Quotes of the Day:
“The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. ... The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the victim.”
- George Washington, Farewell Address
“Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.”
- Robert A. Heinlein
“In the fabric of human events, one thing leads to another. Every mistake is in a sense the product of all the mistakes that have gone before it, from which fact it derives a sort of cosmic forgiveness; and at the same time every mistake is in a sense the determinant of all the mistakes of the future, from which it derives a sort of cosmic unforgiveableness.”
- George F. Kennan
1. Witnesses to the End (Afghanistan)
2. Did the U.S. Marines Really Get 'Crushed' By the Royal Marines?
3. Afghan Military Pilots, on the Run, Feel Abandoned by U.S.
4. China Builds Missile Targets Shaped Like U.S. Aircraft Carrier, Destroyers in Remote Desert
5. T-Day: The Battle for Taiwan (war game scenarios from Reuters)
6. Investigative journalist seeks to uncover the truth behind fatal 2017 Niger ambush in documentary
7. T-Day: The Battle for Taiwan (war game scenarios from Reuters)
8. To Steer China’s Future, Xi Is Rewriting Its Past
9. We’ve All Pretended About Taiwan for 72 Years. It May Not Work Any Longer.
10. FDD | Secure the Data, Not the Device
11. Saudi Arabia and Israel Tiptoe Toward Overt Security Cooperation
12. Biden’s sweet talk won’t curb Erdogan’s abuses in Turkey and beyond
13. How China's 'greyzone warfare' is designed to subdue the enemy
14. Novels of Sino-American War and the Shadow of Hector Bywater
15. The Lessons of Two Decades of War: A Review of IWI’s Inaugural Conference
16. Can American democracy and soft power be restored?
17. The Politics of Freedom
18. Will to Fight: Are Americans and Chinese Ready to Die for Taiwan?
19. China looks to Tajiks to spy Afghan terror risks
20. Creative Peacemaking in Mindanao
1. Witnesses to the End (Afghanistan)
Great Americans and Marines doing great things in chaotic and tragic times.
Witnesses to the End
Capt. Andres Rodriguez and Capt. Geoff Ball were at Abbey Gate in Kabul when a suicide bomber struck during the final days of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times
The young Marines in Kabul were left to determine who was evacuated from Afghanistan and who was left behind. The cost was high.
Capt. Andres Rodriguez and Capt. Geoff Ball were at Abbey Gate in Kabul when a suicide bomber struck during the final days of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times
The Marines at Abbey Gate were racing against time. The crowd at the gate didn’t know it, but the Marines had been told to close it at 6 p.m.
That left just 30 minutes for Capt. Geoff Ball, 33, commander of 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines’ Ghost Company, to pluck out a few more people with that elusive combination of affiliation and luck that would get them onto a plane out of Afghanistan. Just 30 more minutes for Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, to grab another child out of the sewage canal where hundreds jostled. Just 30 minutes for Capt. Andres Rodriguez, 31, to scan the crowd for men who fit the descriptions in dozens of text messages from people in the United States trying to save their interpreters.
The plan for the final “retrograde” of the American war in Afghanistan was clear: On Aug. 26, the British troops stationed at the nearby Baron Hotel would fall back. A few hours later, the 82nd Airborne would take up the Marines’ forward positions, allowing Ghost Company to fold into the terminal. And, finally, the 82nd Airborne would fall back to the airport, to waiting planes, ending America’s longest war.
The Afghans, who had been on their feet for hours, were passing out in the heat from dehydration. They had been coming by bus, car and foot for 10 straight days, assembling near the jersey barriers, or standing knee-deep in the foul-smelling canal near Abbey Gate, a main entryway to the airport.
Corporal Lopez saw a little girl getting crushed and plunged into the mass of people to get her. At around 5:45 p.m., Ghost Company’s Maxton “Doc” Soviak, a 22-year-old Navy corpsman, got a call that someone had fainted next to the jersey barrier; he and another medic went to help.
As it turned out, the Marines at Abbey Gate didn’t have 30 minutes left; they had 18. A suicide bomber detonated at 5:48 p.m.
Scores of people were killed in the suicide bombing outside the Kabul airport in August.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
More than 100,000 Marines served in Afghanistan over the 20-year war; 474 of them died. They fought in Marja in 2010, only to see the Taliban re-establish themselves there weeks later. They stepped on roadside bombs in Helmand Province. They sometimes committed crimes or crossed the line, including urinating on dead combatants and burning Qurans. Some of the 170 Afghans who died after the suicide bomb went off at Kabul airport may have been killed by American troops, including Marines, who in the chaos believed they were returning fire.
But the Marines at Abbey Gate were also witnesses to the end of America’s longest war. During the frenzied last days of August, these Marines were left to determine who would be evacuated from Afghanistan, and who would be left behind. Young men and women just out of their teens became visa officers, forced to make Solomonic decisions that would determine the path of life of thousands of men, women and children.
“War is young men dying and old men talking,” Franklin D. Roosevelt once said. The final act of the Afghanistan war was certainly that — negotiated by old men in Doha, Qatar, under the direction of two septuagenarian American presidents.
But it was the young who faced the fallout in what would become the largest noncombatant evacuation ever conducted by the U.S. military. Of the 13 American service members — 11 of them Marines — killed in the suicide bombing on Aug. 26, five were 20 years old, and seven more were in their early 20s. One was 31. Their platoonmates, young men and women themselves, are still sifting through the emotional repercussions of those extraordinary last 10 days.
Captain BallCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Ghost Company
Capt. Geoff Ball, call sign “Ghost Six,” joined the Marine Corps because, he says, “it didn’t feel right having other guys go out and fight, while I just sit at home and benefit from their sacrifice without doing anything myself.” After growing up in Littleton, Colo., he got a B.A. in international relations from George Washington University, and was commissioned in 2012. He said goodbye to his pregnant wife and deployed to Jordan with Ghost Company in April, his green seabag filled with 40 books, including Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables.”
On the night of Aug. 12, Captain Ball, called “Six” by his Marines, was on a training exercise in Jordan when he received a text from his gunnery sergeant. “Look at the news right now,” it said. The Taliban had captured Kandahar and Herat, Afghanistan’s second- and third-largest cities. The U.S. military had withdrawn from Afghanistan, so President Biden ordered 3,000 troops to Kabul to evacuate Americans. Soon that number would be 5,800. Captain Ball returned to base to the news that Ghost Company of the “2/1,” as the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines is known, should be ready to deploy in 96 hours.
Ghost Company evolved from 2/1’s Ghost Battalion, which earned its name, according to Marine Corps legend, through a history of rapid helicopter assaults in Vietnam that left frustrated North Vietnamese commanders in their wake. Senior commanders often gave the toughest missions to the Ghosts of 2/1.
On Aug. 18, 110 Marines of Ghost Company landed at Hamid Karzai International Airport on a tarmac that had been cleared after a tragic melee two days earlier, when people surged onto an American warplane’s wings and fell from the sky after it took off. The Marines had seen the news reports and half-expected to see refugees running to their plane when it landed.
The tarmac in the middle of the night was “intense, but controlled,” Captain Ball recalled in an interview with The New York Times at Camp Pendleton, Calif., where Ghost Company and 2/1 are based. There was rifle fire just outside the airport, and tracers and flares were going up. Troops from other NATO countries, evacuating their own civilians, occupied almost every part of the sprawling airport. When it came time to sleep, service members found space wherever they could, including in one case on a treadmill.
This was the first time in Afghanistan for Captain Ball, and he would not see the country beyond the airport.
On Aug. 19, Ghost Company received orders to open Abbey Gate. The Marines hadn’t brought any transportation to get around the airport complex, so they hot-wired a blue bus nearby. They called it Big Blue. They also took a motorized baggage cart and called it Casper, because, Ghost Company. Altogether, Ghost Company commandeered 10 vehicles to use at the airport.
Arriving at Abbey Gate around midday, the Marines saw thousands of desperate people pressed together. Many had been there for days, under the stern watch of Taliban fighters standing on cars, rifles in their arms. People were yelling and holding up whatever documentation they thought would help get them through: yellowed letters of appreciation from an Army colonel in Kandahar, completion certificates for courses taken with American troops.
When the Marines arrived at Abbey Gate, thousands of desperate people were pressed together outside the airport. Credit...Agence France-Presse, via Maxar Technologies
But before the Marines could start looking at any of this documentation, they had to impose some kind of order. That meant working with British forces and other troops to clear a path from Abbey Gate all the way to the Baron Hotel, where the Afghans were backed up. And that meant pushing through the crowd, which sparked a panic that led to a stampede.
Marines got swept up in the crowd, and it started to look like there was going to be another surge onto the airport runway. Captain Ball turned to First Lt. Sam Farmer and yelled, “Get your platoon, get them into the crowd and push them back!”
The 41 Marines of Ghost Company’s 1st Platoon tried to provide a barrier. For the next 45 minutes, the Marines were in a shoving match with the crowd. The people in front were being pushed by the Marines, but they were also being pushed by people behind them.
“You are smashed in there so badly that your arms are stuck above your head,” Captain Ball said. Cpl. Xavier Cardona and Lance Cpl. Jordan Houston saw one of their platoonmates fall; he was quickly engulfed, then trampled. The two young men pushed forward, picked up their fellow Marine and dragged him back to Abbey Gate.
Captain Ball pulled back and looked out over the scene. “It was layers — civilians, then Marines, then another layer of civilians, then Marines,” he said. “And we’re just pushing each other; it’s like we don’t know what to do.”
Captain Ball started wading back into the crowd, and Cpl. Wyatt Wilson, 23, pulled him back. “No you don’t, Six,” he said, before moving into the crowd himself. Captain Ball climbed atop a vehicle to see. There was no pressure release for the crowd, he realized. To impose order, the Marines needed to let some people into Abbey Gate.
Once the British troops and the Marines let in around 300 Afghans, corralling them to one side, there was a little space to maneuver. But thousands of people remained, pushing and crying, while the Marines tried to hold their lines. By 5 p.m., as the sun was starting to dip, it became clear that there still was no pathway to the gate that wasn’t thronged with people.
Afghans waiting to gain access to the international airport in Kabul in August.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
Gunnery Sgt. Brett Tate, a Marine with 2/1’s Fox Company, came up with a plan: just talk to the Afghans. Captain Ball sent the order down the ranks, then asked an interpreter to relay the message to the Afghans. But the interpreter told him that “you have to talk. They have to hear you.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, I need you to move backwards,” Captain Ball yelled. “Then we can start processing you tomorrow.” But people had been guarding their precious spots at the gate for days. A few of them shifted. Captain Ball kept talking. A few more moved. As Captain Ball walked into the crowd, still talking, Corporal Lopez put his hand on his flak jacket. “Grab the Six,” he said. Soon two other Marines were holding onto Captain Ball as well.
“I was pretty nervous to be walking into that crowd,” Captain Ball said. “But once they grabbed me, the fear left.” Slowly, the Marines walked the crowd backward.
For 12 more hours, the Marines worked to clear the path. Late into the night, a British major told Captain Ball that they had to tell the Taliban what they were doing. Before he knew it, Captain Ball was walking to a dark alley behind the Baron Hotel to meet Taliban fighters. “I realize I need to look confident,” he said. He tried his best and let the British major do the talking. Soon, the Taliban fighters were moving cars out of the way to help the Marines and the British. They worked through the night.
At dawn on Aug. 20, Abbey Gate opened. It had been the most intense 20 hours most of the Ghost Company Marines had ever experienced. And it was only the first day.
Captain RodriguezCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times
The Lost and the Missing
The Marines were under orders: Anyone in the crowd with one of four golden tickets — American passport, green card, special immigrant visa, yellow badge from the American Embassy — or who fit some special nebulous exception that the Biden administration was calling “vulnerable Afghans” could be allowed into the airport. But those criteria didn’t cover most of the people clamoring to get in, and there were so many people that the Marines often couldn’t find the ones who had golden tickets anyway. On top of that, the Marines were inundated with phone calls and text messages from senators in Washington, D.C.; Afghan War veterans in California; news organizations; and nonprofit groups, all trying to get vulnerable Afghans through the gate.
Captain Rodriguez had arrived from Kuwait two days earlier than Captain Ball, with his own 2/1 company. They had thrown their sleeping bags in a room next to the chow hall used by Turkish troops.
Second-generation Cuban American on his dad’s side and second-generation Mexican American on his mom’s side, Captain Rodriguez followed his father, who had been a Navy reservist, into the military. He got his B.S. in human resources management at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and then ended up at Marine Corps basic school in Quantico at the same time as Captain Ball, in 2013. This was his first time in Afghanistan as well. And, like Captain Ball, he had left a pregnant wife at home.
In Kabul, Captain Rodriguez found himself on a mission to rescue 32 Afghan female athletes. Jeff Phaneuf, a former Marine in Princeton, N.J., working with an American organization that was trying to evacuate the athletes, had gotten the captain’s cellphone number.
The athletes were in separate groups en route to the airport or already at Abbey Gate. Captain Rodriguez pushed into the crowd to find them.
It was like a game of telephone with higher stakes. “It was as simple as, ‘What are they wearing?” he recalled of his texts with Mr. Phaneuf. “Then he would relate to me, ‘They’re 200 meters from the canal. They’re wearing this,’ and then, ‘They’re in the canal, they’re wearing that.’ ” And thus, over the course of four hours, Captain Rodriguez found the athletes.
Nearby, other Marines were doing the same thing.
Back in Virginia, Lt. Col. Justin Bellman had been trying to get his former interpreter, Walid, through Abbey Gate for 60 hours. During one melee, Walid’s son had fallen and lost a shoe. Finally, an unfamiliar number showed up on Colonel Bellman’s cellphone while he stood at a bus stop. The caller identified himself as a Marine.
“Did you give a sign with your phone number on it to an Afghan at Abbey Gate?” the voice asked. “Can you vouch for him?”
His voice shaking, Colonel Bellman said yes.
“I’ve got eyes on him,” the Marine said. “We’re gonna pull him in.”
Forty-five minutes later, Colonel Bellman’s phone rang again. This time, it was Walid. “My son,” he said, “will be coming to America with one shoe.”
Understand the Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan
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Who are the Taliban? The Taliban arose in 1994 amid the turmoil that came after the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989. They used brutal public punishments, including floggings, amputations and mass executions, to enforce their rules. Here’s more on their origin story and their record as rulers.
Who are the Taliban leaders? These are the top leaders of the Taliban, men who have spent years on the run, in hiding, in jail and dodging American drones. Little is known about them or how they plan to govern, including whether they will be as tolerant as they claim to be. One spokesman told The Times that the group wanted to forget its past, but that there would be some restrictions.
Captain Rodriguez, meanwhile, was on a new mission, to find a country willing to take a brother and sister, ages 8 and 10. They had arrived at Abbey Gate by themselves and ended up in the sewage canal. A Marine pulled them out and called Captain Rodriguez. She showed him the children tucked into a corner outside the gate, under some netting. The girl looked stoic, her arm around her little brother, who looked numb, Captain Rodriguez recalled. Through an interpreter, the girl said their parents had been killed.
Captain Rodriguez was not about to send the two back to the sewage canal. He thought about his wife’s pregnancy — she was in her 8th month — as he searched for someone to take the children. He went first to State Department officials. They said the United States was not taking in unaccompanied children. The Norwegians said they were full. The Italians said no.
Captain Rodriguez searched for a country to take two children traveling alone who ended up in the sewage canal outside the airport. Credit...Akhter Gulfam/EPA, via Shutterstock
It was the next day now, and the siblings had been in Marine Corps custody for more than 12 hours. They ate a couple of MREs and slept on the concrete under blankets.
Deliverance came around noon. “Can you take two children?” Capt. Rodriguez asked the Finnish ambassador, who gave a thumbs-up. Captain Rodriguez, his eyes watering, hugged the two children and watched them disappear with the Finns.
Deadline Draws Near
Corporal Lopez had joined the Marine Corps just three months after he graduated from La Quinta High School in Westminster, Calif., in 2017. Both of his parents worked for the Riverside County sheriff’s office, and once he got through basic training, he joined an elite Marine antiterrorism team before ending up in Ghost Company. At the Kabul airport, Corporal Lopez was all over the place, especially when children were involved.
At one point, he made it his mission to get an orphaned boy to safety. But the airport orphanage that was being run by the Norwegians was two and a half miles away, and Corporal Lopez couldn’t find a vehicle. So he put the boy on his shoulders and walked.
The boy didn’t have shoes when they started out. By the time the two arrived, Corporal Lopez had found him a pair.
But for every success, there were 10 failures, people who didn’t make the State Department criteria and were sent back out. And most of the people who were rejected were sent back out through Abbey Gate, where it was often left to Ghost Company to deliver the bad news.
“It is very hard to look at a family that doesn’t have the proper documentation, and then put them back into a sewage canal,” Captain Ball said. “You’re looking at someone who believes that if they don’t get out through this airport that they will be killed by the Taliban.”
At first, Captain Ball tried to spend time with the rejected families. “Listen, let me give you some very hard news right now,” he told one group. “I’m going to have to kick you out. There’s nothing you can tell me right now that’s going to change this situation. So I’m going to let you sit here for the next 15 minutes, and you need to start figuring out your plan for what you’re going to do next in life.”
But as the Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline drew nearer, Captain Ball realized he didn’t have time to talk to each person who was turned away.
Afghans gathering on a roadside near the military part of the airport in Kabul in August.
“I saw everything from calm acceptance to hysteria,” he said. One woman, in particular, is still on his mind: She was miming, for him, the Taliban cutting off her nose and her ears. And there was nothing he could do.
Ghost Company had half a day off on Aug. 22, and Captain Ball slept for 13 hours straight. That was followed by some light work at the passenger terminal, where they were given a break from the Abbey Gate heartache and got to see little children getting on planes with their families. The next day, it was back to Abbey Gate for the final push. It had been quietly decided that the gate would close on Aug. 26.
The Afghans knew they were up against a deadline, though they didn’t know the date. “The closer we get to the 31st, the more agitated the crowd is,” Captain Ball said.
All day on Aug. 26, he was walking along the jersey barrier. Ghost Company’s entire 1st platoon was out there, standing next to the canal or backed up against the wall or fetching people from the crowd. Hundreds of people, all day, were getting crushed against the jersey barrier. But they kept coming. All day, they kept coming.
As he spoke of the moments leading up to 5:48 p.m. when the bomb went off, Captain Ball started using present and future tenses, as if to create some emotional distance for himself. “The suicide bomber will set up along the canal, directly across from us,” Captain Ball said. “He’s got a bomb that produces fragmentation ball bearings; it’s directional in the sense that he’s able to spray directly into my Marines.”
He never saw the bomber. Around 75 feet away, he just saw the flash and heard the boom. He probably passed out, because the next thing he remembered is yelling, “Get security! Get security!” He couldn’t focus, and then a CS gas canister carried by a downed Marine was punctured by shrapnel and exploded, and he couldn’t breathe. Some of Captain Ball’s Marines dragged him back to Abbey Gate, and he cleared the tear gas from his lungs and eyes and ran back to help.
