Quotes of the Day:
“Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism, and the effort to destroy them would be futile unless accomplished in ways that would work the utmost mischief to the entire body politic. We can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.”
- Theodore Roosevelt
"Even the smallest thing should be done with reference to an end."
- Marcus Aurelius
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JUNE 17 (PUTIN'S WAR)
2. U.S. Restraint Has Created an Unstable and Dangerous World by H. R. McMaster
3. Transcript of AP interview with President Joe Biden
4. The Myth of Ideological Polarization
5. America Must Not Forfeit Technology Dominance
6. With scant options in Ukraine, U.S. and allies prepare for long war
7. Russians Breached This City, Not With Troops, but Propaganda
8. How Ukraine Is Winning the Propaganda War
9. Opinion | Who Will Remember the Horrors of Ukraine?
10. Swedengate Was a Lesson in How Easily Misinformation Spreads
11. China’s Xi Jinping Could Knowingly Start a War Without Victory
12. Defending against disinformation (Canada)
13. Tainted Qatari Millions Are All Over Washington
14. Is the war in Ukraine creating a new world order?
15. Fujian: China's New Aircraft Carrier Is Important — But No Game-Changer
16. U.S. Must Counter Collective Nuclear Blackmail
17. Looking at the Ukraine War Through the Lens of the Korean War
18. Joe Biden's Blank Check Strategy Won't Help Ukraine Beat Russia
19. It looks like China did have access to U.S. TikTok user data
20. It's Not About Democracy
21. Opinion | Stunning Trump revelations raise fears of a dark, violent future
22. Opinion | White nationalists are getting bolder. Enforcement must, too.
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JUNE 17 (PUTIN'S WAR)
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JUNE 17
Kateryna Stepanenko, Mason Clark, George Barros, and Grace Mappes
June 17, 7:00 pm ET
Click here to see ISW's interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
Russian forces are continuing to deploy additional forces to support offensive operations in the Severodonetsk-Lysychansk area, and Ukrainian defenses remain strong. Ukrainian Defense Ministry Spokesperson Oleksandr Motuzyanyk reported that Russian forces are transferring tanks, armored personnel carriers, engineering equipment, and vehicles from Svatove, along the Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) in Luhansk Oblast, to Starobilsk, just 40 km east of Severodonetsk.[1] Social media users reported that Russian forces are likely redeploying equipment from northern Kharkiv Oblast to Donbas and published footage of Russian heavy artillery arriving by rail in Stary Osokol, Belgorod Oblast on June 17.[2] UK Chief of Defense Tony Radakin stated that Russian forces are “diminishing” in power by committing large quantities of personnel and equipment for incremental gains in one area.[3] The Russian military has concentrated the vast majority of its available combat power to capture Severodonetsk and Lysychansk at the expense of other axes of advance and is suffering heavy casualties to do so.
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Russian forces will attack Ukrainian positions near Donetsk City but reiterated that the new tactic will require additional time during his address at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum on June 17.[4] Putin stated that Russian forces will stop what he claimed is Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk City by attacking Ukrainian fortifications from the rear. Putin may have amplified reports of shelling of civilian areas of Donetsk City, which Ukrainian officials have denied, to discourage Western officials from supplying weapons to Ukraine.[5] Putin also declared that Russian forces will fully complete the “special military operation” in Ukraine, and noted that Russian and proxy forces will intensify counter-battery combat.[6] Putin urged Russian forces to refrain from entirely destroying cities that they aim to “liberate," ignoring the destruction Russian forces have inflicted on Ukrainian cities and the artillery-heavy tactics Russian forces are currently employing in Severodonetsk.”[7]
Unconfirmed Ukrainian sources report that the Kremlin fired the Commander of the Russian Airborne Forces, Colonel-General Andrey Serdyukov, due to mass casualties among Russian paratroopers. Odesa Oblast Military-Civil Administration Spokesperson Serhiy Bratchuk reported that the Kremlin appointed the current chief of staff of the Central Military District, Colonel-General Mikhail Teplinsky, as Serdyukov’s replacement and named the Deputy Commander of the Russian Airborne Forces, Lieutenant General Anatoly Kontsevoi, as the First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian Airborne Forces.[8][9] ISW cannot independently confirm these claims or Serdyukov’s exact role in the invasion of Ukraine, but they, if true, would indicate that Serdyukov is being held responsible for the poor performance of and high casualties among Russian VDV units, particularly in early operations around Kyiv. Continued dismissals and possible internal purges of senior Russian officers will likely further degrade poor Russian command and control capabilities and the confidence of Russian officers.
Key Takeaways
- Russian forces continued to launch unsuccessful ground assaults against Severodonetsk and its southeastern outskirts on June 17.
- Russian forces continued efforts to sever Ukrainian lines of communication to Lysychansk, both from the north toward Slovyansk and in the south near Bakhmut.
- Ukrainian forces are likely conducting a counteroffensive northwest of Izyum intended to draw Russian forces away from offensive operations toward Slovyansk and disrupt Russian supply lines and are making minor gains.
- Ukrainian forces and aviation continued to strike Russian logistics and fortifications in occupied settlements along the Southern Axis, with localized fighting ongoing.
- Russian forces continued to regroup and transfer personnel within Zaporizhia Oblast to maintain defensive positions along the frontline.
- Russian President Putin reaffirmed his commitment to “completing” the Russian operation in Ukraine but acknowledged that unspecified new Russian tactics (which are likely simply explanations for poor Russian performance) will take time.
- Unconfirmed Ukrainian sources reported that the Kremlin fired the commander of the Russian Airborne Forces, Colonel-General Andrey Serdyukov, due to poor performance.
We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
- Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and three supporting efforts);
- Subordinate Main Effort—Encirclement of Ukrainian troops in the cauldron between Izyum and Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts
- Supporting Effort 1—Kharkiv City;
- Supporting Effort 2—Southern Axis;
- Activities in Russian-occupied Areas
Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine
Subordinate Main Effort—Southern Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk Oblasts (Russian objective: Encircle Ukrainian forces in Eastern Ukraine and capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian forces continued to launch unsuccessful ground assaults against Severodonetsk and its southeastern outskirts on June 17. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults on Syrotyne and Metolkine, just southeast of Severodonetsk.[10] Russian forces are reportedly deploying additional artillery systems and troops to support offensive operations in Severodonetsk.[11] Ukrainian parliamentary representative and military commentator Dmytro Snyegiryev stated on June 17 that Russian forces already have seven battalion tactical groups (BTGs) in Severodonetsk and recently introduced two reserve BTGs to the area, but ISW cannot independently verify Snyegiryev’s claims or the timeframe of his statement.[12] Ukrainian Defense Ministry Spokesperson Oleksandr Motuzyanyk added that Ukrainian forces continue to retain positions at the Azot Chemical Plant in the southeastern part of Severodonetsk.[13] Luhansk Oblast Administration Head Serhiy Haidai reported that Russian forces are attacking Toshkivka, likely in an effort to secure positions on the western bank of the Siverskyi Donets River.[14]
Russian forces continued to attack settlements along the Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Lysychansk. Russian forces launched an unsuccessful assault on Zolote, near the T1303 Hirske-Lysychansk highway, and are likely attempting to encircle Ukrainian forces in the area.[15] Ukrainian forces also reportedly repelled Russian assaults on Berestove, Nyrokove, and Vasylivka along the T1302 Bakhmut-Lysychansk highway and Kodema, approximately 14km south of Bakhmut.[16] Russian forces committed additional two battalions of the 1st and 2nd Army Corps (the armed forces of the DNR and LNR) and are continuing to regroup troops to continue assaults along the T1303 highway.[17] Russian forces may also be attempting to resume river crossings southeast of Lyman to disrupt Ukrainian GLOCs around Siversk. Motuzyanuk stated that Russian forces are preparing to cross the Siverskiy Donets and are shelling settlements southeast of Lyman.[18] Geolocated footage showed that Ukrainian Special Operation Forces destroyed a Russian pontoon bridge near Bilohorivka (approximately 13km south of Kreminna) on June 16. Russian forces previously suffered significant losses during a failed river crossing attempt near Bilohorivka in early May.[19]
Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted to advance north of Slovyansk and southeast of Izyum on June 17. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces failed to seize Bohorodychne (approximately 25 km southeast of Izyum) and retreated to previously occupied positions.[20] Russian forces also conducted unsuccessful reconnaissance-in-force operations near Krasnopillia, located along the E40 highway to Slovyansk.[21] Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensives southwest of Izyum and pushed Russian forces out of Dmytrivka.[22]
Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv City (Russian objective: Withdraw forces to the north and defend ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum)
Russian forces engaged in clashes north and northeast of Kharkiv City to push Ukrainian forces away from the international border on June 17. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful reconnaissance-in-force operations in Kochubiyika, just west of the Kharkiv City-Belgorod highway.[23] Ukrainian Defense Ministry Spokesperson Oleksandr Motuzyanyk stated that Russian forces are regrouping troops and conducting air reconnaissance in settlements within a 40 km range northeast of Kharkiv City in preparation to resume offensive operations in Ternova-Rubizhne area.[24] Social media footage also showed mobilized Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic (DNR and LNR) servicemen operating just east of Ternova and Rubizhne, who are likely defending Russian-occupied positions along the border.[25]
Ukrainian and Russian sources are increasingly reporting on the possibility of Ukrainian counteroffensives toward Izyum from Kharkiv City’s southeastern outskirts.[26] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces are defending rear positions to halt any Ukrainian advances toward Izyum from Kharkiv City.[27] Pro-Russian Telegram channel Rybar noted that Ukrainian forces are actively attempting to disrupt Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum.[28] Kharkiv Oblast Administration Head Oleg Synegubov reported that Russian artillery continues to fire at Chuhuiv, approximately 35 km southeast of Kharkiv City.[29] These Ukrainian operations are likely intended to draw Russian forces away from offensive operations toward Slovyansk and disrupt Russian supply lines.
Supporting Effort #2—Southern Axis (Objective: Defend Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts against Ukrainian counterattacks)
Ukrainian forces and aviation continued to strike Russian logistics and fortifications in occupied settlements along the Southern Axis. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian aviation struck Russian positions in Kherson City, Kakhovka, and Bersylav districts situated at least 45 km southeast of the line of contact on the Kherson-Mykolaiv Oblast border.[30] Geolocated footage also shows that Ukrainian forces previously destroyed a Russian ammunition depot and equipment repair center in Nova Kakhovka (just southwest of Kakhovka) on June 14.[31] Pro-Russian Telegram channel Rybar reported that Ukrainian Su-25 jet aircraft struck Russian positions in occupied Snihurivka, approximately 65 km east of Mykolaiv City, but ISW cannot independently verify this claim.[32] Ukrainian forces destroyed Russia’s Black Sea Fleet “Vasily Bekh” tugboat as it delivered ammunition, weapons, and personnel to Snake Island off the Romanian coast despite the presence of Russian air-defense systems on the island.[33] Russian forces continued to fire at Ukrainian forces along the entire Kherson-Mykolaiv Oblast border, likely to deter Ukrainian counterattacks in the area.[34] The ability of Ukrainian ground-attack aircraft (as opposed to air-to-ground missiles fired from outside Russian-controlled airspace) to strike targets up to 45 km behind the Russian front lines indicates that previous Russian efforts to reinforce air defenses around Kherson have not been fully effective.
Russian forces continued to regroup and transfer personnel within Zaporizhia Oblast to maintain defensive positions along the frontline.[35] Ukraine’s Zaporizhia Oblast Military Administration reported that Russian forces are concentrating troops in the Vasylivka and Polohy areas, 45 km south and 90 km southeast of Zaporizhia Oblast, respectfully.[36] Russian forces reportedly relocated some elements from other settlements in Zaporizhia Oblast to Melitopol and are planning to move additional units to the city from the Enerhodar area.[37] The Zaporizhia Oblast Military Administration also noted that there are no indications that Russian forces intend to conduct offensive operations against Orihiv or Huliaipole (both settlements north of the frontline) in the near future. Russian forces likely lack the manpower to resume ground offensives in Zaporizhia Oblast and are likely reinforcing their frontline positions to defend against possible Ukrainian counterattacks.
Activity in Russian-occupied Areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of occupied areas; set conditions for potential annexation into the Russian Federation or some other future political arrangement of Moscow’s choosing)
Russian President Vladimir Putin implied that Russian-occupied settlements will hold referendums to join Russia during his address to the St. Petersburg Economic Forum on June 17.[38] Putin said that Russian-occupied settlements will determine their own future and that the Kremlin will “respect any of their choices.” Putin also blamed Ukraine for threatening a food crisis in Africa and the Middle East, claiming that Ukrainian forces placed mines around ports and stopped grain exports.[39] However, the Zaporizhia Oblast Military Administration reported spotting another ten Russian trucks filled with Ukrainian grain heading from Melitopol to Crimea on June 16.[40]
[1] https://news dot liga.net/ua/politics/news/ustayut-no-ne-zakanchivayutsya-okkupanty-usilili-gruppirovku-svoih-voysk-u-severodonetska
[12] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/06/17/pid-syevyerodoneczkom-zsu-znyshhyly-do-60-syl-okupantiv/
[13] https://news dot liga.net/ua/politics/news/ustayut-no-ne-zakanchivayutsya-okkupanty-usilili-gruppirovku-svoih-voysk-u-severodonetska
[17] https://news dot liga.net/ua/politics/news/ustayut-no-ne-zakanchivayutsya-okkupanty-usilili-gruppirovku-svoih-voysk-u-severodonetska; https://www dot unian.ua/war/u-rayoni-zolotogo-zsu-vidbili-shturm-vorog-namagayetsya-otochiti-syevyerodoneck-motuzyanik-novini-vtorgnennya-rosiji-v-ukrajinu-11869545.html
[18] https://news dot liga.net/ua/politics/news/ustayut-no-ne-zakanchivayutsya-okkupanty-usilili-gruppirovku-svoih-voysk-u-severodonetska
[24] https://www dot unian.ua/war/u-rayoni-zolotogo-zsu-vidbili-shturm-vorog-namagayetsya-otochiti-syevyerodoneck-motuzyanik-novini-vtorgnennya-rosiji-v-ukrajinu-11869545.html;
2. U.S. Restraint Has Created an Unstable and Dangerous World by H. R. McMaster
Compare this with the transcript of President Binde's AP interview that follows.
Excerpts:
The United States must end its unilateral restraint vis-à-vis Russia and China and be realistic about the nature of the adversaries it faces. First, the United States must rearm, and the defense budget must increase. It must pay for new capabilities that counter and exceed those China and Russia have invested in. The Joint Forces must be substantially bigger to deter Russian and Chinese aggression as well as be able to respond to multiple, simultaneous contingencies. In today’s dollars, achieving even the Cold War-era floor of spending 4.5 percent of GDP on defense would mean a $1.2 trillion budget. Second, the United States must end its diplomatic restraint. Where it can, it should counter Beijing’s and Moscow’s efforts to subvert and co-opt international institutions and turn them against their purpose. If some of those institutions are beyond rescue, the United States and likeminded partners should form new groupings to advance the originally intended values and principles. In these cases, new institutions should prove more resilient and effective than the current ones plagued by discord and corruption. The Biden administration must stop describing Russia and China as partners in arresting nuclear proliferation, combatting climate change, and curbing pandemics. Finally, the United States must end its economic restraint against the predatory practices and outright criminal behavior of the Chinese regime. U.S. policymakers should not tolerate violations of bilateral and international trade agreements, the use of forced labor and other inhumane labor practices, and supply chains that leave U.S. national security vulnerable. Free trade only works among free people.
Putin’s latest assault on the free world—and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s threats to do so himself—have the capability of resuscitating Washington from its comatose policy of restraint. The longer the United States operates under the delusion that restraint will appease authoritarian regimes that have made their hostile intentions abundantly clear, Russia and China will become bolder and the risk of a catastrophic war—which Ukraine was the prelude for—will only grow. In a world created by U.S. restraint, democracy, prosperity, and peace are on the decline. As Putin’s brutal war has reminded the world, weakness is provocative. Strength is the best way to preserve peace and secure a better future for generations to come.
U.S. Restraint Has Created an Unstable and Dangerous World
Foreign Policy · by H. R. McMaster, Gabriel Scheinmann · June 17, 2022
A front-row seat to the Republicans' debate over foreign policy, including their critique of the Biden administration.
Decades of ignoring the menaces posed by Russia and China has led the West to a precipice.
By H. R. McMaster, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a former U.S. national security advisor, and Gabriel Scheinmann, the executive director of the Alexander Hamilton Society.
US service members wait before deploying to Europe.
U.S. service members wait before deploying to Europe at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on Feb. 3. ALLISON JOYCE/AFP via Getty Images
The Biden administration failed to deter Russia from its second invasion of Ukraine. Like his predecessors in the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden went to great lengths to placate and reassure Russian President Vladimir Putin in return for stable relations. Biden defied Congress when he refused to sanction the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, unilaterally extended U.S. adherence to the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty without reciprocation by Russia, and honored Putin with a bilateral summit during his first overseas trip. As Putin amassed his troops on Ukraine’s borders, Biden pulled U.S. naval forces out of the Black Sea, refused to send additional weapons to Ukraine, enumerated everything the United States would not do to help Ukraine defend itself, and evacuated U.S. Embassy staff and military advisors. More broadly, the administration proposed a real cut to the defense budget; sought to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense strategy; restricted U.S. production capacity for oil, gas, and refined products that might have displaced Russian supplies; and signaled its willingness to overlook Russian and Chinese aggression in exchange for hollow pledges of cooperation on global issues such as climate change. After surrendering Afghanistan to a terrorist organization and conducting a humiliating retreat from Kabul, the administration’s attempts to deter the Russian invasion with threats of punishment were simply not credible.
Deterrence, however, does not disintegrate overnight. Contrary to the narrative of U.S. belligerence and imperialism that has been impressed on countless university students, the United States has, since the end of World War II, largely pursued a policy of restraint despite its considerable military power. Unlike other superpowers, it has not sought territories or treasure—on the contrary, it incurred considerable expense to foster a peaceful international order where other nations could thrive. Under the belief that a market economy, normal trading relations, and a democratic wave would foster liberal democracy everywhere, Washington even sought to elevate, embrace, and enrich its former Cold War enemies. From the World Bank to the International Space Station, the World Trade Organization to the Paris Agreement, Washington welcomed Moscow and Beijing into Western institutions—in other words, into the order Washington had previously tried to keep them from tearing down. Seeking to partner with Moscow and Beijing in the pursuit of global prosperity and a peaceful planet, Washington bridled its power by undertaking a generational drawdown of military forces and capabilities. Indeed, global prosperity grew and the number of democracies in the world steadily rose. As conviction rose in Washington that both China and Russia had transformed from adversaries to partners, U.S. restraint seemed a rational choice.
However, restraint was not reciprocated. As the United States reduced its defense spending to the lowest share of GDP since 1940, Russia and China embarked on the largest military modernization and expansion programs their countries had seen in generations. They bullied their neighbors (or in Russia’s case, attacked and occupied them), corroded the institutions they joined, and sought to eliminate their citizens’ liberties. U.S. restraint was interpreted as weakness. Ignoring these menaces has now led the West to the most dangerous precipice since the depths of the Cold War.
The Biden administration failed to deter Russia from its second invasion of Ukraine. Like his predecessors in the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden went to great lengths to placate and reassure Russian President Vladimir Putin in return for stable relations. Biden defied Congress when he refused to sanction the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, unilaterally extended U.S. adherence to the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty without reciprocation by Russia, and honored Putin with a bilateral summit during his first overseas trip. As Putin amassed his troops on Ukraine’s borders, Biden pulled U.S. naval forces out of the Black Sea, refused to send additional weapons to Ukraine, enumerated everything the United States would not do to help Ukraine defend itself, and evacuated U.S. Embassy staff and military advisors. More broadly, the administration proposed a real cut to the defense budget; sought to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense strategy; restricted U.S. production capacity for oil, gas, and refined products that might have displaced Russian supplies; and signaled its willingness to overlook Russian and Chinese aggression in exchange for hollow pledges of cooperation on global issues such as climate change. After surrendering Afghanistan to a terrorist organization and conducting a humiliating retreat from Kabul, the administration’s attempts to deter the Russian invasion with threats of punishment were simply not credible.
Deterrence, however, does not disintegrate overnight. Contrary to the narrative of U.S. belligerence and imperialism that has been impressed on countless university students, the United States has, since the end of World War II, largely pursued a policy of restraint despite its considerable military power. Unlike other superpowers, it has not sought territories or treasure—on the contrary, it incurred considerable expense to foster a peaceful international order where other nations could thrive. Under the belief that a market economy, normal trading relations, and a democratic wave would foster liberal democracy everywhere, Washington even sought to elevate, embrace, and enrich its former Cold War enemies. From the World Bank to the International Space Station, the World Trade Organization to the Paris Agreement, Washington welcomed Moscow and Beijing into Western institutions—in other words, into the order Washington had previously tried to keep them from tearing down. Seeking to partner with Moscow and Beijing in the pursuit of global prosperity and a peaceful planet, Washington bridled its power by undertaking a generational drawdown of military forces and capabilities. Indeed, global prosperity grew and the number of democracies in the world steadily rose. As conviction rose in Washington that both China and Russia had transformed from adversaries to partners, U.S. restraint seemed a rational choice.
However, restraint was not reciprocated. As the United States reduced its defense spending to the lowest share of GDP since 1940, Russia and China embarked on the largest military modernization and expansion programs their countries had seen in generations. They bullied their neighbors (or in Russia’s case, attacked and occupied them), corroded the institutions they joined, and sought to eliminate their citizens’ liberties. U.S. restraint was interpreted as weakness. Ignoring these menaces has now led the West to the most dangerous precipice since the depths of the Cold War.
Even before the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, Russian and Chinese militarism and belligerence were evident. In June of that year, Chinese tanks put down peaceful protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, killing thousands of people. In late 1995 and early 1996, Beijing tried to intimidate Taiwan in the run-up to its first democratic election, firing missiles into Taiwanese territorial waters. In April 2001, a Chinese fighter jet rammed a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace, forcing the naval airmen into an emergency landing in China, where they were detained for 10 days. Moscow engaged in two brutal wars against Chechnya and launched an assassination campaign against political opponents that continues to this day. In 2004, the Kremlin nearly killed then-Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko in an attempt to secure victory for its preferred candidate. In 2006, a Russian agent poisoned and killed Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy who had defected, and Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist, was assassinated for opposing Putin’s wars. From the killing of Boris Nemtsov, a liberal critic of Putin, in 2015 to the poisoning and incarceration of dissident Alexey Navalny in 2020 to the most recent imprisonment of Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, Putin and his thugs have worked tirelessly to extinguish any criticism of, let alone challenge to, his iron rule.
Russia and China were emboldened, in part, because the United States undertook the greatest military drawdown since the collapse of the British empire.
