Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."

- Arthur C/ Clarke

"If we kept in mind that we will soon inevitably die, our lives would be completely different. If a person knows that he will die in a half hour, he certainly will not bother doing trivial, stupid, or, especially, bad things during this half hour. Perhaps you have a half century before you die – what makes this any different from a half hour?

- Leo Tolstoy

"Self education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. he only function of a school is to make self-education easier, failing that, if does nothing."

_ Isaac Asimov

1. China is subtly increasing military pressure on Taiwan. Here's how

2. Israeli Military Reveals Tunnel It Says Hamas Built for Large-Scale Attack

3. Israel-Hamas War: U.S. to Push Israel to Scale Back War

4. Taiwan Says Two Chinese Balloons Crossed Strait Boundary

5. This group thinks Taiwan’s people aren’t taking the risk of war with mainland China seriously enough. Their goal is to change that

6. Five Recommendations for Left of Boom Security Assistance to Taiwan

7. Philippines re-engaged with US foreign aid agency

8. Top US Lawmaker 'Very Optimistic' on Ukraine, Border Deal

9. In the Pacific, U.S. bureaucracy messes up against PRC influence operation

10. One Way to Ease the Military Recruiting Crisis: Send DoD Data to Nation’s High Schools

11. Does America Have an Endgame on China?

12. Europe’s Emerging War Fatigue

13. The Return of the Monroe Doctrine

14. Washington’s New Trade Consensus And What It Gets Wrong

15. Russian 'conquest' of Ukraine on the table if US, allied military aid falters: Study

16. Checkmate China! Philippines To Build ‘Structures’ On Second Thomas Shoal Amid PLA's Belligerence; Tensions Intensify

17. The Strategy Bridge: A Year in #Reviewing

18. Stalemate Is Not Checkmate in Ukraine

19. 2024 preview: The West must decide if it wants Ukraine to win

1. China is subtly increasing military pressure on Taiwan. Here's how

Maps and graphic at the link: https://www.npr.org/2023/12/18/1216317476/china-military-taiwan-air-defense?mc_cid=c7d5faab45&mc_eid=70bf478f36

China is subtly increasing military pressure on Taiwan. Here's how

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/18/1216317476/china-military-taiwan-air-defense?mc_cid=c7d5faab45&mc_eid=70bf478f36

NPR · by By · December 18, 2023

A fighter plane takes off for patrol and military exercises around Taiwan carried out by the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, April 8. Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images

TAIPEI, Taiwan — There is an ominous new normal in the Taiwan Strait, the narrow strip of water between Taiwan and China.

Beijing has long considered self-governed Taiwan as part of China and has threatened to force it to "unify" with the mainland.

But over the past year, Beijing has been stepping up military pressure on Taiwan, while stopping short of an outright invasion. China has been sending ships and planes to encircle Taiwan and mounting more sophisticated military drills simulating a blockade of the island. In September, Taiwan's defense ministry counted a record number of Chinese fighter planes — 103 warplanes to be exact — flying in airspace around Taiwan in just one day.

Security experts call this "gray zone" tactics, a strategy of intimidation and daily harassment designed to gradually wear Taiwan down, without drawing the United States and its Asian allies, like Japan and South Korea, into a wider conflict.

Here's what you need to know about China's gray zone tactics.

Daily military incursions are increasing around Taiwan

Taiwan's Constitution, enacted in 1947 by its former Chinese Nationalist rulers who fought a civil war with China's Communist forces, still officially recognizes the authorities in Taipei as the legitimate government representing not just Taiwan, but also mainland China and some nearby territories.

And now, decades after its transitioning to a democracy in the 1990s, Taiwan still maintains an "air defense identification zone," or ADIZ, that's monitored by its military and reaches far into China's borders. The ADIZ is an informal area Taiwan's defense ministry monitors but is not an official, internationally recognized boundary and is far larger than Taiwan's territorial air space as defined by international law.

Since last year, China has been sending near-daily military sorties that dart in and out of that air defense zone.

Robin Hsu is among a group of Taiwanese military enthusiasts who obsessively track this signal communication Chinese pilots leave as their planes or ships enter the air defense zone each day. This summer, NPR met with Hsu outside a Taiwanese air base, where he already intercepted Chinese pilot chatter from six separate incursions.

Hsu worries there will be miscommunication, a misfire even, between militaries that could spiral into conflict.

"Gray zone" tactics

Chinese military activity around Taiwan has been increasing since the summer of 2022, when former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei. It was a trip that infuriated leaders in Beijing, who claims Taiwan as its own and opposes other countries sending high-level official visits there. Pelosi's trip also prompted China to look for ways to up the ante over Taiwan.

"The PRC has been committed to push the envelope in terms of what is [an] acceptable level of the use of force underneath open war," says Alessio Patalano, a professor of war and strategy at King's College London, using an acronym for China.

Patalono says China prefers to use gray zone tactics like military and economic coercion to intimidate Taiwan and attempt to influence upcoming January presidential elections there. These tactics include sending planes or banning Taiwanese goods to punish its farmers.

In other words, no hot war, no invasion, but there is a constant reminder that China has its sights on Taiwan. Some fear China's gray zone tactics are practice for a real invasion.

"[Chinese forces] can practice their military requirement as they need, and even they can test the response capability from the Taiwanese military," says Lee Hsi-ming, a retired Taiwanese admiral and a former defense chief.

Meanwhile, Taiwan is limited in how it can respond to Chinese pressure. For example, Lee says, every time a Chinese military plane or ship gets too close, Taiwan has to scramble its own jets or ships, and China just has way more of everything. Plus, Lee says, Taiwan doesn't want to make things worse: "Because we don't want [to] escalate the tension, and in order to maintain our morale, then we have to passively respond to this kind of gray-zone aggression."

Lee Hsi-ming, retired admiral and former head of the Taiwanese military, speaks during an interview with Reuters at his home in Taipei, Taiwan, Dec. 8, 2020. Ann Wang/Reuters

Taiwan, with 23 million citizens, has a fraction of the military budget and fighting force that China has, with over 1.4 billion citizens. Taiwan has about 169,000 active duty forces and 2 million in reserves, though critics say they are poorly trained. China has the largest active duty personnel numbers in the world, with over 2 million.

Wear and tear on Taiwan

China's frequent incursions are already straining Taiwan's pilots, who are among the island's first line of defense against China.

"You have only about six minutes to scramble, and there are staff on call awaiting orders at all times to make an emergency takeoff," says Taiwanese pilot Hou Shengjun, describing the regimen his fellow pilots are on to intercept Chinese planes. Hou himself is trained to fly the U.S.-made F-16 fighter plane.

These constant sorties are increasing Taiwan's defense costs and tiring out pilots. And analysts believe this will only continue, especially in the run-up to Taiwan's January presidential elections.

"Opinion or perspective from Taiwanese nationals might affect the government's policy, and [the] government's policy might also affect U.S.-Taiwan-China — the triangle relationship," says Chin-Kuei Tsui, a politics professor at Taiwan's National Chung Hsing University. He explains, through these daily maneuvers, China is trying to scare Taiwanese voters into being more pro-China.

So far, the gray-zone tactics seem to be having the opposite effect in Taiwan.

A poll conducted by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation shortly after China's military drills following Pelosi's visit found over half of Taiwanese supported the visit despite the Chinese military response. Just over a third who were opposed to her visit. A more recent survey, done by the Taipei-based research institution Academia Sinica, found just under 10% of Taiwanese believed China to be a trustworthy partner.

Three military boats from Taiwan's Amphibious Reconnaissance and Patrol Unit patrol the Matsu Islands on April 9. Jack Moore/AFP via Getty Images

But China could escalate, experts say, by conducting more frequent and lengthy military drills around the island and forming an effective blockade.

That is why enormous responsibility now lies on the shoulders of pilots like 26-year-old Wendy Wen, who flies the Taiwan-designed fighter plane, the Indigenous Defense Fighter: "Of course it is a tiring job. We have sentries running 24-hour shifts keeping watch."

She says the air force is concentrating on recruiting more young pilots. "We hope more people join the air force in order to give our existing pilots more time to rest and recover, and we need to recover in order to fly longer and farther," she says — because Taiwan is trying to figure out how to outlast a bigger opponent.

NPR's John Ruwitch contributed research from California. Emily Feng reported from Taipei, Taiwan. Connie Hanzhang Jin created the graphics in Washington, D.C.

NPR · by By · December 18, 2023

2. Israeli Military Reveals Tunnel It Says Hamas Built for Large-Scale Attack

Good to see even a slight mention of the possibility of north Korean assistance.

Excerpt:

Hamas started its tunnel program with crude small passageways reinforced with wooden planks. Over the years, the group has built tunnels reinforced with concrete that vehicles can pass through, similar to those built by North Korea into South Korea, said Richemond-Barak.

Israeli Military Reveals Tunnel It Says Hamas Built for Large-Scale Attack

Underground passageway, dubbed ‘Sinwar’s secret,’ ends near an Israeli military base

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israeli-military-reveals-tunnel-it-says-hamas-built-for-large-scale-attack-934b3bf8?mod=world_lead_pos5

By Dov Lieber

Dec. 17, 2023 10:47 am ET

Israel-Hamas War: U.S. to Push Israel to Scale Back War

The New York Times · by Adam Sella · December 18, 2023

Families of hostages protesting in Tel Aviv on Saturday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday to keep fighting in Gaza, even as anguish over the Israeli military’s in the enclave raised new questions about how his government is prosecuting the war.

Amid a mounting outcry over the civilian toll in Gaza, the U.S. defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, this week. Mr. Austin is expected to voice support for Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas in Gaza but also to reinforce the importance of taking civilian safety into account during operations, according to a senior Pentagon official said.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III will be in Israel, Bahrain and Qatar this week.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III was traveling on Sunday in the Middle East for a visit to Israel and three Persian Gulf nations as Biden administration officials push Israel to end its large-scale ground and air campaign in the Gaza Strip within weeks and transition to a more focused phase in its war against Hamas.

Mr. Austin will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, to discuss in detail when and how Israeli forces will carry out a new phase that American officials envision would involve smaller groups of elite forces, U.S. officials said. Those forces would move in and out of population centers in Gaza, conducting more precise, intelligence-driven missions to find and kill Hamas leaders, rescue hostages and destroy tunnels, according to the U.S. officials.

Maps: Tracking the Attacks in Israel and Gaza

See how Israeli troops reached Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza.

The Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Family in Gaza in 2020.

Roman Catholic church officials said an Israeli military sniper shot and killed a mother and daughter on Saturday inside a church compound in northern Gaza where many Palestinian Christian families have taken refuge.

The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said that “one was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety” in the compound of the Holy Family Church in Gaza City. Seven more people were shot and wounded while trying to protect others there, the patriarchate said in a statement on Saturday.

Relatives and friends of Alon Shamriz, one of the hostages mistakenly killed by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip, mourned at his funeral in Shefayim on Sunday.Credit...Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times

The three Israeli hostages who were mistakenly killed by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip on Friday appeared to have used leftover food to create signs calling for help, Israel’s military said on Sunday.

The Israeli military released more details from what it described as a field investigation into the fatal shooting of the three men, who had emerged shirtless from a building and were carrying a makeshift white flag. A post on the Israeli military’s official Telegram account said there were indications that the three men had been in a building adjacent to the scene of the shooting for some time.

People ran to climb onto moving trucks carrying supplies, including water, and then threw boxes to a gathering crowd as the vehicles passed through Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.Credit...Associated Press

Crowds of Gazans swarmed flatbed trucks carrying aid in southern Gaza on Sunday, in a sign of the desperation among residents after more than two months of airstrikes and ground operations by Israeli forces.

In a video distributed by The Associated Press, a truck could be seen slowing down as it neared a group of people gathered in a road in Rafah. People jumped onto the truck and scaled the pallets of supplies even before the truck came to a halt. Another video showed a half-dozen men throwing boxes to a gathered crowd from the back of a moving flatbed, as another man clambered on top of the stacked pallets.

People standing at a protest encampment near the Knesset last month.

An Israeli man was indicted on a charge of arson on Sunday, according to Israel’s Justice Ministry, 10 days after he set an anti-government protester’s tent ablaze, underscoring the rising tensions in an increasingly polarized Israeli society.

According to Tal Fintsy, late on the evening of Dec. 7 she lay in her sleeping bag at a protest encampment set up near the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, by bereaved families who had pressured Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take responsibility for the intelligence and military failures that led to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.

Palestinians gathering to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost region.Credit...Shadi Tabatibi/Reuters

Humanitarian aid began to dribble into the besieged Gaza Strip through a second border crossing Sunday morning, the United Nations said, as growing numbers of Gazans faced ceaseless hunger and cold, and aid groups warned of widespread disease.

Israel’s agency overseeing policy for the Palestinian territories, known as COGAT, posted on social media that 79 humanitarian aid trucks had been inspected on Sunday and allowed through the crossing at Kerem Shalom, which the United States had pressured Israel to open.

Exiting the tunnel, which the Israeli military says is the largest it has yet discovered beneath Gaza.Credit...Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times

The tunnel in the northern Gaza Strip is wide enough for a large car to pass through, reinforced with concrete and fitted with electrical wiring. And at least one section of the tunnel — which Israel says is the largest it has discovered in Gaza so far — is within walking distance of an Israeli border crossing.

Israel’s military took a group of reporters, including two journalists from The New York Times, into the tunnel on Friday. Its size and complexity, three Israeli defense officials say, show the scale of the challenge they face as they try to meet their goal of wiping out Hamas, which they say has built a network of tunnels throughout Gaza to allow it to evade and attack Israeli forces.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arriving for a cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv on Sunday.Credit...Pool photo by Menahem Kahana

In the face of increasing pressure from the United States, Britain and Germany, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has doubled down on his opposition to what these allies see as the future of Gaza: an interim government overseen by the Palestinian Authority and an eventual Palestinian state existing alongside Israel.

Speaking only hours after the army admitted to shooting three Israeli hostages as they held up a white flag in Gaza, fueling consternation and anger among Israelis, Mr. Netanyahu appeared to be trying to change the subject, boasting that he had prevented the creation of a Palestinian state in the past and would continue to do so.

A pro-Palestinian demonstration in London. In a joint opinion article, the foreign secretaries of Britain and Germany expressed support for a “sustainable cease-fire.”Credit...Alberto Pezzali/Associated Press

As Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Sunday to press Israel to scale back its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, two of Israel’s most important allies are urging the same — while advocating for a “sustainable” cease-fire.

In a joint opinion article published in The Sunday Times of London, the foreign secretaries of Britain and Germany displayed an important change in tone from their previous, all-out support for Israel. That echoes an apparent tonal shift from Washington, which has said Israel must do more to minimize harm to civilians in Gaza.

Palestinians heading to work through a checkpoint in Meitar, Israel, in January.Credit...Laura Boushnak for The New York Times

Israeli government officials have been torn over whether to allow Palestinian workers from the West Bank to return to work in Israel, with some saying the move would threaten national security and others countering that it would bolster it.

More than 100,000 Palestinians in the West Bank had permits to work in Israel and Israeli settlements before the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack — contributing heavily to the economy of the occupied territory. But a ban on the permits was instituted in wake of the assault, leading to a shortage of workers in many sectors.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, center, at a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem this week.Credit...Pool photo by Ronen Zvulun

The fatal shooting by Israeli soldiers in Gaza of three unarmed men who turned out to be Israeli hostages could give momentum to those pushing for a new cease-fire to allow for more hostages to be released.

Critics of how Israel is prosecuting its war in Gaza also seized on the event, in which Israeli soldiers fatally shot three shirtless men who were waving a white flag, as an example of its military’s failure to live up to its promises to protect civilians.

The New York Times · by Adam Sella · December 18, 2023

4. Taiwan Says Two Chinese Balloons Crossed Strait Boundary

Targeteers need weather data for precise targeting.

Taiwan Says Two Chinese Balloons Crossed Strait Boundary

TIME · by Bloomberg News · December 18, 2023

Taiwan said two Chinese weather balloons crossed a line in the strait that the U.S. drew decades ago to help ease tensions between the two sides.

One balloon was spotted at 9:03 a.m. Sunday and the other at 2:43 p.m., the Defense Ministry in Taipei said in a statement. They continued traveling eastward and disappeared, it added.

Ministry spokesperson Sun Li-fang told reporters via social media on Monday that an initial assessment found the aircraft were for meteorological use.

The U.S. drew the median line in the body of water separating Taiwan from China in 1954 during a period of heightened friction between Beijing and Taipei. China long refrained from crossing the line but recently has been stepping up flights by warplanes across it, a move that wears down Taiwan’s smaller armed forces.

Earlier in 2023, a Chinese balloon derailed ties between Beijing and Washington. The U.S. said the aircraft was for surveillance and shot it down. China said it was for weather purposes and the Biden administration overreacted.

Taiwan began to release details of balloon sightings this month, though Sun said earlier that the ministry has long been spotting them. The Defense Ministry for the island of 23 million people that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has pledged to bring under control someday said earlier that a Chinese balloon crossed the median line on Dec. 7.

China Meteorological Administration issued a notice last week that urged weather officials across the country to “effectively prevent major safety accidents” when launching balloons. They should have “zero tolerance” for any potential risks, the administration’s newspaper reported on Sunday.

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5. This group thinks Taiwan’s people aren’t taking the risk of war with mainland China seriously enough. Their goal is to change that

Resilience and resistance.

This group thinks Taiwan’s people aren’t taking the risk of war with mainland China seriously enough. Their goal is to change that

The Kuma Academy, which means bear in Japanese, says its focus is on civil defence and preparing people to survive rather than training them to fight
One of its founder’s says Taiwan is ‘one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints’ but people are not taking the risk seriously enough

Lawrence Chung

in Taipei

+ FOLLOWPublished: 11:59am, 18 Dec, 2023

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3245420/group-thinks-taiwans-people-arent-taking-risk-war-mainland-china-seriously-enough-their-goal-change

A civil training organisation is trying to prepare Taiwanese to prepare for any conflict with the Chinese mainland.

The group is not a militia, does not teach people how to use guns and dismisses claims that it is advocating war with Beijing. Instead, it says its focus is on teaching people how to survive in the event of conflict and help others.

US and Taiwan to keep pressing for Taipei’s inclusion in World Health Assembly

14 Dec 2023

“Such training is crucial, especially when Taiwan is known as one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints for conflict,” said Puma Shen, co-founder of the Kuma Academy, a name that means bear in Japanese.

Despite the serious threats and warnings from analysts in Taiwan and the United States that a conflict could erupt within a few years, the Taiwanese public’s response has remained mild as most of them do not think a war will happen if the cross-strait status quo remains in place.

Beijing views Taiwan as a breakaway province that must be brought back under its control – by force if necessary.

“I don’t blame them as no textbooks here teach students of such a risk,” Shen, an expert on disinformation who teaches criminology at National Taipei University said in an interview.

“This was why we decided to set up Kuma Academy to increase public awareness of the threat of a Chinese attack and preparedness for a potential conflict.”

Puma Shen, co-founder of the Kuma Academy, A civil training organisation is trying to prepare Taiwanese to prepare for any conflict with the Chinese mainland. Photo: Kuma Academy

The financially strapped group was set up in April 2021 by Shen and four other partners and initially remained low-profile.

It was only able to hold its first series of events – mainly forums and courses – between late 2021 through early 2022 with the first NT$50,000 (US$1,600) grant it received from the government-funded Taiwan Foundation for Democracy.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February last year gave the group a chance to draw public attention to the need to prepare for war, Shen said, adding this allowed the organisation to find more funding sources.

Later that year, the visit to Taipei by then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi – a trip Beijing saw as a violation of its sovereignty and a breach of the US one-China policy – brought cross-strait tensions to the boil.

Beijing offered Taiwan pilot US$15 million to steal US-made helicopter: court

11 Dec 2023

“We started a crowdfunding campaign in July, and China’s military response to Pelosi’s visit a month later drastically boosted our fundraising efforts as many people who were unhappy with the Chinese reactions donated funds to us,” Shen said.

In addition to sending warplanes to the Taiwanese air defence identification zone in greater numbers and crossing the median line that separates the island and the mainland in the Taiwan Strait on an almost daily basis, the People’s Liberation Army has also staged live-fire drills around the self-governed island.

These included an unprecedented series of exercises – some involving ballistic missiles – in six zones encircling Taiwan that went on for more than a week after Pelosi’s visit in August last year.

People pictured at one of the event’s training days in New Taipei. Photo: Kuma Academy

The United States, Taiwan’s informal ally and biggest arms supplier, later rebuked Beijing for its actions, calling them “provocative and irresponsible.”

Like most countries, the US does not recognise Taiwan as an independent state but is opposed to any change to the cross-strait status quo by force. It is also legally bound to help the island defend itself.

“Many people mistake Kuma Academy for a militia. We have no intention of forming a [civilian] troop … Nor do we teach people how to use guns in battle or give them guns. We do not have guns,” Shen said, dismissing claims that the academy is a violent group advocating war with the mainland.

PLA will show ‘no mercy’ against Taiwan independence moves, top Chinese general says

“The academy is more like a school. We organise large-scale activities to allow people and their children to be aware of the importance of civil defence.”

Its curriculum includes teaching people the basics about military operations, ways to protect themselves and help others, what to put in a survival kit and how to tell which places are safe to hide in an emergency.

One major course is to teach people to identify misinformation on social media and other platforms, which Shen says Beijing has been using to induce anxiety, confusion and chaos to intimidate the island.

He said interest in the academy’s programmes has grown markedly since Russia invaded Ukraine, while the Israel-Gaza war that began with Hamas’s attack in October further fuelled public interest.

Children take shelter when hearing an air raid sirens during an event held by the Kuma Academy in New Taipei City. Photo: AFP

The organisation says the number of people taking its courses has now reached 30,000 – a marked increase on the 50 or so who had signed up in late 2021.

To continue its operations, the academy has rallied support from local firms to form a “civil defence national team” to supply survival kits and other items that can be used in emergencies, Shen said. These will then be sold to raise funds.

“Our goal is to have at least several million people attending our classes and events,” Shen said, adding it is important to increase public awareness of the importance of civil defence so that the government would be able to recruit enough people to help in their civil defence programmes in the event of a potential conflict.

CONVERSATIONS (10)

+ FOLLOW

Lawrence Chung

Lawrence Chung covers major news in Taiwan, ranging from presidential and parliament elections to killer earthquakes and typhoons. Most of his reports focus on Taiwan’s relations with China, specifically on the impact and possible developments of cross-strait relations under the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party and mainland-friendly Kuomintang governments. Before starting work at the South China Morning Post in 2006, he wrote for Reuters and AFP for more than 12 years.

6. Five Recommendations for Left of Boom Security Assistance to Taiwan

Excerpts:

First, the United States should establish a Security Assistance Group – Taiwan to coordinate joint force, interagency, and allied efforts to provide security assistance, which would unify the provision of aid, support, and training. Second, there should be a Taiwan Hands Advisor Program to maximize focus across the joint force, without falling into the same pitfalls of the beleaguered AfPak Hands program. Third, civil society engagement and development should be emphasized as an approach to developing Taiwanese resilience, resistance, and will to fight. Fourth, multinational assistance should prioritize innovative solutions to supply problems, allowing the Taiwanese government, military, and society to effectively resist during a protracted conflict. Finally, Washington should assign a National Guard unit to Taiwan as part of its State Partnership Program.

