Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“Wisdom … comes not from age, but from education and learning.”

-Anton Chekhov

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

- Plato

“One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what has to say.”

- Bryant McGill

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 3 (Putin's War)

2. Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: August

3. Breaking Down the Taiwan Problem

4. Biden's national security adviser doubles down on Taiwan policy after Pelosi visit

5. Law and the Ayman al-Zawahiri airstrike: a dozen Qs & As

6. Biden sold false narrative about Al Qaeda in Afghanistan: BILL ROGGIO

7. How the U.S. lost the Next Big Thing to China — again

8. Al Qaeda’s Next Move

9. Nobody Wants the Current World Order

10. US, Indonesian soldiers hold drills on Sumatra amid China concerns

11. China fires missiles into waters off Taiwan in largest ever drills

12. Is the Sri Lankan Debt Crisis a Harbinger?

13. Senate Votes To Add Finland, Sweden to NATO

14. Time for NATO to Take the Lead in Ukraine

15. Secretary of defense expected to name a military officer as Pentagon Press Secretary

16. Cyber Ambassador Pick Wants to Bring 'Coherence' to Tech Diplomacy Efforts

17. Can a Fitness App Ease the Military’s Recruitment Crisis?

18. Any Time Any Place? Why Cutting the Air Force’s Irregular Warfare Capabilities Is a Mistake

19. Surprising Many, SOCOM Chose This Heavily Modified Ag Aircraft To Go From Cornfields To Battlefields

20. How Taiwan reacted to Pelosi’s visit, from ‘welcome’ to ‘American witch’

21. US, Ukraine agree to more cyber cooperation amid Russian threat

22. Defense ministry asks U.N. Command to share surveillance footage in N.K. fishermen repatriation case

23. Top Chinese Diplomat Vows ‘Reeducation’ of Taiwan after ‘Reunification’

24. S.Korean airlines temporarily cancel flights to Taiwan, media says

25. An Alternative History of AirLand Battle, Part I

26. Never seen it this bad’: America faces catastrophic teacher shortage

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 3 (Putin's War)

Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-3

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 3

Aug 3, 2022 - Press ISW

understandingwar.org

Kateryna Stepanenko, Katherine Lawlor, Karolina Hird, Angela Howard, and Frederick W. Kagan

August 3, 8:30pm ET

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

Russian forces are likely using Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Enerhodar to play on Western fears of a nuclear disaster in Ukraine, likely in an effort to degrade Western will to provide military support to a Ukrainian counteroffensive. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said on August 3 that Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), which is currently occupied by Russian forces, is “completely out of control” and that “every principle of nuclear safety has been violated” at the plant.[1] He warned that Russian forces are not respecting the physical integrity of the plant and pleaded with Russia and Ukraine to quickly facilitate a visit of IAEA monitors to the complex. Russian Zaporizhia Occupation Administration Head Evgeniy Balitskyi responded that the IAEA was welcome at the plant: “We are ready to show how the Russian military guards it today, and how Ukraine, which receives weapons from the West, uses these weapons, including drones, to attack the nuclear plant, acting like a monkey with a grenade.”[2] Russian officials are framing Ukraine as irresponsibly using Western-provided weapons and risking nuclear disaster to dissuade Western and other allied states from providing additional military support to Ukraine’s looming southern counteroffensive.

Russian forces based around the NPP have attacked Ukrainian positions in Nikopol and elsewhere in recent weeks, intentionally putting Ukraine in a difficult position—either Ukraine returns fire, risking international condemnation and a nuclear incident (which Ukrainian forces are unlikely to do), or Ukrainian forces allow Russian forces to continue firing on Ukrainian positions from an effective “safe zone.” Ukrainian Mayor of Enerhodar Dmytro Orlov reported on August 3 that Russian forces launched rockets on Enerhodar from neighboring villages to falsely accuse Ukrainian forces of shelling Enerhodar and endangering the NPP.[3] ISW assessed on July 21 that Russian forces may be storing heavy military equipment in the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Enerhodar to protect it from Ukrainian strikes.[4] Russian forces have also likely staged false flag attacks around Enerhodar since early July, as ISW previously reported.[5]

Russian forces likely set fire to the prison complex holding Ukrainian POWs in occupied Donetsk Oblast but blamed Ukraine for an alleged precision strike using Western-supplied military equipment, likely to deter additional Western military support to Ukraine. The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that it has determined that the Wagner Group deliberately set fire to the prison complex on July 28. This report is consistent with the damage observable in Russian-provided video of the site. The GUR reported that Wagner forces "mined” the building with unspecified flammable substances, which led to a rapid spread of fire throughout the building.[6] Russian-provided footage and commercial satellite imagery from the colony showed that the walls of the building were burned but still standing and did not reveal shell craters or other indicators consistent with an artillery strike. ISW previously reported that imagery from the site shows that the attack only damaged one building, did not collapse the walls of that building, and did not leave any shell craters in the vicinity, very strongly suggesting that the destruction of the prison was the result of either a precision strike or an internally planted incendiary or explosive.[7] Russian officials previously claimed that the deaths of the POWs were the result of a Ukrainian HIMARS strike, likely as a component of the ongoing Russian information operation attempting to dissuade the US from continuing to provide Ukraine with HIMARS.

The Kremlin is likely continuing efforts to leverage its relationship with Tehran in order to receive drones for use in Ukraine. Russian state-owned space agency Roscosmos announced on August 3 that Russia will launch a remote-sensing satellite (named “Khayyam”) into orbit on behalf of Iran on August 9.[8] The Kremlin may intend this launch to encourage or repay Tehran for the provision of Iranian drones that would be employed in operations in Ukraine, and possibly other military equipment or support. Iran has a huge ballistic missile arsenal and domestic missile manufacturing capabilities that it could provide to Russia in exchange for economic and military cooperation.[9] Iran has prioritized the development of its military space program in recent years and launched one satellite in April 2020 and one in April 2022. US and Middle Eastern officials stated as early as June 2021 that Russian officials were preparing to send a Russian-made Kanopus-V satellites to Iran, which would expand Tehran’s overall surveillance capabilities in the Middle East and beyond.[10] As ISW reported on August 2, Russian and Iran are likely continuing to facilitate cooperation through recently signed bilateral aviation agreements in order to bolster Russian military capabilities in Ukraine and assist Tehran with sanctions mitigation.[11]

The Russian Defense Ministry has altered the focus of its reporting after the fall of Lysychansk, likely to orient on narratives that resonate positively with milbloggers and war correspondents rather than those that draw criticism from that community. The Russian Defense Ministry has shifted its reporting style to focus on claims of declining Ukrainian morale and successful Russian strikes on Western-provided military equipment, rather than reporting on day-to-day Russian advances on the frontline.[12] Russian forces have made limited gains around Bakhmut and Avdiivka in recent days, but the Russian Defense Ministry has not claimed territorial gains around the theater since at least the fall of Lysychansk. Milbloggers, war correspondents, and other groups have criticized the Defense Ministry and the Kremlin for exaggerated and inaccurate claims of territorial gains, undermining Moscow’s narratives and credibility.[13] The Defense Ministry apparently flirted with the idea of suppressing or attempting to control the milblogger community, but it seems instead to have opted to adjust its own narratives.[14] The Defense Ministry is now letting milbloggers, war correspondents, and DNR officials cover the situation unfolding in Avdiivka, Pisky, and south of Bakhmut positively without making claims of its own that might draw criticism. Milbloggers released footage from the reported capture of the Butivka Coal Mine ventilation shaft and on the southern outskirts of Pisky, where they celebrated recapturing small segments of years-long contested territory--but the Defense Ministry has made no statement on the subject.[15] Some of the milbloggers such as Maksim Fomin (known under alias Vladelen Tatarzkiy) have previously served within DNR units and include anecdotes about their service in the Donetsk City area prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Such coverage of the war likely aims to boost morale among DNR and Russian fighters. The Kremlin or the Defense Ministry may have decided that the milbloggers and war correspondents are more credible sources for the constituencies it cares most about and realized that its own claims were losing credibility. They may alternatively be focusing on narratives that generate positive resonance within that community.

Key Takeaways

Russian forces are likely using Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Enerhodar to play on Western fears of a nuclear disaster in Ukraine, attempting to thereby degrade the will of Western powers to provide military support to a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Russian forces likely set fire to the prison complex holding Ukrainian POWs in occupied Donetsk Oblast but blamed Ukraine for an alleged precision strike using Western-supplied military equipment, likely to increase US hesitancy to continue providing HIMARS to Ukraine.
Moscow is likely continuing efforts to leverage its relationship with Tehran in order to secure drones for use in Ukraine.
Russian forces conducted a limited ground attack northwest of Slovyansk and continued efforts to advance on Bakhmut from the northeast, east, and southeast.
Russian forces are prioritizing frontal assaults on Avdiivka and failed to gain ground in Pisky.
Russian forces are reportedly forming a strike group to prevent Ukrainian counteroffensives in northern Kherson Oblast or counterattack against them.
Russian occupation authorities may allow both in-person and online voting in upcoming pseudo-referenda on the annexation of occupied Ukrainian territory into Russia, enabling more straightforward Russian vote rigging.

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

Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and two supporting efforts);
Subordinate Main Effort—Encirclement of Ukrainian Troops in the Cauldron between Izyum and Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts
Supporting Effort 1—Kharkiv City
Supporting Effort 2—Southern Axis
Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
Activities in Russian-occupied Areas

Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine

Subordinate Main Effort—Southern Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk Oblasts (Russian objective: Encircle Ukrainian forces in Eastern Ukraine and capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)

Russian forces conducted a limited ground attack northwest of Slovyansk and continued to shell settlements west and southeast of Izyum on August 3. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian troops neutralized a Russian reconnaissance-in-force attempt south of Mazanivka, about 25km northwest of Slovyansk near the Kharkiv-Donetsk Oblast border.[16] Russian forces additionally conducted artillery strikes near Protopopivka, Mechebylove, Husarivka, Chepil and Nortsivka, all settlements lying along the arc that ranges from the west to northwest of the Izyum area.[17] Continual artillery strikes west of Izyum are consistent with ISW’s assessment that Russian forces may be setting conditions to advance westward from the rear of the Izyum-Slovyansk line further into Kharkiv Oblast.

Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground assaults in the Siversk area and shelled Siversk City and surrounding settlements on August 3.[18]

Russian forces conducted a series of ground attacks to the northeast, east, and southeast of Bakhmut on August 3. The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Russian forces conducted assaults around Volodymyrivka, Yakovlivka, and Soledar (all within 15km northeast of Bakhmut), Pokrovske (about 5km due east of Bakhmut), and Vidrozhennya, Kodema, Zaitseve, Semihirya, and Dolomytne (all within 20km southeast of Bakhumt).[19] The Territorial Defense of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) claimed that DNR forces have taken control of Travneve, a small settlement about 19km south of Bakhmut.[20] While ISW cannot independently confirm the validity of this territorial claim, it is consistent with reports that Russian forces are continuing to fight for positions around the Novoluhanske area in an effort to push northwards on Bakhmut.

Russian forces continued to prioritize unsuccessful frontal assaults onto Avdiivka and failed to advance into Pisky on August 3. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted to break through Ukrainian defenses in Avdiivka from Spartak and Mineralne, both situated southwest and southeast of Avdiivka, respectively.[21] Russian forces also resumed unsuccessful assaults northeast of Avdiivka, attempting to attack Kransohorivka from both Novoselivka Druha and Vasylivka. The Ukrainian General Staff also noted that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian assault on Pisky from the Donetsk City direction. Russian milblogger Maksim Fomin (alias Vladelen Tatarzkiy) published footage of Russian troops on the southern outskirts of Pisky, despite claiming that many Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) battalions are successfully advancing through Pisky.[22] DNR First Deputy Information Minister Daniil Bezsonov claimed that Russian forces have secured half of Pisky on August 3, but the claim is not consistent with Fomin’s footage.[23] Russian forces continued heavy shelling around Avdiivka and Pisky in an attempt to disrupt Ukrainian fortifications and set conditions for an advance.[24]

Ukrainian forces repelled Russian offensive operations west of Donetsk City on August 3. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted to advance to Mariinka and Bilohirka and withdrew.[25] Russian forces have not been consistently fighting around Mariinka compared to persistent assaults around Avdiivka and Bakhmut.

Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv City (Russian objective: Defend ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum and prevent Ukrainian forces from reaching the Russian border)

Russian forces continued limited unsuccessful ground attacks along the Kharkiv City Axis on August 3. Russian forces failed to advance in the Kochubeivka-Dementiivka direction, approximately 40km north of Kharkiv City. Russian troops are continuing efforts to maintain occupied frontiers in northeast Kharkiv Oblast and conducted aerial reconnaissance and electronic warfare (EW) operations in this area.[26] Kharkiv Oblast Head Oleg Synegubov stated that Russian forces struck two neighborhoods in Kharkiv City with S-300 air defense missiles shot from Belgorod, Russia, and continued shelling areas north, east, and south of Kharkiv City.[27]

Supporting Effort #2—Southern Axis (Russian objective: Defend Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts against Ukrainian counterattacks)

Russian forces attempted to regain lost positions in northwestern Kherson Oblast on August 2 and August 3. Ukrainian military officials reported that Russian forces conducted an unsucessful reconnaissance-in-force operation near Bilohirka on the western bank of the Inhulets River.[28] Russian forces have also carried out an airstrike on Andriivka, just south of Bilohirka, likely in an effort to destroy the Ukrainian bridgehead over the Inhulets River.[29] Russian forces continued to shell Ukrainian positions along the Kherson Oblast border, and have launched Smerch MLRS rockets, S-300 air defense missiles, and three Kh-101 cruise missiles onto Mykolaiv City and Mykolaiv Oblast.[30]

Russian forces are reportedly creating a strike group to preempt Ukrainian counteroffensives on the Kherson-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast administrative border. The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command reported that Russian forces are creating a strike group to conduct offensive operations in northern Kherson Oblast, repel Ukrainian counteroffensives, and reach the Kherson-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast administrative border.[31] Kryvyi Rih Military Administration Head Oleksandr Vilkul added that Russian forces are accumulating military equipment and servicemen in the Kryvyi Rih direction (referring to troop positioning in northern Kherson Oblast).[32] Russian forces may be continuing to shell settlements around southwest of Kryvyi Rih and Nikopol to either set conditions for an advance from northern Kherson Oblast onto Zaporizhia City via Nikopol or are targeting Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) from Zaporizhia City ahead of Ukrainian counteroffensives.[33]

Russian forces are continuing to transfer equipment throughout the Southern Axis. Geolocated social media footage showed Russian military vehicles moving in the northern direction from southern Melitopol.[34] Mariupol Mayor Advisor Petro Andryushenko published footage of a Russian military convoy composed of engineering vehicles and trucks driving from Mariupol in the direction of Berdyansk.[35] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces are withdrawing military equipment that had originally been committed to the Zaporizhia Oblast frontline at the end of May due to a lack of personnel to man the equipment. The Ukrainian General Staff added that Russian forces are distributing the withdrawn equipment to unspecified tank elements of the 58th Combined Arms Army.[36] Such redistribution may indicate that the Zaporizhia Oblast frontline is particularly vulnerable but that the Russians do not intend to reinforce it.

Russian forces are attempting to repair Russian GLOCs after Ukrainian strikes on Russian strongholds in southern Ukraine. Advisor to the Kherson Oblast Military Administration Head Serhiy Khlan reported that Russian forces began to spread out ammunition warehouses to mitigate the risks and effectiveness of Ukrainian strikes but noted that such distribution disadvantages Russian positions in Kherson Oblast.[37] Social media footage also showed that Russian forces are attempting to repair the Antonivskiy Road Bridge east of Kherson City and are extensively using a ferry over the Dnipro River.[38] The UK Defense Ministry assessed that Ukrainian strikes on a Russian ammunition train in Brylivka on July 30 has likely temporarily impaired Russian railway connections between Kherson Oblast and Crimea, but it noted that Russian forces are likely to repair the railway line within a few days.[39] Social media footage of an explosion in Brylivka published on August 3 suggests that Ukrainian forces might have targeted the location for the second time.[40] Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov stated that Russian forces are trying to restore their bases at the Melitopol airfield.[41]

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

Russian military leadership likely ordered the establishment of “places of rest” for Russian servicemembers within occupied Ukraine to enable some leave for Russian forces without letting those forces go back to Russian territory, where they could more easily desert. Ukraine’s Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported on August 3 that Russian forces in the villages of Henicheska Hirka and Antonivka, Kherson Oblast are nationalizing (illegally seizing) privately-owned children’s camps, recreation facilities, and clubs, and bought up inflatable boats and mattresses, to establish “bases for the location and rest of the occupying forces.”[42]

Activity in Russian-occupied Areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of occupied areas; set conditions for potential annexation into the Russian Federation or some other future political arrangement of Moscow’s choosing)

Russian occupation authorities may allow both in-person and online voting in upcoming pseudo-referenda on the annexation of occupied Ukrainian territory into Russia, enabling more straightforward Russian vote rigging. The Ukrainian Mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, announced on August 2 that Russian occupation forces plan to allow “voting from home” in the upcoming faux referendum that Russia will use to annex occupied Ukrainian territories.[43] Fedorov warned that occupation forces are threatening to deport Ukrainians who vote against the sham referendum. Ukrainian news outlet Strana previously reported on July 29 that the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) “Public Headquarters of the Referendum” announced it will be possible to vote online in the referendum to join Russia.[44] The Kremlin introduced online voting to some regional Russian elections in 2021 and spread it to the entire country in March 2022, likely to enable Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party to more easily pad their votes and to limit the efficacy of election observers.[45] Russian opposition politicians and elections observers reported major discrepancies between online votes and paper ballots in areas where online voting was tested in 2021, suggesting that the Kremlin added online votes to their tally whenever their candidates needed a boost. Online voting in occupied Ukrainian territories would be even more farcical—many civilians in occupied areas have no access to electricity or running water, let alone to the internet.

Russian occupation authorities are continuing to set conditions for long-term Russian control of occupied Ukrainian territories. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin met with the head of the Russian-appointed head of the Zaporizhia Occupation Administration, Evgeniy Balitskyi, on August 3 to discuss a comprehensive, three-year plan to rebuild roads in Zaporizhia Oblast and to discuss increasing Russian financing of the region.[46] Balitskyi separately announced that occupation authorities are extending the deadline for local businesspeople and legal entities to register for business licenses in the oblast, suggesting that many Ukrainian businesses are not cooperating with Russian occupiers.[47] Deputy Kherson Occupation Administration Head Ekaterina Gubareva announced on August 3 that occupation authorities will give Russian passports and citizenship to people in Kherson even if they do not have local residency permits or permanent addresses in the region.[48] Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported on August 3 that Russian occupation forces are destroying Ukrainian telecommunications networks that refused to cooperate with the occupiers in Chornobaivka, Kherson Oblast.[49] GUR added that Russian occupation forces are attempting to force occupied populations to use Russian rubles instead of Ukrainian hryvnyas by destroying ATMs that process hryvnya transactions.

[6] https://gur dot gov.ua/content/shchodo-okremykh-faktiv-vbyvstva-ukrainskykh-viiskovopolonenykh.html

[42] https://gur dot gov.ua/content/v-khersoni-rashysty-obladnuiut-bomboskhovyshche-na-bavovnianii-fabrytsi-ta-skupovuiut-naduvni-chovny.html

[49] https://gur dot gov.ua/content/v-khersoni-rashysty-obladnuiut-bomboskhovyshche-na-bavovnianii-fabrytsi-ta-skupovuiut-naduvni-chovny.html

understandingwar.org

2. Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: August

Access the Foreign Policy Tracker HERE

August 3, 2022 | FDD Tracker: July 6, 2022-August 3, 2022

Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: August

David Adesnik

Senior Fellow and Director of Research

John Hardie

Research Manager and Senior Research Analyst

Trend Overview

Edited by David Adesnik and John Hardie

Welcome back to the Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker. Once a month, we ask FDD’s experts and scholars to assess the administration’s foreign policy. They provide trendlines of very positive, positive, neutral, negative, or very negative for the areas they watch.

Just hours before this tracker’s completion, news broke that a U.S. drone strike had killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of al-Qaeda since the death of Osama bin Laden. The strike brought a measure of justice to the terrorist responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans. President Joe Biden reported from the White House that Zawahiri “had moved to downtown Kabul to reunite with members of his immediate family.” Zawahiri’s presence in the Afghan capital reflects the enduring strength of the Taliban relationship with al-Qaeda. Yet less than a year ago, Biden defended his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan by claiming al-Qaeda was “gone,” so “[w]hat interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point?” The Trump and Obama administrations also sought to obscure the relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Perhaps this fiction at the heart of U.S. counterterrorism policy will finally die along with Zawahiri.

Trending Positive

CYBER

By RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery and Jiwon Ma

Trending Neutral

By Carrie Filipetti and Emanuele Ottolenghi

TURKEY

By Sinan Ciddi

Trending Negative

CHINA

By Craig Singleton

GULF

By Hussain Abdul-Hussain

NONPROLIFERATION AND BIODEFENSE

By Anthony Ruggiero and Andrea Stricker

Trending Very Negative

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

By Richard Goldberg

IRAN

By Richard Goldberg and Behnam Ben Taleblu

LEBANON

By Tony Badran

3. Breaking Down the Taiwan Problem

Ambassador DeTrani provides a useful historical summary that most of us non-China experts do not really understand.

Excerpts:

The Cipher Brief: How do you explain to people who may not understand this issue in depth, why this visit is such a big deal? On one hand the US is telling China that they support a One China Policy but they’re doing it while also sending Taiwan lethal aid to defend itself. How would you explain this to folks who don’t have the history of it the way you do?

Ambassador Detrani: The issue for normalizing relations with China, going back to President Richard Nixon’s visit in 1972, indeed was the Taiwan issue. Then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told his counterpart at the time, Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai, that the US does not espouse a policy of two China’s, or China and Taiwan. And that was the deciding point for China to say, “Okay, we can do business with you now.” So, what does that translate into? Right from the beginning, we told China very clearly that we recognize that Taiwan is part of China. And indeed, in our communiques, we acknowledge that both sides agree that there’s one China and that Taiwan is part of China.

But then we had the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, which is when Congress told the executive branch, that we should normalize relations with China but we should not forget our friends in Taiwan, the 20 million plus people who are living there. Let’s ensure that if there is unification, it’s done peacefully. Let’s tell China, ‘Fine. We agree with One China, but maintain peace and do not use military force.'” And that’s been our consistent position on this.

I think President Ronald Reagan, with the Six Assurances in 1983, that he gave to Taiwan and the world, made it very clear that we will continue to provide military assistance to Taiwan to defend themselves and to tell very clearly tell China, “Peaceful reconciliation. Peaceful unification.” And that’s been our consistent position.

But we have to remember, if you’re sitting in Beijing and you’re asking, “Hmm, are you changing your position? Are you now saying that you will militarily support and defend Taiwan? Are you now saying you will provide not only defensive military equipment to Taiwan, but also any military equipment to counter any perceived or actual aggression? Are you changing the type of relationship? By these actions, are you encouraging Taiwan to say, ‘We no longer want to unify with China? We’re not interested.’ And this is the rub. This is where we are right now.

Breaking Down the Taiwan Problem

thecipherbrief.com

August 3rd, 2022 by Joseph DeTrani, |

View all articles by Joseph DeTrani

China’s Defense Ministry has announced military exercises surrounding Taiwan as US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi left Taipei. The Cipher Brief sat down with Cipher Brief Expert Ambassador Joe DeTrani for our Open Source Report Podcast to talk about why this visit was such a big deal and what it means for US – China relations moving forward. Our conversation has been slightly edited for length and clarity.

The Cipher Brief: How do you expect President Xi Jinping to respond to this visit by Pelosi in the long-term? Beijing was quick to put out some fairly strong warnings about a response if the House Speaker went through with her plans to visit.

Ambassador Detrani: This is a series of events and the Pelosi visit is part of that. We saw President Biden say twice that the US is prepared to militarily defend Taiwan. We have possible legislation going forth with Bob Menendez and Lindsey Graham talking about making Taiwan a non-NATO ally, not with a Mutual Defense Treaty Agreement, but a non-NATO ally with provisions to provide them with the weaponry necessary to counter any form of aggression.

From Xi Jinping and from China’s vantage point, this is escalation. This is movement towards encouraging Taiwan to move towards independence, which for China is a red line.

There is a lot of concern in China on this issue, certainly for Xi Jinping. But Xi Jinping is coming up on the 20th Party Congress, probably in October, and he doesn’t need any more grief. He’s got the COVID lockdowns, he’s got a lot of hiccups with the economy, certainly with the real estate sector. He doesn’t need more problems — but he’s got to address the Taiwan issue. It’s a seminal issue, it’s the core issue. If he shows weakness on this issue, it will eat away at his authority.

Now, he’s likely to be the president for life. He’s going to secure a third term in October, so he needs to show strength on the Taiwan issue. So yes, China has to respond. The rhetoric has been very intense, and I think they made it almost compelling for Speaker Pelosi to go forward with the visit, even if she was reconsidering it, because China had some strong language out there saying, “You will not, you should not visit.” And that’s a marker that they should not be putting down. This wolf warrior mentality works to their advantage.