Washington still did not waver from its predisposition toward restraint. Even after Putin made plain his goal of undermining the United States and the West at the 2007 Munich Security Conference, the U.S. military drawdown from Europe and Asia continued. The United States welcomed Russia into the G-7 in 1998, turning it into the G-8. China and Russia became part of the G-20 in 1999 and the World Trade Organization in 2001 and 2012, respectively. Putin’s 2008 invasion of Georgia was even rewarded with a positive “reset” of relations. The 2010 U.S. National Security Strategy called for a “stable, substantive, multidimensional relationship with Russia, based on mutual interests” and sought “Russia’s cooperation to act as a responsible partner in Europe and Asia.” Similarly, even as Chinese ships began clashing with those of their neighbors, even as China built and militarized 27 artificial islands and other outposts in the South China Sea, and even as Beijing claimed sovereignty over the sea and established air and sea superiority in an area where one-third of global trade passes, Washington remained withdrawn. The 2015 U.S. National Security Strategy “welcome[d] the rise of a stable, peaceful, and prosperous China” and sought “to develop a constructive relationship with China that delivers benefits for our two peoples and promotes security and prosperity in Asia and around the world.”
Instead, the two autocracies’ belligerence has only expanded. In 2014, Russia invaded, occupied, and annexed parts of Ukraine, initiating a long war it has now expanded. The following year, Russian troops propped up the murderous dictatorship of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, and soon thereafter, Putin sent his private mercenary army, the Wagner Group, into Libya. In 2016, Russia interfered in elections in Europe and the United States, exploiting domestic political divisions to sow discord and mistrust in the democratic process. Not to be outdone, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched a genocide of its own citizens, imprisoned 1.8 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in concentration camps and forcing them to undergo compulsory sterilization, forced labor, medical experiments, mass rape, torture, renunciation of their religious beliefs in favor of the Communist Party, cutting and selling of their hair, and organ harvesting. In 2020, Beijing cracked down in Hong Kong in direct contravention of the “one country, two systems” policy it had committed to by international treaty. Chinese soldiers also attacked Indian troops across their disputed border, initiating skirmishes leading to several dozen deaths. As if that was not enough, Beijing’s deceit, dishonesty, and dissimulation about the nature and origin of COVID-19 helped transform a local and possibly containable outbreak into a horrific global pandemic that has cost more than 15 million lives so far.
Russia and China were emboldened, in part, because the United States undertook the greatest drawdown of military power since the collapse of the British empire. In 1990, the U.S. military had about 266,000 service members stationed in Europe; by the end of 2021, it was only about 65,000 service members. In 1989, the U.S. Army had 5,000 tanks permanently stationed in West Germany alone; by 2014, there were zero on the entire continent. In 1990, the United States had 5,000 nuclear bombs forward deployed in Western Europe; today, it has around 150 nuclear bombs. Until the 2014 start of Russia’s war in Ukraine and despite NATO enlargement, not a single U.S. service member was permanently stationed farther east than during the Cold War. In Asia, where the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has more than 2 million ground force personnel and the Chinese navy is now the largest in the world, the United States’ active-duty Army has been cut by one-third since 1990. The U.S. Navy has 40 percent fewer sailors in Asia and will soon have only half the number of active warships it had stationed there in 1990. In 2019, China conducted more ballistic missile tests than the rest of the world combined. Recent reports show that China is expected to quadruple the size of its nuclear arsenal by decade’s end.
The policy of restraint continues to limit the U.S. defense budget. At the close of the century, China and Russia together spent 13 percent of what the United States spends on defense. Today, that number is 67 percent. Whereas U.S. defense spending fluctuated between 4.5 percent and 11.3 percent of GDP during the Cold War, Biden’s budget request for 2022 would have put defense spending at less than 3 percent of GDP—the lowest level since 1940, when Washington was still trying its best to stay out of international affairs. And while the White House’s recently released 2023 budget request contains a small nominal increase, rampant inflation makes it another de facto cut. By comparison, the Chinese defense budget—which is chronically understated by the CCP and does not include, for example, what local authorities spend on military bases or investments in research and development—grew 7.1 percent in 2021. And lest you be impressed by the still-ample size of U.S. spending, keep in mind that Washington spreads its military thinly, whereas Russia and China have a laser-like focus on dominating their neighbors and regions. U.S. armed forces are not only too small to deter or respond effectively to aggression, but the services have also incurred significant deferred modernization due to inadequate and unpredictable defense budgets as well as the U.S. Defense Department’s dysfunctional acquisition and procurement system. The United States is weaker, less secure, and less prepared to fight and win than at any time since the beginning of the Korean War.
Consequently, Putin launching the largest war in Europe since World War II should not have come as a surprise. For over three decades, Moscow and Beijing have eroded, flouted, mocked, and assaulted the order the United States and its allies built. Restraint encouraged that agenda as the United States and its allies dismantled the ramparts that had been vital to preserving peace and protecting the sovereignty of nations on the peripheries of two revanchist powers. And the drawdown continues—even as Russia continues its brutal invasion and China lays claim to Taiwan and the South China Sea. In its new national defense strategy, the Biden administration uses the term “integrated deterrence” to create the illusion that better coordinated policies can be substitute for modernized, ready, forward-positioned forces capable of operating at a sufficient scale to deter conflict and, should that deterrence fail, fight and win.
The United States must end its unilateral restraint vis-à-vis Russia and China and be realistic about the nature of the adversaries it faces. First, the United States must rearm, and the defense budget must increase. It must pay for new capabilities that counter and exceed those China and Russia have invested in. The Joint Forces must be substantially bigger to deter Russian and Chinese aggression as well as be able to respond to multiple, simultaneous contingencies. In today’s dollars, achieving even the Cold War-era floor of spending 4.5 percent of GDP on defense would mean a $1.2 trillion budget. Second, the United States must end its diplomatic restraint. Where it can, it should counter Beijing’s and Moscow’s efforts to subvert and co-opt international institutions and turn them against their purpose. If some of those institutions are beyond rescue, the United States and likeminded partners should form new groupings to advance the originally intended values and principles. In these cases, new institutions should prove more resilient and effective than the current ones plagued by discord and corruption. The Biden administration must stop describing Russia and China as partners in arresting nuclear proliferation, combatting climate change, and curbing pandemics. Finally, the United States must end its economic restraint against the predatory practices and outright criminal behavior of the Chinese regime. U.S. policymakers should not tolerate violations of bilateral and international trade agreements, the use of forced labor and other inhumane labor practices, and supply chains that leave U.S. national security vulnerable. Free trade only works among free people.
Putin’s latest assault on the free world—and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s threats to do so himself—have the capability of resuscitating Washington from its comatose policy of restraint. The longer the United States operates under the delusion that restraint will appease authoritarian regimes that have made their hostile intentions abundantly clear, Russia and China will become bolder and the risk of a catastrophic war—which Ukraine was the prelude for—will only grow. In a world created by U.S. restraint, democracy, prosperity, and peace are on the decline. As Putin’s brutal war has reminded the world, weakness is provocative. Strength is the best way to preserve peace and secure a better future for generations to come.
H. R. McMaster is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, a former U.S. national security advisor during the Trump administration, and the author of Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World. Twitter: @LTGHRMcMaster
Gabriel Scheinmann is the executive director of the Alexander Hamilton Society. Twitter: @GabeScheinmann
3. Transcript of AP interview with President Joe Biden
Compare with HR McMaster's piece on no more restraint.
Excerpts:
AP: Why is that? Because it seems like you knew the risks on Ukraine with regard to higher gasoline prices ...
BIDEN: Sure.
AP: ... that carried political risks for you at home ...
BIDEN: Sure.
AP: ... so when, when your aides said, “Look at the situation,” how did you make that choice? What would you tell someone in Latrobe, Pennsylvania?
BIDEN: I’m the president of the United States. It’s not about my political survival. It’s about what’s best for the country. No kidding. No kidding. So what happens? What happens if the strongest power, NATO, an organizational structure we put together, walked away from Russian aggression of over 100,000 troops marching across a border to try to, to occupy and wipe out a culture of an entire people. What, then, then what happens? What happens next? What do we do next?
AP: What did you fear would happen next if you didn’t do?
BIDEN: Oh, I fear what would happen next is you’d see chaos in Europe. You would see the possibility they continue to move. You already saw what they’re doing in Belarus. What would happen in the surrounding countries. Watch what would happen in Poland, and, and the Czech Republic and all the members of NATO. For example, you know, the reason Putin said he was going to go in was because he didn’t want them to join NATO. And, uh, he, he, he, he wanted the sort of the Finland-ization of NATO. He got the NATO-ization of Finland, instead. (laughter) No, I’m serious.
AP: Yeah.
BIDEN: And so, the idea that if the United States stood by, then what does China think about Taiwan? Then what does North Korea think about nuclear weapons beyond testing and pressure?
AP: Do you think Americans have that sense of the stakes on a daily basis?
BIDEN: No, I don’t. But I don’t think, look, on a daily basis, most households just trying to figure out how to put, before, even when things were going well, just figure out how to put food on the table, take care of the kids, pay for their education, just basic things. You know, look, um, one of the, I’ve always suggested to younger people that want to get into public life, I ask them two things: Have you figured out what’s worth losing over? Have you figured out what’s worth losing over? If you haven’t figured that out, don’t get in politics. Go into a more profitable org, enterprise. Go into business, go into commerce, don’t, be engaged. But unless you know what’s worth losing over, don’t get engaged. Number one. Number two. The purpose of public service is to promote views that you think are best for the American people.
Transcript of AP interview with President Joe Biden
AP · by The Associated Press · June 16, 2022
WASHINGTON (AP) — A transcript of an Oval Office interview Thursday with President Joe Biden by AP White House reporter Josh Boak. Where the audio recording of the interview is unclear, ellipses or a notation that the recording was unintelligible are used.
AP: I wanted to thank you for taking the time to do this.
BIDEN: Sure, happy to.
AP: And I’m really interested in how you’re thinking and how you’re making choices during what seems like a really unique time in American history.
BIDEN: Well, I’m making choices. It’s an interesting question. I’m making choices like I always have, in the sense that circumstances change but my objective doesn’t change. Does that make sense to you? For example, I have, uh, from the time I’ve entered public life, it’s been about how to give ordinary working-class and middle-class folks a shot (inaudible) .. instead of everything being viewed as from the top down. I’m not a big, is it working (a reference to the tape recorder).
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AP: Yeah, we’re good.
BIDEN: I’m not a big believer in trickle-down economy, and, um, and so everything I look at from the time I took this office, but even before that when I was a senator all those years, is what’s the best shot to grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out because when that happens everybody does well. The wealthy do very, very well. And the biggest thing I think that, when I came into this job, that I have the greatest frustration with the last four years, is that, um, uh, everything was constructed and built and arranged in order for the top 1 to 3% of the population to do very well. The rest was sort of, I mean that literally, everything else seemed to be an afterthought.
AP: So, let me ask about that, right, because you’ve seen the polls. There’s a lot of voters who are very pessimistic. When I look at the consumer sentiment survey the University of Michigan puts out, even Democrats began to get really worried about a year ago regarding the economy and we’ve had people that have basically been through a pandemic, shortages of basic goods, inflation, some of the political divisions you’re seeing right now on the Hill with the Jan. 6 hearings, and also a war in Europe. And how do you as a president provide a sense of stability and strength ... (crosstalk)
BIDEN: Well, if you notice, until gas prices started going up, which was about the same time, the University of Michigan survey, they had a very different view. Things were much more, they were much more optimistic. We came in and we started to grow the economy in significant ways. We were able to, ah, you know, go from 2 million shots in arms to 225 million. People were having access to dealing with the pandemic. We started opening up businesses, and opening up access to go back to work, etc. But then, in my experience, the way I was raised, if you want a direct barometer of what people are going to talk about at the kitchen table and the dining room table and whether things are going well, it’s the cost of food and what’s the cost of, of gasoline at the pump. I mean literally at the pump.
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And if you notice, you know, uh, gasoline went up a, you know, $1.25 right off the bat, almost, when, the, Putin’s war started. Um, and as I said at the time, by the way, I made it clear with helping Ukraine, and organizing NATO to help Ukraine, that this was going to cost. There was going to be a price to pay for it. It was, this is not going to be cost-free, but we had, the option of doing nothing was worse. If he in fact moved into Ukraine, took hold of Ukraine, and Belarus, where it is, and he’s been a threat to NATO, all those things would have even been more dire.
AP: Why is that? Because it seems like you knew the risks on Ukraine with regard to higher gasoline prices ...
BIDEN: Sure.
AP: ... that carried political risks for you at home ...
BIDEN: Sure.
AP: ... so when, when your aides said, “Look at the situation,” how did you make that choice? What would you tell someone in Latrobe, Pennsylvania?
BIDEN: I’m the president of the United States. It’s not about my political survival. It’s about what’s best for the country. No kidding. No kidding. So what happens? What happens if the strongest power, NATO, an organizational structure we put together, walked away from Russian aggression of over 100,000 troops marching across a border to try to, to occupy and wipe out a culture of an entire people. What, then, then what happens? What happens next? What do we do next?
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AP: What did you fear would happen next if you didn’t do?
BIDEN: Oh, I fear what would happen next is you’d see chaos in Europe. You would see the possibility they continue to move. You already saw what they’re doing in Belarus. What would happen in the surrounding countries. Watch what would happen in Poland, and, and the Czech Republic and all the members of NATO. For example, you know, the reason Putin said he was going to go in was because he didn’t want them to join NATO. And, uh, he, he, he, he wanted the sort of the Finland-ization of NATO. He got the NATO-ization of Finland, instead. (laughter) No, I’m serious.
AP: Yeah.
BIDEN: And so, the idea that if the United States stood by, then what does China think about Taiwan? Then what does North Korea think about nuclear weapons beyond testing and pressure?
AP: Do you think Americans have that sense of the stakes on a daily basis?
BIDEN: No, I don’t. But I don’t think, look, on a daily basis, most households just trying to figure out how to put, before, even when things were going well, just figure out how to put food on the table, take care of the kids, pay for their education, just basic things. You know, look, um, one of the, I’ve always suggested to younger people that want to get into public life, I ask them two things: Have you figured out what’s worth losing over? Have you figured out what’s worth losing over? If you haven’t figured that out, don’t get in politics. Go into a more profitable org, enterprise. Go into business, go into commerce, don’t, be engaged. But unless you know what’s worth losing over, don’t get engaged. Number one. Number two. The purpose of public service is to promote views that you think are best for the American people.
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I made a commitment and I think I can say that I’ve never broken, if I make a commitment. I wasn’t going to run again, this time. I mean for real. I was not going to run. I just lost my son, I was teaching at Penn, I liked it, until all those guys came, come out of the woods ...
AP: Charlottesville.
BIDEN: ... the Charlottesville folks and this other guy said “good people on both sides” when an innocent woman was killed, etc. And, I made a decision. I’ve been doing this too long to do anything other than to try to do what was right. I mean, I’m not, there’s nothing noble about it. But it’s not worth it. So, you asked me what would I say to the American people. I’d say to the American people I’ve done foreign policy my whole career. I’m convinced that if we let Russia roll and Putin roll, he wouldn’t stop.
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AP: Let me ask on another hard choice you made. When you came into office, it seems as though you made the choice to prioritize job growth. Republicans right now are saying to voters that inflation started with your COVID relief package.
BIDEN: Zero evidence of that. Zero evidence of that, number one. Number two, we’ve reduced the deficit by $350 billion last year. We reduced the deficit by a trillion, 700 billion this year. We grow the economy. Today, today, we have more people employed than, in a long, long time and we gained another 8.6 million jobs. And guess what? We still have hundreds of thousands of job openings.
AP: So, so do you think that when Treasury Secretary Yellen said it might have made a marginal contribution to inflation that that was off? Did anyone apprise you (interrupted)
BIDEN: Yeah, they apprised me.
AP: of possible trade-offs?
BIDEN: Now you just said two different things. You said Republicans said I caused inflation. She said it may have a marginal impact on it. Two different things. You could argue whether it had a marginal, minor impact on inflation. I don’t think it did. And most economists do not think it did. But the idea that it caused inflation is bizarre.
AP: Let me ask, stepping back, after yesterday’s Fed meeting. I know that you’ve said: “Look, our economy is strong. We have these jobs. It’s the best look we’ve had in decades.” But then you’ve got serious economists who warn of a recession next year.
BIDEN: Sure.
AP: What should Americans believe?
BIDEN: They shouldn’t believe a warning. They should just say: “Let’s see. Let’s see, which is correct.” And from my perspective, you talked about a recession. First of all, it’s not inevitable. Secondly, we’re in a stronger position than any nation in the world to overcome this inflation. It’s bad. Isn’t it kind of interesting? If it’s my fault, why is it the case in every other major industrial country in the world that inflation is higher? You ask yourself that? I’m not being a wise guy. Someone should ask themself that question. Why? Why is it? If it’s a consequence of our spending, we’ve reduced the deficit. We’ve increased employment, increased pay. There was a survey done uh, uh, by the, uh, I forget which one it was, which one it was now, about three months ago. You had more people had lower debt (inaudible) credit cards, more savings in their savings account, higher pay in the job they had, more satisfaction in the job they had and they were in good shape financially.
AP: I believe that was a Fed survey. You see this interesting shift, though, in the Census pulse surveys, which show people are clearly employed in a way they haven’t been. They are less dependent on unemployment benefits and the government for aid, and yet more of them say they’re having trouble with meeting their weekly expenses.
BIDEN: Well, two things.
AP: What’s that paradox?
BIDEN: Well, I think the paradox is, part of it is, I think what, the failure of the last administration to act on COVID had a profound impact on the number of people who got COVID and the number of people who died. Now here’s what I’m, I think Vivek Murthy is right and most of the international and National Psychological Association, whatever it’s, people are really, really down. They’re really down. Their need for mental health in America has skyrocketed because people have seen everything upset. Everything they counted on upset. But most of it’s a consequence of, of, of what’s happening, what happened is a consequence of the, the COVID crisis.
People lost their jobs. People are out of their jobs. And then, were they going to get back to work? Schools were closed. Think of this. I think we vastly underestimate this. If you had, and instead of your child being, how old, five?
AP: Five.
BIDEN: Five years old. If your child had been 17 years old two years ago.
AP: I’m not ready for that.
BIDEN: Well get ready, man. Boy or girl?
AP: Girl.
BIDEN: Well I’ll tell you what, she’s gonna, she’s going to be crazy about you until about age 13. And then hang on. But all kidding aside, here’s the deal. Think about what it’s like for the graduating classes of the last three years. No proms. No graduation. No, no, none of the things that celebrate who we are. Think about it across the board. How isolated we’ve become. How separated we’ve become. Even practical questions like, you know, can you go out on a date? I mean (inaudible) the normal socialization, how does that take place? There’s overwhelming evidence it’s had a profound impact on the psyche of parents, children, across the board. And we lost a million people.
And nine for every, according to a study, of those million people, nine significant family or close friends were left alive after they’re gone.
AP: So you’re talking about a country that has undergone profound psychological trauma.
BIDEN: Yes.
AP: What can you as a president do to address that psychology ...
BIDEN: Be confident.
AP: ... to make people feel more optimistic. Be confident?
BIDEN: Be confident. Be confident. Because I am confident. We are better positioned than any country in the world to own the second quarter of the 21st century. That’s not hyperbole. That’s a fact.
AP: And do you think that’s because the U.S. is stronger, or because you see countries like China hitting speedbumps?
BIDEN: Look, I’ve spent more time with Xi Jinping than anybody, any other world leader. Imagine — let me put it — let me ask you a rhetorical question, and, you know, I mean, obviously you don’t have to answer any of the questions.
AP: I’ll answer whatever you need.
BIDEN: No no. No no no. But think of this. Name me a single major company, country in the world where that world leader wouldn’t trade places with my problems for his in a heartbeat. Name me one. Not a joke.
AP: Do you think that ...
BIDEN: There are none.
AP: Well so, so, I mean, do you think people wouldn’t want to be in Switzerland right now?
BIDEN: No, Switzerland has their own problems right now. When I said major, I meant major power, so — but, no. I mean, you know, I just had the, the American, you know, the whole hemisphere, beautiful countries in the Caribbean and beautiful countries that are, have, that are middle-class countries that are having serious problems. Everybody’s having them. In the meantime, we have a little thing called climate change going on. And it’s having profound impacts. We got the tundra melting. We’ve got the North Pole, I mean, so people are looking and, and I think it’s totally understandable that they are worried because they look around and see, “My God, everything is changing.” We have more hurricanes and tornadoes and flooding. People saw what — I took my kids years ago to Yellowstone Park. They call me, “Daddy did you see what happened at Yellowstone, right?” Well, it’s unthinkable. These are 1,000-year kinds of events.
AP: And yet you face a possible tradeoff in that climate change has this big impact. And yet Americans are unhappy about the cost of gasoline
BIDEN: Sure.
AP: And fossil fuels. And I’m curious, like, what does that mean for you if you have to say, we need to increase production in the short term and companies say, but we don’t have the long-term incentives?
BIDEN: Well, I say in the short term, do the right thing. Instead of, you know, they’ve made 315 or 16 billion, 35 billion dollars, these major oil companies in the first quarter. So I think it’s three, twelve, five ... I don’t know how many times (inaudible). Don’t buy back your own stock. Don’t, don’t just reward yourselves. I mean, look, here’s what. A lot happened. One of the things I ran on when I was running is that I, I come from the corporate capital of the world, Delaware. More corporations incorporated in my state than all the rest of the United States combined. Not a joke. Literally.
And, you know, they try to make me, my fr—, the MAGA party, tries to make me out to be this socialist. I got elected seven times, not just six, seven times, in that state. But one of the things that’s changed is the notion of what constitutes corporate responsibility. The fact that you’re in a situation where you have a Fortune 500 company, you got 55 paid zero taxes, made 40 billion dollars. Those surveys also show nobody, including Republicans in suburbia, think the tax system is fair. Billionaires paying 8%. All these things that are occurring that have to be shifted. It used to be, for example, I’ll give you one example. It used to, am I holding up?
(Aide tells Biden time is almost up)
BIDEN: OK.
AP: So let me ask you because you brought it up, your domestic agenda. In speeches you’ve said your domestic agenda is key for helping the middle class and beating inflation.
BIDEN: Yes.
AP: Do you have the votes as of today, because …
BIDEN: Yes. I think it’s changing. Well, first of all, I had the votes. If I had told you (garble) ... You’re not doing (inaudible). I’m impressed by your objectivity, how you write. I’m not being, I shouldn’t say that on the record because then you’ll get in trouble.
AP: I’m in trouble anyway. So it’s OK.
BIDEN: But all kidding aside. Usually (inaudible) the question I get asked in the beginning with the Recovery Act: Can you get this passed? How can you possibly do that? I got 1.9 trillion dollars. Saved the economy. It used to be long lines, people in nice cars like we drive. Lined up just to get a box of food in their trunk.
People getting kicked out onto the street because they couldn’t pay the rent. Thousands and thousands of people. And guess what? It worked. Secondly, no, here’s the important point. The second piece of this is, that it also saw to it that we were able to provide for the funding for COVID, not only, not only the shots and the shots in arms, but also all the hospital costs. We were able to reduce the cost of insurance. My point is, people would say, “How can you get that done?” If I did, if any other president just passed that act, and the infrastructure bill, they’d say, “God almighty.”