Conclusion

Taken together, the five steps outlined in this article would signal Washington’s long-term commitment to support Taiwan and deter China. The United States can no longer strategically afford a lackadaisical approach to Taiwan. Codifying and institutionalizing our suggested security assistance and cooperation concepts would finally move the needle back in Taiwan’s favor, developing the needed defensive posture to counter bellicose Chinese cross-strait actions. These five steps are not a silver bullet, but in conjunction with firm measures by Taiwan’s leadership and other U.S. allies, they would improve Taiwan’s resilience, as well as its ability to deter, resist, outthink, and outfight China.

Five Recommendations for Left of Boom Security Assistance to Taiwan - War on the Rocks

BRIAN C. CHAO, JAHARA MATISEK, AND WILLIAM RENO

warontherocks.com · by Brian C. Chao · December 18, 2023

Time is not on Taiwan’s side. A U.S. Air Force General predicts potential conflict with China in 2025, while the retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff suggests China’s accelerated modernization could advance its ability to seize Taiwan to as early as 2027. Worse, in current wargame simulations run by experts at RAND, the United States fails in preventing Chinese forces “from overrunning Taiwan’s defense forces.”

Pressures of time and potential access limitations to Taiwan in a crisis dictate that the United States and its allies should proactively position themselves “left of boom.” Ideally, this proactive stance will deter the “boom” altogether. Scaling up programs for Taiwan’s military, government, and society, and integrating proven security assistance and cooperation strategies used before (and after) the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine will make deterrence the more likely long-term outcome, even if it risks provoking China and hurting relationships in the short term.

The U.S. House of Representatives has proposed the Taiwan Peace Through Strength Act (2023), outlining five key priorities for strengthening U.S.–Taiwanese defense ties. However, this is insufficient. Drawing from the Department of Defense Minerva Research Team’s extensive research, which includes insights from over 400 interviews with Western security assistance advisors and recipients and in-depth archival research spanning U.S. security assistance missions since 1945, we propose five measures that could help.

First, the United States should establish a Security Assistance Group – Taiwan to coordinate joint force, interagency, and allied efforts to provide security assistance, which would unify the provision of aid, support, and training. Second, there should be a Taiwan Hands Advisor Program to maximize focus across the joint force, without falling into the same pitfalls of the beleaguered AfPak Hands program. Third, civil society engagement and development should be emphasized as an approach to developing Taiwanese resilience, resistance, and will to fight. Fourth, multinational assistance should prioritize innovative solutions to supply problems, allowing the Taiwanese government, military, and society to effectively resist during a protracted conflict. Finally, Washington should assign a National Guard unit to Taiwan as part of its State Partnership Program.

Taiwan’s national-security and defense policies, and its military organization and development, are the responsibility of the people of Taiwan and the government they elect. The United States has been the primary supporter of Taiwan’s defense needs over the past few decades — support that plays a critical role in that country’s autonomy. For instance, Taiwan is awaiting the delivery of $19.2 billion worth of weapons orders from the United States, which includes 66 F-16s and 108 Abrams tanks. Washington cannot dictate Taiwan’s defense policies or its military, but, as an important security partner with Taipei, Washington should consider the five steps outlined below to improve Taiwan’s defense capabilities. Ultimately, some of these actions may be provocative to Beijing. However, Washington should not be deterred. These actions would bolster Taiwan’s ability to defend itself, while making Taipei more confident in cross-strait dialogue with a decreased likelihood of succumbing to Chinese coercion.

Become a Member

Create a Security Assistance Group–Taiwan

The historical success of the Korean Military Advisory Group and, more recently, U.S.-led security cooperation missions to Ukraine suggest elements of a viable model for assistance. From 1951 to 1979, the United States had a Military Assistance Advisory Group in Taiwan, peaking with 2,437 advisors in-country in 1955. For Ukraine, the Joint Multinational Training Group – Ukraine and Security Assistance Group – Ukraine have been effective multinational efforts, alongside Canadian and U.K.-led efforts, to provide lethal and non-lethal assistance and training in a unified fashion to minimize waste and maximize improvements across the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The Joint Multinational Training Group – Ukraine trained over 27,000 Ukrainian personnel between 2015 and 2022, and has trained an additional9,600 Ukrainian troops since 2022. Formed after the 2022 large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Security Assistance Group – Ukraine and Western partners trained over 90,000 Ukrainian servicemembers in the first half of 2023. The United States should act now to create a multinational Security Assistance Group – Taiwan to proactively consolidate joint force and multinational efforts to improve Taiwanese capabilities. This more coordinated approach to increasing defensive capabilities can play an important role in persuading China’s leaders that the costs and risks of invading Taiwan would outweigh its benefits.

The Korean Military Advisory Group experience of 1945–1953 also is instructive. It transformed the Republic of Korea Army from a constabulary force of 25,000 into a modern, 20-division ground force with over 600,000 personnel in less than eight years. Korean Military Advisory Group advisors also spearheaded the development of the Korean military education system, developing 13 different branch-specific schools prior to the war.

The United States has taken important steps recently in this direction. Over the spring, the U.S. military announced plansto expand training efforts with the Taiwanese from 30 American trainers to 100–200 military personnel. This effort is reportedly designed to help Taiwan build a “porcupine” defense that would make the island prohibitively costly to assault. A Security Assistance Group – Taiwan would further facilitate such actions by having other multinational advisors aiding Taiwan, signaling international unity in support of Taiwan’s right to defend its sovereignty. Coding most Security Assistance Group – Taiwan positions as coveted joint billets would ensure each military branch treats security assistance to Taiwan as a priority, leading to a properly staffed mission with the best personnel, not just people who happen to be available.

How provocative would this be for China? Besides a focus on foreign internal defense by 1st Special Forces Group, Marines, and other special operators since 2020, the United States currently plans to send 100–200 personnel to assist Taiwan’s forces. We do not advocate a massive surge in U.S. forces but envision a rotational force below the number of Military Assistance Advisory Group personnel deployed to Taiwan between 1951 to 1979. These personnel themselves would not be a defense force or tripwire. They would work across a spectrum of purposes with their Taiwanese counterparts, a version of a hybrid approach in which no particular element of the relationship would be particularly new or provocative, but the whole would be coordinated toward a defensive, and thus, a deterrent, end. Rather than train for the entire panoply of military capabilities and contingencies, the United States would work with Taiwan to identify the most likely and the worst-case scenarios, then focus United States (and partner) security assistance on those particular concerns, such as coastal defense, urban and guerrilla warfare, and asymmetric maritime warfare. Focused scenarios and specialized capabilities will sharpen the porcupine’s quills to puncture Chinese attacks.

Establish a Taiwan Hands Advisor Program

Such a program would provide a steady stream of knowledgeable advisors to Security Assistance Group – Taiwan (if created). The AfPak Hands program, created in 2008 and designed for a long-term commitment to Afghanistan and Pakistan, offered language and cultural training and repeat assignments in the region for selected military officers. Although AfPak Hands concluded in 2020, with many advisors feeling “completely ignored” by U.S. military leadership — per one interview — a fresh Taiwan program could benefit from past mistakes.

A properly designed Taiwan Hands program would require a 6–10-year commitment, offering clear avenues for promotion and basing incentives to maximize knowledge and language development. This program would help American personnel better understand the Taiwanese government, military, and society, signaling a deep U.S. institutional commitment to promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific. In turn, these personnel would advise the Taiwanese military on not just weapon systems and their operationalization, but on doctrine, training, education, force structure, and the less visible factors that go into building a military effective at warfighting. Fostering a cohort of dedicated American advisors to Taiwan would improve strategic thinking across the joint force, while also solving the current problem of infrequent, episodic engagements with Taiwan’s military. Long-term engagement and continuity would facilitate needed institutional capacity building for Taiwan’s forces, while leading to better planning of U.S. security assistance and cooperation missions with Taiwan and its neighbors.

Invest in Civil Society Development and Assistance

Simply put, improving civil society contributes to Taiwan’s will to fight. Taiwan has long experienced advanced, persistent Chinese cyberattacks and influence operations. Washington can provide additional support to Taipei and its civil society to inoculate the island against Beijing’s cyber intrusions and disinformation activities. Whether boosting U.S. governmental assistance to Taiwan’s cyber defenses, systematically promoting informal efforts at cooperation, or mutual public-private sharing of information and expertise, the United States can help defend Taiwan’s thriving democracy and civil society against disinformation and anti-American conspiracy theories.

Western assistance to build up Taiwanese civil society groups (e.g., charities, clubs, non-governmental organizations, etc.) can play a vital role in a broader irregular statecraft strategy. For example, Spirit of America partners with local non-governmental organizations in Taiwan, helping train over 50,000 citizens to “increase Taiwan’s resiliency by empowering citizens with the skills and confidence to respond in a disaster or security crisis.” This approach contributes to societal resistance, reducing the likelihood of a repeat of Russia’s “little green men” strategy to clandestinely occupy Crimea in 2014. An effective civil society approach would make Taiwan more resilient to a potential “Little Red PRCs” scenario, where China could seize the island through subversive actions without a D-Day-style amphibious assault. For instance, some Ukrainian partisan groups we interviewed were non-government organizations prior to the 2022 invasion, and their close societal bonds and trusted networks enabled them to form guerrilla units to oppose occupying Russian forces. In a crisis, many Taiwanese civil society groups may similarly leverage personal networks as partisans to resist occupying Chinese forces.

Help Taiwan Build Up Reserves

One important practical difference between Ukraine and Taiwan is that the former is a large, continental country, while the latter is a relatively small island (about the size of Connecticut and Vermont combined). In the event of conflict — regardless of whether the United States intervenes — Taiwan will likely need to withstand a Chinese assault for some period of time. This requires building in redundancy or finding sufficient substitutes for societal necessities, such as food, fuel, power generation, water, etc. Taiwan lacks self-sufficiency with essentials like food and fuel, relying heavily on imports; its current reserves need to be boosted and, as Taiwan’s largest source of food imports already, the United States is well positioned to assist. Various reports offer varying timelines, suggesting Taiwan has enough strategic reserves to last 30 to 120 days. This means Taipei will need to develop resilient storage capabilities – and Washington and its allies will need to devise innovative logistical solutions to provide supplies and assistance in a crisis.

Equally vital is ensuring quality Taiwanese forces, given that its standing military is 188,000 personnel, with the supposed ability to activate 2.3 million reservists. While Taiwan has demonstrated an excellent ability to mobilize its military and society for disaster response, combat reserve readiness is inadequate. Improving the ability of Taiwan’s reserve forces could be achieved by making it the primary task of the 5th Security Force Assistance Brigade. They could dedicate a large advisor team towards developing training plans and military preparedness that aligns with Taiwan’s Overall Defense Concept to ensure year-around reserve readiness across the force. Moreover, these advisors could facilitate planning approaches with Taiwan’s forces to devise strategies for dispersing enough resources, fuel, and supplies across the country to ensure resilience across the government, military, and society. This would allow Taiwan’s defenders to sustain military operations longer than Chinese leadership anticipates.

Assign a National Guard Unit to Taiwan

The State Partnership Program strengthens defense ties, improves interoperability, and promotes defense reform. In August 2023, Taiwanese troops reportedly participated in military exercises in Michigan with National Guard troops, yet no guard unit has been formally assigned to Taiwan. Assigning a state National Guard unit to Taiwan through the State Partnership Program would signify a readiness to foster personal networks between Guard members and their counterparts within the Taiwanese government and military circles.

How would Beijing perceive such activities? Historically, China has acquiesced to United States training of Taiwanese military personnel, provided it is conducted discreetly. Indeed, there is a longstanding practice of Taiwanese pilots receiving F-16 training in Arizona. Similarly, collaborative efforts between a National Guard unit and Taiwanese forces could minimize provocation by being held on American soil, such as in Guam. This low-profile approach is critical to avoid drawing unwanted attention and potential embarrassment for China, which might otherwise feel compelled to respond in a public and possibly escalatory manner.

Establishing enduring relationships between U.S. military leaders and Taiwanese counterparts would be invaluable. In our interviews with American advisors and Ukrainians, many emphasized how the partnership between the California Air National Guard and the Ukrainian Air Force significantly bolstered the latter’s resilience and tactical adaptability when facing the Russian Air Force. This collaboration was so profound that numerous California Guardsmen learned Ukrainian, and in some cases, even formed personal connections, including marrying Ukrainians.

Conclusion

Taken together, the five steps outlined in this article would signal Washington’s long-term commitment to support Taiwan and deter China. The United States can no longer strategically afford a lackadaisical approach to Taiwan. Codifying and institutionalizing our suggested security assistance and cooperation concepts would finally move the needle back in Taiwan’s favor, developing the needed defensive posture to counter bellicose Chinese cross-strait actions. These five steps are not a silver bullet, but in conjunction with firm measures by Taiwan’s leadership and other U.S. allies, they would improve Taiwan’s resilience, as well as its ability to deter, resist, outthink, and outfight China.

Become a Member

Dr. Brian C. Chao (@winebluewater) is an assistant professor in the National Security Affairs Department at the Naval War College and a non-resident associate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Study of Contemporary China. His research interests include cross-Taiwan Strait relations, geostrategy, great-power politics, U.S. defense and foreign policies in the Asia-Pacific, and Pacific navies. His work appears in International Relations of the Asia-Pacific; Territory, Politics, Governance; and edited volumes on Asia-Pacific security and Navies in multipolar systems, as well as the China Brief, The Diplomat, East Asia Forum, and The National Interest, among others.

Lieutenant Colonel Jahara “FRANKY” Matisek, Ph.D., (@JaharaMatisek) is a military professor in the national security affairs department at the United States Naval War College, a 2023 Non-Resident Fellow with the Irregular Warfare Initiative (joint production of Princeton’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project and the Modern War Institute at West Point), and United States Department of Defense Minerva co-principal investigator for improving United States security assistance. Lt. Col. Matisek has published over 90 articles and essays in peer-reviewed journals and policy-relevant outlets on strategy, warfare, and security assistance. He is a command pilot that previously served as a senior fellow for the Homeland Defense Institute and associate professor in the Military and Strategic Studies Department at the United States Air Force Academy.

Dr. William Reno is a professor and chair of the Political Science Department at Northwestern University. He has conducted fieldwork and interviews in conflict zones across Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East for over thirty years, having authored three books: Corruption and State Politics in Sierra Leone, Warlord Politics and African States, and Warfare in Independent Africa. Dr. Reno has published over two hundred articles in peer-reviewed journals, and policy-relevant periodicals, and edited volumes on civil wars, rebels, and military assistance. He is the principal investigator for the U.S. Department of Defense Minerva-funded program studying how the United States can improve foreign military training.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the Department of the Army, Department of the Air Force, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. This article was supported by Levy Chair funding at the United States Naval War College and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under award number FA9550-20-1-0277.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Brian C. Chao · December 18, 2023

7. Philippines re-engaged with US foreign aid agency

Excerpts:

Created by the US Congress, the MCC partners with the world’s poorest countries that are committed to just and democratic governance, economic freedom and investing in their populations.

The MCC provides time-limited grants promoting economic growth, reducing poverty, and strengthening institutions.

Last week, the MCC board of directors selected the Philippines to develop threshold programs in recognition of its renewed commitment to advancing reforms in good governance, human rights and anti-corruption.

Philippines re-engaged with US foreign aid agency

Louise Maureen Simeon - The Philippine Star

December 18, 2023 | 12:00am

philstar.com · by Louise Maureen Simeon

MANILA, Philippines — The independent foreign aid agency of the US government has re-engaged the Philippines through the development of threshold programs aimed at boosting economic growth.

In a statement, economic team head and Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno welcomed the decision of the Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC) to re-engage the Philippines via programs that will support policy and institutional reforms.

Created by the US Congress, the MCC partners with the world’s poorest countries that are committed to just and democratic governance, economic freedom and investing in their populations.

The MCC provides time-limited grants promoting economic growth, reducing poverty, and strengthening institutions.

Last week, the MCC board of directors selected the Philippines to develop threshold programs in recognition of its renewed commitment to advancing reforms in good governance, human rights and anti-corruption.

“We welcome the eligibility of the Philippines under the MCC Threshold Program, which we hope will allow us to further access the bigger Compact Program,” Diokno said.

“We stand ready to work hand in hand with the US government toward developing and implementing important programs that will unlock growth in the Philippines and redound to economic and social transformation for all Filipinos,” he said.

The MCC provides three different kinds of grant financing: compact, threshold, and regional compact.

Specifically, a compact program is a multi-year agreement between the MCC and an eligible country to fund specific programs targeted at reducing poverty and stimulating economic growth.

A threshold program, on the other hand, is a contract between the MCC and a country that provides financial assistance to assist in meeting requirements to access large scale grants resources by becoming “compact eligible” through support for policy and institutional reforms by addressing a country’s constraints to economic growth.

Introduced in 2018, the MCC regional compact program intends to promote cross-border economic integration, trade and collaboration and for regional integration.

Previously, the Philippines enjoyed US government support under the MCC’s first compact grant of $434 million which concluded in 2016 and a prior threshold grant of $20.7 million that was implemented between 2006 to 2009.

The threshold program enhanced anti-corruption efforts by strengthening the Office of the Ombudsman, improving revenue administration and increasing enforcement capacity within the Department of Finance.

philstar.com · by Louise Maureen Simeon

8. Top US Lawmaker 'Very Optimistic' on Ukraine, Border Deal

Top US Lawmaker 'Very Optimistic' on Ukraine, Border Deal

kyivpost.com

The US congressional negotiators worked over the weekend to create a deal that would provide aid to Ukraine and Israel in exchange for increased border security.

by AFP | December 18, 2023, 8:19 am |

US Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, listens during a US Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on the President's supplemental request for the Departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on November 8, 2023. (Photo by Stefani Reynolds / AFP)

As US congressional negotiators worked deep into the weekend in a bid to craft an urgent deal linking aid to Ukraine and Israel to new border security, one top Democrat said he was "very optimistic" about a resolution.

"I'm very encouraged. I'm very optimistic they're moving in a very positive way," Senator Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat, told CNN's "State of the Union."

He said he had been in touch with negotiators from both parties, as well as the White House, and "they understand that the border is broken" and needs to be fixed.

Three Senate negotiators -- independent Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat Chris Murphy and Republican James Lankford -- met Saturday and were to meet again Sunday in search of a compromise that would also include aid for Taiwan.

All three cited progress after the Saturday talks, Politico reported.

But at least one senior Republican senator, Lindsey Graham, sounded a more cautious note on Sunday, suggesting that some lawmakers were bridling at the pressure for a quick deal.

"The bottom line here is we feel like we're being jammed," Graham told NBC's "Meet the Press." We're not anywhere close to a deal. It'll go into next year."

The Biden administration has stressed the urgency of getting new aid, particularly as Ukraine faces another winter under Russian attack.

Democrats support a proposed $61 billion package of military, humanitarian and macroeconomic assistance.

But Graham and other Republicans insist that Congress must first shore up border security to stem a continuing influx of migrants.

Kyiv’s 2024 Military Strategy – a New Reality

As Ukraine’s military commanders devise a strategy for victory in the coming year they are aware that things at the front are not nearly as bad as some pundits would have us believe.

He said a compromise was possible, but warned Democrats that "I will not help Ukraine, Taiwan or Israel until we secure a border that's been obliterated."

Lawmakers had been due to go into recess Thursday evening.

But Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer said Thursday that the chamber would return on Monday, giving negotiators time to reach "a framework agreement."

Any deal reached in the Senate would also need to pass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which has begun its holiday recess. Its members can in theory be recalled to Washington to vote if an agreement is reached.

kyivpost.com

9. In the Pacific, U.S. bureaucracy messes up against PRC influence operation

Did our bureaucracy play right into Chinese hands?

In the Pacific, U.S. bureaucracy messes up against PRC influence operation - The Sunday Guardian Live

Editor's ChoiceIn the Pacific, U.S. bureaucracy messes up against PRC influence operation

sundayguardianlive.com · by Cleo Paskal and Grant Newsham · December 17, 2023

I have no idea what the U.S. State Department was thinking. But if the goal was to help honest people in a highly strategic country that is also a close ally protect themselves against Chinese influence operations, they really messed up.

And State wasn’t the only one. Department of Justice did as well. And Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Odd thing is, they all might have thought they were doing the right thing.

I better explain and you can decide for yourself.

BACKGROUND

From an American perspective, this story starts almost exactly eighty years ago, with Operation Flintlock.

What is now the Pacific Island country of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) had been under Japanese control for three decades. During that time, and especially in the lead up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, key atolls were militarized and hardened, forming the outer perimeter of Japanese defences. One was Kwajalein Atoll—one of the largest atolls in the world.

At the end of January 1944, after one of the most concentrated bombardments of the war thus far, an amphibious assault force of tens of thousands of Marines and Sailors took on the Japanese at Kwajalein. Almost all the Japanese were killed. The Americans took the islands and advanced west from there.

After the war, Kwajalein and rest of the former Japanese Pacific islands fell under United Nations control, became the only “strategic” Trust Territories and were given to the United States in trust.

In 1986, Marshall Islands became independent and entered into a deep defence relationship with the U.S, called the Compact of Free Association (COFA). Two other former Japanese Pacific islands areas did the same, the Republic of Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia.

Through the COFAs, the three countries voluntarily agreed: “The Government of the United States has full authority and responsibility for security and defense matters in or relating to the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia [and Palau].”

Also, citizens from the Compact countries can live and work freely in the U.S. and they serve at very high rates in the U.S. military.

The Compacts extend the U.S. defensive perimeter roughly from Hawaii to Guam and the Philippines. The relationship underpins the U.S. defence architecture in the Pacific. And it still includes a major base on Kwajalein that is critical for U.S. missile testing.

HERE COMES THE PRC

Given how important the relationship is to the U.S., it is no surprise that there have been well funded and focused PRC-linked influence operations in the region to try to weaken those ties, especially as the Marshall Islands also recognize Taiwan.

While tying specific operations to the Chinese government is always tricky, one in particular certainly wouldn’t have displeased Beijing.

PRC-origin Cary Yan and Gina Zhou somehow obtained Marshall Islands passports and then used their United Nations-affiliated NGO to launch a range of schemes, including one designed to undermine the sovereignty and integrity of the Marshall Islands.

In the spring of 2018, Yan and Zhou’s NGO hosted a conference in Hong Kong attended by, among others, members of the RMI legislature. The NGO paid for the travel, accommodations, and entertainment of the RMI officials. Then the NGO, with the support of the legislators, publicly launched an initiative to establish the so-called Rongelap Atoll Special Administrative Region (the “RASAR”).

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement described RASAR as: “a multi-year scheme that included establishing a nongovernmental organization and allegedly bribing officials in the Republic of the Marshall Islands with the intention of establishing a semi-autonomous region, akin to Hong Kong, in the U.S.-defended Marshall Islands.”

According to the DoJ’s sentencing submission, Yan: “played a long game. He acquired a[n] unaffiliated NGO, in order to position himself to bribe numerous RMI officials. When those initial bribes failed to accomplish Yan’s goal of establishing the RASAR, he sought to boot the RMI’s then-President from office. And although that attempt failed, when there was a change in administrations, Yan worked with the officials he had bribed to try again.”

In fall, 2022, Yan and Zhou were extradited to New York from Thailand and charged with conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), violating the FCPA, conspiring to commit money laundering, and committing money laundering.

The maximum penalties were five years each for conspiring to violate the FCPA and violation of the FCPA, and 20 years each for conspiring to commit money laundering and for committing money laundering.

Yan and Zhou each pled guilty to just one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act, with Yan getting 42 months and Zhou 31 months.

WHAT WAS THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE THINKING?

This might seem like a win but their actual sentences are light considering they tried to take over a country—one that is a key component of America’s defence architecture and one of Taiwan’s few official friends.

