Quotes of the Day:
“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries. It is as though mankind had divided itself between those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything is possible if one knows how to organize masses for it) and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives.”
— The Origins Of Totalitarianism (Harvest Book Book 244) by Hannah Arendt
https://a.co/4RRw8Eb
"Life continues... it goes on. In these three words I can sum up everything I have learned in my 80 years about life, it goes on."
- Robert Frost
"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."
- William Shakespeare
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MARCH 21 (PUTIN's WAR)
2. Ukraine retakes key Kyiv suburb; battle for Mariupol rages
3. Biden says Putin is weighing use of chemical weapons in Ukraine, without citing evidence
4. Lawmakers urge intel officials to declassify Russian war crimes info
5. ‘They own the long clock’ — How the Russian military is starting to adapt in Ukraine
6. Activists are targeting Russians with open-source "protestware"
7. Ukraine War Update - March 22, 2022 | SOF News
8. White House Bureaucracy Is Costing Ukrainian Lives, Senators Say
9. Duty Bound to Disaster: Beware the Imperative in Foreign Policymaking
10. The US Needs a Center to Counter Foreign Malign Influence at Home
11. Opinion | Against all odds, Ukrainians are winning. Russia’s initial offensive has failed.
12. China and Russia’s military relationship likely to deepen with Ukraine war
13. Opinion | The West underestimated Ukraine’s bravery. Now, it’s underestimating Russia’s brutality.
14. Opinion | The Grand Theory Driving Putin to War
15. Putin’s War Is a Death Blow to Nuclear Nonproliferation
16. FDD | Assad Visits the UAE, Showing Need for Tougher Enforcement of U.S. Sanctions
17. Iran’s Hackers Are Opportunistic, Patient, and Fearless
18. FDD | Vandenberg Coalition Afghanistan Working Group Report
19. FDD | Dropping IRGC from blacklist would be boon for terrorism
20. The Cyber-Delusion- Digital Threats Are Manageable, Not Existential
21. The Toll of Economic War - How Sanctions on Russia Will Upend the Global Order
22. Jeopardizing national security: What is happening to our Marine Corps?
23. Ukraine-California Ties Show Worth of National Guard Program
24. Why Can’t We Admit That Ukraine Is Winning?
25. Criminal hackers are preying on the world’s sympathies for Ukraine
26. A New Period of Consequences
27. Linda Chavez on Why Russian Propagandists Love Fox News
28. Our Nasty, Stupid, Frivolous Cancel Culture Fights (That We’re Lucky Enough to Have)
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MARCH 21 (PUTIN's WAR)
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MARCH 21
Mason Clark, George Barros, and Kateryna Stepanenko
March 21, 5:30pm ET
Russian forces did not make any major advances on March 21. Russian forces northwest and northeast of Kyiv continued to shell the city and strengthen defensive positions but did not conduct major offensive operations. Russian forces did not conduct any offensive operations toward the northeastern Ukrainian cities of Chernihiv, Sumy, or Kharkiv in the last 24 hours. Russian forces continued to reduce the Mariupol pocket and conducted several unsuccessful assaults in Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts but did not launch any offensive operations around Kherson.
Key Takeaways
- Russian forces did not conduct any offensive operations northwest of Kyiv and further reinforced their defensive positions.
- Russian forces did not conduct offensive operations in northeastern Ukraine and have been unable to solve logistics issues.
- Russian forces continued to make slow but steady progress and shell civilian infrastructure in Mariupol.
- Russian and proxy forces conducted several unsuccessful assaults in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts in the past 24 hours.
- Russia continues to deploy low-quality reserves, including combat-support elements and low-readiness units from the Eastern Military District, to replace losses in frontline units.
- The Ukranian General Staff warned that Russia seeks to conduct a provocation to bring Belarus into the war, but a Belarusian offensive into western Ukraine remains unlikely to occur or succeed if it did.
The Ukrainian General Staff continued to warn on March 20-21 that Russia seeks to bring Belarus into the war. The Ukrainian General Staff reported at midnight local time on March 20 that “there is a high probability” of Russian provocations against Belarus to bring Belarus into the war in Ukraine and create a new axis of advance into western Ukraine.[1] Belarus evacuated its embassy in Kyiv to Moldova on March 19 in response to what it claimed were “unbearable working conditions.”[2] The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) also reported on March 21 that it detained a Belarusian spy who was examining Ukrainian deployments and equipment in Volyn Oblast.[3] Belarusian social media users additionally observed Belarusian military equipment in Rechista (in the Brest region), 7km from the Ukrainian border, on March 21.[4] The Kremlin likely seeks to bring Belarus into the war in Ukraine to reinforce Russian forces, but Belarusian President Lukashenko likely continues to resist Russian pressure. A new Russian or Belarusian axis of advance into Western Ukraine would be unlikely to succeed. Russian and Belarusian forces would face staunch Ukrainian resistance and similar, if not greater, morale and logistics issues to Russian forces elsewhere.
The Ukrainian General Staff stated for the first time on March 21 that Russia is deploying unspecified support units to “direct combat operations” and said that Russia continues to deploy reserves from the Central and Eastern Military Districts (CMD and EMD).[5] The Ukrainian Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) provided further details on conscription measures in the DNR and LNR on March 21. They reported that Russian authorities are increasing the conscription age from 55 to 65 and aggressively recruiting 18-year-old students. The GUR reported conscripts in DNR/LNR forces are supplied with military equipment from the 1970s.[6] Local social media imagery depicted new conscripts equipped with the Mosin-Nagant bolt action rifle—which has not been produced since 1973 and was first produced in 1891.[7]
The Ukrainian General Staff reported on March 21 that Russian forces in Ukraine are in “dire need of repairing and rebuilding damaged weapons and military equipment,” and stated a lack of foreign-made components is slowing production in key Russian military industries.[8] The Ukrainian General Staff also said that Russia is decreasing its use of manned aircraft and replacing them with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), likely due to continuing losses and wear and tear on both airframes and pilots.[9]
We do not report in detail on the deliberate Russian targeting of civilian infrastructure and attacks on unarmed civilians, which are war crimes, because those activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects that these criminal activities have on the Ukrainian military and population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, the Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
Russian forces are engaged in four primary efforts at this time:
- Main effort—Kyiv (comprised of three subordinate supporting efforts);
- Supporting effort 1—Kharkiv;
- Supporting effort 1a—Luhansk Oblast;
- Supporting effort 2—Mariupol and Donetsk Oblast; and
- Supporting effort 3—Kherson and advances northward and westward.
Main effort—Kyiv axis: Russian operations on the Kyiv axis are aimed at encircling the city from the northwest, west, and east.
Subordinate main effort along the west bank of the Dnipro
Russian forces did not conduct any offensive operations northwest of Kyiv on March 21.[10] Russian forces continued to deploy engineering equipment to fortify their forward positions around Kyiv and continued efforts to improve their logistics. The UK Ministry of Defense stated on March 21 that Russia’s primary military objective in Ukraine remains encircling Kyiv, but they are unlikely to successfully do so in the coming weeks.[11] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces northwest of Kyiv continue to unsuccessfully prepare for resuming major offensive operations.[12] The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that Russian forces captured a Ukrainian command bunker in Mykolaivka, approximately 30km directly west of Kyiv, but ISW cannot independently confirm this Russian claim.[13]
Russian forces are increasingly shelling major civilian infrastructure In Kyiv and killing civilians, including strikes on a major shopping mall in Podil the night of March 20.[14] The Ukrainian General Staff reported at midnight local time on March 20 that Russian forces continue to shell and conduct airstrikes against residential areas “to intimidate the civilian population and reduce the economic potential of Ukraine.”[15] ISW previously assessed that Russian forces will likely set conditions for an expanded artillery and missile bombardment of Kyiv by moving into effective artillery range of the city center in the coming weeks.[16]
Subordinate supporting effort—Chernihiv and Sumy axis
The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces halted a Russian attack toward Brovary (a northeastern suburb of Kyiv) and inflicted heavy casualties as of noon local time on March 21.[17] Russian forces did not conduct any other major combat operations, and this was likely a localized, tactical attack rather than the resumption of major Russian offensive operations. Russian forces did not conduct any ground operations against Chernihiv city in the past 24 hours but continued to shell densely populated areas of the city.[18]
The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces northeast of Kyiv continue to regroup and concentrate forces to resume offensive operations but are unable to organize the high-quality logistical support needed for major operations.[19] Russian forces around Sumy also did not conduct any offensive operations in the past 24 hours.[20] Ukrainian social media users additionally shared pictures and video of several destroyed Russian armored vehicles, likely from the 4th Guards Tank Division, in Sumy Oblast.[21] The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed on March 21 that Ukrainian “nationalists” carried out a planned ammonia leak at the Sumyhimprom chemical plant in Sumy.[22] ISW continues to closely monitor possible Russian efforts to set conditions for a false-flag chemical attack in Ukraine.[23]
Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv:
The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces did not conduct any offensive operations against Kharkiv or in northeastern Ukraine and continued “covert preparations” to resume offensive operations.[24] Russian forces continue to shell Ukrainian defensive positions and civilian infrastructure in the city.[25] Russian social media sources confirmed on March 20 that Ukrainian forces killed a Russian Colonel (regimental commander) near Kharkiv on March 15, though reports vary if he commanded the 252nd Guards Motor Rifle Regiment or the 137th Guards Airborne Regiment.[26] Russian forces additionally conducted several assaults against Izyum, southeast of Kharkiv, from March 20-21 but did not secure any additional territory.[27]
Supporting Effort #1a—Luhansk Oblast:
Russian and proxy forces in Luhansk Oblast continued to contest the town of Rubizhne but did not launch any major offensive operations.[28] The Ukrainian Border Service reported on March 21 that they captured a Russian saboteur equipped with explosives and grenades in Luhansk Oblast.[29] Social media users spotted around 30 Russian military trucks with Chechen flags in Alchevsk (west of Luhansk) on March 20, likely Chechen Rosgvardia (Russian National Guard) units.[30]
Supporting Effort #2—Mariupol and Donetsk Oblast:
Russian forces around Mariupol continued to assault Mariupol from the west and east and target civilian infrastructure on March 20-21.[31] The Ukrainian General Staff reported at midnight local time on March 20 that Russian forces made no territorial progress and suffered heavy casualties.[32] Twitter users geolocated videos of Chechen fighters released by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to Mariupol on March 20, confirming their participation in Russian assaults on the city.[33]
Russian forces conducted several assaults along the line of contact in Donetsk Oblast, north of Mariupol, from March 20-21. The Ukrainian General Staff reported at midnight local time on March 20 that Ukrainian forces repelled seven Russian attacks in Donetsk and Luhansk during the day and claimed to have destroyed 12 tanks, nine infantry fighting vehicles, and two aircraft and killed about 170 personnel.[34] The General Staff later reported at noon local time on March 21 that Russian forces continued to conduct assaults but were unable to break through Ukrainian defenses.[35] The Russian Defense Ministry claimed on March 21 that Russian forces have nearly defeated the “nationalists” in Donbas and advanced to a depth of 12km.[36]
Supporting Effort #3—Kherson and advances northward and westward:
Russian forces did not conduct any offensive operations in the southern direction in the past 24 hours, and Russian forces in Kherson and nearby areas face growing Ukrainian resistance. The Ukrainian General Staff reported at midnight local time on March 20 that Russia deployed Rosgvardia forces to Kherson and Zaporizhiya Oblasts to conduct punitive measures against civilians to deter further protests in occupied cities.[37] Russian forces fired on protesters in Kherson and raided local shops on March 21.[38] Unknown actors additionally killed Denis Slobodchikov, an aide assisting the local collaborationist government set up by Russia in Kherson City, on March 20.[39] Social media users filmed Russian forces beating protesters in Berdyansk on March 20.[40] Mounting Ukrainian resistance in Russian-occupied territory will likely force Russia to deploy additional forces to rear area security, further weakening the combat power available for offensive operations.
Russian forces around Mykolayiv did not conduct any offensive operations in the past 24 hours and prioritized improving defensive positions. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces are pausing to replenish supplies but face increasing demoralization and rates of desertion.[41] The Ukrainian Air Force remains active over Mykolayiv, destroying several Russian vehicles on March 21.[42]
Immediate items to watch
- Russian forces will likely capture Mariupol or force the city to capitulate within the coming weeks.
- Russia will expand its air, missile, and artillery bombardments of Ukrainian cities.
- Russian forces will likely continue efforts to reach Kryvyi Rih and isolate Zaporizhiya.
- Russian forces around Kyiv will continue efforts to push forward into effective artillery range of the center of the city.
- Russian troops will continue efforts to reduce Chernihiv and Sumy.
- Mounting Ukrainian resistance in Russian-occupied territory may divert Russian combat power to rear area security.
[28] https://riafan dot ru/22036888-narodnaya_militsiya_lnr_vedet_ulichnie_boi_protiv_ukrainskih_silovikov_v_rubezhnom.
2. Ukraine retakes key Kyiv suburb; battle for Mariupol rages
Please remember those fighting for their lives: Ukrainian men, women, and children.
Ukraine retakes key Kyiv suburb; battle for Mariupol rages
AP · by NEBI QENA and CARA ANNA · March 22, 2022
Explosions and bursts of gunfire shook Kyiv, and black smoke rose from a spot in the north. Intensified artillery fire could be heard from the northwest, where Russia has sought to encircle and capture several suburban areas of the capital, a crucial target.
Residents sheltered at home or underground under a 35-hour curfew imposed by city authorities that runs to Wednesday morning.
Russian forces also carried on with their siege of Mariupol after the southern port city’s defenders refused demands to surrender, with fleeing civilians describing relentless bombardments and corpses lying in the streets. But the Kremlin’s ground offensive in other parts of the country advanced slowly or not at all, knocked back by lethal hit-and-run attacks by the Ukrainians.
ADVERTISEMENT
Early Tuesday, Ukrainian troops forced Russian forces out of the Kyiv suburb of Makariv after a fierce battle, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said. The regained territory allowed Ukrainian forces to retake control of a key highway and block Russian troops from surrounding Kyiv from the northwest.
Still, the Defense Ministry said Russian forces battling toward Kyiv were able to partially take other northwest suburbs, Bucha, Hostomel and Irpin, some of which had been under attack almost since Russia’s military invaded almost a month ago.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces are increasingly concentrating their air power and artillery on Ukraine’s cities and the civilians living there. Moscow’s invasion has driven nearly 3.5 million people from Ukraine, according to the United Nations, with another 6.5 million displaced inside the country. The U.N. has confirmed over 900 civilian deaths while saying the real toll is probably much higher. Estimates of Russian deaths vary, but even conservative figures are in the low thousands.
U.S. and British officials say Kyiv remains Russia’s primary objective. The bulk of Moscow’s forces remain miles from the center, but missiles and artillery have destroyed apartment buildings and a large shopping mall, which was left a smoking ruin after being hit late Sunday by strikes that killed eight people, according to emergency officials.
ADVERTISEMENT
A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the military’s assessment, said Russia had increased air sorties over the past two days, carrying out as many as 300 in the past 24 hours, and has fired more than 1,100 missiles into Ukraine since the invasion began.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who is heading to Europe later in the week to meet with allies, suggested Monday evening that worse may be still to come.
“Putin’s back is against the wall,” Biden said. “He wasn’t anticipating the extent or the strength of our unity. And the more his back is against the wall, the greater the severity of the tactics he may employ.”
As Russian forces try to squeeze Kyiv, talks to end the fighting have continued by video but failed to bridge the chasm between the two sides. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Ukrainian television late Monday that he would be prepared to consider waiving any NATO bid by Ukraine — a key Russian demand — in exchange for a cease-fire, the withdrawal of Russian troops and a guarantee of Ukraine’s security.
Zelenskyy also suggested Kyiv would be open to future discussions on the status of Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014, and the regions of the eastern Donbas region held by Russian-backed separatists. But he said that was a topic for another time. Zelenskyy plans to speak to Italy’s lawmakers Tuesday and Japanese lawmakers on Wednesday, part of a series of addresses to foreign legislatures as he seeks to drum up support.
In Mariupol, with communications crippled, movement restricted and many residents in hiding, the fate of those inside an art school flattened on Sunday and a theater that was blown apart four days earlier was unclear. More than 1,300 people were believed to be sheltering in the theater, and 400 were estimated to have been in the art school.
Perched on the Sea of Azov, Mariupol is crucial port for Ukraine and lies along a stretch of territory between Russia and Crimea. As such, it is a key target that has been besieged for more than three weeks and has seen some of the worst suffering of the war.
It is not clear how close its capture might be. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday that their forces were still defending the city and had destroyed a Russian patrol boat and electronic warfare complex.
Over the weekend, Moscow had offered safe passage out of Mariupol — one corridor leading east to Russia, another going west to other parts of Ukraine — in return for the city’s surrender before daybreak Monday. Ukraine flatly rejected the offer well before the deadline.
Mariupol had a prewar population of about 430,000. Around a quarter were believed to have left in the opening days of the war, and tens of thousands escaped over the past week by way of the humanitarian corridors. Other attempts have been thwarted by the fighting.
Mariupol officials said on March 15 that at least 2,300 people had died in the siege, with some buried in mass graves. There has been no official estimate since then, but the number is feared to be far higher after six more days of bombardment.
For those who remain, conditions have become brutal. The assault has cut off Mariupol’s electricity, water and food supplies and severed communication with the outside world, plunging residents into a fight for survival. Fresh commercial satellite images showed smoke rising from buildings newly hit by Russian artillery.
Those who have made it out of Mariupol told of a devastated city.
“There are no buildings there anymore,” said 77-year-old Maria Fiodorova, who crossed the border to Poland on Monday after five days of travel.
Olga Nikitina, who fled Mariupol for the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, where she arrived Sunday, said gunfire blew out her windows, and her apartment dropped below freezing.
A long line of vehicles stood on a road in Bezimenne, east of Mariupol, as residents of the besieged city sought shelter at a temporary camp set up by Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk region. An estimated 5,000 people from Mariupol have taken refuge in the camp. Many arrived in cars with signs that said “children” in Russian.
A woman who gave her name as Yulia said she and her family sought shelter in Bezimenne after a bombing destroyed six houses behind her home.
“That’s why we got in the car, at our own risk, and left in 15 minutes because everything is destroyed there, dead bodies are lying around,” she said. “They don’t let us pass through everywhere — there are shootings.”
Russian shelling of a corridor wounded four children on a route leading out of Mariupol, Zelenskyy said.
Matthew Saltmarsh, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency called the speed and scale of people fleeing danger in Ukraine “unprecedented in recent memory.”
___
This story has been updated to correct that Zelenskyy plans to address Japanese lawmakers on Wednesday, not Tuesday.
___
Anna reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Associated Press writer Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, and other AP journalists around the world contributed to this report.
___
AP · by NEBI QENA and CARA ANNA · March 22, 2022
3. Biden says Putin is weighing use of chemical weapons in Ukraine, without citing evidence
What kind of chemical defense equipment has the international community provided to the Ukrainians? Have there been any significant preparations?
How will NATO, the US, and the international community react if Putin uses chemical weapons?
Biden says Putin is weighing use of chemical weapons in Ukraine, without citing evidence
WASHINGTON, March 21 (Reuters) - Russia's false accusations that Kyiv has biological and chemical weapons illustrate that Russian President Vladimir Putin is considering using them himself in his war against Ukraine, U.S. President Joe Biden said on Monday, without citing evidence.
Putin's "back is against the wall and now he's talking about new false flags he's setting up including, asserting that we in America have biological as well as chemical weapons in Europe, simply not true," Biden said at a Business Roundtable event.
"They are also suggesting that Ukraine has biological and chemical weapons in Ukraine. That's a clear sign he's considering using both of those."
The Russian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The remarks echoed prior comments by officials in Washington and allied countries, who have accused Russia of spreading an unproven claim that Ukraine had a biological weapons program as a possible prelude to potentially launching its own biological or chemical attacks. read more
U.S. President Joe Biden discusses the United States' response to Russian invasion of Ukraine and warns CEOs about potential cyber attacks from Russia at Business Roundtable's CEO Quarterly Meeting in Washington, DC, U.S., March 21, 2022. REUTERS/Leah Millis
Russia's defense ministry has accused Kyiv, without providing evidence, of planning a chemical attack against its own people in order to accuse Moscow of using chemical weapons in the invasion of Ukraine that began on Feb. 24.
Earlier this month, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke with Nikolay Patrushev, secretary of Russia's Security Council, warning him of consequences for "any possible Russian decision to use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine." The White House did not specify what those consequences would be. read more
Biden also said Russia used a hypersonic missile to destroy a weapons depot on Saturday "because it’s the only thing they can get through with absolute certainty."
An administration official clarified Monday evening that Biden was confirming Russia's use of such an advanced missile, but noted that the impact of the attack was unknown. One senior U.S. defense official had earlier raised questions about the legitimacy of the Russian account. L2N2VO18C
Russia's invasion, which it calls a "special military operation" to disarm Ukraine, has largely stalled, failing to capture any major city, but causing massive destruction to residential areas.
Ukraine said on Monday it would not obey ultimatums from Russia after Moscow demanded it stop defending besieged Mariupol, where hundreds of thousands of civilians are suffering through Russian bombardments. read more
Reporting by Nandita Bose, Eric Beech and Alexandra Alper; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Stephen Coates
4. Lawmakers urge intel officials to declassify Russian war crimes info
Intelligence is not evidence. But perhaps the release of intelligence will drive people to collect, preserve, and provide evidence for the future war crimes trials.
Lawmakers urge intel officials to declassify Russian war crimes info
All members of the House Intelligence Committee are requesting that U.S. spies track information to thwart the Kremlin – and someday hold it accountable.
House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff updates reporters outside a secure facility in the basement of the Capitol on Feb. 24, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo
03/22/2022 06:01 AM EDT
The House Intelligence Committee is urging the U.S. spy community to track, preserve and, whenever possible, declassify information about potential Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
The request, contained in a letter signed by all 23 members of the panel and sent this week to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, comes amid growing global concern about Russia’s attacks on civilians in Ukraine as well as Moscow’s veiled warnings about using chemical and biological weapons in the country.
The concern has risen as Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has hit fierce resistance, with signs of a possible stalemate. Observers worry that, to make progress, Putin will allow more indiscriminate bombings and other tactics that endanger civilians and violate traditional rules of war.
The bipartisan letter, dated Monday and shared with POLITICO, praises U.S. intelligence agencies’ unusual efforts so far to assist Ukraine and befuddle Moscow by publicizing many of the Kremlin’s plans in advance. It requests that the intelligence community, or IC, continue to “lean forward” in its information-sharing with Ukraine, including in ways that can help create escape corridors for civilians caught in the fighting.
In addition, “the IC should work diligently to declassify information related to Russia’s planned or actual war crimes or other atrocities,” the lawmakers write. “Doing so might deter Russia from continuing down this path or further demonstrate to the world Russia’s callous disregard for the lives of civilians, and the indiscriminate assault that has killed thousands of Ukrainians, and displaced millions more.”
The House Intelligence panel members — led by Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and ranking Republican Mike Turner of Ohio — acknowledge the challenges of bringing a dictator like Putin to justice. Still, they urge intelligence officials to leverage the tools at their disposal to make cases against Putin and his deputies in forums such as the International Criminal Court.
“Though the possibility of accountability appears distant today, we have a responsibility to bear witness,” the lawmakers state in the letter.
5. ‘They own the long clock’ — How the Russian military is starting to adapt in Ukraine
Excerpts:
The Russians have learned to play to their strengths. While Ukrainian soldiers mock their Russian counterparts, they are deeply respectful of Russian artillery, an asset that the Russians are using more frequently to compensate for their infantry’s deficiencies. Several snipers I spoke with recently agreed that the Russians’ indirect fire capability was the most concerning — a result of sheer reckless mass rather than technical skill. They told some hair-raising stories to illustrate their point, and one amusing one: Ukrainian soldiers defending Kyiv commute to the battle in their own vehicles. After a recent three-day insertion, the sniper teams returned to their extraction site to find their cars all flattened by Russian artillery – a contingency apparently not covered by their insurance plans.
Overconfidence may obscure for the Ukrainians one salient fact about this conflict: Time is not on their side. They have fought a skillful and determined defense, but have also had the advantage of home turf, interior lines and the inherent superiority enjoyed by a defender with well-prepared positions, cutting-edge weapons and clear fields of fire. The question now is whether they can pivot to the offense, with its requirement for more comprehensive planning, faster than the Russians can adapt. If not, a prolonged conflict seems likely, and in a war of attrition, the Russians — with a military four times that of Ukraine — will inevitably have the upper hand.
“They own the long clock,” a senior Ukrainian officer recently admitted. “We are calculating time not in weeks or days – but in lives.”