Name me a president that’s done anything like that before. At the same time.
(Aide tells Biden time is up.)
AP: I guess one of the reasons why I ask is you did something revolutionary on child poverty, and you know it, with the child tax credit, an idea that came in part from Newt Gingrich back in the day, Contract With America. And a lot of families had hope from that. They moved out of public housing.
BIDEN: That’s right.
AP: And then last year, they learned that their incomes were effectively going down.
BIDEN: Yep.
AP: And so when you present your agenda to the public, the reason why I’m asking if you have the votes is because people really want to know.
BIDEN: Sure they want to know. And on that answer is no. Not one single Republican, not one, not one, would vote to extend it. We’re 50/50 and we lost one Democrat vote. So I’m one vote short on that piece. But for example, I’m going to be able to get, God willing, the ability to pay for prescription drugs. There’s more than one way to bring down the cost for working folks. Gasoline may be up to $5 a gallon, but somebody who has a child with stage two diabetes is paying up to a thousand bucks a month for the insulin.
We can reduce it to 35 bucks a month and get it done. We have the votes to do it. We’re gonna get that done. That kinda thing. I can’t get it all done. That’s why I need the (inaudible) vote.
One more thing. Let’s look at what our Republican friends are going to have to face with the Supreme Court decision on Roe. What they’re going to have to face in terms of the Supreme Court —the failure, the failure of this Republican Party to be willing to do anything to deal with the basic social concerns of the country.
And so, I think, you know, I fully understand why the average voter out there is just confused and upset and worried. And they’re worried, for example, you know, can they send their kid back to, back to college? What’s going to happen? Are we going to take away the ability of people to borrow? So I think there’s a lot of reasons for people to want to know what comes next.
And do I have the votes? I believe I have the votes to do a number of things. One, prescription drugs. Reduce utility bills by providing for, uh, I think, we’ll be able to get the ability to have a tax incentive for winterization, which would, they estimate, bring down the average bill for the family, normal home, 500 bucks a year.
I think we would be able, we’re gonna get another $57 billion for semiconductors, so we don’t have the supply chain problem we had before, keeping down the cost of vehicles. I think we’re going to be in a situation where, we’re gonna — I know we are — where we’re going to reduce a person’s average internet bill by 30 bucks a month, because we have the money through the, through the uh, uh, infrastructure bill to provide internet across country.
I think we’re going to be able to have a fair tax system, to have the votes, it’s going to be close, to have a minimum tax on corporations of 15%, make sure we’re in a situation where the people who in fact are, the idea that a billionaire is paying 8% of income and a teacher is paying 22%. I think we’re going to be able to get tax increases on super wealthy. Not a lot. Not a lot. I’m a capitalist. You should be able to (inaudible). For God’s sake, pay your fair share. Just pay, pay a piece of what you owe. And I think we’re gonna be able to do those kinds of things.
AP: Were you surprised (crosstalk) ...
(Aide tells Biden time is up.)
BIDEN: I know I’m supposed to go. That’s the last question.
AP: Were you surprised because you referenced the reason why you ran was Charlottesville. And I’m curious, have you been surprised when you say Republicans weren’t going to work with you at all on some of these issues? Did that surprise you, given what you knew that compelled you to run? And how do you deal with that environment? And how does that compare to your predecessors who are on the wall?
BIDEN: Well, my predecessor on the wall didn’t pass the (inaudible) his first year, number one. Number two, the reason ... you know why that predecessor is on the wall. You never saw his picture in this office before. I asked my brother to put together the office for me — decide what desk I’d have. I didn’t realize the outgoing president had to be out 10 o’clock, the incoming president by 2 o’clock. And you pick what you want and you got to get it all in by then. So I (inaudible) Jon Meacham come in and he set my office up for me, and so the desk they picked, and you know everything, everything except the wallpaper. And I used to, I came in here for eight years in a row as the vice president. George Washington’s photograph is over there.
And I looked and I said, “Why Franklin Roosevelt?” Not that I don’t like Franklin Roosevelt, but why put that big portrait of Franklin Roosevelt? And Jon Meacham said, “Because no one ever inherited that kind of big circumstances and dire, more dire straits than he did that last time.” I said, “Oh, that’s encouraging.”
And I said, “Why Abraham Lincoln?” And he said, “The country’s never been as divided since the Civil War.” I knew those two things coming in. But what I also believed was I could get some of it done.
There was a, I just was reading an article (inaudible) that article by the, uh, the guy talking about Biden and how he brought the country, brought Republicans together, Republicans and Democrats. Anyway, I’ll, I’ll get it to you. I’ll find it. Oh, here you go. New York Times Magazine. That’s factually correct. Now, there’s a lot I couldn’t get done.
AP: Because you’re about to get the Ocean Safety Bill, which passed the House with bipartisan support.
BIDEN: Well, yeah. By the way, And when you remember, I called for that, everybody said, “Oh, no, no no.” But guess what? It’s gonna pass. But my generic point is that, you know, we’re going to get gun safety. We’re not going to get what I wanted. We’re gonna get a part where everybody, we’re gonna get the, uh, the uh, uh, the, the Innovation Competition Act, a hundred million bucks is going to be invested outside of Cleveland by Intel. We’re going to have another 57 mil ... . You know, there’s forced arbitration I got rid of in sexual orientation, sexual harassment cases. Juneteenth I got passed, no one said it could be done.
I’m not saying, “Look at all I’ve done.” But I knew that were probably, probably 15 sort of traditional, mainstream, conservative Republicans left. And I include in that — and I’m going to get myself in trouble, and I’ll get him in trouble, probably — but the minority leader from Kentucky. He’s a solid, mainstream guy. But you have the, ah, the folks from Texas. You have a lot of folks who are very, very MAGA. For example, Johnson, you know, and Scott, they’re. Every five years, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid go out of existence. You’ve got to build them back. They, these guys mean it. I mean, why in the hell did you ever think that would happen in your lifetime, and you’re a young man?
AP: I feel like I’m getting more gray hair every day, sir. (Laughter.)
BIDEN: Well, I tell you what, well at least you’re keeping it. I’d settle for orange if I had more hair. But all kidding aside, I think this is a process and I think what you’re going to see this election is people voting their overall concerns as well. Even people who are not pro-choice are going to find it really, really off the wall when a woman goes across a state line and she gets arrested (garble) where she’s doing. Even people who are, you know, I mean, there’s so many things these guys are doing that are out of the mainstream of where the public is. And I think — but it is, I knew I was stepping into a difficult moment, but — Can I say something off the record?
(Off-the-record discussion.)
AP: Thank you, sir.
AP · by The Associated Press · June 16, 2022
4. The Myth of Ideological Polarization
We should really deeply reflect on this.
Excerpts:
Although America has two dominant ideological tribes, there is nothing uniting all of the positions of either side. The parties have coalesced around the concepts of “left” and “right,” but the concepts themselves are fictions. The ubiquitous left-right model of politics frames our thinking, shapes our language, and sets the terms of public debate, but it is completely wrong. There are many issues in politics. We confuse ourselves by using a political model that reduces them to one.
Rather than fighting over which group has moved farther leftward or rightward on a spectrum, Democrats and Republicans—not to mention political scientists—should dispense entirely with the fiction that there is a single spectrum to move around on. Doing so would help them think clearly about political issues and act charitably toward those outside their political tribe.
The Myth of Ideological Polarization
‘Left’ and ‘right’ are illusory categories. What we’re really experiencing is tribal hostility.
By Verlan Lewis and Hyrum Lewis
June 17, 2022 1:58 pm ET
WSJ · by Verlan Lewis and Hyrum Lewis
Illustration: Chad Crowe
A tweet by Elon Musk recently went viral among one of the least viral groups in society: political scientists. In an effort to explain why he no longer identifies as a liberal, Mr. Musk shared a cartoon (created by Colin Wright) that relies on the familiar “left-right” political spectrum. In this image, the centrist protagonist and conservatives remain stationary while liberals sprint to the “woke progressive” left. As a result of what the cartoon called “fellow liberals” stretching the political spectrum leftward, Mr. Musk indicated, he had gone from being center-left in 2008 to center-right in 2021—even though his political beliefs hadn’t changed.
Our fellow political scientists, most of whom identify as “liberal” or “progressive,” were incensed at the suggestion that their side had become extreme. They cited a vast academic literature, much of which relies on a statistical application called “DW-NOMINATE,” arguing that the Republican Party has moved to the “extreme right” in recent decades while their own Democratic Party has remained relatively moderate and sensible.
But the entire debate is based on a misconception. “Left” and “right” aren’t fixed and enduring philosophical belief systems. They’re merely social groups whose ideas, attitudes and issue positions constantly change. Since the meanings of “left” and “right” evolve, it makes little sense to speak of individuals, groups or parties moving “to the left” or “to the right.” Nonetheless, talk of left and right dominates our public discourse and claims about “ideological polarization” fill the political science literature. In assuming that left and right have a fixed meaning, both Mr. Musk and political scientists are sorely mistaken. Polarization is a myth.
The left-right model ignores that politics is about many issues. Like every other realm of life, it is multidimensional, yet we describe it using a graph with only one dimension. It’s true that many Americans hold their views in packages that we call “liberal” and “conservative”—those who currently support abortion rights, for instance, are also more likely to support vaccinations, income-tax increases, free trade and military intervention in Ukraine. But the question is why. Why is there a strong correlation between these seemingly unrelated issues, and why do we find them clustering in patterns that are predictable and binary instead of completely random and pluralistic?
The answer is socialization. When the Democratic and Republican parties change (as they have many times), the content and meaning of their ideologies change, too, meaning that ideologues (“liberals” and “conservatives”) will change their views to stay in line with their political tribe. Social conformity, not philosophy, explains their beliefs. Those who refuse to conform and maintain their political views independent of tribe will appear to have “switched” groups—even though they stayed consistent while the ideologies changed around them.
This is what happened to Messrs. Musk and Wright. Liberals didn’t move to the left; they redefined the left (e.g., to be less concerned with free speech and more with stopping the spread of infectious disease, even at the cost of exacerbating educational inequity), and Messrs. Musk and Wright disliked the new version.
This is also what happened to many Never Trumpers: It isn’t that conservatives moved “to the right.” Conservatives redefined “the right”—e.g., to be more nationalist, nativist, isolationist, protectionist and statist than it had been previously—and Never Trumpers didn’t like the new version. Many of them insisted in 2015-16 that Donald Trump wasn’t a “true conservative.” Some subsequently held to their own earlier views, while others changed their positions on issues like abortion and race to fit in more with their newly acquired social group.
It doesn’t make much sense to say, for instance, that Democrats “moved left” by turning away from free speech when it was once a defining value of “the left.” It is equally nonsensical to say that conservatives or Republicans “moved right” by turning away from values like entitlement reform, emphasizing personal morality in elected officials, and free trade when those once defined “the right.”
But what about our common-sense intuition that our politics has become more extreme? True, politicians are increasingly breaking the norms of decency, ideologues are increasingly uncivil, protesters are increasingly militant, and increasing numbers of Americans are unwilling to accept the outcomes of elections. But these extreme behaviors aren’t the product of extreme commitment to ideas so much as to political tribes.
On some issues both parties have taken more extreme positions than they did in the past, but on other issues they have moderated or switched positions entirely. Democrats favor gay rights far more than they did in the 1950s, but so do Republicans. Republicans favor lower income taxes more than they did in the 1960s, but so do Democrats. Democrats call for greater government intervention in the economy more than they did in the 1990s, but so do Republicans, and from the 1860s to the 1910s Republicans were the party of “big government.” Democrats are more interventionist in foreign policy, but a decade ago Republicans were more interventionist. Can any of this be described as moving to the left or right? Obviously not.
Political scientists sometimes call the increasing anger between the parties “affective polarization,” but we would be better off just calling it increased hostility. The term “polarization” confuses the matter by suggesting that the parties have moved toward fixed ideological poles. Yes, partisans are increasingly angry, tribal and isolated in media echo chambers. But to attribute this to positions on a mythical left-right spectrum misunderstands our politics entirely.
Although America has two dominant ideological tribes, there is nothing uniting all of the positions of either side. The parties have coalesced around the concepts of “left” and “right,” but the concepts themselves are fictions. The ubiquitous left-right model of politics frames our thinking, shapes our language, and sets the terms of public debate, but it is completely wrong. There are many issues in politics. We confuse ourselves by using a political model that reduces them to one.
Rather than fighting over which group has moved farther leftward or rightward on a spectrum, Democrats and Republicans—not to mention political scientists—should dispense entirely with the fiction that there is a single spectrum to move around on. Doing so would help them think clearly about political issues and act charitably toward those outside their political tribe.
Verlan Lewis is a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies. Hyrum Lewis is a professor of history at BYU-I. They are co-authors of “The Myth of Left and Right,” forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the June 18, 2022, print edition.
5. America Must Not Forfeit Technology Dominance
Excerpts:
These actions will make us less secure, not more.
Leading up to the invasion, America’s tech businesses empowered users to better secure their devices and services with regular security checks, two-factor authorization, and more. At the same time, the backend infrastructure is constantly being further hardened against cyber-attacks. This is why the American private sector leads the world in cybersecurity – it can move at the speed of innovation and not at the speed of government.
This administration and its supporters must recognize that America leads the world in technological prowess because of our private sector companies. It must empower, not eviscerate, their ability to innovate and adapt. Competing nations and cyber criminals will not stop improving, and America’s technological capabilities must grow faster than these nefarious actors. That means Biden must foster progress and innovation for all American industries. America’s world standing is at risk, and we must not abandon our technological standing on the world stage – now more than ever.
America Must Not Forfeit Technology Dominance — SMERCONISH
Jun 16
Photo by NASA | Unsplash
While images of Putin’s horrific attacks on Ukrainian civilians are captivating the world, he and other malicious agents are quietly preparing for assaults we cannot see: cyber warfare on a catastrophic, worldwide scale. Last year we saw the Colonial Pipeline shut down from a cyberattack and American hospitals shut down by ransomware. This is just a glimpse of the damage and suffering successful cyberattacks can inflict.
While America’s standing as the world’s technology and innovation leader has positioned us to minimize such cyberattacks thus far, the Biden administration – much like they did with our energy independence – is weakening our cyber strength and independence. In 2022, cyber independence, much like energy independence, is critical to defending freedom and democracy. Forfeiting our dominance in this arena comes at great peril both at home and around the world.
Since the day he took office, President Biden and Congressional Democrats have undermined our energy and cyber independence, appointing agency heads and enacting executive orders designed to undermine America’s businesses.
From day one, the President damaged America’s energy independence by shutting down oil production and canning the Keystone pipeline – these actions resulted in giving away our energy independence. This made America more dependent on authoritarian leaders and terrorist nations like Venezuela and Iran for energy, and less capable to help allies overcome energy needs by cutting ties with Vladimir Putin. Ultimately, these actions made America less able to stop Putin’s war in Ukraine.
This anti-business posture has undermined mergers and acquisitions that would have made us more secure. First, the Administration challenged Lockheed Martin’s efforts to acquire missile defense technology that would increase our national safety. Then, Biden’s efforts forced American computer chip maker Nvidia to abandon an acquisition that would enable the company to increase chip production at a time when we are woefully undersupplied and dangerously reliant on Chinese manufacturing. In sum, this administration’s actions amount to an offensive against private sector businesses – and it’s undermining the safety and security of the United States.
Biden’s Department of Justice announced support for Democratic legislation without realizing that it would limit America’s technology businesses from stopping malware and forces America’s leading technology businesses to create a backdoor for cyber attackers. This proposed legislation from Democratic Presidential hopeful Senator Amy Klobuchar touts the legislation’s goal as “interoperability.”
While this sounds good, interoperability is precisely how a university researcher helped Cambridge Analytica breach the private data of millions of Facebook users. Under Sen. Klobuchar’s legislation, which is supported by Biden’s DOJ, our businesses couldn’t block Chinese, Russian, and Iranian services from exploiting this new law to gain access to Facebook, Instagram, Amazon marketplace, the App Store, and Google. And at the same time, top progressives in Congress like Sen. Blumenthal, in an attempt to make it easier for government to access our phones, are pushing legislation designed to annihilate end-to-end encryption – simultaneously undermining the very tools on which good cybersecurity is built.
These actions will make us less secure, not more.
Leading up to the invasion, America’s tech businesses empowered users to better secure their devices and services with regular security checks, two-factor authorization, and more. At the same time, the backend infrastructure is constantly being further hardened against cyber-attacks. This is why the American private sector leads the world in cybersecurity – it can move at the speed of innovation and not at the speed of government.
This administration and its supporters must recognize that America leads the world in technological prowess because of our private sector companies. It must empower, not eviscerate, their ability to innovate and adapt. Competing nations and cyber criminals will not stop improving, and America’s technological capabilities must grow faster than these nefarious actors. That means Biden must foster progress and innovation for all American industries. America’s world standing is at risk, and we must not abandon our technological standing on the world stage – now more than ever.
Carl Szabo
6. With scant options in Ukraine, U.S. and allies prepare for long war
I certainly hope our national security apparatus is developing multiple options.
Excerpts:
Stacie Pettyjohn, the director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, said the war also continues to eat up the bandwidth of senior U.S. officials that could be spent on long-term planning and modernization. In the past officials have cited crises like the multiyear war against the Islamic State as factors that delayed a planned shift to focus on China.
“They keep having to deal with Ukraine because the situation is evolving and it is immediate, and we need to provide the assistance that we can and figure out how to support the Ukrainians,” she said. “But that means that they don’t have the time and attention to sort of press ahead on those other issues that are really important, and those long-term changes that would be necessary if the U.S. is really going to pivot its attention and focus to the Pacific.”
The Biden administration has vowed it will not pressure Kyiv to accept concessions to cement a resolution to the war. Officials point out that Zelensky, even if he were inclined to yield large parts of Ukraine’s territory, could face a revolt from Ukrainians if he accepted Moscow’s terms.
“Our job is not to define those terms,” Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said at a think tank event on Thursday. “Our job is to give them the tools they need to put themselves in the strongest position possible.”
With scant options in Ukraine, U.S. and allies prepare for long war
June 17, 2022 at 7:33 p.m. EDT
The United States and its allies are making preparations for a prolonged conflict in Ukraine, officials said, as the Biden administration attempts to deny Russia victory by surging military aid to Kyiv while scrambling to ease the war’s destabilizing effects on world hunger and the global economy.
President Biden’s announcement this week of an additional $1 billion in security aid for Ukraine, the single largest tranche of U.S. assistance to date, offered the latest proof of Washington’s determination to ensure Ukraine can survive a punishing battle for the eastern Donbas region. European nations including Germany and Slovakia unveiled their own shipments of advanced weapons, including helicopters and multiple-launch rocket systems.
“We’re here to dig in our spurs,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said after convening dozens of nations in Brussels to pledge greater support for Kyiv.
The decision to supply Ukraine with increasingly sophisticated arms such as anti-ship missiles and long-range mobile artillery — capable of destroying significant military assets or striking deep into Russia — reflects a growing willingness in Western capitals to risk unintended escalation with Russia.
The support appears to have emboldened the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky, who this week vowed to retake all of Russian-controlled Ukraine, even areas annexed by Moscow long before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Feb. 24 invasion.
But analysts say that despite the surge in outside aid, and strong morale among Ukrainian troops, Kyiv and its backers can hope for little more than a stalemate with Russia’s far bigger, better armed military. Unlike in Moscow’s failed attempt to seize the capital Kyiv, the Donbas battle has played to Russia’s military strengths, allowing it to use standoff artillery strikes to pound Ukrainian positions and gradually expand its reach.
Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO who now heads the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, said the battlefield impasse leaves the United States with a stark choice: either continue to help Ukraine sustain a potentially bloody status quo, with the devastating global consequences that entails; or halt support and permit Moscow to prevail.
“That would mean feeding Ukraine to the wolves,” Daalder said, referring to a withdrawal of support. “And no one is prepared to do that.”
A senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe ongoing international deliberations, said Biden administration officials had discussed the possibility of a protracted conflict with global spillover effects even before February, as U.S. intelligence suggested Putin was preparing to invade.
The Biden administration hopes that the new weaponry, in addition to successive waves of sanctions and Russia’s diplomatic isolation, will make a difference in an eventual negotiated conclusion to the war, potentially diminishing Putin’s willingness to keep up the fight, the official said.
Even if that reality does not materialize immediately, officials have described the stakes of ensuring Russia cannot swallow up Ukraine — an outcome officials believe could embolden Putin to invade other neighbors or even strike out at NATO members — as so high that the administration is willing to countenance even a global recession and mounting hunger.
Already the war, compounding the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, has plunged the world economy, now expected to suffer years of low growth, into renewed crisis. It has also deepened a global food emergency as the fighting pushes up prices of basic goods and cripples Ukraine’s grain exports — which typically feed hundreds of millions of people a year — pushing some 44 million people closer to starvation, according to the World Food Program.
“While it’s certainly challenging — we’re not certainly sugarcoating that — in terms of how to navigate these stormy waters, our guiding light is that the outcome of Russia being able to achieve its maximalist demands is really bad for the United States, really bad for our partners and allies, and really bad for the global community,” the State Department official said.
On Friday, Ukrainian forces attempted to defend dwindling areas under their control in Severodonetsk, a strategic city in Luhansk province that Pentagon officials expect to fall soon.
In a sign of how Western weaponry has the potential to pull the West deeper into the war, a U.S. defense official on Friday confirmed that a U.S.-made Harpoon anti-ship missile had struck a Russian tugboat in the Black Sea. For the first time as part of Biden’s latest arms package, the United States said it will provide Ukraine mobile Harpoon launchers.
Ukrainian leaders’ longtime ambition to integrate more further into Europe moved closer to reality on Friday, when the European Commission recommended that Ukraine be made an official candidate for European Union membership. Zelensky hailed what he called a “historic decision,” even though membership might be years away.
“Ukrainians are ready to die for the European perspective,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said. “We want them to live with us the European dream.”
Underscoring what Western nations say is a radically altered security outlook, NATO leaders are expected to unveil new deployments to Eastern Europe at a late June summit in Madrid.
Ahead of that meeting, Gen. Mark. A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has defended the need to stop Russia in stark claims, equating the suffering among civilians in Ukraine to what Nazi Germany inflicted on Europe. But he has also cautioned that while Moscow faces chronic issues in its Ukraine offensive, including leadership, morale and logistics, the numbers “clearly favor the Russians” in eastern Ukraine.
The prospect of a negotiated conclusion seems distant with Putin appearing undeterred, likely pursuing what analysts describe as a strategy of seizing the entire Donbas region then offering a cease-fire that would freeze in place Russia’s control of that and other areas.
“My concern is that basically Russia on one hand and the Ukrainians and their partners on the other are pursuing mutually incompatible goals,” said Samuel Charap, a Russia expert at the RAND Corporation. “That leads the Russians to keep pushing harder and harder and us to give more and more.”
