Quotes of the Day:
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
~C.S. Lewis
"There is never a time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now."
- James Baldwin
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
- Alan Kay
1. Veterans groups, evacuees plead for action: ‘We are in some kind of jail’
2. State Dept. Working ‘at the Highest Levels’ to Clear Mazar-i-Sharif Charter Aircraft
3. Secretary Blinken’s Gibberish about Afghanistan
4. Hardliners take all key posts in Taliban government
5. ‘Strategic ambiguity’: Former INDOPACOM chief calls for Taiwan policy review amid Chinese buildup
6. The US military changed for the war on terror. Now, it has to change again, experts say
7. China Weighing Occupation of Former U.S. Air Base at Bagram: Sources
8. Global Hawk maker scores $40 million software contract for Japan, South Korea fleets
9. Why Israel’s transfer to US Central Command could help deter Iran
10. US aircraft carrier, destroyer busy in South China Sea despite Beijing’s new notification law
11. Marine Special Ops Command Hones its ‘Cognitive Raiders’
12. Special Operations Command Wants Tiny Cruise Missiles With Hundreds Of Miles Range
13. US over-the-horizon capabilities robust, but use requires ‘strategic refinement,’ experts say
14. ‘Dear America’: Gold Star Families Want ‘Archaic’ Support Systems Fixed
15. A Weapons of Mass Destruction Strategy for the 21st Century
16. Cyber Threats and Choke Points: How Adversaries are Leveraging Maritime Cyber Vulnerabilities for Advantage in Irregular Warfare
17. Lessons from Kabul: The US Military Must Resolve Its Air Mobility Dilemma
18. Strategic Drift in Afghanistan, from Bonn to the National Elections
19. Chinese, Russian narratives following US Afghanistan withdrawal present a US in decline
20. Emails prove State Dept refused to approve Afghan evacuation flights
21. Opinion: In defense of the much-maligned foreign policy establishment by Max Boot
22. Analysis | American diplomats recall 20-hour days, sleeping in Kabul airport while helping those desperate to flee
23. Archive Find Could Hurt China’s ‘Historic’ Claim To Paracel Islands
24. ‘Like Game of Thrones’: how triple crisis on China’s borders will shape its global identity
1. Veterans groups, evacuees plead for action: ‘We are in some kind of jail’
There is no better example of the need for an effective public private partnership than the continued work to evacuate those left behind in Afghanistan. We need State to support the whole of society effort that is emerging to help get people out.
Veterans groups, evacuees plead for action: ‘We are in some kind of jail’
WASHINGTON (AP) — American veterans groups and others are pleading for U.S. and Taliban action on a weeklong standoff that has left hundreds of would-be evacuees from Afghanistan desperate to board waiting charter flights out of a northern Afghan airport.
These groups say several dozen Americans, along with a much larger number of U.S. green card holders and family members, are among those waiting to board pre-arranged charter flights at the airport in Mazar-e-Sharif that are being prevented from leaving.
“We think we are in some kind of jail,” said one Afghan woman among the would-be evacuees gathered in Mazar-e-Sharif. She said elderly American citizens and parents of Afghan-Americans in the U.S. are among those being blocked from boarding evacuation planes.
The woman, an employee of a U.S.-based nonprofit, Ascend, that works with Afghan women and girls, spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity for her security. She said those in her group have proper passports and visas, but that the Taliban currently are blocking them from entering the airport.
She said she has been waiting for eight days. At one point last week, alarm spread through the women’s side of her hotel in the city when warnings came that the Taliban were searching the would-be evacuees on the men’s side, and had taken some away.
“I am scared if they split us and not let us leave,” she said. “If we can’t get out of here, something wrong will happen. And I am afraid of that.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday the U.S. was working with the Taliban to resolve the matter. He rejected an assertion from a Republican lawmaker, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, over the weekend that the standoff at Mazar-e-Sharif was turning into a “hostage situation” for American citizens in the group.
“We’ve been assured all American citizens and Afghan citizens with valid travel documents will be allowed to leave,” Blinken said in Doha, Qatar, a major transit point for last month’s frantic U.S. military-led evacuations from Afghanistan.
RELATED
Thousands of veterans have worked tirelessly to evacuate Afghans and Americans from Kabul. Even when the last flight leaves next week they vow to continue.
The Taliban had told U.S. officials that the problem in Mazar-e-Sharif was that passengers with valid travel documents were mixed in with those without the right travel papers, he said. “We have to work through the different requirements, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Blinken added.
Taliban leaders, who named a new Cabinet Tuesday in the wake of their lightning takeover of most of the country last month, also say publicly that they will allow people with proper documents to leave the country. Taliban officials insist they are currently going through the manifests, and passenger documents, for the charter flights at Mazar-e-Sharif.
A U.S.-led evacuation out of the airport in the capital, Kabul, flew out tens of thousands of Afghans, Americans and others last month before ending Aug. 30, with the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops and diplomats.
The Biden administration says the current holdup is the fault of the Taliban, but some private organizers of the flights are skeptical. They say the State Department and other U.S. agencies have been slow or outright unresponsive to pleas for help despite assurances that Washington would work with the Taliban and others to get people out.
On Monday, the State Department said it had helped a family of four U.S. citizens escape Afghanistan via a land route.
RELATED
Taliban control is raising alarms for Afghans and Americans in Kabul.
An array of American men and women and groups — many of them with some past experience in Afghanistan, or other ties — have been working for weeks to try to help evacuate at-risk Afghans. Much of that effort is focused now on the planes in Mazar-e-Sharif.
Some of those Americans pushing for U..S. action said Tuesday they fear the Biden administration will help out American citizens, and leave behind green card holders, Afghans who used to work with Americans, and others vulnerable for their work, including journalists, women’s advocates and rights workers.
Last month’s U.S.-led flights weren’t limited to citizens and green card holders, said Marina LeGree, the American head of Ascend, the nonprofit for Afghan women. “The game changed partway through,” she said.
Blinken, in Doha, said the U.S. has been in contact with the Taliban “in recent hours” to work out arrangements on charter evacuation flights.
Alex Plitsas, a representative of a group called “Digital Dunkirk,” which is serving as an umbrella group for several organizations arranging the private evacuation efforts since the completion of the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, welcomed Blinken’s words.
“Welcome news,” Plitsas said. “We are in touch with the State Department through official channels to help facilitate whatever is needed for those individuals that we have been helping who remain stranded.
“Our men and women in uniform and diplomats on the ground in Kabul did a fantastic job. Now it’s time to bring the last remaining folks home.”
Knickmeyer contributed from Oklahoma City and Burns from Doha.
2. State Dept. Working ‘at the Highest Levels’ to Clear Mazar-i-Sharif Charter Aircraft
Good. We need to get all those personnel who are stuck there out before the Taliban tries to exploit them for their coercive diplomacy to be able to demand concessions from the US and international community.. We have to force the bureaucracy to adapt to the situation and not allow archaic processes to increase the risk to Americans and at -risk Afghans.
State Dept. Working ‘at the Highest Levels’ to Clear Mazar-i-Sharif Charter Aircraft
One problem: all the U.S. screeners have left Afghanistan.
U.S. State Department officials acknowledged Tuesday that they have been unable so far to get six chartered aircraft carrying about 1,000 evacuees out of Mazar-i-Sharif, but it was not clear whether the holdup was due to U.S. bureaucracy or Taliban action.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken denied that the Taliban were forbidding the aircraft to take off or the passengers to disembark.
“We are not aware of anyone being held on an aircraft or any hostage-like situation at Mazar-i-Sharif,” Blinken said during a visit to Qatar.
After Kabul fell, some non-governmental organizations that could not get their people through the gates at Hamid Karzai International Airport quickly re-routed evacuees to the airport at Mazar-i-Sharif, about 265 miles away. But the aircraft chartered to take them have been stranded there for days.
A senior administration official who spoke to Pentagon reporters Tuesday said some of the challenge may lie in the inability to screen passengers, which affects where the aircraft would be allowed to land.
“When it comes to charter aircraft like those apparently on the ground in Mazar, the U.S. government simply does not have the personnel on the ground we once would have had to identify and take care of potential aviation security concerns,” the official said.
Of the tens of thousands of Afghans flown out in the Kabul airlift, scores have “popped red” when screened against biometric and law enforcement databases at their destinations. Most of have since been cleared by further screening.
But other evacuees are being further investigated for security risks, the official said. Those evacuees are being held at their intermediate staging bases as they await further screening.
One non-governmental organization that has passengers waiting to depart in Mazar-i-Sharif told Al Jazeera the evacuees had been held at the airport for more than a week, and that the Taliban were not letting any flights leave.
The senior administration official said the U.S. is working to clear the flights through diplomatic channels “at the highest levels. That includes engagement with those who have a stake in the future of civilian air travel into and out of Afghanistan,” including Qatar and Turkey.
The U.S. Air Force and chartered flights like the ones still stuck in Mazar-i-Sharif airlifted more than 124,000 people out of Afghanistan as the country fell to the Taliban.
All U.S. forces departed Afghanistan on Aug. 31, and the Pentagon has repeatedly said there is no military role for getting any of the remaining Americans or Afghans out.
3. Secretary Blinken’s Gibberish about Afghanistan
Bing pulls no punches.
Secretary Blinken’s Gibberish about Afghanistan
Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks about Afghanistan during a media briefing at the State Department in Washington, D.C., September 3, 2021. (Olivier Douliery/Reuters)
Secretary Blinken, quoted below from Doha on September 6, is dissembling. He is talking in gibberish and the press is not holding him to account.
(1) “We’ve assigned case-management teams to each remaining American citizen who has expressed an interest in leaving.”
“Each remaining American citizen” means State is in touch and knows the exact number! Yet State claims not to know the number.
It is infuriating that he suggests many do not want to leave, without ever citing a single case.
(2) “We continue to process as many SIV applications as possible. So applicants don’t have to wait in Afghanistan until we’re finished but instead if they can get to a third country for additional processing before coming to the United States.”
This implies State is in contact with thousands of SIV applicants inside Afghanistan. And once State clears them, they can go to an airport to fly to a third country for additional processing. This makes no sense. It is gibberish.
3) “We will partner with veteran organizations on how to help SIV candidates; they have ideas that we’ll be incorporating.”
Listening to “ideas” is a dodge, not a partnership. A partnership means the organizations would be included inside, not outside, the State task force.
The Last Platoon: A Novel of the Afghanistan War
4. Hardliners take all key posts in Taliban government
I wonder how long protests will continue before there are really brutal crackdowns.
This hardly seems like a Taliban 2.0.
Excerpts:
The Taliban had promised an inclusive government that would reflect the ethnic makeup of the country, but all the top positions were handed to key leaders from the movement and the Haqqani network – the most violent branch of the Taliban known for devastating attacks.
None of the government appointees were women.
“We will try to take people from other parts of the country,” spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said, adding that it was an interim government.
Hardliners take all key posts in Taliban government
Protests grow as violent, old-style, Sharia-obsessed Haqqani Network dominates an all-male regime
The Taliban announced their government on Tuesday, with a UN-blacklisted veteran of the hardline movement in the top role, weeks after they swept to power and toppled the US-backed president.
But as the Taliban transitions from militant force to governing power of Afghanistan, security officials grappled with a growing number of protests against its rule, with two people shot dead in the western city of Herat.
Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund – a senior minister during the Taliban’s brutal and repressive reign in the 1990s – was appointed acting prime minister, a spokesman said at a press conference in Kabul.
The Taliban had promised an inclusive government that would reflect the ethnic makeup of the country, but all the top positions were handed to key leaders from the movement and the Haqqani network – the most violent branch of the Taliban known for devastating attacks.
None of the government appointees were women.
“We will try to take people from other parts of the country,” spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said, adding that it was an interim government.
Shortly after the new lineup was revealed, Hibatullah Akhundzada, the secretive supreme leader of the Taliban who has never been seen in public, released a statement saying that the new government would “work hard towards upholding Islamic rules and sharia law.”
“The new Taliban, same as the old Taliban,” tweeted Bill Roggio, managing editor of the US-based Long War Journal.
Mullah Yaqoob, the son of the Taliban founder and late supreme leader Mullah Omar, was named defense minister, while the position of interior minister was given to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani network.
Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar, who oversaw the signing of the US withdrawal agreement, will be a deputy to Hassan.
“It’s not at all inclusive, and that’s no surprise whatsoever,” said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
“The Taliban had never indicated that any of its cabinet ministers would include anyone other than themselves.”
‘No rush’ to recognize Taliban
Following their 20-year insurgency, the Taliban now face the colossal task of ruling Afghanistan, which is wracked with economic woes and security challenges – including from the Islamic State group’s local chapter.
A growing number of protests have emerged across the country over the past week, with many Afghans fearful of a repeat of the Taliban’s previous brutal and oppressive reign.
Hundreds gathered at several rallies in Kabul on Tuesday – a show of defiance unthinkable under the last regime – where Taliban guards fired shots to disperse the crowds.
In Herat, hundreds of demonstrators marched, unfurling banners and waving the Afghan flag – a black, red and green vertical tricolor with the national emblem overlaid in white – with some chanting “freedom.”
Later, two bodies were brought to the city’s central hospital from the site of the protest, a doctor in Herat told AFP on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
“They all have bullet wounds,” he said.
Demonstrations have also been held in smaller cities in recent days, where women have demanded to be part of a new government.
The Kabul-based Afghan Independent Journalists Association said 14 journalists– Afghan and foreign – were detained briefly during the protests in Kabul before being released.
The Taliban spokesman late Tuesday warned the public against taking to the streets.
“Until all the government offices have opened, and the laws for protests have been explained, no one should protest,” Mujahid said.
The group – which executed people in stadiums and chopped the hands of thieves in the 1990s – has previously said it would not stand for any resistance against its rule.
Washington has said it was in “no rush” to recognize the new government.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on a visit to Qatar, said that the Taliban were honoring promises to allow Afghans to freely depart Afghanistan.
US President Joe Biden has faced mounting pressure amid reports that several hundred people, including Americans, have been prevented for a week from flying out of an airport in northern Afghanistan.
No women in government?
At the United Nations, Pramila Patten – head of UN Women, a group that promotes global gender equality – said the absence of women in the interim Afghan government “calls into question the recent commitments to protect and respect the rights of Afghanistan’s women and girls.”
By excluding women, “the Taliban leadership has sent the wrong signal about their stated goal of building an inclusive, strong and prosperous society.”
She described respect for women’s rights as “a litmus test against which any authority must be judged,” and called on the Taliban to “fully comply with its legally binding obligations” under international treaties and the constitution that guarantee “the full participation of women in political and decision-making processes.”
– AFP
5. ‘Strategic ambiguity’: Former INDOPACOM chief calls for Taiwan policy review amid Chinese buildup
Excerpts:
“I would submit that we’ve got more than 40 years of the strategic ambiguity that has helped keep Taiwan in its current status,” he said. “But, you know, these things should be reconsidered routinely. I’d look forward to the conversation.”
The sitting INDOPACOM commander, Adm. John Aquilino, has also warned that "this problem is much closer to us than most think," without giving a timeline for China achieving the capability to invade the island.
Harris told Kyodo the U.S. should be "clearer in what our responsibilities are" under the Taiwan Relations Act that governs U.S. ties with Taiwan. Washington has "not been consistent," he said, especially over its arms sales to the island.
"If you're not consistent in what you sell Taiwan or any other country, then how can they be – how can they adequately plan for their military readiness, in the long run?" said Harris, who recently served as U.S. ambassador to South Korea.
U.S. Navy warships have made eight transits of the Taiwan Strait this year, the latest on Aug. 27 by the guided-missile destroyer USS Kidd and Coast Guard cutter Munro.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, in an annual report, warned that China could "paralyze" its defenses in a conflict, Bloomberg News reported Sept. 1.
‘Strategic ambiguity’: Former INDOPACOM chief calls for Taiwan policy review amid Chinese buildup
BY SETH ROBSON• STARS AND STRIPES • SEPTEMBER 8, 2021
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/2021-09-08/taiwan-defense-china-us-military-harry-harris-2812283.html
Then-U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris poses at his residence in Seoul, South Korea, Jan. 16, 2020. (Stars and Stripes)
Washington should review its ambiguous position on defending Taiwan during a Chinese attack, according to a former Indo-Pacific Command leader who warned that Beijing seeks to “dominate” the island democracy.
The Communist Party of China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that must be reunified with the mainland, even by force. Since 1979’s Taiwan Relations Act, Washington has left some doubt as to what conditions would dictate U.S. involvement to prevent that from happening.
"We should reconsider … our longstanding policy of strategic ambiguity,” retired Navy Adm. Harry Harris told Japan’s Kyodo News during a recent interview from Colorado. "If, at the end of that … reassessment, we keep the same policy, that's fine. But we shouldn't keep it simply because we've done it that way since the late 1970s.”
The policy is intended to deter both Beijing and Taiwan from escalating their feud by leaving doubt as to when or if the U.S. might intervene in conflict. However, China’s military buildup and aggression toward its neighbors have led to calls for a reassessment of the stance.
In March, then-INDOPACOM commander Adm. Philip Davidson told the Senate Armed Services Committee he believed China could overtake Taiwan and force reunification “in the next six years.”
He also suggested the U.S. review its policy regarding relations with Taiwan.
“I would submit that we’ve got more than 40 years of the strategic ambiguity that has helped keep Taiwan in its current status,” he said. “But, you know, these things should be reconsidered routinely. I’d look forward to the conversation.”
The sitting INDOPACOM commander, Adm. John Aquilino, has also warned that "this problem is much closer to us than most think," without giving a timeline for China achieving the capability to invade the island.
Harris told Kyodo the U.S. should be "clearer in what our responsibilities are" under the Taiwan Relations Act that governs U.S. ties with Taiwan. Washington has "not been consistent," he said, especially over its arms sales to the island.
"If you're not consistent in what you sell Taiwan or any other country, then how can they be – how can they adequately plan for their military readiness, in the long run?" said Harris, who recently served as U.S. ambassador to South Korea.
U.S. Navy warships have made eight transits of the Taiwan Strait this year, the latest on Aug. 27 by the guided-missile destroyer USS Kidd and Coast Guard cutter Munro.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, in an annual report, warned that China could "paralyze" its defenses in a conflict, Bloomberg News reported Sept. 1.
A debate over strategic ambiguity has merit, according to Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore.
The policy was adopted to restrain Taiwan, as much as China. Today it seems less likely that the island’s leaders would be provocative, Chong said by telephone Wednesday.
“Taiwan seems far more willing to be the restrained party,” he said.
Beijing, at the same time, is increasingly forward leaning and aggressive with flights of military aircraft and patrols of naval vessels, Chong added.
“There’s an argument to be made that the U.S. has to be clear about its commitment to deter aggression across the Taiwan Strait,” he said.
6. The US military changed for the war on terror. Now, it has to change again, experts say
Be careful about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Excerpts:
As a result of battling guerrillas for almost two decades, the skills the U.S. needs to fight a major power with modern technology have atrophied, government officials and analysts say.
“You have whole generations of soldiers with firsthand experience in fighting wars that probably won’t look very much like the wars you’d be fighting in the future,” said Karl P. Mueller, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corp.
...
“The DOD is refocusing after two decades of fighting insurgencies to great-power competition,” said Elizabeth Threlkeld, a South Asia expert at the Stimson Center in Washington. “That is going to require a significant retooling in the way the U.S. fights.”
We will be making a strategic error if we think great power competition does not include political and irregular warfare and is only about fighting against the revisionist and rogue powers. The essence of great power competition is political warfare and we need to understand that. Irregular warfare is the military contribution to political warfare. This does not mean we are going to refight Afghanistan and Iraq all over again. But we need to understand how our competitors/adversaries are operating in the gray zone to achieve their objectives. That said we need to continue to improve our nuclear deterrence and our advanced conventional warfighting capabilities to ensure deterrence. But because we can deter our adversaries and that they will choose not to pick a direct fight with us, we need to be just as strong (and capable and smart) to effectively compete in the gray zone.
The US military changed for the war on terror. Now, it has to change again, experts say
BY J.P. LAWRENCE • STARS AND STRIPES • SEPTEMBER 8, 2021
U.S. Special Forces soldiers look for enemy fighters moving on a mountainside during a firefight, during an operation in Afghanistan's Laghman province in 2016. (Connor Mendez/U.S. Army)
This story is part of a series that examines the impact of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The adaptations required of the U.S. military for its irregular warfare since 9/11 have created a risk that American forces will lose in an armed conflict against a major power, and now the country must reacclimate to more traditional foes, some experts warn.
American combat after 9/11 did not feature conventional warfare against massed units, but instead pitted the U.S. and its allies against small bands of insurgents lacking air forces, navies or jamming technology of note. These fighters could simply melt into the populace after a clash.
As a result of battling guerrillas for almost two decades, the skills the U.S. needs to fight a major power with modern technology have atrophied, government officials and analysts say.
“You have whole generations of soldiers with firsthand experience in fighting wars that probably won’t look very much like the wars you’d be fighting in the future,” said Karl P. Mueller, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corp.
An MQ-9 Reaper flies a training mission over Nevada in 2019. American drones were effective against terrorists, but experts say they would be shot down easily in traditional great-power warfare. (William Rio Rosado/U.S. Air Force)
Calls for reform began well before the U.S. war in Afghanistan ended in a Taliban victory last month, but the coming years will most likely see a greater urgency for changes in strategy and tactics.
“The DOD is refocusing after two decades of fighting insurgencies to great-power competition,” said Elizabeth Threlkeld, a South Asia expert at the Stimson Center in Washington. “That is going to require a significant retooling in the way the U.S. fights.”
Mueller said a war against China or Russia would lead to deaths and equipment losses on a scale far beyond the worst days in Iraq or Afghanistan, and he noted that war games simulating a conflict against Russia or China frequently end in decisive defeats for the U.S.
While these war games are meant to be difficult and test U.S. military planners, they are not overly pessimistic, he said.
The war declared on terrorism after 9/11 altered nearly every aspect of the American approach to combat.
Counterinsurgency efforts put low-level military officers in charge of economically developing areas amid conflict in the belief that doing so would sway locals to support allied governments, which were often corrupt.
The U.S. also engaged in counterterrorism, which encouraged military leaders to rely on small units of elite special operations forces. These units could find and kill enemies in shadowy operations with minimal public oversight.
Special operations forces have “almost risen to the status of a separate service,” said retired Lt. Gen. Richard Mills, who commanded Marines in Helmand province from 2010 to 2011. He added that the past 20 years led to vast changes in how the U.S. military communicates on the battlefield.
A U.S. Special Forces soldier waits for nightfall to start an operation in Laghman province, Afghanistan, in 2016. (Connor Mendez/U.S. Army)
A World War II veteran could walk into an average command center of the 1990s, with its radios and paper maps, and feel at home, said Mills, who began his military career in 1975. But modern command centers feature arrays of screens sharing live battlefield imagery captured by aerial drones and beamed to high-ranking leaders thousands of miles away, Mills said.
This strategy, with its reliance on elite forces backed up by airstrikes and use of real-time communications, would most likely have to change against a technologically advanced foe such as China, analysts say.
“The main danger is that we will assume dependable communications connectivity at all levels of command for high data flows in particular,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he specializes in U.S. defense strategy.