A survivor of the bombing at Abbey Gate is taken to a hospital.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
The scene was hellish. He heard gunfire, and saw Marines dragging their wounded. In recalling what happened, Captain Ball seemed to be insisting that people understand what his Marines did. “Corporal Wyatt Wilson, one of the most severely wounded Marines, is going to take shrapnel from his ankle, all the way up the side of his body through his jaw,” he said, then pauses to gather himself. “He’s going to get thrown by the blast, and he is going to land near another wounded Marine, in the CS gas, with injuries that are so severe, he is pulse-less when he gets to the airport’s trauma facility later.”
“In 30 minutes he is going to have his chest cut open, his heart massaged and tied off” by a military doctor, Captain Ball continued, with effort. But before all that, Corporal Wilson tried to make sure others got help. He dragged the wounded Marine, 19-year-old Corporal Kelsee Lainhart, to the fence, 65 feet away. “He is going to wave help away, deny treatment himself, and be like, take this Marine, and then he’s going to crawl his way to the casualty collection point all the way back, so others can go save others.”
Nine of Captain Ball’s Ghost Company troops were killed, including Corporal Lopez, who had snatched the little girl from the sewage canal just before the bombing; and Petty Officer Soviak, the Navy corpsman who was treating someone who had fainted near the gate. Corporal Wilson and 13 more injured were flown out for treatment. All of the Ghost Company Marines killed and wounded came from 1st Platoon, the ones who, on that first day, fought so hard to open Abbey Gate.
President Biden watched as U.S. service members who were killed by the explosion arrived at Dover Air Force Base in August.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
After the bombing, the surviving members of Ghost Company tried to get through each day. They found jobs for themselves in the passenger terminal at the airport — anything to stay occupied. They flew out of Kabul on Aug. 28, short 23 people. At a company memorial on Sept. 8, Captain Ball spoke.
“The whole world was watching,” the Marine captain told his troops. “But the Marines at Abbey Gate, we pulled in 33,000 people, more than any other gate. We stayed open when other gates closed. We should take pride in that.”
2. Did the U.S. Marines Really Get 'Crushed' By the Royal Marines?
My guess is this was actually an information operations training exercise to see how both the UK and US militaries respond to a single report. The on the ground training was not the focus. It was the reporting about the training that was the actual training. The UK and US militaries have to learn how to operate in a "hostile" information environment. See how the reporting grew legs from a single source and how its message was amplified and the type of friction it may be causing between the UK and US militaries and the "special relationship." Did the UK and US militaries respond in a timely and effective way?
I have no evidence of the above. It is purely speculation on my part. But isn't that what happens (speculation, innuendo, and lies) in the information environment?
Did the U.S. Marines Really Get 'Crushed' By the Royal Marines?
The Royal Marines reportedly did leverage some effective unconventional tactics like wearing U.S. uniforms and using store-bought scanners to listen in on American communications. The training was supposed to test unconventional tactics, so the Royal Marines did an excellent job in that respect. But U.S. Marines say there was no evidence of a “surrender.”
The Media Makes It Sensational
First, let’s get the point of view and perspective from the British media about this training exercise.
The five-day Green Dagger war game pitted a regiment with elements of two battalions of U.S. Marines’ regular infantry versus a force named 40 Commando. These were British Royal Marines and allies operating at Twenty-Nine Palms, California in the Mojave Desert. Sky News said the Royal Marines won a glorious victory by forcing U.S. Marines to surrender. The UK Daily Mail said that U.S. Marines cried for mercy and asked for the mock battle to be “reset.”
It Looks Like the Royal Marines Had a Good Time
The Royal Marines were also incorporating multinational forces on their side. Some troops from Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Arab Emirates were mixed in with the Royal Marines. Asia Times claimed this British force held 65 percent of U.S. territory during the decisive point of the war game and notionally “destroyed” American equipment.
It wasn’t just British media ripping the U.S. Marines – Business Insider also lauded the Royal Marines’ performance. The American outlet quoted a Royal Navy statement that said, “Royal Marines won decisive battles early on and gained ground from their enemy, but, with the US Marines pushing into allied territory, Royal Marines and their allies carried out raids behind enemy lines to stop further counterattacks.”
There’s Another Side to the Story
American marines told a different story, according the Coffee or Die Magazine from the U.S.-based Black Rifle Coffee Company and Marine Corps Times and Military Times. A Marine public information officer had an alternative view of the training event. According to Military Times, ‘Winners’ are never determined,” Capt. Zachary Colvin, told the outlet. “This exercise does not provide an opportunity to ‘surrender,’ ‘keep score,’ or ‘reset.’ The objective of the exercise is to heighten unit performance and increase readiness.”
Both Groups of Combatants Did Some Things Well and Other Things Not So Well
This episode is probably more of a nothing burger than a “decisive victory.”
This was a simulation, and it appears that the Royal Marines did indeed perform gallantly in an unconventional manner, which is their job. They should be proud of going into a desert on another continent and showing off their capabilities.
But it doesn’t mean they “won.”
War games in the U.S. military have an “after-action review and debrief,” in which they look at things that went well and examine tactics that went poorly. The British likely do something similar at the end of their exercises. This is beneficial to both sides, even if one side performs better than the other. In terms of the media, it makes for good headlines and sensational copy.
But what really happened in the simulation is less than remarkable and many media outlets did not capture the full story in the first place.
3. Afghan Military Pilots, on the Run, Feel Abandoned by U.S.
Just think: if we wanted to support a resistance we would have a pool of pilots to begin the "startup" of "Air Afghanistan '' using indigenous pilots and crews to support on the ground resistance operations. If only we had any experience in and will to support and conduct resistance operations. Instead these brave plots will be lost to their country forever.
Afghan Military Pilots, on the Run, Feel Abandoned by U.S.
Detained in Tajikistan, or hiding from the Taliban in Afghanistan, many pilots wonder why the military that trained them is not coming to their aid.
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An Afghan Air Force training exercise in Logar Province in 2018. The United States spent billions of dollars training and equipping Afghan forces.Credit...Bryan Denton for The New York Times
By
Nov. 7, 2021
As Kabul was falling to the Taliban in August, the young Afghan Air Force pilot flew his PC-12 turboprop from Afghanistan to neighboring Tajikistan to escape. Like other Afghan officers who fled in dozens of military aircraft to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the pilot had faith that his American military partners would rescue him.
“We believed in the U.S. military and government — that they would help us and get us out of this situation,” said the pilot, a lieutenant, who, like other pilots in this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
The lieutenant is among 143 Afghan pilots and crew members now detained by the Tajik authorities. They are English speakers trained by the U.S. Air Force, and they are counting on the American government or military to evacuate them, and also to help evacuate their families back home in Afghanistan.
Several thousand other Afghan Air Force pilots and crew members are in hiding in Afghanistan, feeling abandoned by the U.S. military, their longtime combat ally. They say they and their families are at risk of being hunted down and killed by the Taliban.
“I stood shoulder to shoulder with my American allies for five years — but now they have forgotten us,” an Afghan Air Force captain who piloted C-208 airplanes said by phone from a safe house in Kabul.
Several other pilots who spoke by phone from Afghanistan said they had heard nothing from the U.S. government. But they said they were being assisted by their former military advisers, many of them volunteers in a group called Operation Sacred Promise, formed to help get Afghan Air Force personnel to safety.
The military side of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul in June.Credit...Kiana Hayeri for The New York Times
Brig. Gen. David Hicks, a retired Air Force officer who is chief executive of Operation Sacred Promise, said the group, formed in August, had received desperate messages from stranded pilots asking whether the U.S. government had a plan to get them to safety.
“We found out that there was no plan by the U.S. to do anything to get these folks out,” said General Hicks, who once commanded the U.S.-led air force training mission in Afghanistan.
He said: “The U.S. has spent millions and millions on these highly educated and highly motivated individuals. Based on what they did fighting the Taliban, we think they deserve priority.”
A State Department spokesperson offered no timeline on relocating Afghan pilots but said Sunday, “We are in regular communication with the government of Tajikistan, and part of those communications includes coordination in response to Afghan Air Force pilots.”
The spokesperson said, “The United States verified the identities of approximately 150 Afghans after gaining access to the last group in mid-October.”
The United States spent $89 billion training and equipping Afghan defense and security forces, including the Afghan Air Force and its elite Special Mission Wing. Many of the pilots were trained in the United States.
Some pilots and crew members and their families were evacuated with the help of the U.S. government and military just after the Taliban takeover. But many more were unable to get out, despite attempts by their former advisers to help them.
Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. David Hicks is a leader of Operation Sacred Promise, which is helping to evacuate Afghan pilots and crew members since the Taliban takeover.Credit...Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times
Since mid-August, General Hicks said, Operation Sacred Promise has helped evacuate about 350 Afghans. The group has vetted about 2,000 Afghan Air Force personnel and their relatives trying to leave the country, with about 8,000 more still to be vetted, he said.
Lt. Col. Safia Ferozi, an Afghan Air Force squadron commander who was evacuated to the United States with her husband — also a pilot — and daughter, said she had been inundated with panicked calls and texts from Afghan pilots in Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
“They fought side by side with the Americans,” Colonel Ferozi said in a telephone interview. “Now they feel forgotten. Why doesn’t the U.S. care about these people who fought beside them?”
In September, a group of Afghan pilots and crew members was evacuated from Uzbekistan with the help of the U.S. government and Operation Sacred Promise after being detained by the Uzbek authorities.
But another group of 143 Afghan Air Force personnel remains in detention at a sanitarium near the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. They said they were growing increasingly desperate, even though U.S. Embassy officials in Dushanbe had recently arrived to record their biometric data as part of an effort to evacuate them.
“The morale among our colleagues here is very low,” said an Afghan Air Force major who flew a C-208 military plane to Tajikistan. “We are in an unknown situation and we don’t know what will happen next to us.”
Afghan Air Force ground crew members checking on the readiness on a plane stationed at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in 2018.Credit...Bryan Denton for The New York Times
The major and several other pilots spoke on WhatsApp audio messages recorded on smuggled cellphones hidden from guards. They said they were not allowed to leave the facility, where most cellphones had been confiscated. They survive on meager food rations and receive only basic medical care, they said.
Many have not been in touch with their families in Afghanistan, some of whom don’t know whether they are still alive, they said.
“We feel abandoned, but we still have hope the U.S. will help us,” said a major who said he had piloted numerous combat missions.
Understand the Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan
Card 1 of 6
Who are the Taliban? The Taliban arose in 1994 amid the turmoil that came after the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989. They used brutal public punishments, including floggings, amputations and mass executions, to enforce their rules. Here’s more on their origin story and their record as rulers.
Who are the Taliban leaders? These are the top leaders of the Taliban, men who have spent years on the run, in hiding, in jail and dodging American drones. Little is known about them or how they plan to govern, including whether they will be as tolerant as they claim to be. One spokesman told The Times that the group wanted to forget its past, but that there would be some restrictions.
The Tajikistan Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to email messages requesting comment.
Among those held in Tajikistan is an Afghan pilot who is pregnant and said she needed prenatal care. Her husband, also a pilot, was being held with her.
“We are living like prisoners,” she said in an audio message recorded late last month. “We are fed up. We are getting weak. I’d like to request that the U.S. government expedite our situation here.”
During Afghanistan’s collapse about 25 percent of the Afghan Air Force’s aircraft were flown to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, according to an Oct. 31 report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. General Hicks put the number at 56 to 60 aircraft. (U.S. forces rendered unusable 80 others at the Kabul Airport in late August.)
The status of the planes is uncertain. When asked in mid-August what was being done to recover the aircraft, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III replied, “We’re focused on the airfield and getting people out safely.”
A United States Air Force pilot training Afghan service members in 2018.Credit...Bryan Denton for The New York Times
Speaking from Afghanistan, several Afghan Air Force pilots described moving from house to house to avoid capture by the Taliban. They said they were running out of money and did not dare look for work because they feared being discovered by Taliban officials.
An Afghan Air Force major who flew C-208 planes for eight years said the Taliban had confronted his relatives, demanding to know his whereabouts. Taliban fighters searched his home and interrogated his mother, said the major, who had moved with his wife and four children to a series of safe houses.
“It’s very dangerous for us here,” the major said.
He said he had been unable to reach anyone in the U.S. government or military, other than his former U.S. Air Force adviser. “It seems we aren’t so important to them anymore,” he said.
The Taliban have said there is a general amnesty for any Afghan who served in the former government or worked with the U.S. government or military. But several Afghan Air Force pilots have been killed by the Taliban this year.
“They have no good options,” General Hicks said. “They’re at risk of being hunted down and killed.”
A major who piloted C-208 planes and was trained at a U.S. Air Force base in Texas said he turned down a chance to fly to Tajikistan in August because he didn’t want to leave his family behind. Now he and his wife and their seven children are in hiding, low on money and food.
“Our life gets worse day by day,” the major said. “We can’t stay in one place. We are always hiding — even our relatives don’t know where we are.”
General Hicks said he feared the pilots and crew members in Afghanistan would soon run out of money and food, and possibly lose what freedom they have left.
“There’s no place for them to hide inside Afghanistan,” he said. “We have to realize that it’s about to be a very dark winter for these people.”
A helicopter disabled by departing US forces outside a hanger at the Kabul airport in August.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
4. China Builds Missile Targets Shaped Like U.S. Aircraft Carrier, Destroyers in Remote Desert
"Never assume the enemy will not attack. Make yourself invincible." -Sun Tzu
On the other hand they are giving us this information very easily. What is the message for us? More importantly perhaps, what are we not seeing? What do the Chinese not want us to see?
Excerpts:
While questions remain on the extent of weapons that will be tested at the new facility, the level of sophistication of what can now be seen at the site show the PLA is continuing to invest in deterrents to limit the efficacy of U.S. naval forces close to China – in particular targeting the U.S. carrier fleet.
According to the Pentagon report released last week, a primary objective of the PLARF will be to keep U.S. carriers at risk from anti-ship ballistic missiles throughout the Western Pacific.
China Builds Missile Targets Shaped Like U.S. Aircraft Carrier, Destroyers in Remote Desert - USNI News
An Oct. 20, 2021 satellite image of a target in the shape of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Taklamakan Desert in Central China. H I Sutton Illustration for USNI News Satellite image ©2021 Maxar Technologies Used with Permission
The Chinese military has built targets in the shape of an American aircraft carrier and other U.S. warships in the Taklamakan desert as part of a new target range complex, according to photos provided to USNI News by satellite imagery company Maxar.
The full-scale outline of a U.S. carrier and at least two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are part of the target range that has been built in the Ruoqiang region in central China. The site is near a former target range China used to test early versions of its so-called carrier killer DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles, according to press reports in 2013.
This new range shows that China continues to focus on anti-carrier capabilities, with an emphasis on U.S. Navy warships. Unlike the Iranian Navy’s aircraft carrier-shaped target in the Persian Gulf, the new facility shows signs of a sophisticated instrumented target range.
A target in the shape of a U.S. Destroyer in the Taklamakan Desert in Central China. H I Sutton Illustration for USNI News Satellite image ©2021 Maxar Technologies Used with Permission
The carrier target itself appears to be a flat surface without the carrier’s island, aircraft lifts, weapons sponsons or other details, the imagery from Maxar shows. On radar, the outline of the carrier stands out from the surrounding desert – not unlike a target picture, according to imagery provided to USNI News by Capella Space.
There are two more target areas representing an aircraft carrier that do not have the metaling, but are distinguishable as carriers due to their outline. But other warship targets appear to be more elaborate. There are numerous upright poles positioned on them, possibly for instrumentation, according to the imagery. Alternatively these may be used for radar reflectors to simulate the superstructure of the vessel.
The facility also has an extensive rail system. An Oct. 9 image from Maxar showed a 75 meter-long target with extensive instrumentation on a 6 meter-wide rail.
Target range in the Taklamakan desert in Central China. H I Sutton illustration for USNI News
The area has been traditionally used for ballistic missile testing, according to a summary of the Maxar images by geospatial intelligence company AllSource Analysis that identified the site from satellite imagery.
“The mockups of several probable U.S. warships, along with other warships (mounted on rails and mobile), could simulate targets related to seeking/target acquisition testing,” according to the AllSource Analysis summary, which said there are no indications of weapon impact areas in the immediate vicinity of the mockups. “This, and the extensive detail of the mockups, including the placement of multiple sensors on and around the vessel targets, it is probable that this area is intended for multiple uses over time.“
Analysis of historical satellite images shows that the carrier target structure was first built between March and April of 2019. It underwent several rebuilds and was then substantially dismantled in December 2019. The site came back to life in late September of this year and the structure was substantially complete by early October.
Detailed Photos of the mobile target at the Ruoqiang facility. H I Sutton Illustration for USNI News Satellite image ©2021 Maxar Technologies Used with Permission
China has several anti-ship ballistic missile programs overseen by the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force. The land-based CSS-5 Mod 5 (DF-21D) missile has a range of over 800 nautical miles. It has a maneuverable reentry vehicle (MaRV) to target ships. The larger CSS-18 (DF-26) has a range of around 2,000 nautical miles.
“In July 2019, the PLARF conducted its first-ever confirmed live-fire launch into the South China Sea, firing six DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles into the waters north of the Spratly Islands,” according to the Pentagon’s latest annual report on China’s military. The Chinese are also fielding a longer range anti-ship ballistic missile that initially emerged in 2016.
“The multi-role DF-26 is designed to rapidly swap conventional and nuclear warheads and is capable of conducting precision land-attack and anti-ship strikes in the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea from mainland China. In 2020, the PRC fired anti-ship ballistic missiles against a moving target in the South China Sea, but has not acknowledged doing so,” reads the report.
A Nov. 5, 2021 Capella Space synthetic aperture radar image of the target in the shape of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Taklamakan Desert H I Sutton Illustration for USNI News
Another possible launch platform for anti-ship ballistic missiles is the new Type-055 Renhai Class large destroyer. Described as a guided-missile cruiser, it will be capable of carrying anti-ship ballistic missiles, according to the Pentagon report.
It’s not the first time China has built an aircraft carrier target in the desert. Since 2003, a large concrete pad, roughly the size of a carrier, has been used as a target. The slab, which is part of the Shuangchengzi missile test range, has been hit many times and is frequently repaired. The new site in the Taklamakan desert is 600 miles away and is much more evolved. The newer ship targets are closer approximations of the vessels that they are supposed to represent.
DoD Graphic
While questions remain on the extent of weapons that will be tested at the new facility, the level of sophistication of what can now be seen at the site show the PLA is continuing to invest in deterrents to limit the efficacy of U.S. naval forces close to China – in particular targeting the U.S. carrier fleet.
According to the Pentagon report released last week, a primary objective of the PLARF will be to keep U.S. carriers at risk from anti-ship ballistic missiles throughout the Western Pacific.
Related
You will have to go to the Reuters web site to view this interactive article on war game scenarios.
T-Day: The Battle for Taiwan
China’s quest to rule Taiwan has already begun with a campaign of “gray-zone” warfare. Here is how military strategists believe the struggle might play out.
PUBLISHED NOV. 5, 2021
Seventy-two years ago, the Communist Party seized control of China after a bloody struggle. The defeated Nationalist government fled to Taiwan, frustrating Beijing's desire to capture the island. Since then, China has arisen as a superpower rivaling America; Taiwan has blossomed into a self-governing democracy and high-tech powerhouse with Washington's backing. Now, after decades of tenuous stalemate, there is a renewed risk of conflict. While it is impossible to know how this long rivalry will play out, in some respects the battle for Taiwan is already underway.
