of the Kremlin’s information war. It was a sea change from the first Russian invasion in 2014, when Russia’s information operations caught the Obama administration flat-footed and, crucially, helped delay an effective Western response.
Washington’s offensive stance against Russia during the run-up to the war also worked because it revived effective U.S. information tactics honed during the Cold War. Throughout that era, Washington integrated information operations into its National Security Strategy, bolstering its ability to expose Soviet disinformation and get its own information across. U.S. President Joe Biden’s information response employed many of the Cold War era’s tactics to build a U.S.-controlled information sphere. For instance, the U.S. State Department published a well-sourced fact sheet on Russian disinformation about Ukraine in January.
The U.S. government should build on its recent success by being more proactive and less reactive in the information space. On monkeypox, the United States should declassify intelligence about Russia’s disinformation campaign and share it with the media. Using precise language is key: Rather than trying to counter Russian disinformation with bland condemnations of “harmful rhetoric,” Washington must call a spade a spade and label Russian disinformation as a targeted weapon. A smart social media campaign laying out myth versus fact could also help expose how the Kremlin is manipulating global audiences for its own purposes.
And there’s more Washington can do. The WHO invited social media and tech companies to work with the organization on countering disinformation last month. The United States could support these efforts by providing key data to help debunk Russian (and Chinese) lies about COVID-19 and monkeypox. More generally, the U.S. government can use its own social media presence to call out specific lies and demonstrate how Moscow weaponizes these debates to its advantage. And why stop there? A U.S. information campaign could lay out the Kremlin’s real—not imaginary—use of biological and chemical agents to kill its enemies.
Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. government has been disinclined to take the information fight to the country’s major adversaries. This has allowed Moscow and Beijing to spread their outrageous claims about the provenance of lethal diseases, for example. It’s time to fight back, strip the mask off Russian information warfare, and treat the information space as the crucial battlefield it is.
Ivana Stradner is an advisor to the Barish Center for Media Integrity at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
18. China's Belt and Road is facing challenges. But can the US counter it?
Is countering it the right thing? Or are there ways to exploit One Belt One Road though superior execution of political warfare?
China's Belt and Road is facing challenges. But can the US counter it?
CNN · by Analysis by Simone McCarthy, CNN
A version of this story appeared in CNN's Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country's rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.
Hong Kong (CNN)As US President Joe Biden and top American officials traveled the world this summer, promoting a pledge of hundreds of billions of dollars for poorer countries, a largely unspoken motivation loomed in the background: competition with China.
For nearly a decade, Beijing's sprawling overseas development initiative, known as the Belt and Road, has poured billions of dollars into infrastructure projects each year -- paving highways from Papua New Guinea to Kenya, constructing ports from Sri Lanka to West Africa, and providing power and telecoms infrastructure for people from Latin America to Southeast Asia.
Washington now appears keen to bolster its own role in global infrastructure development as it intensifies its competition with China across the globe.
Blinken says US is ready to strengthen diplomacy with China in 'charged moment for the world'
In June, Biden and leaders from the Group of Seven advanced economies promised to unleash $600 billion in investment -- $200 billion of that from the US alone -- by 2027 to "deliver game-changing projects to close the infrastructure gap" between countries.
This month, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman visited the South Pacific, promoting a new partnership to bolster support for island nations, while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a plan aimed at Africa.
Read More
"We've seen the consequences when international infrastructure deals are corrupt and coercive, when they're poorly built or environmentally destructive, when they import or abuse workers, or burden countries with crushing debts," Blinken said during a visit to Pretoria, where he revealed the White House's new "Sub-Saharan Africa Strategy."
"That's why it's so important for countries to have choices, to be able to weigh them transparently, with the input of local communities without pressure or coercion," he said in an apparent reference to common criticisms of Chinese-funded projects.