Furthermore, the Taliban did not have missiles able to sink aircraft carriers and devastate airfields or the ability to shoot down aerial refueling tankers and radar surveillance planes. They were also significantly outnumbered by U.S., Afghan and NATO forces, which enjoyed clear advantages in firepower and battlefield mobility.
The battle for the skies will be the most striking difference between fighting insurgents and major powers, Mueller said.
“We haven’t fought an enemy that has had the ability to contest our control of the air since 1972,” he said, adding that even the drones used over Afghanistan and Iraq would be easily shot down and that tactics will have to adapt.
The U.S. military sounded the alarm on its “eroding” competitive advantage in 2018, publishing a National Defense Strategy that said competition between large states, not terrorism, is the primary national security concern.
In recent years, the military established the Space Command, developed organizations to prepare for future wars and updated its field manual to emphasize battlefields where enemies have tanks, artillery, air forces, drones and cyber capabilities.
An RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft. Aerial drones can send live battlefield imagery to high-ranking leaders thousands of miles away. (Bobbi Zapka/U.S. Air Force)
The end of the war in Afghanistan will make it easier for the U.S. to shift away from counterterrorism to threats like China and Russia, but this could be a mistake, said Brian Michael Jenkins, a senior adviser to the president of the RAND Corp.
The skills honed over the past 20 years are still applicable, as wars against China and Russia would most likely include elements of irregular warfare, Jenkins said.
Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of Long War Journal, said that any change in how the U.S. fights will require America’s military leaders to honestly assess the past 20 years.
Over that period, American military leaders created a culture that was not inclined to reflect on its strengths and weaknesses, but instead focused on managing perceptions, Roggio said.
“My biggest concern with the U.S. military moving forward is that these generals who have never had accountability will, let’s face it, lose us the next war,” Roggio said.
J.P. LAWRENCE
J.p. Lawrence reports on the U.S. military in Afghanistan and the Middle East. He served in the U.S. Army from 2008 to 2017. He graduated from Columbia Journalism School and Bard College and is a first-generation immigrant from the Philippines.
7. China Weighing Occupation of Former U.S. Air Base at Bagram: Sources
Excerpts:
China likely could achieve its latest ambitions for Bagram through help from Pakistan, Sun says, adding, "But if feasible, I am sure they would like to cut out the middleman."
"If the Taliban requests Chinese assistance, I think China will be inclined to send human support. Most likely, they will frame it as technical support or logistic support. There are precedents of that regarding foreign military bases. But a Chinese takeover is unlikely," she says.
Seemingly in anticipation of the U.S.-backed government's collapse, China in August began making preparations to embrace the Taliban as the rightful government in Kabul were it to seize power, U.S. News first reported, clearing the way for the kind of friendly relations that would allow for such deployments to take place. It, along with Russia, conspicuously abstained from voting on a recent U.N. Security Council resolution calling on the Taliban to, among other things, allow safe passage out of Afghanistan for those who wish to flee.
Indeed, the sole overseas military facility that China acknowledges is its expeditionary air base in Djibouti, near a similar airfield run by the U.S. that both countries use to launch drones and conduct other covert and intelligence operations in and around the Horn of Africa and Gulf states.
China has previously downplayed its presence in Djibouti and flatly rejected the notion that its other overseas posts amount to military bases, a likely sign that the current policy of the Chinese Communist Party would not allow for an overt occupation at Bagram.
China Weighing Occupation of Former U.S. Air Base at Bagram: Sources
By U.S. News & World Report4 min
A view of the Bagram Airfield base after all U.S. and NATO forces evacuated in Parwan province, eastern Afghanistan, on July 8, 2021.(Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images)
China is considering deploying military personnel and economic development officials to Bagram airfield, perhaps the single-most prominent symbol of the 20-year U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.
The Chinese military is currently conducting a feasibility study about the effect of sending workers, soldiers and other staff related to its foreign economic investment program known as the Belt and Road Initiative in the coming years to Bagram, according to a source briefed on the study by Chinese military officials, who spoke to U.S. News on the condition of anonymity.
A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday issued a carefully crafted denial of plans for an imminent takeover of the military airfield roughly an hour from Kabul, first established by the Soviets during their own occupation in Afghanistan and which at the height of the U.S. military presence there was its busiest in the world.
"What I can tell everyone is that that is a piece of purely false information," Wang Wenbin told reporters Tuesday morning. China has repeatedly denied many of its other military deployments beyond its borders.
However, the current consideration in Beijing is not for any pending movements, rather a potential deployment as long as two years from now, the source says. And it would not encompass taking over the base but rather sending personnel and supplies at the invitation of the government in Kabul – and certainly after the Taliban secures its rule.
In addition to expanding its regional influence, Beijing's potential plan for Bagram would also amount to a devastating blow to the image of the U.S., which increasingly considers China its most pressing and challenging global threat.
"Given their past experience, the Chinese must be eager to get their hands on whatever the U.S. has left at the base," says Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center think tank.
Beijing has already recognized the geostrategic importance of Bagram overtly. Its state media almost immediately hopped on the sudden and surprise U.S. departure from the key logistics hub in July, sending a video crew, which gained easy access to it, to document the aftermath of what it described as a "hasty withdrawal" and "humiliating defeat."
China's latest consideration matches well-worn practices it has perfected in recent years to quietly expand its economic and military influence beyond its borders under the guise of infrastructure investment projects.
For example, the People's Liberation Army – the official name for China's entire military – has reportedly secured exclusive rights to roughly a third of the Ream Naval Base in Cambodia in recent years though an expansion there it's backed. In Myanmar, it has provided radio, radar and other military equipment to the local junta on the Coco Islands, an archipelago roughly 250 mile south of Yangon where China has reportedly held leasing rights for the last three decades. Beijing has claimed its presence there does not amount to a military base, even though all the equipment, maintenance and training taking place there originate from China.
And it has employed similar tactics in neighboring Pakistan, with which it has bolstered a new security and intelligence-sharing arrangement in recent years, as first reported by U.S. News. The Taliban's revelation Tuesday that its newly formed government will include as interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, the scion of the notorious Pakistan-based Haqqani Network terrorist group for whom the FBI is offering a $10 million reward, has further bolstered Islamabad's position as a conduit between China and its ambitions in Afghanistan.
China likely could achieve its latest ambitions for Bagram through help from Pakistan, Sun says, adding, "But if feasible, I am sure they would like to cut out the middleman."
"If the Taliban requests Chinese assistance, I think China will be inclined to send human support. Most likely, they will frame it as technical support or logistic support. There are precedents of that regarding foreign military bases. But a Chinese takeover is unlikely," she says.
Seemingly in anticipation of the U.S.-backed government's collapse, China in August began making preparations to embrace the Taliban as the rightful government in Kabul were it to seize power, U.S. News first reported, clearing the way for the kind of friendly relations that would allow for such deployments to take place. It, along with Russia, conspicuously abstained from voting on a recent U.N. Security Council resolution calling on the Taliban to, among other things, allow safe passage out of Afghanistan for those who wish to flee.
Indeed, the sole overseas military facility that China acknowledges is its expeditionary air base in Djibouti, near a similar airfield run by the U.S. that both countries use to launch drones and conduct other covert and intelligence operations in and around the Horn of Africa and Gulf states.
China has previously downplayed its presence in Djibouti and flatly rejected the notion that its other overseas posts amount to military bases, a likely sign that the current policy of the Chinese Communist Party would not allow for an overt occupation at Bagram.
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8. Global Hawk maker scores $40 million software contract for Japan, South Korea fleets
Global Hawk maker scores $40 million software contract for Japan, South Korea fleets
An RQ-4B Global Hawk lifts off for the first time from Palmdale, Calif., April 15, 2021. It is the first of three that will be operated by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force. (Northrop Grumman)
The maker of the U.S. military’s longest-range unmanned surveillance aircraft will get nearly $40 million to develop software for RQ-4 Global Hawks operated by Japan and South Korea.
The contract, awarded to San Diego-based Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, is worth up to $39.9 million for work on both countries’ drones under the Foreign Military Sales program the Defense Department announced Sept. 1.
Northrop Grumman manufactures the aircraft, which have been in service with the Air Force since 2001.
The Foreign Military Sales program authorizes sales of weapons and services to other countries when the deals strengthen U.S. security and promote world peace.
South Korea has four Global Hawks that are believed to be flown out of Sacheon Air Base, near the port of Busan, according to an October report by Jane’s Defence Weekly.
The first of three Global Hawks the Japan Air Self-Defense Force will operate from Misawa Air Base in the country’s northeast made its maiden flight in California in April.
Northrop Grumman’s deal provides for the co-development, testing and integration of software for the U.S. allies’ Global Hawk fleets, according to the DOD announcement.
The work, due to be completed by July 31, 2023, will be done in San Diego with integration efforts at Misawa and Sacheon, the announcement states.
The Global Hawk flies at 60,000 feet and has a line of sight to targets more than 340 miles away, according to Northrop Grumman.
The exact range of the aircraft’s cameras and sensors is classified, but a Global Hawk flying near the Korean Demilitarized Zone, for example, could see well beyond the Yalu River that marks North Korea’s border with China.
A single RQ-4 costs about $130 million, according to the Reuters news agency, quoting industry sources in 2019.
The Air Force has positioned its own Global Hawks at Misawa for several summers since 2014. The drones come to Japan to avoid typhoons at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. In recent years, including 2020, they have operated out of Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo during summer.
Seth Robson
9. Why Israel’s transfer to US Central Command could help deter Iran
Excerpts:
One major way to do that would be to assertively seek opportunities for combined military exercises and training involving the United States, Israel and as many Arab partners as possible. CENTCOM should encourage Israel to add Egypt and the United Arab Emirates to the next Noble Dina exercise in the Eastern Mediterranean, for example. CENTCOM should also encourage Abu Dhabi to invite the Israel Defense Forces to the next Iron Union exercise. And CENTCOM should work with EUCOM to encourage Greece to invite Egypt and Jordan to join Israel, the United Arab Emirates and others as full participants in the next Greek-hosted Iniochos exercise.
These and other steps would increase the individual readiness of the respective militaries, strengthen their ability to work together, and send a powerful message to Tehran and its terror proxies.
The announcement this month was an encouraging and positive development. Now the real work begins to better secure and defend mutual American, Israeli and Arab interests.
Why Israel’s transfer to US Central Command could help deter Iran
By Bradley Bowman and Behnam Ben Taleblu
Sep 7, 11:50 AM
U.S. Central Command announced Sept. 1 that it has assumed responsibility for U.S. forces in Israel. This positive development reflects changes in Arab-Israeli relations and offers an opportunity to build a more unified and militarily capable American-Israeli-Arab coalition to deter aggression from Iran and its terrorist proxies — one of CENTCOM’s top priorities.
Despite Israel’s location in the Middle East, when CENTCOM was created in 1983, responsibility for the Jewish state was assigned to U.S. European Command. That decision reflected Israel’s political isolation from its Arab neighbors. As a Pentagon news report noted in January with a bit of understatement, Israel’s regional isolation would have “complicated” efforts by CENTCOM to coordinate multilateral exercises and operations that included Israel.
Warming Arab-Israeli ties offer a major opportunity to align key partners against common regional threats. The catalyst for improved Arab-Israeli relations is the Islamic Republic of Iran’s longstanding effort to develop a nuclear weapons capability, as well as Tehran’s determined campaign to create, cultivate and co-opt terrorist proxies across the Middle East to attack both Arab and Israeli targets.
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The move comes as Israel and its neighbors work to improve diplomatic relations under the Abraham Accords.
Tehran’s aggression helps explain the conclusion last year of the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords between Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, enabling significant and mutually beneficial opportunities for political, economic and cultural cooperation.
Enhanced military cooperation, however, will likely carry the most direct benefits for regional stability.
These attacks are not a threat simply for Israel. Weapons employed against Israel by Iran and its army of proxies are also used against Americans and our Arab partners.
From May 2019 to the present, Iran-backed militias are believed to have been behind over 100 rocket, mortar or drone attacks against positions in Iraq associated with the U.S. force presence, with at least 27 indirect fire incidents taking place during this year alone. The U.S. and others blamed Tehran for orchestrating a 2019 attack against Saudi Arabia’s Khurais oil field and Abqaiq oil processing facility, using drones and cruise missiles — briefly knocking offline a significant portion of the world’s total production capacity.
The Islamic republic routinely harasses and targets American, Arab and Israeli interests in the maritime domain. Tehran has used drones and fast-attack craft to challenge American military vessels in the Persian Gulf and signal defiance to decision-makers in Washington. Tehran has also seized tankers and stepped up mining operations that impede the free flow of commerce, directly impacting Iran’s Arab neighbors, and is engaged in a shadow war using drones against Israeli-linked tankers.
While Iran has proliferated whole weapons systems to terrorist groups in the past, the Islamic Republic has also been enabling local weapons production in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen. That creates new challenges and puts a premium on cooperation between the United States, Israel and key Arab partners.
By itself, transferring Israel from EUCOM to CENTCOM won’t address these challenges or strengthen regional security. CENTCOM already works closely with Israel. However, as CENTCOM’s commander, Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, said earlier this year, the transfer can bring a more “operational perspective” to the Abraham Accords.
One major way to do that would be to assertively seek opportunities for combined military exercises and training involving the United States, Israel and as many Arab partners as possible. CENTCOM should encourage Israel to add Egypt and the United Arab Emirates to the next Noble Dina exercise in the Eastern Mediterranean, for example. CENTCOM should also encourage Abu Dhabi to invite the Israel Defense Forces to the next Iron Union exercise. And CENTCOM should work with EUCOM to encourage Greece to invite Egypt and Jordan to join Israel, the United Arab Emirates and others as full participants in the next Greek-hosted Iniochos exercise.
These and other steps would increase the individual readiness of the respective militaries, strengthen their ability to work together, and send a powerful message to Tehran and its terror proxies.
The announcement this month was an encouraging and positive development. Now the real work begins to better secure and defend mutual American, Israeli and Arab interests.
Bradly Bowman is the director of the Center for Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Behnam Ben Taleblu is a senior fellow.
10. US aircraft carrier, destroyer busy in South China Sea despite Beijing’s new notification law
US aircraft carrier, destroyer busy in South China Sea despite Beijing’s new notification law
An F/A-18E Super Hornet prepares to take off from the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the South China Sea, Monday, Sept. 6, 2021. (Isaiah Williams/U.S. Navy)
A Navy aircraft carrier strike group and a destroyer steamed separately through the South China Sea on Wednesday, just days after China imposed a law requiring foreign vessels to give notice before entering waters claimed by Beijing.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold “asserted navigation rights and freedoms” within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands, according to a 7th Fleet news release Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the USS Carl Vinson and its strike group were training elsewhere in the region, according to the Navy.
The entire Spratly chain is claimed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan; the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei also claim portions of them.
Neither warship provided notice to any country with claims in the South China Sea, 7th Fleet spokesman Lt. Mark Langford told Stars and Stripes in an email Wednesday.
Also Wednesday, the Chinese military issued a statement saying the Benfold entered the area without permission and that it had tracked, monitored and warned off the destroyer.
The statement, attributed to Col. Tian Junli of the Southern Theater Command, said Beijing has “indisputable sovereignty” over the islands. It also called the U.S. a “security risk maker in the South China Sea” and the “biggest destroyer” of peace and regional stability.
The 7th Fleet responded with its own statement Wednesday afternoon, saying the operation abided by international law. It called Beijing’s statement “the latest in a long string” of actions intended to misrepresent the Navy’s operations and “assert excessive and illegitimate maritime claims.”
China has reclaimed land and built military infrastructure in the Spratlys since 2014, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. Mischief Reef is one island China has improved and occupies.
The Benfold made the Navy’s seventh freedom-of-navigation operation in the area this year, according to a Defense Department statement Langford provided to Stars and Stripes. The U.S. last conducted a freedom-of-navigation operation in the Spratly Islands in February.
“The United States challenges excessive maritime claims without regard to the nation asserting them,” the statement said.
In late July the Benfold passed through the Taiwan Strait, another practice that China routinely condemns.
The Carl Vinson held flight operations and maritime strike exercises and coordinated training between surface and air units on Monday, Carl Vinson spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Miranda Williams said in an email to Stars and Stripes Tuesday.
“Carrier operations in the South China Sea are not new or unusual,” she wrote. “Our Navy has flown, sailed, and operated throughout the Indo-Pacific region in accordance with international law for more than 75 years and will continue to do so.”
The Carl Vinson carries the Navy’s “air wing of the future,” aircraft that include the F-35C Lighting II stealth fighters and CMV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft.
On Sept. 1, a Chinese law took effect that requires certain foreign vessels, including nuclear-powered ships, submarines and ships carrying dangerous substances, to notify Chinese authorities before entering areas claimed by China, such as the South China Sea.
China’s law will not hinder U.S. military activities in the region, according to Pentagon spokespeople, who said Sept 1. that the Navy would sail “wherever international law allows.”
Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea are outlined by the “nine-dash line,” a demarcation adopted from a 1947 Chinese map. In 2016, a United Nations tribunal declared some of those claims unlawful under the Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Alex Wilson
11. Marine Special Ops Command Hones its ‘Cognitive Raiders’
Not only must we be able to outfight our enemies, we have to outthink them.
Excerpts:
Opening the third iteration of the symposium in early June, Col. John Lynch, MARSOC deputy commander, identified several key traits that help to define a Cognitive Raider, offering, “It starts with being a problem solver, one that never becomes complacent but instead remains adaptable and forward thinking.”
He described an “edge” where the Marine Raider asserts, “I’m not satisfied. There is more out there. There are ways to be better. There are ways to be more efficient. There are ways to be more lethal. And there are better ways to accomplish what we’re trying to accomplish.
“I cannot pick a single period of time in my career … where we have been challenged to evolve at the pace we’re being challenged to evolve right now,” he added. “It is remarkable how fast we have to do it.”
Douglas Borer, chair of the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School, noted the conference’s focus on “frontier technologies,” offering both low-tech and high-tech examples while discussing how the technologies might alter tactical and strategic realities against a background of great power competition with nations such as China and Russia.
“When I asked what frontier technologies a Cognitive Raider mostly followed, the list included things like automation, AI, advanced manufacturing, biotech, quantum computing, 5G, next-gen hardware robotics and space,” said Matt Stafford, a State Department representative. “These largely follow State’s concerns. I know we both have much longer lists that we’re also paying attention to, but it’s good to hear that we share these worries. We also share some of your background worries about how these things will get used, or combined with each other, or just combined with existing technologies.”
Master Gunnery Sgt. Mark Castille, command senior enlisted leader at the Marine Raider Training Center, engaged conference participants with a presentation focused on critical thinking tools and methods, capping the discussion with a participatory creative thinking exercise for attendees.
Marine Special Ops Command Hones its ‘Cognitive Raiders’
9/7/2021
By Scott R. Gourley
Marine Raiders provide security during a readiness exercise.
Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Brennan Priest
Marine Raiders are some of the nation’s most elite warfighters, but Marine Corps Special Operations Command is pushing to make them even better with its “Cognitive Raider” initiative.
The Marine Corps Special Operations Forces 2030 strategic vision outlined the Cognitive Raider innovation pathway, asserting that troops sent into future special operations environments “must be able to understand them and then adapt their approaches across an expanded range of solutions,” adding, “While tough, close-in, violent actions will remain a feature of future warfare, MARSOF must increasingly integrate tactical capabilities and partnered operations with evolving national, theater and interagency capabilities across all operational domains, to include those of information and cyber.”
To facilitate that understanding and adaptation, MARSOC has implemented an annual event called the Cognitive Raider Symposium, also known as CRS. Co-hosted with the Naval Postgraduate School’s Defense Analysis Department, the multi-day gatherings provide myriad learning venues designed to hone the Marine Raiders’ tactical edges. Significantly, the symposium not only addresses the Cognitive Raider pathway, but also illustrates MARSOF as a true connector of ideas and concepts.
Opening the third iteration of the symposium in early June, Col. John Lynch, MARSOC deputy commander, identified several key traits that help to define a Cognitive Raider, offering, “It starts with being a problem solver, one that never becomes complacent but instead remains adaptable and forward thinking.”
He described an “edge” where the Marine Raider asserts, “I’m not satisfied. There is more out there. There are ways to be better. There are ways to be more efficient. There are ways to be more lethal. And there are better ways to accomplish what we’re trying to accomplish.
“I cannot pick a single period of time in my career … where we have been challenged to evolve at the pace we’re being challenged to evolve right now,” he added. “It is remarkable how fast we have to do it.”
Douglas Borer, chair of the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School, noted the conference’s focus on “frontier technologies,” offering both low-tech and high-tech examples while discussing how the technologies might alter tactical and strategic realities against a background of great power competition with nations such as China and Russia.
“When I asked what frontier technologies a Cognitive Raider mostly followed, the list included things like automation, AI, advanced manufacturing, biotech, quantum computing, 5G, next-gen hardware robotics and space,” said Matt Stafford, a State Department representative. “These largely follow State’s concerns. I know we both have much longer lists that we’re also paying attention to, but it’s good to hear that we share these worries. We also share some of your background worries about how these things will get used, or combined with each other, or just combined with existing technologies.”
Master Gunnery Sgt. Mark Castille, command senior enlisted leader at the Marine Raider Training Center, engaged conference participants with a presentation focused on critical thinking tools and methods, capping the discussion with a participatory creative thinking exercise for attendees.
The CRS series brings in speakers from diverse and unique backgrounds. This approach was reflected in presentations by writers and analysts P.W. Singer and August Cole, co-authors of the novel Ghost Fleet, which has appeared on the Commandant of the Marine Corps’ Professional Reading List.
Singer noted that he had been asked to speak on the topic “What comes next?” adding, “There is a challenge in that, particularly to the defense space, where the belief is that wrestling with the future is something that we shouldn’t do, because we get it wrong so often.”
Against that caveat, Singer discussed the implications of China’s 19th Party Congress’ order for the Chinese military to “accelerate the development of military ‘intelligentization.’”
“We need to use new modes of visualizing and communicating about the future,” he asserted. “Given all of this change, individuals, organizations and nations that don’t recognize, wrestle with and try and make changes will be making a decision through their inaction. They will be making a decision to lose the future, and I hope none of us do that.”
Cole said his and Singer’s brand of FICINT — fictional intelligence — or “useful fiction,” represents a new way to write realistic narratives in a way that helps the military plan and prepare for an uncertain future. He pointed to several of the frontier technologies and offered his own perspective on their impact for the Marine Raider community and Raider culture as well as the larger U.S. Special Operations Command enterprise.
Along with creative thinking and exploring “shifts in cognitive modalities,” Raiders also received a number of program briefings from across the Defense Department and several industry partners.
Lt. Col. Glenn McCartan from the Defense Innovation Unit noted the distinction between “those who invent technology and those who take it and use it.” DIU was created in 2015 to help connect the Pentagon with tech hubs such as Silicon Valley. McCartan identified the organization’s value proposition for the special operations community as brokers with access to commercial dual-use technology, highlighting the importance of “bridging the gap” between commercial and military technology innovation.
Another DIU representative, Heather Ichord, pointed to several recent programmatic accomplishments.
McCartan observed, “It’s not about finding the technology. It’s about implementing it.”