As Reuters reported in December, the Chinese military – the People’s Liberation Army – is waging so-called gray-zone warfare against Taiwan. This consists of an almost daily campaign of intimidating military exercises, patrols and surveillance that falls just short of armed conflict. Since that report, the campaign has intensified, with Beijing stepping up the number of warplanes it is sending into the airspace around Taiwan. China has also used sand dredgers to swarm Taiwan’s outlying islands.
Military strategists tell Reuters that the gray-zone strategy has the potential to grind down Taipei’s resistance – but also that it may fall short, or even backfire by strengthening the island’s resolve. They are also envisioning starker futures. While they can’t predict the future, military planners in China, Taiwan, the United States, Japan and Australia are nonetheless actively gaming out scenarios for how Beijing might try to seize the prized island, and how Taiwan and America, along with its allies, might move to stop it.
6. Investigative journalist seeks to uncover the truth behind fatal 2017 Niger ambush in documentary
Excerpts:
The families of the fallen soldiers were also heavily involved. All four soldier’s families provided interviews and insights for the documentary, which for some, like Wright’s mother Terri Criscio, it was the first time they’d spoken to a journalist on film about the incident.
“When in a generation have we had a combat incident where all of the fallen’s family members are saying ‘We were lied to’?” Meek asked. All they were wanted were answers and accountability, something that was reiterated by Criscio in the documentary, sticking with Meek’s as one of the more poignant moments of the past three years.
“I can’t change the past, I can’t bring Dustin back,” she said. “But I can be a thorn in your side and get my point across, and that point is that if we’re going to have a strong country, we have to have a strong military. That means, when you make a mistake, you are accountable.”
She said it perfectly, Meek told Military Times.
While Meek said there are still a few questions that haven’t been answered from this process, the investigation was overall successful.
“I think with investigations like this you have to be prepared for, ‘You don’t know what you don’t know’ and I feel like we now know most of what we need to know here,” he said.
But he does still believe there will be revelations that will come in the years to follow.
“There was just recently information actually, that was given to the families that spoke to the valor of these men,” Meek said. “They fought to the last round, they fought when they had bullets ripping through their flesh and bone and they never quit until the last breath exited their lungs.”
Investigative journalist seeks to uncover the truth behind fatal 2017 Niger ambush in documentary
ABC News’ investigative journalist James Gordon Meek remembers reporting on the ambush of Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 3212, an Army Special Forces team, in Tongo Tongo, Niger, on Oct. 4, 2017. Four soldiers — Sgt. 1st Class Jeremiah Johnson, Staff Sgts. Bryan Black and Dustin Wright, and Sgt. LaDavid Johnson — were killed, and seven others were temporarily stranded with no reinforcements on the way, until French forces evacuated them.
But although Meek was already confused over inconsistencies reported by the Army regarding the incident, the idea to start investigating didn’t come to fruition until he received a phone call from his high school English teacher Dave Sharrett.
Army Private First Class Dave Sharrett II, Sharrett’s son, had been killed in Balad, Iraq in 2008. The Army originally told the Sharrett family that their son had been killed by insurgents, but after Meek investigated on their behalf, it was revealed that Sharrett II had been shot by his own lieutenant, then 1st Lt. Timothy Hanson.
Sharrett had been at a Gold Star Family retreat run by the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), when he met the family of Jeremiah Johnson. Knowing Meek’s past, Sharrett called Meek and had him speak with the Johnson family, who had voiced their frustration over unanswered questions.
According to the families, who had been talking with each other, military brass couldn’t get their stories straight on what had happened to the men.
Sgt. 1st Class Johnson’s family said that he had been killed in a gunfight at the same time as Wright.
But Wright’s family had been told he was killed by mortar fire. And when his brother Will Wright, an Army veteran himself, looked at his brother’s body, he knew that wasn’t how he’d been killed.
Sgt. Johnson’s family had first been told he was missing in action and had potentially been taken hostage by ISIS forces in the area. Then they were told he was killed after the truck he’d been in during the ambush crashed and he was fatally ejected.
When Meek confirmed that all four of the families had received conflicting reports on what happened to their loved ones, he decided to start the investigation.
During the three years that Meek has been working on this story, Pentagon and Africa Command officials have almost always declined to comment or could not be reached, he said.
“As a human being it’s hard to see people suffer and the fact that they had this additional layer of doubt layered on top of their pain, whenever I see that happening, it hurts my heart,” Meek told Military Times.
“I promised them I would find out [what really happened],” Meek said. “I had no idea that it would be three and a half years of digging and result in a feature film.”
Meek turned to his more than 20-years of experience covering terrorism, special operations, and doing combat embeds, in his approach to conducting the investigation. And the serious relationships he’d made in the special forces, intelligence and national security communities at large were instrumental in his hunt for the truth.
“For every person we had on camera, there were probably 15 people who were not on camera who were confidential sources close to the people involved,” Meek said.
“I spoke to people up and down the chain of command and the stories lined up quite well, even between people who didn’t speak with each other.”
And while Meek didn’t know everyone he spoke to personally, they still seemed to have respected Meek’s background, not just as an embed journalist but also as a former Top Secret Clearance holder who had worked with the Department of Homeland Security Committee, he said.
“I think they respected that, and knew that I would treat the material with great sensitivity and care but most importantly tell the truth,” he said.
In a briefing from Pentagon officials, including Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, then-Commander of AFRICOM, the members of ODA 3212 were blamed for the incident. They were accused of going on a rogue mission in order to kill or capture a top Islamic State commander. Officials also said that they weren’t properly trained in “basic soldier skills.”
Jaws dropped at the insinuation that a group of Green Berets and support soldiers not only went rogue but that they were inadequately-trained, Meeks said.
“Once the findings to the investigation came out, that really infuriated a lot of people in the national security community, so while the Pentagon put out what I think we proved is a false narrative about this incident, a lot of people were willing to take a risk in some cases to speak to me about classified operations and facts.”
During his own investigation, Meek was able to conduct interviews with a top Pentagon whistleblower, the former general in charge of special operations in Africa and the team’s own commander in Niger.
The families of the fallen soldiers were also heavily involved. All four soldier’s families provided interviews and insights for the documentary, which for some, like Wright’s mother Terri Criscio, it was the first time they’d spoken to a journalist on film about the incident.
“When in a generation have we had a combat incident where all of the fallen’s family members are saying ‘We were lied to’?” Meek asked. All they were wanted were answers and accountability, something that was reiterated by Criscio in the documentary, sticking with Meek’s as one of the more poignant moments of the past three years.
“I can’t change the past, I can’t bring Dustin back,” she said. “But I can be a thorn in your side and get my point across, and that point is that if we’re going to have a strong country, we have to have a strong military. That means, when you make a mistake, you are accountable.”
She said it perfectly, Meek told Military Times.
While Meek said there are still a few questions that haven’t been answered from this process, the investigation was overall successful.
“I think with investigations like this you have to be prepared for, ‘You don’t know what you don’t know’ and I feel like we now know most of what we need to know here,” he said.
But he does still believe there will be revelations that will come in the years to follow.
“There was just recently information actually, that was given to the families that spoke to the valor of these men,” Meek said. “They fought to the last round, they fought when they had bullets ripping through their flesh and bone and they never quit until the last breath exited their lungs.”
Meek said that the families of the fallen also have hopes for the film and its ramifications.
“The families hope that the film will be the reason or roadmap for a Pentagon review of the incident,” he said. “Also, that the reprimands given to certain commanders will be lifted and that the valor awards given will be reviewed and reconsidered for higher level awards.”
Meek shared that not included in the film is the fact that Wright had originally been recommended for the Medal of Honor for his actions in the firefight, but it was downgraded to the Silver Star. ODA 3212′s commander on the ground that day Capt. Mike Perozeni’s Army Commendation Medal was also the result of a downgrade — he was supposed to have been given a Bronze Star.
Both support soldiers, SFC Johnson and Sgt Johnson, however, were posthumously awarded green berets, which has never been done before. Meek said that did give the Johnson families some comfort.
The documentary will be available on Hulu Nov. 11.
Observation Post is the Military Times one-stop shop for all things off-duty. Stories may reflect author observations.
Rachel is a Marine Corps veteran, Penn State alumna and Master's candidate at New York University for Business and Economic Reporting.
7. T-Day: The Battle for Taiwan (war game scenarios from Reuters)
You will have to go to the Reuters web site to view this interactive article on war game scenarios.
T-Day: The Battle for Taiwan
China’s quest to rule Taiwan has already begun with a campaign of “gray-zone” warfare. Here is how military strategists believe the struggle might play out.
PUBLISHED NOV. 5, 2021
Seventy-two years ago, the Communist Party seized control of China after a bloody struggle. The defeated Nationalist government fled to Taiwan, frustrating Beijing's desire to capture the island. Since then, China has arisen as a superpower rivaling America; Taiwan has blossomed into a self-governing democracy and high-tech powerhouse with Washington's backing. Now, after decades of tenuous stalemate, there is a renewed risk of conflict. While it is impossible to know how this long rivalry will play out, in some respects the battle for Taiwan is already underway.
As Reuters reported in December, the Chinese military – the People’s Liberation Army – is waging so-called gray-zone warfare against Taiwan. This consists of an almost daily campaign of intimidating military exercises, patrols and surveillance that falls just short of armed conflict. Since that report, the campaign has intensified, with Beijing stepping up the number of warplanes it is sending into the airspace around Taiwan. China has also used sand dredgers to swarm Taiwan’s outlying islands.
Military strategists tell Reuters that the gray-zone strategy has the potential to grind down Taipei’s resistance – but also that it may fall short, or even backfire by strengthening the island’s resolve. They are also envisioning starker futures. While they can’t predict the future, military planners in China, Taiwan, the United States, Japan and Australia are nonetheless actively gaming out scenarios for how Beijing might try to seize the prized island, and how Taiwan and America, along with its allies, might move to stop it.
8. To Steer China’s Future, Xi Is Rewriting Its Past
Authoritarians rewrite history - or just all victors? Certainly regimes with a cult of personality do rewrite their history.
Excerpts:
Throughout this year, Chinese officials have already been undergoing an indoctrination program in Mr. Xi’s views about history. And the main texts in the campaign appear to be a preview of the forthcoming decision, especially the new 531-page “brief” history of the party.
That history celebrates at length Mr. Xi’s successes in reducing corruption, cutting poverty and advancing China’s technological capabilities. His response to the Covid pandemic, which began in China in late 2019, showed “acute insight and resolute decision-making,” it says.
The new resolution is likely to praise both Mao and Deng while indicating that only Mr. Xi has the answers for China’s new era of rising power, said Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik, a retired professor at the University of Vienna who studies the party’s use of history.
“He is like a sponge that can take all the positive things from the past — what he thinks is positive about Mao and Deng — and he can bring them all together,” she said of the party’s depiction of Mr. Xi. In that telling, she said, “he is China’s own end of history. He has reached a level that cannot be surpassed.”
To Steer China’s Future, Xi Is Rewriting Its Past
A new official summation of Communist Party history is likely to exalt Xi Jinping as a peer of Mao and Deng, fortifying his claim to a new phase in power.
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, giving a speech last month in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.Credit...Roman Pilipey/EPA, via Shutterstock
A new official summation of Communist Party history is likely to exalt Xi Jinping as a peer of Mao and Deng, fortifying his claim to a new phase in power.
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, giving a speech last month in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.Credit...Roman Pilipey/EPA, via Shutterstock
By
- Nov. 7, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET
The glowing image of China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, greets visitors to museum exhibitions celebrating the country’s decades of growth. Communist Party biographers have worshipfully chronicled his rise, though he has given no hint of retiring. The party’s newest official history devotes over a quarter of its 531 pages to his nine years in power.
No Chinese leader in recent times has been more fixated than Mr. Xi on history and his place in it, and as he approaches a crucial juncture in his rule, that preoccupation with the past is now central to his political agenda. A high-level meeting opening in Beijing on Monday will issue a “resolution” officially reassessing the party’s 100-year history that is likely to cement his status as an epoch-making leader alongside Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.
While ostensibly about historical issues, the Central Committee’s resolution — practically holy writ for officials — will shape China’s politics and society for decades to come.
The touchstone document on the party’s past, only the third of its kind, is sure to become the focus of an intense indoctrination campaign. It will dictate how the authorities teach China’s modern history in textbooks, films, television shows and classrooms. It will embolden censors and police officers applying sharpened laws against any who mock, or even question, the communist cause and its “martyrs.” Even in China, where the party’s power is all but absolute, it will remind officials and citizens that Mr. Xi is defining their times, and demanding their loyalty.
“This is about creating a new timescape for China around the Communist Party and Xi in which he is riding the wave of the past towards the future,” said Geremie R. Barmé, a historian of China based in New Zealand. “It is not really a resolution about past history, but a resolution about future leadership.”
No Chinese leader in recent times has been more fixated than Mr. Xi, right, on history and his place in it.
By exalting Mr. Xi, the decision will fortify his authority before a party congress late next year, at which he is very likely to win another five-year term as leader. The orchestrated acclaim around the history document, which could be published days after the Central Committee meeting ends on Thursday, will help deter any questioning of Mr. Xi’s record.
Mr. Xi, 68, is China’s most powerful leader in decades, and he has won widespread public support for attacking corruption, reducing poverty and projecting Chinese strength to the world. Still, party insiders seeking to blunt Mr. Xi’s dominance before the congress could take aim at the early mishandling of the Covid pandemic or damaging tensions with the United States.
Especially after the resolution, such criticisms may amount to heresy. In the buildup to this week’s meeting, articles in People’s Daily, the party’s main newspaper, have praised Mr. Xi as the “core” leader defeating the pandemic and other crises. Commentaries have exalted him as the unyielding leader needed for such perilous times, when China’s ascent could be threatened by domestic economic risks or hostility from the United States and other Western powers.
“Xi Jinping is undoubtedly the core figure mastering the tide of history,” read an article from Xinhua, the official news agency, about the forthcoming resolution.
The resolution is likely to offer a sweeping account of modern China that will help to justify Mr. Xi’s policies by giving them the gravitas of historical destiny.
A mural in Lhasa depicting Mr. Xi and his predecessors, including Mao Zedong, top, and Deng Xiaoping, top right.Credit...Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press
Mao led the country to stand up against oppression, Deng brought prosperity, and now Mr. Xi is propelling the nation into a new era of national strength, says the stage-by-stage description of modern China’s rise that is laid out in party documents and is likely to be enshrined in the resolution.
In the coming years, Mr. Xi’s priorities are focused on reducing wealth inequalities through a program of “common prosperity,” lessening China’s reliance on imported technology, and continuing to modernize its military to prepare for potential conflict.
Mr. Xi’s conception of history offers “an ideological framework which justifies greater and greater levels of party intervention in politics, the economy and foreign policy,” said Kevin Rudd, a former Australian prime minister who speaks Chinese and has had long meetings with Mr. Xi.
For Mr. Xi, defending the Chinese Communist Party’s revolutionary heritage also appears to be a personal quest. He has repeatedly voiced fears that as China becomes increasingly distant from its revolutionary roots, officials and citizens are at growing risk of losing faith in the party.
“To destroy a country, you must first eradicate its history,” Mr. Xi has said, quoting a Confucian scholar from the 19th century.
Mr. Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun, served as a senior official under Mao and Deng, and the family suffered years of persecution after Mao turned against the elder Mr. Xi. Instead of becoming disillusioned with the revolution like quite a few contemporaries, the younger Mr. Xi remained loyal to the party and has argued that defending its “red” heritage is essential for its survival.
Programs to reduce poverty in rural China have helped to win Mr. Xi widespread public support.Credit...Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times
“He has this visceral notion that as the son of a revolutionary, Xi Zhongxun, that he cannot allow the revolution simply to drift away,” said Mr. Rudd, now president of the Asia Society.
Mr. Xi has also often cited the Soviet Union as a warning for China, arguing that it collapsed in part because its leaders failed to eradicate “historical nihilism” — critical accounts of purges, political persecution and missteps that corroded faith in the communist cause.
The new resolution will reflect that defensive pride in the party. While the titles of the two previous history resolutions said they were about “problems” or “issues,” Mr. Xi’s will be about the party’s “major achievements and historical experiences,” according to a preparatory meeting last month.
The resolution will present the party’s 100-year history as a story of heroic sacrifice and success, a drumroll of preliminary articles in party media indicates. Traumatic times like famine and purges will fall further into a soft-focus background — acknowledged but not elaborated.
Mr. Xi “sees history as a tool to use against the biggest threats to Chinese Communist Party rule,” said Joseph Torigian, an assistant professor at American University who has studied Mr. Xi and his father. “He’s also someone who sees that competing narratives of history are dangerous.”
Liangjiahe, a Chinese village where Mr. Xi worked for years, has become a site for political pilgrimages.Credit...Bryan Denton for The New York Times
Plenty of Chinese people embrace the party’s proud version of its past and credit it with improving their lives. In 2019, there were 1.4 billion visits to revolutionary “red” tour museums and memorials, and Mr. Xi makes a point of going to such places during his travels. A village where Mr. Xi labored for seven years has become a site for organized political pilgrimages.
“Instruction in revolutionary traditions must start with toddlers,” Mr. Xi said in 2016, according to a recently released compendium of his comments on the theme. “Infuse red genes into the bloodstream and immerse our hearts in them.”
In creating a history resolution, Mr. Xi is emulating his two most powerful and officially revered predecessors. Mao oversaw a resolution in 1945 that stamped his authority on the party. Deng oversaw one in 1981 that acknowledged the destruction of Mao’s later decades while defending his revered status as the founder of the People’s Republic. And both resolutions put a cap on political strife and uncertainty.
“They were creating a common framework, a common vision, of past and future among the party elite,” said Daniel Leese, a historian at the University of Freiburg in Germany who studies modern China. “If you don’t unify the thinking of people in the circles of power about the past, it’s very difficult to be on the same page about the future.”
A performance in Beijing in June marking the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s founding.
Throughout this year, Chinese officials have already been undergoing an indoctrination program in Mr. Xi’s views about history. And the main texts in the campaign appear to be a preview of the forthcoming decision, especially the new 531-page “brief” history of the party.
That history celebrates at length Mr. Xi’s successes in reducing corruption, cutting poverty and advancing China’s technological capabilities. His response to the Covid pandemic, which began in China in late 2019, showed “acute insight and resolute decision-making,” it says.
The new resolution is likely to praise both Mao and Deng while indicating that only Mr. Xi has the answers for China’s new era of rising power, said Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik, a retired professor at the University of Vienna who studies the party’s use of history.
“He is like a sponge that can take all the positive things from the past — what he thinks is positive about Mao and Deng — and he can bring them all together,” she said of the party’s depiction of Mr. Xi. In that telling, she said, “he is China’s own end of history. He has reached a level that cannot be surpassed.”
Liu Yi contributed research.
9. We’ve All Pretended About Taiwan for 72 Years. It May Not Work Any Longer.
Wow. An argument to abandon Taiwan from The Intercept.
I would bet Kennan would have a different analysis and recommendations today based on how history has unfolded since 1945/1949/1950. Of course he was a Russian expert and not an Asian one.
The author also uses historical arguments from thousands of years ago.