A bigger problem is that, because Justice didn’t take the case to trial, the evidence against them, and the Marshallese who were bribed never became public. Nor, according to RMI officials, were case details shared with them so Yan, Zhou, and the officials they bribed, could be prosecuted in Marshall Islands.

Oh, and why didn’t Justice come after them before they almost took down the Marshall Islands government? By Justice’s own statement, they had been doing illegal things well before then.

IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT ADD TO THE PROBLEM

But it gets worse. Zhou’s sentence was so light that she had finished serving her time soon after the case was closed, and the United States deported her back to the Marshall Islands. Because, you know, she has that Marshallese passport.

Might have helped if an investigation into how that was acquired was done before they shipped her back.

So, Zhou is currently in Marshalls, walking free, able to lunch with local elites. She is expected to be joined soon by her co-conspirator who is also likely to be deported back to the Marshalls by the United States.

STATE’S TURN

All this was happening against the backdrop of difficult negotiations around the renewal of the financial and services components of the Compacts (still pending Congressional approval—a very serious financial issue for all three COFA states) and November 20 elections in Marshalls—which Gina Zhou may very well have voted in.

So, think about how you could make this worse. How about, after the elections are over, you do what State just did?

It designated (meaning visa restrictions for the “designee” and their immediate family) two people who were elected in the November 20 election, including a former President of Marshall Islands, “for their involvement in significant corruption by accepting articles of monetary value and other benefits in exchange for acts in the performance of their public functions. Specifically, [Kessai] Note and [Mike] Halferty accepted bribes in the form of services and cash, in exchange for their legislative support of a bill in the RMI legislature to create a semi-autonomous region in the RMI.”

The timing couldn’t be worse. While the election is over, this is the phase where those elected jockey amongst themselves for key positions, including President.

Thanks to State’s timing, there are now two people sitting in Parliament who no longer have any vested interest in ties with the U.S.—and in fact are more prone to support the pro-PRC faction. Also, by including their immediate families, some of whom live in the U.S., State is actually creating sympathy for them in a country where family bonds are very tight.

Going after corruption is essential, but if the U.S. government really wanted to help, why didn’t it:

* Do this before Marshall Islands election so voters had full knowledge of the nature of the candidates?

* Give the Marshall Islands Attorney General the evidence he needed to prosecute them, and others?

* Not deport back to the Marshalls—and especially not without case files to prosecute them—the two who tried to undermine democracy in one of the U.S’ closest allies?

This is not a one-off. There are similar attempts to degrade the relationship between the U.S. and the COFA states all across the region.

Recently the Senate in Palau passed a resolution opposing U.S. missile installations in the country.

And the former President of Micronesia wrote “our government’s COVID Task Force would ceaselessly debate about whether or not we should accept U.S. Coast Guard vessels to be allowed to enter into our country. The only two people who would cite Title III of the Compact as prohibiting that discussion from occurring at all do not work for the FSM Government anymore.”

Eighty years after Operation Flintlock, American bureaucracy may be undoing the sacrifice for freedom made by tens of thousands of Americans and Pacific Islanders. What are they thinking?

Cleo Paskal is Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies and columnist with The Sunday Guardian.

Grant Newsham is a retired U.S. Marine Colonel and the author of “When China Attacks”.

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sundayguardianlive.com · by Cleo Paskal and Grant Newsham · December 17, 2023

10. One Way to Ease the Military Recruiting Crisis: Send DoD Data to Nation’s High Schools

One Way to Ease the Military Recruiting Crisis: Send DoD Data to Nation’s High Schools - Defense Opinion

defenseopinion.com · by Jim Cowen · December 17, 2023

One Way to Ease the Military Recruiting Crisis: Send DoD Data to Nation’s High Schools

Published December 17, 2023
@ 4:47 pm

By Jim Cowen

The U.S. military is undergoing a serious readiness crisis, as the armed forces experience major difficulty recruiting young Americans to serve.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, the U.S. Army in 2022 “had its toughest recruiting year since the advent of the all-volunteer military in 1973 and missed its goal by 25%. This year, it expects to end up about 15,000 short of its target of 65,000 recruits.” Similarly, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force fell short this fiscal year. Only the Marine Corps, the smallest of the military services, met its recruiting goal for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

One of the hurdles is straight up marketing-related — the military needs to do a better job reaching young people with the right messages through the right channels about the value of serving. But another problem is occurring at the other end of the recruiting pipeline, at the high schools and communities that provide the pool of potential recruits.

Schools and communities lack the data from the armed forces to demonstrate to their students that upon graduation they are well prepared to succeed in the military. If they could point to cold, hard statistics that students from their school are flourishing in the military, then recruitment might be more successful over time, because the military would be viewed as a viable post-high school career path.

A growing number of state education leaders are pressing the Department of Defense to provide them with that data.

“As state leaders, we are dedicated to ensuring all students leave high school ready for success in college or careers, and we believe that serving our country is one viable pathway a student might choose to pursue,” education leaders in more than half the U.S. states recently wrote the Department of Defense. “Unfortunately, the lack objective, verifiable data on military enlistment and persistence makes it almost impossible for states to consider military service as a successful post-high school outcome and to confirm if students were successfully prepared to serve.”

“Our priority is to ensure that all high school graduates in our states are ready for college and career success. When students decide to pursue a career in the military, we hope that —and would like to know if— they are succeeding in that career choice. Our efforts as a state education system are only improved when we know how our students are doing,” they said.

This isn’t the first time that school districts have attempted to gather information on how well their students were doing in the military. After passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, 10 states planned to use military service as one of their indicators of student success. But lacking an effective way to collect that data, that fell by the wayside.

This time around, state education leaders are proposing development of a data sharing agreement enabling any state to partner with DoD to add state-specific enlistment and service data into their respective longitudinal data systems.

“Allowing state education agencies to connect their data with military enlistment information would open the door for states to consider military service as a successful post-high school outcome. This could lead to an increased number of the 3.7 million high school graduates each year considering the military as a viable career option.”

Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth, is plain spoken about the breadth of the recruiting deficit. “The number one priority, in my mind, for this year … is fixing our recruiting problem,” she said.

Providing this type of data to states can only help.

Jim Cowen

Jim Cowen is executive director of the Collaborative for Student Success, an Alexandria, Va.-based non-profit focused on promoting the use of high-quality instructional materials to improve student learning.

defenseopinion.com · by Jim Cowen · December 17, 2023

11. Does America Have an Endgame on China?

Excerttps:

It is ironic that American strategists have spent much of the last few years playing the “Kennan sweepstakes” by trying to develop a phrase akin to containment that might guide American strategy. A better strategy is simply to adopt Kennan’s own phased approach: patience and firmness today while awaiting the mellowing or breakup of the CCP tomorrow. This is no panacea. It will have critics in Washington, Beijing, and beyond. But combining these two concepts is not as radical as it might seem.

Indeed, Zoellick ended his responsible stakeholder speech by insisting, “We can cooperate with the emerging China of today, even as we work for the democratic China of tomorrow.”

The Biden team has done an able job executing the first phase of an enduring American strategy on China. In fact, the early portion of the phased strategy recommended here might look almost identical to the Biden administration’s approach. Where a two- phased strategy would differ is in the long term. The indefinite maintenance of an inherently risky and increasingly tense competition should not be the ultimate objective of American strategy. As the time nears to hand off the baton to a second Biden administration or a new Republican team, U.S. leaders should be discussing end states. Effective strategies require clear objectives, so it is time to go back to the future and embrace a phased approach.

Does America Have an Endgame on China?

Washington wants change—but it can come in stages.

By Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Foreign Policy · by Zack Cooper · December 18, 2023

December 15, 2023, 11:03 AM

This fall, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan noted that the Biden administration is “often asked about the end state of U.S. competition with China.” He argued that “we do not expect a transformative end state like the one that resulted from the collapse of the Soviet Union.” Instead, the Biden administration has identified three lines of effort in U.S. relations with China: investing, aligning, and competing. Investing consists of domestic initiatives in the United States, while aligning involves cooperation with allies and partners. Thus, the only portion of the Biden administration’s China strategy that explicitly centers on China is competition. Yet, competition does not amount to an objective in itself, but rather a description of current circumstances. As White House coordinator for the Indo-Pacific Kurt Campbell has warned, “Competition is not itself a strategy.” Indeed, before taking office, Campbell and Sullivan argued that an approach centered on strategic competition “reflects uncertainty about what that competition is over and what it means to win.” So the question remains: What is America’s vision of success?

The logo of ChinaFile in English and Mandarin.

This article was originally published in ChinaFile.

In introducing his 2022 National Security Strategy, U.S. President Joe Biden promised to “win the competition for the 21st century.” But what winning means remains unclear. Indeed, senior officials within the Biden administration reject the notion that the United States should aim for a specific end state—which usually describes a situation following the completion of an objective—when it comes to China. Instead, Campbell and Sullivan have advocated that the United States “seek to achieve not a definitive end state akin to the Cold War’s ultimate conclusion but a steady state of clear-eyed coexistence on terms favorable to U.S. interests and values.” They reject end states in favor of “accepting competition as a condition to be managed rather than a problem to be solved.”

There are three strong arguments against identifying an end state for U.S. strategy on China. First, “solving” the China challenge is a misnomer since even a change of governance in Beijing would bring about new challenges. If the Chinese people choose to make fundamental changes to their country’s political structures tomorrow, tensions over Taiwan and U.S. regional presence would no doubt remain. Political science research even suggests that a democratizing China could worsen tensions with the United States. As a result, some experts have endorsed the Biden administration’s focus on steady states, with Center for a New American Security CEO Richard Fontaine affirming that Washington “should manage global problems, not try to solve them.”

Second, bureaucratic disagreements could stymie efforts to select an ideal end state. Although there is growing concern about China in Washington, there remains little consensus on the strategy that U.S. policymakers should adopt. A debate about end states might therefore prove divisive since no single end state is likely to appeal to all stakeholders. Even within the Biden administration, it could be difficult to get democracy and human rights advocates on the same page with environmentalists and economists. Getting Congress on board would be another matter altogether. As a result, it might not be possible bureaucratically to agree on an end state.

Third, even if U.S. leaders could agree on what they ultimately want, doing so might alienate allies and partners. For example, if the United States sought to accelerate the collapse of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), few if any U.S. allies and partners would be comfortable with that objective. Conversely, returning to a “new type of great-power relations” would leave many worried about a great-power condominium. Forcing a discussion on end states might thus weaken rather than strengthen the very coalitions that the United States needs to address the challenges that China poses.

It is entirely reasonable, therefore, that Campbell has urged turning “the focus from end states to steady states.” Indeed, many in Washington agree that it might be wiser to sidestep the end states discussion, at least for the time being. The question is whether this approach is sustainable. Can policymakers build a lasting China strategy without an end goal in mind? Will the American people and friends abroad support a strategy predicated on an ongoing competition with no ultimate objective? In short, is managed competition a description of the current situation, or is it an actual strategy?

Advocates of identifying an end state counter their critics with three arguments of their own. First, without a clear objective, it is difficult to assess the success or failure of America’s current strategy. The Biden team sometimes says it is aiming for managed competition with China. But this simply implies competition without conflict, which already exists today. Strategy usually requires identifying an objective and then marshaling resources and plans to accomplish that goal. If the objective is simply maintaining the status quo of competition without conflict, then so long as deterrence holds, the administration’s strategy is working. This makes it nearly impossible to assess or measure progress, since the objective is already being accomplished.

Second, without a clear aim, it is difficult to explain how the United States should make difficult strategic choices on everything from economic de-risking to deterrence posture to diplomatic engagement. Building political support for costly policies within the United States and among allies and partners requires a clear logic, which demands more than a hazy concept of competition. The vagueness of managed competition can justify almost any policy, from tough export controls and investment restrictions to deep dialogue with Beijing. Identifying an ultimate objective would help policymakers determine how to assess trade-offs strategically.

Third, the Biden team has been effective at describing what it does not want with China, but ineffective at describing what it does want. For example, Chinese media asserts that U.S. leaders committed privately to “four no’s and one no-intention” during last year’s meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bali, Indonesia. Regardless of the veracity of these claims, senior U.S. leaders have made a wide variety of statements asserting that they:

These statements lay out what Washington does not want, without presenting a positive vision. This is one reason that Chinese observers are so skeptical of American assurances—many seem to be substanceless platitudes at odds with American actions. Although the National Security Strategy and Indo-Pacific Strategy articulate some positive goals such as “strengthening democratic institutions, the rule of law, and accountable democratic governance,” these documents say surprisingly little about U.S. objectives vis-à-vis China. This leaves many American citizens, members of Congress, and foreign-policy makers unsure about whether Washington actually has a vision for what managed competition entails. For all these reasons, it would be beneficial for the United States to identify an ultimate objective of its China policy.

A primary reason the Biden team has rejected end states appears to be that no single end state is simultaneously realistic and acceptable to two key audiences: the American public and policymakers in ally and partner countries. Administration leaders insist “neither collapse nor condominium are tenable end-states” and note that each suffers from fatal flaws.

The goal of bringing about the collapse of the CCP has some notable champions. When he was secretary of state, Mike Pompeo suggested that “we, the freedom-loving nations of the world, must induce China to change.” Others have insisted that Washington should aim for Xi to be “replaced by a more moderate party leadership” and for the Chinese people to “challenge the Communist Party’s century-long proposition that China’s ancient civilization is forever destined to an authoritarian future.” Many Americans are tempted by these arguments. After all, the United States brought about its opponents’ downfall in two world wars and then waited out the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Why should the United States not do so again?

Explicitly attempting to bring about the end of the CCP, however, poses numerous problems. Washington has few levers to alter China’s domestic governance model. Worse still, making such an objective explicit could actually strengthen the CCP’s hold on power. And a public U.S. goal of forcible regime change would be opposed by most, if not all, U.S. allies and partners. Finally, attempting to remove the CCP from power would usher in a zero-sum struggle, which could lead to a heightened risk of conflict. For all these reasons, the Trump White House asserted that its approach was “not premised on an attempt to change the PRC’s domestic governance model.” The Biden team has done the same, with Sullivan noting the U.S. goal “is not to bring about some fundamental transformation of China itself.”

The other end state rejected by the Biden team is creation of what it has called a great-power condominium—essentially, an agreement by Beijing and Washington to share global leadership. The basic logic of those who favor such a condominium is analogous to the common understanding of the “responsible stakeholder” concept promoted by Robert Zoellick almost 20 years ago when he was deputy secretary of state. He suggested efforts “to encourage China to become a responsible stakeholder in the international system … [to] work with us to sustain the international system that has enabled its success.” Along similar lines, Michael Swaine, Jessica Lee, and Rachel Esplin Odell have more recently advocated “ultimately integrating Beijing into inclusive economic and cooperative security mechanisms.”

Unfortunately, this end state is hard to imagine today. Julia Bowie has described the responsible stakeholder theory as resting on “the expectation that China would become a status quo power.” Indeed, Zoellick had asserted, “China does not believe that its future depends on overturning the fundamental order of the international system.” But now even the European Commission has publicly described China as a “systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance.” Beijing’s coercive actions against Japan, India, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, Lithuania, Canada, Norway, and others have driven a global reassessment of China’s behavior. Over 70 percent of respondents in a July Pew poll said that China does not contribute to peace and stability nor take into account the interests of countries like theirs. As a result, it is difficult to imagine a successful effort at engagement without some fundamental changes occurring in Beijing. The “era of engagement” appears to be over, at least for now.

So neither collapse nor condominium appears to be a practical end state around which to build consensus. They have something else in common: neither seems possible under Xi. Another concerted American attempt at engagement appears unlikely to shift Xi’s worldview, including his assessment that “Western countries led by the United States have implemented all-around containment, encirclement, and suppression of China.” Even if American leaders could change Xi’s views of the bilateral relationship, there is no political appetite on either side of the aisle in Washington to test this proposition. U.S. officials from both parties appear to concur with Orville Schell, who has argued that it was “Xi’s aggressiveness that put a stake through the heart of ‘engagement’ as a viable U.S. or Western policy.”

To say that engagement is now implausible as a strategy is not to imply that diplomatic meetings with Chinese leaders are unwise. The CCP is so opaque that American leaders are likely to learn more from their Chinese counterparts than vice versa. Yet the objective of this diplomacy must change, even if its value remains. Leaders in Beijing and Washington now describe their aims in bilateral dialogues not as seeking to “improve” the relationship but rather to “stabilize” it. This is a much more limited objective predicated on continued competition, rather than an outright improvement in the relationship. In short, few on either side expect that these engagements will lead to any major change in behavior.

If end states are unattainable in the near term and steady states are unsatisfying in the long term, does that doom efforts to embrace a well-defined objective for America’s strategy on China? No. There is a third way: a phased approach. The United States could endeavor to maintain a stable steady state in the near term while awaiting more fundamental change in China in the long term. Doing so does not require American leaders to choose either collapse or condominium, but rather leaves the door open for either, depending on the choices of the Chinese people. If the United States is going to articulate an end state, this phased approach is the only approach likely to win support in both Washington and key allied capitals.

In the short term, the Biden administration is right that America’s aim should be to establish a more durable steady state. Many of the administration’s actions have put the United States on a sounder path, particularly efforts to bolster cooperation with U.S. allies and partners while investing in the sources of American strength. Central to these initiatives will be reinforcing deterrence through adjustments to U.S. and allied military capabilities, posture, and planning. Unfortunately, efforts to make measurable progress with China on crisis management mechanisms have been slow going. Nonetheless, the Biden administration is right to try—and be seen trying—to push China to reduce the risk of conflict.

In the long term, the United States should be clear that it is awaiting substantial changes in China’s behavior or governance. This is not a strategy of forceful regime change, but rather patience until the Chinese people themselves bring about a fundamental transformation in Beijing. Until then, the best Washington can hope for is to manage a risky competition and hope it does not spiral out of control. The Xi era will continue to be difficult and dangerous, so ultimately, the American public and friends abroad should want a more durable end state. If this “patient but firm” approach sounds familiar, it is for good reason—it echoes U.S. strategy in the Cold War. Just as George Kennan foresaw the “break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power,” Washington should hope for the mellowing or breakup of Chinese power. Then as now, waiting for regime failure should not be equated with forcible regime change.

Raising parallels with American strategy in the Cold War is not to suggest that the challenges posed by Beijing today are the same as Moscow’s decades ago. China bears little resemblance to the Soviet Union. Beijing boasts a far larger and more globally integrated economy than Moscow ever had. Yet the CCP’s governance model is less attractive internationally than the Soviet system was in the early Cold War.

Beijing’s political appeal lags far beyond that of the Soviets, who benefited from the communist bloc of aligned sympathizers worldwide. To date, Xi has also been less willing to use force at scale abroad than Soviet leaders, although U.S. policymakers must be wary, because Beijing’s behavior could change over time. Thus, China is far more economically engaged abroad than the Soviet Union was but is also less threatening ideologically. Containment is therefore inapplicable; Washington should not challenge Beijing abroad in the same way that it confronted Soviet influence globally, particularly given China’s current economic headwinds.

It is ironic that American strategists have spent much of the last few years playing the “Kennan sweepstakes” by trying to develop a phrase akin to containment that might guide American strategy. A better strategy is simply to adopt Kennan’s own phased approach: patience and firmness today while awaiting the mellowing or breakup of the CCP tomorrow. This is no panacea. It will have critics in Washington, Beijing, and beyond. But combining these two concepts is not as radical as it might seem.

Indeed, Zoellick ended his responsible stakeholder speech by insisting, “We can cooperate with the emerging China of today, even as we work for the democratic China of tomorrow.”

The Biden team has done an able job executing the first phase of an enduring American strategy on China. In fact, the early portion of the phased strategy recommended here might look almost identical to the Biden administration’s approach. Where a two- phased strategy would differ is in the long term. The indefinite maintenance of an inherently risky and increasingly tense competition should not be the ultimate objective of American strategy. As the time nears to hand off the baton to a second Biden administration or a new Republican team, U.S. leaders should be discussing end states. Effective strategies require clear objectives, so it is time to go back to the future and embrace a phased approach.

Foreign Policy · by Zack Cooper · December 18, 2023

12. Europe’s Emerging War Fatigue

I wonder if there would be war fatigue if Europeans and NATO members were fighting the war? And on their own territory?

Excerpts:

Here, it becomes clear why European public opinion on the war matters so much. Internal EU Council estimates forecast that around $200 billion in EU funds would flow to Ukraine over seven years after accession. Ukraine joining the EU would also significantly shift the dynamics around European funds (which are the EU’s main tool of reducing developing gaps within the bloc), turning current large recipient states, such as Poland, into net contributors. Many Europeans might also fear the effects that Ukraine’s membership in the EU’s single market could have on their businesses and jobs—as Poland’s ban on Ukraine’s grain exports last summer and the latest blockage of border crossings with Ukraine by Hungarian, Polish, and Slovak truck drivers have demonstrated.

Paying more to Ukraine is not a development that existing EU citizens would accept lightly, especially amid the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. It is very possible that leaders’ positions on Ukraine’s potential membership in the EU, and on continued financial and military support for Kyiv, could feature prominently in the upcoming elections to the European Parliament, which will be organized simultaneously in all 27 EU member states in June 2024. For these reasons, Europe’s growing war fatigue should be taken seriously now. Otherwise, it could begin to constrain the policy choices in front of EU leaders in the coming months and years.

To guard against this, Europe’s leaders need to show deeper understanding for the cost-of-living crisis and why some Europeans link their economic difficulties to the war in Ukraine. Subsidies to households and businesses to help them bear these costs can help, but they will not be enough. European leaders also need to urgently preempt what looks like a gathering sea change in attitudes toward Ukraine. They should frame the conflict as a Russian war against Europe, not just against Ukraine. They should remind voters that a war-mired Ukraine and a victorious Russia would be even more costly for the EU, perpetuating the threat in its direct neighborhood. European leaders need to develop a stronger case for EU enlargement, making clear that Ukraine joining the union will also benefit ordinary Europeans, by broadening the area of stability, prosperity, and freedom.

For any of this to be credible, however, European leaders need to develop a more convincing case for how Ukraine can win. A Ukrainian victory requires Europe to invest in its defense industrial capacity, so that it can sustain Ukraine, even if Washington stops. Russia is banking on its ability to outlast Western support for Ukraine, and that bet needs to be proved wrong.

Europe’s Emerging War Fatigue

How to Shore Up Falling Support for Ukraine

By Susi Dennison and Pawel Zerka

December 18, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Susi Dennison and Pawel Zerka · December 18, 2023

It has now been almost 700 days since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Although most European leaders remain firm in their staunch support for Kyiv, it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to maintain that same level of support among their publics. Cost-of-living concerns are leading many Europeans to question the sustainability of continued funding for Ukraine, and the outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip has divided Europe’s attention in recent weeks. Meanwhile, although Kyiv’s counteroffensive continues, it has not yet delivered substantial territorial gains. The momentum generated by Ukraine’s success in the first year of the conflict has given way to a sense that, despite ongoing fighting, the frontline is not moving, and the risk of a frozen conflict is growing.

These concerns help explain the shift in attitudes on display in the surveys conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). This public opinion polling suggests that Europeans’ support for Ukraine’s continued fight has started to decline. The change, so far, has not been big—but its direction leaves no place for doubt. According to ECFR’s earlier poll, conducted in January 2023 in ten European countries, 38 percent on average wanted Ukraine to regain all its territory. But, according to ECFR’s latest survey from September and October, this number has dropped to 34 percent. The percent of people who think that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine needs to end as soon as possible, even if it means Ukraine losing some territory to Russia, has essentially held steady at 28 to 29 percent. As a matter of comparison, the September data for the United States shows 43 percent supporting Ukraine as it continues to fight while just 17 percent prefer the war to end as soon as possible.

