Quotes of the Day:

"Always stick to what makes you weird, odd, strange, different. That's your source of power." 

- Robert Greene

"Ignorance is not a simple lack of knowledge but an active aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know, issuing from cowardice, pride,or laziness of mind."

- Carl Popper

“It is easy to sit up and take notice. What is difficult is getting up and taking action.” 

- Honore de Balzac

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 11, 2023

2. China-Taiwan Weekly Update, August 10, 2023

3. Zelensky Called Him a Criminal. Now Ukraine Calls Him for Guns and Ammo.

4. Guam’s Airspace Set To Be Most Defended On Earth In New Plans

5. Ukraine Makes Progress Along 2 Lines of Attack

6. Why the US Military Wants You To Rethink the Idea of 'Cyber War'

7. America’s Army is shrinking. Its missions aren’t

8. Taiwan Needs Stronger US Support — Quickly

9. How Will America’s Borrow and Spend Politicians Pay for an Imperial Foreign Policy?

10. Western leaders welcomed China's presence at Ukraine peace talks. But Beijing's relationship with Europe is still testy

11. From information war to emerging tech: new IC strategy centers 'competition' with China, Russia

12. Irregular warfare in space is an ongoing threat – and the US must adapt.

13. China has fallen into a psycho-political funk

14. China’s game of Ukrainian chess

15. You say Taiwan; I say Korea

16. AI Is Starting to Look Like the Dot Com Bubble

17. China’s Military, ‘Chasing the Dream,’ Probes Taiwan’s Defenses

18. SOCOM: The Best Result of America’s Worst Special Ops Fail

19. Generals shouldn't lead the Department of Defense

20. Fayetteville could get America’s first memorial park for the Green Berets. Here’s the plan

21. Irregular Warfare Podcast: A Twenty-Year Retrospective on Irregular Warfare and Counterinsurgency (features David Kilcullen and John Nagl)

22. Perspective | U.S. international image rebounds with Biden reversing Trump policies

23. Blood, sweat and syrup: Why are there so many fights at Waffle House?

24. Critical thinking education trumps banning and censorship in battle against disinformation, study suggests

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 11, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-11-2023

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian forces made tactically significant advances in western Zaporizhia Oblast and reached the outskirts of Robotyne amid continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on August 11.
• Ukrainian counteroffensive operations appear to be forcing the Russian military to laterally redeploy Russian forces defending in western Zaporizhia Oblast, indicating that the Ukrainian effort there may be significantly degrading Russian defenses.
• Russia’s necessary practice of conducting lateral redeployments to key sectors of the front will likely further weaken Russian defensive lines in aggregate, as both Russian and Ukrainian operations are fixing Russian units to certain sectors of the front.
• The further degradation of defending Russian forces creates opportunities for any Ukrainian breakthrough to be potentially decisive.
• Russian forces appear to be intensifying offensive operations northeast of Kupyansk, likely to draw Ukrainian forces away from more operationally significant areas of the front.
• Russian forces conducted another series of missile strikes in Ukraine on August 11 and targeted a Ukrainian airfield for the second time in the last week.
• Russian sources claimed that the Wagner Group appears to be maintaining a presence at its facilities in Belarus, though the status of its rumored withdrawal to Russian remains unclear.
• The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) is struggling with significant personnel shortages, especially in occupied territories in Ukraine, amid a broader power shift between other Russian internal security organs.
• The Kremlin and Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) are likely attempting to deflect blame for Ukrainian shelling in Russian border areas onto mid-level officers.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, on the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line, and in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast area on August 11 and advanced in some areas.
• Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on August 11 and advanced in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area and in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• The Russian defense industrial base (DIB) has begun producing “Geran-2” drones, a modified version of the Iranian-produced Shahed-131/136 drone that will likely enable Russia‘s ability to maintain or potentially increase the frequency of Russia’s drone strikes on Ukraine.
• Russian occupation authorities are taking steps to make the upcoming regional elections in the Russian occupied territories appear to be fair and competitive.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 11, 2023

Aug 11, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 11, 2023

Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, Angelica Evans, Christina Harward, and Mason Clark

August 11, 2023, 7:45pm ET

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

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

Note: The data cutoff for this product was 12:00pm ET on August 11. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the August 12 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Ukrainian forces made tactically significant advances in western Zaporizhia Oblast amid continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on August 11. Geolocated footage published on August 11 confirms that Ukrainian forces reached the northern outskirts of Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv) in western Zaporizhia Oblast, though the permanence and extent of these positions are currently unclear.[1] Ukrainian forces have conducted regular ground attacks towards Robotyne for weeks as part of their operations aimed at degrading Russian defenses. The Ukrainian forces’ ability to advance to the outskirts of Robotyne — which Russian forces have dedicated significant effort, time, and resources to defend — remains significant even if Ukrainian gains are limited at this time. Geolocated footage published on August 11 shows that Ukrainian forces advanced into Urozhaine (9km south of Velyka Novosilka) along the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area. Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces pushed Russian forces back into the settlement on August 10 and 11.[2] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the Bakhmut, Berdyansk (Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area), and Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast) directions.[3]

Ukrainian counteroffensive operations appear to be forcing the Russian military to laterally redeploy Russian forces defending in western Zaporizhia Oblast, indicating that the Ukrainian effort there may be significantly degrading Russian defenses. Russian milbloggers claimed on August 11 that elements of the 7th Guards Airborne (VDV) Division are involved in heavy fighting near Robotyne in western Zaporizhia Oblast, and Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov claimed on August 10 that elements of the “Vostok Akhmat” Battalion are now defending near Robotyne.[4] Elements of the 58th Combined Arms Army’s 42nd Motorized Rifle Division (Southern Military District) have been the primary Russian formation defending immediately south of Orikhiv since the start of the counteroffensive, with elements of the 22nd and 45th Separate Guards Spetsnaz (Russian General Staff Main Directorate) brigades and the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade (Black Sea Fleet) supporting Russian defensive operations in the area.[5] The arrival of the 7th VDV Division and the Akhmat elements to the Robotyne area represents the first explicit commitment of new Russian formations and units to the area.

Kadyrov has consistently deployed Akhmat elements to perceived critical sectors of the frontline in order to earn favor from Russian President Vladimir Putin, and most recently deployed Akhmat Spetsnaz elements to the Klishchiivka area south of Bakhmut in response to Ukrainian advances in the area.[6] Russian sources claimed that elements of the 7th VDV deployed from east (left) bank Kherson Oblast to the Zaporizhia direction following the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station (KHPP) dam on June 6, and ISW later observed elements of the division defending against Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in the Staromayorske area along the administrative border between Zaporizhia and Donetsk oblasts in July.[7]

The 7th VDV Division is now split across at least two and possibly three axes of the front. Russian milbloggers offered diverging accounts on whether elements of the 7th VDV Division withdrew entirely from the Staromayorske area after Ukrainian forces captured the settlement on July 27.[8] Elements of the division have remained in Kherson Oblast to defend against Ukrainian activity on the left bank of the Dnipro River.[9] Elements of the 7th VDV division may have arrived in western Zaporizhia Oblast at an earlier date, although this is the first time that Russian sources have claimed that Russian command has committed these elements to fight in the area. Elements of the 42nd Motorized Rifle Division continue to defend near Robotyne and ISW has not observed any elements of the division withdrawing from the area, indicating that the arrival of the 7th VDV Division and Akhmat elements likely does not portend a rotation for the main Russian fighting force in the Orikhiv direction.[10] These likely lateral redeployments suggest that Ukrainian counteroffensive operations have significantly degraded existing defending Russian forces in the area and prompted the Russian command to send these elements to shore up Russian defenses in this critical sector of the frontline. The lack of Russian operational reserves means that the Russian command will have to conduct more lateral redeployments if they wish to reinforce certain sectors of the front in the future.[11]

Russia’s practice of conducting lateral redeployments to key sectors of the front will likely further weaken Russian defensive lines in aggregate, as both Russian and Ukrainian operations are fixing Russian units to certain sectors of the front. These lateral reinforcements will likely disrupt Russian offensive and defensive operations in the sectors from which they are drawn and threaten to rapidly degrade the forces that the Russian military is using as reinforcements.[12] Russia currently does not appear to possess significant available forces that it could draw on for reinforcements without endangering other sectors of the front. Ukrainian counteroffensive operations drew elite Russian formations and units to the Bakhmut area and continue to fix them there.[13] Russian forces have also committed a significant number of forces to localized offensives operations in the Kupyansk and Svatove areas, which aim to similarly draw Ukrainian forces away from areas of Ukrainian counteroffensive operations.[14] Even if the Russian command determines to end localized offensive pushes in these areas it would likely take some time for Russian forces to lower the tempo of their operations and withdraw forces for lateral redeployments without opening up areas of the front to successful Ukrainian counterattacks. The limited Russian lateral redeployment of elements of the 7th VDV Division from the left bank of Kherson Oblast in June appears to have set conditions that allowed Ukrainian forces to more freely operate in the area, and Ukrainian forces will likely similarly exploit weakened Russian groupings in other areas of the front where they are actively conducting offensive operations in the event of further Russian movements.[15]

Ukrainian forces on the other hand maintain reserves that allow them to rotate units instead of relying on redeploying units conducting defensive and offensive operations to other sectors of the line without rest.[16] Ukrainian forces likely therefore can maintain the necessary combat potential needed to continue degrading Russian forces defending southern Ukraine and the Bakhmut area while constraining Russian advances along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line. Russian lateral redeployments will likely increase the likelihood that Russian forces would have to fall back to prepared defensive positions without significant support in the case of a Ukrainian breakthrough.[17] The further degradation of defending Russian forces thus creates opportunities for any Ukrainian breakthrough to be potentially decisive.[18]

Russian forces appear to be intensifying offensive operations northeast of Kupyansk, likely to draw Ukrainian forces away from more operationally significant areas of the front. A prominent Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed on August 10 that Russian offensives along the front line in the Kupyansk area forced Ukrainian forces to flee to Petropavlivka (7km east of Kupyansk) and claimed that Russian forces are threatening to collapse Ukrainian defenses in the area.[19] The milblogger predicted that Russian forces will take Petropavlivka in the next two days and continue advancing toward Kupyansk.[20] The milblogger claimed on August 11 that Russian forces have recently captured 30 Ukrainian ”strongholds” in the Kupyansk direction along a wide front from Kupyansk to Kyslivka (20km southeast of Kupyansk).[21] Another Russian milblogger claimed on August 10 that Russian forces entered the outskirts of Synkivka (9km northeast of Kupyansk) and are less than 10km away from Ukraine’s advanced defensive lines.[22] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of Russian claims of advances northeast of Kupyansk. Russian milbloggers have repeatedly made claims of extensive Russian advances southwest of Svatove and ISW has additionally not observed visual confirmation of those claims, despite those claims now being weeks old.[23] Russian forces may have increased offensive activity on the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line to take advantage of Ukraine’s operational focus elsewhere and to draw Ukrainian units away from more critical areas of the front. Ukrainian Eastern Group of Force Spokesperson Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty stated that Ukrainian forces have significantly strengthened defenses in the Kupyansk direction in recent days, indicating that Russian forces may have been successful in drawing additional Ukrainian forces to the area.[24] Ukrainian officials also announced mandatory evacuations for civilians in 53 settlements near Kupyansk on August 9 due to intensified Russian shelling and airstrikes posing increased risk for civilians, though the evacuations do not necessarily indicate that Ukrainian forces expect Russian forces to make significant advances.[25]

Russian forces conducted another series of missile strikes in Ukraine on August 11 and targeted a Ukrainian airfield for the second time in the last week. Ukrainian military sources reported that Russian forces launched four Kinzhal missiles and that Ukrainian air defenses intercepted one missile over Kyiv Oblast.[26] The Ukrainian Air Force claimed that the other Kinzhal missiles struck near the Kolomyia airfield in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast.[27] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces targeted the Starokostyantyniv airfield in Khmelnytskyi Oblast on August 6 because Ukrainian forces store foreign-supplied missiles including Storm Shadow cruise missiles at warehouses on the base.[28] Russia’s targeting of the Starokostyantyniv and Kolomyia airfields in the past week suggests that Russian forces are increasingly concerned about Ukraine’s interdiction campaign.

Russian sources claimed that the Wagner Group appears to be maintaining a presence at its facilities in Belarus, though the status of its rumored withdrawal to Russian remains unclear. A Russian milblogger posted satellite imagery captured on August 3 claiming to show that an additional 930 Wagner vehicles and 18 additional low-bed semi-trailers were present at the Wagner camp in Tsel, Asipovichy, Belarus compared to imagery from July 17.[29] The milblogger claimed that the imagery from August 3 shows that 40 shipping containers arrived and that unspecified construction is occurring at the camp.[30] The milblogger also claimed that the number of tents at the Wagner camp has not changed and that the number of cars present at the camp indicates that it is likely fully staffed.[31] Russian rumors about Wagner’s withdrawal from Belarus surfaced on August 8, so this additional satellite footage from August 3 does not completely refute those claims.[32] The footage does suggest that Wagner intended to expand its presence in Belarus and believed that elements of the deal ensuring its operations in the country were still in place as of August 3.

The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) is struggling with significant personnel shortages, especially in occupied territories in Ukraine, amid a broader power shift between other Russian internal security organs.[33] Russian Internal Affairs Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev stated on August 10 that the MVD is struggling with a critical personnel shortage and that over 5,000 MVD personnel have left various MVD bodies within the past month.[34] Kolokoltsev stated in October 2022 that the MVD needs 52,000 police officers to adequately staff newly occupied territories in Ukraine by 2026, and stated in November 2022 that the current MVD shortage was 90,000 personnel.[35] Russian insider sources speculated that MVD employees are leaving due to corruption, poor payment, and performing as gendarmerie (military forces acting as civilian law enforcement).[36]

The Kremlin and Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) are likely attempting to deflect blame for Ukrainian shelling in Russian border areas onto mid-level officers. A Moscow court will consider a criminal case against two Russian officers accused of failing to prevent a surprise attack on the Russian Federation, which violates Article 340 of the Russian Criminal Code.[37] Russian authorities have accused the officers of failing to prevent Ukrainian forces from shelling their units and military equipment in Belgorod Oblast in April 2022.[38] This will be the first time that a Russian court will consider such a case since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.[39]

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian forces made tactically significant advances in western Zaporizhia Oblast and reached the outskirts of Robotyne amid continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on August 11.
• Ukrainian counteroffensive operations appear to be forcing the Russian military to laterally redeploy Russian forces defending in western Zaporizhia Oblast, indicating that the Ukrainian effort there may be significantly degrading Russian defenses.
• Russia’s necessary practice of conducting lateral redeployments to key sectors of the front will likely further weaken Russian defensive lines in aggregate, as both Russian and Ukrainian operations are fixing Russian units to certain sectors of the front.
• The further degradation of defending Russian forces creates opportunities for any Ukrainian breakthrough to be potentially decisive.
• Russian forces appear to be intensifying offensive operations northeast of Kupyansk, likely to draw Ukrainian forces away from more operationally significant areas of the front.
• Russian forces conducted another series of missile strikes in Ukraine on August 11 and targeted a Ukrainian airfield for the second time in the last week.
• Russian sources claimed that the Wagner Group appears to be maintaining a presence at its facilities in Belarus, though the status of its rumored withdrawal to Russian remains unclear.
• The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) is struggling with significant personnel shortages, especially in occupied territories in Ukraine, amid a broader power shift between other Russian internal security organs.
• The Kremlin and Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) are likely attempting to deflect blame for Ukrainian shelling in Russian border areas onto mid-level officers.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, on the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line, and in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast area on August 11 and advanced in some areas.
• Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations on at least three sectors of the front on August 11 and advanced in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area and in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• The Russian defense industrial base (DIB) has begun producing “Geran-2” drones, a modified version of the Iranian-produced Shahed-131/136 drone that will likely enable Russia‘s ability to maintain or potentially increase the frequency of Russia’s drone strikes on Ukraine.
• Russian occupation authorities are taking steps to make the upcoming regional elections in the Russian occupied territories appear to be fair and competitive.

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

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces continued offensives operations northeast of Kupyansk and reportedly advanced on August 11. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive actions near Synkivka (9km northeast of Kupyansk) and Ivanivka (21km southeast of Kupyansk).[40] The Russian MoD claimed that elements of the Russian Western Grouping of Forces continued offensive operations along a wide front in the Kupyansk direction and improved their tactical situation near Vilshana (15km northeast of Kupyansk) and Pershotravneve (21km east of Kupyansk).[41] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced near Synkivka and Ivanivka on August 11, and one milblogger claimed that Russian forces entered the northern outskirts of Synkivka on August 10.[42]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted counterattacks northeast of Kupyansk but did not advance on August 11. The Russian MoD reported that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian counterattacks near Synkivka and the Mankivka tract (15km east of Kupyansk).[43]

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line on August 11 but made no confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Nadiya (15km west of Svatove) and south of Novoselivske (15km northwest of Svatove).[44] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces stormed Ukrainian positions on the Torske-Yampolivka line (15km to 17km west of Kreminna) and made marginal advances in the area.[45] A Russian milblogger amplified footage on August 10 purporting to show elements of Chechen Akhmat Spetsnaz and units of the 2nd Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Army Corps conducting an assault in the Serebryanske forest area south of Kreminna.[46]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful ground attacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line on August 11. The Russian MoD claimed that elements of the Russian Central Grouping of Forces repelled Ukrainian assaults near Novoselivske, Novoyehorivka (15km southwest of Svatove), and Kreminna in Luhansk Oblast and Bilohorivka, Donetsk Oblast (33km south of Kreminna).[47] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks along the Raihorodka-Karmazynivka line (13km west to 13km southwest of Svatove), in the Zhuravka Balka area northwest of Kreminna, near Chervonopopivka (6km north of Kreminna), near Dibrova (5km southwest of Kreminna), and in the Serebryanske forest area south of Kreminna.[48]

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

Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations near Bakhmut but did not advance on August 11. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive actions in the Bakhmut area.[49] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted sabotage and reconnaissance operations near Yahidne (2km north of Bakhmut) and Berkhivka.[50] Other Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces attempted to break through Russian defenses near Klishchiivka.[51]

Russian forces conducted offensive operations near Bakhmut and made some advances on August 11. Geolocated footage published on August 11 indicates that Russian forces advanced southwest towards the Berkhivka reservoir (6km northwest of Bakhmut).[52] Russian milbloggers claimed Russian forces improved their positions near Andriivka (10km southwest of Bakhmut) and made limited advances south of Klishchiivka on August 10.[53] Multiple Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces attacked near Klishchiivka on August 11.[54]

The Russian MoD claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line but did not advance on August 11. The Russian MoD claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Nevelske (14km southwest of Avdiivka), Staromykhailivka, Malynivka (24km northwest of Bakhmut), and Vesele (5km northeast of Avdiivka).[55]

Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line and slightly advanced on August 11. Geolocated footage published on August 11 indicates that Russian forces made marginal advances north of Staromykhailivka (19km southwest of Avdiivka).[56] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive actions near Avdiivka, Marinka (on the western outskirts of Donetsk City), Krasnohorivka (23km southwest of Avdiivka), and Novomykhailivka (10km southwest of Donetsk City).[57] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces took control of parts of the Trudovske Mine near Krasnohorivka.[58] Another Russian milblogger claimed that elements of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) “Pyatnashka” International Brigade established fire control over the road between Orlivka (8km west of Avdiivka) and Lastochkyne (6km west of Avdiivka) that serves as the Ukrainian ground line of communication (GLOC) in the Avdiivka area.[59] This claim, however, is likely false given that another milblogger made the same claim about the same Russian unit on July 27 and there are currently no indications that Russian forces are interdicting significant Ukrainian GLOCs in the Avdiivka area.[60] Russian milbloggers routinely claimed in the winter and spring of 2023 that Russian forces had fire control over Ukrainian GLOCs around Bakhmut long before they likely did.[61]

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

Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted limited offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast and did not advance on August 11. The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian ground attack near Mykilske (27km southwest of Donetsk City).[62]

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area and advanced on August 11. Geolocated footage published on August 11 shows that Ukrainian forces advanced into Urozhaine (9km south of Velyka Novosilka), and Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces control the northern half of the settlement while Russian forces maintain control over the southern half of the settlement.[63] The Russian “Vostok” volunteer battalion, which is reportedly defending Urozhaine, acknowledged that Ukrainian forces pushed Russian forces back by a few unspecified streets in Urozhaine.[64] Some Russian milbloggers maintained that Ukrainian forces only captured positions on the outskirts of Urozhaine, however.[65] Russian milbloggers also reported continued fighting near Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka).[66] One Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces are struggling to evacuate wounded personnel from the 37th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade (36th Combined Arms Army, Eastern Military District) from Urozhaine due to Ukrainian artillery strikes against Russian vehicles.[67]

Russian forces continued to conduct limited offensive operations in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area and did not make any claimed or confirmed advances on August 11. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful attempts to recapture lost positions west of Staromayorske and near Urozhaine.[68]

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations and advanced up to the outskirts of Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv) in western Zaporizhia Oblast on August 11. Geolocated footage published on August 11 shows that Ukrainian forces reached the entrance to Robotyne, though the extent and permanence of their positions in the area remain unclear.[69] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces expanded their area of control along a six-kilometer wide front and slightly in depth near Robotyne.[70] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian ground attacks on the Robotyne-Verbove line (up to 18km southeast of Orikhiv).[71] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces pushed Ukrainian forces back 1.5 kilometers near Robotyne while repelling a Ukrainian attack on August 10.[72]

Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted operations in near rear areas in the occupied east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast on August 11. A Russian milblogger posted footage on August 11 of a Russian soldier claiming that Ukrainian forces captured the western half of Kozachi Laheri.[73] Another Russian milblogger claimed that a 30 person Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group conducted a limited raid against a Russian brigade convoy on a section of the E58 highway between Rozdolne and Vilne, roughly 8km south of Nova Kakhovka.[74] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of either of these claims and continues to assess that any Ukrainian positions in the east bank of Kherson Oblast are limited.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) will transfer reactor no 4. from a hot shutdown to a cold shutdown and reactor no. 6 from a cold shutdown to a hot shutdown to repair a water leak from a steam generator.[75] Ukrainian nuclear energy agency Energoatom reported that Russian occupation authorities transferred reactor no. 4 to a hot shutdown state in breach of Ukrainian guidelines, resulting in the leak.[76] The IAEA also reported that the main external power line to the ZNPP experienced two interruptions during the day on August 10.[77] The Ukrainian Ministry of Energy reported that Russian forces shelled the power line and caused the power disruption.[78]

Russian and occupation authorities continue to struggle to mitigate traffic issues from Ukrainian strikes against bridges in occupied Crimea. A Russian source claimed that traffic stopped on the Kerch Strait Bridge, creating a line of 600 cars and a two-hour waiting time to cross the bridge in an unspecified direction.[79] Footage published on August 10 shows a long line of cargo vehicles in traffic reportedly near Krasnoperekopsk, at the intersection of the H05 and E97 highways in occupied Crimea.[80] Kherson Oblast occupation head Vladimir Saldo announced on August 11 that repairs to the Chonhar Bridge will take at least one month after recent Ukrainian strikes damaged the bridge.[81] Satellite imagery suggests that Russian forces constructed a pontoon bridge next to the Chonhar Bridge between August 4 and 9.[82] Ukrainian Kherson Oblast military advisor Serhiy Khlan stated on August 10 that Russian forces are moving military equipment away from the east (left) bank of the Dnipro River to Henichesk, Kherson Oblast due to fears of further Ukrainian strikes on bridges and are diverting civilian traffic in favor of military logistics in the area.[83]

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

The Russian defense industrial base (DIB) has begun producing Geran-2 drones, a modified version of Iranian Shahed 131/136 drones that Iran previously produced domestically and will likely enable Russia to maintain or potentially increase the frequency of drone strikes against Ukraine. Conflict Armament Research (CAR) reported on August 10 that its investigators inspected the wreckage of two Russian-produced Shahed drones used in southeastern Ukraine in July and determined that modifications on the two drones indicate that Russia has begun producing its own modified version of the Shahed-131/136 drone.[84] CAR reported that Russia’s production of modified drones marks a significant evolution in Russia’s drone capabilities that will allow Russia to sustain its reliance on single-use drones.[85] CAR reported its investigators concluded that the drones were produced in Russia rather than in Iran based on modifications to the drone’s airframe construction and the drone’s internal navigation units.[86] Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Captain First Rank Nataliya Humenyuk reported on July 26 that Ukrainian forces found Cyrillic markings on Russian-launched Shahed drones, indicating that Russian forces are already using Russian-produced Shaheds despite Western estimates that Russia’s drone factory in Yelabuga, Republic of Tatarstan would not be ready before early 2024.[87] ISW assessed at that time that Humenyuk’s report indicated that Russia was likely further along in the drone production process than publicly available Western intelligence suggested.[88]