We’ve All Pretended About Taiwan for 72 Years. It May Not Work Any Longer.
Recently a Republican college student asked President Joe Biden during a town hall on CNN if he could “vow to protect Taiwan” from China. “Yes,” Biden responded.
Anderson Cooper, who hosted the town hall, followed up with Biden, asking, “Are you saying that the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense if China attacked?”
“Yes,” Biden said, “we have a commitment to do that.”
There are several problems with this. First, the U.S. does not, in fact, have a commitment to do that. Second, the policy we do have is deliberately ambiguous, requiring that the U.S., China, and Taiwan pretend that certain aspects of reality do not exist. Third, the lifespan of this delicate situation may be drawing to a close, yet the most sensible way of resolving it will always be opposed by America, since it would crack the foundations of the worldwide U.S. empire.
In other words, the whole morass is one of the most insoluble in international relations, which is saying something. It’s also a situation that is genuinely frightening, since it could lead to a large war between China and the U.S., both armed with nuclear weapons.
Aged anti-landing barricades are positioned on a beach facing China on the Taiwanese island of Little Kinmen which, at points lies only a few miles from China, on April 20, 2018 in Kinmen, Taiwan.
Photo: Carl Court/Getty Images
Taiwan is an island about 100 miles off the coast of China. It’s small, barely larger than Maryland, and just 0.4 percent of China’s size. Its population of 23.5 million is only one-sixtieth of China’s 1.4 billion. So it’s just a small speck in China’s enormous shadow.
Ten thousand years ago, Taiwan was literally part of mainland China, until sea levels rose and cut it off. About 6,000 years ago, it was settled by someone, probably farmers from the mainland. During the 1600s, both the Dutch and the Spanish attempted to colonize the island, with little success. In 1683, China’s Qing dynasty formally annexed it.
But in 1895, the Qing dynasty was forced to cede Taiwan to Japan after China was defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War. Japan happily engaged in settler colonialism similar to the European genre, encouraging industrialization while carrying out staggering massacres of the island’s Indigenous population. When Imperial Japan announced the hilariously named Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in 1940, Taiwan was a key part of it.
After the end of World War II and Japan’s total defeat, it was understandable for Chinese leaders and the Chinese population in general to believe that Taiwan was part of China and should be returned to it. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill had explicitly declared in 1943 that “all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa [an alternate name for Taiwan], and the Pescadores shall be restored.”
There was a problem, however: Who was actually in charge of China? Who would get Taiwan back? The Qing dynasty had been overthrown in 1912 by a revolution that established the Republic of China. But within 15 years, an intermittent civil war had broken out between Republic of China forces and Chinese communists. After the two sides put things on hold during World War II, the communists won in 1949, took control of the mainland, and established the People’s Republic of China, or PRC. At that point, in a decision that has reverberated to this day, the ROC forces fled to Taiwan and seized control.
This is where the U.S. comes in. There were intense recriminations from the American right that the weak-kneed secret communists of the Truman administration had “lost China,” suggesting that China had somehow previously belonged to the U.S. The links between the U.S. right and ROC were both political and emotional. For instance, the CIA’s chief of station in Guatemala in 1954, who ran the coup overthrowing the democratically elected government, was close friends with the wife of Chiang Kai-shek, the dictatorial leader of the ROC. The CIA officer’s ancestral home, a former plantation on Maryland’s eastern shore, was decorated with Madame Kai-shek’s sketches.
The conservatives of that time are the direct ancestors of the neoconservatives of the past several decades. Both sets used high-flown hyperbole — about our love for democracy and the moral need to free suffering foreigners — in the service of hard-right objectives. The U.S. left often cites a 1948 State Department planning document as a sign of American perfidy — look at these insiders opposing people who care about human rights! — when in fact it was written by famed diplomat George Kennan in opposition to the bogus human rights rhetoric of the U.S. right:
We should cease to talk about vague and — for the Far East — unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.
Specifically, the document advises that “our objectives for the immediate coming period should be … to liquidate as rapidly as possible our unsound commitments in China and to recover, vis-à-vis that country, a position of detachment and freedom of action.” In other words, realists like Kennan believed that we should not commit ourselves to supporting the ROC forces.
This stalemate on all sides has largely endured since then, with shifting feats of imagination by everyone involved. Chiang Kai-shek pretended for years that he was the true leader of China and was going to marshal forces to take back the mainland. The PRC continues to pretend that Taiwan is part of China — although by this point it clearly is its own nation — while also being willing to continue the status quo as long as Taiwan does not formally declare independence.
Since 1978, we have pretended that Taiwan is not a sovereign nation while also not recognizing China’s claims of sovereignty over the island.
The United Nations, under strong pressure from the U.S., pretended until 1971 that the ROC was the legitimate government of all of China and hence controlled China’s vote on the U.N. Security Council. (That year, the U.N. General Assembly passed the famous Resolution 2758, which recognized the PRC as “the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations.”)
The United States pretended until 1978 that the ROC was actually China, when we switched and recognized the PRC as the “sole legal government of China.” Since then, we have pretended that Taiwan is not a sovereign nation while also not recognizing China’s claims of sovereignty over the island. While the U.S. abrogated a defense treaty between Taiwan and the U.S. in 1980, Biden is not the first president since then to pretend that maybe one still sort of exists. In 2001, when President George W. Bush was asked whether the U.S. had an obligation to defend Taiwan from Chinese attack, he responded “yes, we do” and that America would do “whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself.”
Biden’s and Bush’s factotums had to walk their statements quickly back, emphasizing that U.S. policy had not changed. This policy, codified in the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, simply states that the U.S. will “consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means [to be] of grave concern to the United States” — which could mean everything or nothing.
Pro- independence demonstrations take place in Taipei during the elections in Taiwan in March of 1996.
Photo: Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
The danger now is that political factions in all three countries see an opportunity to force a resolution to this 72-year-old kludge. In the U.S., the successors to the conservatives of the ’50s — found in both the Republican and Democratic parties — are eager for a confrontation with China as part of a new Cold War. As part of this effort, they hope to encourage the sections of the Taiwanese political spectrum that want to formally declare independence, even as Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen has pragmatically taken the position that Taiwan is already independent and hence has no need to formally say that it is. For its part, the Chinese government would find any Taiwanese declaration of independence totally unacceptable — “Taiwan independence means war,” China’s defense minister has declared — and much of China’s establishment might push for an invasion of Taiwan, suspecting that the country’s rising power could defeat the corroding power of the U.S.
Whether a Chinese attack on Taiwan will ever come to pass, and what would happen if it did, is anyone’s guess. But the situation is genuinely ominous, especially since there has never been a direct confrontation between the U.S. and another nuclear-armed power. Moreover, Americans seem more enthusiastic about such a war, with a recent poll finding that 52 percent of respondents supported the use of American troops if China invades Taiwan. This number has been slowly rising since the 1980s, when it was 19 percent, and has spiked recently for the first time to a majority.
It’s difficult to know what a legitimate solution to this problem would be. All sides are right to some understandable degree, and all sides are also wrong. The best of the terrible options for the world here is probably for the U.S. to make clear that Taiwan is now a grown-up country and responsible for defending itself.
But this would have its own enormous downside. After decades of autocratic rule by Chiang Kai-shek, Taiwan is now a real democracy. It has every reason to fear both an invasion by China and the likely aftermath, especially after seeing what has happened in Hong Kong after its return to Chinese rule in 1997.
So without U.S. military protection, Taiwan would probably build nuclear weapons, something it has the wealth and technology to do quickly and has explored in the past. It is also not a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Bizarrely, it ratified the treaty in 1970 when it was China in the eyes of the world, but now that China is China and Taiwan is generally not considered a sovereign state, it couldn’t sign even if it wanted to.
The U.S. would never accede to this, however. Part of being an empire is defending your vassals so they don’t create the means to defend themselves. If Taiwan wanders off on its own, maybe South Korea and Japan would get anxious and do so next, and before long we wouldn’t be running the world.
So after the world’s avoidance of reality for decades, reality is reasserting itself. In the end reality always wins, but this is a situation in which no one can say what that means.
10. FDD | Secure the Data, Not the Device
Excerpt:
In this pilot project, the Transformative Cyber Innovation Lab (TCIL) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) partnered with CyLogic, a cybersecurity products company, to demonstrate how decentralized file storage systems can mitigate the effects of ransomware. TCIL tested this new approach to file storage using CyLogic’s CyDrive, a secure, decentralized file storage system that enables users to manage and share files securely. The TCIL pilot tested a user’s ability to create a file, store it, have it infected by ransomware, and immediately recover the file. The TCIL pilot also compared CyDrive’s recovery capabilities against 11 commercially available tools that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) identifies in its reference architecture for post-attack recovery.
FDD | Secure the Data, Not the Device
How Decentralized File Storage Creates Resilience Against the Risk of Ransomware Attacks
fdd.org · by Dr. Georgianna Shea CCTI and TCIL Chief Technologist · November 8, 2021
Ransomware attacks are a lucrative practice for hackers. In just one attack in June against meat processing company JBS, hackers extorted an $11 million payment. In the wake of the May 2021 Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said, “More than $350 million in losses are attributable to ransomware attacks this year. That’s a more-than-300 percent increase over last year’s victimization of companies. And there’s no company too small to suffer a ransomware attack.”
Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts the target’s files and data or even its entire system, preventing users from accessing the data until they pay the ransom. After receiving payment, the hacker provides the decryption key in the form of a password. The hacker may also engage in double extortion, threatening to leak the stolen data if the victim does not pay.
Prevalent strategies for dealing with ransomware emphasize defensive measures, even though experience shows that one cannot thwart a well-resourced adversary determined to penetrate a target’s system. To the extent that current strategies seek to build resilience, they call for maintaining system backups, which may not prevent substantial data loss. For example, the ransomware best practices guide from the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) begins with an admonition “to maintain offline, encrypted backups of data and to regularly test your backups.” The CISA guide then turns to cyber hygiene measures for preventing infections.
To deal more effectively with the threat from ransomware, the most pressing need is to configure networks in a manner that promotes post-attack resilience. Specifically, there is a need to shift from defending devices — such as servers and workstations — to ensuring that the data on those devices is immediately recoverable. Decentralized file storage systems provide a potential solution. Instead of storing files and data on a central server that may become a single point of failure for the entire network during a ransomware attack, a decentralized storage system “shards” (breaks up), “hashes” (labels), and encrypts files, then stores the fragments in multiple locations.
If the system works as intended, users can discard compromised devices following a ransomware attack, then use new machines to reassemble their files and resume business as usual without costly disruptions. Even if attackers exfiltrate files or data, encryption prevents them from exploiting it for extortion or other purposes.
In this pilot project, the Transformative Cyber Innovation Lab (TCIL) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) partnered with CyLogic, a cybersecurity products company, to demonstrate how decentralized file storage systems can mitigate the effects of ransomware. TCIL tested this new approach to file storage using CyLogic’s CyDrive, a secure, decentralized file storage system that enables users to manage and share files securely. The TCIL pilot tested a user’s ability to create a file, store it, have it infected by ransomware, and immediately recover the file. The TCIL pilot also compared CyDrive’s recovery capabilities against 11 commercially available tools that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) identifies in its reference architecture for post-attack recovery.
The TCIL pilot demonstrated in practice that decentralized storage systems can deliver the following expected benefits:
- If ransomware locks a machine, the user can still recover all the data with minimal (if any) delay. The organization can resume business as usual within minutes.
- If a hacker gets into the system, the hacker cannot read files (or engage in double extortion), since the data are encrypted.
- The document creator determines the document permissions, preventing access by a system administrator or users who could act as an insider threat.
fdd.org · by Dr. Georgianna Shea CCTI and TCIL Chief Technologist · November 8, 2021
11. Saudi Arabia and Israel Tiptoe Toward Overt Security Cooperation
Excerpts:
While the involvement of Saudi and Israeli fighters in the same mission is significant, that development does not necessarily mean normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel is imminent. In its press release regarding the patrol mission, Riyadh failed to mention Israel, actually referring to the multilateral mission as a "bilateral exercise" with the U.S. Air Force. On Oct. 31, the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal Bin Farhan al-Saud, said a Palestinian state is a precondition for Riyadh to normalize relations with Israel.
Yet this position may reflect transient politics more than long-term policy. Indeed, an Israeli commercial jet landed in Riyadh in late October, reportedly marking the first time an Israeli public flight has landed in the Kingdom. That first occurred a day after a Saudi jet landed at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport.
Regardless, to defend common security interests in the face of growing Iranian aggression, Saudi Arabia and Israel would be wise at least to continue tiptoeing toward increased security cooperation.
Saudi Arabia and Israel Tiptoe Toward Overt Security Cooperation
6 Nov 2021
Military.com | By Bradley Bowman , Maj. Lauren Harrison and Ryan Brobst
Bradley Bowman is senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where Maj. Lauren Harrison is a visiting military analyst and Ryan Brobst is a research analyst. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy. Follow Bradley on Twitter @Brad_L_Bowman.
The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Military.com. If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to opinions@military.com for consideration.
Israeli and Saudi fighter jets participated in the same patrol mission (albeit at different times) on Oct. 30, accompanying a U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bomber circumnavigating the Arabian Peninsula and attempting to send a deterrence message to Tehran.
Riyadh's willingness to join a military mission involving Israel is the latest indication that the actions of the Islamic Republic of Iran are incentivizing some Arab capitals to tiptoe toward overt security cooperation with Israel.
The B-1B is a bomber capable of carrying a larger payload of conventional weapons than any other aircraft in the U.S. Air Force inventory. The aircraft's flight path makes clear the mission's purpose: assuring America's allies and partners in the Middle East while sending a deterrence message to Tehran.
The bomber flew in or near the airspace of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, while skirting along almost the entire southern maritime border of Iran. It flew over the strategic Gulf of Aden, Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Red Sea, Suez Canal, Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and Gulf of Oman. These waterways mark some of the world's busiest shipping routes and have been plagued by numerous Iranian-sponsored attacks on oil tankers and nearby refineries.
Admittedly, U.S. bomber flights in that region are not uncommon. The U.S. Air Force headquarters responsible for the Middle East said the bomber flight was the fifth so-called "presence patrol" in 2021, following a series of flights in 2020. Both the Trump and Biden administrations have used the bomber flights to reassure Washington's friends and warn Tehran.
While the bomber's patrol through the Middle East was not particularly newsworthy, the participants were. During the five-hour flight, the American bomber was escorted (at different times) by fighter aircraft from Israel and three Arab countries. That includes F-16s from Bahrain and Egypt and F-15s from Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi contribution is the most interesting part. That's because Saudi Arabia -- unlike Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates -- has not normalized relations with Israel. Saturday's flight represented only the second time that Riyadh has participated in a U.S. bomber patrol mission that included Israeli aircraft. In March, two U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress bombers flew a similar patrol in the Middle East and were accompanied at different points by Israeli, Saudi and Qatari aircraft.
The flight follows last month's Israeli-hosted Blue Flag 2021 exercise, which featured a landmark visit to Israel by the chief of the UAE Air Force.
The main reason for this growing Israeli-Arab security cooperation is a shared concern regarding Tehran's aggression toward its neighbors and region-wide efforts to sow instability and terrorism.
The bomber flights may be a necessary measure against Tehran, but they clearly are insufficient. To be certain, the flights demonstrate American strike capability and remind decision-makers in Tehran that a large-scale conventional military conflict with the United States likely would not end well for Iran. The flights also reiterate that the United States has the means to devastate Tehran's nuclear program. At the same time, the bomber flights clearly have not persuaded Iran to stop exporting terrorism, building its missile and drone arsenal, or inching toward a nuclear weapons capability.
The Oct. 30 flight comes as the Biden administration is pushing Iran to return to the negotiating table to revive the now-defunct Iran nuclear agreement. The country's top nuclear negotiator announced Wednesday that Iran agreed to resume negotiations on Nov. 29. An Iranian desire to achieve sanctions relief, not the B-1B's flight, likely explains that announcement.
While the involvement of Saudi and Israeli fighters in the same mission is significant, that development does not necessarily mean normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel is imminent. In its press release regarding the patrol mission, Riyadh failed to mention Israel, actually referring to the multilateral mission as a "bilateral exercise" with the U.S. Air Force. On Oct. 31, the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal Bin Farhan al-Saud, said a Palestinian state is a precondition for Riyadh to normalize relations with Israel.
Yet this position may reflect transient politics more than long-term policy. Indeed, an Israeli commercial jet landed in Riyadh in late October, reportedly marking the first time an Israeli public flight has landed in the Kingdom. That first occurred a day after a Saudi jet landed at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport.
Regardless, to defend common security interests in the face of growing Iranian aggression, Saudi Arabia and Israel would be wise at least to continue tiptoeing toward increased security cooperation.
-- The views expressed in this commentary are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Defense Department or the Air Force.
12. Biden’s sweet talk won’t curb Erdogan’s abuses in Turkey and beyond
Conclusion:
Ultimately, none of these palliative attempts to prevent Erdogan from going rogue can bring the Turkish strongman within the NATO fold or make him respect the fundamental values of the transatlantic alliance. To avoid a train wreck, whether through Ankara’s unilateral action in northern Syria or procurement of further Russian weapons, Biden needs to add to his careful management of Erdogan’s fragile ego strong deterrence built on concerted transatlantic action. Sweet talk will go much further if backed by concrete actions.
Biden’s sweet talk won’t curb Erdogan’s abuses in Turkey and beyond
Five weeks after slamming President Joe Biden for snubbing him at the UN General Assembly and threatening to take relations with Russia “much further,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan finally persuaded his NATO ally to take an in-person meeting alongside the G20 summit in Rome last week.
Biden can finally claim he discussed rights and freedoms with Erdogan, leaving behind the embarrassment the Turkish president caused in September when he stated Biden had “never mentioned” human-rights abuses in their personal conversations, while Erdogan got another desperately wanted photo opportunity to shore up his domestic image as a statesman.
But make no mistake: US-Turkish relations remain a train wreck waiting to happen.
The questions journalists hurled at Biden as the two men headed into their meeting Sunday reflected the rising tensions: “Will you give F-16s to Turkey?” Then, twice each, “Will you raise human rights?” and “Is Turkey getting too close to Russia?,”
Days before, Ankara deployed more troops to northern Syria in preparation for another cross-border military operation targeting Washington’s Syrian Kurdish-led partners in the fight against the Islamic State. When Turkey launched its 2019 incursion following President Donald Trump’s hasty decision to withdraw troops from Syria after a phone call with Erdogan, Biden — then in campaign mode — assailed Trump for his weakness, accusing him of “demolishing the moral authority of the United States.”
see also
After their Rome meeting, Erdogan could have put Biden in the same embarrassing position with yet another fait accompli in Syria, exposing Biden’s deterrence as a paper tiger and his lifelong expression of support for Kurdish rights just empty words. And Erdogan might still follow through with his threats, as the Biden administration signals a waning interest in an active Syria policy.
Team Biden also narrowly averted a confrontation in late October as Erdogan threatened to expel 10 Western ambassadors — including the US envoy — who issued a collective statement demanding “a just and speedy resolution” to the court case of Osman Kavala, Turkey’s imprisoned minority-rights advocate. When Washington led its nine partners in walking back its stance with an ambiguously worded statement that allowed Erdogan to claim victory, the Turkish president dropped the threatened expulsions. Yet Erdogan saw that Biden will bend when subjected to pressure.