‘They own the long clock’ — How the Russian military is starting to adapt in Ukraine
“They own the long clock,” a senior Ukrainian officer recently admitted. “We are calculating time not in weeks or days – but in lives.”
BY ANDREW MILBURN | PUBLISHED MAR 21, 2022 1:43 PM
SHARE
KYIV, Ukraine — The commander and staff of a Russian battalion take over a home near the Ukrainian town of Irpin north of Kyiv. They demand food from the elderly woman living there, and she reluctantly complies. She’s alone; her husband is dead, and her son is away in the army. While preparing the food she adds a liberal dose of laxatives to the commander’s meal. These soon take effect, and as his subordinates settle down for the night, the commander rushes to the wooden outhouse – a common fixture of rural Ukrainian homes even in the 21st century. The woman waits until he is mid-void before dousing the sides of the outhouse with gasoline and setting it alight. By the time his horrified companions break down the door, the commander is charbroiled, and the woman is gone.
The story has been told to me so often that I can fill in the gaps the narrator might miss. It invariably ends in fits of laughter among Ukrainians – even the nice woman who told me the story first during the train ride from Warsaw to Lviv giggled irrepressibly at the punchline. She was an artist and poet before the war. Now she was returning to Kyiv, where, she told me without bravado, she intends to resume her volunteer work at a kitchen, set up to feed soldiers defending the capital, and then, if necessary, to take as many Russians with her as she can.
“What about your children?” I ask her. She had told me they were in Hungary with her ex-husband. “I am doing this for my children,” she replied.
This is the second dispatch from Andrew Milburn, who is on assignment for Task & Purpose in Ukraine. Read his first here.
The theme of Ukrainian resilience and determination is a real one of course. For every urban myth — the Ghost of Kyiv, the martyrs of Snake Island — there are dozens of real stories that underscore its ubiquity and power. I see it now as members of the Territorial Defense Force – an organization that until a month ago was about one-fifth of its current size — prepare to defend Kyiv with a confidence that is at the same time both inspiring and, given their inexperience, a little troubling. In this conflict, myth and reality are fused to such an extent that there is now a real danger that the Ukrainians will find themselves on the wrong side of that fine line between confidence and complacency, just as the Russians begin to reflect and adapt. And Russian military commanders will adapt because they have no other viable option. Perhaps nothing but complete Ukrainian humiliation will satisfy their president. While Putin talks of the West with a tone of casual contempt, he rages about Ukraine with a vehemence that is clearly visceral. He did so even before the war, and now, after tens of thousands of apparent Russian casualties, he is unlikely to compromise. Any ceasefire will be a chance for the Russians to consolidate and prepare for the next step.
The Russians are already adapting, and by doing so are narrowing the Ukrainians’ tactical edge. The one-sided culling of Russian armored columns that characterized the opening days of the war, and kept YouTube subscribers around the world happy, are a thing of the past. The Russians now lead their formations with electronic attack, drones, lasers and good-old-fashioned reconnaissance by fire. They are using cruise missiles and saboteur teams to target logistics routes, manufacturing plants, and training bases in western Ukraine. Realizing that the Ukrainians lack thermal sights for their stinger missile launchers, the Russians have switched all air operations to after dark. It may be for this same reason that Russian cruise missile strikes in western and southern Ukraine have also been at nighttime.
Servicemen of Ukrainian Military Forces move to their position prior to the battle with Russian troops and Russia-backed separatists in the Luhansk region on March 8, 2022. (Photo by Anatolii Stepanov / AFP) (Photo by ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP via Getty Images)
The Russians have learned to play to their strengths. While Ukrainian soldiers mock their Russian counterparts, they are deeply respectful of Russian artillery, an asset that the Russians are using more frequently to compensate for their infantry’s deficiencies. Several snipers I spoke with recently agreed that the Russians’ indirect fire capability was the most concerning — a result of sheer reckless mass rather than technical skill. They told some hair-raising stories to illustrate their point, and one amusing one: Ukrainian soldiers defending Kyiv commute to the battle in their own vehicles. After a recent three-day insertion, the sniper teams returned to their extraction site to find their cars all flattened by Russian artillery – a contingency apparently not covered by their insurance plans.
Overconfidence may obscure for the Ukrainians one salient fact about this conflict: Time is not on their side. They have fought a skillful and determined defense, but have also had the advantage of home turf, interior lines and the inherent superiority enjoyed by a defender with well-prepared positions, cutting-edge weapons and clear fields of fire. The question now is whether they can pivot to the offense, with its requirement for more comprehensive planning, faster than the Russians can adapt. If not, a prolonged conflict seems likely, and in a war of attrition, the Russians — with a military four times that of Ukraine — will inevitably have the upper hand.
“They own the long clock,” a senior Ukrainian officer recently admitted. “We are calculating time not in weeks or days – but in lives.”
+++
Andrew Milburn retired from the Marine Corps as a colonel in 2019 after a 31-year career as an infantry and special operations officer. His last position in uniform was Deputy Commander of Special Operations Central (SOCCENT), and prior to that commanding officer of the Marine Raider Regiment and Combined Special Operations Task Force – Iraq. Since retiring, he has written a critically acclaimed memoir, When the Tempest Gathers, and has had articles published in a number of national publications. He is currently on assignment for Task & Purpose in Ukraine. Follow him on Twitter at @andymilburn8.
What’s new on Task & Purpose
6. Activists are targeting Russians with open-source "protestware"
Protestware. I had not thought of that new term.
Excerpts:
Protestware is just the latest of multiple attempts by activists to use tech to pierce Russian censorship and deliver anti-war messages. Activists have been using targeted advertisements to push news about the war in Ukraine to ordinary Russians who are otherwise at the mercy of accelerating censorship and ubiquitous state propaganda. Crowdsourced reviews and anti-war pop up messages are tactics that have been employed since Russian troops began their invasion.
For the most part, protestware is more proof that much of what we can publicly see from the cyberwar unfolding around Ukraine is directly related first and foremost to the information and propaganda war.
Protestware can deliver similar anti-war messages, but within the open-source community there are worries that the possibility of sabotage — especially if it goes further than simple anti-invasion messaging and starts destroying data — can undermine the open-source ecosystem. Although it is less well known than commercial software, open-source software is enormously important to running every facet of the internet.
“The Pandora’s box is now opened, and from this point on, people who use open source will experience xenophobia more than ever before, EVERYONE included,” GitHub user NM17 wrote. “The trust factor of open source, which was based on goodwill of the developers is now practically gone, and now, more and more people are realizing that one day, their library/application can possibly be exploited to do/say whatever some random dev on the internet thought was 'the right thing to do.’ Not a single good came out of this ‘protest.'”
Activists are targeting Russians with open-source "protestware"
At least one open-source software project has had malicious code added which aimed to wipe computers located in Russia and Belarus.
By Patrick Howell O'Neillarchive page
March 21, 2022
Russia's biggest bank has warned its users to stop updating software due to the threat of “protestware”: open-source software projects whose authors have altered their code in opposition to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Most of the protestware simply displays anti-war, pro-Ukrainian messages when it is run, but at least one project had malicious code added which aimed to wipe computers located in Russia and Belarus, prompting outrage and charges of unintentional collateral damage.
In response to the threat, Sberbank, a Russian state-owned bank and the biggest in the country, advised Russians to temporarily not update any software due to the increased risk and to manually check the source code of software that is necessary—a level of vigilance that is unrealistic for most users.
"We urge users to stop updating software now and developers to tighten control over the use of external source code,” Sberbank said in a statement reported by Russia media and cybersecurity firms.
When the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, some suggested that in order to impose costs on Moscow, tech firms should stop sending updates to Russian users. No tech firm has gone that far, but around two dozen open-source software projects have been spotted adding code protesting the war, according to observers tracking the protestware movement. Open-source software is software that anyone can modify and inspect, making it more transparent—and, in this case at least, more open to sabotage.
Collateral damage?
The most severe case of protestware so far took place inside a popular open-source project called node.ipc, which helps build neural networks. It is downloaded more than a million times every week.
The developer behind node-ipc, RIAEvangelist, had written code protesting the war called PeaceNotWar. The code added a “message of peace” to users' desktops, they explained on GitHub.
“This code serves as a nondestructive example of why controlling your node modules is important,” the author wrote. “It also serves as a nonviolent protest against Russia’s aggression that threatens the world right now … To be clear, this is protestware.”
Related Story
Today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology.
But node.ipc also had code added to it that located its users and, if they were found within Russia or Belarus, wiped files.
The malicious code on March 15, according to Liran Tal, a researcher at the cybersecurity firm Snyk. The new code was hidden within base64-encoded data that will make it hard to spot.
Soon after the code was downloaded, a GitHub post went viral claiming that the code hit servers operated by an American nongovernment organization in Belarus and that the sabotage “resulted in executing your code and wiping over 30,000 messages and files detailing war crimes committed in Ukraine by Russian army and government officials.”
The code remained part of the package for less than a day, according to Snyk. The message allegedly from the American NGO has not been verified and no organization has made a public statement about any damages.
“While this is an attack with protest-driven motivations, it highlights a larger issue facing the software supply chain: the transitive dependencies in your code can have a huge impact on your security,” Tal wrote.
This is not the first time open-source developers have sabotaged their own projects. In January, the author of another popular project called colors added an infinite loop to their code that rendered any server that was running it useless until the issue was fixed.
A new movement
Protestware is just the latest of multiple attempts by activists to use tech to pierce Russian censorship and deliver anti-war messages. Activists have been using targeted advertisements to push news about the war in Ukraine to ordinary Russians who are otherwise at the mercy of accelerating censorship and ubiquitous state propaganda. Crowdsourced reviews and anti-war pop up messages are tactics that have been employed since Russian troops began their invasion.
For the most part, protestware is more proof that much of what we can publicly see from the cyberwar unfolding around Ukraine is directly related first and foremost to the information and propaganda war.
Protestware can deliver similar anti-war messages, but within the open-source community there are worries that the possibility of sabotage — especially if it goes further than simple anti-invasion messaging and starts destroying data — can undermine the open-source ecosystem. Although it is less well known than commercial software, open-source software is enormously important to running every facet of the internet.
“The Pandora’s box is now opened, and from this point on, people who use open source will experience xenophobia more than ever before, EVERYONE included,” GitHub user NM17 wrote. “The trust factor of open source, which was based on goodwill of the developers is now practically gone, and now, more and more people are realizing that one day, their library/application can possibly be exploited to do/say whatever some random dev on the internet thought was 'the right thing to do.’ Not a single good came out of this ‘protest.'”
7. Ukraine War Update - March 22, 2022 | SOF News
Excerpt:
Western SOF? Some conjecture that Western special operations forces are actively engaged in supporting Ukrainian forces in the conflict is now taking place. Certainly they are ‘in touch’ with their Ukrainian SOF counterparts . . . but to what degree? The Brits could be leaning forward in this area.
Ukraine War Update - March 22, 2022 | SOF News
Curated news, analysis, and commentary about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, tactical situation on the ground, Ukrainian defense, and NATO. Additional topics include refugees, internally displaced personnel, humanitarian efforts, cyber, and information operations.
Image / Photo: Ukraine APC, courtesy of Ukrainian Ministry of Defence.
Do you receive our daily newsletter? If not, you can sign up here and enjoy it five (almost) days a week with your morning coffee (or afternoon tea depending on where in the world you are).
Russian Campaign Update. The shelling of Ukrainian cities by Russian artillery, missiles, and air strikes continues, taking a toll on civilians and civilian infrastructure. Major movement on the ground by Russian forces has been limited. Some cities are experiencing probing attacks and there are reports that Russian SOF have entered parts of the cities and engaging in firefights. Russia has launched over 1,100 missiles against targets in Ukraine, possibly expending about 1/2 of their inventory. The Russians have taken only a few population centers – the largest being Kherson in the south. Ukraine says over 15,000 Russians have been killed in the war, while many Western officials say the numbers are around 9,000.
The Russians appear to have shifted its strategy from capturing major cities to attempting to encircle them and cowed them into surrender with indiscriminate shelling. Russian offensive action has been limited due to problems with command and control, lack of fuel, logistics difficulties, communications difficulties, and a stiff Ukrainian defense. Thus far, the Russians have captured three sizeable cities – Melitopol, Berdyans’k, and Kherson. They are still trying to capture Mariupol, Kharkiv, and Kyiv. There are indications that the Ukrainians may go on the offensive to recapture Kherson.
Ukrainian Defense. The Russians have been frustrated by the stiff opposition put up by the Ukraine military. Progress over the past few weeks has been very slow for the Russians and the continued dogged defense of the large cities by the Ukrainians have been costly. Ukrainian air defense has been very nimble and on the move to avoid being neutralized by air attacks and missile strikes.
Fight for the Skies. It is believed that the Russian Air Force is facing inventory problems with their precision-guided munitions. In addition, some of their munitions are failing to launch, not hitting targets, or failing to explode on contact. Some reports indicate that the Russians are conducting more air sorties now than in days past – perhaps as many as 300 sorties a day conducting air to ground attacks. Many Russian aircraft do not leave Russian or Belarusian airspace. When they do overfly Ukraine it isn’t for very long or far into Ukrainian airspace. Although there have been reports that Slovakia would send some of their S-300 missile systems to Ukraine, it seems it hasn’t happened yet. Germany has sent one of its Patriot batteries to Slovakia to enhance their air defense capability.
Drone Warfare. Ukrainian drones have been having great success against Russian targets. Drones as simple as the cheap, commercial ones available online to more complex ones like the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 are taking a toll on the Russians. One of the more favorite targets are Russian convoys that are parked along the side of a road at night. The Ukrainian drone unit, Aerorozvidka, was started in 2014 by model plane enthusiasts. The unit is now flying up to 300 missions a day. “We strike at night, when the Russians sleep – How Ukraine is stalking Russian armor with drones”, Task & Purpose, March 21, 2022.
Maritime Activities. An amphibious landing force on several ships is still positioned in the Black Sea off the coast of Odessa to land a substantial element of Russian naval infantry. It is doubtful if it will be employed unless the Russians make further ground advances toward Odessa along the Black Sea coast. The intentions of Russian amphibious warships in the Black Sea are unclear. This force will likely continue to pose a threat requiring the Ukrainians to keep forces available to counter it – which precludes those ground units from fighting at the frontlines. This Russian fleet is conducting shelling and missile attacks against Ukrainian targets along the Black Sea coast and into the interior of Ukraine. The Russian blockade of Ukrainian shipping continues.
Kyiv. The capital city of Ukraine is considered the primary objective of the Russians. The capture of Kyiv would allow Russia to put in place its puppet government. The Russian offensive against Kyiv has been stalled. The city is undergoing shelling from artillery, missiles, and rockets. There are limited Ukrainian counterattacks taking place in the Kyiv area – with the Ukrainians retaking a key suburb of Kyiv. The Russians are being held at a distance from the city center – 15 klics NW of Kyiv and 30 klics east of Kyiv. Indications are that the Russians are reinforcing their defensive positions.
Kharkiv. The second largest city of Ukraine is Kharkiv located in the northeast of the country. The Ukrainians are holding out in this city and it has not yet been encircled. Refugees have been leaving whenever the humanitarian corridors open up.
Mariupol. Most of the population of Mariupol spend their time in shelters and basements seeking safety from the constant shelling by the Russians. When they do venture out it is in search for water and food. The city is in ruin with entire neighborhoods devastated. Between 18 and 20 March more than 13,000 people have been evacuated from the city. Russia has been accused of forcibly removing thousands of Ukrainians from Mariupol to camps in Russia after having their cell phones screened and Ukrainian passports confiscated. This city is situated along the coastal road network that would provide Russia with a land bridge between Russia and the Crimea. Mariupol is a key port city on the Sea of Azov and a link between the Russian-occupied Donbass area and Russian-occupied Crimea. “Ukraine conflict: Russia trying to starve Mariupol into surrender”, BBC News, March 20, 2022. The Russians demanded the surrender of the city but Ukraine rejected those demands. (Military Times, Mar 21, 2022).
Mykolayiv. Located on the west bank of the Dnieper River close to the coast of the Black Sea, Mykolayiv is a strategic objective for the Russians that is on the road to Odessa located further west along the coast of the Black Sea. The Russian attack on this major city has been stalled.
Negotiations. The Ukrainian president says direct talks with Vladimir Putin are necessary to understand Moscow’s position on ending the war. Putin is unlikely to meet with Zelensky. (Aljazeera, Mar 21, 2022).
Situation Maps. War in Ukraine by Scribble Maps. Read an assessment and view a map of the Russian offensive campaign by the Institute for the Study of War. The ISW provides a very detailed tactical overview of the situation.
General Information
Refugees, IDPs, and Humanitarian Crisis. As of March 22, over 3,400,000 refugees have left Ukraine according to data provided by the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR). Over 6.5 million people have been internally displaced within Ukraine. On Monday (Mar 21) over 8,000 people were evacuated from cities through humanitarian corridors. 3,000 of them came from the embattled city of Mariupol. Read the latest report published on Monday (Mar 21) by OCHA Ukraine on the humanitarian impact of the war.
Poland Steps Up to Assist Refugees – But There Will be Some Issues. Most of the refugees have gone to Poland as part of the largest migration crisis in post-war European history. Two million people have fled Ukraine for Poland, mostly women and children. The refugees can stay in Poland for up to 18 months and the healthcare system has opened up to them. However, Poland is poorly equipped to handle this many people over the long-term. Western governments will need to find a way to help Poland financially and logistically. Read more in “Poland’s refugee crisis in waiting”, The Strategist, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, ASPI, March 22, 2022.
Meetings in Europe. President Biden and Secretary of Defense Austin will be meeting with European leaders and NATO officials this week . . . the topic, of course, is the Ukraine War. Part of the visit will entail a trip to Poland. One topic that could come up is the Polish proposal of a NATO ‘peacekeeping force’ to enter Ukraine.
Russia’s ‘Kinzhal’. Much has been made of Russia’s ‘hypersonic’ missile but most defense experts say there is not much special or particularly exciting about it. The Kinzhal is an air launched version of the Iskander-M. Launched from an aircraft gives it added range. Currently, within the context of the Ukraine War, it seems to be more of a propaganda tool than anything else. Still dangerous, but not the ‘ultimate weapon’ everyone initially pronounced it to be. Read more in “US can’t verify Russian hypersonic missile claim, official says”, The Hill, March 21, 2022.
Cyber and Information Operations
Banning Wikipedia? There are rumors that Russia’s censorship office may block Russian Wikipedia. Some Russians are making local copies of Wikipedia before it gets blocked. The 29-gigabyte file that contains the Russian-language Wikipedia was downloaded over 100,000 times during the first half of March. This was a 4,000 per cent increase compared with the first half of January. “Russians Are Racing to Download Wikipedia Before It Gets Banned”, Slate, March 21, 2022.
Russia’s Cyber Attack on Ukraine. Before Russia moved its troops and tanks into Ukraine it conducted a wave of cyberattacks. Websites were hamstrung, malware infected computers, denial of service attacks took place, and communications were hampered. But the widespread digital devastation of critical infrastructure did not happen. No country has weaponized its cyber capabilities as maliciously as Russia. But in the current conflict this capability seems to have not been used to its fullest extent. Are the Russians holding back? Read more in “Blue, yellow and gray zone: the cyber factor in Ukraine”, C4ISRNET, March 14, 2022.
World Response
U.S. Held Soviet Weapons Going to Ukraine? The United States has captured, snatched, or otherwise acquired various Russian-made air defense systems over the years. They could be heading to Ukraine. Some of these systems have been in storage at the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. Read more in “Secretive American Stocks of Soviet Air Defense Systems Are Headed to Ukraine”, The WarZone, March 21, 2022.
Hungary – a Balancing Act? Although the international response to the Russian aggression towards Ukraine has been strong there are still some countries that are less than strident in their condemnation of Russia. The UAE, India, and China are among those. So is Hungary. It opposes a no-fly zone over Ukraine and an embargo on Russian energy.
Saudi Arabia. The United States is finding out a little more about its friendship with the Saudis. Pleas by the U.S. for this country to increase its oil production to help ease the spike in world oil prices has fallen on deaf ears. In fact, the Saudis are using the Ukraine War and its oil resources as leverage against the United States. It is warming up to China in what many see as a realigning of the international order. Read more in “Saudi Crown Prince Uses Leverage Against the United States”, The Soufan Center Intel Brief, March 22, 2022. Of course, the lack of Saudi cooperation hasn’t seem to diminish the eagerness of the United States to transfer Patriot missile batteries to that country to help it defend against missile and drone attacks from Yemen.
Western SOF? Some conjecture that Western special operations forces are actively engaged in supporting Ukrainian forces in the conflict is now taking place. Certainly they are ‘in touch’ with their Ukrainian SOF counterparts . . . but to what degree? The Brits could be leaning forward in this area.
Mercenaries in Ukraine. Both warring countries are actively recruiting foreigners to their fighting ranks. Robert Lawless, managing director of the Lieber Institute for Law & Land Warfare at the United States Military Academy (West Point), examines the legality of ‘mercenaries’ in the Ukraine War. “Are Mercenaries in Ukraine?”, Articles of War, March 21, 2022. There has been a lot of talk about Syrians going to Ukraine to fight on behalf of the Russians, but there has not been a detectable influx of foreign fighters hired or recruited by Russia. There are hundreds of ‘private soldiers’ of the Wagner Group currently engaged in combat in Ukraine.
Commentary
Ukraine, Nukes, and the Indo-Pacific. Countries around the world are watching the Ukraine War with great interest. They have observed the West refrain from some potentially escalatory responses (no-fly zone, MiG-29s, etc.) due to the verbal threats of Putin to employ nuclear weapons. They also know that the agreement between Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom to ensure the security of Ukraine if it gave up its nuclear weapons was meaningless. There are lessons here for the nations of the Indo-Pacific. North Korea is going to continue to improve its nuclear weapons capability, China is engaged in a nuclear modernization program, and Pakistan has nukes as well. Read more in “Ukraine war may drive more Indo-Pacific nations towards nuclear weapons”, The Strategist, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, ASPI, March 22, 2022.
SOF News welcomes the submission of articles for publication. If it is related to special operations, current conflicts, national security, defense, or the current conflict in Ukraine then we are interested.
Maps and Other Resources
UNCN. The Ukraine NGO Coordination Network is an organization that ties together U.S.-based 501c3 organizations and non-profit humanitarian organizations that are working to evacuate and support those in need affected by the Ukraine crisis. https://uncn.one
Maps of Ukraine
Ukraine Conflict Info. The Ukrainians have launched a new website that will provide information about the war. It is entitled Russia Invaded Ukraine and can be found at https://war.ukraine.ua/.
UNHCR Operational Data Portal – Ukraine Refugee Situation
Ukrainian Think Tanks – Brussels. Consolidated information on how to help Ukraine from abroad and stay up to date on events.
Janes Equipment Profile – Ukraine Conflict. An 81-page PDF provides information on the military equipment of the Russian and Ukrainian armed forces. Covers naval, air, electronic warfare, C4ISR, communications, night vision, radar, and armored fighting vehicles, Ukraine Conflict Equipment Profile, February 28, 2022.
Arms Transfers to Ukraine. Forum on the Arms Trade.
**********
8. White House Bureaucracy Is Costing Ukrainian Lives, Senators Say
Is there substance to this allegation? Or is the headline overhyped? There is a difference in political decision making and the bureaucracy that must execute those political decisions. Does the fault lie with the bureaucrats or the decision makers?
White House Bureaucracy Is Costing Ukrainian Lives, Senators Say
Lawmakers are urging Biden to send more aid and enforce sanctions as quickly as possible to help Ukraine beat Russia.
After seeing the situation on the ground this weekend, as Ukrainian refugees flood across the Polish border to escape violence, 10 senators have a message for the White House: Go faster.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, led a group of 10 lawmakers who visited Germany and Poland to see American troops and observe the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine. At a press conference Monday, senators said they were touched by conversations with activists fighting for their country and single mothers fleeing Ukraine to keep their children safe, and they emphasized that aid is only helpful if it gets there in time.
“There’s a belief by Ukrainians that we are way too slow,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan. “We are late now. We were late yesterday….A slow march of bureaucratic policies and efforts does not save lives. It costs lives.”
“Time is of the essence,” echoed Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, adding that he is seeking answers about how long it takes for aid to arrive in Ukraine after Congress passes legislation. “We don’t have weeks and months. We have hours and days. That is one of the things we are all committed to.”
Moran also asked for an opportunity to meet with President Joe Biden ahead of his departure Wednesday on a trip to Brussels and Poland, to explain what the bipartisan congressional delegation saw on their visit.
In a virtual address last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked Congress for additional weapons, including aircraft and surface-to-air missile systems, to counter Russian attacks. Hours after the speech, Biden met many of those demands in an $800-million military assistance package that included anti-aircraft systems, shoulder-mounted missiles to target tanks, small arms, ammunition, and drones.