The challenge from the United States comes at a precarious time for China's Belt and Road. Even as the initiative has had an impact on a number of countries, funding shortfalls and political pushback have stalled certain projects, and there is public concern in some countries over issues like excess debt and China's influence. Accusations that Belt and Road is a broad "debt trap" designed to take control of local infrastructure, while largely dismissed by economists, have sullied the initiative's reputation.
Economic challenges at home and a changing financial environment globally also have the potential to impact how China's lenders and policymakers deploy funds, analysts say.
All this may create an opportunity for Washington to step forward and work with willing partners in need of financing. But major questions hang over the extent to which the US can deliver, both in terms of mobilizing billions and driving infrastructure -- areas in which China has long excelled.
Boom or bust?
Since its official launch in 2013, early in the first term of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, funds under the initiative have powered the construction of bridges, ports, highways, energy and telecoms projects across Asia, Latin America, Africa and parts of Europe.
To do this, China has relied on lending, with capital often coming not only from its development banks but state-run commercial lenders -- a stark difference to the American model that's been largely based on official aid.
On average, during the first five years of the initiative from 2013 to 2017, China spent about $85 billion financing overseas development projects per year, more than twice as much as any other major economy, AidData, a research lab at William & Mary in the US, which tracks this spending from Chinese government institutions and state-owned entities, said in a 2021 report.
And while funding has been welcomed by countries around the world, it has also come with problems.
"We find that 35% of (Belt and Road) projects are suffering from some sort of implementation challenge," said research scientist Ammar A. Malik, who heads AidData's Chinese Development Finance Program. He said those issues include environmental incidents, corruption scandals and labor violations, and the 35% figure refers specifically to projects implemented solely by a Chinese entity.
AidData has also reported on what it terms "hidden debts," referring to cases where the recipients of Chinese loans are entities like private or project companies, not governments themselves, but the terms of the loan require the host government to guarantee it. This can ultimately pass liability to them for repayment if the borrowers fall short, the researchers say.
China has pushed back on assertions of risky lending or environmental issues in its projects, pointing to its "green" initiatives and saying "such allegations do not reflect the whole picture."
Uganda's Chinese-funded Karuma hydropower plant, pictured here in 2020, remains under construction after set-backs due to Covid-19.
Another question concerns the direction of the initiative, especially as China's own economy flags amid a mortgage crisis and Covid-19 lockdowns, while many developing countries are struggling with rising debt and inflation -- making lending a potentially riskier proposition.
Beijing has said it remains dedicated to the initiative, with its top diplomat Yang Jiechi at a trade forum on August 14 calling for Belt and Road to "promote the early recovery and growth of the global economy."
But while tracking investments across a wide range of players, and without a central, public Belt and Road data source, is difficult work, there are signs that China's efforts, especially big-ticket projects, have been slowing in recent years and since the pandemic.
For example, Chinese loans to Africa dropped 77% from $8.2 billion to $1.9 billion from 2019 to 2020, according to data from the Boston University Global Development Policy Center.
"Potential reasons for this decrease include the Covid-19 pandemic's deterioration of economic conditions in host countries and a lack of host country demand due to fiscal constraints and debt issues. Limited travel and suspension of several (Belt and Road) projects may have also contributed to preventing financial deal closing," said data analyst Oyintarelado Moses of the center's Global China Initiative.
"Before the pandemic, Chinese policy bank finance was already on the decline. The pandemic appears to have accelerated this trend," she said, adding Chinese institutions would now "take stock" of their strategies.
More time may be needed to observe whether Belt and Road infrastructure financing has peaked, and to assess the performance of the initiative overall, others say.
"The (initiative) is not even a decade old yet. Labeling it a failure because of delayed or distressed projects would be premature and simplistic, as would deeming it a success for Chinese global influence," said Austin Strange, an assistant professor of international relations at the University of Hong Kong.
Build Back Better?
The US is already the world's top donor of aid for developing countries. But whether it can mobilize its private sector and a recently revamped development finance arm, known as the US International Development Finance Corporation, to rival China as an infrastructure financier is another question.
