Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“You can have anything you want if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.”

- Abraham Lincoln

"The free exploring mind of the individual is the most valuable thing in the world."

- John Steinbeck

Characteristics of the American Way of War (13 of 13)

13. Highly Sensitive to Casualties. In common with the Roman Empire, the American guardian of world order is much averse to suffering a high rate of military casualties, and for at least one of the same reasons. Both superstates had and have armies that are small, too small in the opinion of many, relative to their responsibilities. Moreover, well-trained professional soldiers, volunteers all, are expensive to raise, train, and retain, and are difficult to replace. Beyond the issue of cost-effectiveness, however, lies the claim that American society has become so sensitive to casualties that it is no longer tolerant of potentially bloody ventures in muscular foreign governance. The most careful recent sociological research suggests that this popular notion about the American way of war, that it must seek to avoid American casualties at almost any price, has been exaggerated. Nonetheless, exaggerated or not, it is a fact that the United States has been perfecting a way in warfare that is expected, even required, to result in very few casualties for the home team. U.S. commanders certainly have operated since the Cold War under strict orders to avoid losses. The familiar emphasis upon force protection as "job one," virtually regardless of the consequences for the success of the mission, is a telling expression of this cultural norm. September 11, 2001, went some way towards reversing the apparent trend favoring, even demanding, friendly casualty avoidance. Culture, after all, does change with context. As quoted earlier, the National Defense Strategy document of March 2005 opens with the uncompromising declaration, "America is a nation at war." For so long as Americans believe this to be true, the social context for military behavior should be far more permissive of casualties than was the case in the 1990s. Both history and common sense tell us that Americans will tolerate casualties, even high casualties, if they are convinced both that the political stakes are vital, and that the government is trying hard to win. It must be noted, though, that Americans have come to expect an exceedingly low casualty rate because that has been their recent experience. That expectation has been fed by events, by the evolution of a high-technology way in warfare that exposes relatively few American soldiers to mortal danger, and by the low quality of recent enemies. When the context allows, it is U.S. military style to employ machines rather than people and to rely heavily on firepower to substitute for a more dangerous mode of combat for individuals. A network-centric Army, if able to afford the equipment, carries the promise of being supported by even more real-time on-call firepower than is available today.

If the United States is serious about combating irregular enemies in a way that stands a reasonable prospect of success, it will have to send its soldiers into harm's way to a degree that could promote acute political discomfort. The all-service defense transformation mandated by the Office of the Secretary of Defense is very much a high-technology voyage into the future. The focus is on machines, and the further exploitation of the computer in particular. Overall, it is not unfair to observe that this transformation, with its promise of even better performance in Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Information/Intelligence, Surveillance, Targeting and Reconnaissance (QISTAR), should strengthen the American ability to wage its traditional style of war. Enemies, once detected, will be tracked and then obliterated by standoff firepower, much of it delivered from altitude. American soldiers will see little of the foe in the flesh, and civilians will be protected from suffering as victims of collateral damage, to some degree at least, by the precision with which America's forces will be able to direct their fire. A major attraction of this style of war is that few Americans will be at risk. The problem is that such a technology-dependent, stand-off style is not appropriate for the conduct of war against irregulars, except in special cases. Certainly it is not suitable as the principal mode of operation. Irregular warfare is different, as we must keep insisting. For American soldiers to be useful in COIN, they have to be deployed "up close and personal" visa-vis the people who are the stake in the struggle. The more determinedly the Army strives to avoid casualties by hiding behind fortifications and deploying with armored protection, the less likely is it to be effective in achieving the necessary relationship of trust with the people. Of course, there will be circumstances when insurgents escalate violence in urban terrain in an endeavor to tempt Americans to fight back in their preferred style with profligate resort to firepower. In stressful circumstances, it may be hard to remember that in COIN dead insurgents are not proof of success, any more than home-side casualty avoidance by us is such proof.

- Colin Gray, 2006

1. The U.S. Joint Chiefs New Strategy Paper on Joint Concept for Competing | CSIS

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11. The Lessons Not Learned From Iraq

12. In the U.S.-Led Iraq War, Iran Was the Big Winner

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1. The U.S. Joint Chiefs New Strategy Paper on Joint Concept for Competing | CSIS

This is a useful synopsis. You can download the 91 page document (about 70 of text) at this link: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23698400/20230213-joint-concept-for-competing-signed.pdf

Some very useful and important analysis from Anthony Cordesman on the new JCC. Although he makes some significant criticism (e.g., theory, doctrine, and education) we need to read, study, operationalize, and implement the JCC. It is the first and only real DOD document that begins the discussion of strategic competition. And I think these two quotes are very important. First, from Cordesman:

"...it is also a major departure from the past U.S. focus on warfighting and reappraisal of both the need for a global approach to competition and of the threats posed by potentially hostile major powers like Russia and China, and smaller powers like Iran and North Korea."

The second very insightful statement is from the introduction of the JCC. I do think we have to change learn and adapt anticipate so we avoid "losing without fighting:"

"Our adversaries have studied our military strengths and way of war. They have implemented approaches that pursue their strategic objectives while avoiding the deterrent tripwires upon which our national security posture is based. Simply put, U.S. adversaries intend to "win without fighting." In this context, U.S. challengers intend to pursue their objectives while avoiding armed conflict-rendering traditional Joint Force deterrence less effective. Facing this dilemma, more of the same is not enough. By ignoring the threat of strategic competition, the United States risks ceding strategic influence, advantage, and leverage while preparing for a war that never occurs. The United States must remain fully prepared and poised for war, but this alone will be insufficient to secure its strategic objectives and protect its freedoms. If the United States does not compete effectively against adversaries, it could "lose without fighting."

https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-joint-chiefs-new-strategy-paper-joint-concept-competing

But some important criticisms here, though I do not believe we have focused correctly on the right theories, doctrine, and education in the past.

Unfortunately, the document ends by focusing far too much on theory, doctrine, and education—a general problem in almost all recent U.S. approaches to strategy. It does address the needed changes in U.S. force posture, alliances, and partnerships, the tangible aspect of modernization, and the need to reshape the Department’s planning, programming, or budgeting system.

Annex A on a Structured Approach for Strategic Competition (pp. 42–55) is a useful list of issues, but it does not address any practical short-term approach to implementing the new strategy.

Annex B on a Concept Required Capabilities (pp. 56–63) at least mentions the need to create a more effective structure in the Department of Defense to manage strategic competition and the existence of the planning, programming, and budgeting system. It then, however, presents another long list of analytic tasks rather than proposing a functional approach to implementation.

It also indicates that the authors never really studied the challenges in creating an integrated whole-of-government approach (p. 59):

Interagency integration mechanisms already exist to manage complex problems beyond the scope and reach of any single USG department or agency. A new mechanism for strategic competition, below the policy level of the NSC, should draw on the best practices of these other mechanisms to foster interagency cooperation in the arena of strategic competition.

A Defense Budget Request that Is All Shopping Lists and without any Meaningful Declared Future Defense Program Tied to a Clear Strategy

It is also striking that the Department of Defense’s summaries of the President’s FY 2024 defense budget request—which was issued a few weeks after Joint Concept for Competing—make no mention of the new approach to strategy. (See Press Release – Defense Budget and Budget Briefing at https://comptroller.defense.gov/Budget-Materials/). If anything, the new budget request summaries say even less about strategy than their predecessors.

These summaries also provide the chart shown below on the steady rises in current and planned defense spending between FY 2022 and FY 2024, which warn about the lack of any credible longer-term planning, programming, and budgeting effort. And the rising costs and constant shifts in projected annual spending shown in this graph omit the rises in cost of Veterans spending (one of the high cost entitlement programs), many intelligence costs, and the efforts of the State Department and other civil agencies that need to play a critical role in implementing a Joint Concept for Competing.

The U.S. Joint Chiefs New Strategy Paper on Joint Concept for Competing | CSIS

csis.org · by Commentary by Anthony H. Cordesman Published March 17, 2023

The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff have issued a major new paper on U.S. strategy entitled Joint Concept for Competing. It is an in-depth analysis of the changes needed in U.S. strategy that is some 70 pages in length, rather than a short and often vacuous analysis like the U.S. national strategy papers. It is also a major departure from the past U.S. focus on warfighting and reappraisal of both the need for a global approach to competition and of the threats posed by potentially hostile major powers like Russia and China, and smaller powers like Iran and North Korea.

Focusing on Long-Term Competition Rather Than Deterrence Alone

The new paper focuses on the most critical strategic challenges the United States faces. It creates an approach to national strategy that can limit and defeat outside threats while minimizing the risk of escalating to a level of combat that is potentially uncontrollable and does devastating damage to both sides, and that can meet the ongoing global challenges from states like China and the regional challenges from states like Iran.

The introduction by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Milley makes it clear that U.S. strategy cannot focus on winning in a warfighting sense. It quotes Henry Kissinger in stating that “the objective is to increase one's options and reduce those of the adversary. The goal is less victory than persistent strategic progress.”

General Milley then goes on to state the following (p. i):

Our adversaries have studied our military strengths and way of war. They have implemented approaches that pursue their strategic objectives while avoiding the deterrent tripwires upon which our national security posture is based. Simply put, U.S. adversaries intend to "win without fighting." In this context, U.S. challengers intend to pursue their objectives while avoiding armed conflict-rendering traditional Joint Force deterrence less effective. Facing this dilemma, more of the same is not enough. By ignoring the threat of strategic competition, the United States risks ceding strategic influence, advantage, and leverage while preparing for a war that never occurs. The United States must remain fully prepared and poised for war, but this alone will be insufficient to secure its strategic objectives and protect its freedoms. If the United States does not compete effectively against adversaries, it could "lose without fighting."

For the United States, competition does not always mean hostility and does not preclude cooperation. Nor does the United States view strategic competition as an inevitable march to armed conflict. Done properly, there is much to gain from strategic competition, something U.S. adversaries have already realized. To succeed, the Joint Force will expand its mindset to understand the nature of the strategic competition it is engaged in, to focus on advancing our national interests and strategic objectives rather than just denying those of its adversaries, and to coordinate the military element with the other instruments of national power.

Defining Long-Term Strategic Competition

The analysis addresses long-term strategic competition as “a persistent and long-term struggle that occurs between two or more adversaries seeking to pursue incompatible interests without necessarily engaging in armed conflict with each other.” It defines the global strategic environment—and challenges from hostile states—as follows (p. iii):

Recognizing the overwhelming conventional military capability demonstrated during Operation DESERT STORM in 1991 and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM in 2003, U.S. adversaries responded by seeking to circumvent U.S. deterrent posture through competitive activity below the threshold of armed conflict with the United States.

Adversaries are employing cohesive combinations of military and civil power to expand the competitive space. Adversaries aim to achieve their strategic objectives through a myriad of ways and means, including statecraft and economic power as well as subversion, coercion, disinformation, and deception.

They are investing in key technologies designed to offset U.S. strategic and conventional military capabilities (e.g., nuclear weapons, anti-access and area denial systems, offensive cyberspace, artificial intelligence, hypersonic delivery systems, electromagnetic spectrum). Simply put, our adversaries intend to “win without fighting,” but they are also building military forces that strengthen their ability to “fight and win” an armed conflict against the United States. Facing this dilemma, more of the same is not enough.

By ignoring the threat of strategic competition, and failing to compete deliberately and proactively, the United States risks ceding strategic influence, advantage, and leverage while preparing for a war that may never occur. The United States must remain fully prepared and poised for war, but this alone is insufficient to secure U.S. strategic interests. If the Joint Force does not change its approach to strategic competition, there is a significant risk that the United States will “lose without fighting.”

This text makes it clear that Joint Concept for Competing calls for a far more balanced and realistic approach to strategy than a narrow focus that defines integrated deterrence in terms of the ability to defeat a rival in open combat and one that is based on the illusion that the United States can create—or maintain—its vision of a rules-based order.

Concentrating on the Joint Force

The full text of Joint Concept for Competing makes it clear that its definition of strategic competition requires an integrated civil-military approach to U.S. strategy and force planning, but the analysis focuses on redesigning the Joint Force and implementing a new approach to strategy within the Department of Defense.

The executive summary introduction states (p. iii):

Analyzing any adversary’s way of war is instructive. As former CJCS General Joseph F. Dunford recognized, “We think of being at peace or war…our adversaries don’t think that way.” They believe they are in a long-term “conflict without combat” to alter the current international system, advance their national interests, gain strategic advantage and influence, and limit U.S. and allied options. The JCC postulates that the Joint Force should also view the spectrum of conflict as an enduring struggle between international actors with incompatible strategic interests and objectives, but who also cooperate when their interests coincide.

The JCC postulates that the Joint Force should also view the spectrum of conflict as an enduring struggle between international actors with incompatible strategic interests and objectives, but who also cooperate when their interests coincide.

Strategic competition is thus an enduring condition to be managed, not a problem to be solved.

The Military Challenge

How should the Joint Force, in conjunction with interorganizational partners, compete in support of U.S. Government (USG) efforts to protect and advance U.S. national interests, while simultaneously deterring aggression, countering adversary competitive strategies, and preparing for armed conflict should deterrence and competition fail to protect vital U.S. national interests?

The Central Idea

This central idea of the JCC requires that the Joint Force expand its competitive mindset and its competitive approaches. A Joint Force with a competitive mindset will view strategic competition as a complex set of interactions in which the Joint Force contributes to broader USG efforts to gain influence, advantage, and leverage over other actors and ultimately to achieve favorable strategic outcomes.

In conjunction with its interorganizational partners, the Joint Force can create competitive opportunities by using military capabilities to proactively probe adversary systems for vulnerabilities; establish behavioral patterns joint forces can exploit in a crisis to conceal U.S. intentions until it is too late to respond to them effectively; shift the competition to sub-areas in which the United States can exploit its advantages, leverage, and initiative; and attempt to divert adversaries’ attention and resources to sub-areas of secondary or tertiary importance to the United States.

Integrated Campaigning: Preserving Deterrence, but Emphasizing Partners, Civil Competition, and Coordination with Other Elements of the U.S. Government

This broader approach to U.S. strategy does not mean that preserving an effective level of deterrence is not critical. The analysis makes it clear that the United States must create and maintain an effective level of deterrence and that it must prepare for armed conflict if deterrence fails.

It also, however, stresses what it calls “integrated campaigning:” the need to counter both the military and civil competitive strategies that challenge vital U.S. interests, and the critical role the United States must play in supporting—and working with—its partners. It also recognizes that U.S. partners will have somewhat different interests and priorities—and the need to deal with complexity and uncertainty on a global level—a reality that U.S. national strategy documents have largely failed to highlight (p. v):

Recognizing the inherently multi-dimensional nature of strategic competition, the Joint Force will routinely play a mutually supporting role with other USG departments and agencies, allies and partners, and other interorganizational partners. The Joint Force does not, and should not, have the authority or capability to require its interagency partners to coordinate, align, or integrate their competitive activities with those of the Joint Force. However, the Joint Force is an active participant in the interagency process. It can foster the creation of interagency integration mechanisms to perform these functions, and it will participate in such mechanisms when established. The JCC seeks to open the aperture in terms of what is achievable by applying the central and supporting ideas to offer different approaches to force employment in integrated campaigning.

Two sections of the introduction highlight key aspects of these needs:

Countering Adversaries’ Competitive Strategies A deterrence and war preparation strategy is a necessary but insufficient requirement against adversaries that intend to defeat the United States and its allies without engaging them in armed conflict. The United States must also counter adversaries’ competitive strategies to deny their strategic objectives indefinitely. Countering an adversary’s competitive strategies is not as simple or straightforward as just blocking or challenging the adversary wherever it seeks to act. At best, such an approach risks ceding the initiative to the adversary; at worst, it may prove totally counter-productive and drive neutral or third-party actors towards the adversary. The intent must always be to pursue, promote, and protect U.S. national interests and, when and where necessary, challenge the activities of adversaries that threaten those interests. Deterrent and subversive activity will play their part in such an approach, but so too will subtler and more proactive approaches focused on attraction or persuasion. The most effective counter to an adversary competitive strategy is a fully integrated U.S. competitive strategy that brings together UNCLASSIFIED vii UNCLASSIFIED the components of national power in a cohesive and comprehensive manner to deliver effects across the strategic competitive space.

Supporting the Efforts of Interorganizational Partners Recognizing the inherently strategic nature of competition, the Joint Force will routinely play a supporting role to other USG departments and agencies, allies and partners, and other interorganizational partners. Integrated competitive strategies and campaigns require interdependence and mutual support. The Joint Force supports national competitive strategies by conducting tasks, activities, or operations in conjunction with, and in support of, interorganizational partners. The Joint Force and its partners leverage each other’s authorities and capabilities to optimize their mutual benefit and mitigate their strategic and operational risk. Supporting the efforts of interorganizational partners is fundamental to succeeding in strategic competition. The Joint Force cannot, and must not, attempt to do this alone.

Addressing Global Needs and Risks

The full report goes on to provide a far more nuanced analysis of these issues, and its treatment of issues like the “rules of the game” is far more realistic than the idea that the United States—or any combination of powers—can impose a rules-based order on today’s complex and unstable world. Unlike recent U.S. national strategy papers, it also recognizes the need to engage the world by region and that working with different allies and partners on different terms will be vital to U.S. success and security (p. 12):

It is necessary to break down the competitive space into manageable sub-areas that are more tractable for analysis and planning, and that enable the focusing of efforts towards areas of strategic competition that accord with U.S. priorities. Choosing sub-areas based on an estimate of the competitive environment’s impact on U.S. national interests will allow the deconfliction, synchronization, and integration of joint operations, activities, and investments within and across sub-areas.

The focus on sub-areas is particularly important because the recent versions of the U.S. National Security Strategy document issued by the White House have been so narrowly focused that they have been a self-inflicted wound that has undermined U.S. credibility in many parts of the world.

They have focused far too narrowly on China in a world where the United States has been regularly engaged in unpredicted local and regional conflicts ever since 1945. They have done so in a world where the United States is now immersed in meeting the challenge of Russia’s attack on Ukraine while a little more than a year earlier it seemed the United States focused on Taiwan and Asia.

The end result has convinced many allies in the Middle East and the developing world that the United States is backing away from its strategic engagement in other regions. This loss of credibility has had the ironic impact of opening up the world to Chinese and Russian intervention and casting doubt on U.S. strategic support and assistance.

Looking Beyond Deterrence and Warfare

Joint Concept for Competing still highlights competition with China and Russia but does so in far broader and more realistic terms. Its summary of the broader threat from Russia focuses as much on the political and economic dimensions as the military ones (pp. 14–15). Rather than focusing on an imminent military threat from China in 2027, it looks more broadly at China and summarizes that aspect of U.S. strategic competition as an enduring global competition through 2049 (p. 16).

It also states that:

The JCC moves beyond the alignment of military and non-military activities envisioned in the 2018 Joint Concept for Integrated Campaigning. Adversaries employ their comprehensive national power (CNP) against the United States in integrated campaigns that threaten U.S. national interests without engaging in armed conflict. A Joint Force that can deconflict, synchronize, and, ideally, integrate with broader USG efforts is necessary to support a comprehensive USG approach to counter such threats. (p. 3)

The JCC is adversary agnostic. Adversaries need not be great powers to compete against the United States. In addition to China and Russia, the United States has other adversaries (e.g., Iran, North Korea, and transregional violent extremist organizations) that operate in the competitive space and pursue strategic interests that threaten U.S. national interests. Complementary classified concepts will address Joint Force strategic competition against specific adversaries. (p. 3)

The analysis highlights the dangers in focusing on deterrence alone. It warns that:

Instead of viewing the strategic environment through the overly simplistic dichotomy of either warfighting during armed conflict or deterrence during peace, the Joint Force must actively identify sub-areas and domains where its activities can achieve strategic effects in support of national competitive strategies. The U.S. focus upon the military element of strategic competition places our nation in a challenging position where the United States risks being outsmarted, out-thought, out-innovated, and out-competed to the associated detriment of our strategic objectives. To continue the analogy, the Joint Force is not just in the “warfighting business”; it is in the “national security business.” The Joint Force may lack concepts and capabilities critical to succeeding strategically in the current competitive environment. The Joint Force must ask itself whether it is appropriately and adequately prepared and postured to help defend the United States from threats that do not require the Joint Force to engage in warfighting. (p. 18)

This central idea of the JCC recognizes the Joint Force can use military capabilities outside armed conflict to shift the focus of strategic competition into areas that favor U.S. interests or undermine an adversary's interests, while setting conditions for designated USG lead agencies to effectively prosecute U.S. strategic objectives. Shifting the focus will align U.S. strengths against adversaries’ vulnerabilities, identify vulnerabilities in our own competitive capabilities, and facilitate systematic, long-range, strategic competition planning, making the U.S. approach to strategic competition more efficient and effective. It will explicitly acknowledge and address the open-ended nature of strategic competition by extending planning horizons and taking actions to better enable the Joint Force to engage in strategic competition on an enduring basis.

Succeeding in strategic competition requires the Joint Force to expand its competitive mindset and its competitive approaches. A Joint Force with a competitive mindset will view strategic competition as a complex set of interactions in which the Joint Force contributes to broader USG efforts to gain influence, advantage, and leverage over other actors and ultimately to achieve favorable strategic outcomes. In conjunction with its interorganizational partners, the Joint Force can create competitive opportunities by using military capabilities to proactively probe adversary systems for vulnerabilities; establish behavioral patterns joint forces can exploit in a crisis to conceal U.S. intentions until it is too late to respond to them effectively; shift the competition to sub-areas in which the United States can exploit its advantages, leverage, and initiative; and attempt to divert adversaries’ attention and resources to sub-areas of secondary or tertiary importance to the United States. (p. 19)

A New Emphasis on Whole of Government Operations and a Realistic approach to Partners and Allies

Joint Concept for Competing also calls for another a critical change in U.S. strategy: it calls for a whole of government strategy that it is coupled to an emphasis on “diplomatic, economic, financial, information, legal, and intelligence” competition, and the need to deal with a full range of other considerations—including “socio-cultural, commercial industrial, technological, ideological-theological, and public health.” (p. 14)

The analysis briefly highlights the need for a new approach to integrating the operations of a redesigned Joint Force with the operations of civil agencies like State:

The Joint Force frequently equates interdependence with interagency support of military requirements, but interdependence and mutual support also include Joint Force support to interorganizational partners. For example, most USG departments and agencies do not have the resources of the Joint Force or the ability to operate effectively in remote, austere, and contested environments.