Russian authorities are reportedly writing off the debts of penal recruits who sign Russian MoD contracts. Russian opposition news outlet Verstka stated that an inmate serving a sentence in a prison colony in Bezhetsk, Tver Oblast claimed that the Russian MoD is promising to repay the debts of prisoners who sign contracts with the Russian MoD and agree to serve in Storm-Z detachments.[89] Verstka reported that the Russian MoD is instructing Russian courts to forgive the debts of Storm-Z recruits in exchange for their service in the war in Ukraine.[90] Verstka reported that a Russian court forgave 639,000 rubles ($6,440) of debt for one Storm-Z soldier from the Russian 71st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District), some of which was related to criminal cases against the solider.[91]

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

Russian occupation authorities are taking steps intended to falsely portray upcoming regional elections in occupied Ukraine as fair and competitive. The Kherson Oblast occupation election commission claimed that more than 60 percent of voters in occupied Kherson Oblast have expressed interest in the elections, and Zaporizhia Oblast occupation official Vladimir Rogov claimed that four political parties – United Russia, Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), Just Russia-For Truth, and the Russian Communist Party – have submitted candidate lists to the Zaporizhia Oblast occupation electoral commission.[92] United Russia is the party of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the other three parties are generally considered to be part of the Kremlin’s “managed opposition,” and are not allowed true influence or differing policy changes. These efforts to portray the elections as having multiple parties and high voter turnout support ISW’s previous assessment that the appearance of democracy is important to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has historically portrayed himself as the defender of Russian democracy.[93]

Russian authorities continue to forcibly deport Ukrainian children from occupied territories to Russian-occupied Crimea and Russia. The Kherson Oblast occupation administration stated that the Kherson Oblast occupation ministry of education and Russian authorities from Pskov Oblast organized a trip for 52 children from Kherson Oblast to Yevpatoria, Crimea.[94] Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) head Leonid Pasechnik also claimed that LNR authorities, with help from the United Russia party, sent children with fathers fighting for Russia in the war in Ukraine to Sochi, Krasnodar Krai for vacations.[95]

Russian authorities continue to increase their control over the education system in occupied territories. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Russian authorities will send about 3,000 teachers from occupied territories of Ukraine to Moscow in October 2023.[96] The teachers will attend a Russian Ministry of Education forum, in which Putin is reportedly scheduled to speak, and where participants will receive manuals on “patriotic education of youth.”[97] The Kherson Oblast occupation administration stated that the Russian Republic of Mordovia continues to collect Russian-language books for children and adolescents to send to Kherson Oblast.[98] The Russian Republic of Mordovia has recently expanded its patronage network in occupied Kherson Oblast, building social infrastructure projects there in early August 2023.[99] These book collection efforts follow Putin’s August 2 speech wherein he promoted “Novorossiya” rhetoric while announcing Kremlin-funded initiatives to provide Russian-language books to occupied territories of Ukraine.[100]

The Russian Investigative Committee continues to promote Russian propaganda to children in the occupied territories of Ukraine. The Kherson Oblast occupation administration stated that the Kherson Oblast occupation branch of the Russian Investigative Committee taught children about forensics and criminal investigations in order to “foster the spirit of [Russian] patriotism among the younger generation.”[101] The Russian Investigative Committee is reportedly directly involved in the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and the forced placement of Ukrainian children into Russian military training programs.[102]

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

See topline text.

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

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

2. China-Taiwan Weekly Update, August 10, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/china-taiwan-weekly-update-august-10-2023

Excerpt:

CCP media published English-language reports about the recent party calls for the Chinese people to participate in counter-espionage work. The Ministry of State Security (MSS) called for the normalization of mass participation in counter-espionage work on August 1 through its first publicly available WeChat message, which was in Chinese.[23] The MSS also unveiled an anonymous reporting system for users in Chinese and English, indicating that the party aims to coopt both PRC and foreign nationals in their new counter espionage drive.[24] US State Department Spokesman Matt Miller expressed concern on August 2 regarding the MSS’s counter espionage efforts encouraging citizens to spy on each other.[25] The CCP-controlled Global Times responded on August 3 by criticizing Miller and alleging the United States had double standards on surveillance security efforts.[26] The Global Times stated that the counter espionage law helps prevent China from becoming “a haven for Western spies.”[27] The Global Times also stated the law does not “target the activities of foreign organizations in China” in response to a Bloomberg article reporting the cancellation of a TEDx event in Guangzhou sparked by the counter-espionage law.[28]

This English-language messaging comes as the CCP aims to increase foreign investment in China which has reached a 25-year low while the country also experiences economic deflation and falling exports.[29] The Global Times articles fit into this context and indicate that the CCP seeks to reassure foreign firms that they can safely engage in commercial activity in China.

Key Takeaways

1. The Kuomintang (KMT) has echoed the People’s Republic of China (PRC) attacks on Lai Ching-te’s association with “Taiwan independence” in the lead up to his mid-August US transit. High-profile KMT parroting of PRC talking points indicates the success of the PRC's efforts to influence discourse in Taiwan and could advance its goal of broadening support for peaceful unification.
2. The Republic of China (ROC) arrested active-duty Republic of China Army (ROCA) personnel for allegedly passing on national security secrets to China. The pattern of ROC military personnel spying for China in conjunction with light espionage punishments indicates the ineffectiveness of current ROC laws in deterring potential spies.
3. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) media published English-language reports about the recent party calls for the Chinese people to participate in counter-espionage work. This messaging comes as the CCP aims to increase foreign investment in China, which indicates that the CCP seeks to reassure foreign firms that they can safely engage in commercial activity in China.

CHINA-TAIWAN WEEKLY UPDATE, AUGUST 10, 2023

Aug 11, 2023 - Press ISW

China-Taiwan Weekly Update, August 10, 2023

Authors: Nils Peterson and Ian Jones of the Institute for the Study of War, Jonathan Baumel of the American Enterprise Institute

Editors: Dan Blumenthal and Frederick W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute

Data Cutoff: August 8 at 5pm ET

The China–Taiwan Weekly Update focuses on the Chinese Communist Party’s paths to controlling Taiwan and relevant cross–Taiwan Strait developments.

Key Takeaways

1. The Kuomintang (KMT) has echoed the People’s Republic of China (PRC) attacks on Lai Ching-te’s association with “Taiwan independence” in the lead up to his mid-August US transit. High-profile KMT parroting of PRC talking points indicates the success of the PRC's efforts to influence discourse in Taiwan and could advance its goal of broadening support for peaceful unification.
2. The Republic of China (ROC) arrested active-duty Republic of China Army (ROCA) personnel for allegedly passing on national security secrets to China. The pattern of ROC military personnel spying for China in conjunction with light espionage punishments indicates the ineffectiveness of current ROC laws in deterring potential spies.
3. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) media published English-language reports about the recent party calls for the Chinese people to participate in counter-espionage work. This messaging comes as the CCP aims to increase foreign investment in China, which indicates that the CCP seeks to reassure foreign firms that they can safely engage in commercial activity in China.

Taiwan Developments

This section covers relevant developments pertaining to Taiwan, including its upcoming January 13, 2024 presidential and legislative elections.

Elections

The Taiwanese (Republic of China) political spectrum is largely divided between the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Kuomintang (KMT). The DPP broadly favors Taiwanese autonomy, Taiwanese identity, and skepticism towards China. The KMT favors closer economic and cultural relations with China along with a broader alignment with a Chinese identity. The DPP under President Tsai Ing-wen has controlled the presidency and legislature (Legislative Yuan) since 2016. This presidential election cycle also includes the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) candidate Ko Wen-je who frames his movement as an amorphous alternative to the DPP and KMT. It is normal for Taiwanese presidential elections to have third party candidates, but none have ever won. The 2024 Taiwan presidential and legislative elections will be held on January 13, 2024, and the new president will take office in May 2024. Presidential candidates can win elections with a plurality of votes in Taiwan.

The KMT has echoed PRC attacks on Lai Ching-te’s association with “Taiwan independence” in the lead up to his mid-August US transit, indicating the KMT sees political gain in framing even Lai’s unexceptional actions as dangerous and provocative. ­­The DPP-leaning Liberty Times reported on August 1 that KMT Acting Representative in the United States Victor Chin spread rumors in US-Taiwan policy circles that Lai aimed to visit the Washington area during his upcoming transit.[1] The Biden administration has emphasized Lai will not visit Washington.[2] KMT Chairman Eric Chu later stated on August 4 that Lai has made foreign observers worried because of his Taiwan independence “DNA” and called Lai the “golden grandchild of Taiwan independence.”[3] Chu’s comments came in response to a reporter’s question about the PRC Taiwan Affairs Office’s (TAO) August 3 statement calling Lai a “troublemaker” after condemning his upcoming transit.[4] Chu did not mention the transit explicitly in his comments, but both Chin’s and Chu’s messaging aligns with the PRC narrative that Lai’s transit poses a threat to cross-strait stability.[5]

An unverified KMT English-language press release from August 4 stated that the party supports Lai’s transit, indicating it seeks to allay potential American concerns about its commitment to strong ties with the United States.[6] The statement explained that the KMT “welcomes” Lai’s transit and “strongly favors” closer relations with the United States. It also rejected allegations that the KMT hopes to benefit from the perception that Lai’s transit is provocative or that the party was the source of rumors regarding a potential Lai visit to Washington. Brian Hioe, a Taiwanese journalist, and former Sunflower Movement activist frequently critical of the KMT, posted the release on Twitter. The KMT did not post the release on its website, and ISW was unable to find the press release elsewhere online at the time of writing. [7] That the KMT did not publish the statement indicates the party sought to avoid drawing additional attention to the negative allegations the statement rebuts. The lack of a Chinese-language version or any similar statement to the Taiwanese press indicates the KMT did not intend to make support for US transits a focus of its domestic messaging.

The KMT’s messaging on Lai’s transit indicates the party does not prioritize addressing critiques that it is too pro-PRC in Taiwan.[8] The unreleased English-language press statement demonstrates sensitivity to such concerns in US policy circles, however.[9] Framing Lai as harmful to cross-strait stability is a major KMT talking point in its 2024 election campaign, and the TAO’s attacks on Lai reinforce this framing.[10] Failing to rebut PRC criticism of US transits blurs the distinction between mainstream objections to Lai’s record by DPP opponents and the PRC’s position of categorical opposition to high-level US­­-ROC officials interacting in any capacity, however. The KMT’s tendency to echo PRC positions for political gain complicates its efforts to reassure Washington about its commitment to Taiwan’s autonomy.

The KMT’s amplification of PRC criticism of Lai’s transit could aid the PRC’s efforts to reduce US transits and US-ROC contact more broadly. Turning US transits into an occasion for launching partisan attacks would impose political costs on Taiwanese leaders considering such trips. Chu’s criticism prompted Lai to defend himself in an August 7 interview during which he explained his prior comments on “Taiwan independence” and rejected the “golden grandson” label.[11]

High-profile KMT parroting of PRC talking points indicates the success of the PRC’s efforts to influence discourse in Taiwan and could advance the PRC’s goal of broadening support for peaceful unification. The KMT and other DPP opponents have consistently cautioned against stances they view as provocative to the PRC, effectively allowing the PRC’s demands to acquire political weight in Taiwan.[12] Building cross-strait “trust” and “understanding” is a central element of the CCP’s stated cross-strait goals.[13] General Secretary Xi Jinping has directly linked the concept of cross-strait “mind-spirit alignment,”[14] which includes building cross-strait understanding, to increasing Taiwanese “identification with unification.”[15]

Other

The Republic of China (ROC) arrested active-duty Republic of China Army (ROCA) personnel for allegedly passing on national security secrets to China. Taiwan detained ROCA Lieutenant Colonel Hsieh and ROCA Major Ho on charges of spying for China.[16] Hsieh is also accused of developing a spy ring of past and present ROC military personnel for the PRC.[17] Seven unspecified collaborators, including active duty and retired military personnel as well as civilians, comprise the additional defendants.[18] Deputy Secretary-General to the Presidential Office Alex Huang called the incident “shameless” and called for more investigations.[19]

The arrests are part of a decade-long trend. Reuters reported that a least 21 serving or retired Taiwanese officers with a rank of captain or above have been convicted of spying for China during the last decade.[20] The Taipei District Prosecutors Office prosecuted retired ROC Air Force Major General Chien Yao-tung and retired ROCA Lieutenant Colonel Wei Hsien-yi in January 2023 for working with Chinese intelligence operative Xie Xizhang. Chien and Wei received fines and suspended prison sentences of less than two years.[21] Taiwanese Institute for National Defense and Security Research Director Su Zi-yun previously stated in May that the average sentence for Taiwanese espionage suspects is 18 months while espionage cases in the United States and Europe receive on average 19-year sentences.[22] The pattern of ROC military personnel spying for China in conjunction with light espionage punishments indicates the ineffectiveness of ROC’s current laws in deterring potential spies.

China Developments

This section covers relevant developments pertaining to China and the governing Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

CCP media published English-language reports about the recent party calls for the Chinese people to participate in counter-espionage work. The Ministry of State Security (MSS) called for the normalization of mass participation in counter-espionage work on August 1 through its first publicly available WeChat message, which was in Chinese.[23] The MSS also unveiled an anonymous reporting system for users in Chinese and English, indicating that the party aims to coopt both PRC and foreign nationals in their new counter espionage drive.[24] US State Department Spokesman Matt Miller expressed concern on August 2 regarding the MSS’s counter espionage efforts encouraging citizens to spy on each other.[25] The CCP-controlled Global Times responded on August 3 by criticizing Miller and alleging the United States had double standards on surveillance security efforts.[26] The Global Times stated that the counter espionage law helps prevent China from becoming “a haven for Western spies.”[27] The Global Times also stated the law does not “target the activities of foreign organizations in China” in response to a Bloomberg article reporting the cancellation of a TEDx event in Guangzhou sparked by the counter-espionage law.[28]

This English-language messaging comes as the CCP aims to increase foreign investment in China which has reached a 25-year low while the country also experiences economic deflation and falling exports.[29] The Global Times articles fit into this context and indicate that the CCP seeks to reassure foreign firms that they can safely engage in commercial activity in China.

3. Zelensky Called Him a Criminal. Now Ukraine Calls Him for Guns and Ammo.

Excerpts;

A Times investigation across Europe shows how that happened, and how Ukraine’s policies, born out of desperation, drove up prices and added layer upon layer of profit-making.

Mr. Pashinsky’s network, for example, buys weapons and then sells them, then buys them again and sells them once more, according to classified contracts and government documents obtained by The Times, along with interviews of more than two dozen current and former government officials and arms-industry figures.

With each transaction, prices rise — as do the profits of Mr. Pashinsky’s associates — until the final buyer, Ukraine’s military, pays the most. Using multiple brokers in this way may be legal, but it is a time-tested way to inflate profits, and something the Pentagon avoids.

Much of the money that fuels this system comes from European aid, according to an official with knowledge of Ukraine’s wartime funding. But European and American officials are loath to discuss Mr. Pashinsky, for fear of playing into Russia’s narrative that Ukraine’s government is hopelessly corrupt and must be replaced.

Privately, though, they say the re-emergence of figures like Mr. Pashinsky is one reason the American and British governments are buying ammunition for Ukraine rather than simply handing over money.

Zelensky Called Him a Criminal. Now Ukraine Calls Him for Guns and Ammo.

By Justin Scheck and Thomas Gibbons-Neff

Justin Scheck and Thomas Gibbons-Neff reported from Kyiv and across Eastern Europe.

• Aug. 12, 2023

The New York Times · by Thomas Gibbons-Neff · August 12, 2023

Serhiy Pashinsky in his office in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday.Credit...Emile Ducke for The New York Times

In its hunt for weapons, Ukraine has rolled back anticorruption rules and turned to people once seen as relics of an anything-goes era.

• Aug. 12, 2023

In the early weeks of the war in Ukraine, with the invading Russian Army bearing down on Kyiv, the Ukrainian government needed weapons, and quickly. So its Ministry of Defense made a desperate and unlikely phone call.

On the other end of the line was Serhiy Pashinsky, a chain-smoking former lawmaker who had overseen military spending for years. He had spent much of that under investigation on suspicion of corruption or denying accusations of self-dealing. Now, he was living in virtual political exile at his country estate, sidelined by President Volodymyr Zelensky and his promise to root out corruption.

“Go out on the streets and ask whether Pashinsky is a criminal,” Mr. Zelensky said on national television in 2019. “I guarantee you that out of 100 people, 100 will say that he is a criminal.”

But Mr. Pashinsky had ties to the arms business and, perhaps as important, he knew how to operate in a scrum, undaunted by red tape. In government, that had made him the source of scandal. During wartime, it made him invaluable.

He answered the call.

Eighteen months later, a New York Times investigation found, a company tied to Mr. Pashinsky has become the biggest private arms supplier in Ukraine. It buys and sells grenades, artillery shells and rockets through a trans-European network of middlemen. The company, Ukrainian Armored Technology, reported its best year ever last year, with sales totaling more than $350 million, up from $2.8 million the year before the war.

And Mr. Pashinsky is once again under investigation, with the Ukrainian authorities scrutinizing Ukrainian Armored Technology’s pricing and his financial relationships with procurement officials and companies abroad, said two officials familiar with the matter.

This month, investigators with the intelligence service searched the offices of a state-owned company, looking for evidence against Ukrainian Armored Technology, according to government officials with knowledge of the search. Most of those who spoke about the investigation did so on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing inquiry.

Mr. Pashinsky and the arms network he built highlight a little-discussed aspect of Ukraine’s war strategy. In the name of rushing weapons to the front line, leaders have resurrected figures from Ukraine’s rough-and-tumble past and undone, at least temporarily, years of anticorruption policies. Government officials stopped blacklisting suppliers who had ripped off the military, and they abandoned many public-disclosure rules intended to reveal self-dealing.

Mr. Zelensky’s administration did all of this while promising to continue fighting corruption. That has led to awkward contradictions — like the administration turning for help to someone it had labeled a criminal, gratefully buying weapons and simultaneously investigating him.

A soldier tosses a smoking, spent shell as a Ukrainian artillery unit fires their mobile howitzer at a Russian position in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region in April.Credit...David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

In the immediate term, the gamble is paying off. Ukraine held off Russian troops long enough for international aid to arrive. And Ukrainian Armored Technology has tens of millions of dollars in ongoing contracts to support the war effort. The long-term risk is that these temporary changes become entrenched, and that Mr. Pashinsky and others who had been sidelined will emerge from the war with more money and influence than ever.

Ukrainian leaders understand this risk. “We are not very idealistic in this regard,” the deputy defense minister, Volodymyr Havrylov, said in an interview. When the war broke out, he said, “we wanted huge amounts, immediately.”

A Times investigation across Europe shows how that happened, and how Ukraine’s policies, born out of desperation, drove up prices and added layer upon layer of profit-making.

Mr. Pashinsky’s network, for example, buys weapons and then sells them, then buys them again and sells them once more, according to classified contracts and government documents obtained by The Times, along with interviews of more than two dozen current and former government officials and arms-industry figures.

With each transaction, prices rise — as do the profits of Mr. Pashinsky’s associates — until the final buyer, Ukraine’s military, pays the most. Using multiple brokers in this way may be legal, but it is a time-tested way to inflate profits, and something the Pentagon avoids.

Much of the money that fuels this system comes from European aid, according to an official with knowledge of Ukraine’s wartime funding. But European and American officials are loath to discuss Mr. Pashinsky, for fear of playing into Russia’s narrative that Ukraine’s government is hopelessly corrupt and must be replaced.

Privately, though, they say the re-emergence of figures like Mr. Pashinsky is one reason the American and British governments are buying ammunition for Ukraine rather than simply handing over money.

Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Volodymyr Havrylov, said that when the war broke out, the country wanted “huge amounts” of weapons, “immediately.”Credit...Caroline Chia/Reuters

Mr. Pashinsky, who is the head of the Ukrainian arms industry trade group, denies having any financial interest in the weapons business. On paper, he’s correct. But in Ukraine, documents do not always reflect reality.

Officials from three different parts of Ukraine’s government, including a top arms procurement official, say that when the government wants to buy from Ukrainian Armored Technology, it negotiates with Mr. Pashinsky. “He has always taken care of how that company is organized,” Mr. Havrylov said.

Ukraine’s military relies heavily on Soviet-caliber ammunition, and only so much exists, mostly in former Soviet bloc countries, including some that are reluctant to antagonize Russia by selling to Ukraine. Getting access to that supply requires experienced networks, which Mr. Pashinsky and his team have.

Mr. Pashinsky denied negotiating such deals and chalked up his years of scandals to Russian disinformation campaigns. “I have never been and never will be an embodiment or symbol of a corrupt system,” he said.

He acknowledged the ongoing criminal investigation but said it was motivated by a misguided notion among government officials that arms sellers are making unfairly high profits. He called himself “a responsible citizen of my country who has never betrayed it and will never betray it.”

As for Mr. Zelensky’s televised remarks years back, “The president simply made a mistake,” he said. “He is also a fallible human being.”

Mr. Pashinsky’s detractors say he’s a profiteer. Good-governance groups and political adversaries bemoan his resurgence. But even they are nearly unanimous that today’s weapons-at-any-cost environment is perfect for Mr. Pashinsky.

And he’s delivering.

‘Everyone Was on His Side’

In 2015, a military procurement official named Nelly Stelmakh was invited to a meeting with Mr. Pashinsky. He was a signature character in politics. He had briefly served as the head of the presidential office — akin to White House chief of staff — and was now the chairman of Parliament’s security and defense committee.

That gave him a central role overseeing weapons purchases at a time when Ukraine was spending heavily to build a military bulwark against Russia.

The meeting invite was a surprise, because Ms. Stelmakh bought nonlethal goods, not weapons. When she arrived at his office, she recalled, Mr. Pashinsky told her to buy fuel from his chosen vendor rather than the lowest bidder.

She was taken aback. “I thought we had to fight our enemies, not steal,” she said in a recent interview. “When I answered I would be working by the law, I started to have problems,” Ms. Stelmakh said. Mr. Pashinsky had government investigators interrogate her, she said.

The government bought the fuel from Mr. Pashinsky’s preferred vendor anyway. He provided The Times with a government letter that said his chosen vendors charged less than earlier ones, but did not address whether Ms. Stelmakh’s vendors would have cost even less. The fuel purchases became a momentary controversy, but nothing came of it.

That was often the case with Mr. Pashinsky. Over the years, criminal investigations into his dealings were dismissed. A corruption inquiry into whether he expropriated a candy factory fizzled. Mr. Pashinsky’s son got a job at a state-owned arms buyer, and Ukrainian Armored Technology won government contracts for mortars and armored vehicles, despite having few employees and no manufacturing capability. His family bought a Mercedes and a Range Rover and lived in a 10,000-square-foot home on a walled estate with a lake and a private church.

Endemic corruption was a constant concern for American and European leaders. They wanted to support Ukraine against Russia, but feared throwing money at politicians who treated it as a means of personal profit. The West has long pressured Ukraine to root out corruption, calling it a prerequisite to the country’s joining the NATO military alliance and the European Union.

When the group Transparency International studied Ukraine’s arms-buying system for a 2015 report, investigators viewed Mr. Pashinsky’s competing interests — major arms figure and chairman of the committee overseeing arms deals — as an obstacle to that cleanup, according to someone who worked on that inquiry.

Aivaras Abromavicius, the former head of Ukraine’s largest state-owned arms company, is also a onetime economy and trade minister.

Aivaras Abromavicius, then the head of the country’s largest state-owned arms company and a former government minister, said in a 2019 radio interview that Mr. Pashinsky was an owner of Ukrainian Armored Vehicles. “To be a shadow beneficiary of such powers and to be on the committee is, of course, wrong,” he said.

Mr. Pashinsky, though, was a master of the smoke-filled room, which was often his office, where he smoked Parliament Night Blue cigarettes. He brushed off controversy with counter-accusations or a bit of menacing humor. He got into a fist fight on the floor of Parliament.