Erdogan also showed up in Rome having threatened a month earlier to purchase a second Russian S-400 air-defense system and warned through a senior official that Ankara would procure Russian Su-35 and Su-57 warplanes unless Washington delivered the F-16s Turkey needs to upgrade its aging fleet. The Turkish president appears to have left Rome with the impression that Biden pledged help to secure the approvals necessary for the F-16 sale. In fact, Biden’s ambiguous comment on the matter sugarcoated the significant obstacles sanctions in effect for Turkey’s first S-400 purchase and the congressional freeze on all major arms sales to Ankara pose.
In Rome, Biden and his foreign-policy team tried hard to walk a tightrope as they dealt with NATO’s most erratic leader, who has no qualms about using military force to create facts on the ground or playing a spoiler role within the transatlantic alliance by cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Biden provided Erdogan not only the allocated 20 minutes but an additional 45, which Turkey’s pro-government media spun as a victory. Perhaps that extra time enabled Biden to put an overdue emphasis on “democratic institutions, respect for human rights and the rule of law,” per the White House readout. Biden pledged to have a human-rights centered foreign policy, yet if Erdogan faces nothing more than a mild reprimand for his abuses, he has little incentive to stop them.
Ultimately, none of these palliative attempts to prevent Erdogan from going rogue can bring the Turkish strongman within the NATO fold or make him respect the fundamental values of the transatlantic alliance. To avoid a train wreck, whether through Ankara’s unilateral action in northern Syria or procurement of further Russian weapons, Biden needs to add to his careful management of Erdogan’s fragile ego strong deterrence built on concerted transatlantic action. Sweet talk will go much further if backed by concrete actions.
Aykan Erdemir is senior director of the Turkey program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former member of the Turkish parliament.
13. How China's 'greyzone warfare' is designed to subdue the enemy
How China's 'greyzone warfare' is designed to subdue the enemy
PLA aircraft have been flying menacingly towards airspace around Taiwan sometimes launching multiple sorties on the same day.
PLA aircraft have been flying menacingly towards airspace around Taiwan sometimes launching multiple sorties on the same day.
Titanic clash that Taiwan
Having crushed the resistance to its rule in Hong Kong, China is moving against Taiwan with irregular tactics meant to exhaust the island's military.
Months after eliminating a popular challenge to its rule in Hong Kong, China is turning to an even higher-stakes target: self-governing Taiwan. The island has been bracing for conflict with China for decades, and in some respects, that battle has now begun.
It’s not the final, titanic clash that Taiwan has long feared, with Chinese troops storming the beaches. Instead, the People’s Liberation Army, China’s two-million-strong military, has launched a form of “greyzone” warfare. In this irregular type of conflict, which stops short of an actual shooting war, the aim is to subdue the foe through exhaustion.
(Reuters)
(Photograph:AFP)
PLA aircraft threaten Taiwan
Beijing is conducting waves of threatening forays from the air while ratcheting up existing pressure tactics to erode Taiwan’s will to resist, say current and former senior Taiwanese and US military officers.
The flights, they say, complement amphibious landing exercises, naval patrols, cyber attacks and diplomatic isolation. The risk of conflict is now at its highest level in decades. PLA aircraft have been flying menacingly towards airspace around Taiwan sometimes launching multiple sorties on the same day.
Data shows that in periods when political tension across the Taiwan Strait peaks, China sends more aircraft, including some of its most potent fighters and bombers.
(Reuters)
(Photograph:AFP)
Xi Jinping's strategy
These encroachment tactics are “super effective,” Admiral Lee Hsi-ming, who until last year was the commander of the Taiwanese military, told Reuters in an interview. “You say it’s your garden, but it turns out that it is your neighbor who’s hanging out in the garden all the time. With that action, they are making a statement that it’s their garden - and that garden is one step away from your house.”
Under President Xi Jinping, China has accelerated the development of forces the PLA would need one day to conquer the island of 23 million - a mission that is the country’s top military priority, according to Chinese and Western analysts.
(Reuters)
(Photograph:AFP)
'Must be, will be' unified with China
With Hong Kong and the restive regions of Tibet and Xinjiang under ever-tighter control, Taiwan is the last remaining obstacle to the Communist Party’s monopoly on power.
In a major speech early last year, Xi said that Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a Chinese province, “must be, will be” unified with China. He set no deadline but would not rule out the use of force.
Chinese military and government agencies have switched from decades of “theoretical talk” about taking Taiwan by force to debating and working on plans for possible military action, a senior Taiwanese security official responsible for intelligence on China told Reuters.
(Reuters)
(Photograph:AFP)
China’s military build-up
Admiral Lee, the retired Taiwanese military chief, believes the only thing holding back the PLA from a full assault is that it hasn’t yet achieved the overwhelming firepower needed to overrun the island.
Even so, China’s military build-up over the past 20 years means it is now “far ahead” of Taiwan, he said. “Time is definitely not on Taiwan’s side,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time for them to gather enough strength.”
PLA troops have been garrisoned in Hong Kong since the city returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Yet the city’s protest movement was quashed not by military force, but by a combination of aggressive policing, the imposition of a draconian national security law and the eruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, which enabled the government to ban all mass gatherings.
(Photograph:AFP)
First island chain
For Xi, democratic Taiwan is now the last outpost of resistance to his dream of a unified and rejuvenated China that can displace the United States as the major power in the Asia-Pacific region.
Taiwan has remained effectively independent since 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek's defeated Republic of China government retreated to the island after the Chinese Civil War.
Bringing Taiwan under Beijing’s wing would give the PLA a commanding position in Asia. It would entrench the Chinese military in the middle of the so-called first island chain – the string of islands from the Japanese archipelago in the north, down to the Philippines and on to Borneo, which enclose China’s coastal seas.
(Reuters)
(Photograph:AFP)
Greyzone tactics
The PLA Navy could dominate the shipping lanes to North Asia, giving Beijing a powerful lever over Japan and South Korea. And the PLA Navy would have free access to the Western Pacific.
Standing in the way of that dream is the United States. It would be catastrophic to America’s dominance in the region if Chinese forces took control of Taiwan, most military analysts believe, whether by "greyzone" tactics or full-scale invasion. America’s global prestige and role as security guarantor in Asia would be shattered, they say.
Already, Beijing’s recent assertiveness, including its fortification of contested islets in the South China Sea, has galvanised an American-led response.
(Photograph:AFP)
Taiwan’s ADIZ
Xi, for now, has opted for "greyzone warfare". Without firing a shot, China’s military is sorely taxing Taiwan’s Air Force.
The theater of action is Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). An ADIZ is an area that stretches beyond a territory’s air space where air traffic controllers request incoming flights to identify themselves.
When PLA aircraft enter Taiwan’s ADIZ, fighters scramble in response. On occasion, air-defense missile units are put on alert.
The PLA mostly relies on three kinds of aircraft - anti-submarine, electronic-warfare and airborne early-warning-and-control - to conduct its regular missions into Taiwan’s ADIZ, the flight-tracking data show. The use of these aircraft allows the PLA to gather intelligence on the island’s defenses, as well as Taiwanese and allied submarine activity in the area, Taiwanese, US and other Western military intelligence officers say.
(Reuters)
(Photograph:AFP)
14. Novels of Sino-American War and the Shadow of Hector Bywater -
A lot to be learned from fiction.
Novels of Sino-American War and the Shadow of Hector Bywater -
Novels of Sino-American War and the Shadow of Hector Bywater
What would war with China be like? Two recent novels take the matter very seriously, as did a prescient 1925 novel on the subject of Japan.
by
November 7, 2021, 10:25 PM
Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution (Tyg728/Creative Commons)
As tensions increase between China and the United States over the South China Sea and Taiwan, American strategists and statesmen might benefit from reading two recent fictional accounts of a future Sino-American war. Those novels — Ghost Fleet by P.W. Singer and August Cole (2015) and 2034: A Novel of the Next World War by Elliot Ackerman and James Starvridis (2021) — serve as cautionary reminders that sometimes works of fiction can help foresee events and thereby provide warnings that may help forestall disaster. And those fictional accounts stand in the shadow of Hector Bywater.
In Ghost Fleet, China’s attack begins with the destruction of American communication satellites in space. Then, Chinese cyber-warfare experts disable U.S. computer networks, while Chinese and Russian forces attack U.S. military installations in Japan. China closes the Panama Canal (its companies control both ends of the canal) and Sino-Russian naval and air forces attack U.S. naval forces at Pearl Harbor. The war ends in stalemate only due to the heroic efforts of U.S. naval forces who use old mothballed warships (the Ghost Fleet) to defeat a Chinese-Russian armada in the Western Pacific.
In 2034, the PLA Navy lures a U.S. warship into providing assistance to a supposedly disabled Chinese trawler. A cyberattack shuts down U.S. naval communications and communications between the Pentagon and all U.S. warships. Meanwhile, a Chinese nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and other Chinese warships surround a U.S. naval flotilla in the South China Sea and subsequently attack and destroy the entire fleet, including two U.S. aircraft carriers. More than a thousand U.S. sailors are dead. China’s Russian allies, meanwhile, cut the subsurface 10G internet cables that service the United States, causing a nationwide power outage. China then invades Taiwan and the U.S. responds by launching tactical nuclear warheads which destroy the Chinese port of Zhanijiang. China responds by moving its warships to America’s Pacific Coast and using its tactical nuclear weapons to destroy San Diego and Galveston. The American president orders nuclear strikes against three more Chinese cities, but Indian forces step in and prevent two of the U.S. strikes (one gets through, destroying Shanghai), and also destroys a Chinese carrier before it can retaliate against the U.S. The war ends in a stalemate negotiated in New Delhi.
Before discounting the fictional scenarios of Ghost Fleetand 2034, it is worth remembering Hector C. Bywater. Bywater was a British journalist, spy (before and during World War I), and military writer who worked for the New York Herald, the London Daily Telegraph, and the Baltimore Sun. He was very much an intellectual disciple of the great American naval historian and strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan. In 1921, Bywater wrote Sea-power in the Pacific: A Study of the American-Japanese Naval Problem, a nonfiction book that analyzed the geopolitical competition between the U.S. and Japan, especially in the naval realm. It was a timely book — that same year Japan and the United States (and other powers) participated in the Washington Naval Conference, which attempted to establish limits on naval warships — an early example of arms control efforts.
In Sea-power in the Pacific, Bywater described “the rapid growth of Japanese naval power” and its potential impact on U.S. interests in the Pacific Ocean and East Asia. Bywater suggested that in the event of a U.S.-Japanese war, Japan might try to block the Panama Canal, thereby delaying U.S. naval reinforcements from the Atlantic. Bywater noted that “war with the United States has furnished the theme of several … stories by Japanese writers, and in nearly every case the imaginary campaign opens with a sudden and devastating raid on the Panama Canal.” He also wrote that under then current circumstances, the United States “could do nothing whatever to protect” the Philippine Islands from a Japanese attack and invasion. If war breaks out within the next few years, Bywater wrote, it would result with “the Japanese flag waving over Manila.” It was incumbent upon the leaders of the United States, he wrote, “to take the most elementary precautions against the loss of the Philippines.” He also noted the importance of Guam as a U.S. military base in the event of a Japanese attack on the Philippines. Bywater also noted the strategic significance of the American naval base at Pearl Harbor and advocated strengthening it for both defensive and offensive operations. He suggested that Pearl Harbor could become the target of a torpedo attack by Japan at the outset of war.
But it was Bywater’s 1925 novel The Great Pacific War: A History of the American-Japanese Campaign of 1931-1933, that foresaw a surprise Japanese attack against America — not at Pearl Harbor, but in the Philippines. In this fictional account, Japan goes to war against the United States because of America’s reaction to Japan’s ambitions in China and due to domestic problems in Japan. Japan’s attack was preceded by a “violent anti-American campaign” in the state-controlled press that noted America’s attempted interference in Japan’s internal affairs and U.S. immigration policies that discriminated against persons of Japanese descent. “Japan was bent,” Bywater wrote, “if not on provoking war, at least on subjecting the United States to a diplomatic humiliation that would not only reduce American prestige in the Far East to zero, but at the same time force that country to acknowledge … Japan’s complete ascendancy in China.”
The surprise Japanese attack destroys the U.S. Asiatic Squadron based in the Philippines, and Japanese forces invade and conquer the islands. Japan’s flag flies over Manila. Japanese ships lay mines around Hawaii. “Japan,” Bywater wrote, “had swept the American flag from the Western Pacific.” This all happens within a month. Next, Japanese submarines attack the U.S. Pacific Coast and Japanese aircraft strike targets in California.
Eventually, however, America’s economic might, war production, and series of victories on Pacific islands wear down Japan’s forces. Guam and the Philippines are retaken by U.S. forces. Tokyo is bombed. “Japan was brought to the verge of ruin,” Bywater wrote. And finally an armistice is signed.
Writing 16 years before the outbreak of war between the U.S. and Japan, Bywater got many things right. He foresaw Japan’s imperial ambitions in China. He envisioned a surprise Japanese attack on U.S. possessions. He recognized the difficulties of defending the Philippines and predicted that Japan would attack those islands and Guam. He accurately foresaw the course of the war — with Japan’s initial victories followed by America’s successful island campaign, bombing of Tokyo, and ultimate victory. Let us hope that the authors of Ghost Fleet and 2034 are not as prescient.
15. The Lessons of Two Decades of War: A Review of IWI’s Inaugural Conference
A good summary of some of the key issues from the conference.
The Lessons of Two Decades of War: A Review of IWI’s Inaugural Conference - Modern War Institute
The Irregular Warfare Initiative’s inaugural conference was conducted on September 10, 2021, and brought together almost nine hundred participants. This conference builds on the mission of IWI—to bridge the gap between scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to support the community of irregular warfare (IW) professionals. A conference medium aims to complement the podcast series and written pieces, providing an interactive means of discussing topics of interest to this community.
Within this conference, IWI sought to bring together small groups of leading researchers and practitioners for subject-based, focused conversations on the lessons learned from the past twenty years of IW. We brought this select group into six breakout room sessions, the essence of which is distilled as follows for the broader community of IW professionals.
Based upon the clear demand for additional engagement opportunities on these issues, IWI is planning a series of future events to continue to bridge the gap and address the broadest range of IW challenges.
Influence with Retired Lt. Gen. Mike Nagata and Craig Whiteside—
In discussing the global competition for influence, Retired Lieutenant General Michael Nagata highlighted the US government’s lack of synchronization between what it says and what it does. This lack of clarity restricts the United States’ ability to develop innovative strategies to shape adversary behavior. By defining the competition for influence as the ability to persuade a population to wittingly or unwittingly conform with state interests, he highlighted the critical shift necessary to move the US strategic resource focus from readiness for armed conflict to the competition for influence. Although the discussion focused on the Defense Department, the lack of US government consensus in defining great power or strategic competition inhibits the interagency coordination required to fully leverage the United States’ enduring advantages as global strategic dynamics shift.
In order to regain an offensive mentality, the United States and allied nations should identify the interests worth pursuing and determine what indicators might measure their success or failure. A starting point may be developing an interagency and private sector approach that crosses international borders to generate consensus on what it means to be “with the Americans.” Success might be measured by the traditional indicators of migratory flows, which represent people seeking opportunity, or through financial transactions, which represent trust in a reliable currency. Influence here will require cooperation and ingenuity from outside the Department of Defense, yet an irregular warfare perspective on how to apply new tools will be necessary at the strategy table to account for the geopolitical competition dynamics that will undoubtedly surface.
Unconventional Warfare with Melissa Lee and Mark Grdovic—
Unconventional warfare (UW) is just one tool in a toolkit of militarized and nonmilitarized tools to advance foreign policy objectives. Research shows that UW is appealing to states for several reasons: it allows them to outsource effort to another actor, compete with a rival without needing to maintain superiority with that target, and hide involvement and escape retaliation through plausible deniability. But the risks and disadvantages of employing UW often do not receive similar attention, especially in policy audiences.
A key downside to UW is that by delegating some form of warfare to nonstate armed groups, these groups could use the support they receive to engage in behavior outside what their state sponsors wish to achieve. States have often struggled to find nonstate partners with preferences sufficiently aligned with theirs, and it is rare, if not impossible, to have perfect alignment on all interests.
Controlling the behavior of sponsored groups always comes with tradeoffs. For example, the tools used to increase monitoring over these groups could risk the ability of states to plausibly deny their involvement. In addition, once these relationships are built, the question of when to walk away from a given group involves giving up a potential advantage in a theater or potentially harming a state’s ability to engage with other groups later on by harming that state’s reputation as a partner. However, it is an open empirical question whether a state’s experiences of UW in one theater affect the likelihood that a potential future group would partner with it. At the same time, continuing a relationship with a nonstate armed group is not always strategically beneficial. Another important downside of employing UW is that it is much easier to sponsor nonstate warring parties to break institutions and societies (and prolong civil wars) than to build them back up.
Given the failures and risks of UW, the discussion challenged whether practitioners should reframe their approach to the tool, investigating first whether a situation actually merits its use as opposed to including it by default in every options list. Experts agreed that it might not be the most applicable tool for most situations.
Counterterrorism with Jenna Jordan and Levi West
Two decades after 9/11, policymakers still lack a clear set of definitions to guide counterterrorism efforts, and without these definitions, it is difficult to assess the successes and failures of the last twenty years or to set a course for the future.
US political and military leaders have failed to define the threat of terrorism and to subsequently set objectives that are proportional and achievable. For most of the past twenty years, the goal of US counterterrorism operations was to “defeat” terrorist groups—to remove their capability and will. Yet there was always an insurmountable gap between resources available and the ability to defeat groups such as al-Qaeda, as well as a lack of focus on consolidating gains to prevent regrouping. These efforts also failed to account for the threats posed by different types of terrorist groups—including local networks, transnational groups and their affiliates, and state-sponsored groups. Military leaders did not meaningfully question the focus on defeat until 2018, when the National Defense Strategy diverted military focus away from counterterrorism. As policymakers set goals for future counterterrorism operations, they should consider the types of threats a counterterrorism strategy must address—for instance, threats to the homeland, threats to US interests abroad, or threats to individuals abroad. They should also consider the acceptable outcomes—including degrading groups’ size, location, or capabilities to a level they deem manageable.
Moreover, the evolution of US and partner operations in Afghanistan and Iraq conflated counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, making it more challenging to evaluate efficacy and draw lessons for the future. It is difficult to assess whether counterterrorism successes since 9/11—the lack of a mass-casualty attack by an international terrorist group in the United States and the widespread discrediting of the Salafi-jihadist ideology—were commensurate with the costs—tremendous military spending, more than three hundred thousand local civilians killed and millions more displaced, more than seven thousand US servicemembers killed, and widespread mental health challenges in the military. The question is particularly intractable because it is difficult to draw a clean line between the costs of the initial US and allied counterterrorism efforts and those of the counterinsurgency campaigns the deployments later became.
Finally, in addition to better defining counterterrorism, political leaders should also strive to build a society that is more resilient to terrorist attacks. Terrorist groups will endure, yet the average citizen is highly unlikely to be harmed in an attack. Looking to the future, policymakers and researchers alike should strive to identify counterterrorism objectives that are proportional to the threat, define an acceptable level of risk, and adequately convey these assessments to the public.