This places the Joint Force in a position where it must enable other organizations to achieve shared or complementary objectives. When directed, the Joint Force will provide interorganizational partners the area security, logistics, communications, engineering, and other support they traditionally require to operate effectively in such environments, reducing the need for the Joint Force to perform functions better accomplished by non-DoD organizations. As integrated campaigning matures in practice, the Joint Force may identify new ways for military forces and capabilities to support mission partners to make them more effective in the competitive space.

And, the sections on Operationalizing the Concept highlight the past failures in U.S. government efforts to integrate civil and military decisionmaking (p.35), the need for joint force interdependence with allied partners (p.36), and the reality that actually implementing the recommended strategy means that its required capabilities must guide joint force development and design (p. 36).

Moreover, the Concept analysis emphasizes the need to deal with allies and partners on realistic level, rather than either a rigidly self-seeking approach to strategy or some idealized picture of what other states should be:

The United States may also support allies and partners facing a military strategic risk even when the United States has only a peripheral interest at stake. Such supporting activities may be necessary to reaffirm the U.S. security commitment, avoid the supported actor seeking a new security arrangement with an adversary, secure U.S. access rights, and assure the supported actor's future contributions to multinational coalitions. (p, 29)

Getting the Theory Right without Really Addressing the Practice

At the same time, there are serious weaknesses in the document. One lies in the fact that it does not stress the need for a far more sophisticated approach to creating an integrated civil-military strategy than the United States now possesses.

Most U.S. planning still sharply separates State Department and Department of Defense activity. Recent wars like the conflict in Afghanistan have exposed the lack of an effective structure for integrating wartime planning and operations within the U.S. government, and the lack of a U.S. national security strategy that combines the efforts of the Department of Defense with the State Department and other elements of U.S. government. As the FY 2024 budget requests show, the two departments do not have anything approaching an integrated approach to developing a national security budget, security assistance efforts, or tying security assistance to the civil aspects of global competition.

Major problems also exist in coordinating the various elements of the Department of Defense and in its ability to effectively implement any form of a coherent strategy. Its programming, planning, and budget system has degenerated into a series of shopping lists for each military service and major defense agency. Its budget requests, at best, pay lip service to strategy, and its service-driven shopping lists have failed to create effective paths modernization, integrated joint operations, and effective planning for joint operations will partners in most areas of the world.

While the Joint Concept for Competing does examine some of the issues in integrating civil-military operations within the U.S government, it tacitly relies on a failed system that urgently needs reform (p. 15):

The President, assisted by the National Security Council (NSC), establishes desired national-level outcomes and objectives and integrates them into national-level competitive strategies. The JCS and CCDRs have the statutory responsibility to provide military advice to influence the identification, nomination, and prioritization of these outcomes and objectives.

The Annexes on Structured Approach for Strategic Competition Fails to Describe a Practical Approach to a Whole-of-Government Implementation

Unfortunately, the document ends by focusing far too much on theory, doctrine, and education—a general problem in almost all recent U.S. approaches to strategy. It does address the needed changes in U.S. force posture, alliances, and partnerships, the tangible aspect of modernization, and the need to reshape the Department’s planning, programming, or budgeting system.

Annex A on a Structured Approach for Strategic Competition (pp. 42–55) is a useful list of issues, but it does not address any practical short-term approach to implementing the new strategy.

Annex B on a Concept Required Capabilities (pp. 56–63) at least mentions the need to create a more effective structure in the Department of Defense to manage strategic competition and the existence of the planning, programming, and budgeting system. It then, however, presents another long list of analytic tasks rather than proposing a functional approach to implementation.

It also indicates that the authors never really studied the challenges in creating an integrated whole-of-government approach (p. 59):

Interagency integration mechanisms already exist to manage complex problems beyond the scope and reach of any single USG department or agency. A new mechanism for strategic competition, below the policy level of the NSC, should draw on the best practices of these other mechanisms to foster interagency cooperation in the arena of strategic competition.

A Defense Budget Request that Is All Shopping Lists and without any Meaningful Declared Future Defense Program Tied to a Clear Strategy

It is also striking that the Department of Defense’s summaries of the President’s FY 2024 defense budget request—which was issued a few weeks after Joint Concept for Competing—make no mention of the new approach to strategy. (See Press Release – Defense Budget and Budget Briefing at https://comptroller.defense.gov/Budget-Materials/). If anything, the new budget request summaries say even less about strategy than their predecessors.

These summaries also provide the chart shown below on the steady rises in current and planned defense spending between FY 2022 and FY 2024, which warn about the lack of any credible longer-term planning, programming, and budgeting effort. And the rising costs and constant shifts in projected annual spending shown in this graph omit the rises in cost of Veterans spending (one of the high cost entitlement programs), many intelligence costs, and the efforts of the State Department and other civil agencies that need to play a critical role in implementing a Joint Concept for Competing.

Image

Source: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller/Chief Financial Officer), United States Department of Defense Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Request (Department of Defense, March 2023), 3, https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/FY2024/F….

In fairness, Deputy Secretary Hicks, Vice Chairman Admiral Grady, Comptroller Michael J. McCord, and Vice Admiral Sara A. Joyner did at least mention strategy briefly in their later briefings on the FY 2024 defense budget request, but only to say that the budget followed the strategies set forth before the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued Joint Concept for Competing. They also focused almost exclusively on the warfighting threat posed by China. Deputy Secretary Hicks described the new budget request as follows:

[. . .] it's also the most strategy-aligned budget in history, consistent with the 2022 National Defense Strategy and the president's National Security Strategy. Nowhere is that alignment more pronounced than in the seriousness with which this budget treats strategic competition with the People's Republic of China. This budget delivers combat-credible joint forces that are the most lethal, resilient, survivable, agile and responsive in the world. It is a force aimed at deterring, and if called upon, defeating threats today and tomorrow, even as the threats themselves advance.

In practice, the “strategic alignment” in the new budget request consisted of a major increase in funding the U.S. warfighting effort against China, avoided dealing with Russia and the Ukraine, did not mention Iran and North Korea, and did not address Joint Concept for Competing in any way.

These are not credible approaches to real-world action on strategy, planning, and any aspect of budgeting.

Note: Joint Concept for Competing is downloadable at https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23698400/20230213-joint-concept-for-competing-signed.pdf.

Commentary is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

A Four-Decade Secret: One Man’s Story of Sabotaging Carter’s Re-election

A prominent Texas politician said he unwittingly took part in a 1980 tour of the Middle East with a clandestine agenda.

The New York Times · by Peter Baker · March 18, 2023

“History needs to know that this happened,” Ben Barnes now says of his trip to the Middle East in 1980. Credit...Christopher Lee for The New York Times

A prominent Texas politician said he unwittingly took part in a 1980 tour of the Middle East with a clandestine agenda.

“History needs to know that this happened,” Ben Barnes now says of his trip to the Middle East in 1980. Credit...Christopher Lee for The New York Times

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March 18, 2023Updated 7:22 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — It has been more than four decades, but Ben Barnes said he remembers it vividly. His longtime political mentor invited him on a mission to the Middle East. What Mr. Barnes said he did not realize until later was the real purpose of the mission: to sabotage the re-election campaign of the president of the United States.

It was 1980 and Jimmy Carter was in the White House, bedeviled by a hostage crisis in Iran that had paralyzed his presidency and hampered his effort to win a second term. Mr. Carter’s best chance for victory was to free the 52 Americans held captive before Election Day. That was something that Mr. Barnes said his mentor was determined to prevent.

His mentor was John B. Connally Jr., a titan of American politics and former Texas governor who had served three presidents and just lost his own bid for the White House. A former Democrat, Mr. Connally had sought the Republican nomination in 1980 only to be swamped by former Gov. Ronald Reagan of California. Now Mr. Connally resolved to help Mr. Reagan beat Mr. Carter and in the process, Mr. Barnes said, make his own case for becoming secretary of state or defense in a new administration.

The hostage crisis in Iran hampered Mr. Carter’s effort to win a second term.Credit...Associated Press

What happened next Mr. Barnes has largely kept secret for nearly 43 years. Mr. Connally, he said, took him to one Middle Eastern capital after another that summer, meeting with a host of regional leaders to deliver a blunt message to be passed to Iran: Don’t release the hostages before the election. Mr. Reagan will win and give you a better deal.

Then shortly after returning home, Mr. Barnes said, Mr. Connally reported to William J. Casey, the chairman of Mr. Reagan’s campaign and later director of the Central Intelligence Agency, briefing him about the trip in an airport lounge.

Mr. Carter’s camp has long suspected that Mr. Casey or someone else in Mr. Reagan’s orbit sought to secretly torpedo efforts to liberate the hostages before the election, and books have been written on what came to be called the October surprise. But congressional investigations debunked previous theories of what happened.

William J. Casey, left, went on to become the director of the Central Intelligence Agency during the Reagan administration.

Mr. Connally did not figure in those investigations. His involvement, as described by Mr. Barnes, adds a new understanding to what may have happened in that hard-fought, pivotal election year. With Mr. Carter now 98 and in hospice care, Mr. Barnes said he felt compelled to come forward to correct the record.

“History needs to know that this happened,” Mr. Barnes, who turns 85 next month, said in one of several interviews, his first with a news organization about the episode. “I think it’s so significant and I guess knowing that the end is near for President Carter put it on my mind more and more and more. I just feel like we’ve got to get it down some way.”

Mr. Barnes is no shady foreign arms dealer with questionable credibility, like some of the characters who fueled previous iterations of the October surprise theory. He was once one of the most prominent figures in Texas, the youngest speaker of the Texas House of Representatives and later lieutenant governor. He was such an influential figure that he helped a young George W. Bush get into the Texas Air National Guard rather than be exposed to the draft and sent to Vietnam. Lyndon B. Johnson predicted that Mr. Barnes would become president someday.

More on Iran

Hair as Resistance: Defiant resistance to Iran’s hijab law among Iranian women has exploded in the wake of the nationwide uprising triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini last year.
Iranians Return to Streets: Protests calling for an end to the Islamic Republic’s rule erupted once again across Iran after hundreds of schoolgirls were hospitalized for symptoms that some fear might have been caused by deliberate poisoning.
A Currency Crisis: The decline of Iran’s currency, which was fueled in part by years of Western sanctions, is adding to Iranians’ sense of despair and grievances against the government.
A Military Upgrade: Satellite images and details in a video that aired on Iran’s state media suggest the arrival of advanced Russian jets at an Iranian underground Air Force base.

Confirming Mr. Barnes’s account is problematic after so much time. Mr. Connally, Mr. Casey and other central figures have long since died and Mr. Barnes has no diaries or memos to corroborate his account. But he has no obvious reason to make up the story and indeed expressed trepidation at going public because of the reaction of fellow Democrats.

Mr. Barnes, right, with President Lyndon B. Johnson. Records at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin confirm part of Mr. Barnes’s story. Credit...via Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library

Mr. Barnes identified four living people he said he had confided in over the years: Mark K. Updegrove, president of the L.B.J. Foundation; Tom Johnson, a former aide to Lyndon Johnson (no relation) who later became publisher of the Los Angeles Times and president of CNN; Larry Temple, a former aide to Mr. Connally and Lyndon Johnson; and H.W. Brands, a University of Texas historian.

All four of them confirmed in recent days that Mr. Barnes shared the story with them years ago. “As far as I know, Ben never has lied to me,” Tom Johnson said, a sentiment the others echoed. Mr. Brands included three paragraphs about Mr. Barnes’s recollections in a 2015 biography of Mr. Reagan, but the account generated little public notice at the time.

Records at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum confirm part of Mr. Barnes’s story. An itinerary found this past week in Mr. Connally’s files indicated that he did, in fact, leave Houston on July 18, 1980, for a trip that would take him to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel before returning to Houston on Aug. 11. Mr. Barnes was listed as accompanying him.

Brief news accounts at the time reported on some of Mr. Connally’s stops with scant detail, describing the trip as “strictly private.” An intriguing note in Mr. Connally’s file confirms Mr. Barnes’s memory that there was contact with the Reagan camp early in the trip. Under the heading “Governor Reagan,” a note from an assistant reported to Mr. Connally on July 21: “Nancy Reagan called — they are at Ranch he wants to talk to you about being in on strategy meetings.” There was no record of his response.

Mr. Barnes recalled joining Mr. Connally in early September to sit down with Mr. Casey to report on their trip during a three-hour meeting in the American Airlines lounge at what was then called the Dallas/Fort Worth Regional Airport. An entry in Mr. Connally’s calendar found this past week showed that he traveled to Dallas on Sept. 10. A search of Mr. Casey’s archives at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University turned up no documents indicating whether he was in Dallas then or not.

Mr. Barnes said he was certain the point of Mr. Connally’s trip was to get a message to the Iranians to hold the hostages until after the election. “I’ll go to my grave believing that it was the purpose of the trip,” he said. “It wasn’t freelancing because Casey was so interested in hearing as soon as we got back to the United States.” Mr. Casey, he added, wanted to know whether “they were going to hold the hostages.”

None of that establishes whether Mr. Reagan knew about the trip, nor could Mr. Barnes say that Mr. Casey directed Mr. Connally to take the journey. Likewise, he does not know if the message transmitted to multiple Middle Eastern leaders got to the Iranians, much less whether it influenced their decision making. But Iran did hold the hostages until after the election, which Mr. Reagan won, and did not release them until minutes after noon on Jan. 20, 1981, when Mr. Carter left office.

Iran released the American hostages minutes after Mr. Carter left office at noon on Jan. 20, 1981.Credit...Associated Press

John B. Connally III, the former governor’s eldest son, said in an interview on Friday that he remembered his father taking the Middle East trip but never heard about any message to Iran. While he did not join the trip, the younger Mr. Connally said he accompanied his father to a meeting with Mr. Reagan to discuss it without Mr. Barnes and the conversation centered on the Arab-Israeli conflict and other issues the next president would confront.

“No mention was made in any meeting I was in about any message being sent to the Iranians,” said Mr. Connally. “It doesn’t sound like my dad.” He added: “I can’t challenge Ben’s memory about it, but it’s not consistent with my memory of the trip.”

Suspicions about the Reagan camp’s interactions with Iran circulated quietly for years until Gary Sick, a former national security aide to Mr. Carter, published a guest essay in The New York Times in April 1991 advancing the theory, followed by a book, “October Surprise,” published that November.

The term “October surprise” was originally used by the Reagan camp to describe its fears that Mr. Carter would manipulate the hostage crisis to effect a release just before the election.

To forestall such a scenario, Mr. Casey was alleged to have met with representatives of Iran in July and August 1980 in Madrid leading to a deal supposedly finalized in Paris in October in which a future Reagan administration would ship arms to Tehran through Israel in exchange for the hostages being held until after the election.

Mr. Reagan welcomed Bruce Laingen, a former hostage in Iran, to the White House in January 1981. Mr. Laingen and 51 other Americans had been held for 444 days in Tehran.Credit...Associated Press

The House and Senate separately authorized investigations and both ultimately rejected the claims. The bipartisan House task force, led by a Democrat, Representative Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana, and controlled by Democrats 8 to 5, concluded in a consensus 968-page report that Mr. Casey was not in Madrid at the time and that stories of covert dealings were not backed by credible testimony, documents or intelligence reports.

Still, a White House memo produced in November 1991 by a lawyer for President George H.W. Bush reported the existence of “a cable from the Madrid embassy indicating that Bill Casey was in town, for purposes unknown.” That memo was not turned over to Mr. Hamilton’s task force and was discovered two decades later by Robert Parry, a journalist who helped produce a “Frontline” documentary on the October surprise.

Reached by telephone this past week, Mr. Sick said he never heard of any involvement by Mr. Connally but saw Mr. Barnes’s account as verifying the broad concerns he had raised. “This is really very interesting and it really does add significantly to the base level of information on this,” Mr. Sick said. “Just the fact that he was doing it and debriefed Casey when he got back means a lot.” The story goes “further than anything that I’ve seen thus far,” he added. “So this is really new.”

Michael F. Zeldin, a Democratic lawyer for the task force, and David H. Laufman, a Republican lawyer for the task force, both said in recent interviews that Mr. Connally never crossed their radar screen during the inquiry and so they had no basis to judge Mr. Barnes’s account.

While Mr. Casey was never proved to have been engaged in any October surprise deal-making, he was later accused of surreptitiously obtaining a Carter campaign briefing book before the lone debate between the two candidates, although he denied involvement.

Mr. Carter meeting with Gary Sick, a national security aide, in the Oval Office. Mr. Sick advanced a theory after Mr. Carter’s loss that a Reagan ally had brokered a deal with Iran for the hostages’ post-election release in exchange for arms.Credit...Associated Press

News of Mr. Barnes’s account came as validation to some of Mr. Carter’s remaining advisers. Gerald Rafshoon, who was his White House communications director, said any interference may have changed history. “If we had gotten the hostages home, we’d have won, I really believe that,” he said. “It’s pretty damn outrageous.”

Mr. Connally was a political giant of his era. Raised on a South Texas cotton farm, he served in the Navy in World War II and became a confidant of Lyndon B. Johnson, helping run five of his campaigns, including his disputed 1948 election to the Senate that was marred by credible allegations of fraud. Mr. Connally managed Mr. Johnson’s unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960, then worked for the ticket of John F. Kennedy and Mr. Johnson. Mr. Connally was rewarded with an appointment as secretary of the Navy. He then won a race for governor of Texas in 1962.

He was in the presidential limousine sitting just in front of Mr. Kennedy in Dallas in November 1963 when Lee Harvey Oswald opened fire. Mr. Connally suffered injuries to his back, chest, wrist and thigh, but unlike Mr. Kennedy survived the ordeal. He won two more terms as governor, then became President Richard M. Nixon’s secretary of the Treasury and ultimately switched parties. He was a favorite of Mr. Nixon, who wanted to make him his vice president or successor as president.

Mr. Connally was indicted on charges of perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice in 1974, accused by prosecutors of taking $10,000 to support a milk price increase, but acquitted by a jury.

Along the way, Mr. Connally found a political protégé in Mr. Barnes, who became “more a godson than a friend,” as James Reston Jr. put it in “The Lone Star,” his biography of Mr. Connally. The son of a peanut farmer who paid for college selling vacuum cleaners door to door, Mr. Barnes was elected to the Texas Legislature at age 21 and stood at Mr. Connally’s side for his first speech as a candidate for governor in 1962.

Mr. Barnes said he and John B. Connally Jr. met with leaders across the Middle East — though not Iran — to thwart the release of the hostages until after the presidential election.Credit...Associated Press

With Mr. Connally’s help, Mr. Barnes became House speaker at 26 and was later elected lieutenant governor, a powerful position in Texas, only to fall short in his own bid for governor in 1972. He urged Mr. Connally to run for president in 1980 even though by then they were in different parties.

After Mr. Connally’s campaign collapsed, he and Mr. Barnes went into business together, forming Barnes/Connally Investments. The two built apartment complexes, shopping centers and office buildings, and bought a commuter airline and an oil company, and later a barbecue house, a Western art magazine, a title company and an advertising company. But they overextended themselves, took on too much debt and, after falling oil prices shattered the Texas real estate market, filed for bankruptcy in 1987.

The two stayed on good terms. “In spite of the disillusionment of our business arrangements, Ben Barnes and I remain friends, although I doubt that either of us would go back into business with the other,” Mr. Connally wrote in his memoir, “In History’s Shadow,” shortly before dying in 1993 at age 76. Mr. Barnes, for his part, said this past week that “I remain a great fan of him.”

Mr. Barnes said he had no idea of the purpose of the Middle East trip when Mr. Connally invited him. They traveled to the region on a Gulfstream jet owned by Superior Oil. Only when they sat down with the first Arab leader did Mr. Barnes learn what Mr. Connally was up to, he said.

Mr. Connally said, “‘Look, Ronald Reagan’s going to be elected president and you need to get the word to Iran that they’re going to make a better deal with Reagan than they are Carter,’” Mr. Barnes recalled. “He said, ‘It would be very smart for you to pass the word to the Iranians to wait until after this general election is over.’ And boy, I tell you, I’m sitting there and I heard it and so now it dawns on me, I realize why we’re there.”

Mr. Barnes said that, except for Israel, Mr. Connally repeated the same message at every stop in the region to leaders such as President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt. He thought his friend’s motive was clear. “It became very clear to me that Connally was running for secretary of state or secretary of defense,” Mr. Barnes said. (Mr. Connally was later offered energy secretary but declined.)

From left, Mr. Barnes, Mr. Connally and President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt. Mr. Barnes said Mr. Connally promoted Mr. Reagan to every leader they met on their trip.Credit...via Ben Barnes

Mr. Barnes said he did not reveal the real story at the time to avoid blowback from his own party. “I don’t want to look like Benedict Arnold to the Democratic Party by participating in this,” he recalled explaining to a friend. The headlines at the time, he imagined, would have been scandalous. “I did not want that to be on my obituary at all.”

But as the years have passed, he said, he has often thought an injustice had been done to Mr. Carter. Discussing the trip now, he indicated, was his way of making amends. “I just want history to reflect that Carter got a little bit of a bad deal about the hostages,” he said. “He didn’t have a fighting chance with those hostages still in the embassy in Iran.”

The New York Times · by Peter Baker · March 18, 2023

3. How a Problem-Solving Course Could Help Rebuild Trust in the US Military

Credit to Chris Taylor for having the vision and initiative to originally bring Hacking 4 Defense from Stanford to Georgetown.

How a Problem-Solving Course Could Help Rebuild Trust in the US Military

Let’s expand the Hacking 4 Defense program, which already helps hundreds of college students engage fruitfully with national-security problems.

By ALEX GALLO and TOM NELSON

MARCH 18, 2023 07:00 AM ET

defenseone.com · by Alex Gallo

As the Pentagon works to recover from its worst-ever recruiting year, it should broaden its efforts to increase Americans’ familiarity and trust with the U.S. military. One way it might do so is to bring its Hacking 4 Defense course to more universities and even high schools.

The Army has struggled the most, missing its goal by 15,000 recruits, but all the services are hindered by a general lack of trust in our government. Last year, only two in 10 Americans said they trust Washington to do what is right. Distrust is also bleeding into the military, according to a 2022 Reagan National Defense Survey. It suggested that perceptions of a politicized military led to a decrease in confidence in the institution.