I think Xi is going to have to do something. I don’t think China is going to have a boycott or an embargo. I think that’s premature, but I think they’re looking at that. I think that’s a contingency they have. They’re probably going to be looking at launching some missiles into the Taiwan Strait, probably more than 20 miles within Taiwan’s defense perimeter. They’re going to intensify the aircraft that will intrude into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. They’re going to make things difficult in the South China Sea for the US and its allies.

I think there will be a very strong reaction but I don’t think it will get to the same level as in the 1950s, when they were bombing Quemoy and Matsu. And I’m sure China has this as contingencies — where they could take Quemoy and Matsu, and force an embargo and a boycott. But this would be premature. This would not be the right time to move forward with that. But they will undoubtedly move forward with the intrusions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone.

The Cipher Brief: Quemoy and Matsu are outlying islands. Is that correct?

Ambassador Detrani: Outlying islands, exactly right. In the 50s, China was significantly bombing those islands to intimidate the Chiang Kai-shek government in Taipei.

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The Cipher Brief: All those things that you mentioned — the missiles, the increased potential for aircraft to infringe upon the air identification zone of Taiwan, increased maritime activity — those have all been talked about this week in the US press. What’s the likelihood that China may do something outside of the range of options that you just mentioned?

Ambassador Detrani: I think there’s always the possibility of a boycott and embargo. I think that’s something that the PLA probably has been working on, but that would be a significant escalation. I think it would still be significant if China stayed with the aircraft going into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, missiles into the Taiwan Strait and very aggressive military exercises meant to intimidate Taiwan. Personally, I don’t think the US will escalate as long as China does not go into Taiwan’s actual space — not their identification zone, but actually flying over Taiwan. China will probably get close to that line, and they may try to get the Taiwan Air Force to come out into confrontations. That’s where there could be significant escalation because Taiwan has no choice but to respond if China is flying into their territorial airspace. And I think China will push the limit to that point and try to get Taiwan to engage with them. But again, Xi Jinping has to modulate his response to this. He doesn’t want significant escalation with the United States certainly before the Party Congress in October.

The Cipher Brief: How do you explain to people who may not understand this issue in depth, why this visit is such a big deal? On one hand the US is telling China that they support a One China Policy but they’re doing it while also sending Taiwan lethal aid to defend itself. How would you explain this to folks who don’t have the history of it the way you do?

Ambassador Detrani: The issue for normalizing relations with China, going back to President Richard Nixon’s visit in 1972, indeed was the Taiwan issue. Then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told his counterpart at the time, Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai, that the US does not espouse a policy of two China’s, or China and Taiwan. And that was the deciding point for China to say, “Okay, we can do business with you now.” So, what does that translate into? Right from the beginning, we told China very clearly that we recognize that Taiwan is part of China. And indeed, in our communiques, we acknowledge that both sides agree that there’s one China and that Taiwan is part of China.

But then we had the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, which is when Congress told the executive branch, that we should normalize relations with China but we should not forget our friends in Taiwan, the 20 million plus people who are living there. Let’s ensure that if there is unification, it’s done peacefully. Let’s tell China, ‘Fine. We agree with One China, but maintain peace and do not use military force.'” And that’s been our consistent position on this.

I think President Ronald Reagan, with the Six Assurances in 1983, that he gave to Taiwan and the world, made it very clear that we will continue to provide military assistance to Taiwan to defend themselves and to tell very clearly tell China, “Peaceful reconciliation. Peaceful unification.” And that’s been our consistent position.

But we have to remember, if you’re sitting in Beijing and you’re asking, “Hmm, are you changing your position? Are you now saying that you will militarily support and defend Taiwan? Are you now saying you will provide not only defensive military equipment to Taiwan, but also any military equipment to counter any perceived or actual aggression? Are you changing the type of relationship? By these actions, are you encouraging Taiwan to say, ‘We no longer want to unify with China? We’re not interested.’ And this is the rub. This is where we are right now.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief

Ambassador Joseph DeTrani is former Special envoy for Six Party Talks with North Korea and the U.S. Representative to the Korea Energy Development Organization (KEDO), as well as former CIA director of East Asia Operations. He also served as the Associate Director of National Intelligence and Mission Manager for North Korea and the Director of the National Counter Proliferation Center, while also serving as a Special Adviser to the Director of National Intelligence. He currently serves on the Board of Managers at Sandia National Laboratories. The views expressed represent those of the author.

View all articles by Joseph DeTrani

4. Biden's national security adviser doubles down on Taiwan policy after Pelosi visit

Interview with the NSA on AQ/Afghanistan strike, Ukraine, and Taiwan.

On Taiwan, compare this with Ambassador DeTrani's article at Cipher Brief:

On whether the U.S. will get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that

Well, our policy has not changed. It is rooted in the One China policy informed by the Three Joint Communiqués, the Taiwan Relations Act, and the Six Assurances.

The president himself has said the policy has not changed. The president is the commander in chief. He's the guy who sets the policy and he has said it has not changed. And we have communicated that very directly. He has said that publicly on the record. And to the question of the kind of military contingency you're talking about, it is the entire object and purpose of our approach to ensure that that never happens, that it never comes to that. And that is what we are going to keep working to ensure.

Biden's national security adviser doubles down on Taiwan policy after Pelosi visit

NPR · by Mary Louise Kelly · August 3, 2022

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

China is escalating tensions with the U.S. after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan this week, but the White House will not be deterred in defending its interests in the Western Pacific, according to the president's national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

It has been a busy few days for Sullivan as President Joe Biden navigates complex issues on multiple fronts.

Alongside Pelosi's trip, there is the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the U.S. drone strike that took out al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul.

Sullivan sits down with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly to discuss the past week and how the administration plans to address each issue.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks to national security adviser Jake Sullivan. William Troop/NPR

Interview highlights

On whether everyone at the White House is breathing a sigh of relief since Nancy Pelosi left Taiwan

Well, the Chinese have announced that they are going to conduct a series of military activities around Taiwan over the course of the next few days, and that will raise tensions across the strait. It will create risks and challenges, we think unnecessarily. And so what we are hopeful for is that the PRC acts responsibly and avoids the kind of escalation that could lead to a mistake or miscalculation in the air or on the seas. That is the message that we're sending to China. That's the message we're also coordinating with our friends in Taiwan.

On how risky this situation appears

Look, whenever a military engages in a series of activities that include the possibility of missile tests, of live fire exercises, of fighter jets buzzing around the skies and ships moving around on the seas, the possibility of some kind of incident is real. And we believe that what China is doing here is not responsible. We believe that it is escalating tensions unnecessarily. And this is particularly so because what the speaker did in visiting Taiwan is not unprecedented, it is not threatening to China, it is not out of the historical norm.

Speaker of the U.S. House Of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), left, poses for photographs after receiving the Order of Propitious Clouds with Special Grand Cordon, Taiwan's highest civilian honour, from Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, right, at the president's office on August 03, 2022 in Taipei, Taiwan. Handout/Getty Images

Members of Congress travel there all the time, and a speaker of the House has previously traveled there as well. So what we don't want to see is China trying to twist this into a crisis or use this as a pretext to take the kind of military activity that will ultimately destabilize the Taiwan Strait.

On whether some good can come from the visit, and the U.S. signaling to China that it won't back down

Look, from the U.S. government's perspective, from the Biden administration's perspective, what's most important are the set of actions we take, the substance. And that includes what we do to support Taiwan's self-defense, that includes how we work with our allies and partners on initiatives like AUKUS — the nuclear submarine initiative we have with the UK and Australia — it matters what our force posture is in the region, and it matters the extent to which we are communicating to China that we are going to stand up for our interests.

Whether a particular visit sends the kind of message you're describing, I'll let others make that determination. From our perspective, the most important thing for us to do is through diplomatic, economic and military policy, substance. We communicate quite clearly to China that we are going to defend our interests and our values in the Western Pacific.

On what comes next, and whether the U.S. watches the military drills play out and see what happens

The most important thing for us to communicate is a clear and steady message, both publicly and privately to China, that we are not going to be deterred or coerced from operating as we operate in the Western Pacific. And China needs to understand that. We are not looking to escalate, but we are also not going to be deterred.

On whether the U.S. will get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that

Well, our policy has not changed. It is rooted in the One China policy informed by the Three Joint Communiqués, the Taiwan Relations Act, and the Six Assurances.

The president himself has said the policy has not changed. The president is the commander in chief. He's the guy who sets the policy and he has said it has not changed. And we have communicated that very directly. He has said that publicly on the record. And to the question of the kind of military contingency you're talking about, it is the entire object and purpose of our approach to ensure that that never happens, that it never comes to that. And that is what we are going to keep working to ensure.

On whether it was a CIA drone that killed al-Qaida leader al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan, and where it flew in from

All I will say is that our counterterrorism professionals and our intelligence professionals played a central role in carrying out this successful operation at the president's direction, and he credited them in the public remarks he made for their incredible skill and capacity in pulling this thing off.

I'm not going to get into those kinds of operational details [on where the drone flew in from]. I think it's important that we be able to preserve the space to continue to operate effectively, to demonstrate, as the president promised the American people a year ago, that we would maintain the ability to take out terrorists even without thousands of American forces on the ground. We did that once, we're prepared to do it again.

On whether there was any dissent among top advisors on carrying out the strike

No. There was unanimous support among his senior national security team to take this action at the point in time when the intelligence community briefed the president that they had high confidence that this was al-Zawahiri and that they could do it in a way that they felt would not result in civilian casualties.

On what al-Zawahiri's presence in downtown Kabul says about what the U.S. achieved during the 20-year war in Afghanistan

Well, actually the record, when it comes to our disruption of the al-Qaida network and its capacity to threaten America and Americans, is a record of significant success. Our ability to ensure, over the course of decades, that the kinds of complex plots that led to the embassy bombings in Nairobi and in Tanzania in 1998, that led to the USS Cole in 2000, and then of course to 9/11 in 2001, that we have not seen those kind of plots over the course of the past two decades be carried out against the U.S. homeland — that is a record of significant success.

What I would tell you is that Ayman al-Zawahiri became the emir of al-Qaida in 2011 when Osama bin Laden was taken off the battlefield. That was more than a decade ago. For a decade, American men and women fought and died in Afghanistan and Zawahiri was alive and running al-Qaida. Joe Biden took the United States out of Afghanistan so that in the year 2022 not one American soldier died in Afghanistan. And Ayman al-Zawahiri is dead. I would call that a pretty effective policy.

On whether there is a scenario in which the Taliban didn't know he was there

We believe that senior members of the Haqqani network, who are now part of the Taliban entity running the government in Kabul, that they knew. We also believe that there were other senior Taliban officials who did not know. And in fact, you know, we will now watch to see the extent to which this raises questions within the organization of the Taliban about the wisdom of having al-Zawahiri come back into Kabul.

On if he's watching for possible fractures or divisions in the Taliban

Yeah, I don't want to go so far as to say fracture. But, you know, certainly this is going to raise some eyebrows, we believe, within the leadership.

On how encouraged we should be by the first grain ship to depart Ukraine since Russia invaded

Well, we should be encouraged because it does mean that the possibility of substantial amounts of wheat and corn and other grains getting out of Ukraine is a real possibility. But we should also be cautious, because there is every reason to believe the Russians are going to make this as difficult as possible and that they are going to continue to find ways to disrupt the flow of grain to the world market. And so we think that the international community has to maintain a substantial amount of pressure on Moscow not to enforce a blockade, not to throw up obstacles to the flow of that grain, because it is so important to feed the world, to keep prices down and to ensure that there's not hunger and famine in Africa in Southeast Asia and other places.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a triumph, but I would say this is a good step forward. It should be built on and there should be many steps that follow what, for our part, the United States is trying to do to ensure that these ships coming in and out can have the insurance they need, that there is no challenges with them being able to get the grain to the world market. And we're going to keep doing our part to get as many of those ships in and out of there as we possibly can.

On whether there is mistrust between the White House and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

You just have to listen to President Biden when he talks about Presidents Zelenskyy. He openly admires president Zelenskyy, admires his courage, his bravery, his skill, his stewardship of a country at a time of absolute crisis. The two of them talk regularly. They have incredibly constructive and effective communication. And then at all levels of the government we are deeply engaged. And so this is a very strong partnership between the Biden administration and the Zelenskyy administration, and it is because of that partnership that we have been able to effectively provide them with the military, economic and humanitarian support that they need, and we're going to keep doing it.

For the record, I believe that Ukraine's leadership is leading a country in an incredibly effective and brave way against the onslaught of an invading neighbor and doing so defying all expectations about what they would be able to hold together and stand up against. And it's been an incredibly impressive thing to watch.

On where he would put the chances of there still being an active war in Ukraine in six months

I'm not going to make predictions about six months from now, because I think most of us wouldn't have predicted we'd be where we are today six months ago. We did accurately predict that Russia would invade, but how exactly that invasion would unfold is subject to so many variables and that's true for the six months that lie ahead of us. What I will say is this: Russia could end this war tomorrow if they simply withdrew from the territory that they have tried to conquer by force, which is against every precept of international law. And so Putin could end this thing very rapidly. Our job as the United States is to put Ukraine in the best possible position on the battlefield so that it will end up in the best possible position at the negotiating table. When can we get serious negotiations going? That is an open question, because at the moment it does not seem the Russians are serious about the kind of diplomacy that actually could bring about an end to this conflict.

NPR · by Mary Louise Kelly · August 3, 2022

5. Law and the Ayman al-Zawahiri airstrike: a dozen Qs & As

I always turn to Maj Gen Dunlap to get a lesson in international law.

Law and the Ayman al-Zawahiri airstrike: a dozen Qs & As

sites.duke.edu · by Charlie Dunlap, J.D. · August 3, 2022

This is the first of two posts that aim to give you perspectives on some of the law applicable to the airstrike that killed Ayman al-Zawahiri.

My post today offers some quick “shortbursts” on a number of legal issues the strike suggests, and it will be followed by a separate post by Lawfire®favorite, Brian Lee Cox. Brian will give us a ‘deep dive’ on his take on selected legal topics the al-Zawahiri strike raises.

There are two limfacs to keep in mind: 1) to my knowledge, the U.S. government (USG) has not released a formal legal opinion about the strike, and 2) except where indicated otherwise, the posts rely entirely on media reports for the facts. As we know, the first reports can be wrong. With those caveats, here are some preliminary views for your consideration:

1) Who was Ayman al-Zawahiri?

In announcing the strike, President Biden described Ayman al-Zawahiri as the “emir“ of al-Qaeda, the foreign terrorist organization identified by the U.S. as responsible for the 9/11 attacks. As Osama Bin Laden’s deputy at the time, al-Zawahiri was the President informs, “deeply involved” in the planning of the operation. Accordingly, the President found him to be “one of the most responsible for the attacks that murdered 2,977 people on American soil.”

Al-Zawahiri was also, the President tells us, “the mastermind of the attacks on the USS Cole that killed 17 Americans,” and he “played a key role” in attacks on US embassies in Africa in the 1990s. (In fact, the FBI reports that he had been “

After Bin Laden was killed in a U.S. raid 11 years ago, al-Zawahiri became the leader of al-Qaeda. Here’s what the President says al-Zawahiri has being doing since taking over the terrorist organization:

From hiding, he coordinated al Qaeda’s branches and all around the world — including setting priorities, for providing operational guidance that called for and inspired attacks against U.S. targets. He made videos, including in recent weeks, calling for his followers to attack the United States and our allies.

2) Was al-Zawahri a lawful target under international law?

The Washington Post reports a “senior official” as explaining:

Government lawyers confirmed the legal basis for the operation, which is standard procedure for drone strikes. Zawahiri had a “continuing leadership role in al-Qaeda” and had participated in and supported terrorist attacks, the senior official said. He was deemed a lawful target.

Let’s unpack this a bit. As I said in my post about the killing of Osama Bin Laden, not every terrorist is targetable under the Law of Armed Conflict or “LOAC” (sometimes called International Humanitarian Law or IHL). Its application is generally limited to conflicts of sufficient scope and intensity to warrant treatment under a “war” legal regime.

Other terrorists are covered by international human rights law (IHRL), which is essentially a law enforcement legal construct. (Professor Geoff Corn and his co-authors have an excellent chart – found here – in their text, The Law of Armed Conflict: An Operational Approach, which compares and contrasts the two legal frameworks).

Though not without controversy, I believe the best view of the law today is that non-State terrorists who are members of an organized armed group engaged in a conflict (of sufficient scope and intensity to trigger LOAC applicability), are lawfully subject to LOAC’s more permissive targeting rules, that is, much the same rules to which members of traditional militaries are subject in State-on-State conflicts. In other words, the mere status of being a member of certain armed groups can be sufficient to make a person lawfully targetable.

To be clear, any civilian who “directly participates in hostilities” – even if they do not belong to an armed group – loses protection from direct attack during such participation. However, membership in certain non-State armed groups engaged in armed conflict can alone provide a separate legal basis for targeting.

The Department of Defense (DoD) Law of War (LoW) Manual puts it this way: “[B]elonging to an armed group makes a person liable to being made the object of attack regardless of whether he or she is taking a direct part in hostilities.”

Further, the Manual (¶ 5.8.2.1) adds this about those who are members of such entities:

The U.S. approach has been to treat the status of belonging to a hostile, non-State armed group as a separate basis upon which a person is liable to attack, apart from whether he or she has taken a direct part in hostilities. Either approach may yield the same result: members of hostile, non-State armed groups may be made the object of attack unless they are placed hors de combat.

The Manual adds this important clarification that such persons “may be made the object of attack at all times, regardless of the activities in which they are engaged at the time of attack.” So, for example, a member of a hostile, non-State armed group who is standing without a weapon on a balcony of a safe house could be the object of lawful attack.

The existence of an armed conflict is critical. But the U.S. has long taken the position that it is in an armed conflict with Al-Qaeda (see here), and it’s been reiterated in Congressional testimony after the 2021 withdrawal, as well as in judicial filings last fall.

For its part, al-Qaeda essentially declared war on the U.S. via fatwas issued by Osama Bin Laden in 1996 and 1998. and has never backed away from that position. Just last fall CNN reported that al-Qaeda operatives said the “war against the US will be continuing on all other fronts unless they are expelled from the rest of the Islamic world.”

In short, al-Zawahiri’s status as a member of al-Qaeda makes him lawfully subject to attack.

3) Is there any other basis under international law that could justify the strike?

Yes. permits member nations to use force in self-defense in the event of an “armed attack” – even if there is no pre-existing armed conflict.

The U.S. and many – perhaps most – countries also subscribed to the principle of anticipatory self-defense which essentially means that force can be used in self-defense prior to an “imminent” attack. Depending upon the circumstances, striking a key individual may be the best way to preclude an attack.

“Imminence” is not necessarily interpreted strictly in a temporal sense. As the Army’s 2022 Operational Law Handbook explains, the “U.S. analyzes a variety of factors when determining whether an armed attack is imminent,” including “the likelihood that there will be other opportunities to undertake effective action in self–defense that may be expected to cause less serious collateral injury, loss, or damage.”

The Handbook notes that it is the U.S. position that “the absence of specific evidence of where an attack will take place or of the precise nature of an attack does not preclude a conclusion that an armed attack is imminent for purposes of the exercise of the right of self–defense, provided that there is a reasonable and objective basis for concluding that an armed attack is imminent.”

Did al-Zawahiri present a current threat? The President characterized al-Zawahiri as a “vicious and determined killer” who, as the leader of an organization with a well-documented track record for horrifying violence, was “calling for his followers to attack the United States and our allies.”

In addition, the The Hill reports that on NBC’s Today show National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the strike “undoubtedly made the United States safer” and offered this explanation: “We do believe he was playing an active role at a strategic level in directing al Qaeda and in continuing to pose a severe threat against the United States and American citizens everywhere.”

Such facts seem sufficient, even in the absence of evidence about a specific forthcoming attack, to find that al-Zawahiri represented a threat that met the criteria for the application of anticipatory self-defense.

That said, in my view, it is unnecessary to do an “imminence” analysis since I believe al-Zawahiri’s status as a member of al-Qaeda is – alone – sufficient legal justification for the strike.

4) Did international law require the U.S. to get permission from the Taliban to conduct an airstrike in Afghanistan?

As a general proposition, “each State has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory.” In this instance, the situation is more complicated in that while the Taliban has become the de facto rulers of Afghanistan, no country has formally recognized them. Nevertheless, they have objected to the strike.

Thus, the legal rationale for the unpermitted penetration of Afghanistan’s airspace would seem to based on the proposition in international law. This allows a threatened state to take action in self-defense (to include anticipatory self-defense) in another state without that state’s permission if it is “unwilling or unable” to take action to neutralize the threat that exists within its borders.

The Secretary of State appeared to allude to the concept in his remarks about the al-Zawahiri strike. He pointed out the Taliban’s “unwillingness or inability to abide by their commitments” made when the U.S. withdrew in August of 2021 in accordance with the Doha agreement commitments.

Those commitments required the Taliban, the Secretary said, to “not allow Afghan territory to be used by terrorists to threaten the security of other countries.” Obviously, the presence of al-Zawahiri living openly in Kabul showed that the Taliban was “unwilling or unable” to address the threat he posed to the “security of other countries.“

5) Did the President have the legal authority under domestic U.S. law to strike al-Zawahiri?

Yes. Congress’ 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) provides:

That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

Plainly, given al-Qaeda’s established involvement in 9/11, its current leader qualifies under this authorizing resolution. Though some scholars chafe at the fact that the 2001 AUMF is still in force, it is and it applies here.

In addition, Section 2 of Article II of the Constitution designates the President and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Though the exact scope of President’s Article II power is unsettled, it does appear that it would include authority to use force against al-Qaeda operatives.

6) Is ‘delivering justice’ itself a valid basis for the use of force?

In his remarks, President Biden said that in the killing of al-Zawahiri, “justice has been delivered.” That may have been one effect of the strike, but ‘delivering justice’ in the form of killing al-Zawahiri should not be confused with the actual legal basis for the use of force against him.

Specifically, retribution, retaliation, punishment or their like are not themselves justifications for the use of force. As one scholar explains with respect to the use of military force in these situations: “unlike the criminal law, our ‘punishment’ of a hostile belligerent nation, terrorist group, or high value target cannot alone serve as its legal argument.”

To say that “justice” for previous wrongs was delivered by a use of force in this case is understandable and even expected; however, it is always essential that the use of force be grounded in appropriate legal rationale, such as the need to address an ongoing serious threat.

7) Wasn’t this strike an assassination, and aren’t assassinations illegal?

No, it wasn’t an unlawful “assassination.” As the DoD LoW Manual puts it (¶ 5.7.4 ):

Military leaders are subject to attack on the same basis as other members of the armed forces. Similarly, leaders of non-State armed groups are also subject to attack on the same basis as other members of the group. There is no objection to making a specific enemy leader who is a combatant the object of attack. (Emphasis added.)

Allow me to elaborate a bit with an extract from a previous post:

In 1989 Hays Parks, then a Department of Defense official, wrote the definitive memorandum regarding the legal meaning of “assassination.” I very much encourage you to read the full text, but I’ll give you a few highlights.

Parks was opining on the application of prohibition on assassination, and explained that:

Peacetime assassination…would seem to encompass the murder of a private individual or public figure for political purposes, and in some cases…also require that the act constitute a covert activity, particularly when the individual is a private citizen. Assassination is unlawful killing, and would be prohibited by international law even if there was no executive order proscribing it.

But Parks drew a careful distinction between such slayings, and the killing of an individual combatant in wartime. He points out:

[C]ombatants are legitimate targets at all times, regardless of their duties or activities at the time of attack. Such attacks do not constitute assassination unless carried out in a “treacherous” manner, as prohibited by article 23(b) of the Annex to the 1907 Hague IV. While the term treacherous has not been defined, as previously noted it is not regarded as prohibiting operations that depend upon the element of surprise, such as a commando raid or other form of attack behind enemy lines.

Parks cites the many examples of lawful wartime killings of individuals, including the World War II operation that resulted in the death of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who masterminded the attack on Pearl Harbor.

In my view, “assassination” is not the legally correct way to describe the al-Zawahiri killing and – regardless – his death was not unlawful.

8) Some press reports say the U.S. put a “$25 million bounty on [al-Zawahiri’s] head” – is that legal?

A “bounty” on al-Zawahiri’s “head” may wrongfully suggest that there was a reward for killing him. As the DoD LoW Manual explains (¶ 5.26.3), “rewards may not be offered for the killing of enemy persons.” However, the rule does not “prohibit offering rewards for information that may be used by combatants to conduct military operations that attack enemy combatants.”

It is true that through the Rewards For Justice Program the U.S. Secretary of State may authorize rewards for information that:

Leads to the arrest or conviction of anyone who plans, commits, aids, or attempts international terrorist acts against U.S. persons or property
Prevents such acts from occurring
Leads to the identification or location of a key terrorist leader
Disrupts terrorism financing

According to the FBI, there was “a reward of up to $25 million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Ayman Al-Zawahiri.” Such a reward for information is completely legal, even if it ends up being used for targeting a belligerent.

9) Was the U.S. legally required to try to capture al-Zawahri?

As the answer above about the reward offered for information that could lead to al-Zawahiri’s arrest suggests, the U.S. did try to bring him into custody, but was unsuccessful.