European support for Ukraine has not yet gone wobbly, but it might soon—not least because some politicians, in a heated election year, could try to get ahead of the trend. To avoid such an outcome, European leaders must do a better job of giving their constituents a convincing theory of how Ukraine can win the war and why it is essential to Europe’s future that it does. If they fail to do so, Kyiv may find itself losing crucial support in the weeks and months to come.

GROWING IMPATIENCE

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, European support for Kyiv has remained strong, which has underpinned the willingness of EU governments to agree to 11 rounds of sanctions against Russia. With their publics on board, European leaders have also signed up to provide Ukraine with impressive amounts of aid. EU countries and institutions have given Ukraine a total of $142 billion, according to the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine Support Tracker: almost twice as much as the United States has given. To help Ukrainian refugees, EU governments activated what’s known as the Temporary Protection Directive in the first months of the war, allowing Ukrainians to enter the EU and move freely between countries without undergoing usual procedures. Given EU governments’ deep fear of the political consequences of more open border policies, this was a particularly strong indicator of the confidence that the EU political class had in public support for the Ukrainian cause.

But support for Kyiv is now under pressure. Since the beginning of 2022, ECFR has been monitoring people’s attitudes about the war in Ukraine. Among other things, we have been asking whom they consider as the biggest obstacle to peace between Ukraine and Russia, and whether they would prefer for Ukraine to regain all of its territory (“even if it meant a longer war”), or for the war to end as soon as possible (“even if it meant Ukraine had to lose parts of its territory”). We conducted our most recent poll this fall—before the Hamas attack on Israel—in Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, with an overall sample of 15,000 respondents. We previously surveyed the same countries (except for Switzerland) in January 2023, and most of these countries (except for Denmark, Estonia, and Switzerland) in April and May 2022.

Support for Kyiv is now under pressure.

According to the latest survey, there has been, over the past months, a modest but consistent drop among Europeans in their preference for Ukraine to continue fighting. There are still countries where the preference for Ukraine to regain all its territory, rather than for the war to end as soon as possible, prevails: by 63 to 13 percent in Estonia, by 46 to 24 percent in Denmark, by 43 to 22 percent in Poland, and by 41 to 19 percent in the United Kingdom. These four differ from more dovish countries, where the opposite view (for the war to end as soon as possible, even if it means Ukraine loses parts of its territory) is dominant: by 46 to 14 percent in Italy, 40 to 28 percent in Germany, and 38 to 16 percent in Romania. The French are currently divided equally, 28 to 28 percent, between the two options. But in all of these countries, numbers for the more hawkish option have gone down since January: most notably, from 52 to 43 percent in Poland, from 35 to 28 percent in France, and from 26 to 14 percent in Italy. (Respondents could also say “none of these,” “don’t know,” or a third substantive option: “Western dominance of the world needs to be pushed back, even if it means accepting Russian territorial aggression against Ukraine.” On average, these three responses were chosen respectively by 16, 16, and 6 percent of European respondents.)

The most consequential change appears to be taking place in Germany, where a dovish option now leads with a clearer margin (40 to 28 percent) than at the beginning of the year (39 to 33 percent). But the direction of change is evident in every other country, except Portugal, leaving no room for doubt: public belief that Ukraine should keep fighting to regain all its territory, no matter how long it takes, is waning.

The view that Russia is the chief obstacle to peace has also decreased in every European country since the time ECFR asked about it in April 2022. The drop is slight: on average, it is a decrease of only eight percentage points. A majority of Europeans (52 percent) still consider Russia as the main obstacle to peace, while less than a quarter (23 percent) blame the United States, Ukraine, or the EU. But 20 months ago, the proportion was 60 to 19 percent. And there are currently countries, such as Romania, where the West started to be seen as a bigger problem than Russia (a huge shift from 24–42 percent earlier to 38–30 percent today); or Italy, where the two sides are currently blamed equally. Here, again, the direction of change is hard to dispute: Europeans are starting to question whether Russia is the only impediment to peace.

WAR FATIGUE

In European countries closer to the conflict zone, support for Ukraine usually remains strong. But even in eastern European countries, there is evidence of people getting increasingly tired of the war and its consequences.

In Poland, support for accepting Ukrainian refugees has steadily decreased, going from 83 percent in March 2022 to 65 percent in September 2023, according to eupinions, an independent public opinion platform. Ahead of the country’s parliamentary election, in October, Konfederacja, a far-right party, was warning against the threat of “Ukrainization of Poland,” and it got over 1.5 million (or over seven percent) of votes. But Poland’s new prime minister, Donald Tusk, is vowing to win “the full mobilization of the free world, the Western world, to help Ukraine in this war.”

In Slovakia, the party led by Robert Fico, a populist former prime minister, won parliamentary elections in October, allowing Fico to return to power. Just one day after taking office, he pledged to halt military support for Ukraine, one of the main promises he made during his campaign. According to Eurobarometer, Slovakia was, in August, among a handful of EU countries (along with Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, and Greece), where more than 40 percent of the population disagreed that the EU should continue to show solidarity with Ukraine.

In Germany, the far-right AfD party—which opposes support for Ukraine—is currently polling second, with the support of 22 percent of German voters. This is a historic high, up from ten percent at the beginning of 2022. Several factors may be contributing to the party’s sudden ascent—but these could include rising energy prices and the growth of the migrant population. Although Germany does not share a border with Ukraine, it currently hosts over a million Ukrainian refugees (the largest number in the EU, alongside Poland).

In France, the national debate is now absorbed by the war in Gaza.

The farther away from the war zone, the more interest appears to be flagging. In France, the national debate is now absorbed by the war in Gaza, which has domestic implications, given the country’s large Muslim community who support the Palestinian people. According to Google Trends, people in France have been searching more for “Israel” than “Ukraine” over the past two months.

Or take the Netherlands, where the far-right Freedom Party, led by Geert Wilders, unexpectedly won the parliamentary election in November. This has thrown the previous government’s promise of providing Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets into question, given Wilders’s long opposition to military support for Kyiv. Other issues (such as the economy and migration) appear to explain Wilders’s strong result, whereas people’s opposition to supporting Ukraine remains low, according to most polls. If Wilders enters the government and chooses to change the country’s approach to Ukraine, however, the strength of the public’s support for Ukraine will be challenged.

After almost two years of fighting, the war in Ukraine is no longer viewed as an emergency by a large part of the European public, especially by those who are not close to the conflict zone. Immediately after the invasion, many Europeans were afraid that their countries could be next, or that Russia might use nuclear weapons, or that the war could escalate in other ways. But none of these outcomes have materialized, and so many Europeans currently see Ukraine as one of the various wars happening far from home, for some perhaps as distant and as abstract as conflicts in Armenia or Gaza.

FOREVER WAR?

Our data also show weak confidence among Europeans that Ukraine can win this war. In September, only in a handful of countries surveyed—Denmark (46 percent), Estonia (67 percent), Poland (49 percent), and Portugal (48 percent)—was there a prevailing view that Ukraine was likely, rather than unlikely, to win the war within the next five years. Considerably fewer people shared that belief in France (28 percent), Germany (32 percent), Romania (35 percent), Spain (26 percent), Switzerland (35 percent), and even the United Kingdom (34 percent). In Italy, only 20 percent saw Ukraine’s victory as likely—whereas almost twice as many (38 percent) considered Russia as the likely winner.

Weak confidence in Ukraine’s chance for victory does not necessarily mean people expecting Russia to win. In fact, 38 percent, on average (going from 23 percent in Estonia to 46 percent in France and 47 percent in the United Kingdom), do not consider either Ukraine or Russia as likely to win this war within the next five years. Therefore, it appears that many Europeans are bracing for a forever war—expecting instability in Ukraine to become the new normal.

And from this, there is a short path to disengagement. To keep publics on board, some European leaders present Ukraine as fighting not just for its own independence but also for Europe’s future. During a visit to Kyiv in November, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the Ukrainian parliament, “You are fighting not only for your freedom, your democracy and your future, but for ours too. You are fighting for Europe.” Earlier this year, French President Emmanuel Macron said that Ukraine today is “protecting Europe.”

But, for the most part, European citizens do not perceive their own countries to be implicated in this war. People rarely see their own country as being at war with Russia: only 11 percent in Romania and Switzerland believe so, and the highest result is Estonia, with 31 percent. Meanwhile, at least a quarter of the respondents in every European country polled think that the United States is at war with Russia—with the highest result in Italy, where this belief is held by 51 percent.

Thus, Europeans appear to be seeing less at stake in this war for their own countries than what they perceived at the beginning of 2022—when, according to our polling from just before the war started, majorities in Germany, Poland, and Romania, and at least 45 percent in Finland, France, Italy, and Sweden, thought that Russia’s stance on Ukraine posed a large military threat to their countries. Currently, European governments could begin to see less urgency and less domestic political gain from supporting Ukraine.

THEORY OF VICTORY

Arguably the most significant support Europe can offer Ukraine is membership in the EU, as the only way to lock in its future as a European, prosperous, and democratic country—with all the guarantees of financial and security support that EU membership entails. The EU Council decision last week to open negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova was important in this respect, but only the first step in a long road to entry to the club, given the heavy lifting needed on reform requirements for Ukraine and for the EU itself.

Here, it becomes clear why European public opinion on the war matters so much. Internal EU Council estimates forecast that around $200 billion in EU funds would flow to Ukraine over seven years after accession. Ukraine joining the EU would also significantly shift the dynamics around European funds (which are the EU’s main tool of reducing developing gaps within the bloc), turning current large recipient states, such as Poland, into net contributors. Many Europeans might also fear the effects that Ukraine’s membership in the EU’s single market could have on their businesses and jobs—as Poland’s ban on Ukraine’s grain exports last summer and the latest blockage of border crossings with Ukraine by Hungarian, Polish, and Slovak truck drivers have demonstrated.

Paying more to Ukraine is not a development that existing EU citizens would accept lightly, especially amid the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. It is very possible that leaders’ positions on Ukraine’s potential membership in the EU, and on continued financial and military support for Kyiv, could feature prominently in the upcoming elections to the European Parliament, which will be organized simultaneously in all 27 EU member states in June 2024. For these reasons, Europe’s growing war fatigue should be taken seriously now. Otherwise, it could begin to constrain the policy choices in front of EU leaders in the coming months and years.

To guard against this, Europe’s leaders need to show deeper understanding for the cost-of-living crisis and why some Europeans link their economic difficulties to the war in Ukraine. Subsidies to households and businesses to help them bear these costs can help, but they will not be enough. European leaders also need to urgently preempt what looks like a gathering sea change in attitudes toward Ukraine. They should frame the conflict as a Russian war against Europe, not just against Ukraine. They should remind voters that a war-mired Ukraine and a victorious Russia would be even more costly for the EU, perpetuating the threat in its direct neighborhood. European leaders need to develop a stronger case for EU enlargement, making clear that Ukraine joining the union will also benefit ordinary Europeans, by broadening the area of stability, prosperity, and freedom.

For any of this to be credible, however, European leaders need to develop a more convincing case for how Ukraine can win. A Ukrainian victory requires Europe to invest in its defense industrial capacity, so that it can sustain Ukraine, even if Washington stops. Russia is banking on its ability to outlast Western support for Ukraine, and that bet needs to be proved wrong.

SUSI DENNISON is a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
PAWEL ZERKA is a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Foreign Affairs · by Susi Dennison and Pawel Zerka · December 18, 2023

13. The Return of the Monroe Doctrine

Excerpts:

In its latest resurgence, the Monroe Doctrine will be ascribed yet more meanings. But Monroeism—whether in name or as an implicit policy paradigm—is doomed to fail. As a term, the “Monroe Doctrine” is too tainted to be redeemed. Invoking the phrase in inter-American relations today is counterproductive. The doctrine cannot shake two centuries of links with unilateralism, paternalism, and interventionism.

Nor does referring to the Monroe Doctrine by another name hide its stench. The doctrine’s core principles clash with today’s international and inter-American relations. The doctrine was premised on the idea of separate spheres; more multilateral interpretations of Monroe tended to emphasize this aspect as the foundation for a distinctive “Western Hemisphere idea.”

But the Cold War’s global confrontation and universal nuclear threat cast doubt on the feasibility of separate spheres. Now, in an era of global climate change and value chains, the assertion appears even more implausible. Not only is the United States inextricably linked to European, Asian, and global affairs, but so too is Latin America.

Even multilateral conceptions of the doctrine were mired in paternalist assumptions. Calls for a more multilateral and egalitarian regional order are incompatible with the Monroe Doctrine’s fundamental assumption that it is the United States that decides who counts as a hemispheric threat.

Likewise, the original doctrine’s prohibition of European reconquest expanded over time to cover other activities—such diplomatic and commercial relations with the Soviet Union decades ago, or Chinese “debt traps” today. Starting with Monroe assumes that the United States defines what sorts of foreign relations are beyond the pale.

And here is the problem. Whatever policymakers believe the Monroe Doctrine to mean, at its core, the doctrine doubts that Latin American countries can chart their own course in the world. Until U.S. foreign policy rids itself of that notion, it will be ensnared in the grasp of Monroe.

The Return of the Monroe Doctrine

U.S. responses to China’s growing presence in Latin America risk falling into an old paternalistic pattern.

DECEMBER 16, 2023, 7:00 AM

By Tom Long, a reader in international relations at the University of Warwick and an affiliated professor at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics in Mexico City, and Carsten-Andreas Schulz, an assistant professor in international relations at Cambridge University.

Foreign Policy · by Tom Long, Carsten-Andreas Schulz · December 18, 2023

The Monroe Doctrine is experiencing a resurgence. As it hits its 200th anniversary this month, this time-hallowed foreign-policy principle—which declares that Washington will oppose political and military incursions into the Western Hemisphere by powers outside of it—is once again at the forefront of political debates in the United States.

Republican presidential candidates such as Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis are calling for the doctrine’s reinvigoration to take aim at China’s growing presence in Latin America and are offering it as a justification for a potential U.S. military attack on criminal organizations in Mexico. They are following the lead of former U.S. President Donald Trump, who hailed Monroe on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly, as well as advisors such as John Bolton and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Although the Biden administration has refrained from explicitly invoking the principle—likely realizing that mentions of Monroe are guaranteed to irritate Latin Americans—the White House’s warnings about China’s growing footprint in the Western Hemisphere carry a distinctively Monroeist undertone.

Even a decade ago, one might have assumed that Monroe’s relevance in the 21st century had waned. After all, during the doctrine’s first centenary, Yale professor and Machu Picchu explorer Hiram Bingham labeled it “an obsolete shibboleth.” By the doctrine’s second century, it had become closely associated with U.S. Cold War interventions and unilateralism in the Americas. When then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry declared in 2013 that “the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over,” the principle had become an anachronism.

But as its recent resurgence suggests, the Monroe Doctrine has long meant different things to different audiences. Though the term “Monroe Doctrine” is widely considered to be toxic, politicians in Washington have struggled to break with its legacy. And U.S. words and actions in Latin America are certainly still perceived through the lens of Monroe.

A 1912 painting shows U.S. leaders in a room as they create the Monroe Doctrine. Six men sit and U.S. President James Monroe stands at center pointing a globe A map of the U.S. (with internal boundaries of the era) hands on the wall behind them along with a U.S. flag and bust on a bookshelf.

A 1912 painting by Clyde DeLand depicts U.S. President James Monroe (center) at the creation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823.Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

From the outset, the Monroe Doctrine had myriad meanings. Before becoming irredeemably linked to U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s “big stick,” it served as a mirror, reflecting the new countries of the Americas’ hopes and fears in international relations.

The tenets of what would posthumously become known as the Monroe Doctrine were first enunciated on Dec. 2, 1823, by then-U.S. President James Monroe during his annual message to Congress—but the passage in question was largely penned by then-Secretary of State John Quincy Adams. Monroe and Adams’s foreign policy contained two main principles. The first was the establishment of what they called “separate spheres” between Europe and the Americas. The second was the affirmation of U.S. opposition to European attempts at reconquest and territorial ambitions in Latin America and the Pacific Northwest.

At inception, the idea was not a doctrine, nor could the fledgling U.S. republic back it up with force. Monroe’s address was initially perceived as a declaration of solidarity against the threat of European conquest, albeit a rather high-handed one. Independence leaders in the former Spanish American colonies took polite notice of Monroe’s address as an expression of tacit support for their cause.

However, when the United States annexed the northern half of Mexico during a war of conquest that lasted from 1846 to 1848, the U.S. policy took on a foreboding cast.

Over the decades, the Monroe Doctrine gained greater salience among competing political factions in the United States—and connections to Monroe’s original context weakened. Successive U.S. governments invoked the Monroe Doctrine to ward off other adversaries around the world—the British, the German empire, the Axis powers of World War II, and later the Soviet Union. In Latin America, the doctrine offered countries U.S. protection (whether requested or not) while reserving Washington’s right to define what sort of actions counted as threatening, as well as the right to decide how to respond to them. Inherent paternalism toward the region was soon complemented by outright unilateralism and interventionism.

Nonetheless, in the late 1860s, some Latin American liberals and U.S. abolitionists saw the Monroe Doctrine as an opportunity to create a regional order based not on dynastic interests and great-power intrigues, but rather on the rule of law and solidarity.

Instead of seeing Monroe as a license for expansionism, midcentury liberals envisioned a common hemispheric destiny that broke from Old World wars and intrigues. The doctrine reemerged as a call for the United States to act against French and Spanish incursions in the Americas, including in calls from Latin American liberal leaders such as the Mexican Presidents Benito Juárez and Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada.

Liberal leaders recognized that the United States’ size and power would make its place in the hemisphere distinct, but argued that differences between nations were to be bridged with republican solidarity, multilateral diplomacy, and international law. Peace would not be made through secret treaties at the expense of small states but through arbitration and consultation.

Latin Americans invoked the Monroe Doctrine in this context to criticize U.S. participation at the now infamous 1884-to-1885 Berlin Conference, where European powers apportioned African territory under a self-proclaimed duty to spread Western civilization. Latin Americans feared that this sanctioned imperial expansion could also reach their shores.

A few years later, Venezuelans appealed again to the legacy of Monroe to enlist U.S. support in their dispute with Britain over the Venezuelan-Guyanese border. (Venezuelan dissatisfaction with the ensuing arbitration process a century ago set the stage for the recent threats of war there.) In the United States, the doctrine also served isolationists to advance their critique of U.S. entanglement in European alliance politics.

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, third from left wearing a hat and suit with waistcoat, stands among a group of men in Rio de Janeiro. A cane chair is in front of them and palm fronds frame the right side of the image.

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt visits Rio de Janeiro in 1913. Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images

But at the turn of the century, President Teddy Roosevelt deepened the Monroe Doctrine’s link to unilateral U.S. interventions. Most infamously, his “corollary” to the principle claimed, for the newly powerful United States, a right and duty to police its neighborhood. President Woodrow Wilson—otherwise Roosevelt’s adversary on many foreign-policy questions—largely shared this view of the Monroe Doctrine. Wilson insisted that Monroe be mentioned in the League of Nations Charter to enshrine U.S. unilateral prerogatives.

By this point, even sympathetic Latin Americans had soured on the doctrine—and Monroe became a rallying cry for the region’s nationalists and anti-imperialists. Roosevelt’s interpretation of the doctrine largely displaced those that emphasized solidarity and restraint. The era was infused with an arrogance of racial and civilizational conceits that the United States had both a right and duty to tutor and discipline Latin Americans.

But hopes to reverse the Roosevelt corollary and reinterpret Monroe as compatible with multilateralism did not disappear, as the scholar Juan Pablo Scarfi has shown. In some corners of Latin American societies, the United States remained a favored model of modernity.

A Texas National Guard soldiers guard the U.S.-Mexico border on January 08, 2023 in El Paso, Texas.

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El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele, wearing clear plastic goggles and a black zip-up jacket, spreads his arms enthusiastically as he speaks during a joint news conference. He stands behind a podium and in front of U.S. and Salvadoran flags.

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Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (standing) points at a map of the Sinai Peninsula during a meeting with President Gerald R. Ford (C) Congressional Leaders in the Cabinet Room on Sept. 4, 1975.

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In the warmer era of President Franklin Roosevelt’s so-called Good Neighbor Policy, in which the United States agreed to Latin America’s insistence on a hemispheric proclamation of nonintervention, Monroe experienced some redemption in the region. With Europe at war by the late 1930s, the idea of a separate and peaceful sphere had considerable appeal across the Americas.

Against such hopes, the United States was drawn into World War II, and then-Secretary of War Henry Stimson privately griped in his diary in May 1945 that the combination of the proposals for the United Nations’ establishment and Franklin Roosevelt’s commitment to nonintervention had diluted the doctrine, much to Stimson’s dismay.

While explicit mentions of the Monroe Doctrine declined, U.S. foreign policy toward the region took on a more interventionist zeal at the height of the Cold War. With the justification of excluding Soviet influence, the U.S. government helped overturn reformist democratic projects across Latin America to install U.S.-friendly dictators—most notoriously in Guatemala in 1954, the Dominican Republic in 1965, and Chile in 1973. Commenting on Chile in 1970, the late U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that the “issues are much too important for [Latin American] voters to be left to decide for themselves.”

Now, after three decades in which overt U.S. interventions in Latin America have grown rare, discussion of the Monroe Doctrine seems to be making a comeback.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, wearing a suit and tie, walks amid flag-bearing Brazilian guards in traditional garb and plumed helmets.

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives for a meeting with then-Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Nov. 13, 2019. Sergio Lima/AFP via Getty Images

Anticipating renewed great-power rivalry, this time with China, the United States finds itself groping for a coherent approach to challengers from outside the Western Hemisphere—and to challenges from within it. The seeming simplicity and persistence of the Monroe Doctrine mean that it has regained adherents in the United States. Yet recent praise for the doctrine from within the Republican Party suggests only superficial understandings of the doctrine and its meanings in Latin America.

Such uses may be aimed at a domestic U.S. audience, but when they reach Latin American ears, they come off as out of touch—or worse. Praising Monroe won’t persuade Latin Americans that their interests lie in cooperation with the United States rather than its extra-hemispheric rivals. Summoning the doctrine hastens the very outcome it aims to avert.

Although very few in Latin America would embrace the term “Monroe Doctrine,” many leaders on the region’s right have their own anti-China dispositions, including former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, former Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso, and new Argentine President Javier Milei. These leaders have turned to the United States to offset China’s growing economic and political weight. In recent years, several countries in the region have switched diplomatic relations from Taiwan to China and have expanded trade and investment deals with Beijing.

U.S. President Joe Biden is not likely to follow Trump’s lead in openly praising the Monroe Doctrine at the United Nations. But many Biden administration initiatives are perceived in Latin America in a similar light. Top U.S. officials rarely make time for Latin America beyond issues related to immigration and drug trafficking, and the United States’ economic offerings to the region are seen as paltry compared to its commitments elsewhere. When Biden officials hector Latin Americans on the dangers of economic engagement with China, the warnings are heard as modern echoes of Monroe’s quip that the United States knows best.

In its latest resurgence, the Monroe Doctrine will be ascribed yet more meanings. But Monroeism—whether in name or as an implicit policy paradigm—is doomed to fail. As a term, the “Monroe Doctrine” is too tainted to be redeemed. Invoking the phrase in inter-American relations today is counterproductive. The doctrine cannot shake two centuries of links with unilateralism, paternalism, and interventionism.