But senators say the administration is still not doing enough, and they specifically urged the White House to send more lethal weapons, try Putin as a war criminal for his bombings of schools and hospitals, and more strictly impose sanctions on Russian officials. Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., also said that all Western companies must stop doing business in Russia.
“We’re only doing a fraction of what we could be doing,” Marshall said. “We don’t need to debate it. We don’t need to talk about the pros and the cons. Get them the damn weapons.”
Multiple Republican senators urged Biden to complete the transfer of MiG-29 fighter fighter jets from Poland to Ukraine and give Warsaw updated F-16s to backfill its fleet of aircraft. Earlier this month, Poland offered to send their Soviet-era jets to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, making the United States responsible for facilitating their transfer to Ukraine. U.S. officials quickly rejected the idea, though it will almost certainly be discussed when Biden meets with Polish President Andrzej Duda on Saturday.
“We have to provide the Ukrainians with the means to prevent this bombardment,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. “That means not only giving them the MiGs that the administration has held up, it means providing them with additional aircraft defenses.”
“We do not have time for endless debate and delay. If we delay, thousands more innocent Ukrainians will die,” she continued.
Other senators, however, said they understood the White House’s rationale in not sending the jets to Ukraine, which could further provoke Russia and may not be useful in winning the war.
“There is a lot we can be sending them immediately without having to make that ultimate decision on those particular aircraft,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. “The way they’re going to win this war is not through the air, it is through the ground, so they need the ground defenses.”
9. Duty Bound to Disaster: Beware the Imperative in Foreign Policymaking
Some unique analysis from Dr.Mazarr.
Excerpts:
Imperative-driven judgment of this sort takes hold when leaders or decision-making groups come to believe that a given policy has the status of a duty or necessity. It is a kind of non-consequentialist decision making, a choice focused on the act itself rather than its results. One result is a form of cognitive closure in which alternatives to the seeming imperative are dismissed, and analysis of outcomes not only ignored but actively resented and stifled. The language around such arguments tends to include a high proportion of affective, emotional terms that depict the stakes involved as existential. The public debate begins to revolve around passionate, dogmatic statements of exigency rather than more nuanced assessments of prudential strategies.
Once it has taken hold, imperative-driven judgment perverts the risk calculus of decision-makers: Leaders in thrall to a moralistic sense of righteousness cannot see past the burning demand to act. Imperative-driven judgment tends to ruin effective planning, because the focus is on performing the duty rather than its aftermath. And it is always accompanied by some degree of groupthink and quashing of dissent, because to go against the imperative becomes a form of apostasy.
Once the direction is set by an imperative, the decision-making system shifts into a form of autopilot. And it can drive a nation right off a policy cliff.
...
Ultimately, the best answer to imperative-driven tragedies is robust deliberation, both public and inside government, that performs exactly the sort of outcome-based, consequentialist analysis the purveyors of imperatives seek — even if unconsciously — to avoid. Key questions we should be asking about any proposed action in Ukraine include: Will this policy make a measurable difference in the war? Does it risk crossing some objectively defined escalatory threshold, such as the conduct of actual combat operations? What might Russia make of the act? How might it respond? Are there alternatives that would achieve the same effect, with lower risk? What are the possible second-order effects? Does the act accord with American national interests at stake?
The effect of imperative-driven judgment is to brush aside such inconvenient questions. Had enough of them been asked — by the right people, at the right time, with the needed seriousness — the United States might have avoided catastrophes like the Bay of Pigs or the invasion of Iraq. Global peace is at stake in the wider war that could spread from Ukraine. In this crisis, the United States does confront one undeniable obligation: to ask the right questions before, rather than after, taking large-scale action; to check its sense of duty and moralistic commitment; and, this time, to be sure it finds its way to wise action, rather than a road to disaster.
Duty Bound to Disaster: Beware the Imperative in Foreign Policymaking - War on the Rocks
The United States is edging closer to what may be the most fateful choice of its modern history: whether to take bolder and more aggressive action to defend a beleaguered people against the world’s other major nuclear power. As the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine grinds on and the humanitarian toll rises, many observers have demanded just such action in increasingly urgent terms. Some of these appeals focus on proposed no-fly zones, some on the idea of shipping MiG-29s to Ukraine. Others represent more general demands for military threats against Russia, or efforts to create humanitarian corridors.
Many of these proposals have been posed in confrontational, even dismissive language, depicting doubters as appeasers and fools. One of the most respected American defense intellectuals, Eliot Cohen, recently mocked the “hand-wringing over escalation” and insisted that Russian President Vladimir Putin will back down if adequately menaced. “We are dealing with an enemy that is vicious but weak,” Cohen claimed, “menacing but deeply fearful, and that is likely to crack long before our side does — if only we have the stomach for doing what needs to be done.” Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula portrayed a United States “frozen in its tracks, fearing Putin’s unpredictable wrath.” The journalist David Rothkopf tweeted that anyone proposing an “off-ramp for Putin” should be “ashamed” of themselves.
The moral urgency that drives such pleas is entirely understandable. Russia’s invasion is criminal, Ukraine’s resistance courageous, the humanitarian toll horrific, and U.S. support for that resistance more essential every day. Yet many demands for more belligerent actions reflect a mindset commonly associated with foreign policy catastrophes: acting based on an overwhelming sense of what a country must do, rather than a primary and rigorous assessment of which course of action would best advance its interests and goals. The pattern can be described as “imperative-driven judgment.” It is foreign policy by moralistic duty.
Appeals for bolder action in Ukraine will understandably only grow more intense as the appalling humanitarian toll mounts. But imperative-driven action almost always leads countries astray — and in the days and weeks ahead, it will be critical for the United States to stay alert for its symptoms.
When Imperatives Drive Policy
After 9/11, senior officials of the Bush administration quickly decided that, in the new era of terrorism, Saddam Hussein could not be left in power. This conviction reflected urgent fears about the threat posed by Saddam, and a rising frustration with what some saw as tentativeness in using American military force. Removing Saddam, and demonstrating U.S. power in the process, became an imperative. It simply had to be done.
This certainty about the right course of action sidetracked honest discussion of risks and costs. It is one reason why the decision process for the war lacked a single identifiable judgment point, a moment when the president gathered his war cabinet to debate whether invading made sense. It was, instead, a process obsessed with working out the minutiae of a choice already made. As then-CIA director George Tenet put it in his memoir, “In none of the meetings can anyone remember a discussion of the central questions. Was it wise to go to war? Was it the right thing to do?” What never happened “was a serious discussion of the implications of a U.S. invasion.”
It was worse than that, however, because people who did raise awkward questions were quickly sidelined, shouted down, or given wink-and-nod suggestions that it would be best to remain quiet. A common rebuke thrown at doubters was, “You just don’t get it.” Stop worrying, they were told. The decision has been made. This is happening. This must happen.
Imperative-driven judgment of this sort takes hold when leaders or decision-making groups come to believe that a given policy has the status of a duty or necessity. It is a kind of non-consequentialist decision making, a choice focused on the act itself rather than its results. One result is a form of cognitive closure in which alternatives to the seeming imperative are dismissed, and analysis of outcomes not only ignored but actively resented and stifled. The language around such arguments tends to include a high proportion of affective, emotional terms that depict the stakes involved as existential. The public debate begins to revolve around passionate, dogmatic statements of exigency rather than more nuanced assessments of prudential strategies.
Once it has taken hold, imperative-driven judgment perverts the risk calculus of decision-makers: Leaders in thrall to a moralistic sense of righteousness cannot see past the burning demand to act. Imperative-driven judgment tends to ruin effective planning, because the focus is on performing the duty rather than its aftermath. And it is always accompanied by some degree of groupthink and quashing of dissent, because to go against the imperative becomes a form of apostasy.
Once the direction is set by an imperative, the decision-making system shifts into a form of autopilot. And it can drive a nation right off a policy cliff.
The Miserable Legacy of Imperative-Driven Thinking
History offers a litany of such cases, when imperative-driven thinking caused leaders to brush aside issues of risk and feasibility, quash dissent, and embrace disaster. Apart from Iraq, modern U.S. foreign policy offers at least two potent examples: the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam.
Confronting the Castro regime in Cuba after the revolution of 1959, the degree of urgency and wrath propelling the U.S. effort grew into a sort of moral obligation. Plans to drive Castro from power became an imperative. On the way to the Bay of Pigs, U.S. officials reached the point — as Jim Rasenberger explains in his compelling account The Brilliant Disaster — at which they were “operating under conditions that made the venture almost impossible to resist. At a time when Americans were nearly hysterical about the spread of communism, they simply could not abide Castro. He had to go.”
In Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson’s escalation decisions were couched in the language of obligation — the United States simply could not allow a communist victory. He repeated some version of the domino theory many times: “If they take South Vietnam, they take Thailand, they take Indonesia, they take Burma, they come right on back to the Philippines.” He worried about ruined credibility and the domestic political price for withdrawal and felt the clear imperative to stay. “Our national honor’s at stake,” he said in a June 1965 conversation with Sen. Richard Russell. That same month, speaking with Robert McNamara, Johnson concluded simply: “We can’t give up. I don’t see anything to do except give [the commanders] what they need, Bob. Do you?”
Yet Johnson’s tortured decision-making reflects one of the most agonizing features of a leader driven by imperatives: Often enough, they know the course they are on promises disaster — and yet they simply cannot break free. Over and over again, Johnson expressed some heartbreaking version of the same sentiment. As he put it to McNamara, “I don’t think anything is going to be as bad as losing, and I don’t see any way of winning.” Later, confronted with the demand for Marine reinforcements, he uttered what must be one of the most poignant admissions of any president under the influence of an imperative: “My answer is yes. But my judgment is no.”
The example of imperative-driven thinking in foreign policy with perhaps the most ominous implications for the current crisis comes from 1941. Committed to an invasion of China they could not abandon, threatened with slow strangulation by U.S. financial and oil sanctions, and believing they would be humiliated and reduced to a third-rate power if they conceded, Japanese leaders saw no alternative to attacking the United States. “The resolve to ‘not flinch from war,’” the scholar Eri Hotta explains in her magnificent Japan 1941, “had come to be regarded, beyond logic, as an inviolable priority in Japan’s foreign policy agenda.” Once this imperative was in place, “None of the top leaders … had sufficient will, desire, or courage to stop the momentum for war.”
Echoing a Rival’s Imperatives
Imperative-driven judgment can thus drive a country to take impulsive risks. It can be dangerous in another way as well — when a country’s actions generate the same pattern in a rival, goading it into extreme reactions. Such a dynamic lies at the heart of one of the biggest debates around America’s Ukraine policy: the role of NATO enlargement in the Russian decision to invade.
To be sure, there has been a huge and thoughtful dialogue since the 1990s over the role of wider NATO membership in European security, including deep assessment of possible risks and costs. But since about 2008, when Russia invaded Georgia, and certainly since 2014, the presentation of the issue in the United States and Europe has arguably become characterized by absolutist, moralistic language and the status of an uncompromisable imperative. Offering an unlimited open door to NATO became something the West simply had to do, a nonnegotiable commitment.
Some insist that the trajectory of NATO enlargement was largely irrelevant to Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, that Russia was bound to take such action eventually thanks to an elemental urge to dominate its near abroad. But such essentialist arguments can’t explain both action and inaction. Russia did not invade Ukraine in a major fashion before 2014, and it didn’t launch an all-out attack until this year. If Russia is constitutionally preordained to undertake military aggression in Ukraine, it seems odd that it would have waited three decades to do so.
The frame of imperative-driven thinking instead suggests a two-stage process leading to war. A nation may have a generalized strategic culture that inclines it toward a certain set of ambitions. But that worldview is typically not pointed and urgent enough to spark highly risky, system-shaping choices. That requires a second factor, an event or trajectory that triggers an imperative.
That may have been the role of NATO enlargement — especially after about 2007–2008, once NATO focused more pointedly on embracing members closer to the core of Russia’s security priorities. At that point, the United States and NATO were engaging Russian fears in ways that finally provoked what looks very much like imperative-driven thinking among Putin and his cronies.
This in no way excuses Russia’s violent response, or its broader claim to the right of constraining the sovereign choices of its neighbors. But the trick for U.S. statecraft is to understand when extending U.S. power and ambition risks inciting such reactions, and when holding back is the more sensible option. That is precisely the balance that can be lost under the influence of our own imperative-driven thinking. We feel compelled to act, rebuffing concerns that our policy might spur the same urgent sense of obligation on the other side. And we play our tragic part in the bigger drama, helping to produce a collision of rigid, emotional, compulsive judgments.
In this sense, the idea of imperatives may offer a new way of thinking about security spirals or security dilemmas. In most international relations theory, security dilemmas are thought to arise from general threat perceptions and the broad-based competition for power. Yet great powers, and even bitter rivals, can escape such dynamics much of the time. Rivalry does not always produce escalatory spirals of competition and violence. In fact, such spirals may be especially likely when the actions of one side create within its rival not merely garden-variety threat perceptions, but the more discrete conditions for imperative-driven thinking. It is when one or both nations have their sense of risk and cost suppressed by such moralistic thinking that spirals of instability become more likely. It now appears that this was very likely the case with Putin: His perception of Ukraine’s trajectory over the last decade made invasion seem, to him, inevitable.
Preserving Deliberative Judgment in Ukraine
The risk of imperative-driven judgment carries a few important lessons for the Ukraine crisis. U.S. national security officials should be attuned to signs that they are becoming caught up in imperative-driven policies. That means being on the lookout for arguments or policy statements suffused with emotional language, heavy on claims of limitless stakes in the conflict, full of moralistic appeals to duty and obligation, and contemptuous of anyone who doubts the proposed course of action. Whenever officials, scholars, or citizens hear such appeals, their guard should be up. This does not counsel inaction; indeed, tougher actions toward Russia are likely to be required as the humanitarian crisis intensifies. It only argues for being wary of demands for action based largely on duty and obligation.
Ultimately, the best answer to imperative-driven tragedies is robust deliberation, both public and inside government, that performs exactly the sort of outcome-based, consequentialist analysis the purveyors of imperatives seek — even if unconsciously — to avoid. Key questions we should be asking about any proposed action in Ukraine include: Will this policy make a measurable difference in the war? Does it risk crossing some objectively defined escalatory threshold, such as the conduct of actual combat operations? What might Russia make of the act? How might it respond? Are there alternatives that would achieve the same effect, with lower risk? What are the possible second-order effects? Does the act accord with American national interests at stake?
The effect of imperative-driven judgment is to brush aside such inconvenient questions. Had enough of them been asked — by the right people, at the right time, with the needed seriousness — the United States might have avoided catastrophes like the Bay of Pigs or the invasion of Iraq. Global peace is at stake in the wider war that could spread from Ukraine. In this crisis, the United States does confront one undeniable obligation: to ask the right questions before, rather than after, taking large-scale action; to check its sense of duty and moralistic commitment; and, this time, to be sure it finds its way to wise action, rather than a road to disaster.
Michael J. Mazarr is a senior political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and the author of Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and America’s Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy (PublicAffairs, 2019).
10. The US Needs a Center to Counter Foreign Malign Influence at Home
This could be very troubling. They will need to keep these quotes in mind.
S.G. Tallentyre: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Oscar Wilde: “I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.”
John Milton: “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”
Benjamin Franklin: “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”
The US Needs a Center to Counter Foreign Malign Influence at Home
National security entities coordinate their fight against disinformation abroad. They need a way to do so within our borders.
The Biden administration’s decision to preemptively debunk—“pre-bunk”—Russia’s attempts to paint invasion as something other than naked aggression was key to rallying the world to Ukraine’s aid. This success underscores the need for a Center to Counter Foreign Malign Influence that can anticipate, identify, and defuse foreign-backed disinformation—not just in the face of impending war, but day to day, to keep it from undermining the foundations of our democracy.
The need for such a center has been clear for years. During my time as Acting Under Secretary for the Office of Intelligence and Analysis for the Department of Homeland Security, I tracked the influence of foreign influence campaigns on domestic extremism. Foreign actors seek to exploit our freedom of speech, find gaps between domestic and national security defenses and spread lies that undermine our democracy. Currently, the United States has no integrated approach to combating foreign-backed disinformation occurring within the Homeland.
The recent success in thwarting the Russian disinformation plan in Ukraine shows why national security entities such as the National Security Agency, CIA, and State Department coordinate efforts to fight disinformation outside the United States. The much more difficult challenge is what to do about foreign-backed efforts within our borders.
To date, Beltway turf wars and political hesitancy have prevented efforts to create such a center, but this gives us an opportunity to get it right on the first try. For a center to be effective, it must first have a U.S. mission. New authorities are not necessarily needed. I have spent decades navigating the process of sharing information from intelligence agencies with domestic partners. What this comes down to is getting the American public to trust this effort. This is the reason why the government cannot and should not go this alone. A formalized and integrated process to best use authorities within the intelligence community to give timely intelligence to the private sector: entities such as the press, academia, researchers, non-partisan organizations and social media companies. Participating organizations must pledge non-partisanship, speed, and the highest standards of transparency and oversight.
The process will also help balance the tremendous power of the federal government by incorporating the non-governmental partners to ensure civil liberties are protected. Enable dissemination of relevant intelligence early, and rebuff the rapid assaults on the efficacy of the center.
The center will also have to work closely with private companies. The reality is that social media platforms are both the answer and the problem. There should be formal ways to work with American companies to keep them from being used as mouthpieces by foreign adversaries. Various cooperative public and private consortiums focused on social media-based threats. A starting point to consider is the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, which serves as a center of gravity for governments and social media companies. The weakness of the center it is an entirely private organization and suffers from funding challenges, scalability, and speed and relevancy.
To have the trust of the American people, the center must operate more openly than our intelligence agencies typically do. The center would neither censor users nor punish them for spreading falsehoods; both of these would be illegal. Instead, it will work to make citizens aware of misconduct by hostile foreign actors. To this end, public resilience would be strengthened through the center’s educational mission—similar to the role the nonprofit Center for Internet Security plays in educating public and private organizations on cybersecurity.
The FBI’s InfraGard program is another model of a public-private cybersecurity partnership that improves national security and provides insights the private sector can build upon. I recall the handwringing that initially occurred as InfraGard became more aggressive in sharing relevant and actionable cyber threat intelligence. Some worried that an adversary like China and Russia would know that we knew about their latest techniques. This historical circular discussion on protecting sources and methods versus sharing with the people who could actually do something about the threat seemed to have no end. What broke this cycle was we were losing and losing badly to adversaries. This is about the same place we as a nation are at now with respect to foreign-backed disinformation in the U.S.
In Ukraine, the administration has demonstrated the value of degrading foreign-backed disinformation. Very shortly, the U.S. midterm elections will be in full swing. Lies about election fraud have led many Americans to distrust the voting system, and foreign actors are certain to sow more hatred, mistrust, and chaos as the elections approach. Now is the time to build the Foreign Malign Influence Center we need.
Brian Murphy is Vice President of Strategic Operations for Logically. He previously served as the Acting Under Secretary for Intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security, where he set up its first counter-disinformation program.
11. Opinion | Against all odds, Ukrainians are winning. Russia’s initial offensive has failed.
But we should not gloat.The worse things get for the Russian military the more brutal it will be on the Ukrainian people.
Excerpts:
Russian troop morale is said to be plunging as their difficulties multiply. Russian casualties are overwhelming morgues and hospitals in Belarus. Russian losses in the first three weeks were estimated to be at least 7,000 dead and 14,000 wounded, and 1,000 more are estimated to be killed or wounded every day. Russian forces are literally being decimated, suffering at least 10 percent casualties. Five generals are reported to be among the dead. The equipment losses are staggering: The Russians are reported to have lost 1,500 vehicles, including 240 tanks. It is not clear how, or if, Russia can replace all these men and materiel.
Putin has reportedly placed under house arrest the head of the FSB’s Fifth Service, charged with providing intelligence on Ukraine. This shows that he is looking for scapegoats. But is he also looking for a way out? His Stalin-like speech last week lashing out at “scum and traitors” is not a good sign; it suggests he is digging in. Sadly, just about the only thing Russian troops are good at is killing civilians, and they have the capacity to kill a lot more. Putin could escalate with chemical or even nuclear weapons. But there are also reports of progress in peace negotiations.
Putin can’t hang on indefinitely if his army continues to suffer heavy losses; he won’t have much of a military left. Russian troops could still pause and regroup for another offensive, but their odds of success diminish by the day. The initial Russian goal of regime change already appears to be out of reach. Barring some unexpected development, Putin’s choices appear to be whether to lose quickly or slowly. Against all odds, the Ukrainians are actually winning.
Opinion | Against all odds, Ukrainians are winning. Russia’s initial offensive has failed.
Nearly four weeks into the Russo-Ukraine war, the situation is going from bad to worse for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Garry Kasparov reported on Saturday that a joke is making the rounds on what is left of the Russian Internet: “We are now entering day 24 of the special military operation to take Kyiv in two days.”
The Russian offensive has already “culminated” — a military term meaning that an army can no longer continue attacking — without having achieved most of its objectives. Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institute, two Washington think tanks, assess that “Ukrainian forces have defeated the initial Russian campaign of this war.” The war is stalemated.
The Russians have made the greatest progress in the south. They are close to establishing a “land bridge” between Crimea and Russian-occupied territory in eastern Ukraine. After weeks of vicious bombardment, Russian troops have entered the city of Mariupol. Unless Ukrainian reinforcements can somehow break the Russian siege, it appears that Mariupol will eventually fall. But the long delay in taking Mariupol has prevented Russian troops from pivoting to try to encircle Ukrainian troops fighting in Donbas or to reinforce the attack on Kyiv.
The situation elsewhere, even in the south, is dismal for the invaders. Ukrainian troops have counterattacked and driven the Russians away from Mykolaiv, a city of 470,000 people. As long as Mykolaiv remains free, the Russians cannot attack Odessa — Ukraine’s third-largest city and its biggest Black Sea port — by land and therefore cannot risk an amphibious assault from the sea, either.
Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, is located only 20 miles from the Russian border and is full of ethnic Russians. It was supposed to fall fast. But it is still not encircled and continues to hold out despite the terrible destruction inflicted by Russian artillery and rockets.
The main Russian effort has been to take Kyiv, but the last Russian offensive around the capital occurred on March 9. Remember that miles-long convoy that got bogged down heading to Kyiv? It never did reach the city. Ukrainian forces have counterattacked and driven the Russians out of outlying towns to prevent them from shelling the city center with artillery. Satellite imagery shows Russian troops digging into defensive positions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky remains in Kyiv rallying his people and the world to resist the Russian onslaught.
Russia was supposed to establish air superiority in the war’s early days but hasn’t managed to do so. One of the most astonishing dispatches I have read from the front line comes from the Wall Street Journal’s Yaroslav Trofimov. He tweeted on Friday: “Ukrainian roads are full of military convoys carrying tanks, long-range artillery, and even S-300 [long-range surface-to-air missiles] in broad daylight every day, in addition to fuel and ammo. Don’t think there was a single strike on a moving target outside immediate frontline areas — Russia lacks that capacity.”
That means there is little to stop the continuing influx of Western aid; President Biden just announced an $800 million U.S. package that includes 800 Stinger antiaircraft missiles, 2,000 Javelin antitank missiles, 100 drones and more than 20 million rounds of ammunition. In the meantime, Russian supply convoys continue to bog down because of mud, lack of fuel and effective Ukrainian attacks.
This is a fiasco for Putin, and that grim reality cannot be disguised by the fascist-style arena extravaganza he staged on Friday featuring state workers press-ganged into showing support for the “special military operation.” This propaganda event went about as well as the war itself: Putin was cut off in mid-speech by a technical glitch.
Russian troop morale is said to be plunging as their difficulties multiply. Russian casualties are overwhelming morgues and hospitals in Belarus. Russian losses in the first three weeks were estimated to be at least 7,000 dead and 14,000 wounded, and 1,000 more are estimated to be killed or wounded every day. Russian forces are literally being decimated, suffering at least 10 percent casualties. Five generals are reported to be among the dead. The equipment losses are staggering: The Russians are reported to have lost 1,500 vehicles, including 240 tanks. It is not clear how, or if, Russia can replace all these men and materiel.
Putin has reportedly placed under house arrest the head of the FSB’s Fifth Service, charged with providing intelligence on Ukraine. This shows that he is looking for scapegoats. But is he also looking for a way out? His Stalin-like speech last week lashing out at “scum and traitors” is not a good sign; it suggests he is digging in. Sadly, just about the only thing Russian troops are good at is killing civilians, and they have the capacity to kill a lot more. Putin could escalate with chemical or even nuclear weapons. But there are also reports of progress in peace negotiations.
Putin can’t hang on indefinitely if his army continues to suffer heavy losses; he won’t have much of a military left. Russian troops could still pause and regroup for another offensive, but their odds of success diminish by the day. The initial Russian goal of regime change already appears to be out of reach. Barring some unexpected development, Putin’s choices appear to be whether to lose quickly or slowly. Against all odds, the Ukrainians are actually winning.