In any event, the LOAC does not require an effort to capture a belligerent. The DoD LoW Manual (¶ 2.2.3.1) points out:

Some commentators have argued that military necessity should be interpreted so as to permit only what is actually necessary in the prevailing circumstances, such as by requiring commanders, if possible, to seek to capture or wound enemy combatants rather than to make them the object of attack. This interpretation, however, does not reflect customary international law or treaty law applicable to DoD personnel. (Emphasis added.)

LOAC expert Professor Michael Schmitt likewise rejects the notion as some have suggested, that LOAC or, as it is sometimes called, International Humanitarian Law (IHL) mandates any obligation to try to capture, even when operationally feasible. He adds:

My opposition to a capture-kill rule is also based on the fact that the enemy fighter generally has the means to achieve the same result by surrendering, since those who surrender are hors de combat and cannot be attacked; in other words, IHL already addresses the situation. A rule that prohibits an attack whenever the individual can be captured would shift the burden from the fighter to the attacker in a way that warfighting states would have been, and remain, unlikely to countenance.

The New York Times reports that given the location of the safe house al-Zawahiri was using, “any sort of incursion by Special Operations forces would be prohibitively dangerous.” Consequently, to stop him with the least risk to friendly forces and civilians in the area, a precision airstrike was necessary.

Thus, even under an IHRL regime (essentially a law enforcement paradigm) the use of deadly force would likely be permissible in this instance. Consider this extract from the UN’s

[I]n self-defence or defence of others against the imminent threat of death or serious injury, to prevent the perpetration of a particularly serious crime involving grave threat to life, to arrest a person presenting such a danger and resisting their authority, or to prevent his or her escape, and only when less extreme means are insufficient to achieve these objectives.

10) The President said only that al-Zawahiri was killed by an airstrike. If a remotely-piloted aircraft (RPA) was used, and it was piloted by a civilian, would that impact the legality?

No. There is nothing inherently unlawful about using RPAs (commonly referred to as drones) to conduct an otherwise lawful strike. Notably, over three-dozen countries now have armed drones, and the worldwide military drone market is expected to hit $26.12 billion by 2028. but they are lawful weapons that certainly can be used in full compliance with LOAC.

As a general rule, civilians are not prohibited by LOAC from participating in combat operations. However, in State-on-State conflicts, they would lose their protection against direct attack. That said, unprivileged belligerents like al-Qaeda terrorists do not have a legal right to attack anyone at any time.

11) The President said he authorized the strike after “carefully considering the clear and convincing evidence of [al-Zawahiri’s] location.” Is “clear and convincing” the standard of certainty that LOAC requires for operations?

No. LOAC generally employs a standard for decisions involving the use of force. The DoD LoW Manual (¶ 5.3) does, however, put it slightly differently:

Commanders and other decision-makers must make decisions in good faith and based on the information available to them. Even when information is imperfect or lacking (as will frequently be the case during armed conflict), commanders and other decision-makers may direct and conduct military operations, so long as they make a good faith assessment of the information that is available to them at that time.

In a 2018 essay, Michael J. Adams and Ryan Goodman relate the position of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on ‘reasonableness’ in targeting:

[The ICRC] explains that the law requires targeting decisions “must reflect the level of certainty that can reasonably be achieved in the circumstances” and that “in practice, this determination will have to take into account, inter alia, the intelligence available to the decision maker, the urgency of the situation, and the harm likely to result to the operating forces or to persons and objects protected against direct attack from an erroneous decision.”

Even in the law enforcement context, reasonableness is employed in judging use-of-force decisions. For example, in the 1989 case of Graham v. Connor, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded:

[The] “reasonableness” inquiry is whether the officers’ actions are “objectively reasonable” in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation. The “reasonableness” of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, and its calculus must embody an allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second decisions about the amount of force necessary in a particular situation.

The President’s use of a heightened standard of certainty appears to laudably reflect his determination to avoid civilian casualties. He said:

This mission was carefully planned and rigorously minimized the risk of harm to other civilians. And one week ago, after being advised that the conditions were optimal, I gave the final approval to go get him, and the mission was a success. None of his family members were hurt, and there were no civilian casualties.

Of course, LOAC requires “feasible” precautions be taken to avoid civilian harm. The DoD LoW Manual (¶ 5.2.3.2) elucidates this requirement:

The standard for what precautions must be taken is one of due regard or diligence, not an absolute requirement to do everything possible. A wanton disregard for civilian casualties or harm to other protected persons and objects is clearly prohibited. Feasible precautions are those that are practicable or practically possible, taking into account all circumstances ruling at the time, including humanitarian and military considerations.

Still, it appears that in his decision-making process for this strike the President went ‘above and beyond’ what the law might require.

12) Does LOAC require zero civilian casualties in attacks?

No. The DoD LoW Manual (¶ 5.10) explains the law this way:

• Combatants must take feasible precautions in planning and conducting attacks to reduce the risk of harm to civilians and other persons and objects protected from being made the object of attack; and

• Combatants must refrain from attacks in which the expected loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, and damage to civilian objects incidental to the attack would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage expected to be gained. (Emphasis added.)

In short, civilian casualties, however unwanted, are nevertheless tolerated by LOAC even when it is clear in advance they will occur. Various policies of the U.S. and other countries may call for zero casualties in attacks, but the law does not.

Concluding thoughts

Although the death of al-Zawahiri is an important step in keeping America and its allies safe, there is little reason to think that the threat from al-Qaeda will disappear entirely

Unfortunately, it will take constant effort to keep the peril from it and other terrorists organization suppressed. Doing so will (often?) involve the use of lawful force.

As much as we may want to end “forever wars,” the melancholy truth is that the “enemy gets a vote.” Consequently, we must educate ourselves to the threat, as well as to an understanding of the applicable law, and commit ourselves to real vigilance.

Remember what we like to say on Lawfire®: gather the facts, examine the law, evaluate the arguments – and then decide for yourself!

Last update 2334 hrs 3 Aug 22

sites.duke.edu · by Charlie Dunlap, J.D. · August 3, 2022

6. Biden sold false narrative about Al Qaeda in Afghanistan: BILL ROGGIO

Biden sold false narrative about Al Qaeda in Afghanistan: BILL ROGGIO

Biden sold America the false narrative that Al Qaeda was 'gone' from Afghanistan. Zawahiri's death proves he was dangerously wrong, writes terrorism analyst BILL ROGGIO

By BILL ROGGIO FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 12:53 EDT, 3 August 2022 | UPDATED: 14:43 EDT, 3 August 2022

Daily Mail · by Bill Roggio For Dailymail.Com · August 3, 2022

Bill Roggio is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of FDD's Long War Journal. From 1991 to 1997, Roggio served as a signalman and infantryman in the US Army and New Jersey National Guard

One year ago this month, President Biden told Americans that Al Qaeda was 'gone' from Afghanistan.

On Monday, we learned that clearly was not the case.

'We went to Afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan as well as getting Osama bin Laden. And we did,' he told reporters on August 20, 2021, as American and allied forces hastily prepared to pull out of the country.

President Biden had set August 31st as the last day for US troops to leave Afghanistan after 20 years of war and the deadline had caught the world by surprise.

'Look, let's put this thing in perspective,' he insisted amid calls to delay the evacuation, 'What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point, with al Qaeda gone?'

Days after those remarks, on August 26, 2021, a suicide bomb ripped through a crowd of soldiers and civilians at Hamid Karzai Airport in Kabul.

By that point, the Afghan military had melted away and the Taliban had overrun the country.

Desperate people - American and Afghan - crowded outside the airport gates, as US Marines stood guard on its concrete walls.

The world watched as Afghans stormed the runaways. Some clung to the landing gear of departing planes and fell to their deaths after the aircraft left the ground.

One year ago this month, President Biden (left) told Americans that Al Qaeda was 'gone' from Afghanistan. On Monday, the White House revealed a CIA drone strike killed Al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri (right) in Kabul, Afghanistan.

The suicide bomber's blast killed nearly 200 people, including 13 members of the United States military.

And still, Biden declared 'extraordinary success,' even as he recognized the loss of life.

According to Biden, after two decades of war, America's mission had been accomplished.

It hadn't.

It would have been more difficult to sell that narrative to American people if Al Qaeda's close ties to the new Taliban 'government' had been fully acknowledged.

But officials from the Biden administration, as well as the Trump administration, had assured us that the Taliban had cut ties with bin Laden's fanatics.

On Monday, the White House revealed a CIA drone strike killed Al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Zawahiri wasn't found cowering in the remote, mountainous regions of northern or eastern Afghanistan, or camped out in the far-flung provinces of the south.

The 71-year-old was killed on the balcony of a house owned by a top aide to senior Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, arguably the most powerful and influential Taliban official.

Haqqani is one of two deputy Taliban emirs and the Taliban's interior minister.

His Haqqani Network played a key role in the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

To put it simply, the top tier leadership of the Taliban sponsored the top leader of Al Qaeda at a safe house in the heart of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Far from being 'gone' from Afghanistan – Al Qaeda's Number One was being sheltered by the very government to whom Biden ceded control of the country.

The 71-year-old was killed on the balcony (above) of a house owned by a top aide to senior Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, arguably the most powerful and influential Taliban official.

Stunningly, Biden – once again - declared mission accomplished.

'Justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more,' he announced from the White House balcony on Monday night. 'People around the world no longer need to fear the vicious and determined killer.'

If there wasn't champagne popping, there was undoubtedly plenty of congratulatory backslapping in the White House.

But peel back the layers and you cannot overlook the irrefutable fact that Al Qaeda – the terrorist group that carried out September 11th – is once again entrenched in the country from which it attacked America.

Biden had assured America that Afghanistan wouldn't again become a safe haven for terrorists.

But it has.

In fact, three successive American administrations have told the American people that Al Qaeda in Afghanistan has been 'decimated,' or 'degraded' or 'on the path to defeat.'

The Obama administration first sold that story to justify its secret negotiations with the Taliban.

The Trump administration did so for the same reason and eventually signed a deeply flawed deal that negotiated the pullout of US troops and helped seal that nation's fate.

Eventually, the narrative was put forth to justify the Afghanistan withdrawal.

The Taliban repeatedly said that it wouldn't harbor Al Qaeda and they gave each administration the political ammunition they needed to justify washing their hands of the whole mess.

The Taliban lied.

The truth is that Al Qaeda has been operating in Afghanistan all along.

While each administration negotiated with the Taliban, top Al Qaeda leaders were sheltered.

As the US military killed terrorists in operations over the years, Al Qaeda was brazen enough to run training camps with the support and approval of the Taliban.

Officials from the Biden administration, as well as the Trump administration, had assured us that the Taliban had cut ties with bin Laden's fanatics. (Above) Osama bin Laden sits with adviser Ayman al-Zawahiri during an interview in November 2001.

You wouldn't know any of this if you listened to National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday.

He swept aside legitimate concerns about how the US withdrawal emboldened Al Qaeda, which is now operating freely in the country.

Kirby insisted that Al Qaeda leaders will now 'think again' about hiding out in Kabul.

I doubt it.

Even now, Zawahiri's death does not signal the death of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

He wasn't the only Al Qaeda leader in Kabul and he wouldn't have been hiding out in the capital city alone without his staff and support network.

History shows that, like the Taliban, Al Qaeda is a well-oiled machine that can continue to hum along despite the head being cut off the snake.

Many questions remain to be answered.

Author Bill Roggio is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of FDD's Long war Journal

Does the US have the capability - and more importantly, the will - to execute a sustained campaign against Al Qaeda's command?

Will President Biden order strikes against Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan?

Will he countenance the targeting of more Al Qaeda associates in Kabul and beyond?

Doing so would force US officials to admit they were wrong about the tight bonds between the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

It is impossible to properly address the threat that emanates from Afghanistan until U.S. political, intelligence and military leaders admit these mistakes of the past.

They must recognize that the Taliban - the very group the US relented to - is just as big a part of the problem as Al Qaeda.

As we approach another September 11th – in many ways – America finds itself back where it started 21 years ago.

So let me ask you President Biden: What interest do you have in Afghanistan now?

Daily Mail · by Bill Roggio For Dailymail.Com · August 3, 2022

7. How the U.S. lost the Next Big Thing to China — again

I think this is a good example of the importance of journalism - the 4th Estate exposing issues and holding the Government accountable. If this report is accurate I think we should be outraged.

How the U.S. lost the Next Big Thing to China — again

NPR · by Courtney Flatt · August 3, 2022

The former UniEnergy Technologies office in Mukilteo, Wash. Taxpayers spent $15 million on research to build a breakthrough battery. Then the U.S. government gave it to China. Jovelle Tamayo for NPR

When a group of engineers and researchers gathered in a warehouse in Mukilteo, Wash., 10 years ago, they knew they were onto something big. They scrounged up tables and chairs, cleared out space in the parking lot for experiments and got to work.

They were building a battery — a vanadium redox flow battery — based on a design created by two dozen U.S. scientists at a government lab. The batteries were about the size of a refrigerator, held enough energy to power a house, and could be used for decades. The engineers pictured people plunking them down next to their air conditioners, attaching solar panels to them, and everyone living happily ever after off the grid.

"It was beyond promise," said Chris Howard, one of the engineers who worked there for a U.S. company called UniEnergy. "We were seeing it functioning as designed, as expected."

Chris Howard was an engineer at UniEnergy Technologies. Jovelle Tamayo for NPR

But that's not what happened. Instead of the batteries becoming the next great American success story, the warehouse is now shuttered and empty. All the employees who worked there were laid off. And more than 5,200 miles away, a Chinese company is hard at work making the batteries in Dalian, China.

The Chinese company didn't steal this technology. It was given to them — by the U.S. Department of Energy. First in 2017, as part of a sublicense, and later, in 2021, as part of a license transfer. An investigation by NPR and the Northwest News Network found the federal agency allowed the technology and jobs to move overseas, violating its own licensing rules while failing to intervene on behalf of U.S. workers in multiple instances.

Now, China has forged ahead, investing millions into the cutting-edge green technology that was supposed to help keep the U.S. and its economy out front.

UniEnergy Technologies and Avista's solar energy storage system is displayed at an event in 2015. Office of Gov. Jay Inslee

Department of Energy officials declined NPR's request for an interview to explain how the technology that cost U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars ended up in China. After NPR sent department officials written questions outlining the timeline of events, the federal agency terminated the license with the Chinese company, Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd.

"DOE takes America's manufacturing obligations within its contracts extremely seriously," the department said in a written statement. "If DOE determines that a contractor who owns a DOE-funded patent or downstream licensee is in violation of its U.S. manufacturing obligations, DOE will explore all legal remedies."

Several U.S. companies have tried to get a license to make the batteries

The department is now conducting an internal review of the licensing of vanadium battery technology and whether this license — and others — have violated U.S. manufacturing requirements, the statement said.

Forever Energy, a Bellevue, Wash., based company, is one of several U.S. companies that have been trying to get a license from the Department of Energy to make the batteries. Joanne Skievaski, Forever Energy's chief financial officer, has been trying to get hold of a license for more than a year and called the department's decision to allow foreign manufacturing "mind boggling."

Joanne Skievaski is the chief financial officer of Forever Energy in Bellevue, Wash. The company has been trying to get a license from the Department of Energy to make the batteries for over a year. Jovelle Tamayo for NPR

"This is technology made from taxpayer dollars," Skievaski said. "It was invented in a national lab. (Now) it's deployed in China, and it's held in China. To say it's frustrating is an understatement."

The idea for this vanadium redox battery began in the basement of a government lab, three hours southwest of Seattle, called Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. It was 2006, and more than two dozen scientists began to suspect that a special mix of acid and electrolyte could hold unusual amounts of energy without degrading. They turned out to be right.

It took six years and more than 15 million taxpayer dollars for the scientists to uncover what they believed was the perfect vanadium battery recipe. Others had made similar batteries with vanadium, but this mix was twice as powerful and did not appear to degrade the way cellphone batteries or even car batteries do. The researchers found the batteries capable of charging and recharging for as long as 30 years.

An employee looks at a vanadium flow battery in Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Battery Reliability Laboratory in 2021. Andrea Starr/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Gary Yang, the lead scientist on the project, said he was excited to see if he could make the batteries outside the lab. The lab encourages scientists to do just that, in an effort to bring critical new technology into the marketplace. The lab and the U.S. government still hold the patents, because U.S. taxpayers paid for the research.

In 2012, Yang applied to the Department of Energy for a license to manufacture and sell the batteries.

The agency issued the license, and Yang launched UniEnergy Technologies. He hired engineers and researchers. But he soon ran into trouble. He said he couldn't persuade any U.S. investors to come aboard.

"I talked to almost all major investment banks; none of them (wanted to) invest in batteries," Yang said in an interview, adding that the banks wanted a return on their investments faster than the batteries would turn a profit.

Imre Gyuk (left), director of energy storage research in the Office of Electricity of the Department of Energy, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Gary Yang of UniEnergy Technologies stand together in 2015. Office of Gov. Jay Inslee

He said a fellow scientist connected him with a Chinese businessman named Yanhui Liu and a company called Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd., along with its parent company, and he jumped at the chance to have them invest and even help manufacture the batteries.

At first, UniEnergy Technologies did the bulk of the battery assembly in the warehouse. But over the course of the next few years, more and more of the manufacturing and assembling began to shift to Rongke Power, Chris Howard said. In 2017, Yang formalized the relationship and granted Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd. an official sublicense, allowing the company to make the batteries in China.

Any company can choose to manufacture in China. But in this case, the rules are pretty clear. Yang's original license requires him to sell a certain number of batteries in the U.S., and it says those batteries must be "substantially manufactured" here.

In an interview, Yang acknowledged that he did not do that. UniEnergy Technologies sold a few batteries in the U.S., but not enough to meet its requirements. The ones it did sell, including in one instance to the U.S. Navy, were made in China. But Yang said in all those years, neither the lab nor the department questioned him or raised any issues.

Chris Howard is now the director of operations at Forever Energy in Bellevue, Wash. Jovelle Tamayo for NPR

Then in 2019, Howard said, UniEnergy Technologies officials gathered all the engineers in a meeting room. He said supervisors told them they would have to work in China at Rongke Power Co. for four months at a time.

"It was unclear, certainly to myself and other engineers, what the plan was," said Howard, who now works for Forever Energy.

Yang acknowledges that he wanted his U.S. engineers to work in China. But he says it was because he thought Rongke Power could help teach them critical skills.

Yang was born in China but is a U.S. citizen and got his Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut. He said he wanted to manufacture the entire battery in the U.S., but that the U.S. does not have the supply chain he required. He said China is more advanced when it comes to manufacturing and engineering utility-scale batteries.

"In this field — manufacturing, engineering — China is ahead of the U.S.," Yang said. "Many wouldn't believe [it]."

He said he didn't send the battery and his engineers abroad to help China. He said the engineers in that country were helping his UniEnergy Technologies employees and helping him get his batteries built.

But news reports at the time show the moves were helping China. The Chinese government launched several large demonstration projects and announced millions of dollars in funding for large-scale vanadium batteries.

As battery work took off in China, Yang was facing more financial trouble in the U.S. So he made a decision that would again keep the technology from staying in the U.S.

The EU has strict rules about where companies manufacture products

In 2021, Yang transferred the battery license to a European company based in the Netherlands. The company, Vanadis Power, told NPR it initially planned to continue making the batteries in China and then would set up a factory in Germany, eventually hoping to manufacture in the U.S., said Roelof Platenkamp, the company's founding partner.

Vanadis Power needed to manufacture batteries in Europe because the European Union has strict rules about where companies manufacture products, Platenkamp said.

"I have to be a European company, certainly a non-Chinese company, in Europe," Platenkamp said in an interview with NPR.

Gary Yang launched UniEnergy Technologies after the Department of Energy issued him a license to manufacture and sell the vanadium batteries. Jovelle Tamayo for NPR

But the U.S. has these types of rules, too. Any transfer of a U.S. government license requires U.S. government approval so that manufacturing doesn't move overseas. The U.S. has lost significant jobs in recent years in areas where it first forged ahead, such as solar panels, drones and telecom equipment. Still, when UniEnergy requested approval, it apparently had no trouble getting it.

On July 7, 2021, a top official at UniEnergy Technologies emailed a government manager at the lab where the battery was created. The UniEnergy official said they were making a deal with Vanadis, according to emails reviewed by NPR, and were going to transfer the license to Vanadis.

"We're working to finalize a deal with Vanadis Power and believe they have the right blend of technical expertise," the email from UniEnergy Technologies said. "Our transaction with Vanadis is ready to go pending your approval ..."

The government manager responded that he needed confirmation before transferring the license and emailed a second employee at UniEnergy. The second employee responded an hour and a half later, and the license was transferred to Vanadis Power.

Whether the manager or anyone else at the lab or Department of Energy thought to check during that hour and a half or thereafter whether Vanadis Power was an American company, or whether it intended to manufacture in the U.S., is unclear. Vanadis' own website said it planned to make the batteries in China.

In response, department officials said they review each transfer for compliance and said that new rules put in place last summer by the Biden administration will close loopholes and keep more manufacturing here.

But agency officials acknowledged that its reviews often rely on "good faith disclosures" by the companies, which means if companies such as UniEnergy Technologies don't say anything, the U.S. government may never know.

Joanne Skievaski said she and others from the company repeatedly warned Department of Energy officials that the UniEnergy license was not in compliance. Jovelle Tamayo for NPR

That's a problem that has plagued the department for years, according to government investigators.

In 2018, the Government Accountability Office found that the Department of Energy lacked resources to properly monitor its licenses, relied on antiquated computer systems, and didn't have consistent policies across its labs.

In this case, it was an American company, Forever Energy, that raised concerns about the license with UniEnergy more than a year ago. Joanne Skievaski said she and others from the company repeatedly warned department officials that the UniEnergy license was not in compliance. In emails NPR has reviewed, department officials told them it was.

"How is it that the national lab did not require U.S. manufacturing?" Skievaski asked. "Not only is it a violation of the license, it's a violation to our country."

Now that the Department of Energy has revoked the license, Skievaski said she hopes Forever Energy will be able to acquire it or obtain a similar license. The company plans to open a factory in Louisiana next year and begin manufacturing. She bristles at the idea that U.S. engineers aren't up to the challenge.

"That's hogwash," she said. "We are ready to go with this technology."

Still, she says it will be difficult for any American company at this point to catch up. Industry trade reports currently list Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd. as the top manufacturer of vanadium redox flow batteries worldwide. Skievaski also worries about whether China will stop making the batteries once an American company is granted the right to start making them.

That may be unlikely. Chinese news reports say the country is about to bring online one of the largest battery farms the world has ever seen. The reports say the entire farm is made up of vanadium redux flow batteries.

This story is a partnership with NPR's Station Investigations Team, which supports local investigative journalism, and the Northwest News Network, a collaboration of public radio stations that broadcast in Oregon and Washington state.

NPR · by Courtney Flatt · August 3, 2022

8. Al Qaeda’s Next Move

Conclusion:

What comes next for al Qaeda, then, is unclear. The group is unlikely to fold, as the brand still offers a great deal of jihadist legitimacy for its regional affiliates, providing an identity and flag around which to rally. But the group will no longer be able to ignore problems that have festered ever since the 9/11 attacks: the inconvenient relationship with Iran, the distrust and lack of alignment with part of the Taliban, and the absence of a shared strategy among the central leadership and the affiliates. Running a global organization of ideologically committed militants has never been easy—and for al Qaeda, it just got much harder.

Al Qaeda’s Next Move

What Zawahiri’s Death Means for Global Jihadism

By Cole Bunzel

August 3, 2022

Foreign Affairs · by Cole Bunzel · August 3, 2022

Ayman al-Zawahiri was the ultimate survivor—until he wasn’t. For 20 years, a parade of other jihadist leaders—including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and Anwar al-Awlaki—came to violent ends at the hands of U.S. forces. But Zawahiri stayed alive, seemingly invulnerable to American intelligence and drones.

Then, this past Sunday, the man who succeeded bin Laden as the emir of al Qaeda in 2011 finally met his fate, struck by two Hellfire missiles while standing on the balcony of a safe house in the Afghan capital, Kabul. According to U.S. President Joe Biden, who announced the successful strike in a televised address on Monday night, there were no civilian casualties.

For the United States, the killing of Zawahiri puts an end to a chapter in the U.S.-led war on terror aimed at bringing to justice those responsible for the 9/11 attacks, even if Zawahiri’s role in planning those attacks has sometimes been exaggerated. And the fact that Zawahiri was in Kabul—and that U.S. intelligence was able to target him there—revives long-simmering debates about the decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan and how to approach the Taliban regime. For al Qaeda, Zawahiri’s death poses an immediate, short-term challenge regarding succession, and a more difficult, longer-term challenge of resolving a host of internal tensions and contradictions that the organization has glossed over for years.

DR. JIHAD

Born in 1951 outside Cairo, Zawahiri hailed from a wealthy and prestigious Egyptian family. His father, Muhammad, was a surgeon, and young Zawahiri would follow him in the profession, graduating from Cairo University with a medical degree in 1974. His true calling, however, was the cause of jihad, as embodied by armed struggle against the Egyptian state, whose rulers he believed had committed apostasy by virtue of not implementing sharia and enjoying friendly relations with infidel states, including Israel. This ideology drove the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat in 1981, an event in which Zawahiri was implicated but played no real role. After spending some four years in prison, during which he was subjected to torture and compelled to testify against fellow jihadis, Zawahiri emerged in the late 1980s as the leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), also known as the Jihad Group, an Egyptian organization in exile that sought to topple the Egyptian government. In the 1990s, Zawahiri took refuge in Afghanistan and drew close to bin Laden, eventually merging his organization with that of the wealthy Saudi. A formal merger took place in June 2001, shortly before the 9/11 attacks, yielding the name Qaedat al-Jihad, which is still the official name of al Qaeda.