He accused members of NAKO, an anticorruption nonprofit group, of being foreign agents, said Olena Tregub, its executive director.

Once, NAKO members gathered in a hearing room to hear Mr. Pashinsky discuss a major military purchase. Sitting at the head of a boardroom table, a Ukrainian flag at his back, Mr. Pashinsky reached forward and placed an explosive shell on the table. “You are lucky that this is fake,” he said with a smile, according to Ms. Tregub, who attended the meeting, and a photograph.

One committee lawyer, Tetiana Blystiv, said in an interview that for years Mr. Pashinsky had ordered her to write official letters to help steer business to companies including Ukrainian Armored Technology. In 2018, when it appeared that Mr. Pashinsky might be voted out of office, she stood up to him and refused.

Mr. Pashinsky summoned her to his office, where he sat, smoking, at his desk. When she arrived, she said, he moved toward her, loudly accusing her of corruption and threatening to have her charged. When he grabbed her arm, she said, she opened the door, hoping he would back down if he saw people in the waiting room.

A piece of a destroyed Russian tank, an orthodox icon and an inert mortar shell at Serhiy Pashinsky’s office in Kyiv on Wednesday.Credit...Emile Ducke for The New York Times

“Life doesn’t cost much,” she recalled him saying. She said he then made reference to her children.

Ms. Blystiv said she had reported Mr. Pashinsky to the authorities. “They laughed,” she said. “Everyone was on his side.”

In Mr. Pashinsky’s telling, the dispute was actually about his accusation that she had embezzled money. He said he had referred her to prosecutors, and that he never ordered her to write letters to benefit a company. Neither of them has been charged.

Voters ousted Mr. Pashinsky from Parliament in 2019, the same year that Mr. Zelensky rode into office promising to get serious about corruption.

Almost immediately, Mr. Pashinsky’s air of invincibility was gone.

The country’s anticorruption bureau began investigating him on accusations of “abuse of official position,” court records provided by the Ukrainian data company YouControl show. Detectives raided his house at 7 a.m. on Feb. 24, 2020, Mr. Pashinsky wrote on Facebook. The military stopped awarding significant business to Ukrainian Armored Technology, and anticorruption investigators raided its office, confiscating documents and a hard drive.

And soon after the new president came into power, Mr. Pashinsky was arrested over a three-year-old road-rage episode. Mr. Pashinsky had stepped out of his car and fired a gun into the air. When the other driver responded by hitting him in the head with a bottle, he said, “I was forced to shoot him in the leg.” A judge temporarily put him under house arrest in a case that is still pending.

The Pashinsky era, it seemed, was over.

Rebirth

With Russian troops massing on the Ukrainian border in January 2022, Mr. Pashinsky saw an opportunity. War seemed imminent, and Ukraine had an arms shortage.

Ukraine had made few major arms purchases in the prior 18 months.

Mr. Zelensky’s policy overhauls had made procurement more transparent, it seemed, but also less effective. The old system was gone, but nobody could figure out a new one.

Mr. Pashinsky began telling military contacts that, if asked, he could supply weapons, government officials said.

That’s when the phone rang and he was invited to a meeting with defense officials, according to four people briefed on it.

Big NATO shipments had yet to begin, and the country desperately needed Soviet-caliber ammunition. The most important supplier, Bulgaria, refused to sell directly to Ukraine for fear of upsetting Russia.

That made Mr. Pashinsky particularly valuable, officials say. Ukrainian Armored Technology had connections in Bulgaria.

Mr. Pashinsky’s contact there was a broker named Kaloyan Stanislavov. The two knew each other through a Lithuanian politician who had been convicted on corruption charges, according to government documents and business associates.

Mr. Stanislavov was able to get Bulgarian factories to prioritize his orders. At one of the biggest manufacturers, an associate said, Mr. Stanislavov bought nearly all of the available gunpowder early last year, leaving competitors scrambling.

The main entrance to Bulgaria’s largest armaments factory in February.Credit...Nikolay Doychinov for The New York Times

Since Bulgaria did not allow ammunition sales directly to Ukraine, Ukrainian Armored Technology made a deal with a 70-year-old Polish middleman, Andrzej Kowalczyk. He got paperwork falsely listing Poland, not Ukraine, as the ultimate buyer, deal documents show.

Records show that weapons went from Bulgarian manufacturers to Mr. Stanislavov; then to the Polish middleman; then to Ukrainian Armored Technology; and finally to Ukraine’s military. Shipping records for one deal show that a Ukrainian airline flew 265,000 pounds of rockets, grenades and shells from Bulgaria to Poland for delivery to Ukraine.

With each step, prices increased, Mr. Stanislavov acknowledged in a brief interview. The Polish middleman, for example, takes a cut. “It has some surplus of profit,” Mr. Stanislavov said. “Of course. Because it’s a company.” Mr. Kowalczyk said his company takes only a small profit on such deals.

These price increases can benefit Ukrainian Armored Technology, because it charges the Ukrainian military fees based on its purchase price.

Ukrainian prosecutors are now investigating this network and whether Mr. Pashinsky got kickbacks from the Polish middleman, according to an official with knowledge of the inquiry. Mr. Pashinsky said that he knew the man, but that they had no financial relationship.

A Weapons Frenzy

Weeks after the war began, Ukrainian Armored Technology had tens of millions of dollars in government contracts for mortar shells, missiles, rockets and grenades. In March 2022 alone, documents show, Ukraine agreed to pay the company more than $100 million.

For much of last year, Ukrainian Armored Technology delivered more reliably than state-owned companies, a defense ministry audit shows.

Some Ukrainian officials blame the company for driving up prices by bidding against state-owned companies to buy weapons. If so, that is not entirely Mr. Pashinsky’s fault.

Early in the war, the Ukrainian government could have kept its anticorruption rules unchanged and left it to the government to do the purchasing. Instead, officials decided to enlist as many arms brokers as possible and stripped away some disclosure rules.

The goal was to tap as many sources, and remove as many barriers, as possible. The result was a frenzy. “We had cases where two state-owned companies were competing for the same stock,” Mr. Havrylov, the deputy defense minister, recalled.

Thousands of brokers answered the call, Mr. Havrylov said. But few had Mr. Pashinsky’s connections. Only 10 to 15 percent could find the ammunition they promised. Only about half of those delivered, he said.

The most successful brokers, officials found, were steeped in the old ways of doing business. Mr. Pashinsky provided crucial supplies earlier than Ukraine’s allies, Mr. Havrylov said.

And he is adamant that people who delivered in that dire period should not be questioned in retrospect.

“Let’s not touch people for what they’ve done in February, March of 2022,” Mr. Havrylov said. “Even if it looks suspicious.”

Tubes from spent shells littered a Ukrainian Army trench in Donetsk region in March.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Michael Schwirtz, Anatol Magdziarz and Daria Mitiuk contributed reporting.

Justin Scheck is a reporter for The Times working on international investigations. More about Justin Scheck

Thomas Gibbons-Neff is a Ukraine correspondent and a former Marine infantryman. More about Thomas Gibbons-Neff

The New York Times · by Thomas Gibbons-Neff · August 12, 2023

4. Guam’s Airspace Set To Be Most Defended On Earth In New Plans

Graphics, maps, videos, and photos at the link: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/guams-airspace-set-to-be-most-defended-on-earth-in-new-plans

Guam’s Airspace Set To Be Most Defended On Earth In New Plans

Sites all over the island and permanent airspace closures will be part of turning Guam into a fortress unlike any other.

BY

JOSEPH TREVITHICK

|

PUBLISHED AUG 11, 2023 4:21 PM EDT

thedrive.com · by Joseph Trevithick · August 11, 2023

Guam is set to gain as many as 20 new air defense sites packed with surface-to-air interceptors, radars, and more as part of a massive defensive upgrade plan. Overall, the island looks set to become the most densely protected place anywhere on the planet.

Documents the U.S. military has released discussing the potential impacts on day-to-day life on Guam from the new air and missile defenses have offered a new look at the scale and scope of the project. A total of 20 separate sites are currently under consideration to host surface-to-air interceptors, radars, and other elements of the planned Enhanced Integrated Air and Missile Defense (EIAMD) system. In addition to changes on the ground, the system is expected to come along with new airspace restrictions, particularly around radar sites that will be in constant operation and present potential electromagnetic interference hazards.

The U.S. military held multiple so-called "public scoping meetings" on Guam earlier this month to provide information about the planned EIAMD system to residents and solicit feedback. Members of the public have until August 18 to submit further comments and criticisms about the project and its potential environmental impacts.

A Missile Defense Agency representative points to a poster discussing potential impacts from the planned Enhanced Integrated Air and Missile Defense system during a "public scoping meeting" with residents of Guam on August 2, 2023. USN

Included in the information that the U.S. military provided was a map showing the location of various candidate sites for hosting different elements of the EIAMD system and another one showing radar arcs and restricted airspace zones that are set to come along with it.

"The missile defense system would be able to defend Guam a full 360 degrees around the entirety of the island. The 360-degree capability would be achieved by distributing/placing system components at multiple locations around the island," a block of text accompanying the candidate site map explains. "Site selection is evolving and additional sites may be considered."

A map showing the 20 sites on Guam under consideration to host elements of the Enhanced Integrated Air and Missile Defense system. It also gives an overview of existing facilities belonging to the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. MDA

"If the Proposed Action is implemented, MDA [Missile Defense Agency] and the Army would construct the Enhanced Integrated Air and Missile Defense (EIAMD) and it would operate continuously," additional text providing context for the radar/airspace map says. "FAA [the Federal Aviation Administration] would take actions related to restricting the flight of aircraft in airspace where high-intensity radiated fields would exceed FAA certification standards for aircraft electrical and electronic systems."

"Implementation of the Proposed Action would result in the establishment of new Restricted Areas and change federal airways and instrument flight procedures to accommodate new Restricted Areas," it adds. "MDA and the Army would not begin continuous operation of the EIAMD system until FAA actions related to restricting the flight of aircraft are complete."

A map showing radar arcs and areas of restricted airspace associated with the Enhanced Integrated Air and Missile Defense system. MDA

Particular concerns about the impacts on Guam from the installation of the myriad new radars that are part of the EIAMD have come up before and the U.S. military has previously acknowledged this as a topic area requiring special attention.

"So, when you think about transporting yourself to some other location, whether it's in the United States or abroad, you have to worry about explosive arcs... you have to worry about the electromagnetic interference of the radars," now-retired Vice Adm. Jon Hill, then head of MDA, said last year. "So, one of the first conflicts we had, it's been in the press already, but I think it's resolved, is if you're going to build a hospital on this site, and you have a radar over here, is it okay to put radar energy through that site where you bring MEDEVAC [medical evacuation] helicopters in? The answer's no."

As currently planned, EIAMD is a distributed and tiered 'system of systems' intended to provide 360-degree air and missile for Guam, as a whole, against various types of aerial threats. The island, which is a U.S. territory, is strategically located in the western Pacific and is home to major Air Force, Navy, and now Marine Corps bases. These would be among the top of the list of priority targets for an opponent during any future high-end conflict in the region, such as one against China.

A version of the Aegis Ashore system tailored to Guam's unique geography and other requirements will be at the core of EIAMD. This is expected to look significantly different from U.S. Aegis Ashore sites currently in Romania and Poland, the latter of which is not yet operational, but is expected to be later this year. The U.S. military has a dedicated Aegis Ashore test site in Hawaii.

The U.S. Aegis Ashore site in Romania. USN

As originally designed, Aegis Ashore directly ported over various components, including the AN/SPY-1 radar and Mk 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS), from the Flight IIA Arleigh Burke class destroyer into a land-based configuration. The primary interceptors for the system have long been variants of the SM-3, including the Block IIA variant designed to be able to engage intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) during the mid-course portion of their flight outside of the Earth's atmosphere.

Thanks to the multi-purpose nature of the Mk 41 VLS, additional missiles, such as variants of the multi-purpose SM-6 and the now-in-development Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI), which is being designed to engage incoming hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, could be integrated into the system in the future.

The exact configuration of Guam's Aegis Ashore system remains to be seen. However, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency has made clear in the past that it will be distributed to a far greater extent than its predecessors. There have been discussions in the past about installing certain components in hardened underground facilities or putting them on road-mobile ground platforms.

What is known now is that the higher-end tier of the EIAMD will also include at least four AN/TPY-6 radars. This design was previously known as the Homeland Defense Radar-Guam and leverages technology from Lockheed Martin's Long Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR) now in place in Alaska.

The U.S. Army is planning to provide Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile systems, Patriot surface-to-air missile systems, Typhon Mid-Range Capability systems (which can fire SM-6 multi-purpose missiles, as well as Tomahawk cruise missiles), and Enduring Shield Indirect Fire Protection Systems, to provide lower layers of air and missile defense coverage.

THAAD, Patriot, and Typhons with SM-6 would offer options for engaging various types of ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as fixed-wing aircraft and other aerial threats. Enduring Shield, which will at least initially fire AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles, is designed to offer additional protection against cruise missiles, drones, and even artillery rockets. The War Zone has repeatedly highlighted the very real threat posed now by drones, including very low-end commercial types that can be readily weaponized, or used for surveillance or other malign purposes, pose to U.S. forces abroad and at home, including on Guam.

A rendering of Enduring Shield launchers firing AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles. Dynetics

An Army THAAD battery has already been forward-deployed on Guam since 2013. The Army also deployed Iron Dome systems, comparable in form and function to Enduring Shield, as part of a test in 2021.

The Army's contribution to the new EIAMD on Guam will also include at least three Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS) radars, as well as multiple smaller Sentinel types, distributed around the island.

A command and control architecture that includes elements of the Navy's Aegis Combat System and the Army's Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) will help tie all this together, allowing for a great deal of flexibility and general situational awareness. The networks will also help Guam's defenders choose different interceptors and associated sensors, as well as fuze data to produce higher fidelity tracking and targeting data, to best respond to different types of incoming threats and do so faster and with greater accuracy.

Those networks will be able to feed in information from offboard sources, as well. This includes existing and future space-based sensing assets. Work is already progressing on the development of a new hypersonic weapon-focused tracking constellation that is expected to eventually include dozens of individual satellites.

As noted, exactly where EIAMD's various components would be positioned has not been fully settled yet.

The radar/airspace map included in the public environmental impact information does show three prominent radar arcs emanating from an area near Ritidian Point at the northern end of Guam, Naval Base Guam's (NBG) Barrigada site in the middle of the island, and a location within the Naval Munitions Site (NMS) in the south. It is possible these could reflect sites under consideration for some of the AN/TPY-6 or LTMADS radars.

A portion of the radar/airspace map showing radar arcs, in teal, emanating from the Barrigada site, at right, and the Naval Munitions Site (NMS) complex, at left. A number of smaller radar arcs are also shown in yellow. MDA

A fourth and much larger arc is also shown projecting from Ritidian Point, which is now under the jurisdiction of the Marine Corps' new Camp Blaz on Guam, which could point that being the planned location for the core of the island's future Aegis Ashore system. There is also the possibility that this could reflect the existing AN/TPY-2 radar associated with the Army's THAAD battery that is already in place at the northern end of the island.

Another section of the radar/airspace map showing multiple radar arcs projecting in different directions from the vicinity of Ritidian Point, as well as other locations in the northern end of Guam. MDA

There are 11 other radar arcs marked on the map, which would seem to reflect the various expected lower-tier components of the complete EIAMDS.

The exact timeline for when all of the planned EIAMDS components will be installed is unclear. Officials have said in the past that they want at least some parts of the system to be in operation by 2026. At a conference earlier this week, Navy Rear Adm. Doug Williams, the acting director of MDA, said that there is a plan in place now to conduct an initial live-fire test, which would be of an SM-3 Block IIA missile from the Aegis Ashore site, on Guam in December 2024.

There are a number of potential hurdles that could delay the EIAMDS effort, including potential opposition from residents on Guam. The U.S. military will also need to secure sufficient funding across multiple years to pay for the various new air and missile defense systems for the island. The Missile Defense Agency and the Army together have requested nearly $1.44 billion just in the 2024 Fiscal Year to support this work, according to Defense News.

In addition, the U.S. Army recently highlighted challenges in recruiting for the service's air defense branch during discussions about separate plans to increase the number of Patriot systems in its force structure in the coming years. Difficulties attracting individuals, even those who already serving, to join this particular part of the Army could have impacts beyond the Patriot community, which in turn could affect the EIAMDS timeline.

What is clear is that the U.S. military's plans for significantly expanding air and missile defenses on Guam are continuing to solidify and, if they proceed as planned, look set to bring significant changes to Guam, both on the ground and in the air above the island.

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

thedrive.com · by Joseph Trevithick · August 11, 2023

5. Ukraine Makes Progress Along 2 Lines of Attack

​Excerpts:

The Ukrainian advances are along two main lines of attack heading south: one through the eastern village of Staromaiorske toward the Russian-occupied city of Berdiansk, a port city on the Sea of Azov; and another, farther west, toward the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol, a vital transportation hub near the coast less than 60 miles south.

Ukrainian forces are now about 10 to 12 miles further south along both lines than when they started a counteroffensive push in early June.

Military analysts caution that many factors that will determine how the fighting plays out over coming months and are hard to analyze given the limited information put out by both armies. But Britain’s military intelligence agency noted on Saturday that Russia’s forces had faced “particularly intense attrition and heavy combat on the front line.”

As Russia races to prevent a Ukrainian breakthrough, the move “will likely further weaken Russian defensive lines in aggregate,” the I.S.W. wrote, creating “opportunities for any Ukrainian breakthrough to be potentially decisive.”

Still, analysts cautioned that even if Ukraine’s forces manage to break through Russia’s first line of defenses, Moscow has had many months to prepare the most formidable fortified defensive positions since World War II — a series of trenches, tank-traps, vast minefields, machine gun nests, and Russian attack helicopters and air support.

Ukraine Makes Progress Along 2 Lines of Attack

By Marc Santora

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

The New York Times · by Marc Santora · August 12, 2023

Although its advances remain small, Ukraine’s push is forcing Russia to redeploy fighters to keep hold of heavily fortified defenses across the vast front line, analysts say.

Ukrainian soldiers preparing an armored Humvee before heading to the southern front line.Credit...Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times

Aug. 12, 2023, 6:20 a.m. ET

After months of grueling advances through minefields, small villages and open steppes, Ukrainian forces are making some progress along two major lines of attack, according to analysts, Ukrainian officials and Russian military bloggers.

The advances, while small in terms of territory taken, are compelling Moscow to redeploy forces, military analysts say. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, called the advances “tactically significant,” adding that the situation would create new challenges for Russian forces spread across the vast front line.

Britain’s military intelligence agency said on Saturday that Russian redeployments could create opportunities that Ukraine would likely try to exploit.

The Ukrainian advances are along two main lines of attack heading south: one through the eastern village of Staromaiorske toward the Russian-occupied city of Berdiansk, a port city on the Sea of Azov; and another, farther west, toward the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol, a vital transportation hub near the coast less than 60 miles south.

Ukrainian forces are now about 10 to 12 miles further south along both lines than when they started a counteroffensive push in early June.

Military analysts caution that many factors that will determine how the fighting plays out over coming months and are hard to analyze given the limited information put out by both armies. But Britain’s military intelligence agency noted on Saturday that Russia’s forces had faced “particularly intense attrition and heavy combat on the front line.”

As Russia races to prevent a Ukrainian breakthrough, the move “will likely further weaken Russian defensive lines in aggregate,” the I.S.W. wrote, creating “opportunities for any Ukrainian breakthrough to be potentially decisive.”

Still, analysts cautioned that even if Ukraine’s forces manage to break through Russia’s first line of defenses, Moscow has had many months to prepare the most formidable fortified defensive positions since World War II — a series of trenches, tank-traps, vast minefields, machine gun nests, and Russian attack helicopters and air support.

A destroyed tank on a street in Kupiansk, where Russian forces are continuing to mount their own offensive operations.Credit...Emile Ducke for The New York Times

At the same time, Russian forces are continuing to mount their own offensive operations in northeastern Ukraine around the city of Kupiansk. By forcing Ukraine to defend there, military analysts say, Russia is likely trying to draw Ukrainian forces from other areas where they are on the offensive.

Ukraine is hoping that pressure along the front, along with deep strikes aimed at command posts, ammunition depots and supply lines, will ultimately overcome the Russian defenses. The Russian defenses are designed to be elastic, according to military analysts, absorbing Ukrainian blows and counter attacking when they can.

The British analysis noted that as Russia redeploys forces to defend against Ukraine’s two main lines of attack, its defenses further south in the Kherson region along the Dnipro River will likely be weakened. Ukraine holds the west bank of the river and has increasingly harassed Russian forces on the other side.

Ukrainian forces recently launched an assault across the Dnipro around the town of Kozachi Laheri, Western analysts said, but they said it was too soon to know whether Kyiv would be able to maintain an enduring presence on the eastern bank. Ukraine’s military has not confirmed such an operation.

“The enemy continues to hold a small bridgehead west of Kozachi Laheri,” Rybar, an influential Russian military blogger, reported on Saturday, though he offered no details.

In one of the two main lines of attack, Ukraine has consolidated gains around the ruined village of Staromaiorske, which it recaptured in late July, and appears to be pushing farther south to the Russian stronghold of Urozhaine, according to the Ukrainian military and military analysts.

Hanna Malyar, a Ukrainian deputy defense minister, said on Friday that her country’s forces had achieved “partial successes” in the direction of Urozhaine and south and southeast of Staromaiorske.

Members of Ukraine’s 35th Marine Brigade participated in a drill in the Donetsk region in July.Credit...Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times

The Russian Vostok Battalion, a military outfit fighting in the area, reported on Friday that “artillery from both sides plowed up the neighborhood of Urozhaine so much that some positions were abandoned by us, but the enemy did not dare to claim them either.”

More fighting was reported on Saturday morning by Russian military bloggers as the city remained fiercely contested.

Along the line of attack in the direction of Melitopol, Ukrainian forces reported hard-fought battles but steady progress around the village of Robotyne.

The I.S.W. said of that fight, “The Ukrainian forces’ ability to advance to the outskirts of Robotyne — which Russian forces have dedicated significant effort, time and resources to defend — remains significant even if Ukrainian gains are limited at this time.”

Valerii Shershen, a representative of the Ukrainian forces fighting in the area, said this past week that Russia was calling up reinforcements from its second lines of defense, including marines, paratroopers and special forces, to stop the Ukrainian advance.

While Ukraine is making gains, he said the advance was being slowed because of the dense minefields and large number of obstacles.

Russian aircraft, he said, are constantly strafing Ukrainian lines, hitting them more than a dozen times in a single day this past week.

Marc Santora has been reporting from Ukraine since the beginning of the war with Russia. He was previously based in London as an international news editor focused on breaking news events and earlier the bureau chief for East and Central Europe, based in Warsaw. He has also reported extensively from Iraq and Africa. More about Marc Santora

The New York Times · by Marc Santora · August 12, 2023

6. Why the US Military Wants You To Rethink the Idea of 'Cyber War'

Excerpts:

The mismatch between expectation and reality partly stemmed from how the U.S. military originally envisioned cyber conflict.

When the Pentagon created U.S. Cyber Command in 2009, officials placed the new digital warfighting unit inside of U.S. Strategic Command, which operates the country’s nuclear arsenal. As a result, Eoyang said, nuclear doctrine “infected a lot of the ways in which we thought about the cyber domain.” Military planners assumed that concepts like mutually assured destruction applied to cyberspace the same way they applied to nuclear weapons. Cyber capabilities —like malware capable of wiping the computer systems running power grids— acquired the same fearsome aura as nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.

At the same time, U.S. officials began thinking about cyber conflict almost exclusively in the context of all-out war. A perpetual question in national security circles is how bad a cyberattack on the U.S. would have to be to rise to the level of an act of war and thus trigger an overwhelming U.S. military response, potentially including a nuclear strike. But in focusing on those apocalyptic scenarios, Eoyang said, “We didn't really think as carefully about a whole range of [ordinary] activity that was happening every day,” including espionage and ransomware attacks.

Today, the Pentagon finds itself with more cyberattacks than it can possibly respond to. “It's a really big threat space,” Eoyang said. “We have a lot that we have to take on.” And because the military “can’t be everywhere all the time,” she said, officials have looked for ways to enlist support in repelling cyberattacks and crippling the computer networks that are launching them.