12. China and Russia’s military relationship likely to deepen with Ukraine war
Excerpts:
China may be hesitant to take advantage of the Ukraine war to expand military ties. While Chinese officials say normal trade with Russia will continue, Beijing has adopted a wait-and-see approach to the conflict, in part to minimize its exposure to sanctions and avoid unraveling already frayed relations with Western Europe and the United States.
But Xi’s long-term bet on Russia as a partner in challenging Western security blocs makes a rollback of military ties unlikely. In addition to arms trade and joint exercises, the two powers have increasingly coordinated opposition to security partnerships involving the United States and its allies.
China has lent support to Russian complaints about the expansion of NATO, while Russia has condemned initiatives such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and AUKUS, both of which Beijing blames for stoking tensions in the Pacific.
On Sunday, for example, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng told a forum in Beijing that the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy was provoking trouble and causing a formation of blocs in the region that “is as dangerous as the NATO strategy of eastward expansion in Europe.”
China and Russia’s military relationship likely to deepen with Ukraine war
As a teenager in northwestern China during the tumultuous Cultural Revolution, Yu Bin was drafted into the army, where for four years his training focused on how to repel a feared Russian invasion.
In 1969, the height of the Sino-Soviet split, skirmishes between the two nations over an islet in the Ussuri River threatened to escalate into a wider conflict as each side deployed troops and artillery to the border region.
If war had broken out, Yu, now a political scientist at Wittenberg University in Ohio, says he probably would have faced advanced Soviet battle tanks with little more than a machine gun.
His experience shows how far China-Russia military ties have come since that dispute. “If you talk about the military-to-military relationship, it’s not just about arms sales or joint exercises; it’s very comprehensive and gradually developed,” he said.
Regardless of whether China becomes directly involved in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the conflict is shaping up to be an important milestone in the two countries’ military partnership, much like the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Just as Western sanctions that year gave Russia’s military industrial complex new impetus to sell technology to the People’s Liberation Army, the Kremlin’s reliance on China after its Ukraine invasion could accelerate nascent joint technology development and operations.
After decades of China primarily buying arms from Russia, rapid advances in China’s military industry have balanced out the relationship, with some Chinese technologies beginning to surpass Russian counterparts, at a time of growing political alignment between the two nations.
The partnership stops short of a formal military alliance, which Chinese officials say is unnecessary for the two nuclear-armed states. Instead it allows each side to pick and choose when to join in the projection of power — most often in response to shared grievances against the United States — without forcing a stance on each other’s territorial disputes.
Nearly a month in, the war in Ukraine has tested the limits of Beijing’s support, as China ostensibly pursues a policy of neutrality even while refusing to criticize the Kremlin, blaming NATO for the crisis, and promoting Russian disinformation about U.S.-backed biological programs in Ukraine.
According to U.S. officials, Russia asked for Chinese military aid shortly after the invasion began. Moscow and Beijing both deny the reports.
Military analysts say China could aid Russia’s invasion substantially by providing basic supplies, ammunition, communications equipment and weaponry such as drones, but is unlikely to send anything beyond basic provisions or potentially some dual-use items such as trucks.
To do so would be a diplomatically perilous step for Beijing and risk abandoning an often tricky effort to minimize its involvement in a conflict that is increasingly targeting civilians. Advanced equipment would also be difficult to integrate into Russian forces quickly.
These constraints suggest that “supplies are mostly likely in the short term — if Beijing makes the strategic decision to move even closer to Moscow,” said M. Taylor Fravel, director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Also a consideration is China’s relationship with Ukraine, supported in part by the latter’s willingness to provide critical military systems and its long-standing stance of noninterference. As Yu, of Wittenberg University, put it: “When two friends are fighting, are you going to give one of them a knife?”
But if precedent holds, the crisis may ultimately accelerate China-Russia military cooperation.
After Russia’s annexation of Crimea, China continued to build ties with the Kremlin, using Russia’s isolation to break through lingering mistrust and fears of intellectual property theft that had held back sales of sensitive military technology.
Before 2012, when Xi Jinping became general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, the China-Russia military-to-military relationship was in a lull, as bilateral arms sales declined because of Russian concerns that China could reverse-engineer its technologies as well as growing international competition from Chinese arms manufacturers.
But starting in 2013, Xi spearheaded a pivot to Russia, choosing it for his first overseas trip, and forged a close personal relationship with Putin. For the Chinese military, already unable to buy U.S. arms because of an embargo imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, sanctions imposed on the Russian arms industry over Crimea were a path to securing better deals.
“From that moment, we have seen sales of top-notch, first-rate and state-of-the-art Russian arms technology to China,” said Sarah Kirchberger, a scholar at Kiel University in Germany. “Previously, Russia was only willing to sell things that were older, at least one generation older, than what it would sell to other customers and what it would use itself.”
The shift was sealed with Chinese purchases of Su-35 fighter jets and the S-400 surface-to-air missile defense system. In recent years, the relationship has been furthered with joint naval drills in far-flung international waters and missile defense computer simulations that require a higher level of mutual trust and intelligence-sharing.
A number of joint development projects have also been disclosed, mostly by Russia, including for heavy-lift helicopters, an early-warning system for missile attacks, and nonnuclear submarines.
Little information is publicly available about these initiatives — and some may never materialize — but taken together, the projects suggest a shift from China being purely a customer to being a partner. “Submarine technology is something you do not share with others very easily,” Kirchberger said. “That would really indicate a whole new level of cooperation, if it is actually true.”
While the threat of sanctions may constrain China from providing overt military aid to Russia in Ukraine, an extended rupture with the West will encourage the Kremlin to deliver even more advanced systems and allow more technology transfers to China, according to Paul Schwartz, an analyst at CNA, a research organization in Arlington, Va.
“At the same time, China will conceivably become an important supplier to Russia of underlying military technologies and components as well as systems where China holds a lead — sometimes a substantial lead — over Russia,” Schwartz said, listing drones, shipbuilding and maritime radar systems as areas where advanced Chinese technology could interest Russia.
Space is another area where the two are working closely on technologies and systems with potential military applications, including the integration of the two country’s GPS equivalents: China’s Beidou network and Russia’s GLONASS.
Obstacles to a closer military relationship remain, however. Russia continues to worry about theft of its technology, international competition from Chinese arms manufacturers and even the possibility that a militarily strong China might not always treat Russia as an equal partner.
China may be hesitant to take advantage of the Ukraine war to expand military ties. While Chinese officials say normal trade with Russia will continue, Beijing has adopted a wait-and-see approach to the conflict, in part to minimize its exposure to sanctions and avoid unraveling already frayed relations with Western Europe and the United States.
But Xi’s long-term bet on Russia as a partner in challenging Western security blocs makes a rollback of military ties unlikely. In addition to arms trade and joint exercises, the two powers have increasingly coordinated opposition to security partnerships involving the United States and its allies.
China has lent support to Russian complaints about the expansion of NATO, while Russia has condemned initiatives such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and AUKUS, both of which Beijing blames for stoking tensions in the Pacific.
On Sunday, for example, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng told a forum in Beijing that the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy was provoking trouble and causing a formation of blocs in the region that “is as dangerous as the NATO strategy of eastward expansion in Europe.”
Pei Lin Wu in Taipei, Taiwan, contributed to this report.
13. Opinion | The West underestimated Ukraine’s bravery. Now, it’s underestimating Russia’s brutality.
Excerpts:
But Ukrainian soldiers are staring down a Russian military that is just getting started. A Russian military that keeps erasing Ukrainian cities with indiscriminate cruise-missile and MLRS barrages. Ukrainians are willing to fight this war for the West as well as for ourselves — but we can’t do it without the necessary military equipment.
We need the defensive lethal assistance President Zelenskyy has requested repeatedly: fighter jets, air and missile defense systems, drones, anti-armor weapons, guns, ammunition, protective equipment. If we don’t get the equipment we need to succeed, Putin won’t stop in Ukraine. He will go for NATO next.
Ukrainian soldiers, citizens and volunteers from around the world are valiantly holding back the Russian invaders, for now. The Ukrainian people have shown they can lead the struggle for democracy against tyranny. We just need more support. To freedom-loving people around the world we say: This is your war, too. Help us win it. If not, the harshest dictatorship since World War II will triumph over Europe.
The West cannot allow this to happen.
Opinion | The West underestimated Ukraine’s bravery. Now, it’s underestimating Russia’s brutality.
Andriy Yermak is head of the presidential office of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s resistance against Russia’s horrific invasion has exceeded every outside prediction. Many in the West did not understand Ukrainians’ love for their freedom, for their democracy. For us, losing our country would be worse than death. And that’s why we fight — because defeat is not an option.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered this message to a joint session of the U.S. Congress and to parliaments across Europe. He also pleaded for greater military assistance and the establishment of a no-fly zone for humanitarian — not military — purposes. Many countries have stepped up to provide critical military and humanitarian assistance. However, given Russian President Vladimir Putin’s clear intention to ramp up the bloodshed, Ukraine still needs more.
While the United States, Poland and many other freedom-loving countries are standing firm with Ukraine, some states in Europe seem willing to accept a Ukraine partially occupied by Russian invaders — anything so they can keep buying Russian gas and oil and conduct business as usual.
But business as usual now means accepting Russians bombing maternity hospitals and theaters full of civilians taking shelter. These atrocities are part of the Russian siege on the city of Mariupol, which has left hundreds of thousands of residents without food, clean water, electricity and communications. More than 1,200 civilians have been murdered. Russia violated an agreement on a humanitarian corridor almost before it began. This is how it wages wars. It did it in Grozny in 1999 and in Syria in 2015. Now, it is doing it in Ukraine. This is a scorched-earth campaign to wipe Ukraine — its people, its culture, its history — off the map.
Just as many erroneously predicted that Ukraine would fall within 72 hours, many failed to predict the mass atrocities the Russian troops would commit despite their long history of absolute disregard for life, and lust for blood and destruction. Only the establishment of a no-fly zone to protect humanitarian corridors will stop the carnage, just as the United States and its allies and partners did in Iraq in 1991, in Bosnia from 1993 to 1995, and in Libya in 2011. Despite these countries not belonging to NATO, the West intervened to stop the inhumane targeting of civilians and facilitate humanitarian assistance, which saved countless lives.
If the West won’t do it now, then we plead for the proper weapons so we can do it ourselves. If not, the loss of people, infrastructure, businesses, and our historic landmarks and monuments will be on the West’s collective conscience.
On March 11, President Biden stated that the United States “will not fight a war against Russia in Ukraine.” But the truth is that Russia is waging war against the West already, not just Ukraine. Russians are fighting the values Ukraine shares with the West to make the West recognize Moscow’s exclusive right to dictate to other nations how they should live. You may be reluctant to go to war, but the Russian aggressor has made the choice for you.
There is now a new world order. Those who stand with Ukraine and fight for common values will lead it, and the others will lose their political, economic and ideological influence. The United States, Poland and many other countries are forging this new paradigm, but the undisputed leader is President Zelenskyy. He has shown fortitude and resilience to NATO and the European Union, and has rallied the collective West around the need to protect democratic values.
But Ukrainian soldiers are staring down a Russian military that is just getting started. A Russian military that keeps erasing Ukrainian cities with indiscriminate cruise-missile and MLRS barrages. Ukrainians are willing to fight this war for the West as well as for ourselves — but we can’t do it without the necessary military equipment.
We need the defensive lethal assistance President Zelenskyy has requested repeatedly: fighter jets, air and missile defense systems, drones, anti-armor weapons, guns, ammunition, protective equipment. If we don’t get the equipment we need to succeed, Putin won’t stop in Ukraine. He will go for NATO next.
Ukrainian soldiers, citizens and volunteers from around the world are valiantly holding back the Russian invaders, for now. The Ukrainian people have shown they can lead the struggle for democracy against tyranny. We just need more support. To freedom-loving people around the world we say: This is your war, too. Help us win it. If not, the harshest dictatorship since World War II will triumph over Europe.
The West cannot allow this to happen.
14. Opinion | The Grand Theory Driving Putin to War
Excerpts:
Where did Ukraine figure in this imperial revival? As an obstacle, from the very beginning. Trubetzkoy argued in his 1927 article “On the Ukrainian Problem” that Ukrainian culture was an “individualization of all-Russian culture” and that Ukrainians and Belarussians should bond with Russians around the organizing principle of their shared Orthodox faith. Mr. Dugin made things more direct in his 1997 text: Ukrainian sovereignty presented a “huge danger to all of Eurasia.” Total military and political control of the whole north coast of the Black Sea was an “absolute imperative” of Russian geopolitics. Ukraine had to become “a purely administrative sector of the Russian centralized state.”
Mr. Putin has taken that message to heart. In 2013, he declared that Eurasia was a major geopolitical zone where Russia’s “genetic code” and its many peoples would be defended against “extreme Western-style liberalism.” In July last year he announced that “Russians and Ukrainians are one people,” and in his furious rant on the eve of invasion, he described Ukraine as a “colony with a puppet regime,” where the Orthodox Church is under assault and NATO prepares for an attack on Russia.
This brew of attitudes — complaints about Western aggression, exaltation of traditional values over the decadence of individual rights, assertions of Russia’s duty to unite Eurasia and subordinate Ukraine — developed in the cauldron of post-imperial resentment. Now they infuse Mr. Putin’s worldview and inspire his brutal war.
The goal, plainly, is empire. And the line will not be drawn at Ukraine.
Opinion | The Grand Theory Driving Putin to War
Guest Essay
The Grand Theory Driving Putin to War
March 22, 2022, 1:00 a.m. ET
A man stood on the destroyed balcony of his apartment, after a Russian missile, intercepted by Ukrainian air defences, hit the building in northern Kyiv last week.Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
Send any friend a story
As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.
By
Dr. Burbank is a professor of Russian history, recently retired from New York University.
President Vladimir Putin’s bloody assault on Ukraine, nearly a month in, still seems inexplicable. Rockets raining down on apartment buildings and fleeing families are now Russia’s face to the world. What could induce Russia to take such a fateful step, effectively electing to become a pariah state?
Efforts to understand the invasion tend to fall into two broad schools of thought. The first focuses on Mr. Putin himself — his state of mind, his understanding of history or his K.G.B. past. The second invokes developments external to Russia, chiefly NATO’s eastward expansion after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, as the underlying source of the conflict.
But to understand the war in Ukraine, we must go beyond the political projects of Western leaders and Mr. Putin’s psyche. The ardor and content of Mr. Putin’s declarations are not new or unique to him. Since the 1990s, plans to reunite Ukraine and other post-Soviet states into a transcontinental superpower have been brewing in Russia. A revitalized theory of Eurasian empire informs Mr. Putin’s every move.
The end of the Soviet Union disoriented Russia’s elites, stripping away their special status in a huge Communist empire. What was to be done? For some, the answer was just to make money, the capitalist way. In the wild years after 1991, many were able to amass enormous fortunes in cahoots with an indulgent regime. But for others who had set their goals in Soviet conditions, wealth and a vibrant consumer economy were not enough. Post-imperial egos felt the loss of Russia’s status and significance keenly.
As Communism lost its élan, intellectuals searched for a different principle on which the Russian state could be organized. Their explorations took shape briefly in the formation of political parties, including rabidly nationalist, antisemitic movements, and with more lasting effect in the revival of religion as a foundation for collective life. But as the state ran roughshod over democratic politics in the 1990s, new interpretations of Russia’s essence took hold, offering solace and hope to people who strove to recover their country’s prestige in the world.
One of the most alluring concepts was Eurasianism. Emerging from the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, this idea posited Russia as a Eurasian polity formed by a deep history of cultural exchanges among people of Turkic, Slavic, Mongol and other Asian origins. In 1920, the linguist Nikolai Trubetzkoy — one of several Russian émigré intellectuals who developed the concept — published “Europe and Humanity,” a trenchant critique of Western colonialism and Eurocentrism. He called on Russian intellectuals to free themselves from their fixation on Europe and to build on the “legacy of Chinggis Khan” to create a great continent-spanning Russian-Eurasian state.
Trubetzkoy’s Eurasianism was a recipe for imperial recovery, without Communism — a harmful Western import, in his view. Instead, Trubetzkoy emphasized the ability of a reinvigorated Russian Orthodoxy to provide cohesion across Eurasia, with solicitous care for believers in the many other faiths practiced in this enormous region.
Suppressed for decades in the Soviet Union, Eurasianism survived in the underground and burst into public awareness during the perestroika period of the late 1980s. Lev Gumilyov, an eccentric geographer who had spent 13 years in Soviet prisons and forced-labor camps, emerged as an acclaimed guru of the Eurasian revival in the 1980s. Mr. Gumilyov emphasized ethnic diversity as a driver of global history. According to his concept of “ethnogenesis,” an ethnic group could, under the influence of a charismatic leader, develop into a “super-ethnos” — a power spread over a huge geographical area that would clash with other expanding ethnic units.
Mr. Gumilyov’s theories appealed to many people making their way through the chaotic 1990s. But Eurasianism was injected directly into the bloodstream of Russian power in a variant developed by the self-styled philosopher Aleksandr Dugin. After unsuccessful interventions in post-Soviet party politics, Mr. Dugin focused on developing his influence where it counted — with the military and policymakers. With the publication in 1997 of his 600-page textbook, loftily titled “The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia,” Eurasianism moved to the center of strategists' political imagination.
In Mr. Dugin’s adjustment of Eurasianism to present conditions, Russia had a new opponent — no longer just Europe, but the whole of the “Atlantic” world led by the United States. And his Eurasianism was not anti-imperial but the opposite: Russia had always been an empire, Russian people were “imperial people,” and after the crippling 1990s sellout to the “eternal enemy,” Russia could revive in the next phase of global combat and become a “world empire.” On the civilizational front, Mr. Dugin highlighted the long-term connection between Eastern Orthodoxy and Russian empire. Orthodoxy’s combat against Western Christianity and Western decadence could be harnessed to the geopolitical war to come.
Eurasian geopolitics, Russian Orthodoxy and traditional values — these goals shaped Russia’s self-image under Mr. Putin’s leadership. The themes of imperial glory and Western victimization were propagated across the country; in 2017, they were drummed home in the monumental exhibition “Russia, My History.” The expo’s flashy displays featured Mr. Gumilyov’s Eurasian philosophy, the sacrificial martyrdom of the Romanov family and the evils the West had inflicted on Russia.
Where did Ukraine figure in this imperial revival? As an obstacle, from the very beginning. Trubetzkoy argued in his 1927 article “On the Ukrainian Problem” that Ukrainian culture was an “individualization of all-Russian culture” and that Ukrainians and Belarussians should bond with Russians around the organizing principle of their shared Orthodox faith. Mr. Dugin made things more direct in his 1997 text: Ukrainian sovereignty presented a “huge danger to all of Eurasia.” Total military and political control of the whole north coast of the Black Sea was an “absolute imperative” of Russian geopolitics. Ukraine had to become “a purely administrative sector of the Russian centralized state.”
Mr. Putin has taken that message to heart. In 2013, he declared that Eurasia was a major geopolitical zone where Russia’s “genetic code” and its many peoples would be defended against “extreme Western-style liberalism.” In July last year he announced that “Russians and Ukrainians are one people,” and in his furious rant on the eve of invasion, he described Ukraine as a “colony with a puppet regime,” where the Orthodox Church is under assault and NATO prepares for an attack on Russia.
This brew of attitudes — complaints about Western aggression, exaltation of traditional values over the decadence of individual rights, assertions of Russia’s duty to unite Eurasia and subordinate Ukraine — developed in the cauldron of post-imperial resentment. Now they infuse Mr. Putin’s worldview and inspire his brutal war.
The goal, plainly, is empire. And the line will not be drawn at Ukraine.
Jane Burbank is an emeritus professor of history and Russian and Slavic studies at New York University and a co-author, with Frederick Cooper, of “Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference.”
15. Putin’s War Is a Death Blow to Nuclear Nonproliferation
Proliferation? Sure. What about nuclear deterrence? Are all the nuclear theories now overcome by events (OBE)? Can an authoritarian leader with nuclear weapons be deterred from conventional attack and invasion of nearby countries?
Is our self deterrence the problem?
Putin’s War Is a Death Blow to Nuclear Nonproliferation
An expert's point of view on a current event.
Russia has shown that an attacker with nuclear arms is fundamentally safe.
By Andreas Umland, an analyst at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, and Hugo von Essen, an analyst at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.
Intercontinental ballistic missile launchers and an armored vehicle are seen during a military parade in Red Square in Moscow on June 24, 2020. Sergey Pyatakov - Host Photo Agency via Getty Images
One of the most dangerous and far-reaching repercussions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the subversion of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)—perhaps the most critical multilateral agreement for the survival of humanity. Since its first attack on Ukraine in 2014, Russia’s actions have put the logic of the treaty to prevent the spread of atomic weapons on its head. Because Ukraine once possessed nuclear weapons but gave them up when it joined the NPT in 1994, Russia’s renewed aggression makes it look as if the treaty’s purpose is to keep weak countries defenseless and prey to the nuclear-weapon states. Russian President Vladimir Putin said as much at the start of the war, when he announced that he had put his country’s nuclear forces on alert and issued ominous threats to anyone daring to get in Russia’s way.
In the early 1990s, newly independent Ukraine briefly possessed more nuclear warheads than Britain, France, and China combined. Ukraine had inherited from the Soviet Union some 1,900 strategic and 2,500 tactical nuclear weapons stationed on its territory. However, against the background of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and in the spirit of the geopolitical optimism of the early post-Cold War years, Kyiv decided that Ukraine would become entirely free of nuclear weapons.
To be sure, Ukraine was unable to use most of its nuclear weapons at the time, as the command centers were still in Moscow. Yet it had accumulated not just the warheads, but also the specialized technology and engineering expertise it could easily have used to be a nuclear weapons state—by keeping a reserve of enriched uranium or plutonium, or even nuclear ammunition and warheads. Under considerable pressure from Moscow but also with generous help from Washington, Kyiv quickly transferred its entire nuclear arsenal to Russia. Ukraine signed and ratified the NPT as a non-nuclear state.
One of the most dangerous and far-reaching repercussions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the subversion of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)—perhaps the most critical multilateral agreement for the survival of humanity. Since its first attack on Ukraine in 2014, Russia’s actions have put the logic of the treaty to prevent the spread of atomic weapons on its head. Because Ukraine once possessed nuclear weapons but gave them up when it joined the NPT in 1994, Russia’s renewed aggression makes it look as if the treaty’s purpose is to keep weak countries defenseless and prey to the nuclear-weapon states. Russian President Vladimir Putin said as much at the start of the war, when he announced that he had put his country’s nuclear forces on alert and issued ominous threats to anyone daring to get in Russia’s way.
In the early 1990s, newly independent Ukraine briefly possessed more nuclear warheads than Britain, France, and China combined. Ukraine had inherited from the Soviet Union some 1,900 strategic and 2,500 tactical nuclear weapons stationed on its territory. However, against the background of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and in the spirit of the geopolitical optimism of the early post-Cold War years, Kyiv decided that Ukraine would become entirely free of nuclear weapons.
To be sure, Ukraine was unable to use most of its nuclear weapons at the time, as the command centers were still in Moscow. Yet it had accumulated not just the warheads, but also the specialized technology and engineering expertise it could easily have used to be a nuclear weapons state—by keeping a reserve of enriched uranium or plutonium, or even nuclear ammunition and warheads. Under considerable pressure from Moscow but also with generous help from Washington, Kyiv quickly transferred its entire nuclear arsenal to Russia. Ukraine signed and ratified the NPT as a non-nuclear state.
In exchange for full denuclearization, Washington, Moscow, and London agreed to provide Kyiv with additional security pledges. At a summit of the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe (the predecessor of today’s Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) in 1994, the four countries signed the now-famous Budapest Memorandum, named for the city where the summit was held. In this document, the nonproliferation regime’s three guarantor powers—the United States, Britain, and Russia (as the legal successor of the Soviet Union)—assured Ukraine of its sovereignty, the security of its territory, and its freedom from economic and political pressure.
The two other official nuclear-weapon states under the NPT, China and France, followed suit. They provided Ukraine with separate governmental declarations expressing their respect for Ukraine’s state and borders. Similar written pledges were made to Belarus and Kazakhstan, two other post-Soviet states that had inherited parts of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. The two countries also agreed to transfer their warheads to Russia.
The NPT—which has been signed by 191 countries, more than any other arms control agreement—was finalized in 1968 and went into effect in 1970. The treaty’s goal is to avert the spread of nuclear weapons, foster cooperation on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and work toward complete nuclear disarmament. It was extended indefinitely in 1995, not the least against the background of the successful denuclearization of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.