In Afghanistan, Zawahiri would discard his strategy of regional jihad in favor of the global fight pursued by bin Laden, who stipulated that attacking the United States and the West was the prerequisite for revolution in the Muslim world. Only by striking the United States and driving its military and diplomatic power from the region, the thinking went, would it be possible to achieve the desired change at home. The concept was the basis for the 9/11 attacks and has continued to be the rallying cry of al Qaeda, even though the group has failed to execute the strategy successfully for the last 20 years, including under the leadership of Zawahiri.

Zawahiri will be remembered for many things, including numerous ideological texts and several hefty tomes on history and religion. These include a 500-page memoir titled Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner and a more recent 850-page book on Islamic political theory and the history of Western missionary efforts in the Middle East. He also leaves behind a sizable collection of speeches and lectures captured on video or audio totaling hundreds of hours, if not more. He was not, however, particularly eloquent. Indeed, Zawahiri was strikingly lacking in charisma, and his media output—ceaseless, ponderous, repetitive—probably did more to hurt his reputation than to enhance it.

So productive was Zawahiri that one wonders how he had time to manage the affairs of a global terrorist organization—a fact that speaks to the most controversial aspect of his legacy: the rise of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), which came to eclipse al Qaeda as the world’s most influential jihadist organization. When Zawahiri assumed the leadership of al Qaeda after bin Laden’s death in 2011, it was the uncontested leader of the global jihadi movement. By late 2014, that was no longer the case, and even today, ISIS retains a far stronger jihadist brand—an outcome that Zawahiri helped bring about.

The most controversial aspect of Zawahiri’s legacy is the rise of the ISIS.

In mid-2013, Zawahiri set out to settle a dispute between two rival subordinates in Iraq and Syria. Baghdadi had announced the expansion of the al Qaeda offshoot that he led, the Islamic State of Iraq, to Syria, establishing what he called the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. The leader of a Syrian branch of al Qaeda called Jabhat al-Nusra, however, balked at the perceived intrusion, publicly appealing to Zawahiri to intervene. In a letter that was obtained and released by Al Jazeera in 2013, Zawahiri ordered Baghdadi to retract his claim and restrict his activities to Iraq. But Baghdadi resisted, claiming that the order was contrary to sharia. Not long afterward, ISIS would declare that Zawahiri and al Qaeda had deviated from the true jihadist path by going soft on apostate Muslim rulers and on Shiites, whom Sunni jihadists saw as deviant schismatics. A year later, ISIS declared itself a renewed caliphate, seizing major cities and vast swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria and capturing the world’s attention—and the imaginations of jihadist sympathizers throughout the Muslim world, thousands of whom traveled to the region to join the group.

Two years later, the Syrian branch of al Qaeda that Zawahiri had intervened to save also left the fold as it sought a greater role in the Syrian rebellion against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. Seeking to cater to a broader audience and reassure new allies, its leaders renounced the oath of allegiance they had pledged to Zawahiri, who complained loudly and publicly about this act of betrayal. Just like that, al Qaeda had lost its presence in the heart of the Arab world. Zawahiri’s authority had been challenged twice, and twice he had lost. Meanwhile, compounding the group’s decline were the deaths—by drone strikes—of a number of senior figures who had sought refuge in Syria.

Of course, not all was going well for ISIS at this time, either. By 2019, the caliphate had lost control of its last redoubts in Iraq and Syria, and in October of that year, U.S. forces killed Baghdadi. In February of this year, they eliminated his successor, as well.

SAFE HAVEN?

Zawahiri’s tenure was not a complete shambles. Under his leadership, al Qaeda’s franchises in North Africa, Somalia, and Yemen resisted the ISIS pull and remained loyal, and new branches formed in South Asia and Mali, the latter of which has been particularly active. But even as Zawahiri could claim a measure of success in holding the network together, there was no denying that he had overseen a period during which al Qaeda had been surpassed by a rival and seen its core leadership decimated. Nor had Zawahiri achieved his main goal: attacking the United States. As the scholar Nelly Lahoud has shown, al Qaeda’s central leadership has not directed a successful attack on the United States since 9/11, and its last successful act of international terrorism took place in 2002 in Mombasa, Kenya—an operation that was planned before 9/11.

The return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, however, seemed like it might reverse al Qaeda’s fortunes. Al Qaeda praised the restoration of Taliban rule as a dramatic victory for the cause of global jihad, and many worry that the Taliban will provide the space for the group to consolidate and rebuild. Those worries are surely justified, though the group’s ties to the Taliban are complex. As the Pentagon recently reported: “While al-Qaeda’s leaders have longstanding relationships with senior Taliban leaders, the group maintains limited capabilities to travel and train within Afghanistan and is likely restricted due to the Taliban’s efforts to achieve international legitimacy.” Those restrictions may well expire “over the next 12 to 24 months,” according to the Pentagon, but they reflect the fact that although the groups’ interests have often overlapped, they are not identical. Al Qaeda seeks to destroy the international system; the Taliban seeks to join it (even if only to subvert it). One of Zawahiri’s final videos was a thinly veiled critique of the Taliban for seeking to represent Afghanistan at the United Nations, an organization that he saw as representing a global system of unbelief that needed to be destroyed, not joined.

A current of distrust has long run through al Qaeda’s relationship with the Taliban. Documents recovered from the compound in Pakistan where U.S. forces killed bin Laden in 2011 show that he was concerned with the direction of the Taliban leadership, which he saw as divided between a camp of pious believers and a hypocritical faction doing the bidding of Pakistani intelligence—and perhaps willing to sell al Qaeda out. This echoed the concerns of other Arab jihadists: in the late 1990s, for instance, the Syrian jihadist strategist Abu Musab al-Suri complained that a faction of the Taliban leadership wanted nothing to do with global jihad and sought only to create in Afghanistan a conservative state akin to that of Saudi Arabia. The ISIS leadership has taken a more aggressive stance, arguing that the anti-jihadist part of the Taliban is now firmly in control. Since Zawahiri’s death was announced, ISIS supporters online have heaped mockery on him for believing that the Taliban would protect him, suggesting that the group had instead served him up on a silver platter for the Americans.

Such claims are overblown. The Taliban is not a pro-American movement, and its leadership did not want Zawahiri killed. The house where Zawahiri was targeted was reportedly owned by a top aide to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban government’s interior minister; Zawahiri was likely there at his invitation. But someone else in the Taliban, perhaps, was more interested in the $25 million bounty offered by Washington than in protecting the aging jihadist leader. The fact that Zawahiri was in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan raises questions about the Taliban’s pledges to prevent its territory from being used to launch terrorist attacks. But the fact that U.S. forces were able to kill him there casts doubt on the idea that Afghanistan can serve as a platform for an al Qaeda revival—even if the Taliban were to allow one. Evidently, the United States still has eyes and ears on the ground in Afghanistan and plenty of willing collaborators—perhaps even within the Taliban.

WHO’S NEXT?

The greatest challenge facing al Qaeda in the near term will be succession. The next in line, most analysts believe, is the younger Egyptian militant Saif al-Adel, who has been living in Iran since shortly after the 9/11 attacks. After him comes Abd al-Rahman al-Maghrebi, Zawahiri’s Moroccan son-in-law and the head of al Qaeda’s media operations, who is also based in Iran. The fact that both reside in Iran is not immaterial. Although they may not be there willingly, their presence there complicates their potential ascension. Iran is ostensibly an enemy of al Qaeda, whose followers revile Iranian Shiites and the country’s security forces as apostate “rejectionists” who have run roughshod over the Middle East, massacring Sunnis in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. It would be a hard sell for al Qaeda to present its next leader as running the show from quasi house arrest in Iran, which would encourage suspicions that the group was under Tehran’s thumb.

Perhaps, then, the next leader will instead hail from one of the al Qaeda affiliate groups. The line of succession, according to a recent UN report, names Yazid Mebrak in North Africa and Ahmed Diriye in Somalia as next in line, after the two Iran-based leaders. But in Iran, Adel and Maghrebi, long operating in the shadows, may not wish to relinquish authority to the regional affiliates. Nor is it clear that the affiliate leaders would be interested in taking up the mantle, as they have not demonstrated a commitment to Zawahiri’s “far enemy” strategy.

What comes next for al Qaeda, then, is unclear. The group is unlikely to fold, as the brand still offers a great deal of jihadist legitimacy for its regional affiliates, providing an identity and flag around which to rally. But the group will no longer be able to ignore problems that have festered ever since the 9/11 attacks: the inconvenient relationship with Iran, the distrust and lack of alignment with part of the Taliban, and the absence of a shared strategy among the central leadership and the affiliates. Running a global organization of ideologically committed militants has never been easy—and for al Qaeda, it just got much harder.

COLE BUNZEL is a Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and Editor of the blog Jihadica.

Foreign Affairs · by Cole Bunzel · August 3, 2022

9. Nobody Wants the Current World Order

View from India.

A depressing conclusion:

As the old order disintegrates and the new one struggles to be born, the advantage lies with states that clearly understand the balance of forces and have a conception of a cooperative future order that serves the common good. Unfortunately, the capacities of many major powers have diminished, and many of their leaders exhibit little interest in foreign affairs, managing crises, or solving transnational problems, precisely when widespread revisionism makes crises more likely and dangerous. As a consequence of their contentious domestic politics, none of the significant revisionist powers, each of which wishes to change the international system, has a compelling vision of what that change might be. Nor is the rapidly shifting balance of power likely to provide the basis for a stable order for some time. Instead, the powers will probably muddle along from crisis to crisis as their dissatisfaction with the international system and with one another grows, in a form of motion without movement.

Nobody Wants the Current World Order

How All the Major Powers—Even the United States—Became Revisionists

By Shivshankar Menon

August 3, 2022

Foreign Affairs · by Shivshankar Menon · August 3, 2022

The world is between orders; it is adrift. The last coherent response by the international system to a transnational challenge came at the London summit of the G-20 in April 2009, when in the wake of the 2008 financial crash, leaders took steps to avert another Great Depression and stabilize the global banking system. The subsequent international response to climate change, the metastasizing debt crisis in developing countries, and the COVID-19 pandemic can only be described as pathetic.

That failure stems from the fact that fewer and fewer countries, including the ones that built the previous international order, seem committed to maintaining it. The United States led two orders after World War II: a Keynesian one that was not inordinately interested in how states ran their internal affairs in a bipolar Cold War world (a socialist India, therefore, could be the largest recipient of World Bank aid in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s), and, after the Cold War, a neoliberal one in a unipolar world that ignored national sovereignty and boundaries where it needed to. Both orders professed to be “open, rules-based, and liberal,” upholding the values of democracy, so-called free markets, human rights, and the rule of law. In reality, they rested on the dominance and imperatives of U.S. military, political, and economic power. For much of the era that followed the demise of the Soviet Union, most powers, including a rising China, generally went along with the U.S.-led order.

Recent years, however, suggest that this arrangement is a thing of the past. Major powers exhibit what may be called “revisionist” behavior, pursuing their own ends to the detriment of the international order and seeking to change the order itself. Often, revisionism takes the shape of territorial disputes, particularly in the Indo-Pacific: China’s friction with its neighbors India, Japan, Vietnam, and others in maritime Asia comes to mind. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was a violation of international norms and a further rebuke to the notion that Russia could find a comfortable role within a U.S.-led order in Europe. Revisionism also manifests in the actions of a plethora of other powers, including the growing skepticism about free trade in the United States, the military build-up in once-pacifist Japan, and the rearmament of Germany. Many countries are unhappy with the world as they see it and seek to change it to their own advantage. This tendency could lead to a meaner, more contentious geopolitics and poorer global economic prospects. Coping with a world of revisionist powers could be the defining challenge of the years ahead.

REVISIONISTS HERE, THERE, EVERYWHERE

Few of the world’s major powers are content with the international order as it exists. As the sole global superpower, the United States is committed to extending President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda under the rubric of “Build Back Better World.” The program’s name itself indicates that the order the United States has presided over so successfully for more than half a century needs improvement. The foreign policy establishment within the United States seems riven by fault lines separating those who preach a modern form of isolationism and restraint and those who have embarked on an ideological quest to divide the world between democracies and autocracies. The United States has turned away from international institutions it built, such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. It has stepped back from its commitments to free trade by withdrawing from agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The view from Washington has grown darker, with great power threats looming on the horizon: not only China but also Russia, which has in many ways been expelled from the international order that sought to remake it in the image of the West.

China was the greatest beneficiary of the globalized order led by the United States. It now wants, in President Xi Jinping’s words, to “take center stage.” Beijing explicitly seeks a rearrangement of the balance of power in Asia and a greater voice for China in international affairs. But Chinese leaders have yet to present an alternative ideology that attracts others or confers legitimacy to their quest for dominance. Even in its immediate neighborhood, China’s influence is contested. Major flashpoints and security dilemmas, including the future of Taiwan and territorial disputes with India and Japan, surround China. These disputes are a consequence of the real ways that China has disrupted the balance of regional and global power. Taken together, China’s assertive actions since 2008 make clear that Beijing seeks to change the global order.

A world of revisionist powers will be meaner, more contentious, and poorer.

For its part, Russia never really fit in the global order that Western powers tried to squeeze it into in the years immediately following the end of the Cold War. Instead, Moscow resents its decline and reduced influence after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The invasion of Ukraine is only the latest expression of this sense of grievance, which leads Russia to work with China to undermine U.S. global leadership and to try to shake up Europe, where Russian power still matters both economically and militarily.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to announce that the world had reached a Zeitenwende, or turning point. For decades an economic powerhouse with limited political ambitions, Germany is now taking a more assertive regional and international role by seeking to build up its military, arm Ukraine, and reassess its significant relationships with China and Russia. The fear of abandonment that the Donald Trump presidency induced in U.S. allies, such as Germany and Japan, has encouraged many of them to beef up their security capabilities.

Japan has reassessed its role in the region and the global order thanks to China’s rise. Japan is in transition from an economy-focused, pacifist, noninterventionist power burdened by the legacy of World War II to a much more normal country, looking after its own security interests and taking a leading role in the Indo-Pacific. Shinzo Abe, the recently assassinated former prime minister, both embodied and made possible this shift, which now enjoys broadening public support. Japan’s vocal commitment to the principle of a free and open Indo-Pacific, the Quad (the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a partnership with Australia, India, and the United States), and other initiatives arises from its fear of both China’s rise and the United States’ possible retrenchment. India, which embraced and benefited from the U.S.-led liberal international order after the Cold War, remains a dissatisfied member. Its quest for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council is the most visible example of India’s desire to have a bigger say in the international system, commensurate with its economic and geopolitical weight.

LOSING FAITH

If major powers harbor doubts about the rules-based order, weaker countries have steadily lost faith in the legitimacy and fairness of the international system. This is certainly true of countries in the global South. They have seen the UN, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, G-20, and others fail to act on issues of development and, more urgently, the debt crisis plaguing developing countries—a crisis made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic and food and energy inflation caused by the Ukraine war. According to the IMF, over 53 countries are now at risk of serious debt crises.

That recent history of economic failure is compounded by the record, just in this century, of serial invasions, interventions, attempts at regime change, and covert interference engineered by major powers. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is only the most recent and egregious example of such violations of national sovereignty, but many Western powers have also been guilty of these actions. This behavior has led many developing countries to feel even more insecure and to doubt the international order.

Confidence in the pillars of that system is eroding. It has been several years since economic sanctions or military actions against particular countries were taken to the UN Security Council or other multilateral forums for approval. Instead, sanctions regimes and military interventions rely on the force of U.S. or Western power for their efficacy. The fractious nature of major power relations has made international institutions progressively less effective. With international law not constraining the actions of the powerful, the legitimacy of these institutions has steadily declined. Long-established norms are beginning to fray; see, for instance, the increased likelihood of nuclear proliferation in Northeast Asia, where Japanese leaders are more willing to discuss acquiring nuclear submarines and the return of U.S. nuclear weapons to the region.

A DANGEROUS WORLD

A kind of anarchy is creeping into international relations—not anarchy in the strict sense of the term, but rather the absence of a central organizing principle or hegemon. No single power can dictate the terms of the current order, and the major powers do not subscribe to a clear set of principles and norms; it’s hard to establish the rules of the road when so many countries are on their own paths. In both word and deed, China and Russia today question major aspects of the Western liberal order, particularly its norms relating to universal human rights and the obligations of states. They invoke the principle of state sovereignty as a shield to operate as they wish while seeking to set new rules in domains such as cyberspace and new technologies. But they do not yet offer an alternative, or one that is sufficiently attractive to others. Indeed, their treatment of their neighbors—in Ukraine, the South China Sea, and the East China Sea and on the India-China border—suggests an overwhelming reliance on hard military and economic power to the detriment of norms and institutions.

Equally, it is misguided to see today another Cold War defined by the sharp bipolarity of two blocs: a “free world” and a realm of “autocracies.” The transatlantic alliance has consolidated, and China and Russia appear united in an alliance of animus against the West, but this is far from another Cold War. Several democracies increasingly display the characteristics of autocratic states. The world’s reactions to the Ukraine war and Western sanctions on Russia show that there is no unified bloc outside the transatlantic alliance. The economic interdependence of China and the United States has no precedent in the Cold War, when the chief adversaries were poles apart. Besides, there is no equivalent to the ideological alternatives posed by the Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union; nothing like the appeal of communism and socialism to developing countries in the 1950s and 1960s is apparent today. The prime authoritarian, China, does not offer an ideological or systemic alternative but attracts other countries with financial, technological, and infrastructure promises and projects, not principles.

Instead, geopolitics grows more fractured and less cohesive. A world of revisionists is one in which each country goes its own way. The globalized world economy is fragmenting into regional trading blocs, with partial decoupling attempted in the areas of high technology and finance, and ever fiercer contention between the powers for economic and political primacy. In the process, a much more dangerous world is emerging.

Coping Mechanisms

States must learn to cope with this world of revisionist powers, a world between orders, and prepare for an uncertain future. One solution is to turn inward. China, India, the United States, and others have all done so in recent years, stressing self-reliance in one form or another: China’s “dual circulation” model, Biden’s pledge to “build back better,” and India’s commitment under Prime Minister Narendra Modi to pursue atmanirbharta, or self-reliance. At the same time as they want to become more economically independent, states also want to be more militarily secure. All of the major powers have sought to expand their defense and nuclear capabilities. Global defense spending crossed $2 trillion for the first time in 2021 despite the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another response to a world of revisionism is for states to forge ad hoc coalitions. The last decade has brought a rash of plurilateral and multilateral arrangements—including the Quad, BRICS (a partnership featuring Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the I2U2 grouping featuring India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. Each problem seems to birth a new acronym. These arrangements are expedient and serve particular ends, and although they might help tighten certain bilateral relationships, they do not come close to resembling the more rigid alliances or blocs of the Cold War era.

A U.S. soldier near Kandahar, Afghanistan, April 2010

Tim Wimborne / Reuters

Inevitably, many middling and smaller powers will straddle divides and seek to balance their ties to greater powers. The response of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to growing contention between the United States and China, and the consolidation of Israel’s ties with the Sunni monarchies in the Gulf states through the Abraham Accords are examples of this trend. Most recently, many African, Asian, and Latin American countries with strong ties to the West resisted joining sanctions against Russia after it invaded Ukraine. Such balancing and hedging behavior will encourage the pursuit of local solutions to local problems, whether in the form of regional economic and trading arrangements or in locally negotiated solutions to political disputes.

Yet action at the local level is insufficient for grappling with big global problems. Take, for instance, the debt crisis. Sri Lanka’s debt default and economic crisis have led the island nation to lean on neighbors within the subcontinent, with India providing food and fuel supplies and credit to the tune of $3.8 billion. Major foreign lenders, including in China and in the West, have yet to reschedule Sri Lanka’s debt. For years, wealthy countries have refused to act upon calls to reschedule or cancel the debts of developing countries teetering on the precipice of default. Nobody looks likely to offer indebted developing countries a soft landing. More iterations of Sri Lanka’s collapse may follow. In effect, a world of revisionists is a world between orders where the great issues of the age—uneven development, climate change, and pandemics—are not addressed.

IN LIMBO

As the old order disintegrates and the new one struggles to be born, the advantage lies with states that clearly understand the balance of forces and have a conception of a cooperative future order that serves the common good. Unfortunately, the capacities of many major powers have diminished, and many of their leaders exhibit little interest in foreign affairs, managing crises, or solving transnational problems, precisely when widespread revisionism makes crises more likely and dangerous. As a consequence of their contentious domestic politics, none of the significant revisionist powers, each of which wishes to change the international system, has a compelling vision of what that change might be. Nor is the rapidly shifting balance of power likely to provide the basis for a stable order for some time. Instead, the powers will probably muddle along from crisis to crisis as their dissatisfaction with the international system and with one another grows, in a form of motion without movement.

SHIVSHANKAR MENON is a former diplomat who served as National Security Adviser to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from 2010 to 2014. He is currently Visiting Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University.

Foreign Affairs · by Shivshankar Menon · August 3, 2022

10. US, Indonesian soldiers hold drills on Sumatra amid China concerns

Our friend and classmate General Perkasa (the continuing value of IMET).

Excerpt:

Flynn and Indonesia’s Military Chief Gen. Andika Perkasa opened the joint drills with a ceremony on Wednesday morning in Baturaja, a coastal town in South Sumatra province. The exercises will last until Aug. 14, encompassing army, navy, air force and marine drills.

Also note:

Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force is participating for the first time in the exercises, saying it promotes a “free and open” Indo-Pacific vision of security and trade with the U.S. and other democracies in the region.

US, Indonesian soldiers hold drills on Sumatra amid China concerns

militarytimes.com · by Niniek Karmini, The Associated Press · August 3, 2022

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The United States and Indonesian militaries began annual joint combat exercises Wednesday on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, joined for the first time by participants from other partner nations, signaling stronger ties amid growing maritime activity by China in the Indo-Pacific region.

More than 5,000 soldiers from the U.S., Indonesia, Australia, Japan and Singapore were participating in this year’s exercises, making them the largest since the drills were established in 2009. The exercises are designed to strengthen interoperability, capability, trust and cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific, the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta said in a statement.

“It’s a symbol of the U.S.-Indonesia bond and the growing relationship between land forces in this consequential region,” Gen. Charles Flynn, commander of U.S. Army Pacific, said in the statement. “Because land forces are the glue that binds the region’s security architecture together.”

Flynn and Indonesia’s Military Chief Gen. Andika Perkasa opened the joint drills with a ceremony on Wednesday morning in Baturaja, a coastal town in South Sumatra province. The exercises will last until Aug. 14, encompassing army, navy, air force and marine drills.

U.S. soldiers parachute out of an airplane during the annual joint combat exercises in Baturaja, South Sumatra province, Indonesia, Wednesday, Aug 3, 2022. (AP)

The planned two-week drills opened after China’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday night it would conduct a series of targeted military operations to “safeguard national sovereignty” in response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to self-governed Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory to be annexed by force if necessary.

China has also been increasingly assertive over its claim to virtually the entire South China Sea.

U.S. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the number of intercepts by Chinese aircraft and ships in the Pacific region with U.S. and other partner forces has increased significantly over the past five years, and the number of unsafe interactions has risen by similar proportions.

“The message is the Chinese military, in the air and at sea, have become significantly more and noticeably more aggressive in this particular region,” Milley said last month during a trip to the Indo-Pacific that included a stop in Indonesia.

U.S. soldiers walk during annual joint combat exercises in Baturaja, South Sumatra province, Indonesia, Wednesday, Aug 3, 2022. (AP)

Milley said Indonesia is strategically critical to the region and has long been a key U.S. partner. Earlier this year, the U.S approved a $13.9 billion sale of advanced fighter jets to Indonesia. And in Jakarta last December, Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed agreements for enhanced joint naval exercises between the U.S. and Indonesia.

While Indonesia and China enjoy generally positive ties, Jakarta has expressed concern about Chinese encroachment on its exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea, which China claims virtually in its entirety.

The U.S.-Indonesia military exercises coincided with Pelosi’s arrival in Taiwan late Tuesday, as the highest-ranking American official in 25 years to visit the self-ruled island. Beijing views visits by foreign government officials as recognition of the island’s sovereignty.

Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force is participating for the first time in the exercises, saying it promotes a “free and open” Indo-Pacific vision of security and trade with the U.S. and other democracies in the region.

The expanded drills are seen by China as a threat. Chinese state media have accused the U.S. of building an Indo-Pacific alliance, similar to NATO, as a means to intentionally provoke conflict.

11. China fires missiles into waters off Taiwan in largest ever drills

Careful now. No miscalculations please.

China fires missiles into waters off Taiwan in largest ever drills

Reuters · by Yimou Lee

Summary
Chinese military exercises include firing 11 missiles
Taiwan says several government websites hacked
China says it's an internal affair
Chinese drills scheduled to run through Sunday

TAIPEI, Aug 4 (Reuters) - China fired multiple missiles around Taiwan on Thursday, launching unprecedented military drills a day after a visit by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the self-ruled island that Beijing regards as its sovereign territory.