Nor does referring to the Monroe Doctrine by another name hide its stench. The doctrine’s core principles clash with today’s international and inter-American relations. The doctrine was premised on the idea of separate spheres; more multilateral interpretations of Monroe tended to emphasize this aspect as the foundation for a distinctive “Western Hemisphere idea.”

But the Cold War’s global confrontation and universal nuclear threat cast doubt on the feasibility of separate spheres. Now, in an era of global climate change and value chains, the assertion appears even more implausible. Not only is the United States inextricably linked to European, Asian, and global affairs, but so too is Latin America.

Even multilateral conceptions of the doctrine were mired in paternalist assumptions. Calls for a more multilateral and egalitarian regional order are incompatible with the Monroe Doctrine’s fundamental assumption that it is the United States that decides who counts as a hemispheric threat.

Likewise, the original doctrine’s prohibition of European reconquest expanded over time to cover other activities—such diplomatic and commercial relations with the Soviet Union decades ago, or Chinese “debt traps” today. Starting with Monroe assumes that the United States defines what sorts of foreign relations are beyond the pale.

And here is the problem. Whatever policymakers believe the Monroe Doctrine to mean, at its core, the doctrine doubts that Latin American countries can chart their own course in the world. Until U.S. foreign policy rids itself of that notion, it will be ensnared in the grasp of Monroe.

Foreign Policy · by Tom Long, Carsten-Andreas Schulz · December 18, 2023

14. Washington’s New Trade Consensus And What It Gets Wrong

Excerpts:

This trade agenda—call it pragmatic unilateralism—combines the assertiveness of Trump with the industrial policy of Biden. It includes measures that environmentalists and labor activists have long advocated and calls for a realist application of U.S. power that would please traditional conservatives. Ten years ago, such a proposal would have drawn scant support. Today, it could be the sort of compromise trade platform that Democrats and Republicans could accept, congressional gridlock notwithstanding. Because the two parties seem to be converging on economic policy, it is reasonable to think that Lighthizer’s trade agenda may emerge organically from the alternation of power, with new presidents expanding on rather than overturning the trade and industrial policies of their predecessors. Because Biden has let Trump’s tariffs on China stand, the trade policies of their administrations differ little. Biden seems to favor carrots, including subsidies for U.S. manufacturing through the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act, whereas Trump prefers sticks—during his 2024 presidential campaign, he has floated a new ten percent levy on all U.S. imports. But both camps endorse policies that tilt the playing field in favor of U.S. industry. Hamilton would be pleased.

If Washington continues down the path of trade unilateralism, it will destabilize the global alliances and institutions that it spent seven decades building. That path, alluring as it may be to the antiglobalist right and the interventionist left, would almost certainly not restore U.S. manufacturing to its mid-twentieth-century greatness. Even if by the end of the decade, the United States could defy the odds and increase the share of workers employed in manufacturing by 50 percent, the sector would still count for just one in eight American jobs. However hard it may be for Lighthizer to accept, the future of American prosperity lies in the service sector, not in the furnaces and assembly lines of the past.

Washington’s New Trade Consensus

And What It Gets Wrong

By Gordon H. Hanson

January/February 2024

Published on December 12, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Gordon H. Hanson · December 12, 2023

If the era of hyperglobalization started in 1995, with the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO), its death throes began in early 2018, when U.S. President Donald Trump raised tariffs on U.S. imports of Chinese solar panels and washing machines. Those levies were followed by tit-for-tat increases in import duties between the two countries. By the end of 2019, the world’s two largest economies were in open trade war. President Joe Biden has left Trump’s tariffs largely intact, signaling that economic antagonism toward China enjoys bipartisan support and will remain the United States’ position for the foreseeable future.

At peak globalization, around 2015, China and the United States were linked by extensive flows of trade, capital, and labor. Supply chains spanning dozens of countries produced powerful electronics. Cross-border listings on financial exchanges made it easy to build globally diversified stock portfolios. International competition for talent clustered the best and brightest minds in superstar cities to foster the creation of yet more technological wonders. Now, that world of largely unfettered exchange sits on shaky ground. Muscular government intervention is fashionable on both the left and the right in the United States, to the consternation of not just China but also U.S. partners. Leaders in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Europe understandably worry, for instance, that U.S. subsidies to the electric vehicle and semiconductor industries will damage their economies.

The energetic official who led the United States down this protectionist path was Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade representative for Trump’s entire presidential term. As the architect of the U.S.-Chinese trade war, Lighthizer sought to sideline the WTO and decouple the U.S. and Chinese economies. The lasting impact of his efforts, for better or worse, makes him the most consequential U.S. trade representative of the last 30 years.

Lighthizer and Trump imposing duties at the White House, Washington, D.C., January 2018

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Because of his association with Trump, some observers group Lighthizer with officials who would make isolationism a core GOP tenet. That would be a mistake. To be sure, Lighthizer is no establishment Republican. He fought, and won, policy battles with Trump’s treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and other GOP traditionalists who favored free trade. Yet he also sidelined Trump’s economic adviser, Peter Navarro, who represented the nihilistic burn-it-all-down policy of Steve Bannon, the president’s former chief strategist. Lighthizer’s stance on U.S. trade policy is at once aggressive, unilateral, and pragmatic—a vision laid out in his captivating, if at times exasperating, new book, No Trade Is Free.

Lighthizer provides insight especially into how future U.S. presidents may balance the tricky trade-policy trilemma of confronting China, improving the lot of American workers, and maintaining U.S. alliances. He gives a clear-eyed account of how China did not live up to its trade promises, offers practical lessons in how a steely-eyed realist negotiates trade deals, and suggests a plan for U.S. trade policy that may have a better chance of being implemented than those of most current U.S. presidential candidates. But the book also takes some jaw-dropping liberties in interpreting the history of U.S. trade policy, imbues manufacturing with near mystical economic properties, and sees trade deficits as the only metric that matters for evaluating trade agreements.

And yet Lighthizer has the political wind at his back. Many of his views, including some particularly incorrect ones, are increasingly popular across the board in the United States. His positions appeal to the right by embodying Trump’s “America first” bravado and realist aggression, and to the left by embracing Biden’s industrial policy and environmental protections. But Lighthizer’s book is a reminder of the shaky assumptions that underlie the new trade consensus. In fact, the United States has lost its comparative advantage in manufacturing basic goods, and so recovering the twentieth-century heyday of American manufacturing will prove impossible. If Lighthizer’s prescriptions do become canonical, the United States will still fail to resuscitate its factories but will do considerable damage to its international relationships in the process.

TRADE SCHOOL

Lighthizer grew up in the Rust Belt in Ohio, an origin story he invokes to explain his belief in the importance of factories, manufacturing, and blue-collar life—and his antipathy to the forces that devastated American manufacturing. After joining the white-collar world of law, he entered government in 1983 as deputy trade representative under President Ronald Reagan. In that role, Lighthizer threatened other countries, including Japan, with tariffs to reduce steel exports to the United States. He returned to practicing law and represented U.S. steel companies, filing lawsuits on their behalf that claimed they suffered from the unfair practices of foreign firms. By the 1990s, when much of the Republican Party began to embrace free trade, Lighthizer remained steadfast in his defense of domestic producers and would continue to support this cause through decades of work as an international trade lawyer, making him a natural candidate for Trump’s trade representative. In that role, he sought to rebalance the United States’ trade relationships by levying tariffs (notably on China) and hamstringing the WTO by blocking the appointment of the organization’s appellate judges. In his stints under both Reagan and Trump, he sought to forge a trade policy that shrank the trade deficit and protected domestic manufacturing.

Lighthizer grounds his vision of trade policy in the Report on the Subject of Manufactures, a document that Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. secretary of the treasury, presented to Congress in 1791. Hamilton believed that industrialization was essential for U.S. economic vitality and saw import tariffs as necessary to energize the U.S. manufacturing sector, which was still nascent at the time. The job of the U.S. government, Lighthizer maintains, is to leverage American power to make trade deals on the most favorable terms possible and to use trade policy to fortify U.S. manufacturing, on which national prosperity depends. Lighthizer notably embellishes Hamilton by defining favorable trade deals as ones that shrink the U.S. trade deficit. Hamilton would not have defined them that way. In his day, the United States tracked the flow of gold and silver in and out of the country but not the overall trade balance. Instead, the first U.S. treasury secretary focused on how trade policy would affect U.S. economic growth in the long run, a metric far superior to Lighthizer’s.

Predictably, some of Lighthizer’s analysis is rather partisan. He concludes that Reagan’s trade deals were good, whereas President Bill Clinton’s, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), were bad. (Lighthizer worked for Bob Dole, Clinton’s failed challenger in the 1996 presidential election.) Yet Lighthizer is also something of an iconoclast. He praises President Barack Obama for taking on China, recounts the long-lasting friendship he developed with stalwart Democrat and AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka, and advocates a softer stance on Japan than the one he held in the 1980s. He now recognizes that through decades of investment in the United States, Japanese companies have become major employers of American workers. As Trump’s trade representative, he even sought (unsuccessfully) to win Japan’s support in punishing China for its unfair trade practices.

In Lighthizer’s telling, U.S. trade policy succeeds when it favors manufacturing and allows for unilateral action—such as imposing punitive tariffs on other countries without first going through the WTO or getting U.S. allies on board—and falters when it lets imports grow unabated. He sees the high points in U.S. economic history as the period from 1861 to 1932 when Republicans (mostly) kept tariffs elevated, to the benefit of the industrial North in the United States; the sky-high, bilateral Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930; the gradualist trade liberalization from 1947 to 1986 under the auspices of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), the WTO’s predecessor; and Reagan’s efforts in the 1980s to limit imports of cars and steel. Low points, according to Lighthizer, include the period of 1830 to 1860, when Democrats, beholden to the agricultural South, reduced import tariffs; and the disastrous creation of the WTO and NAFTA in the 1990s. Lighthizer disingenuously blames Clinton for the WTO, writing that the Democratic president abandoned “prudent trade policies” and instead placed “trust in an international body,” referring to the WTO. He bizarrely suggests that the United States came to reject a Hamiltonian orientation toward trade policy only in 1995. In truth, the process of creating the WTO began with the Uruguay Round of the GATT, which started in 1986 under Reagan, and NAFTA negotiations were initiated in 1990 by President George H. W. Bush. The era of hyperglobalization was a genuinely bipartisan creation.

MADE IN AMERICA?

Lighthizer confers special importance to manufacturing and the making of physical stuff. As he sees it, “Prosperity comes from the agriculture, manufacturing, and mining (including oil production) industries.” His reasoning is in part moral, because workers derive a sense of dignity from making tangible goods, and in part material, in that manufacturing offers a path to high wages for American workers.

Consider the moral reasoning first. Lighthizer traces his idealization of manufacturing to his childhood on the shores of Lake Erie, where ferry boats helped deliver ore from Minnesota’s iron range to blast furnaces in Pennsylvania. (He spends less time on how his decades of representing U.S. steel companies may have contributed to his fondness for manufacturing.) He looks warmly at the early industrial supply chain that paid respectable incomes to miners, railroad workers, and iron smelters. On the dignity of work, Lighthizer cites Arthur Brooks and Oren Cass, thinkers on the American right. But he just as easily could have mentioned the political theorist Hannah Arendt or the sociologist William Julius Wilson, scholars associated with the left. The claim that honest work builds self-worth and strengthens community would draw nods from many quarters.

His reasoning about the material gains from manufacturing is also legitimate. Economists once thought that market wages, when measured properly, did not differ much between industries except to compensate for the risks of the job or other unpleasantness. Because the going wage reflects the price of skill, the more skill a worker has, the higher her wage, whichever line of work she takes up. Decades of research have overturned such a view. More granular data reveal that, accounting for individual characteristics, including age, education, gender, race, and ethnicity, some industries pay their workers more than others do, regardless of whether their workers are more skilled. Manufacturing offers many of the choicest jobs. The largest industrial firms frequently have a commanding presence in their respective markets, allowing them, often with a push from unions, to share some of their profits with workers in the form of higher compensation. Out of 20 major sectors, the pay in manufacturing ranks fourth, behind information technology and ahead of professional services, such as accounting and advertising. When manufacturing workers lose their jobs—whether the cause is imports, robots, or the energy transition—they tend to suffer a permanent decline in earnings relative to those who keep their positions. When manufacturing jobs disappear en masse, as when factories close, entire regions suffer. My own research shows how import competition has, in the long run, hurt U.S. factory workers and their communities.

A solar panel factory in Ningbo, China, February 2019

Zhejiang Daily / Reuters

According to Lighthizer, the United States should restrict imports to stem the loss of manufacturing jobs. He pursued this strategy under Reagan. When faced with surging imports of Japanese cars in the 1980s, the administration threatened trade restrictions. Under Trump, Lighthizer oversaw a 25 percent levy on most Chinese goods. Research indicates that both these measures failed. Japan voluntarily restrained itself from exporting cars to the United States for fear that Washington would impose duties or quotas. As a result, U.S. automakers temporarily enjoyed an increase in profits, but American consumers had to contend with higher car prices, causing real incomes to decline. And the U.S. government missed out on tariff revenues because Japan restrained its car exports merely at the threat of trade restrictions. Similarly, Trump’s tariffs on China did not affect employment in U.S. manufacturing hubs. For some goods, U.S. importers have been able to find alternative sources of supply from countries such as Vietnam; for other goods, the comparative advantage of American manufacturers is so weak that even a 25 percent tariff still leaves China as the cheapest option. Tariffs did, however, raise prices for U.S. consumers.

Lighthizer’s diagnosis of what ails American manufacturing is partially correct. Import competition has shuttered factories and eliminated jobs. But he misattributes job loss to shady trade deals rather than to the simple truth that the United States has little comparative advantage in most areas of manufacturing. As the U.S. labor force has become more educated and as U.S. technology companies, consulting firms, and other business service providers have established a commanding global presence in their industries, rising costs have priced American companies out of many manufacturing markets. The main solution he offers to counter job losses—import restrictions—does not work. Although the United States has done a poor job of helping workers and their communities recover from the decline of manufacturing, there is little reason to believe that import barriers would make their lives any better.

RUST BELT AND ROAD

At the heart of No Trade Is Free are misconceptions about the United States’ industrial decline, which have led the author to rail against trade agreements. Lighthizer incorrectly asserts that “there is very little actual benefit to the United States in the form of real efficiency gains from trade agreements.” He is resentful of the WTO in part because China has gotten away with flouting its trade commitments since joining the organization. Such a view is widely shared among economists. But another source of Lighthizer’s pique lies in the WTO’s governance. To him, the body’s dispute settlement procedure, which was the primary innovation of the WTO over the GATT, is an abomination. It permits countries to file complaints about U.S. trade policy to a panel of experts, who then decide the case according to WTO rules. Appeals are heard by a separate panel of experts. According to Lighthizer, the way the WTO settles disputes is unacceptable because it constrains unilateral action and therefore dilutes the United States’ bargaining power. His preferred approach would replicate how Reagan handled Japan: threaten punishing unilateral action and then negotiate bilaterally to arrive at a solution. He ignores the proliferation of antidumping trade duties—taxes on imported goods that have been unfairly subsidized—which are decidedly unilateral and run afoul of WTO rules. From 1999 to 2019, the United States took more antidumping actions than any other country.

Lighthizer also takes issue with NAFTA because it exposed the United States to a Mexican industrial policy allegedly based on suppressing wages, and because after it passed, the U.S.-Mexican trade deficit widened. Another one of his gripes with the deal is, presumably, its association with Clinton. Lighthizer ignores how NAFTA helped U.S. companies build successful cross-border supply chains for automobiles, aerospace, and medical devices. With NAFTA, Mexico hoped not to be North America’s sweatshop but to become the next South Korea. Lighthizer believes that the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a deal that he negotiated to supplant NAFTA, helped the United States (and the U.S. auto industry specifically) by imposing more stringent rules on how the United States’ neighbors pay their workers and source the inputs for traded goods. But such constraints restrict trade by operating like import tariffs. Whereas NAFTA aspired to be a free trade agreement, the USMCA does not. Here, at least, Lighthizer succeeded in implementing his vision.

Lighthizer seems uncomfortable with international specialization. Under the GATT, which he recalls fondly, the United States struck deals with countries whose average wages and industry structure were roughly similar to its own. The trade created by the GATT tended to be like for like, such as German chemicals for U.S. pharmaceuticals. But the WTO, with a large membership that includes many low-wage countries, has allowed global supply chains to be sliced ever more finely. The iPhone, for example, combines U.S. engineering; German, Japanese, South Korean, and Taiwanese components; and Chinese raw labor—a mixture of resources like those used in manufacturing furniture or household appliances. Although such specialization yields the gains in efficiency extolled by economics textbooks, it can profoundly disrupt local economies. Specializing more in some products, such as airplanes or software, means pulling resources out of others, such as sofas and auto parts. The economist Adam Smith used the example of a pin factory to argue that when workers specialize, they produce more. Multilateral trade deals have allowed Smith’s proverbial pin factory to go global, but they have caused job loss in U.S. manufacturing. Lighthizer holds it as an article of faith that factory jobs in the United States are worth saving.

BAD DEALS

Most likely to gall economists are the passages in which Lighthizer grades U.S. trade deals by their effect on the U.S. trade deficit. To win in a trade deal, in Lighthizer’s eyes, the United States must export more and import less. He mistakenly asserts that the United States “could achieve balanced trade by imposing tariffs on imports.” But this is true only in the extreme, when tariffs are raised so high that imports fall to zero. Consider the increases enacted during the U.S.-Chinese trade war, from 2018–19, when overall average U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports rose from four percent to 26 percent. Large jumps in tariffs do reduce imports. But they also tend to reduce exports, because factories then focus on making goods for domestic consumers, which necessarily requires pulling resources out of producing goods for foreign markets. Because tariff increases tend to reduce both imports and exports, they do not change the trade balance much. In fact, since Trump imposed tariffs, the U.S. trade deficit has expanded, not contracted.

Since Trump imposed tariffs, the U.S. trade deficit has expanded, not contracted.

Lighthizer is also wrong to blame the creation of the WTO for the rise in the U.S. trade deficit in the 1990s and the following decade. The U.S. trade deficit did rise from 1998 to 2008, before dropping back to 1999 levels in the early 2010s. The cause was not the WTO, but the 1997 Asian financial crisis, after which Asian central banks substantially increased their holdings of foreign reserves, primarily by purchasing U.S. Treasury bills. That resulted in the United States having a bigger capital account surplus, meaning that more capital was flowing into the United States than was flowing out. The United States offset that account surplus by importing more than it exported. The U.S. trade balance was affected because U.S. Treasury bills remained the foreign asset of choice for central banks around the world, which pushed up the value of the dollar, making imports cheaper and U.S. exports more expensive, causing a large trade deficit. For better or worse, the U.S. dollar’s status as the global reserve currency is largely what has kept the United States in a trade deficit.

Lighthizer also asserts, with little merit, that the only way for the United States to reduce its trade deficit is to export more manufactured goods, because trade in services is too small to matter. But that neglects the important fact that the United States runs a large surplus in its trade of services. In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted trade, U.S. exports of services were equal to 4.2 percent of GDP, compared with 7.7 percent for U.S. exports of goods. The U.S. trade surplus in services, at 1.4 percent of GDP, offset more than one-third of the U.S. trade deficit in goods, at 4.1 percent of GDP. Moreover, U.S. service exports are even larger than they appear because U.S. technology companies use tax havens to park much of their foreign income from patents, trademarks, and other intellectual property. This income counts as exports of services, though it does not show up in the U.S. balance of payments until the income is repatriated, often decades later. With manufacturing accounting for less than nine percent of U.S. employment, most future U.S. job and export growth will likely be in services, not industry.

DUTIES CALL

Lighthizer fetishizes manufacturing, is intent on driving the U.S. and Chinese economies apart, and desires balanced trade above all else. He wants the United States to use higher tariffs more aggressively. He wants to amend import laws to include border adjustments—taxes that compensate for the different regulations between countries—for labor rights, environmental protections, and health and safety concerns. He wants to subsidize favored industries. And he wants to use the full might of the United States to bend other countries’ trade policies to its liking.

This trade agenda—call it pragmatic unilateralism—combines the assertiveness of Trump with the industrial policy of Biden. It includes measures that environmentalists and labor activists have long advocated and calls for a realist application of U.S. power that would please traditional conservatives. Ten years ago, such a proposal would have drawn scant support. Today, it could be the sort of compromise trade platform that Democrats and Republicans could accept, congressional gridlock notwithstanding. Because the two parties seem to be converging on economic policy, it is reasonable to think that Lighthizer’s trade agenda may emerge organically from the alternation of power, with new presidents expanding on rather than overturning the trade and industrial policies of their predecessors. Because Biden has let Trump’s tariffs on China stand, the trade policies of their administrations differ little. Biden seems to favor carrots, including subsidies for U.S. manufacturing through the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act, whereas Trump prefers sticks—during his 2024 presidential campaign, he has floated a new ten percent levy on all U.S. imports. But both camps endorse policies that tilt the playing field in favor of U.S. industry. Hamilton would be pleased.

If Washington continues down the path of trade unilateralism, it will destabilize the global alliances and institutions that it spent seven decades building. That path, alluring as it may be to the antiglobalist right and the interventionist left, would almost certainly not restore U.S. manufacturing to its mid-twentieth-century greatness. Even if by the end of the decade, the United States could defy the odds and increase the share of workers employed in manufacturing by 50 percent, the sector would still count for just one in eight American jobs. However hard it may be for Lighthizer to accept, the future of American prosperity lies in the service sector, not in the furnaces and assembly lines of the past.

GORDON H. HANSON is Peter Wertheim Professor in Urban Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is the co-author, primarily with David Autor and David Dorn, of several research papers on “the China shock,” which measured the effect of Chinese imports on U.S. employment.

Foreign Affairs · by Gordon H. Hanson · December 12, 2023

15. Russian 'conquest' of Ukraine on the table if US, allied military aid falters: Study

Excerpts:

Elsewhere reports emerged of Ukrainian forces firing ammunition rounds sparingly because of a troubling shortage and amid US lawmakers in dispute over a supplemental spending package of $61.4 billion for Kyiv.

The package, part of a wider $105 billion budget request which also includes funding for Israel and the Indo-Pacific, has proven politically divisive and was previously blocked by Republicans who want tighter immigration and border security reform tied to the bill. Democrats and the White House have vowed to find a way to see the bill passed.

In a meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier this week, US President Joe Biden urged Congress not to give Putin a “Christmas gift” by delaying a decision on the spending bill beyond the holiday recess.

Difficulties around funding the war were made worse on Thursday when Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban blocked a €50 billion ($54 billion) aid package to Ukraine during a European Union (EU) meeting in Brussels, Belgium. The issue will be revisited by EU leaders next month, according to Al Jazerra. Orban vetoed Ukraine funding in an effort to try and convince the EU to unfreeze money for Budapest which has been on hold over rule of law concerns.

Hours after Orban’s protest, delegates voted to open talks with Kyiv over membership to the bloc. Zelensky described the move on X, formerly Twitter, as “a victory for Ukraine … and all of Europe.”

Russian 'conquest' of Ukraine on the table if US, allied military aid falters: Study - Breaking Defense

breakingdefense.com · by Tim Martin · December 15, 2023

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Ukraine’s Defence Minister Rustem Umerov address the 15th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base, Germany (DoD)

BELFAST — Ending the flow of US and European military supplies to Ukraine would so damage Kyiv’s war effort that a Russian “conquest” of Ukraine is “by no means impossible,” according to a leading US military think tank.