The NPT is the bedrock of the global nuclear nonproliferation regime. It contains the only binding commitment to the goal of disarmament by the nuclear-weapon states. The agreement explicitly acknowledges that preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons cannot be achieved by individual states but requires the dedication and collaboration of the global community.
The NPT also contains the obligation of nuclear-weapon states to not transfer nuclear arms to other states—and of non-nuclear-weapon states to refrain from receiving, manufacturing, or acquiring nuclear weapons. It includes a promise by nuclear-weapon states to help promote the development of civilian nuclear applications of all treaty parties. In its preamble, the NPT recalls that countries must refrain, in accordance with the United Nations Charter, “from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State.”
The effect of the nonproliferation regime has so far been that the vast majority of countries have abstained from acquiring atomic arms. Outside the NPT, only India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan have developed their own nuclear weapons capability. However, their arsenals are smaller than those of the NPT’s five official nuclear-weapon states: Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States, which are also permanent U.N. Security Council members. More than half a century after its signing, the NPT remains largely intact. Its 10th review conference is scheduled for later this year after several postponements due to the coronavirus pandemic.
With Russia’s military and nonmilitary attacks on Ukraine since 2014, the seizure and annexation of Ukrainian territory, and the ongoing invasion, the Kremlin has put the logic of the nonproliferation regime on its head. With the nuclear-weapon states’ security guarantee to Ukraine so obviously worthless, it looks now as if the NPT’s purpose is to provide the five official nuclear-weapon states—which happen to be the world’s strongest conventional military powers as well—with an opportunity to extend, at relatively low cost, their territories. They can do so at the expense of smaller nations naive enough to believe in the rule of international law, which have signed the NPT as non-nuclear-weapon states.
Russia’s behavior toward Ukraine since 2014 is thus a threat to the integrity of the NPT, the global order of which it is a foundation, and the security of the NPT’s 191 signatories, including Russia itself. By so obviously breaking the NPT, Russia has severely undermined worldwide faith in the plausibility of nonproliferation, diminished the will of individual states to participate in its pursuit, and increased the potential and temptation for additional states and nonstate actors to acquire and use nuclear weapons. Russia’s attacks on and dismemberment of Ukraine thus erode the security of all.
What long-term incentives will Russia’s renewed attack on Ukraine create?
Russia was able to attack Ukraine because the former is a nuclear-weapon state. Not only does Ukraine lack these arms to deter an attack, but it is also forbidden by the NPT to obtain them. Were Ukraine a nuclear power, Putin and his military leaders surely would have thought twice before launching their invasion.
Middle powers not protected by larger alliances such as NATO can learn three simple lessons. First, it is good to have nuclear weapons—either to advance your designs on another country’s territory or to deter just such an attack. Second, it is not good to give your weapons away. Third, it makes little sense to rely on treaties, memoranda, assurances, and other statements—even if they are fully ratified, legally binding, and supported by the governments of the world’s most powerful countries.
For many countries, the lesson will be to follow a wiser policy than Kyiv did when it gave away its warheads and nuclear material. Instead, a country’s chances to stay sovereign and keep its territory intact will be higher if it obtains and keeps nuclear warheads. Starting a new nuclear weapons program isn’t easy today, but once a new, disruptive technology makes it easier to develop or buy nuclear weapons, many countries will want to get them—all the more so if they have a rapacious neighbor that already has such weapons or that they suspect of wanting to get some.
For that rapacious neighbor, the lesson is that it might get a chance to grab a piece of another country lacking sufficiently deadly arms and naively trusting international law. Following Putin’s playbook, resolute threats to use nuclear warheads will make sure that no outside powers will come to the help of a non-nuclear neighbor that’s under attack. Russia has shown that an attacker with nuclear arms is fundamentally safe. Even far short of a full-scale invasion, Russian behavior in Georgia and elsewhere demonstrates again and again that it can act with impunity, with a few minor arms deliveries and economic sanctions the worst possible reaction by outside powers—and even those sanctions are usually weak and abolished over time.
What else do you need to know to find the bomb an attractive solution?
Andreas Umland is an analyst at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs’ Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies. Twitter: @UmlandAndreas
Hugo von Essen is an analyst at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs’ Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies. Twitter: @HugovonEssen
16. FDD | Assad Visits the UAE, Showing Need for Tougher Enforcement of U.S. Sanctions
Why do we impose sanctions and have such a hard time enforcing them?
Excerpts:
Biden’s commitment to enforcing the Caesar Act and to isolating Assad will remain uncertain at best so long as the administration promotes the four-way energy deal between Damascus, Beirut, Amman, and Cairo. The deal necessitates cabinet-level engagement between the participants, while ensuring Assad receives ample compensation for allowing Egyptian gas and Jordanian electricity to cross through Syria en route to Lebanon.
This week, on the 11th anniversary of the mass demonstrations to which Assad responded with lethal force, the State Department reiterated its commitment to “achieve justice and accountability for the Syrian people.” Yet those words will ring hollow so long as the administration implicitly supports its Arab allies’ engagement with Assad. If the United States does not vigorously oppose normalization with an inveterate war criminal like Assad, Vladimir Putin may draw the lesson that Russian atrocities in Ukraine will not prevent his eventual rehabilitation.
FDD | Assad Visits the UAE, Showing Need for Tougher Enforcement of U.S. Sanctions
fdd.org · by David Adesnik Senior Fellow and Director of Research · March 21, 2022
Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad visited the United Arab Emirates on Friday, the first time another Arab government has welcomed Assad since the beginning of the war in Syria in 2011. The State Department said it was “profoundly disappointed” by Abu Dhabi’s “apparent attempt to legitimize Bashar al-Assad,” yet the Biden administration has sent consistent signals to Arab allies indicating its tacit approval of normalization with Damascus.
During the first months of its tenure, the Biden administration opposed efforts to engage with the Assad regime, warning that the United States would fully enforce sanctions mandated by the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act. Last August, however, the White House publicly supported Syria’s inclusion in a four-way energy deal with Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon that directly violates the Caesar Act’s proscription of material support for the Assad regime.
Despite that pivot, the administration insists its policy has not changed. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior U.S. officials emphasize that Washington will neither lift sanctions nor pursue normalization with Damascus. Yet Blinken and others are careful not to say that the United States will actively oppose or interfere with such efforts.
In January, senior lawmakers from both parties sent a letter to the president stating their opposition to any “tacit approval of formal diplomatic engagement with the Syrian regime” by Washington’s Arab allies. The authors asserted there should be consequences for such engagement and called on Biden “to utilize the robust, mandatory deterrence mechanisms” in the Caesar Act “to maintain the Assad regime’s isolation.” The State Department’s tepid declaration of disappointment with the Emirates for hosting Assad shows the administration has not heeded lawmakers’ advice.
Under Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi, the Emirates have broadly aligned themselves with the United States on key strategic issues, while perennially testing Washington’s readiness to enforce its sanctions on Syria and Iran. In late 2018, the United Arab Emirates reopened its embassy in Damascus. Weeks later, the Emiratis welcomed a Syrian delegation led by an Assad regime financier whom the U.S. Treasury Department had sanctioned. The Emirates also continued to import hundreds of millions of dollars of Iranian petrochemicals, even after the Trump administration re-imposed sanctions on the Iranian petrochemical sector in November 2018.
The costs of pushing further became clear when Congress passed the Caesar Act in December 2019 with overwhelming bipartisan support. In March 2020, Treasury added five UAE-based firms to its Iran sanctions blacklist.
If the Biden administration wanted to do more than express its disappointment, it could renew the formidable sanctions-enforcement efforts that lapsed when President Joe Biden took office. After the Caesar Act took effect in June 2020, the previous administration designated new sanctions targets each month. During its 12 months in office, by contrast, the Biden administration has issued only two sets of Syria-related sanctions, neither of which affected economically significant targets.
Biden’s commitment to enforcing the Caesar Act and to isolating Assad will remain uncertain at best so long as the administration promotes the four-way energy deal between Damascus, Beirut, Amman, and Cairo. The deal necessitates cabinet-level engagement between the participants, while ensuring Assad receives ample compensation for allowing Egyptian gas and Jordanian electricity to cross through Syria en route to Lebanon.
This week, on the 11th anniversary of the mass demonstrations to which Assad responded with lethal force, the State Department reiterated its commitment to “achieve justice and accountability for the Syrian people.” Yet those words will ring hollow so long as the administration implicitly supports its Arab allies’ engagement with Assad. If the United States does not vigorously oppose normalization with an inveterate war criminal like Assad, Vladimir Putin may draw the lesson that Russian atrocities in Ukraine will not prevent his eventual rehabilitation.
David Adesnik is research director and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he also contributes to FDD’s Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP). For more analysis from David and CEFP, please subscribe HERE. Follow David on Twitter @adesnik. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_CEFP. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
fdd.org · by David Adesnik Senior Fellow and Director of Research · March 21, 2022
17. Iran’s Hackers Are Opportunistic, Patient, and Fearless
Conclusion:
Underestimating a committed adversary is dangerous, and a misdiagnosis of Tehran’s strategic thinking risks causing an underinvestment not only in cyber defense but also in intelligence gathering about Iranian capabilities and intentions. With intelligence and insights into Tehran’s thinking, the United States and its allies may be able to preempt or disable its hackers’ riskiest and most dangerous activities. The result of underinvestment, however, may be strategic surprise when Tehran exploits an opportunity to launch a devastating attack on the U.S. and its allies.
Iran’s Hackers Are Opportunistic, Patient, and Fearless
Iranian hackers are dangerous not because they have uniquely sophisticated techniques but because they are increasingly less risk-averse than other cyber actors.
Why has Russia not (yet) launched devastating cyberattacks as part of its military invasion of Ukraine? Why has Tehran not successfully executed a headline-grabbing cyberattack against the United States in the years since the Trump administration imposed substantial sanctions on Iran and killed General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF)? The question of why adversaries use and do not use cyberattacks in particular circumstances is important for understanding the role of cyber operations in a nation’s strategic doctrine. In the case of Iran, however, a focus only on the headlines obscures the worrying trend of Tehran’s improving cyber capabilities and may have lulled policymakers into thinking that previous rounds of sanctions and indictments against the regime and its hackers have deterred Iran.
The disparate but sometimes overlapping hacker groups that work at the direction of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and IRGC are demonstrating “growing expertise,” the U.S. intelligence community said in February in its annual threat assessment. Iran, the assessment concluded, takes an “opportunistic approach” to cyber operations, particularly those that target U.S. and allied critical infrastructure. For example, experts in industrial control systems (ICS)—that is, computer systems that control critical infrastructure—maintain that Iranian hackers lack ICS-specific capabilities, but that has not stopped these operatives from attempting attacks using other means. As the Russian ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline nearly a year ago vividly showed, attackers do not need ICS-specific capabilities to cause a massive disruption of critical infrastructure.
Instead, as the U.S., UK, and Australian governments disclosed late last year, Iranian government-sponsored hackers are targeting the unpatched business networks of critical infrastructure operators using vulnerabilities from as many as three years ago and a Microsoft Exchange vulnerability that received front-page headlines in early 2021 for its severity and scale. These hackers “are actively targeting” U.S. healthcare and public health companies and companies in other industries, the three governments concluded, not for a particular strategic reason, but because these companies are low-hanging fruit when they do not mitigate known vulnerabilities in their systems.
Similarly, in early 2022, researchers at cyber threat intelligence firm Checkpoint discovered Iranian hackers working for the IRGC who were exploiting the widely reported Log4j vulnerability to conduct attacks against unspecified victims. They are not the first hackers to take advantage of this vulnerability, but it is so prevalent across thousands of systems that it is a ripe avenue for attack.
That Iranian hackers are opportunistic does not mean that they are not deliberate. In a November 2021 assessment of Iranian cyber capabilities, Microsoft determined that Tehran’s hackers are displaying more patience and persistence, particularly in their social engineering—the first step in many cyber operations. Whereas operatives previously sent bulk unsolicited emails with malicious attachments, they are now using much more time-consuming and individualized—and often successful—tactics to win the trust of victims in order to lead them to click malicious links and install malware. A more patient adversary is a more dangerous one.
Tehran has also become more dangerous as its hackers have attempted cyberattacks that are reminiscent of the operations successfully deployed by other U.S. adversaries. Witnessing the confusion sown by Russian disinformation operations in the 2016 elections, Iran attempted its own operation during the 2020 presidential election. The U.S. Intelligence Community concluded with “high confidence” that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei likely “authorized the campaign and Iran’s military and intelligence services implemented it,” calling the operation a “whole of government effort.”
Meanwhile, Iran has begun waging cyberattacks on supply chains—a common tactic of Chinese and Russian hackers—in order to penetrate dozens or hundreds of companies. These attacks entail breaching a trusted vendor, managed service provider, or other third party with direct network access to the victim’s systems. In one operation in 2020, Iranian hackers breached a logistics company in Israel, Amital Data, along with other companies in the logistics and import sectors. Then, the hackers used Amital’s list of clients and login information to compromise another forty firms. The combination of the technical details and the lack of ransomware or extortion demands pointed to an Iranian operation aligned with Tehran’s interests, if not directly commissioned by the regime.
Iran’s opportunism and evolving cyber capabilities should prompt greater investment in cyber defense. The United States and its allies must provide Iranian hackers with fewer opportunities to exploit even as Tehran becomes more persistent. But stronger cyber defenses alone may not be sufficient to stop Tehran. The U.S. Intelligence Community warned in February that Iran has a “growing willingness to take risks” in its cyber operations.
As an example, it pointed to an attempted Iranian attack on Israeli water systems in 2020. Yigal Unna, head of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, speculated at the time that the attempt could mark a “changing point in the history of modern cyber warfare.” This assertion was an overstatement—the attempt was far from the first Iranian effort to attack critical infrastructure, and Russia and China have undertaken numerous operations to compromise U.S. critical infrastructure. Still, Israel took the attempt so seriously that it reportedly responded by launching a cyber operation that knocked a major Iranian port offline.
The regime in Tehran surely understood that Israeli retaliation was inevitable—especially if its hackers had succeeded in causing a public health crisis—but chose to launch the operation, nonetheless. Thus, Iranian hackers are dangerous not because they have uniquely sophisticated techniques but because they are increasingly less risk-averse than other cyber actors.
Underestimating a committed adversary is dangerous, and a misdiagnosis of Tehran’s strategic thinking risks causing an underinvestment not only in cyber defense but also in intelligence gathering about Iranian capabilities and intentions. With intelligence and insights into Tehran’s thinking, the United States and its allies may be able to preempt or disable its hackers’ riskiest and most dangerous activities. The result of underinvestment, however, may be strategic surprise when Tehran exploits an opportunity to launch a devastating attack on the U.S. and its allies.
Annie Fixler is deputy director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and an FDD research fellow. Follow Annie on Twitter @afixler. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
Image: Reuters.
18. FDD | Vandenberg Coalition Afghanistan Working Group Report
FDD | Vandenberg Coalition Afghanistan Working Group Report
fdd.org · by Richard Goldberg Senior Advisor · March 21, 2022
Working Group Members
Amb. Kelley E. Currie, Richard Goldberg, Christopher Harnisch, Frederick W. Kagan, Kimberly Kagan, Paul Kapur, Col. Richard Outzen (U.S. Army, ret.), Joseph Riley, Amb. Nathan Sales, Vance Serchuk
Executive Summary
The Vandenberg Coalition Afghanistan Working Group convened a diverse group of national security professionals to develop policy recommendations for the Biden administration and Congress in the wake of the 2021 Afghanistan crisis. Members of the working group included former government officials, military veterans, and academics with substantive expertise in a range of areas including Afghanistan, China, Iran, India, Pakistan, Russia, counterterrorism, sanctions, humanitarian aid, and human rights. The group met from September 2021 to February 2022 to discuss the major consequences of the crisis for U.S. national security and to develop forward-looking proposals. In addition to offering several policy recommendations, the group’s work highlights points of failure in the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan with the intention of ensuring that the deadly mistakes of this crisis never again occur.
Recommendations Overview
The Executive Summary is a delineation of recommendations proposed by the members of the Vandenberg Coalition’s Afghanistan Working Group. Additional details on these recommendations follow in the subsequent pages of this report. Recommendations are organized in five categories: Relations with the Taliban; Counterterrorism; Great Power Competition and Regional Dynamics; Evacuations; and Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid.
Relations with the Taliban
1. Deny the Taliban bilateral and international diplomatic recognition – be clear that the United States does not recognize the Taliban regime as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
2. Maintain robust financial pressure on the Taliban regime.
NOTE: Some members argued for keeping domestic and international sanctions in place, maintaining strict limits on the use of funds held by the Federal Reserve, and monitoring Afghanistan’s banking sector for evidence of money laundering that could lead to a PATRIOT Act 311 finding. Other members argued that aggressive use of sanctions would be strategically and morally counterproductive, exacerbating the suffering of the Afghan people without destabilizing the Taliban. Further details are provided in the report.
3. Deny the Taliban access to or benefits from bilateral and multilateral assistance.
Counterterrorism
1. Diplomatically isolate the Taliban and maintain U.S. and international sanctions on the group until it takes proactive measures to combat all terrorists in the country.
2. Expand counterterrorism cooperation with countries in the region with the goal of securing access for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) collection and aerial strikes.
3. Harmonize U.S. humanitarian and counterterrorism objectives to avoid unintentionally bolstering the Taliban through the distribution of foreign assistance.
4. Limit engagement with Pakistan to the minimal extent necessary to retain access to its airspace to conduct drone strikes in Afghanistan.
5. Provide non-lethal aid to the National Resistance Front (NRF).
6. Monitor the flow of foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) into Afghanistan and take appropriate measures to stem those flows.
Great Power Competition and Regional Dynamics
1. Support alternatives to the Taliban by working with regional partners.
2. Engage Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan bilaterally and in conjunction with Turkey and Azerbaijan.
3. Avoid Pakistan as much as possible, working with it only when it is unavoidable, primarily for counterterrorism operations.
4. Bolster relations with India – a major regional player aligned with the United States in the IndoPacific that shares many U.S. interests in Afghanistan.
5. Maintain balancing against China as a guiding principle for overall U.S. engagement in the region, but do not try to counter all Chinese inroads in Afghanistan. Opposing China’s every move in Afghanistan could be a costly distraction from competition in the Indo-Pacific. Forge closer ties with India, and seize opportunities to split China from Pakistan on counterterrorism issues.
Evacuations
1. Establish a dedicated parole channel for at-risk Afghans to expedite the evacuation of those who assisted the United States and share our values.
2. Create a humanitarian corridor for aid delivery and safe passage for vulnerable civilians.
3. Reduce administrative barriers and improve cooperation and transparency with private groups.
Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid
1. Develop a comprehensive strategy to support the Afghan people and ameliorate the humanitarian crisis.
NOTE: Group members had differing views on certain details of the proposed strategy. Some members argued for robust efforts to address the liquidity crisis in Afghanistan and stabilize the Afghan currency; whereas others raised concerns that such efforts could indirectly subsidize the Taliban. Details of the opposing views are provided in the body of the report.
2. Exert U.S. leadership on the human rights situation inside Afghanistan, especially through engagement with Afghan civil society.
3. Work with allies on a robust effort to reshape the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) mandate.
4. Pursue a principled human rights-centered strategy throughout the U.S. government, in international organizations, and in cooperation with allies and partners.
Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, served as a National Security Council official, deputy chief of staff to former US Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and US Navy Reserve Intelligence Officer. Follow him on Twitter @rich_goldberg. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
fdd.org · by Richard Goldberg Senior Advisor · March 21, 2022
19. FDD | Dropping IRGC from blacklist would be boon for terrorism
FDD | Dropping IRGC from blacklist would be boon for terrorism
When Former US President Donald Trump designated Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group, the White House explained that this move recognized a reality in which Tehran not only funds terrorism but actively participates in it and uses the organization to advance its political goals.
Jacob Nagel
Senior Fellow
Meir Ben-Shabbat
Institute for National Security Studies
fdd.org · by Jacob Nagel Senior Fellow · March 20, 2022
The US decision to remove Iran’s Revolutionary Guards from its foreign terrorist organization blacklist would not only be a distortion of truth and adoption of a double standard distinguishing between terrorism and terrorism but worse yet: an American show of surrender to Iran and a reward to the main perpetrator of terrorism of its time, the one that sows chaos in the Middle East and the entire world, from Syria and Lebanon to Argentina.
And yes, it will also be a blow and put sticks in the wheels of Israel and America’s other allies in the region, who deal with destructive terrorist plots daily, courtesy of the Revolutionary Guards.
At the time these lines are written, Washington has not yet made a decision in this regard. The very fact that this discussion is taking place at Iran’s demand, raised by the regime moments before the suspension of nuclear talks, is already a form of insult to the United States.
Were it not for steps previously taken by the Biden administration, one could have suspected that the discussion on the matter was a tactical move by Washington designed to provide them with an opportunity to respond negatively and assume an uncompromising stance, to dull down the arrows of criticism pointed at them for surrendering to Tehran’s demands.
Moreover, removing the Revolutionary Guards from the blacklist does not seem far-fetched when remembering that one of the first decisions the Biden administration made was removing the Houthis from the same listing only two days after they attacked Saudi Arabia and refrains from adding them back onto the list ever since, despite the fact that rebels conducted more attacks, this time against the United Arab Emirates as well.
In 2019, when then-US President Donald Trump decided to designate the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group, the White House explained that this move recognized a reality in which Iran not only funds terrorism but actively participates in it and uses it to advance its political goals, through this organization.
Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was familiar with the organization’s misdeeds also due to his work as director of the CIA, said it best.
“For 40 years, the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guard Corps has actively engaged in terrorism and created, supported, and directed other terrorist groups. The IRGC masquerades as a legitimate military organization, but none of us should be fooled … From the moment it was founded, the IRGC’s mandate was to defend and export the regime’s revolution by whatever means possible … The Trump administration is simply recognizing a basic reality. The IRGC will take its rightful place on the same list as terror groups its supports,” like Hezbollah, and others.
The Revolutionary Guards was founded in 1979 by order of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as a counterweight to the Iranian military which he did not trust because of the American education its senior commanders had received and due to their closeness to the shah. It is organized and operates as a parallel military.
It has ground forces, aerospace forces, a navy, and a special force called Quds Force, an intelligence arm and a Basij mechanism that is used to maintain internal security and brutally oppress opponents of the regime. The Guards also operates Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal.
The Revolutionary Guards serves not only as the main means of ensuring the survival of the ayatollah regime but as the main means to achieving its ambitious vision: to establish Iranian hegemony in the region and to spread the idea of the Islamic Revolution throughout the world.
The Quds Force is the main Iranian group that manages the military forces and the Shiite militia outside the country. Its work extends to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Gulf States, the Far East, Africa, South America and reaches as far as the Gaza Strip.
It has a special status in the Iranian regime that comes from the combination of its military, economic and political power and a special closeness to the leader. Had Iran developed a nuclear weapon, it would most likely be kept and operated by the Quds Force.
Adding an organization to the terrorist listing is not just a symbolic move, it is an essential means to denounce its legitimacy, limit contacts with it and impose heavy economic sanctions on it.
As such, removing the Revolutionary Guards from the list will pave the way for its economic growth, which it will use for military and political growth. And all of this will happen, together with the gain that Iran will get with the release of billions of dollars, following the signing of the nuclear agreement.
And what is Iran required to do in return? – Commit to de-escalation! A commitment that even with regard to its content and characteristics the Iranians are still bargaining over. There is no need to delve deeper into the validity of such a promise.
To understand how much it is worth, taking a brief look at the symbol of the Revolutionary Guards and the Koran verse chosen as its motto will suffice: “Prepare against them whatever you are able of power.”
How is this seen within the context of the US? – It is very interesting to read this within the context of the tweet of Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who “cynically awaits” such an American decision. Individuals like him are familiar with the winds in domestic politics in Washington and understand that such a decision could cause an explosion on both sides of the political map.
In any event, anyone who believes that Iranians will achieve their nuclear aspirations can also believe that “relief and rescue will arise for the Jews from elsewhere” (Book of Esther, 4:14).
Brig. Gen. (Res.) Professor Jacob Nagel is a former national security adviser to the prime minister and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Meir Ben-Shabbat, a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, served as Israel’s national security adviser and head of the National Security Council between 2017 and 2021. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
fdd.org · by Jacob Nagel Senior Fellow · March 20, 2022
20. The Cyber-Delusion- Digital Threats Are Manageable, Not Existential
I would be cautious in appearing to underestimate the threat. But I do like the author's argument that we can and must build resilience to be able to deal with the attacks.
Excerpts:
Russia’s invasion is no doubt catastrophic. But in reacting to it and preparing for what comes next, leaders in Washington and elsewhere should eschew the alarmism that has long warped cybersecurity policy. Mike Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, claimed in 2011 that “the single biggest existential threat out there, I think, is cyber.” The following year, his successor, Martin Dempsey, noted that “a cyberattack could stop our society in its tracks.” Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta sternly warned in 2012 of an impending “digital Pearl Harbor.” Nicole Perlroth, a cybersecurity reporter at The New York Times, has routinely asked insiders when “a cyber-enabled cataclysmic boom will take us down” and has always been told “18 to 24 months.” She began her survey well over 100 months ago.