Not surprisingly, one of the Defense Innovation Unit’s portfolios involves artificial intelligence and machine learning, an increasingly critical arena that served as the centerpiece for a dedicated “AI 101” presentation by Gokul Subramanian, engineering lead at defense technology company Anduril. He described the company’s involvement in the development of counter-unmanned aerial system technology and cautioned the audience over the likely necessity to re-define “drone swarms” as scenarios shift from “four or five drones flown at a base” to “500 drones.”
Subramanian identified “neural networks” as “the frontier of where we are going,” supporting that with a wide-ranging presentation that addressed issues ranging from concepts for defeating increasingly common facial recognition software, to the possibility of inserting “AI poison” into a potential opponent’s OODA — observe, orient, decide and act — loop.
The symposium included a panel on “AI Applications in Intel/ISR” led by representatives from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. Presenting their personal visions of future AI implications from spectrum superiority to safe and assured operations, they offered application examples for military intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance while also acknowledging ongoing work on a “counter-AI initiative.”
CRS presentations highlighted other specific military applications of the frontier technologies. One example that focused on space technology and great power competition was provided by Chief Master Sgt. John Bentivegna, senior enlisted leader for Space Operations Command.
Bentivegna emphasized the criticality of space domain awareness at a time when “space is becoming congested.”
In the evolving era of great power competition, he expressed the command’s desire to explore partnering with MARSOC and Special Operations Command, observing, “China has a satellite in space with a grappling arm. And Russia has anti-satellite weapons in orbit that could kinetically kill satellites. It’s all in that gray area. What is an act of war in space and where is space going in the future?”
The symposium also included venues for Raiders to share their personal thoughts and field ideas through an essay contest co-sponsored by MARSOC and the Naval Postgraduate School. While 16 essays were received and posted to wide dissemination, the top three award winners presented their efforts directly to the audience.
One example was provided by critical skills operator Staff Sgt. Franklin Baker, who focused on the notional creation of what he called “the Greatest Mesh Network,” through the integration of an Android Tactical Assault Kit device with a goTenna Pro X affixed under the wings of a Stalker VXE unmanned aerial system. Describing the architectural elements step by step, he said special operators could “create our very own mesh network with an aerial component that defeats line-of-sight obstacles in every operating environment.”
Other award-winning essay presentations ranged from “Brilliance in the Basics” of space weather to “Edge Computing and Tomorrow’s Operations” versus relying on the cloud.
The Naval Postgraduate School’s presentations provided a critical strategic framework from which Raiders could view key technologies. As an example, Dr. Ryan Maness, assistant professor in the school’s Defense Analysis Department and director of the DoD Information Strategy Research Center, asserted that China is the biggest threat to the United States right now but cautioned that the U.S. government might be “over-hyping” that threat, with some early evidence indicated that China “might be hitting a wall.”
Offering examples of Chinese efforts to obtain rather than develop critical technologies, he observed, “It’s difficult to innovate when you’re cheating.”
He characterized Russia as “outmatched in the conventional domain but punching above their weight in the cyber and information domains.”
Dr. Tommy Jamison, assistant professor of strategic studies at the defense analysis department, outlined his perspective on technology and strategy in Chinese history.
Noting a great historical debate within China over a continental frontier versus a maritime frontier, he said, “In China today, the lessons of history are used as a springboard for military modernization.”
“History and geography are fundamentally relevant to Chinese leaders,” he added. “And for that reason, it is relevant to anyone who is serious about confronting China, and that would include everyone in this room as some of the most serious people engaged in that effort.”
Looking forward, symposium attendees explored how the MARSOF 2030 vision links to an emerging Marine Special Operations Command focus on an operating concept identified as Strategic Shaping and Reconnaissance, or SSR.
Described as “encompassing those activities conducted by special operations elements in cooperation, competition and conflict to gain awareness of adversarial intentions and capabilities in order to deter, disrupt, deny or increase the adversary’s risk,” the concept includes a wide array of skills and equipment to provide shaping and influence effects to be achieved through a hybrid approach utilizing selected special operations core activities and programs applied through intelligence operations, direct and indirect actions, and persistent development of ally and partner relations.
The SSR concept is expected to be a focus for future iterations of the Cognitive Raider Symposium. In the meantime, Raiders are working to incorporate the lessons from this year’s event across MARSOC, demonstrating the power of the “Cognitive Raider” initiative and its application for the future.
12. Special Operations Command Wants Tiny Cruise Missiles With Hundreds Of Miles Range
Excerpts:
A SOCOM spokesman declined to comment on the missile project, other than saying that SOCOM is doing a technical analysis of proposals received from industry. The SBIR also announcement makes clear that SOCOM expects "operational prototypes will not be developed" under the first phase of this project.
The push for a long-range missile comes after SOCOM has worked to rebuild its missile stockpile depleted from years of unrelenting operations that have strained its personnel and resources. Whatever SOCOM develops, if indeed it finds such a capability technologically feasible, could be adopted by U.S. conventional forces.
“I'd be surprised if something like this particular capability wasn't fairly rapidly adopted by conventional forces, unless it proves to be so expensive or exquisite that it only makes sense to have it as a special capability,” Jonathan Schroden, director of the Special Operations Program at the Center for Naval Analyses think tank, told The War Zone.
The SBIR announcement itself says the project Phase II stage of this project would explore whether "This system could be used in a broad range of military applications where a long-range weapon must fit in small space."
If the project is successful, and there is no guarantee that it will be, SOCOM and the rest of the U.S. military will be able to have their cake and eat it too: a missile that’s small, yet still has long-range.
Special Operations Command Wants Tiny Cruise Missiles With Hundreds Of Miles Range
But is it a missile or a drone? The requirements for the Stand-Off Precision Guided Weapon Program Cruise Missile seem almost contradictory: a cruise missile with long-range, yet tiny enough to fit into a small launch tube.
“This system could be used in a broad range of military applications where a long-range weapon must fit in a small space,” noted the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) announcement from U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM).
More specifically, SOCOM is seeking a precision-guided "cruise missile" with a range of at least 200 nautical miles, and ideally a range of more than 400 nautical miles. This would give SOCOM aircraft, such as AC-130J Ghostrider gunships, the ability to strike targets while remaining safely out of range of hostile air defenses.
The missile needs to be capable of carrying, at minimum, a 13-pound warhead, slightly smaller than one found in many Hellfire variants. At the same time, SOCOM says it is interested in designs that might be able to hold payloads weighing up to 37 pounds.
A seeker system with electro-optical and infrared modes is also required, but the notice says that SOCOM would be happy to consider designs with additional guidance options, if possible, that allow the weapon "to acquire and/or reacquire targets in flight." The SBIR notice doesn't offer examples of what this "multi-mode seeker package" might include, but a millimeter-wave radar homing capability would certainly be one possibility.
DoD
AC-130 dropping SDB-II Stormbreakers which are equipped with multi-mode seekers.
The missile will also need to be networked, at least via Situational Awareness Data Links (SADL), but possibly using Link 16, as well. SOCOM wants the weapon to have a GPS-assisted Inertial Navigation System (INS) guidance system, as well, with the INS component offering a backup to help it get to the target in environments where GPS jamming is present.
Perhaps more important, it would also give U.S. special operations forces a long-range fire capability vastly exceeding the reach of their current short-range Hellfire and Griffin missiles and Small Glide Munition (SGM) glide bombs. The SGM has a range of around 20 miles, or one-tenth of the minimum range of this proposed mini-cruise missile. This new weapon would also out-range the Small Diameter Bombs (SDB) that AC-130s can carry, which have a maximum range of about 50 miles, but likely less at the heights and speeds AC-130s fly at.
While the size of the weapon was not specified in the announcement, it must be small enough to be fired from a Common Launch Tube, or CLT. The CLT, from Systima Technologies, is designed to be a universal launcher and storage unit. It can house and fire various small munitions and drones in a launch container just four feet long and seven inches wide, and that can be quickly mounted on a variety of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. Griffins and SGMs fit into CLTs, but Hellfires and SDBs won't.
The fact that the SOCOM weapon is designed to fit inside a CLT does raise some questions. How do you cram what would be a long-range weapon inside a relatively tiny launcher?
Lockheed Martin
The 'derringer door'-mounted pressurized launchers and Common Launch Tube rack on a KC-130J Harvest Hawk.
SOCOM describes this proposed weapon as a cruise missile, which tend to be subsonic weapons that fly at low altitudes to avoid detection. On the other hand, the proposed weapon’s small size and long-range – almost contradictory requirements in munitions design – suggest the possibility of something akin to a loitering munition, which orbits a target like a drone before slamming into it and detonating like a missile. The specification for electric propulsion could suggest a propeller-driven engine. There are emerging mini-cruise missile offerings, such as Spear 3, but they would not be able to fit in a CLT and have a range of less than half of what is required here.
U.S. conventional forces have a wide array of long-range munitions, from Air Force glide bombs to Navy sea-launched cruise missiles, but even small cruise missiles won’t fit inside a CLT. On the other hand, there are long-range drones that can be launched from a CLT. The U.S. military has, interestingly, conducted work in the past involving at least one of these unmanned systems, Raytheon's Coyote Block 3, as part of a program called the Low-Cost Cruise Missile (LCCM).
Still, these unmanned aircraft don't necessarily meet the payload requirements SOCOM has outlined here for this new weapon. For example, the Altius 600 drone, another drone that multiple branches of the U.S. military have been experimenting with, has a range of 276 miles and can be fired from CLTs, but can only hold payloads weighing between three and seven pounds, according to the manufacturing. In addition, with a cruise speed of 60 knots and a dash speed of 90 knots, it’s not fast enough to hit time-sensitive targets that could leave the target zone before the missile arrives.
AreaI
Altius-600.
A SOCOM spokesman declined to comment on the missile project, other than saying that SOCOM is doing a technical analysis of proposals received from industry. The SBIR also announcement makes clear that SOCOM expects "operational prototypes will not be developed" under the first phase of this project.
The push for a long-range missile comes after SOCOM has worked to rebuild its missile stockpile depleted from years of unrelenting operations that have strained its personnel and resources. Whatever SOCOM develops, if indeed it finds such a capability technologically feasible, could be adopted by U.S. conventional forces.
“I'd be surprised if something like this particular capability wasn't fairly rapidly adopted by conventional forces, unless it proves to be so expensive or exquisite that it only makes sense to have it as a special capability,” Jonathan Schroden, director of the Special Operations Program at the Center for Naval Analyses think tank, told The War Zone.
The SBIR announcement itself says the project Phase II stage of this project would explore whether "This system could be used in a broad range of military applications where a long-range weapon must fit in small space."
If the project is successful, and there is no guarantee that it will be, SOCOM and the rest of the U.S. military will be able to have their cake and eat it too: a missile that’s small, yet still has long-range.
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13. US over-the-horizon capabilities robust, but use requires ‘strategic refinement,’ experts say
Excerpts:
“Our modern drone fleet can provide flight times of 20 to 40 hours with persistent surveillance,” Bryant said. “Yes, transit times will be long, but overhead times will still be considerable, and working overlapping flights is fairly standard with persistent overhead surveillance.”
Persistent overhead surveillance is critical for these kinds of strikes, as it enables a target to be precisely identified. Further, this constant “eyes on” allows operators to map out any civilian presence through a “pattern of life” analysis and pick a “strike weapon” that minimizes the risk to civilians.
A “strike weapon” isn’t strictly limited to drones either. Fighter jets can carry any number of munitions, or even B-52′s and cruise missiles are available for an over-the-horizon strike. The key is that the target is verified by multiple independent pieces of intelligence with being able to have “eyes on” the target being the key.
However, while Bryant and Holmes are confident that the U.S. has a robust ability to both identify and hit targets where there is little to U.S. presence, the idea of continuing operations in Afghanistan raises questions.
“If our answer is because the Taliban no longer pose a threat to the security of the United States while ISIS-K does, well, I think that’s very naïve and short-sighted,” Bryant said.
US over-the-horizon capabilities robust, but use requires ‘strategic refinement,’ experts say
On Aug. 29, days after a suicide attack that claimed the lives of 13 U.S. troops, the Defense Department carried out a drone strike it claimed intercepted a car bomb targeting Hamid Karzai International Airport. According to DoD officials, “significant” secondary explosions confirmed a successful over-the-horizon strike on a legitimate target. But several civilians were killed in the attack, leading to questions about the Biden administration’s aim to lean on an “over-the-horizon” approach to fight terrorism in places such as Afghanistan.
While over-the-horizon capabilities, such as drones and intelligence collection, have grown significantly over the years, Washington should lay out a specific counter-terrorism strategy before utilizing it, specifically in a place such as Afghanistan, experts told Military Times.
Prosecuting an over-the-horizon counter-terrorism campaign against ISIS-K in Afghanistan needs to be part of a larger strategic picture laid out by Washington, said Wes Bryant, former Air Force Joint Terminal Attack Controller. Without it, such operations in Afghanistan run the risk of “us continuing down the road to nowhere.” Further, strikes against ISIS-K would primarily benefit the Taliban, a group Bryant describes as having “similar” goals to the Taliban with a “near-equal history of oppression, brutality, and atrocities.”
“So, before a real over-the-horizon campaign in Afghanistan is initiated, our leadership—political and military—need to really ask themselves, and answer to the American people, the one fundamental question: Toward what end?” Bryant, who retired in 2018 as a master sergeant after 20 years in uniform, told Military Times.
An early example of an effective and targeted over-the-horizon strike occurred in 1986 when then-President Ronald Regan ordered airstrikes on targets in Libya. The strikes were carried out from as far as airfields in England and were in response to Libyan state sponsorship of terrorism, with the catalyst was a nightclub bombing in Berlin that claimed the life of a U.S. service member.
“You can go back to the Reagan strike in Libya,” retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Holmes told Military Times, “It looked like a bombing, but it was an over-the-horizon response to terrorism.” Holmes spent his career commanding Air Force special tactics units, including directing the Inter-Agency Task Force at U.S. Special Operations Command.
This ability has only grown more robust over nearly three decades.
“There are a lot of aircraft that could conduct strikes being termed an “over the horizon capability,” Bryant said. “Really,[over-the-horizon] is a new term for something we’ve been doing for years.”
According to Bryant, the beginning of the campaign in Iraq and Syria against ISIS in 2014 represents a further evolution in over-the-horizon development when DoD implemented “strike cells” to run targeting operations. Advancements in signals intelligence collection, along with “persistent surveillance,” enabled U.S. personnel to hit ISIS targets with relative impunity, often without personnel on the ground.
“There is nothing to say that JTACs on the ground will lead to better, cleaner targeting than in a Strike Cell,” Bryant said. “The capabilities we have from our Strike Cells combined with the rest of our targeting and intelligence bodies are incredible.”
According to Bryant and Holmes, OTH was on display in Afghanistan before U.S. forces entirely withdrew from the country. On Aug 27, two ISIS-K militants, identified by the Pentagon as a “planner” and a “facilitator” for the terrorist organization, were killed in Nangahar province. This was followed by the Aug 29. strike, which the Pentagon said was against a potential car bomb targeting HKIA.
“The president has made it very clear that we will maintain robust over-the-horizon counter-terrorism capability, the kinds of capabilities that you’ve seen us use in just the last 24/36 hours,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said at a press conference on Aug 30, “We still have that capability. We will use that capability.”
However, according to experts that Military Times spoke to, there is still a degree of on-the-ground coordination required. Specifically, the need for local cooperation and basing, as while the range of drones and surveillance reach has increased, it is not infinite.
Regional allies, said Bryant, such as the Gulf Cooperation Council, and other partners, should be able to provide bases from which drones and other over-the-horizon assets could operate, despite the increased distance now needing to be covered to get into the “battlespace.”
“Our modern drone fleet can provide flight times of 20 to 40 hours with persistent surveillance,” Bryant said. “Yes, transit times will be long, but overhead times will still be considerable, and working overlapping flights is fairly standard with persistent overhead surveillance.”
Persistent overhead surveillance is critical for these kinds of strikes, as it enables a target to be precisely identified. Further, this constant “eyes on” allows operators to map out any civilian presence through a “pattern of life” analysis and pick a “strike weapon” that minimizes the risk to civilians.
A “strike weapon” isn’t strictly limited to drones either. Fighter jets can carry any number of munitions, or even B-52′s and cruise missiles are available for an over-the-horizon strike. The key is that the target is verified by multiple independent pieces of intelligence with being able to have “eyes on” the target being the key.
However, while Bryant and Holmes are confident that the U.S. has a robust ability to both identify and hit targets where there is little to U.S. presence, the idea of continuing operations in Afghanistan raises questions.
“If our answer is because the Taliban no longer pose a threat to the security of the United States while ISIS-K does, well, I think that’s very naïve and short-sighted,” Bryant said.
James R. Webb is a rapid response reporter for Military Times. He served as a US Marine infantryman in Iraq. Additionally, he has worked as a Legislative Assistant in the US Senate and as an embedded photographer in Afghanistan.
14. ‘Dear America’: Gold Star Families Want ‘Archaic’ Support Systems Fixed
This is quite a critique.
We have spent thousands upon thousands of hours collectively pressing senior Pentagon and Congressional leaders for better professionalized systems, casualty assistance, real support, and a genuine relationship with the military. The military overall has scaled back our survivor programs. Some nonprofit organizations collect money by exploiting our loss. They haven’t reached out at the end of this conflict, they haven’t help change the policies that hurt our survivors, and they are failing the mission. For the survivors of future conflicts and for the preservation of the all-volunteer force, we must do better. We can do better. We are better than this.
We are concerned about the failed systems at the Pentagon that must be remedied to better honor the service and sacrifice of our fallen. The current systems and processes for supporting our Gold Star families are archaic, fraught with inconsistency, and nearly impossible to navigate. The small team who manages supporting Gold Star families hasn’t modernized. Catastrophic mistakes have occurred: leaked information, improperly identified remains, failures to file paperwork accurately and on time. They have not protected us, and they have refused to listen.
‘Dear America’: Gold Star Families Want ‘Archaic’ Support Systems Fixed
The Pentagon team that manages them “have not protected us, and they have refused to listen."
An open letter from the undersigned:
Dear America and our leaders,
We live in the land of the free because of our brave. This is the country, and you are the precious people, that our husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters died for while fighting in the Global War on Terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Niger, and across the globe.
We write today as Gold Star families whose loved ones were killed in action over the last twenty years. We do not ask for pity, but we stand as warriors, and ask for action and accountability. Just last week, 13 families joined us in the greatest loss known to American life: they have joined our ranks as new families of the fallen. We hear a lot of promises and know our leaders care, but you politicize our loss rather than wrapping around us and prioritizing us with support, policies, and services that are needed to heal and move forward.
Honoring and remembering our service members and their loved ones should not be a political issue, the politics around it are disgusting. United we prosper; divided we fall. We are more than a tweet or a political tag line. We are the survivors. We need you to choose country over politics; to choose America over your career. Many of you tweet the names of our lost yet turn your face from us when we ask you to help or change the policies to better support our families and the legacies of our loved ones. They fought, bled, and died for you. Please be there for them; please be there for us.
We have spent thousands upon thousands of hours collectively pressing senior Pentagon and Congressional leaders for better professionalized systems, casualty assistance, real support, and a genuine relationship with the military. The military overall has scaled back our survivor programs. Some nonprofit organizations collect money by exploiting our loss. They haven’t reached out at the end of this conflict, they haven’t help change the policies that hurt our survivors, and they are failing the mission. For the survivors of future conflicts and for the preservation of the all-volunteer force, we must do better. We can do better. We are better than this.
We are concerned about the failed systems at the Pentagon that must be remedied to better honor the service and sacrifice of our fallen. The current systems and processes for supporting our Gold Star families are archaic, fraught with inconsistency, and nearly impossible to navigate. The small team who manages supporting Gold Star families hasn’t modernized. Catastrophic mistakes have occurred: leaked information, improperly identified remains, failures to file paperwork accurately and on time. They have not protected us, and they have refused to listen.
We want changes that help future survivors navigate a confusing process, get answers to questions, and know there is someone to turn to when we need help. We want engaged leadership, real long-term support, and an end to the political infighting around our loss.
Together we ask for:
• Program reform. The Department of Defense needs a bigger, better-trained team to manage survivor and casualty issues. Beginning with the knock on the door through the end of our lives, we need a substantial and well-trained, professionalized team to better support these needs.
• Improved technology. The administrative systems are archaic and impossible to navigate. They need meaningful investment and reform to better support survivors.
• Politics to end. Republicans and Democrats alike politicize our loss, parade us out, and usurp our stories. We are united against the politicization of loss and ask you to be better, do better, and put your country over your political future. Our fallen did.
• Veteran Affairs support. The VA motto is “To care for those who have borne the battle, their widow and their orphan,” yet they lack programs to support the widow and orphan. This needs to be prioritized, as the mental, physical and emotional impact of loss is tremendous.
• Leaders to lead. Help us better understand the choices you make at a national level. Our loved ones died in a country that we thought we were helping improve, but what we see is anything but improvement. Was our loss worth it? We ask ourselves that question every single day and we need answers from you. If you know something, speak up; do not be silent. We must learn, make changes, and move forward from this.
• Honor for our fallen. Support the building of the Global War on Terrorism Memorial and help us honor and remember our heroes that embody the best our nation has to offer.
• Accountability. Our loved ones deserved better than the outcome of this war. There needs to be meaningful debate and a thorough review of our failures and policies. We must do better, and live by these words: “No one left behind.” Leaders need to be held accountable.
America is an exceptional country and we are lucky to live here. We can only honor our fallen by coming together to heal and rebuild this country. We must unite around our precious veterans, whose service and their tremendous effort to honor the member of the fellow comrades make us proud and humble.
May we all be worthy, and may we live as Americans worth dying for.