Hacking 4 Defense—H4D for short—was founded in 2016 to make national security both attractive and real to a new generation through hands-on problem-solving. Launched at Stanford University and expanded to many other colleges, the course challenges teams of university students to find innovative and entrepreneurial ways to solve the Pentagon’s hardest problems. This engagement boosts familiarity, and, ultimately, trust among some of America’s best and brightest young people. In our own work as H4D professors, we have watched our students join the military, start mission-oriented companies and non-profits, and pursue public-service careers in other federal, state, and local agencies. Wherever they wind up, they become part of a cadre of skilled innovators who bring uninhibited creativity and an acceptance of risk that is missing in traditional government culture.

So far, the H4D program has been offered at 60 colleges around the United States and has expanded to include many universities in the United Kingdom and Australia. Now the Pentagon and Congress should work together to bring H4D to an even more diverse set of universities, including community colleges, trade schools, historically black colleges and universities, and other minority-serving institutions. Tapping into broad experiences, perceptions, and education will expand America’s capacity to solve critical problems across the board.

The program should also be configured for high schools. Bringing critical public problems to students allows them to see their own reflection in America’s future and its success. Along with traditional JROTC programs, the program adds another path toward familiarity with the military.

H4D could even be adapted to address broader, cross-sectoral problems across our country and society. From national security to natural disasters, energy, and the environment, our country needs all the innovative ideas and thoughtful problem-solving it can get. Common Mission Project, the nonprofit that delivers and expands Hacking 4 Defense, also offers Hacking 4 Diplomacy, Hacking for Climate and Sustainability, Hacking for Oceans and the Environment, Hacking for Local, and Hacking for Homeland Security. The opportunities for next-generation engagement and trust-building are limitless.

To achieve these changes, the U.S. government should develop a national strategy for innovation and entrepreneurship with H4D as its model. The president, working with Congress, should also commit multi-year resources to such a national effort. And to capture the talent in these “Hacking for” programs, the U.S. government should develop talent pipelines directly into public service—to include developing a National Security Innovation Base visa program recommended by the Reagan Institute at their recent National Security Innovation Base Summit.

No single effort can solve our talent crisis. But expanding H4D and making it a model for a modern form of national service could be a decisive step towards effectively competing as a nation in the 21st century.

Tom Nelson teaches Hacking for Defense in Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program. He also serves as CoS at BMNT Inc and is on the advisory board of the non-profit Common Mission Project. He is a retired Army colonel with 24 years of service.

Alex Gallo teaches Hacking for Defense in Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program, and he serves as the executive director of the non-profit Common Mission Project, which delivers Hacking for Defense in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Alex is also a fellow with the National Security Institute at George Mason University.

defenseone.com · by Alex Gallo

4. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 18, 2023

Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-18-2023

Key Takeaways

Russian forces targeted Ukraine with 16 Shahed-136 drones overnight on March 17-18.
Russian President Vladimir Putin continued his crackdown against anti-war dissent and misappropriation of military assets within Russia.
Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin is likely attempting to set informational conditions for the Wagner Group’s culmination around Bakhmut.
Russian regional authorities may be severing their connections with Prigozhin.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova reiterated that the Kremlin has not abandoned its maximalist goals in Ukraine.
BBC and Russian opposition news outlet Mediazona estimated that Russian forces have suffered at least 35,000 total deaths and 157,000 total casualties.
Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line.
Russian forces continued offensive operations in and around Bakhmut and on the outskirts of Donetsk City.
Russian forces continue to erect defensive fortifications along ground lines of communication (GLOCs) in and near occupied Crimea.
Conventional Russian authorities and the Wagner Group continue to invest significant resources in efforts to involve youth in the war effort and ready them mentally and physically for military service.
Russian occupation authorities continue efforts russify Ukrainians in occupied territories.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MARCH 18, 2023

Mar 18, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 18, 2023

Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, Angela Howard, Kateryna Stepanenko, and Frederick W. Kagan

March 18, 7:15 pm ET

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

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

Russian forces targeted Ukraine with 16 Shahed-136 drones overnight on March 17-18. Ukrainian Air Force Spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat stated that Ukrainian forces shot down 11 of the 16 drones and noted that it is difficult for Ukrainian mobile fire groups to shoot down drones at night due to the lack of visibility.[1] The drones targeted facilities in Kyiv, Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Lviv oblasts, reportedly including a Ukrainian fuel warehouse in Novomoskovsk, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.[2] Russian sources claimed that Russian drone strikes also targeted Kyiv Thermal Power Plant 5, which Russian forces reportedly targeted in a strike campaign on March 9.[3]

Russian President Vladimir Putin continued his campaign against anti-war dissent and the misappropriation of military assets within Russia. Putin signed two bills into law on March 18 that significantly increase the fines and jail time for discrediting Russian forces in Ukraine and for selling Russian arms to foreign actors.[4] Russian sources reported that Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) personnel detained over 40 people in raids against two Moscow bars for suspicion of financing Ukrainian forces and made patrons participate in pro-war activities on March 17.[5] Russian sources have increasingly reported on FSB detaining Russian civilians under suspicion of financially assisting Ukrainian forces since February 28 after Putin instructed the FSB to intensify counterintelligence measures and crackdown against the spread of pro-Ukrainian ideology.[6]

Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigohzin is likely attempting to set informational conditions to explain the Wagner Group’s culmination around Bakhmut. Prigozhin-affiliated outlet RIA FAN published an interview with Prigozhin on March 17 in which he asserted that Ukrainian forces are preparing to launch counteroffensives in five separate directions: into Belgorod Oblast, in the Kreminna area, in the Bakhmut area, towards Donetsk City, and in Zaporizhia Oblast.[7] Prigozhin stated that Ukrainian forces will launch these operations starting in mid-April and urged Russian forces to prepare for these counteroffensives by preserving ammunition and equipment.[8] Prigozhin likely depicted Ukrainian forces as having enough combat power to launch a massive theater-wide counteroffensive to justify the Wagner Group’s inability to complete an envelopment or encirclement of Bakhmut. Prigozhin stated that Ukrainian forces are preparing to counterattack Wagner’s flanks in the Bakhmut area and that Wagner fighters are preparing for these counterattacks.[9] ISW previously assessed that Wagner fighters are likely conducting opportunistic attacks on easier-to-seize settlements further north and northwest of Bakhmut as their ability to make tactical gains in Bakhmut itself diminishes, and Prigozhin likely seeks to frame these activities as securing flanks in preparation for Ukrainian counteroffensives.[10] A prominent Wagner-affiliated milblogger similarly argued that Wagner fighters are conducting offensive operations northwest of Bakhmut to spoil Ukrainian counterattacks and asserted that Wagner fighters are focused on advancing towards the Siverskyi Donets Canal west of Bakhmut to complete the envelopment of the city.[11] The milblogger likely tried to rationalize the Wagner Group’s failure to envelop Bakhmut by setting the necessary conditions for the envelopment further away and farther out of the Wagner Group’s current operational capabilities. Prigozhin also claimed that Ukrainian forces have at least 19,000 personnel deployed within Bakhmut, likely an attempt to justify Wagner’s lack of progress within the city.[12]

Prigozhin may be implying that the overall Russian offensive in Ukraine is nearing culmination by calling for Russian forces to preserve resources for Ukrainian counteroffensives. Prigozhin’s forecast about five separate Ukrainian counteroffensives is mirror-imaging—Russian forces have specialized in conducting multiple simultaneous advances along diverging axes that are not mutually supporting, which is one of the reasons for Russian failures in the war so far. Prigozhin may have forecasted a Ukrainian counteroffensive in five directions to amplify the relevance of his calls for Russian forces to preserve ammunition and equipment and out of concerns that widespread ammunition and equipment shortages are constraining the Wagner Group’s and the Russian military’s ability to maintain offensive operations in Ukraine. Prigozhin’s depiction of imminent Ukrainian counteroffensives also implies that he believes that Russian forces will lose the initiative to Ukraine soon and be forced onto the defensive rather than continuing stalled or unsuccessful offensives in the Kreminna, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, or Vuhledar areas.

Russian regional authorities may be severing their connections with Prigozhin. Prigozhin claimed that the Goryachiy Klyuch, Krasnodar Krai authorities reneged on a prior agreement to bury Wagner Group deceased mercenaries in the town.[13] Goryachiy Klyuch Head Sergey Belopolskyi claimed that locals do not think that the resort town Goryachiy Klyuch is an appropriate place to bury Wagner fighters.[14] Prigozhin also released a phone call in which a Goryachiy Klyuch official told a Wagner representative that Krasnodar Krai Governor Veniamin Kondratyev stripped him of authority to cooperate with Wagner.[15] Wagner servicemen also released a threatening video appeal to the local administration claiming that they will “personally solve the issue” with the administration if they do not respond to the appeals.[16] The Wagner Group has used training and burial grounds in Krasnodar Krai in the past, indicating that Prigozhin likely has extensive, long-term connections to regional authorities that may now be weakening.[17] Prigozhin previously fought with St. Petersburg officials over their refusal to bury deceased Wagner mercenaries in the same burial ground as conventional Russian soldiers, as ISW has previously reported.[18]

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova reiterated on March 18 that the Kremlin has not abandoned its maximalist goals in Ukraine. Zakharova stated that Russia is ready to hear Western and Ukrainian proposals for the diplomatic settlement of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but noted that the West will need to remove all sanctions and lawsuits from Russia.[19] Zakharova continued to reject Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s conditions for peace talks by noting that the removal of Russian forces from occupied Ukrainian territories, reparation obligations, and attendance at international tribunals are “unrelated” to the establishment of peace in Ukraine. Zakharova instead claimed that peace in Ukraine depends on the West ceasing its weapon deliveries to Ukraine, the international recognition “of new territorial realities,” and the demilitarization and “denazification” of Ukraine. Zakharova's demands mirror Russian President Vladimir Putin’s maximalist objectives announced on February 24, 2022, and are a continuation of the Kremlin's ongoing information operation to prompt the West to offer preemptive concessions and coerce Ukraine into negotiations on conditions more favorable to Russia.[20]

BBC and Russian opposition news outlet Mediazona reported on March 17 that Russian forces (excluding Donetsk People’s Republic [DNR] and Luhansk People’s Republic [LNR] militiamen) have suffered a confirmed 17,375 deaths, a conservative estimate of 35,000 total deaths, and 157,000 casualties. BBC claimed that total pro-Russia forces’ casualties may exceed 211,500 people. BBC noted that 1,304 of the dead it has confirmed perished within the past two weeks, indicating that recent casualties are significantly higher than the 2022 average. The majority of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine reportedly come from outside of Russia’s major urban centers. Moscow—which comprises 9% of the entire Russian population—has suffered only 107 confirmed deaths while Krasnodar Krai has suffered 714, Sverdlovsk Oblast has suffered 664, and Buryatia has suffered 567.[21]

Key Takeaways

Russian forces targeted Ukraine with 16 Shahed-136 drones overnight on March 17-18.
Russian President Vladimir Putin continued his crackdown against anti-war dissent and misappropriation of military assets within Russia.
Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin is likely attempting to set informational conditions for the Wagner Group’s culmination around Bakhmut.
Russian regional authorities may be severing their connections with Prigozhin.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova reiterated that the Kremlin has not abandoned its maximalist goals in Ukraine.
BBC and Russian opposition news outlet Mediazona estimated that Russian forces have suffered at least 35,000 total deaths and 157,000 total casualties.
Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line.
Russian forces continued offensive operations in and around Bakhmut and on the outskirts of Donetsk City.
Russian forces continue to erect defensive fortifications along ground lines of communication (GLOCs) in and near occupied Crimea.
Conventional Russian authorities and the Wagner Group continue to invest significant resources in efforts to involve youth in the war effort and ready them mentally and physically for military service.
Russian occupation authorities continue efforts russify Ukrainians in occupied territories.

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

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

Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1— Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and continue offensive operations into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on March 18. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful ground attacks near Dibrova (6km southwest of Kreminna) and Hryhorivka (9km south of Kreminna).[22] Russian sources continued to claim on March 18 that Russian forces advanced west of Hryanykivka (17km northeast of Kupyansk) and that Ukrainian forces withdrew to the west bank of the Oskil River, but ISW is unable to verify these claims.[23] Commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces Colonel General Oleksandr Syrsky reported on March 17 that Russian forces are attempting to advance along the entire eastern front and that the fiercest battles are occurring near Torske (14km west of Kreminna), Kreminna, Bilohorivka (12km south of Kreminna), and Spirne (25km south of Kreminna).[24] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces made marginal territorial gains near Ploshchanka (16km northwest of Kreminna) and in the Serebrianska forest area (roughly 11km south of Kreminna).[25] A Russian source also claimed that Russian forces conducted ground attacks near Makiivka (22km northwest of Kreminna) and Terny (17km west of Kreminna).[26]

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

Russian forces continued offensive operations in and around Bakhmut on March 18. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian offensive operations near Bakhmut, within 11km northwest of Bakhmut near Orikhovo-Vasylikva and Hryhorivka, and within 6km southwest of Bakhmut near Ivanivske and Klishchiivka.[27] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces also conducted assaults near Khromove (2km west of Bakhmut) and Bohdanivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut).[28] The Ukrainian General Staff specified that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults in the northern part of Bakhmut, likely suggesting that Russian forces are concentrating offensive operations on the northern part of the city.[29] Russian milbloggers claimed that Wagner Group fighters captured unspecified industrial facilities in the AZOM complex in northern Bakhmut and have cleared most of the complex of Ukrainian forces.[30] ISW has not observed any visual confirmation that Russian forces have advanced into the territory of the AZOM complex. Russian milbloggers claimed that Wagner fighters continued assaults in the southern and southwestern parts of Bakhmut, and Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that Wagner fighters hold positions within 600 to 700 meters of the Bakhmut Administrative Center.[31] A Russian milblogger claimed that Wagner fighters secured positions on the west (left) bank of the Bakhmutka River near Bakhmut’s central market area, although ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claims.[32] A Russian source claimed that Wagner fighters control 70 percent of Bakhmut as of March 18.[33] ISW assessed that Russian forces occupied roughly 50 percent of Bakhmut as of March 8, and ISW has not observed a pace of advance since then that corresponds with this significantly higher claim about Wagner’s control over Bakhmut.[34] Russian milbloggers claimed that Wagner fighters also advanced near Kurdyumivka (13km southwest of Bakhmut).[35]

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the outskirts of Donetsk City on March 18. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Avdiivka, Kamianka (5km northeast of Avdiivka), and within 27km southwest of Avdiivka near Nevelske, Sieverne, Pervomaiske, and Marinka.[36] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces also conducted assaults on Vodyane (8km southwest of Avdiivka).[37]

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

Russian forces continued to conduct routine fire west of Hulyaipole and in Kherson and Mykolaiv oblasts on March 18.[38] Head of the Ukrainian Joint Coordination Press Center of the Southern Forces Nataliya Humenyuk reported that Russian forces decreased their rate of artillery fire across the Dnipro River. Humenyuk also stated that Russian forces must constantly change positions in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast due to Ukrainian artillery fire.[39]

Russian forces continue to erect defensive fortifications along ground lines of communication (GLOCs) in and near occupied Crimea.[40] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces are building fortifications between Ishun and Voinka in northern Crimea, and social media footage shows large piles of wooden pallets reportedly near the Chatarluk River bridge between Ishun and Vorontsivka on the N05 Armiansk-Dzhankoy-Simferopol highway.[41] A Ukrainian source posted images of piles of timber and stated that Russian forces are using the timber to construct trenches and other fortifications in Chonhar, Kherson Oblast (4km from the Kherson Oblast-Crimean administrative border on the M-18 Melitopol-Dzhankoy highway).[42]

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

Conventional Russian authorities and the Wagner Group continue to invest significant resources to involve youth in the war effort and mentally and physically prepare them for military service. Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin on March 18 responded to a question about Wagner recruitment centers in youth sports clubs, stating that he plans to recruit 30,000 new mercenaries by mid-May of 2023. Prigozhin claimed the Wagner Group currently recruits about 500-800 mercenaries each day, though Prigozhin did not specify what share of that comes from sports club recruitment centers.[43] Independent Russian news outlet Verstka assessed on March 17 that authorities of at least 16 Russian federal subjects have spent close to 200 million rubles (about $2.598 million) on tenders for youth military, patriotic, and historical training camps. Verstka’s identified list of camps aims to teach over 19,770 students of various ages skills including shooting, throwing hand grenades, and marching. They also appear to feature a strong ideological indoctrination component.[44]

A Russian milblogger claimed on March 18 that Russian soldiers and volunteers who order electronics for drone assembly from China regularly encounter delays or losses of certain components while the shipments pass through Russian customs.[45] Such delays and component disappearances may result either from major inefficiencies and corruption in the Russian customs system or from intentional government confiscation of valuable electronic components.

Russian authorities continue efforts to increase force generation capacity without resorting to a formal expansion of mobilization. A major Russian news portal claimed on March 18 that Ufa, Republic of Bashkortostan created the “Vatan” volunteer battalion and has already recruited 80 members.[46] Russian authorities ceased major recruitment calls for existing volunteer battalions in September 2022 with the start of involuntary mobilization after forming volunteer battalions in summer 2022.[47] The creation of the Vatan battalion may indicate a Russian effort to resuscitate volunteer battalions as an alternative to intensifying mobilization efforts. Russian authorities also continue to launch nationwide recruitment drives to attract contract soldiers.[48] Some Russian sources report that Russian authorities are pressuring or tricking men (especially reservists) to sign military contracts, including by calling them into military commissariats to verify their information.[49]

The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (UK MoD) reported on March 18 that the Russian State Duma introduced a bill to change the age bracket for conscription of men to ages 21-30 from the present bracket of ages 18-27. The raised age maximum for conscription will likely allow Russian authorities to conscript a broader pool of Russians due to the split of Russian demographics. The reasoning for raising the minimum conscription age is unclear. The UK MoD assessed that this change would allow Russian authorities to ensure that Russian students (who usually claim exemptions while studying from ages 18-21) will serve in the Russian Armed Forces.[50] This change in the conscription ages is unlikely to have any impact on Russian force generation capacity in the near future, however. The UK MoD stated that this bill will likely pass and come into force in January 2024.[51]

The Ukrainian General Staff claimed on March 18 that Russian occupation authorities in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts announced the start of large-scale military exercises involving the entire male conscript population in several cities to obscure mobilization within those cities.[52]

Russian officials continue to respond inconsistently to complaint videos from units of mobilized soldiers. Russian news source Ostorozhno Novosti reported on March 17 that Russian authorities punished a platoon of mobilized soldiers from Kaliningrad within Russia’s 1004th regiment—which gained notoriety when a video of its soldiers arguing with their commander about their subordination to the Donetsk People’s Republic’s (DNR) forces went viral—by disbanding the platoon.[53] A local Tyumen Oblast news source reported on March 17 that Tyumen Oblast authorities responded to a video complaint from the “Wolverine” battalion of mobilized soldiers from Tymen Oblast by deflecting responsibility for the soldiers’ concerns onto the Russian MoD.[54] A prominent Russian news aggregator claimed on March 18 that Irkutsk Oblast Governor Igor Kobzev personally met with soldiers of the 1439th regiment—mobilized soldiers from Irkutsk Oblast who have recorded several video complaints, on which ISW has previously reported—to prove that the unit has not been destroyed, despite such rumors.[55] Kobzev reportedly stated that he would ensure that unspecified authorities would assign representatives to address the soldiers’ concerns.[56]

Russian officials continue to crack down on all potential domestic signs of resistance to the war in Ukraine. Two Russian news sources reported on March 18 that the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia replaced its vice-rector for student affairs after he defended the extension of the university’s mission to unite people of different nationalities to include Ukrainians and claimed that the university needs to support Ukrainian students in Russia.[57] A Russian opposition news source reported on March 17 that Russian authorities arrested a 16-year-old student from Saint Petersburg for a failed arson attack on a military recruitment center in Kirovsk, Murmansk Oblast.[58]

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

Russian occupation authorities continue efforts russify Ukrainians in occupied territories. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on March 18 that supports the immediate formal revocation of Ukrainian citizenship when a Russian/Ukrainian dual citizen submits an application to renounce their Ukrainian citizenship.[59] The Ukrainian General Staff stated on March 18 that Russian authorities in occupied Rubizhne, Luhansk Oblast are forcing residents to obtain Russian citizenship and passports in order to gain employment. Occupation authorities in Rubizhne reportedly have not confiscated residents’ Ukrainian passports.[60]

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Crimea on March 18 to celebrate the 9th anniversary of the Russian occupation of Crimea. Putin met with schoolchildren and visited a Crimean children’s camp on March 18, one day after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest for committing alleged war crimes involving the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.[61]

Russian occupation authorities continue to confiscate grain from occupied Ukrainian territories. Ukrainian Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast Mayoral Advisor Petro Andryushchenko stated on March 18 that Russian civilians and Russian trucks carrying Ukrainian wheat are leaving for Russia from occupied territories.[62] Andryushchenko also posted a video showing an alleged 20 tons of Ukrainian wheat dumped on the road from Mariupol to Sopyne (less than 15km east of Mariupol).[63] The reason for the waste of this wheat is unclear.

Significant activity in Belarus (ISW assesses that a Russian or Belarusian attack into northern Ukraine in early 2023 is extraordinarily unlikely and has thus restructured this section of the update. It will no longer include counter-indicators for such an offensive.

ISW will continue to report daily observed Russian and Belarusian military activity in Belarus, but these are not indicators that Russian and Belarusian forces are preparing for an imminent attack on Ukraine from Belarus. ISW will revise this text and its assessment if it observes any unambiguous indicators that Russia or Belarus is preparing to attack northern Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone discussion with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on March 17.[64] The Kremlin stated that Putin and Lukashenko discussed bilateral trade and economic cooperation, preparations for the meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State scheduled on an unspecified date in April, and the creation of international transport corridors.[65] ISW assesses that Belarus is likely aiding Russia in sanctions evasion schemes and it is likely that Putin and Lukashenko discussed these efforts.[66]

Belarusian open-source investigative group the Hajun Project reported on March 17 that satellite images suggest that 1,000 Russian mobilized personnel have likely left the Obuz-Liasnouski training ground in Brest Oblast.[67] Satellite imagery shows a tent camp of Russian mobilized personnel at the training ground decreasing roughly in half between February and March, and the Hajun Project assessed that the decrease in tents represented roughly 1,000 Russian military personnel.[68] The Russian military likely deployed the trained mobilized personnel to Ukraine and will likely rotate in new Russian personnel for training at the Belarusian training ground.