The G7 initiative, originally announced in 2021 under the name Build Back Better World, meanwhile, has gotten off to a slow start, analysts say. The leaders only formally launched the initiative -- now called the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment -- in Germany this summer.
In addition to the US pledge of $200 billion from grants, federal financing, and private sector investments, the White House promised the project would "demonstrate how millions of dollars can mobilize tens or hundreds of millions in further investments and tens or hundreds of millions can mobilize billions."
But unlike Beijing's model, where state-run entities play a key role, the US has no such ability to determine the size and scope of investments made by its private sector, analysts say.
The US also doesn't have the same kind of domestic dynamics, such as excess capacity in the industrial sector, which made the Belt and Road an ideal outlet for the Chinese economy and enabled it to launch projects quickly.
"This is not the first time that expectation has been built, but it's going to be quite challenging to get private companies to finance (projects) because at the end of the day, they're accountable to their shareholders and they want projects that are bankable," said AidData's Malik.
But while US private companies will be looking to return a profit, the plan does have the potential to open up opportunity for the US and partners in developing countries, particularly in certain sectors, analysts say.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken listens as Rwanda's Minister of Foreign Affairs Vincent Biruta speaks during a news conference in Kigali, Rwanda on August 11.
One reason is that US appears poised not to compete with China on the kinds of signature big-ticket items like bridges and railroads its known for, or to seek to push countries to choose it or China -- a choice few would likely be willing to make.
Instead, it could use its own model of public-private finance and focus on areas where it may have competitive advantages, analysts say, with Biden laying out energy security and climate resilience, information and communications technology projects, as well as infrastructure that promotes gender equality and strengthens health care systems, as areas of focus.
However, the US and its partners will need to do more than in the past to become "strong alternative sources of investment" chosen by partner governments over China, according to Moses at Boston University, who added US strengths in regulatory standards, transparency and environmental or social safeguards could appeal to some partners.
The US may also need to face perceptions that it retreated from Africa after the end of the Cold War, only to return when there is another great power rivalry at play, according to Christopher Isike, director of the African Center for the Study of the United States at South Africa's University of Pretoria.
"When these initiatives come, like (the US' new "Sub-Saharan Africa Strategy") people are skeptical," he said.
Governments on the continent, however, would welcome more sources of funding to meet shortfalls, and there is a perception that the US is more transparent and it has an advantage when it comes to soft power, according to Isike.
As that great power competition returns to Africa, the question, he said, should not be whether or how countries would choose between the US or China, but if African governments "would be ready to leverage the benefits of having this kind of contest."
CNN · by Analysis by Simone McCarthy, CNN
19. China/Taiwan Crisis Shows We Need To Arm our Allies
Conclusion:
The risk is far greater to US national security interests (and the free world) if Ukraine is forced to slug it out with a ground war of attrition and eventually lose to Putin and his merciless Army. The implications for the United States will be felt for years, not to mention the blood on our collective hands, whereby the employment of US airpower capabilities by Ukraine could have effectively turned the tide and enabled Ukraine to win this desperate fight for its own sovereignty and secure a crucial victory for the US, NATO, and the free world.
History is on our side. Let us not be timid; the time to act is now.
China/Taiwan Crisis Shows We Need To Arm our Allies | Small Wars Journal
Small Wars Journal
China/Taiwan Crisis Shows We Need To Arm our Allies
By Richard Newton and Dan Rice
Provide Ukraine Excess US Air Force F-15s and F-16s...Now
Nuclear armed aggressor nations, such as China and Russia, cannot be allowed to invade neighboring sovereign democracies using conventional forces unchecked. The best way to deter these aggressor nations, both Russia and China, is to arm the democracies with conventional forces capable of defending themselves or making the cost of invasion too costly for the aggressor nations in total terms.