Counterinsurgency with David Kilcullen and Candace Rondeaux—
Following the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan, recent commentary has focused on the failures of counterinsurgency (COIN) policies over the last two decades. Narrowly focusing on the strategic failure in Afghanistan, however, overlooks several important instances of tactical and operational COIN successes, in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Objectively analyzing successful and failed counterinsurgency policies is a critical task, as data shows that civil conflicts continue to dominate the international security landscape. This is likely to remain true in the current era of great power competition, as suggested by the Cold War’s historical record.
Gap between tactical success and strategic failure. Empirical evidence demonstrates that COIN policies can result in tactical and operational success, under certain conditions. But more research is needed to understand how these various policies should be sequenced to produce strategic success. Further, it is evident that effective tactical COIN policies are not helpful if they are not nested in an overarching strategic framework. As an example, while several COIN initiatives in Afghanistan led to temporary local success, the US strategic failure to deny the Taliban’s safe haven in Pakistan nullified many of those tactical gains. Similarly, had the United States considered the importance of a political settlement to resolve Afghanistan’s civil conflict earlier, then a viable intra-Afghan peace settlement may have become a possibility much earlier.
Counterinsurgency takes time and resources. Building on the difficulties in attaining strategic COIN success, research demonstrates that successful COIN campaigns take significant time and resources. But the domestic political will required to sustain those resources is often lacking, and this is especially true for external interveners. In Afghanistan, the US and NATO mission only had the required resources to effectively implement a COIN campaign for three out of the last twenty years. US and NATO forces predominately conducted a mix of security force advising and counterterrorism operations, while Afghan National Defense and Security Forces were the primary COIN force for the remaining seventeen years. This points to the significant principal-agent challenges that exist for external interveners, and that will persist for future external counterinsurgents.
Considering the imperial legacies for external COIN. External counterinsurgents routinely failed to grasp local cultural nuances that were key to understanding local conflicts. In Afghanistan, disagreements over competing forms of Islamic jurisprudence remained a major source of conflict and a key factor in mobilizing combatants. Persistent ignorance of local culture degraded external counterinsurgents’ legitimacy and hindered their efforts to increase the host nation government’s legitimacy. This dearth of cultural awareness was accentuated by the frequent unit rotations, bringing in new units every nine months or so, and leading to “a one-year war, fought twenty times over.” Local and regional colonial legacies also posed significant challenges to the United States and its allies, and these legacies are frequently exploited by insurgents to mobilize popular support and increase legitimacy.
Ethics in Irregular Warfare: Should there be a “SOF-peculiar” ethical framework? with Deane-Peter Baker and Roger Herbert—
Are special operations distinct, in ethical terms, from other military operations? Are current moral frameworks for when and how decision makers may employ special operations forces (SOF) inadequate given technological and geopolitical realities? Considering the surgical nature of strategic special operations, should they be subject to the same ad bellum constraints that have evolved to inform the resort to full-scale war?
The “Ethics in Irregular Warfare” session featured a lively discussion between Dr. Deane-Peter Baker and Dr. Roger Herbert—two of the most prominent researchers tackling the complex moral and ethical questions surrounding modern special operations. To frame the discussion, the authors provided participants with a courtesy draft chapter from their forthcoming book, The Ethics of Special Operations: Raids, Recoveries, Reconnaissance, and Rebels.
Participants included a diverse group of SOF operators, intelligence professionals, congressional staffers, attorneys, academics, and other irregular warfare practitioners—from the United States, Jordan, Australia, and Turkey—brought together by a shared interest in the field of ethics in irregular warfare.
To provide context for the discussion, Dr. Herbert reviewed Just War Theory and its three main categories—jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum. Given the timing of the conference coinciding with the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the jus post bellum or “postwar” discussion seemed particularly prudent as we examined the ethical framework underpinning US obligations in a postwar Afghanistan. The timeliness of this theme was driven home as a few participants even shared disclaimers and apologies during the introductions that they might need to sign off abruptly given their involvement in ongoing volunteer efforts like Task Force Pineapple.
The heart of the discussion, however, revolved around the central proffer from Dr. Herbert and Dr. Baker: that the field of military ethics may not be adequately keeping pace with the emergence of special operations as a preferred tool of policymakers. They cited the concept of jus ad vim (just use of force short of war), as offered by Michael Walzer in the fourth edition (2006) of his contemporary classic Just and Unjust Wars. We examined how jus ad vim might inform a unique ethical construct for SOF.
Some of the participants expressed reservations at the very idea of a distinct special operations ethical framework, citing recent high profile misconduct and unethical behavior on the battlefield by both American and Australian special operations forces.
Participants were grateful to Dr. Baker and Dr. Herbert for sharing their research and insights vis-à-vis today’s ethical challenges at the intersection of irregular warfare and special operations in an era characterized by strategic competition. The opportunity to assemble a diverse group of stakeholders in an intimate forum and open a dialogue bodes well for our ability to leverage diverse perspectives and bridge the gap between the academic and practitioner communities.
Foreign Internal Defense with Patrick Howell and Leo Blanken—facilitated by Max Margulies
The United States’ ability to train foreign militaries has come under intense scrutiny in recent months, following the collapse of the Afghan military and the earlier disintegration of Iraqi security forces. But simplistic descriptions of these US efforts to build allied forces as outright failures are misleading. This narrative fails to credit the warfighting ability of the Islamic State and the Taliban. Further, this view also ignores variation in the capacity of different segments of the Afghan military, some of which have performed well over the last decade. Yet the question remains: how do we measure success or effectiveness in conducting such missions?
This question formed the crux of discussion with Colonel Patrick Howell and Leo Blanken. A challenge with measuring effectiveness is determining an appropriate measure of success. Analysts and practitioners are often too focused on imbuing foreign militaries with US values or cultural practices that may not be suited to the local context.
In some cases, this might be appropriate. Certain Western measures, such as respect for civilians and the rule of law, have been demonstrated to be more effective in counterinsurgency environments. Other Western measures, such as an airmobile capability, might be inappropriate if they are simply unaffordable for a foreign military.
To address this dilemma, analysts should focus on the importance of shared interests with the partner. Understanding their incentives is important for understanding what and how to measure, as well as the probability of success. For example, the United States may want to build an effective fighting force, but the literature on coup-proofing suggests that developing such militaries may be a risky proposition for unpopular regimes struggling to hold onto their power.
Moving forward, policymakers must retain an appropriate perspective. The United States has succeeded at building specialized units like special operations forces and helping other countries that share US interests; where it has failed, it has often been where countries lack the will to build capable militaries. Interest alignment and local will are key.
The Irregular Warfare Initiative seeks to keep the flame alive regarding the hard-won lessons of the past twenty years of conflict. The breakout discussions in our inaugural conference demonstrate that scholars and practitioners still have much to observe, debate, and learn. We plan to continue a drumbeat of conference engagements to complement the written and audio content our audience has become familiar with. Please follow the IWI on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn for details of subsequent engagements.
Andrew Maher is the engagements director for the Irregular Warfare Initiative, an active duty Australian Army officer and a lecturer with the University of New South Wales Canberra on irregular warfare.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: Sgt. Russell Gilchrest, US Army
16. Can American democracy and soft power be restored?
Excerpts:
For those who are mourning the demise of American democracy, it’s important to remember that unprecedented turnout in the 2020 election unseated a demagogue. And the outcome was upheld in more than 60 court cases overseen by an independent judiciary, including some of Trump’s appointees. And the outcome was finally certified by Congress.
This doesn’t mean that all is well with American democracy. The Trump presidency eroded a range of democratic norms. Polarisation persists, and most Republicans say they believe his lies about the election. Social media business models exacerbate the existing polarisation by relying on algorithms that profit from eliciting user ‘engagement’, and companies like Facebook and Google, under pressure from public opinion and congressional hearings, are only slowly beginning to respond.
At the same time, American culture still has sources of resilience that pessimists in the past have underestimated. Press freedom, independent courts and the right to peaceful protest are among the greatest sources of America’s soft power. Even when mistaken government policies reduce America’s attractiveness, its capacity for self-reflection and self-correction makes it attractive to others at a deeper level. As I told my sceptical European friend, values change with generations, and the younger generation is a source of hope.
Can American democracy and soft power be restored? | The Strategist
At a recent meeting of trans-Atlantic foreign policy experts, a European friend told the group that he used to worry about a decline in American hard power but felt reassured. On the other hand, he now worried more about what was happening internally and how that would affect the soft power that underlies American foreign policy. Are his fears justified?
Smart political leaders have long understood that values can create power. If I can attract you and persuade you to want what I want, then I don’t have to force you or pay you to do what I want. If the United States (or any country) represents values that others find attractive, it can economise on sticks and carrots. US soft power rests partly on American culture and foreign policies when they are attractive to others; but it also rests on our values and how we practise democracy at home.
As international polls show, President Donald Trump’s term in office wasn’t kind to American soft power. This was partly a reaction to Trump’s nativist foreign policy, which shunned allies and multilateral institutions, as well as to his administration’s incompetent response to the Covid-19 pandemic. But even more damaging to US soft power was Trump’s effort to disrupt the orderly transition of political power after he lost the 2020 election. And on 6 January 2021, as Republican Senator Ben Sasse described the invasion of the US Capitol, ‘the world’s greatest symbol of self-government … was ransacked while the leader of the free world cowered behind his keyboard—tweeting against his Vice President for fulfilling the duties of his oath to the Constitution’.
America’s allies and other countries were shocked, and America’s attractiveness was diminished. Can US soft power recover?
It wouldn’t be the first time. The US has serious problems, but it also has a capacity for resilience and reform that has rescued it in the past. In the 1960s, America’s legacy of racism fuelled major urban riots, and protests against the Vietnam War grew increasingly violent. Bombs exploded in universities and government buildings. The National Guard killed student protesters at Kent State University. We witnessed the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and two Kennedys. Populist demagogues like George Wallace fanned the flames of hate. Yet, within a decade, Congress enacted a series of political reforms, and the honesty of Gerald Ford, the human rights policies of Jimmy Carter and the optimism of Ronald Reagan helped restore America’s attractiveness.
Moreover, even when protesters marched through the world’s streets condemning American policies in Vietnam, they were more likely to sing ‘We Shall Overcome’ than the ‘Internationale’. The anthem of the civil rights movement illustrated that America’s power to attract rested not on its government’s policy but in large part on its civil society and its capacity for self-criticism and reform.
Unlike hard-power assets (such as armed forces), many soft-power resources are separate from the government and attract others despite politics. Hollywood movies and popular music showcasing independent women or empowered minorities can attract others. So, too, does America’s diverse and free press, the charitable work of its foundations and the freedom of inquiry at its universities. America’s firms, universities, foundations, churches and protest movements develop soft power of their own, which may reinforce others’ views of the country.
But while peaceful protests can generate soft power, the mob in and around the Capitol on 6 January was far from peaceful. The events of that day were a disturbing illustration of the way that Trump exacerbated political polarisation, which he continues to do by making his myth of a stolen election a litmus test in the Republican Party.
To be sure, the US had experienced an increase in political polarisation well before Trump was elected in 2016. His innovation was to exploit and exacerbate nativist populism as a political weapon to take control of the GOP, cowing congressional Republicans with threats of a primary challenge from his supporters. Many still are too scared to oppose his lies about the 2020 election. Fortunately, in a federal system, many state officials and legislators stood up to Trump’s efforts to intimidate them into ‘finding’ votes. Some pessimists worry whether this can continue.
For those who are mourning the demise of American democracy, it’s important to remember that unprecedented turnout in the 2020 election unseated a demagogue. And the outcome was upheld in more than 60 court cases overseen by an independent judiciary, including some of Trump’s appointees. And the outcome was finally certified by Congress.
This doesn’t mean that all is well with American democracy. The Trump presidency eroded a range of democratic norms. Polarisation persists, and most Republicans say they believe his lies about the election. Social media business models exacerbate the existing polarisation by relying on algorithms that profit from eliciting user ‘engagement’, and companies like Facebook and Google, under pressure from public opinion and congressional hearings, are only slowly beginning to respond.
At the same time, American culture still has sources of resilience that pessimists in the past have underestimated. Press freedom, independent courts and the right to peaceful protest are among the greatest sources of America’s soft power. Even when mistaken government policies reduce America’s attractiveness, its capacity for self-reflection and self-correction makes it attractive to others at a deeper level. As I told my sceptical European friend, values change with generations, and the younger generation is a source of hope.
17. The Politics of Freedom
Sometimes a little political philosophy is good for the soul.
Conclusion:
Warts and all, Harry Jaffa nonetheless exemplifies the “scholarship of the politics of freedom.” His mix of Aristotle, Aquinas, the Bible, Shakespeare, the Founders, and Lincoln may appear eclectic, and even somewhat incoherent—but that is a superficial assessment. Today, Jaffa’s vision is best articulated in the Claremont Review of Books, which under Kesler’s judicious editorship, has opened so-called West Coast Straussianism to a respectful dialogue with other serious currents of conservatism. In it, and in Jaffa’s best writings, too, one can discover rich resources for the revitalization of the city and the soul, for finding “republican remedies” to our present discontents, as Ellmers puts it, echoing “Publius” and the Federalist papers. Following Jaffa’s example, Ellmers suggests one path to the renewal of the morally and civically serious “natural aristoi,” who might save us yet. Indeed, Ellmers’s book is an appeal to the noble and spirited among us, including the young, to fight for what is worth preserving in our civic and civilizational inheritance. For that alone, its appearance is most welcome.
The Politics of Freedom | City Journal
An excellent new book on the work of Harry Jaffa is also an appeal to Americans to fight for our civic and civilizational inheritance.
November 4, 2021 The Social OrderPolitics and law
For those who remain faithful to the spirit of American republicanism, there is no doubt that the American political order is in the midst of a profound crisis. America’s founding principles have come under systematic assault in the worlds of journalism, the academy, social media, and in large and growing parts of the political class. The world’s most successful experiment in republican self-government, Abraham Lincoln’s “almost chosen nation” and “last best hope on earth,” is regularly denigrated as a hateful cauldron of racism, exploitation, and inequality. The new “woke racism,” as John McWhorter calls it, divides humanity into “privileged” oppressors—by definition beyond redemption—and “innocent” victims, who lack moral agency and are encouraged to blame others for their fate and to accept blindly the dictates of a tutelary bureaucratic state. In elite circles, traditional patriotism is held in contempt and legitimate national self-criticism has degenerated into pathological self-loathing. The disparities inherent in a vibrant, dynamic society and the diverse “factions” and divisions coextensive with “the system of natural liberty,” as Adam Smith called it, are now identified with systematic racism and discrimination. Doctrinaire egalitarianism, dogmatic relativism, and angry moralism coexist in a toxic mix. What are defenders of the old verities and decencies to do? Perhaps what’s most needed at this precarious moment is to gain clarity on our situation by returning to a principled understanding of the moral foundations of liberty, equality, and human dignity, in both a broadly human and specifically American context.
In a lively, gracefully written book that is at once learned, accessible, and challenging, Glenn Ellmers sets out to do precisely that. He turns to the life and writings of the late political theorist Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) for illumination about both “the soul of politics” and “the fight for America.” His is a welcome recommendation—but why Jaffa, at this particular moment? Let’s begin closer to the beginning.
One of the most gifted thinkers of his generation, Jaffa was an early student of the German-Jewish emigré political philosopher Leo Strauss at the New School for Social Research in New York City, before Strauss left for the University of Chicago in 1949. At Chicago, Strauss would help shape a generation of political theorists and students of American political thought who would come to challenge both the historicist assumption that all thought is explained (or explained away) by the context in which a given author lived and the relativist assumption that the primordial distinctions between good and evil, right and wrong, and noble and the base are essentially arbitrary and have no foundation in the natural order of things—they are merely “values,” asserted without rational justification. For Strauss, and later Jaffa, the arbitrary severing of “facts” and “values” fundamentally distorted the meaning of the human world.
By recovering the classical political philosophy of Plato and Aristotle in a strikingly undogmatic way, Strauss made possible a reaffirmation of philosophy as a way of life that gives thinking men and women access to permanent questions and truths. In his writing and teaching, Strauss also emphasized an enduring tension between the questioning that informs philosophical inquiry and the bedrock truths at the heart of a well-constituted “city” or political regime. But he also reminded his readers (in Ellmers’s words) that “Socrates was also a defender of prephilosophical morality and piety against the Sophists, who insisted that all politics is merely rhetoric and that all justice is artificial or conventional.” Jaffa, perhaps more than any other of Strauss’s many students, refused to sever philosophical inquiry from the reasonable affirmation of natural right or natural justice. In this, he was ultimately more Aristotelian than Platonic, insisting that Socratic philosophizing and statesmanlike prudence are two complementary and essential aspects of political philosophy, rightly understood.
Some of Strauss’s students saw only “dualities” (and this might be true to some extent of Strauss too), and emphasized the radical differences between philosophy and politics, reason and revelation, the ancients and the moderns, and even philosophy and morality. In contrast, Jaffa would come to emphasize commonalities among them, in the fight to save both Western civilization and American republicanism from its internal enemies, among them a debilitating relativism and nihilism, and its external enemies, particularly Nazi and Communist totalitarianism during the twentieth century. To be sure, Jaffa joined Plato, Aristotle, and Strauss in affirming that contemplative reflection was the highest activity available to human beings, and the one most in accord with human nature. But the Claremont professor also saw dignity in a life of noble action informed by thought, and deep truth and ethical coherence in biblical religion.
In Shakespeare, Jaffa found the philosophic poet par excellence, a thinker-artist who dramatized the reality that human beings live in a “moral universe” and that therefore the choice for tyranny strikes not only at decent political life but at the human soul. (On this, see Jaffa’s insightful treatment of Macbeth that appeared in the Claremont Review of Books.) One of the great merits of Ellmers’s book is the way it illumines Jaffa’s rich engagement with Shakespeare as the supreme moral-political teacher of the Anglo-American world. Shakespeare, in Jaffa’s reading, rejected both the theocratic temptation within Christianity and the Machiavellian alternative to it that sacrificed both natural right and the Christian inheritance, in order to make politics safe from both “pious cruelty” and an excessive meekness that might also flow from Christian categories and assumptions. Unlike Machiavelli, however, Jaffa did not wish to bury Christianity (he came to deeply admire Thomas Aquinas) or biblical wisdom more broadly.
Jaffa also highlighted the multiple ways in which the encounter with Shakespeare helped mold Abraham Lincoln’s soul, fortifying his determination to defend natural justice and American republicanism against the modern defenders of chattel slavery and of “might makes right.” Where some paleoconservatives saw in Lincoln a modern messianic type, a gnostic fanatic, Jaffa saw a statesman-theorist informed by the humane but tough-minded moderation of Shakespeare, Aristotle, Cicero, and the American Founders. Drawing on these sources, Lincoln summoned the strength of soul to defend the union and liberty, both grounded in the great truth that “all men are created equal.” This is a truth which is not to be confused, insisted Jaffa against certain conservatives, with a levelling egalitarianism that can lead only to tyranny.