With heavy but hopeful hearts,
Name (Loved one’s service branch, theater)
Sara Werner Clark (USMC, Iraq)
Seana Arrechaga (USA, Afghanistan)
Mariah Smith (USN Syria)
Dawn Leimbach Fowler (USA, Afghanistan)
Jennifer Henderson (USA, Afghanistan)
Krissy Roberts (USAF, Iraq)
Taylor Strong (USMC, Afghanistan)
Helen Keiser (USA, Afghanistan)
Rebecca Egger (USA, Afghanistan)
Terry Burgess (USA, Afghanistan)
Elizabeth Burgess (USA, Afghanistan)
Sarah Lindsay (USA, Afghanistan)
Deanna Sartor (USA, Afghanistan)
Ginger Gilbert Ravella (USAF, Iraq)
Elena Gutierrez (USA, Afghanistan)
Tabitha Farmer (USA, Syria)
Melissa Moriarty (USA, Jordan)
Candace Jones (USA, Afghanistan)
Margaret Eggers (USA, Afghanistan)
Delmer Tracy (USA, Afghanistan)
Patricia Tracy (USA, Afghanistan)
Joann Yost (USA, Afghanistan)
Michelle Melgar (USA, Mali)
Felicia Ross (USA, Afghanistan)
Megan McGill (USA, Afghanistan)
Ashley Wheeler (USA, Iraq)
Nancy Gass (USA, Afghanistan)
Melina Nolte (USMC, Afghanistan)
Tiffany Eckert (USA, Iraq)
David Horton (USA, Afghanistan)
Holly Vicari (USA, Afghanistan)
Emily Potter (USA, Afghanistan)
Kylie Willis (USA, Afghanistan)
Kayci Owen (USA, Afghanistan)
Chuck Lewellen (USA, Jordan)
Tiffany Dennis (USA, Afghanistan)
Surana Prince (USA, Afghanistan)
Wendall Pelham (USA, Army)
Char Westbrook (USA, Afghanistan)
Jane Horton (USA, Afghanistan)
Sarah Geisen (USA, Afghanistan)
Tammy Moore (USA, Afghanistan)
Colin Hawkins (USMC, Iraq)
Pamela Presley Tolbert (USMC, Iraq)
William Eggers (USA, Afghanistan)
Darlene Nedley (USA, Afghanistan)
Stephen Eggers (USA, Afghanistan)
Cristy Eggers (USA, Afghanistan)
Priscilla Farmer (USA, Syria)
Becky Moriarty Davis (USA, Jordan)
Theresa Morehead (USA, Afghanistan)
Toni Gross (USA, Afghanistan)
Annette Cuzzupe-Kirk (USA, Afghanistan)
Jennie Taylor (USA, Afghanistan)
Joe Kent (USN Syria)
Dawn Pelham (USA, Afghanistan)
Normie Healy (USN Afghanistan)
Amanda Rivera (USA, Gulf of Aden)
Alexandra McClintock (USA, Afghanistan)
Jessica Charles (USMC, Afghanistan)
Bob Keiser (USA, Afghanistan)
Susan Harris Kolean (USA, Afghanistan)
Brittany Harris (USA, Afghanistan)
Megan Ewy (USA, Afghanistan)
Preston Farmer (USA, Syria)
Stephanie Ouelette (USMC, Afghanistan)
Amy Baldulf (USMC, Afghanistan)
Stephanie Badulf (USMC, Afghanistan)
Maggie Duskin (USA, Afghanistan)
Tiffany Burgess (USA, Afghanistan)
Larry Mace (USA, Afghanistan)
Kristen Santos-Silva (USA, Afghanistan)
Kelly Gibbons (USA, Afghanistan)
Krista Johnston (USA, Afghanistan)
Morgan Zimmerman (USA, Afghanistan)
Terri Pryor (USA, Afghanistan)
Peter MacFarland (USA, Afghanistan)
Barbara Allen (USA, Iraq)
Michelle Black (USA, Niger)
Scarlett Horton (USA, Afghanistan)
Stephen Ross (USA, Afghanistan)
Richard Johnston (USA, Afghanistan)
Colleen Stevens (USA, Afghanistan)
Lanita Hall Herlem (USA, Iraq)
Karen Black (USA, Niger)
Megan Wherry (USA, Afghanistan)
Marina Gonzalez (USA, Iraq)
MacFarland (USA, Afghanistan)
Brittnay McCall (USA, Iraq)
Devin Farmer (USA, Syria)
Amanda Marr (USA, Afghanistan)
Emma Wright (USA, Afghanistan)
Amanda Justice-Peterson (USA, Afghanistan)
Cindy Lewellen (USA, Jordan)
Jill Stephenson (USA, Afghanistan)
Ricky Halleland (USA, Afghanistan)
Eden Badulf (USMC, Afghanistan)
Rachel Perez (USA, Afghanistan)
Kayley Sharp Henderson (USA, Afghanistan)
Mary MacFarland (USA, Afghanistan)
Laura Gonzalez (USA, Iraq)
Dennis Leehan (USA, Afghanistan)
Suzette DeTulio (USA, Iraq)
Susan Harris Kolean (USA, Afghanistan)
Danielle Boyd (USMC, Afghanistan)
Betsy Farmer (USA, Syria)
James Moriarty (USA, Jordan)
Marcia Leehan (USA, Afghanistan)
15. A Weapons of Mass Destruction Strategy for the 21st Century
Excerpts:
The National Security Council should launch a formal process to develop a national WMD strategy to replace the 2002 National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction. That process should include input from academics, nongovernmental organizations, and, of course, traditional national security agencies. As part of developing a strategy, policymakers should carefully consider relevant definitional issues. The overall aim of a National Security Council-led process should be to define what policies and strategies are best suited to limiting the vertical and horizontal proliferation of WMD, given specific security contexts such as major combat operations, irregular warfare, and homeland security.
Additionally, the strategy should clarify how it relates to other complementary strategies and national guidance documents, such as the National Biodefense Strategy and the National Response Framework. Both of these documents address aspects that overlap with WMD non- and counter proliferation and, as such, this revision should also reduce friction and ambiguity between strategies. Insights developed through the strategy development process, as well as the successes (and failures) of the resulting strategy, should inform future strategy development, organizational shifts, and legislative changes as appropriate. Despite the constant turmoil of today’s crises, the Biden administration should take the time to revisit and improve the U.S. approach to the very real threat of weapons of mass destruction.
A Weapons of Mass Destruction Strategy for the 21st Century - War on the Rocks
The last time the U.S. government published a national strategy for countering weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Saddam Hussein was still ruling Iraq, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un was a teenager, and Xi Jinping was governing a Chinese province. The White House and the Kremlin were also talking about “acting as partners and friends in meeting the new challenges of the 21st century.” The world has changed greatly over the past twenty years, and ideally, so should national security strategies.
The December 2002 U.S. government concept for addressing WMD has been completely overtaken by strategic, political, and technological developments, including new risks posed by hypersonic missiles, cyber weapons, drone swarms, pandemic outbreaks, and AI. Today, the United States is threatened by a nuclear North Korea, a potentially nuclear Iran, and an eroding nuclear nonproliferation framework. American policymakers have witnessed North Korea, Syria, and Russia all use chemical weapons in recent years and have seen concerning biosecurity trends in Russia and China. Due to the nature of modern global supply chains, various state and non-state actors have greater opportunities to procure the materials and equipment needed to develop and deliver WMD.
Despite these threats, there is limited interagency collaboration, and no common approach, within the U.S. government to countering adversaries’ development and use of WMD. Crises, more than deliberate planning, drive the federal government’s actions. WMD pose an acute threat to the United States, but discussions about how to handle them have stagnated, leading to new vulnerabilities to U.S. national security. Today, there is a narrow window to define a new security strategy that builds upon the U.S. government’s past brushes with international incidents, examines new threats, and leverages fresh ideas to improve U.S. foreign policy objectives.
The U.S. government should, through the National Security Council, formulate a unified strategy that addresses the changing character of, and challenges posed by, WMD. That strategy should align current and future national security capabilities in order to prevent the proliferation of such weapons and discourage adversaries from using them to harm the United States, allied nations, and broader American national security interests. An effective strategy should answer at least three questions: What does the term “weapons of mass destruction” mean today? How are WMD challenges changing? How should the U.S. government counter WMD? While the authors differ in our precise answers to these questions, we all believe they should be answered to address contemporary security challenges.
What Does the Term ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ Mean Today?
In 1948, the United Nations defined “weapons of mass destruction” as “atomic explosive weapons, radioactive material weapons, lethal chemical and biological weapons, and any weapons developed in the future which have characteristics comparable in destructive effect to those of the atomic bomb or other weapons mentioned above.” With the reference to future weapons, delegates of U.N. members recognized that new highly destructive weapons could emerge. Over time, the international arms control regimes identified non-lethal chemical and biological weapons (e.g., mustard agent, agent BZ, brucellosis, Q fever) as being “WMD.” Debate continues as to the possible inclusion of certain central nervous system agents and emerging infectious diseases as WMD.
Today, some emerging weapons may also warrant being considered as WMD. An out-of-control cyber weapon, for example, may spread throughout the globe, damaging industrial systems. Nanotechnology aerosols may effectively serve as novel chemical weapons beyond the bounds of existing normative and treaty limitations, and armed, autonomous drone swarms marry mass harm with brittle, easily-fooled AI. Debate is needed on which, if any, of these weapons should be included alongside traditional WMD, and about the degree to which existing non- and counter-proliferation mechanisms are useful in mitigating the risks these new weapons present.
Even without officials and analysts adopting new terms, it’s a problem that the federal government does not have a standardized meaning of WMD. Seth Carus’ exhaustive study found that the U.S. government has adopted 20 separate definitions of the term. For example, the departments of Defense and State focus on a defined list of chemical and biological warfare agents along with nuclear weapons as WMD, while the FBI considers any chemical or biological substance as well as high explosives used to harm individuals to be WMD. Definition proliferation is understandable because national security departments, agencies, offices, programs, and projects naturally differ in their focus. However, the cost of idiosyncratic definitions is incoherence in communicating to non-expert stakeholders in civil society, Congress, other members of the federal government, and adversaries that the United States might seek to deter or compel.
Three examples illustrate the definitional challenge and how language may encourage stakeholders to misinterpret policy, strategy, organizational agendas, and threat assessments. First, the Justice Department and the FBI talk about WMD threats when individuals or terrorists attempt to acquire ricin — and, often more precisely, a caster bean mash — or improvised explosives. Neither case represents a plausible mass casualty scenario. This potentially confuses Congress and other policymakers as to what the U.S. government considers a WMD threat.
Second, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power noted in March 2015 that the Syrian government’s use of chlorine bombs was “no less evil than that of chemical weapons,” and the use of chlorine in warfare also clearly falls under the scope of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Yet, the United States did not threaten, or pursue, military action or significant diplomatic efforts to disarm Syria of chlorine, akin to its efforts to disarm Syria of sarin, mustard gas, and other chemical agents. In the future, if U.S. policymakers issue a deterrent or compellent threat on the basis of the terms “weapons of mass destruction” or “chemical weapons,” how will the target of the threat assess American credibility? Based on the lack response to Syrian chlorine use? Or based on the U.S. airstrikes for Syrian sarin use?
Third, the public health and WMD communities clash over the extent to which bioterrorism and natural pandemics should fall under the scope of WMD response. The public health community uses bioterrorism to petition for more resources as compensation for significant cuts in federal and state funding. Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s Chemical-Biological Defense Program, which was established in the late 1990s to address warfare agents, is increasingly funding research related to natural infectious diseases (e.g., Operation Warp Speed). Both cases represent mismanagement of federal funds due to the carefully chosen and ambiguous phrase “biological threats.” Adjudicating such issues at an interagency level would help to resolve the disputes.
How Are WMD Challenges Changing?
Norms against the use of WMD are also threatened. In recent years, some states have used small quantities of chemical agents and radiological isotopes in attacks against domestic political opponents. For example, North Korea’s regime assassinated Kim Jung-nam, the half-brother of Kim Jong-un, with VX, and Russian intelligence officers attempted to kill Sergei and Yulia Skripal using Novichok nerve agents. Bellingcat’s open-source investigations suggest Russia’s chemical and biological weapons programs are much deeper and broader than had been publicly understood. At the same time, global trends such as declining U.S. influence, the rise of authoritarian leaders, and regional tensions are eroding the global nuclear nonproliferation framework.
New technologies are also making it easier for state and non-state actors to acquire, enhance, and use WMD. Today’s biological researchers could use synthetic biology to accelerate the development of biological weapons agents, especially highly-controlled agents like variola virus, and to enhance existing agents through gain-of-function research. Drones are a novel WMD delivery option. When coupled with AI-enabled sensors, drones may increase the targetability of chemical and biological weapons. That could enable the use of smaller amounts of agent and potentially undermine a core rationale for the global norm against them by making it possible to use chemical and biological weapons in a way that discriminates more between civilian and military targets. 3-D printing could potentially allow actors to fabricate the controlled or expensive parts and equipment needed to develop WMD and associated delivery systems. These technologies rely heavily on digital information — 3-D printer build files, AI software, drone control systems — and they are dual-use, rendering traditional nonproliferation tools like interdiction and export controls less effective. Addressing these challenges is likely to require adaptation of counterproliferation concepts.
These technologies were not foreseen when the initial Department of Defense counterproliferation concept was drafted in 2001. The department’s approach was designed to address non-nuclear nation-states seeking chemical and biological weapons for strategic use, as well as to support the federal response to domestic chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear terrorism incidents. An updated concept, based on direction provided in Presidential Decision Directive 18 from 1993, needs to accommodate the return of great-power competition and aggressive acts conducted below the threshold of open combat. The military’s offensive counter-WMD capabilities, such as pre-emptive attacks and pathway defeat, are not necessarily useful against nuclear powers such as Russia and China, except maybe to counter vertical proliferation in narrow circumstances.
The U.S. government no longer has one strategy to counter WMD — it has at least three. There is the Defense Department’s strategy to counter such weapons, which includes the traditional mission to protect U.S. forces from adversaries using chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons on the battlefield. There is a national strategy to counter WMD terrorism. And there is a strategy to defend against and respond to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear incidents in the homeland. Within the U.S. government, and even within the Department of Defense, there are multiple concepts and plans to address WMD threats in each of these contexts. Integrating these strategies through a new overarching national strategy may improve unity of effort, identify complementary activities, and create new opportunities for joint activities. For example, any common themes or efforts in the more narrowly defined strategies represent areas where higher-level policy attention or resource allocation can create maximum impact.
How Should the U.S. Government Counter WMD Risks?
The United States should have a guiding strategy to integrate activities aimed at ensuring non- and counter-proliferation of WMD across national security agencies. Such a strategy should recognize the common challenges WMD pose as a class — the need to reinforce international norms, identify and close off proliferation pathways, and punish egregious use of such weapons — but also appreciate the challenges unique to particular classes of weapons, such as the use of chemical weapons in assassination attacks. The guiding strategy should also delineate objectives related to responding to WMD, such as attribution, prosecution, and elimination, across federal agencies, while acknowledging that general response and recovery will be a function of the National Response Framework created in 1992.
American decision-makers should also take a hard look at what lessons the past two decades offer regarding the utility of particular policy levers, including deterrence, compellence, economic sanctions, and diplomatic sanctions. Policymakers should learn lessons from episodes such as the 2003 Iraq War, former President Barack Obama’s attempt to deter Syrian chemical weapons use by setting a “red line,” and former President Donald Trump’s attempts to compel Syria to stop using chemical weapons. Likewise, if any emerging technologies do merit inclusion as WMD, then the United States should identify how policy levers may support counter- and non-proliferation of such technologies.
More broadly, U.S. policymakers should better investigate how policies, strategies, organizations, and specific operational tactics can be adapted to account for the changes emerging technologies create, both individually and in aggregate. While various analyses have explored what individual emerging technologies mean for WMD, virtually none have examined what they mean in aggregate. That’s a problem. The U.S. government should understand how these technologies affect broader proliferation dynamics if it is to appropriately adjust its overall strategy. For example, one major shift is the intermingling of physical and digital systems, which means cybersecurity organizations need to be part of the conversation about WMD.
A unified strategy should also aim to identify the specific roles of agencies — particularly those of the departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Justice, and Energy — as well as how those roles fit together. In the past few years, the national security bureaucracy has undergone major shifts in how it organizes itself, necessitating a clarification of responsibilities. New organizations have been created, including the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, the U.S. Army Futures Command, and the proposed State Department Bureau for Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies. Special Operations Command is now the Department of Defense coordinating authority responsible for assessing counter-WMD awareness and recommending improvements in the plans of other combatant commands. It took over that role from Strategic Command. How each of the various national security organizations supports WMD counter- and non-proliferation should be carefully defined and their responsibilities aligned.
New technologies and aggression below the threshold of open combat — what is now being called “the gray zone” of conflict — represent challenges to the arms control and nonproliferation community’s traditional approach of enacting incremental changes during treaty reviews that happen every five years. China’s illicit manufacture and shipment of fentanyls to the United States has no clear remedy in U.S. policy. Greater appreciation and preparation is needed within the Defense Department for potential Russian and Chinese use of chemical and biological weapons in regional conflicts, and the State Department has cited both for lack of compliance with arms control agreements. Verification continues to be a wicked problem for biological weapons and associated technologies decades after the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention entered into force. In no small part, that is due to significant advances in technology such as synthetic biology and the gene-editing tool CRISPR. Perhaps developments in cyber espionage, AI, and biotechnology may create avenues for new approaches to solving these problems. We are doubtful a silver bullet exists, but clearly something has to change.
The U.S. government should also understand what biodefense looks like in a world that is increasingly dealing with significant public health and biosecurity challenges. American policymakers and officials should carefully assess what lessons the response to COVID-19 might offer for bioweapons preparedness and response, including understanding any errors to avoid. Potential areas for lessons learned include hospital preparedness for pandemic response, rapid vaccine development and deployment, and clearly demarcating agency responsibilities in the National Response Framework and other national guidance documents. How should the capabilities of the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and other major national security agencies support the efforts of more traditional pandemic-response organizations like the Department of Health and Human Services? The concept of “health security” as a feature of national strategy remains underdeveloped, and it deserves an equally in-depth review to one examining how to counter WMD.
Next Steps
National security policy on WMD threats should expand beyond the traditional, technically focused counter-WMD community. By relegating WMD discussions to a few isolated offices, the Department of Defense and other government agencies have failed to integrate this mission into the contemporary strategies, plans, and capability developments necessary to handle future WMD crises. Without the active involvement of the entire national security community in a broad discussion about Secretary Lloyd Austin’s “integrated deterrence” concept and technology developments, the United States will continue to be hobbled by an outmoded WMD definition that only points to solutions that worked during the Cold War. It may be that the term “weapons of mass destruction” should be expanded, supplemented, or just go away. While valuable for the diplomatic community, the term may muddle strategic communication and create bureaucratic misunderstanding. Then again, bureaucratic inertia may mean the term is likely to be retained in its current form. If that is the case, the U.S. government should ensure the term aids, and does not inhibit, national security discussions on current challenges.
The National Security Council should launch a formal process to develop a national WMD strategy to replace the 2002 National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction. That process should include input from academics, nongovernmental organizations, and, of course, traditional national security agencies. As part of developing a strategy, policymakers should carefully consider relevant definitional issues. The overall aim of a National Security Council-led process should be to define what policies and strategies are best suited to limiting the vertical and horizontal proliferation of WMD, given specific security contexts such as major combat operations, irregular warfare, and homeland security.
Additionally, the strategy should clarify how it relates to other complementary strategies and national guidance documents, such as the National Biodefense Strategy and the National Response Framework. Both of these documents address aspects that overlap with WMD non- and counter proliferation and, as such, this revision should also reduce friction and ambiguity between strategies. Insights developed through the strategy development process, as well as the successes (and failures) of the resulting strategy, should inform future strategy development, organizational shifts, and legislative changes as appropriate. Despite the constant turmoil of today’s crises, the Biden administration should take the time to revisit and improve the U.S. approach to the very real threat of weapons of mass destruction.
Al Mauroni is the director of the U.S. Air Force Center for Strategic Deterrence Studies at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.
Zak Kallenborn is a research affiliate with the Unconventional Weapons and Technology Division of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), a policy fellow at the Schar School of Policy and Government, an officially proclaimed U.S. Army “Mad Scientist,” and national security consultant.
Seth Carus is emeritus distinguished professor of national security policy at the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction at the National Defense University.
Col. (ret.) Ron Fizer is a management strategy fellow at the Logistics Management Institute (LMI). Prior to LMI, Col. Fizer spent 30 years in increasing levels of responsibility across the Army, Joint Staff, and Secretary of Defense staff, for whom he served tactical, strategic, and institutional support organizations within the United States, Germany, South Korea, and Iraq.
The authors thank Eric Brewer for his thoughtful comments. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of any of the authors’ current or former employers, funders, or affiliates, nor do they necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.
16. Cyber Threats and Choke Points: How Adversaries are Leveraging Maritime Cyber Vulnerabilities for Advantage in Irregular Warfare
Excerpts:
Encouragingly, the US government has started to recognize the need to mitigate the cyber vulnerabilities inherent in the maritime domain. In 2020, it issued an executive order to strengthen the PNT system by increasing the nation’s awareness of the extent that critical infrastructure relies on PNT, and building resiliency into the PNT architecture. Furthermore, in 2021, the US government issued its first National Maritime Cybersecurity Plan to address cybersecurity challenges and safeguard the American economy. Meanwhile, academics and practitioners have proposed and implemented their own mitigations and solutions to the vulnerabilities in this domain. For instance, while analog technology training was removed from much of the military’s curricula in the late 1990s, it has since returned at the US Naval Academy. Midshipmen are now charged with learning the basics of celestial positioning, giving them a contingency if GPS fails.
However, despite these positive developments, cyber vulnerabilities will certainly proliferate as all facets of maritime life become increasingly integrated and interconnected. Therefore, it is important to build awareness of this challenge and its implications in irregular warfare, particularly in the littorals.
The maritime domain enables US global reach and global power. While great power competition looms on the horizon, the importance of IW in the littoral zone will remain a central facet in limiting the maneuver capability of hostile forces. Likewise, while advances in the integration of technology have greatly enabled US forces, without fully functional ancillary systems or the fundamental knowledge of how and why these systems were designed, maritime operators are increasingly likely to encounter destructive and debilitating cyberattacks. Let’s hope that policymakers and practitioners alike can use the notoriety of the Ever Given incident—the ship that launched a thousand memes—to highlight the complex, cross-domain challenges at the intersection of cybersecurity and irregular warfare in the littoral zone.
Cyber Threats and Choke Points: How Adversaries are Leveraging Maritime Cyber Vulnerabilities for Advantage in Irregular Warfare - Modern War Institute
The grounding of the container ship Ever Given in the Suez Canal in March 2021 caused a complete blockage of the maritime passageway for more than six days delaying an estimated $9.6 billion in goods each day. The cause of the accident has been attributed to a combination of environmental factors like high winds and human error in navigational inputs by the bridge team. While this event was not an intentional or malicious attack, it is prudent to consider the potential for a malign actor to orchestrate a similar incident in the Suez Canal, Panama Canal, Kill Van Kull, or any other narrow transit point. To that end, understanding the increasingly complex challenges presented by cross-domain threats and cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the maritime domain is important for irregular warfare policymakers and practitioners alike.
The twenty-first century has seen near-coastal waters become the most active setting for discord in the maritime domain. The littoral zone is the frontier where territorial claims are tested, nations confront one another, and major political affairs unfold. Instead of major sea battles between capital ships, conflict in the littorals typically involves irregular adversaries, especially as smaller forces act as proxies for larger nation-states and near-peer competitors. This trend was on display in a July 2021 drone attack on an Israeli tanker off the coast of Oman that left two dead, the latest in a series of such incidents that the United States and Israel have attributed to Iranian proxies.
As engagements with irregular forces and nonstate conflict in the maritime domain have ebbed and flowed throughout history, the US armed forces must constantly adapt to engage and preempt the tactics of adversaries in the littoral zone. The reorientation toward great power competition notwithstanding, the Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy recognizes that irregular warfare is a core competency for the entire joint force—both conventional forces and special operations forces. Moreover, although relatively well understood at the strategic level, little has been discussed about the cybersecurity impacts on irregular warfare in the littoral zone. Like so many other technological vulnerabilities, the implications of a fragile cybersecurity infrastructure are generally an afterthought rather than a core facet in the design and planning phases of the force. Indeed, even ship design, planning, and acquisitions evolve at a much slower rate than changes in the cybersecurity threat landscape, making it difficult for ship infrastructure to keep pace with cyber counterparts.
To further complicate matters, the nature of the littoral zone is such that civilian vessels will always be an interposing factor. Irregular adversaries routinely co-opt civilian vessels for use as cover, or weaponize them to counter traditional military forces. The presence of civilian vessels, their relative ease of exploitation, and their potential to become threats to military operations necessitates a maritime strategy that encompasses civilian security measures. This was certainly true of the Tanker War in the 1980s, where attacks on civilian shipping led to a military escalation between Iran and Iraq.