Why the US Military Wants You To Rethink the Idea of 'Cyber War'

People expected cyberattacks to play a big role in the war in Ukraine. A US military official says that’s because they don't understand what cyber conflict means

Published 08/11/23 07:18 PM ET|Updated 12 hr ago

Eric Geller

themessenger.com · August 11, 2023

LAS VEGAS — The term “cyber war” conjures mental images of hackers shutting down energy grids and hospitals en masse, but that’s not how cyberattacks have actually factored into recent armed conflicts, the U.S. military’s top cyber official said on Friday.

“There’s a huge difference between cyber war and then cyber in war,” Mieke Eoyang, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, said during a talk at the DEF CON security conference.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, many national security experts expected the conflict to become the first example of a modern cyber war, with Moscow’s formidable keyboard warriors unleashing digital devastation on infrastructure throughout Ukraine — and possibly beyond. But thanks to extensive support from the U.S. and other Western countries, plus years of experience, the Ukrainian government was able to repel most of those attacks.

When the anticipated chaos didn’t materialize, people started arguing that cyber had failed to live up to its much-discussed promise as a domain of war. They called it “the dog that didn’t bark,” Eoyang noted.

“Actually, the dog barked at the volume of a normal dog,” she said. “It just didn't cause the Ukrainians to roll over and say, ‘Okay, you can take our country.’ It was not going to do that.”

The mismatch between expectation and reality partly stemmed from how the U.S. military originally envisioned cyber conflict.

When the Pentagon created U.S. Cyber Command in 2009, officials placed the new digital warfighting unit inside of U.S. Strategic Command, which operates the country’s nuclear arsenal. As a result, Eoyang said, nuclear doctrine “infected a lot of the ways in which we thought about the cyber domain.” Military planners assumed that concepts like mutually assured destruction applied to cyberspace the same way they applied to nuclear weapons. Cyber capabilities —like malware capable of wiping the computer systems running power grids— acquired the same fearsome aura as nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.

At the same time, U.S. officials began thinking about cyber conflict almost exclusively in the context of all-out war. A perpetual question in national security circles is how bad a cyberattack on the U.S. would have to be to rise to the level of an act of war and thus trigger an overwhelming U.S. military response, potentially including a nuclear strike. But in focusing on those apocalyptic scenarios, Eoyang said, “We didn't really think as carefully about a whole range of [ordinary] activity that was happening every day,” including espionage and ransomware attacks.

Today, the Pentagon finds itself with more cyberattacks than it can possibly respond to. “It's a really big threat space,” Eoyang said. “We have a lot that we have to take on.” And because the military “can’t be everywhere all the time,” she said, officials have looked for ways to enlist support in repelling cyberattacks and crippling the computer networks that are launching them.

But with the exception of a handful of defense contractors, U.S. companies can’t legally launch cyberattacks against America’s adversaries on behalf of the government. Instead, the Pentagon has turned to its international allies. In recent years, Eoyang said, the government has ramped up its sharing of sensitive intelligence with foreign partners so that they can act on it. It wasn’t easy to figure out how to do this quickly and securely, according to Eoyang, but now that the U.S. government has cracked that code, it’s able to lean more on its allies and share the burden of conducting cyber operations.

But the Pentagon faces another challenge, Eoyang said. Many government officials still don’t understand how difficult it is to craft a digital attack that can bypass the often-sophisticated defenses of countries like Russia and China.

When faced with a limited range of options for responding to U.S. adversaries’ threatening or dangerous behavior, Eoyang said, policymakers often ask the military, “Can you just give me a cyber option?” But “it takes time and preparation, it takes understanding, it takes engineering, it takes coding” to design a cyberattack, she said. “It’s not what I think a lot of people expect.”

The Pentagon is constantly reevaluating its approach to cyberspace, and military leaders recently submitted a classified version of their 2023 cyber strategy to Congress. Eoyang said that the military hopes to release a public version of that document soon.

themessenger.com · August 11, 2023

7. America’s Army is shrinking. Its missions aren’t

Is "do more with less" still the requirement?

Excerpts:

America’s Army needs either more soldiers or fewer missions. Given the demographic and societal headwinds hitting military recruiting, a larger force is going to be difficult to recruit for the foreseeable future. The alternative is making difficult, overdue decisions about which deployments are truly necessary for American national security.

The Pentagon and its political overseers are resistant to such retrenchment, as they demonstrated with a business as usual Global Posture Review in 2021. But perpetuating the status quo threatens a descent into a hollow force. We have seen what one of those looks like on the battlefields of Ukraine. The United States should not risk a similar fate for its Army.

America’s Army is shrinking. Its missions aren’t

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/4148419-americas-army-is-shrinking-its-missions-arent/?

BY GIL BARNDOLLAR AND MATTHEW C. MAI, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS - 08/11/23 2:00 PM 

The U.S. military’s all-volunteer force (AVF) quietly turned 50 last month. Though the end of the draft in 1973 was a seminal moment for both the U.S. military and American society, the anniversary received minimal official recognition. Celebrating the AVF’s big birthday would have entailed admitting an uncomfortable truth: that the U.S. military is in the middle of an unprecedented recruiting crisis. In fact, the military, and especially the Army, is now shrinking.

As recently as 2018, Army planners called for growing the force by 2023. Today the service is unable to even maintain current force levels. Last year the Army set an active-duty end strength target of 485,000 troops. Due to recruiting shortfalls, Congress lowered the target by 33,000 for 2023. The Army is saying it will miss this lower goal too.

A variety of factors have led to the recruiting crisis. Higher enlistment bonuses and promises to pay off college debt hold less appeal among a cohort of young Americans uninterested in military service and eager to explore job opportunities in a tight labor market.

Disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dented confidence in military leadership. A generation that grew up amid financial crisis and a global pandemic may be more risk averse. Most importantly, 77 percent of Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 are ineligible to serve, due to physical or mental unfitness, prior substance abuse or lack of education. 

This shrinking force is confronting ever more missions, both overseas and at home. President Joe Biden’s recent executive order authorizing the mobilization of up to 3,000 reserve soldiers to augment U.S. forces deployed to Europe highlighted the unending demands of maintaining an expansive U.S. global military presence.

The Army has a higher operational tempo now than it did at the height of the Global War on Terror. Without significant changes to its force structure or missions, the U.S. Army may be stretched to the breaking point, even though America is not at war.

The active-duty force will soon be at its smallest size since the attack on Pearl Harbor. But unlike the pre-World War II force, today’s Army carries out a host of concurrent missions in Europe, the Middle East and East Asia. 

In Europe, where Army units constitute the majority of the roughly 100,000 U.S. troops in theater, five combat brigades and support elements are deployed on a permanent or rotational basis to shore up NATO’s defenses as the war in Ukraine rages. 

Commitments in the Middle East have also not gone away, despite a narrative of withdrawal. Iraq is home to 2,500 U.S. troops, while next door in Kuwait, combat aviation brigades routinely rotate to support the ongoing anti-ISIS mission in Iraq and Syria. Air and missile defense units, one of the most overworked components of the Army, are deployed to Saudi Arabia to guard against Iranian missiles and proxies, even as political temperatures in the region seem to be cooling.

The Army’s role in the Indo-Pacific theater is dominated by long-standing commitments in South Korea and Japan. Two-thirds of the 28,500 American servicemen in South Korea, including the private just detained by North Korea, are soldiers. Although most experts believe a future Pacific war with China would be primarily an air and naval campaign, the Army has pitched itself as the “linchpin service,” capable of providing critical logistics support, long-range fires and air defense.

Shrinkage in the force without commensurate cuts in overseas deployments have led to an exceedingly high peacetime operational tempo, with negative effects on the Army’s readiness for war. The Pentagon considers a 1:3 deploy-to-dwell ratio. This means that for every six months deployed, soldiers should have 18 months at home — a key benchmark for ensuring its servicemen can spend time with their families and pursue professional development. But the Army is not meeting this standard: Both combat brigades and higher headquarters units often have deploy-to-dwell ratios above the 1:2 “red line.”

Overworking active-duty units has effects that trickle down through the total force. Over the last two decades, dipping into the National Guard and Army Reserve to compensate for the lack of active-duty personnel has gone from being a habit to a necessity for Army leaders scrambling to meet mission requirements. Under Title 10 authorities, the secretary of Defense can order Guardsmen to perform active-duty functions for a limited time. By the Pentagon’s count, 22,000 Guardsmen are deployed overseas on security missions or training exercises.

These deployments frequently impinge upon the National Guard’s primary duty: homeland defense. In recent years, high-profile Guard missions included supporting state efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic, handling civil unrest and responding to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

More numerous and endemic, however, are the Guard’s response missions to natural disasters such as wildfires, flooding and hurricanes, tasks that are placing ever greater demands on the Guard’s time and resources.

This tension is not new. When Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana in 2006, thousands of the state’s Guardsmen were deployed to Iraq — active-duty Marines had to be hastily dispatched to New Orleans to assist with relief efforts and maintain order. In 2020, Oregon could not use six of its Guard helicopters to fight raging wildfires because they were in Afghanistan. As climate change makes natural disasters more frequent and devastating, the Defense Department will have to decide which missions, foreign or domestic, are more important for the Guard to prioritize.

Ukraine’s offensive is stalling and the West owns a portion of the blame

India embraces America’s vision for outer space

America’s Army needs either more soldiers or fewer missions. Given the demographic and societal headwinds hitting military recruiting, a larger force is going to be difficult to recruit for the foreseeable future. The alternative is making difficult, overdue decisions about which deployments are truly necessary for American national security.

The Pentagon and its political overseers are resistant to such retrenchment, as they demonstrated with a business as usual Global Posture Review in 2021. But perpetuating the status quo threatens a descent into a hollow force. We have seen what one of those looks like on the battlefields of Ukraine. The United States should not risk a similar fate for its Army.

Gil Barndollar is a senior fellow at Defense Priorities and at the Catholic University of America’s Center for the Study of Statesmanship, where he studies military manpower. Matthew C. Mai is a research associate at Defense Priorities.

8. Taiwan Needs Stronger US Support — Quickly

The American public needs to know why it is important for the US to support Taiwan. This is one of the few essays that attempts to do that. They need to hear this (and other reasons and rationale)  from the political leadership.

Excerpts:

It is paramount for U.S. security that the United States deter a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

Taiwan matters to U.S. security for four reasons. The first is economic: Taiwan has a vibrant, wealthy economy and is a superpower in computer chip production. Any damage to its factories, their destruction or conquest by China, would reverberate for many years throughout the U.S. and global economies.

...

Second, Taiwan occupies key geopolitical real estate, as Beijing and Washington recognize. 

...

Third, in the realm of political warfare, Taiwan is a strong democracy. 

...

Fourth, Taiwan is a symbol of U.S. credibility to resist China’s aggression and to sustain stability.

...

U.S. military aid should be broadened and deepened to provide Taiwan with the conventional deterrent capability it requires to meet all avenues of attack. That’s substantial, and will require years to construct — time that Taiwan does not have. This underscores the immediacy of the need for action.

The Biden administration must treat Taiwan with the importance devoted to the central front in the Cold War — the locus of where the formidable threat is met by indomitable political willpower to respond, coupled with conventional and nuclear capabilities to deter-by-denial any attack.

NATO deterred a Warsaw Pact on its central front along the inter-German and West Germany-Czechoslovakia border with a robust conventional deterrent linked to the possibility of nuclear escalation. If Taiwan is the new central front, to provide the necessary deterrent today, the Biden administration must commit to hard measures that would permit Taiwan to deter China — that is, develop linkage to U.S. conventional and nuclear capabilities.

Taiwan Needs Stronger US Support — Quickly

themessenger.com · August 10, 2023

Taiwan’s existence has been a thorn in the side of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since the party conquered the mainland in 1949. China’s efforts to coerce Taiwan — with the Taiwan Straits crises of 1954-1955, 1958 and 1995-1996, and many minor incidents over decades — failed because of China’s weakness and U.S. willingness to signal its military support for Taipei.

As China has grown more powerful, and as the exercises of August 2022 and April 2023 reveal, Beijing’s increased capabilities make a successful invasion far more likely. A probable third major military exercise, coming soon to demonstrate amphibious assault, will show that China has the significant pieces in place for an invasion of the island.

In the face of this, the U.S. has pledged to send Taiwan $345 million in unspecified weapons and other military aid to address “critical defensive stockpiles, multi-domain awareness, anti-armor, and air defense capabilities.” Until this announcement, President Biden had delayed using his drawdown authority for Taiwan. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) says we are arming Taiwan “with real capabilities to defend itself.” And as The Associated Press reported, China predictably said the military aid will not deter its will to “unify the island.”

It is paramount for U.S. security that the United States deter a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

Taiwan matters to U.S. security for four reasons. The first is economic: Taiwan has a vibrant, wealthy economy and is a superpower in computer chip production. Any damage to its factories, their destruction or conquest by China, would reverberate for many years throughout the U.S. and global economies. There may come a day when we are no longer dependent upon Taiwanese chips, but that day likely won’t be here for many years.

Second, Taiwan occupies key geopolitical real estate, as Beijing and Washington recognize. For China, it is a cork in the bottle of the first island chain, and so prevents the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) from easily accessing the Pacific and further expanding its power, from defending China’s ports from mining, and from sustaining the Sea Line of Communication from the East and South China Seas.

Members of Taiwan's military police take part in a flag-lowering ceremony at Freedom Square on April 6, 2023 in Taipei.Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Third, in the realm of political warfare, Taiwan is a strong democracy. It demonstrates what China might have been had the Chinese Communist Party not come to power. Taiwan’s existence is a daily reminder of why the CCP is illegitimate.

Fourth, Taiwan is a symbol of U.S. credibility to resist China’s aggression and to sustain stability. Standing with Taiwan — as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) did last August and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) did in April — provides a tangible indication that the U.S. will resist China’s expansion. We need to demonstrate we’ll do so with substantial U.S. and allied forces on the ground.

A future where Taiwan is conquered is one where the U.S. and allied economies are profoundly disrupted, America’s allies doubt its credibility, and China and other enemies are emboldened to undertake further aggression.

Viewed from the perspective of Taiwan’s contribution toward U.S. security, the Biden administration’s $345 million in aid is a welcomed gesture, no doubt, but sadly, one that’s insufficient given Taiwan’s national security contribution. It’s also not enough to meet Taiwan’s needs in the face of the threat it confronts.

There is the danger that China will attack Taiwan soon, first by seizing offshore small islands that are difficult for Taiwan to defend. That may be a first step to a larger attack. Or Beijing may decide to execute a “total attack,” through an airborne and amphibious assault coupled with an air and sea blockade of the island. This attack would be conducted by fifth-column forces on the island to hinder Taiwan’s response.

Unless Taiwan collapses immediately, an invasion by China will be a sustained campaign — but Taiwan’s arsenals will be depleted relatively quickly. Even the partial success of a blockade would make resupply from the U.S., Japan and other sources difficult to execute. A resupply effort comparable to Operation Nickel Grass, which resupplied Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, would be difficult because of contested airspace. Moreover, the U.S. arsenal of conventional munitions is already under great stress from the war in Ukraine.

The Biden administration must take Taiwan’s defense seriously — and do so immediately — to maximize its ability to deter an attack. The aid package proposed is a fraction of what’s required. Taiwan must have the ability to deter-by-denial — that is, to convince Beijing that Taipei has the ability to defeat a simultaneous blockade and airborne and amphibious assault. That’s necessary to affect CCP decision-making; China must believe that its military objectives will be denied.

Taipei must have secure command-and-control capabilities. China will try to decapitate the Taiwanese political and military leadership. Many in Washington may assume the U.S. will have the ability to come to Taiwan’s aid, but they might underestimate China’s capabilities and the fact that North Korea would likely work with China to generate a crisis that occupies the U.S. and Japan.

Under this scenario, depending on the timing of China’s attack, the U.S. might face multiple crises in Asia while war continues in Europe. The ability of the United States to address several crises at once would have been difficult during the Cold War, when the U.S. took this possibility seriously, and today that ability has atrophied.

U.S. military aid should be broadened and deepened to provide Taiwan with the conventional deterrent capability it requires to meet all avenues of attack. That’s substantial, and will require years to construct — time that Taiwan does not have. This underscores the immediacy of the need for action.

The Biden administration must treat Taiwan with the importance devoted to the central front in the Cold War — the locus of where the formidable threat is met by indomitable political willpower to respond, coupled with conventional and nuclear capabilities to deter-by-denial any attack.

NATO deterred a Warsaw Pact on its central front along the inter-German and West Germany-Czechoslovakia border with a robust conventional deterrent linked to the possibility of nuclear escalation. If Taiwan is the new central front, to provide the necessary deterrent today, the Biden administration must commit to hard measures that would permit Taiwan to deter China — that is, develop linkage to U.S. conventional and nuclear capabilities.

Bradley A. Thayer is director of China policy at the Center for Security Policy and the co-author with Lianchao Han of “Understanding the China Threat.”

themessenger.com · August 10, 2023

9. How Will America’s Borrow and Spend Politicians Pay for an Imperial Foreign Policy?

All other commentary and views of Doug Bandow aside, the first line of this excerpt is critical and the most important sentence in this essay. The question is do we have any political leaders with the intestinal fortitude to do the hard right over the easy wrong?

Excerpts:

Serious efforts to control deficits and debt will require a series of politically painful decisions. The only way to make such unpalatable fiscal sacrifices possible is to kill all the sacred cows, including the Pentagon. America’s elderly, especially, are unlikely to forgo their benefits in order to keep subsidizing Washington’s foreign security dependents. Major social welfare programs tend to be badly designed and thus wildly wasteful, often directing much of their outlays to the middle class. However, at least such initiatives benefit those who are paying.

In contrast, Washington’s use of “defense” as a form of foreign welfare is a dead loss for Americans. Consider recent history. Following former secretary of state Madeleine Albright’s arrogant claim that officials like her “see further … into the future,” the US government wasted some $8 trillion (and, even worse, sacrificed thousands of American and hundreds of thousands of other lives) on the misdirected “global war on terrorism.” How to aid friendly nations today, if necessary? Allied support for Ukraine, though still creating significant dangers for the US, has demonstrated a more cost-effective model than promiscuously forging defense pacts that are “mutual” in name only.

Uncle Sam is headed toward insolvency. Only radical budget surgery can save the patient. No program should be exempt from scrutiny, but the place to start paring wasteful spending is the Pentagon. Today the military does more to protect wealthy allied states than to protect the US. Policymakers should drop social engineering as foreign policy and again make defense of America and Americans the top priority of the Department of Defense.

How Will America’s Borrow and Spend Politicians Pay for an Imperial Foreign Policy?

aier.org · by Doug Bandow · August 11, 2023

Doug Bandow

– August 11, 2023 Reading Time: 7 minutes

During the Cold War Republicans took the lead in pushing for ever-increasing military outlays. Pushing expenditures upward was one of President Ronald Reagan’s priorities and led to constant battles with the Democratic House. Today, however, GOP members are pushing on an open door.

Last year Congress passed a record $858 billion Pentagon spending bill. This number didn’t include important national defense expenditures, such as for nuclear programs, which lie within the Department of Energy. When a few Republicans pushed for cuts during the January speakership stand-off, Democratic as well as GOP hawks vilified the holdouts.

Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger, a CIA officer turned legislator warned of multiple Armageddons: “As the Chinese Communist Party is increasing its military spending, Ukraine is under siege, and Iran and North Korea are watching, cutting our nation’s defense spending is shortsighted and dangerous.” Tom Malinowski, a progressive Democratic member ousted in 2022, was similarly splenetic: “You can say all day to these people that if we gut defense spending and withdraw from global leadership, Putin and Xi Jinping will win, but they honestly don’t care.” Biden spokesman Andrew Bates contended that “This push to defund our military in the name of politics is senseless and out of line with our national security needs.”

Such hysterics ignore reality. The US spends far more than its chief antagonists. The disparity grows vastly larger when outlays by Washington’s allies in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East are included. America is the most secure great power ever, with oceans east and west and pacific neighbors north and south. The right question to ask is: Why do Americans spend so much to defend allies who spend so little?

After all, Russia has yet to best Ukraine while studiously avoided war with the US. The Europeans are more than capable of containing Moscow. China suffers from multiple weaknesses and does not threaten America militarily. Instead, Washington is attempting to impose its will on Beijing thousands of miles from home. Better for friendly states in the region, led by Japan, to steal China’s anti-access/area denial strategy for their own defense. Iran and North Korea would face destruction if they attacked America and can be contained by their neighbors, most important, respectively, Saudi Arabia and Israel, and South Korea.

Defense has been the federal government’s most essential responsibility since the Founding. But when the Founders talked about such things, they meant protecting the American people, their lives, liberties, constitutional system, and territory. Alliances were a means to an end and, as George Washington famously warned, should not turn into permanent attachments: “nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded.”

Treating military alliances as foreign welfare wouldn’t matter so much if the US Treasury was bulging, filling with cash faster than Congress was spending the funds. Alas, the federal financial cupboard is bare. Presidents and legislators of both major parties have pushed outlays and deficits ever upward, squandering the spoils.

The Republican Party no longer even makes a pretense of fiscal probity, having largely abandoned any attempt to slow expansion of the American welfare state. Democrats, long advocates of bountiful social programs, have increasingly become avid advocates of high military spending. Neither party wants to tax the middle class, where most of the money is. The result is ever more federal borrowing and indebtedness, making a fiscal crisis almost inevitable.

Even the most minimal constraints on federal deficit expenditures have been eroding at an accelerating rate. Absent significant policy changes, the Congressional Budget Office figures that the federal deficit will nearly double to $2.9 trillion over the coming decade. That is without another hot war, pandemic, or financial crisis. Add one or more of those and the red ink would escalate even more dramatically.

But the coming decade is merely the start. As detailed by the agency: “federal deficits are large by historical standards: From 2023 to 2053, deficits average 7.3 percent of GDP, more than double their average over the past half-century. And deficits are projected to grow almost every year over the next three decades, reaching 10.0 percent of GDP in 2053. In the past 100 years, deficits have been that large only during World War II and the pandemic. The growth in deficits over the next three decades occurs as increases in spending—especially spending on interest, the major health care programs, and Social Security—outpace increases in revenues.”

The result is frightening. Indeed, the CBO’s latest report on the long-term budget outlook reads like a horror novel without the pictures. Explained the agency in early July: “If current laws governing taxes and spending generally remained unchanged, the federal budget deficit would nearly double in relation to gross domestic product (GDP) over the next 30 years, driving up federal debt, the Congressional Budget Office projects. In CBO’s extended baseline projections, debt held by the public rises from 98 percent of GDP in 2023 to 181 percent of GDP in 2053—exceeding any previously recorded level and on track to increase further.”

The economic burden would be enormous and could easily spiral toward crisis. Warned the agency: “Such high and rising debt would slow economic growth, push up interest payments to foreign holders of U.S. debt, and pose significant risks to the fiscal and economic outlook; it could also cause lawmakers to feel more constrained in their policy choices.”

The latest estimate is slightly better than the numbers in the previous report because of the budget accord reached between the House Republican leadership and the Biden administration. Unfortunately, nothing ensures that the deal will hold through this year’s end-of-year budget machinations—the federal government’s fiscal year ends September 30—let alone 2024, with a bitter election campaign likely. If the GOP loses its narrow House majority, the balance of power will shift against any cuts. Or if Donald Trump, who currently leads the Republican presidential race, is elected, the GOP will join Democrats in firmly opposing entitlement reform.

Much else also could go wrong, dramatically worsening the budget picture in the coming decades. CBO cited several worrisome contingencies. If productivity grows .5 percent slower per year than predicted the debt to GDP ratio in 2053 would be 228 percent. If interest rates end up five basis points higher, the ratio would be 231 percent. If government borrowing reduces private investment at twice the predicted rate, the ratio would be 250 percent. Moreover, warned the agency, “[i]f, between 2023 and 2053, discretionary spending and revenues were at their 30-year historical averages as a percentage of GDP, then federal debt held by the public in 2053 would exceed 250 percent of GDP.”

Imagine if a combination of these factors occurs. Of course, events could turn out better than expected, but only a deranged optimist would see domestic politics, international affairs, and economic trends heading in a positive direction. And only a reckless fool would make policy as if “happy days are here again.”

Indeed, the US almost certainly would face a financial emergency well before debt levels grew so great. CBO’s latest estimate is that the debt-to-GDP ratio will run 144 percent in 2043, significantly higher than Greece’s burden of 127 percent in 2009 at the onset of the Euro crisis. The agency observed: “There would be an elevated risk of a fiscal crisis—that is, a situation in which investors lose confidence in the U.S. government’s ability to service and repay its debt, causing interest rates to increase abruptly, inflation to spiral upward, or other disruptions to occur.”