A report from the Institute for the Study of War, published Thursday, says a Russian victory could also have profound repercussions for European security, leading “a battered but triumphant Russian army right up to NATO’s border from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean.”

Leaning on evidence from US intelligence that estimates 90 percent of the portion of the Russian army that entered Ukraine at the start of the war in February 2022 has been destroyed, the report explains that still those heavy “manpower losses” on the Russian side have been replaced. Meanwhile, Moscow is enjoying new-found industrial success by ramping up weapons production “to make good their material losses at a rate much faster than their pre-war capacity had permitted.”

A Russian victory would bring with it a much more formidable Russian Army, strengthened by considerable combat experience in Ukraine and “considerably larger” than that of the force established before the war.

Additionally, the authors expect Russia’s economy to “gradually recover as sanctions inevitably erode” and Moscow to finds ways around those that remain.

“Over time it [Russia] will replace its equipment and rebuild its coherence, drawing on a wealth of hard-won experience fighting mechanized warfare,” the document states. “It will bring with it advanced air defense systems that only American stealth aircraft — badly needed to deter and confront China — can reliably penetrate.”

Despite the warning of a Russian victory and its potentially concerning aftermath for Western powers, the report makes clear that US and NATO allies possess the military capability to defeat Moscow, even if Russia was to occupy both Ukraine and Belarus. Minsk has been sympathetic to the Russian cause throughout the war, approving of Russian fighter jets to be stationed at its air bases over the course of the conflict.

The report offers up a detailed account of the high cost the US is likely to pay for “allowing Russia to win” in Ukraine, largely based around the Pentagon being forced into bolstering defense and deterrence against a “renewed” Russian threat. Those hypothetical future plans would have to include “a sizable portion” of US ground forces and “a large number” of stealth aircraft being deployed to or stationed in Europe.

“Building and maintaining those aircraft is intrinsically expensive, but challenges in manufacturing them rapidly will likely force the United States to make a terrible choice between keeping enough in Asia to defend Taiwan and its other Asian allies and deterring or defeating a Russian attack on a NATO ally,” claim the authors.

The Institute for the Study of War analysis coincides with Russian President Vladimir Putin doubling down on plans for a Russian victory over Ukraine during his annual news conference in Moscow on Thursday.

“There will be peace when we achieve our goals, they haven’t changed,” he told Russian and foreign media. “Practically along the entire line of contact [in Ukraine] our armed forces, are, to put it modestly, improving their position. They are in an active stage of operation.”

Elsewhere reports emerged of Ukrainian forces firing ammunition rounds sparingly because of a troubling shortage and amid US lawmakers in dispute over a supplemental spending package of $61.4 billion for Kyiv.

The package, part of a wider $105 billion budget request which also includes funding for Israel and the Indo-Pacific, has proven politically divisive and was previously blocked by Republicans who want tighter immigration and border security reform tied to the bill. Democrats and the White House have vowed to find a way to see the bill passed.

In a meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier this week, US President Joe Biden urged Congress not to give Putin a “Christmas gift” by delaying a decision on the spending bill beyond the holiday recess.

Difficulties around funding the war were made worse on Thursday when Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban blocked a €50 billion ($54 billion) aid package to Ukraine during a European Union (EU) meeting in Brussels, Belgium. The issue will be revisited by EU leaders next month, according to Al Jazerra. Orban vetoed Ukraine funding in an effort to try and convince the EU to unfreeze money for Budapest which has been on hold over rule of law concerns.

Hours after Orban’s protest, delegates voted to open talks with Kyiv over membership to the bloc. Zelensky described the move on X, formerly Twitter, as “a victory for Ukraine … and all of Europe.”

breakingdefense.com · by Tim Martin · December 15, 2023

16. Checkmate China! Philippines To Build ‘Structures’ On Second Thomas Shoal Amid PLA's Belligerence; Tensions Intensify

We need to learn to play Go in addition to Chess. (I play a lot of Go on my phone and computer but I never beat the computer).

Checkmate China! Philippines To Build ‘Structures’ On Second Thomas Shoal Amid PLA's Belligerence; Tensions Intensify

eurasiantimes.com · by Sakshi Tiwari · December 17, 2023

Amid increased hostilities between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea, lawmakers in Manila have reportedly allocated funds to construct a structure on the Ayungin Shoal or the Second Thomas Shoal in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

The revelation was made by Senator Sonny Angara to CNN Philippines on December 14 who noted that, “There is funding there so may pupuntahan din ‘yung ating mga barko (our ships have somewhere to go to).” Senator Angara is the chairman of the finance committee that oversees funding.

The revelation comes as the ₱5.768-trillion proposed budget for 2024 was approved by Congress this week, according to the report of the Bicameral Conference Committee. Of the total, the Department of Natural Resources (DND) added ₱500 million, the Philippine Coast Guard ₱2.8 billion, the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency ₱1 billion, and the Philippine Navy ₱6.17 billion to its budget.

“It’s not just the West Philippine Sea; it’s really to augment or to improve the state of our armed forces given what’s happening in the world today,” Angara said. He did not specify the amount of money allocated for the development.

A reef in the contentious South China Sea, the Second Thomas Shoal is a resource-rich waterway that serves as a central shipping channel and is located about 190 kilometers off the western coast of Palawan Island. China claims the shoal as its territory, as part of the South China Sea.

In August this year, Senator Chiz Escudero suggested that the national budget 2024 should include at least ₱100 million for building permanent buildings on the disputed Shoal.

“I will propose the allocation of a minimum ₱100 million to fund the construction of a pier and lodging structures for our soldiers assigned in the area and for our fishermen who might seek temporary refuge in times of bad weather,” Escudero said in a brief statement.

“The allocation for Ayungin Shoal will give President Marcos the budget cover should he decide to do (the construction) next year,” he said.

BRP Sierra Madre in 2017 – Wikimedia Commons

Elaborating on what the building would entail, he noted that while the structure will serve as “lodging” for soldiers in the rusting BRP Sierra Madre, “its primary use is to be a shelter for fishermen from all nations who will be caught in bad weather.”

The ship, which dates back to World War II, was purposefully run aground in 1999 on the Second Thomas Shoal to act as the nation’s outpost in the WPS. The Filipino forces routinely carry out reinforcement missions to the ship, including food and medical supplies for the troops aboard the ship.

To dig their claws deeper into the Second Thomas Shoal, the Philippines announced in August that it would make efforts to repair the rusting Sierra Madre warship. The United States, a vital ally of the Philippines, has decided to join that effort.

Escudero emphasized, “It will welcome fishermen in distress with warm accommodations, not with a blast of the water cannon. It is there to help and not to harass.” He was referring to consistent efforts by the Chinese to block these reinforcement missions by training water cannons at vessels belonging to the Philippines Coast Guard.

Funds allocated for building of structure on Ayungin[/Second Thomas] Shoal in the West Philippine Sea [South China Sea] under 2024 budget, says Angara

– CNN Philippines https://t.co/WN9GPAdGh1

— Sense Hofstede (@sehof) December 14, 2023

Since the senator first appealed, several lawmakers have stepped on the bandwagon to request funding to build structures in the disputed shoal. Escudero stated that construction in the shoal had to happen quickly because BRP Sierra Madre was rapidly deteriorating after exposure to the weather for 24 years.

When asked whether building a new structure in the shoal would cause an escalation, Philippines-based military analyst Miguel Miranda told EurAsian Times, “The deterioration of Beijing-Manila ties is rapid and dangerous. Unfortunately, we are just one more incident away from lethal violence as Chinese ships are still massing in Philippine waters to cut off the Second Thomas Shoal. This is maritime conquest, plain and simple. The Philippines will respond but in a manner commensurate to its limited naval resources.”

The development, thus, appears to be a significant step taken by Manila given that there are concerns in the Philippines that the Chinese would eventually attempt to invade the disputed shoal as China attempts to isolate a Philippine marine outpost near this shoal.

Tensions Are Boiling Over In The West Pacific Sea

The frequent engagements between the Chinese and Filipino vessels in the contested South China Sea have triggered concerns that these tensions might snowball into an all-out confrontation.

Things came to a head in late October when a Chinese Coast Guard ship and an escorting vessel hit a Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) craft and a military-run supply boat off a shoal claimed by both parties.

A few Filipino officials informed the media that the situation near the disputed Second Thomas Shoal would have gotten worse if the PCG vessels had not promptly steered away from the Chinese ships. Several such instances have since been reported, accompanied by both sides’ bellicose rhetoric and power projection.

Earlier this month, during a resupply trip to BRP Sierra Madre, Philippine vessels were targeted by China Coast Guard (CCG) ships with water cannons, and one of them was rammed. After suffering severe damage from the Chinese high-intensity water cannon strike, one of the two supply boats, the ML Kalayaan, had to be pulled back to port.

Statement of the National Task Force-West Philippine Sea

December 10, 2023, Manila, Philippines

Today, 10 December 2023, China Coast Guard (CCG) and Chinese Maritime Militia (CMM) vessels harassed, blocked, and executed dangerous maneuvers on Philippine civilian supply vessels,… pic.twitter.com/NF66BqVPUM

— Jay Tarriela (@jaytaryela) December 10, 2023

After upsetting a Philippine resupply mission in the same waters, Chinese ships launched a rare “invasion” of Second Thomas Shoal in the West Philippine Sea in a “calculated show of force by Beijing,” a maritime security expert said. One day after the tense supply run, as many as eleven Chinese marine militia vessels were seen in the Philippine-held shoal.

Authorities in the Philippines think Chinese maritime militia boats are helping CCG ships by impersonating fishing boats to harass Philippine vessels in the West Philippine Sea. China’s risky tactics and water cannon strikes during resupply missions in Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal and Ayungin, according to the task force, constituted a “serious escalation.”

With the Philippines now working to solidify its position in the shoal and building the structure, Beijing is expected to pose an impediment and a fierce resistance.

eurasiantimes.com · by Sakshi Tiwari · December 17, 2023

17. The Strategy Bridge: A Year in #Reviewing

A very long reading list. Helpful in planning for next year's reading! I do recommend RIcks' books for two reasons - for practitioners of unconventional warfare and for those who want an in depth understanding of the civil rights movement

A Year in #Reviewing

thestrategybridge.org · December 18, 2023

Michael Howard, the great British historian, once advised that military officer who wish to avoid the pitfalls of military history should study in width, depth, and context—studying the great sweep of military history to see what changes and what does not; studying a single campaign in all its complexity to “get beyond the order created by the historian;” and studying the nature of the societies that fight the wars we seek to understand.

Here at The Strategy Bridge, we feel very much the same way about the study of strategy, and we work hard to realize this width, depth, and context in the books we review each week.

We believe the study of strategy is a broad one, encompassing a host of topics, ranging from the explicit study of the long sweep of military history to analysis of the possibilities for war and warfare in the future, from the use of air power in the Falklands to the use of artillery in the desert and to modern naval operations, and from China to Russia to Africa. You’ll find this width—and much more—in our reviews and our reviewers from 2023.

Some destinations in the intellectual landscape of strategy, national security, and military affairs deserve repeated visits, repeated efforts to unpack their complexities, and just as we’ve used #Reviewing to explore the width of the intellectual landscape, so have we plumbed some of its depths in 2023. Leadership is an area rich in its depth, for example, and we’ve looked to lessons from Admiral Chester Nimitz, Major General Samuel Curtis, President Ronald Reagan, and even from science fiction. Strategic questions of race affecting the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, and American society have been much on our minds, as have critical questions of civil-military relations past and present raised by recent history.

And just as Michael Howard advises, we have explored the interactions between strategy, national security, and military affairs and the societal contexts within which they operate. We looked at the emergence of the Geneva Conventions and their influence on the norms driving how we fight wars. We’ve looked at the influence of economics and the marketplace on national security. We’ve even looked at how technological, biological, legal, economic, psychological, sociological, and political issues will shape the future of humanity as we explore and settle in outer space.

Our explorations have been varied in 2023—width, depth, and context go hand in hand—and we’ve enjoyed and learned from it all! Thanks to all of you for coming on the journey with us this year!

#TheBridgeReads

Buy on Amazon

Paths of Dissent: Soldiers Speak Out Against America's Misguided Wars. Edited by Andrew Bacevich and Daniel A. Sjursen. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books, 2022.

Read a review from Tim Bettis here:

Despite its omissions, Paths of Dissent is an exceptionally substantive and moving book for anyone interested in personal accounts at the intersection of ethics and military service…As America exits another costly decades-long counterinsurgency era into an uncertain future, it requires courageous dissenters…to avoid national security malpractice. It is only by capturing the perspectives of those who are willing to make personal sacrifices in informing the public’s understanding of war that principled countries can avoid waste and hypocrisy in its conduct.

Buy on Amazon

An Army Afire: How the US Army Confronted Its Racial Crisis in the Vietnam Era. Beth Bailey. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2023.

Read Daniel Sukman’s review here:

An Army Afire offers lessons for leaders throughout the joint force in how to approach and solve complex and seemingly overwhelming problems. Bailey’s work is an important addition to the historical record of the U.S. military, and, more specifically, the U.S. Army. Innovative ideas and novel courses of action are necessary for combat and institutional actions. The military that fought in the 1991 Gulf War, and later in Afghanistan and Iraq were more than the product of combat platforms, the Goldwater-Nichols Act, and AirLand Battle; it was a force composed of a diverse set of men and women who stood on the shoulders of those who suffered and fought to change a system of inequality.

Buy on Amazon

Reconsidering American Civil-Military Relations: Military Society, Politics and Modern War. Edited by Lionel Beehner, Risa Brooks and Daniel Maurer. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Read Chiara Ruffa’s review here:

Reconsidering American Civil-Military Relations shows how the various views of civil-military relations have transformed in a dramatic fashion, but also how much we rely on old conceptual tools to study new phenomena. It definitely shifts existing conversations about civil-military relations, allowing us to imagine that it is possible to move beyond Huntington…Moving past Huntington's model means recognizing complication and fluid boundaries. This departure from Huntington could also build better military and civilian expertise to understand and navigate civil-military relations, rather than dangerously assuming superiority in a military class that is isolated from democratic society.

Buy on Amazon

A Short History of War. Jeremy Black. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2022.

Read a review from Jean-Michel Turcotte here:

A Short History of War will certainly be welcomed by a larger public interested in military history. Not only has Black remarkably explored multiple facets of the global history of war, but he also highlights complex elements regarding the evolution of warfare over a long period of time. In addition, the volume is written in a language accessible to a general public unfamiliar with the field of war history which helps to democratize debates and discussion about the nature of war.

Buy on Amazon

Inheriting the Bomb: The Collapse of the USSR and the Nuclear Disarmament of Ukraine. Mariana Budjeryn. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023.

Read Shawn Conroy’s review here:

Inheriting the Bomb looks at the diplomatic process that led to the removal of nuclear weapons on the territories of newly independent Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, with a focus on the latter. Inheriting the Bomb contributes to a resurgence of interest in Ukraine’s denuclearization in the wake of Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Mariana Budjeryn highlights the complexity (a myriad of factors) rather than contingency (one factor) that affected Ukraine’s denuclearization.

Buy on Amazon

Fighting the Fleet: Operational Art and Modern Fleet Combat. Jeffrey R. Cares and Anthony Cowden. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2021.

Read Tyler A. Pitrof’s review here:

Fleets, Cares and Cowden argue, have four functions—striking, screening, scouting, and basing—and proper naval operational art is the ability to defeat an opponent by appropriately combining all four. While Cares and Cowden make no bones about the fact that this work is a math-heavy textbook intended for current naval officers, the two retired captains nevertheless succeed in crafting an accessible entryway into the world of modern naval command and planning in a text that is a spare 101 pages, plus technical appendices.

Buy on Amazon

Is Remote Warfare Moral? Weighing Issues of Life and Death from 7,000 Miles. Joseph O. Chapa. New York, NY: Public Affairs, 2022.

Read a review from Christine Sixta Rinehart here:

Is Remote Warfare Moral? Weighing Issues of Life and Death from 7,000 Miles by Joseph O. Chapa is a thoughtful and necessary contribution to the literature on RPA warfare. The book’s biggest contribution is that of a primary source from a seasoned veteran and RPA instructor in the United States Air Force. The book also elucidates some of the ambiguity surrounding RPA warfare.

The American Way of Irregular Warfare: An Analytical Memoir. Charles T. Cleveland and Daniel Egal. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2020.

Read M.T. Mitchell’s review here:

While satisfied with the U.S. military’s tactical performance in irregular warfare, Cleveland rejects the argument that special operations can raid their way to victory or capture enough terrain. Cleveland uses the strategic failures of the U.S. in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan to argue the U.S. military must focus on its failure to structurally, doctrinally, and militarily invest in irregular warfare to succeed.

Buy on Amazon

Autumn of Our Discontent: Fall 1949 and the Crises in American National Security. John Curatola. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2022.

Read David W. Bath’s review here:

Curatola’s most important accomplishment is creating a comprehensive look at how the United States changed its perspective on national security policy during 1949 by identifying and highlighting the importance of the lesser known national security issues that may have been hidden by the creation of the nuclear bomb.

Buy on Amazon

The Wandering Army: The Campaigns that Transformed the British Way of War. Huw J. Davies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2022.

Read Brandon Bernick’s review here:

The Wandering Army offers a new and powerful perspective on debates surrounding the British way of war. By suggesting observational and experiential learning in previous wars led to experimentation and knowledge diffusion throughout the officer class, Davies challenges previous views on an old subject. As such, he makes a great contribution to the field of military history and is one that should be considered of interest to experts as Davies crafts a very interesting book that furthers opportunities for study and debate.

Buy on Amazon

Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests. Agathe Demarais. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2022.

Read Gregory Brew’s review here:

In a series of short, engaging, and clearly written chapters, Demarais breaks down why the U.S. found sanctions such an appealing policy instrument; how their widespread use in the 1990s and 2000s triggered changes and upheavals, as countries around the world coped with the issues of challenges of compliance; and, finally, how sanctions implementation has generally backfired, imposing costs on the U.S. and its allies while encouraging targeted states towards policies and strategies designed to insulate their governments and economies from U.S. pressure.

Buy on Amazon

The Lone Leopard. Sharifullah Dorani. Bedford, England: S&M Publishing House, 2022.

Read Matthew C. Brand’s review here:

In his novel The Lone Leopard, Sharifullah Dorani provides a sweeping view of the struggle that Afghans endured under the burden of foreign influence, ethnic and religious seams, and the clash between traditional conservative cultural norms versus more modern liberal western ideals. The book does an excellent job of bringing the reader into the complicated societal mosaic that makes Afghanistan so unique.

Buy on Amazon

Writing Wars: Authorship and American War Fiction, WW1 to Present. David F. Eisler. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 2022.

Read a Jared Young’s review here:

Simply put, Writing Wars is necessary reading for scholars and writers working at the intersections of literary, military, and American studies. The interdisciplinary nature of the book also makes it well suited for a variety of classes. In addition to American Literature and History courses, select chapters on higher education’s influence on the genre and the ethics of authorship would make for insightful reading in creative writing classes that consider the history of writing programs or how identity politics figures into the ethos of storytelling. This potential widespread readership of Writing Wars is timely. With the ongoing military conflict in Ukraine and the reverberating effects of the U.S. campaigns in the Middle East, there is a need for a new wave of war fiction and, perhaps more importantly, a diverse collection of voices to tell such stories. Eisler’s book emphasizes the critical importance of this need and illuminates how those diverse voices can effectively address it.

Buy on Amazon

The Future of Decline: Anglo-American Culture at its Limits. Jed Esty. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2022.

Read a review from Katherine Voyles here:

Esty’s slim book charts what he terms “declinism” to powerful effect, distinguishing declinism from decline: “Decline is a fact; declinism is a problem. American decline is happening, slowly but inevitably. It is a structural and material process. Declinism is a problem of rhetoric or belief.” This story of America on a downhill slide that Esty tells is not self-consciously set in opposition to today’s national security concerns—whether they are framed as integrated deterrence, multi-domain operations, or large-scale combat operations—but the implications of Esty’s account are profound for what America might look like on the backside of decline.

Buy on Amazon

Victor in Trouble. Alex Finley. Athens, Greece: Smiling Hippo Press, 2022.

Read a review from Nicole E. Dean here:

Finley’s work is part of a long and glorious tradition of satire in the world of military and foreign affairs. Her books are a welcome mental break for modern audiences, but the wellspring of military and diplomatic satire was already deep. For autocratic societies, where censorship is a defining characteristic, satirists walk fine lines to say quiet thoughts out loud.

Buy on Amazon

Strategiya: The Foundations of the Russian Art of Strategy. Edited by Ofer Fridman. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2021.

Read B.A. Friedman’s review here:A shroud of myth and legend surrounds Russian strategy. As far back as the 1980s, the U.S. began looking at the widespread use of precision-guided munitions and other associated technology because the Russians had an allegedly more advanced conception of their potential. In 1982, the operational level of war debuted in U.S. doctrine, allegedly because it existed in Soviet doctrine. The only way to combat such misconceptions is to take the Russians at their word. Specifically, by reading their words. Strategiya: The Foundations of the Russian Art of Strategy, edited by Dr. Ofer Fridman, Lecturer at King’s College London, is one of the best weapons available.

Buy on Amazon

A Republic in the Ranks: Loyalty and Dissent in the Army of the Potomac. Zachery A. Fry. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2020.

Read Kathryn Angelica’s review here:

Zachery A. Fry reimagines the camps and battlegrounds of the Army of the Potomac as focal points of ideological debate. Enlisted men not only reflected partisan divides of the broader Northern public but directly engaged in the political process through correspondence, voting, and political resolutions. This book sheds light upon mobilization within the ranks to reframe notions of political space and activity during the Civil War.

Buy on Amazon

Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine. Mark Galeotti. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2022.

Read a review from Andrew Forney here:

Labeled an acute threat by the U.S. Department of Defense in its 2022 National Defense Strategy, the Russian military in Ukraine revealed itself as the flimsiest of paper tigers, a modern-day Potemkin army meant to prop up a faltering regime and its neo-imperialist visions. Where were the unmanned vehicles and the modernized tanks and the fire strikes employed in eastern Ukraine in 2014? Was that army actually a mirage, with the real army now being bled dry eight years later? There was no way that two disparate things, two photo negatives of each other, could exist at the same time. Can two divergent ideas—or two opposite armies—both be true?

Buy on Amazon

Space Civilization: An Inquiry into the Social Questions for Humans Living in Space. James Gilley. London, United Kingdom: Lexington Books, 2020.

Read Brian Green’s review here:

In Space Civilization: An Inquiry into the Social Questions for Humans Living in Space, political science professor James Gilley provides an ambitious interdisciplinary overview of the social factors, from the interpersonal to the international levels, that will affect humanity’s ability to become a truly interplanetary species. In its relatively short format, the book moves briskly through many of the broad technological and biological, legal, economic, psychological, sociological, and political issues that will shape the future human exploration and potential settlement of outer space.

Buy on Amazon

The Turkish Arms Embargo: Drugs, Ethnic Lobbies, and U.S. Domestic Politics. James F. Goode. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2020.

Read a review from Bob Beach here:

Goode’s corrective to the history of this incident is an important work in the study of U.S. foreign policy entering its last phase of the Cold War. Goode skillfully places the embargo in a new light, emphasizing the role of ethnic lobbies, the U.S. war on drugs, and the political negotiations on Capitol Hill. Long considered a failure of U.S. foreign policy in a time of executive turmoil and legislative assertiveness, Goode suggests the episode was a demonstration of the dynamics of political processes in a functioning representative society.