In the future, it is highly plausible that hostile regimes, nefarious substate actors, and hosts of proxy organizations will create unprecedented havoc in the littoral zone. Cyber and other electronic threats are particularly salient in the maritime domain and have grown dramatically over the last decade. Malign actors understand that the maritime realm depends on automation, and they seek to exploit vulnerabilities in shipboard systems. While there is appropriate concern given to traditional great power adversaries—namely, China and Russia—tactical and strategic sabotage on information and information-dependent systems are becoming so commonplace and inexpensive that smaller nation-state adversaries and organized groups can take advantage of this deficiency by acting on their own or as proxies for great powers. More rogue states and substate actors are using cyber threats as a line of effort against US security interests. Coupled with the relative ease of weaponizing information, this is a formula for a new form of irregular warfare.
Global Navigation Satellite Systems
In 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, authors Elliot Ackerman and retired Admiral James Stavridis describe a scenario where America’s adversaries jam the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) and communication electronics employed by US warships. GNSS is the overarching term for the array of satellites, such as the Global Positioning System (GPS), that provide position, navigation, and timing (PNT) information on which so many of our critical infrastructures rely. Jamming GNSS not only makes vessels and airplanes unaware of their own precise locations, but also makes them blind to the locations of enemy ships and aircraft. Consequently, the jamming renders the ships’ command-and-control technology and other active defense systems worthless.
While the scenario painted by Ackerman and Stavridis might be FICINT—a fictional but realistic imagining of future security challenges—events over the last few years demonstrate its feasibility. There has been a clear escalation and weaponization of GPS jamming and spoofing over the last five years. GPS jamming refers to any device or method intended to interfere with the GNSS satellite signals. Jammers work by distorting or otherwise overpowering the GNSS signal so that the receiver cannot obtain its navigational fix. Spoofing refers to actions that cause a receiver to lock on to a bogus signal and miscalculate its position. Unlike jamming, where a false signal merely needs to overwhelm a legitimate one, a spoofed transmission needs to have the same structure and timing as a legitimate GNSS navigation message.
Recent events such as the July 2019 incident where the UK-flagged Stena Impero ventured into Iran’s territorial waters while traversing the Strait of Hormuz demonstrate the fragility of GPS and other satellite-based navigation systems. GPS jamming is already well within the technical and financial reach of most adversaries. Spoofing is more difficult but not as hard today as it was a few years ago. While encrypted military GPS signals are hardened against spoofing, key compromise is still a very real possibility—and one that would only be realized when an adversary exploits the key. Notably, today’s civilian GPS can be used in indirect attacks against military assets. Maritime analysts have suggested the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy spoofed Stena Impero’s GPS signals as retaliation against the United Kingdon for holding an Iranian tanker under suspicion of transporting oil to Syria. In the future, these incidents may become more commonplace and much more complicated to assign attribution.
Automatic Identification Systems
Spurious GPS signals can also cause the transmission of false Automatic Identification System (AIS) information. AIS is a situational awareness and safety system whereby ships broadcast their position, course, speed, and other status information. The International Maritime Organization, the UN organization charged with setting safety and security standards for international shipping, requires AIS for almost all large ships, although there is a warship exemption. With AIS, vessels are aware of each other’s presence, and maritime authorities in littoral states can identify and monitor vessels and cargo in their areas of responsibility. AIS is critically important in the littorals and plays a vital role in maritime domain awareness by keeping crowded water passages safe. AIS, however, has several security vulnerabilities, including a lack of message timestamps and sender authentication. AIS vulnerabilities are most likely to be exploited in the nearshore waters of the littoral zone because this is where it can do the most harm.
In the future, a small irregular force could employ AIS spoofing techniques to masquerade as a larger force, pretend to be in a different position than it really is, direct commercial or military traffic into undefended or indefensible waters, or coax movement away from a safe port. In July 2019, there was a GPS/AIS spoofing incident involving the US-flagged Manukai in the port of Shanghai. Manukai’s captain noted several irregularities with ships appearing and disappearing from the AIS display. While the captain initially thought his GPS signal had been jammed, an investigation revealed the ship’s location had also been spoofed, meaning that the AIS data indicated the ship was in another location. With navigational mistakes causing most of the collisions and blockage at sea, AIS spoofing has the potential to cause unprecedented damage to vessels, their crews, and their cargo. More recently, vessels in the eastern hemisphere have found their positions to be spoofed to a position near San Francisco.
AIS spoofing also has the potential to damage international relationships. In the weeks prior to NATO’s annual exercise in the Black Sea, AIS spoofing caused friction and terse exchanges between historic adversaries. In June 2021, AIS tracking information showed two NATO vessels leaving Odesa on a direct path to Sevastopol, Crimea, passing within two nautical miles of Russia’s Black Sea fleet headquarters. On the contrary, live webcam videos, real-time images from third-party weather sites, and eyewitnesses attested both vessels had remained in Odesa. Days after the AIS spoofing event, Russian policymakers complained that their maritime patrols were forced to fire warning shots in defense of Russian territorial waters. The United Kingdom denies the event ever took place. Days later, false AIS traces showed USS Ross near Sevastopol, although it was still pier-side in Odesa. Weeks later, Russian president Vladimir Putin issued veiled threats of attack on the UK and US navies. Students of history can certainly draw parallels to the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incidents and how misread radar images led to an escalation of hostilities in Vietnam; it is the specter of USS Maddox, as well as USS Maine and RMS Lusitania before it, that reminds us that close encounters between naval warships are always fraught with danger and far-reaching implications.
Malware
Malicious software, or malware, is a threat to all computer systems and the information that they contain. In June 2017, malicious actors released a ransomware worm called NotPetya. One of NotPetya’s victims—although not its specific target—was the largest shipping company in the world, APM-Maersk, whose IT systems were shut down across its network. The attack forced Maersk to rebuild the company’s entire network infrastructure of more than forty-five thousand computers and four thousand servers. The ripple effect caused by this single malware attack was massive, as Maersk is responsible for seventy-six ports worldwide and operates eight hundred vessels that carry tens of millions of tons of cargo every year. Its computer systems manage a complex operation representing nearly 20 percent of the world’s cargo shipping capacity. The shipping giant had an estimated $300 million in lost revenue due to the attack. Ransomware campaigns target shipping lines, ports, and maritime service companies. The maritime industry reported a 400 percent increase in such attacks between February and June 2020. Even the International Maritime Organization was affected by a denial-of-service attack in September 2020.
The international commercial trade organization BIMCO (Baltic and International Maritime Council) routinely publishes industry advice, technical guidance, and security warnings for a host of the world’s cargo fleet. BIMCO’s recent publication on the guidelines for cyber security on ships, highlights a malware incident that caused the malfunction of a (non–publicly named) ship’s electronic chart display and information system (ECDIS). The ship was designed for paperless navigation and did not carry paper charts, so the departure of the ship from its port was delayed by several days. While the crew mistook the failure of the ECDIS as a technical problem, ultimately, the ECDIS’s manufacturer diagnosed it as a viral infection. The ECDIS malware incident highlights a crucial issue facing all maritime personnel. While there is a concerted effort to secure highly sophisticated navigation platforms, they are increasingly vulnerable due to their complexity. Today’s systems contain hundreds of thousands of component parts and their manufacturers rely on a global supply chain. At any point during the lifecycle of any of a ship’s components, nefarious actors can damage or weaken parts, alter blueprints, insert malware, or create a disruption that harms the end user via any number of cyber vectors. These vulnerabilities are quickly becoming the Achilles’ heel of the maritime domain. This creates an unusual dilemma. As the industry moves increasingly toward fully integrated cyber-physical systems, they must also maintain a reserve of knowledge, and the skills and ability to navigate without technology; otherwise, malicious actors will have leverage over the entire sector.
Beyond the Horizon
Cyber vulnerabilities in the maritime domain do not only affect commercial shipping. For example, the Department of Defense’s nearly complete reliance on GPS for its primary maritime positioning, navigation, and timing (M-PNT) puts military personnel, aircraft, vessels, vehicles, and armament systems at risk due to the aforementioned vulnerabilities of GPS, including jamming and spoofing. Moreover, DoD appears committed to keeping GPS as its primary M-PNT solution and will only employ other PNT technologies either as a complement to GPS or as an alternative when GPS signals are degraded or unavailable.
Encouragingly, the US government has started to recognize the need to mitigate the cyber vulnerabilities inherent in the maritime domain. In 2020, it issued an executive order to strengthen the PNT system by increasing the nation’s awareness of the extent that critical infrastructure relies on PNT, and building resiliency into the PNT architecture. Furthermore, in 2021, the US government issued its first National Maritime Cybersecurity Plan to address cybersecurity challenges and safeguard the American economy. Meanwhile, academics and practitioners have proposed and implemented their own mitigations and solutions to the vulnerabilities in this domain. For instance, while analog technology training was removed from much of the military’s curricula in the late 1990s, it has since returned at the US Naval Academy. Midshipmen are now charged with learning the basics of celestial positioning, giving them a contingency if GPS fails.
However, despite these positive developments, cyber vulnerabilities will certainly proliferate as all facets of maritime life become increasingly integrated and interconnected. Therefore, it is important to build awareness of this challenge and its implications in irregular warfare, particularly in the littorals.
The maritime domain enables US global reach and global power. While great power competition looms on the horizon, the importance of IW in the littoral zone will remain a central facet in limiting the maneuver capability of hostile forces. Likewise, while advances in the integration of technology have greatly enabled US forces, without fully functional ancillary systems or the fundamental knowledge of how and why these systems were designed, maritime operators are increasingly likely to encounter destructive and debilitating cyberattacks. Let’s hope that policymakers and practitioners alike can use the notoriety of the Ever Given incident—the ship that launched a thousand memes—to highlight the complex, cross-domain challenges at the intersection of cybersecurity and irregular warfare in the littoral zone.
Dr. Diane Zorri is an assistant professor of security studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, and a non-resident senior fellow at Joint Special Operations University.
Dr. Gary C. Kessler is the coauthor of Maritime Cybersecurity: A Guide for Leaders and Managers (2020). He is a principal consultant at Fathom5, a retired university professor of cybersecurity, an occasional visiting lecturer at the US Coast Guard Academy, chief of the Cybersecurity Augmentation Branch of the US Coast Guard Auxiliary, and a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Gary is a SCUBA instructor with a fifty-gross-ton merchant mariner credential and holds a US Coast Guard Auxiliary coxswain qualification.
17. Lessons from Kabul: The US Military Must Resolve Its Air Mobility Dilemma
We need to invest in air and maritime mobility. Yes Afghanistan showed the importance of air mobility but we should not forget the bulk of our power projection abilities relies on maritime mobility.
Excerpts:
Finally, DoD must incorporate mobility planning more deliberately into its contingency planning and execution. This will prevent the supported command from just assuming logistics will be there as an obedient support function. In my career, I have consistently witnessed military operations where non-logisticians simply dismiss wicked mobility problems and don’t include mobility planners in course-of-action development. The consequence of this moral hazard, where combat-focused planners assume away mobility risk as another person’s problem, is that it fails to ensure that air mobility can operate at the volume and tempo needed in the contested environment. Accordingly, DoD must prevent a catastrophe by assigning mobility experts and liaison officers into every exercise, operational plan, and contingency that involves transportation, and not just the high-visibility events such as airlift for long-range precision fires or airborne assaults.
As the military engaged in a herculean effort to get out of Kabul, it has also incurred physical and mental costs that will not go away now that the last aircraft has left. It is a shame if DoD doesn’t embrace the lesson that a robust air mobility enterprise is the precursor to success in the gray zone. By increasing basing infrastructure, improving commercial augmentation, and incorporating mobility planning, DoD can optimize its vital air mobility lifeline in gray zone competition.
Lessons from Kabul: The US Military Must Resolve Its Air Mobility Dilemma - Modern War Institute
As a cargo aircraft jettisons flares as a countermeasure against any would-be missile attacks at Kabul’s international airport, the fragility of America’s single line of communication stands in contrast to the sea of Taliban flags encircling the airport. Here is America trying to extricate itself from twenty years of nation building in order to transition to strategic competition with China and others, and learning an important lesson for gray zone competition—the vulnerability of America’s air mobility lifeline. Rather than the final paragraph in a largely unfulfilled war on terror announced just days after the 9/11 attacks, the Dunkirk-like evacuation of Kabul is just the prologue to many great power competition adventures ahead.
To be relevant for gray zone competition, the United States must expand its global airfield access, strengthen its civilian airlift augmentation, and integrate air mobility equities more judiciously into its planning and execution. In a political environment where getting to the fight quickly with minimal casualties is the competitive advantage the United States must maintain, there will be no time to waste waiting for last-minute diplomacy or scrambling to find available aircraft and aircrews. Overwhelmingly, America’s military operates in competitive interactions that fall between open warfare and peace and airports are the jugular vein to almost every operation. Accordingly, while political decisions may constrain the optimal military options, DoD should prioritize strengthening its air mobility resiliency to minimize the danger that it cannot persevere against other great powers and their proxies.
As America stays engaged with its partners across the Pacific, Europe, Africa, South America, and in the Middle East, adversaries will seek to target its air mobility capabilities. Gray zone competition requires “fight tonight” forces mobilizing with little to no warning, and US adversaries gain an advantage if they can limit the effects of air mobility or apply political and economic leverage to deny airfield basing. America’s competitors triumph if they win the information war and create conditions similar to those that prevailed at Dien Bien Phu, where a lack of domestic public support denied military resources for France to fight. Similarly, the devolution of the Afghanistan campaign from a disappointing counterinsurgency into a humiliating military exodus is prima facia evidence of the costs when government decisions fail to account for mobility realities.
The complex security situation in Afghanistan demonstrates the fatal blunder of abandoning a robust air line of communication for a single commercial airport. The implosion of the Afghan army aside, it would seem prudent to plan for a worst-case scenario in a land famous for worst-case scenarios. While the nineteenth-century’s Great Game and the 1980s’ Soviet occupation popularized Afghanistan as the graveyard of empires, there is historical evidence that poor logistics planning was a key contributor—such as when the British left their supplies outside their defensive perimeter in Kabul. History reminds us that logistics determines the results of military options as often as raw combat power, and America can expect to face air mobility challenges whether organic or self-imposed.
America’s ability to project power by airlift, what the US Air Force calls “rapid global mobility,” or RGM, is the Air Force’s one-of-a-kind capability that enables America to employ dynamic force employment and introduce unpredictability to adversary decision makers. Even as RGM underwrites the joint force’s ability to deploy and engage where and when it chooses, the Kabul airlift should invigorate decision makers to prioritize logistics sophistication in military planning or risk mission failure.
The first step to improve mobility options is to increase DoD’s airfield access across the world, which will undoubtedly require diplomacy and economic investment. While some may criticize the extent of overseas US bases as the modern-day equivalent to the British Royal Navy’s reliance on global coal stations across its empire, the Kabul airlift reinforces the need for a reliable, integrated, and worldwide network of air mobility options. The fact that America had to pause evacuation flights out of Kabul underscores the need to have multiple airfield options not only based on capacity, but on legal, political, and societal considerations Whether one considers overseas basing as a risk, a tangible signal of US resolve, or a combination thereof, the United States must establish a redundant, adaptable system of airfields it can operate to at a moment’s notice with host-nation permission. For while today the issue may be receiving refugees—tomorrow the United States will need a host nation to allow munitions transloading even as the adversary tries to deny access through economic pressure and information warfare. Therefore, the United States must persuade its allies and economic partners that airfield access is part of the price tag to benefit from the security commitments of the United States and maximize the number of mobility airfields to avoid a single point of failure.
Next, the United States must strengthen its civilian augmentation. America’s current construct of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) is satisfactory for routine support such as moving passengers to and from secure locations and for peacetime movements of DoD passengers and cargo to the combatant commands. However, in a contested environment where there needs to be a rapid surge of support into uncertain environments (such as Kabul), DoD should develop an expeditionary CRAF by maintaining a pool of civilian aviators dual-hatted in the reserve component, available for activation along with the aircraft they are flying, and integrated in the military’s command-and-control network. Previously, in Operation Desert Storm, CRAF aircrews refused or delayed military missions due to threats, and unsurprisingly DoD planners would not have been able to fly CRAF out of Kabul even if the situation had demanded such a course. Maintaining the status quo of a purely civilian business operation (which at its core relies on volunteerism) leaves military planners uncertain as to whether the CRAF will be available when there’s a crisis or more critically when DoD needs to execute Agile Combat Employment as envisioned in a China scenario.
Finally, DoD must incorporate mobility planning more deliberately into its contingency planning and execution. This will prevent the supported command from just assuming logistics will be there as an obedient support function. In my career, I have consistently witnessed military operations where non-logisticians simply dismiss wicked mobility problems and don’t include mobility planners in course-of-action development. The consequence of this moral hazard, where combat-focused planners assume away mobility risk as another person’s problem, is that it fails to ensure that air mobility can operate at the volume and tempo needed in the contested environment. Accordingly, DoD must prevent a catastrophe by assigning mobility experts and liaison officers into every exercise, operational plan, and contingency that involves transportation, and not just the high-visibility events such as airlift for long-range precision fires or airborne assaults.
As the military engaged in a herculean effort to get out of Kabul, it has also incurred physical and mental costs that will not go away now that the last aircraft has left. It is a shame if DoD doesn’t embrace the lesson that a robust air mobility enterprise is the precursor to success in the gray zone. By increasing basing infrastructure, improving commercial augmentation, and incorporating mobility planning, DoD can optimize its vital air mobility lifeline in gray zone competition.
Phillip Surrey has nineteen years’ experience in air mobility, combining assignments as an airlift contracting officer, an operational planner for Air Mobility Command, and now a senior intelligence analyst. He is also a joint planner in the Illinois Air National Guard and a graduate of the National Intelligence University and Marine Corps Command & Staff College. Phil can be reached at phillip.surrey@gmail.com.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense, or that of any organization with which the author is affiliated, including the US Air Force.
Image credit: Tech. Sgt. Maeson Elleman, US Air Force
18. Strategic Drift in Afghanistan, from Bonn to the National Elections
A contribution to the history of what happened in Afghanistan.
Excertps:
Establishing definitive historical causality is difficult. Though the above three factors are important, they are therefore only a partial explanation. Many other factors shaped American strategy during this critical period. Nonetheless, this examination is instructive as a case study in post-conflict responsibility. What would have happened had the U.S. stuck with its initial, minimalist approach? Given historical hindsight, we can only conclude that the Taliban resurgence of the mid-2000s would have come earlier, prompting either a U.S. withdrawal or re-invigorated effort. Additionally, given the pervasive overconfidence that characterized the early Bush administration, it is difficult to imagine it directing a strategy that recognized the unpredictability of war and the limits of American power. In other words, choosing a strategy of limited aims and compromise — i.e., “counterterrorism plus,” as advocated by Biden years later — was simply not politically realistic in 2002.
From 2002-2003, a minimalist approach to training Afghan security forces resulted in almost no progress.
Therefore, a more reasonable and useful counterfactual imagines a strategic path in which the U.S., committed to the ideology of the 2002 National Security Strategy, prepared for long-term investment from the start. As it happened, the Bush administrations' early ambivalence — minimalist avoidance to commitment on one hand, maximalist desire to remake Afghanistan on the other — resulted in a failure to develop a coherent strategy in the immediate aftermath of the Taliban. The U.S. delayed important investment in the Afghan government, economy, and military. From 2002-2003, a minimalist approach to training Afghan security forces resulted in almost no progress. Money was spent, soldiers were trained and equipped, but the Afghan army failed to grow accordingly; the U.S. had lost a year of effort. Further, the minimalist approach not only failed to address the problems associated with warlordism, its prioritization of short-term interests also strengthened the rapacity of warlords at the expense of long-term governance and the welfare of the Afghan people.
Strategic Drift in Afghanistan, from Bonn to the National Elections
Earlier this year, The Strategy Bridge asked university and professional military education students to participate in our fifth annual writing contest by sending us their thoughts on strategy.
Now, we are pleased to present one of the essays selected for Honorable Mention, from Craig Giorgis, a student at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
Introduction
Wars rarely follow straight paths from beginning to end. Belligerents constantly shift, seeking advantage and adapting to change, and the interaction takes its participants to places unimagined at the war's inception. Such has been the case for America’s war in Afghanistan. President Biden’s speech in April 2021, citing "increasingly unclear" reasons for continued American military presence, is a recognition of this fact. Many analysts and historians agree with Biden’s long-standing criticism of nation-building and counterinsurgency as a misguided prioritization of American ends and means.[1] One central theme of the Washington Post’s “Afghanistan Papers” is strategic incoherence and its long-term effects on the war.[2] Andrew Bacevich — the nation’s Cassandra regarding the limits of American power — cites the Pentagon’s “vague expectations” regarding regime change and nation-building as the root problem.[3] The U.S. started with clear strategic aims: defeat al-Qaeda and their Taliban hosts. Within months, military action had accomplished both. Yet, having achieved those aims, the war continued to escalate, and the war deviated from its expected path.
From late 2001 to 2004, American strategy drifted toward a new aim of remaking the Afghan state, not through purposeful adaptation but through a series of unintentional actions reflecting the Bush administration’s ambivalence toward nation-building. Three related interactions characterize the drift. First, the administration recognized the need to devote more attention and resources to reconstruction, driving change from the top down. Second, given ambiguous direction and without centralized leadership, tactical actions from intelligence officers, diplomats, and soldiers in Afghanistan filled the gaps in an uncoordinated and reactive strategy. Third, the U.S.’s firm commitment to Hamid Karzai pulled it into increasingly complex and expansive nation-building activities.
By better understanding how U.S. strategy changed, we better understand how war and policy interact to create circumstances unimagined at conception. To that end, this paper uses evidence from government documents and first-hand accounts to describe how strategy changed during the early post-Taliban period, from the end of the Bonn Conference in December 2001 to the Afghan national elections in October 2004. It begins with a brief chronological narrative that describes the progression toward nation-building, then examines each of the three key interactions in turn, and concludes with a few implications for strategy and policy.
Progression Toward Nation-Building: December 2001 to October 2004
The Bonn Conference of December 2001 was the start of a new, post-Taliban Afghanistan. Possibly, the most important consequence of Bonn was consensus on the interim government's chief executive: Hamid Karzai. The U.S.-Karzai relationship would shape the direction of the war in years to come. At Bonn, the U.S. relied on consensus, cooperation, and diplomacy to shape the outcome, and it intended to continue a minimalist approach to post-conflict reconstruction. In President Bush’s words, the U.S. was "not into nation-building; we're focusing on justice."[4] In late 2001, the U.S. military had about 7,000 servicemembers in Afghanistan, focused on the hunt for al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
Two years after the 9/11 attacks, despite the minimalist rhetoric, the U.S. was deeply committed to making a new Afghan state.