This contemporary approach to cyberthreats resembles the aftermath of 9/11, when almost all experts believed an even larger terrorist attack would soon take place. Then, as now, the threat is overblown. Although occasionally dramatic, cyberattacks have turned out to be a comparatively minor and manageable threat. Far too much discussion around the issue focuses on worst-case scenarios, fails to contextualize the problem, and neglects to weigh the costs of cyberattacks against the enormous value of the Internet and artificial intelligence. Most commentary, moreover, does not fully appreciate the ability of the business sector—by far the most tempting of targets for malevolent hackers—to develop effective countermeasures.
...
Despite Panetta’s 2012 analogy, the value of adaptation and resilience are illustrated, not shattered, by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. From a strictly military standpoint, the assault proved to be more of an inconvenience than a disaster. The U.S. Navy quickly made repairs and the result was a loss of two aged ships. All the planes lost could be replaced by new and better models within three days at eventual 1942 production rates. The loss of life was, of course, tragic, but the flood of outraged men who deluged recruiting stations in the following days almost instantly compensated for the casualties.
The Pearl Harbor experience, then, does not support alarmism. In fact, it shows that if a system is resilient, even successful, dramatic, and dastardly surprise attacks can be managed.
The Cyber-Delusion
Digital Threats Are Manageable, Not Existential
March 22, 2022
When Russian forces launched their invasion of Ukraine last month, governments and experts worldwide warned about the danger of catastrophic cyberattacks. Indeed, in the days leading up to Moscow’s invasion, hackers defaced Ukrainian websites, unleashed malware on government systems, and targeted the country’s banking system—albeit with limited effect. Although no cyber-Armageddon has materialized, officials increasingly fear that Russia might eventually step up its efforts and even target the United States.
Russia’s invasion is no doubt catastrophic. But in reacting to it and preparing for what comes next, leaders in Washington and elsewhere should eschew the alarmism that has long warped cybersecurity policy. Mike Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, claimed in 2011 that “the single biggest existential threat out there, I think, is cyber.” The following year, his successor, Martin Dempsey, noted that “a cyberattack could stop our society in its tracks.” Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta sternly warned in 2012 of an impending “digital Pearl Harbor.” Nicole Perlroth, a cybersecurity reporter at The New York Times, has routinely asked insiders when “a cyber-enabled cataclysmic boom will take us down” and has always been told “18 to 24 months.” She began her survey well over 100 months ago.
This contemporary approach to cyberthreats resembles the aftermath of 9/11, when almost all experts believed an even larger terrorist attack would soon take place. Then, as now, the threat is overblown. Although occasionally dramatic, cyberattacks have turned out to be a comparatively minor and manageable threat. Far too much discussion around the issue focuses on worst-case scenarios, fails to contextualize the problem, and neglects to weigh the costs of cyberattacks against the enormous value of the Internet and artificial intelligence. Most commentary, moreover, does not fully appreciate the ability of the business sector—by far the most tempting of targets for malevolent hackers—to develop effective countermeasures.
CYBERWAR
Over the past decade, the global obsession with digital threats has taken various forms, with a particular focus on the potential military implications of emerging cyber-capabilities. To be sure, the military needs to worry about keeping its communications and command and control operations secure from hostile attackers. Any disruptions, however, are more likely to be instrumental or tactical than strategic.
Despite statements to the contrary, the U.S. military itself seems to have recognized this reality. When Panetta proclaimed in 2013 that cyber was “without question, the battlefield for the future,” political scientist Micah Zenko observed at the time that the Pentagon was spending less than one percent of its budget on cybersecurity, and an assessment from 2019 suggests it may be more like one-tenth of one percent. If those funds prove adequate for the challenge, it would be something of a bargain.
Cyber also supposedly enhances a state’s ability to carry out such ancient endeavors as espionage, propaganda dissemination, and sabotage. Analysts have even coined a new term, “hybrid warfare,” that usually includes these three enterprises—although, since the term does not include direct armed conflict, it might more plausibly be called “denatured warfare.” Cyber’s contribution to these three areas, however, is relatively limited.
Cyberattacks have turned out to be a comparatively minor and manageable threat.
Should invading hackers engage in digital espionage against the United States, for instance, they are likely to find that most of what they come across is already well known, and that much of the rest is not worth knowing in the first place. Wikileaks’ 2010 publication of thousands of classified U.S. government documents demonstrated the degree to which governments worldwide have fallen victim to over-classification. When Bill Keller, the editor in charge of poring over the documents at The New York Times, was asked whether the reporting team found anything they didn’t already know, he responded “no” without hesitation.
Much the same holds for concerns over the theft of intellectual property. Not only is this practice centuries old, but systematic stealing has often proved unwise because it distracts governments from homegrown innovation. Cyber-propaganda efforts, in turn, are more likely to increase the overall amount of available information and disinformation—an age-old problem in warfare—than to provide a decisive advantage.
The achievements of cyber-sabotage have also been quite modest. The United States and Israel famously used a computer virus known as Stuxnet to hamper Iran’s progress toward developing a nuclear weapon. Although observers hailed the operation as a dangerous new development in modern conflict, the damage proved temporary. Iran quickly rebuilt its centrifuges, and the attack actually proved counterproductive, as it encouraged Tehran to accelerate its nuclear program. There have also been efforts by the United States to physically interfere with missile development in North Korea. Yet, much like the Iranians, Pyongyang eventually solved whatever the problem was, and the attacks had little long-term effect on their program.
Cyber-alarmists have also warned about hackers disabling major infrastructure such as power grids—potentially crippling entire countries. Grids do go down occasionally, but the culprits are typically squirrels and lightning. Regardless of the source, such disruptions are usually brief and bearable, and engineers are increasingly designing systems that are resilient to such threats. Estonia, for instance, the victim of a major and oft-discussed cyberattack in 2007, is now the home of NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence.
CYBERTERRORISM
Fears that terrorist groups could inflict damage through cyberspace have been around for many years. And although cyber played no direct role in the execution of the 9/11 terrorist, the event stirred anxiety about the issue. In 2002, for instance, The Washington Post published a lengthy front-page article conveying the views of “government experts” that “terrorists are at the threshold of using the Internet as a direct instrument of bloodshed.”
To date, however, no terrorist group has launched a successful cyberattack. And even if it becomes possible for hackers to shed blood, shootings and bombings are likely to accomplish the same goal far more reliably. Still, cyber has undoubtedly proved to be a relatively convenient method for terrorist groups to recruit and communicate. Rather than creating a paradigm shift, however, this technique has simply replaced or embellished older methods. Even comparatively savvy groups such as the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) tend to comically fail when using the Internet to stir up violence and instruct potential sympathizers. In one case, an ISIS handler connected his eager American charge to a prospective collaborator who happened to be an FBI operative.
For the most part, any virtual terrorist army in the United States has, as terrorism expert Brian Jenkins puts it, remained exactly that: virtual. “Talking about jihad, boasting of what one will do, and offering diabolical schemes egging each other on is usually as far as it goes,” he noted. Indeed, the foolish willingness of would-be terrorists to describe their aspirations and often-childish fantasies on the Internet has often helped police seeking to track them down.
ELECTION MEDDLING
Election interference also features prominently in alarmist discourse on cyberthreats. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, for instance, the United States highlighted apparent attempts by Russian hackers to undermine Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Although Clinton still handily won the popular vote, many analysts argued that digital interlopers sought to undermine the integrity of U.S. elections and perhaps democracy itself.
These warnings are exaggerated and—coming from U.S. policymakers—arguably hypocritical. It is worth noting that the United States has intervened in foreign elections for decades. Moreover, the idea that elections and voters are easily manipulated is suspect. If extensive promotion could guarantee success, Americans would all be driving Edsels and drinking New Coke—legendary marketing failures in 1958 and 1985 by two of the most successful businesses in history: the Ford Motor Company and Coca-Cola. In any capitalist society, people are regularly deluged by advertising and marketing campaigns. In all cases, those petitioned remain free to ignore the ads, and most become quite good at it. In fact, studies have shown that campaign information rarely changes many votes. As political scientist Diana Mutz points out, the impact of campaign advertising “is marginal at most.”
If a system is resilient, even successful surprise attacks can be managed.
Political campaigns, as anyone who has suffered through one knows, are also rife with falsehoods: incumbents strategically distort their record, and challengers do the same in reverse. The 2016 Russian contribution to this flood of misinformation was tiny. On Facebook, where most of the manipulation supposedly took place, Moscow’s intervention totaled perhaps a fraction one percent of the content on the platform’s news feed. Much of this was also wasted because the people who embraced it were already committed to a particular party or lived in states that went solidly for one or the other candidate. Russia’s efforts, moreover, proved wildly counterproductive. Instead of weakening U.S. policy, Moscow generated bipartisan support for anti-Russian sanctions when the two U.S. political parties could agree on little else.
CYBERCRIME
Despite the overheated rhetoric about war, terrorism, election interference, and critical infrastructure, most cyberattacks target the private sector, seeking to steal or extort money from businesses and their customers. The record here, however, is rather encouraging, and it likely has broader relevance. To be sure, cybercriminals have stolen and extorted billions of dollars from businesses and individuals, but firms have done well at limiting the damage by closing software holes, maintaining backups, and safeguarding sensitive material.
A central issue for potential hackers is the profitability of their enterprise. A report by the cybersecurity firm Symantec estimates that 978 million people were affected by cybercrime in 2017, losing $172 billion in total. That number—regardless of how hackers divvy up the profits—is actually remarkably small compared to losses from other forms of illegal activity. Personal and property crimes in 2017, for instance, cost Americans $2.6 trillion.
Businesses are also learning to adapt. Andrew Odlyzko, former head of the University of Minnesota’s Digital Technology Center, points out that many firms have realized they can readily mitigate the most damaging effects of cybercrime through minor and incremental alterations to their business practices. Banks, for instance, increasingly require customers to verify large or suspicious transactions through voice calls or texts. And even though criminals routinely capture millions of credit card numbers through compromised databases, the overall damage is limited and often dominated by the cost of providing replacement cards. Businesses have also made it easy for consumers to recover from fraud.
RESILIENCE AND PEARL HARBOR
Despite Panetta’s 2012 analogy, the value of adaptation and resilience are illustrated, not shattered, by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. From a strictly military standpoint, the assault proved to be more of an inconvenience than a disaster. The U.S. Navy quickly made repairs and the result was a loss of two aged ships. All the planes lost could be replaced by new and better models within three days at eventual 1942 production rates. The loss of life was, of course, tragic, but the flood of outraged men who deluged recruiting stations in the following days almost instantly compensated for the casualties.
The Pearl Harbor experience, then, does not support alarmism. In fact, it shows that if a system is resilient, even successful, dramatic, and dastardly surprise attacks can be managed.
21. The Toll of Economic War - How Sanctions on Russia Will Upend the Global Order
I think the global order has already been upended. And Russia (along with China, Iran, and north Korea) will continue to try to upend it.
Excerpts:
Western policymakers thus face a serious decision. They must decide whether to uphold sanctions against Russia at their current strength or to impose further economic punishment on Putin. If the goal of the sanctions is to exert maximum pressure on Russia with minimal disruption to their own economies—and thus a manageable risk of domestic political backlash—then current levels of pressure may be the most that is politically feasible now.
At the moment, simply maintaining existing sanctions will require active compensatory policies. For Europe especially, neither laissez-faire economic policies nor fiscal fragmentation will be sustainable if the economic war persists. But if the West decides to step up the economic pressure on Russia further still, far-reaching economic interventions will become an absolute necessity. More intensive sanctions will inflict further damage, not just to the sanctioners themselves but to the world economy at large. No matter how strong and justified the West’s resolve to stop Putin’s aggression is, policymakers must accept the material reality that an all-out economic offensive will introduce considerable new strains into the world economy.
An intensification of sanctions will cause a cascade of material shocks that will demand far-reaching stabilization efforts. And even with such rescue measures, the economic damage may well be serious, and the risks of strategic escalation will remain high. For all these reasons, it remains vital to pursue diplomatic and economic paths that can end the conflict. Whatever the results of the war, the economic offensive against Russia has already exposed one important new reality: the era of costless, risk-free, and predictable sanctions is well and truly over.
The Toll of Economic War
How Sanctions on Russia Will Upend the Global Order
March 22, 2022
The Russian-Ukrainian war of 2022 is not just a major geopolitical event but also a geoeconomic turning point. Western sanctions are the toughest measures ever imposed against a state of Russia’s size and power. In the space of less than three weeks, the United States and its allies have cut major Russian banks off from the global financial system; blocked the export of high-tech components in unison with Asian allies; seized the overseas assets of hundreds of wealthy oligarchs; revoked trade treaties with Moscow; banned Russian airlines from North Atlantic airspace: restricted Russian oil sales to the United States and United Kingdom; blocked all foreign investment in the Russian economy from their jurisdiction; and frozen $403 billion out of the $630 billion in foreign assets of the Central Bank of Russia. The overall effect has been unprecedented, and a few weeks ago would have seemed unimaginable even to most experts: in all but its most vital products, the world’s eleventh-largest economy has now been decoupled from twenty-first-century globalization.
How will these historic measures play out? Economic sanctions rarely succeed at achieving their goals. Western policymakers frequently assume that failures stem from weaknesses in sanctions design. Indeed, sanctions can be plagued by loopholes, lack of political will to implement them, or insufficient diplomatic agreement concerning enforcement. The implicit assumption is that stronger sanctions stand a better chance of succeeding.
Yet the Western economic containment of Russia is different. This is an unprecedented campaign to isolate a G-20 economy with a large hydrocarbon sector, a sophisticated military-industrial complex, and a diversified basket of commodity exports. As a result, Western sanctions face a different kind of problem. The sanctions, in this case, could fail not because of their weakness but because of their great and unpredictable strength. Having grown accustomed to using sanctions against smaller countries at low cost, Western policymakers have only limited experience and understanding of the effects of truly severe measures against a major, globally connected economy. Existing fragilities in the world’s economic and financial structure mean that such sanctions have the potential to cause grave political and material fallout.
THE REAL SHOCK AND AWE
Just how severe the current sanctions against Russia are can be seen from their effects across the world. The immediate shock to the Russian economy is the most obvious. Economists expect Russian GDP to contract by at least 9–15 percent this year, but the damage could well become much more severe. The ruble has fallen more than a third since the beginning of January. An exodus of skilled Russian professionals is underway, while the capacity to import consumer goods and valuable technology has fallen drastically. As Russian political scientist Ilya Matveev has put it, “30 years of economic development thrown into the bin.”
The ramifications of the Western sanctions go far beyond these effects on Russia itself. There are at least four different kinds of broader effects: spillover effects into adjacent countries and markets; multiplier effects through private-sector divestment; escalation effects in the form of Russian responses; and systemic effects on the global economy.
Spillover effects have already caused turmoil in international commodities markets. A generalized panic erupted among traders after the second Western sanctions package—including the SWIFT cutoff and the freezing of central bank reserves—was announced on February 26. Prices of crude oil, natural gas, wheat, copper, nickel, aluminum, fertilizers, and gold have soared. Because the war has closed Ukrainian ports and international firms are shunning Russian commodity exports, a grain and metals shortage now looms over the global economy. Although oil prices have since dropped in anticipation of additional output from Gulf producers, the price shock to energy and commodities across the board will push global inflation higher. African and Asian countries reliant on food and energy imports are already experiencing difficulties.
Economists expect Russian GDP to contract by at least 9 to 15 percent this year.
Central Asia’s economies are also caught up in the sanctions shock. These former Soviet states are strongly connected to the Russian economy through trade and outward labor migration. The collapse of the ruble has caused serious financial distress in the region. Kazakhstan has imposed exchange controls after the tenge, its currency, fell by 20 percent in the wake of the Western sanctions against Moscow; Tajikistan’s somoni has undergone a similarly steep depreciation. Russia’s impending impoverishment will force millions of Central Asian migrant workers to seek employment elsewhere and dry up the flow of remittances to their home countries.
The impact of the sanctions goes beyond decisions taken by G-7 and EU governments. The official sanctions packages have had a catalyzing effect on international businesses operating in Russia. Virtually overnight, Russia’s impending isolation has set in motion a massive corporate flight. In what amounts to a vast private sector boycott, hundreds of major Western firms in the technology, oil and gas, aerospace, car, manufacturing, consumer goods, food and beverage, accounting and financial, and transport industries are pulling out of the country. It is noteworthy that these departures are in many cases not required by sanctions. Instead, they are driven by moral condemnation, reputational concerns, and outright panic. As a result, the business retreat is deepening the economic shock to Russia by multiplying the negative economic effects of official state sanctions.
The Russian government has responded to the sanctions in several ways. It has undertaken emergency stabilization policies to protect foreign exchange earnings and shore up the ruble. Foreign portfolio capital is being locked into the country. While the stock market has remained closed, the assets of many Western firms that have departed may soon face confiscation. The Ministry of Economic Development has prepared a law that grants the Russian state six months to take over businesses in case of an “ungrounded” liquidation or bankruptcy.
The potential nationalization of Western capital is not the only escalatory effect of the sanctions. On March 9, Putin signed an order restricting Russian commodity exports. Although the full array of items to be withheld under the ban is not yet clear, the threat of its use will continue to hang over international trade. Russian restrictions on fertilizer exports imposed in early February have already put pressure on global food production. Russia could retaliate by restricting exports of important minerals such as nickel, palladium, and industrial sapphires. These are crucial inputs for the production of electrical batteries, catalytic converters, phones, ball bearings, light tubes, and microchips. In the globalized assemblage system, even small changes in materials prices can massively raise the production costs faced by final users downstream in the production chain. A Russian embargo or large export reduction of palladium, nickel, or sapphires would hit car and semiconductor manufacturers, a $3.4 trillion global industry. If the economic war between the West and Russia continues further into 2022 at this intensity, it is very possible that the world will slide into a sanctions-induced recession.
MANAGING THE FALLOUT
The combination of spillover effects, negative multiplier effects, and escalation effects means that the sanctions against Russia will have an effect on the world economy like few previous sanctions regimes in history. Why was this great upheaval not anticipated? One reason is that over the last few decades, U.S. policymakers have usually deployed sanctions against economies that were sufficiently modest in size for any significant adverse effects to be contained. The degree of integration into the world economy of North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Myanmar, and Belarus was relatively modest and one-dimensional. Only the rollout of U.S. sanctions against Iran required special care to avoid upsetting the oil market. In general, however, the assumption held that sanctions use was economically almost costless to the United States. This has meant that the macroeconomic and macrofinancial consequences of global sanctions are insufficiently understood.
To better grasp the choices to be made in the current economic sanctions against Russia, it is instructive to examine sanctions use in the 1930s, when democracies similarly attempted to use them to stop the aggression of large-sized autocratic economies such as Fascist Italy, imperial Japan, and Nazi Germany. The crucial backdrop to these efforts was the Great Depression, which had weakened economies and inflamed nationalism around the world. When Italian dictator Benito Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in October 1935, the League of Nations implemented an international sanctions regime enforced by 52 countries. It was an impressive united response, similar to that on display in reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But the league sanctions came with real tradeoffs. Economic containment of Fascist Italy limited democracies’ ability to use sanctions against an aggressor who was more threatening still: Adolf Hitler. As a major engine of export demand for smaller European economies, Germany was too large an economy to be isolated without severe commercial loss to the whole of Europe. Amid the fragile recovery from the Depression, simultaneously placing sanctions on both Italy and Germany—then the fourth- and seventh-largest economies in the world—was too costly for most democracies. Hitler exploited this fear of overstretch and the international focus on Ethiopia by moving German troops into the demilitarized Rhineland in March 1936, advancing further toward war. German officials were aware of their commercial power, which they used to maneuver central European and Balkan economies into their political orbit. The result was the creation of a continental, river-based bloc of vassal economies whose trade with Germany was harder for Western states to block with sanctions or a naval blockade.
The sanctions dilemmas of the 1930s show that aggressors should be confronted when they disrupt the international order. But it equally drives home the fact that the viability of sanctions, and the chances of their success, are always dependent on the global economic situation. In unstable commercial and financial conditions, it will be necessary to prioritize among competing objectives and prepare thoroughly for unintended effects of all kinds. Using sanctions against very large economies will simply not be possible without compensatory policies that support the sanctioners’ economies and the rest of the world.
More intensive sanctions will inflict further damage to the world economy.
The Biden administration is aware of this problem, but its actions so far are inadequate to the scale. Washington has attempted to reduce strains in the oil market by a partial reconciliation with Iran and Venezuela. Countering the spillover effects of sanctions against one leading petrostate may now require lifting sanctions on two smaller petrostates. But this oil diplomacy is insufficient to meet the challenge posed by the Russia sanctions, the effects of which are aggravating preexisting economic woes. Supply chain issues and pandemic-era bottlenecks in global transport and production networks predated the war in Ukraine. The unprecedented use of sanctions in these already troubled conditions has made an already difficult situation worse.
The problem of managing the fallout of economic war is greater still in Europe. This is not only because the European Union has much stronger trade and energy links with Russia. It is also the result of the political economy of the eurozone as it has taken shape over the last two decades: with the exception of France, most of its economies follow a heavily trade-reliant, export-focused growth strategy. This economic model requires foreign demand for exports while repressing wages and domestic demand. It is a structure that is very ill suited to the prolonged imposition of trade-reducing sanctions. Increasing EU-wide renewable energy investment and expanding public control in the energy sector, as French President Emmanuel Macron has announced, is one way to absorb this shock. But there is also a need for income-boosting measures for consumer goods and price-dampening interventions in producer goods markets, from strategic reserve management to the excess profits taxes that are being rolled out in Spain and Italy.
Then there are the consequences of sanctions cause for the world economy at large, especially in the “global South.” Addressing these problems will pose a major macroeconomic challenge. It is therefore imperative for the G-7, the European Union, and the United States’ Asian partners to launch bold and coordinated action to stabilize global markets. This can be done through targeted investment to clear up supply bottlenecks, generous international grants and loans to developing countries struggling to secure adequate food and energy supplies, and large-scale government funding for renewable energy capacity. It will also have to involve subsidies, and perhaps even rationing and price controls, to protect the poorest from the destructive effects of surging food, energy, and commodity prices.
Such state intervention is the price to be paid for engaging in economic war. Inflicting material damage at this scale levelled against Russia simply cannot be pursued without an international policymaking shift that extends economic support to those affected by sanctions. Unless the material well-being of households is protected, political support for sanctions will crumble over time.
THE NEW INTERVENTIONISTS
Western policymakers thus face a serious decision. They must decide whether to uphold sanctions against Russia at their current strength or to impose further economic punishment on Putin. If the goal of the sanctions is to exert maximum pressure on Russia with minimal disruption to their own economies—and thus a manageable risk of domestic political backlash—then current levels of pressure may be the most that is politically feasible now.
At the moment, simply maintaining existing sanctions will require active compensatory policies. For Europe especially, neither laissez-faire economic policies nor fiscal fragmentation will be sustainable if the economic war persists. But if the West decides to step up the economic pressure on Russia further still, far-reaching economic interventions will become an absolute necessity. More intensive sanctions will inflict further damage, not just to the sanctioners themselves but to the world economy at large. No matter how strong and justified the West’s resolve to stop Putin’s aggression is, policymakers must accept the material reality that an all-out economic offensive will introduce considerable new strains into the world economy.
An intensification of sanctions will cause a cascade of material shocks that will demand far-reaching stabilization efforts. And even with such rescue measures, the economic damage may well be serious, and the risks of strategic escalation will remain high. For all these reasons, it remains vital to pursue diplomatic and economic paths that can end the conflict. Whatever the results of the war, the economic offensive against Russia has already exposed one important new reality: the era of costless, risk-free, and predictable sanctions is well and truly over.
22. Jeopardizing national security: What is happening to our Marine Corps?
Excerpts:
So, the Marine Corps will trade its combined-arms flexibility for a very specialized mission that the U.S. Army already can provide in greater numbers than the Marine Corps ever will.
Moreover, for as long as eight years the Corps will be neither the powerful forcible-entry force in readiness it has been for decades nor the specialized anti-ship force of the future — neither fish nor fowl — which will seriously jeopardize national security. This is a risk not worth taking.
In the end the Corps will have more space experts, cyber warriors, influence specialists, missileers and others with unique skills — many of which already are provided by other elements of the joint force. But it will only have them because it gave up Marines prepared to close with and destroy the enemy.
The Corps will become something unrecognizable to those legions of Marines who went before. No longer will it be the Corps I served and loved for so many years, but a mere shadow of what was once a feared fighting force!
Marines, how could we let this happen?