Buy on Amazon

Reagan’s War Stories: A Cold War Presidency. Benjamin Griffin. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2022.

Read Chris Booth’s review here:

Highly engaging and thought-provoking, Griffin has put together an insightful book that leaves the reader with an improved understanding of pop culture’s impact on Reagan in not only leading the nation through the Cold War, but in the totality of his life as well.

Buy on Amazon

Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia. Michael W. Hankins. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021.

Read Luke Truxall’s review here:

In Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia, Michael W. Hankins argues that starting as early as the 1960s, a group of fighter pilots and reformers sought to change the procurement process for aircraft to emphasize the importance of the fighter pilot and air superiority missions. Hankins states that this resulted in the development and acquisition of the F-15 and F-16 fighters by the United States Air Force. Hankins further asserts that these reformers sought to change how fighter pilots were trained to emphasize the importance of dogfighting and air superiority campaigns over other aspects of air combat.

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Armies in Retreat: Chaos, Cohesion, and Consequence. Edited by Timothy G. Heck and Walker D. Mills. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Army University Press, 2023.

Read Marshall McGurk’s review here:

Military leaders and policy makers would be foolish to believe that war with a peer adversary would not involve some form of retreat or retrograde. Retreats can lead to routs, or they can provide critical time to rally forces for new campaigns or counteroffensives. Routs must be avoided, but such disaster may befall those who fail to study the history of armies in retreat.

Buy on Amazon

The Digital Silk Road: China’s Quest to Wire the World and Win the Future. Jonathan E. Hillman. New York, NY: Harper Business, 2021.

Read Christopher D. Booth’s review here:

This short, yet comprehensive, and extensively documented examination of the Digital Silk Road and the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to develop world-dominating technology (through collaboration between the military, state-owned enterprises, and closely associated parastatal private companies), will be of interest to policymakers, national security professionals, and hopefully U.S. and Western business leaders.

Buy on Amazon

Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, From Missiles to the Moon to Mars. Nathalia Holt. New York, NY: Back Bay Books, 2017.

Read Amy E. Foster’s review here:

Nathalia Holt’s book on the women of JPL and their contributions to the United States’ history in space is a welcome addition. JPL is only one of twenty NASA centers. The women and their contributions at each NASA center deserve attention and recognition. What Nathalia Holt has done with this book is remind readers that women’s work for NASA did propel us to the Moon and Mars.

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Mastering the Art of Command: Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and Victory in the Pacific. Trent Hone. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2022.

Read a review from Lewis Bernstein here:

Hone’s study shows Nimitz understood command is an art based on collaboration that relies on effective personal relationships to extract ideas and understand new opportunities. He adopted his subordinates’ ideas and made them part of his own plans. Nimitz never backed away from difficult decisions and when appropriate was as bold as any commander. He relied on unified command with decentralized execution combined with the continual consideration of options; the figures and tables Hone provides show this in operation.

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The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink. William Inboden. New York, NY: Dutton, 2022.

Read Laren Turek’s review here:

The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink takes up the banner of attributing the end of the Cold War to the foreign policy acumen and foresight of Ronald Reagan. Indeed, it suggests that Reagan possessed a remarkable perspicacity that allowed him to perceive the world's historic changes on the horizon well before others did, and that this, plus his innate optimism, helped him lead the United States toward a better future.

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To Boldly Go: Leadership, Strategy, and Conflict in the 21st Century and Beyond. Jonathan Klug and Steven Leonard, Eds. Haverton, PA: Casemate, 2021.

Read Brett Swaney’s review here:

Drawing on a universe of science fiction franchises including The Expanse, Star Wars, Star Trek, Ender’s Game, Starship Troopers, Dune, Earthseed, The Murderbot Diaries, and many more, a wonderful array of authors, who are strategic thinkers in their own right, offer fresh perspectives in 35 chapters that span 6 major themes: leadership and command; military strategy and decision making; ethics, culture, and diversity; cooperation, competition, and conflict; the human relationship with technology; and toxic leaders.

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Military Alliances in the Twenty-First Century. Alexander Lanoszka. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2022.

Read a review from Davis Ellison here:

In this welcome addition to the literature on alliances, international relations scholar Alexander Lanoszka makes an optimistic case for the continued salience of the U.S.-led alliance system. In his two-hundred-page study, he reviews the most common areas that past studies have focused on: alliance formation, fears of entrapment and abandonment, burden-sharing, warfare, and alliance termination.

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Cinema and the Cultural Cold War: U.S. Diplomacy and the Origins of the Asian Cinema Network. Sangjoon Lee. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020.

Read Ben Griffin’s review here:

The book primarily examines how during the first two decades of the Cold War, the Asia Foundation utilized funding from the Central Intelligence Agency to support the work of, and establish connections between, anti-communist filmmakers throughout east Asia…Cinema and the Cultural Cold War is a welcome addition to the growing historiography on how Cold War belligerents actively sought to influence popular culture both domestically and abroad.

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The Big Picture: The Cold War on the Small Screen. John W. Lemza. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2021.

Read Peter Molin’s review here:

The subject of John W. Lemza’s scholarly study The Big Picture: The Cold War on the Small Screen is a U.S. Army-produced documentary television series called The Big Picture that ran from 1951-1971 on network, local, and educational stations, as well as on the Armed Forces Network of overseas stations. Lemza’s study is relevant to our own era in which a gaping civil-military divide separates the American public from the military, and in which the military largely fails to communicate a compelling appreciation of its goals, virtues, and activities.

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Desert Redleg: Artillery Warfare in the First Gulf War. L. Scott Lingamfelter. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2020.

Read a review from Kevin Woods here:

The book’s title alone might suggest a more general history or analysis of the use of artillery in the Gulf War, but the book is primarily a wartime memoir framed by the experiences of a senior artilleryman whose perspectives were shaped in the Cold War’s final decade. As a memoir, Desert Redleg lands somewhere between the classic campaign and sentimental forms. In an appendix, the author dedicates a chapter to lessons of the war gleaned from a broader military and geo-political perspective.

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Wars of Revelation: The Transformative Effects of Military Intervention on Grand Strategy. Rebecca Lissner. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Read Christi Siver’s review here:

Reconsideration of U.S. grand strategy is critical in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine alongside rising tensions with China. Rebecca Lissner’s Wars of Revelation makes a compelling argument that past U.S. military interventions have played an important role in shaping U.S. grand strategy.

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Our Best War Stories: Prize-winning Poetry & Prose from the Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards. Edited by Christopher Lyke. Johnston, Iowa: Middle West Press, 2020.

Read a review from Scott Noon Creley here:

This collection is remarkable because, whether or not everything in each story is strictly speaking factual, everything is true. If you’re interested in military culture, the ongoing cultural change in the armed forces, or just looking for excellent writing from veterans and their families, this is a book that belongs on your shelf.

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Tales from the Cold War: The U.S. Army in West Germany 1960-1975. Michael D. Mahler. Dahlonega, Georgia: University Press of North Georgia, 2021.

Read Kevin Li’s review here:

Knowing the Cold War historical context, namely the necessity of, and the paradoxical relations between the deterrence mission in Europe and the mission of fighting limited wars around the globe is indispensable for understanding Mahler and his comrades’ experiences in U.S. Army Europe.

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Master Negotiator: The Role of James A. Baker, III at the End of the Cold War. Diana Villiers Negroponte. Bloomington, IN: Archway Publishing, 2020.

Read Javan David Frazier’s review here:

The title of Negroponte’s book nicely sums up her work. Her first four segments explore questions and themes related to James Baker’s overall time as secretary of state. She explores the real goal for the foreign policy review initiated by the National Security Council and how it affected all aspects of President George H.W. Bush’s administration; the challenges of German reunification and Germany’s admission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); the response of the United States to the June 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre; and the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s August 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

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Military History for the Modern Strategist: America’s Major Wars since 1861. Michael E. O’Hanlon. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2023.

Read J.P. Clark’s review here:

Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, is an influential advisor to the national security elite with a reputation for deep expertise and careful judgment. Though O’Hanlon is a political scientist, he argues that military history can usefully inform current policy debates. His latest work, Military History for the Modern Strategist: America’s Major Wars since 1861, attempts to do just that through a survey of over 150 years of U.S. military history.

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On Killing Remotely: The Psychology of Killing with Drones. Wayne Phelps. NY, NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2021.

Read Caleb Miller’s review here:

To date, moral injury remains a syndrome, that is, a group of symptoms lacking clear definition or cause. Phelps exemplifies a possible way ahead in On Killing Remotely. In terms of quantifiability, Phelps makes room for analyzing a new arena for moral injury without stretching the term past its breaking point. In terms of severity, Phelps clarifies that stakes can be high without involving immediate personal danger, thus opening up discussions of comparable scenarios with the potential to morally injure. In terms of technology, Phelps distinguishes between kinds of unmanned or remote aerial technology, sketching a taxonomy and noting the unique stressors of each tool or mission.

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Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968. Thomas E. Ricks. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2022.

Read Christopher G. Ingram’s review here:

Ninety years after the abolition of slavery in the United States, Blacks faced a dominant caste system in the 1950s that used the violence and power of the state to deny equal treatment or opportunity across the deep south. In more general terms, when confronting an imbalance of power, a subjugated people face a choice between submission or finding a way to alter the nature of the fight. To overcome this disparity, the Civil Rights Movement developed a strategy that aligned their actions to their desired change.

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Blood/Not Blood Then the Gates: Poems. Ron Riekki. Johnston, IA: Middle West Press, 2022.

Read a review from Zac Rogers here:

Ron Riekki’s new collection of poems Blood/Not Blood Then the Gates is a pitiless, unsentimental, and piercing insight into the legacy of extreme violence on a human being. The volume left me with the strong impression that redemption is neither sought nor expected. What is needed is relief.

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The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict Between the US and Xi Jinping’s China. Kevin Rudd. New York, NY: Public Affairs, 2022.

Read Ian Boley’s review here:

All told, Kevin Rudd’s The Avoidable War is very much worth the time and effort. Through a series of missteps in execution, it takes Rudd a while to get the reader onboard with his topic. Once there, however, the information provided is valuable, and Rudd’s perspective from personal experience does give his words an air of authority in these matters. For those starting out on their journey to understand what is arguably the world’s most important contemporary competition, this book is a fine place to begin.

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War Transformed: The Future of Twenty-First Century Great Power Competition and Conflict. Mick Ryan. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2022.

Read a review from Brian Kerg here:

The character of war is rapidly changing. The increasing availability of evolving technology confounds previous frameworks for military operations. Socioeconomic factors and demographic shifts complicate manpower and force generation models for national defense. Ubiquitous connectivity links individuals to global audiences, expanding the reach of influence activities. And a renewed emphasis on strategic competition enhances the scope of military action below the threshold of violence. This is the world that Mick Ryan explores in War Transformed: The Future of Twenty-First-Century Great Power Competition and Conflict.

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Union General: Samuel Ryan Curtis and Victory in the West. William L. Shea. Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, 2023.

Read Lindsey R. Peterson’s review here:

Shea successfully demonstrates that more attention should be paid to this understudied Union general. Curtis’ wartime emancipation policies should shift historians’ narrowed focus away from the Eastern Theater to more thoroughly integrate the trans-Mississippi West into their analyses of wartime emancipation. Hopefully, Union General will inspire other historians to incorporate Curtis into the current historiography on wartime emancipation, the Missouri and Arkansas home front, and Civil War memory. Ultimately, Union General is a worthy addition to the scholarship on military leadership and will appeal to readers.

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Air Power in the Falklands Conflict: An Operational Level Insight into Air Warfare in the South Atlantic. John Shields. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Air World, 2021.

Read a review from Heather Venable here:

The line between celebrating heritage and creating a fully-rounded history can be a fine one in many institutional histories. Appreciating this tendency, Royal Air Force-insider John Shields reassesses the 1982 Falklands Conflict, seeking to explode multiple myths while also providing a better assessment of the air campaign by focusing on the operational rather than the tactical level of war.

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Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East. Steven Simon. New York, NY: Penguin Press, 2023.

Read Joe Buccino’s review here:

Simon reviews more than four decades of American endeavors in the region from the perspective of eight presidential administrations ranging from Jimmy Carter to Joe Biden. The book’s chapters illuminate cabinet-level thinking on vexing national security issues: Iranian influence in the Levant in the 1980s, the response to the U.S. Marine Corps barracks bombing in Beirut, the Persian Gulf War, the unsolvable Israel-Palestine quandary, and the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein and the resultant chaos in Iraq and Syria.

From Hegemony to Competition: Marine Perspectives on Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations. Edited by Matthew R. Slater. Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2022.

Read B.J. Armstrong’s review here:

From Hegemony to Competition: Marine Perspectives on Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations offers thoughtful examinations of important elements of the transition to what the 2018 National Security Strategy called a new era of Great Power competition and how new Marine Corps concepts continue to develop. This book’s great strength is the questions that it is asking, and the rigorous efforts put forth to study them.

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Cold War Liberation: The Soviet Union and the Collapse of the Portuguese Empire in Africa, 1961–1975. Natalia Telepneva. University of North Carolina Press, 2022.

Read a review by Charlie Thomas here:

The history of African decolonization is inherently linked with the processes, rivalries, and challenges of the global Cold War. Even those states that saw a pacific removal of colonial authority, such as Ghana or Senegal, did so under the shadow of the rivalry between the capitalist and communist states. However, the process was even more stark in Southern Africa, where the Cold War saw the contests for armed African liberation interpreted as proxy conflicts between the two ideological blocs.

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Against All Tides: The Untold Story of the USS Kitty Hawk Race Riot. Marv Truhe. Chicago, IL: Lawrence Hill Books, 2022.

Read B.J. Armstrong’s review here:

The “Kitty Hawk Race Riot'” holds an important place in American naval history. An illustration of the deep and unavoidable connections between the sailors and officers of the Navy and the society they served during the Civil Rights era, it is often mentioned in passing but rarely examined in detail. Marv Truhe’s new book sets out to rectify that oversight and to help readers dive deeply into both the details of the history and the important questions it raises about the Navy of the 1970s as well as the Navy of the 21st century.

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Preparing for War: The Making of the Geneva Conventions. Boyd van Dijk. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2022.

Read Brian Drohan’s review here:

International humanitarian law has only appeared to be absent during recent wars in Yemen, Syria, and Ukraine, but Boyd van Dijk’s Preparing for War: The Making of the Geneva Conventions reveals that the 1949 Geneva Conventions have an enduring influence. He shows that the Conventions have retained their legal, moral, and ethical applicability through a contextualized understanding of their history.

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Heat + Pressure: Poems from War. Ben Weakley. Johnston, Iowa: Middle West Press, 2022.

Read Marshall McGurk’s review here:

A design draws you in through color or shock; a title intrigues you. Heat + Pressure: Poems From War by Ben Weakley delivers on the initial interest brought about by its unique title that sits in bold letters over the melted green army figure on the cover. Heat + Pressure shows how today’s warriors can become poets and help veterans synthesize war and their reintegration into society.

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Mud Soldiers: Life Inside the New American Army. George C. Wilson. New York, NY: Scribners, 1989.

Read Harrison Manlove’s review here:

Mud Soldiers: Life Inside the New American Army is an examination of the post-Vietnam U.S. Army and the pre-Gulf War Army. It serves as an excellent supplement to recent works on the AVF by authors like Beth Bailey, Bernard Rostker, and William A. Taylor. Author George C. Wilson writes a broad study of Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment (2-16), 1st Infantry Division spanning two generations of soldiers.

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The Military and the Market. Edited by Mark R. Wilson and Jennifer Mittlestadt. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022.

Read Sam Canter’s review here:

Looking beyond more traditionally studied factors such as battlefield tactics, leadership, and military strategy, new studies under the general War and Society umbrella take into account social dynamics such as race, class, and gender in the context of national defense and warfare. In the case of The Military and the Market, the wide scholarly aperture offered by the War and Society approach extends to marketplace and economic factors, adding additional layers of complexity to American military history.

Die Selbständigkeit der Unterführer im Kriege. Karl Woide. Berlin: Eisenschmidt, 1895.

Read a review from Panagiotis Gkartzonikas here:

In pre-nineteenth century wars with linear tactics, initiative existed but was not necessary in the same ways. From the Napoleonic Wars onwards, initiative became imperative, mainly due to the increase in the size of armies. The third chapter examines how we should interpret the principle of initiative. Woide believes that it should be made obligatory for the entire army, its implementation should be formalized and it should be considered a professional duty.

The Strategy Bridge is read, respected, and referenced across the worldwide national security community—in conversation, education, and professional and academic discourse.

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Header Image: Richard Macksey’s home library. (Will Kirk/Johns Hopkins University)

thestrategybridge.org · December 18, 2023

18. Stalemate Is Not Checkmate in Ukraine

Thanks:

Thanks to the sacrifices of the Ukrainian nation, the Russian military has been severely damaged and has become less of a threat to NATO. Only a few years ago, national security experts were concerned that NATO could not repel a Russian attack against the Baltic states. Now those fears are diminished thanks to Ukraine. Money that the United States would have had to spend on containing further Russian aggression had Ukraine fallen can now be repurposed to other security threats, especially in the Far East. For just 3 percent of the US defense budget, 50 percent of the Russian army has been destroyed. This alone shows that our aid to Ukraine has been a two-way street. It has also never been a blank check and much of the money allocated for Ukraine goes to defense industries in the United States.

Therefore, the possibility that the Russo-Ukrainian war is entering into a stalemate should not be the cause for despair or the abandonment of the reasons why we came to Ukraine’s aid in the first place. Congressional leaders should avoid repeating the mantra of “forever war” to justify any surrender of Ukraine to Putin. Forever war is nothing more than a battle cry for policy to be decided on emotion, rather than careful analysis. After all, what did cries of forever war produce in Afghanistan—a partner betrayed, the return of safe havens for terrorist groups, and a severe blow to our reputation as a reliable ally. Do we need a repeat of this experience so soon again as Taiwan’s fate weighs in Xi’s balance?

The decision to provide aid to Ukraine should not depend on what phase this war is in, even if it is currently a static one. The United States started its support to the Ukrainian people at their darkest hour when there was little hope of survival, let alone victory. It should not end it because the war has not met arbitrary expectations or timelines. Russian success in Ukraine will encourage future Russian aggression and possibly that of others to redraw international boundaries by force.

American security and economic assistance should continue pursuing the aim of our national security goals and to honor US obligations. In 1994, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation, signed a memorandum of security assurances with Ukraine in exchange for giving up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Robust military support to Ukraine shows the United States still believes that commitment is worth keeping.

Stalemate Is Not Checkmate in Ukraine - Foreign Policy Research Institute

fpri.org · by Philip Wasielewski

Bottom Line

The ground war in Ukraine is now at a stalemate, a predicament which is neither a sign of impending defeat nor an unusual occurrence in war. While one aspect of a war may be “frozen” for a time, wars usually consist of many different geographic theaters, environments (air, land, sea, space, cyber), and aspects (economic, psychological, political), whose combination is what generally determines victory or defeat.
History has shown that past stalemates in war often cause participants to innovate and create new tactics and/or technologies and mobilize heretofore untouched resources to move past stalemate and towards victory.
The decision to provide aid to Ukraine should not depend on what phase this war is in, even if it is currently a static one. The United States started its support to the Ukrainian people at their darkest hour when there was little hope of survival, let alone victory. It should not end it because the war has not met arbitrary expectations or timelines.

“Positions are seldom lost because they have been destroyed,

but almost invariably because the leader has decided

in his own mind that the position cannot be held.”

– General Alexander Vandegrift, US Marine Corps

Medal of Honor winner at Guadalcanal

The ground war in Ukraine is currently stalemated. However, the current situation on the battlefield does not necessarily presage how the war will end. Kyiv and Washington can both make decisions to profoundly alter the future course of the war. For Kyiv, this means reforms in its military personnel and mobilization systems. For Washington, it means providing the type and quantity of aid that will enable a Ukrainian victory and not just help it stave off defeat. Furthermore, ending US aid to Ukraine, as some suggest as a reaction to the current static situation, would be tantamount to handing Russia a victory in its war of aggression and encouraging it to take similar steps in the future. Instead, Congress should continue the support necessary for Ukraine to create a battlefield and political situation that will best favor Ukrainian and US interests.

Fears of Stalemate

Two recent articles, one in Time magazine and one by General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the Ukrainian armed forces commander-in-chief, speaking of the Russo-Ukrainian war as a stalemate, have caused considerable unease both in Ukraine and the United States. In the halls of Congress, some senators and representatives say these articles are proof that victory for Kyiv is unobtainable and US support should be curtailed or ended. What may be lost in translation, however, is that battlefield stalemates are neither uncommon nor catastrophic unless political and military leaders make them so.

In other words, stalemate is not checkmate.

Stalemates are a part of warfare. During the American Civil War, the armies of Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee were fixed in trenches at Petersburg for approximately ten months. In World War II, German and Soviet forces were locked in a similar stalemate around Leningrad for over two years. The stalemate most often referenced when discussing the Russo-Ukrainian war is that of the Western front during World War I from the winter of 1914–1915 up until the spring of 1918. Those stalemates eventually ended when one side found a way to get around or through the trenches and fortifications of the other.

Stalemates often spur innovation. During World War I, the major belligerents tried different ways to overcome the tyranny of trench lines that left no open flanks and the technology of new weapons such as the machine gun and rapid-fire artillery pieces. Germany tried to break the stalemate strategically via unrestricted submarine warfare to destroy Britain’s economy and tactically via stormtrooper tactics to infiltrate past trench lines into rear areas. Britain’s response was to create another new technology, the tank, and formulate tactics to integrate tanks with artillery and infantry forces. The French believed innovations in artillery tactics developed in 1916 would lead to victory in 1917. However, a German innovation—defense in depth—stopped French attacks cold. Only Russia did not attempt to innovate, repeating its strategy of massive infantry attacks, as in the Brusilov and Kerensky offensives, until its army dissolved in mutiny and desertion.

Why Stalemate

Today’s stalemate in Ukraine is the result of three factors: one technological, one topographical, and one psychological. Modern battlefield surveillance, the topography of southern Ukraine that provides for minimal concealment, and the fact that both sides view the conflict in existential terms contribute to the current situation on the battlefield.

Technological

The combination of near-ubiquitous battlefield surveillance and precision-guided munitions makes a modern battlefield a dangerous place to move in. Today’s cheap, abundant, and easy-to-use drones provide both sides a literal bird’s eye view of the battlefield. Drones, integrated with other modern advances (e.g., night vision devices, counter-battery radars, satellite imagery, etc.) provide battlefield awareness undreamt of just a generation before. Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets, combined with precision-guided munitions, and overseen by a well-organized command, control, and communications network create what the Russians call a reconnaissance-strike complex. In other words, if something can be seen on the battlefield, it can be hit almost immediately. The world saw this on a smaller scale in the Second Karabakh War in 2020. Today, it is a central feature of the war in Ukraine.

Topographical

This integrated system of ubiquitous reconnaissance and precision fires is especially effective in southern Ukraine due to its topography, which provides minimal concealment. The battlefield is mostly one of large, open fields divided by tree lines and interspersed with small villages. There are few large forests making it difficult to assemble troops, hide supply dumps, or position artillery batteries.

Psychological

Both sides are highly motivated to continue fighting. In my recent trip to Ukraine, it was clear that Ukrainian soldiers and civilians alike believed they are engaged in a war of national survival. To lose means losing their culture as well as their lives. Many Ukrainians expect to have to fight for years to restore their territorial integrity, especially Crimea.