Many experts believe the war is likely to settle into a lower intensity conflict or a situation like that on the Korean Peninsula, where north-south fighting was halted in a 1953 armistice without a formal end to the war. A heavily militarized boundary developed between the two Koreas, with occasional flare-ups, and is a scenario some analysts predict could occur between Ukraine and the parts of its territory controlled by Moscow.
“I don’t think either Putin or Zelensky can continue at the current level of combat for years,” James Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral and former supreme allied commander of NATO, said in an email. “Certainly for some months, but unlikely years.”
As the conflict grinds on, it is prompting conversations about what trade-offs the United States may need to make in its larger foreign policy goals or its massive military budget. The Senate Armed Services Committee, citing inflation and the war in Ukraine, on Thursday added $45 billion to the defense budget, bringing the likely bill to $847 billion for the next fiscal year.
Stacie Pettyjohn, the director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, said the war also continues to eat up the bandwidth of senior U.S. officials that could be spent on long-term planning and modernization. In the past officials have cited crises like the multiyear war against the Islamic State as factors that delayed a planned shift to focus on China.
“They keep having to deal with Ukraine because the situation is evolving and it is immediate, and we need to provide the assistance that we can and figure out how to support the Ukrainians,” she said. “But that means that they don’t have the time and attention to sort of press ahead on those other issues that are really important, and those long-term changes that would be necessary if the U.S. is really going to pivot its attention and focus to the Pacific.”
The Biden administration has vowed it will not pressure Kyiv to accept concessions to cement a resolution to the war. Officials point out that Zelensky, even if he were inclined to yield large parts of Ukraine’s territory, could face a revolt from Ukrainians if he accepted Moscow’s terms.
“Our job is not to define those terms,” Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said at a think tank event on Thursday. “Our job is to give them the tools they need to put themselves in the strongest position possible.”
7. Russians Breached This City, Not With Troops, but Propaganda
The importance of information and influence activities as a major line of effort in war.
Russians Breached This City, Not With Troops, but Propaganda
As they batter towns and cities in Ukraine with artillery, the Russians are also bombarding them with messaging aimed at eroding Ukrainians’ trust in their military and their government.
Lysychansk, an industrial city in eastern Ukraine, has been clobbered by Russian shelling.
As they batter towns and cities in Ukraine with artillery, the Russians are also bombarding them with messaging aimed at eroding Ukrainians’ trust in their military and their government.
Lysychansk, an industrial city in eastern Ukraine, has been clobbered by Russian shelling.Credit...
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LYSYCHANSK, Ukraine — Gesturing to the artillery shell lodged in the ground and a rocket protruding from the wall, Maksym Katerynyn was in a rage. These were Ukrainian munitions, he shouted. And it was Ukrainian artillery that struck his home the day before and killed his mother and stepfather.
“The Russians are not hitting us!” Mr. Katerynyn barked. “Ukraine is shelling us!”
But that was next to impossible: There were no Russian soldiers for the Ukrainians to shell in the eastern city of Lysychansk, and it was clear that the projectiles had come from the direction of Sievierodonetsk, a neighboring city, much of which has been seized by Russian forces.
The fact that Mr. Katerynyn believed this, and that his neighbors nodded in agreement as he careened through his neighborhood condemning their country, was a telling sign: The Russians clearly already had a foothold here — a psychological one.
“I will ask Uncle Putin to launch a rocket where these creatures launched their rockets from,” Mr. Katerynyn said, standing next to the backyard graves of his mother and stepfather, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. He wanted the Ukrainian military to get out, he said heatedly, using an expletive.
Smoke rising this month over Sievierodonetsk, Ukraine, Lysychansk’s neighbor.
It was not always like this in Lysychansk, an industrial city with a prewar population of 100,000. Now it is isolated from most of the world, with no cell service, no pension payments and intensifying Russian shelling. But some residents have turned into receptive audiences of Russian propaganda — or they have taken to spreading it themselves.
They are able to listen over the radio, both hand-held and in their cars, and to watch pro-Russian television channels when generator power allows. Given Lysychansk’s proximity to Russia, those channels appear to have a stronger hold in some neighborhoods than their Ukrainian counterparts do.
“When you’re hit over the head with the same message, you just drown in it,” said Nina Khrushcheva, a professor of international affairs at the New School in New York, who teaches a course on the politics of propaganda. “After awhile, you don’t know what the truth is. The message takes over your reality.”
The notion that the Ukrainian military is shelling its own people has been an oft-repeated message on pro-Russian disinformation channels on the radio, television and internet since the start of Moscow’s invasion in February. Aside from sowing doubt among Ukrainians about their own government and military, it has been a way for the Kremlin to sidestep accountability when it comes to civilian casualties caused by Russian attacks.
Maksym Katerynyn this month in Lysychansk next to the grave of his mother, who was killed by a Russian mortar round.
On a recent outing to distribute aid, several police officers were approached by an older woman who they said asked them, “Boys, when are you going to stop shooting at us?”— leaving the officers in disbelief.
Better Understand the Russia-Ukraine War
Propaganda has been a weapon of war in Ukraine since 2014 when Russia-backed separatists formed two breakaway republics in the Donbas region.
Hijacked television and radio towers there constantly broadcast anti-Ukranian propaganda and Russian disinformation. Those in their broadcast range were inundated with an alternate reality that slowly took hold, despite Ukrainian efforts to counter.
“First they cut off any Ukrainian content, and then they fill this void with Russian misinformation,” said Yevhen Fedchenko, the editor in chief of StopFake, a nonprofit organization that debunks Russian disinformation and the director of the Mohyla School of Journalism in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. “That’s been their approach for years, and they haven’t changed the textbook.”
But now, with the war’s front lines shifting as Russia advances into the Donbas, propaganda in cities and towns like Lysychansk has taken on a new intensity and relevance. Very few residents have access to satellite internet, so many people are glued to battery-powered radio handsets or the radio in their car if they can get the fuel to run it.
Many residents have chosen not to evacuate from Lysychansk, including those who are caring for older relatives.
“You only need to turn on the radio or your phone to hear the Russian radio broadcast here,” said Sergiy Kozachenko, a police officer from Sievierodonetsk who has relocated to Lysychansk because of the fighting. “They will listen to it; what else could they do?” FM radio in the area is available without a data connection or a cell network.
Once such broadcast, from the pro-Russian station Radio Victory, is available on FM radio to Ukrainian forces and civilians in Lysychansk and to those troops on the front lines. Its monotone female voice seems almost soothing, despite the ominous messages she delivers.
“The circle is going to be closed very soon in the Siversk area,” the voice intones, referring to the closing pocket around Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk as the Russians advance from the north and southeast. “Your staff is destroyed. Your commanders ran away and abandoned their subordinates. Zelensky has betrayed you, as well,” invoking the name of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Help will not come,” the message continues. “With further resistance, you are destined to die. The only way to survive is to run away or surrender. Save your lives.”
A Ukrainian soldier at a mass grave in the hills above Lysychansk. Hundred of civilians killed in the cities of Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk since the Russian invasion began in February, who have been unclaimed by relatives, have been buried here.
The broadcast, clearly aimed at Ukrainian forces on the front lines, seems to have entered the lexicon of Lysychansk’s civilian residents, as well. “Your Kyiv government gave up on us,” shouted one older woman to a group of volunteers who delivered aid to a shelter last week. The locals did not allow the volunteers inside.
For residents to have pro-Russia leanings in this area is not illogical. Many people have family members in Russia, and the cities themselves are near the Russian border and predominantly speak Russian.
They stand in contrast to the millions of Ukrainians in most regions of the country who are outraged by Mr. Putin’s invasion and are angry at civilians in Russia, some of them family members, who are turning a blind eye to the mayhem.
Local authorities in Lysychansk believe that around 30,000 to 40,000 residents remain in the city. In Sievierodonetsk, which had a prewar population of 160,000, around 10,000 people have stayed, the authorities there say, despite the brutal street-to-street fighting that is playing out.
Volunteers tried this month to persuade Yevdokiya Petrova, 72, to leave her home and evacuate from Lysychansk.
Ukrainian city workers informally call those who have chosen to stay “Zhduny,” or the “waiting ones.”
“Those are the ones who are waiting for Russians there,” said Mr. Kozachenko, the police officer. “They hug them, and say to them, ‘Our dear ones, we’ve been waiting for you, we’ve been abused here.’”
Though some residents might welcome the Russians, many people cannot evacuate because they lack the money, because they have older or disabled family members who are not very mobile, or simply because they fear they will lose their homes.
Galyna Gubarieva, 63, has refused to leave Lysychansk despite the incessant shellings and the approaching Russians, both of which she openly despises.
Ukrainian soldiers this month in Lysychansk. Some of the city’s residents are upset at the conduct of the combatants, even the ones who are supposed to be defending them.
Short and spirited, Ms. Gubarieva is now taking care of her neighbor’s farm in addition to her own homestead. But dealing with her fellow Lysychanskians who have bought into Russian propaganda, she said, is something she refuses to tolerate.
“Sometimes, some old wife says some lies and I can’t take it,” Ms. Gubarieva said. “‘Oh,’ she says, ‘there are Russian forces coming here from the Lysychansk glass factory. Oh, let them come sooner!’ And I say, ‘Are you crazy?’”
“There are many people like that among my neighbors,” she said.
Some Lysychansk residents are no longer advocating either side, upset at the conduct of the combatants, even the ones who are supposed to be defending them. Instead, they are waiting for the war to end, no matter the victor.
Ukrainian soldiers and police officers delivered macaroni, oil and other food supplies on Thursday to desperate residents in Lysychansk.
“This is a war of attrition of any kind,” said Ms. Khrushcheva, the New School professor. “Not just militarily, but the Kremlin is counting on fatigue, including for Ukrainians to be tired of war.”
So was the case for Mykhailo, who had served in the Soviet military decades ago and whose car was stolen, he said, by five Ukrainian soldiers who had recently left Sievierodonetsk. Both city and military police officers confirmed to The New York Times that some Ukrainian troops had looted garages in Lysychansk and were commandeering private vehicles to use as personal transport on the front.
“They broke into the yard, broke the bolt, ripped the locks and then pulled the car out on the ropes. And that’s it,” said Mykhailo, who declined to provide his last name to discuss delicate matters. The car, he said, was used to help his ailing 87-year-old mother around town.
“I don’t remember such a war ever happening in my life,” he said. “We used to fight the enemy, but not the civilian population.”
Damaged buildings this month in Lysychansk. Many people cannot evacuate because they lack the money, because they have older or disabled family members who not very mobile, or simply because they fear they will lose their homes.
8. How Ukraine Is Winning the Propaganda War
Excerpts:
But domestic communication also has to align with international messaging: that if Ukraine had better weapons, it could beat Russia and that democracy in Europe hinges on the country’s success. “Funding depends on [the information war], sanctions depend on it,” says Jon Roozenbeek, a misinformation researcher at the University of Cambridge.
That’s the reason Banda’s courage campaign was pushed around the world, with the English adverts swapping the word courage for the word bravery. The word bravery, in Banda’s font and flanked by blue and yellow, has been displayed in New York’s Times Square and was the backdrop for a speech UK prime minister Boris Johnson made in May.
Since Banda’s campaign was launched, the idea of everyday heroism as a morale booster has become commonplace in Ukraine, with MPs and civil society groups echoing the message. “Every volunteer project has its own mission and goal, but all of them tell the stories of how Ukrainians are fighting, which gives others examples and inspires them to join the fight or to continue fighting,” says Nataliia Mykolska, cofounder of Data Battalion, an open source database that collects photos and videos of Russian aggression.
“I don’t think that Ukraine is going to win this war solely off the back of the bravery campaign, very far from it,” says Baines. “But it is a part of the jigsaw puzzle of how they ensure the West continues giving them weapons and ensure their own people resist Russian efforts to seize their sovereignty.”
How Ukraine Is Winning the Propaganda War
As the Russian siege drags on, Ukraine's media campaign has shifted from glorified myths to accounts of everyday bravery.
Wired · by Condé Nast · June 13, 2022
It was mid-March when two advertising executives joined a Zoom meeting, ready to pitch an idea to the Ukrainian government in the middle of a war.
They wanted to launch a campaign built on the idea that bravery was a national stereotype, a characteristic linked with being Ukrainian. Watching the courage Ukrainains were showing in the face of the Russian invasion had been a moving experience, says Egor Petrov, creative director at Banda, a Kyiv-based advertising agency. It was the small things that got to him, he says: one friend spending months on the road moving army helmets around the country or another feeding the cats and dogs that had been abandoned as the Russian army advanced.
It was almost a month into the war when the meeting took place, and the Banda executives felt Ukrainians needed a boost. “I think we need this right now,” Petrov recalls telling the government. Listening to this pitch was Ukraine’s minister for digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov. He signed off with the approval of the president's office and an agreement was subsequently struck. The agency would donate its time, while the ministry would cover any costs, according to Petrov.
The idea born in that meeting has now spread across the Ukrainian internet. “Courage has no recipe, except for acetone, polystyrene, gasoline, and a rag,” says the Ukrainian voiceover in one campaign video circulating on social media, before cutting to a shot of a man throwing a Molotov cocktail. Another Banda video shared by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Instagram account in May has so far been viewed 1.2 million times.
Opening the wallet on his iPhone, Dima Adabir, Banda’s managing director, shows how his digital Monobank card is emblazoned with the campaign logo; Сміливість or “courage.” Everything from bottles of juice to a website selling home appliances and even 500 billboards across 21 Ukrainian cities have been similarly branded—although some of those billboards have since been ripped down to make anti-tank defenses, says Adabir.
As the conflict in Ukraine drags on, the country’s communications strategy has become slicker and more professional, say academics studying information warfare. Ukraine has also shifted its strategy away from amplifying exaggerated myths to focusing on the courage of ordinary people who are committing small, achievable acts of bravery in the face of the Russian invasion.
Like any country at war, Ukraine has been working to shape the information its people see. The military is not allowed to disclose casualty numbers, photos of deceased Ukrainian soldiers are rare, and pictures of Zelensky dressed as superman have been shared by officials. Fedorov describes the campaign as something of a morale boost. “We wanted [Ukrainians] to know their efforts are not going unnoticed, so they continue resisting,” he says.
But there’s a fine line between messaging that can boost morale at home and propaganda that can damage a country’s reputation abroad. The meeting between Banda executives and the digital ministry took place as Ukraine was facing scrutiny for communication missteps early in the conflict. Immediately after the invasion, a story spread across the internet describing a single unknown pilot who was taking out Russian fighter jets above Kyiv. The official Twitter account of Ukraine reposted its own version of the Ghost of Kyiv story on February 27, with a video that appeared to show one fighter plane shooting down another. But that footage, fact-checkers confirmed, was not real—it had been ripped from a video game.
It took two months for Ukrainian officials to acknowledge the story was a myth. “The ghost of Kyiv is a superhero-legend, whose character was created by Ukrainians,” Ukraine’s Air Force Command said on Facebook on April 30. “Please do not fill the info space with fakes!”
The Ghost of Kyiv was an early lesson for Ukrainian officials, says Laura Edelson, a computer scientist at New York University who researches political communication. “I think that they did pull back on that kind of thing. When you’re speaking to Western Europe and North America, you do need to be perceived as trustworthy,” she says. “There was a pivot from telling the story of this mythical fighter pilot to telling the stories of everyday Ukrainians.”
Ukrainian propaganda has to speak to multiple audiences: Ukrainians themselves, the English-speaking world, and also people inside Russia. Domestically, morale is crucial for the country’s success in a brutal war. People need to feel they are defending more than just their patch of land, says Edelson. “You have to be defending your common identity. You have to be defending your sense of self,” she adds.
Encouraging resistance is going to become more crucial if Russia attempts referendums in occupied territories, says Paul Baines, professor of political marketing at the University of Leicester’s School of Business. “This is a way of trying to ensure that people in those areas don’t vote in those fake referendums,” he says of Ukraine’s communications strategy. At the end of April, Fedorov posted a video on Telegram that combined Banda’s campaign branding with footage showing the city of Kherson, then occupied by Russia. “In Kherson, residents are once again going to a rally to explain to the occupiers that there will be no ‘referendums,’” wrote Federov. “Thank you for your courage.”
But domestic communication also has to align with international messaging: that if Ukraine had better weapons, it could beat Russia and that democracy in Europe hinges on the country’s success. “Funding depends on [the information war], sanctions depend on it,” says Jon Roozenbeek, a misinformation researcher at the University of Cambridge.
That’s the reason Banda’s courage campaign was pushed around the world, with the English adverts swapping the word courage for the word bravery. The word bravery, in Banda’s font and flanked by blue and yellow, has been displayed in New York’s Times Square and was the backdrop for a speech UK prime minister Boris Johnson made in May.
Since Banda’s campaign was launched, the idea of everyday heroism as a morale booster has become commonplace in Ukraine, with MPs and civil society groups echoing the message. “Every volunteer project has its own mission and goal, but all of them tell the stories of how Ukrainians are fighting, which gives others examples and inspires them to join the fight or to continue fighting,” says Nataliia Mykolska, cofounder of Data Battalion, an open source database that collects photos and videos of Russian aggression.
“I don’t think that Ukraine is going to win this war solely off the back of the bravery campaign, very far from it,” says Baines. “But it is a part of the jigsaw puzzle of how they ensure the West continues giving them weapons and ensure their own people resist Russian efforts to seize their sovereignty.”
More Great WIRED Stories
Wired · by Condé Nast · June 13, 2022
9. Opinion | Who Will Remember the Horrors of Ukraine?
Excerpts:
As more trials begin, there will be further echoes of the past. The first public war crimes trial of Nazis was conducted by Soviet authorities in the city of Kharkiv in 1943, in the city’s drama theater. Today, Ukrainians are calling for a new Kharkiv tribunal, a “Nuremberg 2022.” These words circulate as hashtags online, appeals for a justice still to come.
Opinion | Who Will Remember the Horrors of Ukraine?
By Linda Kinstler
Ms. Kinstler is the author of “Come to This Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends.”
Before World War II, a ravine known as Babyn Yar cut across the northwest of Kyiv like a scar.
From 1941 to 1943, the Nazis filled Babyn Yar with the bodies of about 100,000 Jews, Roma, Ukrainian political prisoners, Soviet prisoners of war and psychiatric patients.
In 1943 the Soviet Army took Babyn Yar back from the Nazis. The battle for Kyiv pockmarked the land with artillery fire.
After the war, the Soviets filled in Babyn Yar. One of the largest Holocaust mass graves in Eastern Europe was erased from the landscape.
In March, as Russian forces attempted to take Kyiv, missiles once again struck the land near the mass grave. The attack was likely an attempt to destroy Kyiv’s largest TV tower. Five civilians were killed.
It was not the deadliest missile strike to hit Kyiv. But it was, perhaps, the most symbolic.
Sources: RetroMap, The National Archives and Records Administration, Forensic Architecture, Center for Spatial Technologies, East View Geospatial and OpenStreetMap.
For many, Babyn Yar symbolizes the horror that largely preceded the gas chambers, the local Holocaust in which victims were shot at close range. Before the Nazis retreated, they had the corpses exhumed from the ravine and burned, an attempt to destroy the evidence of their crimes. The remains of their victims were dispersed throughout the land, mingling with the air, earth and groundwater. The full story of what happened to them went untold for decades, submerged and banned by Soviet authorities.
For the past six years, a group of historians, activists and designers has been working to correct the narrative and commemorate all that occurred. They hoped to build a series of museums on the site, to definitively bring to light what happened at Babyn Yar, to make the memory of its successive horrors inextricable from the land itself.
The current war in Ukraine is so oversaturated with historical meaning; it is unfolding on soil that has absorbed wave after wave of the dead, where soldiers do not always have to dig trenches in the forest because the old ones remain. In this environment, we cling to the images and ironies that remind us that the past is always present, that we are not so very far removed from its ravages. For some, it might be a photograph of the grand Odesa opera house, sandbagged and barricaded just as it was in 1942; for others, it might be images of bombed-out Ukrainian buildings, destroyed in the precise manner that they were during the last world war.
For me, it is this: The missiles aimed at the TV tower — the missiles fired to “denazify” Ukraine, as Russia’s president has described the goal of his operation — destroyed what was supposed to be a museum to the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. Now both the building and the history that it promised to tell are collateral damage in a war that seeks to pervert historical meaning. Irony of ironies, destruction without end.
For two years before Russian missiles started to rain down on Kyiv, Maksym Rokmaniko, the director of the Kyiv-based Center for Spatial Technologies, had, with support from the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, been studying, mapping, and forensically modeling the area around the ravine to try to understand the complex and overlapping histories of the territory. The window of his office in Kyiv, where I visited him in September, gave him a perfect view of the TV tower that Russia targeted in early March. In peacetime, he had looked out every day at the landscape that he and his team were studying. We drank tea and shared cakes as he and his colleagues showed me how they were working to reconstruct some of the worst atrocities of World War II.
On Feb. 25, one day after the full-scale invasion began, Mr. Rokmaniko fled Kyiv with his family, driving amid the sounds of air raid sirens and explosions. They took shelter in the Carpathian Mountains with colleagues from the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center who were also working to commemorate what had happened at Babyn Yar, and they began to take stock of all that they had lost.
Around that time, Eyal Weizman, the head of the London-based research group Forensic Architecture, reached out to Mr. Rokmaniko to see if he was OK. The two men had corresponded as colleagues, as Mr. Rokmaniko sought to build on Forensic Architecture’s techniques. Both men head institutes engaged in the collection, analysis and reconstruction of war crimes evidence, but while Mr. Rokmaniko recently focused on the historical crimes of the Holocaust, Mr. Weizman works on, among other things, contemporary human rights violations, compiling artifacts for submission to international legal bodies.
“It’s the same kind of work, but it has a different speed, a different texture, a different kind of media that you need to work with,” Mr. Weizman, a professor of spatial and visual cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, told me recently. They began discussing how Mr. Rokmaniko and his team could transition from working on war crimes from World War II to documenting the crimes unfolding before his eyes all over Ukraine. The two men and the research organizations that they lead have collaborated on a new project, released last week, investigating the strike on Babyn Yar. They are now working together to begin collecting evidence at other sites in Ukraine.
Mr. Rokmaniko was in the mountains when the missiles hit the TV tower he used to look at from his window.
The first missile hit the TV tower’s empty control room directly.
Sources: Vitali Klitschko, Ukrainian Independent Information Agency of News.
A sports complex, which was designated to become a museum to the Holocaust, was heavily damaged; the windows of other structures exploded from the impact. The colleagues Mr. Rokomaniko was sheltering with had also worked at Babyn Yar; together, they watched with horror as reactions to the strike started pouring in online.
On Twitter, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine wrote that the strike illustrated the world’s failure to prevent genocidal atrocities from recurring. “To the world: What is the point of saying ‘never again’ for 80 years, if the world stays silent when a bomb drops on the same site of Babyn Yar?” he wrote. “History repeating …”
“Every town here has its own Babyn Yar,” Ukrainians have told me again and again in my years reporting from the country. Killing fields where Nazis shot Jewish civilians, sometimes with assistance from local collaborators, dot the land. The Russian missiles that have been falling all over Ukraine for the past 110 days, murdering civilians and destroying cities, have been exposing old, barely healed historical wounds. On Saturday, March 26, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense announced that a Russian missile strike had directly hit a Jewish memorial in a ravine called Drobytsky Yar, outside Kharkiv, where approximately 15,000 Jews were killed in 1941. “The Nazis have returned,” the ministry stated in a tweet.