The exercises, China's largest ever in the Taiwan Strait, began as scheduled at midday and included live-firing in the waters to the north, south and east of Taiwan, bringing tensions in the area to their highest in a quarter century.

China's Eastern Theatre Command said at around 3:30 p.m. (0730 GMT) it had completed multiple firings of conventional missiles in waters off the eastern coast of Taiwan as part of planned exercises in six different zones that Beijing has said will run until noon on Sunday.

Taiwan's defence ministry said 11 Chinese Dongfeng ballistic missiles had been fired in waters around the island. The last time China fired missiles into waters around Taiwan was in 1996. read more

Map showing the six locations where China will conduct military drills.

Taiwan officials condemned the drills, saying they violate United Nations rules, invade its territorial space and are a direct challenge to free air and sea navigation.

Tensions had been building ahead of Pelosi's unannounced but closely watched visit to Taiwan, made in defiance of heated warnings from China.

Before Thursday's drills officially began, Chinese navy ships and military aircraft briefly crossed the Taiwan Strait median line several times in the morning, a Taiwanese source briefed on the matter told Reuters. read more

By midday, warships from both sides remained in the area and in close proximity, and Taiwan scrambled jets and deployed missile systems to track multiple Chinese aircraft crossing the line.

"They flew in and then flew out, again and again. They continue to harass us," the Taiwanese source said.

China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory and reserves the right to take it by force, said on Thursday its differences with the self-ruled island are an internal affair. read more

"Our punishment of pro-Taiwan independence diehards, external forces is reasonable, lawful," China's Beijing-based Taiwan Affairs Office said.

In Taiwan, life was largely as normal, despite worries that Beijing could take the unprecedented step of firing a missile over the main island, similar to a launch by North Korea over Japan's northern island of Hokkaido in 2017.

Taiwan residents are long accustomed to Beijing's threats.

"When China says it wants to annex Taiwan by force, they have actually said that for quite a while," said Chen Ming-cheng, a 38-year-old realtor. "From my personal understanding, they are trying to deflect public anger, the anger of their own people, and turn it onto Taiwan."

However, Taiwan said that the websites of its defence ministry, foreign ministry and the presidential office were attacked by hackers, and warned of the likelihood of stepped up "psychological warfare" in coming days.

'COMRADE PELOSI'

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called Pelosi's visit to Taiwan a "manic, irresponsible and highly irrational" act by the United States, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Wang, speaking at a meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, said China had made the utmost diplomatic effort to avert crisis, but would never allow its core interests to be hurt.

Unusually, the drills in six areas around Taiwan were announced with a locator map circulated by China's official Xinhua news agency earlier this week - a factor that for some analysts and scholars shows the need to play to both domestic and foreign audiences. read more

On Thursday, the top eight trending items on China's Twitter-like Weibo service were related to Taiwan, with most expressing support for the drills or fury at Pelosi.

"Let's reunite the motherland," several users wrote.

In Beijing, security in the area around the U.S. Embassy remained unusually tight as it has been throughout the week. There were no signs of significant protests or calls to boycott U.S. products.

"I think this (Pelosi's visit) is a good thing," said a man surnamed Zhao . "It gives us an opportunity to surround Taiwan, then to use this opportunity to take Taiwan by force. I think we should thank Comrade Pelosi."

U.S. SOLIDARITY

Pelosi, the highest-level U.S. visitor to Taiwan in 25 years, praised its democracy and pledged American solidarity during her brief stopover, adding that Chinese anger could not stop world leaders from travelling there.

China summoned the U.S. ambassador in Beijing in protest against her visit and halted several agricultural imports from Taiwan.

"Our delegation came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear that we will not abandon Taiwan," Pelosi told Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, who Beijing suspects of pushing for formal independence - a red line for China. read more

"Now, more than ever, America's solidarity with Taiwan is crucial, and that's the message we are bringing here today."

The United States and the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven nations warned China against using Pelosi's visit as a pretext for military action against Taiwan.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said earlier in the week that Pelosi was within her rights to visit Taiwan, while stressing that the trip did not constitute a violation of Chinese sovereignty or America's longstanding "one-China" policy.

The United States has no official diplomatic relations with Taiwan but is bound by American law to provide it with the means to defend itself.

China views visits by U.S. officials to Taiwan as sending an encouraging signal to the pro-independence camp on the island. Taiwan rejects China's sovereignty claims, saying only the Taiwanese people can decide the island's future.

Reporting by Yimou Lee and Sarah Wu; Additional reporting by Tony Munroe, Ryan Woo and Martin Quin Pollard in Beijing and Fabian Hamacher in Taipei; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Yimou Lee

12. Is the Sri Lankan Debt Crisis a Harbinger?

Excerpts:

To ensure that economic headwinds and rising interest rates do not ignite additional debt crises in the near future, more countries will have to follow the example of Pakistan and seek help from international financial institutions before it is too late (and then follow through on their commitments to make necessary reforms, even when doing so is painful). These countries will have to build domestic political support for necessary reforms and stay the course for several years. For their part, official creditors—whether Chinese, American, or European—will need to give developing countries enough of a financial cushion that they can gradually phase in reforms. They will also need to set their geopolitical squabbles aside and focus on the needs of at-risk countries.

Sri Lanka’s debt crisis was the result of bad economic policies, an unwillingness to make hard decisions, and to a lesser degree, tensions between China and the West. Most developing countries have at least some of these risk factors. If they can commit to making necessary reforms, invite international financial institutions to come to the rescue, and maintain an even-handed approach to negotiations with their creditors, they are likely to weather the storm. If not, the number of defaults in the developing world will mount.

Is the Sri Lankan Debt Crisis a Harbinger?

Why U.S.-Chinese Tensions Put Developing Countries at Risk

By Shantayanan Devarajan and Homi Kharas

August 4, 2022

Foreign Affairs · by Shantayanan Devarajan and Homi Kharas · August 4, 2022

Sri Lanka is in the midst of the worst economic crisis in its 74-year history. An acute foreign exchange shortage has caused supplies of food, fuel, and other essential goods to dwindle. Almost 90 percent of Sri Lankans do not have enough to eat, according to the World Food Program. People stand in gasoline lines for days at a time, and schools have been closed for weeks. Power cuts of eight to ten hours a day are not uncommon. Patients die in hospitals for lack of medicine. For those goods that are available, prices are skyrocketing; overall annual inflation exceeds 50 percent, with the price of food rising by more than 80 percent. Since April, when the government announced that it would default on $51 billion in external debt, the Sri Lankan rupee has lost 75 percent of its value.

Popular outrage over the economic situation boiled over last month, igniting protests that eventually toppled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government. Hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans demonstrated outside the presidential palace, chanting “Go Home Gota” and waving signs decrying corruption and nepotism (three of Rajapaksa’s brothers served in his cabinet). On July 9, protesters stormed the president’s office and residence, forcing him to flee to Singapore.

Sri Lankans have clearly laid the blame for their country’s economic woes at the Rajapaksa government’s feet. But Sri Lanka is not the only developing country at risk of tipping into a debt crisis. The question now is whether Sri Lanka’s implosion will prove an isolated event, the result of uniquely poor economic management, or a harbinger of a regional or even global debt crisis. Previous defaults have come in waves, sweeping through Latin America in the 1980s and East Asia in the 1990s. A similar string of defaults could hit highly indebted developing countries across the world as they cope with the lingering effects of COVID-19, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and rising interest rates in the developed world.

The good news is that international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have become more proactive about preventing, rather than reacting to, debt crises. The bad news is that friction between China and Western countries has made it harder for developing nations to renegotiate their debt, since Beijing does not want to bail out private U.S. or European financial institutions and Western governments do not want to bail out Chinese financial institutions. To stave off a string of devastating defaults in the developing world, two things will have to happen at once: at-risk countries will need to seek help from international financial institutions before it is too late, and Chinese and Western creditors will need to do a better job of coordinating their debt restructuring processes.

ROAD TO RUIN

Until recently, Sri Lanka was a moderately successful middle-income country with an enviable record on health and education. But soon after his election in 2019, Rajapaksa adopted a raft of misguided, arguably reckless, economic policies aimed at stimulating the economy. Chief among them was slashing taxes. His government lowered the value-added tax by seven percentage points and more than doubled the thresholds at which personal and corporate income taxes kicked in. As a result, Sri Lanka’s tax-to-GDP ratio fell to 8.3 percent, among the lowest in the world. The fiscal deficit ballooned. In 2020, international credit-rating agencies downgraded Sri Lanka’s sovereign debt to near-default levels, making it impossible for the country to borrow from world capital markets.

Rajapaksa adopted a raft of misguided, arguably reckless, economic policies.

Most countries faced with such a situation would seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund and begin negotiating with creditors to restructure their debt. But Sri Lanka’s government, wary of the conditions that typically accompany IMF programs and reluctant to tarnish the country’s reputation for repaying its debts, refused to do either of these things. Instead, it financed the fiscal deficit by printing money and negotiated a new $1 billion loan from the China Development Bank in 2020. It paid back sovereign bondholders with its foreign exchange reserves. By early this year, the country’s reserves were depleted, the money supply had increased by 40 percent in two years, and inflation was rampant. Sri Lanka’s default this spring was the first in its history.

The country’s missteps could not have come at a worse time. Tourism revenue plummeted during the COVID-19 pandemic, as did remittances from Sri Lankans working abroad, especially in the Middle East. But even the decline in remittances was at least partly the government’s fault: Sri Lanka maintained a fixed exchange rate until April 2022, which likely induced workers to send money home through unofficial channels, which offered more favorable exchange rates. After all, remittances rose in all South Asian countries in 2021—except in Sri Lanka.

CONTAGIOUS CRISIS?

Financial crises and debt defaults often hit developing countries in waves. After Mexico announced in 1982 that it could no longer service its foreign debt, many other countries followed suit. Twenty-seven developing countries, 16 of them in Latin America, ultimately restructured their debts in the wake of Mexico’s default. After Thailand devalued its currency in 1997, foreign investors raced to pull their money out of many East Asian countries, causing financial crises in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea. The ripple effects of the 1997 Asian financial crisis were felt as far away as Russia and Brazil.

So it is little surprise that investors and analysts are asking whether Sri Lanka’s default will be a one-off event or the first of many crises to hit developing countries this year. Already, in 2020, Argentina, Belize, Ecuador, Lebanon, Suriname, and Zambia all defaulted on their sovereign debt. But fears of a broader debt crisis in the early days of COVD-19 went unrealized and eventually receded. Currently, Chad, Ethiopia, and Zambia are negotiating with creditors under a G-20-supported program designed to facilitate debt restructuring, but so far no other countries have sought similar treatment. There is a good case to be made, therefore, that each of these country-level crises is sui generis. Indeed, the G-20 framework takes a case-by-case approach in the debt restructuring talks between debtor countries and their creditors.

The specifics of the Sri Lankan case also suggest that its crisis could be an isolated event. After 70 years of responsibly managing its debt, Sri Lanka elected a populist president who ran the country into the ground in less than three years. Few developing countries have endured such extraordinary mismanagement. Only Belize—also devastated by the collapse of tourism during the pandemic—and Sudan have built up similarly dangerous levels of debt relative to GDP.

Systemic risk factors could touch off a string of defaults.

But even if Sri Lanka really is a special case, there are systemic risk factors that could still touch off a string of defaults in developing countries. For one thing, developing country debt is often packaged and traded together, bought and sold in large portfolios that are constantly rebalanced against other assets. Reducing one’s holdings of Sri Lankan debt can most easily be done by reducing one’s exposure to all developing country sovereign bonds. This is why so-called sudden stops—large capital outflows from developing countries—are recurring events. Between March and June, roughly $22 billion in private capital fled the developing world.

For another thing, common global factors, not country-specific policies and politics, are often largely to blame for debt crises. In the lead-up to the Latin American crisis of 1982, many countries believed they could safely pile on large amounts of debt in a world of near-zero real interest rates and strong global growth. U.S. commercial banks, for their part, saw business opportunities in expanding their loan books to developing countries even though regulators were warning about the risks. As a result, from 1978 to 1982, total Latin American debt rose more than tenfold, from $29 billion to $327 billion.

But when the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates to reduce inflation, the era of affordable debt in developing countries came to an abrupt end. Banks stopped lending out new money and started charging higher rates. Those countries that had leveraged up to indulge in overconsumption, exchange rate overvaluation, and greater public-sector involvement in the economy had to adjust rapidly and sharply. In some cases, public unrest put a stop to austerity policies and left governments no choice but to restructure their debt. In other cases, governments simply opted to default rather than make the painful cuts to social programs that would have been necessary to service their foreign debt on schedule.

THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT

The parallels between 1982 and 2022 are hard to ignore. A narrative of affordable debt has once again encouraged many developing countries to borrow heavily to prop up consumption and public employment, especially during the pandemic. And once again, global growth is decelerating rapidly and central banks in developed countries are raising interest rates to control inflation. Private capital has become less accessible and more expensive as creditors seek to reduce their exposure to developing countries.

But there are also important differences between 1982 and the present. Developing countries have become more resilient in the last three decades, and international financial institutions have gotten better at preventing crises rather than simply responding to them. In 2020, when fears of a systemic debt crisis arose, advanced economies acted swiftly to shore up the finances of highly indebted developing countries. They authorized a new allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), an international reserve asset maintained by the IMF that can be converted into U.S. dollars or another currency to service debt. By August 2021, the equivalent of $650 billion had been added to global reserves, of which $274 billion went to emerging and developing countries and $21 billion to low-income countries.

At the same time, the G-20 group of major economies launched an initiative to suspend debt service to help developing countries weather the COVID-19 crisis. Between May 2020 and the end of 2021, official bilateral creditors rescheduled $12.9 billion in principal repayments from low-income countries. Unfortunately, only one private creditor chose to participate in the initiative, and only low-income countries were eligible to participate. Middle-income countries such as Sri Lanka were excluded from the scheme.

Highly indebted countries have gotten more proactive about seeking help.

Today, many countries have used up their new SDRs, but a process of reallocating unused SDRs is underway. Rich countries with excess foreign exchange reserves have lent their SDRs to a special trust dedicated to growth and poverty reduction that the IMF administers on behalf of low-income countries. And the IMF has established a parallel “resilience and sustainability” trust for middle-income countries.

Meanwhile, highly indebted countries have gotten more proactive about seeking help. Pakistan, for example, just renegotiated its program with the IMF, committing to undertake significant economic reforms to tame inflation, restructure state enterprises and the power sector, and strengthen governance. This will unlock $1.2 billion in IMF loans, and even more if the program remains on track. An IMF agreement of this type typically also opens the door for additional support from other international financial institutions.

The case of Pakistan suggests that countries may be learning to act before it is too late, although it is too early to tell if Pakistan or similar countries will be able to implement IMF programs and fully avail themselves of rescue packages. Democratically elected governments cannot always be trusted to manage debt properly. They tend to have short time horizons, and because of the near-continuous nature of campaigns, they almost never find it politically convenient to make necessary but unpopular economic decisions. So problems are left to fester, masked by ever growing levels of debt, until the situation becomes untenable. But the looming threat of a debt crisis and the absence of viable new financing alternatives have encouraged some countries to take preventive belt-tightening measures. Just this month, for instance, major credit-rating agencies upgraded the outlook for Angola, Brazil, Lesotho, Mexico, and Paraguay in part because of their improved fiscal position.

THE CHINA FACTOR

These shifts in the international financial landscape make it less likely that Sri Lankan–style crises will spread across the developing world this year. But there is one additional complicating factor: growing friction between China and the West. Western-backed financial institutions do not want their financial support to developing countries—whether in the form of cheap loans or debt relief—to go toward servicing Chinese debts. Nor does China want to bail out Western bondholders and commercial banks; its debt restructuring talks with Sri Lanka have made no progress since the government there approached the IMF for a program. This has not proved fatal in the Sri Lankan case, since Chinese debt accounts for only about ten percent of the country’s foreign debt and an even smaller share of the debt that must be serviced this year. But elsewhere in the developing world, suspicions between Chinese and Western lenders could complicate debt restructuring talks, especially because China is not always transparent about its lending.

To ensure that economic headwinds and rising interest rates do not ignite additional debt crises in the near future, more countries will have to follow the example of Pakistan and seek help from international financial institutions before it is too late (and then follow through on their commitments to make necessary reforms, even when doing so is painful). These countries will have to build domestic political support for necessary reforms and stay the course for several years. For their part, official creditors—whether Chinese, American, or European—will need to give developing countries enough of a financial cushion that they can gradually phase in reforms. They will also need to set their geopolitical squabbles aside and focus on the needs of at-risk countries.

Sri Lanka’s debt crisis was the result of bad economic policies, an unwillingness to make hard decisions, and to a lesser degree, tensions between China and the West. Most developing countries have at least some of these risk factors. If they can commit to making necessary reforms, invite international financial institutions to come to the rescue, and maintain an even-handed approach to negotiations with their creditors, they are likely to weather the storm. If not, the number of defaults in the developing world will mount.

SHANTA DEVARAJAN is Professor of the Practice of Development at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and a former Senior Director for Development Economics and Acting Chief Economist at the World Bank.

HOMI KHARAS is Senior Fellow at the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution.

Foreign Affairs · by Shantayanan Devarajan and Homi Kharas · August 4, 2022

13. Senate Votes To Add Finland, Sweden to NATO

95-1.

Hawley: No. Rand Paul: Present.

Actually I agree with Paul's intent for his amendment. I just do not think it is needed. Our Constitution should always take precedence. The problem is for decades Congress has abdicated its responsibility to declare war.

Excerpts:

The Senate rejected a second amendment from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., by a 10-87 vote that would make clear that NATO’s Article 5 commitment to defend other members does not supersede the constitutional requirement that Congress must declare war before the United States takes military action. Paul introduced a similar amendment that failed in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month.

Paul voted present, as he also did in committee.

One Republican senator, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., opposed the addition of Finland and Sweden to NATO. Hawley wrote in an op-ed on Monday that he would vote against it because he believes the United States needs to focus more on the threat posed by China, and European nations need to do more for their own security.

Hawley’s position drew criticism from his Republican colleagues. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, refuted Hawley’s view, arguing that the best way to counter China is to strengthen alliances, and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., wrote his own op-ed on Tuesday, titled “a stronger NATO allows America to focus on the threat of communist China.”

Senate Votes To Add Finland, Sweden to NATO

Twenty-three NATO members have now ratified the accessions. Seven still need to act.

defenseone.com · by Jacqueline Feldscher

The Senate overwhelmingly approved the addition of Sweden and Finland to NATO on Wednesday, taking a step toward extending the alliance’s border with Russia by more than 800 miles.

The 95-1 Senate vote made the United States the 23rd of NATO’s 30 countries to act since the alliance accepted the two nations’ applications in June, ahead of its annual summit in Madrid. It also means senators met their goal of approving the additions ahead of the Senate’s August recess, which begins next week.

“The United States is about to welcome two capable, qualified, and deserving members into NATO,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., co-chair of the Senate NATO Observer Group, said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote “Particularly as we face Putin’s dangerous campaign against Ukraine, I remain committed to strengthening global coordination to preserve our rules-based order and ensuring NATO continues to be the strongest it’s ever been.”

Seven nations, including Turkey, Greece, and Spain, still need to act before Finland and Sweden formally join the alliance.

Once all nations act, Finland and Sweden will be covered by NATO’s Article 5 protection, which requires alliance members to treat an attack on one as an attack on all. The collective defense provision has only been invoked once, when NATO allies came to the aid of the United States after 9/11.

After decades of neutrality, Finland and Sweden applied to join NATO on May 18, nearly three months after Russia invaded Ukraine. Turkey initially objected over Finland and Sweden’s support for the PKK terrorist group, but officials from Ankara, Helsinki, and Stockholm reached a compromise that satisfied Turkey’s concerns. NATO invited Finland and Sweden to join the alliance on June 29, and the accession protocols were signed July 5. Four nations—Canada, Denmark, Iceland, and Norway—ratified their accession that same day.

Finland and Sweden have advanced militaries that operate Western equipment and already exercise closely with NATO, making it possible for their accession to move much more quickly than previous efforts, which involved former Soviet states that needed to work on their military capabilities and support for democracy before joining the alliance.

The Senate also adopted an amendment Wednesday from Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, that would reiterate the expectation set by NATO in 2006 that all member nations spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense. In 2021, eight allies met that benchmark, according to NATO’s annual report released in March.

The Senate rejected a second amendment from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., by a 10-87 vote that would make clear that NATO’s Article 5 commitment to defend other members does not supersede the constitutional requirement that Congress must declare war before the United States takes military action. Paul introduced a similar amendment that failed in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month.

Paul voted present, as he also did in committee.

One Republican senator, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., opposed the addition of Finland and Sweden to NATO. Hawley wrote in an op-ed on Monday that he would vote against it because he believes the United States needs to focus more on the threat posed by China, and European nations need to do more for their own security.

Hawley’s position drew criticism from his Republican colleagues. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, refuted Hawley’s view, arguing that the best way to counter China is to strengthen alliances, and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., wrote his own op-ed on Tuesday, titled “a stronger NATO allows America to focus on the threat of communist China.”

defenseone.com · by Jacqueline Feldscher

14. Time for NATO to Take the Lead in Ukraine

Excerpts:

Over the last several months, the United States has taken on the burden of supplying Ukraine with weapons and coordinating their distribution. But the U.S. defense industry is not prepared to do so for the long term, as that would require a significant pivot toward mass production of specific weapons, some of which the U.S. military has not purchased in decades, such as Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. More closely integrating U.S. and European industrial defense production by streamlining defense procurement practices, for example, may allow the defense industry to better anticipate the needs of Ukraine specifically and Europe at large, but doing so would take years. In the meantime, NATO, working with member states, can provide the strategic guidance to defense companies across the alliance to help identify gaps.

Over the long term, the alliance has a mandate to take up its leadership role as the most important collective defense alliance responding to the Russian threat. The United States still sees China as the greatest long-term challenge, which means that more of the burden for securing Europe will eventually fall to the 29 European countries that are members of NATO (soon to be 31 with Sweden and Finland). The current U.S. administration is committed to supporting Ukraine and investing in broader European security. But the window for changing the trajectory of the war is narrowing. The sooner NATO takes up its political mandate to support Ukraine, the greater the chance for ensuring its future as the most effective and powerful security alliance.

Time for NATO to Take the Lead in Ukraine

The War’s Next Phase Will Demand More From the Alliance

By Alina Polyakova and Ilya Timtchenko

August 4, 2022

Foreign Affairs · by Alina Polyakova and Ilya Timtchenko · August 4, 2022

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, the West has provided billions in military and economic assistance aid to Kyiv. The United States alone has provided more than $8 billion in security support in the last six months. The money and arms are making a difference on the battlefield. The recently delivered U.S.-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), for example, have allowed Ukraine to launch counteroffensives in the southeast and repel attacks elsewhere.

Support from other NATO allies has been mixed, however. Germany, for example, has been delayed in delivering similar rocket systems, with the first arriving just in the last few days, and other promised heavy weapons likely delayed until the end of the year. France, which has one of Europe’s most capable militaries, has provided only around $160 million in military support to Ukraine, and committed 0.008 percent of its GDP in military aid. In contrast, Estonia, Latvia, and Poland committed 0.84 percent, 0.69 percent and 0.32 percent, respectively, despite having much smaller economies. Poland alone has delivered at least $1.8 billion worth of weapons.

Russia’s advance on Ukraine is now turning into a long war of attrition in which each side tries to wear the other down. Assisting Ukraine for this type of war will require a different approach: the country will require many more heavy weapons, most notably air defense systems, delivered faster and from more European allies. And NATO members in eastern Europe that have drawn down their own weapons stocks will need continuous resupplies.

As allies send varying types and levels of security assistance to Ukraine and deplete their own warehouses, the coordination and distribution of supplies have become a huge logistical operation. The U.S. military leads the effort, receiving supplies from more than 50 countries and distributing them to Ukraine. That coordination is led by the United States European Command out of Stuttgart, Germany. In the short term, the U.S-led effort is working effectively despite intermittent delays. In the long term, however, NATO, as the institution established explicitly for the purpose of collective security cooperation and coordination among its members in the Euro-Atlantic area, should take up the role.

NATO is tasked with carrying out the common will of its member states, and with 30 (and counting) members, reaching consensus quickly is no easy task. Individual member states, however, can act far faster outside the boundaries of NATO decision-making. This is one reason why the U.S.-led coordination effort has been efficient in the short term: without the need to get agreement from all the allies, weapons deliveries can be more responsive to the immediate needs on the battlefield. NATO allies have also been careful to walk a fine line between supporting Ukraine and not appearing to come into direct confrontation with Russia. It’s one thing for a member state to provide weapons and another for the alliance to do so, as the thinking goes. But with every member providing some form of assistance to Ukraine (military, humanitarian, or financial), the reality is that the alliance is already involved in the war even without “boots on the ground.” Coordinating this type of support between allies is exactly what NATO is designed to do.