Gradually, however, America increased its military presence and nation-building activities. At the Tokyo Conference in January 2002, the U.S. committed to building an Afghan National Army. In an April speech, Bush described a "Marshall Plan" for long-term investment in Afghanistan. In November, the U.S. and its partners fielded civil-military Provincial Reconstruction Teams. The next May, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared an end to "major combat" and a transition "to a period of stability and stabilization and reconstruction activities.”[5]
Former U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad speaks at the inauguration of the Ghazi School in Kabul. (U.S. Department of State)
A few months later, Bush nominated Zalmay Khalilzad as Ambassador to Kabul; Khalilzad's plan, "Accelerating Success in Afghanistan," was an outline for substantial American commitment to reconstruction, and his close relationship with Karzai proved critical to its implementation. Simultaneously, Lieutenant General David Barno, commander of U.S. general purpose forces in Afghanistan, began small-scale counterinsurgency activities centered on the population — that is, an operational approach that prioritized protection of Afghans over finding and killing terrorists.[6] Meanwhile, having been confirmed as head of the interim government in June 2002, Karzai led Afghanistan through a constitutional convention in January 2004, and was subsequently elected as president of the new government in October. By the elections in late 2004, the U.S. presence had increased to about 20,000 servicemembers, with NATO allies contributing another 10,000, and their mission now included population security, Afghan security force development, and governance support.[7]
A January 2005 National Security Council assessment of U.S. strategy to date highlighted successful nation-building efforts, then indicated the U.S. would pursue additional nation-building tasks in the coming years, such as counter-narcotics and additional police training. Detailed analysis attached to the memorandum showed a multilateral effort in which the U.S. carried the preponderance of the load.[8] Indeed, the Bush administration's requested budget for reconstruction in Afghanistan increased eightfold: from less than $1 billion in 2002 to $7 billion for 2004.[9] Two years after the 9/11 attacks, despite the minimalist rhetoric, the U.S. was deeply committed to making a new Afghan state. The following sections explore the root causes behind this shift in strategy, from minimalism to commitment, by examining each of the key interactions in turn.
Top-Down Change: The Bush Administration and Nation-Building
The Bush administration’s early strategy is best described as minimalist, with Rumsfeld as its lead advocate. Many members of the administration, including Bush, had derided "nation-building" as interminable and a senseless consumption of resources. They regarded recent interventions in the Balkans as a model of what not to do: dedicate thousands of U.S. servicemembers to open-ended, multilateral peace operations. Extensive international assistance had turned the Balkans into "permanent international wards."[10] Many policymakers saw Afghanistan as especially unsuited for nation-building, being conscious of its history of resistance to foreign occupation. Peace and economic prosperity were, as a goal of American strategy, "a fool's errand."[11]
Rapid military victory over the Taliban also contributed to an underestimation of the problem of reconstruction and the resources it might require. For Rumsfeld and others, the war had "rendered military orthodoxy obsolete . . . Big and slow were out [while] lean and quick were in."[12] General Tommy Franks of U.S. Central Command assessed American arms had, in a few weeks, accomplished what the Soviets could not in a decade. In essence, Bush and his team believed that the hard work was done.[13] Some on the ground in Afghanistan shared this assessment. Though he was skeptical, when he arrived in Afghanistan in May 2002, General Stanley McChrystal commented that "it wasn't clear whether there was any war left."[14]
U.S. Army General Tommy R. Franks, Commander in Chief of U.S. Central Command, speaks to Sailors and Marines aboard USS Oak Hill (LSD 51) deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom Jun. 22, 2002. (U.S. Navy photo by Seaman Brandan W. Schulze)
The U.S. also sought to limit its role in providing security as well. American strategists in Washington saw public safety as an Afghan responsibility. Until the Afghans security forces could stand up, the U.S. would rely on warlords and militias to keep the peace. Initially, Rumsfeld and Franks even actively opposed expansion of the coalition military’s presence beyond Kabul.[15] In the spring of 2002, Rumsfeld's guidance to Lieutenant General Dan McNeill, then commanding U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was to kill terrorists and train the Afghan army — nothing else. He and others believed putting more U.S. soldiers on the ground would actually provoke violence.[16]
Many in the President's cabinet and among his advisors disagreed with the under-resourced minimalist approach on practical and moral grounds.
Another clear indication of Pentagon thinking is the set of cost estimates prepared in December 2001. None of the estimates accounted for humanitarian aid and reconstruction past October 2002. In planning for the next year’s budget, the White House reduced its request for security assistance and reconstruction 84 percent. Although the State Department eventually succeeded in advocating for more funding toward those areas, the estimate reflected a sense that the war was all but complete.[17]
But the Bush administration was far from monolithic. Many in the President's cabinet and among his advisors disagreed with the under-resourced minimalist approach on practical and moral grounds. Khalilzad, serving on the National Security Council at the time, noticed this divergence immediately. Although the principals were reluctant to commit, many of the deputies began to prepare and organize for reconstruction and a multilateral, long-term effort under American leadership.
Others in the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency felt the U.S. had unwisely abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviet War.
Khalilzad represented the practical position. He was "skeptical that we could prevent the re-emergence of terrorist safe havens" without extensive reconstruction, including development of liberal institutions and new security forces.[18] Others in the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency felt the U.S. had unwisely abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviet War. Marin Strmecki, special advisor to Rumsfeld, cites American strategic myopia in 1989 as a key contributing factor to the rise of al-Qaeda years later.[19]
Official portrait of Colin L. Powell as the Secretary of State of the United States of America, January 2001. (Department of State).
The second, moral position for reconstruction recognized a jus post bellum obligation to rebuild: the so-called "Pottery Barn Rule," an analogy perhaps apocryphally attributed to Colin Powell.[20] The minimalist approach was also at odds with the ideological language of the administration’s new National Security Strategy, which repeatedly emphasized the importance of liberal democracy. It also asserted liberal values as the solution to the threat posed by weak states, such as Afghanistan, and suggested the U.S. would promote those values wherever feasible.[21]
Over the next two years, a series of steps toward a strategy of nation-building reflected the increasing influence of those once-minority voices, as well as a recognition of the international community’s limited ability to support this effort. The first major step was Bush’s April 2002 speech at the Virginia Military Institute. The President warned his audience that the war in Afghanistan was not over. Peace would require not only military action, but also giving the "Afghan people the means to achieve their own aspirations," including a functional government, effective national army, broadly accessible education, and new infrastructure — in other words, nation-building assistance. He then drew an explicit connection to the Marshall Plan of post-war Europe, implying an enduring economic commitment and victory beyond that achieved through military action alone.[22] Although the administration took little immediate action — in fact, that same day, Rumsfeld assured reporters that Bush's speech did not imply large-scale peace operations[23] — the speech indicated changing attitudes.
A year later, in May 2003, Bush nominated Khalilzad as ambassador to Afghanistan; Khalilzad accepted only on the condition that the President approve a plan outlining American commitment. Khalilzad, among others, then developed what became known as the "Accelerating Success in Afghanistan" plan. Key elements included government and economic development, security force assistance, and anti-warlord activity. In June, the President endorsed Khalilzad's "Accelerating Success," and Congress approved funding in the next supplemental budget bill.
David W. Barno LTG, United States Army Commanding. (DVIDS)
Concurrent with Khalilzad's return to Kabul shortly thereafter, Lieutenant General David Barno, commander of U.S. forces, expressed his desire to conduct limited counterinsurgency operations, including partnering with nascent Afghan army forces and the deployment of Provincial Reconstruction Teams. This approach nested well with Khalilzad's; further, it implied a much broader mission set for military forces, with plenty of growth potential.[24]
The State Department supported these efforts whole-heartedly. In October 2003, State Department testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations committee — tellingly titled "Afghanistan: in Pursuit of Security and Democracy" — justified a billion-dollar supplemental funding request for an "investment" in several nation-building activities: infrastructure, schools, and governance, for example, in addition to security assistance.[25]
Senior officials at the Pentagon understood that, once committed, the effort would take many years, and would not be easily divested.
Rumsfeld, arguably the strongest voice for a minimalist approach, also changed his mind during this period. As noted above, the U.S. had committed to building an Afghan army at the January 2002 Tokyo conference. The Defense Department gradually accepted responsibility for the job. Although security assistance was traditionally the purview of the State Department, Defense had the budget, skills, and capacity for this potentially gargantuan task. In the spring of 2002, Rumsfeld acknowledged the U.S. could not withdraw until Afghanistan had the ability to provide for its own stability.
Taking responsibility for building a new Afghan National Army was a significant step away from a "light footprint" and towards an enduring commitment to nation-building. Senior officials at the Pentagon understood that, once committed, the effort would take many years, and would not be easily divested. Regardless, in July 2003, the Pentagon was committed to an Afghan National Army of up to 70,000 soldiers.[26] Rumsfeld apparently supported this effort completely. In late 2003, he issued more specific directives for development of national police, border guards, and "other security forces that exist." By April 2004, Rumsfeld was admittedly impatient with progress and open to the U.S. taking on an even greater responsibility for security force development.[27]
Rumsfeld was also open to other nation-building tasks. Unable to avert his eyes from the terrible conditions on the ground, he told the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs the U.S. "simply must provide medical attention, food, and water for the people of Afghanistan . . . It is heartbreaking."[28] In August 2002, he evinced interest in "taking the lead in some major effort" for a "highly visible" reconstruction project.[29] While the language of this particular memo is certainly not an indication of long-term investment, Rumsfeld’s subsequent actions are.
Initially, the U.S. anticipated that the U.N. would take a large post-conflict role; it already had a presence in Afghanistan, and an international effort was preferable to a large American military presence.
In a letter to the President the next day, Rumsfeld describes the "critical problem" facing the U.S. was not military but civil. U.S. efforts must therefore assist "the Karzai government to gain the resources, institutions, and strength necessary" to provide for the Afghan people — in other words, the U.S. must help build the Afghan state.[30] Concurrently, critical contributions and support to Khalilzad’s "Accelerating Success" plan came from Marin Strmecki, an influential voice in Rumsfeld’s office; the Secretary’s endorsement of the plan also indicated the Pentagon's changing attitude. [31] Rumsfeld’s attitude was clearly changing; over the course of 2002-2004, he endorsed substantive nation-building activities, welcomed international security forces, and approved significant increases to military personnel levels.[32]
Finally, the Bush administration adapted its strategy as it realized the international community was unable to shoulder the burden necessary for American minimalism to succeed. Initially, the U.S. anticipated that the U.N. would take a large post-conflict role; it already had a presence in Afghanistan, and an international effort was preferable to a large American military presence. Limited commitments at the Tokyo Conference in January 2002 reflected this attitude; U.S. contributions were only 5% of the total. [33]
Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a memorandum to Rumsfeld, acknowledged the international community was "unlikely to shoulder" the burdens of nation-building.
Within months, it was clear the administration’s expectations were unrealistic. The international community was slow to move and the requirements for reconstruction following three decades of civil war were comprehensive. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, upon his arrival in Kabul as the charge d'affaires in January 2002, found that there was "nothing to work with, no military, no police, no civil service, no functioning society."[34] The U.N. did not have the capacity for such a task. Partners who agreed to contribute nation-building efforts, such as Germany for police training, were slow, and their approach ill-suited to the conditions in Afghanistan — namely, the peculiarities of Afghan culture and the widespread destruction of their society and institutions.[35]
Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a memorandum to Rumsfeld, acknowledged the international community was "unlikely to shoulder" the burdens of nation-building. However, he argued, increasing American efforts would nevertheless align with its national interests, especially regarding security and security forces.[36] The administration adopted Powell’s recommendations, and by the end of 2004 the U.S. was shouldering most of the burden for reconstruction in Afghanistan.
Ambiguous Direction: Tactical Actions Drive a Reactive Strategy
Although the U.S. eventually adapted its strategy to include nation-building, the process was ambiguous and slow. The mixed messages described above left gaps and made for confusing national goals. For those Americans executing the strategy in Afghanistan, the problems could not wait for better guidance. Their tactical actions filled the gaps of an uncoordinated, reactive, and often inattentive strategy. They thus established, or at least influenced, national goals from the bottom up and committed the U.S. piecemeal to increased nation-building responsibilities.
Bureaucratic politics and organizational parochialism are unavoidable facts of strategy. As they have in many other wars, in Afghanistan, they conspired against unity of effort and clarity of purpose. In its first term, the Bush administration was especially polarized around strong personalities, such as Powell, Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. Those principal leaders failed to reconcile their differences, and the administration thus struggled to develop and adapt its strategy.[37]
The problem of clear strategic guidance was further exacerbated by the paucity of attention paid to Afghanistan by the administration throughout and especially after it shifted attention to Iraq in 2002.
Moreover, the administration established no single authority for American strategy or for reconstruction. Nor was there a single authority for U.S. operations on the ground in those years; the embassy, the C.I.A., conventional forces, and special operations forces each reported to their own chain of command.[38] Confusion was endemic. Nine months into the war, Rumsfeld expressed some bewilderment regarding various U.S. agencies' activities, for example, requesting his staff answer very basic questions regarding support to Karzai and various warlords by the State Department, C.I.A., and the Defense Department .[39]
The problem of clear strategic guidance was further exacerbated by the paucity of attention paid to Afghanistan by the administration throughout and especially after it shifted attention to Iraq in 2002. In October 2002, on Rumsfeld’s advice, the President declined to meet with General McNeill, demonstrating the war's low priority.[40] In 2003, the National Security Council met only twice to discuss Afghanistan.[41]
Disunity and inattention resulted in unclear objectives for those assigned to execute America’s post-Taliban strategy. Regardless, the opportunities for reconstruction were obvious to Americans on the ground. Sarah Chayes, a journalist and aid worker, described Kandahar immediately following the fall of the Taliban as chaotic and ruined and yet still hopeful of American help. She was mystified by the American military's reluctance to commit to reconstruction, and discouraged by the obviously uncoordinated efforts of conventional forces, special operations forces, and other agencies like USAID. Without a "clear notion of what the desired endstate” was, efforts were "slipshod and haphazard."[42] General McNeill admitted as much: "There was no campaign plan in early days, in 2002.”[43]
When the purpose is unclear, or not commonly understood by the various agencies involved, those closer to the problem do what they think best.
Chayes came to the same conclusion as many others regarding the lack of coherent strategy. Tactical organizations filled in the gaps as best they could, and advocated for increased resources.[44] Barno and other senior leaders, in turn, requested for more soldiers to conduct counterinsurgency and reconstruction — more support to Provincial Reconstruction Teams, for example.[45] Steve Coll describes a pattern of engagement typical of American action in Afghanistan: "deliberate minimalism, followed by tentative engagement, followed by massive investment,"[46] each step potentially pulling the U.S. into further commitments.
When the purpose is unclear, or not commonly understood by the various agencies involved, those closer to the problem do what they think best. Since the problem of unity was never adequately addressed during this period, strong and effective personalities on the ground had an outsized effect on the path American strategy took. In the case of Khalilzad and Barno — especially given their close relationship — these changes moved the U.S. toward a nation-building strategy supported by a military counterinsurgency campaign.
Commitment to Karzai Pulls the U.S. Toward Nation-Building
Khalilzad's close relationship with Karzai was also critical to the path of American strategy. In December 2001, Karzai was the keystone to the Bonn Agreement. By the time the Afghan electorate voted him president in October 2004, the U.S. was firmly invested in his continued success. In turn Karzai’s success depended on the assistance he could extract from the U.S., Khalilzad was central to this process throughout. His actions were critical first to Karzai's ascension to power and then in binding American goals to Karzai's success.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai gestures with a Pentagon tea cup in his hand as he offers a brief cultural exchange on tea etiquette in his country to U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta during a working luncheon at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., Jan. 10, 2013. (DoD photo by Glenn Fawcett/Released)
Khalilzad, an Afghan Pashtun by birth, having since been educated in the U.S. and subsequently serving in previous Republican administrations, was an obvious choice to help the new Bush administration develop policy for Afghanistan. In September 2001, he was serving in the National Security Council. Soon thereafter, President Bush appointed him Special Envoy and then Ambassador to Afghanistan. Khalilzad's proven record of long service to Republican administrations made him a trusted agent of the White House; this close connection with the President and National Security Council was a powerful tool for his advocacy. Indeed, Khalilzad's tenure as special envoy and ambassador was concurrent with a sharp increase in U.S. commitment to security and nation-building.[47]
Additionally, Khalilzad’s assistance at Bonn was important to its success and the consensus around Karzai. As an interim leader, Hamid Karzai was a compromise acceptable to all of the relevant parties. His status as a Durrani Pashtun, from which many historical Afghan leaders had come, enhanced his legitimacy. Additionally, the various ethnic factions of the anti-Taliban alliance appreciated Karzai's potential to work with the international community. The international community was likewise willing to work with Karzai, to the extent that even rival Iranian and Pakistani administrations supported his ascension to lead the interim government in late 2001. Indeed, without these two countries' support, the interim government was unlikely to succeed.[48]
Once both Karzai and Khalilzad were established in Kabul, the American ambassador was not shy in exercising his power to shape Afghan politics and "often better resembled a proconsul than a diplomat."[49] Khalilzad met with Karzai almost daily, working both overtly and discreetly to solidify his control over the still-nascent fractious Afghan government. As envoy and ambassador, his success was indistinguishable from the new Afghan leader’s. In Karzai, Khalilzad saw a leader capable of uniting the factions and delivering good governance, first as an antidote to the poison of warlordism, "the most persistent challenge" of the post-Taliban period. Khalilzad thus intervened in the emergency Loya Jirga of 2002 to ensure the Afghan royal family did not impede Karzai's ascendency, personally persuading various factions and delegations to support Karzai.[50]
Khalilzad also encouraged Karzai to develop relationships with key members of the Bush administration. Washington proved receptive to his overtures, and Karzai alternately requested, demanded, or implored the U.S. for nation-building resources and activity. Upon assuming his role at the head of the interim government, he immediately requested international troops for Afghanistan's cities. In mid-2002, Karzai flew to the U.S. to meet with President Bush and request aid for massive reconstruction projects, such as the road between Kabul and Kandahar — key political terrain for Afghan governance. Bush agreed to help. In the fall of 2002, Karzai and his finance minister, Ashraf Ghani, again pleaded for U.S. financial assistance on a variety of fronts: border police, civil servants, basic services, and economic development.[51] Karzai even managed to influence Rumsfeld, a bulwark of minimalism.
It soon became clear to U.S. leaders in Washington and Kabul that Karzai had his own interests and plans, many of which were at odds with their initial, minimalist strategy.
After a visit to Kabul in April 2003, Rumsfeld directed a planning exercise at the Pentagon. Ideas from this exercise were incorporated into "Accelerating Success," indicating the Pentagon’s increasing appetite for reconstruction in Afghanistan.[52] More importantly, Bush’s relationship with Karzai continued to be close; the president spoke to him frequently and genuinely believed the best way to influence Karzai was through friendship and mutual respect.[53]
It soon became clear to U.S. leaders in Washington and Kabul that Karzai had his own interests and plans, many of which were at odds with their initial, minimalist strategy. Karzai, following a centuries-long pattern of Afghan rulers, sought foreign aid to strengthen his regime as well as improve the plight of his people. Khalilzad, too, understood that many Afghans, especially the political elite, supported American involvement. He noted the delegates to the Constitutional Loya Jirga of December 2003 clearly expected that the international community, led by the U.S., would provide long-term assistance. However, as foreign soldiers can elicit resentment simply by their presence — the so-called "antibody" problem — overt U.S. support for Karzai detracted from his legitimacy, and ultimately encouraged him to distance himself from American interests publicly. This fracture was, however, years in the future; in the immediate post-Taliban period, Karzai and the Bush administration were tightly intertwined. Since U.S. success was vested in Karzai's success, the strategy changed, gradually incorporating nation-building activities. By the time of Karzai's election in October 2004, the U.S. was leading what would become a massive nation-building effort.
Implications for Strategy and Policy
Establishing definitive historical causality is difficult. Though the above three factors are important, they are therefore only a partial explanation. Many other factors shaped American strategy during this critical period. Nonetheless, this examination is instructive as a case study in post-conflict responsibility. What would have happened had the U.S. stuck with its initial, minimalist approach? Given historical hindsight, we can only conclude that the Taliban resurgence of the mid-2000s would have come earlier, prompting either a U.S. withdrawal or re-invigorated effort. Additionally, given the pervasive overconfidence that characterized the early Bush administration, it is difficult to imagine it directing a strategy that recognized the unpredictability of war and the limits of American power. In other words, choosing a strategy of limited aims and compromise — i.e., “counterterrorism plus,” as advocated by Biden years later — was simply not politically realistic in 2002.
From 2002-2003, a minimalist approach to training Afghan security forces resulted in almost no progress.
Therefore, a more reasonable and useful counterfactual imagines a strategic path in which the U.S., committed to the ideology of the 2002 National Security Strategy, prepared for long-term investment from the start. As it happened, the Bush administrations' early ambivalence — minimalist avoidance to commitment on one hand, maximalist desire to remake Afghanistan on the other — resulted in a failure to develop a coherent strategy in the immediate aftermath of the Taliban. The U.S. delayed important investment in the Afghan government, economy, and military. From 2002-2003, a minimalist approach to training Afghan security forces resulted in almost no progress. Money was spent, soldiers were trained and equipped, but the Afghan army failed to grow accordingly; the U.S. had lost a year of effort. Further, the minimalist approach not only failed to address the problems associated with warlordism, its prioritization of short-term interests also strengthened the rapacity of warlords at the expense of long-term governance and the welfare of the Afghan people.
Although American strategy eventually attempted to address both of these problems, the delay was costly. In 2005, a reconstituted Taliban exploited the lack of security and social grievances caused by warlordism. Simply put, by denying the impetus to nation-building, the U.S. missed a series of opportunities to consolidate their initial victory and set conditions for enduring stability in Afghanistan.[54]
An early commitment to nation-building was both reasonable and feasible for the Bush administration in 2002-2003. Because of its clear ties to 9/11, it enjoyed wide domestic and international support for the war in Afghanistan. In the Balkans, it had successful models to replicate, although the results of these peace operations were far less clear in 2001 than they are today. And the "Rumsfeldian" resistance to nation-building was not as black-and-white as the rhetoric might indicate. Rumsfeld's changing perspective was indicative of other minimalists. Incrementally, they realized both the extent of the devastation in Afghanistan and the limited capacity of the international community required a larger American commitment.
Regardless of the changing perspective, the initial strategy lacked clarity. Crystal-clear policy aims are a strategic chimera, despite the imperative of the Powell Doctrine. Strategy is a practical exercise; good ideas bump up against the reality of partisan compromise, ideology, and the limits of power. However, it is reasonable to expect something more than simply negative policy aims — i.e., that the U.S. would not conduct nation-building and peace operations. Refusing to commit is not a substantive policy. Given this ambiguity and the subsequent mixed messages regarding U.S. intent, bureaucrats and soldiers "made different assumptions about the role we would play", in Khalilzad's words, and changed U.S. strategy accordingly.[55]
Finally, early success led to hubris: victory came quickly, in Kabul and in Bonn, and it was intoxicating. The euphoria changed risk tolerances and created expectations for further success using a minimum of resources. Overconfident policymakers thus declared victory prematurely and trivialized the difficulty of the tasks ahead.[56] Rumsfeld, among many others in the administration, was particularly susceptible to belief in the durability of early success, delivered as promised by the so-called "Revolution of Military Affairs" and military "transformation” — concepts which promised quick, decisive victory. Indeed, the eagerness to believe in such concepts should be one of the most important implications of the American experience in Afghanistan. U.S. strategy should recognize that war changes policy aims, and every short war has the possibility of becoming a long one.