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

[1] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2023/03/18/11-z-16-vorozhyh-droniv-kamikadze-shahed-znyshheno-cziyeyi-nochi-yurij-ignat/

[2] https://t.me/kommunist/16434 ; https://t.me/readovkanews/54939 ; https://t.me/readovkanews/54942; https://t.me/rybar/44776; https://t.me/rybar/44766; https://t.me/voenkorKotenok/46175 ; https://t.me/m0sc0wcalling/21423; https://t.me/miroshnik_r/10798; https://t.me/readovkanews/54948; https://t.me/rybar/44770; https://t.me/z_arhiv/19683 ; https://t.me/z_arhiv/19681; https://t.me/dnipropetrovskaODA/3665; https://twitter.com/Cosmonaut19/status/1637025326047068161 ; https://twitter.com/hochu_dodomu/status/1636996929212096512; https://t.... https://t.me/z_arhiv/19676 ; https://t.me/z_arhiv/19670; https://t.me/readovkanews/54936 ; https://t.me/readovkanews/54946

[3] https://t.me/readovkanews/54936 ; https://t.me/readovkanews/54946; https://t.me/z_arhiv/19668; https://t... https://t.me/sashakots/38785

[4] https://ria dot ru/20233018/spetsoperatsiya-1858772656.html ; https://t.me/readovkanews/54963; https://t.me/tass_agency/184773 ; https://novayagazeta dot eu/articles/2023/03/18/putin-podpisal-zakonoproekt-o-lishenii-svobody-do-15-let-za-feiki-pro-dobrovoltsev-news; https://t.me/readovkanews/54970

[5] https://t.me/sotaproject/55566; https://meduza dot io/news/2023/03/17/v-moskve-politsiya-prishla-s-proverkoy-v-bary-underdog-i-la-virgen-posetitelyam-ugrozhali-shokerami-i-zastavlyali-podpevat-lyube; https://meduza dot io/news/2023/03/17/v-moskve-politsiya-prishla-s-proverkoy-v-bary-underdog-i-la-virgen-posetitelyam-ugrozhali-shokerami-i-zastavlyali-podpevat-lyube

[6] http://en.kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/70597; https://t.me/readovkanews/54569; https://meduza dot io/news/2023/03/13/fsb-obvinila-aktivistku-dvizheniya-yamyfurgal-v-finansirovanii-vsu; https://t.me/rybar/44561; https://t.me/kommunist/16365; https://t.... https://meduza dot io/news/2023/03/04/fsb-otchitalas-chto-zaderzhala-moskvichku-za-finansovuyu-pomosch-vsu-na-nee-zaveli-delo-o-gosizmene; https://iz dot ru/1478719/2023-03-04/moskvichku-zaderzhali-po-podozreniiu-v-gosizmene-iz-za-pomoshchi-vsu; https://tass dot ru/proisshestviya/17195433; https://t.me/boris_rozhin/79468; https://t.me/rybar/44142; https:/... https://meduza dot io/feature/2023/02/27/shkolnitsa-iz-tulskoy-oblasti-narisovala-antivoennyy-risunok-teper-otets-kotoryy-vospityvaet-ee-odin-figurant-ugolovnogo-dela-o-diskreditatsii-armii

[7] https://t.me/riafan/128629

[8] https://t.me/riafan/128629

[9] https://t.me/riafan/128629

[10] https://isw.pub/UkrWar031523

[11] https://t.me/grey_zone/17805

[12] https://t.me/riafan/128629

[13] https://t.me/Prigozhin_hat/2887; https://t.me/Prigozhin_hat/2888 ; https://t.me/concordgroup_official/612;

[14] https://t.me/sergey_belopolskyi/2717; https://t.me/Prigozhin_hat/2887; https://t.me/Prigozhin_hat/2888 ; https://t.me/concordgroup_official/612;

[15] https://t.me/z_arhiv/19698 ; https://t.me/concordgroup_official/609

[16] https://t.me/z_arhiv/19716

[17] https://1news.com dot ua/svit/kladovyshhe-vagnerivtsiv-rozroslosya-u-sim-raziv-zmi.html; https://nv dot ua/ukr/world/geopolitics/pvk-vagnera-virushili-v-mali-francuzki-zmi-50190472.html; https://topwar dot ru/207990-dobrovolcy-chvk-vagner-rasskazali-zachem-priehali-v-uchebnyj-centr-pod-novyj-god.html; https://93 dot ru/text/gorod/2023/03/15/72135788/; https://rucompromat dot com/organizations/chvk_vagnera; https://lenta dot ru/news/2018/03/05/vagner/

[18] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[19] https://www.rbc dot ru/politics/18/03/2023/64159edf9a7947dbf7d278ff?utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=messenger

[20] https://isw.pub/UkrWar022823 ; https://isw.pub/UkrWar02122023

[21] https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-64984414?ocid=wsrussian.social.in-a...

[22]https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02swMrRZrZpo6wCumSK4...

[23] https://t.me/basurin_e/238; https://t.me/readovkanews/54949

[24] https://t.me/militarymediacenter/1467

[25] https://t.me/basurin_e/238; https://t.me/wargonzo/11457

[26] https://t.me/wargonzo/11457

[27]https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02swMrRZrZpo6wCumSK4...

[28] https://t.me/wargonzo/11457 ; https://t.me/boris_rozhin/80661; https:...

[29]https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02swMrRZrZpo6wCumSK4...

[30] https://t.me/boris_rozhin/80754 ; https://t.me/basurin_e/238 ; https...

[31] https://t.me/riafan/128629 ; https://t.me/wargonzo/11457 ; https://t...

[32] https://t.me/z_arhiv/19708

[33] https://t.me/readovkanews/54949 ;

[34] https://isw.pub/UkrWar030823

[35] https://t.me/boris_rozhin/80661; https://t.me/voenkorKotenok/46165

[36]https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0YMgjYUuUyjohSw7Qtrj...

[37] https://t.me/rybar/44769 ; https://t.me/basurin_e/238

[38] https://t.me/mykolaivskaODA/4584; https://t.me/zoda_gov_ua/17533; http...

[39] https://suspilne dot media/417843-na-livoberezzi-sili-oboroni-znisili-reaktivnu-sistemu-zalpovogo-vognu-gumenuk/

[40] https://suspilne dot media/417843-na-livoberezzi-sili-oboroni-znisili-reaktivnu-sistemu-zalpovogo-vognu-gumenuk/

[41] https://twitter.com/CrimeaUA1/status/1637046639948107777?s=20; https://twitter.com/CrimeaUA1/status/1637046644494700544

[42] https://t.me/hueviyherson/36638

[43] https://t.me/concordgroup_official/611

[44] https://t.me/svobodnieslova/1604; https://notes.citeam.org/mobilization...

[45] https://t.me/notes_veterans/8551

[46] https://ufa.mk dot ru/social/2023/03/18/v-ufe-v-ryady-batalona-vatan-vstupili-uzhe-80-chelovek.html

[47]https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Russian%20Offensive...

[48] https://t.me/bazabazon/16408; https://t.me/rotondamedia/4415; https://...

[49] https://t.me/news_sirena/12512; https://notes.citeam.org/mobilization-m... . https://itsmycity-ru dot cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/itsmycity.ru/amp/2023-03-17/ekaterinburgskie-starsheklassniki-poluchili-povestki-vvoenkomat-dlya-utochneniya-dannyh

[50] https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1636983218325823488?s=20

[51] https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1636983218325823488?s=20

[52]https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0YMgjYUuUyjohSw7Qtrj...

[53] https://t.me/ostorozhno_novosti/14938

[54] https://72 dot ru/text/gorod/2023/03/17/72138242/; https://notes.citeam.org/mobilization-mar-16-17; https://72 dot ru/text/gorod/2023/03/01/72098579/

[55] https://t.me/readovkanews/5496; https://understandingwar.org/background...

[56] https://t.me/readovkanews/5496

[57] https://meduza dot io/news/2023/03/18/v-rudn-smenili-prorektora-posle-poyavleniya-flagov-ukrainy-na-vuzovskoy-vystavke; https://www.rbc dot ru/society/18/03/2023/6415032d9a7947b6123c906d

[58] https://t.me/mediazzzona/10987; https://notes.citeam.org/mobilization-m...

[59] https://interfax dot ru/russia/891727; https://t.me/readovkanews/54961; https://t.me/readovkanews/54976

[60]https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02swMrRZrZpo6wCumSK4...

[61] https://interfax dot ru/russia/891740 ; https://t.me/razvozhaev/2278; https://meduza dot io/news/2023/03/18/putin-vpervye-za-tri-goda-priehal-v-krym-v-godovschinu-anneksii-poluostrova

[62] https://t.me/andriyshTime/7817

[63] https://t.me/andriyshTime/7814; https://t.me/andriyshTime/7813

[64] http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/70705

[65] http://kremlin dot ru/events/president/news/70705

[66] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[67] https://twitter.com/Hajun_BY/status/1636809287258259474?s=20; https://twitter.com/Hajun_BY/status/1636809290559238145?s=20; https://twitter.com/Hajun_BY/status/1636809292610240512?s=20; https://twitter.com/Hajun_BY/status/1636809294623457290?s=20; https://twitter.com/Hajun_BY/status/1636809296552837129

[68] https://twitter.com/Hajun_BY/status/1636809287258259474?s=20; https://twitter.com/Hajun_BY/status/1636809290559238145?s=20; https://twitter.com/Hajun_BY/status/1636809292610240512?s=20; https://twitter.com/Hajun_BY/status/1636809294623457290?s=20; https://twitter.com/Hajun_BY/status/1636809296552837129

Russian President Putin visits occupied city of Mariupol

AP · by KARL RITTER · March 19, 2023

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited the occupied port city of Mariupol, his first trip to the Ukrainian territory that Moscow illegally annexed in September.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin arrived in Mariupol late Saturday after visiting Crimea, a short distance southwest of Mariupol, to mark the ninth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine. Mariupol became a worldwide symbol of defiance after outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian forces held out in a steel mill there for nearly three months before Moscow finally took control of it in May.

The visits, during which Putin was shown chatting with local residents in Mariupol and visiting an art school and a children’s center in Crimea, were a show of defiance by the Russian leader two days after a court issued a warrant for his arrest on war crimes charges.

Putin has not commented on the arrest warrant, which deepened his international isolation despite the unlikelihood of him facing trial anytime soon. The Kremlin has rejected the move by the International Criminal Court as “legally null and void.”

The trip also came ahead of a planned visit to Moscow by Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, expected to provide a major diplomatic boost to Putin in his confrontation with the West.

Vladimir Putin

Putin visits command centre in Rostov on Don

Putin visits occupied city of Mariupol

AP Top Stories March 18 P

How a warrant for Putin puts new spin on Xi visit to Russia

Putin arrived in Mariupol by helicopter and then drove himself around the city’s “memorial sites,” concert hall and coastline, Russian news reports said. The state Rossiya 24 channel on Sunday showed Putin chatting with locals outside what looked like a newly built residential complex, and being shown around one of the apartments.

Following his trip to Mariupol, Putin met with Russian military leaders and troops at a command post in Rostov-on-Don, a southern Russian city some 180 kilometers further east, and conferred with Gen. Valery Gerasimov who is in charge of the Russian military operations in Ukraine. Peskov said.

Peskov told reporters that the trip had been unannounced, and that Putin intended to “inspect the work of the (command) post in its ordinary mode of operation.”

Speaking to the state RIA agency Sunday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin made clear that Russia was in Mariupol to stay. He said the government hoped to finish the reconstruction of its blasted downtown by the end of the year.

“People have started to return. When they saw that reconstruction is under way, people started actively returning,” Khusnullin told RIA.

When Moscow fully captured the city in May, an estimated 100,000 people remained, out of a prewar population of 450,000. Many were trapped without food, water, heat or electricity. Relentless bombardment left rows upon rows of shattered or hollowed-out buildings.

Mariupol’s plight first came into international focus with a Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital on March 9 last year, less than two weeks after Russian troops moved into Ukraine. A week later, about 300 people were reported killed in the bombing of a theater that was serving as the city’s largest bomb shelter. Evidence obtained by the AP last spring suggested that the real death toll could be closer to 600.

A small group of Ukrainian fighters held out for 83 days in the sprawling Azovstal steel works in eastern Mariupol before surrendering, their dogged defense tying down Russian forces and coming to symbolize Ukrainian tenacity in the face of Moscow’s aggression.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world denounced as illegal, and moved on last September to officially claim four regions in Ukraine’s south and east as Russian territory, following referendums that Kyiv and the West described as a sham.

The ICC on Friday accused Putin of bearing personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine. U.N. investigators also said there was evidence for the forced transfer of “hundreds” of Ukrainian children to Russia. According to Ukrainian government figures, over 16,000 children have been deported to Russian-controlled territories or Russia itself, many of them from Mariupol.

Peskov reaffirmed on Sunday that Moscow considers “any decisions by the International Criminal Court’s legally null and void.” While the move by the ICC Friday was welcomed by Kyiv, the chances of Putin facing trial are slim because Moscow does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction or extradite its nationals.

In Ukraine, local officials on Sunday reported that at least three civilians had been killed and at least 19 others were wounded by Russian shelling in the previous 24 hours. The three deaths were in the eastern Donetsk region, where fierce battles are taking place for control of the city of Bakhmut, its governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Ukrainian TV. Kharkiv regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said in a Telegram update that a 51-year-old woman was “fighting for her life” after being hit by shrapnel as Russian troops fired on the border town of Dvorichna.

A top Ukrainian presidential aide on Sunday asserted that Ukrainian troops were holding the line near Bakhmut, a key target of Russia’s monthslong grinding offensive. Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said in televised remarks that “the enemies’ plans to occupy (the city) are now foundering.”

Taking Bakhmut would grant the Kremlin a long-awaited battlefield victory after months of setback, and could pave the way for Russia to threaten other Ukrainian strongholds in the region, including Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

AP · by KARL RITTER · March 19, 2023

6. Higher cancer rates found in military pilots, ground crews

I do not think it is just pilots or ground crews. There are other military demographics that are suffering high cancer rates.

Higher cancer rates found in military pilots, ground crews

AP · by TARA COPP · March 19, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Pentagon study has found high rates of cancer among military pilots and for the first time has shown that ground crews who fuel, maintain and launch those aircraft are also getting sick.

The data had long been sought by retired military aviators who have raised alarms for years about the number of air and ground crew members they knew who had cancer. They were told that earlier military studies had found they were not at greater risk than the general U.S. population.

In its yearlong study of almost 900,000 service members who flew on or worked on military aircraft between 1992 and 2017, the Pentagon found that air crew members had an 87% higher rate of melanoma and a 39% higher rate of thyroid cancer, while men had a 16% higher rate of prostate cancer and women a 16% higher rate of breast cancer. Overall, the air crews had a 24% higher rate of cancer of all types.

The study showed ground crews had a 19% higher rate of brain and nervous system cancers, a 15% higher rate of thyroid cancer and a 9% higher rate of kidney or renal cancers, while women had a 7% higher rate of breast cancer. The overall rate for cancers of all types was 3% higher.

There was some good news reported as well. Both ground and air crews had far lower rates of lung cancer, and air crews also had lower rates of bladder and colon cancers.

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The data compared the service members with the general U.S. population after adjusting for age, sex and race.

The Pentagon said the new study was one of the largest and most comprehensive to date. An earlier study had looked at just Air Force pilots and had found some higher rates of cancer, while this one looked across all services and at both air and ground crews. Even with the wider approach, the Pentagon cautioned that the actual number of cancer cases was likely to be even higher because of gaps in the data, which it said it would work to remedy.

The study “proves that it’s well past time for leaders and policy makers to move from skepticism to belief and active assistance,” said retired Air Force Col. Vince Alcazar, a member of the Red River Valley Fighter Pilots Association, which had lobbied the Pentagon and Congress for help. Alcazar serves on the association’s medical issues committee.

The study was required by Congress in the 2021 defense bill. Now, because higher rates were found, the Pentagon must conduct an even bigger review to try to understand why the crews are getting sick.

Isolating potential causes is difficult, and the Pentagon was careful to note that this study “does not imply that military service in air crew or ground crew occupations causes cancer, because there are multiple potential confounding factors that could not be controlled for in this analysis,” such as family histories, smoking or alcohol use.

But aviation crews have long asked for the Pentagon to look closely at some of the environmental factors they are exposed to, such as jet fuels and solvents used to clean and maintain jet parts, sensors and their power sources in aircraft nose cones, and the massive radar systems on the decks of the ships they land on.

When Navy Capt. Jim Seaman would come home from a deployment aboard an aircraft carrier, his gear would reek of jet fuel, his widow Betty Seaman said. The A-6 Intruder pilot died in 2018 at age 61 of lung cancer. Betty Seaman still has his gear stored and it still smells of fuel, “which I love,” she said.

She and others wonder if there’s a link. She said crews would talk about how even the ship’s water systems would smell of fuel.

She said she and others have mixed feelings about finally seeing in data what they have suspected for years about the aviation cancers. But “it has the potential to do a lot of good as far as early communication, early detection,” she said.

The study found that when crew members were diagnosed with cancer, they were more likely to survive than members of the general population, which the study suggested was because they were diagnosed earlier due to regular required medical checkups and were more likely to be in better health because of their military fitness requirements.

The Pentagon acknowledged that the study had gaps that likely led to an undercount of cancer cases.

The military heath system database used in the study did not have reliable cancer data until 1990, so it may not have included pilots who flew early-generation jets in the prior decades.

The study also did not include cancer data from the Department of Veterans Affairs or state cancer registries, which means it did not capture cases from former crew members who got sick after leaving the military medical system.

“It is important to note that study results may have differed had additional older former service members been included,” it said.

To remedy that, the Pentagon is now going to pull data from those registries to add to the total count, the study said.

The second phase of the study will try to isolate causes. The 2021 bill requires the Defense Department not only to identify “the carcinogenic toxicants or hazardous materials associated with military flight operations,” but also determine the type of aircraft and locations where diagnosed crews served.

After her husband got sick, Betty Seaman asked him if he would have chosen differently, knowing his service might be linked to his cancer.

“I flat-out asked Jim. And he, without hesitation, said, ‘I would have still done it.’”

AP · by TARA COPP · March 19, 2023

7. Special Operations Forces Carry Out New Initiative with US Ambassador to Panama

The two "SOF trinities"

ØMissions:

1.Irregular Warfare

2.Unconventional Warfare

3.Support to Political Warfare

ØThe Comparative advantage of SOF:

1.Influence

2.Governance

3.Support to indigenous forces and populations

•With exquisite capabilities for the no fail CT and CP national missions

Special Operations Forces Carry Out New Initiative with US Ambassador to Panama - Diálogo Américas

dialogo-americas.com · March 17, 2023

U.S. Special Operations Forces consisting of Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations service members participated in a new initiative named Embassy on the Road with U.S. Ambassador to Panama Mari Aponte, in Chiriquí.

U.S. Ambassador to Panama Mari Aponte talks with locals in Chiriquí during the Embassy on the Road Initiative. (Photo: U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Diego Lima)

Embassy on the Road is designed to increase U.S. partnerships in the Western region of Panama and to develop closer ties with several leading public and private institutions.

U.S. Army Captain Greg Johnson, Civil Military Support Element Team Leader, facilitated the Ambassador’s visit to a rural area of Panama.

During Ambassador Aponte’s visit, she met with nongovernmental organizations and the University of Panama Chiriquí to discuss the economic situation in Western Panama and development plans for the region.

Development projects include an agricultural cooperative to provide logistics and technical support to independent farmers, the development of agrotourism, and a mid-sized port located near Boca Chica. The port is financed by a combination of Panamanian and U.S. investors.

The next Embassy on the Road will take place in the Eastern region of Panama with the goal of enhancing interagency collaboration, fostering a whole of government approach, and promoting the U.S. as Panama’s partner of choice.

dialogo-americas.com · March 17, 2023

8. Bank fail: How rising interest rates paved the way for Silicon Valley Bank's collapse

This is the best explanation I have read (and listened to on NPR this morning) about the bank collapse. But I will defer to the financial experts.

Bank fail: How rising interest rates paved the way for Silicon Valley Bank's collapse

NPR · by Stacey Vanek Smith · March 19, 2023

The banking sector has been hammered by the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. But the bank had money stashed into what's supposed to be the safest asset around. What happened? TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images

Risk. It's tricky. Try to avoid one set of risks, you can just end up exposing yourself to another. That's what happened to Silicon Valley Bank.

"Silicon Valley Bank was a very good bank... until it wasn't," says Mark Williams, professor of finance at Boston University and a former bank examiner for the Federal Reserve.

A victim of its own success

Williams says the problem at Silicon Valley Bank really started with its wild success. Many of its tech company customers were raking in money during the early pandemic.

"Silicon Valley Bank was just flush," he says. "Its deposit base tripled between 2020 and 2022, with billions and billions of dollars flowing in."

A lot of those billions had come from all of the risks the bank took, lending money to start-ups and companies that couldn't get loans at other banks. Those risks paid off.

And Silicon Valley Bank took all of those billions it earned from taking those risks and stowed them into what is supposed to be the least risky investment around: US government bonds.

Bonds: The Riskless Asset

Bonds are like a little loan you give the government for 3 months, 1 year, 10 years etc., depending on which bond you buy.

At the end of that time, the government will pay you back for that loan, plus a little interest. US bonds are considered to be the safest investment on the planet. The U.S. always pays back its debts. They are often called a riskless asset.

The downside? Government bonds don't pay out a lot. Super safe, not super profitable. But some of these bonds are slightly more profitable than others.

Longer term bonds (like 10 year bonds) typically pay out more at the end than the 3 month or 1 year bonds, which makes sense: Long term bonds mean you agree to lend the government your money for years. You get more yield - a bigger payoff - for that wait.

"Basically what happened was Silicon Valley Bank wanted a bigger payout," says Alexis Leondis, who writes about bonds for Bloomberg. "So they basically wanted to reach for longer term bonds, because, I think, they felt like what they would get from shorter term bonds was kind of a joke."

Risky business

Silicon Valley Bank locked billions of dollars away into 10 year bonds. But there were risks it wasn't seeing.

Risk #1: Access. Those billions were now locked up for years. It wouldn't be easy to get that money in an emergency.

Risk #2: Interest rates. When interest rates started going up, the market value of Silicon Valley Bank's bonds went down.