In a televised address in late February, President Vladimir Putin of Russia announced that the aim of his war is to “demilitarize and denazify Ukraine,” to protect Russian speakers from purported persecution. It is the kind of cynical justification that we have come to expect from his cynical regime — a fabrication tailored to exploit historical pressure points, designed to provoke and confound. By using these words, Mr. Putin framed his attack on Ukraine as a successor battle to World War II, a fight to “liberate” Kyiv once more.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainians have started calling the Russian soldiers raschists, a neologism that, as the historian Timothy Snyder writes, means something like “Russian fascists” but connotes much more. It is a term that underscores the fact that Russian troops are committing the very same crimes that, in many cases, their grandparents fought to end. Their commanders claim to be preventing genocide, while their soldiers are engaged in committing one; they are destroying the same cities that their predecessors liberated. And, Ukrainian officials have said, they are doing their best to cover up the evidence along the way.
“I do not think that Ukrainians have much doubt that the aim of this operation is genocide,” Mr. Rokmaniko told me. He had come to see Mr. Zelensky’s tweet as a prophetic warning. The missile strike hit the Kyiv TV tower in the early days of the war, before Mariupol was completely encircled and besieged, before its citizens were forced to bury their neighbors and relatives in makeshift mass graves, before the war entered its current grim and grinding phase, in which more than 100 Ukrainian soldiers are said to be dying every day. Mr. Rokmaniko has learned that Russian soldiers had confiscated people’s SIM cards in Bucha and forced them to delete media files that would testify to war crimes committed there.
It takes seconds to claim a genocide is being committed, but it can take decades to prove it in a legal forum. Whether or not the war in Ukraine is indeed a genocide will be argued over for many years to come, first by legal scholars and then by historians. They will mobilize the particular logics of their fields to try to answer this terrible question, and still they may not agree.
“The law frequently cannot take for granted what in history would count as common knowledge,” the historian Richard J. Evans writes. “In convicting a killer, the law does not need to prove that he committed a thousand murders if it can prove he committed a hundred. Thus the carefully defined and circumscribed purposes of a trial often fail to satisfy the wider remit of history.” Law can work only with evidence that has been preserved. It cannot levy judgments based on what has been erased. And we may never know just how much has been lost, how many incriminating files have been deleted from confiscated cellphones, how many stories have now been silenced.
Genocide is a crime of negation. It is not merely the mass murder of a people; it is also the systematic erasure of their history and culture, the bombing of archives, the burning of artworks. Genocide does everything it can to deprive its victims of justice. It swallows up testimony the moment it is uttered and tries to mobilize it for the purposes of denial. This is what Russian forces have done all over Ukraine.
History tells us how quickly denial can unfold: At Babyn Yar during World War II, the negation began immediately after the murders.
Denial took the form of a topographical alteration, as the Nazis filled Babyn Yar with bodies and dirt.
Soviet prisoners of war were forced to bury the bodies, covering up evidence of their friends’ and families’ murders.
Center for Spatial Technologies, Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center
When Soviet troops arrived at the site, they documented as much as they could; they brought American journalists to the site, took photographs and interviewed witnesses for the purpose of future trials. It was a Soviet Jewish jurist, Aron Trainin, who came up with the category of “crimes against peace,” for which the Nazis would be tried.
And then, after the trials, the Soviets buried what happened at Babyn Yar, literally and metaphorically. They flattened the site and prohibited survivors from gathering there. In 1968 construction began on the TV tower, which would become the tallest structure in Ukraine.
Authorities banned compilations of testimonies, poems and even a famous symphony composed in honor of the dead, fearing that any expression of Jewish solidarity would threaten Soviet collective identity.
This is what Mr. Rokmaniko and his colleagues, organizers of what was to be a new museum complex at Babyn Yar, call the “Soviet oblivion” of the site, an oblivion that began to relent only after 1991, when the process of reckoning with history became an important part of Ukraine’s gradual reintegration with Europe.
After all of these years, the history and complexity of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe are still not widely understood. This is one of the reasons the Kremlin’s talking points can take hold. The danger is that after this war, this history will become even harder to tell.
But we are not without tools to combat these forms of obliteration. Mr. Rokmaniko and Mr. Weizman specialize in the painstaking technical work of forensic data collection and spatial reconstruction, in the "very careful, slow, analytical work to show what's what," as Mr. Weizman put it.
After the strikes on the TV tower, they decided to begin a collaborative project and to collect evidence on airstrikes, bombings and other attacks on sites of urban and historical significance to shed light on Ukraine’s heritage, the reality of the war, and to try to preserve its record and — they hope — to contribute factual findings to the trials to come.
As with all investigations, time is of the essence. Once evidence is destroyed or tampered with, it cannot easily be reclaimed. It took 80 years to uncover the truth of what happened at Babyn Yar: Mr. Rokmaniko was the first to discover the particular ridge that the victims walked to reach the killing site. “It was literally hard to reconstruct what happened,” Mr. Rokmaniko said. “While I think now it is quite easy to see what happened, to make people look at it,” he said, it can be far more difficult to get people to agree on what it is that they see.
Visual evidence and reconstructions like these aid the investigation by Forensic Architecture and Center for Spatial Technologies into the destruction of a theater in the city of Mariupol. Oleksandr Malyon via Wikimedia Commons, Reuters and Center for Spatial Technologies.
Today, war takes place on the ground and also in a warp-speed media environment, in which a surfeit of documentation testifies to what is occurring, often as the crimes are ongoing. “When things get circulated online, they are hyperinterpreted,” Mr. Weizman said. “They often come without time. They come without metadata.” Forensic reconstructions allow researchers to cut through this oversaturation, to show exactly where the missiles landed and try to find the civilians they killed, to construct a lasting narrative of the event. The method of this work tends to reveal connections that previously went unseen: “This process teaches you things,” Mr. Rokmaniko told me. “Once you start modeling, you start to notice things: Where is the fence broken? Where is the building burning?”
It also helps connect the present to the past, to show how the catastrophes of prior generations literally structure the terrain upon which today’s unfold. The bodies of those killed in the TV tower strike, for instance, are now kindred not only with the tens of thousands murdered there during World War II but also with all those who were buried there in the centuries before: Beneath the craters lie the remains of a 19th-century cemetery, where Jews, Muslims, Crimean Karaites and Russian Orthodox Kievans were once laid to rest.
“I think the deeper question is, ‘How do we relate to these events? What do they mean for us? What do they mean to others? How has this actually changed people’s lives and well-beings?’ This isn’t something that can be ultimately addressed in the analytic, forensic language,” said Nick Axel, an architect and member of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, who had been running a design competition for Babyn Yar.
But the reconstructive work that his colleagues are engaged in, he said, is nevertheless “an absolutely essential starting point for the more messy but ultimately more meaningful process of reckoning with the fact of these events. With the fact of the matter, with the fact that these things actually happened.”
All wars are fought first on the ground and in public perception and second in courts and in history. Mr. Weizman and Mr. Rokmaniko hope their work will intervene at both stages. They are already collaborating with the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights to submit a case on the TV tower strikes and have begun investigating the attack on the Mariupol theater.
The strike near Babyn Yar, Mr. Weizman explained, is notable because “the fact that it was against a media network is directly related to the entire point that we are trying to make — that this war is about creating messages and resonance with historical facts,” he said. Journalists in Kyiv reported that the attack temporarily interrupted Ukrainian news broadcasts and that authorities were preparing alternative ways of disseminating Ukrainian news sources. In areas now under Russian control, Russian outlets are the only publicly broadcast source of news.
Part of what Mr. Weizman and Mr. Rokmaniko aim to do is to identify patterns in Russia’s assault to establish that the atrocities being committed in Ukraine are “systematic and widespread,” as Mr. Weizman explained. “The minute you can establish ‘systematic and widespread,’ the responsibility goes up the command chain.”
The first war crimes charges against Russian soldiers were filed by Ukrainian prosecutors in late April. These are aimed at 10 individuals from the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, low-level personnel who are accused of mistreating civilians in Bucha, where Ukrainians say they discovered the bodies of more than 400 civilians after Russian troops retreated from the area. (Moscow has said that allegations that its troops committed war crimes are “fake news.”)
It has become one of the most visible cases of Russian brutality. In late May the first Russian soldier to stand trial was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a 62-year-old Ukrainian man. The same day of his sentencing, the leader of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic announced that captured Ukrainian soldiers from the Azovstal steel complex were in his territory and that they would be subjected to an “international tribunal.” Last week, a separatist court sentenced three foreign fighters who had joined the Ukrainian army to death by firing squad.
After Ukrainian forces retook Bucha, prosecutors and forensic specialists were able to reach the destruction and document its scale, something they may not be able to do in territories that remain under Russian control. (In Mariupol, Russian authorities have their own investigators combing the city.) The one thing that is certain is that there will be more charges to come — Ukraine’s prosecutor general announced on May 31 that about 80 criminal prosecutions of Russian soldiers are already underway — and advocates hope that one day we might see a special tribunal akin to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg for the Russian high command. As the historian Francine Hirsch has pointed out, both Russians and Ukrainians look back to Nuremberg but are taking dramatically different lessons from its example.
As more trials begin, there will be further echoes of the past. The first public war crimes trial of Nazis was conducted by Soviet authorities in the city of Kharkiv in 1943, in the city’s drama theater. Today, Ukrainians are calling for a new Kharkiv tribunal, a “Nuremberg 2022.” These words circulate as hashtags online, appeals for a justice still to come.
Read more about this essay
10. Swedengate Was a Lesson in How Easily Misinformation Spreads
Excerpts:
“Swedengate” quickly became a topic and migrated to traditional media, with newspapers eagerly reporting on this previously unknown aspect of Swedish culture. “A Swedish child sits at a dinner table while his friend and the friend’s parents dine on meatballs, mashed potatoes and lingonberry sauce. The delicious aroma wafts below the child’s nose, but there is no plate for him,” the New York Times reported. “This setting, while quite normal in Sweden and other Nordic countries, has horrified people around the world, shocked to learn that some Swedish families do not invite their children’s visiting friends to eat with them at mealtime.”
The case provided opportunities for op-ed contributions too. In Britain’s the Independent, a Swede named Linda Johansson, who is neither a reporter nor a sociologist but runs an Etsy shop, weighed in to say: “I’m Swedish—it’s true that we don’t serve food to guests. What’s the problem?” She presented no data documenting this alleged habit.
Unfortunately, the New York Times forgot to investigate whether the social media posters’ allegations were in fact true, instead relying on unconfirmed information, such as a tweet by pop star Zara Larsson. (The piece’s reporter is a general assignment reporter based in New York City and has no Sweden expertise.). There are, in fact, no studies that show that Swedes fail to feed guests dinner more frequently than any other people.
Swedengate Was a Lesson in How Easily Misinformation Spreads
An expert's point of view on a current event.
One person’s anecdote became a false lesson in national character.
Elisabeth Braw
By Elisabeth Braw, a columnist at Foreign Policy and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
NEW FOR SUBSCRIBERS: Click + to receive email alerts for new stories written by Elisabeth Braw Elisabeth Braw
A Syrian refugee has coffee and cake in Sweden. Mikhail Zuhir (center), a Syrian refugee who came to Sweden 10 months earlier, has coffee and cake after a dinner at Jenny Sigurs (right) and her husband, Urban Soederman’s, house at a suburb outside Stockholm on Oct. 28, 2014. Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images
There are a lot of Sweden-haters out there. Or rather, a lot of people with time on their hands and possibly a bit of help from people and groups wishing to harm Sweden. Within just a couple of days, a bizarre Reddit post about Swedes not feeding their guests dinner became an internet phenomenon—even though there’s no research backing it up. Other countries can learn lessons from the mysterious Swedengate and how easily misinformation can spread, even when there’s no malign actor behind it, just simple gullibility.
“What is the weirdest thing you had to do at someone else’s house because of their culture/religion?” a recent Reddit poster asked in May. Another user responded that “I remember going to my swedish friends house. And while we were playing in his room, his mom yelled that dinner was ready. And check this. He told me to WAIT in his room while they ate. That shit was fucking wild.” In no time, the comment was going viral on Reddit, then on Twitter, then on Instagram. People begin writing in with comments about how weird and inhospitable Swedes are. One Instagram post added a map that illustrated how stingy Northern Europeans are, with Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and parts of northern Germany marked a frightening dark red.
“Swedengate” quickly became a topic and migrated to traditional media, with newspapers eagerly reporting on this previously unknown aspect of Swedish culture. “A Swedish child sits at a dinner table while his friend and the friend’s parents dine on meatballs, mashed potatoes and lingonberry sauce. The delicious aroma wafts below the child’s nose, but there is no plate for him,” the New York Times reported. “This setting, while quite normal in Sweden and other Nordic countries, has horrified people around the world, shocked to learn that some Swedish families do not invite their children’s visiting friends to eat with them at mealtime.”
The case provided opportunities for op-ed contributions too. In Britain’s the Independent, a Swede named Linda Johansson, who is neither a reporter nor a sociologist but runs an Etsy shop, weighed in to say: “I’m Swedish—it’s true that we don’t serve food to guests. What’s the problem?” She presented no data documenting this alleged habit.
Unfortunately, the New York Times forgot to investigate whether the social media posters’ allegations were in fact true, instead relying on unconfirmed information, such as a tweet by pop star Zara Larsson. (The piece’s reporter is a general assignment reporter based in New York City and has no Sweden expertise.). There are, in fact, no studies that show that Swedes fail to feed guests dinner more frequently than any other people.
Although lots of social media posters claimed to have experienced being left out of dinner, countless Swedes were baffled at the allegations. (As ought to be well known by now, just because an allegation exists on social media doesn’t mean it has to be true.) Like other Swedes, I have never not been fed when visiting friends or acquaintances. And without scientific documentation of the practice, concluding from various social media allegations that a failure to feed guests is a national habit is as credible as, say, arguing that former U.S. President Donald Trump won the 2020 election because somebody said so on YouTube.
Many Swedes tried to take the baffling campaign on the chin. “I enjoyed the thread in r/AskBalkans where Greeks and Bulgarians and Turks put their genocidal dreams aside to conclude that Swedes are damn weird,” one Reddit user said. Another reported that “tonight we had the neighbor’s five-year-old here, who had dinner with us after having played with my five-year-old. Now I understand that it was a mistake. Next time he’ll have to stay in my child’s room.” Another asked: “Is [Russian President Vladimir] Putin going to use this as a pretense for an invasion? ‘Everything started with the buddy who wasn’t given dinner…’”
Then the odd food post took a darker turn, as social media accounts seemingly belonging to real people began complaining that Swedes don’t just fail to feed their guests but are racist too. That was when some analysts started to worry. Sweden had, after all, just begun the process of joining NATO, frustrating a country with a history of turning domestic tensions into information warfare fodder—or of inventing them entirely.
“A seemingly innocuous thread on Reddit rapidly going viral and turning into a campaign of hatred and threats, with Sweden being called racist,” summarized Anton Lif, a Swedish communications consultant who specializes in disinformation and misinformation. “This can be a part of the general public discourse, and it can be entertaining to some, but a hostile group or country can also take advantage [of] a viral phenomenon. And this type of media phenomenon can benefit different actors.” Sweden’s new Psychological Defence Agency examined the case and determined that the campaign had not been instigated by a hostile state. (The agency only has responsibility for countering foreign malign influence campaigns.)
Swedengate is only the latest example of defamation campaigns targeting Sweden. The Reddit post may have begun as innocuous fun, but it was quickly taken over by people who had no compunction about spreading rumors and inflating them by adding new unverified information and outright falsehoods. Strategists in Moscow, Beijing, and beyond could sit back and let social media users’ stupidity and laziness do their work for them. As I highlighted in a recent piece for Foreign Policy, Sweden was targeted by a disinformation campaign alleging that Swedish social services kidnap Muslim children. Like Swedengate, it did considerable damage to the country’s reputation—and like Swedengate, it presented no evidence to back up the allegations. “Even if Swedengate is not instigated or coordinated by a hostile country, Sweden’s image could take a hit,” Lif noted.
But even if it was more likely to be the result of random nonsense than targeted vitriol, Swedengate should prompt some self-examination among those who shared the content. One of the first viral spreaders of the original post turned out to be a repeat sharer of propaganda and general junk. Although Beijing or Moscow likely does not pay the poster, he or she is certainly not a reliable source of information. (In the allegations of Swedish social service kidnappings, the original spreader was found by the Psychological Defence Agency to be linked to the Islamic State.) As for the map that documented Northern Europe’s lack of hospitality, the poster sheepishly admitted, “I do admit the research that was done wasn’t extremely professional and that the meaning of the colors may have been exaggerated to the point it almost looks like as if northerners never give food which is of course not always true.”
Although the people posting various complaints about Sweden clearly have the right to do so, Swedengate is a sorry tale of the damage that unverified allegations can cause. Which country, organization, or person will be targeted next? It could be any country, any organization, any person. Think and verify. Odd tales are not just innocuous fun.
Elisabeth Braw is a columnist at Foreign Policy and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on defense against emerging national security challenges, such as hybrid and gray-zone threats. She is also a member of the U.K. National Preparedness Commission. Twitter: @elisabethbraw
11. China’s Xi Jinping Could Knowingly Start a War Without Victory
Conclusion:
Taiwan’s current deterrent posture assumes that China will not initiate a conflict it does not believe it can win quickly enough to secure a fait accompli, and avoid economic and domestic Chinese costs from a Western naval blockade. However, Taipei has not accounted for Xi’s prioritization of control over the CCP rather than sensitivity to domestic economic costs, as is evident in a slew of recent policy initiatives coming out of the Politburo Standing Committee. Nor does the US appreciate that factional benefits will accrue to Xi if the PLA is less that successful in its operations.
China’s Xi Jinping Could Knowingly Start a War Without Victory
Taiwan needs to increase its deterrent military strength because Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping does not need to believe he must win in order to start a war. The West’s demonstrated failure to inflict sufficient battlefield costs on the Russian army in Ukraine, to block Russian energy exports to Europe, or to target sanctions on Russia’s elites and consumers, means that Beijing sees a lengthy war of attrition as a viable strategy against Taipei and its allies. Recent policy choices in China demonstrate that the survival, or even the legitimacy of the CCP, will not depend on a victorious amphibious landing, as it did with Argentina in its invasion of the Falklands Islands in 1982. Xi’s increasingly successful authoritarian pattern of rule, including his prioritization of his personal control over the CCP, and consolidation of military backing, shows that the party will be resilient enough to bear the economic costs of an extended campaign. This can be seen in Xi’s exploitation of policy challenges as opportunities for public demonstrations of CCP power, regardless of cost.
Xi’s assertion of CCP power has become more important to cement public deference to his rule, than the actual success of a given policy. The PRC’s political structure is an authoritarian bureaucracy, with power concentrated pyramidically in a personality-dominated cabinet at the top; there is a natural tendency to compete to dominate this peak, which is often achieved by public displays of authority. Xi’s authoritarianism is driven by a political insecurity born of his lack of administrative achievements compared to his predecessors, and the initial paucity of military loyalists in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). This is because Xi was appointed as a compromise candidate between opposing factions. There is no better way to probe into Xi’s assertiveness than by his use of the term 逢山開路，遇水架橋 which appeared in his 2018 New Year’s message. The proverb translates to “plow a path through a mountain, to build a bridge when blocked by a river,” which is Xi’s self-conscious portrayal that his will is undeterrable.
There are two effects. First, Xi’s need to demonstrate authority leads him to formulate brutally unsophisticated policies, as he tries to control the uncontrollable, such as his zero-Covid policy. Second, according to Xie Fanping’s 謝凡平 account 常委治國 (Governed by Politburo Standing Committee), Xi buttresses his political strength by prioritizing the backing of the military, in exchange for military influence on foreign policy, especially over Taiwan.
Xi is disregarding the conventional wisdom that the CCP should be focusing on Chinese economic growth, despite the likelihood that China’s GDP may have already plateaued in 2018. Xi’s demonstrations of CCP power are visible in Beijing’s zero-COVID approach in Shanghai, inflicting widespread economic disruption in what is the powerbase for his principal adversary, the Jiang Zemin faction (in power 1993-2003). Justified by the low vaccination rate among China’s elderly, Xi pushed this policy through the CCP’s Central Committee meeting on April 29, 2022, with the consequence that not a single car was sold in Shanghai that month. Left to fester, the failure to deal decisively with the Omicron outbreak, may produce new factors黑天鵝 灰犀牛, that could imperil Xi’s stature at the upcoming 20th National Congress, in late 2022.
This draconian approach is also evident in Xi’s mistreatment of the Uyghurs of Xinjiang, despite his father cautioning prudence and supported autonomous governance, and the unconcealed crackdown against liberal protestors in Hong Kong. While Xi’s predecessors dealt ruthlessly with the demonstrations leading-up to the 1989 June 4 Incident, Falun-Gong, and the 1995 elections in Taiwan, these policies were accompanied by far greater caution in foreign policy. In contrast, Xi has stoked diplomatic hostility with Australia, and Canada. Beijing is demonstrating that it will be able to manage the significant economic costs to China and the world of a war over Taiwan.
The CCP is a paramilitary organization that was born in the chaos of war, with the PLA the constitutional protector of the party, not China. 槍桿子裡出政權 (Qiang Gan Zi Li Chu Zheng Quan) means that political authority is acquired through gun barrels: implying that power is fundamentally coercive, and succession is conducted by usurpation. Despite the CCP sharing some similarities with the Soviet and Russian system, both being legacy communist bodies, politics in Beijing is far more factionalized, a characteristic since before Deng Xiaoping (in power 1982-1997). Jiang Zemin prolonged his control of the PLA during Hu Jintao’s administration (2002-2012). to protect the interests of his crony generals.
Xi started to supplant Jiang’s influence in the Central Military Commission (CMC) as early as 2014. This began with the prosecution of pro-Jiang General Xu Caihou, who was a key conduit for promotions and appointments beginning in Hu’s era, followed by another Jiang loyalist General Guo Boxiong. Others, like Guo’s associate General Fang Fenghui, and General Zhang Yang, committed suicide. Xi replaced 16 four-star generals and removed the critics of his appointment of new loyalists. The increased saliency of China’s war propaganda mollifies the military, and satisfies the CCP’s goal of promising to resolve Mao Zedong’s unfinished civil war over Taiwan.
There is nevertheless resistance by broader minded military leaders. The leak of the May 14th meeting of the Guangdong Joint Military-Local Command Departments 广州省军地联合指挥部, may reflect concerns with Xi’s strategy. The conference explicitly described Xi’s intention to prepare for a regional conflict, with emphasis on the South China Sea, the first island chain, general mobilization, and military logistics. Also discussed was the Chinese diaspora, ideology unification, the destruction of foreign powers, never to allow Taiwanese independence, and the defense of national sovereignty.