We are now arming Ukraine with more and more defensive weapons for its army to defeat Russia: Javelin anti- tank, Stinger anti-aircraft, Switchblade suicide drones, M777 155mm Howitzers with Excalibur precision guided weapons, as well as offensive weapons such as Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) that can strike deep into the occupied territories. We are arming Ukrainian naval forces with Harpoon anti-ship missiles, as well as 18 Mark VI patrol boats to protect their coastline from the Russian navy. As we look to the future Ukraine needs an Air Force, and it needs one now.
Ukraine is desperately requesting excess US Air Force F-15 and F-16 combat aircraft to defend its sovereign borders and provide close air support for its outnumbered soldiers against the unrelenting Russian invading army.
Providing US combat aircraft has strategic implications whereby Putin will certainly threaten escalation. However, the risk of escalation is ever-present, regardless if US provides essential combat airpower. The risk is even far greater to US national security interests (and the free world) if Ukraine continues to slug it out with a ground war of attrition and in turn possibly lose to Putin/Russia when US airpower could have most effectively turned the tide.
Until a Presidential decision is made to provide US Air Force F-15s/F-16s there are measures the US and NATO can do now in parallel while that approval process is ongoing. The recent Presidential approval for two other American made weapons systems to Ukraine provide compelling lessons learned. Specifically, M777 Howitzers and M142 HIMARS; precision guided lethal field artillery systems now being employed by Ukraine, have had an immediate impact against Russian enemy forces.
Soon after the Russian invasion five months ago, Ukraine began to burn through its Russian made ammunition. Artillery tubes are useless without ammo. So, Ukraine appealed to other former Soviet bloc nations for donations of excess Russian standard ammo. They received a large portion of Europe’s 122mm and 152mm artillery rounds but have since burned through that inventory. Now those 122mm and 152mm artillery tubes are neutralized with little or no ammo available.
Similarity, Ukraine's fighter aircraft are mostly Russian made such as SU-23 and SU-25 fighter/bomber aircraft. Many have been destroyed during the invasion, but Ukraine still employs a portion of these airpower assets. When these combat aircraft are further attrited Ukraine will be unable to acquire additional Russian made aircraft, hence the need for US made combat aircraft to replace Ukraine's depleting Russian-made fighter aircraft inventory.
Ideally, providing Ukraine with NATO standardized equipment over the long term would eliminate Ukraine's dependence on Russian made weapons and ammunition all together. Standardization allows NATO forces to operate, together with partners such as Ukraine, and field a more combined deterrent fighting force against future Russian incursions against NATO, friends, and allies.
The lessons previously mentioned from the employment of US made M777 and M142 systems with the Ukrainian Army are most useful to consider when debating whether to provide US fighter aircraft. Ukrainian fiend artillery soldiers are experts in operating Russian field artillery cannons; Ukrainian pilots already are combat tested and ready to be trained to employ US F-15s/F-16s.
Ukrainian success to date countering the largest land invasion since World War II has surprised the world. Their success thus far is due to superior political and military leadership, the extraordinary resolve of the Ukrainian people, the exceptional performance by the Ukrainian military, and the addition of US/NATO lethal precision weaponry such as Stingers, Javelins, NLAWs, among others.
The conflict quickly transitioned in April/May 2022 to a war in the east and south, much involving an artillery duel whereby the Russians had a massive firepower advantage of 10:1 up to 20:1. NATO stepped up to the plate and provided much needed precision artillery weaponry such as the afore mentioned M777 155 mm towed Howitzers and M142 HIMARS rocket launchers and ammo.
No crews were trained on MLRS until the Presidential authorization to ship HIMARS to Ukraine was approved. The several weeks it took to provide, train, and eventually employ these systems on the battlefield cost the lives of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and innocent civilians. The Russians relentlessly destroyed cities, farms, and other targets while Ukrainian forces conducted delaying actions until these precision ground weapons arrived to turn the tide in favor of Ukraine.