In this environment, how will the US afford its imperial foreign policy, which has surprisingly little to do with defending America? Absent a significant rise in taxes, which neither party supports, outlays will have to be sharply reduced. Defense hawks say cut away! But which programs? Those untethered to political reality, usually ensconced at universities or think tanks, target so-called entitlements, especially Medicare and Social Security. Those in Congress typically think smaller, and during the recent GOP debate over balancing the budget focused on domestic discretionary outlays.

Unfortunately, one cannot hike military outlays, preserve social spending, avoid tax increases, and restore fiscal responsibility by slashing the latter category, administrative and program expenditures appropriated annually. Domestic discretionary spending runs just 6.5 percent of expenditures today and is expected to fall to 5.4 percent by 2053. Further sizeable reductions would require a political miracle but still be inadequate.

Instead, one must go where the money is. For instance, interest rates are destined to rise along with the massive increase in federal borrowing. This will greatly inflate the cost of financing the growing debt. CBO estimates that federal net interest payments will go from $663 billion this year to more than $1.4 trillion in 2033, roughly the cost of Medicare and almost a third more than military outlays. However, interest payments cannot be cut without repudiating debt, which would destroy Washington’s creditworthiness and yield financial chaos.

Even more money goes to social welfare, highlighted by Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The aging of America’s population will push up the first two; continued health care inflation will exacerbate the latter two. The agency figures Social Security alone will run $2.3 trillion in 2033, while federal health care programs will cost even more, $2.6 trillion. Slowing, let alone halting, Washington’s slide toward fiscal Armageddon is nearly impossible without restraining such outlays.

Yet there is no political appetite for cutting these programs, or many others, for that matter. Four years ago the Pew Research Center surveyed people’s budget views: “When Americans are asked to make up the budget for the federal government, they have little appetite for austerity measures. Asked about 13 different government program areas, from veterans benefits to foreign aid, no more than about a quarter favor reducing spending in any specific area.” Indeed, in all but two areas, unemployment insurance and foreign aid, at least a plurality wanted to hike outlays. Without paying more in taxes.

Serious efforts to control deficits and debt will require a series of politically painful decisions. The only way to make such unpalatable fiscal sacrifices possible is to kill all the sacred cows, including the Pentagon. America’s elderly, especially, are unlikely to forgo their benefits in order to keep subsidizing Washington’s foreign security dependents. Major social welfare programs tend to be badly designed and thus wildly wasteful, often directing much of their outlays to the middle class. However, at least such initiatives benefit those who are paying.

In contrast, Washington’s use of “defense” as a form of foreign welfare is a dead loss for Americans. Consider recent history. Following former secretary of state Madeleine Albright’s arrogant claim that officials like her “see further … into the future,” the US government wasted some $8 trillion (and, even worse, sacrificed thousands of American and hundreds of thousands of other lives) on the misdirected “global war on terrorism.” How to aid friendly nations today, if necessary? Allied support for Ukraine, though still creating significant dangers for the US, has demonstrated a more cost-effective model than promiscuously forging defense pacts that are “mutual” in name only.

Uncle Sam is headed toward insolvency. Only radical budget surgery can save the patient. No program should be exempt from scrutiny, but the place to start paring wasteful spending is the Pentagon. Today the military does more to protect wealthy allied states than to protect the US. Policymakers should drop social engineering as foreign policy and again make defense of America and Americans the top priority of the Department of Defense.

READ MORE

Doug Bandow

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, specializing in foreign policy and civil liberties.

He worked as special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and editor of the political magazine Inquiry.

He writes regularly for leading publications such as Fortune magazine, National Interest, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Times.

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aier.org · by Doug Bandow · August 11, 2023

10. Western leaders welcomed China's presence at Ukraine peace talks. But Beijing's relationship with Europe is still testy

Excerpts:

Brussels has set itself ambitious objectives in areas like climate change, leading the way on new technologies and having an independent foreign policy. The EU didn’t want to pick between the two main powers of the East and West, so opted for a third way where the US remained its primary partner, but it would deepen economic ties to China.

In doing so, it hoped it could encourage China to fall in line with European thinking on climate change, the rules-based international order and human rights, among other things.

In 2023, European officials know that China represents a major security concern and that becoming overly dependent on China is a risk. But they also accept that if they’re to achieve their lofty aims, they might need China’s help.

“The big dependencies of the future will be things like cheap electric vehicles, solar panels, steel for wind farms. These are things that China can produce cheaply and already has a head-start in terms of becoming a major provider for the international market,” says Sam Goodman, from the China Strategic Risks Institute.

Goodman also notes that Europe’s current economic outlook could leave smaller states susceptible to the lure of Chinese money in terms of big infrastructure projects.

“China has historically been keen to buy up or heavily invest in European infrastructure projects, be they nuclear power stations, roads or water companies,” he said. “European nations have cooled on this lately, but it might be tempting for countries struggling economically to take some money as a quick-fix.”

...

For Europe, it’s more complicated. Officials say Brussels is committed to walking the narrow path of the US remaining its closest ally while resisting Washington’s calls to completely disengage with China. It will achieve its global aims without becoming overly dependent on China, they say, while simultaneously working with China on some of the most important issues facing the world today.

It’s an ambitious approach, but one leaves much of its own future in the hands of fate. Or at the very least, in the hands of a country that has been downgraded as a partner to Europe so significantly in the past decade.

Western leaders welcomed China's presence at Ukraine peace talks. But Beijing's relationship with Europe is still testy | CNN

CNN · by Luke McGee · August 12, 2023

CNN —

European officials took some small comfort when China attended a summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, last weekend. The meeting aimed to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Ukraine.

While Beijing didn’t budge from its stated position of impartiality, China’s mere presence at a meeting to which Russia says it was not invited has, some sources claim, sent a message to the international community that it’s not willing openly to pick Russia’s side against the West.

It might be a very small victory, but in the diplomatic world of zero-sum games, Russian President Vladimir Putin not getting exactly what he wants is something to celebrate.

“We never expected China to move fully to the Western position, but supporting this meeting will be a major disappointment to Russia,” a senior EU official told CNN.

“From our point of view, China is visibly engaging with the West, talking to the Ukrainians, and pushing back on Russia. We really welcome that,” the official said. Multiple European sources have echoed this view.

However, while China’s engagement with the international community might be a blow for Russia, it’s still being viewed with suspicion by Western allies, not least because of the continued economic, diplomatic and security ties the countries share.

Despite the optics of its delegation’s attendance in Jeddah, Beijing has not appeared to scale back ties with Russia. Its top diplomat, Wang Yi, called his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov a day after the Jeddah talks concluded, reiterating Beijing’s “impartiality” in the conflict.

Representatives from China, the US and Saudi Arabia attend talks intended to make progress towards a peaceful end to Russia's war in Ukraine, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, last weekend.

Saudi Press Agency/Reuters

The two countries’ militaries have continued joint exercises throughout the war, including a naval patrol off the coast of Alaska last week. Putin is also expected to visit China in October, according to Russia media, after being invited by China’s Xi Jinping in March.

The same senior EU official acknowledged that there is little incentive in China for the war to stop outside of Beijing’s external relations with economic partners. “From their perspective, its biggest rival, the US, is distracted and Russia has become even more of a junior partner. The only downside is how it makes others think about China.”

It’s no secret that China’s relationship with Europe has become tetchy. That, officials say, is bad for Chinese leaders who see European nations as up for grabs in the battle for global dominance between Beijing and Washington.

It’s also no secret that China’s close ties with Russia – and failure to condemn Moscow’s full-scale invasion – have made a number of European countries, especially those geographically close to Russia, uncomfortable and led to a rethink in what Europe’s relationship with China should be.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and China's top diplomat Wang Yi in Moscow during Wang's visit to the Russian capital on February 22, 2023.

Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images/File

China assures Russia it remains 'impartial' on Ukraine war after attending Saudi peace talks

“China’s key objective is to maintain ambiguity in the European position, so they don’t go as far as the US would like,” a European security source told CNN. “Maintaining economic links makes it harder for hawks to pull Europe away from China. We suspect Jeddah is a reaction to Russia pushing Europe closer to the US. China will feel they need to re-engage on Ukraine.”

Alicja Bachulska, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, agrees:

“China’s current activities are definitely about damage control in terms of PR. China is sitting on the fence and it will continue doing so until it can. Attending this kind of meeting, especially if Russia is not involved, fits very much into this strategy. It makes good headlines for all those who still believe, quite naively in my view, that China can make a difference.”

In short, China coming to the table hasn’t moved the dial in Brussels on what is arguably the EU’s most complicated but important international relationship.

Multiple officials explained to CNN that the relationship with China is in a sort of stasis that tries to balance what Europe needs versus what Europe wants.

Europe still imports vastly more from China than it exports, a reflection of the level of dependency it has on China. In 2022, the trade deficit was €396bn ($436 billion), more than double that of 2020.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia takes his seat ahead of a working lunch at the G20 Summit on November 15, 2022 in Nusa Dua, Indonesia.

Leon Neal/Getty Images

Saudi's MBS wants more than peace at his Ukraine summit

However, this has happened against the backdrop of Europe cooling on signing official treaties and agreements. The Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, negotiated for nearly a decade before being agreed in principle, is on ice because China has sanctioned Members of the European Parliament for criticizing China’s human rights record.

Europe has also changed its official view of China, acknowledging in 2019 that Beijing is a “systemic rival.” Since 2019, Brussels has undertaken specific policy initiatives that deliberately aim to challenge China’s dominance in Eurasia.

An EU official told CNN that Brussels has not “solidified” its position yet on China. “A statement like Jeddah is definitely welcome, but it’s not a game changer. We wanted China to do something like this since the start of the war.”

The official explained that even positive steps like this are ultimately weighed against other behaviors, such as Beijing’s respect for human rights, its threatening stance toward Taiwan and alleged state-sponsored corporate espionage. In that respect, China’s action or inaction on Ukraine is just another lens through which Brussels can view its various gripes against Beijing.

This dual reality, Europe needing China for some things but deeming it a security risk and nefarious actor on the world stage, is what makes all this such a headache.

Indeed, even with relations as tricky as they are, China has welcomed the leaders of France, Germany, Spain and even the European Commission president herself, Ursula von der Leyen, in recent months.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and France's President Emmanuel Macron meet at the Guandong province governor's residence, in Guangzhou, China, on April 7, 2023.

Jacques Witt/Reuters

Brussels has set itself ambitious objectives in areas like climate change, leading the way on new technologies and having an independent foreign policy. The EU didn’t want to pick between the two main powers of the East and West, so opted for a third way where the US remained its primary partner, but it would deepen economic ties to China.

In doing so, it hoped it could encourage China to fall in line with European thinking on climate change, the rules-based international order and human rights, among other things.

In 2023, European officials know that China represents a major security concern and that becoming overly dependent on China is a risk. But they also accept that if they’re to achieve their lofty aims, they might need China’s help.

“The big dependencies of the future will be things like cheap electric vehicles, solar panels, steel for wind farms. These are things that China can produce cheaply and already has a head-start in terms of becoming a major provider for the international market,” says Sam Goodman, from the China Strategic Risks Institute.

Goodman also notes that Europe’s current economic outlook could leave smaller states susceptible to the lure of Chinese money in terms of big infrastructure projects.

“China has historically been keen to buy up or heavily invest in European infrastructure projects, be they nuclear power stations, roads or water companies,” he said. “European nations have cooled on this lately, but it might be tempting for countries struggling economically to take some money as a quick-fix.”

US President Joe Biden walks to sign a proclamation to designate Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, at Red Butte Airfield, 25 miles (40kms) south of Tusayan, Arizona, on August 8, 2023.

Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

Biden administration announces new bans on investments in China meant to protect national security

The security concerns officials have repeatedly flagged are wide-ranging. Senior EU security sources have told CNN that China is still a primary source of cyberattacks, most focused on corporate espionage.

Others say that Europe doesn’t want to end up in the same position it did with Russia in terms of relying on one provider so heavily for energy or other resources, especially in the event China becomes even more forceful in its own backyard and goes from systemic rival to full-blown international pariah, as seen with Putin’s Moscow.

Between these fears over security, Europe’s international ambitions and China’s global ambitions, it might seem hard to pin down exactly what either side want from their future relationship.

“I don’t think that China yet sees Europe as a lost cause. It hopes it can still turn the heads of enough European countries that it can stop America running away in the battle over new technology,” says Charles Parton, former first counsellor to the EU delegation in Beijing.

“They have lost on things like Huawei recently and will be desperate to remain competitive on semiconductors, AI, all the things that will matter a lot in the coming years,” he adds.

For Europe, it’s more complicated. Officials say Brussels is committed to walking the narrow path of the US remaining its closest ally while resisting Washington’s calls to completely disengage with China. It will achieve its global aims without becoming overly dependent on China, they say, while simultaneously working with China on some of the most important issues facing the world today.

It’s an ambitious approach, but one leaves much of its own future in the hands of fate. Or at the very least, in the hands of a country that has been downgraded as a partner to Europe so significantly in the past decade.

CNN · by Luke McGee · August 12, 2023

11. From information war to emerging tech: new IC strategy centers 'competition' with China, Russia

I forwarded the strategy yesterday. It can be accessed here: https://www.odni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/National_Intelligence_Strategy_2023.pdf

Excerpts:

The document lays out six goals for the interagency community:

1. Position the IC for Intensifying Strategic Competition: 
2. Recruit, Develop, and Retain a Talented and Diverse Workforce that Operates as a United Community:
3.  Deliver Interoperable and Innovative Solutions at Scale:
4.  Diversify, Expand, and Strengthen Partnerships: 
5.  Expand IC Capabilities and Expertise on Transnational Challenges:
6.  Enhance Resilience:

From information war to emerging tech: new IC strategy centers 'competition' with China, Russia - Breaking Defense

"In addition, shared global challenges, including climate change, human and health security, as well as emerging and disruptive technological advances, are converging in ways that produce significant consequences that are often difficult to predict," DNI Avril Haines writes in the 2023 National Intelligence Strategy.

By THERESA HITCHENS

breakingdefense.com · by Theresa Hitchens · August 11, 2023

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. (Photo by Graeme Jennings – Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines on Thursday released the 2023 National Intelligence Strategy (NIS), focusing on “strategic competition” with China and Russia across the economic, political and military spheres — and calling on the Intelligence Community to up its game on everything from information warfare to supply chain control to rapid adoption of emerging technologies.

“The United States faces an increasingly complex and interconnected threat environment characterized by strategic competition between the United States, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and the Russian Federation, felt perhaps most immediately in Russia’s ongoing aggression in Ukraine. In addition to states, sub-national and non-state actors—from multinational corporations to transnational social movements—are increasingly able to create influence, compete for information, and secure or deny political and security outcomes, which provides opportunities for new partnerships as well as new challenges to U.S. interests,” Haines writes in a forward to the document.

“In addition, shared global challenges, including climate change, human and health security, as well as emerging and disruptive technological advances, are converging in ways that produce significant consequences that are often difficult to predict,” she added.

The NIS “is a foundational document for the IC and reflects the input of leaders from each of the 18 intelligence elements, as it directs the operations, investments, and priorities of the collective,” explains the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in a press release announcing the new strategy.

Besides the usual three-letter IC agiencis, those 18 organizations include the National Reconnaissance Office, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the intelligence arms of the military service, with the most recent addition being the Space Force in early 2021.

The document lays out six goals for the interagency community:

1. Position the IC for Intensifying Strategic Competition: This includes improving the “ability to provide timely and accurate insights into competitor intentions, capabilities, and actions by strengthening capabilities in language, technical, and cultural expertise and harnessing open source, ‘big data,’ artificial intelligence, and advanced analytics.”
2. Recruit, Develop, and Retain a Talented and Diverse Workforce that Operates as a United Community: The IC needs an increasingly technical and diverse workforce, the document says. “The Community must overcome long-standing cultural, structural, bureaucratic, technical, and security challenges to reimagine and deliver the IC workforce of the future.”
3. Deliver Interoperable and Innovative Solutions at Scale: To do so, the strategy says, the IC must establish “unified IC procurement authorities, centralized solicitation systems, and a Community-wide contracting system, all bolstered by automation tools. A Community-wide, data-centric approach based on common standards is crucial to realizing the full promise of new capabilities.”
4. Diversify, Expand, and Strengthen Partnerships: “Even as we continue to invest in existing partnerships like those with our Five-Eyes partners and forge new ones, the evolving set of challenges — from cyberattacks and climate change to pandemics and foreign malign influence — also require investing in new and more diverse partnerships, especially with non-state and sub-national actors. From companies to cities to civil society organizations, these actors’ ideas, innovations, resources, and actions increasingly shape our societal, technological, and economic futures.”
5. Expand IC Capabilities and Expertise on Transnational Challenges: Such challenges, the NIS explains, include “more frequent and intense crises due to the effects of climate change, narcotics trafficking, financial crises, supply chain disruptions, corruption, new and recurring diseases, and emerging and disruptive technologies” that in turn are piquing security crises such as civil unrest and migration.
6. Enhance Resilience: This includes increasing the IC’s role in protecting critical infrastructure to improve early warning that can allow more robust “recovery and response,” as well as “expanding its role in understanding threats and vulnerabilities to supply chains and helping to mitigate threats to government and industry partners’ infrastructure.”

12. Irregular warfare in space is an ongoing threat – and the US must adapt.

It is amazing how irregular warfare and the gray zone has been co-opted to be applied to every possible/potential domain of warfare. It is almost as if people think that using IW and the gray zone will somehow garner more resources for the domains.

My snarkiness aside, space has tremendous capabilities that can and must be applied to those operating in the gray zone and conducting irregular warfare operations.

Irregular warfare in space is an ongoing threat – and the US must adapt. - Breaking Defense

Among "gray zone" threats in space are cyberattacks against space services, attacking commercial space capabilities during conflict, and conducting proximity operations to potentially coerce others, writes Dr. John J. Klein in this analysis.

breakingdefense.com · by John J. Klein · August 11, 2023

This long-exposure image shows a trail of a group of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites passing over Uruguay as seen from the countryside some 185 km north of Montevideo near Capilla del Sauce, Florida Department, on February 7, 2021. (Photo by Mariana SUAREZ / AFP)

The war in Ukraine has proven how irregular warfare tactics work in the modern era. Part of that involves Russia operating in the “gray zone” when it comes to blocking and impacting satellite systems. In the following op-ed, Dr. John J. Klein of George Washington University warns that we are now in an era of irregular warfare in space — and that the US has to learn how to adjust.

Irregular warfare has never been an irregular occurrence. Throughout history, national and military leaders have used irregular warfare — activities apart from major, conventional military conflicts — to achieve political goals. Irregular styles of warfare and competition often are pursued by either choice or out of necessity.

Likewise, irregular actions in the space domain are ongoing and routine occurrences. The US Space Force and US Space Command must account for irregular approaches by both Russia and China within applicable strategies and plans, lest the US cede space superiority to its rivals. This includes updating applicable strategies and plans, along with making the necessary investments in space capabilities and architectures to counter the irregular methods of competitors.

But to develop the right countermeasures, the threats must first be fully identified. The good news is that US officials have made clear they are aware of the threat, if largely in broad terms. When issuing his initial planning guidance [PDF], Gen. John Raymond, the first US Space Force chief of space operations, observed “Adversaries actively create and exploit ‘gray zones’ in which they achieve political objectives through actions that avoid traditional triggers for conflict where the United States enjoys clear military advantage.”

Among the kind of “gray zone” threats Raymond likely was thinking of are cyberattacks against space services, attacking commercial space capabilities during conflict, and conducting proximity operations to potentially coerce others. All of these provocative actions fall short of the use of regular military force during armed conflict, and so by definition, these activities are irregular in style or form. But in a conflict, they would have a major impact on the battlefield.

It’s not hard to find real world examples of all three types of actions. Let’s start with cyberattacks on space assets.

The cyberattack against US satellite firm Viasat ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a real-world example of irregular warfare against space architectures. An hour before Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Russian government hackers conducted cyberattacks against the company. The attack caused an immediate and significant loss of communication in the early days of the war for the Ukrainian military, which relied on Viasat’s satellite services for command and control of its armed forces. The cyberattack against the commercial satellite provider is considered typical of Russia’s playbook and propensity for conducting hybrid and irregular warfare.

Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting, current commander of Space Operations Command, has noted the potential threat of cyberattacks to space architectures when explaining, “Cyberspace is the soft underbelly of our global space networks.” The concern is that cyberattacks can serve as an indirect method for mitigating any military advantage in space capabilities.

The Viasat case leads to the second example: the role of commercial space companies and the use of proxies during conflict, which historically is a common feature of irregular warfare. In May 2022, Russia jammed SpaceX’s broadband internet communications signals coming from its Starlink constellation serving the region of Ukraine. SpaceX founder and chief executive officer Elon Musk stated on Twitter that the Starlink network “has resisted Russian cyberwar jamming and hacking attempts so far, but they’re ramping up their efforts.” Russian military leaders view Starlink’s commercial services as important capabilities used by Ukrainian forces, which need to be denied.

In noting the importance of commercial capabilities and the success of Starlink to withstand communication jamming, Gen. David Thompson, vice chief of space operations of the Space Force, observed “You may be able to deny a piece of it, but you can’t eliminate the capability writ large.” For Thompson, the resiliency demonstrated by Starlink’s commercial constellation in Ukraine against Russian jamming validates the Space Force’s strategy to use a distributed and proliferated architecture for space communications.

As for conducting proximity operations, let’s leave Russia behind and look at what the Biden administration calls America’s “pacing” threat: China.

Beijing has displayed sophisticated rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) and inspection capabilities in recent years, causing the national security space community to take note. For example, in 2018 China’s Shijian-17 (SJ-17) satellite performed on-orbit activities with other cooperative Chinese spacecraft in geostationary orbit (GEO), and a Center for Strategic and International Studies space threat assessment report notes “China is no novice in performing RPOs in GEO.” SJ-17 has a documented history of RPO activities with other Chinese satellites in GEO, and in a statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Space Command head Gen. James Dickinson stated [PDF] that SJ-17 had a robotic arm onboard, which had not been disclosed previously.

As with the land, maritime, and air domains, proximity operations in space can help achieve political or military objectives short of the actual use of force or armed attack. The transparent and publicly known movement of satellites and space systems in proximity to a rival’s spacecraft can convey an implicit or explicit threat of some potential detrimental action, thereby intimidating or coercing a competitor to decide in favor of something that is not in its best interest.

Irregular warfare in the space domain is shaped by the fundamental nature of all warfare, along with the essential unity of all strategic experience. Consequently, we can look to centuries—if not millennia—of historical experience to think about irregular warfare and competition in space, along with offering preferred methods to counter the irregular efforts of US rivals.

By shedding light on the past and putting today’s space activities in the proper perspective, policymakers and military leaders can better understand the future of irregular warfare and competition in space. The value of using an irregular framework to reflect upon existing space security concerns is that historical experience and strategic understanding can provide solutions to known problems, as well as providing insights into the solutions for problems as yet undiscovered.

Dr. John J. Klein is a Senior Fellow and Strategist at Delta Solutions & Strategies, LLC and faculty at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute. He is the author of the recently released book Fight for the Final Frontier: Irregular Warfare in Space. The views represented here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily represent those of the US Department of Defense, George Washington University, or Delta Solutions & Strategies.

13. China has fallen into a psycho-political funk

Excerpts:

“I save as much as I can to prepare for black swan events like an invasion of Taiwan or a collapse in real estate markets,” Wang says. Speculation over whether and when China might seek to attack Taiwan — which it regards as its own territory — has become a feature of private conversations in large cities, with 2027 often cited as a likely date.

The other aspect of Wang’s anxiety involves his job. Many of his friends who work in the property sector, private equity funds and investment banks have either lost their jobs or had to take pay cuts because of a mix of economic trends and regulatory clampdowns in these sectors.

There is ample reason for Wang’s psychology. Under Xi Jinping, China’s leader, a concept of “comprehensive national security” has come to dominate almost every aspect of life. The economy, culture, society, technology, ecology and others are officially classified as matters of national security deemed essential to the party-state’s survival.

“Certainly, Xi knows how important the economy is but he doesn’t know how to rescue it,” says Junhua Zhang of the European Institute for Asian Studies, a think-tank. “In reality, he is far from a modern leader.”