One now-disappeared Xi skeptic, is PLA Air Force General Liu Yazhou, who was arrested and accused in 2022 of having been corrupted by the US officials, with the intent of causing a Soviet Union-like collapse of China. His brother is adjunct political science professor Liu Yawei at Emory University, and he is author of an important book on strategic studies, 赢在制空权, which discusses the integration of technology in air force operations. According to the former Director of the Center on Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute, Michael Pillsbury, Yazhou would understand that the benefits of Chinese-US cooperation cannot be offset, by what he calls the “monumental mistake” of a war over Taiwan.
There is the egregiously cynical conclusion that Xi may risk a war over Taiwan knowing that any less-than victorious outcome will increase his influence within the PLA and permit him to further reduce opposing factions and disloyal officers. The responsibility for any military setback, as long as it is not catastrophic, can be shifted onto the PLA, which will perversely strengthen the stature of the CCP and increase the PLA’s dependence on the party. This is similar to Mao’s use of the Korean War (1950-53) to eliminate former Kuomintang officers and soldiers, who were re-organized into 14 PLA Armies, the majority of which were deployed to the front, suffering exceptional losses in a protracted conflict.
Taiwan’s current deterrent posture assumes that China will not initiate a conflict it does not believe it can win quickly enough to secure a fait accompli, and avoid economic and domestic Chinese costs from a Western naval blockade. However, Taipei has not accounted for Xi’s prioritization of control over the CCP rather than sensitivity to domestic economic costs, as is evident in a slew of recent policy initiatives coming out of the Politburo Standing Committee. Nor does the US appreciate that factional benefits will accrue to Xi if the PLA is less that successful in its operations.
Dr. Julian Spencer-Churchill is an associate professor of international relations at Concordia University (Montreal) along with Liu Zongzo.
12. Defending against disinformation (Canada)
Excerpts:
Without a consistent approach to media literacy education across Canada, we are falling behind and leaving future generations vulnerable to disinformation attacks. The void of data on the different approaches the provinces are taking prevents us from improving our current models.
As in addressing any emergency, we need a serious, consistent, Canada-wide proactive approach to arm future generations with the power to see through disinformation. This is vital to improving our political discourse and preventing flash points such as the occupation of Ottawa in the future. With proven models being demonstrated in Estonia and Finland, it’s time to begin implementing a proactive approach.
By adopting a similar education curriculum in Canada, institutions can begin the process of gaining back trust and proactively addressing future disinformation efforts by equipping future generations with the knowledge and skills to think critically, not cynically, about the world around them.
Defending against disinformation
Canada can learn from Estonia and Finland about attacking the problem by emphasizing media literacy in elementary and high schools.
June 13, 2022
Communicators and public affairs professionals know first-hand about the negative impact that disinformation has had not only on our work, but on our friends and family as well. Our rapidly changing digital landscape is making this problem worse as it makes it harder and harder to tell what’s intentionally created to mislead and what is unintentionally misleading.
With Russia’s war on Ukraine coming into full focus, it’s time we realize that disinformation efforts aren’t just benign memes based on a difference of opinion – they are an effective time-tested weapon that Canada needs to start addressing in a serious way.
Disinformation is not new. The term “fake news” became popular in the 1890s and was recently revived to identify tactics used during the 2016 presidential election in the United States. The problem of disinformation has become only more acute since then as it rapidly metastasized from politics into all sectors of our society, ushering in what some call the “post-truth” era.
Unlike misinformation, which spreads false information with or without the intent to mislead, disinformation is an active attempt to mislead by deliberately creating and spreading false information. These disinformation attacks destroy the trust that people feel for each other and their institutions.
The powerful effect of disinformation can be seen clearly in Canada with the occupation of downtown Ottawa. Locked into an echo chamber of conspiracy theories fueled by disinformation, occupiers confronted reporters as liars as the occupiers repeated false information about vaccinations. These protests quickly spread across the country and paralyzed several of Canada’s major trading routes before finally being reigned in by law enforcement.
This event should be a wake-up call to all Canadians that we need to act quickly to address the active threat of disinformation. While some provincial education curriculums provide for media literacy courses in school, none of them are mandatory, many of them are out of date with the current digital environment, and there isn’t a consistent approach across the country.
Organizations such as MediaSmarts and the Canadian Association of Journalists are trying to fill that gap through additional education campaigns. However, Canada lacks the data needed to understand what students are learning from media literacy education, so we can’t be sure if Canada’s approach is effective.
Disinformation will continue to pose a major threat to Canada and other countries as Russia’s war against Ukraine continues. Russia is currently using co-ordinated disinformation attacks by utilizing the communication channels of their embassies in many countries to accuse Ukraine of bombing their own maternity hospital in Mariupol as well as to claim the massacre of civilians in Bucha was faked by Ukraine and its Western allies.
Canada is locked into a reactive approach
In Canada, we are currently locked into a reactive approach to addressing disinformation after it has already spread.
With social media sites being one of the main sources of disinformation, we have also seen companies such as Twitter and Facebook begin to de-platform, cut off advertising revenue to, and put warnings on accounts that spread disinformation.
Since the war in Ukraine was renewed by Russia, Twitter has put warning labels on 260,000 tweets from Russian accounts and says it will continue this practice. But this reactive approach only happens after the disinformation has spread to its intended audience.
International fact-checkers such as Daniel Dale, a reporter for CNN, formerly of the Toronto Star, and news organizations such as AFP play an important role in our society by holding those presenting false information publicly accountable for their actions. However, just like the reactive approach of social media websites, it is becoming clear that there are limitations to relying on this approach to address disinformation.
We know that fact-checkers can help to correct inaccurate information and improve the accuracy of the audience’s knowledge of a subject, but that effectiveness is limited in polarized instances such as election campaigns. With the stakes so high during elections, this a major limitation, given that this is when we need to address disinformation the most.
There is technology that is being explored as a way to automate fact-checking so this information can be taken down quicker. However, this technology isn’t close to being ready and is still dependent on human judgment.
Adding to the problem, conspiracy theorists are now using fact-checkers as the basis for their new disinformation campaigns. As seen in this interview, Stew Peters, a conspiracy theorist who promoted the occupation of Ottawa, claims that “the arbiters of lies are the fact checkers.”
How have other countries dealt with disinformation attacks?
In 2007, Estonia was paralyzed as it experienced two days of riots due to a Russian disinformation campaign centred around the moving of a Soviet Union military statue. But instead of submitting to the major geo-political power of Russia, Estonia acted.
In 2010, it began teaching media literacy from kindergarten to high school. The genius behind this shift is that it’s integrated throughout the curriculum.
In Estonia, media literacy is now treated with the same importance as science and math, with students in the 10th grade having to complete a 35-hour media and influence course. Additionally, its curriculum stresses digital competencies to assess media’s relevance and reliability, as well as how to be aware of the dangers of our new digital environment.
In a similar way, Finland was facing disinformation attacks from its Russian neighbour relating to NATO membership, immigration and the European Union. But instead of relying on fact-checkers to fight back, it launched an anti-fake news initiative in 2014 to teach its citizens how to counter disinformation.
This effective approach helps people to address disinformation at a very young age, before it can take hold of its audience. Or as Jussi Toivanen, the chief communications specialist for the Finnish prime minister, said in a 2019 interview with CNN: “The first line of defense is the kindergarten teacher.”
The courses in Finland are used to help students think critically about the news and facts they are consuming. Students are tasked with examining news sources, videos and social media posts to analyze bias by comparing them. They are even asked to try to write fake news stories themselves.
With Finland ranking first and Estonia ranking third in Open Society Institute’s 2019 Media Literacy Index, it’s evident that these programs are working.
What can Canada do?
Without a consistent approach to media literacy education across Canada, we are falling behind and leaving future generations vulnerable to disinformation attacks. The void of data on the different approaches the provinces are taking prevents us from improving our current models.
As in addressing any emergency, we need a serious, consistent, Canada-wide proactive approach to arm future generations with the power to see through disinformation. This is vital to improving our political discourse and preventing flash points such as the occupation of Ottawa in the future. With proven models being demonstrated in Estonia and Finland, it’s time to begin implementing a proactive approach.
By adopting a similar education curriculum in Canada, institutions can begin the process of gaining back trust and proactively addressing future disinformation efforts by equipping future generations with the knowledge and skills to think critically, not cynically, about the world around them.
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13. Tainted Qatari Millions Are All Over Washington
Excerpts:
The sermons delivered at the Education City Mosque provide some insight into the Qatar Foundation’s values. In a 2016 sermon, preacher Mudassir Ahmed declared, “Kill the infidels. … Count them in number and do not spare one.” Qatar Foundation promoted Ahmed’s sermon, using its own logo and that of Qatar’s Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs. Last year, the mosque’s imam, Haytham al-Dokhin, tweeted a video in which he chanted, “Oh Lord, liberate Al-Aqsa from the usurper Jews.” A few days later, he added: “Jews are the staunchest enemies of Muslims,” concluding, “Dear Lord, please take on the nefarious Jews and show us your miraculous power.”
These are not isolated examples, but rather illustrations of how Qatar Foundation and the government in Doha cultivate bigotry throughout the emirate. Yet the universities of Education City insist they enjoy an optimal climate for academic inquiry. In a book published last month, Christine Schiwietz, an associate dean at the Georgetown campus in Doha, “With no ministry-mandated curricula… [American] universities [in Doha] have freedom that other international universities lack.” Perhaps the faculty can choose what to teach, but student events run into censorship: Georgetown Qatar canceled a proposed discussion about whether to portray God as a woman. The incident helped earn the school a place on the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s annual list of “worst colleges for free speech.”
Ambassador Olsen and Gen. Allen are the ones now entangled with the law, but the regime in Doha is the one that paid to play in Washington. Even when Qatari largesse is entirely above board, it serves to obscure Doha’s internal repression and ties to extremists. It is time for American institutions to start tearing up the checks that Doha is so eager to write.
Tainted Qatari Millions Are All Over Washington
Qatar is also sending billions to a small circle of top-flight universities.
Jun 17
President Joe Biden meets with Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, emir of Qatar in January 2022. (Photo by Tom Brenner/New York Times/Getty Images.)
Richard Olson, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, pleaded guilty last week to illegal lobbying on behalf of Qatar, the wealthy Persian Gulf emirate. Top media outlets then reported that the FBI seized documents from retired Marine Gen. John R. Allen, who commanded NATO troops in Afghanistan. Allen denies any wrongdoing.
Such allegations are remarkable all on their own, yet the significance of this story only becomes apparent if one sets it against the backdrop of the billions of dollars that Qatar’s autocratic government has spent to buy influence in Washington. Nor is this the first time that the recipients of Doha’s largesse apparently ignored federal laws requiring the disclosure of their financial relationships.
Arguably, Doha’s investments are paying off; earlier this year, the White House asked Congress to officially designate Qatar as a major non-NATO ally, a status that serves as both a political seal of approval and a key to securing additional training and weapons from the Pentagon. It’s an unusual honor for a country that once sheltered the chief planner of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and now harbors the leaders of the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas. Doha also has a long record of turning a blind eye to terror financing while promoting its anti-Western and antisemitic brand of Islam.
And yet, inside the Beltway, taking Qatari money amounts to business as usual. In 2018, when the Washington Capitals were chasing the Stanley Cup, Doha picked up the $100,000 tab for keeping the Metro open for an extra hour, so fans could get home after Game 4 of the conference finals. The emirate has also donated tens of millions dollars to leading Washington, D.C, think tanks.
The leading recipients of Qatari largesse are a small circle of top-flight universities, who acknowledged much of the funding they received only under pressure from the Department of Education. For decades, federal law has required universities to disclose when they receive $250,000 or more from a foreign source in a single calendar year. Amid signs of abysmal compliance, DOE launched a series of investigations that turned up $6.5 billion of unreported foreign funding.
Among the worst offenders was Cornell, which failed to disclose $1.2 billion of foreign money, including $760 million Doha paid to finance the establishment of a Cornell satellite campus in Qatar’s Education City. Given how many colleges seem to know the exact amount every alum has donated since he or she received his diploma, Cornell’s oversight does not exactly seem like an honest mistake.
Besides Cornell, five other schools have campuses in Education City and receive the lion’s share of Qatari money: Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern, Texas A&M, and Virginia Commonwealth. Following revisions spurred by DOE investigations, these six reported total Qatari funding of $4.8 billion since 2005— a smattering of other schools received another $150 million from Doha.
While no one knows much foreign funding remains unreported, Qatar is the undisputed leader among disclosed beneficiaries, with the U.K. coming in second with $3.6 billion. Canada is third, and China and Saudi Arabia round out the top five.
Qatar seems less than eager to have the details of its donations become public knowledge. In 2016, in response to a public records request, the state attorney general ordered Texas A&M to release the contract for operating its Doha campus in exchange for $76.2 million per year. The attorney general ruled against the Qatar Foundation that “petitioned Texas authorities to keep the document secret.”
Despite Doha’s record of sheltering and funding violent extremists, its partners profess total comfort with the relationship. In 2019, a Georgetown spokeswoman said the university “carefully reviews all gifts to ensure they are in alignment with our values.”
The sermons delivered at the Education City Mosque provide some insight into the Qatar Foundation’s values. In a 2016 sermon, preacher Mudassir Ahmed declared, “Kill the infidels. … Count them in number and do not spare one.” Qatar Foundation promoted Ahmed’s sermon, using its own logo and that of Qatar’s Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs. Last year, the mosque’s imam, Haytham al-Dokhin, tweeted a video in which he chanted, “Oh Lord, liberate Al-Aqsa from the usurper Jews.” A few days later, he added: “Jews are the staunchest enemies of Muslims,” concluding, “Dear Lord, please take on the nefarious Jews and show us your miraculous power.”
These are not isolated examples, but rather illustrations of how Qatar Foundation and the government in Doha cultivate bigotry throughout the emirate. Yet the universities of Education City insist they enjoy an optimal climate for academic inquiry. In a book published last month, Christine Schiwietz, an associate dean at the Georgetown campus in Doha, “With no ministry-mandated curricula… [American] universities [in Doha] have freedom that other international universities lack.” Perhaps the faculty can choose what to teach, but student events run into censorship: Georgetown Qatar canceled a proposed discussion about whether to portray God as a woman. The incident helped earn the school a place on the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s annual list of “worst colleges for free speech.”
Ambassador Olsen and Gen. Allen are the ones now entangled with the law, but the regime in Doha is the one that paid to play in Washington. Even when Qatari largesse is entirely above board, it serves to obscure Doha’s internal repression and ties to extremists. It is time for American institutions to start tearing up the checks that Doha is so eager to write.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, D.C.-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy. David Adesnik is a senior fellow and director of research at FDD, which accepts no donations from foreign governments. Follow them on Twitter @hahussain and @adesnik.
14. Is the war in Ukraine creating a new world order?
Excerpts:
With the European Commission's backing, Ukraine could now be added to the list of countries vying for EU membership as early as next week, when member state leaders meet at their Brussels summit.
Nato, whose five-phased eastward expansion since 1990 is one of the core reasons Putin cites as his reason to invade Ukraine, also seems more unified after it lost focus when former US President Donald Trump questioned its use and French President Emmanuel Macron described it as "braindead".
In a parallel development, Australia, the UK and the US launched the Aukus strategic alliance, while Australia, the US, India and Japan increasingly work together in the Quadrilateral Dialogue, or Quad, format.
Both Aukus and Quad are designed to contain China's perceived expansion, but also contributing to an increasingly polarised world order.
Is the war in Ukraine creating a new world order?
Cold War alliances are being strengthened while the classic foes of the "free West" are forging stronger links at a moment when France is exiting the helm of the EU.
RFI · by Jan van der Made · June 18, 2022
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"It is unwise to take an adversarial position to two adversaries in a way that drives them together," according to the world's most experienced diplomat, Henry Kissinger, speaking about relations between the West, China and Russia, during an interview with the Financial Times on 7 May, just weeks before his 99th birthday.
Kissinger was one of the architects of Washington's rapprochement to China in 1972, when, in the middle of the Cold War, he travelled with then US President Richard Nixon to China in a diplomatic move that changed the global political landscape.
Beijing and Washington established diplomatic ties in 1979, when China helped the US in spying on Soviet troop movements and the loose alliance eventually led to the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
But, like in George Orwell's novel 1984, the global alliances shifted. Forty years after the US and China forged an alliance against Moscow, It's now Moscow and Beijing linking up against the US.
FILE PHOTO: Soldiers of People's Liberation Army (PLA) are seen before a giant screen as Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks at the military parade marking the 70th founding anniversary of People's Republic of China, on its National Day in Beijing, China October 1, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo To match Special Report TAIWAN-CHINA/SUBMARINES REUTERS - Jason Lee
On 15 June, Chinese President Xi Jinping had a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin where he stressed the "good momentum of development" between the countries.
The official Chinese Xinhua News Agency avoided mentioning Western sanctions against either Russia or China, but showed a strong commitment to mutual economic support.
According to the Global Times, businesses of both countries aim at "achieving the goal of $200 billion in trade by 2024".
The Financial Times, reporting on the St Petersburg Forum, calls it "morale-boosting exercise" where delegations major Western multinationals were replaced with those from Cuba, Venezuela and Afghanistan's Taliban.
— Vsevolod (@SevaSamokhvalov) June 16, 2022
Security treaty
And while Russia keeps on trying to incorporate Ukraine's Donbas region into its territory, China is active expanding its own security alliances in the Pacific.
In April it signed a treaty with the Solomon Islands. Another, more comprehensive treaty with eight Pacific nations was rejected, but Beijing continues the push hard for it.
Meanwhile, on 17 June, Xinhua officially reported that China's navy finalised the construction of its third aircraft carrier, the 320-metre Fujian, modelled after the US Navy's USS Gerald Ford, currently the largest and most modern carrier in the world.
Far from enough to equal US Naval might, but “It is the next major step in exploring new capabilities. And gaining a lot of experience over the next years", Andreas Rupprecht, a defence expert and author of several books on the Chinese military, is quoted as saying by NavalNews.
At the same time, the website of Japan's NHK TV reported that 7 Russian and 2 Chinese warships were spotted in the Pacific Ocean off Chiba Prefecture near Tokyo.
China and Russia hold joint naval and military exercises on a regular basis.
Western alliance is strengthening
On Friday, The EU Commission sent a powerful symbol of solidarity with Ukraine when Brussels backed Kyiv's bid for EU candidate status, even as Russia shelled frontline Ukrainian cities and cut back gas supplies to the West.
The statement came out just after EU leaders Emmanuel Macron (France,) Olaf Scholz (Germany) and Mario Draghi (Italy) had visited Kyiv and et with Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky.
Ukraine will also be on top of the agenda at the last EU Council meeting that is headed by France, on 23-24 June, before the rotating presidency turns to the Czech Republic in 1 July.
With the European Commission's backing, Ukraine could now be added to the list of countries vying for EU membership as early as next week, when member state leaders meet at their Brussels summit.
Nato, whose five-phased eastward expansion since 1990 is one of the core reasons Putin cites as his reason to invade Ukraine, also seems more unified after it lost focus when former US President Donald Trump questioned its use and French President Emmanuel Macron described it as "braindead".
In a parallel development, Australia, the UK and the US launched the Aukus strategic alliance, while Australia, the US, India and Japan increasingly work together in the Quadrilateral Dialogue, or Quad, format.
Both Aukus and Quad are designed to contain China's perceived expansion, but also contributing to an increasingly polarised world order.
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RFI · by Jan van der Made · June 18, 2022
15. Fujian: China's New Aircraft Carrier Is Important — But No Game-Changer
Fujian: China's New Aircraft Carrier Is Important — But No Game-Changer
This week China launched—meaning deposited in the water for the first time—its latest aircraft carrier, the Type 003. Dubbed Fujian, China’s third flattop will now undergo several years of outfitting before becoming battleworthy come 2025 or thereabouts. Fujian bulks larger than its predecessors, a refitted Soviet carrier and an upgraded, Chinese-built version of the same rudimentary design. The Type 003 is equipped with catapults—reportedly electromagnetic rather than steam-driven—and thus will be able to handle heavier-laden aircraft than her forbears, which depended on ski jumps mounted on the bow to loft warplanes skyward.
Chinese shipbuilders and the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) have assayed a leap to parity with the U.S. Navy in carrier aviation. While not there yet, Fujian does feature technologies found on the latest U.S. carrier, the Ford-class, which likewise sports an electromagnetic launch and recovery system. And in terms of physical scale, the Type 003’s proportions are what you would expect from an American supercarrier, somewhere in the 80,000-100,000-ton range when toting a full complement of aircraft, crewmen, and stores and ammunition. Size matters for reasons of national pride as well as combat effectiveness. After all, China has to have the biggest and most of everything, as befits its self-appointed central status in Asia and the world.
One-upsmanship matters.
What does Fujian’s debut mean in operational and strategic terms? Well, it probably remains the case that Chinese carriers, tactical aircraft, and warships remain somewhat behind their U.S. and allied counterparts by technological measures. It’s tough to say for sure outside the classified realm, where intelligence specialists afford hostile militaries close scrutiny in hopes of gauging their capabilities. But there are no guarantees that even spooky types will get things right. After all, weapon systems are black boxes in peacetime. You can inspect the exterior of a high-tech platform, weapon, or sensor all you want, but you can’t peer within its innards to see what makes it tick. Without that option, you’re forced to estimate how capable a widget is by monitoring its performance in peacetime steaming, maneuvers, and exercises.
That means it will be some time before outsiders have more than a rough guide to how well the Type 003 would probably acquit itself in battle. Heck, PLA Navy mariners themselves will have to take the flattop, its air wing, and its escort and support ships to sea before they themselves know how, and how well, a carrier task force centered on Fujian will perform amid real-life circumstances. A ship of war—or any other engineering system, for that matter—is a hypothesis. It’s an idea transcribed to engineering and sent forth into the real world, an unsparing arbiter of what does and doesn’t work. Like any other hypothesis, China’s new aircraft carrier must be subjected to field trials to assess its worth.
Success is far from a foregone conclusion.
In fact, a hard lesson from the past two decades of U.S. naval acquisitions is that piling lots of new technologies onto a new platform—whether it’s the Ford-class carrier, the Zumwalt-class destroyer, or the Freedom- and Independence-class littoral combat ships—is asking for trouble. Chinese shipwrights are not exempt from this doleful logic, even though China’s tightly controlled press may keep their travails from going public.
Leaving aside the technological questions, Fujian will mark an important milestone for the PLA Navy once operational. Having three carriers in the inventory will assure Chinese naval overseers that they will have one at sea or ready for sea at all times, should they choose to avail themselves of this option. The U.S. Navy employs awkwardly labeled “station-keeping multipliers” to project how many U.S.-based warships of a given type the navy must maintain to keep one on foreign station. These ratios factor in the rhythm of training, upkeep, and major overhaul. The figure for carriers based on the U.S. west coast to keep one in the Western Pacific is daunting, at about six hulls per deployed hull. That’s a lot when the total fleet is just eleven hulls, not all of which are ready for sea at any given instant. But the figure for forward-deployed vessels is 1.5—meaning that if the navy stationed two flattops in, say, Yokosuka, it could keep one always on patrol without help from U.S.-based assets. Those numbers are far more manageable. As it stands, the navy supplements the one Yokosuka-based unit with another from back home to keep up a constant presence.