Jeopardizing national security: What is happening to our Marine Corps?
On an early fall day in 1956 I signed a contract to become a United States Marine, and soon found myself undergoing the rigors of recruit training at Parris Island, South Carolina.
Shortly after I had earned the right to wear the Eagle, Globe and Anchor, a gunnery sergeant had handed each Marine in our platoon several stickers bearing the words “Force in Readiness.” He had gone on to explain that this phrase meant that when our nation was least ready for war Marines would be the most ready.
The message was clear: Each day we needed to ensure that we were fully prepared to be the “first to fight.”
For my subsequent 41 years in uniform, I learned readiness was not an empty slogan — it was real. And that readiness paid off when I served alongside my fellow Marines in five separate combat tours.
RELATED
The Marine Corps is ending its crisis response deployments developed after the 2012 attack on the Benghazi, Libya.
In 1963, after paying close attention to my noncommissioned officers, studying hard and staying in shape, I was given the opportunity to attend officer candidate school at Quantico, Virginia. Following commissioning as a second lieutenant I attended The Basic School. From the outset, instructors there emphasized the importance of combined arms ― that is, ensuring that infantry never fought alone, but always in combination with tanks, artillery, engineers, logistics support, helicopter gunships and attack aircraft.
As the Corps’ newest officers, we repeatedly were told that the Corps was an air-ground combined-arms team.
We were taught to orchestrate these capabilities to place our enemies on the horns of a dilemma. For example, when the artillery and air drove foes into entrenchments we could advance to bring our direct-fire weapons to bear; if they rose to engage us they would suffer from the effects of artillery and air.
Today’s war in Ukraine provides stark evidence that this is a lesson the Russian military failed to learn. This war also has proved that militaries that fail to appreciate the importance of logistics before and during a fight soon find themselves with great difficulties.
Throughout my career, the Marine Corps air-ground combined-arms team, backed by solid logistics support, time and again demonstrated its vital importance to our national security.
Lt. Gen. Paul K. Van Riper's last official Marine Corps photo.
Sixty-six years later, I still consider myself a United States Marine. But I’m saddened beyond belief knowing that our Marine Corps soon will no longer be the ready combined-arms force that our nation has long depended upon when its interests were threatened.
These divestures were and are being made to provide the resources for three Marine littoral regiments, designed to support naval campaigns for sea denial and sea control by firing anti-ship missiles.
So, the Marine Corps will trade its combined-arms flexibility for a very specialized mission that the U.S. Army already can provide in greater numbers than the Marine Corps ever will.
Moreover, for as long as eight years the Corps will be neither the powerful forcible-entry force in readiness it has been for decades nor the specialized anti-ship force of the future — neither fish nor fowl — which will seriously jeopardize national security. This is a risk not worth taking.
In the end the Corps will have more space experts, cyber warriors, influence specialists, missileers and others with unique skills — many of which already are provided by other elements of the joint force. But it will only have them because it gave up Marines prepared to close with and destroy the enemy.
The Corps will become something unrecognizable to those legions of Marines who went before. No longer will it be the Corps I served and loved for so many years, but a mere shadow of what was once a feared fighting force!
Marines, how could we let this happen?
Lt. Gen. Paul K. Van Riper retired from the United States Marine Corps after more than 41 years of commissioned and enlisted service. He has remained involved in the national security community as an instructor, adviser and mentor to a number of organizations.
23. Ukraine-California Ties Show Worth of National Guard Program
Ukraine-California Ties Show Worth of National Guard Program
When Russia invaded Ukraine with more than 150,000 troops Feb. 24, most people — especially Russian President Vladimir Putin — expected a Russian cakewalk.
The men and women of the California National Guard knew better.
The California National Guard has had a close working relationship with the Ukraine military and the Ukraine National Guard since 1993.
Partnership Program
U.S. Army Maj. Gen. David Baldwin, adjutant general of the California National Guard, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, visit to the California Air National Guard’s 129th Rescue Wing at Moffett Air National Guard Base, Calif., Sept. 2, 2021. The California National Guard and Ukraine State Partnership Program was established in 1993 through the Department of Defense as a means to develop and strengthen the strategic partnership between the U.S. and Ukraine.
SHARE IMAGE:
Photo By: Air Force Senior Airman Duane Ramos
VIRIN: 210902-Z-KL412-0200C
California Guardsmen have taught the Ukrainian military, trained with them, shared successes and failures with them and just become good friends over the past 29 years.
All this is helping now that the country is under attack.
This came about as part of the National Guard's State Partnership Program.
First a little history. Following the collapse of czarist Russia in 1917, Ukraine was independent until 1920 when Russian communists conquered the country. It became part of the Soviet Union from 1920 to 1991. The three most notable aspects of Soviet rule were two Moscow-induced famines in the 1920s and 1930s that killed an estimated 8 million Ukrainians, and World War II, that killed another 8 million.
In 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved, and Ukraine declared its independence. The Cold War was over.
The people of Ukraine were of two minds — some wanted to stay aligned with Russia, while most Ukrainians wanted to reach out to the West.
Jump to 1993 when Ukraine became a charter member of the U.S. National Guard Bureau's State Partnership Program along with Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Each country was paired with a state, and Ukraine paired with California.
The program was based on an American suggestion to NATO, and it began as an effort to help former Soviet and Warsaw Pact nations reform their militaries along Western lines, National Guard Bureau officials said on background. The program had many objectives including helping the nations become more interoperable with NATO forces, help the partners become more transparent in military affairs and, perhaps most important, helping the nations know how a military works in a democracy.
While the program started in Europe, it expanded, first to U.S. Southern Command and then to the rest of the combatant commands. In U.S. Africa Command, some of the state partnerships pre-date the establishment of the command itself.
Partner Meeting
Air Force Brig. Gen. Clay Garrison, California Air National Guard commander, discusses operations with Ukraine Army General Viktor Muzhenko, chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, while walking to the operations building for the first briefing during their State Partnership Program visit to the 144th Fighter Wing Oct. 26, 2017. The purpose of the SPP is to enhance military ties and strengthen partnerships with nations around the world.
SHARE IMAGE:
Photo By: Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Chris Drudge
VIRIN: 171026-Z-FF876-0054
Today, there are 93 nations partnered with Guard organizations from all 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia.
U.S. officials believed that pairing with state National Guards made more sense than pairing with active-duty forces, said the National Guard official. First, the militaries in these countries had missions more closely aligned with National Guard forces than those of the active duty. These militaries could be called upon to assist in disasters and humanitarian crises, just like National Guard personnel help in hurricane relief, forest fires, tornadoes, even snowstorms. The partner militaries often worked closely with law enforcement in a way that mirrored how National Guard troops on state missions sometimes do.
Officials also felt National Guard units were more stable — meaning the personnel didn't get reassigned every three years. Members of the state guards could stay in place for an entire career. This allowed the state and the partner military personal to bond in a personal way, the official said. "When you pick up the phone to call, you know the person on the other end of the line," he said.
Trust among military members developed with many partner service members coming to military schools in the United States.
But it was more. Trust was also furthered when partner militaries deployed with U.S. formations to the Balkans. Trust was further cemented when partners fought alongside U.S. service members in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Since the program started, there have been many instances where officers grew up together — they met as lieutenants and captains and followed each other up the ranks.
When California Adjutant General Army Maj. Gen. David S. Baldwin joined the California National Guard in 1984, he and his wife hosted a Ukrainian family in California for training under the program.
Those contacts survived the ups and downs of politics in Europe and the United States, he said.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, most pundits believed the Ukrainian military was not up to the task. "Because we work closely with the Ukrainian army, we always thought that the West underestimated them, and the National Guard of Ukraine also," he said in a recent interview. "We knew that they had radically improved their ability to do kind of Western style military decision making. I have been impressed though, with their ability at the national level, to work through some of the challenges we thought they still had in terms of logistics and command control."
The Ukrainians have also demonstrated interagency cooperation. "I think the best story is with their Air Force," the general said. "Our fighter pilots have been telling everyone for years that the Ukrainian Air Force is pretty good. And in the meantime, a lot of other people in the West were pooh-poohing them."
"Well, the proof is in the pudding," he continued. "Their Air Force is a lot better than everyone thought except for the California Air National Guard who knew that these guys were pretty good."
Partner Pose
U.S. Army Maj. Gen. David S. Baldwin (left), adjutant general of the California National Guard, and Dmytro Kushneruk (right), Counsel General of Ukraine, pause for a quick photograph during the Ukraine dignitary's visit to the state Joint Force Headquarters, Sacramento, Calif., as part of the State Partnership Program, 18 Aug. 2020. The purpose of the State Partnership Program is to enhance military ties and strengthen partnerships with nations around the world.
SHARE IMAGE:
Photo By: Air Force Tech. Sgt. Christian Jadot
VIRIN: 200818-Z-BT533-0003C
The air over Ukraine is still contested, more than three weeks after the invasion began.
Baldwin said the effort to train the Ukrainian military is really a team effort. California Guardsmen worked alongside NATO trainers and trainers from the active-duty forces — especially after Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014 and illegally annexed Crimea.
Ukraine's government turned decisively to the West, and the training took on new importance. Ukrainians were very receptive. Prior to 2014, the California Guard would send a few dozen trainers at a time to Ukraine. After the Russian invasion, this commitment numbered in the hundreds and training accelerated.
This is more than simply teaching infantry tactics, Baldwin said, although Ukrainian soldiers demonstrated the ability to move, shoot and move.
In training areas in Ukraine and California, the Army Guard and Air Guard in California worked to develop Ukrainian capabilities. If they didn't have the capability, Baldwin worked with National Guard units around the United States to make sure Ukrainian service members got the training they needed.
It was more than small unit tactics, he said. The Guardsmen worked in logistics and sustainment — the lifeblood of any military. They worked to establish and build a Ukrainian NCO corps. They helped train staff officers and in defending against and launching cyber operations.
Guardsmen even worked in the headquarters of the Ukrainian military to establish command and control procedures and help build a Joint Operations Center modeled on what the United States military would have. Guardsmen helped them "reorganize the way that their staffs are organized at the General Staff and at the Ministry of Defense," he said. "We even imbedded (Ukrainian) staff officers as members of our staff."
Baldwin went to Ukraine in November 2021 and discussed with Ukrainian military leaders the disturbing build-up of Russian troops on Ukraine's borders. "At the time, they kind of knew that it was coming, but they didn't want to believe it," he said. "It wasn't until January that the most senior Ukrainian leaders started [to] recognize that this could be a possibility."
Ukrainian leaders then began talking about specific needs they would have if Russia invaded. "They came within a day or two of predicting when the invasion was going to come," he said. "But because of that partnership, and our ability to have frank discussions about what they needed in the 11th hour to get ready, I [hope] it very much helped them prepare, and to do so well in the opening hours of the invasion."
Ukraine Exercise
The California Army National Guard's 115th Regional Support Group took part in the opening ceremonies of Rapid Trident 2019 at the International Peacekeeping Security Centre near Yavoriv, Ukraine, Sept. 16, 2019. Rapid Trident 2019 involves approximately 3,700 personnel from 14 nations. Rapid Trident is an annual, multinational exercise that supports joint combined interoperability among the partner militaries of Ukraine and the United States, as well as Partnership for Peace nations and NATO allies.
SHARE IMAGE:
Photo By: Army Staff Sgt. Amanda H. Johnson
VIRIN: 190917-Z-NP032-108C
Baldwin said that within half an hour of the Russian invasion, he began getting calls from Ukrainian senior leaders. "The first calls were, 'Hey, we're under attack,' and then the calls through that night were 'Here's the help that we desperately need,'" he said.
The first calls were for more Stingers, Javelins and other anti-tank weapons, he said. "Within 24 hours, we had a pretty comprehensive list of all of their requirements for military equipment — both lethal and non-lethal," the general said.
The California Guard stood up their Joint Operations Center and they were seeing the same things their Ukrainians partners were posting in Kyiv. Baldwin passed the request to U.S. European Command and the Joint Staff in the Pentagon.
"Now there are a lot of formal liaison systems and mechanisms and ways to communicate," he said. "But the senior leaders still reach out when they have something urgent. That's just a product of our relationships. Because a lot of these guys that are generals at the top of their organizations, I've known for eight or 10 years. So, we have very close personal relationships, and they trust us because they know us."
24. Why Can’t We Admit That Ukraine Is Winning?
Let us not forget what is happening to the Ukrainian people on the ground while we sit at home and tally score sheets and argue about who is winning. But we and the international community are not "piling on."
Conclusion:
As for the endgame, it should be driven by an understanding that Putin is a very bad man indeed, but not a shy one. When he wants an off-ramp, he will let us know. Until then, the way to end the war with the minimum of human suffering is to pile on.
Why Can’t We Admit That Ukraine Is Winning?
America has become too accustomed to thinking of its side as stymied, ineffective, or incompetent.
When I visited Iraq during the 2007 surge, I discovered that the conventional wisdom in Washington usually lagged the view from the field by two to four weeks. Something similar applies today. Analysts and commentators have grudgingly declared that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been blocked, and that the war is stalemated. The more likely truth is that the Ukrainians are winning.
So why can’t Western analysts admit as much? Most professional scholars of the Russian military first predicted a quick and decisive Russian victory; then argued that the Russians would pause, learn from their mistakes, and regroup; then concluded that the Russians would actually have performed much better if they had followed their doctrine; and now tend to mutter that everything can change, that the war is not over, and that the weight of numbers still favors Russia. Their analytic failure will be only one of the elements of this war worth studying in the future.
At the same time, there are few analysts of the Ukrainian military—a rather more esoteric specialty—and thus the West has tended to ignore the progress Ukraine has made since 2014, thanks to hard-won experience and extensive training by the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. The Ukrainian military has proved not only motivated and well led but also tactically skilled, integrating light infantry with anti-tank weapons, drones, and artillery fire to repeatedly defeat much larger Russian military formations. The Ukrainians are not merely defending their strong points in urban areas but maneuvering from and between them, following the Clausewitzian dictum that the best defense is a shield of well-directed blows.
The reluctance to admit what is happening on the ground in Ukraine stems perhaps in part from the protectiveness scholars feel for their subject (even if they loathe it on moral grounds), but more from a tendency to emphasize technology (the Russians have some good bits), numbers (which they dominate, though only up to a point), and doctrine. The Russian army remains in some ways very cerebral, and intellectuals can too easily admire elegant tactical and operational thinking without pressing very hard on practice. But the war has forcibly drawn attention to the human dimension. For example, most modern militaries rely on a strong cadre of noncommissioned officers. Sergeants make sure that vehicles are maintained and exercise leadership in squad tactics. The Russian NCO corps is today, as it has always been, both weak and corrupt. And without capable NCOs, even large numbers of technologically sophisticated vehicles deployed according to a compelling doctrine will end up broken or abandoned, and troops will succumb to ambushes or break under fire.
The West’s biggest obstacle to accepting success, though, is that we have become accustomed over the past 20 years to think of our side as being stymied, ineffective, or incompetent. It is time to get beyond that, and consider the facts that we can see.
The evidence that Ukraine is winning this war is abundant, if one only looks closely at the available data. The absence of Russian progress on the front lines is just half the picture, obscured though it is by maps showing big red blobs, which reflect not what the Russians control but the areas through which they have driven. The failure of almost all of Russia’s airborne assaults, its inability to destroy the Ukrainian air force and air-defense system, and the weeks-long paralysis of the 40-mile supply column north of Kyiv are suggestive. Russian losses are staggering—between 7,000 and 14,000 soldiers dead, depending on your source, which implies (using a low-end rule of thumb about the ratios of such things) a minimum of nearly 30,000 taken off the battlefield by wounds, capture, or disappearance. Such a total would represent at least 15 percent of the entire invading force, enough to render most units combat ineffective. And there is no reason to think that the rate of loss is abating—in fact, Western intelligence agencies are briefing unsustainable Russian casualty rates of a thousand a day.
Add to this the repeated tactical blundering visible on videos even to amateurs: vehicles bunched up on roads, no infantry covering the flanks, no closely coordinated artillery fire, no overhead support from helicopters, and panicky reactions to ambushes. The 1-to-1 ratio of vehicles destroyed to those captured or abandoned bespeaks an army that is unwilling to fight. Russia’s inability to concentrate its forces on one or two axes of attack, or to take a major city, is striking. So, too, are its massive problems in logistics and maintenance, carefully analyzed by technically qualified observers.
The Russian army has committed well more than half its combat forces to the fight. Behind those forces stands very little. Russian reserves have no training to speak of (unlike the U.S. National Guard or Israeli or Finnish reservists), and Putin has vowed that the next wave of conscripts will not be sent over, although he is unlikely to abide by that promise. The swaggering Chechen auxiliaries have been hit badly, and in any case are not used to, or available for, combined-arms operations. Domestic discontent has been suppressed, but bubbles up as brave individuals protest and hundreds of thousands of tech-savvy young people flee.
If Russia is engaging in cyberwar, that is not particularly evident. Russia’s electronic-warfare units have not shut down Ukrainian communications. Half a dozen generals have gotten themselves killed either by poor signal security or trying desperately to unstick things on the front lines. And then there are the negative indicators on the other side—no Ukrainian capitulations, no notable panics or unit collapses, and precious few local quislings, while the bigger Russophilic fish, such as the politician Viktor Medvedchuk, are wisely staying quiet or out of the country. And reports have emerged of local Ukrainian counterattacks and Russian withdrawals.
The coverage has not always emphasized these trends. As the University of St. Andrews’s Phillips P. O’Brien has argued, pictures of shattered hospitals, dead children, and blasted apartment blocks accurately convey the terror and brutality of this war, but they do not convey its military realities. To put it most starkly: If the Russians level a town and slaughter its civilians, they are unlikely to have killed off its defenders, who will do extraordinary and effective things from the rubble to avenge themselves on the invaders. That is, after all, what the Russians did in their cities to the Germans 80 years ago. More sober journalism—The Wall Street Journal has been a standout in this respect—has been analytic, offering detailed reporting on revealing battles, like the annihilation of a Russian battalion tactical group in Voznesensk.
Most commentators have taken too narrow a view of this conflict, presenting it as solely between Russia and Ukraine. Like most wars, though, it is being waged by two coalitions, fought primarily though not exclusively by Russian and Ukrainian nationals. The Russians have some Chechen auxiliaries who have yet to demonstrate much effectiveness (and who lost their commander early on), may get some Syrians (who will be even less able to integrate with Russian units), and find a half-hearted ally in Belarus, whose citizens have begun sabotaging its rail lines and whose army may well mutiny if asked to invade Ukraine.
The Ukrainians have their auxiliaries, too, some 15,000 or so foreign volunteers, some probably worthless or dangerous to their allies, but others valuable—snipers, combat medics, and other specialists who have fought in Western armies. More important, they have behind them the military industries of countries including the United States, Sweden, Turkey, and the Czech Republic. Flowing into Ukraine every day are thousands of advanced weapons: the best anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles in the world, plus drones, sniper rifles, and all the kit of war. Moreover, it should be noted that the United States has had exquisite intelligence not only about Russia’s dispositions but about its intentions and actual operations. The members of the U.S. intelligence community would be fools not to share this information, including real-time intelligence, with the Ukrainians. Judging by the adroitness of Ukrainian air defenses and deployments, one may suppose that they are not, in fact, fools.
Talk of stalemate obscures the dynamic quality of war. The more you succeed, the more likely you are to succeed; the more you fail, the more likely you are to continue to fail. There is no publicly available evidence of the Russians being able to regroup and resupply on a large scale; there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. If the Ukrainians continue to win, we might see more visible collapses of Russian units and perhaps mass surrenders and desertions. Unfortunately, the Russian military will also frantically double down on the one thing it does well—bombarding towns and killing civilians.
The Ukrainians are doing their part. Now is the time to arm them on the scale and with the urgency needed, as in some cases we are already doing. We must throttle the Russian economy, increasing pressure on a Russian elite that does not, by and large, buy into Vladimir Putin’s bizarre ideology of “passionarity” and paranoid Great Russian nationalism. We must mobilize official and unofficial agencies to penetrate the information cocoon in which Putin’s government is attempting to insulate the Russian people from the news that thousands of their young men will come home maimed, or in coffins, or not at all from a stupid and badly fought war of aggression against a nation that will now hate them forever. We should begin making arrangements for war-crimes trials, and begin naming defendants, as we should have done during World War II. Above all, we must announce that there will be a Marshall Plan to rebuild the Ukrainian economy, for nothing will boost their confidence like the knowledge that we believe in their victory and intend to help create a future worth having for a people willing to fight so resolutely for its freedom.
As for the endgame, it should be driven by an understanding that Putin is a very bad man indeed, but not a shy one. When he wants an off-ramp, he will let us know. Until then, the way to end the war with the minimum of human suffering is to pile on.
25. Criminal hackers are preying on the world’s sympathies for Ukraine
Beware and be vigilant.
Criminal hackers are preying on the world’s sympathies for Ukraine
Experts predict that scammers will only intensify their efforts to profit from the Ukraine crisis as it continues.
Benjamin Powers
Technology Reporter
March 22, 2022
Cybercriminals are using the war in Ukraine to enrich themselves by defrauding people trying to help the embattled country.
Their techniques include malware, phishing attacks and straight-up scams. Emails that purport to come from Ukrainian government agencies deliver malware designed to let an attacker control the recipient’s computer. When Ukraine started soliciting donations in cryptocurrency, criminals created and marketed fake coins. And some are attempting to trick inexperienced volunteers for Ukraine’s “IT Army” into downloading malware disguised as distributed denial of service (DDoS) software to fight Russian interests online.
The fact that regular people far from Ukraine are getting involved in DDoS attacks and donating cryptocurrencies is a sign that the “baseline technological knowledge for the majority of people is much higher than it ever has been,” said threat researcher Nick Biasini, head of outreach at security firm Cisco Talos. But a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing: It’s also given cybercriminals a way to capitalize on their efforts and prey on the public’s best intentions, especially those of the well-meaning amateur hackers joining in Ukraine’s cyber defense.
“Broadly speaking, cybercriminals take advantage of whatever situation is out there and whatever situation is in the news,” said Allan Liska, an intelligence analyst at the security firm Recorded Future, which tracks ransomware attacks.
The current situation echoes the early 2000s, when “hacktivism” was popular. Hackers would release legitimate tools that people could use to launch a DDoS attack against targets like banks, and cybercriminals would follow by putting out similar-sounding tools that were actually malware.
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” Liska said, invoking a Mark Twain-attributed quote. “We have seen similar kinds of activity in the past even as it relates to activism, but not in a war setting.”
Scams surge as global concern rises
Since Feb. 1, network intelligence and cybersecurity provider Cujo AI has identified about 1,500 unique internet domains that are related to helping Ukraine. About 5 percent of them are scam sites, said Leonardas Marozas, head of Cujo’s security research lab. That’s notable but smaller in scale than the flood of new domains related to covid in early 2020, he said.
ADVERTISEMENT
“At the start of the pandemic, there were hundreds of thousands of new domains being registered and put into use,” said Marozas. “We do not see this trend with the start of the Ukraine-Russia war.”
But the Ukraine crisis has pushed cybercriminals to new and even more brazen heights, according to a report Cisco Talos released this month. It described how criminals are peddling malware disguised as pro-Ukraine DDoS software, with the aim of stealing people’s personal information.
“We are happy to remind you about the software we use to attack Russian sites!” said a Telegram message promoting the software. “It will automatically fetch the attack targets from the server.”
The channel in which the message appeared has thousands of subscribers, the Talos report said.
“They were just like ‘Here, run this [program],’ but it was an infostealer that basically steals a whole bunch of information related to cryptocurrency stuff, credentials,” Biasini said. “Whatever it can find on that system, it’s going to take and steal.”
ADVERTISEMENT
The people behind the software were distributing infostealers as early as November 2021, Talos found — lending weight to the idea that experienced criminals are trying to capitalize on the existing conflict in Ukraine.
The example illustrates the danger of inexperienced cyber volunteers wading into the conflict, Biasini said. “The best-case scenario is you may accidentally be committing a crime,” he said. “Worst-case scenario, you’re likely downloading something that is inherently malicious.”
Cryptocurrency takes center stage
Criminals are also leveraging the humanitarian interest in helping Ukrainians into phishing attacks. These trick people into clicking on malicious links that can inject malware or start conversations in which scammers extract money or a person’s financial information. Known phishing scams related to Ukraine include an email purporting to seek donations to a humanitarian organization and another where the sender posed as a displaced Ukrainian.
Phishing emails often include requests for cryptocurrency as a means of support. In this case, they’re taking advantage of the fact that the Ukrainian government has taken in extensive cryptocurrency donations, to the tune of more than $50 million as of March 15.