He recommends a return to the free market reforms of Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s economic opening-up from the late 1970s on. But more immediately, Beijing needs to step in with stimulus to arrest the deflationary spiral, analysts say. Without it, China’s psycho-political malaise may deepen.

China has fallen into a psycho-political funk

Fragile consumer confidence is just one sign of a malaise that is not merely economic

Financial Times · by James Kynge · August 11, 2023

Sly, Soviet-style jokes are enjoying a subtle revival on Chinese social media platforms. Their art resides in being too obscure for censors to understand yet clear enough for cynics to chuckle at their mockery.

Some are so esoteric that their satire is confirmed only by the censors’ decision to delete them — echoing the cat-and-mouse dynamic that distinguished dissident humour in the former Soviet Union. One joke this week monitored by the China Digital Times, a US-based site that covers Chinese affairs, belonged to this genre.

It read: “While out and about on vacation, I stubbed my toe on something. Upon closer inspection, I saw it was a bronze lamp. It was smudged, so I picked it up and gave it a good wipe — and out popped a genie! The genie said it could grant me any wish. ‘Is that so?’ I said. ‘Well then, could you make you-know-who you-know-what?’ No sooner had the words escaped my lips than the genie rushed over, clamped my mouth shut, and asked: ‘Are we even allowed to say that?’”

The author’s account appears to have been shut down after the joke was deleted. “Of course, by banning the joke and its author, censors merely proved the punchline,” commented the China Digital Times. “This is not the first time that ‘Soviet-style’ jokes have become Chinese realities.”

Dark humour is just one of a rash of adverse indicators besetting China these days. A slowdown in economic growth is having a palpable impact on people’s lives, with labour unrest spreading, youth unemployment spiralling and families feeling poorer following a decline in the value of their homes since mid-2021.

News this week that China has officially fallen into deflation, with consumer prices dropping 0.3 per cent year on year in July, adds a particularly unwelcome ingredient into the mix. Deflation is feared because declining prices persuade people to defer purchases, cooling the consumer vigour that Beijing has been trusting to propel a recovery from the pandemic.

The relevance of the issue reaches far beyond the country itself. Not only is China predicted to contribute 35 per cent of global growth this year — far more than any other economy — it also acts as a locomotive for the whole Asia-Pacific region, which is forecast to add 67 per cent of the world’s GDP expansion, according to the IMF.

Chinese policymakers have begun to talk about economic stimulus, with a meeting of the politburo in July calling for “stepping up countercyclical measures” aimed partly at energising consumer spending. But this focus misses a crucial reality.

As the revival in Soviet-style jokes hints at, China’s malaise is only partly economic. The deep context behind several of the impediments to growth is a strange hybrid of psychological and political factors — a sort of psycho-political funk.

The concerns of Wang Ning (not his real name), who works for a technology consultancy in Beijing, help demonstrate the way in which worries over China’s political direction are crimping people’s desire to spend.

Even though he earns an above-average salary of Rmb35,000 a month, Wang has begun imposing spending quotas on himself, arranged by specific categories. Dining out, for instance, is limited to Rmb1,000 a week while spending on clothes and other items is similarly subject to fiscal discipline.

The reasons for his austerity are a mix of big picture geopolitics and job market insecurity. Like many big city dwellers these days, his long-held belief in a better tomorrow has been undermined by what he sees as Beijing’s preoccupation with national security at the expense of generating GDP growth.

“I save as much as I can to prepare for black swan events like an invasion of Taiwan or a collapse in real estate markets,” Wang says. Speculation over whether and when China might seek to attack Taiwan — which it regards as its own territory — has become a feature of private conversations in large cities, with 2027 often cited as a likely date.

The other aspect of Wang’s anxiety involves his job. Many of his friends who work in the property sector, private equity funds and investment banks have either lost their jobs or had to take pay cuts because of a mix of economic trends and regulatory clampdowns in these sectors.

There is ample reason for Wang’s psychology. Under Xi Jinping, China’s leader, a concept of “comprehensive national security” has come to dominate almost every aspect of life. The economy, culture, society, technology, ecology and others are officially classified as matters of national security deemed essential to the party-state’s survival.

“Certainly, Xi knows how important the economy is but he doesn’t know how to rescue it,” says Junhua Zhang of the European Institute for Asian Studies, a think-tank. “In reality, he is far from a modern leader.”

He recommends a return to the free market reforms of Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s economic opening-up from the late 1970s on. But more immediately, Beijing needs to step in with stimulus to arrest the deflationary spiral, analysts say. Without it, China’s psycho-political malaise may deepen.

james.kynge@ft.com

Financial Times · by James Kynge · August 11, 2023

14. China’s game of Ukrainian chess

Excerpt:

In a thinly veiled criticism of Russia, China also urged the resumption of grain exports from Ukraine after Moscow backed out of the Black Sea grain deal, which had allowed Ukraine to export wheat, barley, and other staples.

Most recently, in a rare public display of displeasure, the Chinese Embassy in Russia criticized local authorities for mistreating Chinese citizens.

The key question in all of this is whether China has fundamentally changed its position on the war. The answer, so far, is no. None of the actions China has taken in recent months have imposed critical damage on Russia’s war capability or induced meaningful changes to Russian behavior.

In fact, given the long-term nature of US-China competition, Beijing is unlikely to abandon Moscow as a strategic partner, even if Russia is weakened in Ukraine. For China, Ukraine – and even Saudi Arabia – is part of a grand political chess match that Beijing has no intention of losing.

China’s game of Ukrainian chess

China and Saudi Arabia have an important bilateral relationship

asiatimes.com · by Yun Sun · August 11, 2023

Last weekend, Saudi Arabia hosted a two-day summit in Jeddah dedicated to ending the war in Ukraine. Nearly 40 countries attended, including the United States, India, and dozens across Europe. But it was the presence of one nation that raised expectations for a breakthrough – China.

Because China had rejected a similar meeting in Copenhagen in late June, many interpreted its participation this time as evidence Beijing was ready to play a more active role. But an examination of the context surrounding the Jeddah summit suggests a different motivation for China’s involvement. Simply put, peace wasn’t Beijing’s primary concern.

Since the beginning of the Ukraine war in February 2022, Beijing has avoided anything that would compromise its neutrality or force it explicitly to take a side. This principle of neutrality made it impossible for China to attend the June meeting, given that Denmark is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Although NATO isn’t directly at war with Russia, its military support to Ukraine gives the Kremlin ammunition to claim NATO involvement. For China, attending the Copenhagen meeting without Russian participation would have tarnished Beijing’s image of objectivity.

By comparison, Saudi Arabia, one of the leading middle powers in the Global South, was a more acceptable host from the Chinese perspective.

Saudi Arabia has voted in favor of several UN General Assembly resolutions condemning Russia and demanding an end to the war. But it also abstained from a 2022 vote to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, and the two countries have been on a more coordinated path recently over oil production and global crude-oil supply.

This more nuanced position has made the kingdom a more natural partner for Beijing.

But image concerns aside, what’s driving China’s involvement now?

Importance of China-Saudi ties

For starters, participating in the Jeddah summit was more about China’s desire to continue sweetening ties with Saudi Arabia than any intention to condemn or force Russia’s hand in Ukraine.

China and Saudi Arabia have an important bilateral relationship driven by politics, energy and trade. Thus Chinese leaders believe they can endear themselves to the kingdom by supporting Riyadh’s diplomatic efforts on Ukraine.

Even if that calculation is wrong, attending talks costs China nothing. A summit is only an agreement to discuss, not a pact to act. Even if a consensus among participating countries had been reached – it wasn’t – neither Saudi Arabia nor its guests could have imposed their will on Russia (which was excluded from the discussion).

In that sense, the Jeddah summit positions Saudi Arabia as a peace mediator but doesn’t bring fundamental damage to China’s bottom line.

For Beijing, any “neutral” efforts to pursue peace and stability must be honored. This month’s summit could be framed as one such effort given the diverse participation and views represented. Now that China has lent its support to the Saudi endeavor, it wouldn’t be surprising for Beijing to demand reciprocity from Riyadh for its own peace initiative down the road.

Second, China’s participation in peace talks was facilitated by a recent thaw in the US-China relationship. Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to visit San Francisco in November, which would be one of his most important foreign-policy activities of the year. The two countries are trying to rebuild bilateral relations before expected turbulence in 2024, when presidential elections will be held in both Taiwan and the US.

Finally, Beijing has been a bit more cooperative with the West’s efforts to squeeze Russia over its conduct in Ukraine. Recent moves in this regard are subtle but clear. In July, Beijing imposed new export control measures on Chinese drones, parts and technologies, dual-use supplies that Russia had been receiving from China directly or via subsidiaries in Iran.

In a thinly veiled criticism of Russia, China also urged the resumption of grain exports from Ukraine after Moscow backed out of the Black Sea grain deal, which had allowed Ukraine to export wheat, barley, and other staples.

Most recently, in a rare public display of displeasure, the Chinese Embassy in Russia criticized local authorities for mistreating Chinese citizens.

The key question in all of this is whether China has fundamentally changed its position on the war. The answer, so far, is no. None of the actions China has taken in recent months have imposed critical damage on Russia’s war capability or induced meaningful changes to Russian behavior.

In fact, given the long-term nature of US-China competition, Beijing is unlikely to abandon Moscow as a strategic partner, even if Russia is weakened in Ukraine. For China, Ukraine – and even Saudi Arabia – is part of a grand political chess match that Beijing has no intention of losing.

This article was provided by Syndication Bureau, which holds copyright.

Yun Sun is director of the China program and co-director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC.

Related

asiatimes.com · by Yun Sun · August 11, 2023

15. You say Taiwan; I say Korea

Quite a provocative essay. A lot to consider and discuss here.

Excerpts:

This reality makes the Korean peninsula one of Asia’s most dangerous flash points for future strains.

Tension is on the rise around China. Saber-rattling has become frequent around Taiwan, the island de facto independent but, in theory, part of One China. Strategists’ risk assessments consider the possibility of a clash around Taiwan because the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might attempt to invade the island.

There are also risks of skirmishes that could get out of control in the contested waters of the South China Sea between China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia.

A fight that gets out of hand could also start in the high altitudes of the Himalayas between Chinese and Indian troops. Yet, the North Korean scenario could be the most significant jeopardy.

It is impossible to assess Chinese intentions on all these borders. However, a war on the Korean peninsula could be less risky and more advantageous to Beijing in the present situation.

If North Korean forces were to start a bombardment of Seoul and move infantry and tanks over the ceasefire line, it could inflict the most significant damage to the Western world with the least pain to China.

You say Taiwan; I say Korea

A new Korean war could serve China’s interests best among the various regional flash points that threaten to tilt toward conflict

asiatimes.com · by Francesco Sisci · August 12, 2023

In theory, it is a peninsula, but actually, for all practical purposes, it is an island. South Korea is separated from the rest of the Asian continent by its intractable half-brother to the North, making any land contact with its neighbors impossible.

The gap between the reality (being an island) and the theoretical aspiration (being a peninsula) is compounded by being one of the world’s wealthiest and most dynamic locations, bordering one of the most backward and stagnant places globally, its northern half-brother.

This reality makes the Korean peninsula one of Asia’s most dangerous flash points for future strains.

Tension is on the rise around China. Saber-rattling has become frequent around Taiwan, the island de facto independent but, in theory, part of One China. Strategists’ risk assessments consider the possibility of a clash around Taiwan because the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might attempt to invade the island.

There are also risks of skirmishes that could get out of control in the contested waters of the South China Sea between China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia.

A fight that gets out of hand could also start in the high altitudes of the Himalayas between Chinese and Indian troops. Yet, the North Korean scenario could be the most significant jeopardy.

It is impossible to assess Chinese intentions on all these borders. However, a war on the Korean peninsula could be less risky and more advantageous to Beijing in the present situation.

If North Korean forces were to start a bombardment of Seoul and move infantry and tanks over the ceasefire line, it could inflict the most significant damage to the Western world with the least pain to China.

The start of a conflict in South Korea could cause the collapse of the South Korean financial system, which in turn could trigger the crash of stock exchanges worldwide.

A new Korean war could quickly upend South Korea’s economic miracle. Image: Asia Times Files / AFP

Unlike 70 years ago, at the time of the Korean War, South Korea is a crucial component of global wealth creation, and an attack on Seoul could spark a global financial tsunami. It would have the extra benefit of forcing an engagement of American troops stationed there while not engaging Chinese troops directly.

Of course, such a move would put the Pyongyang regime at risk, but North Korean leader Kim Jong Un might be tempted to action if goaded by Beijing or in a moment of total miscalculated madness.

None of these scenarios are impossible, looking at the history of North Korea, and as tension builds up around North Korea and China, either side might be tempted to get out of their actual or perceived encirclement and do something crazy for crazy returns.

Unlike any other theater, a war there, as we saw, could be reasonably safe for China. Chinese troops would risk their lives in all different scenarios, whereas Americans could take a backseat.

After a possible attack, North Korea could try to bargain its way out of the mess and hope to bolster a very precarious domestic situation.

The point is not to see if Beijing or Pyongyang will dare to move on South Korea. After the irrational and unreasonable Russian attack on Ukraine, only considering rational and reasonable calculations can’t be enough. Most of the world thought Russia would never attack Ukraine because it was wild, yet it happened.

Therefore, one must assume Kim, far more irrational and unreasonable than Russian President Vladimir Putin, could move on South Korea. Its present nuclear and missile build-up could point in that direction.

Moreover, a land attack and a bombardment of Seoul, limited in the hope of some later bargaining, is more reasonable than trying a landing on Taiwan or an engagement with enemy fleets in the South China Sea, or a significant clash with India.

An attack on Taiwan is most likely to fail. Landings are the most dangerous military maneuvers; they have often been botched.

A more significant missile attack on Taiwan could entail a more extensive retaliation from the United States and Japan, both keen on preserving the island’s political existence. A clash with the Vietnamese or the Philippine fleets in the South China Sea could spur US intervention, and the US Navy still far outguns China’s PLA-Navy.

A large conflict with India may have its rewards because China is militarily much more assertive than India along the border; however, politically, it would definitely poison the atmosphere between the two Asian giants.

A large but possibly limited war between the two Koreas could be different. China could deny its involvement and put the blame only on crazy Kim.

Yet, meanwhile, China could show its power in the region and hope to seed anxiety in the regional hostile alliance. Thus it could give Beijing greater room for maneuvering.

Chinese bind

It’s not essential to assess if these are Beijing’s intentions. There are enough material elements that could feed suspicion on Beijing’s role as Pyongyang’s puppeteer.

Therefore, given this perception, all present North Korean military build-up could also be blamed on China for its inability to restrain the neighbor.

After China supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Beijing can ill-afford suspicions about its role with Pyongyang, especially without any sure reward from a possible war.

It puts China in a bind. China may want to use North Korea to keep South Korea, Japan and the United States at bay. However, its ability to distance itself from Pyongyang at any given moment puts Beijing in a corner. It could be blamed for many of Pyongyang’s actions.

The United States, South Korea, and Japan require China’s deeper involvement in the North Korean quandary. China might be unwilling to follow through because it has no interest in improving the life of these three countries.

At the same time, tensions with China keep piling up. Still, the war scenario and its unfathomable implications put China on the spot.

A linear way forward would be to restart the six-party talks, press North Korea to stop its nuclear and missile build-up, and help to find a peaceful solution for the future of this rump country.

Still, if China helps to solve North Korea’s problems, it possibly won’t translate into easing its general situation; if it doesn’t help, it will help to create even more tension for China all around its borders.

China might have chosen to ease the tension cautiously. At the latest Pyongyang grand event, the July 27 commemorations of the war’s end 70 years ago, Beijing’s delegation was low-key compared to Russia’s, which sent over its Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu.

But this may not be enough. Kim, with or without China’s support, has been trying to wangle his way into the limelight by showing off his latest military toys, and it muddies Beijing’s intentions, making the world suspect that the Chinese like its neighbor’s posture.

Brinkmanship here could become very difficult to manage. The communists ruling Beijing and the heirs of the KMT nationalists in Taiwan have been dealing with each other for a century. They know very well how to manage brinkmanship between themselves. The possibility of incidents and escalation is reasonably small.

However, China is not managing Kim’s brinkmanship directly, whether it wants or not to be Pyongyang’s puppeteer. Kim may be forced to toe Beijing’s line, but this has always been an extra effort.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are flanked by their wives as they watch a mass gymnastics performance in Pyongyang. Photo: Xinhua

Plus, Beijing would have to deal with Russia, which has a different Korean agenda, and the United States, Japan and South Korea. Too many balls in the air, and all very difficult to coordinate. Incidents are far more easy to happen, and so is escalation.

Therefore things can go wrong faster, and China could get hijacked into supporting a Korean conflict it doesn’t control. It could be like the Chinese initial support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, only much worse. Or Beijing could get directly involved in Korea, and things would go back to 70 years ago, again, only much worse.

Still, if properly managed, all the suspicions and doubts could be positive. They can lead to better and deeper discussions that will not turn South Korea into an actual peninsula but hopefully defuse some of the regional tensions. Without it, Korea becomes the hottest place on earth.

This essay first appeared on Settimana News and is republished with permission. The original article can be read here.

Related

asiatimes.com · by Francesco Sisci · August 12, 2023

16. AI Is Starting to Look Like the Dot Com Bubble

Excerpts:

"It's not like 1999 when investors were racing to hot IPOs for companies that had no chance of making money," Edwards told the WSJ. "Today's winners are disciplined, enormous companies that have moats in place and data sets to exploit."

Still, even the most seasoned companies, executives, and VCs can get too caught up in the hype of it all, and may well stumble in the race to establish their dominance and relevancy in a changing technological landscape. Plus, as a general rule, a high-dollar feedback loop never feels particularly healthy, and cracks in some leading industry players are already starting to show.

As a select few dot com firms did, some AI ventures will likely stick around. But a lot of them probably won't, and given what we know about the ghosts of dot com's past, wariness — something often lost in the fog of war — is more than warranted.

AI Is Starting to Look Like the Dot Com Bubble

"There's a huge boom in AI —some people are scrambling to get exposure at any cost, while others are sounding the alarm that this will end in tears."

/ Artificial Intelligence/ Ai/ Ai Industry/ Bubble

Futurism

As the AI industry's market value continues to balloon, experts are warning that its meteoric rise is eerily similar to that of a different — and significant — moment in economic history: the dot com bubble of the late 1990s.

The dot com bubble — and subsequent crash — was an era defined by a gold rush-like frenzy and inflated valuations. Hungry to cash in on a new, lucrative age of technology, venture capitalists took to throwing large sums at companies that, though they made all the right promises about their ability to change the world, had yet to actually prove their viability. And when the vast majority of these ventures ultimately fell short, they failed, swallowing roughly $5 trillion in fundraising as they sank into www dot oblivion.

Fast forward to today, as The Wall Street Journal details in a new report, and that same gold rush energy is palpable in the burgeoning AI marketplace. VCs are all too happy to pour massive amounts of cash into a growing constellation of AI firms, even those that have yet to turn a profit. Or, for that matter, have yet to even introduce a discernible product.

Company leaders, meanwhile, continue to make sweeping claims about the transformational power of their tech, which they consistently argue could save the world, destroy it, or — conveniently — both. Investors keep biting, and, per the WSJ, the stocks keep rising — shares of Nvidia, for example, the chipmaker whose GPUs are sought after for AI projects, have tripled in value this year, while tech giants like Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, which are all working on AI tech, have seen their stock prices skyrocket by 154 percent, 65 percent, and 35 percent, respectively.

And yet, though the tech is impressive, its true value — nevermind path to profitability — is still wildly unclear.

"There's a huge boom in AI — some people are scrambling to get exposure at any cost, while others are sounding the alarm that this will end in tears," Kai Wu, founder and chief investment officer of Sparkline Capital, told the WSJ. "Investors can benefit from innovation-led growth, but must be wary of overpaying for it."

Another striking similarity between AI and dot com? Market concentration. Per the WSJ, the ten biggest stocks in the S&P 500 right now make up more than a third of the total market, and this "concentration of leadership," as Mike Edwards, the deputy chief investment officer at the firm Weiss Multi-Strategy Advisers, told the WSJ, is "the market story that rhymes most with the internet bubble."

But while the comparisons between these economic times certainly shouldn't be ignored, there are some big differences as well. Most notable is that most of the biggest players in the AI industry are longtime Silicon Valley behemoths, and have been working on developing the technology for a while. Think Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and so on. Some of these firms are even dot com survivors, and for decades have been able to keep themselves afloat amid various technological trends.

And sure, a fair share of newer companies have entered the public mainstage. But even the most prominent newbie of the bunch, the heavily Microsoft-funded OpenAI, was founded by a gaggle of Silicon Valley vets — Sam Altman, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, since-defected Elon Musk, et al — with deep tech industry ties. The same goes for ventures like Character.AI and Humane Inc., founded by ex-Google and Apple executives, respectively.

"It's not like 1999 when investors were racing to hot IPOs for companies that had no chance of making money," Edwards told the WSJ. "Today's winners are disciplined, enormous companies that have moats in place and data sets to exploit."

Still, even the most seasoned companies, executives, and VCs can get too caught up in the hype of it all, and may well stumble in the race to establish their dominance and relevancy in a changing technological landscape. Plus, as a general rule, a high-dollar feedback loop never feels particularly healthy, and cracks in some leading industry players are already starting to show.

As a select few dot com firms did, some AI ventures will likely stick around. But a lot of them probably won't, and given what we know about the ghosts of dot com's past, wariness — something often lost in the fog of war — is more than warranted.

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Futurism

17. China’s Military, ‘Chasing the Dream,’ Probes Taiwan’s Defenses

Excerpts:

To help Taiwan, the United States has sold more advanced fighter jets and other military hardware to the island’s government, though deliveries have lagged. Last month, the Biden administration announced $345 million in military aid for Taiwan and said the weapons would be drawn from the United States’ own reserves, which may help speed up deliveries.

But China’s numeric lead is daunting. It has about 1,900 combat-ready fighter jets, including advanced models, while Taiwan has about 300, quite a few of which are older, according to the Pentagon’s latest public assessment of the People’s Liberation Army. It said that China’s air force “is rapidly catching up to Western air forces.”

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, appears determined to maintain the pace of this expansion. Last month, he told a meeting of the Politburo, a council of 24 top Communist Party officials, that China’s military modernization goals had entered “a crucial period.” A recent documentary series on Chinese state television, “Chasing the Dream,” has portrayed Chinese troops as confident, but willing to die if necessary, in any war.

“If there is one day that would make me truly proud,” a pilot says in one episode, “I think it will be the moment when our motherland is unified.”

...

Taiwan has “fairly robust” ground-based defense systems, such as radars and missiles, that could counter Chinese air intrusions and ballistic missiles, said J. Michael Cole, a security analyst in Taipei.

“It has sufficient capability to counter limited strikes,” said Mr. Cole, who is a senior adviser at the International Republican Institute. But, he added, “large-scale missile attacks or saturation attacks would likely overwhelm Taiwan’s air defense systems.”

Last month, Taiwan held annual exercises to demonstrate its readiness across air, land and sea. Lee Rong-teng, a lieutenant colonel in Taiwan’s army, monitored the drills at Taoyuan International Airport, where helicopters and about 180 soldiers took part in the drill to practice repelling an attempted takeover. But he sounded a note of warning.

If there were real fighting on the ground at the airport, he said, that could imply that Taiwan had already lost the war in the air. “By the time you’re using infantry forces, it will be, more or less, over,” he said. “Why? Because if the enemy arrives, we’ll have already lost sea and air superiority.”

China’s Military, ‘Chasing the Dream,’ Probes Taiwan’s Defenses

By Chris Buckley and Amy Chang Chien

Reporting from Taipei, Taiwan

Published Aug. 11, 2023

Updated Aug. 12, 2023, 2:25 a.m. ET

阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版

The New York Times · by Amy Chang Chien · August 12, 2023

Day by day, the People’s Liberation Army is turning up the pressure, deploying an ever-wider array of planes and ships.

A Chinese naval vessel near Dongju Island, Taiwan, in April. Beijing claims Taiwan as its territory, to be unified with force if necessary.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

China has been steadily intensifying military pressure on Taiwan over the past year, sending jets, drones, bombers and other planes farther and in greater numbers to extend an intimidating presence all around the island.