Judging from the American standard, the PLA Navy can soon afford to relegate its first carrier, the Type 001 Liaoning, to full-time training duty while rotating at-sea patrol time between the Type 002 Shandong and the Type 003 Fujian. That is, it can count on sustaining such a cycle so long as the fleet remains “forward-deployed” to its own backyard, namely the China seas, waters the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cares about most. That’s where the most probable battlegrounds lie. If and when the PLA Navy starts sending carrier groups to distant waters on a regular basis, it will confront the rigors implicit in U.S. Navy station-keeping multipliers. Then it might behoove CCP potentates to seek foreign basing privileges similar to those the U.S. Navy enjoys in seaports across the globe. How amenable prospective host governments would be to such arrangements remains to be seen. Local politics can confound the best ideas in naval warfare.
I personally don’t see Fujian as a game-changer in the Western Pacific, chiefly because the carrier will still face geostrategic challenges manifest in a first island chain occupied by potential foes. Until China can break the chain, its maritime prospects will remain limited. But even if I’m right about that, consider what a Fujian task force could accomplish within the first island chain, geographic space that preoccupies Beijing to this day. New capability opens new strategic vistas. For instance, Beijing could keep its shiny new carrier close to home while designating the less capable Shandong as an expeditionary carrier, to be homeported in remote reaches of the China seas. Or Chinese leaders could make Fujian itself the expeditionary carrier, on the logic that the PLA already has ample firepower to manage affairs in China’s immediate environs.
Etc.
And where might an expeditionary task force make its home? Here’s one candidate: news broke recently that Cambodia and China are improving Ream Naval Base in Cambodia, a harbor adjoining the southern recesses of the South China Sea. While Cambodian officials have vehemently denied that they will play host to Chinese ships, this could be mere prevarication on Phnom Penh’s part. Think about what a carrier group based on the Gulf of Thailand would offer Chinese naval commanders. From there they could turn rival Vietnam’s flank while taking advantage of easy access to patrol grounds where the PLA Navy, the China Coast Guard, and the maritime militia heretofore have found it difficult to maintain the constant presence a would-be maritime sovereign must maintain to enforce its rule.
Even a base capable of replenishing Chinese vessels on an occasional basis would improve Beijing’s strategic standing in the South China Sea.
Fujian, China’s 3rd aircraft carrier. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
In short, the advent of China’s new carrier along with the trajectory of base construction in Cambodia warrants a close look from U.S. and allied intelligence analysts. They should discount comforting words out of Phnom Penh and Beijing while trying to ascertain their true intentions. One key indicator is the extent of dredging, support infrastructure, and other improvements being made at Ream. Whether the upgraded facility could accommodate deep-draft warships should be the overriding question before analysts. If it could, chances are it will.
If a genuine deep-water port is in the offing, watch out.
A 1945 Contributing Editor, Dr. James Holmes holds the J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and served on the faculty of the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs. A former U.S. Navy surface warfare officer, he was the last gunnery officer in history to fire a battleship’s big guns in anger, during the first Gulf War in 1991. He earned the Naval War College Foundation Award in 1994, signifying the top graduate in his class. His books include Red Star over the Pacific, an Atlantic Monthly Best Book of 2010 and a fixture on the Navy Professional Reading List. General James Mattis deems him “troublesome.” The views voiced here are his alone. Holmes also blogs at the Naval Diplomat.
16. U.S. Must Counter Collective Nuclear Blackmail
Excerpts:
It is possible that this detection and tracking role could be performed by what former Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin called a “space sensing layer” of multiple satellites in multiple orbits as part of a defense against hypersonics. While the field of regard to detect incoming cruise missiles would be limited to one or two thousand miles from U.S. borders, the area to be surveilled to detect incoming hypersonic missiles is global. While the initial launch of a hypersonic missile would be detected just as we now detect ICBM launches, once the missile enters its glide phase it becomes much more difficult to track. A capable space sensing layer would take a handoff from satellites detecting the initial launch and use radar, improved infrared, or a new emerging technology to track the missile and cue a layered defense of destruct mechanisms, perhaps including a directed energy weapon and an improved ground interceptor.
All of this must be commanded and controlled through a single and completely joint data sharing and display system that connects commanders in the combatant commands with the commander at NORAD/NORTHCOM, as well as with the national command authority. As the decision time available versus a hypersonic missile is severely constrained, this command-and-control system could benefit greatly from the application of artificial intelligence to both provide more time for a decision as well as improve the quality of whatever that decision might be.
None of this implies a need for a start-from-scratch solution set. Much of this work is already ongoing, but in a siloed and uncoordinated fashion. What is desperately needed is policy guidance to knit all these disparate solution threads into a coherent unity of effort.
Never during the Cold War did leaders on either side of the Iron Curtain flippantly and casually discuss the use of nuclear weapons, of any kind or size, as the Russian leadership is doing now. Allowing Russia, China, or North Korea to hold a Sword of Damocles of nuclear blackmail over our heads will make the chill of that war seem very warm by comparison.
U.S. Must Counter Collective Nuclear Blackmail
By
Dan Leaf & Howard Thompson
June 18, 2022
Social, economic and security challenges aplenty have marked what is becoming a tumultuous 2022. The most significant of all the problem sets may be the emergence of a new norm in nuclear doctrine – blackmail. That approach is in stark contrast to the notion of Mutually Assured Destruction, where major powers – United States, the USSR, and China – viewed atomic attack as truly a last resort. The United States must now seriously consider its options to counter a new collective nuclear blackmail.
New Paradigm
For decades, the U.S. nuclear policy and posture has been to deter and, if necessary, defend against missile attacks on the U.S. homeland, our territories, and our allies. In an environment of Mutually Assured Destruction, presidential administration after administration assumed that the Soviets, and later the Russians and Chinese, believed what we believed – that a strategic nuclear exchange was suicidal for all parties and, therefore, highly unlikely.
The Mutually Assured Destruction premise rests squarely on a balance of power. Originally limited to two nuclear clubs – NATO and the Warsaw Pact – the antagonists had sufficient offensive and defensive capability to make a first strike foolhardy. Enhanced defensive capabilities have been offset by the development of Multiple Independently-Targeted Reentry Vehicles. China’s nuclear capability remained comparatively small as the Warsaw Pact dissolved and NATO expanded. The lineups changed, but the cataclysmic calculus was still the same zero-sum standoff.
Nuclear-capable Israel, India, and Pakistan were regional outliers in the global equation. A limited exchange in the Middle East or South Asia would be horrific, but not directly threaten the United States. North Korea has emerged as a rogue nuclear state willing to threaten US territory. Significant investment in the missile defense of Guam, Hawaii and the continental United States was oriented to the DPRK, with some consideration of expanding Chinese long-range weaponry, both nuclear and conventional. However, for the major powers, the United States, Russia, and China, Mutually Assured Destruction remained intact.
The 2018 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review presaged a shift in doctrine when the authors described a Russian philosophy involving “the threat of nuclear escalation or even first use of nuclear weapons [that] would serve to de-escalate a conflict on terms favorable to Russia.” Putin’s ill-conceived invasion of Ukraine has included just such threats as Russian forces have suffered substantial setbacks or may even face defeat. Putin first explicitly raised the nuclear option to deter outside intervention, and since has hinted of the use of tactical nuclear weapons to force capitulation or punish intervention from or expansion of the NATO alliance.
In a recent interview with The Financial Times, Harvard University national security analyst Graham Allison stated, “If Putin is forced to choose between losing on the one hand in Ukraine and escalating the level of destruction, there’s every reason to believe he will escalate the level of destruction.” And Dr. Henry Kissinger recently noted that not just the United States, but the entire world has yet to come to grips with how it would respond to Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. When asked what our response should be, he stated “One thing we could not do, in my opinion, is just accept it. Because that would open a new method of blackmail.”
Dangerous Bedfellows
Putin’s threats are, no doubt, emboldened by his evolving strategic relationship with China’s Xi Jinping. These strange bedfellows tied the knot formally just 20 days prior to the invasion of Ukraine in a joint statement that made clear the signatories’ opposition to the shared objective of the United States and its allies of a free-and-open Indo-Asia-Pacific Region. The document codified Russia’s support to China regarding Taiwan.
Russia and China have been joined by fragile arranged marriages with each other in the past, but this iteration seems different. After the conclusion of the Beijing Olympics, Putin did not hesitate to launch his special military operation (read: invasion) into Ukraine. Despite nearly universal condemnation, Xi stands by his man, loyalty that will require reciprocation in the future.
Xi has left no doubt about his willingness to resort to a military option to reclaim Taiwan, and it would be naïve to expect the Chinese to refrain from nuclear coercion in such circumstances. With Russian backing for a move against Taiwan or aggression in the volatile South China Sea, the potential for nuclear coercion is exceedingly high.
Those concerns may seem hypothetical, but the new relationship already has practical manifestations. During President Biden’s recent visits to South Korea and Japan, joint patrols of Russian and Chinese aircraft penetrated the respective countries’ Air Defense Identification Zones in an unprecedented expression of collective military power and intent.
When North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in October 2006, the United Nations Security Council, including members China and Russia, quickly condemned the test and passed a resolution imposing significant sanctions. In contrast, the newly minted strategic partners both vetoed further sanctions considering an unprecedented series of North Korean missile tests in the first half of 2022. This first-ever rejection of sanctions marks the emergence of an unholy trinity implicitly willing to hold the world order at risk by threatening, and perhaps executing, limited nuclear attack.
Arsenal of Autocracy
The arsenal of the autocratic alliance is individually impressive and collectively daunting. The Russian threat – a wide array of air and sea launched stealthy cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles, such as the Avangard system – currently present unmet challenges to U.S. detection and interception in a regional conflict or if directed at the homeland. China has a smaller but growing nuclear arsenal with advanced delivery systems like the DF-41 ICBM and submarine-launched SL-3, both with multiple warheads. The North Korean threat is limited in numbers but includes submarine-launched missiles and ICBMs, and another nuclear weapon test is expected soon. Kim Jong-un can now credibly threaten South Korea, Japan, Guam, and the U.S. mainland and, therefore, cannot be treated as an outlier by our nuclear doctrine. All three countries have pursued increased capability in recent years through outsized investment in research and development and relentless test programs.
Deterring and Defending in the New Environment
We have witnessed the indirect cost of failed deterrence in Ukraine. Tens of billions of dollars poured into the fire in an attempt to turn back Putin’s objectives. The message for the future must be that we must demonstrate credible resolve early to deny the potential ambitions – ideological, territorial or otherwise – of authoritarian leaders who may hold partners, allies and the U.S. homeland at risk.
Creating a leak-proof defense against a full-scale strategic ballistic missile attack from either Russia or China is neither feasible nor affordable, but the United States must have systems capable enough to deter and stop atomic extortion. That will require significant investment in missile defense.
For example, the President’s 2023 budget allocates more than $800 million for the defense of Guam. The Department of Defense is spending another $1.6 billion on the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) Next Generation Interceptor program, a significant upgrade to its Ground-based Midcourse Defense against ballistic missiles.
But Congress must view these investments as just a start. Missile defense of the United States in the era of nuclear blackmail requires modernization to meet new threats and expanded geographic coverage, recognizing that the defense of the homeland begins with the regional defenses of the combatant commands. MDA must be robustly resourced and staffed with the wide variety of expertise to meet this challenge, and regional defenses, especially in the Indo-Pacific, be bolstered as well to play their part.
Unfortunately, there is no single “silver bullet” solution to these challenges. The threats – ICBM’s, cruise missiles, hypersonic missiles – are so different in nature and capability that they each require defensive countermeasures that may be applicable only, or at least primarily, to that particular threat.
MDA, Congress, and the Administration have made a series of excellent judgements with respect to the Next Generation Interceptor program. Of particular note and value was the recent Biden Administration decision to extend the competition between two industrial teams deeper into the acquisition process to developmental test and engineering. This philosophy, if continued, will ultimately yield a more capable final design, and will hopefully allow an improved shot doctrine, wherein fewer interceptors will be needed against an increasingly sophisticated incoming ICBM.
While our defense against rouge nations’ ICBMs and perhaps a “one off” ICBM threat, such as Russia’s new Sarmat ICBM, which features as much as ten or more independent re-entry vehicles, is making steady progress, our defenses against stealthy, long range cruise missiles and hypersonic threat systems are severely lacking. Russia’s conventional and nuclear cruise missiles, for example, can be launched from exceptionally long distances and are virtually invisible until impact. The United States requires the capability to detect a launch far from our shores, most likely with an elevated radar and/or infrared sensor, with the capability to pass target quality data along to potential engagement systems. These include such systems as Aegis-equipped ships, joint fighter aircraft equipped with airborne electronically scanned array radars capable of tracking stealth, and finally, land-based systems like PATRIOT and THAAD.
It is possible that this detection and tracking role could be performed by what former Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin called a “space sensing layer” of multiple satellites in multiple orbits as part of a defense against hypersonics. While the field of regard to detect incoming cruise missiles would be limited to one or two thousand miles from U.S. borders, the area to be surveilled to detect incoming hypersonic missiles is global. While the initial launch of a hypersonic missile would be detected just as we now detect ICBM launches, once the missile enters its glide phase it becomes much more difficult to track. A capable space sensing layer would take a handoff from satellites detecting the initial launch and use radar, improved infrared, or a new emerging technology to track the missile and cue a layered defense of destruct mechanisms, perhaps including a directed energy weapon and an improved ground interceptor.
All of this must be commanded and controlled through a single and completely joint data sharing and display system that connects commanders in the combatant commands with the commander at NORAD/NORTHCOM, as well as with the national command authority. As the decision time available versus a hypersonic missile is severely constrained, this command-and-control system could benefit greatly from the application of artificial intelligence to both provide more time for a decision as well as improve the quality of whatever that decision might be.
None of this implies a need for a start-from-scratch solution set. Much of this work is already ongoing, but in a siloed and uncoordinated fashion. What is desperately needed is policy guidance to knit all these disparate solution threads into a coherent unity of effort.
Never during the Cold War did leaders on either side of the Iron Curtain flippantly and casually discuss the use of nuclear weapons, of any kind or size, as the Russian leadership is doing now. Allowing Russia, China, or North Korea to hold a Sword of Damocles of nuclear blackmail over our heads will make the chill of that war seem very warm by comparison.
The authors are both retired USAF general officers. Lieutenant General Dan “Fig” Leaf has served on active duty as the deputy commander of U.S. Pacific Command. His many articles and essays include “An urgently practical approach to the Korean Peninsula,” which won the Oslo Forum’s first-ever Peacewriter Prize in 2017. Major General Howard “Dallas” Thompson is a former Chief of Staff at NORAD and NORTHCOM. He has been widely published for many years on the subject of missile defense, including ICBM’s, cruise missiles, and recently hypersonic threat systems.
17. Looking at the Ukraine War Through the Lens of the Korean War
Excerpts:
Suppose an armistice treaty can be agreed on to end the War in Ukraine. It is also probable that the directly involved great power of the Ukraine War, Russia, would agree on alliance treaties with the southeastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk to station its military forces in those regions. Furthermore, Moscow will depend more on its nuclear forces since Russia will have the double challenges of economic problems and expanded military fronts. The future defense policy of Russia may be similar to the massive retaliation policy of the Eisenhower government after the Korean War. Russia's neo-Eisenhower approach will negatively affect future nuclear arms control negotiations between the United States and Russia.
On the other hand, the indirectly involved great power in the Ukraine War, the United States this time, will support Kyiv for the economic reconstruction with the cooperation of other democratic countries. In addition, although Washington might try to increase its political influence on the Ukraine government, Ukraine will be able to enjoy its cooperation not only with the United States but also with other western European countries such as France and Germany. These alternative options will enhance the autonomous role of Ukraine as an essential player in the international democracy coalition. Just as North Korea could enjoy autonomy between the Soviet Union and China during the Cold War, Ukraine can act strategically between the U.S. and Europe during this revived Cold War. What will happen to Ukraine in the future is also an interesting question.
Looking at the Ukraine War Through the Lens of the Korean War
By Choong Koo Lee
June 18, 2022
The complex development of the Ukraine War
The future of the Ukraine War is difficult to predict because international audiences are overwhelmed by the problematic features of the Ukraine War. Saying that "we will use them if we have to," Russian President Vladimir Putin has resorted to nuclear blackmail against the possibility of the intervention of external powers in the Ukraine War around the end of April.[i] Russia has reacted against Western countries' expanding military assistance to Ukraine.[ii]
Looking through the historical lens of the Korean War (1950-1953), you can figure out the present and future of the current Ukraine War more quickly. For example, during the Korean War, Stalin had tried to divert the military forces and resources of the United States by extending the period of the War with its assistance to North Korea and China. Similarly, the United States and the western countries have had the opportunity to degrade the Russian army during the Ukraine War. In some sense, their military assistance to the Ukraine government accords to the strategic interest of the United States with the prolonged battle in Ukraine.[iii]
The Ukraine War is comparable to the Korean War since it is also an asymmetric proxy war. Even though there are a few differences, such as the role of the partners of the involved great powers, both the Korean War and the Ukraine war are structurally similar. The two wars commonly consisted of a directly involved great power (the U.S. in the Korean War, Russia in the Ukraine War), an indirectly involved great power (USSR in the Korean War, the U.S. in the Ukraine War), and a proxy state (North Korea in the Korean War, Ukraine in the Ukraine War). In this vein, the behaviors of the U.S., USSR, and North Korea in the Korean War could be precedents of that of Russia, the U.S., and Ukraine in the current Ukraine War.
The precedent of the Korean War
The directly involved great power of the Korean War also had threatened the use of nuclear weapons twice during the War. The United States made its first threat to prevent the external intervention of China around the end of 1950. On November 30, President Truman mentioned that the United States would take "whatever steps were necessary" to stop the Chinese intervention in the Korean Peninsula.[iv] One month before the comment, the People's Liberation Army, under the guise of the People's Voluntary Army, had already entered the territory of North Korea to attack the United Nations forces led by the U.S.. Therefore, the U.S. nuclear threat in November 1950 was its effort to prevent external intervention in the Korean Peninsula.
Secondly, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles also hinted at the possibility of nuclear use in May 1953 when the Eisenhower administration began its term with the commitment to ending the Korean War. At that time, Secretary Dulles said to Prime Minister of India Nehru that the United States could make "a stronger, rather than a lesser military exertion" if the armistice talks failed.[v] A day before, the Eisenhower government also delivered to China its withdrawal from its previous stance not to use nuclear weapons. It did mean that the United States used the leverage of nuclear threat to advance the end of the Korean War.
In the next phase after the end of the Korean War, the United States signed the mutual defense treaty to protect South Korea and expanded the role of its nuclear forces. As the South Korean government opposed the end of the Korean War without the reunification of the Korean Peninsula, the United States kept its armed forces stationed in the Peninsula by signing the mutual defense treaty with the Republic of Korea in 1953. At the same time, the United States chose to enhance its nuclear capabilities as a low-cost solution to satisfy its expanded security commitment from Europe to East Asia. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announced the 'New Look' or 'massive retaliation strategy' in January 1954.[vi]
On the other hand, the Soviet Union, the indirectly involved great power in the Korean War, urged North Korea and China to continue their fight against the United States. During the Korean War, Stalin advocated the continuation of the War unless the War would result in direct military clashes between the Soviet Union and the United States. It was clear that Stalin pursued the goal of squandering the United States' national resources with the War. Therefore, Stalin delayed the end of the Korean War until he died in March 1953. After his death, North Korea and China could settle the armistice negotiation between the related parties in July 1953 with the support of the new government of the Soviet Union led by Georgy Malenkov.
After the Korean War, the Soviet Union provided its proxy state with vast economic assistance. The eastern European countries and the Soviet Union collectively supported the economic recovery of North Korea so that Pyongyang could complete the post-war recovery with an average of 41% economic growth rate by 1957[vii]. Even though the Soviet Union tried to control its proxy through international pressure, control was not easy to attain since Pyongyang exploited the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s.
In addition, the proxy state, which was North Korea in the case of the Korean War, pursued distinct objectives during and after the War. During the armistice negotiation, North Korea wished to end the war as soon as possible due to accumulating losses from the bombardments of the United Nations forces. Then, with the end of the Korean War, North Korea's object was economic reconstruction which Pyongyang achieved with the other communist countries' assistance. However, after the completion of its economic recovery, Pyongyang chose the Byungjin policy (parallel march toward military and economic development) and militarization of the country because the Soviet Union decreased its security commitment to North Korea.
The Ukraine War in the present
In the case of the Ukraine War, the directly involved great power is Russia. Russia was an unprovoked attacker in the Ukraine War. On the contrary, the directly involved great power in the Korean War was a reactive defender since the United States had participated in the Korean War after the outbreak of the Korean War to protect the attacked party, the Republic of Korea. Even though there is this kind of difference between the United States in the Korean War and Russia in the Ukraine War, the two countries in the respective wars share some situational similarities. They both acted as indirectly involved powers. The current Russian government has also threatened to use nuclear weapons to prevent the external intervention of the western countries in the Ukraine War. As aforementioned, Putin warned of its "lightning fast" response using every available tool implying the option of nuclear escalation.[viii] This threat of Russia reminds the Korean war experts of Truman's comment about the possibility of using atomic bombs in his efforts to prevent the Chinese intervention in the Korean War.
Most notably, the Russian authority threatened the United Kingdom with the possibility of its nuclear use by broadcasting the simulation of Russian nuclear attacks on the territory of the UK on May 1, 2022.[ix] Thus, the international community is concerned about the possible escalation by Russia in Ukraine.
Moreover, the indirectly involved great power in the Ukraine War, the United States, supports the Ukraine government regarding its operation sustainability against Russia. Although the United States has been involved in the Ukraine War with defensive purposes differently from Stalin's USSR in the Korean War, the United States also had an opportunity to degrade Russian military resources with the option of a prolonged war. Recently, the United States and western European countries have provided Ukraine with various resources. As a result, Russia has reacted harshly to the West. On top of everything else, the U.S. House of Representatives of the Congress approved the comprehensive assistance to Ukraine, amounting to $40 billion, on May 10.[x] However, the bill's swift passage has been delayed due to debate in the U.S. Senate.
The Ukraine War and the future
Most recently, it is predictable that the Russian government hopes for the early end of the Ukraine War because domestic support for the Ukraine War has become shaky. Then, Russia will be prone to deliver its willingness to use nuclear weapons against the West to accelerate the armistice negotiation with the Ukraine government. It seems that Russia, until now, confined the purpose of its nuclear threat to preventing the interventions of external powers in the Ukraine War. However, the deteriorating economic condition of Russia will realize the possibility of additional Russian nuclear threats. If this happens eventually, scholars will compare that threat to what the Eisenhower government had hinted at regarding the use of atomic weapons to prevent the failure of the armistice negotiation, which finally ended the Korean War in 1953.