That's because the bank bought its government bonds before interest rates started going up. The price you get from bonds is directly tied to interest rates. When interest rates go up, the market price of older bonds goes down because new bonds pay out higher interest rates.

When rates started climbing quickly, the price of Silicon Valley Bank's bonds tumbled.

Risk #3: Really, really rich customers. When rumors started up about the bank, customers panicked and and started pulling their money out. Because they were rich individuals and companies, that meant multi-million, even multi-billion dollar accounts cashing out all at once.

Silicon Valley Bank needed a lot of cash fast. But, of course, a lot of its cash was locked up in 10 year bonds. Now it had to try and sell those now to get cash.

Government Bond Fire Sale

That's where the interest rate risk bit Silicon Valley Bank: Trying sell those second hand, low interest rate bonds at a moment when all the new bonds being issued paid out far more was not easy.

"Now, that same bond and the yield would be about 20 times higher," says Mark Williams. "So, to encourage investors to even think about your old bond, you would have to discount it."

Discount as in, a fire sale.

Silicon Valley Bank took huge losses selling off its bonds, and more investors panicked and pulled out their money. Williams says it was a bank run on a scale the U.S. hadn't seen since the Great Depression.

"In a single day last week, depositors knocked on the door and pulled 41 billion depositor dollars out," says Williams. "That's about a quarter of their total deposits. No bank, no matter how strong, could ever survive that sort of withdrawal... that sort of run on the bank."

The rest of Silicon Valley Bank depositors were bailed out.

Guilt by association

Mark Williams says even though Silicon Valley Bank made a bunch of very specific mistakes, people all over the country got scared and started yanking money out of smaller banks.

"That means these smaller, regional banks are getting potentially destabilized," says Williams.

Where are these nervous investors putting their money? Williams says a lot of it is getting deposited into big banks that customers see as safer. Also, a lot of people are putting their money into U.S. government bonds.

Demand has spiked all week for the riskless asset.

NPR · by Stacey Vanek Smith · March 19, 2023

9. Can war games really help us predict who will win a conflict?

Key points:

A game designed to answer a question — who would win a war over Taiwan? How would American support for Ukraine affect the war? — needs five qualities. It needs to be believable, it needs the right players with the correct expertise and demographics, and there must be enough players and game iterations to come to realistic conclusions. The best war games control for bias within their scenarios and rules. Good data collection is vital.

Satisfying all these qualities is hard. War games are not crystal balls that tell us what will happen in conflict or crisis, but instead reveal the possible outcomes. US Admiral Chester W. Nimitz famously concluded that the interwar games run at the Naval War College had been run “by so many people and in so many different ways, that nothing that happened during the war was a surprise”.

The lesson is that we shouldn’t draw too much certainty from any one game and should instead look for insights across multiple games. The US think-tanks’ games suggested there would be no clear winner in a Taiwan fight. That fits with other analysis.

Can war games really help us predict who will win a conflict?

Financial Times · by Jacquelyn Schneider · March 18, 2023

The writer is director of the Hoover Institution’s war gaming and simulations initiative and a Hoover fellow at Stanford University

War games, once niche and highly secretive, are coming in from the cold. Two recent unclassified games run by US think-tanks found that a future conflict over Taiwan would lead to a bloody stalemate, predicting “a huge cost” for all countries involved. There have also been reports of classified Nato-Ukraine war games and declassified Air Force war games that find (unsurprisingly) that in order to defeat China, military personnel need new fighter jets and bombers.

These games have received a disproportionate amount of attention — but what do they really mean and why do they matter? While often called “simulations” or “exercises”, war games are distinct from computer imitations of combat, field exercises or organised brainstorming sessions. Instead, they are interactive events that display four characteristics: expert players, immersed in scenarios, bounded by rules and motivated by consequence-based outcomes.

War games go back millennia to ancient Rome, early Iraq, and China. They took on a central role in the modern conduct of war with the Prussian development of Kriegsspiel, a board game that simulated combat to train officers in the early 19th century. During the cold war, the US and Nato turned to war games to understand the impact of the nuclear revolution. Defence war gaming continued after the Berlin Wall fell, with games designed to test new ideas about “information age” warfare.

Due to their close resemblance to real conflict experience, games offer compelling evidence for policymakers facing difficult choices. Indeed, they can be such powerful devices of influence that organisations have been known to change rules to sway outcomes and leak the results when it benefits their cause.

A game designed to answer a question — who would win a war over Taiwan? How would American support for Ukraine affect the war? — needs five qualities. It needs to be believable, it needs the right players with the correct expertise and demographics, and there must be enough players and game iterations to come to realistic conclusions. The best war games control for bias within their scenarios and rules. Good data collection is vital.

Satisfying all these qualities is hard. War games are not crystal balls that tell us what will happen in conflict or crisis, but instead reveal the possible outcomes. US Admiral Chester W. Nimitz famously concluded that the interwar games run at the Naval War College had been run “by so many people and in so many different ways, that nothing that happened during the war was a surprise”.

The lesson is that we shouldn’t draw too much certainty from any one game and should instead look for insights across multiple games. The US think-tanks’ games suggested there would be no clear winner in a Taiwan fight. That fits with other analysis.

However, variables such as individual leadership styles, weapons capabilities or campaign choices can lead to different results. This is why we must evaluate not just the outcomes of a game, but its design: the rules, assumptions, scenarios and players. These Taiwan games, for instance, used only unclassified information about weapons capabilities and did not include Chinese players.

We should also be aware of an organisation’s incentives for running a war game and publicising the results. The think-tank games were designed by respected scholars who revealed their rules and assumptions, suggesting they are less biased than those which are “sponsored” by interested parties such as defence contractors or even organisations within the US Defense Department.

Leaked classified games should always be questioned. Does the organisation running things have a bias towards certain outcomes? Understanding the motivation behind the leaks is perhaps more illuminating than the games themselves.

Finally, remember that even the best games are not predictions of the future. A recent series I ran over three years with 580 players found that cyber threats to nuclear weapons arsenals did not lead to nuclear escalation. However, it revealed that the games which did go nuclear always occurred when I gave players cyber weapons that could target nuclear command and control. These weapons were all the more dangerous in the hands of those with limited experience in nuclear strategy. The power of this game series, therefore, was what it revealed about when and why things went awry.

This is the value of war games. They can help us understand human behaviours in unpredictable and rare scenarios but not necessarily to predict the future.

Financial Times · by Jacquelyn Schneider · March 18, 2023

10. U.S. Seeks to Head Off Any Chinese Call for Cease-Fire in Ukraine

Comments about this article on social media included asking where is the US proposal for peace talks?

But I agree with Admiral Kirby - the Chinese proposal for a cease fire could allow Russia to hold Ukrainian territory.

But are there proposals that we could make to head off the Chinese initiatives that would not put Ukraine at risk? Are we ceding the diplomatic initiative to China?

U.S. Seeks to Head Off Any Chinese Call for Cease-Fire in Ukraine

A cease-fire would recognize Russia’s territorial gains, said a National Security Council spokesman.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-seeks-to-head-off-any-chinese-call-for-cease-fire-in-ukraine-ef456819

By Charles HutzlerFollow

Updated March 17, 2023 5:11 pm ET

WASHINGTON—The U.S. is trying to head off a potential proposal from Beijing for a cease-fire in Ukraine ahead of a Russia-China summit, saying suspending fighting now would help solidify Russia’s hold on Ukrainian territory.

With Chinese leader Xi Jinping due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow next week, the White House expressed concern Friday about China’s deepening ties with Russia during the Ukraine war. That makes a potential call for a cease-fire a one-sided proposal to Russia’s benefit, said John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

“A cease-fire now is again effectively the ratification of Russian conquest,” Mr. Kirby said at a news briefing. Such a move, he said, would recognize Russia’s territorial gains and occupation of Ukrainian territory while giving Moscow a chance to entrench its positions and refresh its troops as Ukraine prepares for an anticipated spring offensive.

The pre-emptive criticism of a possible cease-fire proposal is a broadening of a Biden administration effort to use public statements and disclosures to try to narrow Beijing’s room for maneuver with Moscow, including by projecting itself as a mediator, according to former officials and foreign-affairs analysts.

In recent weeks, U.S. officials citing intelligence have publicly warned that Beijing is considering providing lethal weapons and capabilities to Russia, going beyond trade in goods like drones and jet parts that have both civilian and military uses. Mr. Kirby reiterated that concern, though he said the U.S. has no evidence China has done so.

China has been trying to pose as an alternative power to the U.S., shepherding a diplomatic detente between adversaries Saudi Arabia and Iran and issuing initiatives urging new thinking on global security. That message, foreign policy specialists said, resonates at home and with many developing countries grappling with the Ukraine conflict’s impact on food prices and energy supplies.

“It creates the illusion of China trying to play a constructive role,” said Janka Oertel, an East Asia security specialist with the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank. “It’s part of a broader framing exercise that is currently taking place that is not actually pro-peace or pro-Russian. It’s just an anti-American one, because it works really well in the moment.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Moscow next week.

PHOTO: ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Beijing hasn’t formally called for a cease-fire or offered a peace proposal. A position paper China’s Foreign Ministry issued last month on what it called “the Ukraine crisis” called for a political settlement and said all parties should work toward ceasing hostilities.

In announcing next week’s Moscow summit, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Friday that Mr. Xi’s visit will “be a trip for peace.”

“China will uphold an objective and fair position on the Ukraine crisis and play a constructive role in promoting talks for peace,” the spokesman, Wang Wenbin, told reporters in Beijing according to an official transcript.

Beijing, however, is benefiting from the Ukraine conflict, and officials as well as Dr. Oertel and other specialists expect that the upcoming Moscow summit will see Messrs. Putin and Xi push their governments’ already close relations further forward.

Messrs. Putin and Xi have met dozens of times. While the Moscow gathering is their second in-person meeting in half a year, it’s Mr. Xi’s first trip outside China since he was given a third term as president, a largely ceremonial title conferred by the national legislature earlier this month, capping his dominance of the Communist Party.

The two leaders see common cause in trying to diminish U.S. power. As Moscow prosecutes the Ukraine war, China has increased its purchases of Russian energy, often at a discount, and expanded the use of its currency in the countries’ two-way trade. The war is also forcing the U.S. to focus on security in Europe, when the Biden administration is trying to devote attention to countering China.

If Beijing is interested in peace, the National Security Council’s Mr. Kirby said, Mr. Xi should speak directly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The two aren’t believed to have spoken since Russia launched its full-scale invasion nearly 13 months ago, though Mr. Xi is expected to talk with Mr. Zelensky next week, as part of China’s push to be a more-active mediator.

As Russia and China lay out the agenda for the Putin-Xi meeting, Mr. Kirby said the U.S. wants to draw attention to any Chinese proposal for a cease-fire that would “be one-sided and reflect only the Russian perspective.”

Mr. Kirby, when asked by reporters, said he couldn’t speak for Mr. Zelensky and whether he would accept a Chinese-backed proposal. “We certainly don’t support calls for a cease-fire that would be called for by the PRC in a meeting in Moscow,” Mr. Kirby said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

Mr. Zelensky has taken a different approach with Beijing, so far, commending the 12-point Chinese position paper on Ukraine. Mr. Zelensky, however, stressed the Chinese paper’s emphasis on territorial integrity. His foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said he also “discussed the significance of the principle of territorial integrity” in a phone call Thursday with his Chinese counterpart.

“We also hope that President Xi will reach out to President Zelensky directly because we continue to believe that it’s very important that he hears from the Ukrainian side as well and not just from Mr. Putin,” Mr. Kirby said.

Watch: ICC Announces Arrest Warrant for Vladimir Putin

The Lessons Not Learned From Iraq

Twenty years on, the war still shapes policy—mostly for the worse.

MARCH 17, 2023, 6:00 AM

Foreign Policy · by Michael Hirsh · March 17, 2023

hirsh-michael-foreign-policy-columnist

Michael Hirsh

By Michael Hirsh, a columnist for Foreign Policy.

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“War is a stern teacher,” Thucydides wrote nearly 2,500 years ago. Since then, great nations have often sought to learn lessons from the wars they waged, especially bad or stupid wars. But the same can’t really be said of the United States, which invaded Iraq 20 years ago as of Sunday. (March 19, 2003, marked the start of the “shock and awe” air war.)

Considering its long-term effects, the Iraq invasion amounted to one the most consequential strategic misdirections in U.S. history. Yet there has been very little discussion about why that is—and why what happened two decades ago is not a history lesson at all but rather part of an ongoing class in current events.

The hubris and excess of the Iraq invasion—a later iteration of the “reckless audacity” that Thucydides, the Greek historian, ascribed to the warmongering Greeks in the Peloponnesian War—are still with us today, shaping our times. The aftereffects of Iraq dramatically reduced the position of the United States in the Middle East, most recently opening the way to China’s brokering of Iran-Saudi Arabia rapprochement. The unnecessary diversion into Iraq—and the drain on U.S. resources and attention that resulted from it—set the stage for Washington’s 20-year failure in Afghanistan, which left U.S. President Joe Biden humiliated when he precipitously withdrew all U.S. troops, declaring in August 2021 that he was putting an end to U.S. efforts “to remake other countries.”

The Afghanistan catastrophe in turn projected an image of panicky weakness from which Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have drawn false encouragement by invading Ukraine. (In speeches, Putin has also invoked the Iraq invasion to justify his own.) The self-created disaster of Iraq exposed U.S. military weakness, teaching the rest of the world how to outmaneuver and fight what was once considered an unassailable superpower. It arguably transformed American politics by helping to discredit the political establishment in Washington and open the way for former U.S. President Donald Trump and his “America First” neo-isolationism. Another little-noted domestic effect of the twin wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was that they dramatically worsened America’s opioid crisis, as a poorly prepared Department of Veteran Affairs chronically overprescribed fentanyl and other drugs to wounded and traumatized service members.

So, did any good come out of the Iraq War—a worthwhile lesson or two? Yes, but they’re not terribly encouraging. Indeed, a U.S. Army study found that “an emboldened and expansionist Iran appears to be the only victor” in the war.

Smoke covers the presidential palace compound in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2003 during a massive U.S.-led air raid

Smoke covers the presidential palace compound in Baghdad on March 21, 2003, during a massive U.S.-led air raid on the Iraqi capital.PATRICK BAZ/AFP via Getty Images

Certainly, at least, Iraq is no longer ruled by anti-American tyrant Saddam Hussein. Instead, it is loosely governed by a squabbling collection of corrupt politicians who would likely be anti-American except that if they were, they’d be overthrown (either by Iran or the Islamic State) were it not for the roughly 2,500 U.S. troops who remain there.

Some military experts also believe that the U.S. military learned valuable lessons about the serious limitations of counterinsurgency operations. Even if the original invasion was a mistake, the United States managed to defeat both the Iraqi insurgency and the Islamic State occupation that followed. Still, those were hardly models of success or future strategy, notes C. Anthony Pfaff, a retired Army colonel who teaches at the Army War College. “What I don’t see is turning those operational successes into strategic ones,” he said.

Ironically, the most important lesson to be learned from the initial success of both the Iraqi insurgency and the triumph of the Taliban is how effective insurgencies can be against invading powers, like the French and Norwegians during World War II. “But we don’t like to talk about that too much because then we would be the Nazis,” said David Kilcullen, author of the 2020 book The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West.

The experience of Iraq and Afghanistan proved beyond any remaining doubt that no amount of money and strength by a superpower will change the outcome on the ground without a legitimate government in place.

Above all, combined with the United States’ earlier experience of losing in Vietnam, the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan proved beyond any remaining doubt that no amount of money and strength by a superpower will change the outcome on the ground without a legitimate government in place. And Washington has found itself unable to implement that in Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq.

Even that lesson took a long time to learn, said Andrew Wiest, co-director of the Center for the Study of War and Society at the University of Southern Mississippi. Wiest argues that for too long, the United States repeated the same mistakes in Afghanistan—open-ended support to an unsustainable government—that it did in Vietnam. Moreover, “the diversion to Iraq greatly impacted and perhaps even doomed the war in Afghanistan,” he told me in an email. This, Wiest wrote, “has not been debated enough.”

The question is whether any of these lessons will stick since the war is rarely discussed. Even now, there is no serious public debate about what went wrong. This is hardly surprising considering that, starting with Biden, many of the same officials and pundits who supported the invasion are still running things in government and the media. (This includes not only leading Republicans and conservatives but also leading Democrats, such as John Kerry, who is now Biden’s climate envoy.)

U.S. President George W. Bush meets with Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld outside the Oval Office shortly after authorizing Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

Then-U.S. President George W. Bush meets with then-U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and then-U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld outside the Oval Office shortly after authorizing Operation Iraqi Freedom in Washington on March 19, 2003. Eric Draper/White House/Getty Images

Amazingly, even the administration of George W. Bush, which launched the Iraq War, never gave “systemic thought to the fundamental challenge” of terrorism after 9/11, University of Virginia historian Melvyn Leffler writes in a new history, Confronting Saddam Hussein: George W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq. As then-U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrote in a memo that was leaked in October 2003, “we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror.”

No reliable “metrics” were ever found in the subsequent two decades. “We had all sorts of metrics and were constantly looking for more,” said Pfaff, who served in Army intelligence during the war, but “we could never figure out how to connect those metrics to strategic results.” Neither was any reason ever given for the Iraq invasion other than the administration felt an urgent need to reassert American power after the trauma of 9/11. After it turned out that fears of Saddam’s links to al Qaeda and his supposed cache of weapons of mass destruction were unfounded, the Bush administration pursued a vague, ill-thought-out plan of asserting American power and values in the region. That backfired too; by becoming an occupying power in the heart of the Arab world—often a brutal one, as the torture at Abu Ghraib and other prisons showed—Washington only touched off new waves of terrorism.

“Bush and his advisers never quite grasped that the anti-Americanism coursing through the Islamic world was not a result of Arabs hating American values but a consequence of their resentment of American deeds—Washington’s support of repressive regimes, its embrace of Israel, its sanctions policy in Iraq, its military presences in Muslims’ Holy Land (Saudi Arabia), its quest for oil, and its hegemonic role in their neighborhood,” Leffler writes.

The Iraq invasion “certainly takes the prize for lack of preparation. Yet what preparation there was sucked the air out of the Afghan mission from its beginning,” said James Dobbins, Bush’s former Afghanistan envoy. Harold Koh, a former senior official in the Obama administration, calls this the “original sin” of the war on terrorism after 9/11. “If we hadn’t invaded Iraq—and had we used the resources elsewhere and correctly assessed the situation initially—a lot of this would not have happened,” he told me on the 15th anniversary of 9/11.

Kilcullen said another problem is that because so many senior government and military officials signed onto the invasion, there was very little or no accountability afterward. He contrasts this with how other great powers, going back to ancient Rome and the Battle of Cannae, learned from their mistakes. “But that only works if you recognize you’ve been defeated,” Kilcullen said. “One thing we don’t do is punish generals for losing wars.”

Kosovo Albanians sit next to a U.S. flag in Pristina.

Iraq’s Damage Created a Strain of Permanent American Defeatism

Accepting U.S. failures doesn't mean giving dictators a free hand.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani at a press conference in Berlin.

‘They Have to Balance’: New Iraqi Leader Tilts the Scales Toward U.S.

Mohammed al-Sudani’s public support of U.S. troops reflects a behind-the-scenes shift—and the continued threat from the Islamic State.

US President Joe Biden reacts during a meeting on "the Build Back Better World (B3W)", as part of the World Leaders' Summit of the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, on November 2, 2021.

America Is Too Scared of the Multipolar World

The Biden administration is striving for a unipolar order that no longer exists.

A soldier patrols in Iraq in 2014 near locations of jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters.

Iraqi Turkmen forces patrol a checkpoint in the northern town of Taza Khurmatu, Iraq, on June 21, 2014, near the location of Islamic State fighters. KARIM SAHIB/AFP via Getty Images

Bit by bit, some of the more fervent supporters of the war are coming forward to concede how wrong they were. Among them is Washington Post columnist Max Boot, who once fiercely criticized any dissenters from the plan to invade. “I am a neocon no more,” Boot writes this month in Foreign Affairs, saying, “I now cringe when I read some of the articles I wrote at the time. … In hindsight, that was dangerous naiveté born out of a combination of post-Cold War hubris and post-9/11 alarm.”

Boot—who, as op-ed editor for the Wall Street Journal, published a prescient article by Brent Scowcroft, former national security advisor to former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, that warned of the coming disaster in Iraq—writes that he “discounted such warnings because I was dazzled by the power of the U.S. military after its victories in the Gulf War and the invasion of Afghanistan—and dazzled also by the arguments of neoconservative scholars such as Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami that Iraq offered fertile soil for democracy. In hindsight, I am amazed and appalled that I fell prey to these mass delusions.” Boot also laments the fact that “many of my erstwhile ideological allies have not reached the same conclusions about the folly of regime change.”

Even so, Boot and others tend to ignore or play down the impact that Iraq had on the United States’ failed campaign in Afghanistan. Will Iraq turn out to be America’s Cannae—a folly from which it can still recover, as Rome eventually did when it destroyed Carthage? Or will the disaster of Iraq—and the so-called forever war that came out of it—turn out to be more like a modern-day equivalent of the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, where the northern expansion of the Roman Empire was stopped for good at the Rhine by Germanic tribes in 9 A.D.? In other words, the Iraq adventure could prove to mark a decisive endpoint in the expansion of American influence in the Middle East.

Perhaps the best analogy from history, if there is one, is what happened when Roman Emperor Trajan mounted a full-scale invasion in 116 A.D. against the Parthian Empire in what is now Iraq, said Edward Watts, a historian at the University of California, San Diego, and author of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny. Four Roman armies managed to capture Ctesiphon (the Parthian and Persian capital on the outskirts of modern Baghdad), but faced with an insurgency, the Romans couldn’t hold the region and Trajan’s successor, Hadrian, pulled out.

“The lesson Rome learned was that it lacked the capacity to absorb the lands in Mesopotamia. That frontier remained a source of tension, with wars erupting with some regularity between Rome and the Parthians and, later, the Persian Empire for the next 500 years,” Watts said. “In a sense, Roman leaders recognized what George H.W. Bush did in 1990. It was—and is—much easier to invade Mesopotamia successfully than it is to hold it or establish a government there on your terms.”

A U.S. Army soldier stands next to a burning oil well at the Rumayla oil fields in Iraq in 2003.