The Kremlin also believes this war is existential for the survival of the Putin regime, and is also prepared to fight for years, especially to maintain the illegally annexed jewel in its imperial crown: Crimea. A sense of necessity and destiny for the war is transmitted from the Kremlin to its soldiers on the front lines in three ways: through brutality, compensation, and ideology.

Brutality

It is hard to fathom the level of brutality that underpins Russia’s society, especially its military, and it is even more difficult for Western audiences to understand its Soviet antecedents such as Stalin’s Great Terror. The pervasive use of brutality as a social control measure continues in the modern Russian army. Russia uses blocking forces behind its front lines to shoot soldiers who retreat just as the Soviet army did in World War II. Physical brutality is used to maintain discipline in the trenches, just as during peacetime the custom of dedovshchina (i.e., hazing of more junior soldiers) was used to maintain discipline in the barracks.

Compensation

Conversely, the Russian military has proffered lucrative recruiting incentives and death benefits to impoverished Russian males, and pardons to prisoners, to fill its ranks. Combat pay is higher than what young men can expect to make anywhere in Russia and promised death benefits can equal a lifetime of earnings. As one Russian commentator has noted, it pays to die in the Russian army and such incentives have turned a high probability of death into a rational choice.

Ideology

Ukrainian officers who spoke with me this summer noted that most soldiers they are fighting come from poor, remote regions of Russia and their main source of information is state television. This makes them very susceptible to Kremlin propaganda. The Orthodox Church has literally blessed fighting in Ukraine as a sacred duty where “death in combat will wash away all sins,” and the state has framed it in terms of another Great Patriotic War to defeat Nazism.

Several Ukrainian officers have told me that many Russian soldiers believe the battlefield they are fighting over should belong to Russia. This imperial idea is another form of motivation. While there have been videos of Russian soldiers complaining of poor leadership, poor logistics, and inadequate support, it is rare to find a video in which they dispute the Kremlin’s justifications for the war or claim that it is unjust or immoral. On the one hand, this may be because the only high-ranking person to say so in public, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, was publicly executed in an aviation “accident:” another example of brutality used as “motivation.” On the other hand, it may also reflect the success of decades of propaganda regarding Ukraine resulting in Russian public support for imperial actions such as the illegal annexation of Crimea.

Stalemate on One Front Is Not Stalemate Everywhere

The combination of factors creating the current stalemate in Ukraine is neither unchangeable nor the entire story of the war. History shows that wars have many phases as well as separate, if interlocking, operational theaters and environments—air, land, sea, economic, political, and psychological. While Grant was stalemated at Petersburg for almost a year in 1864–1865, Sherman was marching to the sea and the Union navy was closing the remaining Confederate ports that sustained the South’s logistics. In World War I, while stalemate was the norm on the Western front, massive battles of maneuver took place on the Eastern front from Poland to Romania; the Middle East had theaters of action in Arabia, Mesopotamia, Palestine, and the Caucasus; and consequential naval struggles on the high seas determined that Britain could be supplied by the New World while the Central Powers would be strangled by economic blockade.

Currently in Ukraine, the approximately 600-mile frontline in running northeast to southwest along the southern oblasts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson has moved little since Ukraine’s first counteroffensive in the fall of 2022. However, this is not the only front where the war is being fought or which can contribute to victory. One dog that has not barked since the initial invasion in February 2022 is a potential threat of envelopment from the north. Belarus has not entered the war and Russian forces have mostly withdrawn from there. This makes Ukraine’s strategic situation somewhat more tenable.

Ukraine, without a navy but with the innovative use of drones and missiles, has negated Russian naval power in the Black Sea and is making Russia’s bastion in Crimea increasingly precarious for its Black Sea Fleet. This has allowed Ukraine to begin exporting grain again from Odessa, through the Turkish Straits, albeit not in the quantities it could before the war. Those exports will have a positive effect on Ukraine’s economy and balance of payments and will increase as Russia’s fleet is pushed further away from Crimea.

While Ukraine is less threatened from the sea, Russia’s air force and missile inventory remain a constant threat. There is a curious asymmetry in which air defenses on both sides have created a stalemate in the use of tactical air forces along the front lines yet missiles and long-range drones are able to strike rear area targets. The air war is fluid and could produce strategic consequences this winter if it undermines domestic Ukrainian morale due to power and heat outages or Russian morale in the trenches due to poor logistics and reduced fire support.

Finally, as Clausewitz informs us, war is a clash of wills. Ukrainians I spoke with at all levels of society this summer voiced a belief that their country had the will to continue the fight but also expressed a fear that the commitment of the West may not be enduring. They acknowledged that without Western support, especially American aid and leadership, they were unlikely to restore their territorial integrity. Putin seems to believe this as well. Some experts estimate that he will not negotiate until after the 2024 US elections. The psychological aspect of the war is also fluid and subject to change as much as the lines on the battlefield.

Past stalemates in war have usually ended via innovative combinations of new tactics, new technologies, and reinforcements, and efforts to weaken the foe’s morale and logistics at the strategic level. The tank and its integration with other combat arms helped break the stalemate on the Western front in World War I, as did the British blockade of Germany’s economy, which prevented it from producing the resources necessary to continue a world war. Germany’s use of unrestricted submarine warfare was a strategic failure, as it could not destroy the British economy and brought the United States into the war, providing massive reinforcements on the Western front. In other theaters, imaginative tactics, deception operations, and the use of guerrilla forces in the enemy’s rear helped British General Edmund Allenby defeat Turkish forces arrayed against him in Palestine, while reinforcements, new leadership, and improved logistics and training helped British forces in Mesopotamia to recover from their humiliating defeat at Kut and eventually conquer Baghdad.

Stalemate Is Not Immutable

To break the current stalemate in the Russo-Ukrainian War, Zaluzhnyi stressed the need for airpower to support large-scale ground operations, electronic warfare tools to negate Russian drones, counter-battery assets to overcome Russian artillery, mine-breaching technology, and training and other internal measures to increase Ukraine’s military manpower. These are all critical resources, which if provided in sufficient quantities can complement each other to provide even greater effects.

Helping Ukraine achieve air parity or even air superiority means not just providing F-16s to replace worn-out MiGs for close air support and interdiction missions, but also enough ISR, electronic warfare, and indirect fire assets to find and suppress Russian air defenses so these missions can be run without paying prohibitive costs. Electronic warfare and counter-battery assets can snap the links that make up Russia’s reconnaissance-strike complex, thereby protecting Ukrainian artillery and mine-clearing teams. Engineering assets for these teams are also a must. In this war, electronic warfare specialists, air defense personnel, combat engineers, and logisticians are as vital to breaking the stalemate as are tankers, artillerymen, and infantrymen.

Finding those soldiers, however, is a challenge for both sides. Russia’s recent attacks against Avdiivka show that despite mobilization issues, Moscow continues to recruit, train, and deploy large numbers of soldiers. Fortunately for Ukraine, the Russian military learned nothing from previous frontal attacks and wasted those reserves in disastrous assaults. Ukraine is also suffering from personnel shortages, noted by Zaluzhnyi. This is a self-inflicted wound that Kyiv must solve.

While Western powers can assist with training, recruiting is solely a Ukrainian function. The firing in August 2023 of all regional recruitment center chiefs for corruption by President Volodymyr Zelensky was a start. More must be done for Ukraine to clean its own house of corrupt practices that inhibit both its ability to wage war and join Euro-Atlantic organizations once the war ends. Unlike in World War I, no other power will join this war, so reinforcements to help break the stalemate will need to come from within.

Attacking in a hitherto unexpected direction is a time-honored way of ending a stalemate. Beyond the capabilities Zaluzhnyi is requesting to break through Russian fortifications known as the Surovikin line, the West should also provide training and equipment that will allow Ukraine to bypass these fortifications and move into Crimea. To outflank the Surovikin line and enter Crimea, Ukraine needs landing craft and amphibious assault vehicles to conduct river crossings and shore-to-shore amphibious assaults around Crimea’s littoral flanks. It also needs and pontoon bridges and small boats to move through the shallow Sivash lagoon (as the Red Army did in 1920 during the Russian Civil War) to avoid having to make frontal assaults against the defenses on Crimea’s Perekop isthmus, some of whose trenches go back to the sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire. Ukraine was likely already thinking along these lines when it requested training from the US Marine Corps in amphibious operations.

Beyond new and more technology and weapons, intangible factors will also be key to ending a stalemate. One intangible factor in war is morale, also called the “will to fight.” This winter will test both sides. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are about to spend another winter in fighting positions exposed to the cold and elements. The effects this can have on individual and unit morale if soldiers are unprepared for such conditions cannot be underestimated. Many armies have fallen apart not from combat but from winter. Providing weapons and ammunition will be important but so will be the provision of dry socks, insulated boots, winter jackets, space heaters, and hot food. The side that does not provide these items, or is prevented from providing them by attacks against its logistics system and supply lines, will be at a distinct disadvantage.

Another intangible feature is leadership. For leaders at the tactical and strategic levels of war, motivating their men to fight despite the ravages of winter and a stalemated situation will be a difficult challenge. The breaking of the stalemate in Ukraine may depend on which country’s officers and noncommissioned officers do the best job leading their men through a tough winter.

Conclusion

When two forces clash, and neither immediately imposes their will on the other, there is a stalemate. It is not a harbinger of defeat, since the other side is stalemated too, unless one party turns stalemate into defeat by surrendering or quitting. Usually, warring parties overcome stalemates with innovation and resolve. Ukraine is seeking arms and ammunition in sufficient quantities to overcome the technological and psychological elements that stymied its summer 2023 counteroffensive. If Ukraine can strike deeper against Russia’s airfields; supply lines; command, control, and communications networks; and ISR assets, it can disrupt Russia’s reconnaissance-strike complex and lower the morale of front-line soldiers experiencing another winter outdoors. With equipment and training to attack previously unassailable flanks, Ukraine could break the stalemate by putting Russian forces in untenable tactical positions. This could further undermine Russian army morale. All men have limits and there are limits to how long fear, money (if paid), and ideology can give soldiers the will to fight if they are outflanked, low on supplies, and have spent a winter outdoors with inadequate clothing and rations. Other armies have failed under lesser strains.

However, this is merely conjecture if Ukraine cannot solve its own problems, especially regarding manpower. With a population similar to that of the United States during the Civil War, Ukraine should be able to mobilize hundreds of thousands of young men as the Union and Confederacy did for four years, all the while suffering even bloodier losses than Ukraine’s army has to date. My own observations in Ukraine this summer was that it was not lacking in young men or patriotism.

Finally, Ukraine’s Western partners, including the United States, must not fall into the trap of believing that stalemate means defeat. This is Russia’s strategy. It wants to create despair over supporting Ukraine to achieve its larger strategic goal of ejecting American power from the European continent. Moscow wants to show that American security guarantees are unreliable and that the United States will grow tired of war and leave its allies and partners in the lurch.

Thanks to the sacrifices of the Ukrainian nation, the Russian military has been severely damaged and has become less of a threat to NATO. Only a few years ago, national security experts were concerned that NATO could not repel a Russian attack against the Baltic states. Now those fears are diminished thanks to Ukraine. Money that the United States would have had to spend on containing further Russian aggression had Ukraine fallen can now be repurposed to other security threats, especially in the Far East. For just 3 percent of the US defense budget, 50 percent of the Russian army has been destroyed. This alone shows that our aid to Ukraine has been a two-way street. It has also never been a blank check and much of the money allocated for Ukraine goes to defense industries in the United States.

Therefore, the possibility that the Russo-Ukrainian war is entering into a stalemate should not be the cause for despair or the abandonment of the reasons why we came to Ukraine’s aid in the first place. Congressional leaders should avoid repeating the mantra of “forever war” to justify any surrender of Ukraine to Putin. Forever war is nothing more than a battle cry for policy to be decided on emotion, rather than careful analysis. After all, what did cries of forever war produce in Afghanistan—a partner betrayed, the return of safe havens for terrorist groups, and a severe blow to our reputation as a reliable ally. Do we need a repeat of this experience so soon again as Taiwan’s fate weighs in Xi’s balance?

The decision to provide aid to Ukraine should not depend on what phase this war is in, even if it is currently a static one. The United States started its support to the Ukrainian people at their darkest hour when there was little hope of survival, let alone victory. It should not end it because the war has not met arbitrary expectations or timelines. Russian success in Ukraine will encourage future Russian aggression and possibly that of others to redraw international boundaries by force.

American security and economic assistance should continue pursuing the aim of our national security goals and to honor US obligations. In 1994, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation, signed a memorandum of security assurances with Ukraine in exchange for giving up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Robust military support to Ukraine shows the United States still believes that commitment is worth keeping.

Stalemate is not checkmate, yet.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a non-partisan organization that seeks to publish well-argued, policy-oriented articles on American foreign policy and national security priorities.

Philip Wasielewski

Philip Wasielewski is the Director of FPRI's Center for the Study of Intelligence and Nontraditional Warfare and a 2023 Templeton Fellow. He is a former Paramilitary Case Officer who had a 31-year career in the Directorate of Operations of the Central Intelligence Agency.

fpri.org · by Philip Wasielewski

19. 2024 preview: The West must decide if it wants Ukraine to win

Excerpts:

Had the US and its NATO allies committed themselves in spring 2022 to a Ukrainian victory, Ukraine would now possess a superior tank fleet, a capable air force, ample long range fires able to reach deep into the Russian rear, and breaching assets capable of solving the problem of dense minefields. In all likelihood, Ukraine’s recent counteroffensive would have succeeded in turning the tide decisively in Ukraine’s favor. No NATO soldiers would have had to enter the fight, and at a small fraction of NATO defense budgets, the Russian military threat could have been neutered for a generation. Most importantly of all, the prospects for escalation and a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO would have been dramatically reduced.

That outcome is still possible and can be achieved without wrecking Western defense budgets, alliance cohesion, or domestic politics. However, time is running out. Ukraine remains defiant but its forces have been mauled and are increasingly suffering from ammunition shortages. A policy reversal by Western leaders in early 2024 could see Ukraine equipped with the capabilities it needs to win the war by the end of the year. Above all, that means artillery ammunition, long range fires, air power, and assault breaching equipment.

A stirring Ukrainian success in 2024 would have far-reaching effects for European security and international stability. Aggressive authoritarian regimes like China and Iran would be chastened, not encouraged. Global food security and supply chain disruptions would be eased. Putin would probably be removed, with reasonable prospects for improved relations between Russia and the West and a more stable international equilibrium.

In all of this, Western leaders must be reminded that the world remains a dangerous place. Half measures do not enhance deterrence and do not impress aggressors. If we seek to avoid conflict and confrontation with Russia and with others, we must do so in concert with friends and allies with determination and a measure of boldness. So far, we are falling short.

2024 preview: The West must decide if it wants Ukraine to win

By Richard D. Hooker, Jr.

atlanticcouncil.org · · December 18, 2023

Where is the Russian invasion of Ukraine headed in 2024? Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny’s sobering recent assessment of his army’s stalled counteroffensive has generated widespread attention and a measure of disillusionment among those who expected a decisive breakthrough during the 2023 campaigning season. Experts from across the political and security spectrum are probing for answers, but the reasons for such disappointing results aren’t hard to discern. Ukraine cannot win the war without the kind of air power and long range fires that the country’s international partners have so far failed to provide.

Before assessing what went wrong in 2023, it is important to note that Ukrainian forces have achieved significant results, if not the dramatic breakthrough many had hoped for. By all accounts, Russian losses have far outstripped Ukrainian casualty figures. Large scale Russian attacks in eastern Ukraine have been consistently beaten off. The Russian Black Sea Fleet has been all but driven from Sevastopol despite Ukraine’s lack of air power and a surface navy, while painful drone attacks deep inside Russia have brought the war home to Russian citizens. Ukrainian air defenses, against all odds, have stifled the Russian air force. On balance, Ukraine has accomplished far more than most observers expected at the outbreak of the conflict.

Western aid has played a major role in keeping Ukraine in the fight, but some context is important when assessing this impact. The US has allocated over $100 billion for Ukraine since the war began. Importantly, however, conscious policy decisions have denied Ukraine some key capabilities essential to battlefield success. Despite urgent appeals, the US has withheld F-16 aircraft and pressured allies to do the same, forcing Ukraine to contest the air domain with drones and older air defense systems while denying its ground forces the air interdiction and close air support vital in high intensity conflicts. Outnumbered ten to one in combat aircraft, the Ukrainian Air Force can contribute little on the battlefield, though a limited transfer of older Polish and Slovak fighter jets has helped to offset combat losses.

Long range fires in the form of the tracked Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) and wheeled High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), together with very long ranged and highly accurate Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) munitions have been supplied, but in relatively small quantities. Despite an inventory of hundreds of M1-series main battle tanks kept in storage, the US has delivered only 31 tanks to Ukraine, almost two years into the conflict.

The European Union for its part has contributed around $80 billion in overall aid, but much of this has been in the form of financial assistance rather than military supplies. A closer look shows that the burden has not been fairly shared across Europe. As a percentage of GDP, contributions from Poland, Finland, the Baltic States, and Norway, all of whom share a border with the Russian Federation, far outstrip wealthier states like Germany, France, and Italy.

In addition to MiG-29s, Poland transferred more than 320 modernized main battle tanks to Ukraine in 2022 and early 2023, replacing most of Ukraine’s battlefield losses. Estonia transferred all of its 155mm howitzers and more than a third of its annual defense budget to Ukraine. Latvia contributed all of its Stinger missiles. Tiny Lithuania has contributed almost $1 billion in aid of all types, second only to Norway as a percentage of GDP. Britain, too, has played a leading role, providing NLAW anti-tank systems, Storm Shadow cruise missiles, and Challenger tanks to Ukraine when others have remained reluctant, thereby “priming the pump” for major allies to follow suit.

Clearly, those states most threatened by Russian aggression have shown far greater commitment to supporting Ukraine. For the most part, the rest have followed the US lead in helping Ukraine to resist further Russian territorial gains, but have denied Ukraine the means to achieve decisive success in reclaiming occupied territory. Above all, this means no or very few main battle tanks, fighter aircraft, or long range missile artillery.

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What accounts for the West’s cautious approach to supporting Ukraine? It appears to be driven by three key concerns. Firstly, some Western policymakers fear that providing Ukraine with the weapons and capabilities to win will cross a “red line” and provoke Putin to risk nuclear war. Secondly, there is alarm that a decisive Russian defeat in Ukraine would lead to Putin’s overthrow, with chaos likely to follow. The third factor is the belief that Russia must be preserved as a major player and crucial element in the international system, something defeat in Ukraine could call into question.

The possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons has been dismissed by many experts, including the Director of US Central Intelligence. Deploying nuclear weapons might well lead to uncontrolled escalation and the end of Putin’s regime or even Russia itself. Putin’s famed “escalate to deescalate” doctrine, essentially nuclear saber-rattling to preclude Western intervention, has proven successful due to timidity on the part of US and European leaders, but this does not constitute actual intent. For eight decades, nuclear deterrence has proven to be stable and durable. The US has invested trillions in its nuclear systems and should have faith in its own ability to deter Putin.

Worries over the potential instability of a post-Putin Russia are similarly unconvincing. If Putin is overthrown due to failure in Ukraine, would his successors really adopt the same course and attempt to renew Russian aggression? Any successor would be faced with a shattered military, a damaged economy, and a disillusioned and despondent population. Russian elites, many of whom have a taste for Western luxuries, are more likely to seek escape from Western sanctions and reintegration into the international community. And even in an autocratic society, the Russian people will have a voice in a new Russia. After suffering fearful losses and economic deprivation, they will also want change.

The argument in favor of preserving Russia as a key element of the international system is perhaps the hardest of all to defend. Putin does not want a stable international system and is unlikely to ever operate as a responsible player within it. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, democracy was on the march and autocracy seemed to be in full retreat. Today, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea combine to present a formidable challenge to traditional Western liberalism and democracy, with the Putin regime serving as a destabilizing factor in international affairs.

Defeat in Ukraine and regime change in Moscow would undoubtedly lead to a diminution of Russian power in the near and mid-term. Some parts of the Russian Federation with non-Russian majorities such as Chechnya, Dagestan, Tatarstan, North Ossetia and others might break away. However, the core of the Russian state with its nuclear weapons and vast energy, agricultural, and mineral resources would remain viable and intact and would have clear incentives to act in accordance with international norms and rules.

The Biden administration deserves credit for its efforts to support the survival of Ukraine as an independent state. But its policy objective has not been to enable Ukrainian victory. Time and again, President Biden and his chief aides have warned about the dangers of provoking World War III as a rationale for withholding critical assistance. The major European powers have for the most part followed suit. The irony here is that pursuing a policy designed to prevent a Russian victory while denying Ukraine the tools its needs to win actually increases the chances of an even more dangerous conflict in Europe.

As the war grinds on, international support for Ukraine must wane. Far smaller in population and resources, Ukraine’s military and Ukrainian society cannot endure large scale war indefinitely. In time, Ukrainian morale and national resolve will degrade. Though Russia has suffered enormous losses, it has far greater resources. With the support of China and other autocratic regimes, Moscow has the capacity to carry on the invasion of Ukraine for many years.

Unless the current dynamics of the invasion change in 2024, the most likely result is yet another frozen conflict like Georgia and Moldova, but with Russian forces occupying the sovereign territory of a neighboring state on a much larger and more dangerous scale. In this circumstance, Russia is unlikely to lick its wounds and slumber. Instead, any pause in the invasion of Ukraine would allow the Russian military to refit and retrain.

Meanwhile, Putin’s well-documented imperial ambitions would seek new outlets. If the West falters in Ukraine, the Baltic States and even Poland would be squarely in Putin’s sights, raising the chances that the US will become directly involved due to its NATO treaty obligations.

Had the US and its NATO allies committed themselves in spring 2022 to a Ukrainian victory, Ukraine would now possess a superior tank fleet, a capable air force, ample long range fires able to reach deep into the Russian rear, and breaching assets capable of solving the problem of dense minefields. In all likelihood, Ukraine’s recent counteroffensive would have succeeded in turning the tide decisively in Ukraine’s favor. No NATO soldiers would have had to enter the fight, and at a small fraction of NATO defense budgets, the Russian military threat could have been neutered for a generation. Most importantly of all, the prospects for escalation and a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO would have been dramatically reduced.

That outcome is still possible and can be achieved without wrecking Western defense budgets, alliance cohesion, or domestic politics. However, time is running out. Ukraine remains defiant but its forces have been mauled and are increasingly suffering from ammunition shortages. A policy reversal by Western leaders in early 2024 could see Ukraine equipped with the capabilities it needs to win the war by the end of the year. Above all, that means artillery ammunition, long range fires, air power, and assault breaching equipment.

A stirring Ukrainian success in 2024 would have far-reaching effects for European security and international stability. Aggressive authoritarian regimes like China and Iran would be chastened, not encouraged. Global food security and supply chain disruptions would be eased. Putin would probably be removed, with reasonable prospects for improved relations between Russia and the West and a more stable international equilibrium.

In all of this, Western leaders must be reminded that the world remains a dangerous place. Half measures do not enhance deterrence and do not impress aggressors. If we seek to avoid conflict and confrontation with Russia and with others, we must do so in concert with friends and allies with determination and a measure of boldness. So far, we are falling short.

Richard D. Hooker Jr. is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council. He previously served as Dean of the NATO Defense College and as Special Assistant to the US President and Senior Director for Europe and Russia with the National Security Council.

atlanticcouncil.org · · December 18, 2023

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

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

Access NSS HERE

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