Suppose an armistice treaty can be agreed on to end the War in Ukraine. It is also probable that the directly involved great power of the Ukraine War, Russia, would agree on alliance treaties with the southeastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk to station its military forces in those regions. Furthermore, Moscow will depend more on its nuclear forces since Russia will have the double challenges of economic problems and expanded military fronts. The future defense policy of Russia may be similar to the massive retaliation policy of the Eisenhower government after the Korean War. Russia's neo-Eisenhower approach will negatively affect future nuclear arms control negotiations between the United States and Russia.
On the other hand, the indirectly involved great power in the Ukraine War, the United States this time, will support Kyiv for the economic reconstruction with the cooperation of other democratic countries. In addition, although Washington might try to increase its political influence on the Ukraine government, Ukraine will be able to enjoy its cooperation not only with the United States but also with other western European countries such as France and Germany. These alternative options will enhance the autonomous role of Ukraine as an essential player in the international democracy coalition. Just as North Korea could enjoy autonomy between the Soviet Union and China during the Cold War, Ukraine can act strategically between the U.S. and Europe during this revived Cold War. What will happen to Ukraine in the future is also an interesting question.
Choong Koo Lee is an associate research fellow at the Center for Center for Security and Strategy, Korean Institute for Defense analyses (KIDA) and is an INSS Visiting Fellow at National Defense University (NDU).
Notes:
[ii] Stephen Biddle, “Is there a difference between ‘defensive’ and ‘offensive’ weapons?” The Washington Post, April 28, 2022.
[iv] Andrew Glass, “Truman leaves nuclear option on the table in Korean War, Nov. 30, 1950,” Politico, November 30, 2017, available at < https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/30/truman-leaves-nuclear-option-on-the-table-in-korean-conflict-nov-30-1950-264580>.
[v] Bernard Gwertzman, “U.S. papers tell of ’53 policy to use a-bomb in korea,” The New York Times, June 8, 1984, available at <https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/08/world/us-papers-tell-of-53-policy-to-use-a-bomb-in-korea.html>.
[vi] Lawrence Freedman, Jeffrey Michaels, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (Fourth Edition) (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), p. 160.
[vii] Lee, Tae Seop, The Economic Crisis and Regime transformation of North Korea. Seoul: Sunin, 2009, p. 70.
[viii] Maureen Breslin, “Putin warns of ‘lightning fast’ response if any nation intervenes in Ukraine War,” April 28, 2022, available at < https://thehill.com/policy/international/russia/3469863-putin-warns-of-lightning-fast-response-if-any-nation-intervenes-in-ukraine-war/>.
[ix] Mary Ilyushina, Miriam Berger and Timothy Bella, “Russian TV shows simulation of Britain and Ireland wiped out by a nuke,” The Washington Post, May 3, 2022, available at < https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/03/russia-ireland-nuclear-weapons-video-ukraine/>.
[x] Felicia Sonmez, Andrew Jeong and Cate Cadell, “Congress set to approve an additional $40 billion in aid to Ukraine,” The Washington Post, May 10, 2022, available at <https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/05/10/house-set-approve-an-additional-40-billion-aid-ukraine/>.
18. Joe Biden's Blank Check Strategy Won't Help Ukraine Beat Russia
Appease Putin and give away Ukrainian territory. Sounds somewhat "Chamberlainesque."
America’s top policy objectives should be to prevent the Russia-Ukraine war from escalating beyond the current borders and into a NATO-Russia fight, defend NATO territory, and preserve the ability of Americans to remain secure and economically prosperous. At some point Washington may have to consider whether it makes sense to continue providing a blank check to Kyiv’s equipment wish-list that prolongs the risk of escalation and continues the economic aftershocks that negatively affect our economy. Given Russian advances and growing Ukrainian losses, that point may arrive sooner than many realize.
Joe Biden’s Ukraine strategy won’t stop Ukraine from losing to Russia – Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov told CNN on Thursday that his government fully intended to continue fighting Russia until it could “liberate all our territories, all of it, including Crimea.” Battlefield and political realities in the region, however, suggest that Ukraine may not only fail to wrest all its territories back unless Kyiv changes its military and diplomatic strategies soon, it may instead be faced with the most unpleasant outcome imaginable: an outright military defeat.
Reznikov made his comments on the margins of a Brussels summit of more than 45 nations, led by the United States, which had gathered to commit additional heavy weaponry to Ukraine. The U.S. was the first to announce additional weapon contributions and other major European nations are expected to follow suit in the coming days. But it is clear that the total number of weapons and volume of ammunition will fall far short of what Ukraine needs to have a chance to win a war against Russia.
Defense One published a graphic that chronicled the sum total of the most significant weaponry and ammunition provided by the United States since August of last year and represents – by far – the most provided by any nation. While the type and total of all military hardware offered by the U.S. looks impressive in print, a careful examination quickly reveals that, in context, it represents a minimal contribution to Ukraine’s military capacity – though you wouldn’t know that listening to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In a press conference from Brussels on Wednesday, Gen. Mark Milley claimed that the Western world, led by the U.S., had sent or committed to Ukraine, “97,000 antitank systems,” which, Milley explained, was “more anti-tank systems than tanks in the world.” Ukraine, the general continued, asked for “200 tanks; they got 237 tanks. They asked for 100 infantry fighting vehicles; they got over 300. We’ve delivered… about 60,000 air defense rounds,” and he claimed 383 tubed of artillery had been promised. Yet the Chairman’s claims of what Ukraine has asked for were inaccurate and the types of weapons promised were far less capable than he implied.
First, Advisor to President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mykhailo Podolyak claimed on Monday that Ukraine needed “500 tanks; 2,000 armored vehicles; 1,000 drones… and 1,000 howitzers” of 155mm caliber – thousands more armored vehicles and equipment than Milley claimed Ukraine had asked.
As I detailed in these pages recently, that scale of weapons would be the minimum necessary to have any chance of driving Russia from Ukrainian territory – and that would only be possible if the weapons were top of the line, modern equipment, fully accompanied by massive quantities of ammunition, stocks of fuel to support operations, and a logistics system that could sustain the offensive. Without all of those capabilities and supplies, there can be no realistic talk of driving Russia from Ukrainian soil. Yet as the graphic from Defense One shows, Ukraine has received little more than antiquated scraps.
In total, only about 10 modern rocket launchers have been promised by the U.S. and other NATO nations. Russia is firing close to 70,000 artillery shells per day at Ukraine, so those 245,000 shells represent about three and a half days of shelling necessary just to reach parity with Russia. The cumulative total of all military heavy weaponry offered by the West comes up thousands of vehicles and many hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds shy of the requirement, and what little the West has provided have been obsolete. But even that isn’t the biggest problem Ukraine faces.
On Wednesday, Axios reported that another top Zelensky advisor, David Arakhamia, admitted that Ukrainian troops were suffering an astounding 1,000 casualties per day, sometimes including as many as 500 killed. Ukraine has suffered so many casualties among its active force, that it had to send the minimally trained units of the territorial defense force – which were exclusively designed for men to defend their hometowns and not go into active war zones – into frontline combat against Russian troops.
Lastly, as recently revealed, Ukrainian troops suffer at a 20-1 disadvantage in cannons in the front lines, a 40-1 disadvantage in artillery ammunition, and up to a 300-5 disadvantage in air sorties. Combined with the considerable destruction of their Soviet-era equipment, the near-depletion of artillery shells, the unsustainable casualty rates, and the paucity of Western support, there is no rational path through which Ukraine can continue to hold ground, much less realistically hope to expel Russia from Ukraine.
Jake Sullivan said on Thursday that the U.S. would continue to refrain “from laying out what we see as an end game” for Kyiv and will “not be pressuring [Ukraine] to make territorial concessions.” While it must be up to the people and government of Ukraine to decide whether they will continue to fight in hopes of eventually defeating Russia – and risk losing everything – or seek the best deal they can get. But America is not a passive bystander. Our government should also be actively looking out for the interests of our population.
NLAW is being fired. Image credit: UK Military/Creative Commons.
America’s top policy objectives should be to prevent the Russia-Ukraine war from escalating beyond the current borders and into a NATO-Russia fight, defend NATO territory, and preserve the ability of Americans to remain secure and economically prosperous. At some point Washington may have to consider whether it makes sense to continue providing a blank check to Kyiv’s equipment wish-list that prolongs the risk of escalation and continues the economic aftershocks that negatively affect our economy. Given Russian advances and growing Ukrainian losses, that point may arrive sooner than many realize.
Now a 1945 Contributing Editor, Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army who deployed into combat zones four times. He is the author of “The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America.” Follow him @DanielLDavis.
19. It looks like China did have access to U.S. TikTok user data
It looks like China did have access to U.S. TikTok user data
Yikes!
Despite the repeated assurances that TikTok's parent company, the China-based ByteDance, isn't checking out data collected about users in the U.S., it looks like the company did.
According to recordings reviewed by BuzzFeed News, over a dozen separate statements from nine different TikTok employees showed that engineers in China had access to U.S. data from at least September 2021 through January 2022. One member of TikTok’s Trust and Safety department said, in September 2021, that "everything is seen in China," according to BuzzFeed News. Apparently, there's even one Beijing-based engineer who "has access to everything" — they call them a "Master Admin."
In response to BuzzFeed News' investigation, a TikTok spokesperson said the app is "among the most scrutinized platforms from a security standpoint" and that it plans to "remove any doubt about the security of U.S. user data."
20. It's Not About Democracy
For weekend reflection and discussion.
It's Not About Democracy
January 6th is a symptom of a deeper dynamic tearing the country apart.
It never ceases to amaze me what distance does to one’s political perspective. I’m still on the road in Europe—week three and counting—and the January 6 hearings now occupying the attention of our great nation seem very very far away. This is not to say that they are not important to me аs an American, or that my distance from them somehow properly contextualizes them. It just prompted me to think about the importance of analytical context more broadly. I think the debate about the health of our democracy would benefit from some more contextualization.
David Brooks last week was calling for something like that. Frustrated by how the televised proceedings were shaping up to be an exercise in gathering “campaign fodder,” Brooks pleaded that the Committee “locate the weaknesses in our democratic system and society and find ways to address them.” Referring to the recent analysis by Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way in Foreign Affairs, Brooks wants an investigation into how the country has found itself in a situation where a large percentage of the country has lost faith in democracy.
This is a movement, not a conspiracy. We don’t need a criminal-type investigation looking for planners or masterminds as much as we need historians and scholars and journalists to help us understand why the American Republican Party, like the Polish Law and Justice party, or the Turkish Justice and Development Party, has become a predatory semi-democratic faction.
I don’t have anything like a full answer for Brooks, but I do have an intuition about what has been happening in the United States, largely drawn from looking at similar dysfunctions across Central and Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans. And the intuitions point to what I think is a blindspot for Brooks, for Levitsky and Way, and indeed for our broader class of analysts and pundits who tend to focus on “democracy” as the key to understanding our predicament. My intuition is that the problem facing us has to do with legitimacy first and foremost, and that this crisis of legitimacy is finding expression in undemocratic attitudes further down the line. Worrying about undemocratic behavior is like obsessing over a fever that is but a symptom of a gangrenous infection.
A striking passage from the Levitsky and Way piece helps nail down what I’m getting at:
According to a 2018 survey, nearly 60 percent of Republicans say they “feel like a stranger in their own country.” Many Republican voters think the country of their childhood is being taken away from them. This perceived relative loss of status has had a radicalizing effect: a 2021 survey sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute found that a stunning 56 percent of Republicans agreed that the “traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to stop it.”
It’s easy to wave this away as racial anxiety felt by whites soon to be subsumed in a more plural America—anxiety that easily shades into a kind of paranoid white revanchism that has lurked at the heart of the American project for most of its existence. Make no mistake: this tendency is real. Matt Continetti’s new book does a terrific job of tracing it on the Right over the last hundred years. But what Matt’s book also does exceedingly well is to show how it has been managed by political elites for generations—in turns suppressed and marginalized (though also at times regrettably co-opted). And one of the most successful ways in which it has been marginalized is by appealing to higher American ideals as a unifying force, and in doing so peeling away the marginally disaffected from the dead-enders.
It’s a trick first perfected by Abraham Lincoln, who in effect re-founded the United States by invoking the promises of the first American founding some one hundred years earlier. The self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence, truths that all Americans cannot deny without in some way renouncing their citizenship, helped unify the country after its bloody rift. But it’s important to observe the mechanism at work here: it is an exhortation to come together to work on making the country better than it is, as Americans who believe in a set of ideals. It is not a promise that those ideals will necessarily be realized any time soon. It conjures up a community in a common struggle; it does not dwell on deliverance.
The reason I brought up legitimacy earlier is that I think it’s one of those concepts that we as Americans are particularly blind to. In a European nation-state, a set of national myths fundamentally undergirds the common endeavor. It’s long been fashionable to sneer at these things as just-so stories, and to depict nation-states as mere “imagined communities.”1 More perniciously, modern Americans and a certain kind of post-national European—let’s call them modern progressives—tend to see all society as a form of civil society: voluntary association among freely-choosing individuals. Things such as citizenship, a common past, common symbols, common heritage—these are either seen as retrograde or downright harmful. Society is not about any of those things, but rather about delivering positive change.
In Europe, modern progressives are champions of the European Union as a vessel for affecting sweeping social change. Social liberalism, egalitarianism, social justice—all these goals are seen as self-evident truths. But instead of being wielded as a unifying set of myths, about a set of nations confronting the dead end that they had collectively found themselves at in 1945, and as a general exhortation to build a better society, there is a tendency among EU progressives to assert the primacy of these truths against the prior legitimating myths of the nation state. It is this approach, I suspect, that has opened up the door to the forces of reaction, and has allowed authoritarianism to take root.
In the United States, there are broad parallels to the way the broader social justice movement has proceeded in its fight. My friend Nils Gilman’s penetrating 2018 essay distilled how a certain gauzy mythology about American ideals, especially pertaining to race, collapsed with the end of Obama’s presidency. Obama’s Lincolnesque approach, of deferring salvation but appealing to common purpose, gave way to the more impatient demands of the Black Lives Matter movement—a movement that would in recent years beget a thoroughgoing critique of America’s founding itself. Instead of featuring as the core of what it means to be an American, the Declaration was reduced to the hypocritical scribbles of a raping slave-owner.
In writing all this, let me be crystal clear: I’m not saying that the anger that gave birth to Black Lives Matter is not real, nor am I saying that Republican voters have some right to feel comfortable with the status quo, and should be coddled as the country of their youth slips away from them. But I do think that we’re misdiagnosing what’s going on if we talk about it in terms of democracy versus autocracy. It’s better to think of it in terms of revolution and reaction, and as a struggle over legitimacy itself.
Me, I’m skeptical that modern progressives have enough on their side to achieve broad legitimacy. Free-floating appeals to “justice” are necessary, but not sufficient to ground a polity. And without that broader legitimacy, fierce crusades for justice are likely to spur on forces of reaction. And formerly mainstream conservatives will not be able to contain them.
From that point on, a national commitment to democracy is a mere roadside casualty.
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In passing, doing damage to Benedict Anderson’s much more nuanced explanation of what’s going on.
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21. Opinion | Stunning Trump revelations raise fears of a dark, violent future
Another view.
Opinion | Stunning Trump revelations raise fears of a dark, violent future
As extraordinary revelations pour forth about Donald Trump’s plot to destroy our political order after the 2020 election, an unsettling question arises: What does it mean that for most elected Republicans, none of what we’re learning is remotely disqualifying, either in a party leader or a 2024 presidential nominee?
At the close of Thursday’s Jan. 6 select committee hearing, J. Michael Luttig, a former federal judge widely respected by conservatives, issued a long-term warning. Trump and his allies pose a “clear and present danger to American democracy,” Luttig said, and pledge to “succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020.”
“The former president and his allies,” Luttig continued, “are executing that blueprint for 2024 in open and plain view of the American public.”
This might seem like a narrow procedural prediction: If 2024 is super-close, they’ll attempt the same manipulation of our creaky electoral college machinery as last time. They might succeed. They’re putting those pieces in place right now.
That’s all true. But Luttig’s testimony, along with the shocking new revelations, point to something more fundamental at stake. These hearings are about what kind of long-term democratic future lies ahead: They represent an effort to minimize the possibility that we’re sliding headlong into a protracted era of chronic instability and rising political violence.
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If you doubt this, please note: The foreboding expressed by Luttig and others is shared by experts who study democratic breakdown. When Luttig says we’re at a “perilous crossroads,” and says only Republicans can “bring an end” to the threat, he’s not alone.
Two of those experts, Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, professors of government and politics, recently argued that we’re heading into a “coming age of instability.” This is not a claim of pending “civil war.” It’s more subtle: a future of smoldering conflict akin to “the Troubles” in Ireland.
“Such a scenario would be marked by frequent constitutional crises, including contested or stolen elections,” they wrote, predicting our elections might devolve into periodic referendums on whether the United States will be “democratic or authoritarian.”
This portends “heightened political violence,” they suggested, including assassinations, bombings and violent confrontations in the streets, “often tolerated and even incited by politicians.”
How GOP leaders respond to the moment will help determine whether that happens, the scholars noted. It bodes badly that GOP leaders rejected a bipartisan Jan. 6 accounting and have “refused to unambiguously reject violence.”
Whether those scholars are right remains to be seen. But the most recent developments are not encouraging.
We’re now learning that Trump and his co-conspirators corruptly pressured many government actors to steal an election he knew he lost. That he knew the scheme was illegal. That he weaponized a mob to chase his vice president through the Capitol, resulting in horrifying political violence, destruction and death.
It’s easy to get seduced by the vivid, damning nature of these revelations. Now that they’re exploding in our faces, surely some sort of accountability awaits the coup plotters. Surely Republican elites will quietly reckon with the truth about Jan. 6 and renounce Trump as fundamentally unacceptable in a party leader, even if they don’t say so loudly.
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— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) June 17, 2022
Look at those headlines. Big changes must be coming, right?
Maybe. But in the background, scores and scores of GOP candidates across the country remain fully committed to the notion that the underlying mission of the coup plotters and Jan. 6 rioters was just. The revelations haven’t slowed their campaigns in the slightest.
The Jan. 6 committee will release a damning report this fall, and maybe we’ll see prosecutions. But here’s another possibility: No one is prosecuted, Republicans take Congress, Jan. 6 headlines fade, and after the noise dies down, many pro-coup Republicans are in positions of control over election machinery — and Trump or a designated successor is a favorite for the 2024 GOP nomination.
How many GOP leaders are calling on those candidates to renounce this permanent posture holding that future election losses will be subject to nullification? How many GOP leaders are condemning what we’re learning about Trump’s coup attempt?
It is precisely this fact, that few GOP leaders see a need to reorient the party away from these tendencies, that alarms experts in democratic breakdown. So I contacted Levitsky, one of the above article’s co-authors, to ask whether a forceful stand by GOP leaders against what we’re now learning might help alter the trajectory he fears.
“It would make all the difference in the world,” Levitsky told me. As he defined the problem, the GOP is highly competitive in national elections while simultaneously being “captured by authoritarian forces.”
If GOP leaders treated the Jan. 6 committee’s findings as revelatory and significant, Levitsky continued, it might steer us toward greater stability. This would prompt “institutional reform,” he said, and send a message to all levels of the party that “this is beyond the pale. We don’t do this in America.”
The alternative: GOP leaders don’t treat this as beyond the pale at all, but instead as containing the makings of a tolerable or even desirable future. This would impose a “great cost,” Levitsky said, because “many Americans will be left with a message of ambiguity.”
I contacted Luttig to ask: How important is it for GOP elites to renounce the pro-coup candidates in their midst, and flatly declare the new Trump revelations disqualifying in a party leader and 2024 nominee?
If they don’t, Luttig told me, he agrees America may be headed for a period of “protracted democratic instability.”
Alternative futures are possible. Democrats might rebound and win decisively in 2024. Or maybe Trump will retire to Mar-a-Lago, Republicans will cleanly win in 2024, and President Ron DeSantis will turn out to be more authoritarian bark than bite.
But one thing seems unavoidable: If GOP leaders were to treat these revelations with the urgency and seriousness they deserve, it would probably render the darker alternative a lot less likely.
22. Opinion | White nationalists are getting bolder. Enforcement must, too.
Opinion | White nationalists are getting bolder. Enforcement must, too.
Thirty-one members of the Patriot Front, a white-nationalist group involved in the deadly 2017 Charlottesville rally, were arrested in Idaho last weekend. Their plan to riot at an LGBTQ Pride event in Coeur d’Alene was foiled by a local resident who called police about what looked “like a little army,” Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White said. Only two were from Idaho; the rest came from states as far as Texas, Illinois, Arkansas and Virginia. That these white nationalists nearly pulled off their plan is unsettling. It’s not an isolated example of recent hate-group brazenness.
We need to be honest about a pressing national security threat to the United States: white-supremacist domestic terrorism. Sometimes, as in Idaho, potential violence is stopped before it happens. Other times, as in last month’s tragic shooting in Buffalo, hate takes irreplaceable lives. The left has its own violent actors; for instance, antiabortion centers have experienced increased violence since the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would strike down Roe v. Wade. But numbers show it is a greater threat from the right: Fifty-five percent of deaths by domestic extremists in the past decade came at the hands of white supremacists, according to Anti-Defamation League data, with 75 percent of the killings by right-wing extremists overall.
Addressing any terrorist threat can be fraught, and addressing domestic terrorism even more so: It requires a tricky balance between protecting national security and safeguarding civil liberties. Past counterterrorism has disproportionately targeted Black, Arab and South Asian communities and activists. Shielding vulnerable communities from white-nationalist violence is a worthy goal, but in doing so, elected officials must tread cautiously against opening new avenues for abuse. It especially must not create expansive new enforcement powers, which would accrue from designating domestic terrorism a crime, with all the novel legal authority that would entail.
President Biden, to his credit, has begun to tackle this challenge, redirecting the nation’s counterterrorism efforts inward. His administration released the nation’s first strategy for addressing domestic terrorism last year, promising improved information-sharing by law enforcement and reallocation of Homeland Security funding. But there’s more to be done: The Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, the FBI, and state and local law enforcement must focus their existing resources specifically on white-supremacist and neo-Nazi violence. Justice’s civil rights division needs the capacity to thoroughly investigate hate-crime reports. And local and state law enforcement, often on the front lines of stopping white supremacy, need continued support at the federal level. Congress should ensure all these undertakings are as transparent as possible.
The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2022, introduced days after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, would go a long way toward realizing these aims. The bill languished until after the Buffalo mass shooting but in recent weeks passed the House with unanimous Democratic support and one lone Republican vote. It moved on to the Senate, where Republicans blocked it. Congress cannot wait until the next tragedy to reexamine domestic terrorism efforts. White-supremacist domestic terrorism has been an ugly force in the United States’ past and present. Lawmakers must do what they can to stop this scourge from being part of the country’s future.
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