Craig Giorgis is an officer in the United States Marine Corps. He wrote this paper while studying in the Secretary of Defense Strategic Thinkers Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. The views expressed in this article are the author’s alone and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Marine Corps, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
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Header Image: Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, February 2002 (R. D. Ward).
Notes:
[1] The White House, “Remarks by President Biden on the Way Forward in Afghanistan,” 14 April 2021,
www.whitehouse.gov/; Marc Ambinder, “Biden, on the Afghanistan Debate, in His Own Words,” The Atlantic, 3 August 2010; Council on Foreign Relations, “Candidates Answer CFR’s Questions,” 1 August 2019, https://www.cfr.org/article/joe-biden.
[3] Andrew Bacevich, “The American defeat in Afghanistan”, Los Angeles Times, 4 March 2020.
[4] George Bush, quoted in Zalmay Khalilzad, The Envoy, 5th Ed. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2015), 139.
[5] Vernon Loeb, "Rumsfeld Announces end of Afghan Combat," Washington Post, 2 May 2003.
[6] Steve Coll, Directorate S: The CIA and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan (New York: Penguin Books, 2018), 185, 193, 205.
[7] Ian Livingston and Michael O'Hanlon, "Afghanistan Index", Brookings, 30 September 2012; Thomas Barfield, Afghanistan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 313-314.
[9] Dov S. Zakheim, A Vulcan's Tale (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2011), 189.
[10] James Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2008), 27-8, 124, 164.
[11] Rumsfeld, quoted in Coll, Directorate S, 183.
[12] Andrew Bacevich, America's War for the Greater Middle East (New York: Random House, 2016), 231.
[13] Khalilzad, The Envoy, 116; Dobbins, After the Taliban, 30, 134.
[14] Stanley McChrystal, My Share of the Task (New York: Penguin, 2013), 77.
[15] Dobbins, After the Taliban, 85, 103, 125.
[16] Coll, Directorate S, 134-35.
[17] Zakheim, A Vulcan’s Tale, 144, 168-69.
[18] Khalilzad, The Envoy, 115, 139, 149-50.
[20]He denies using the term, but affirms he supported the idea, and emphasized the point prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003; see "Ideas and Consequences", The Atlantic Monthly, October 2007.
[23] James Dao, "Bush Sets Role for U.S. in Afghan Rebuilding," New York Times, 18 April 2002; Dobbins, After the Taliban, 135.
[24] Khalilzad, The Envoy, 177, 179, 181, 187; Strmecki, 11.
[25] Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Afghanistan: In Pursuit of Security and Democracy, 108th Congress, 1st. sess., 2003, 38.
[26] Zakheim, A Vulcan’s Tale, 139-140; Khalilzad, The Envoy, 182.
[29] Donald Rumsfeld, Memorandum to Dov Zakheim, 19 August 2002, from Zakheim, A Vulcan’s Tale, 169.
[31] Strmecki, 4.
[32] Dobbins, After the Taliban, 165.
[33] Ibid., 23-5, 122-123; Coll, Directorate S, 129.
[37] Hew Strachan, Direction of War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 92; for more direct evidence, though relating to the Iraq War, see Thomas Andrews Sayle, et al., eds., The Last Card (New York: Cornell University Press, 2019), 314-27.
[41] Coll, Directorate S, 145.
[42] Sarah Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue (New York: Penguin, 2006), 106-7, 151.
[44] Chayes, Punishment of Virtue, 155, 274.
[45] Zakheim, A Vulcan’s Tale, 210.
[46] Coll, Directorate S, 192.
[47] Dobbins, After the Taliban, 118.
[48] Ibid., 57, 74, 89; Barfield, Afghanistan, 290-92; Khalilzad, The Envoy, 129-21.
[49] Barfield, Afghanistan, 310.
[50] Khalilzad, The Envoy, 136-37, 144-45, 191; Barfield, Afghanistan, 297.
[51] Dobbins, After the Taliban, 105; Zakheim, A Vulcan’s Tale, 178; Khalilzad, The Envoy, 131, 194; Bacevich, America’s War, 230.
[52] Coll, Directorate S, 185-86.
[53] Khalilzad, The Envoy, 199; Coll, Directorate S, 132, Sayle, Last Card, 72-3.
[54] Dobbins, After the Taliban, 138; Strmecki, 7; Zakheim, A Vulcan’s Tale, 37, 277.
[55] Khalilzad, The Envoy, 115.
[56] Bacevich, America’s War, 224; see also Dobbins, After the Taliban, viii.
19. Chinese, Russian narratives following US Afghanistan withdrawal present a US in decline
Excerpts:
Both China and Russia were able to leverage the US withdrawal to push narratives emphasizing US decline, hypocrisy, and unreliability as the reigning global leader. Russian interests seized on key themes in the US exit to repaint its own history in the region and to undermine global faith in the United States as a moral leader in global affairs. In the case of China, it sought to leverage and increase its own discourse power relative to that of the US by propagating images, commentary, and other media that drove forth these themes; in turn, it sought to present itself as a legitimate and viable global leader, with a status equal to or surpassing that of the US. Both countries used the power of the internet to disseminate narratives meant to undermine faith in the US democratic model and to present their own authoritarian models as viable alternatives.
The first narrative described the recent withdrawal of US troops from the Afghanistan as a “disgrace,” highlighting the “failure of Afghanistan democratization” and the escape of troops rather than honorable and calm exit. Part of the narrative focuses on that the whole 20 years-long campaign went wrong and how it might shatter US authority around the world.
...
In part two of this story, we examine the second narrative exhibited by both Russia and China, in which they argue the US has behaved hypocritically regarding human rights and its emphasis on saving Americans from Afghanistan at the expense of its Afghan partners.
Chinese, Russian narratives following US Afghanistan withdrawal present a US in decline
Medium · by @DFRLab · September 8, 2021
Chinese, Russian narratives following US Afghanistan withdrawal present a US in decline
Commenters and officials labeled the US withdrawal as a loss that shattered America’s image around the world. Part one in a two-part series.
U.S. service members provide assistance during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 22, 2021. (Source: Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla/U.S. Marine Corps/Handout via REUTERS)
By Kenton Thibaut and Roman Osadchuk
As the world watched scenes of chaos and violence unfold as the US withdrew from Afghanistan, Russia and China seized the opportunity to spread narratives designed to undermine faith in the United States as a global leader. The US and democracy as a whole are popular targets of both Russia and China; however, the speed with which the Afghan government fell and the criticism the US faced both domestically and among partner countries provided fertile ground for both countries to amplify and disseminate these narratives, especially around the time of the final phase of the US withdrawal. The recent events at the airport in Kabul, in particular, provided fertile ground for a new wave of criticism of the US emphasizing its “unreliability” and “hypocrisy,” especially over human rights.
The DFRLab identified two core narratives being pushed by Russia and China in the immediate aftermath of the US withdrawal, in both state-owned media outlets and on social media. This article will explore the first narrative, which emphasized the chaotic and allegedly disgraceful nature of the US exit, taking it as evidence of US “decline” and highlighting Russia and China’s roles as stabilizing powers in the region. In our second story, we examine how Russia and China highlighted what they considered US hypocrisy over human rights with what they depict as negligence of non-American lives.
Background
Russia has a long history of using media and the internet as propaganda tools to prove its supposed superiority and frame the Western perspective as wrong and authoritarian. The DFRLab has previously reported on how Kremlin-owned and Kremlin-aligned media promoted anti-NATO sentiments, amplified false versions of the events, and undermined trust for non-Russian COVID-19 vaccines.
The US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is somewhat different. First, it gave fodder to the Kremlin’s belief that the United States is a power in decline that cannot tell anyone else what to do. The chaotic withdrawal and the Taliban’s quick takeover of the country allowed Kremlin-aligned actors to portray it as US capitulation with multiple comparisons to the US withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975 and, particularly, imagery of evacuations on the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon. Multiple actors enjoyed mocking the defeat of Western values and the US-trained army in Afghanistan.
Second, various commenters and media found an opportunity to draft parallels with the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. While the Soviet invasion and its subsequent exit from Afghanistan were not noble nor controlled, with 15,000 soldiers dead and many more injured, the US withdrawal provided an opportunity for Kremlin-aligned sources to put the Soviet campaign in a brighter and more victorious light. Some commenters focused on what they called the “humanitarian” aspect of the Soviet Union’s intervention, focusing on its investment in building multiple infrastructure projects and comparing the horrible events in the Kabul airport with the “solemn and noble” exit of Soviet troops.
The hostile narratives about the US withdrawal helped Russia to portray its ideological enemy as a weak, declining power that is no longer a hegemon but instead a humiliated actor inferior to Russia, as the latter is not fleeing from Afghanistan. Russia also used the opportunity to attempt to scare US allies, particularly Ukraine, by mentioning that the United States would abandon them as well. Finally, it helped exaggerate regular skepticism toward Western values and human rights, portraying the United States as a hypocrite using human rights to achieve military and political gains worldwide.
In contrast to Russia, China is relatively new at leveraging the internet as an external propaganda tool, having focused primarily on shaping domestic public opinion in the first decade or so of internet propagation within the country. In recent years, however, China has begun the leverage new methods of information operations in the form of interference campaigns and disinformation to gain “discourse power” on the international stage — the ultimate goal of which is to attain increased geopolitical power commensurate with Beijing’s view of itself as a global leader through influencing the political order and values both domestically and in foreign countries. At the core of this discourse power push is to shape a positive image of China among both domestic and global audiences. As such, Beijing saw the US withdrawal from Afghanistan as an opportunity to increase its discourse power on the global stage by undermining US leadership.
Chinese propaganda efforts surrounding the US withdrawal show key synergies with Russian efforts. Beijing also viewed the US withdrawal as a symbol of the latter’s decline as a global leader on the world stage — both in terms of hard (military) and soft (cultural and value influence) power. China in recent months has been pushing a “decline of the West, rise of the East” narrative, and official media has taken up this theme in its Afghanistan-related propaganda efforts. In fact, the Global Times — the nationalistic offshoot of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) official newspaper, the People’s Daily — has reposted numerous articles from Russian state media highlighting the US decline narrative and contrasting the “disgraceful exit” with themes of China and Russia’s stabilizing presence in the region.
As one example, the Global Times English edition published several pieces with the theme of US human rights hypocrisy — one title reads, “Afghan refugee controversy reveals US real nature — duplicity and hypocrisy.” Like Russia, it also took the opportunity to depict US actions as evidence of the inevitability of US abandonment of its allies, underscoring the fact that a capricious United States would not stay to ensure Taiwan’s security if it decided it was no longer in its interest to do so.
Chinese state and CCP-affiliated media also homed in on humanitarian issues in Afghanistan, particularly focusing on the scenes of chaos at the Kabul International Airport. China’s “wolf warrior” officials on Twitter were quick to disseminate photos of Afghans crowding the tarmac with captions meant to reframe US “interventionism” as a human rights issue. In a readout of a call between the Chinese and Russian Foreign Ministers Sergei Lavrov and Wang Yi, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated the two sides had emphasized the “damaging effect on human rights” that US interventionism had had. These frameworks were meant to illustrate US “hypocrisy” over recent efforts by Washington sanctioning Chinese human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
Both China and Russia were able to leverage the US withdrawal to push narratives emphasizing US decline, hypocrisy, and unreliability as the reigning global leader. Russian interests seized on key themes in the US exit to repaint its own history in the region and to undermine global faith in the United States as a moral leader in global affairs. In the case of China, it sought to leverage and increase its own discourse power relative to that of the US by propagating images, commentary, and other media that drove forth these themes; in turn, it sought to present itself as a legitimate and viable global leader, with a status equal to or surpassing that of the US. Both countries used the power of the internet to disseminate narratives meant to undermine faith in the US democratic model and to present their own authoritarian models as viable alternatives.
The first narrative described the recent withdrawal of US troops from the Afghanistan as a “disgrace,” highlighting the “failure of Afghanistan democratization” and the escape of troops rather than honorable and calm exit. Part of the narrative focuses on that the whole 20 years-long campaign went wrong and how it might shatter US authority around the world.
Russia
Kremlin-owned media amplified the “disgraceful escape” narrative in multiple articles that spread on social media. For instance, RT published a long-read on the US’s “disgraceful final act” in Afghanistan and its consequences for both US domestic and foreign policy. It quoted former US President Donald Trump, alongside Russian experts, who claimed that it was a big mistake that partially happened because some “US lobbies perceived the operation as a commercial opportunity to earn money.” Kremlin-owned RIA News wrote that the United States is “suffering a grandiose shameful failure before the eyes of the entire world.” State-owned Sputnik went further and contrasted the supposed failure of the US withdrawal with the alleged success of the Soviet Union building a lot of infrastructure in the country. While mentioning only the Soviet Union and that negative consequences of the former US presence in Afghanistan, Sputnik omitted the amount of infrastructure that the United States itself developed in Afghanistan. Also, Kremlin-owned Zvezda compiled a story based on user comments below an article on a Polish news site, headlining it with “Shame for NATO and the US.”
Screencaps of Kremlin-owned RIA’s post on Twitter (left) and Sputnik’s publication on Telegram (right). (Sources: Twitter/archive, left; Sputnik, right)
Some Russian government officials also commented on the US decline narrative. For example, Russian Duma Senator Aleksey Pushkov called the withdrawal of US troops “a collapse of American foreign policy, namely the export of democracy.” The idea of “democracy export” similarly appeared in Kremlin-owned Baltnews.
Some Kremlin-aligned sources were more blunt in their comments. Sergey Maradan, special correspondent for Kremlin-aligned Moscow Komsomolets, wrote an article declaring that the “American dream dies in Kabul airport.” Contradicting other more positive spins on the Soviet Union’s time in Afghanistan, Maradan concluded his piece mentioning that the Afghan war was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union and hinted that the same fate might befall the United States.
Separately, several stories compared the withdrawal of Soviet troops with the US withdrawal and claimed that the Soviet Union withdrew proudly, whereas the United States fled in shame. Kremlin-aligned Lenta featured an interview with Aleksandr Rutskoy, a former vice president of Russia and commander of an air assault regiment during the Soviet Afghan operation, in which he claimed that Soviet forces exited Afghanistan “with [a literal] orchestra accompaniment,” whereas the United States “ran in shame.”
China
Like the Russian outlets, Chinese state and state-affiliated media also pushed a narrative of the “chaotic and irresponsible” US withdrawal. For example, the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily, published an article on August 24 paraphrasing an opinion piece from British newspaper The Daily Telegraph with the title, “Failure in Afghanistan signals American era is ending: British media.” Allister Heath, editor of The Sunday Telegraph, wrote the quoted piece as a commentary on the withdrawal, but the People’s Daily presented the opinion column as representative of this particular British media outlet as a whole:
The ‘stupidity and incompetence’ displayed over the Afghan withdrawal have once again confirmed that the American elites don’t understand the rest of the world, and aren’t fit to govern their own country, let alone the globe, The Daily Telegraph said in a recent opinion article.
The tactic of misquoting or choosing selective quotations from foreign or Western sources to criticize the United States is often used in the Chinese information warfare arsenal.
Screencap of the People’s Daily article based almost entirely around an opinion piece originally published in Britain’s The Daily Telegraph in which the author claimed the failure of the US model. (Source: The People’s Daily/archive)
On Twitter, Chinese officials also amplified the narrative of US failure. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying tweeted, “The lack of #American self-awareness is startling. #US failure in #Afghanistan is an abiding failure of American political culture and a failure of the belief that the solution to every political challenge is military intervention or #CIA-backed destabilization.”
Screengrab of Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying’s tweet emphasizing American decline. (Source: @SpokespersonCHN/archive)
Meanwhile, on Chinese social media sites like Weibo (China’s Twitter-like microblogging site, which has over 530 million monthly active users as of March 2021), Chinese Communist Party and government-affiliated organizations flooded the site with videos and images taken at the Kabul airport of the crowds and chaos. One Weibo post from the CCP-affiliated Yunnan Communist Youth League reposted English-language news articles highlighting the “chaotic scenes” at the airport and, similar to Russian sources, drew parallels to the “disgraceful” US exit from Vietnam in 1975.
Weibo post from the Yunnan Communist Youth League, a CCP-affiliated organization, emphasizing US irresponsibility and drawing comparisons to Vietnam in 1975. (Source: 云南共青团)
Meanwhile, official Chinese messaging — including statements from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs — set out to depict China as a “responsible party” left to help ensure stability in the chaotic aftermath of US meddling in other countries’ internal affairs. In a call with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on August 17, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi emphasized what he considered the “error” of “applying foreign models to countries with completely different history, culture and national conditions” and chastised the United States as not having a “responsible” attitude — in a purposeful juxtaposition to China’s oft-stated claims of acting as a “responsible power committed to promoting peace and development around the world.” In doing so, China seemed to ignore its own issues regarding “debt trap diplomacy” with its Belt and Road infrastructure investments.
Following this, the Global Times published opinion pieces the same day in English emphasizing that the Chinese embassy in Afghanistan was running “as normally” and published a widely read (more than 100,000 views, 1,000 likes, and 600 reposts) article on its official Chinese WeChat channel that underscored the abandonment of the US Embassy building during the withdrawal, quoting RT as a source. The narrative was misleading, as US Embassy staff still in country and working with the U.S. Department of Defense to exfiltrate U.S. citizens and Afghan allies through Hamid Karzai International Airport, and at that point in time, the US ambassador and a number of diplomatic staff still remained in the country.
Chinese officials also worked to disseminate this narrative on English-language and US-based platforms. Zhou Bo, a former colonel in the People’s Liberation Army, wrote a guest essay in The New York Times on August 20 with the title, “In Afghanistan, China Is Ready to Step Into the Void.” In his conclusion, he wrote, “Afghanistan has long been considered a graveyard for conquerors — Alexander the Great, the British Empire, the Soviet Union and now the United States. Now China enters — armed not with bombs but construction blueprints, and a chance to prove the curse can be broken.”
Meanwhile, Chinese officials — many of them ambassadors known for being part of China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats — worked quickly to spread these themes on US-based platforms like Twitter. For example, Deng Xijun, China’s ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), projected the official line depicting China as “orderly and responsible” and the United States as “the opposite.” Similar messaging can be seen from China’s Ambassador to Malta, Yu Dunhai, who emphasized China’s long-held belief in “peaceful coexistence.”
Screencaps of tweets from China’s Ambassador to ASEAN, who mirrored official Chinese talking points criticizing US interventionism, left, and from China’s Ambassador to Malta, who echoed official Chinese talking points emphasizing China’s focus on “peaceful development,” right. (Source: @China2ASEAN/archive, left; @YDunhai/archive, right)
In part two of this story, we examine the second narrative exhibited by both Russia and China, in which they argue the US has behaved hypocritically regarding human rights and its emphasis on saving Americans from Afghanistan at the expense of its Afghan partners.
Medium · by @DFRLab · September 8, 2021
20. Emails prove State Dept refused to approve Afghan evacuation flights
Not a good look, obviously, if this report is accurate.
It begs the question: are we doing everything we can to get US citizens and at-risk Afghans out?
Emails prove State Dept refused to approve Afghan evacuation flights
Bombshell leaked emails prove the State Department DID block Afghan evacuation flights even if they had Americans on board, report claims
- The emails obtained by Fox purport to show messages from a State official to retired Marine Eric Montalvo, who chartered evacuation flights in Afghanistan
- An unnamed official told Montalvo that privately chartered flights rescuing people from Afghanistan couldn't use US military bases or land in the US
- They suggested he look to another country for landing space but warned the State Department wouldn't grant full approval, only saying it had 'no objection'
- A day after the reported exchange, top Biden officials dismissed claims the State Department was hampering chartered rescue flights from leaving Afghanistan
- There are 1,000 people - including 142 Americans - waiting for those flights
- The New York Times reported the figure and said they had been waiting for days
PUBLISHED: 16:56 EDT, 7 September 2021 | UPDATED: 19:32 EDT, 7 September 2021
Daily Mail · by Elizabeth Elkind, Politics Reporter · September 7, 2021
The State Department refused to green light a number of privately chartered flights out of Afghanistan that could have evacuated US citizens and Afghan special immigrant visa applicants, leaked emails reportedly show.
Military lawyer and retired Marine Eric Montalvo shared the communications with Fox after he organized some of the flights and now claims the federal government thwarted his rescue effort.
The leaked emails show State officials refusing to allow Montalvo's privately paid for flights to use US property either inside the country or at one of its many overseas bases, after the Biden administration pledged to do whatever it can to rescue all Americans and as many Afghan allies as possible.
'No independent charters are allowed' at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar,' an email from September 1 says.
'In fact, no charters are allowed to land at an [sic] DoD base and most if not all countries in the Middle Eastern region, with the exception of perhaps Saudi Arabia will allow charters to land.'
Secretary of State Blinken tours the refugee processing center at Al Udeid Air Base on Tuesday. The leaked emails show the State Department refused to let privately chartered planes land at the US military base, even if they have Americans on board
Blinken meets with Afghan all-female robotics team members at Qatar's Education City Club House
The New York Times reported that a total of 1,000 people - including dozens of American citizens - had been held at the Mazar-i-Sharif airport for nearly a week.
Other passengers hoping to fly include Afghans who hold visas to move to other countries, including the United States.
The official suggested Montalvo look to a different destination country for help.
'And it can't be the U.S. either,' they added.
'Once you have had discussions with the host/destination country and reached an agreement, they may require some indication from the [US government] that we 'approve' of this charter flight.'
The State Department pre-emptively refused to provide that approval but conceded to tell that third country it had 'no objection' via the US embassy in that state.
On Sunday, Reuters reported that the delay had been caused by Biden administration officials not telling Taliban leaders it had approved the departures of the chartered flights.
This handout satellite image released by Maxar Technologies shows satellite imagery of the Mazar-i-Sharif and grounded planes at the airport in northern Afghanistan on September 3
Tuesday's revelation comes in stark contrast to Biden administration officials' denials from around the same time.
State Department spokesman Ned Price dismissed the notion that the US government is preventing charter flights from leaving Afghanistan in a September 2 briefing.
That day Price told reporters the US doesn't control Afghan airspace and so couldn't possibly be in a position to grant or deny clearance.
'The misimpression that is out there that we are preventing or even the idea that we could prevent a charter flight from taking off - that is simply untrue. We could not and we are not,' Price said.
Press Secretary Jen Psaki also said on September 2, 'Anyone who's suggesting we are preventing these flights, that's not accurate. We couldn't prevent a charter flight from taking off.'
But she went on to say the federal government doesn't have 'reliable means' to confirm who is organizing the flights or the status of anyone on board.
The day after the bombshell leaked emails were reportedly sent, top Biden officials said the State Department would not and could not block chartered evacuation flights
The Pentagon said it couldn't comment on the leaked emails when asked by DailyMail.com.
When asked by DailyMail.com for comment, the State Department referred to comments Secretary of State Blinken made in Qatar on Tuesday.
Blinken addressed the matter of charter flights in a speech with Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin and top Qatari officials.
'Many thousands of US citizens, permanent residents, at-risk Afghans who we successfully evacuated and relocated from Kabul have left aboard charter flights,' Blinken said. 'Now others are working to arrange more such flights.'
The Biden official said his department is 'working around the clock with NGOs, with members of Congress and advocacy groups' to 'clear any roadblocks that they've identified to make sure that charter flights carrying Americans or others to whom we have a special responsibility can depart Afghanistan safely.'