The alliance has the operational capacity and the political mandate to do much more to support Ukraine now and in the longer term. At their Madrid summit in June, NATO allies approved a new strategic concept, a document that serves as a mission statement for the alliance and recommits it to three core tasks: deterrence and defense, crisis prevention and management, and cooperative security. It also rightfully identified Russia as the “most significant and direct threat to the allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.” This new strategic vision gives NATO a broad political mandate to do much more than it is currently doing to support Ukraine and deter Russia. Namely, in the immediate term, NATO should be taking the lead role in training Ukrainian troops; prioritizing security of the Black Sea, which Russia aims to fully control and militarize; and bolstering cyber-cooperation with Ukraine. In the longer term, NATO, not the United States or other individual member states, should coordinate weapons deliveries to Ukraine and the distribution of resupplies to allies across the alliance. If the alliance doesn’t step up, it will signal a lack of long-term commitment to Ukraine, emboldening Russia to continue its brutal assault.

SPEEDY DELIVERY

The efficient and rapid training of Ukraine’s military is key to reducing the time lag between the weapons systems committed and the time it takes to put them in action, especially as the equipment becomes more sophisticated. NATO should take the lead coordinating existing efforts and identify future needs. The United Kingdom, for example, has committed to training 10,000 Ukrainian troops over the next few months. Following Russia’s 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea, the United States boosted its training and exercises with Ukrainian armed forces in Yavoriv, Ukraine. After Russia’s invasion in February, U.S. forces relocated and then resumed training in Grafenwoehr, Germany, home of the largest U.S. military installation for training in Europe, as part of a joint multinational group. Over time, consolidating these disparate training sites and initiatives will be crucial for ensuring that Ukraine’s fighters are well prepared to operate everything from tanks to multiple launch rocket systems and fighter jets.

Poland would be the most logical place for a NATO training hub. This year, the United States committed to establishing a permanent presence for the U.S. Army in Poland. It will serve as a new command post for U.S. land forces defending the alliance’s eastern flank. Such a base could be expanded to include a NATO-coordinated training hub for Ukrainian soldiers, ensuring the quick movement of troops along Ukraine’s western border. Training centers could also be established in Romania, where the United States keeps a rotational brigade. Most important, the training should prioritize teaching Ukrainians how to use state-of-the-art equipment (including drones, fighter jets, and unmanned naval capabilities) that the Ukrainian military has not yet mastered so that it can more quickly be put to use on the battlefield.

As the war evolves, Western allies may be more willing to provide weapons that were off the table just a few months ago. And the Ukrainians should be ready. The United States, for example, is reportedly considering supplying fighter jets to Ukraine, a move it has not yet been willing to take, and Ukrainian pilots should already be receiving training. Waiting for the official decision risks an unnecessary delay. A NATO-coordinated hub would ensure that Ukrainian pilots receive the necessary training to fly U.S. fighter jets such as F/A-18 Hornets and F-16 Fighting Falcons. Investing in training on such systems as well as others before they are delivered would significantly reduce the time it takes to get these planes flying in Ukrainian airspace. Such training would need to take place without widespread public knowledge to avoid getting ahead of political decisions.

SEA CHANGE

Securing the Black Sea is critical to Ukraine’s military operations and longer-term economic resilience. It is also a focal point of several of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategic aspirations: Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s agricultural exports via the Black Sea has already sparked a global food crisis, allowing Moscow to hold Ukrainian grain hostage. On July 22, Russia signed a deal brokered by the UN and Turkey to allow Ukraine to export millions of tons of grain. Hours later, Russian missiles hit Ukraine’s key port of Odesa before one ship carrying grain was finally allowed to sail. Russia’s consistent violations of international law over the years does not lend much confidence to the idea that the UN-brokered deal will hold. With global food supplies at risk, NATO should be prepared to provide naval escorts to export vessels regardless of Russian adherence to the agreement. The alliance’s core tasks commit it to ensuring human security. Certainly, food security is part of that mission.

With three NATO members—Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey—having direct access to the Black Sea and Ukraine’s most important trade routes going through it as well, the alliance should consider the sea a strategic priority. NATO can enhance its presence in the Black Sea by working with Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey to establish a year-round presence there, increasing the number of NATO forces stationed on a rotational or permanent basis within these countries. At the Madrid summit, the allies established multinational battle groups in two Black Sea states, Bulgaria and Romania, as part of an effort to extend the alliance’s forward presence to the Black Sea. Romania is also home to Europe’s only active Aegis Ashore site, a powerful missile defense system, under NATO control.

NATO should be taking the lead role in training Ukrainian troops.

Since February, the United States has also reinforced its presence in Romania with additional troops and F-16s. As the Black Sea region continues to be a focal point for Russia’s war, the alliance will need to invest more resources in integrating air and missile defenses, deploying anti-drone capabilities and increasing its aircraft fleet with F-16s. Increased surveillance and reconnaissance flights by NATO forces could also undermine Russia’s control of the sea by monitoring and exposing movements of Russia’s Black Sea fleet as well as other vessels and equipment.

NATO should also work to strengthen its cooperation with non-NATO member states that are part of the Black Sea regional security environment, most notably, Moldova and Georgia. Both countries are eager to have closer partnerships with NATO. In Georgia, for example, the alliance could expand the function of the NATO-Georgia Joint Training and Evaluation Center, which provides joint field and virtual training for active NATO military personnel and Georgian soldiers, to include naval operations.

OPENING THE CYBER-DOOR

NATO also plays an important role in supporting and bolstering Ukraine’s cyberdefense and offense capabilities. Cyberattacks are part of Russia’s full-spectrum war against Ukraine: in the first three months of the invasion, Russia conducted almost 40 destructive cyberattacks against Ukraine, according to Microsoft. Last year, prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine sought to increase its collaboration with NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (CCDCOE), only to be rejected by the alliance when the steering committee could not reach unanimous consent.

The committee finally approved Ukraine as a contributing participant member in March, and an agreement that will formalize the country’s membership is in the works. For the time being, Ukraine is still considered as a candidate country. Ukraine’s participation as a contributing participant of the CCDCOE should be expedited so that it can officially join the ranks of other non-NATO members, such as Austria, Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland. This will allow Ukraine to integrate its cyberdefense system with that of the alliance as it cooperates and exchanges information with other members of that unit through education, and research and development.

NATO members can also support Ukraine’s already successful efforts to recruit an “IT Army” of international hackers to both defend Ukraine and attack Russian state and private entities that are fueling the war, most notably those under Western sanctions. So far, the cyber-army is made up of mostly Ukrainian volunteers, but NATO could help Ukraine institutionalize a robust cyberforce by providing hardware, regular training for Ukrainian cyber-specialists, and providing technical assistance to Ukraine’s government agencies to improve cyberdefense capabilities.

WIN THE WAR

Over the last several months, the United States has taken on the burden of supplying Ukraine with weapons and coordinating their distribution. But the U.S. defense industry is not prepared to do so for the long term, as that would require a significant pivot toward mass production of specific weapons, some of which the U.S. military has not purchased in decades, such as Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. More closely integrating U.S. and European industrial defense production by streamlining defense procurement practices, for example, may allow the defense industry to better anticipate the needs of Ukraine specifically and Europe at large, but doing so would take years. In the meantime, NATO, working with member states, can provide the strategic guidance to defense companies across the alliance to help identify gaps.

Over the long term, the alliance has a mandate to take up its leadership role as the most important collective defense alliance responding to the Russian threat. The United States still sees China as the greatest long-term challenge, which means that more of the burden for securing Europe will eventually fall to the 29 European countries that are members of NATO (soon to be 31 with Sweden and Finland). The current U.S. administration is committed to supporting Ukraine and investing in broader European security. But the window for changing the trajectory of the war is narrowing. The sooner NATO takes up its political mandate to support Ukraine, the greater the chance for ensuring its future as the most effective and powerful security alliance.

Foreign Affairs · by Alina Polyakova and Ilya Timtchenko · August 4, 2022

15. Secretary of defense expected to name a military officer as Pentagon Press Secretary

Secretary of defense expected to name a military officer as Pentagon Press Secretary | CNN Politics

CNN · by Barbara Starr · August 3, 2022

CNN —

A US Air Force brigadier general is expected to be named as the new Pentagon press secretary by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, according to an administration official and a senior defense official familiar with the matter.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder is expected to remain in uniform at least in the near term and CNN has spoken to several defense officials who privately acknowledge it is a potentially sensitive matter to have a uniformed officer brief the news media on policy issues.

“This would not be the first time” there has been a uniformed spokesman, a senior defense official said. Adding, if political questions arise from reporters, the Pentagon will make sure those questions are answered.

Ryder previously worked for Austin from 2013 to 2016 as his top spokesman at US Central Command when Austin was the commander.

He also has served as the top spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2017 to 2019.

Ryder will replace John Kirby, who left the Pentagon to join the White House as National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications earlier this year.

The last spokesman to brief in uniform was then-Rear Admiral Kirby under Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and then briefly under Ash Carter. Carter made it known that he wished for a civilian, as opposed to a uniformed military officer, to take on the duties as the department’s chief spokesman.

CNN has reached out to the office of the secretary of defense for comment.

CNN · by Barbara Starr · August 3, 2022

16. Cyber Ambassador Pick Wants to Bring 'Coherence' to Tech Diplomacy Efforts

I missed this nomination of Nataniel Fick.

Cyber Ambassador Pick Wants to Bring 'Coherence' to Tech Diplomacy Efforts

Nathaniel Fick, the former Marine and head of Center for a New American Security, also wants more deterrence efforts in cyberspace.

defenseone.com · by Lauren C. Williams

Establishing a culture of “fluency and expertise in digital technologies” would be one of the first items on the agenda for the Biden administration’s pick as the first cyberspace ambassador at large for the State Department, Nathaniel Fick said Wednesday at his nomination hearing.

“My hope if confirmed in this role is to is to provide kind of coherence to our tech diplomacy, and ensure that we as a government first, and we, as a leader of like minded allies and partners, are coordinating our efforts because we have a competitor out there with a very different vision of what our global technology future could look like,” Fick told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The State Department announced the creation of the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Diplomacy in April. The ambassador position that comes with it—a recommendation of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission—is a role that will require tight relationships with the Defense Department and could help steer future international cyber policies.

“Because the bureau is new, the first and innermost priority is building the team and establishing a culture both in the bureau and in the department where a fluency and expertise in digital technologies is seen as important to the careers and futures of career Foreign Service officers and members of the civil service,” Fick said. “I can imagine a future where any candidate to be a chief of mission is expected to have an understanding of these issues, because they're a substrate that cuts across every aspect of our foreign policy.”

Fick, a former Marine, previously led the Center for a New American Security, and was the CEO for Endgame, a cybersecurity software company. He noted Wednesday that the U.S. has not done enough deterrence in cyberspace.

“I believe that we have not fully extended deterrence into the cyber domain,” he said. “Our adversaries seek to do mischief or harm us using digital means because they know what the consequences are in the physical world. And we should be marshaling every ounce of our diplomatic, economic informational, and if necessary, military power to extend deterrence into this new domain.”

If confirmed, Fick said he would “assert the State Department's rightful place in the interagency process on topics of cybersecurity and digital policy” and on other policy challenges in the world.

“The wolf closest to the door, so to speak, in my view is the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the threats and opportunities it provides in the digital space for us,” Fick said. “And then I believe our strategic competition with China, along digital lines, is probably the defining strategic question of my generation.”

The State Department has not had as strong of a role in cyber issues compared to the Defense Department, Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the White House, which now has a national cyber director. Fick said that while he’s sensitive to some lawmakers’ concern of added bureaucracy, the ambassador position aims to change that.

“It is always easy to add, but it's hard to subtract. And so I come to this role with a heightened sense of concern about the issue that you raise,” Fick said. “And that said, I have a strong conviction that this role actually fills a gap that has existed in our government.

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who introduced Fick during the hearing, told reporters Tuesday that the State Department’s cyberspace ambassador role is an integral partnership with the Defense Department, but won’t supplant or take charge of military cyber operations.

“[U.S.] Cyber Command and [the National Security Agency], obviously, our first line of defense in terms of active cyber conflict,” King said. “War is the failure of diplomacy. And we want to start with diplomacy, obviously.”

King said establishing broadly accepted rules of engagement for cyber conflict is key, because cyber “affects virtually every country, because it's relatively cheap. You don't have to have huge, huge factories, you don't have to have a big defense industrial base to be dangerous in cyberspace.”

The senator, who sits on the Senate intelligence and armed services committees, said he expects the ambassador to have a close relationship with Cyber Command and the NSA, to inform the new bureau on issues like threats, allies, and relationships with other countries’ cyber defense establishments.

King was also adamant about the ambassador and bureau pushing for the U.S. to help create universal cyber standards.

“Having the United States active in somewhat obscure international bodies, that sets standards for the internet, for how the internet is supposed to work, what are the protocols, what are the rules of the way it's established. And we have not been very good at leading those efforts,” King said.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., made similar remarks during a panel at the Aspen Security Forum last month, saying the U.S. needs to make more of an effort to be involved in developing tech standards globally, particularly as Chinese tech giant Huawei makes gains in 5G.

“You suddenly see this company emerge, Huawei, in a space where there [has] always been Western leadership,” Warner said during the July 22 panel, naming Motorola and AT&T, and Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung as dominant telecom players in the West. (Samsung was born in South Korea but came to the U.S. market in 1978.)

“And Huawei not only became…the dominant player in 5G, but [what] was almost more frightening to me was the fact that China was also flooding the zone on an area where I think we in America and the West writ large, had always taken for granted: that we would not only create the innovation, but then we would also set the standard rules, protocols, and procedures.”

Warner, who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, went on to say that it’s not enough to create world-class technologies—the U.S. must also help craft the standards that coincide with them, because “while they're techie nerdy, they can also reflect values.”

defenseone.com · by Lauren C. Williams

17. Can a Fitness App Ease the Military’s Recruitment Crisis?

Can a Fitness App Ease the Military’s Recruitment Crisis?

App gives recruiters a tool to monitor how their recruits are shaping up before shipping out.

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

Amid a major recruiting shortage across the military, a Navy pilot program would allow sailors who join the delayed entry program to better track their fitness goals as they prepare for boot camp. Some early indicators suggest it could make a big difference getting people who express interest in service into active duty.

Troops across the military have used the Coachmeplus app to stay fit during the pandemic. The app tracks various health and fitness indicators and also allows trainers to make sure that their trainees are on track. The app will allow sailors who enter the DEP,—which allows someone to enlist in the service but then defer shipping out to basic training—keep track of their fitness goals.

All services have some version of DEP and many enlistees enter it to get in shape for boot camp, but not everyone who goes into a delayed entry program goes on to training and active duty. That, as well as the general decrease in fitness among young Americans, is part of why the military is facing an enormous recruiting challenge.

“Pandemic-driven constraints like virtual learning have further limited access to the recruiting population in high schools and exacerbated a decline in academic and physical fitness levels,” notes an Army memo on staff recruiting from last month.

The Navy hopes the app will enable more people who are interested in service to actually meet the requirements to serve.

“We currently have attrition at boot camp for a variety of reasons, many of them related to physical readiness,” Cdr. Dave Benham, the director of public affairs at Navy Recruiting Command, told Defense One in an email. “Our goal for the pilot program is to reduce attrition at boot camp by helping our future sailors in the [DEP]… to stay active and prepare adequately for the discipline and physical demands of boot camp. We anticipate use of the app to help improve recruiters’ ability to manage their DEP pools with improved communication, remote monitoring of… activity/progress, DEP program planning, and information/content.”

Benham said phase one of the pilot, which kicked off about 18 months ago, is already in progress, with 100 volunteers using the app on their devices. “Of those volunteers, nobody has attrited due to physical fitness issues. In the fall, we plan to expand that pilot program to another 1,000 personnel,” he said.

Kevin Dawidowicz, president and cofounder of CoachMePlus, told Defense One, “85 percent of the people who engaged in the app maintain usage. So like, there was high level of compliance with actually using the application. Fifty percent of people met their weight goals, whether they had to gain weight or lose weight. And the retention number was 20 percent higher than the placebo group who didn't use anything.”

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

18. Any Time Any Place? Why Cutting the Air Force’s Irregular Warfare Capabilities Is a Mistake

I think this is going to be a self inflicted wound and really is counter to the mission of SOF writ large in Irregular Warfare. AFSOC is divesting a critical capability. My experience in the Philippines is that AFSOC and Army SOF aviators, along with some very enlightened fighter pilots from the Navy and Marine Corps did some amazing work developing a CAS capability in the Philippine Air Force (among other capabilities to include aerial resupply in remote areas in rough terrain, etc). We need SOF air advisors.

Any Time Any Place? Why Cutting the Air Force’s Irregular Warfare Capabilities Is a Mistake - Modern War Institute

mwi.usma.edu · by Richard D. Newton · August 4, 2022

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In Jean Larteguy’s 1960 novel The Centurions, Colonel Raspéguy—the fictional commander of French paratroopers during the 1954 Battle at Dien Bien Phu and again during France’s war in Algeria—reflects on the repeated failures of regular armies throughout history to effectively counter well-organized guerrilla forces. Success in Algeria, he argues, would need two armies. One would be “for display, with lovely guns, tanks, little soldiers, fanfares, staffs, distinguished and doddering generals.”

The other would be the real one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflage battledress, who would not be put on display but from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught. That’s the army in which I should like to fight.

Raspéguy’s thoughts give voice to the dilemma special operations forces (SOF) have faced after every major war. Time and again, once the shooting stops, a flawed peacetime logic prevails: SOF are supposedly no longer needed and the military services can go back to the business of preparing for the conventional war they hope never happens. Raspéguy’s commentary is especially relevant to the inflection point at which US Air Force finds itself today. The service might not have a roadmap to direct its actions after two decades of post-9/11 wars, but this character in a six-decade-old French novel is a good place to start.

The myopic focus on peer competitors that characterizes US military institutional thinking today is a mistake. In modern history, the overwhelming majority of wars have been limited. According to a RAND study, over the past century war between nations has become “increasingly rare and occurs mostly at lower intensities.” US defense planning, however, is again focusing almost exclusively on peer competitors. The Department of Defense and the services are reorienting away from the messy, unpleasant, and irregular wars the nation fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria over the last twenty years, to their preferred paradigm: deterring conventional, multidomain warfare, with China as the pacing threat for organizing, training, and equipping US forces. Deterring a land war in Europe against Russia is a second priority, while managing aggression from Iran, North Korea, and violent extremist organizations collectively holds third place, although Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shown that the relative priority of these threats can and will change, disrupting strategic planning.

This makes a degree of sense given Chinese and Russian military investments, policy declarations, and aggressive behavior toward their neighbors. However, there are serious limitations to a deterrence strategy focused on a narrow set of capabilities, as the United States discovered when it was unable to assist East German, Polish, and Hungarian uprisings against the Soviet Union during the early decades of the Cold War. If history offers any insight for the future, deterring war between strategic peers virtually guarantees the growth of limited, irregular conflicts. As Army Chief of Staff General James McConville has observed, in this new era of strategic competition between the three major powers, there will likely be more, not fewer, instances of limited war, and those will take place far from where the services are planning, training, and equipping to fight China and Russia.

The Air Force, in particular, needs to understand and adapt to this reality. History suggests that great power confrontation will most likely be waged through surrogates or proxies, and these conflicts are unlikely to transpire in the hoped-for battlespaces. Rather, the United States will be confronting China, Russia, Iran, and foreign terrorist organizations in places where the environments are primitive, remote, and austere, and where modern, highly sophisticated aircraft and the supporting people and parts needed to keep them flying will struggle to operate. These primitive spaces present too much risk and ambiguity for the technical marvels of modern air warfare, such as B-2s, F-22s, F-35s, MC-130s, and CV-22s. As in Angola, Laos, El Salvador, Cambodia, Tibet, and the other limited wars of the Cold War, small special operations teams conducting missions in the shadows and helping US partners resist aggression exemplify how the West should confront Chinese, Russian, and Iranian surrogates and proxies going forward.

The Origins of Special Air Forces

During the Cold War, the US Air Force was barely involved in the uncomfortable wars that negated airpower’s technological superiority. In 1961, then Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Curtis LeMay grudgingly created the Jungle Jim program that eventually became AFSOC (Air Force Special Operations Command) to address far-flung instances of irregular warfare. AFSOC addressed the distractions of irregular warfare so the conventional Air Force could focus on defending Europe. Except for short-lived efforts by air commandos during Operations Farm Gate and Mill Pond, the Air Force eschewed partner capacity building. From the early 1960s until the end of the Vietnam War, air operations in aircraft optimized for irregular warfare were an unwanted—albeit tolerated—addendum to the central function of deterring conventional and nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

Today, the Air Force is building systems and units it will need to deter China and Russia. To ensure deterrence succeeds, the next-generation capabilities and the willingness to use them will need to be, as Colonel Raspéguy presaged, demonstrated during training, exercises, and, occasionally, operations. NATO’s current air policing operations in Europe suggest that Western defensive air capabilities are successfully deterring Russian forces from targeting NATO member states. Conventional deterrence in Europe is working.

But conventional deterrence air forces are poorly suited to address many of the most likely threats key US partners will face. For strategic confrontation short of war, in remote and austere environments, the United States will need its other air force: AFSOC. Air commandos are Raspéguy’s “young enthusiasts in camouflage” who are best prepared to help threatened nations prevent or counter Chinese- and Russian-sponsored subversion. But in what seems to be a case of déjà vu, AFSOC is divesting its capabilities for irregular warfare and focusing instead on becoming a high-tech airlift force with little to no utility in the most likely future combat situations.

This should raise alarms at US Air Force headquarters and at US Special Operations Command. AFSOC offers two unique roles: first, it provides the air component to the nation’s counterterrorism force; second, it strengthens and improves the one capability the conventional Air Force does not need or want—the ability to build the capabilities and capacities of important partner air forces facing Chinese- and Russian-sponsored subversion through security force assistance, building partner capacity, and foreign internal defense.

The Challenge

Twenty-first-century fighters and bombers flying from secure bases pose little threat to guerrillas hiding in the jungles of Southeast Asia or ensconced in the deserts of Africa. Yes, the United States’ formidable global strike and global reach capabilities make it possible for bombers to drop a load of bombs onto an enemy stronghold halfway around the world or a remotely piloted aircraft to take out a terrorist leader. But for what outcome and at what cost? Does one dead insurgent leader justify the expense of a thirty-hour flight and the multiple tanker sorties required to keep a bomber airborne? Can one bespoke strike mission achieve anything more than short-term disarray and a leadership hiccup for an ideologically driven enemy? As the war in Ukraine demonstrates, successful strategic competition on the fringes is the result of long-term commitment to security force assistance and persistent presence. For air forces, this means air advisors who serve alongside and build trust among partners, improve the ability of partner air forces to use the tools they have more effectively, and help partners provide security for their populations.

For now, AFSOC has the only combat aviation advisory (CAA) capability in the Air Force. Much like Raspéguy’s “other” army, AFSOC’s CAAs constitute the other air force, which complements the regionally focused foreign internal defense and unconventional warfare capabilities of ground SOF. To fully support the other SOF components, AFSOC should be fielding squadrons of people and aircraft able to effectively operate in primitive conditions far from mature basing. The aircraft need to be analogous to the partners’ aircraft, and every crewmember, maintainer, and support person should be a trained combat aviation advisor. AFSOC’s irregular warfare aircraft would serve multiple roles: (1) home station training and flying currency for the CAAs, (2) low-cost and small-footprint persistent air support (in the form of aerial fires, armed and unarmed surveillance and reconnaissance, air mobility and transport, and medical/casualty evacuation) for SOF teams in remote and austere locations, and (3) combined training opportunities with partners when the situations warrant.

A Dangerous Gamble

According to AFSOC’s 2020 Strategic Guidance, the plan is to “divest of capabilities with uncertain value propositions or high cost-to-benefit ratios while focusing investment in capabilities only AFSOC can provide the joint force.” Curiously, only AFSOC has been able to provide the joint force with fully trained and equipped CAAs, but it is instead looking at capabilities, such as launching cruise missiles, that any airlift aircraft should be able accomplish. The US Special Operations Command director of operations notes that AFSOC has not described how it plans to fulfill its Title 10 responsibilities to conduct aviation FID and assumes the geographic combatant commands no longer require CAA capabilities, but this is a concocted assumption. If AFSOC does not allow air advisors to advise and assist their counterparts during operations and strips air advisors of the skills and attributes that enable them to demonstrate credibility, build trust, and create relationships, then of course, there will be little need for what AFSOC is offering. (A US Special Operations Command memorandum titled, “Operational Risk Assessment for Air Force Special Operations Command Divestiture of Aviation Foreign Internal [AvFID] C-208, C-145, and A-29 Aircraft,” dated April 29, 2022, highlights proposed changes and the assumptions underlying them, but the document is not currently available online.) Accordingly, CAA manpower billets are being reallocated to other air operations squadrons and the aircraft needed to keep air advisors proficient in their aviation skills, minimize operational risks, and demonstrate credibility will be divested. Divesting the Air Force’s only CAA capability will allow AFSOC to prioritize high-end, technologically advanced MC-130s, AC-130s, and CV-22s designed for the counterterrorism mission. The nation needs to maintain that capability, but counterterrorism and hostage rescue are not AFSOC’s sole missions. In the future and most likely operating environment, SOF air advising should hold a role equal to countering terrorism so as to provide the Air Force an asymmetric overmatch capability in irregular warfare environments.