In two truly impressive books on the thought and statesmanship of Lincoln, Crisis of the House Divided (1959) and A New Birth of Freedom (2000), Jaffa emphasized Lincoln’s crucial role in elevating equal liberty away from more narrowly utilitarian concerns to a deep concern with transcendental justice, and how Lincoln was inspired by the American Founders’ defense of civil and religious liberty. In his later years, Jaffa came to see the American regime as “the best practicable regime,” to cite Aristotle’s formulation, as long as it remained faithful to the wisdom of Lincoln and the Founders, standing firmly for natural right, religious and civil liberty, moral self-restraint, and high political prudence. For this reason, Jaffa fiercely attacked paleoconservative critics of Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence for distorting and undermining our “ancient faith.” Where some saw gnostic messianism, Jaffa saw the true, solid, and inspiring ground of a non-utopian political order that allowed wisdom and moderation to coexist. He thus reconciled many American conservatives to the dignity and nobility of the American proposition, along with the need to avoid Confederate nostalgia and sympathies. In that regard, he had particular influence on William F. Buckley, Jr. and National Review, the longtime flagship of intellectual and political conservatism in the United States.
As Ellmers observes, Jaffa loathed every appeal to historical determinism and those reductive modern doctrines that denied the soul as the true ground of human freedom. He believed in what the classics and Christians called “reflective choice”— practical reason and free will. He shared Strauss’s admiration for Winston Churchill, whom both men saw as the firmest foe of tyranny in the twentieth century and the embodiment of magnanimous statesmanship. Echoing and amplifying Strauss’s “Churchillian speech,” given on the day of the great man’s death in 1965, Jaffa renewed the study of statesmanship as the necessary correlative to politically responsible political philosophizing. Where some Straussians appealed to a rather strained pure reason, primarily doing textual analysis and thus “philosophizing above the fray,” so to speak, Jaffa saw contemplative reflection at work in the minds and souls of Lincoln and Churchill. These “great men of action” were also thinkers of note and importance, defenders of the soul against the ideological defense by demi-intellectuals of both human servitude and ideological despotism of the Communist or Nazi kind. Jaffa adds perceptively in one of the numerous missives he penned that it should not be assumed “that they [Lincoln and Churchill, first and foremost] would have been more contemplative had they not followed paths of action. Action may have stimulated them to think more deeply than they might otherwise have done.” Wise words, indeed. Jaffa thus begins with a Platonic-Straussian “duality”—the superiority of the contemplative philosopher to the acting statesman—but then moves to what Thomas Jefferson called “harmonizing sentiments.” His is not the only possible interpretation and application of Strauss’s project. But it is a legitimate and genuinely admirable one.
As Ellmers shows, Jaffa knew that the United States, and the West more broadly, were entering into a grave crisis, marked by an immense loss of (reasoned) confidence in classical prudence, philosophical wisdom, biblical truths about God and the soul, and what Strauss called the commonsense wisdom inherent in the pretheoretical experiences that give rise to the conviction that we live in a moral universe. Such a universe is not inhospitable to moral and intellectual virtue. For this reason, Jaffa could write in an article from 1990 that classical political philosophy, biblical wisdom, and the politics of freedom stand or fall together: “the threat to one of these is also a threat to all.”
Jaffa’s “ancient faith” (the phrase is Lincoln’s) was capacious enough to make room for Jerusalem, Athens, London, Philadelphia, and Lincoln’s Peoria. Some of his respectful critics, Robert Kraynak and Michael Zuckert among them, thought this was ultimately too good to be true. The assumption is that Jaffa more or less forgot the original theoretical tensions or dualities that Strauss had done so much to recover. But there is little evidence to support this judgment. In my view, despite all his harmonizing, Jaffa appreciated both the tensions and harmonies at work in the heart of Western civilization. He was no mere moralist and acknowledged the dark shadows that sometimes accompanied even decent political life.
Ellmers succeeds in convincing the fair-minded reader of Jaffa’s impressive and still highly relevant achievement. At the same time, he could have done more to highlight real or possible weaknesses in Jaffa’s intellectual case. Among them are his tendency to confuse the medieval mixed regime with despotism, his exaggeration of the real influence of the doctrine of the “divine right of kings” in the Christian centuries (a doctrine, in truth, more rejected or honored in the breach than affirmed), and his seeming inability to do justice to Alexis de Tocqueville’s pertinent distinction between the truth of democratic justice and a pernicious “passion for equality” that aims to level everything great and noble. I, for one, have never understood the insistence of some of Jaffa’s more spirited students that one must choose between the wisdom of Tocqueville and the wisdom of Lincoln.
Then there is the matter of Jaffa’s often “splenetic” polemics, as (Jaffa admirer) Charles Kesler has called them, seeing “nihilism” at work in the constitutional reflections of Judge Bork and Justice Scalia, for example, and bad faith in more traditionalist currents of conservatism which surely had their share of truth. His strident treatment of old friends, fellow students of Strauss, often struck a false note.
Warts and all, Harry Jaffa nonetheless exemplifies the “scholarship of the politics of freedom.” His mix of Aristotle, Aquinas, the Bible, Shakespeare, the Founders, and Lincoln may appear eclectic, and even somewhat incoherent—but that is a superficial assessment. Today, Jaffa’s vision is best articulated in the Claremont Review of Books, which under Kesler’s judicious editorship, has opened so-called West Coast Straussianism to a respectful dialogue with other serious currents of conservatism. In it, and in Jaffa’s best writings, too, one can discover rich resources for the revitalization of the city and the soul, for finding “republican remedies” to our present discontents, as Ellmers puts it, echoing “Publius” and the Federalist papers. Following Jaffa’s example, Ellmers suggests one path to the renewal of the morally and civically serious “natural aristoi,” who might save us yet. Indeed, Ellmers’s book is an appeal to the noble and spirited among us, including the young, to fight for what is worth preserving in our civic and civilizational inheritance. For that alone, its appearance is most welcome.
Daniel J. Mahoney is Senior Fellow at the Real Clear Foundation and Professor Emeritus at Assumption University. His latest book, The Statesman as Thinker: Portraits of Greatness, Courage, and Moderation, will be published by Encounter Books in May 2022.
Photo by Jeff Mallet/MediaNews Group/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin via Getty Images
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18. Will to Fight: Are Americans and Chinese Ready to Die for Taiwan?
Know yourself and know your enemy...
Excerpts:
The will to fight is the disposition to fight, act, and persevere in war. America’s insufficient knowledge on this issue is clear: We do not understand our own (or China’s) will to fight. This gap in knowledge leaves our senior leaders dangerously ill-informed. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley recently stated that he is attempting to understand the factors that contributed to the Afghan Army’s failure to fight. Milley should not have been put in the position of having to make this kind of ad hoc calculation in the wake of a strategic defeat. U.S. military and political analysts can and should do a better job preparing senior leaders for war.
Human will cannot be accurately calculated because humans are not machines. Leaders should be wary of overly confident predictions. Still, Milley is on the right track. Arguably, the best way to understand the will to fight is to break down its inputs individually. The RAND corporation offers two factor-by-factor analytic models—one military and one national—designed to understand and forecast will to fight. Other experts are studying ways to formalize will to fight analysis. These and other existing models should be explored.
The U.S. Government should attempt to apply these approaches to understand both the Chinese and American will to fight before the United States suffers a strategic defeat or even a pyrrhic victory over China. At the very least, as Biden ratchets up diplomatic tensions, he should consider ways to prepare the U.S. military and public for a war that, while probably not desired by either side, seems increasingly probable.
Will to Fight: Are Americans and Chinese Ready to Die for Taiwan?
We do not understand our own (or China’s) will to fight
A war with China over Taiwan would generate high casualties, destabilize the global economy, and destroy billions of dollars worth of American military equipment. A strategic defeat for the United States in a war with China would be a very real possibility, though Chinese leaders face similar risks. Nonetheless, both the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are posturing for war. President Joe Biden has made escalatory diplomatic statements and deployed military advisors to Taiwan, while the PRC has stepped up its threatening military exercises. While this kind of brinksmanship is useful for strategic deterrence, it is also very risky. The United States and China could easily stumble into an unplanned high-intensity war. However, it is not at all clear that either side is psychologically prepared for such a war.
The U.S. Rationales for War
The rationale for fighting a war in defense of Taiwan has not been made clear to either the U.S. armed forces or the public. Why should Americans die for Taiwan? There is no treaty requiring the defense of Taiwan, an island that the United States does not formally recognize as an independent state.
Asking Americans to die in defense of Taiwanese democracy will be a tough sell in the wake of the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. Given the Biden administration’s argument that preserving Afghan democracy was not worth American lives—arguably an America First approach to foreign policy—why would preserving Taiwanese democracy be worth American lives? It could be difficult to answer this question without drifting into unsettling moral debates that the Biden administration might like to avoid. A compelling ideological rationale for war over Taiwan is unlikely to emerge from the government any time soon.
Cold geostrategic realism seems to be the most common underpinning of arguments in favor of defending Taiwan. In 2018, realists John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt suggested that the United States would benefit from defending Taiwan because it has considerable economic resources, could be used as a giant “aircraft carrier” against China, and out of fear that abandoning Taiwan would undermine U.S. credibility in Asia.
While these realpolitik calculations may or may not be solid geostrategic arguments, they would not necessarily motivate hundreds of thousands of U.S. military personnel and hundreds of millions of civilians to support a war that could lead to high casualties and global economic disaster.
Will the U.S. Military Fight and Die for Taiwan?
Given the past twenty years of solid American tactical performance, it may be difficult for U.S. political or military leaders to imagine Americans refusing to fight. Americans have not experienced a serious tactical defeat on the battlefield since the end of the Vietnam War.
However, America’s military has not been in a high-intensity shooting war with a peer adversary since World War II. We do not truly know if the vaunted military professionalism that kept Americans fighting through the unpopular Iraq and Afghanistan wars will be enough to carry our forces through tens of thousands of casualties in a war over Taiwan.
Are American airmen, sailors, soldiers, and marines ready to die by the thousands to protect Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturing or the now confused notion of U.S. military credibility? We assume that they will do as they are told. But given the stakes, this assumption needs to be revisited.
Are American Civilians Ready to Shoulder the Burdens of War?
While most U.S. civilians could generally ignore the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without consequence, they will not be spared from a war with China. At the very least, Americans at home would experience severe economic disruption as trade with China and other Asian nations screeches to a halt. Americans can also expect extended disruptions to internet services as Chinese hackers would do their best to disrupt the commercial and military logistics chains that feed the American war machine. All Americans will be directly and intimately involved in a war over Taiwan.
Are American civilians ready to support Biden’s pledge to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack? They might do so in the right circumstances, such as in the aftermath of an unprovoked Chinese attack on U.S. military forces. Millions of Americans who had never heard of Pearl Harbor immediately lined up at military recruiting stations after the Japanese surprise attack on December 7, 1941. Al Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks prompted a similar—though much smaller—outpouring of patriotic support for war. But given the current divisions in U.S. society and culture, it is not at all clear that Biden can count on Americans to back a war with China over Taiwan.
Would Chinese Communists Die for Taiwan?
Chinese leaders may be confident in their ability to invade Taiwan, defeat the Taiwanese armed forces, stave off an American counterattack, and secure their gains. But they certainly also know that they will suffer heavy casualties, see much of their newly purchased military hardware laid to waste by the United States, and weaken their own economy in the process. China’s prized Belt and Road Initiative would be severely damaged as the United States and its allies would attempt to cut off China’s access to its global extractive industries.
While they probably can count on their military forces to start a war, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s air, naval, and ground forces have not been in a high-intensity shooting war since their failed military incursion into Vietnam in 1978. Their estimated performance in a conventional war against the United States remains a matter of almost pure speculation. Thus, Chinese overconfidence might help fuel a war that would not serve the PRC’s best interests. And while the Chinese Communist dictatorship may have less to fear from a disgruntled polity than American policymakers, Chinese leaders are certainly aware that their tenure may not survive the double impact of a major military and economic catastrophe.
America Must Examine the Will to Fight
The will to fight is the disposition to fight, act, and persevere in war. America’s insufficient knowledge on this issue is clear: We do not understand our own (or China’s) will to fight. This gap in knowledge leaves our senior leaders dangerously ill-informed. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley recently stated that he is attempting to understand the factors that contributed to the Afghan Army’s failure to fight. Milley should not have been put in the position of having to make this kind of ad hoc calculation in the wake of a strategic defeat. U.S. military and political analysts can and should do a better job preparing senior leaders for war.
Human will cannot be accurately calculated because humans are not machines. Leaders should be wary of overly confident predictions. Still, Milley is on the right track. Arguably, the best way to understand the will to fight is to break down its inputs individually. The RAND corporation offers two factor-by-factor analytic models—one military and one national—designed to understand and forecast will to fight. Other experts are studying ways to formalize will to fight analysis. These and other existing models should be explored.
The U.S. Government should attempt to apply these approaches to understand both the Chinese and American will to fight before the United States suffers a strategic defeat or even a pyrrhic victory over China. At the very least, as Biden ratchets up diplomatic tensions, he should consider ways to prepare the U.S. military and public for a war that, while probably not desired by either side, seems increasingly probable.
Dr. Ben Connable is the Director of Research at DT Institute and an adjunct professor of security studies at Georgetown University. He led U.S. Government-funded research on the will to fight at the RAND Corporation from 2016-2021.
Image: Reuters.
19. China looks to Tajiks to spy Afghan terror risks
China looks to Tajiks to spy Afghan terror risks
China's plan to build a 'security outpost' in Tajikistan points to mistrust in the Taliban to curb and crush anti-China militant groups
When Tajikistan’s parliament said on October 28 that China will finance the construction of a “security outpost” near its border with Afghanistan, the announcement lifted the lid on a security relationship that has quietly evolved in recent years with an eye on checking Islamic terror and militant groups.
The post, to be located near Vakhon village in Tajikistan’s eastern Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province in the Pamir mountains that border on China’s sensitive Xinjiang province and Afghanistan’s volatile Badakhshan province, will nominally be used for Tajikistan police special forces and managed by the ministry of internal affairs.
Analysts and observers say the facility is a spy station all but in name. Tajikistan’s parliament, which is symbolically housed in a building constructed and donated by Beijing, has insisted that Chinese troops will not be stationed at the US$8.5 million facility, which will reportedly be made up of 12 buildings.
China will undertake the facility’s design and provide its equipment, according to local Tajik press reports.
Police forces and others stationed at the new outpost will have plenty to monitor across the Afghan border. Russian media recently reported that the Taliban has entered an alliance with an ethnic Tajik militant group bent on overthrowing Rakhmon’s government.
The announcement came as tensions rise between Afghanistan’s Taliban government and Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon, who like others has still refused to recognize the country’s new Islamic rulers.
At the same time, China is wary of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an ethnic Uighur militant group that fought side-by-side with the Taliban against the US and NATO forces but ultimately aims to create an independent state in China’s Xinjiang province – where Beijing has built a network of “vocational camps” in which hundreds of thousands of Uighurs are held.
China has pressed the Taliban to cut ties with and crush the ETIM, but it’s not clear that a more hardline faction led by leaders of the Haqqani network who now control the nation’s powerful interior ministry is willing to abide by Beijing’s wishes.
The new Tajik security outpost’s location underscores Beijing’s concerns. Afghanistan’s northern provinces serve as safe havens for various transnational terrorist groups operating in the country, including ETIM and Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIS-K), an anti-Taliban group that reports indicate is making common cause with Uighurs in the country to bolster its ranks.
Islamic State-Khorasan fighters at the Sheikh Jalaluddin training camp in Afghanistan in a file photo. Photo: Facebook
According to a June 2021 United Nations report, there were then an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 foreign fighters operating in Afghanistan. ETIM fighters were then actively assisting the Taliban in securing key targets in Badakhshan province against then US-backed government forces.
Many of these fighters not only have sympathies with ISIS-K, al-Qaeda and other terror outfits like ETIM, but also aim to extend their jihad beyond Afghanistan, the UN report claimed.
Some analysts suggest that cross-border impetus, including possible ETIM or even ISIS-K assaults into Xinjiang, may have grown with the end of the war against US and NATO forces. In speeches on Xinjiang, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has expressed concern about Uighur militants potentially using Tajikistan as a backdoor to attack China.
Tajik authorities have deported an estimated 3,000 Uighurs to China in recent years, leading to rights groups’ complaints that Tajikistan is de facto complicit in China’s Xinjiang repression.
Beijing is clearly sensitive to the wider regional risk. Xinjiang is a key conduit for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) drive in Central and South Asia. Beijing has indicated its desire to connect Afghanistan to its funded China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) infrastructure-building program to promote more trade and connectivity in the region.
But while China has dangled possible rich BRI investments to the Taliban in exchange for routing extremist groups Beijing considers a threat, it’s not clear any concrete infrastructure deals are in the near-term offing.
Beijing’s aid to the Taliban government has so far been piddling since the militant outfit took Kabul and established an “Islamic Emirate.”
Some analysts suggest China’s move to finance and build a new outpost in Tajikistan points to Beijing’s wariness about the Taliban’s true intent. While China may not overtly deploy troops to the outpost, it will clearly be used to gather intelligence and conduct surveillance on extremist groups situated across the border.
Local reports have indicated the surveillance system to be installed at the post will be “made-in-China”, which likely means Chinese advisors and technicians will be situated there to assist their Tajik counterparts.
The Tajiks will be focused on Jamaat Ansarullah, also known as Ansarullah or Ansorullo, an extremist group founded by a rogue former Tajik opposition commander, Mahdi Arsalon, a decade ago that is bent on overthrowing Rakhmon’s government.
Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon in a file photo. Photo: AFP via Getty / Majid Saeedi
Jamaat Ansarullah is also known as the “Tajik Taliban” and has been outlawed as a terrorist organization by Dushanbe. The Afghan Taliban put Arsalon in control of security of five districts near the Tajik border in July during its lighting takeover of the country.
Rakhmon recently rang alarms about what he called “terrorist groups” positioned at points along its more than 1,300-kilometer border with Afghanistan, which he suggested could penetrate neighboring nations and turn the region into a melting pot of transnational jihad that threatens both Central Asia and China.
The outpost will not be the first Tajik-Chinese security collaboration. The two sides conducted their first joint counterterrorism exercises back in 2006 and most recently in August this year. The two sides also hold exercises through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
Moreover, over the past five or six years, China has quietly helped to operate the Shaymak military base in Tajikistan’s Murghab region near the Afghan border and the narrow Wakhan corridor that extends from Afghanistan to China’s Xinjiang region.
A Radio Free Europe report claims that Tajikistan recently offered to hand complete control of the post to Beijing in exchange for economic aid, though Asia Times could not independently corroborate the report. What is clear is that Chinese border guards can be seen helping to manage the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border near the Wakhan corridor since at least 2015.
The Wall Street Journal reported, citing an anonymous Tajik source, that China and Tajikistan signed a secret agreement around that time that allowed Beijing to refurbish 30-40 military guard posts on the Tajik side of the border with Afghanistan. The source said Chinese troops are allowed to “patrol on their own, in their own vehicles” in Tajikistan territory.
“Chinese Base” on the map refers to the Shaymak base where Chinese security officials are known to operate. Map: Twitter / eurasianet.org
News of the new outpost came soon after a recent meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Afghanistan Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Qatar.