Now the debate to send excess US Air Force F-15s and F-16s is upon us. While the Ukrainian Air Force has been effective against the Russians to date, accumulated losses are mounting. Adding US capabilities such as F-15s/F-16s (among other combat airpower weapons systems) could be a game changer. Providing US airpower (i.e., equipment, training, weapons, maintenance, and parts) to Ukraine could tip the balance in Ukraine's favor...and In turn have a lasting positive impact on US national security interests for years. Especially now as Ukraine is facing an unrelenting and open ended ground war of attrition that they cannot sustain indefinitely, hence the need for additional US combat airpower.
The risk is far greater to US national security interests (and the free world) if Ukraine is forced to slug it out with a ground war of attrition and eventually lose to Putin and his merciless Army. The implications for the United States will be felt for years, not to mention the blood on our collective hands, whereby the employment of US airpower capabilities by Ukraine could have effectively turned the tide and enabled Ukraine to win this desperate fight for its own sovereignty and secure a crucial victory for the US, NATO, and the free world.
History is on our side. Let us not be timid; the time to act is now.
About the Author(s)
Richard (Dick) Newton
Lieutenant General Richard (Dick) Newton III, USAF
(USA, Retired, USAF 1978)
Expertise:
Leadership, Leader Development, Strategic Planning, Operational Management,
Strategic Communications, Change Management, Aerospace Operations
Experience:
Dick currently serves as the Executive Director of The Union League Club in New York City. Founded in 1863 by a group of concerned citizens to help preserve the Union, The Union League Club has built, over ensuing years, a record of distinguished service to our country. As Executive Director his responsibilities incorporate both the historic duties of the General Manager and additional responsibilities. He is a member of the Club's Executive Committee, and Finance Committee, and reports to the Club's President, House Chairman, and ultimately to the Board of Governors. He also supports the Public Affairs and the Military Affairs Committees.
Dick capped his 34-year military career as the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff and Director of the Air Staff, Headquarters, U.S Air Force, Washington, D.C. until June 2012. After he transitioned from the Air Force, he served as Executive Vice President of the 100,000 member Air Force Association in Arlington, Virginia. His vast experience in the U.S. Military includes serving as the Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff Manpower, Personnel and Services, the senior Air Force official responsible for the comprehensive plans and policies for nearly 670,000 military and civilian Air Force members. He served as Chairman of the Board of the $10B for profit Army & Air Force Exchange Service, overseeing 3,600 retail stores and Chairman of the Board of the 252 store Defense Commissary Agency. A command pilot with nearly 3000 flying hours, earlier in his career he commanded Minot Air Force Base and the 5th Bomb Wing in North Dakota and the nation's first B-2 Stealth bomber squadron. Among his previous positions as a General Officer, Newton served as the Director, Plans and Policy, U.S. Strategic Command. Also, he was the Director of Deputy Director Global Operations, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responsible to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs for oversight of worldwide cyber and information operations, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations, space and missile defense, and Special Technical Operations. He currently serves on a number of boards including a Trustee of the USAF Academy Falcon Foundation and the Board of Governors of the USMA Class of 1950. Dick is a frequent guest national security contributor on Fox News.
Scholarly Work/Publications/Awards:
Addresses many audiences on a number of topics to include National Security, Leadership Development, and Air, Space and Cyber power. Testified to the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives on a variety of issues and topics. Holds numerous military awards.
Education:
United States Air Force Academy Class of 1978 (B.S. History)
Webster University (M.A. Industrial Psychology and Human Relations)
The National War College, (M.S. National Security Strategy)
Organizations:
The USAF Academy Falcon Foundation and Association of Graduates
The National Veterans Museum Board of Directors
The Tony Janus Distinguished Aviation Society
Daniel Rice
Dan is the President of Thayer Leadership and a 1988 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He served his commitment as an Airborne-Ranger qualified Field Artillery officer. In 2004, he voluntarily re-commissioned in the Infantry to serve in Iraq for 13 months. He has been awarded the Purple Heart, Ranger Tab, Airborne Badge and cited for ‘courage on the field of battle” by his Brigade Commander.