A U.S. Army soldier stands next to a burning oil well at the Rumaila oil fields in Iraq on March 27, 2003.Mario Tama/Getty Images

This too has uncomfortable parallels to America’s late experiences in Vietnam and Iraq—especially in the arrogance and fecklessness of Rumsfeld, who was almost Romanesque in his hauteur. Determined to invade Iraq with a minimum number of troops because he believed the Afghan campaign against the Taliban was so easy that it hardly qualified as a war, Rumsfeld embarked on a series of reckless misuses of America’s military. Not only did he fail to follow up on the pursuit of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants at Tora Bora, Afghanistan, which could have ended the entire war against the terrorist group quickly, but he also decided that year to minimize stability operations and confine peacekeeping to Kabul, opening the way for the return of the Taliban. At the same time—while in denial about the Taliban’s growing strength—Rumsfeld turned his attention to making war on Iraq without an occupation plan. Having gone into Iraq, he then remained in denial of the growing insurgency there, which his policies did much to incite when he disbanded the Iraqi army and then treated its castoffs and many other ordinary Iraqi insurgents as terrorists or al Qaeda sympathizers. And as the consequences of Rumsfeld’s inattention to Afghanistan began to emerge in the mid-2000s, he continued to pretend that the country was stable, giving speeches saying how well Afghanistan was doing under America’s “modest footprint.”

If there is any enduring lesson from the Iraq debacle, it may be that—as Biden indicated after pulling out of Afghanistan in 2021—the U.S. military will no longer be at the cutting edge of American influence abroad.

“As we turn the page on the foreign policy that has guided our nation the last two decades, we’ve got to learn from our mistakes,” Biden said. U.S. influence will no longer come “through endless military deployments but through diplomacy, economic tools, and rallying the rest of the world for support.”

Perhaps. But the question going forward is whether America’s national security intelligentsia will ever fully grapple with the end of the United States’ total military dominance, the so-called smart bomb era that began with swift victory in the first Gulf War—especially since the return of industrialized warfare in Ukraine means a whole new rethinking is necessary. Without fully learning the lessons of the last few decades, it is doubtful that Washington will ever understand the lessons that lie ahead.

Foreign Policy · by Michael Hirsh · March 17, 2023

12. In the U.S.-Led Iraq War, Iran Was the Big Winner

Excerpts:

The Gulf remains deeply connected to the United States, but since the 2003 invasion it has looked to broaden and deepen its ties to China and Russia as alternative partners. When Saudi Arabia agreed to restore diplomatic relations with Iran last week, for example, it did so in Beijing.

Iran shares the Shiite faith of a majority of Iraq’s population.Credit...Emily Garthwaite for The New York Times

That agreement was the latest sign that Saudi Arabia has decided to try engaging with its adversaries rather than holding them at arm’s length as the Gulf monarchies did for years in Iraq.

Despite Iraq and its Gulf neighbors’ shared Arab identity, they all but forfeited the competition for influence to Iran: Whereas Iran was the first to establish an embassy in Baghdad after the United States invasion, a Saudi ambassador to Iraq arrived in Baghdad only last week.

Likewise, the Saudis did not open their deep pockets to Iraq until a few years ago, when they began a tentative effort to invest in infrastructure.

“The only thing we can do is to give the Iraqis another choice that isn’t only Iran,” said Hesham Alghannam, a Saudi political scientist. “We can’t corner them and then blame them for going with the Iranians.”

In the U.S.-Led Iraq War, Iran Was the Big Winner

By Vivian Yee and Alissa J. Rubin

March 19, 2023

Updated 4:23 a.m. ET

The New York Times · by Alissa J. Rubin · March 19, 2023

In the 20 years since the United States invaded Iraq, Iran has built up loyal militias inside Iraq, gained deep political influence in the country and reaped economic benefits. For Washington, these were unintended consequences.

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Pilgrims at the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, an Iraqi Shiite holy city, during a pilgrimage in September.Credit...Emily Garthwaite for The New York Times

By Vivian Yee and

March 19, 2023, 3:00 a.m. ET

If visitors to Baghdad knew nothing of Iraqi politics, they could be forgiven for thinking that the trim-bearded, green-uniformed man whose larger-than-life photo is everywhere in the Iraqi capital was Iraq’s president.

Along the boulevard that tracks the Tigris River and inside the Green Zone, the seat of Iraq’s government, the likeness of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani towers above roundabouts and stands astride medians. The last person to be so glorified was Saddam Hussein, the dictator deposed and killed in the American-led invasion of Iraq that began almost exactly 20 years ago.

But Mr. Suleimani was Iranian, not Iraqi.

The commander of the Quds Force, the external arm of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards Corps, he achieved near-mythic status in Iraq as an influential force who helped bind Iraq and Iran together after the invasion. It was thanks in large part to Mr. Suleimani, whom the United States assassinated in Iraq in 2020, that Iran came to extend its influence into almost every aspect of Iraqi security and politics.

That, in turn, gave Iran outsize influence over the region and beyond. Tehran’s rise exposed the unintended consequences of Washington’s strategy in Iraq, analysts and former U.S. officials say, and damaged the United States’ relationship with its regional allies.

The invasion “was the original sin,” said Emile Hokayem, a senior fellow for Middle East security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British think tank. “It helped Iran bolster its position by being a predator in Iraq. It’s where Iran perfected the use of violence and militias to obtain its goals. It eroded the U.S.’s image. It led to fragmentation in the region.”

A poster of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani at a pilgrims’ tent in Najaf.Credit...Emily Garthwaite for The New York Times

The U.S. State Department declined to comment on the impact of the war in Iraq.

“On Iraq specifically, our focus is on the 20 years ahead; less about looking backward,” the department said in an email response to questions. “Our partnership today has evolved far beyond security, to a 360-degree relationship that delivers results for the Iraqi people.”

All of that was enabled by the political changes that the American invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003, set in motion. Later on, the 2014 takeover of a large swathe of northern Iraq by the Islamic State terrorist group prompted Iraq to turn to Iran as well as the United States for help, cementing Iran’s grip.

As destabilizing as the Iranian involvement has been for many Iraqis, it has been at least as unsettling for much of the rest of the region.

Iraq and Iran are the two largest Middle Eastern countries with a Shiite Muslim majority, and Shiites emerged from the Iraq war empowered across the region — often unnerving their ancient sectarian rivals, the Sunni Muslims, who dominate most other Arab countries.

Under the Iraqi dictatorship, the Sunni minority had formed the base of Mr. Hussein’s power; once he was killed, Iran set up loyal militias inside Iraq. It also went on to dismay Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies and Israel by supporting proxies and partners, such as the Houthi militia in Yemen, that brought violence right to their doorsteps.

Before 2003, it would have been hard to imagine Saudi Arabia, a pillar of the United States’ Middle East policy for decades and a leading Sunni power, showing open anger toward American leaders over their conduct in the region. But the Saudi king at the time did just that in a January 2006 meeting with the American ambassador to Iraq, telling him that the way Washington saw things going in Baghdad reflected “wishful thinking,” according to a State Department cable released by WikiLeaks in 2010.

Americans kept watch as the Ministry of Transportation burned in Baghdad days after the invasion in 2003.

By the time of that meeting, Iraqis had approved a new Constitution and held parliamentary elections that swept Shiite parties to power, and Sunni-Shiite sectarian tensions had escalated.

Saudi King Abdullah told the ambassador that before Mr. Hussein’s ouster, his kingdom — Iran’s longtime rival for influence in the Middle East — could count on Iraq as another Sunni power keeping Iran in check.

Now, he said, Iraq had been handed to Iran like “a gift on a golden platter.”

The United States, whose military muscle guided its policies, often with little sensitivity for Iraq’s religious and political dynamics, according to analysts, was not the country best placed to make lasting inroads in Iraq.

Iran, by contrast, could build the bonds created by the Shiite faith it shared with many in Iraq’s population.

Iranian and Iraqi clerics, along with millions of pilgrims, frequented Shiite shrines in both countries each year and enjoyed a mutual understanding of each other’s culture. Tribes and families span their nearly 1,000-mile-long border. And the father of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, spent 13 years in Iraq’s Shiite pilgrimage city of Najaf, while Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, was born in one Iranian holy city and educated in another.

Still, that proximity hardly bred friendship, at least before 2003.

American troops watched over Iraqi detainees at a base in Najaf in 2004 after an early morning raid.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

In 1980, when Iraq invaded Iran, the United States and other Western countries quietly supported Iraq in the ensuing war.

The eight-year conflict was so devastating that some analysts say it shaped the mentality of an entire generation of Iranian leaders, making them determined to never again allow Iraq to grow strong enough to attack them. That could explain why, under Mr. Hussein’s repressive rule, which empowered Iraq’s Sunni minority over its Shiite majority, Iran gave shelter and support to both Shiites and Kurds in the Iraqi opposition.

When the United States toppled Mr. Hussein, it neutralized Iran’s foremost enemy without Tehran having to lift a finger. Afterward, the Americans diminished Sunni power in Iraq by dismantling the country’s army and purging the Sunni-dominated governing elite.

Iran saw opportunity.

“What they were looking for and have been looking for isn’t Iranian control,” Ryan Crocker, a former United States ambassador to Iraq, said of Iran. “It’s Iraqi instability.”

After the 2003 invasion, Iranians streamed into Baghdad and Iraq’s Shiite-dominated south: construction engineers to rebuild Iraqi cities, political consultants to train Shiite activists before the Iraqi elections, media professionals to establish Shiite-owned television channels.

Iranian pilgrims who had been barred in the Saddam Hussein era from visiting Iraq’s Shiite shrines now hurried across the border to the Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, where Iranian companies invested in acres of hotels and restaurants for the millions of worshipers, many of them Iranian, who visit the shrines each year.

The Victory Arch in Baghdad marks the entrance to Grand Festivities Square and a parade ground constructed to commemorate the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.Credit...Emily Garthwaite for The New York Times

A good number of the Iraqi leaders who emerged after 2003 also had ties to Iran. The Shiite and Kurdish opposition politicians who had taken refuge there years before returned to Iraq after the invasion. Some of Iraq’s largest Shiite parties had backing and technical support from Iran, putting politicians from those parties in Iran’s debt when they won seats.

The Americans “somehow didn’t make the connection with Iran explicitly and understand that it’s not the Shiites you are giving the upper hand to, it’s the Shiites backed by Iran,” Marwan Muasher, who was then Jordan’s foreign minister, said last week.

Across Iraq’s southern border, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies watched with growing frustration.

Gulf wariness of Iran dated back centuries. Less than 150 miles of Persian Gulf waters separate Iran from the Arabian Peninsula, a dynamic that has long fueled trade rivalries and territorial disputes. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Sunni Gulf monarchies feared that Iran would export its brand of Shiite theocracy across a region traditionally ruled by Sunnis.

Before 2003, the Gulf worried about the Iraqi dictator, too. But Western-led sanctions had weakened Iraq, and the Gulf States and the Iraqis shared a common enemy in Iran.

The toppling of Mr. Hussein unleashed what the Gulf saw as Iran’s destructive power: Now, Iran was increasing its influence over a major Arab country with enormous oil reserves on Saudi Arabia’s northern border, just as evidence was growing that Iran was developing a nuclear program.

A view of the Imam Ali shrine from the top floor of Aldur Palace, a four-star hotel for international pilgrims.Credit...Emily Garthwaite for The New York Times

These days, no Iraqi prime minister can take office without at least the tacit approval of both the United States and Iran, an arrangement that often produces prime ministers torn between Washington and Tehran. Iraqis with connections to Iran hold posts throughout the government.

The cost of Iranian influence to Iraqi development and stability has been high.

Cut off from the world economy by sanctions, Iran has found an economic lifeline in Iraq, which buys about at least $7 billion in Iranian exports a year while selling only about $250 million of goods in return. The fine print on many medicines shows that they are Iranian made, and large quantities of Iranian construction materials come stacked on truck convoys across the border every day.

Many Iraqi farmers and businesspeople complain that Iran has suffocated Iraqi manufacturing and farming by dumping large quantities of produce and cheap goods in Iraq.

Iranian pilgrims who had been barred in the Saddam Hussein era from visiting Iraq’s Shiite shrines now cross the border to the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf.Credit...Emily Garthwaite for The New York Times

Although Shiites in Iraq’s political elite tolerated Iran’s activities and respected General Suleimani, resentment of Iran among other Iraqis helped set off mass antigovernment demonstrations in 2019 in which protesters demanded an end to Iran’s interference in Iraqi affairs.

Beyond Iraq, Iran has used every conflict in the region to extend its reach.

It inserted fighters into Syria after the 2011 Arab Spring revolt, aiming to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It supported the Houthis in Yemen’s civil war against a Saudi-led coalition, establishing Iranian influence on the southern Saudi border. And it further cemented its position in Iraq and Syria by recruiting and training Shiite fighters against the Islamic State.

“Every opportunity that there was in the region, the dominoes fell in Iran’s favor,” said Vali Nasr, a professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University. Exploiting Iraq’s weakness, he added, gradually turned into “a powerful foreign policy tool for Iran on the regional level.”

Particularly worrisome to its Sunni Arab neighbors was Tehran’s consolidation of influence across a so-called Shiite Crescent stretching from Iran through Iraq and into Syria and Lebanon. Some Sunni governments, chief among them Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, blamed the United States — the country they had long depended on to have their backs — for failing to stop Iran from moving goods, weapons and personnel freely across the region, analysts say.

Later quarrels in the relationship arose over what the Gulf saw as the U.S. failure to intervene in Syria or to protect the Gulf from Iranian-linked attacks on Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.

The State Department said the United States values its relationship with the Gulf and is committed to “to strengthen cooperation, coordination, and consultation with our Gulf partners in all fields, including security, counterterrorism, and economic partnership.”

The Gulf remains deeply connected to the United States, but since the 2003 invasion it has looked to broaden and deepen its ties to China and Russia as alternative partners. When Saudi Arabia agreed to restore diplomatic relations with Iran last week, for example, it did so in Beijing.

Iran shares the Shiite faith of a majority of Iraq’s population.Credit...Emily Garthwaite for The New York Times

That agreement was the latest sign that Saudi Arabia has decided to try engaging with its adversaries rather than holding them at arm’s length as the Gulf monarchies did for years in Iraq.

Despite Iraq and its Gulf neighbors’ shared Arab identity, they all but forfeited the competition for influence to Iran: Whereas Iran was the first to establish an embassy in Baghdad after the United States invasion, a Saudi ambassador to Iraq arrived in Baghdad only last week.

Likewise, the Saudis did not open their deep pockets to Iraq until a few years ago, when they began a tentative effort to invest in infrastructure.

“The only thing we can do is to give the Iraqis another choice that isn’t only Iran,” said Hesham Alghannam, a Saudi political scientist. “We can’t corner them and then blame them for going with the Iranians.”

The New York Times · by Alissa J. Rubin · March 19, 2023

13. Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) History Brief

From social media today. A fascinating 15 slide chronology of OIF.

Twenty years ago, on March 19, 2003, the U.S. crossed the border into Iraq. This began a years-long involvement in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Read more in "Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) History Brief", JCS, 14 May 2003, PDF, 15 pages.

https://lnkd.in/ezTM7GHS

https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/Joint_Staff/09-F-1449_Operation_Iraqi_Freedom_OIF_History_Brief.pdf

14. Opinion | America’s foreign policy has lost all flexibility

Conclusion:

All this evokes the inertia of an aging empire. Today, our foreign policy is run by an insular elite that operates by mouthing rhetoric to please domestic constituencies — and seems unable to sense that the world out there is changing, and fast.

Opinion | America’s foreign policy has lost all flexibility

The Washington Post · by Fareed Zakaria · March 17, 2023

On his trip to Saudi Arabia last year, President Biden made an emphatic declaration about U.S. policy in the Middle East: “We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia, or Iran.” Last week’s rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, brokered by China, suggests that this is precisely what has happened. The reestablishment of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia is not in itself a seismic event; they broke off relations only seven years ago. But last week’s revelation exposes a deep-seated flaw in American foreign policy, one that has gotten worse in recent years.

In 1995, the journalist and scholar Josef Joffe wrote an essay that described two paths for American grand strategy after the Cold War. He called them “Britain” or “Bismarck.” The first was to emulate Britain in its traditional approach toward geopolitics, by building alliances against any rising powers that seem hegemonic but to otherwise stay uninvolved. Joffe argued that this “balance of power” strategy would be impossible for America as a preeminent power and linchpin of the international order. Instead, he advocated a strategy as the broker, drawing on Bismarck, the great Prussian statesman who unified Germany and made it Europe’s leading great power in the late 19th century.

Bismarck famously depicted the ideal situation for Germany as “not that of the acquisition of territory, but of an overall political situation in which all the powers except France need us and are held apart from coalitions against us by their relations to each other.” The associated doctrine is called the Kissinger Diktat, named not for Henry Kissinger, but for the spa town of Bad Kissingen where Bismarck codified it. In a remarkable case of historical resonance, however, Henry Kissinger’s greatest diplomatic triumph a century later was animated by the same idea. In making the opening to China while simultaneously pursuing detente with the Soviet Union, Kissinger ensured that Washington ended up with better relations with Beijing and Moscow than they had with each other.

In fact, many of the more notable successes of American foreign policy centered around this Bismarckian idea. For decades during the Cold War, the United States had better relations with Israel and the Arab states than they had with each other. It weaned communist countries such as Yugoslavia and Romania away from Moscow’s grip. And for decades, before the Iranian Revolution, it had better relations with Iran and Saudi Arabia than they had with each other.

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Today, however, Washington has lost the flexibility and suppleness that would inform just this sort of strategy. Our foreign policy today usually consists of grand moral declarations that divide the world into black and white, friends and foes. Those statements quickly get locked in place with sanctions and legislation, making policies even more rigid. The political atmosphere becomes so charged that merely talking with a “foe” becomes risky.

There is now a whole slew of countries with which the United States has either no relations or only limited, hostile contact — Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Myanmar, North Korea. You can make the case for opposing any one of these countries individually; collectively, though, the effect is to create a rigid foreign policy — one in which we’re unwilling to talk to everyone in the room and unable to show flexibility, presumably based on the idea that it’s best to simply hope for the overthrow of these regimes.

This is not really a criticism of the Biden administration, but rather of U.S. foreign policy over the past decades. America’s unipolar status has corrupted the country’s foreign policy elite. Our foreign policy is all too often an exercise in making demands and issuing threats and condemnations. There is very little effort made to understand the other side’s views or actually negotiate.

The Obama administration tried to take a different path. It negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran, which seemed to bolster the moderates within the regime and could have led to a more workable relationship with that country. It engaged China while pushing back on issues such as economic espionage, with some success. It began a process of normalizing relations with Cuba. It even tried to maintain a working relationship with Russia.

But the political climate in Washington was largely hostile to this kind of Kissingerian diplomacy, and once Donald Trump entered the White House, he pulled out of the nuclear deal, slapped tariffs on China, tightened sanctions on Cuba and tried to overthrow the Venezuelan government. None of these efforts succeeded, but they are now so firmly established that they are extremely hard to change. Biden campaigned on undoing many of these policies, but once he took office he found it politically easier to just go along with the tough line.

All this evokes the inertia of an aging empire. Today, our foreign policy is run by an insular elite that operates by mouthing rhetoric to please domestic constituencies — and seems unable to sense that the world out there is changing, and fast.

The Washington Post · by Fareed Zakaria · March 17, 2023

15. This Marine vet created a wargame for enlisted leaders

This Marine vet created a wargame for enlisted leaders

marinecorpstimes.com · by Todd South · March 17, 2023

Sebastian Bae spent a bit of downtime as a Marine in the barracks rolling dice and moving pieces around a board.

“Lots of Axis and Allies,” Bae told Marine Corps Times.

The Marine infantryman joined the Reserve in 2007 with thoughts of going officer once he finished school at the University of California, Berkeley.

The Corps activated his unit and he deployed to Iraq in 2009, serving mostly in forward operating bases outside of Ramadi, Iraq.

Littoral Commander is a wargame created by Marine veteran Sebastian Bae. (Sebastian Bae)

Instead of pinning on lieutenant’s bars, Bae opted for graduate school at Georgetown University and later landed a job in wargaming first with at the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab as a civilian, then with the RAND Corporation and now at the Center of Naval Analyses.

The former grunt took his love of hobby gaming and the deeper theory and practices of high-level wargaming and said to himself, “Why isn’t there something besides non-military role-playing games or Axis and Allies for the enlisted leader?”

The Corps has long prized wargaming and developing even junior noncommissioned officers as strategic thinkers. But wargaming for many means large-scale, theater-level campaigning or deep data dives and machine learning to decide what weapons system might provide the crucial advantage in a fight with China for Taiwan.

Bae thought for awhile he might have another option.

The Marines want even infantrymen to have outsized impact on the larger battle as they push their Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations, Force Design changes and other concepts to allow Marines to contribute in unique ways to the larger fight.

“I wanted Marines to understand Force Design 2030 and why these changes were happening and why the commandant was making the changes he was,” Bae said.

So, after years of wargaming in 2019 Bae started building his own game – Littoral Commander.

The game started as a weekend pet project, he said. The former infantryman couldn’t get many people interested in an educational game for enlisted.

The pandemic hitting in 2020 jumpstarted his wargame development, giving him more time than he’d had before to work on the design and concept, he said.

He finished the game in August 2020 and started testing it nearly nonstop through March 2021. He even ran it for leaders he knew at the Corps’ Expeditionary Warfare School.

Then, it kind of caught on but needed some smoothing of rough edges. Game design isn’t for the faint of heart.

Littoral Commander is a wargame created by Marine veteran Sebastian Bae. (Sebastian Bae)

After that, he ran the game for various units, including tactics professionals at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center.

“Demand got so big that it outstripped my abilities to make them on my kitchen table,” he said.

Then Bae went pro.

He contracted with a game-building company, the nonprofit Dietz Foundation, to produce the sets and started shipping the finished product to units.

Ian Brown, who recently served as operations officer for the Marine Corps Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare was both an early player and feedback source for Bae.

“I’ve played wargames since I was a kid. I’m old enough that I had a copy of the Milton Bradley miniatures game “Battle Masters,” Brown told Marine Corps Times in an email response.

The CH-53E helicopter pilot said his work at the center allowed him to “rekindle” his interest in war and strategy games.

“I’d say the central thing that makes Littoral Commander unique is that it’s designed to capture a Marine Corps-centric problem: future multi-domain warfare using known or suspected capabilities of both ourselves and our prospective adversary,” Brown said.