In early March, the government announced a cryptocurrency “air drop,” which traditionally involves a group giving out free tokens to attract users and improve engagement. Details on the government plan were scarce but seemed to involve the Ukrainians “air dropping” a token of some sort to people who donated to the country. A surge of donations followed.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Ukrainian government canceled the airdrop plan about 24 hours after it first revealed it, without giving a reason. But scammers had already introduced a fake token.
Experts predict that scammers will only intensify their efforts to profit from the Ukraine crisis as the conflict continues and more cybercriminal groups have the time to tailor their efforts to the nuances of the war.
“There is no downward boundary for these bastards,” Liska said. “They will prey on people’s good intentions. They will take advantage of anything and everything they can in order to rip people off.”
26. A New Period of Consequences
A New Period of Consequences
It’s 1936 again.
In June of 2010, Jamie Fly and I wrote a piece for The Weekly Standard. We called it “A Period of Consequences.” We took the title from a couple of sentences from a Winston Churchill speech:
The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.
It is a good phrase and a good way of delineating eras. But what struck me when Jamie suggested the quotation was that the line was not from a speech in late 1938 or 1939, as war in Europe was blooming.
No. The passage is from a speech Churchill gave to the House of Commons on November 12, 1936.
The subject of Churchill’s remarks was that Britain needed a major increase in defense spending. It was then—in November 1936—that Churchill was already lamenting British complacency. It was in 1936 that he deplored the failure to take seriously the threats of the new world in which Britain found itself. It was in 1936 that Churchill tried to urge a new seriousness and willingness to face facts and their challenging consequences.
And even then, in 1936, Churchill acknowledged his surprise that “the dangers that have so swiftly come upon us in a few years, and have been transforming our position and the whole outlook of the world.”
He warned that there was no quick solution to the problem Great Britain faced: “We have entered a period in which for more than a year, or a year and a half, the considerable preparations which are now on foot . . . will not . . . yield results which can be effective. . . . It is this lamentable conjunction of events which seems to present the danger of Europe in its most disquieting form.”
Still: “We cannot avoid this period; we are in it now.”
This came more than a year before the Anschluss. Almost two years before Munich. Two years before Kristallnacht. Two and half years before the occupation of Prague. Almost three years before the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the invasion of Poland.
Podcast · March 18 2022
Sarah and JVL talk about free speech, cancel culture, and whether or not we have…
Well, we are in 1936 again.
We have entered a period of consequences.
And as important as the events of today are, it’s important to keep in mind that we are still in the very early stages of this new era. We haven’t seen most of the consequences, nor have we done most of what we will have to do to come to grips with them.
One hopes we are awakening more quickly than Churchill’s contemporaries. But it’s clear we are not yet fully awake. And it would be a very good thing indeed if we could get ourselves to wake up more quickly, more thoroughly, than Britain did in 1936. Because the years from 1936 to 1939—and of course after 1939—were very bad ones.
If we were to wake up quickly, we’d be coming to grips now with the increases in defense spending that we need—and also with increases and improvements needed for our diplomatic and covert activities.
We’d be getting serious about the overall reorganization of our national security apparatus.
We’d be getting systematic about how to deal with the new world of disinformation that we face both at home and abroad.
We’d be seriously evaluating questions of our economic penetration and dependence on our adversaries.
We’d be focused on the fact that one of our two political parties is incapable of being serious about the threats we face, because the America First strain of thinking which first appeared in Republican politics almost a century ago is reborn and dominant.
And we wouldn’t neglect the fact that our other party is only hesitantly and haltingly coming to grips with the moment. That party—and the nation—lacks, for now, a Harry Truman, a Dean Acheson, or a George Marshall. One hopes that the moment will summon forth such a figure. But such a hope has yet to be fulfilled.
So when I say that it is 1936, I mean that no matter how trying this moment is, the period of great testing lies ahead of us.The immediate crisis is merely the beginning of a series of challenges that we’ll face for quite a while.
And one of the keys to handling the future well is understanding that we’re at the beginning of a new era, not dealing with a temporary or unpleasant interruption in the status quo.
Churchill knew in November of 1936 that he was unlikely to prevail quickly, in the short term. But he nonetheless emphasized that he would “not accept the mood of panic or of despair.”
Nor should we.
We do, after all, have two advantages Churchill did not. One is the experience of the failure of the 1930s, and the contrasting successes of the post-World War II American-led international system. Recent history provides us all kinds of lessons in international relations that were not available to leaders in the 1930s.
Even more important is another lesson staring us in the face: The heroism of the people of Ukraine, and the leadership of Volodymyr Zelensky. All decent people stand today with Ukraine and Zelensky.
Having said that, I wonder if we fully appreciate the heroism of the Ukrainian people and the unpayable debt we owe them for their stand.
Because if President Zelensky had fled, and the government of Ukraine had collapsed or quickly sued for peace, we would now be accommodating the new reality, as we did after 2008 and 2014. Putin would have succeeded. We’d be continuing our drift downward, trusting in “procrastination, half-measures, soothing and baffling expedients, delays.”
There would be no real prospect of an awakening in the United States and Europe were it not for the stand the Ukrainians have made.
We would still be denying the threats we face. We would still be turning away from the urgency of the task we face. We would even, I daresay, still fail to appreciate the preciousness of the freedom and decency we have the obligation—and the honor—to defend.
It is the Ukrainians who have shown us what free men and women can do, and what they are sometimes required to do, in defense of that freedom. It is the Ukrainians who have shown the world that we are in a new period of consequences. It is the Ukrainians who have given us the example of what it means today to fight back against brutality, and to fight for freedom.
Слава Україні! Героям слава!
27. Linda Chavez on Why Russian Propagandists Love Fox News
Linda Chavez on Why Russian Propagandists Love Fox News
“It is so appalling what is taking place on Fox.”
[On the March 18, 2022 episode of The Bulwark’s “Beg to Differ” podcast, panelist Linda Chavez discussed the Putin-sympathetic coverage on Fox News.]
Linda Chavez: I have joked on this program a number of times that I watch Fox News so you don’t have to. And I have been doing that—I have forced myself—but I want to plead for help from my colleagues here on “Beg to Differ.” I have to say that Tucker Carlson, whom I watched the other night, nearly gave me a stroke when he started essentially apologizing for Vladimir Putin, which he does almost every night on his show. . . .
It is so appalling what is taking place on Fox News. And it’s Tucker Carlson, it’s Laura Ingraham, it’s Greg Gutfeld—Greg, by the way, he is married to a Ukrainian woman. He just had to help his mother-in-law escape from Ukraine. So, I do not understand this.
But one of the things that they are doing, in addition to bashing NATO and acting as if NATO is somehow a threat to world peace, is that they are also trying to scare their listeners into thinking that if we do anything more—including providing the S-300s, providing the drone switchblades, providing airplanes, or, God forbid, actually setting up a no-fly zone—that Vladimir Putin is going to launch a nuclear attack. And that it’s going to be justified, essentially. I mean, that’s basically what they are arguing.
And it is scaring people. I have members of my extended family—my brother-in-law is a big Tucker Carlson fan. He watches him religiously every night. He’s busy talking to my sister about whether or not they can move to the highlands of Mexico to avoid the nuclear strike that’s going to hit Tucson because of this. This is really pernicious.
And the Russian state agencies are actually saying, ‘Use Tucker Carlson on Russian networks—use him as much as you can.’ There was a leaked memo about trying to use clips from Tucker Carlson to let the Russian people know that Americans know how dangerous this is. . . .
Mona Charen: Wait, underline that again, Linda—the Russians are using Tucker Carlson clips on their propaganda televisions shows.
Chavez: That is exactly right.
28. Our Nasty, Stupid, Frivolous Cancel Culture Fights (That We’re Lucky Enough to Have)
If only. I wish.
We are so fortunate to be fighting over "cancel culture" rather than having to fight the Russians (yet).
Excerpts:
The plight of Russian dissidents is also a salutary reminder that for all our “cancel culture” debates, we are incredibly privileged compared to most of the world when it comes to freedom of speech. The First Amendment protects us from suppression of speech by the government, and it does so much more effectively than it did a hundred years ago. Being fired or publicly pilloried over a “bad” opinion or a misunderstood remark is bad, but it’s still not up there with being harassed by the police, having your computer confiscated, or being arrested—let alone being sent to a penal colony.
Nonetheless, the culture of free speech and intellectual tolerance does matter, and the free exchange of opinions and ideas that is the lifeblood of liberal democracy can be severely curtailed by mob rule as well government—even if the mob is a digital one. Progressive censoriousness may not be the same as censorship, but it is very likely to undermine the robustness of First Amendment protections: Surveys already show that only 30 percent of all college students, compared to 57 percent of all American adults, understand that the First Amendment protects so-called hate speech. (Ocasio-Cortez’s dismissive remark about “[F]irst [A]mendment screeds” as a “service for the powerful” doesn’t exactly foster respect for First Amendment freedoms.)
Resisting illiberalism in all its forms, including the “progressive” ones, is all the more important at this moment when the free world is uniting in defense of its values against the authoritarian tide.
Our Nasty, Stupid, Frivolous Cancel Culture Fights (That We’re Lucky Enough to Have)
They’re the worst. Good for us.
“One way in which events in the East have had a radical effect on the West,” Russian-American writer Alexander Genis wrote last week on Russia’s last major independent news site, Novaya Gazeta, commenting on the fallout from Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, “is that the endless and ferocious ‘culture wars’ in American society came to an immediate halt.”
Ha. On the very day Genis’s article was posted, two culture-war skirmishes over free speech and “cancel culture” flared up in the American media and managed to get some attention even amid the almost wall-to-wall Ukraine coverage.
First, there were reports of a kerfuffle at Yale Law School in which protesters tried to shout down an event featuring a speaker from Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group that opposes LGBT rights—and more than half the law school’s student body signed a letter siding with the protesters. Adding more fuel to the fire, a conservative federal judge suggested that the disruptive protesters should be blocked from future clerkships.
Then, the New York Times published an editorial on the dangers of “cancel culture,” accompanied by a poll showing that a majority of Americans regard the silencing of speech by social pressures and fear of retaliation as a serious problem. While the editorial also discussed the danger of conservative legislation targeting progressive curriculum content and classroom speech, the backlash from the left was loud and fierce.
The New York Times said we have a “free speech problem” because we “silence conservatives.” Let me rephrase that — Nazis, terrorists & Pro-Putin Republicans are being ridiculed for their hate speech, and NYT is defending their “freedom of speech. Cancel your NYT subscription
If I still worked at the NYT, I would seriously think about quitting today.
Welcome back to the culture wars, which are still following the usual script. The center-right (and some on the left) sound the alarm about intellectual intolerance and speech suppression by the progressive left. The left responds with a chorus of derision and dismisses these concerns as a moral panic based on a false narrative, not to mention a distraction from the real threats to freedom posed by the right. And in the end, everyone comes away a little more convinced that people on the other side are either terminally dumb or intellectually dishonest.
Let’s take a closer look at the latest two battles.
Podcast · March 18 2022
Sarah and JVL talk about free speech, cancel culture, and whether or not we have…
The Yale Law School event, which took place on March 10, was a Federalist Society-sponsored panel whose purpose, ironically, was to demonstrate how a Christian conservative (ADF general counsel Kristen Waggoner) and a secular progressive (American Humanist Association senior counsel Monica Miller) could overcome their differences to work for a common cause. Waggoner and Miller had been on the same side of a 2021 religious-freedom case, Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, in which the Supreme Court affirmed, 8-1, that a student who had been prevented from distributing religious literature on campus could sue for damages even though the school had revised its restrictive policies and even though the student had already graduated.
Waggoner’s presence incensed progressive students at Yale Law because of the ADF’s positions on gay and transgender issues, which earned it an “active hate group” designation from the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2016. The SPLC’s fairly recent move to add dozens of mainstream conservative groups with anti-LGBT, anti-Islam, or anti-immigration views to its “hate list” alongside neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, racist skinheads, and neo-Confederates has generated its share of controversy, particularly in the case of the ADF, which has successfully argued nine cases in front of the Supreme Court. But even without the SPLC listing, there is no doubt that a group like the ADF, which has not only opposed same-sex marriage but argued for the right of states (and governments abroad) to criminalize same-sex sexual relations, would be controversial on college campuses.
Over one hundred protesters—who outnumbered the actual audience—crowded into the auditorium. According to a report (with accompanying video) by Aaron Sibarium in the Washington Free Beacon, the protesters not only stood up holding anti-ADF signs as soon as Waggoner was introduced by the moderator, Yale law professor Kate Stith, but became noisy and confrontational. When Stith reminded them of Yale’s free speech policies, which prohibit protests that impede “speakers’ ability to be heard and of community members to listen,” she was also heckled, and things got even more raucous after she told the hecklers to “grow up.” The protesters snarkily insisted that they were the ones engaging in free speech and that she was disrupting them. Stith finally said that if the disturbance continued, she would either ask the protesters to leave or have them ejected.
According to Sibarium’s report:
The protesters proceeded to exit the event—one of them yelled “Fuck you, FedSoc” on his way out—but congregated in the hall just outside. Then they began to stomp, shout, clap, sing, and pound the walls, making it difficult to hear the panel. Chants of “protect trans kids” and “shame, shame” reverberated throughout the law school. The din was so loud that it disrupted nearby classes, exams, and faculty meetings, according to students and a professor who spoke on the condition of anonymity. . . .
At times, things seemed in danger of getting physical. The protesters were blocking the only exit from the event, and two members of the Federalist Society said they were grabbed and jostled as they attempted to leave.
On March 15, the open letter signed by over 400 of the 650 or so Yale Law students was released. It condemned not only the invitation to Waggoner as an assault on “our community’s values of equity and inclusivity” but the presence of armed police at the protest. (Police officers arrived at the end of the panel to escort Waggoner and Miller out of the building.) Allowing police on the premises, the letter stated, “put YLS’ queer student body at risk of harm.” The letter also criticized both Stith and Miller for participating in the event, and Stith in particular for admonishing the protesters.
Two days later, Senior Judge Laurence Silberman of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a Reagan appointee, sent a short and blunt email to a listserv for federal judges:
The latest events at Yale Law School in which students attempted to shout down speakers participating in a panel discussion on free speech prompts me to suggest that students who are identified as those willing to disrupt any such panel discussion should be noted. All federal judges—and all federal judges are presumably committed to free speech—should carefully consider whether any student so identified should be disqualified for potential clerkships.
In response, Slate legal columnist Mark Joseph Stern asserted that Sibarium’s account in the Free Beacon of “raving protesters hellbent on shutting down free speech at any cost” was overdramatized and exaggerated, that the protesting students walked out peacefully and that their behavior in the hallway was not disruptive enough to warrant police intervention, and that the only real threat to free speech in this incident was “the possibility that federal judges will blacklist law students from clerkships because they expressed their beliefs too loudly.”
This benign view of the hecklers’ behavior as merely a loud exercise of free speech rights was echoed by a number of Twitter progressives.
Free speech, but make it quiet enough that it doesn’t disturb my peace!
One commentator who strongly disagrees is lawyer-turned-blogger David Lat. After reviewing the video, audio, and statements from various sources, Lat concludes that “the noisy protest continued, at varying levels of intensity, throughout most if not all of the proceedings” and that the event was “significantly disrupted,” even if it “managed to limp to a conclusion.” Lat regards this as an outrageous and troubling attack on freedom of speech, despite being a member of the very community that the protesters claimed was being harmed platforming Waggoner:
As a gay man who is in a same-sex marriage and raising a son with my husband, I strongly disagree with ADF’s views on same-sex marriage and parenting. But I strongly defend the right of its leaders to speak and to participate in public events, and I think the treatment that Kristen Waggoner received at YLS was disrespectful and wrong.
It’s true that the Yale law students’ behavior does not, strictly speaking, amount to a “heckler’s veto,” recognized as unconstitutional speech suppression in First Amendment law; that term properly refers to censorship by authorities on the pretext that the censored speech may cause a disturbance. But Florida International University law professor Howard Wasserman, who is somewhat sympathetic to disruptive protesters, has argued that the term should also apply when the authorities—in this case, university officials—allow hecklers to shout down or significantly disrupt speech. (And besides, the informal usage of “heckler’s veto” in reference to the hecklers’ actions has a pretty illustrious pedigree that includes the late Nat Hentoff, preeminent civil libertarian, First Amendment purist, and author of a classic text on the subject, the 1992 book, Free Speech for Me—But Not for Thee.)
The students’ self-righteous insistence that they were on a mission to prevent “harm” reflects the illiberalism at the heart of today’s social justice movement. It is also a far-reaching rationale for speech suppression—after all, there is almost no issue that cannot be framed as harm prevention by either the left or the right. Lat, who refers to the “heckling is free speech” position as “survival of the loudest,” sums up in tangible exasperation:
I can’t believe I’m having to write a defense of a free-speech regime in which people listen respectfully to the other side, even when they find the other side’s views abhorrent, as opposed to a free-speech regime where “freedom” belongs to whoever can yell the loudest. You would have expected—and hoped—that law students, as future lawyers, would understand the value of the former and the problems with the latter.
And what of Silberman’s email? Advocating professional retaliation against law students who engage in constitutionally protected protest would certainly be disturbing. But in this case, the students were not only engaging in attempted speech disruption but arguably breaking the law (their behavior in the hallway likely qualifies as disorderly conduct, and Sibarium reports that the full video and audio shows one of the protesters telling a Federalist Society member that she would “literally fight you, bitch,” which almost certainly meets the threshold for misdemeanor harassment). If these disruptions were directed at a feminist or LGBT event, would the suggestion that the culprits’ behavior should affect their professional opportunities even be controversial? And besides, if shouting and chanting to silence a speaker is speech, then surely so is expressing the opinion that the shouters may be ill suited for judicial clerkships: It’s free speech all the way down.
The incident has other alarming aspects. Sibarium’s reporting indicates, for instance, that law students were under strong pressure to sign the open letter defending the protesters. One student in a class chat apparently expressed shock that “we’re at this point in history and some folks are still not immediately signing a letter like this” and then added, “I’m sure you realize that not signing the letter is not a neutral stance.” Meanwhile, Yale Law School has not condemned the hecklers’ violation of its free speech policies—witnessed by an associate dean, Ellen Cosgrove, who was present for the entire panel—or reaffirmed its commitment to free expression.
The March 18 New York Times editorial that caused the big outcry, titled “America Has a Free Speech Problem,” is a good-faith effort hampered by not-so-great execution. The problem shows up in the opening paragraph:
For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.
The critics have a point: there is no such thing as a right so speak without having to worry about “being shamed or shunned.” It’s true that the editorial goes on to say (several paragraphs down) that the issue here isn’t First Amendment rights, it’s a cultural climate inhospitable to speech. But the editorial, and its accompanying poll, further muddies the waters when it seems to conflate criticism with persecution (i.e., doing precisely what “cancel culture” foes are often accused by progressives of doing). The first three poll questions cited in the editorial, which deal with people’s experiences of self-censorship and bullying, refers to “retaliation or harsh criticism” for speech. But these things should not be lumped together, and besides, “harsh criticism” is an extremely vague phrase that could refer to anything from “that argument should be taken out and shot for torturing logic” to “that argument is racist and misogynistic.” The “harsh criticism” that serves as a “cancel culture” enforcement mechanism has two essential characteristics: accusations of moral atrocity (usually some form of bigotry or insensitivity to bigotry) and collective judgment or shaming.
There are instances when such a reaction is appropriate. Few reasonable people would complain if fear of shunning discourages the public expression of truly abhorrent views (e.g., that slavery or the gulag were benevolent institutions, that the Holocaust is a Jewish hoax, or that adult/child sex should be the next frontier in sexual liberation). But if we value intellectual freedom, we as a society must be careful to ensure that “beyond-the-pale” opinions are narrowly and clearly demarcated. In today’s social justice discourse, on the other hand, the lines are blurry and ever-shifting, and taboos spread like the Blob.
Despite its missteps, the Times editorial is broadly on the right track in its identification of the problem, which it defines as the “depluralizing of America”:
The political left and the right are caught in a destructive loop of condemnation and recrimination around cancel culture. Many on the left refuse to acknowledge that cancel culture exists at all, believing that those who complain about it are offering cover for bigots to peddle hate speech. Many on the right, for all their braying about cancel culture, have embraced an even more extreme version of censoriousness as a bulwark against a rapidly changing society, with laws that would ban books, stifle teachers and discourage open discussion in classrooms.
The response has been predictable. Back in the days when feminism was the big progressive cause, journalist Helen Lewis came up with a quip that came to be known among online feminists as “Lewis’s first law”: “Comments on any article about feminism justify feminism.” I’ve always found this saying glib and unconvincing, since anonymous misogynistic trolls in comments sections don’t necessarily reflect the general state of society; but the commentary regarding the Times editorial from named and respected progressives, including a member of Congress, does illustrate the editorial’s very case.
In fact, few of the famous cancel culture controversies have involved “embarrassing racists.” It seems unlikely that any critic of cancel culture shed tears for ex-Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling when he was banned for life from the NBA and fined $2.5 million in 2014 after the exposure of his racist rant in a recorded phone conversation with his then-girlfriend. What people have in mind when they talk about today’s culture of intolerance is more like the case of New York Times star science writer Donald McNeil, pressured to resign after a scandal stemming from a conversation with high school students in which he uttered a racial slur in the context of discussing whether someone should be punished for using it. Or the coerced resignation of Philadelphia Inquirer editor Stan Wischnowski, who had published an article arguing that property destruction from rioting associated with anti-racist protests was damaging to the community and used a headline some considered disrespectful to the Black Lives Matter movement (“Buildings Matter Too”). Or the controversy early in 2020 over the novel American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins, which was written to humanize the plight of migrants on the Mexican border but was viciously denounced because the author was too white, may have gotten some details wrong, and wrote two or three lines referencing a character’s brown skin—resulting in the cancelation of Cummins’s book tour.
In a Bulwark article last October, I discussed a fairly wide range of such cases, all involving “retaliation” and not just “criticism,” targeting business owners (whose only crime may have been an insufficiently enthusiastic expression of support for BLM during the protests in the summer of 2020), educators, writers, and TV personalities. I could easily list many more. Obviously, hard data are difficult to come by on an issue like this, considering that visible “cancelations” are the tip of the iceberg and it’s the chilling effect that may matter most. But, despite the flaws in the Times poll, the fact that nearly half of the respondents said they felt “less free” than ten years ago to express their political viewpoints in day-to-day situations, and more than a third felt less free to express their views on race relations, should be alarming.
Nonetheless, the tenor of most progressive responses to the controversy over the Times editorial seemed to be “what problem?” New Yorker writer Adam Davidson, the one who tweeted (above) that he would have been thinking of quitting over the editorial if he still worked at the Times, put out a request for actual evidence of cancel culture only to dismiss a few of the responses and ignore the vast majority of the others.
Can one of you believers in cancel culture just write one piece that gives evidence and doesn't just speak to a feeling you have?
Maybe some data that helps your readers know the size and scale of this problem? Also, some examples of people actually fired?
But perhaps the most perfect response came from Dan Froomkin, the lefty journalist and founder/editor of an outfit called Presswatchers, who opined that the editorial staff of the New York Times should retract the editorial and resign. For daring to suggest that there is a free-speech problem on the left. That’ll show them.
Is it any surprise that Froomkin also thinks the yellers at Yale were engaging in free speech?
None of this is to deny that the right has its own massive free-speech problems, or that it routinely weaponizes “cancel culture” to defend its bad behavior while canceling its own dissenters. Heck, even the Kremlin is weaponizing cancel-culture tropes to vent its grievances about sanctions in retaliation for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine—even as the Putin regime cancels the last remnants of a free press in Russia, has elderly women arrested for protesting, and takes political correctness to a new level by banning the word “war” in reference to the “special operation.”
The plight of Russian dissidents is also a salutary reminder that for all our “cancel culture” debates, we are incredibly privileged compared to most of the world when it comes to freedom of speech. The First Amendment protects us from suppression of speech by the government, and it does so much more effectively than it did a hundred years ago. Being fired or publicly pilloried over a “bad” opinion or a misunderstood remark is bad, but it’s still not up there with being harassed by the police, having your computer confiscated, or being arrested—let alone being sent to a penal colony.
Nonetheless, the culture of free speech and intellectual tolerance does matter, and the free exchange of opinions and ideas that is the lifeblood of liberal democracy can be severely curtailed by mob rule as well government—even if the mob is a digital one. Progressive censoriousness may not be the same as censorship, but it is very likely to undermine the robustness of First Amendment protections: Surveys already show that only 30 percent of all college students, compared to 57 percent of all American adults, understand that the First Amendment protects so-called hate speech. (Ocasio-Cortez’s dismissive remark about “[F]irst [A]mendment screeds” as a “service for the powerful” doesn’t exactly foster respect for First Amendment freedoms.)
Resisting illiberalism in all its forms, including the “progressive” ones, is all the more important at this moment when the free world is uniting in defense of its values against the authoritarian tide.
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