SCHOLARLY WORK/PUBLICATIONS/AWARDS
Dan has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Small Wars Journal, and Chief Executive magazine. In 2013, he published and co-authored his first book, West Point Leadership: Profiles of Courage, which features 200 of West Point graduates who have helped shape our nation, including the authorized biographies of over 100 living graduates.. The book received 3 literary awards from the Independent Book Publishers Association plus an award from the Military Society Writers of America (MSWA). Dan has appeared frequently on various news networks including CNN, FOX News, FOX & Friends, Bloomberg TV, NBC, MSNBC, and The Today Show.
EDUCATION
Ed.D., ABD, Leadership, University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education (graduation expected 2023)
MS.Ed., Leadership & Learning, University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education, 2020
M.S., Integrated Marketing Communications, Medill Graduate School, Northwestern University, 2018
M.B.A., Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, 2000
B.S., National Security, United States Military Academy, 1988
Small Wars Journal
20. Analysis | Six months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the world is on a knife edge
Analysis | Six months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the world is on a knife edge
The Washington Post · by Ishaan Tharoor · August 22, 2022
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This week marks six months since the start of Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine. The resulting war has dominated international headlines, disrupted global supply chains and galvanized a new spirit of solidarity in the West. For many Europeans, the moment marked a “turning point in history” — as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared in the early weeks of the conflict.
The stark moral dimensions of the war — the brazen, destructive Russian advance and the courageous Ukrainian response — led to the scales falling off the eyes of European elites who had sought peaceful accommodation with Russia. What was unleashed was on a scale not seen in the heart of Europe in decades. It definitively ended, as the New Statesman’s Jeremy Cliffe wrote, “the easy optimism of the immediate post-Cold War years.” But, he added, even as we drift “towards something new,” its contours are “still hazy.”
The fog of war is still thick over Ukraine. Beyond the country’s trench-strewn landscapes and blockaded, battered coastal cities, a clash of ideologies, even of visions of history, is still playing out. In their refusal to bow to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s neo-imperialistic ambitions, Ukrainians see themselves on the front line of a global war between democracy and autocracy. That’s a vision echoed by their backers in the West, including President Biden himself, who declared in March that Ukraine was waging a “great battle for freedom … between liberty and repression, between a rules-based order and one governed by brute force.”
Putin, of course, sees it all differently. Russia’s army poured across its neighbor’s borders on Feb. 24 after he delivered a now infamous speech. It was steeped in historical grievance and revisionism, and cast Ukraine as an artificial nation whose “Nazi” regime was a pawn of the West. Putin raged at NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe and warned of an “anti-Russia” emerging in territories that were “our historical land.” This would not do; bringing Kyiv, Ukraine, to heel wasn’t just about checking Western influence, but redeeming the tragedy of the fall of the Soviet Union, which, Putin said, disrupted “the balance of forces in the world.”
UNHCR's @kellytclements visited Ukraine this past week, nearly six months into the war.
What she witnessed was dramatically escalating needs and ongoing recovery efforts as winter quickly approaches the region. pic.twitter.com/hPIuOG8nzo
— UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency (@Refugees) August 21, 2022
Putin’s imagined rebalancing hasn’t gone as planners in the Kremlin thought it would. Ukraine bravely resisted the invasion and forced Russian troops into an ignominious retreat after a failed campaign to capture Kyiv. Rather than being chastened, NATO has expanded, bringing Sweden and Finland beneath the umbrella of the world’s preeminent military alliance. In the Baltic states, local authorities have begun dismantling Soviet-era monuments. The war has catalyzed a long-delayed process of “decolonization” for Ukraine and some of its neighbors, who now seem eager to cut away the claims imposed on their countries by a legacy of subjugation to Moscow.