Chinese naval ships and air force planes have been edging closer to Taiwan’s territorial seas and skies, probing the island’s vigilance and trying to wear down its military planes and ships. Chinese forces have also been operating more frequently in skies and waters off the island’s eastern coast, facing the West Pacific. China’s increasing presence there signals its intent to dominate an expanse of sea that could be vital for the island’s defenses, including for securing potential aid from the United States in a conflict, experts say.

Beijing claims Taiwan is its lost territory that must accept unification, preferably peacefully, but by force if Chinese leaders deem that necessary. It has seized on moments of high tension with Taiwan to intensify military activities around the island, and it may put on another show of force in the coming days, when Taiwan’s vice president, Lai Ching-te, passes through the United States.

Mr. Lai leaves on Saturday for Paraguay, and is scheduled to stop in the United States on his way there and back. Beijing regards such transits in the United States as an affront to its stance that Taiwan is not an independent state. Mr. Lai is also the presidential candidate for the Democratic Progressive Party, which supports asserting Taiwan’s separate status, a position that Beijing condemns as “separatism.”

Nearly every day, the Chinese send sorties toward Taiwan that involve increasingly diverse and sophisticated arrays of planes. They now often cross the median line in the Taiwan Strait, effectively erasing what was until several years ago an informal boundary between the two sides. Such moves could narrow the time that Taiwan would have to react to a surprise escalation, said Chang Yan-ting, a retired deputy commander of Taiwan’s Air Force.

In an image released last year by China’s state news agency, Xinhua, a Chinese military plane flew during an exercise held after Nancy Pelosi, then the House speaker, visited Taiwan. Credit...Xinhua, via Associated Press

“China wants to seize air supremacy,” he said in an interview. “In the past, there was a buffer, our median line in the Taiwan Strait, and that gave enough warning time and strategic depth. Now that’s gone, disappeared.”

Taiwan’s defense ministry said on Thursday that it had detected 33 Chinese military aircraft near the island in the previous 24 hours, including 10 across the median line — an uptick compared to recent days.

The military exercises have increased notably since last August, when Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the House of Representatives, visited Taiwan. China responded with several days of live-fire drills, landing missiles in the waters to the north, south and east of Taiwan, and sending planes across the median line — exercises that some experts saw as honing Beijing’s ability to impose a blockade around the island.

The aircraft that China deploys around Taiwan now include planes for aerial refueling and helicopters for anti-submarine warfare, and large numbers of military drones, said Ou Si-fu, a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, which is under Taiwan’s ministry of defense. That’s a sign of China’s growing efforts to project power far beyond its shores and conduct more sophisticated operations that integrate the air force with the navy, Mr. Ou said.

Chinese military helicopters flying off the coast of Fujian Province in China, near Taiwan.

Since 2019, Chinese fighter jets, bombers, drones and other military aircraft have routinely entered Taiwan’s “air defense identification zone,” or ADIZ — a buffer area much wider than Taiwan’s territorial airspace where planes are supposed to identify themselves before entry and then obey instructions. (China’s planes do not.)

Last year, China made more than 1,700 flights into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, nearly double the number in 2021, according to Ben Lewis, a military analyst who maintains a data set on the flights using daily reports from Taiwan’s ministry of defense. In the first half of this year, Taiwan recorded more than 850 flights by Chinese forces into the zone, 54 percent more than the number of flights for the same months of last year, he said. “Normalization of these activities is the goal,” he said.

The increase in flights does not mean that war is looming, and few in Taiwan believe that an invasion by China is imminent or inevitable. The People’s Liberation Army’s increase in activity around Taiwan is better understood as a longer-term effort to corrode its security and alertness, said experts.

“The first time they do something it’s ‘Oh, my god! Oh, my god!,’ but after they’ve done it five times, it’s ‘Oh, yeah, it’s routine, no big deal,’” said Kenneth W. Allen, a retired U.S. Air Force officer who researches the Chinese air force and its activities around Taiwan. “But the trends should be a big deal.”

Taiwan, with its much smaller military, seems to have no easy way of pushing back against the People’s Liberation Army’s aerial encroachment. A big buildup of fighter jets in Taiwan could be expensive and vulnerable to attack, and divert funds from buying mobile missiles and other weapons that may better deter Beijing.

A Taiwanese fighter jet at an air base in the northern part of the island. A big buildup of fighter jets in Taiwan could be expensive and vulnerable to attack.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

To help Taiwan, the United States has sold more advanced fighter jets and other military hardware to the island’s government, though deliveries have lagged. Last month, the Biden administration announced $345 million in military aid for Taiwan and said the weapons would be drawn from the United States’ own reserves, which may help speed up deliveries.

But China’s numeric lead is daunting. It has about 1,900 combat-ready fighter jets, including advanced models, while Taiwan has about 300, quite a few of which are older, according to the Pentagon’s latest public assessment of the People’s Liberation Army. It said that China’s air force “is rapidly catching up to Western air forces.”

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, appears determined to maintain the pace of this expansion. Last month, he told a meeting of the Politburo, a council of 24 top Communist Party officials, that China’s military modernization goals had entered “a crucial period.” A recent documentary series on Chinese state television, “Chasing the Dream,” has portrayed Chinese troops as confident, but willing to die if necessary, in any war.

“If there is one day that would make me truly proud,” a pilot says in one episode, “I think it will be the moment when our motherland is unified.”

A screen in Beijing showed news of China conducting drills around Taiwan, in April. Credit...Wu Hao/EPA, via Shutterstock

Responding to China’s ramped-up military activity places a considerable burden on Taiwan’s defense budget. In 2020, Taiwan spent nearly 9 percent of its defense budget on monitoring and tailing Chinese military planes and ships.

Taiwan has stopped routinely sending fighter jets to monitor the Chinese flights, and now does so only when the flights appear more threatening. Even so, in January, its defense ministry asked for additional funding of around $54 million to cover the expenses of coping with the Chinese flights.

Taiwan has “fairly robust” ground-based defense systems, such as radars and missiles, that could counter Chinese air intrusions and ballistic missiles, said J. Michael Cole, a security analyst in Taipei.

“It has sufficient capability to counter limited strikes,” said Mr. Cole, who is a senior adviser at the International Republican Institute. But, he added, “large-scale missile attacks or saturation attacks would likely overwhelm Taiwan’s air defense systems.”

Last month, Taiwan held annual exercises to demonstrate its readiness across air, land and sea. Lee Rong-teng, a lieutenant colonel in Taiwan’s army, monitored the drills at Taoyuan International Airport, where helicopters and about 180 soldiers took part in the drill to practice repelling an attempted takeover. But he sounded a note of warning.

Taiwan conducted its annual Han Kuang military exercise in July, including drills at Taoyuan International Airport.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

If there were real fighting on the ground at the airport, he said, that could imply that Taiwan had already lost the war in the air. “By the time you’re using infantry forces, it will be, more or less, over,” he said. “Why? Because if the enemy arrives, we’ll have already lost sea and air superiority.”

Chris Buckley is The Times’s chief correspondent in China, where he has lived for most of the past 30 years after growing up in Sydney, Australia. Before joining The Times in 2012, he was a correspondent in Beijing for Reuters. More about Chris Buckley

Amy Chang Chien covers news in mainland China and Taiwan. She is based in Taipei. More about Amy Chang Chien

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: With Increased Military Activity, China Encircles Taiwan More Closely

304

The New York Times · by Amy Chang Chien · August 12, 2023

18. SOCOM: The Best Result of America’s Worst Special Ops Fail

The author left out MARSOC.

Standing by for incoming from the experts and historians on this article.

SOCOM: The Best Result of America’s Worst Special Ops Fail

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August 10, 2023Randall Stevens

A US special operations forces member conducts combat operations in support of Operation Resolute Support in northeast Afghanistan, April 2019. US Army photo by Spc. Jonathan Bryson.

As if special operations and operators weren’t cool enough, SOCOM also gets the coolest name in the Department of Defense. How is INDOPACOM supposed to compete with a name like that? How is TRANSCOM supposed to hype its mission to sound SOCOM-level cool? What’s so special about special operations, anyway?

If your experience with special operations is logging hundreds of hours of playing SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs, you might not understand how special ops come together. The alphabet soup of special operations commands probably doesn’t help. Knowing the difference between JSOC and SOCOM is just the beginning. 

Many moving parts make up SOCOM, and each branch with special operations forces plays a role. At this point, some of you may be wondering what these words mean. If they don’t make sense right now, I’m about to make their meaning clearer. By the end of this piece, even the most civilian reader will have a firm grasp of all the SOCs.

Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen from Special Boat Team 12, stationed at Naval Base Coronado, California, with the help of aviators from 4th Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, conduct a Maritime External Air Transportation System training evolution in Moses Lake, Washington, May 21, 2014. US Army photo by Sgt. Christopher Prows.

SOCOM is the abbreviation for the US Special Operations Command, which brings together and oversees American special operations forces and missions. SOCOM was formed after the United States learned some tough lessons about special operations in the hardest way imaginable. Since then, every special ops mission you’ve heard about — as well as those you haven’t — has been brought to you (and the enemy) by SOCOM. 

SOCOM Stands For Special Operations Command

SOCOM’s full name is USSOCOM, but simply saying “SOCOM” is faster, easier, and obviously way cooler. Its job as a unified command is to bring together the special operations units from each military branch and ensure interoperability when and where necessary.

Unified combatant commands are specialized collections of US military units brought together under a single four-star commander for effective command and control. These unified commands are based on geographic regions, or “areas of responsibility,” such as AFRICOM (Africa Command) and CENTCOM (Central Command). They are also based on functions, such as CYBERCOM (Cyber Command). 

SOCOM is a functional combatant command, housing all special operations in the US military, regardless of branch affiliation. It includes nearly 70,000 active-duty, Reserve, and National Guard soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Defense Department civilians.

Forces Armées Nigeriennes soldiers conduct close-quarters combat training with US Special Forces advisors during Flintlock 2018, April 13, 2018, in Agadez, Niger. US Army photo by Staff Sgt. Daniel Love

Responsibilities under SOCOM’s purview include developing special operations forces (SOF) strategy, doctrine, and tactics. It prepares its own budgets and training, prioritizes requirements, maintains readiness and intelligence support, develops and acquires equipment, and ensures interoperability.

On top of training and equipping all American special operations forces, SOCOM synchronizes the Department of Defense planning against international terrorist networks. Once the plans are in place, SOCOM also conducts required special operations against those networks.

The History of SOCOM

While SOCOM is not the newest unified command, it’s still relatively young. In 1980, a team of the US Army’s Delta Force and Army Rangers, with assistance from the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, launched a special operations mission to rescue American hostages in Iran. The mission, called Operation Eagle Claw, resulted in the deaths of eight service members. It also led to calls for a reorganization of special operations forces in the US military. 

The Army managed to consolidate its special operators by 1982, creating the new 1st Special Operations Command. That agency housed Special Forces, Special Operations Aviation, Rangers, PsyOps, and Civil Affairs. Other branches lagged behind, and interoperability remained lacking, which became apparent during Operation Urgent Fury, the 1983 invasion of Grenada.

Wreckage of a destroyed Bluebeard helicopter with an abandoned RH-53D behind. Photo courtesy of Bahram Mohammadifard.

In Grenada, command and control suffered from a lack of coordination. Navy planners lacked ground and air expertise, and, as a result, Marine Corps operations and Army Ranger operations were uncoordinated and lacked unified air support. The lack of interoperability in communications made the situation worse. 

The 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act restructured the Armed Forces to flow command from the president of the United States and secretary of defense to unified combatant commanders. It took the Joint Chiefs of Staff out of the command structure, leaving the individual service branches to train and equip troops under a four-star combatant commander.

Since unified combatant commands are based on geography and function, SOCOM was designed to bring special operations functions together. The US Special Operations Command was created immediately following the Goldwater-Nichols Act because SOF were often misused by conventional commanders during Urgent Fury, which led to unnecessary special operations casualties. Now all special operations units in the military would be unified under SOCOM.

Navy SEALs demonstrate winter warfare capabilities. Naval Special Warfare Command photo.

SOCOM’s first operation came in 1987 and was the result of Iranian attacks on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran-Iraq War. The Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), Navy SEALs, and Special Boat Teams attacked Iranian minelayers, frigates, and oil platforms in the Persian Gulf, often in the dark of night. When the USS Samuel B. Roberts hit an Iranian mine, conventional forces responded alongside SOF, proving the new structure’s viability. 

SOCOM Is Not a Branch of the Military

Civilians know the US military is separated into branches of service, but the hierarchy of the US military is both simpler and more complex than that. Prior to the aforementioned Goldwater-Nichols restructuring, individual branches of the military answered to their respective service chiefs on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but that structure became increasingly inefficient during the Cold War.

When the Joint Chiefs became an advisory body to the president and the secretary of defense, unified combatant commands took over as the highest operational echelon of US military commands.

Those bodies are composed of joint forces from units of all military branches. SOCOM is headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, and it comprises all SOF from every branch of service, including Naval Special Warfare Command, Air Force Special Operations Command, and Army Special Operations Command.

US Army Special Forces raid a mock hostile compound under the cover of darkness during a training exercise in Boston, Massachusetts, April 28, 2021. USSF, known by many as the Green Berets, are among the most elite soldiers in the US military and specialize in unconventional warfare tactics, foreign internal defense, special reconnaissance, direct action, and counterterrorism. US Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Justin P. Morelli.

The structure of orders coming from the White House to unified combatant commands applies only to military operations. In all other nonoperational areas, the chain of command goes through the individual branch secretaries and their respective service chiefs.

The effectiveness of the new operational hierarchy became immediately apparent in 1989 during Operation Just Cause, the US invasion of Panama. While conventional military forces captured key objectives throughout the country, SOCOM-directed forces concurrently conducted a series of special operations that disrupted enemy defenses. 

As the first shots of Just Cause were fired, a team of Delta Force soldiers raided the notorious Carcel Modelo prison to free Kurt Muse, an American convicted of espionage. Meanwhile, Navy SEALs destroyed dictator Manuel Noriega’s means of escape as a joint SEAL-Delta Force mission forced Noriega to flee to the Embassy of the Holy See in Panama City. 

JSOC Is Part of SOCOM

A US special operations forces member conducts combat operations supporting Operation Resolute Support in east Afghanistan, April 2019. US Army photo by Spc. Jonathan Bryson.

Many confuse Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) with SOCOM. JSOC is a component command of SOCOM, tasked with creating standardization between branches to ensure interoperability. This organization is also responsible for studying special operations requirements and techniques to develop tactics and training. Its ultimate goal is the smooth execution of SOF operations.

JSOC also oversees Tier One Special Mission Units, which are also part of SOCOM. These include (but aren’t necessarily limited to) the Army’s 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU — also known as SEAL Team 6), the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron, and the Army Intelligence Support Activity. They are called Task Force Green, Task Force Blue, Task Force White, and Task Force Orange, respectively.

JSOC task forces also maintain a close relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency’s Special Activities Center, which specializes in covert action and paramilitary operations that would fall under the mission of JSOC if they were official military operations.

Read Next: ‘The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday’ — The Legendary Navy SEALs

19. Generals shouldn't lead the Department of Defense

The criteria should be the right person for the right job. 

But the question is can people who have spent a career as apolitical officers and completely (theoretically or at least publicly) non-partisan, make the transition to a decidedly political position?

Excerpts:

Congress has unequivocally acknowledged that the Department of Defense is plagued by numerous problems. Procurement is slow, innovation is stifled, recruitment is in a crisis unseen since the Vietnam era, and there are many antiquated combat systems that need replacement for the nation to prevail in future wars. Hiring another general officer will only perpetuate the same problems, and if the next president nominates a retired general, Congress should reject the nomination outright.

It is time to return to the original rationale behind Section 113 and reestablish an apolitical general officer corps by stripping away the temptation for political roles. Congress should expand the waiver requirement beyond 10 years and begin punishing generals who engage in political charades while in uniform. This year’s National Defense Authorization Act would be the perfect place to accomplish both items.

Generals shouldn't lead the Department of Defense

By Garrett Exner & Amber Smith August 11, 2023 10:24 AM

Washington Examiner · by Garrett Exner · August 11, 2023

When Congress wrote Section 113 of Title 10, a code that outlines the role of the armed forces , it was instituting the belief that former generals should rarely, if ever, lead the Department of Defense . Such appointments were meant to be a last resort.

Yet both the current administration and the previous one asked Congress to waive this law and approve their defense secretary picks, and in both instances, Congress quickly acquiesced. Regardless of the rationale behind each nomination, this emerging trend should not be normalized and needs to be reversed.

INFLATION TICKED UP TO 3.2% IN JULY IN SETBACK FOR BIDEN AND FED

In under 18 months, the next president will commence the process of filling out his or her Cabinet with political appointees. Congress should recommit to upholding Section 113, and perhaps consider expanding its scope. This would serve as a departure from the current trend of encouraging more general officers to pursue political careers after their military service.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, for example, who retired from the military in 2016, waited just four years before taking control of the Pentagon. His waiver received overwhelming support, 326 votes in the House and 69 in the Senate. That confirmation came just four years after Gen. Jim Mattis received his waivers with bipartisan support for his nomination for secretary of defense under then-President Donald Trump. It should be noted that several Democrats vowed, falsely, never to support another waiver after confirming Mattis.

If opportunities for general officers to take on political roles become more prevalent, we will see more generals expressing political ideologies in uniform. Just last month, a three-star Space Force general, speaking in uniform at the Pentagon, criticized state laws passed by state legislatures with which she personally disagreed. She even suggested she takes into consideration these laws when determining which officers should serve in certain jurisdictions.

This at a time when the majority of Americans believe the military leadership has already become too politicized and trust in the military as an institution has fallen from 70 % in 2018 to 48% in 2022.

Generals who are tempted to pursue a career as a political appointee after military service will inevitably tie themselves to politicians and partisan agendas at the earliest opportunity. In short, they will become “yes men” instead of the apolitical, strategic advisers they are called to be.

Austin is the perfect example of this trend because he tied his career to then-Vice President Joe Biden during the Obama administration. He worked hand in hand with Biden, orchestrating the disastrous withdrawal of troops from Iraq that precipitated the rise of the Islamic State. Remarkably, he and his team found a way to perform even worse during the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

This lackluster performance, coupled with the absence of any objection to it, should raise concerns for both Congress and the public regarding the willingness of the general officer corps to uphold the proper use of military forces. When Austin’s team failed to plan for an evacuation of U.S. citizens from Afghanistan properly, none of the generals in the chain of command voiced concerns. As a result, 13 Americans were killed, and many of our citizens and allies were abandoned. Austin has not held one general accountable for this failure, the lives it cost, or the nation’s embarrassment.

The Afghanistan debacle also helps highlight a deeper issue: a prevailing military culture that values and promotes mediocrity over risk-takers and innovators — one that ranking officers, especially generals, are beholden to. As Elliot Cohen wrote in 2021, generals are the “product of an all-absorbing institution as total in its way as the priesthood in the Catholic Church.” Therefore, it is fanciful to expect a general to break free from this culture after three or four decades of service and suddenly usher in the much-needed change and reform within the Pentagon.

And make no mistake, reform within the Pentagon is indeed imperative.

Congress has unequivocally acknowledged that the Department of Defense is plagued by numerous problems. Procurement is slow, innovation is stifled, recruitment is in a crisis unseen since the Vietnam era, and there are many antiquated combat systems that need replacement for the nation to prevail in future wars. Hiring another general officer will only perpetuate the same problems, and if the next president nominates a retired general, Congress should reject the nomination outright.

It is time to return to the original rationale behind Section 113 and reestablish an apolitical general officer corps by stripping away the temptation for political roles. Congress should expand the waiver requirement beyond 10 years and begin punishing generals who engage in political charades while in uniform. This year’s National Defense Authorization Act would be the perfect place to accomplish both items.

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Garrett Exner is an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute, a member of the advisory council at Veterans on Duty, and a former Special Operations officer in the United States Marine Corps. Amber Smith is a former deputy assistant to the secretary of defense, U.S. Army helicopter pilot and combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, and author of Danger Close.

Washington Examiner · by Garrett Exner · August 11, 2023

20. Fayetteville could get America’s first memorial park for the Green Berets. Here’s the plan

Fayetteville could get America’s first memorial park for the Green Berets. Here’s the plan - NewsBreak

newsbreak.com

The Fayetteville Observer

By Paul Woolverton, Fayetteville Observer,

1 day ago

• The National Special Forces Green Beret Memorial foundation wants to put a $70 million Special Forces memorial park by the state Veterans Park in downtown Fayetteville.
• The Green Beret veterans want to lease 9.3 acres from Fayetteville for the Special Forces park.
• However, this land was designated for an expansion of the Veterans Park, which honors veterans from all of America’s military branches.
• The city is going to research its options on using the land for the Green Berets park.

An organization of retired U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers — Green Berets — is trying to create the first national memorial park for their regiment, and they want to put it in downtown Fayetteville.

But there may be a hitch: The site the retired Green Berets are asking for has been designated for the next phase of the North Carolina Veterans Park. The first part of the Veterans Park opened in 2011. It has monuments and exhibits to honor North Carolina veterans from all military branches (except the U.S. Space Force, which was established in 2019).

The Fayetteville City Council voted 9-1 on Monday to pursue the idea of providing 9.3 acres of land for the Army Special Forces park, and to have the city staff research whether there would be a conflict with the state government if the site is used to honor just the Green Berets instead of all veterans.

Green Beret vets seek 99-year lease for proposed 9.3-acre park site

On Monday, members of the National Special Forces Green Beret Memorial foundation appeared before the City Council at the behest of Councilman Johnny Dawkins and asked to lease two plots of land on Bragg Boulevard for their proposed park, for $1 per year for 99 years. The 9.3 acres are on Bragg Boulevard at Rowan Street, by the North Carolina Veterans Park and near the U.S. Army Airborne and Special Operations Museum.

“So the national SF park is going to be unique in the world,” retired Lt. Col. Kirk Windmueller, the president and director of the Green Beret Memorial foundation, told the City Council. “There will be only one of these world-class parks. And it’s meant to rival any monument and memorial that’s currently in our nation's — our nation’s capital.”

The estimated $70 million project would complement the state Veterans Park and Airborne & Special Operations Museum, Windmueller said, “to attract increased visitors and tourism to the complex, and to honor our soldiers and enhance the historic legacy of Fayetteville as the home of the legendary Airborne and Special Forces at Fort Liberty.”

In an interview later, Windmueller said special operations forces from the other military branches have full-fledged memorials, while the Green Berets have the Special Warfare Memorial Statue at Fort Liberty. The 22-foot statue is affectionally known as “Bronze Bruce.”

Park to be shaped like the Special Forces insignia

Artist Rebecca A. Clark is designing the park. Its footprint would be in the shape of an arrowhead, based on the Special Forces insignia, she said.

A sketch she prepared shows the Special Forces crest in black granite and silver-toned metal in the middle of the grounds, and this would be lit up at night. The park would include a monument to Green Beret Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, a memorial wall for those killed in action and killed in training, monuments to Special Forces operations in various parts of the world, a monument to recognize the soldiers’ families, and a ceremony field.

Other details, from Clark and Windmueller:

• The Green Beret Memorial foundation is not asking the City Council for money — it is raising money from private donors.
• A $10 million endowment fund is being set up to maintain and staff the park in perpetuity.
• The foundation hopes to begin construction within five years.
• The $70 million in construction would be done in phases, with the first phase estimated at $40 million.
• The memorial will also recognize the Office of Strategic Services — a World War II organization that is the predecessor of the Special Forces and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Is Fayetteville allowed to do this for the Green Berets?

The park would be in the district of City Councilwoman Shakeyla Ingram. She brought up that the site was originally intended for a new section of the North Carolina Veterans Park, and the state government gave the land to the city for that purpose.

“When we asked for conveyance of property, that was because we were getting ready to move forward on Veterans Park phase 2, which was pretty much our plan, correct?” she asked City Manager Doug Hewett. She also asked if there were design proposals for the next part of the Veterans Park.

Hewett said Ingram was correct. “I don’t think, again, this is necessarily inconsistent with the overall goal” of the state Veterans Park, Hewett said. “But this is not the state Veterans Park, phase 2.”

Ingram was the only council member to vote against using the land for the Green Beret park.

The city has told the state, “Hey, we're prepared to move forward on Veterans Park phase 2. We got the land. And now we're going to do something different," Ingram said. “And I remember when we got a significant dollar amount from the state, there was question about trying to do something different, and with the funding. And it was said to us, well, if we do something different, that can look (like) ill will on our behalf.”

Dawkins, the councilman who brought this Green Beret park request to the City Council, said the Green Beret park addresses the Veterans Park question by including an area to honor all armed forces veterans.