At the meeting, Wang reiterated that Beijing’s support for the Taliban government remains conditional upon its clamping down in particular on ETIM. He was quoted as saying China “hopes and believes that the Afghan Taliban will make a clean break with ETIM and other terrorist organizations, and take effective measures to crack down on them.”
But while Wang offers a carrot to the Taliban in Kabul, it’s putting in place the pieces to wield a stick from across the border in Tajikistan.
20. Creative Peacemaking in Mindanao
From a fellow Green Beret many of us served with in the Philippines and throughout Asia.
IV. Conclusion
Creative peacemaking in Mindanao requires a courageous leap from the constraints of regulations and policies. Official prescriptions set limits to organizational actions, and hardly discuss the effectiveness of outside-the-box creative thinking as a public value. When an initiative fails, pages of additional government regulations are added in the same un-spirited fashion that confuse and delay, rather than deconflict and expedite.
To finally achieve peace, administrators could follow the responsiveness of multi-billion dollar corporations that immediately address points of contention to keep consumers endeared to products, services, and ideas.
There is no reason why peace and prosperity cannot be inculcated into the thought processes of Mindanaoans. When stakeholders begin to view their communities as brands, administrators will be less concerned with losing the populace to lawlessness.
It is time to create public value that blends the surefootedness of government and the creativity of industry to rebrand Mindanao as a center for economic vitality and peaceful alliances.
Creative Peacemaking in Mindanao
by Leonard Casiple
Leo Casiple is an avid learner, researcher, writer, scholar, strategist, public speaker, and community volunteer. He is a first-generation American who pays it forward by volunteering to help fellow veterans, the Lions Club, his local Toastmasters Club, the American Legion, and the local community. Leo's extensive global experience includes expertise in operations, training, logistics, and in community outreach programs of mid-sized and large organizations. In the military, Leonard maintained a superior proficiency rating in Modern Standard Arabic and in Tagalog. He holds a native proficiency in the Cebuano dialect. Additionally, he possesses an elementary proficiency in Classical Hebrew and Spanish. Leonard earned a Liberal Arts degree in Area and Ethnic Studies from Excelsior College, a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Global Management from Thunderbird School of Global Management, a Master of Public Policy and Administration (MPPA) from California Lutheran University, and a scholarship and Master of Competitive Intelligence Certificate (CIP-I and CIP-II) from the Academy of Competitive Intelligence. Leonard is the brainchild of the Filipino American Special Forces Society, a group that celebrates US Army Green Berets of Filipino heritage and their unique contributions to national defense.
Note:
This essay was originally submitted to the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue’s 2021 Peacewriter Prize Competition in Brussels. Upon submission, the copyright for the essay belonged to the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. This author has been given express written consent to publish in other medium. The most current version has been modified beyond the original 3,000-word limit to convey a more comprehensive analysis.
I. Introduction
Peace has seemed a far-flung reality for the second largest island in the Philippine archipelago. To bring about unity, the Philippine government implemented approaches that ranged in scale from all-out war against insurgents to more palatable socio-economic agendas. But events suggest that previous attempts to empower and appease stakeholders have resulted in cyclical periods where short bursts of peace were dominated by elongated periods of armed conflict.
“Three centuries of intermittent warfare also sowed the seeds of animosity between Muslim and Christian peoples” (Conception, S., et. al., 2003). During the last four decades “there has been active conflict in Mindanao between the Philippine government, Moro Muslim groups, and other armed groups” (ACAPS, 2021). With a historical context dominated by violence, it comes as no surprise that cultural, religious and socio-economic differences are difficult to rebalance. As a result, human suffering overshadows the natural beauty of the island and bloodshed continues to contrast against the green landscape.
It is understandable why trust escapes the vernacular of the populace, and why peace eludes the grasp of public administrators, political actors, industry, and demoralized communities.
II. Observations
“Mindanao symbolizes resistance [,] …Moro people have resisted colonial conquest, assimilation by central government, and declarations of all-out war for over four centuries” (Concepcion, S., et. al., 2003). Fighting has become the habituated reflex to real or perceived religious, social or economic threats. Military intervention tipped the balance against insurgents; however, the tactical achievements resulted in a drawn-out toll on residents and critical infrastructure nodes. The government’s disruption of lawlessness resulted in collateral damage that muddled hopes, discomposed dreams and decelerated the economic momentum of already-marginalized regions.
By conducting a political orchestra where the sounds of bullets and explosions dominated the landscape, the sweeter sounds of socio-economic expansion were hardly heard. Government and armed factions desynchronized the ensemble to create a cacophony of noise, rather than the desired melody of peace and prosperity.
To add, disjointed socio-economic rebuilding programs delayed the restoration of order that alienated the most vulnerable segments of the population. The negative sentiments later became the fuel that re-kindled hostilities. Hopelessness in crisis-torn areas intensified as the complications of well-intentioned US programs such as Section 1206 (Department of Defense counterterrorism and stability operations program) and the now-expired Section 1207 (Secretary of Defense program that authorized transfer of funds to the Secretary of State for stability operations) delayed program implementation. The frustrating overlaps and the voids created by inflexible policy language detached functionaries from the pulse of the community.
The lack of synchronicity made program evaluation difficult to manage. The researchers of a 2010 United States Government Accountability Office report on the 1206 and 1207 programs “noted that the lack of clear, measurable goals makes it difficult for program managers and staff to link their day-to-day efforts to achieving the agency’s intended mission” (GAO, 2010).
III. Recommendations
A. Create Public Value Through an Exchange Program Model
Due to habituated distrust, some of the people in Mindanao do not assimilate with others from different groups. Although they live within close proximity of each other, many view their neighbors as outsiders whose values seem foreign or misaligned from their own.
“Despite the military itself being a traditional hard power tool, foreign military training programs are a way in which foreign servicemembers can be socialized to hold more favorable views of the U.S.” (Martinez Machain, C., 2020). In this context, fully integrated peacebuilding training that includes civilians, military and industry provides the opportunity for mingling where there was once minimal contact.
The intermixing begins the destruction of negative beliefs and instills communal trust.
To increase the long-term sustainability of peace initiatives, administrators could integrate the proven success of US military exchange programs into Mindanao peacebuilding that create a three-sided “strategic triangle [,] …whether the purpose if publicly valuable, whether it will be politically and legally supported, and whether it is administratively and operationally viable” (Moore, M., 1995).
In short, the strategic triangle made up of civilians, military, and industry forms the authorizing body that will bring about a material manifestation of public value.
The curriculum could allow military personnel to shadow civilian counterparts. At the same time, civilian and business stakeholders could work closely with regional security elements to appreciate government’s resource-intensive campaigns for peace.
B. Educate to Disconnect from A History of Misunderstandings and Mistakes
“The peoples of Mindanao symbolize resilience…Moro peoples, the lumads (indigenous peoples) and Christian settlers [,] …have managed to survive and to thrive – at times, together, and at other times, separately” (Concepcion, S., et. al., 2003). The diverse groups have demonstrated the ability to temporarily coalesce to achieve shared goals, but often diverge when ancestral, historical, and familial factors are brought into the discussion. Unity is admirable, but frequent dissolutions delegitimize coalitions, and enable rather than empower.
As evidenced by the conspicuous success of the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute Foundation, Inc. (MPI), communities place a high priority on learning crucial peacebuilding skills in order to align local goals with national initiatives.
As the pace of global competition to access natural resources quickens, peace-finding skills can guide local leaders, some of whom have never been exposed to the processes of the global economy, toward sophisticated solutions that are conducive to regional, national and strategic progress.
For instance, MPI programs helped train “six ancestral domains in Northern and Western Mindanao related to mining, indigenous peoples’ rights, and peacebuilding [,] …enable them to make informed decisions about the development of their ancestral domains” (Goddard, F., 2021).
In addition, situation-based peacemaking training will raise levels of empathy, enhance consideration for others, and reduce apprehension. And when training is delivered in controlled environments, community leaders can work on problem-solving skills until practiced to perfection well before the occurrence of crisis events.
Mastery of soft skills will reduce the reflex to resort to physical force and will therefore reduce armed conflict.
To change the outcomes of future generations, efforts to inculcate peace-seeking could begin with academic curriculum that teaches religious and cultural acceptance, and not mere tolerance.
Tolerance is a negatively charged word based on fear and a mindset of scarcity. On the other hand, acceptance is a more refined state of mind that seeks to understand, does not dredge up past mistakes to rationalize incessant blaming, nor demands perfection.
Achieving this higher level of awareness takes time and starts at the primary and secondary scholastic levels. To diminish the effects of learned hatred, educational programs could encourage an integrative thought process. “Students need guidance to develop critical thinking about social issues of religion” (Floresta, 2020). Educators could dissect current programs as “a school’s religious position and practices are critical factors to consider as these may influence future generations” (Floresta, 2020). Once identified, academic elements that are not aligned with peacekeeping goals may be discarded.
In the crisis-prone areas of Mindanao, integrative education programs that teach personal and communal accountability can become critical waypoints from which healing can begin today. Thereupon, the benchmarks offer a baseline from which to reach tomorrow’s dreams.
C. Use Soft Power at Strategic Levels and Observable Efforts at Street-Level Alliances
Enduring US programs such as the Foreign Assistance Act mandated benevolent goals to “give the highest priority to [,] …directly improve the lives of their poorest people and their capacity to participate in the development of their countries” (GAO, 1976). However, the program faced numerous challenges during the implementation phase. In one of its legacy reports, the GAO found it “difficult to say how much of the aid was directed towards the most needy people” (GAO, 1976).
It is understandable how Mindanao’s underdeveloped infrastructure in the 1970s, incomplete road networks and scant availability of transportation platforms hindered the timely delivery of materiel to intended recipients. However, even with more robust infrastructure improvements since the 1970s, a 2008 USAID report cited that direct assistance efforts “have had little impact in changing the dominant patron-client patterns and electoral violence [,]…little evidence is found that citizens are being helped to organize to work together through government/civil society mechanisms on shared local interests, or to advocate for Mindanao’s policy and other needs as a whole region” (Lund, M., Ullman, J., 2008).
This would seem to indicate that local communities consider the soft power of foreign actors as more rigid and temporary than the locally-rooted elastic power that interfuse familial ties, tribal loyalties, and community affiliations.
To add to the multi-generational distrust, “there is a perception that USAID programs are decided and organized on sectoral lines and thus tend to be dispersed too thinly, lacking integration between projects that could otherwise enhance the impact of individual project benefits”
(Lund, M., Ullman, J., 2008).
To offset the strength of street-level alliances, “both effort and assertive behaviors can make new firms more cognitively central within networks” (Fund, et. al., 2008 as cited by Lashley, K., and Pollack, T., 2020). USAID and NGOs could enhance their presence by tailoring their approach to use “effort [,] …with functional influencers” (Lashley, K., and Pollack, T., 2020) such as managers, administrators, and organizational-level functionaries. Simultaneously, “assertiveness (i.e., putting oneself forward…by enhancing one’s public visibility at various ceremonial events) [,] …more influential with political influencers who faced more symbolic interorganizational pressures” (Lashley, K., and Pollack, T., 2020).
The combined use of effort and assertiveness will ensure that the benevolence of external organizations remains distinctively humanitarian and void of political influence.
A two-pronged approach could strengthen the bond between the giver and the receiver and will make Mindanao’s human terrain less uneven.
D. Use the Task Force Approach to Control the Non-Profit Space
Military organizations are proficient at teaming with other units as a way to increase effectiveness. For instance, the Joint Chiefs of Staff operate in complex environments where “the strategic environment is fluid, with continually changing alliances, partnerships, and threats that rapidly emerge, disaggregate, and reemerge” (JCS, 2018).
An environment that does not maintain allegiance to a fixed shape, such as that of Mindanao, exposes the Task Force Commander to “threats that are increasingly transregional, multidomain, and multi-functional in nature” (JCS, 2018). The most important elements of task forces include “unity of command, centralized planning and direction, and decentralized execution” (JCS, 2018).
The arrangement demands that only a limited number of vetted organizations are authorized to operate within the contested space.
From a program management perspective, Sylvia and Sylvia highlighted that “the task force would act as the sounding board for ideas and as a coordinating body to ensure that various components of the planned changed are carried out on schedule” (Sylvia, R. D., Sylvia, K. M., 2012).
In Porter’s Five Competitive Forces Model “the essence of strategy formulation is coping with competition” (Porter, M., 1979). In the intense rivalry to deliver services in Mindanao, administrators could be more aware that “competition is not manifested only in other players [,] …is rooted in its underlying economics, and competitive forces exist that go well beyond the established combatants in a particular industry” (Porter, M., 1979).
From an economic perspective, “new entrants to an industry bring new capacity” (Porter, M., 1979); however, “numerous small enterprises, just by existing [,] …just by being present and in the way, other enterprises thus conflict with the efficiency…” (Jacobs, J., 1970, p. 101).
Unbridled benevolence in Mindanao can dilute distinctiveness and reduce recognizability from the offerings of other organizations.
Efforts to differentiate services infuse a level of inefficiency to the implementation of benevolent strategies.
The Joint Chief of Staff’s task force approach could be integrated into Mindanao’s NGO operational space.
In the future, a Joint Combined Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Task Force Director will ensure unity of purpose and remove redundancies by refusing the entry of misaligned NGOs.
The resulting efficiency will decrease delays and improve response times in addressing the most pressing of Mindanao’s humanitarian needs.
E. Manage Transition Points and Enhance Local Branding
We often think of transitions in terms of major milestones, such as the results of elections, annual celebrations, victories, birthdays, loss of family members, or graduation ceremonies. Major transitions create stress, excitement, worry, confusion, sadness or a heightened state of anticipation.
Unmanaged micro-transitions are similarly destructive.
Smaller and less noticeable transitions occur daily which, if left unaddressed, inflict a high level of tension on team members. These micro-transitions can be induced by the absence of a team member, or when duties and responsibilities are re-organized, or when a member is added to the team. Within this granular framework, subtle changes that are not carefully managed can result in perpetual interpersonal misunderstanding that can sour team relationships.
Being mindful of Tuckman’s stages of group development model, managers can quell tension at each stage of “Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning” West Chester University, n. d.). At every stage, administrators could ensure that they address negative sentiments that have the potential to dilute group loyalty.
All communities develop a culture code which is “the unconscious meaning we apply to any given thing –a car, a type of food a relationship, even a country—via the culture in which we are raised” (Rapaille, C., 2007). “Widely known as an imprint [,] …strongly conditions our thought processes and shapes our future actions.” (Rapaille, C., 2007).
Stakeholders in war-torn regions could integrate Rapaille’s methodologies to reshape, at a visceral level, the meaning of key words such as peace, hope, and wealth.
The responses will help create meaningful narratives that resonate with all the variations of value systems among Mindanao’s stakeholders.
Peace is an element of a community’s brand image. Branding, according to Patrick Hanlon, consists of seven elements.
Building and sustaining a brand takes daily effort. Patrick Hanlon’s “Primal Branding” points out that a community’s “search for meaning revealed [,] …movements, ideologies, and civic communities unwittingly, instinctively, and through time bring together seven definable assets that construct meaning behind the brand” (Hanlon, P., 2006). If the rebranding of Mindanao as a peaceful island lacks one of the seven elements of branding, initiatives could lose traction, momentum, and overall support.
Mindanao’s war-torn communities are forced to reconfigure roles, reassess priorities and rebrand after crisis events. Frequent occurrence of traumatic events can diminish individual confidence, and may later lead to a loss of communal morale.
As communities re-draw alliances and become more integrated, or when alliances temporarily fall apart, Hanlon’s seven elements of branding could become a key factor that will ground stakeholders to peacebuilding ideals.
Industry proven non-invasive approaches to team building could strengthen local community ties so that law-abiding citizens may be more able resist the incursions of lawless elements.
F. Create a Robust Export Cluster Economy in Crisis Areas
In “The Economy of Cities”, Jane Jacobs stated that “one of the great advantages of a company town [,] …is that there are few alternative ways for people to earn their livings. But this does not promote economic growth.” (Jacobs, J., 1970). In Jacobs’ view, successful and vibrant economic ecosystems are created by many industries of different sizes that complement each other’s offerings and spur competition.
“Export diversification is associated with economic development and macroeconomic activity” (Bahar, D., et. al., 2017). Regions that depend on a single industry often fail when competition increases or when resources are depleted.
Within the crisis-prone areas of Mindanao, economic opportunities are limited, and revenue depends largely on agriculture.
The following example illustrates the issues when an already-impoverished area is dependent on agriculture and has a non-technical, commoditized labor force that can be quickly replaced. The town of “Datu Paglas in the war-torn province of Maguindanao in the ARMM [,] …has been pictured as a ‘miracle town’…as “the first cavendish banana-for-export plantation in the Muslim region” (Concepcion, S., 2003). However, the “labour contracting [,] … has resulted in the reduction of plantation workers’ benefits [,] …a number of cases of farmworkers quitting due to low wages and delayed payment.” (Concepcion, S., 2003).
What was intended to be a source of a living wage, instead resulted in damaged tribal relationships and mistrust between the disadvantaged laborer and industry.
In modern economies, jobs in the export or “traded industry clusters are groups of interlinked businesses that sell goods and services in markets outside the region [,] …have excellent potential to drive inclusive growth [,] …examples [,] …include metals and machinery manufacturing, biomedical products, freight and logistics, and business services” (CMAP, n. d.).
Traded cluster careers demand more training and certification, but also deliver higher salaries for employees.
In Chicago, “they account for more than half of the region’s wages, but only-one third of its jobs [,] …industry cluster jobs pay $15,200 more per year than industries serving only local customers” (CMAP, n. d.).
It has been said that the best type of charity is to give someone a job; however, the type of job also matters.
An appropriate portion of Mindanao’s jobs could be technically oriented that offer higher salaries. In addition to the direct positive financial impact on employees, “one standard deviation of higher technology linkages makes the emergence of a new product up to three times more likely, and is associated with a subsequent annual export growth” (Bahar, D., et. al, 2017). One export cluster job creates three local cluster positions.
Highly technical export cluster jobs could be developed to diversify the sources of revenue beyond the agrarian model which will increase the economic momentum of Mindanao’s war-torn areas.
Implementing this shift will take a few years and require external support during the initial stages; however, the resulting increase in revenue from the export cluster component will kickstart the brisk and dynamic economy that Jane Jacobs talked about in the 1970s.
Mindanao’s future economic vibrancy will entice more foreign investment, reduce Mindanao’s dependence on government programs, and align the island as a key technological partner in the global economy.
IV. Conclusion
Creative peacemaking in Mindanao requires a courageous leap from the constraints of regulations and policies. Official prescriptions set limits to organizational actions, and hardly discuss the effectiveness of outside-the-box creative thinking as a public value. When an initiative fails, pages of additional government regulations are added in the same un-spirited fashion that confuse and delay, rather than deconflict and expedite.
To finally achieve peace, administrators could follow the responsiveness of multi-billion dollar corporations that immediately address points of contention to keep consumers endeared to products, services, and ideas.
There is no reason why peace and prosperity cannot be inculcated into the thought processes of Mindanaoans. When stakeholders begin to view their communities as brands, administrators will be less concerned with losing the populace to lawlessness.
It is time to create public value that blends the surefootedness of government and the creativity of industry to rebrand Mindanao as a center for economic vitality and peaceful alliances.
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V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