Only AFSOC’s CAAs are organized, trained, and equipped to confront Chinese, Russian, and Iranian surrogates in remote, strategically important, and risky corners of the globe; moreover, they are the only ones with the language, cultural, and aviation credibility that ensures the access to and influence with key partners that is emphasized in AFSOC’s Strategic Guidance. Senior leaders are betting that AFSOC’s future role will be to penetrate Chinese or Russian airspace to insert, resupply, and extract special operations teams, a significant aviation challenge against modern antiaccess and area-denial systems. If that does become AFSOC’s primary mission, what then is special about AFSOC? It will become the air mobility equivalent of the next-generation fighters and bombers currently supplying conventional deterrence. In special operations, the human domain is primary and technology is a supporting element that enables and enhances human capabilities. Air Force special operators know this, but AFSOC’s leadership has chosen to reject the core special operations activities most appropriate for human-centric warfare—security force assistance, foreign internal defense, and building partner capacity. Pursuing misguided programs such as MC-130s on floats seems to affirm AFSOC’s rejection of the human domain.

AFSOC is actively shedding the asset that makes it special: air commandos with the skills, knowledge, and personalities needed to tackle problems from an unconventional mindset, who are prepared to go to places where other airmen cannot. In the near future, AFSOC will not have air commandos who speak their hosts’ languages, are familiar with the capabilities and limitations of their hosts’ equipment, or hold their hosts’ trust and confidence. This hard-earned combination of cultural currency, tactical acumen, and human trust enable their hosts to maximize the potential of the aircraft they already possess while addressing their own security challenges.

The Way Forward

CAA experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Jordan, Colombia, and elsewhere over the past thirty years have shown that cultural acumen, creativity, adaptability, patience, and empathy are the key attributes needed for success in ambiguous airpower environments—skills that are incongruent with a twenty-first-century Air Force focused on conventional deterrence and cannot be gained through just-in-time training.

SOF are very familiar with these boom-and-bust cycles. To avoid setting itself up for failure and repeating the mistakes of the past, the US Air Force should immediately stop divesting its CAA capabilities. It should also restore funding for language training, and retain the aircraft appropriate for training and operations in those austere and remote environments where SOF will most likely be deployed. Finally, it should give security force assistance the priority and importance it deserves to successfully confront Chinese- and Russian-sponsored subversion.

Irregular warfare is not going away. But AFSOC, on its current path, is abdicating its role as the US Air Force’s only provider of truly special air forces. Who, then, will help smaller strategic partners use their indigenous airpower to defend themselves in gray zone or irregular conflicts? It’s looking like there will be no one.

Richard D. Newton, PhD, is a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel who served twenty-two years as a combat rescue and special operations helicopter pilot, combat aviation advisor, and strategic planner. He is a graduate of the US Air Force Academy and holds a master of military art and science from the US Army School of Advanced Military Studies and a PhD in defense studies from King’s College London. He currently serves as an adjunct professor at the Joint Special Operations University. He is the author of The RAF and Tribal Control: Airpower and Irregular Warfare Between the World Wars and the forthcoming Air Power in East Africa, 1914–1918: Aviation’s Roots in Irregular Warfare.

Jennifer Walters is an active duty Air Force major and KC-10A instructor pilot. She has led aircrew on air refueling, humanitarian, and contingency operations across the globe. She deployed four times in support of Operations Enduring Freedom, Freedom’s Sentinel, Inherent Resolve, and Resolute Support, completing over one hundred combat sorties. She is a distinguished graduate of the US Air Force Academy and holds a master of philosophy and PhD in policy analysis from the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Most recently, she served as lead speechwriter to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, DC. She is also the cofounder of Air Mobility Command’s Reach Athena, which identifies and addresses female and family-centric barriers to readiness. As an Olmsted scholar, Jennifer will study international security policy in Aix-en-Provence, France for her next assignment.

The views expressed are those of the authors 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 the authors are affiliated with, including the Department of the Air Force, Joint Special Operations University, and United States Special Operations Command.

Image credit: Gunnery Sgt. Steve Cushman, US Marine Corps

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mwi.usma.edu · by Richard D. Newton · August 4, 2022

19. Surprising Many, SOCOM Chose This Heavily Modified Ag Aircraft To Go From Cornfields To Battlefields

Surprising Many, SOCOM Chose This Heavily Modified Ag Aircraft To Go From Cornfields To Battlefields

Forbes · by Eric Tegler · August 3, 2022

... [+]L3 Harris/Air Tractor

U.S. Special Operations Command has chosen an airplane based on a well-known crop duster to take on its Armed Overwatch mission, conducting counterterrorism operations and irregular warfare in places like Africa. The AT-802U Sky Warden, produced by L3Harris Technologies LHX and agricultural aircraft maker Air Tractor, beat out better-known airplanes from Textron Aviation and Sierra Nevada to meet SOCOM’s requirement.

The Armed Overwatch program envisions a fleet of up to 75 relatively inexpensive, flexible, fixed-wing aircraft that can deploy to austere locations, with little logistical support to act as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and precision strike assets. The competition to provide a suitable aircraft got underway in May of last year when SOCOM awarded five companies a total of $19.2 million to demonstrate low-cost turboprop alternatives.

... [+]Air Tractor

Earlier this year the field was narrowed to three candidates - L3 Harris’ Sky Warden, Textron Aviation Defense’s AT-6 Wolverine and Sierra Nevada Corp.’s MC-145B Coyote. The Armed Overwatch mission is essentially viewed as a combination of the ISR role now filled by SOCOM’s Pilatus PC-12-based U-28A Draco and an extension of the Air Force’s aborted Light Attack aircraft program (2009-2020).

Given the blending of roles, many observers thought that an airframer like Textron would have an edge. The USAF, long familiar with the T-6 trainer on which the Wolverine is based, acquired two AT-6s in 2020 and the Royal Thai Air Force ordered eight of the single-engine turboprops for light attack duty in 2021. At the end of July, Textron announced that the Air Force had granted it Military Type Certification, “paving the way for continued global sales of the light attack aircraft.”

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Textron's AT-6 Wolverine Armed Overwatch candidate.

Sierra Nevada’s MC-145, a high-wing, twin-engine turboprop derived from the short takeoff and landing, light cargo and passenger-carrying Polish PZL M28 Skytruck, is already in use with Air Force Special Operations Command as the C-145A Combat Coyote. The MC-145’s ability to self-deploy, carrying its own support team, special operators or casualties in addition to its aircrew was seen as a leg up as was its cargo aircraft look.

Sierra Nevada's MC-145B Coyote Armed Overwatch competitor.

Sierra Nevada corporation

This low-key “signature” aligned with the initial operational philosophy of the U-28A whose civilian roots arguably allowed it to land in places like Somalia without drawing too much attention to itself or the special operators near it.

The Sky Warden, larger than the AT-6, more militaristic looking than the Air Tractor AT-802 crop duster it’s derived from, and not familiar to the U.S. military was seen as a longer shot. What tipped the scales?

The Sky Warden’s ability to carry a larger payload than any of the single-engine aircraft evaluated for Armed Overwatch replete with the Common Launch Tube (capable of firing Griffin missiles, drones and other small munitions) favored by the special operations community was undoubtedly attractive.

L3 Harris’ president of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, Luke Savoie, told me that the AT-802U’s highly integrated mission system, sensor and avionics package was another differentiator for the Sky Warden. Its ability to carry multiple sensors and up to seven tactical line-of-sight and beyond line-of-sight radios is likely attractive to special forces ground teams.

“The difference is in the mission systems and the totality of the package,” Savoie asserts. “Other [Armed Overwatch candidates] leverage a mission system from an aircraft that was never intended to do any of the things [SOCOM] intended it to do.”

... [+]L3 Harris

As always, price may have been the biggest factor. In a previous piece on the Sky Warden, Savoie told me that he was “very confident” that the aircraft would be cost competitive.

SOCOM spokesperson, Lt. Cassandra Thompson, affirmed that in the Command’s view Sky Warden, “represents the best value to USSOCOM against multiple criteria and offers the modularity to adapt to future mission needs”.

No flyaway cost figure was provided by L3 Harris but the simple math deduction from the initial program contract award of $170 million for six low-rate initial production aircraft and systems announced on Monday effectively puts the initial Sky Wardens somewhere in the $20 million per copy range.

The full Indefinite Quantity, Indefinite Delivery contract includes a cost ceiling of $3 billion. For the present, L3Harris plans to rapidly modify its Armed Overwatch prototype demonstrator into the production configuration “and provide for customer weapon system testing in approximately six months,” according to a press release.

The LRIP 1 sextet of Sky Wardens will be manufactured starting in 2023 as “green aircraft” with a special high-strength wing at Air Tractor’s Olney, Texas factory. Air Tractor spokesman, Tom Menker, says that the company recently expanded its facilities there with particular attention to the AT-802 line and has plans for further expansion in the near term. He adds that 2022 will be a record setting year for the Ag aircraft maker but assures it will have enough capacity to meet the delivery requirements for Sky Warden moving forward.

Green AT-802s will be flown up from Texas to L3 Harris’ modification center in Tulsa, Oklahoma where they’ll get their avionics, stores carriage and other equipment packages added. Weapons system testing should commence by or near year’s end and SOCOM says to expect Sky Warden to reach initial operating capability in fiscal 2026, and full operating capability in 2029.

Last year, SOCOM Commander Gen. Richard Clarke, told congress he envisioned four operational squadrons of 15 Armed Overwatch aircraft with one deployed at any given time while the other three executed training rotations in the U.S. A fifth squadron of 10 to 15 planes would be for type transition training.

The contract award puts an interesting aircraft in SOCOM hands which peripherally allows the Air Force to operationally vet its long-desired light attack concept. SOCOM told Defense News it will not immediately seek to retire U-28As as it inducts Sky Wardens, saying the Draco remains needed for ISR and humanitarian relief operations.

The Sky Warden and its AT-802A predecessor seen in comparison.

L3 Harris/Air Tractor

The L3 Harris-Air Tractor team will naturally try to capitalize on the win, possibly appealing to operators of the predecessor Longsword AT-802 light attack aircraft it sold to Jordan, Egypt, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates and U.S. State Department.

“Anyone who sees the need for a multirole aircraft that can fly 11 hours, carry up to four sensors, six to seven tactical line of sight and beyond line-of-sight radios and 6,000 pounds of ordinance should know we’re capable of producing it in parallel with all of our other obligations,” Savoie says.

Forbes · by Eric Tegler · August 3, 2022

20. How Taiwan reacted to Pelosi’s visit, from ‘welcome’ to ‘American witch’

How Taiwan reacted to Pelosi’s visit, from ‘welcome’ to ‘American witch’

By Lily Kuo and Karina Tsui

Updated August 3, 2022 at 2:56 p.m. EDT|Published August 3, 2022 at 9:49 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Lily Kuo · August 3, 2022

TAIPEI, Taiwan — There were signs that Taiwanese people were both thrilled and anxious about Nancy Pelosi’s visit during the roughly 18 hours she and other U.S. lawmakers spent on the island.

“The more unhappy the [Chinese Communist Party] is, the happier I am,” Ingrid Ho, 35, a Taipei resident, told The Washington Post on Wednesday. “Pelosi coming may mean all kinds of consequences but in the moment, the excitement outweighs reason.”

Ho, like many of Taiwan’s 23 million citizens, has lived with China’s threats for decades. “Maybe it’s that Taiwanese people are used to being scared,” Ho said. “We are at the center of this conflict, but somehow I still feel like a bystander — just curious how this will turn out.”

Pelosi has been a longtime critic of the Chinese Communist Party, winning her fans among those who support Taiwan’s independence. In 1991, Pelosi visited Beijing and held up a black-and-white banner in Tiananmen Square to commemorate victims of the 1989 massacre that read: “To those who died for democracy.” In recent years, she has been an avid supporter of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

At Taipei Songshan Airport on Tuesday, a small group of supporters waited to greet Pelosi — and the atmosphere felt “like the countdown to the new year,” Lin Ching-yi, a lawmaker from Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party, wrote on Facebook.

“I’m very happy that Speaker Pelosi came to show her support,” said Liu Yueh-hsia, 72, holding a banner that read, “Speaker Pelosi, welcome to the Republic of Taiwan.”

Liu, who has been advocating for Taiwan’s formal independence for decades, added: “We have nothing to do with China. We don’t want to be unified with them.”

Taipei 101, Taiwan’s tallest skyscraper, was lit up with welcome messages for Pelosi in English and Chinese.

Elsewhere on the island, however, small groups of protesters, including those who support unification with China, stomped on American flags and held up signs disparaging Pelosi and urging the U.S. delegation to go home. One held up a sign calling Pelosi an “American witch.”

At a news conference with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday, Pelosi was asked what she could offer Taiwan to offset the possible costs the island would incur — including economic retaliation from China — as a consequence of her visit.

She answered that her visit was part of a broader U.S. effort to have “better economic exchanges” with Taiwan, and she said “significant” Taiwanese businesses are already planning to invest in manufacturing in the United States.” She also praised “the ingenuity, the entrepreneurial spirit, the brainpower, the intellectual resource that exists in Taiwan,” and called the island’s tech sector “a model.”

White House spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday that “China has positioned itself to take further steps” as a result of Pelosi’s visit — which could include more military drills near Taiwan and “economic coercion” measures, he said. “We expect that they will continue to react over a longer-term horizon,” he added.

On Thursday, China blacklisted two Taiwanese nonprofits affiliated with Taiwan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, a move that local reports say is a response to Pelosi’s visit. “Beijing’s bullying would achieve nothing except arouse the antipathy of Taiwanese toward China,” Lai Jui-lung, a legislator in Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party, told the Taipei Times. “We urge the communist regime in China to stop before it falls into an abyss.”

Though most Taiwanese believe that war is the last thing China wants, some are still worried about the short-term consequences of the visit.

Zamake Chang, 30, an engineer from Taoyuan, said Wednesday that he spent the day looking at flights from Taiwan’s main airport to see whether any have been disrupted. “I’m supposed to travel abroad soon, and I’m quite worried that Chinese military maneuvers will blockade us, and I won’t be able to go,” he said.

“Before the Ukraine war started, people also said Russia won’t invade,” he added. “Historically, there have been many wars that started suddenly. So really, it’s pretty tense now.”

Annabelle Timsit, Vic Chiang and Pei-Lin Wu contributed to this report.

The Washington Post · by Lily Kuo · August 3, 2022

21. US, Ukraine agree to more cyber cooperation amid Russian threat

US, Ukraine agree to more cyber cooperation amid Russian threat

Defense News · by Colin Demarest · August 3, 2022

WASHINGTON — The U.S. and Ukraine agreed to further cooperate on cybersecurity issues and to improve avenues of information sharing, as Russia’s assault in Eastern Europe grinds on.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and its Ukrainian counterpart, the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection, announced the deepened partnership at the end of July, calling it an important step toward a more secure future.

Priorities of the agreement include the exchange of best practices, studying how critical infrastructure is guarded, and establishing joint cybersecurity projects and exercises.

Both the U.S. and Ukraine participated in the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence’s Locked Shields exercise in April. Specialists with U.S. Cyber Command have also worked alongside Ukrainian forces to fortify networks and root out malicious behavior.

Oleksandr Potii, the deputy chairman of the SSSCIP, in a statement said the new accord “represents an enduring partnership and alignment in defending our shared values through increased real-time information sharing across agencies and critical sectors and committed collaboration in cultivating a resilient partnership.”

CISA Director Jen Easterly applauded the agreement — saying she was “incredibly pleased” to sign it — and noted that she has been “moved by the resiliency and bravery of the Ukrainian people throughout this unprovoked war.”

Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine, launched Feb. 24, was preceded by cyberattacks, including one on Viasat, a California-based company involved in commercial and military markets worldwide. The digital attack was meant to cripple Ukrainian command and control as Russian forces advanced. U.S. government clients were unharmed.

Some five months on, cyberattacks continue in Ukraine, with hackers mostly focused on the defense, government, finance and telecommunications sectors, according to a July 12 bulletin from the SSSCIP. Russia has historically denied involvement.

President Joe Biden in March warned of Russia potentially targeting U.S. networks and critical infrastructure as its fight flounders. The U.S. Navy also cautioned in an unclassified memo that adversaries are seeking to exploit digital vulnerabilities, like weak passwords and mistakes made on military or at-home, private networks.

“Cyber threats cross borders and oceans,” Easterly said in a statement, “and so we look forward to building on our existing relationship with SSSCIP to share information and collectively build global resilience against cyber threats.”

Feared attacks on U.S. assets, though, have yet to materialize.

About Colin Demarest

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

22. Defense ministry asks U.N. Command to share surveillance footage in N.K. fishermen repatriation case

I wonder how long they retain the video? Fortunately with today's technology they ought to be able to maintain large amounts of data.

I also have been wondering whether the UN Command could come up since it is the UN Command that is responsible for activities within the DMZ and Panmunjom/JSA area. The repatriation should have been coordinated with the UN Command but based on open source reporting it does not seem to have been.

Defense ministry asks U.N. Command to share surveillance footage in N.K. fishermen repatriation case | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 김나영 · August 4, 2022

SEOUL, Aug. 4 (Yonhap) -- The defense ministry has requested the United Nations Command to provide its surveillance camera footage showing two North Korean fishermen being repatriated across the inter-Korean border in 2019, a lawmaker's office said Thursday.

The footage is said to show the North Koreans being taken back to the North Korean side of the truce village of Panmunjom, which was taken from a different angle from that of a video released by the unification ministry last month.

The ministry's video showed one of the fishermen resisting being pulled across the Military Demarcation Line, sparking criticism the then government of President Moon Jae-in sent them back against their will even after they expressed a desire to defect to South Korea.

The Moon government said at the time it determined their defection desire as insincere as they had confessed to killing 16 fellow crew members, and deported them because criminals are not subject to government protection.

"Photos and a video clip released by the unification ministry confirm the North Korean fishermen were forcibly repatriated against their will," Rep. Tae Yong-ho, a defector-turned-lawmaker of the ruling People Power Party, said.

Tae said the U.N. Command's video, if released, will help reveal the truth.

nyway@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 김나영 · August 4, 2022

23. Top Chinese Diplomat Vows ‘Reeducation’ of Taiwan after ‘Reunification’

He said the quiet part out loud. This is what a "unified" China will do.

Top Chinese Diplomat Vows ‘Reeducation’ of Taiwan after ‘Reunification’

By JIMMY QUINN

August 3, 2022 6:57 PM

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/08/top-chinese-diplomat-vows-reeducation-of-taiwan-after-reunification/

China’s ambassador to France hinted at a policy reminiscent of Uyghur repression, while not ruling out an invasion.

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hina’s ambassador to France warned Wednesday that Beijing would pursue a population “reeducation” in Taiwan following its “reunification” with the mainland, borrowing language from the regime’s persecution of the Uyghurs in threatening a crackdown on the Taiwanese opposition.

The diplomat, Lu Shaye, is generally viewed as a hard-liner — but one who accurately reflects a bluntly articulated version of Beijing’s intended message to the rest of the world.

He made the ominous comments during an interview on France’s BFMTV network, while discussing House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan this week. His comments could serve to increase global alarm about China’s intentions to absorb Taiwan, since such a reeducation policy would likely only be possible were China to invade Taiwan.

“Ten years ago, 20 years ago, the majority of the population of Taiwan was for reunification, but why, now, are they against it? It’s because the Democratic Progressive Party has spread a lot of anti-Chinese propaganda,” he said about Taiwan’s ruling political party.

Pressed on this by the show’s host, Lu clarified: “After the reunification, we will do reeducation.”

Although Chinese Communist Party officials speak about reunifying Taiwan with the mainland, the party has never controlled the island, to which it aggressively continues to lay claim. Lu’s claim that a majority of Taiwanese favored reunification ten years ago is also false.

Presumably, the reeducation drive referenced by Lu would only follow a brutal invasion of the island. Earlier during the interview, he said that the possibility of a Chinese attack on Taiwan “is always there,” but claimed such an attack would “not be against the population of Taiwan.”

In his BFMTV appearance, Lu said he believes the Taiwanese population is becoming more favorable to accepting Beijing’s rule and that it is becoming even more “patriotic,” presumably toward the Chinese regime. And despite affirming in the interview that China might mount an invasion, Lu said that any reeducation effort would be peaceful and “not under threat,” clarifying that it would not be a “mass” reeducation.

Yet the party’s “reeducation” drive in the far western Chinese region of Xinjiang places Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in prison camps. Detainees there are subjected to nationalistic brainwashing, among other atrocities, in the camps and throughout the region. In January 2021, the State Department determined that the reeducation drive is part of a genocide aimed at assimilating Uyghurs and eventually erasing their existence as a people.

Party apparatchiks have claimed that the reeducation campaign in Xinjiang is made necessary by a supposed extremist independence movement pursued by Uyghurs. Echoes of this language could be heard in Lu’s comments on Wednesday.

“The problem is that the Democratic Progressive Party has spread extremist propaganda,” he said. Lu accused the DPP of engaging in a step-by-step independence campaign. “If we don’t react, if we don’t respond, they will attain their objective — independence.”

Although the DPP is generally viewed as more hawkish toward China than the other main Taiwanese party, the Kuomintang, it does not favor a formal declaration of Taiwanese independence. While Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen has said that the world must recognize the status quo in which Taiwan exists independently of Beijing, she has not embraced efforts to formally declare Taiwan’s independence.

Lu is known as a controversial Chinese official for his history of sparking high-profile diplomatic incidents during his time as ambassador to France.

In the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, in early 2020, the Chinese embassy’s Twitter account claimed that a Chinese diplomat witnessed incidents in which French senior-care facilities had left their residents “to die of hunger and disease.” It also alleged, falsely, that French lawmakers had referred to WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus using a racial slur. After those incidents, Jean-Yves Le Drian, then France’s foreign minister, summoned Lu for a meeting to express his country’s outrage.

The following year, the French foreign ministry summoned Lu again, twice in two days, over the embassy’s online harassment of French scholar Antoine Bondaz and its threats related to Western sanctions against China for the Uyghur atrocities.

24. S.Korean airlines temporarily cancel flights to Taiwan, media says

I just listened to CNN play video and audio of the missile firing that could be heard in Taiwan.

S.Korean airlines temporarily cancel flights to Taiwan, media says

Reuters · by Reuters

SEOUL, Aug 4 (Reuters) - South Korea's Korean Air Lines (003490.KS) and Asiana Airlines (020560.KS) are cancelling flights to Taiwan for one or two days because of Chinese military exercises in the area, local media reported on Thursday,

Korean Air canceled flights between Incheon and Taiwan on Friday and Saturday, while Asiana Airlines canceled Friday's direct flight to Taiwan and will monitor the situation, news agency News1 and other local media reported.

Spokespeople for Korean Air and Asiana could not be immediately reached.

China launched unprecedented live-fire military drills in six areas that ring Taiwan on Thursday, a day after a visit by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the self-ruled island that Beijing regards as its sovereign territory. read more

Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Reuters

25. An Alternative History of AirLand Battle, Part I

Conclusion:

Although the alternative history we posit did not happen, it is plausible that it could have happened. If it had, the 1967 Arab-Israel War would have been the basis for the Army’s innovations as it modernized to fight and win while being outnumbered against the Warsaw Pact. In our story, this hard work would have been developed over three years. It is reasonable to postulate that the new concept — Active Defense — that resulted from these years of rigorous gaming, experimentation, exercises, and modeling would have been the standard against which lessons from the subsequent 1973 Arab-Israeli War would be measured. Furthermore, a determined Gen. DePuy was implementing the concept and driving modernization. He was not someone to be crossed without good cause.

Our next article will try to chart a path through the minefield of lessons to be learned from Ukraine, that can better prepare the U.S. Department of Defense for the challenges it faces in the future.

An Alternative History of AirLand Battle, Part I - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by David Johnson · August 4, 2022

Early in the morning on Feb. 11, 1974, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command headquarters is abuzz with activity. Gen. Creighton Abrams, Army chief of staff since October, is coming to Fort Monroe for a meeting with all the Army’s three- and four-star generals. The focus of the session is on the initial lessons learned from what the press is calling the “Yom Kippur War”. This latest round between Israel and the Arab states was an unexpectedly close-run thing.

Lt. Gen. Todd Land, director of the Future Concepts Division, led the team that went to Israel for a month to study the war. He and his team have lots to tell the chief. Indeed, what they had learned fully validated the path the Army was on in fielding its new active defense doctrine, itself crafted after an exhaustive analysis of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, more popularly known as the “Six Day War.” Indeed, the Army had created U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command and U.S. Army Forces Command in 1970 to get the Army on track. The lessons learned from that war showed the importance of the Army in big wars. It was also a great surrogate for — as his boss, Gen. Bill DePuy, loved to frame NATO’s challenges against the Warsaw Pact — “winning the first battle of the next war while fighting outnumbered.”

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Why Think About an Alternative History?

The story related in the introduction didn’t happen. It’s fiction. We are using it to set up an alternative history of what might have happened at the Army set up Training and Doctrine Command three years earlier than it did, using the 1967 war as its basis for innovation for modern warfare rather than the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Had that happened, when the 1973 war came, we believe it would have been viewed through the lens of the hard work that had already been done to prepare the Army for the future. Consequently, the lessons of 1973 would have been skewed to validate this process, rather than question its efficacy. We believe this alternative history can serve as a cautionary tale about the challenges all the services — deeply invested in their ongoing modernization efforts — will face in fully and objectively assessing the “lessons” from the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.