'Without personnel on the ground, we can't verify the accuracy of manifests, the identities of passengers, flight plans, or aviation security protocols. So this is a challenge, but one we are determined to work through.'
He also said the Taliban agreed to let people with travel documents go freely.
When asked by DailyMail.com for comment, the State Department only referred to comments Blinken made at a joint press conference with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Qatari officials on Tuesday
Blinken went to Qatar to thank Afghan translators for their dedication to helping US efforts and Qatari officials for their willingness to help with the evacuation
But the State Department's reported efforts to thwart privately paid for evacuation flights from the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, 260 miles north of Kabul, has stirred bipartisan outrage.
Rep. Mike Waltz sent the department a letter Saturday urging them to help non-governmental organizations clear the flights for takeoff.
He said the non-governmental organizations were willing to share their passenger manifests to allow the U.S. government to conduct 'appropriate vetting and prioritization.'
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said he was 'frustrated, even furious' at the government's delay in pulling them out.
'There will be plenty of time to seek accountability for the inexcusable bureaucratic red tape that stranded so many of our Afghan allies,' Blumenthal told The Hill. 'For now, my singular focus remains getting these planes in the air and safely to our airbase in Doha, where they have already been cleared to land.'
Flights chartered by Mercury One, a charity founded by right-wing commentator Glenn Beck, are among those stalled at Mazar-i-Sharif, Newsweek reports.
The six flights chartered by right-wing commentator Glenn Beck's charity reportedly cost $750,000 each
Beck's fleet of two Airbus 340s and four Boeing 737s from Kam Air are sitting empty in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif as their passengers - including at least 142 Americans - are forced to hide as the bureaucratic red tape is hashed out.
An exasperated flight organizer hit out at the State Department over the fiasco, saying: 'They need to be held accountable for putting these people's lives in danger.'
Other groups trying to organize their own chartered flights have also hit out at the State Department, with Rick Clay from private rescue firm PlanB claiming the organization is the only thing stopping him fulfilling his brief.
Two other organizers have also torn into the Anthony Blinken-headed department, with one - who didn't give their name - telling Fox: 'This is zero place to be negotiating with American lives. Those are our people standing on the tarmac and all it takes is a f****ing phone call.
'If one life is lost as a result of this, the blood is on the White House's hands. The blood is on their hands. It is not the Taliban that is holding this up – as much as it sickens me to say that – it is the United States government.'
One of those organizers also claimed that any rescue charter flights wishing to land at Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar, must first seek State Department approval, leaving them with a further bureaucratic delay.
Daily Mail · by Elizabeth Elkind, Politics Reporter · September 7, 2021
21. Opinion: In defense of the much-maligned foreign policy establishment by Max Boot
Excerpts:
Whatever the final judgment on the Afghanistan War — and we are still too close to events to make any definitive assessments — we can confidently say that, overall, the foreign policy establishment has served America well over the past 76 years.
Yes, post-1945 policymakers got it catastrophically wrong in Vietnam. But they got it right by containing the Soviet Union while building security alliances and promoting free trade. Those policies set the stage for the greatest expansion of freedom and prosperity in history, made the United States the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world, and eventually led to the peaceful end of the Cold War.
So, too, I would argue that post-2001 policymakers of both parties got far more right than wrong. Yes, there were disastrous miscalculations in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the war on terror (e.g., the use of torture). But 20 years later, there hasn’t been another terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 — something few would have predicted on Sept. 12, 2001. New America reports that 107 people have died in jihadist attacks in the United States since 2001.
Some of this is because our enemies turned out to be weaker than they looked, but a lot of it is because we turned out to be smarter than they thought. The improvements in airline security and intelligence sharing — both domestically and internationally — paid huge benefits. Meanwhile, U.S. military action, such as drone strikes and Special Operations raids, crippled al-Qaeda and weakened other terrorist groups.
After early errors, Washington actually stumbled onto a model of fighting terrorism that works — witness the defeat of the Islamic State emirate in a campaign where the United States provided enablers such as air power and intelligence but seldom risked its own troops. By 2021, that light-footprint model had also been applied in Afghanistan. Now that’s history, and the blame game has begun. We don’t know to what extent our commitment in Afghanistan was contributing to our domestic security. We are about to find out.
Opinion: In defense of the much-maligned foreign policy establishment
People visit the America's Response Monument, which commemorates Special Operations forces who fought during the first stages of the war in Afghanistan and the global war on terrorism, in New York on Aug. 30. (Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters)
Columnist
September 6, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. EDT
326
After America’s first military defeat, in the Vietnam War, there were understandable attacks on the foreign policy establishment — “the best and the brightest,” in David Halberstam’s biting phrase. Now, after America’s second military defeat, in the Afghanistan War, there is equally understandable criticism of what some call “the Blob” or “the deep state.”
From the right: “The lesson to American voters should be clear: The foreign-policy and military establishment has failed and failed miserably.” From the left: “The real threat to Western security and credibility comes not from what happens in the Pashtun countryside, or from any regrouping of al-Qaida, but from what has passed for thinking in much of the Beltway.”
I understand the impulse, and to some extent applaud it. Only by studying what went wrong in the past can we avoid making the same mistakes in the future. (Instead, we’ll probably make different mistakes.) But I worry about attacks that go too far and focus only on the establishment’s failures while ignoring its more numerous successes. That can only empower populists such as former president Donald Trump whose track record is far worse than the establishment’s. (His mishandling of covid-19 may have caused 160,000 unnecessary deaths — more than the number of Americans killed in all of our post-1945 wars combined.)
It’s easy to fault the establishment when you know how the story turned out. But policymakers had to make difficult decisions with imperfect information while trying to choose the least bad option. Even if they made the wrong calls, how do we know that other decisions would have worked out any better?
The establishment is vilified for a 20-year commitment to Afghanistan that unraveled in a few days. But the events of August show precisely why presidents of both parties stayed in Afghanistan. It wasn’t because they were trying to build the Switzerland of Central Asia. It was because they knew that a complete U.S. withdrawal would lead to a takeover by the same Taliban regime that had allowed its territory to be a staging ground for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
National security leaders, generals in particular, are now reviled for not winning the war, but that was never the mission. Learning from Vietnam, policymakers soon realized that it would be too hard to extinguish an entrenched insurgency with cross-border support. So they settled for not losing rather than winning. That helps to explain why the U.S. military toll in Afghanistan (2,461 killed) was so much lower than in Vietnam (58,220 killed). Arguably the mission in Afghanistan was accomplished — the war was a stalemate before President Biden, himself a long-standing member of the establishment, pulled the plug.
It is too early to know who was right: the presidents who kept U.S. forces in Afghanistan (George W. Bush and Barack Obama) or the ones (Trump and Biden) who pulled them out. If the worst in Afghanistan has already happened, then the withdrawal will be vindicated, and the 20-year war will be judged a terrible waste of money and lives. But if the worst is still to come — in particular, if Afghanistan once again becomes a haven for terrorism — then the commitment to Afghanistan will look better than it does at the moment.
Whatever the final judgment on the Afghanistan War — and we are still too close to events to make any definitive assessments — we can confidently say that, overall, the foreign policy establishment has served America well over the past 76 years.
Yes, post-1945 policymakers got it catastrophically wrong in Vietnam. But they got it right by containing the Soviet Union while building security alliances and promoting free trade. Those policies set the stage for the greatest expansion of freedom and prosperity in history, made the United States the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world, and eventually led to the peaceful end of the Cold War.
So, too, I would argue that post-2001 policymakers of both parties got far more right than wrong. Yes, there were disastrous miscalculations in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the war on terror (e.g., the use of torture). But 20 years later, there hasn’t been another terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 — something few would have predicted on Sept. 12, 2001. New America reports that 107 people have died in jihadist attacks in the United States since 2001.
Some of this is because our enemies turned out to be weaker than they looked, but a lot of it is because we turned out to be smarter than they thought. The improvements in airline security and intelligence sharing — both domestically and internationally — paid huge benefits. Meanwhile, U.S. military action, such as drone strikes and Special Operations raids, crippled al-Qaeda and weakened other terrorist groups.
After early errors, Washington actually stumbled onto a model of fighting terrorism that works — witness the defeat of the Islamic State emirate in a campaign where the United States provided enablers such as air power and intelligence but seldom risked its own troops. By 2021, that light-footprint model had also been applied in Afghanistan. Now that’s history, and the blame game has begun. We don’t know to what extent our commitment in Afghanistan was contributing to our domestic security. We are about to find out.
22. Analysis | American diplomats recall 20-hour days, sleeping in Kabul airport while helping those desperate to flee
The best of Americans come out during crises.
Analysis | American diplomats recall 20-hour days, sleeping in Kabul airport while helping those desperate to flee
With insurgent forces closing in quickly, Foreign Service officers John Johnson and Evan Davis fled their Kabul apartments so urgently that they left some possessions behind.
“I suspect there’s a Taliban who’s wearing my suits right now” if the militants occupied the embassy compound where the diplomats lived, Johnson said.
But both also left their abbreviated tours in Afghanistan with things that they may never shed.
Johnson and Davis were among the last U.S. personnel to flee Kabul after it fell to the Taliban. Both expected to be there for one year, but the Taliban got in the way.
Right up until the end, they were surprised that the situation deteriorated so quickly. They didn’t know they would be evacuated until the day before. On Aug. 15, the day the Taliban captured Kabul, Johnson said the need to evacuate “was communicated over the P.A. system in increasingly urgent tones … as the Taliban moved closer and closer to the city and into the city.”
Johnson flew out of Kabul on a C-17 military transport en route to Brussels on Aug. 30. Davis left the day before on his way to Washington.
Along with other FSOs, as State Department diplomats are commonly called, they recalled their hectic last days in Kabul in interviews sometimes marked with heavy emotion, cracked voices and tears.
Foreign Service officers serve and work with Americans abroad and conduct diplomacy on behalf of the United States. Hundreds of FSOs were in Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover, although the State Department would not provide an exact number.
President Biden, surprised by how quickly the Taliban overran the country, had promised to get all Americans out of Afghanistan by Aug. 31. In an interview with ABC News, he also said U.S. troops would stay until all Americans who wanted to leave were out. Neither promise was fulfilled.
After being evacuated by helicopter from the embassy, Johnson, Davis and other officials spent those last days at Hamid Karzai International Airport, sometimes eating “meals ready to eat,” a.k.a. MREs, the military-style, self-contained food rations not known as haute cuisine. They slept on the floor for the first few days.
That wasn’t the tough part.
Johnson and Davis are public affairs officers. But in addition to dealing with the media, duty pressed them to assist with evacuations.
Davis, 31, remembered being at the airport’s Abbey Gate on the same day that 13 American service members and close to 200 Afghans were killed by a suicide bomber. “Had I been at that gate at a different time,” he said, “that could have been me.”
The Xenia, Ohio, native has eight years of experience as an FSO. His previous posting was in Botswana’s capital, Gaborone, which is calm, quiet “and a little boring.” That’s one reason Davis wanted the Afghanistan posting, “but I had no idea that I would go from zero to 60 so quickly.”
He spoke emotionally about the airport ceremony to honor the fallen service members before their final flight back home.
“That is one thing I’ll never be able to forget,” he said, his voice shaking. “My safety and protection is owed to all the service members that were on the ground at that time, but also who had served in Afghanistan previously.”
At the same time, the safety and protection of more than 120,000 people evacuated from Afghanistan are owed to Foreign Service officers like Davis and Johnson, and the service members and others who worked day and night under dangerous conditions.
This was a major humanitarian accomplishment, even though some Americans and allies were left behind. Yet Biden’s description of it as an “extraordinary success” can’t be squared with the deaths, mayhem and chaos that preceded America’s hasty retreat. Biden’s claim is rebutted by his plunging poll numbers that indicate 2-to-1 disapproval of his evacuation execution.
It wasn’t pretty. Johnson, 50, experienced things that he said he can’t talk about “in detail right now because it brings up stuff that I’m not ready to deal with yet.” He and his wife, both from Seattle, joined the Foreign Service 20 years ago.
He did talk about being “up close” to the “desperation and human misery” of the many who wanted to leave but could not. Those “that I couldn’t get out will haunt me for years,” Johnson said.
He painted a disturbing verbal picture of the agony Afghans suffered as they waited outside the airport. Their surroundings included not just items like “bottles and clothes and suitcases and things that people” left behind, but also “the smell of blood and urine and feces” from people “so desperate to leave and so afraid that any sort of semblance of decorum is gone. You know, they just wanted to get out of there.”
One of the ironies for Johnson was that the Afghans were “deathly afraid” of the Taliban fighters who were “providing security five feet from me. … You could see the fear in their eyes as the Taliban are rolling up with AK-47s and rockets pointed at them from a truck.”
On a macro level, the experience was like “watching the dissolution of the country in real time,” he said. “But on a human level, it's pulling people out of crowds and watching them break down crying, as soon as I got them out, when they realized that they were in process to leave.”
Another lasting impression for both men was the dedication of their colleagues.
“Nobody ever complained about working 20-hour days, and nobody ever complained about sleeping on the floor and eating MREs,” Johnson said. “The dedication and the commitment really is impressive.”
That sense of duty was so strong, Davis added, that even when they were living at the airport, “there was still this lingering sense of hope among everyone who was there that we would somehow be able to go back to the embassy, that we wouldn’t actually have to leave the country.”
While proud of America’s work in Afghanistan, Davis has “a bag of mixed emotions” and “this lingering sense of guilt or frustration that you’re walking away,” and not only from the work of promoting democracy.
“How do you look at your predecessors in the face with regard to the years of blood, sweat and tears that they put into building a better Afghanistan?” he asked. “How do you talk to Afghans about the work and the sense of hope and inspiration and dedication that they felt not only to their own country but to supporting the American cause over the last 20 years?”
If the U.S. Embassy in Kabul ever reopens, Davis would like to return.
“I think that the sense of commitment and dedication after that experience would really push me to go back to Afghanistan,” he said, “because I feel like our mission is not yet finished.”
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23. Archive Find Could Hurt China’s ‘Historic’ Claim To Paracel Islands
Nothing like history to prove or disprove claims.
Archive Find Could Hurt China’s ‘Historic’ Claim To Paracel Islands
A rare find in the British National Archives may provide another piece of evidence discrediting China’s claim of historic rights to the disputed Paracel archipelago in the South China Sea.
After months of scouring the archives, British journalist-turned-scholar Bill Hayton came across a semi-official document indicating that until the late Qing Dynasty, Chinese authorities still did not consider the Paracel Islands part of China’s territory.
Hayton, author of “The Invention of China” (2020) and “South China Sea” (2014), discovered an 1899 translation of a letter in which the Zongli Yamen – equivalent to the foreign ministry – of the Qing Empire informed British officials that Chinese authorities could not accept liability for the looting of a ship’s cargo in the late 1890s in the Paracels.
The letter refers to the so-called “Bellona copper case” where the German ship Bellona was wrecked in the archipelago a few years earlier and the copper cargo it was transporting was stolen by Chinese fishermen.
The Chinese government “refused compensation” for the British-insured copper because the islands were “high seas” and were not Chinese territory.
The original letter in Chinese is yet to be found and there’s a high possibility that it has been lost or destroyed, so the translation is the first and only contemporaneous copy of the Chinese official document found to date.
Hayton said he also found the transcription of a different letter from the viceroy of the Liangguang – which comprised the regions of Guangdong and Guangxi – to the British consul in Canton, Byron Brenan, on April 14, 1898, speaking of the same case. Viceroy Tan Zhong Lin wrote that the Chinese authorities could not possibly protect the shipwrecks as they were in “the deep blue sea,” hence they could not admit to the compensation claims.
“It’s not the smoking gun, yet,” Hayton told Radio Free Asia, a sister entity of BenarNews. “But it could be helpful for Vietnam to make the case that China really didn’t care about the [Paracel] islands until later.”
The Bellona copper case was also mentioned in a 1930 letter from the French governor general of Indochina to the French minister for the colonies in which the Chinese viceroy of Canton was quoted as stating that the Paracels were “abandoned islands” and belonged “no more to China than to Vietnam,” and “no special authority was responsible for policing them.”
Such questions of historical record remain politically sensitive for claimant states in the South China Sea – not least because China justifies its sweeping maritime and territorial claims on the basis of historic rights – a position that was rejected by an international arbitral tribunal in 2016 in a case brought by the Philippines.
Nguyen Nha, a well-known Vietnamese historian, said the newly found letter could serve as another valuable piece of evidence that China did not hold ownership of the Paracels since ancient times as it always insists.
Vietnam, Taiwan and China all claim sovereignty over the Paracels which are now entirely under China’s control.
In addition, China’s expansive South China Sea claims include waters within the exclusive economic zones of ASEAN member-states Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. While Indonesia does not regard itself as party to the South China Sea dispute, Beijing claims historic rights to parts of that sea overlapping Indonesia’s EEZ as well.
Both Hanoi and Beijing have released numerous historical documents, often replicas as original versions are almost impossible to trace, to back their claims.
Hayton’s discovery was met with interest in the South China Sea study circles.
Norwegian historian and South China Sea researcher Stein Tonnesson said the letter “may confirm other sources indicating that the Qing Empire did not at that time consider the Paracels as Chinese territory.”
“But in 1909 it did, and I’m not sure the lack of a claim in 1899 would invalidate a claim made 10 years later,” he said.
Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, warned: “China would obfuscate the issue by calling into question the genuineness of the letter.”
Hayton’s post about the letter on social media has caused a stir, and some critics have raised questions about the accuracy of the English-language translation.
Hayton said he believes “there’ll be a transcribed version of the Chinese language letter somewhere,” and he’s looking for it.
But whatever the outcome, according to Storey, “no one piece of ‘evidence’ is ever conclusive in this long-running war of documents and maps between Vietnam and China.”
24. ‘Like Game of Thrones’: how triple crisis on China’s borders will shape its global identity
Interesting analogy.
Excerpts:
Yun Sun, who directs the China programme at the Stimson Center thinktank, agreed. She said China’s primary concern was its border security, followed by a potential refugee crisis. In 2009, for example, the deadly clash in Kokang in Myanmar led to as many as 30,000 refugees flocking into China. “Beijing will be monitoring this very closely in the months ahead if situations continue to deteriorate in these countries,” she said.
In the case of Afghanistan, Beijing is still debating to what extent it should be actively involved with the Taliban regime. “I don’t think China will establish diplomatic relations with the Taliban,” said Zhu Yongbiao, director of Lanzhou University’s Afghan Research Center, in answering a question from a Chinese netizen last month. “[At least] not in the short term,” he added.
...
It is clear Beijing’s pragmatic foreign policy doctrine is not going to change any time soon, and its response to events in these three failing states will inevitably lead commentators in western democracies to draw their own conclusions on how China will behave as it establishes its new identity as an indispensable global player.
But in Beijing’s view, such an approach could also be its strategic asset, said Sun. “It’s like the Game of Thrones: regimes come and go, but China as their neighbour is there forever. If the west now wants to influence these countries, they have to go through Beijing. They are all China’s cards in these changing dynamics with the west.”
‘Like Game of Thrones’: how triple crisis on China’s borders will shape its global identity
Analysis: China’s handling of troubles in Afghanistan, Myanmar and North Korea will differ to the west, and mould its identity as a global power
First it was North Korea. Then came Myanmar. Now it is Afghanistan. The three ongoing crises in China’s neighbourhood seem to have little in common. But for Beijing they pose the same question: how to deal with strategically important yet failing states on its border, and how will China’s response define its identity as a global power.
For many years China watchers in the west have been looking for clues to how a rising power will exercise its influence on the world stage through its involvement in Africa or its relations with the US. But the way China approaches the three neighbouring countries may provide a clearer picture.
“Afghanistan, Myanmar, and North Korea are all tests for China as a rising superpower: of whether Beijing, at a time of American withdrawal, can fill the vacuum in a skilful way,” said Thant Myint-U, a well-known Burmese historian and former presidential adviser.
“We’ve seen the western approach to failing states, rooted in ideas around elections, democracy, and human rights but we don’t really know what China, which in recent decades has been reluctant to export its own model of development, would do instead.”
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Taliban claim victory over last resistance stronghold of Panjshir province – video
China’s influence in these three countries is very different in nature. Unlike Afghanistan, with whom China shares a tiny border, the border regions with North Korea and Myanmar have a long history of interaction.
“In Myanmar, China’s top interests are ensuring a degree of stability and making sure that no other big power is a better friend to whomever is in charge. Beijing’s geopolitical ambitions, of making Myanmar a bridge to the Indian ocean, are secondary to its millennia-old practice of managing barbarian conflicts along its south-western frontier,” said Thant Myint-U, who is also the author of Hidden History of Burma.
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi (right) bumps elbows with with Myanmar counterpart U Wunna Maung Lwin during one of the meetings marking the 30th anniversary of formal relations between China and Asean in June. Photograph: Huang Wei/AP
Yun Sun, who directs the China programme at the Stimson Center thinktank, agreed. She said China’s primary concern was its border security, followed by a potential refugee crisis. In 2009, for example, the deadly clash in Kokang in Myanmar led to as many as 30,000 refugees flocking into China. “Beijing will be monitoring this very closely in the months ahead if situations continue to deteriorate in these countries,” she said.
In the case of Afghanistan, Beijing is still debating to what extent it should be actively involved with the Taliban regime. “I don’t think China will establish diplomatic relations with the Taliban,” said Zhu Yongbiao, director of Lanzhou University’s Afghan Research Center, in answering a question from a Chinese netizen last month. “[At least] not in the short term,” he added.
Critics say that as a significant power already, sooner or later China will run into diplomatic dilemmas with Afghanistan in the months and years ahead. “China is already a big boy, and people expect it to act like a big boy. Like it or not, its economic and political weights will naturally steer direction,” said Raffaello Pantuucci, a senior fellow at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “But it seems Beijing is still hedging its bets.”
So far there is little sign that Beijing’s approach will resemble that of Washington. This week Republican senator Lindsey Graham said he believed American troops “will be going back into Afghanistan” in the future. “We’ll have to, because the threat will be so large,” he told the BBC.
US Senator Lindsey Graham this week said that he believes American troops “will be going back into Afghanistan” in the future Photograph: Lenin Nolly/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock
If this happens, it may well play into China’s book, said Enze Han of Hong Kong University, summarising Beijing’s view on Washington’s military involvement in global conflicts. “Beijing probably wants to see the US bogged down in Afghanistan again. And even in the worst-case scenario, it’s extremely unlikely to see Beijing getting involved in Afghanistan like the US has done.
“In the case of Myanmar, the Covid as well as the political crises are making the country more likely to resemble a failed state. China thinks there is not much it can do to prevent that from happening. And once it happens, it will work to find ways to turn a crisis into an opportunity.”
It is clear Beijing’s pragmatic foreign policy doctrine is not going to change any time soon, and its response to events in these three failing states will inevitably lead commentators in western democracies to draw their own conclusions on how China will behave as it establishes its new identity as an indispensable global player.
But in Beijing’s view, such an approach could also be its strategic asset, said Sun. “It’s like the Game of Thrones: regimes come and go, but China as their neighbour is there forever. If the west now wants to influence these countries, they have to go through Beijing. They are all China’s cards in these changing dynamics with the west.”
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