A custom-made game for a particular military focus is difficult to get built, he said. Littoral Commander gives an “intellectual sandbox” for Marines to look at a future problem.

Neither infantryman Bae nor pilot Brown brush off real-world training. But field exercises and flight hours cost money. Exercising the mind is an investment of time. And a game such as this only takes the time required to set up and play.

“Live training is always great, but it’s not always available, and when available it’s not always focused on decision-making, or the individual vice the group,” Brown said.

Having junior Marines play the game spreads strategic thinking, he said.

“Rather than having a few thousand officer-type Marines trained and educated to make decisions, you have 170,000-plus Marines able to do that,” Brown said.

The game costs $70, with much of the profit supporting Dietz Foundation work to proliferate educational gaming in various areas.

Bae is now at work on an Army version that looks at a Multi-Domain Task Force and the Marine Corps Amphibious Readiness Group, Marine Expeditionary Unit and how those formations work in future war scenarios, he told Marine Corps Times.

*CORRECTION: A previous version of this article inaccurately stated the order in which Bae was employed at various organizations.

About Todd South

Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.

16. Opinion: ICC arrest warrant for Putin is a stunning statement

Excerpts:

Putin, along with Maria Lvova-Belova, his “Commissioner for Children’s Rights,” are now formally accused of violating the laws of war by forcibly removing Ukrainian children and deporting them to Russia. In the ICC’s words, they are “allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine.” The arrest warrant states that there are “reasonable grounds to believe Mr. Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes.”

For now, the ICC is focusing narrowly on just one, but a particularly horrifying and cruel, aspect of Russia’s Ukraine campaign. Russia has allegedly been removing children from Ukraine and placing them in relocation camps inside Russia and in Russian homes. Lvova-Belova has been instrumental in carrying out the policy, which is not being conducted in secret. In fact, she publicly thanked Putin for making it possible for her, personally, to adopt a child from Donbas, a Russian-occupied area of Ukraine.

...

Putin’s ability to travel is now severely restricted, as more than 120 signatory countries to the Rome Statute creating the ICC are now required to arrest him if he sets foot in their territory. ICC President Judge Piotr Hofmanski said the countries are “obliged to execute arrest warrants issues by the court.”

Putin may think he could never be arrested; could never end up in The Hague. But a small rogue’s gallery of 20th century war-mongers, monsters to many of their people and their neighbors, went from feeling perfectly secure in their palaces to facing a tribunal in The Hague after they lost power at home.

Whether or not Putin is ever put in handcuffs, his place in history is now secure in the darkest pages of massacres and misrule.

Opinion: ICC arrest warrant for Putin is a stunning statement | CNN

CNN · by Frida Ghitis · March 18, 2023

Editor’s Note: Frida Ghitis, (@fridaghitis) a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.

CNN —

When the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced on Friday that it had issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and another key Russian official for charges related to an alleged scheme to forcibly deport thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, it also effectively placed Putin’s name on a short list alongside some of the most brutal leaders the world has seen since the end of World War II. With that, it branded him before the entire world — including the Russian people — as an international pariah, potentially guilty of historically egregious crimes.

Frida Ghitis

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the ICC’s move “outrageous and unacceptable,” dismissing the warrants as “null and void” for Russia. But there’s no question that this is a stunning, historical reputational blow not just to Putin but to modern Russia.

Only three sitting heads of state have faced ICC charges while in office. The other two were the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and Sudan’s former President Omar al-Bashir, both accused of horrifying crimes against their own people.

Russia is not Libya or Sudan, both impoverished developing nations barely out of colonial rule. Russia is one of the countries that helped defeat Hitler’s Germany in World War II. It is a once-proud nation that emerged from world war, and later from communism, with vast natural resources, a highly educated population and a drive to become a thriving democracy. It faced many challenges, but had a promising future.

Then came Putin, handpicked by his predecessor Boris Yeltsin and then elected president more than 20 years ago, who dismantled democracy block by block, tightening his hold on power and crushing the country’s democratic aspirations even before he launched his brutal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimiar Putin.

President of Russia

Putin's world just got a lot smaller with the ICC's arrest warrant

Putin is now an accused — not convicted — war criminal. By most accounts, he enjoys the support of most Russians. Perhaps this will give some of them reason to reconsider. But one day, the Russian people will look beyond the propaganda they’ve been fed, and they will understand the horror of what’s been perpetrated in their name.

There’s almost no chance that Putin will face an ICC tribunal in The Hague anytime soon. As Peskov reiterated in his statement, Russia does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction, and as long as Putin is president, he’s likely to remain free. But, unless he faces the court and then somehow manages to clear his name — an outcome that is doubly unlikely — he will forever bear the branding of an accused war criminal.

Putin, along with Maria Lvova-Belova, his “Commissioner for Children’s Rights,” are now formally accused of violating the laws of war by forcibly removing Ukrainian children and deporting them to Russia. In the ICC’s words, they are “allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine.” The arrest warrant states that there are “reasonable grounds to believe Mr. Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes.”

For now, the ICC is focusing narrowly on just one, but a particularly horrifying and cruel, aspect of Russia’s Ukraine campaign. Russia has allegedly been removing children from Ukraine and placing them in relocation camps inside Russia and in Russian homes. Lvova-Belova has been instrumental in carrying out the policy, which is not being conducted in secret. In fact, she publicly thanked Putin for making it possible for her, personally, to adopt a child from Donbas, a Russian-occupied area of Ukraine.

The Russian government claims it’s all practically a humanitarian move, aimed at saving Ukrainian children in a war zone. The ICC says it’s a violation of the Geneva Conventions. ICC prosecutors, Ukrainian authorities and groups focusing on locating the children say it’s part of Putin’s concerted effort to erase Ukraine’s nationhood. US and European officials say the children spend time in a network of dozens of camps where they undergo political reeducation, an effort to turn them into Russian citizens.

Xi Jinping and Volodymyr Zelensky

Getty Images

Opinion: Why Xi may finally be ready to talk to Zelensky

Ukrainian parents are desperately trying to get their children back.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan said the acts alleged in the warrant, “demonstrate an intention to permanently remove these children from their own country.”

These are just the first two arrest warrants over only one aspect of Russia’s assault on Ukraine. Khan’s office said they’re looking for more suspects and will issue more arrest warrants if the evidence justifies.

There’s good reason to expect more. Ukrainian officials and several organizations have been painstakingly documenting what they believe are not only war crimes but also crimes against humanity, in the expectation that eventually there will be a reckoning.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the news. In his nightly update to the nation on Friday, he called the ICC’s move “a historic decision that will lead to historic responsibility.”

Zelensky says Ukraine has already recorded 16,000 individual cases of forcible deportations of children,” but the full number, he noted, is probably much higher. “Such a criminal operation,” he declared, “would have been impossible without the order of the highest leader of the terrorist state.”

By that, he meant Putin.

Putin’s ability to travel is now severely restricted, as more than 120 signatory countries to the Rome Statute creating the ICC are now required to arrest him if he sets foot in their territory. ICC President Judge Piotr Hofmanski said the countries are “obliged to execute arrest warrants issues by the court.”

Putin may think he could never be arrested; could never end up in The Hague. But a small rogue’s gallery of 20th century war-mongers, monsters to many of their people and their neighbors, went from feeling perfectly secure in their palaces to facing a tribunal in The Hague after they lost power at home.

Whether or not Putin is ever put in handcuffs, his place in history is now secure in the darkest pages of massacres and misrule.

CNN · by Frida Ghitis · March 18, 2023

17. Taiwan charges two former state officials with violating national security law by spying for China

I am not sure we have a good appreciation for how much the PRC intelligence services have infiltrated Taiwan.

Taiwan charges two former state officials with violating national security law by spying for China

By Namita Singh The Independent

March 17, 2023

View Original

A retired admiral and a former lawmaker in Taiwan have been slapped with espionage charges for allegedly developing a spy network for China.

Hsia Fu-hsiang, who served as deputy head of the navy’s political warfare department, and Lo Chih-ming, a former Taiwan Solidarity Union lawmaker, were taken into custody earlier in January this year for allegedly violating the island nation’s national security law.

Indicting the two on Thursday, Kaohsiung prosecutors said they began their efforts after being hired by Chinese military and the Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, reported Taipei Times.

The two former officials are charged of violating the National Security Act for inviting and accompanying 48 generals and major generals on 13 trips to China between 2012 and 2019, said deputy head prosecutor Hsu Hung-ju.

The two helped in building the alleged spy network and lured retired officials through financial means to pass sensitive information, claimed the prosecutors.

Mr Lo and Mr Hsia are accused of leading trips to Beijing, allegedly financed by the country, where Taiwanese military personnel were treated like VIPs. The trips include the gathering of alumni of the Whampoa Military Academy, the Zhuhai International Airshow and golf competitions, reported Taipei Times.

If convicted, the two former state officials can face up to five years of jail term, reported the BBC.

According to the broadcaster, the prosecutors do not have evidence to show that retired officials on the trip collected sensitive information for China, so they have been listed as witnesses in the case.

Mr Hsia was allegedly recruited by Mr Lo, AFP had earlier reported.

Their cases had emerged as prosecutors were investigating a retired air force colonel suspected of hiring six on-duty officers in the air force and navy for China, reported the French wire agency.

18. Ukraine says SBU "white wolves" destroyed 10 Russian tanks in one night

Ukraine says SBU "white wolves" destroyed 10 Russian tanks in one night

Newsweek · by Brendan Cole · March 18, 2023

Ukraine has said that video released on Saturday shows how its forces had successfully targeted Russian tanks overnight.

The clip tweeted by Ukraine's security service the SBU shows a bird's eye view of military vehicles exploding after being hit from above.

"Nine or ten? TEN! That's how many Russian tanks were destroyed by special forces of the SBU "White Wolves" in just one night!," the SBU said on Telegram next to the clip, which as of Saturday afternoon had received more than 47,000 views.

SBU forces destroy 10 Russian tanks in Donetsk Oblast overnight.

Ukraine's Security Service said on March 18 that its special forces, "White Wolves," had destroyed 10 Russian tanks and an armored personnel carrier in the direction of occupied Donetsk.

Video:Security Service pic.twitter.com/Ik0057lTOn

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 18, 2023

The SBU said that an armored personnel carrier was also hit the in the strikes in the direction of Russian-occupied Donetsk. The video has not been independently verified and the exact location of the purported strikes was not mentioned. Newsweek has emailed Russia's defense ministry for comment.

A burnt Russian tank sits in a sunflower field near Izyum, eastern Ukraine, on October 1, 2022. Ukraine has claimed on March 18, 2023 that it destroyed 10 Russian tanks the previous day. JUAN BARRETO/Getty Images

It comes after another video went viral allegedly showing Ukrainian forces striking one of Russia's T-90 tanks, which are considered to be among the invaders' most advanced equipment.

Ukrainian internal affairs advisor Anton Gerashchenko tweeted how his country's National Guards brigade was among Ukraine's forces which had "tracked down and destroyed the pride of Russian defense industry—the T90 Proryv tank."

On Saturday, Kyiv held discussions with American officials about upcoming U.S. military assistance, including weapons and ammunition, the Ukrainian presidential chief-of-staff Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram.

They discussed "the current situation at the front, combat operations in the most difficult directions, as well as about the urgent needs of the Ukrainian army," Yermak wrote according to a translation.

On the call was U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin who said on Thursday that Ukraine "doesn't have any time to waste" ahead of an anticipated spring offensive.

Austin had said said that the U.S. had to deliver "swiftly and fully" on what it had promised Kyiv. That included getting armored capabilities to the battlefield and making sure Ukrainian troops get "the training, spare parts, and maintenance support they need," Politico reported.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, Russian media reported how Vladimir Putin had visited the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula nine years after proclaiming its occupation. He visited an arts school in the Black Sea port city of Sevastopol accompanied by local governor Mikhail Razvozhayev, according to images broadcast on TV.

The Russian president's visit to the peninsula Moscow illegally annexed in 2014 came a day after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against him for his role in the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children.

Newsweek · by Brendan Cole · March 18, 2023

19. Vultures at the gate: The national security risk of Silicon Valley Bank’s failure

Excerpts:

What does all of this mean?

First, if SVB is going to dominate the conversation in the weeks ahead, that conversation should include China and the risk that it takes advantage of this American crisis. Beware of vultures at the gates.

Second, the U.S. desperately needs more effective government systems for regulating (and restricting) Chinese investments, both direct and indirect, in foundational and critical technologies. And the private sector needs to shoulder its share of the burden, waking up to the risks of Chinese investments and taking its own preventative actions from both the founder and fund manager perspectives. American LPs, too, need to take this reset of the sector as an opportunity to impose new expectations on fund managers and the risks they invite by accepting Chinese investments or by positioning as bridges for bilateral capital flows between the U.S. and China.

SVB’s fall has created an inflection point for the investment community. Let’s not let China define the period ahead. Instead, let’s treat this moment as a warning that underscores the strategic importance of private market capital flows. And let’s treat them as a competitive domain.

Vultures at the gate: The national security risk of Silicon Valley Bank’s failure

BY NATHAN PICARSIC AND EMILY DE LA BRUYÈRE, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS - 03/17/23 7:30 AM ET

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3900492-vultures-at-the-gate-the-national-security-risk-of-silicon-valley-banks-failure/

In 2008, as the U.S. financial sector melted down, Beijing saw opportunity. “The financial crisis was a rare opportunity for Chinese enterprises lacking resources and advanced technology to go abroad and acquire foreign companies at low cost,” wrote Chinese researchers at Beihua University in a government-funded report, published in 2010. In a more acute example, in 2012, when emergent U.S. electric vehicle battery company A123 went bankrupt, China’s Wanxiang swept in to pick up the pieces — at a bargain.

The point: China loves a fire sale.

And in today’s post-Silicon Valley Bank bailout environment, there’s nothing to prevent China from gaining closer proximity to the sale rack — and access to critical and foundational emerging technology.

Right now, the U.S. and international tech ecosystem risks standing on the precipice of another crisis-turned-China opportunity. You may have heard that Silicon Valley Bank, and its customers, have had a tough week. SVB, known as the start-up bank, surprised investors with the news that it would need to raise $2.25 billion to shore up its balance sheet. Mass hysteria ensued, ricocheting across international hubs of innovation from San Francisco to Boston to London.

A day later, customers had withdrawn $42 billion in deposits and the bank’s stock had plummeted by some 60 percent. By last Friday, Silicon Valley Bank officially had failed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) had been appointed receiver. Then the Treasury and Federal Reserve stepped in, guaranteeing uninsured deposits, a de facto bailout of the banking system.

The U.S. government is also working behind the scenes to try to facilitate a sale of SVB. In the United Kingdom, that has already happened: HSBC stepped up on Monday to buy the UK arm of SVB, for £1 ($1.21).

The follow-on effects reverberating throughout the global tech ecosystem risks creating a fire sale environment. Even with SVB deposits guaranteed, the dominant banking partner of the American tech ecosystem has vanished overnight, with no immediate alternative; founders will continue to scramble to make payroll and fund managers may be on the lookout for more stable partners and sources of capital in a new, less-certain “normal.” As such, this moment risks granting China a strategic opportunity. HSBC’s acquisition of SVB’s UK subsidiary underscores as much. That bank’s top shareholder is China’s State-backed Ping’An Insurance.

The U.S. should be wary of China sweeping into the vacuum, or foothold, created by SVB’s collapse — or that of any other key player in the U.S. tech ecosystem. But if history is any guide, Beijing will try to do just that. And those efforts, if successful, will feed directly into China’s military modernization program and tech-enabled surveillance state.

Right now, there aren’t enough barriers to prevent China from doing so. Yes, foreign investment review exists; in theory, U.S. regulations (read: CFIUS) can be activated to prevent China from acquiring strategic and sensitive U.S. technologies and positions.

But U.S. investment review has enormous loopholes, including a focus on direct acquisitions and “controlling” investment stakes. Investment review does not apply to limited partnership stakes in U.S. funds. No regulations restrict Chinese entities from investing in banks or as LPs in funds that, in turn, invest in strategic and sensitive technologies. So, even if China can’t acquire U.S. innovation directly through an operating company, it can back players that do and gain access to and influence over core technology all the same.

What does all of this mean?

First, if SVB is going to dominate the conversation in the weeks ahead, that conversation should include China and the risk that it takes advantage of this American crisis. Beware of vultures at the gates.

Second, the U.S. desperately needs more effective government systems for regulating (and restricting) Chinese investments, both direct and indirect, in foundational and critical technologies. And the private sector needs to shoulder its share of the burden, waking up to the risks of Chinese investments and taking its own preventative actions from both the founder and fund manager perspectives. American LPs, too, need to take this reset of the sector as an opportunity to impose new expectations on fund managers and the risks they invite by accepting Chinese investments or by positioning as bridges for bilateral capital flows between the U.S. and China.

SVB’s fall has created an inflection point for the investment community. Let’s not let China define the period ahead. Instead, let’s treat this moment as a warning that underscores the strategic importance of private market capital flows. And let’s treat them as a competitive domain.

Nathan Picarsic and Emily de La Bruyère are senior fellows at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) with a focus on China policy, and the co-founders of Horizon Advisory, a consulting firm focused on the implications of China’s competitive approach to geopolitics.

20. What is ‘deep sensing’ and why is the US Army so focused on it?

I first thought this would be another "Men who stare at goats."

Excerpts:

“The first operational imperative for the Army of 2030 is really to be able to see and sense farther and more persistently, at every level across the battlefield, than our enemies,” Wormuth said. “So how are we going to do that? We’ve got to be able to collect and analyze unprecedented quantities of raw data from many different sources.”

...

“We’ve really got an array of ISR capabilities that we want to knit together,” McConville said at the McAleese conference. “Some of that is on the joint side, some of that is with us. And that’s where the whole sense of convergence comes in.”

The “real secret sauce,” the chief of staff added, is the ability to quickly corral available data, make sense of it and forward it “to the appropriate shooter or effects mechanisms.” And that well-situated force could be wielding keyboards, jammers, rifles or something heftier.

“If we’re going to do long-range precision fires, you need to do long range-precision targeting,” McConville said. “In order to do that, you have to have deep sensing.”

What is ‘deep sensing’ and why is the US Army so focused on it?

c4isrnet.com · by Colin Demarest · March 17, 2023

WASHINGTON — The Army is seeking ways to identify, monitor, target and strike opponents from farther distances and with greater precision amid the U.S. military’s pivot to the Indo-Pacific.

To do so, the service is pursuing what officials, including Secretary Christine Wormuth and Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville, dub “deep sensing.”

Key to the effort is a “family” of in-development situational awareness tools, Wormuth said this week at the McAleese and Associates defense conference in Washington, D.C. They include the Terrestrial Layer Systems, or TLS, that can provide soldiers with cyber and electronic warfare assistance; the High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System, or HADES, an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance jet outfitted with advanced sensors; and the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node, or TITAN, meant to centralize and accelerate the collection, parsing and distribution of data.

“The first operational imperative for the Army of 2030 is really to be able to see and sense farther and more persistently, at every level across the battlefield, than our enemies,” Wormuth said. “So how are we going to do that? We’ve got to be able to collect and analyze unprecedented quantities of raw data from many different sources.”

How the Army is tackling these six goals for future wars

Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth shared areas the Army must improve for its future combat needs.

The Army’s fiscal year 2024 budget documents underline deep sensing as necessary to address challenges in the Indo-Pacific, home to some of the world’s largest militaries and nearly two-thirds of its economy. The documents also highlight plans to spend $191 million on HADES and $143 million on TITAN.

The service in 2022 tapped Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics Mission Systems for work on the TLS variants and L3Harris Technologies and Raytheon Applied Signal Technology for HADES sensor development. The year prior, it turned to Palantir and Raytheon to flesh out TITAN.

The deals totaled tens of millions of dollars. The Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors, or PEO IEW&S, had a hand in them all.

“To improve our deep-sensing capabilities, we’re investing in sensing technologies, data analytics and target recognition aids,” Wormuth said Wednesday. The Army’s latest budget proposal comes to $185.5 billion, about 5% more than its previous ask.

As the U.S. prepares for potential conflict with China and Russia and moves away from smaller-scale counterinsurgency campaigns, defense officials are emphasizing the value of observation across vast distances as well as speedy decision-making.

The thinking may be best encapsulated by the Pentagon’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control initiative, or JADC2, which envisions a seamlessly linked military, with information securely flowing to and from land, air, sea, space and cyberspace.

Army sets sights on 2024 for next Project Convergence

The timeframe is later than usual; the Army has typically held the event in late fall.

Each service has its own contribution to JADC2. The Army has Project Convergence, a weekslong crucible during which technologies and networking techniques are tested under realistic scenarios. In 2022, the experiment folded in the Air Force and Navy as well as troops from the U.K. and Australia. Canada and New Zealand observed.

“We’ve really got an array of ISR capabilities that we want to knit together,” McConville said at the McAleese conference. “Some of that is on the joint side, some of that is with us. And that’s where the whole sense of convergence comes in.”

The “real secret sauce,” the chief of staff added, is the ability to quickly corral available data, make sense of it and forward it “to the appropriate shooter or effects mechanisms.” And that well-situated force could be wielding keyboards, jammers, rifles or something heftier.

“If we’re going to do long-range precision fires, you need to do long range-precision targeting,” McConville said. “In order to do that, you have to have deep sensing.”

About Colin Demarest

Colin Demarest is a reporter at C4ISRNET, where he covers military networks, cyber and IT. Colin previously covered the Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration — namely Cold War cleanup and nuclear weapons development — for a daily newspaper in South Carolina. Colin is also an award-winning photographer.

21. U.S. ran secret probe into China's operations in Canada, new book alleges

U.S. ran secret probe into China's operations in Canada, new book alleges | CBC News

Book alleges longstanding U.S. concerns. Canadian intel veteran who recalls probe to testify in Parliament

Alexander Panetta · CBC News · Posted: Mar 18, 2023 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: March 18

CBC · by Alexander Panetta

The United States ran a secret probe into national-security threats posed by Chinese overseas operations that drew alarming conclusions about Canada, alleges a new book co-authored by a former RCMP and military intelligence official.

The book says the project, code-named Operation Dragon Lord, led to an unnerving takeaway: that Beijing's activities in Canada represented a security threat to the United States.

This investigation wasn't triggered by recent headlines. It happened in the 1990s. Yet it provides a window into current controversies, argues the soon-to-be-released book

The timeliness of that old episode will be underscored Monday when one of the key intelligence figures of the era testifies before a Canadian parliamentary committee.