The toll of Western sanctions on Russia’s economy has been stiff: half of the country’s foreign reserves are frozen, hundreds of Western companies have pulled out of the Russian market, and key oil and gas exports are now being sold off to opportunistic buyers for discounted prices. U.S. intelligence estimates reckon as many as 80,000 Russian soldiers may have already died in the fighting. Western analysts also believe that the Russian war machine is severely depleted, with munition stocks running low.
But that’s cold comfort to Ukrainians, who have paid an almost unfathomable price to defend their nation’s very right to exist. Six months of war have seen thousands killed and millions exiled from their homes. Russian forces have carried out alleged atrocities and war crimes. They are now entrenched across a wide swathe of south and southeast Ukraine, with analysts foreseeing a long, bitter war of attrition ahead.
Six months into the war, the Ukrainian message to Western elites has barely changed. “Everything we need is weapons, and if you have the opportunity, force [Putin] to sit down at the negotiating table with me,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a recent interview with my colleagues, reiterating his government’s frequent requests for more advanced arms and munitions. This equipment gives Ukraine more leverage on the battlefield, but also in future theoretical negotiations with a more chastened Russian regime.
This kid posing on a tank in downtown Kyiv — where families have flocked to see a ‘parade’ of destroyed Russian military equipment — somehow summed up for me both the hope and utter heartbreak of Ukraine’s battle for survival, nearly six months into the war pic.twitter.com/B1JiFs0HL2
— Emma Graham-Harrison (@_EmmaGH) August 20, 2022
Despite delays and logistical hurdles, that aid — led by the United States — has come to Ukraine. The Biden administration has so far committed more than $10 billion worth of security assistance to Kyiv, while also coordinating and mobilizing broader support among NATO and European partners. From Washington to Warsaw, lawmakers believe Ukraine should be given the tools for a decisive military victory, even if such an outcome remains only a distant prospect.
But that bullishness may wane: In Europe, the approach of winter and the bleak certainty of skyrocketing energy costs have raised questions over whether the West can sustain the same resolve in supporting Ukraine’s war effort for the next six months as it has for the past half year.
The centrality of the United States in helping Ukraine hold the line is a reminder that, for all the rhetoric about Europe entering a brave new age, the old 20th century equations still apply: When it comes to the continent’s geopolitics, American superpower plays a paramount role.
Yet no single government can manage the wider shocks of the war, which included jolts to the global agricultural supply chain that have sent food prices soaring in parts of Africa and governments toppling in South Asia. As a result, officials from non-Western nations express frequent bemusement with the zeal on show in Western capitals, where talk of compromise with or concessions to Russia is anathema. “Most puzzling to us is the idea that a conflict like this is in essence being encouraged to continue indefinitely,” a senior African diplomat in New York told Reuters.
Frustratingly for Ukrainian diplomats, fewer African officials are making the obvious case that Russia could simply withdraw its troops from the sovereign territory of another nation. It’s unclear if Russia’s isolation will widen or narrow in the coming months. Both Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is engaged in his own escalating confrontation with the United States over Taiwan, are planning on attending this year’s summit of the Group of 20 major economies in Indonesia.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo hoped that won’t deter leaders like Biden from attending. “The rivalry of the big countries is indeed worrying,” Widodo told Bloomberg News last week. “What we want is for this region to be stable, peaceful, so that we can build economic growth. And I think not only Indonesia: Asian countries also want the same thing.”
Stability, though, could prove elusive. As the war in Ukraine drags on, experts fear a widening arc of risk and retaliation, from destructive attacks on civilian areas to assassination and sabotage plots across borders to the ever-present threat of nuclear miscalculation. “Six long months of war,” mused geopolitical commentator Bruno Maçães, and we are still left with “a sense it was only a prologue.”
The Washington Post · by Ishaan Tharoor · August 22, 2022
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
VIDEO "WHEREBY" Link: https://whereby.com/david-maxwell
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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