Clark in an interview said her design has a walkway around the perimeter where monuments can be placed for veterans of the Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy, Coast Guard and Space Force. The Green Beret Memorial Park would be an expansion of the state Veterans Park, she said.

Senior North Carolina reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@fayobserver.com.

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21. Irregular Warfare Podcast: A Twenty-Year Retrospective on Irregular Warfare and Counterinsurgency (features David Kilcullen and John Nagl)

Very much worth the hour to listen to his podcast. I strongly recommend it.  

Excellent give and take between Dave and John. A lot of divergent perspectives between the two. They are both brutally critical of our Army. A high level of self criticism especially by Dave Kilcullen (Not blaming others - "I had a lot of bullshit ideas").

But for a truly 20 year retrospective I would have recommended they invite LTG Cleveland to provide his insights from his RAND work.: "The American Way of Irregular War An Analytical Memoir​" https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA301-1.html

​Both John and Dave discuss "going big or going long." But LTG Clevleand has long offered this advice for irregular warfare: 

·      A Principle of Special Warfare (Irregular Warfare): "Go early, go small, go local, go long”  LTG(R) Charles T. Cleveland remarks at NDU November 30, 2015

https://maxoki161.blogspot.com/2018/07/eight-points-of-special-warfare.html

I would argue that the difference between "going big or going long" versus "Go early, go small, go local, go long”​ actually illustrates the nuance between conventional and irregular warfare.

I do like Dave's use of Trotsky and interest in IW. As I have foten written: "America may not be interested in irregular, unconventional, and political warfare but IW/UW/PW are being practiced around the world by those who are interested in them - 

With no apologies to Trotsky"

And from my biased perspective, there was no mention of operations in El Salvador, Colombia, the Philippines and other small footprint operations where we employed: "Go early, go small, go local, go long​.”​ Each of these operations illustrate what Dave Kilcullen outlines for successful operations - provide security, separate the population from the insurgents, train the host nation to be capable and then let the host nation government and security forces manage the problem for the long term.

Lastly, this excellent discussion and critique of irregular warfare leads me to the question not asked or sufficiently discussed - who is responsible for developing irregular warfare strategy and executing irregular warfare campaigns? John really hits this hard when he said the Army does not spend sufficient time in understanding irregular warfare - he said he will spend the rest of his life trying to convince the army to spend at least 5% of its time thinking about the type of war the Army will be conducting in the future - and it is not large scale combat operations. The final question that this discussion leads me it is to ask where are the irregular warfare proficient campaign headquarters? And how to we develop, educate, and train irregular warfare proficient campaign headquarters?

Irregular Warfare Podcast: A Twenty-Year Retrospective on Irregular Warfare and Counterinsurgency - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Julia McClenon, Louis Tobergte · August 11, 2023

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In what ways do irregular warfare and counterinsurgency overlap? Is China engaged in irregular warfare against its adversaries? What are some of the failures of the wars and conflicts of the last twenty years and why did they occur? What do irregular warfare practitioners need to do to avoid the mistakes and to ensure they learn the hard-won lessons of the last twenty years?

In Episode 85 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast, our guests address these and other issues confronting irregular warfare thinkers and practitioners as a retrospective episode with two leading experts on the subject. The episode features David Kilcullen and John Nagl and makes references to recent pieces of their written work, including Nagl’s “Why America’s Army Can’t Win America’s Wars” and Kilcullen’s Blood Year.

Our guests first delve into issues of defining the overlapping terms “irregular warfare” and “counterinsurgency,” and continue by discussing some of the struggles encountered in seeking to measuring success and failure over the past twenty years. They then discuss how challenges in understanding the human domain affected the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They wrap up the episode with their thoughts and suggestions for irregular warfare practitioners and thinkers who may not have significant direct experience in the wars of the last twenty years.

You can hear the full episode, hosted by Julia McClenon and co-hosted by Louis Tobergte, below. And be sure to subscribe to the Irregular Warfare Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss an episode!

Image credit: Sgt. Curt Cashour, US Army

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Julia McClenon, Louis Tobergte · August 11, 2023

22. Perspective | U.S. international image rebounds with Biden reversing Trump policies

Of course detractors will snarkily argue that he is president of the US and not the rest of the world.

Excerpts:

Yet, that multilateralist foreign policy also has a downside. A massive 82 percent of those surveyed said Washington “does interfere in the affairs of other countries” and 50 percent said America “does not take into account the interests of countries like theirs.” Asked for comment on these points, the State Department did not respond.

Jon B. Alterman, a Center for Strategic and International Studies senior vice president, said the interference issue isn’t necessarily a problem for American foreign policy, but “it’s a bigger problem when half the public thinks the United States doesn’t take their country’s interests into account” and Washington “wants their government to do something.”

“They are keenly aware that the United States is the third-most-populous country in the world, the wealthiest, the most militarily powerful, as well as being the global cultural, intellectual and technological trendsetter,” he added. “The idea that a country with all those advantages would try to maximize what it got from other countries was chilling to many people. They were afraid of getting steamrolled.”

Perspective | U.S. international image rebounds with Biden reversing Trump policies

The Washington Post · by Joe Davidson · August 11, 2023

After four years of decline during Donald Trump’s presidency, America’s reputation abroad is bouncing back.

That’s a major takeaway from a new Pew Research Center survey on international views toward the United States.

Those attitudes have “certainly rebounded since President Biden was elected,” said Richard Wike, director of global attitudes at the Pew Research Center, on Tuesday at a forum held by the University of Southern California’s Washington center. While concerns about American behavior remain, “there’s been a big shift in America’s global image in a positive direction.”

Pew surveys of 3,576 adults in 23 countries indicate 59 percent have a favorable opinion of the United States, while 30 percent don’t. Similarly, 54 percent have confidence in Biden, while 39 percent don’t. While Pew does not have directly comparable data for a global sweep of countries for the Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bush presidencies, it does have confidence and popularity information by individual nations that show Biden’s ratings far above Trump’s.

Poland, “where positive views of the U.S. have increased substantially since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” gave the United States the highest rating, with 93 percent favorable. Hungary was the only nation where fewer than half, 44 percent, viewed America positively.

The 23 countries surveyed skew toward wealthy, predominately White nations. Ten are in Europe, plus Canada and Australia are on the list. Meanwhile, Africa and Latin America are represented by three nations each. Asia has four.

“Next year, we plan to do somewhere between 35 and 40 countries,” Wike said, “with a much larger representation from Africa, from Latin America, Southeast Asia and different parts of the world.”

Despite the improved image, “typically,” the report said, “people do not think the U.S. considers their interests.”

America’s standing is recovering, but it still suffers from the lasting damage of the Trump years. That was demonstrated in recent Washington Post interviews with a 16-year-old student in Copenhagen and a 72-year-old retired social worker in Toulouse, France.

“I wanted to go to America when I was younger and I all my friends did, too,” said Sabrina M. Brauer-Christiansen, who is proud of her Danish and Kenyan ancestry.

But now, after the Trump administration, the police killing of George Floyd, and endless gun violence, her opinion of America is “mostly negative … a place I wouldn’t want to go.” When she thinks about the United States, “I can’t help but think of racism … and school shootings.”

Living in Denmark, “such a safe country and with such strict gun laws,” Sabrina said, “I can’t help but be scared of the United States.”

When Hélène Svahn was Sabrina’s age growing up in France, “traveling with Pan Am to USA was an ultimate dream,” she said, adding “I felt the death of President Kennedy as a personal loss.” But with Trump’s presidency, the United States became “a big disappointment.” His “America First” policy, she continued, “felt like an insult to the rest of the planet.”

While the attitudes like Sabrina’s and Svahn’s linger, Biden’s reputation prospers abroad simply, but not solely, because he is not Trump. Specific actions help. America’s international image improved with Biden’s foreign policies, including his reversal of Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization. Asked for comment on Trump’s international image, his office did not respond.

“When an American administration follows a more multilateralist foreign policy,” Wike said, “that has a positive impact on how people see the U.S.”

Yet, that multilateralist foreign policy also has a downside. A massive 82 percent of those surveyed said Washington “does interfere in the affairs of other countries” and 50 percent said America “does not take into account the interests of countries like theirs.” Asked for comment on these points, the State Department did not respond.

Jon B. Alterman, a Center for Strategic and International Studies senior vice president, said the interference issue isn’t necessarily a problem for American foreign policy, but “it’s a bigger problem when half the public thinks the United States doesn’t take their country’s interests into account” and Washington “wants their government to do something.”

“They are keenly aware that the United States is the third-most-populous country in the world, the wealthiest, the most militarily powerful, as well as being the global cultural, intellectual and technological trendsetter,” he added. “The idea that a country with all those advantages would try to maximize what it got from other countries was chilling to many people. They were afraid of getting steamrolled.”

Large majorities, 61 percent to 74 percent, of respondents in several middle-income countries, including Nigeria, Kenya, India, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia, said American investment was beneficial. Argentina was the only nation on that subset of eight that disagreed, and strongly so with 56 percent saying U.S. investment was of little or no help. Sixty-one percent in the 23 countries said America does contribute to world peace and stability.

Not that Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to care, but with Moscow’s war against Ukraine, his international favorable rating is a nearly invisible 11 percent, with 87 percent expressing no confidence in him.

One interesting tidbit is attitudes toward China are falling, and that reverberates to America’s favor. More people now consider the United States the top economic power.

“Increasingly,” Pew finds “a negative view people have about China in many parts of the world,” Wike said in a follow-up phone call. “In many parts of the world, this led to things that impact how they see the U.S. as well.”

The Washington Post · by Joe Davidson · August 11, 2023

23. Blood, sweat and syrup: Why are there so many fights at Waffle House?

Something to ponder over the weekend. National security related? You be the judge. Perhaps we should set up recruiting stations outside of Waffle Houses! (note sarcasm).

For the proper format and to read all the tweets embedded in the article go to the link: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/waffle-house-fight-avengers-austin-b2332715.html?

​So Waffle House fighting is an indication of all our societal ills:

Conclusion:

Put simply, solving the problem of Waffle House violence would require dramatic restructuring of society and eradication of inequality. And so no one should expect the chairs to stop flying anytime soon.

Blood, sweat and syrup: Why are there so many fights at Waffle House?

Independent · August 11, 2023

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It is a question that has puzzled philosophers, sociologists and night-shift grill masters for years, probably. What is it about Waffle House, the charming and iconic American diner chain, that invites so many fights on its premises?

For anyone unfamiliar with this obscure Americana lore, the mostly southern chain — with 1,900 locations in 25 states — has something of a reputation. A cursory internet search will provide a wealth of videos showing customers and employees throwing down in the brightly-lit dining room, usually after sundown.

The phenomenon has its own online subculture. Hundreds of memes play on the idea that Waffle House staff know how — and need little encouragement — to fight. “A fully staffed Waffle House could take out ISIS,” reads one. “If this is your first fight at Waffle House, you have to fight,” reads another, accompanied by a photograph of Brad Pitt’s character in Fight Club wearing a hat belonging to the chain. In the last few months, both Saturday Night Live andThe Daily Show have run skits on Waffle House violence. You can even buy an “I Stand With Waffle House Employees” T-shirt, a heartfelt show of solidarity with the servers who stand in the line of fire every evening.

But why Waffle House? What is it about this charming diner chain that makes people want to poke each other’s eyes out?

Is Waffle House America's late night fight club? On The Ground

Halie Booth knows more than most about the perils of working there. She’s a former employee who was turned into a meme herself when she was involved in one of the most infamous Waffle House brawls ever caught on camera.

“I’ve probably cleaned blood off of every surface of a Waffle house,” she tells The Independent matter-of-factly when we meet in Austin, just a short drive from the site of her infamous battle. “But really, that was a pretty mild night. It wasn’t as bad as it can get at a Waffle House.”

On a night shift in September 2021, Halie found herself in an unfortunately familiar situation as she passed the halfway mark of her time on the clock. It was in the early hours, and a group of customers was refusing to move from a closed part of the restaurant. When she asked them to leave, things quickly descended into a brawl.

A video taken by a customer shows a battle raging, sugar pots being thrown, punches landing. It shows Booth emerging from the ground during a brief lull in combat and finding her feet. Then, from screen left, a white chair sails through the air directly towards Booth’s head. With the reflexes of a cat she suddenly, impossibly, catches it with one hand, and throws it down to the ground. She then taunts the assailant, making a “come at me” motion with her hands.

It was poetry in motion. That moment — that swift ninja-like movement — seemed to confirm everything people thought they knew about Waffle House workers.

There’s certainly the possibility that people understand Waffle House as a place where certain norms are suspended, where you can push the envelope a little bit.

Michael Sierra-Arévalo, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin

“You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind. You don’t pull the mask off that old lone ranger. And you don’t mess around with the night waitress at the Waffle House,” wrote one tweeter in response to the clip.

The clip bounced around online for a year before it truly went viral. Then it changed her life completely.

The internet reacted with joy, praise and wonder at Booth’s fighting skills. Artists immortalised her signature move. She made several national media and podcast appearances and started collecting nicknames: she was called the Waffle House Avenger, Waffle House Wendy, and her favourite of the bunch, Waffle House Warrior. Her face now adorns t-shirts and mugs. No one was more surprised than Booth.

“I thought it was just over and done with. I was like, whatever cool. And then this happens and now people are like, ‘Oh, you’re a folk hero, you’re an avenger.’ And I’m like, I can’t walk in a straight line without tripping over my own feet.”

The video not only made an internet star out of Booth, but also renewed the debate about Waffle House violence. That nagging question came up again: Why Waffle House?

For Booth, who worked the night shift for most of the four years she was at Waffle House, there was a simple answer to the question. It comes down to a toxic combination of 24/7 opening hours and alcohol.

“People get impulsive at night. That’s when you party, that’s when you drink,” she says. “It’s so late, and there’s no security at these late-night places, and when people get intoxicated, or you know, in any form of [inebriation], they turn into toddlers and they need somebody to watch them and babysit them.”

Could the simplest answer be the right one? Is the issue just that Waffle House is open when the bars kick people out, and that brings a wave of alcohol-fuelled humans from all walks of life into a small, brightly-lit environment?

If that was the case, surely the same thing would be happening at other all-night diners.

Across town from the Waffle House where Booth became a meme, Stars Cafe has been serving the inebriated in Austin for more than 40 years. Every night, all through the night, it plays host to travelling musicians, students and bartenders getting off work. Jetara Robinson has worked the night shift on and off for years as a manager. When she saw the video of Booth catching the chair, she saw a kindred spirit.

“It was a badass move,” she says. “Not many people can just catch a chair in the air and throw it back to them.”

She says working the night shift at any all-night diner requires that kind of toughness: “When we’re looking for service for overnight, I kind of need somebody who has a little bit more of a roughness and who can really handle that type of situation because, to keep the business going, if that happens, that server needs to keep serving.”

Although Stars Diner doesn’t see the same kind of violence, she says abrasive customers are a feature of late-night diners.

“A lot of people go to these places to sober up before they actually hit the road and go home,” she says. “They’re impatient, they want their food, they are drunk. And then if it took more than an hour wait, that’s when you start getting people going crazy.”

A SNL skit pokes fun at Waffle House’s reputation

A combination of alcohol, bright lights, impatient customers can add up to trouble — it all makes sense. There’s one problem with this Unifying Theory of Waffle House Violence, however: these outbreaks of violence are not just taking place in Waffle Houses and other all-night diners, they are happening in retail stores, in airports, fast food restaurants, and anywhere a customer meets an employee in public. Waffle House may feature prominently in these videos online, but there are also hundreds of other incidents at other businesses. It’s almost as if there is a pandemic of violence in customer service-orientated businesses, a silent war between customer and server.

The research on this kind of violence is thin, to say the least — but there are some clues. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, described retail work as “one of the highest risk jobs for workplace violence,” and singles out convenience stores, gas stations, and businesses that sell alcoholic beverages as particularly at risk.

A New York Times analysis of FBI crime figures found that between 2018 and 2020, assaults increased by 63 per cent in grocery stores and 75 per cent in convenience stores. It found further that around 4 per cent of assaults nationwide, more than 82,000, were taking place at shopping malls, convenience stores or similar outlets.

One study published in December 2021 that focused on fast food stores in California between 2017 and 2020 found “restaurants plagued with criminal activity, where workers are regularly assaulted, robbed, spit on, yelled at, sworn at and told to go back to ‘their country.’”

The “Fight for $15 and a Union” collected 911 call records involving fast-food locations in nine of the largest cities in California, with a focus on four well-known brands: McDonald’s, Jack in the Box, Carl’s Jr and Burger King. Across 643 locations, they identified “77,200 violent or threatening incidents that resulted in a call to 911 for police assistance between 2017 and 2020.” Many of these locations generated hundreds of calls within the four-year span – as many as seven per week.

During the pandemic, incidents of violence in retail settings became so common that the CDC conducted a study into its prevalence and impact. It found high incidents of customer violence towards staff due to arguments over masks and social distancing guidelines.

So, what’s really happening here? Is this customer-centred violence a uniquely American phenomenon? Is this the inevitable outcome of a customer-is-always-right culture combined with a heavily armed and divided society?

Michael Sierra-Arévalo, a criminologist at the University of Austin whose research touches on violence prevention, was kind enough to humour The Independent when we asked for his view.

He said that beyond the obvious reasons why an all-night diner would face trouble, its reputation may actually be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Waffle House is very much a meme at this point,” he said. “There’s certainly the possibility that people understand Waffle House as a place where certain norms are suspended, where you can push the envelope a little bit. That’s an empirical question, we don’t know that for sure, but the fact that everyone understands that Waffle House is a place where things might happen suggests that people might behave as such.”

But there is perhaps a deeper reason why customer service workers in America are the subject of so much abuse — something that is unique to American culture.

“I can’t paint with too broad a brush, but it is certainly the case that the occupation of working as a server, or working as someone in customer service, generally a retail worker, there is a class element to this. These individuals are assumed to not have the same sort of mental acumen, the same sort of skill set as doctors, lawyers, etc,” Sierra-Arévalo says.

In the United States, with an economic system built on the false idea that anyone can make money if they work hard enough, this kind of class tension is magnified, he explains.

“By extension, there are probably some assumptions that are made about how much deference should be given to these individuals who work in the service industry. Are they here because, in the parlance of American exceptionalism and bootstrapped-picking-yourself-up-ism, they were either too lazy or too dumb to do something else, and thus they are less deserving of my respect or my deference?”

In other words, the high level of inequality in the US and poor wages in the service industry all play a role in how those workers are treated. Coupled with a customer-is-always-right culture in the industry, this creates a tension between the customer and a server when things don’t go the customer’s way, for whatever reason.

Travel across the pond to Paris, where waiters are paid a living wage, and the relationship is much more balanced. French waiters do not expect to have to fight every time they don their bowties, as Booth does when she puts on a Waffle House hat.

As someone who has worked in similar customer service jobs, Booth has experienced this kind of treatment first-hand for years.

“I think it’s a problem for anybody that works in customer service,” she says. “People have that mentality that the customer’s always right.

“Customer service workers, or anybody in that field, are looked at as nothing more than the help. It feels demeaning. You’ll be trying to manage something and all of a sudden, you’ll hear ‘Hey can I get…’ No, ma’am. We’re not dogs. We’re people, we’re just here to try and to make a living. This is our nine-to-five, we’re not doing this because we’re having fun. We’re doing this because we got bills to pay.”

How would Sierra-Arévalo, who studies violence prevention and societal problems for a living, solve the problem of Waffle House violence, and abuse against servers and retail workers more generally?

“It’s not just sticking a big red sticker on the door that says don’t do that,” he says. “There is a much broader and deeper set of conditions, inequalities, economic systems, that recreate this very ossified class hierarchy where, at scale, certain occupations — servers, retail workers, flight attendants — are more likely than other occupations and other people to be perceived as less deserving of respect less deserving of deference. And the flipside of that is, more deserving of my physical violence.

“To fix that you would have to reform a society at scale economically, socially, and culturally – such that there wasn’t this hierarchy of occupations,” he adds.

Put simply, solving the problem of Waffle House violence would require dramatic restructuring of society and eradication of inequality. And so no one should expect the chairs to stop flying anytime soon.

Independent · August 11, 2023

24. Critical thinking education trumps banning and censorship in battle against disinformation, study suggests

I am happy to read this assessment.

We should keep in mind this excerpt from the 2017 NSS:

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

​Excerpts:

They tested three main disinformation mitigation strategies under consideration by the U.S. Congress: content moderation (such as banning those who spread fake news), public education (teaching people to fact-check and be skeptical), and counter campaigns (promoting groups committed to spreading the truth).

...

Teaching people to recognize their biases, be more open to new opinions, and be skeptical of online information proved the most effective strategy for curbing disinformation.

Early education (teaching people to be skeptical and question information early on, before they form strong opinions) had the most significant effect on stopping disinformation. Late education (trying to correct people’s beliefs after they have already formed opinions) was not as effective as early education but still had some impact.

Strategies like removing people who share fake content or creating counter campaigns were not as effective as education. The researchers explained that even though these strategies might seem like quick solutions, they don’t work as well in the long run.

Critical thinking education trumps banning and censorship in battle against disinformation, study suggests

psypost.org · by Eric W. Dolan · August 9, 2023

A new study conducted by researchers from Michigan State University suggests that the battle against online disinformation cannot be won by content moderation or banning those who spread fake news. Instead, the key lies in early and continuous education that teaches individuals to critically evaluate information and remain open to changing their minds.

The study was recently featured in SIAM News, a publication of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).

“Disinformation is one of the most important problems of modern times and is poised to worsen as the power of AI increases. Our research group develops models for the spread of ‘contagions,’ so disinformation, like disease, is a natural topic,” explained study author Michael Murillo, a professor in the Department of Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering.

The researchers used a type of math called “agent-based modeling” to simulate how people’s opinions change over time. They focused on a model where individuals can believe the truth, the fake information, or remain undecided. The researchers created a network of connections between these individuals, similar to how people are connected on social media.

They used the binary agreement model to understand the “tipping point” (the point where a small change can lead to significant effects) and how disinformation can spread.

They tested three main disinformation mitigation strategies under consideration by the U.S. Congress: content moderation (such as banning those who spread fake news), public education (teaching people to fact-check and be skeptical), and counter campaigns (promoting groups committed to spreading the truth).

The researchers implemented each strategy in the simulated environment to test its effectiveness. They created thousands of small networks representing different types of social connections and applied mathematical rules to simulate real-world scenarios.

“Disinformation is an important problem that policy makers are attempting to address,” Murillo told PsyPost. “We have developed models to simulate the spread of disinformation to test various mitigation strategies. From the mathematics and many thousands of simulations, we are able to assess the most fruitful strategies.”

The researchers found that found that if just 10% of the population strongly believes in disinformation, the rest may follow suit. The findings suggest that disinformation spreads easily because people naturally want to believe things that align with their existing beliefs.

Teaching people to recognize their biases, be more open to new opinions, and be skeptical of online information proved the most effective strategy for curbing disinformation.

Early education (teaching people to be skeptical and question information early on, before they form strong opinions) had the most significant effect on stopping disinformation. Late education (trying to correct people’s beliefs after they have already formed opinions) was not as effective as early education but still had some impact.

Strategies like removing people who share fake content or creating counter campaigns were not as effective as education. The researchers explained that even though these strategies might seem like quick solutions, they don’t work as well in the long run.

“We were surprised, and disheartened, by how difficult this problem is,” Murillo said. “If one guesses the cost and time to implement strategies, such as broad education on critical thinking and education, we are looking at a generational-scale problem.”

As with all research, the new study includes some caveats.

“We deliberately created a parsimonious model to uncover the essential factors at play; however, much more detail could be added to better match specific situations,” Murillo explained. “Also, many proposed strategies are only ‘band-aids’ that treat the symptom, such as labeling videos in YouTube, but do not address the underlying cause that may be related to a social or political issue.”

“More research is needed to understand how and why people are drawn toward disinformation in general,” Murillo added. “People tend to be drawn toward sensationalist ideas, which empower and gives advantage to the sources of disinformation. Given improved knowledge of this aspect of human nature, we can enhance our models and policy makers could perhaps develop more optimal ‘seat belts’ to control the spread of disinformation.”

The study, “Evaluating the Effectiveness of Mitigation Policies Against Disinformation“, was authored by David J. Butts and Michael S. Murillo.

psypost.org · by Eric W. Dolan · August 9, 2023

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com