In an interview with CBC News, Michel Juneau-Katsuya celebrated the public finally taking an interest in issues he and his U.S. intelligence colleagues warned about long ago.

"I say: 'Hallelujah'," said Juneau-Katsuya, former senior intelligence officer at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and chief of the spy agency's Asia-Pacific unit.

He will appear before a special committee of the House of Commons studying Canada-China relations amid a political furore over Chinese interference.

Foreign interference is the 'greatest strategic threat' facing Canada's national security, CSIS says

He was personally involved in some of the episodes recounted in The Mosaic Effect.

The book's authors argue that current headlines about Chinese interference in Canadian politics are but a mere snippet of a bigger story.

That bigger story, they say, was spelled out in detail years ago by intelligence officers in both Canada and the U.S. who tried, and failed, to draw policy-makers' attention.

Former CSIS Asia-Pacific Bureau Chief Michel Juneau-Katsuya testifies before Parliament on Monday. He says he wishes policy-makers had listened to his warnings in the 1990s. (CBC)

U.S. probe allegedly sounded alarm about Canada

The intelligence officers warned of a tacit arrangement, allegedly struck between the Chinese government and criminal triads before Beijing regained control over Hong Kong in 1997.

In that arrangement, the criminals were left alone. In exchange, they provided services to the state, using their money and coercive power.

With money, the book says, they bought power — companies, especially high-tech firms with access to sensitive technology; and proximity to power through political donations.

The coercion is directed especially at Chinese expats who run afoul of Beijing, similar to how pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong were allegedly beaten up by criminal triads.

Old intelligence reports accused Beijing of using criminal triads to do their dirty work outside mainland China. In one recent example, criminal groups are suspected of beating pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, seen here in 2019. (Ming Ko/AP)

"Canada was aware of these threats for 25 years and has allowed them to manifest," said Scott McGregor, a former military and RCMP intelligence official who co-authored The Mosaic Effect with B.C.-based journalist and filmmaker Ina Mitchell.

"The threats were significant enough to make [Canada's] largest trading partner in the world, [with an] undefended border, the United States, concerned that the threat is emanating from us.

"That's a pretty big thing to say."

Their book quotes a memo purportedly written within the U.S. Department of Justice in 1998; it describes a classified investigation led by that department, involving the CIA, National Security Agency, FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency, with input by partner agencies in Australia and Canada.

The five-page memo says the American probe examined this alleged alliance of convenience between Beijing and criminal groups.

It concludes with a statement that Canada, in particular, is cause for concern.

"The U.S. government can no longer tolerate such a threat emanating principally from within Canada's borders," it states.

Former RCMP and military intelligence official Scott McGregor, seen here during a trip to Washington, co-authored a book on Chinese hybrid warfare with B.C. journalist and filmmaker Ina Mitchell. (Alexander Panetta/CBC)

CSIS veteran: 'I knew about it'

The memo expresses alarm over Beijing's influence over legitimate enterprise; it mentions, in a passing reference, the existence of FBI biographies for several Canadian business leaders from that era as well as a Canada-China business group.

CBC News obtained a copy of the purported 1998 memo from the book authors. It could not corroborate the authenticity of the document.

But it did get two intelligence officers from that era, one Canadian, Juneau-Katsuya, and one American, to confirm its substance: that U.S. intelligence agencies were sufficiently alarmed to be working on a wide-ranging investigation with international colleagues, as described.

When asked about the U.S. operation, Juneau-Katsuya said: "I knew about it."

He recalls exchanging information with U.S. colleagues about it.

U.S. officials were examining the above-mentioned issues and quickly realized Canadian colleagues shared common concerns, so they began working together, Juneau-Katsuya said.

"We were all witnessing the same things," he said.

In the late 1990s, relations between Canada and the Chinese government were warm. Here, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is seen being scolded by China's Xi Jinping during a G20 summit in Bali last year. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

A former senior intelligence analyst for the U.S. National Security Agency at the time said he would not vouch for the authenticity of the purported DOJ memo.

But John Schindler said, yes, American intelligence was absolutely concerned about Chinese activities in Canada and was probing the issue with Canadian colleagues.

He said those concerns spanned far beyond Canada.

Even in the United States, the Clinton administration was dealing with its own scandal involving a political donor who pleaded guilty to being instructed by a Chinese general to withdraw $300,000 and donate it to Bill Clinton's re-election campaign.

In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton was hit with a Chinese fundraising scandal. But Chinese interference remained a low priority, even in the U.S., as the country worked to build relations with a rising China. Here, Clinton is seen in 1999 with Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji during negotiations that led to China's acceptance in the World Trade Organization. (Reuters)

Former CIA officer: 'Welcome to the party, Canada'

A former CIA official and expert on Chinese espionage tactics said several countries have been asleep to the negative effects of Beijing's influence operations.

"From my perspective it's like, 'Welcome to the party, Canada. You've woken up,'" said Nicholas Eftimiades.

"It's amazing it's gone on so long."

Eftimiades said the biggest victims are members of the Chinese diaspora, a point made in The Mosaic Effect, which has two forewords written by Chinese-Canadian and Hong Kong human-rights activists who argue that Chinese expats need public support.

Alleged meddling by China's government goes deeper than elections: Hong Kong pro-democracy group in Canada

Intelligence veterans from that era readily share their frustrations. They're frustrated politicians and policy-makers ignored their warnings in the name of maintaining good relations with a growing China which, they assumed, was liberalizing.

Juneau-Katsuya is one example. He was lead author of a provocative report for a joint CSIS-RCMP probe code-named Operation Sidewinder.

His project was scrapped by senior CSIS officials in 1997, much to the reported annoyance of the RCMP, and copies of his report were ordered destroyed.

But a surviving draft version was leaked and its claims resemble those in the purported U.S. memo from 1998.

Times have changed. Tensions with Beijing grew under the Trump presidency, and they've continued under U.S. President Joe Biden, who visits Ottawa next week. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Former officials share frustrations about being ignored

Juneau-Katsuya wrote about the supposed non-aggression pact with triads before the 1997 Hong Kong handover, which Hong Kong police at the time are on the record complaining about.

He wrote that criminals were easily getting Canadian visas at Canada's high commission in Hong Kong under an investor program; that they transferred illicit money into Canada and laundered it; accrued influence by buying companies and donating to top political parties; and that they coordinated with Chinese intelligence in investing in high-tech industries to gain sensitive technology.

A review by a federal intelligence-review panel in 1999 criticized the report as sloppy and called its findings uncorroborated.

Juneau-Katsuya said he continues to stand by his findings all these years later. And he said the country would have been better off if policy-makers had listened back then.

"I knew about the repression in the [Chinese] community. I knew about the political interference taking place. I knew about agents of influence [working in government roles]," he said in an interview last week.

Members of Chinese communities in Hong Kong and Canada write that they are the biggest victims of Beijing's foreign interference. (Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters)

Garry Clement shared similar frustrations.

He was posted as an RCMP liaison officer at Canada's Hong Kong high commission in the early 1990s, in a career where he went on to become an RCMP superintendent and national director of the proceeds of crime division.

He said he heard from colleagues that criminals were abusing Canada's immigrant-investor program and the then-Royal Hong Kong Police had given up trying to alert Canada.

"Their position was: 'There's no point giving intelligence to Canadians.' Because we just ignored it," Clement said.

"Nothing was being done."

He said he kept writing memos back to Ottawa, about a half-dozen per week. His work fed into the Sidewinder report.

But he said nothing came of it.

Part of the problem at the time, he said, was that being a member of a criminal organization was not grounds for inadmissibility to Canada.

That's since changed. In subsequent years, successive Canadian governments also tightened political financing rules to make big-money and corporate donations, like those described in Sidewinder, illegal.

Yet, even in the 2010s, The Mosaic Effect co-author McGregor said he kept trying and failing to get officials in B.C. and Ottawa to take an interest in evidence he'd collected of massive amounts of drug cash being laundered by triads through provincial government-run casinos.

He'd started an integrated team within the RCMP where police could use intelligence material for their cases, as happens more easily in the U.S.

The project was disbanded.

Former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu says he was targeted for attacks by the Chinese government in the 2021 election after he proposed creating a registry of foreign agents, like some other countries have. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

A Canadian case, cracked in the U.S.

That's why McGregor said he and his colleagues were delighted when a case crossed national borders, and his U.S. colleagues got involved in an investigation: they simply had more effective tools to make an arrest.

He cites a famous example involving a B.C.-based company that sold encrypted phones to criminals: the key arrest in the case, of a Canadian resident, was made while he was in Washington State, by U.S. authorities. Those American authorities decrypted his equipment and that led to a bombshell — criminal charges against the head of RCMP intelligence, Cameron Ortis, accused of leaking state secrets.

These intelligence veterans offer different suggestions for attacking the issues laid out in those long-ago memos.

They include a new racketeering statute in Canada, intelligence-sharing with police, a law against lying to police, ensuring money-laundering cases aren't thrown out of court because they take too long, a foreign-agents registry like the one Ottawa is studying, and an RCMP refocused on major crime instead of local policing.

Also, a public inquiry.

WATCH | David Johnston to lead investigation of election interference:

Former governor general to lead election interference investigation

4 days ago

Duration 1:49

Prime Minister Trudeau has appointed former governor general David Johnston to oversee the investigation into accusations of Chinese meddling in Canada's last two elections.

About that inquiry...

Juneau-Katsuya is scathing of anyone today still advising Prime Minister Justin Trudeau against one, for fear it might hurt the government: "Morons," he calls them.

He said every federal government dating back to the 1980s would be embarrassed by the details of a full public inquiry, saying there are numerous examples of connections between China's United Front Work Department and political officials and the bureaucracy, going back years.

He said both the national interest, and Trudeau, would be best served by ripping off that band-aid immediately and calling a probe.

As for whoever has been leaking allegations to the press about Chinese election interference and so-called police stations in Canada, Juneau-Katsuya says: "This whistleblower should receive the Order of Canada."

CBC · by Alexander Panetta

22. Venture capital gives America a strategic edge in the age of technology wars

Excerpts:

The inconsistent and relatively limited funding given to NSIC makes it less effective than it could be. Despite a $75 million authorization from Congress, the Defense Department initially committed only $5 million for this effort. In year two, the Pentagon made no request for NSIC funding; Congress appropriated $15 million anyway.

During the most recent funding cycle, the Defense Innovation Unit–which houses the NSIC–was told to fund the program “out of its existing budget.” The Pentagon has a vast array of near-term and long-term tradeoffs to consider, but this particular decision led the Senate Armed Services Committee to chastise the Pentagon for being “short-sighted.”

Congress took important steps in 2022 to improve America’s technological competitiveness with China in both the economic and national security spheres. The U.S. intelligence community and U.S. allies abroad are doing the same. The NSIC program could serve as an important tool to help the U.S. maintain its technological edge if the U.S. Defense Department gave it the flexibility and funding envisioned by Congress.

Venture capital gives America a strategic edge in the age of technology wars

BY DANIEL EGEL AND MICHAEL MCNERNEY

March 17, 2023 at 1:59 PM EDT

Fortune · by Commentary

U.S. early-stage hardware startups are seriously disadvantaged by a persistent lack of financing. Meanwhile, China has been pouring money into Chinese–as well as U.S. and European–tech startups.

Recognizing this problem, Congress authorized the U.S. Department of Defense to spend $75 million to invest in dual-use hardware startups. However, the Pentagon has proven reticent to embrace a venture capital-style approach, even though research has demonstrated it is optimal for driving innovation.

There is precedent for this type of approach within the United States. The U.S. intelligence community invests nearly $60 million in public funds each year through a venture capital fund called In-Q-Tel. Respected in VC circles, In-Q-Tel invests in startups working on A.I., virtual reality, biotech, data analysis, robotics, sensors, and more. Similarly, the U.K. invests more than $120 million annually and NATO plans to invest an additional $70 million per year in companies that build dual-use technologies.

In 2019, Congress directed the Pentagon to do something similar to In-Q-Tel. The goals were straightforward: nudge more private sector development of hardware with national security applications–and deter the kind of strategic acquisitions China has been pursuing.

In response, the Pentagon launched the National Security Innovation Capital program. The Silicon Valley-based NSIC awards prototype development contracts to early-stage startups building dual-use hardware. These contracts provide funding to the startups to produce government-specific prototypes. So far, it has awarded contracts of about $20 million to 12 startups working on things like batteries, metal foams, and optical communications.

Two things, however, are holding NSIC back. First, at the Pentagon’s direction, NSIC is investing only in prototype contracts. While such a conservative approach is understandable, given that venture capital investments are in some ways uncharted territory for the Pentagon, greater risk tolerance may be necessary to drive innovation.

Research we did at RAND concluded that equity investing provides startup firms with more flexibility, particularly those producing dual-use technologies. Further, using the equity investing model–which is allowed by Congress–NSIC could reinvest returns from successful investments in new ventures. This is the approach used by In-Q-Tel.

The inconsistent and relatively limited funding given to NSIC makes it less effective than it could be. Despite a $75 million authorization from Congress, the Defense Department initially committed only $5 million for this effort. In year two, the Pentagon made no request for NSIC funding; Congress appropriated $15 million anyway.

During the most recent funding cycle, the Defense Innovation Unit–which houses the NSIC–was told to fund the program “out of its existing budget.” The Pentagon has a vast array of near-term and long-term tradeoffs to consider, but this particular decision led the Senate Armed Services Committee to chastise the Pentagon for being “short-sighted.”

Congress took important steps in 2022 to improve America’s technological competitiveness with China in both the economic and national security spheres. The U.S. intelligence community and U.S. allies abroad are doing the same. The NSIC program could serve as an important tool to help the U.S. maintain its technological edge if the U.S. Defense Department gave it the flexibility and funding envisioned by Congress.

Daniel Egel is a senior economist and Michael McNerney is a senior defense researcher at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. Both are faculty members at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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Fortune · by Commentary

23. 3 takeaways 20 years after the invasion of Iraq

Pete Mansoor and Ryan Crocker comment on the war.

Wars aren't predictable. They're chaotic — and costlier than anyone anticipates

If you set out to "reshape" a region, you may not like the shape it becomes

Not all outcomes are bad

3 takeaways 20 years after the invasion of Iraq

March 19, 20235:00 AM ET

Scott Neuman

Larry Kaplow

NPR · by By · March 19, 2023

U.S. Marine Maj. Bull Gurfein pulls down a poster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on March 21, 2003, a day after the start of the U.S. invasion, in Safwan, Iraq. Chris Hondros/Getty Images

Two decades ago, U.S. air and ground forces invaded Iraq in what then-President George W. Bush said was an effort to disarm the country, free its people and "defend the world from grave danger."

In the late-night Oval Office address on March 19, 2003, Bush did not mention his administration's assertion that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. That argument — which turned out to be based on thin or otherwise faulty intelligence — had been laid out weeks before by Secretary of State Colin Powell at a U.N. Security Council meeting.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell holds a vial representing the small amount of anthrax that closed the U.S. Senate in 2002 during his address to the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003, in New York City. Powell was making a presentation attempting to convince the world that Iraq was deliberately hiding weapons of mass destruction. Mario Tama/Getty Images

Bush described the massive airstrikes on Iraq as the "opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign" and pledged that "we will accept no outcome but victory."

However, Bush's caveat that the campaign "could be longer and more difficult than some predict" proved prescient. In eight years of boots on the ground, the U.S. lost some 4,600 U.S. service members, and at least 270,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, were killed. While the invasion succeeded in toppling Saddam, it ultimately failed to uncover any secret stash of weapons of mass destruction. Although estimates vary, a Brown University estimate puts the cost of the combat phase of the war at around $2 trillion.

When Ryan Crocker, who at the time had already been U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Kuwait and Syria and would go on to hold the top diplomatic post in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, first saw Bush's televised speech announcing the start of combat operations, he was at an airport heading back to Washington, D.C.

"I was thinking, 'Here we go,' " he recalls. But it was a sense of dread, not excitement. Crocker wondered, "God knows where we're going."

Peter Mansoor, a colonel attending the U.S. Army War College at the time, was concerned about his future, knowing that he'd soon be in command of the first brigade of the 1st Armored Division, which would go on to see action in Iraq.

"I was very interested in the outcome of the invasion and what would happen in the aftermath," says Mansoor, who is now a military history professor at Ohio State University. "I didn't expect the Iraqi army to be able to put up much resistance beyond a few weeks."

Meanwhile, Marsin Alshamary, an 11-year-old Iraqi American growing up in Minneapolis, Minn., when the invasion occurred, says "seeing planes and bombing over where my grandparents lived made me cry." Alshamary, who is now a Middle East policy expert at the Brookings Institution, says to her at the time, the possibility that Saddam would be deposed seemed "unreal."

Crocker, Mansoor and Alshamary recently shared their thoughts with NPR on lessons learned from one of America's longest conflicts — the war in Iraq. Here are their observations:

Wars aren't predictable. They're chaotic — and costlier than anyone anticipates

U.S. optimism for a quick and relatively bloodless outcome in Iraq was apparent even before the invasion.

In the months leading to the 2003 invasion, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in a radio call-in program, predicted that the coming fight would take "five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that." Bush, in what's been dubbed his "mission accomplished" speech on May 1, 2003, declared that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

Rumsfeld's prediction would prove hopelessly optimistic. In the days and weeks after Baghdad fell, a growing insurgency took root and U.S. forces began to come frequently under fire from hostile militias.

Mansoor says the Bush administration "made a certain set of planning assumptions that didn't pan out."

"They basically planned for a best-case scenario, where the Iraqi people would cooperate with the occupation, that Iraqi units would be available to help secure the country in the aftermath of conflict, and that the international community would step in to help reconstruct Iraq," he says. "All three of those assumptions were wrong."

Although many Iraqis were happy to see Saddam gone, "there was a significant minority who benefited from his rule. And they weren't going to go quietly into the night," Mansoor says.

That was not only the Iraqi army, but government bureaucrats who owed their livelihoods to Saddam.

The U.S. decision to disband the Iraqi army a couple of months later — thus leaving 400,000 disgruntled and combat-trained Iraqi men with no income — proved a turning point in the conflict. It helped fuel the insurgency and is credited by some historians with having helped to spawn the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group.

Iraqi children sit amid the rubble of a street in Mosul's Nablus neighborhood in front of a billboard bearing the logo of the Islamic State group on March 12, 2017. Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images

"The Iraq conflict sucked thousands, if not tens of thousands, of jihadi terrorists into the country," Mansoor says. "It also created a battleground in Iraq where ... civil war could take place."

"None of this was foreseen," he says. "But the outcome of removing Saddam's regime enabled that."

Alshamary calls the Bush administration's approach to the Iraq invasion "outrageous."

"There has been no history of short, successful interventions that have resulted in successful regime change. So the arrogance of assuming that could happen was astounding," she says.

Instead of a conflict that lasted weeks or months, as Bush's Cabinet officials and advisers had hoped, a years-long occupation ensued that would be inherited by the administration of President Barack Obama. The word "quagmire" — largely disused since the Vietnam War — was dusted off to describe the situation in Iraq.

The potential for a protracted occupation should have been foreseen, says Crocker. "To overthrow someone else's government and occupy the country is going to set into motion consequences that aren't just third and fourth order. They're 30th and 40th order — way beyond any capacity to predict or plan."

"In Iraq, we paid for it in blood as well as money," the former ambassador says. "Somebody tell me when we decide if it was worth those 4,500 lives, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of lives that Iraqis lost."

If you set out to "reshape" a region, you may not like the shape it becomes

Key figures in the Bush administration believed that regime change would make Iraq a U.S. ally in the region and provide a pro-American bulwark against neighboring Iran, while reducing the threat of terrorism at home. Alshamary calls that notion, at least in relation to Iran, "wishful thinking."

Instead, she says, Tehran may have been the biggest beneficiary of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Iran and Iraq fought a brutal eight-year conflict in the 1980s and were still bitter enemies at the start of the U.S. invasion. Today, the Iraqi army is just half its pre-invasion size. And some analysts argue that the Iraq War has made it much more difficult for the international community to respond to Iran's efforts to build nuclear weapons.

Instead of containing Tehran, the invasion of its neighbor and rival only "created a vacuum of power that Iran filled," Mansoor says.

It's a view shared by Crocker. "We basically left the field to adversaries with greater patience and more commitment," he says. "That would, of course, be al-Qaida to the west and Iran and its affiliated militias to the east."

The Islamic State also exploited sectarian tensions following the invasion to entrench itself in both Iraq and Syria, causing the U.S. to send troops back to Iraq three years after first withdrawing from the country.

A woman from an Arabic family cries after her family was denied entry to a Kurdish-controlled area from an ISIS-held village in late 2015 near Sinjar, Iraq. John Moore/Getty Images

Not all outcomes are bad

Despite the huge loss of life and the other consequences from the U.S. invasion, Alshamary, Mansoor and Crocker agree that Iraq is a fundamentally freer country today than it was before 2003.

Yes, there's crippling corruption, unemployment, poverty and a complete reliance on oil as a source of wealth, Alshamary says. On the other hand, Iraq has elections "that aren't perfectly free and fair but are actually a lot better than people think they are."

Even so, attacks on activists and journalists are not uncommon. Recent street protests have been forcefully quashed by authorities. Two years ago, Iraq's prime minister narrowly survived an assassination attempt, allegedly by an Iranian-backed militia group.

Despite these problems, Iraq has held together. It's a democracy with peaceful transitions of power — things that wouldn't exist without the U.S. intervention, Mansoor says.

Meanwhile, Crocker points to a recent visit to Iraq, where he met with a group of recent university graduates. What was Iraq's biggest problem? he asked.

"Corruption," was the answer. "And it starts at the top, including the PM."

"I noted they were saying this in the PM's guest house," he says.

NPR · by By · March 19, 2023

24.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

Company Name | Website

The U.S. Joint Chiefs New Strategy Paper on Joint Concept for Competing | CSIS

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About that inquiry...

Venture capital gives America a strategic edge in the age of technology wars

More must-read commentary published by Fortune:

Wars aren't predictable. They're chaotic — and costlier than anyone anticipates

If you set out to "reshape" a region, you may not like the shape it becomes

Not all outcomes are bad

3 takeaways 20 years after the invasion of Iraq

Wars aren't predictable. They're chaotic — and costlier than anyone anticipates

If you set out to "reshape" a region, you may not like the shape it becomes

Not all outcomes are bad