Before we continue, a note on literary style: In our alternative timeline, we look closely at our characters — especially Land, Westmoreland, and DePuy. We do this because we believe these characters speak a great deal to the culture of the Army, both at the time and today in all the services as they examine Ukraine. DePuy’s stature is especially important. He was the best leader the Army had at the time and was probably the only general officer who could have pulled all this off, whether it is in our alternative history or in the actual story that unfolded. His toughness and demeanor are important, because they gave him the ability to ram Active Defense and the training reforms through the gauntlet.

The admonition to “Never let a good crisis go to waste” is apt advice to any institution that has set out to drive change. In militaries, transformational changes are often termed “revolutions in military affairs.” The most famous in the military literature are the innovations that occurred between World War I and World War II: the German blitzkrieg, U.S. Navy carrier aviation, and U.S. Marine Corps amphibious operations.

Other attempted revolutions in military affairs are largely lost to history except as case studies of failed approaches. This was the case of the Pentomic Division — the Army’s grasping for relevance in the face of “New Look” massive cuts to conventional forces during the Eisenhower administration. Or the Air Force’s attempts to build a nuclear-powered bomber to avoid risky refueling operations. More recently, the decision to cancel the Army’s Future Combat Systems program and abandon its supporting concepts come to mind. Similarly, the Navy continues to have difficulties with its Littoral Combat Ship, while the Marine Corps has abandoned the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, which supported new concepts of its own.

Fortunately, many efforts at innovation never get far enough along to fail in combat. Instead, the “ideas” join the massive stack of useless bumper stickers masquerading as major innovations for which no car was built on which to hang them. Some of the more recent such efforts that come to mind include network-centric warfare, halt operations, responsibility to protect, leading from behind, air sea battle, strategic landpower, and rapid decisive operations.

There are, however, examples in post-Cold War U.S. history where crises spurred action and true innovation. For example, the Global War on Terror forced the U.S. military to embrace unmanned aerial systems whose potential a “pilot-in-the cockpit” culture had stymied for decades. These unmanned systems revolutionized the Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance-Strike Complex with their long reach, endurance, and zero risk of pilots becoming casualties or terrorist captives.

The literature on military innovation abounds if one looks for other examples of success and failure. What is less examined are cases when there is not a crisis but, instead, the motivation is to justify institutional relevance. Importantly, these innovations are not necessarily designed to take advantage of new ideas or technologies. Here, the focus is on highlighting to their political masters the relevance of existing and planned service capabilities and concepts to solving a problem. The stakes are high in these endeavors; success ranges from forestalling cuts to significantly increasing budgets. This approach is the rationale for the case that we will examine in this alternative history of the U.S. Army at the end of the Vietnam War.

What actually happened is one of the best-known cases of Cold War military innovation: the development of AirLand Battle by the Army, ably assisted by the Air Force. Briefly, Active Defense and its successor, AirLand Battle, were ultimately responses to a crisis caused by assessments of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

The U.S. Army was alarmed that the Arab armies had nearly defeated the vaunted Israeli Defense Force. To add to the anxiety was the realization that the Arabs were using Soviet equipment and doctrine, while the Israelis largely relied on U.S. materiel. If Arabs had pulled this off against the Israelis, what would happen to U.S. forces in a fight against the even better trained and equipped Warsaw Pact?

The Army’s response is the stuff of service legend. The Army created a new four-star-led institution — U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command — to study the war, develop concepts to prepare the Army to fight in NATO, and to drive materiel requirements to realize the concept. Eventually, the Army and the Air Force realized that they had to work together on the Soviet problem; it was beyond the ability of either service to solve independently.

The problem, revealed by the 1973 crisis, had two important dimensions. First, it was a strategic and vital national security problem, which assured external political and budgetary support. It was not just the Army looking to demonstrate its relevance in the face of budget pressures, particularly force structure cuts, as had largely been the case during its response to Eisenhower’s New Look. Second, the problem was enduring. Consequently, it enjoyed continued support both outside and, perhaps more importantly, inside the Army from successive chiefs of staff.

Absent a clear, specific strategic problem that demands significant institutional change, innovation often founders. Operational concepts, when not tied to a specific military problem, struggle to provide relevance against nebulous strategic policies, e.g., “the pivot to Asia.”

The 1973 Yom Kippur War clearly had all the characteristics that foreshadowed the strategic challenge posed by the Warsaw Pact to NATO. Inside the Army, it had the added attraction of returning to how the Army had fought since World War I. Vietnam had been an anomaly. That war would have been won, in the opinion of most senior military officers, if the U.S. Armed Forces had been permitted by their civilian masters to fight it like it should have been fought.

The question we will pose is what would have resulted if the Army had created Training and Doctrine Command before the 1973 war and instead based its innovation on the 1967 war? Would they have viewed the 1973 war as validation of their efforts to date? Or would they have seen the war as something different and as a crisis?

This is the challenge facing all the services as they begin mining the lessons from Ukraine. Will they use this crisis to search for flaws in their concepts and capabilities, or merely for validation?

Embracing the Only Crisis You Have: Next Steps in this Alternative History

Continuing the “what if” alternative history of events that might have transpired if the Army had formed its Training and Doctrine Command in 1970, rather than in July 1973, the new command would have focused on the 1967 Arab-Israeli War as the basis for analysis and impetus for modernizing the Army for high-end warfare. Our story continues with a brief elaboration of the context within which Gen. Westmoreland made these decisions.

One of the first things Westmoreland did when he got settled in as chief in July 1968 was direct a close examination of the recent 1967 Six-Day War between the Arabs and the Israelis. In that war, the outnumbered Israelis had routed the larger Arab armies. Westmoreland wanted to know how the Israelis did it, particularly since the Arabs were using Russian equipment and doctrine.

Westmoreland believed that he had to reorient the Army away from Vietnam now that the war in Vietnam was clearly drawing down. Quite frankly, in his view, the Army was on the cusp of a crisis. What reforms and modernization initiatives would make it relevant after the war, when, as always, budgets would contract?

Westmoreland clearly had reasons for concern. The Nixon Doctrine, announced by the President in 1969, stated that in the future the United States would prepare to fight one-and-a-half wars simultaneously — a major war in Europe or Asia and a lesser conflict like Vietnam. This obviously had implications for the Army’s size and budget, given that the previous administration had a two-and-a-half war strategy, requiring forces to simultaneously fight the Soviets in Europe, the Chinese or North Koreans in Asia, and a lesser Third World conflict. Nevertheless, it was hard to make the case that the Chinese would ever become a significant threat. Furthermore, the North Koreans had been contained since the armistice ending the Korean War and the Republic of Korea military was coming into its own.

Westmoreland’s worst fears were being born out. In 1968, there were 1,570,343 soldiers on active duty in the Army. The actual numbers for 1972 were bleaker than anyone had expected in their worst nightmares: the Army was cut nearly in half to around 810,000 active duty soldiers. Budgets were plummeting. Projections for future years looked even more dire.

In addition to cuts to its end strength and budget, the Army was facing growing internal issues of indiscipline, drug use, and racial tension. Furthermore, the officer corps was in trouble as well. A disturbing study by the Army War College, directed by Westmoreland, had uncovered widespread perceptions in the officer corps that they were being micromanaged. More alarming was the finding that many did not trust their superior officers. “Careerism” was the shorthand for these problems. Westmoreland kept the report confidential — this was not a story the Army needed out in the public, particularly now. The seemingly never-ending fallout from the My Lai disaster was bad enough!

Maintaining even the reduced end strength numbers was going to be difficult. President Nixon, following up on his 1968 campaign promise, had made the decision to end the draft by 1973 just this past December. Like so much else, this was likely done to dampen domestic protests. Recruiting enough qualified volunteers to fill the Army’s ranks was going to be a “significant challenge” — Army speak for “nearly impossible.”

Westmoreland knew he had to find a compelling reason to justify the Army’s relevance or watch it wither in the shadow of the other services. The defense of NATO was the obvious answer. and his strategy had two fronts. First, he was going to reinvigorate the Army for a major war in Europe against the Soviets, given that was the principal threat. The demands of the war in Vietnam had forced the Army to both underman the units in Germany and elsewhere and to focus its training and equipment for the war it was in: Vietnam.

To get the Army back on track, Westmoreland created in July 1970 a new four-star command — the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. He also carefully selected the commander for this key post. Bill DePuy, his J-3 in Vietnam, and Assistance Vice Chief of Staff in the Pentagon, took the reins of this important new command.

DePuy was known throughout the Army as a tough and innovative leader. He, like Westmoreland and Abrams, had also been in the Army long enough to have seen the big elephant in World War II, in addition to his service in Vietnam. He knew the demands and lethality of a high-intensity war against a peer enemy. In his first official call with them, Westmoreland gave DePuy his marching orders.

Land had been a note taker for Westmoreland during the meeting and remembered vividly his boss’s guidance to the two eager new commanders. Westmoreland told DePuy that he was his handpicked. trusted agent in the campaign to help restore the relevance of the Army. In short, he was entrusting the very future of the Army to him.

Westmoreland told DePuy that this job was particularly central to his vision. He wanted U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command to be the Army’s “Architect for the Future.” He needed concepts that made the Army central to any U.S. response to the Soviet challenge in NATO, as a way to arrest the downward slide in Army manpower and budgets.

The hard-charging Bill DePuy was the perfect choice for U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. Land knew DePuy from having served as one of DePuy’s battalion commanders in the 1st Infantry Division in Vietnam. Indeed, he was a survivor of DePuy’s demands for excellence. In the Big Red One, DePuy sacked battalion commanders and majors — over 50 between March and December 1966 — so fast that then Army chief General Harold Johnson declared, “If every division commander relieved people like DePuy, I’d soon be out of lieutenant colonels and majors. He just eats them up like peanuts.”

DePuy was unphased; he knew the cost of unprepared commanders. He was a second lieutenant in 1942; in August 1944 he received a field promotion to major and was commanding an infantry battalion in the 90th Infantry Division. His toughness on officers in his subsequent commands, most notably in the 1st Infantry Division in Vietnam (1966), was the result of witnessing the costs of incompetent officers on the battlefield: dead American soldiers. He had also demonstrated personal courage on the battlefields of Europe and Asia that demanded respect, having earned two Distinguished Service Crosses, three Silver Stars, and two Purple Hearts.

Bill DePuy was exactly what the Army needed. He soon began a campaign to get the Army back to basics and demanded competence: everyone had to know their jobs. Military occupational specialties were deconstructed into tasks, conditions, and standards and at every level, enlisted soldiers were tested on their mastery. DePuy also rivetted the Army’s attention on the NATO fight against the Warsaw Pact. “Know your enemy” became his prime directive: if you knew the Soviets in detail, you could beat them.

The disciplined, focused Army that Westmoreland envisioned would be trained in reinvigorated Army schools, run by U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. New equipment and formations would be developed to execute the doctrine that evolved from the new concept. Therefore, the concept had to come first, or the Army would chase the next good materiel idea endlessly. And the equipment would be focused, as was everything else, on beating the Soviets.

DePuy was building a threat-based Army. For example, with artillery, the range challenge was being able to outrange Soviet artillery and win the counter-fire fight while supporting the scheme of maneuver, not just shoot as far as possible. As for any new tank, it had to make a gunfight unfair by killing Soviet tanks outside of the enemy tank’s maximum effective range — and the mechanized forces had to fight in well-trained, combined-arms teams. All of these efforts required rigorous experimentation, modeling, and analysis.

Central to DePuy’s strategy was the crafting of a warfighting concept relevant to the mission of NATO of deterring a war with Russia. If deterrence failed, the Army had to be ready to execute its key mission of defending NATO in a high-intensity war. Clearly, a robust and credible defense was imperative. “Active Defense” is what resulted from DePuy’s guidance and two years of hard work at U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.

The goal of the operating concept, essentially a multi-corps bounding overwatch in reverse, was to grind up the Red Army and its allies, denying the Warsaw Pact the rapid achievement of territorial objectives its own doctrine demanded.

DePuy was ruthless in his enforcement of what he knew were necessary measures to meet Westmoreland’s guidance. This was a top-down exercise and DePuy, as he had been throughout his career, did not shy away from enforcing his will.

Land was proud to be on DePuy’s team. Westmoreland had promoted him and finally released him from the hated Pentagon to go take a key role in this exciting new endeavor that would save the Army. Land had replaced his West Point classmate, Lieutenant General Tom Air, who had just retired. Air, unfortunately, had not been moving the ball forward. He kept insisting that the Air Force would have to be closely involved in crafting the Army concept, given that air support would be critical in a big state war, just as it had been during World War II.

Aside from broad disagreement in U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command with Air’s assertions, airmen were clearly not interested in helping the Army. The Air Force was riding high, insisting that the recent Christmas bombing campaign over North Vietnam had won the war by breaking the North Vietnamese will and driving them to the peace table in Paris. If that wasn’t enough, the bomber mafia was reasserting itself, proclaiming that the war would have been won in the first year if strategic airpower had been unleashed on the North, per the plan offered to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1964. They could do the same thing in any future war — if, as they predictably argued, the service was sufficiently funded. Westmoreland feared that if their arguments prevailed, it could be the Eisenhower New Look all over again.

As for McNamara and his ”whiz kids,” their limited war theories and gradual escalation failures showed once again that civilians, particularly academic intellectuals, had no business getting involved in the conduct of a war. Their micromanagement made fighting the war nearly impossible and beyond frustrating.

The ’73 War Was an Outlier

Land was ready for the meeting. He and DePuy had spent many late hours that week developing the briefing. Their findings about the Yom Kippur War bore out the correctness of Active Defense; their hard work over the past two years of war was well worthwhile.

Land was amazed at the poor Israeli performance in the Yom Kippur War. Obviously, they had not studied their own ’67 War as rigorously as had U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. They were known for their arrogance, but this was unbelievable!

The clear lesson from the Yom Kippur fiasco was the fact that the Israelis were not trained to defend. Their positions in the Sinai were easily overwhelmed. Fortunately, for the Israelis, the terrain in the Golan and some tough Israeli commanders had enabled them to hold against the Syrians. Then they reverted to what they always did: high-risk offensives using a flawed operating concept that overly relied on pure armor formations and close air support. The Arab use of Soviet air defense systems, particularly the mobile SA-6 surface-to-air missile, denied the Israelis the air superiority they had previously enjoyed. Consequently, the air-armor team the Israelis relied upon was stymied. The Israelis barely pulled it out, even with significant U.S. materiel support.

Furthermore, all the ado about the surprise appearance of the Russian Sagger anti-tank guided missile on the battlefield was idiotic. Had not the U.S. Army used its version, the TOW, to great effect in Vietnam in 1972 against North Vietnamese armored attacks? It was a great weapon to reinforce the defense against armored offensives. It would play an important role in NATO, both on the ground and mounted on helicopters. Unfortunately, part of the Army’s budget would have to go to replacing the TOWs it had to send to Israel.

The clear lesson from the ’73 war wasn’t that the Arabs had gotten that much better since ’67. Rather, the vaunted Israeli military, resting on its laurels, had atrophied and was not ready.

Yes, the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command team was ready for the chief and the Army was clearly on the right track! Active Defense had been validated in the ultimate experiment: the crucible of war. Fortunately, for the Army, this was a vicarious learning experience. Rather than losing its next first battle, the Army had learned from the Israelis’ success in ’67, as well as their catastrophic near defeat in ‘73.

The briefing was a huge success. General Abrams was clearly pleased, so much so that he hosted an open bar at the Fort Monroe O Club. He told the team that their work was just what the Army needed. It showed the central role that only the Army could play in defending NATO. And the gap analysis between U.S. and Soviet systems was invaluable. It gave him just the right ammunition for the looming budget battles on the Hill. How could Congress deny soldiers the capabilities they would need to win? The “bloody shirt” had its uses.

Finally, Abrams was also enthusiastic about Active Defense. It showed that the Army understood how to fight big wars and knew the same old “On to Berlin” offensive concept was not going to cut it in a war against a nuclear power. He would personally work on getting Army doubters in line. This was key. If you thought DePuy was tough, having Abrams in your face was a real nightmare, particularly since everyone knew that he personally managed all general officer assignments. Abrams’s message would be crystal clear: sing with one voice or find another choir.

Why is This Alternative History Relevant?

Although the alternative history we posit did not happen, it is plausible that it could have happened. If it had, the 1967 Arab-Israel War would have been the basis for the Army’s innovations as it modernized to fight and win while being outnumbered against the Warsaw Pact. In our story, this hard work would have been developed over three years. It is reasonable to postulate that the new concept — Active Defense — that resulted from these years of rigorous gaming, experimentation, exercises, and modeling would have been the standard against which lessons from the subsequent 1973 Arab-Israeli War would be measured. Furthermore, a determined Gen. DePuy was implementing the concept and driving modernization. He was not someone to be crossed without good cause.

Our next article will try to chart a path through the minefield of lessons to be learned from Ukraine, that can better prepare the U.S. Department of Defense for the challenges it faces in the future.

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David Johnson is a retired Army officer. He is a principal researcher at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and an adjunct scholar at the Modern War Institute at West Point. He is the author of Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the U.S. Army, 1917-1945 and Learning Large Lessons: The Evolving Roles of Ground Power and Air Power in the Post-Cold War Era. From 2012-2014 he founded and directed the Chief of Staff of the Army Strategic Studies Group for General Raymond T. Odierno.

Zach Alessi-Friedlander is an officer in the U.S. Army, having served in tactical, operational, and strategic assignments in light infantry and armored cavalry units. He was a member of General Odierno’s inaugural Strategic Studies Group and participated in the Art of War Scholars program at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. He is currently a Ph.D. student in History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Image: U.S. Army photo

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by David Johnson · August 4, 2022

26. ‘Never seen it this bad’: America faces catastrophic teacher shortage

Troubling. Especially close to home as our daughter is getting her master's in teaching with an intent to become a high school English teacher in Fairfax County schools.

Excerpts:

Leslie Houston, president of the Fairfax Education Association, said she has never in her career seen so many teachers leaving the job because they feel disrespected, primarily by politicians and some parents.

“When people were beating up on teachers and just being real nasty about what we’re doing and what we’re not doing,” Houston said, “I don’t think they were really thinking, ‘Who will teach my children?’ ”

‘Never seen it this bad’: America faces catastrophic teacher shortage

The Washington Post · by Hannah Natanson · August 3, 2022

Rural school districts in Texas are switching to four-day weeks this fall due to lack of staff. Florida is asking veterans with no teaching background to enter classrooms. Arizona is allowing college students to step in and instruct children.

The teacher shortage in America has hit crisis levels — and school officials everywhere are scrambling to ensure that, as students return to classrooms, someone will be there to educate them.

“I have never seen it this bad,” Dan Domenech, executive director of the School Superintendents Association, said of the teacher shortage. “Right now it’s number one on the list of issues that are concerning school districts ... necessity is the mother of invention, and hard-pressed districts are going to have to come up with some solutions.”

It is hard to know exactly how many U.S. classrooms are short of teachers for the 2022-2023 school year; no national database precisely tracks the issue. But state- and district-level reports have emerged across the country detailing staffing gaps that stretch from the hundreds to the thousands — and remain wide open as summer winds rapidly to a close.

The Nevada State Education Association estimated that roughly 3,000 teaching jobs remained unfilled across the state’s 17 school districts as of early August. In a January report, the Illinois Association of Regional School Superintendents found that 88 percent of school districts statewide were having “problems with teacher shortages” — while 2,040 teacher openings were either empty or filled with a “less than qualified” hire. And in the Houston area, the largest five school districts are all reporting that between 200 and 1,000 teaching positions remain open.

Carlton Jenkins, superintendent of the Madison Metropolitan School District in Wisconsin, said teachers are so scarce that superintendents across the country have developed a whisper network to alert each other when educators move between states.

“We’re at a point right now, where if I have people who want to move to California, I call up and give a reference very quick,” he said. “And if someone is coming from another place — say, Minnesota — I have superintendent colleagues in Minnesota, they call and say, ‘Hey, I have teachers coming your way.’ ”

Why are America’s schools so short-staffed? Experts point to a confluence of factors including pandemic-induced teacher exhaustion, low pay and some educators’ sense that politicians and parents — and sometimes their own school board members — have little respect for their profession amid an escalating educational culture war that has seen many districts and states pass policies and laws restricting what teachers can say about U.S. history, race, racism, gender and sexual orientation, as well as LGBTQ issues.

“The political situation in the United States, combined with legitimate aftereffects of covid, has created this shortage,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. “This shortage is contrived.”

The stopgap solutions for lack of staff run the gamut, from offering teachers better pay to increasing the pool of people who qualify as educators to bumping up class sizes. But many of these temporary fixes are likely to harm students by diminishing their ability to learn, predicted Dawn Etcheverry, president of the Nevada State Education Association.

“When you start to double classes, teachers don’t have that one-on-one with the students, that personal ability to understand what the student needs” — both academically and socially, Etcheverry said.

Danika Mills, a former school-based therapist and state director of Unite Us, a technology company that connects health and social services providers, said this diminishment in the quality of education is coming at the worst possible moment. America’s schoolchildren are still struggling to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, she said, and the havoc months of online learning wreaked on students’ academic progress, social skills and mental health.

“We know students of all ages suffered steep declines in academic achievement during the pandemic and now is the time to course-correct those changes,” Mills said. “Instead, I think and fear we may be facing an even bigger decline.”

Nevada’s Clark County School District, which serves 320,000 students, is one of many school systems taking a scattershot approach to staff shortages by trying several solutions at once. In hopes of shrinking its roughly 1,300 teaching vacancies, the district has raised the starting teacher salary by $7,000 and is offering a $4,000 “relocation bonus” to new teachers who move from out of state or more than 100 miles. In an interview, Superintendent Jesus F. Jara said the district is also granting employees a “retention bonus” of up to $5,000 for staying in their jobs.

But, with school slated to start in a week, the district is still only 92 percent staffed, Jara said. And — despite “around-the-clock” efforts from his human resources team — he does not believe the district will close the gap in time.

“I’m still worried, I am still losing sleep at night, and I’m not going to fill the rest of the 8 percent of our classrooms by Monday,” Jara said.

Come Aug. 8, the district will be forced to deploy patching measures, Jara said — including pulling administrators from the central office to work as substitutes and combining multiple classes together in large spaces such as auditoriums or gymnasiums.

“Band-aid-wise, I think they’re doing whatever they can,” said Jeff Horn, executive director of the Clark County Association of School Administrators. “It’s a mess.”

Other districts and states are attempting more unorthodox fixes. A new state law in Arizona, signed by Gov. Doug Ducey (R) last month, allows college students to take teaching jobs. A similar law, which took effect in Florida on July 1, offers K-12 teaching jobs to military veterans who served for at least four years. The veterans do not need bachelor’s degrees but must have earned at least 60 college credits while maintaining a grade-point average of at least 2.5.

Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, said the need for teachers in his state is dire: His association estimates there are at least 8,000 teacher vacancies this year, up from 5,000 the year before. But Spar does not believe the veterans program is “really a solution,” as it may lead to unqualified individuals entering classrooms.

“I think we all appreciate what our military veterans have done for our country in terms of protecting our freedoms both here and abroad,” he said. “But just because you were in the military does not mean you will be a great teacher.”

Meanwhile, the school board and superintendent in Arizona’s Tucson Independent School District are considering making up for a dearth of math teachers — the system is missing 24 of them, along with 102 other teachers — by sending a small number of students into online learning for part of the day. The district may hire virtual math teachers from a Chicago-based online education company, the Tucson Sentinel reported. The superintendent did not respond to a request for comment.

And in Texas’s Mineral Wells Independent School District and Chico Independent School District, officials have switched to a four-day school week for the upcoming academic year. In both districts, which are small and rural, school leaders said the change is meant to attract and retain teachers amid significant staff shortages, the Texas Tribune reported. Neither district responded to a request for comment.

In Wisconsin’s Madison school district, superintendent Jenkins said that, a month away from the start of school on Sept. 1, officials are still working to fill 199 teacher vacancies and 124 non-teaching positions.

But no children will lack an adult in the classroom come fall, he said, because the district has managed to recruit 269 qualified substitute teachers — primarily by raising substitute pay rates this spring. Jenkins said he hopes that, over the course of the year, the district can convince at least some of these substitutes to convert to full-time teachers.

“We’re just going to go after them,” Jenkins said. Initial enticements will include “some immediate supplies. Every teacher likes their calendar, right? So we’re providing calendars, little things for them — and we have some other things planned that I don’t want to reveal, because I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

In Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia’s largest district, Superintendent Michelle Reid said 97 percent of teaching positions are filled about three weeks before the semester begins.

Reid said the district of nearly 179,000 students is now making an “all-hands-on-deck” effort to fill those jobs.

“We are recruiting and processing applications and hiring educators around-the-clock, really,” she said. “It’s our intent to continue to recruit and hire teachers daily as we approach the start of the school year.”

Nonetheless, the district has begun developing backup plans, Reid said. Although the details vary campus to campus, one possible strategy is to send administrators with teaching licenses back into classrooms — but “we hope we will not have to utilize that.”

Leslie Houston, president of the Fairfax Education Association, said she has never in her career seen so many teachers leaving the job because they feel disrespected, primarily by politicians and some parents.

“When people were beating up on teachers and just being real nasty about what we’re doing and what we’re not doing,” Houston said, “I don’t think they were really thinking, ‘Who will teach my children?’ ”

The Washington Post · by Hannah Natanson · August 3, 2022

De Oppresso Liber,

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