Quotes of the Day:
"Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best."
- Jules Verne
"'Knowledge dominance' does scare us as Marines. General George Armstrong Custer probably thought he had knowledge dominance, too. Anytime you think you're smarter than your adversary, you're probably about a half-mile from the Little Big Horn."
- Colonel Art Corbett, USMC
"Those cannot be trusted to act on clear and concise verbal orders, but want everything in writing, are useless. There is too much paper in circulation in the army and no-one can read even half of it intelligently."
- Field Marshall The Viscount Montgomery of Alamein KG, GCB, DSO. Memoirs, 1958. (17 November 1887 - 24 March 1976)
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JUNE 11 (PUTIN'S WAR)
2. Opinion | Zelensky calls for international support for Taiwan before China attacks
3. China accuses US of trying to 'hijack' support in Asia
4. US defense chief says China muscling neighbors, plundering resources in Pacific
5. Ukraine's teen drone hero "happy that we destroyed someone"
6. Give Ukraine a Chance to Win
7. Integrated Air and Missile Defense: Early Lessons from the Russia-Ukraine War
8. China launched the world's first AI-operated 'mother ship,' an unmanned carrier capable of launching dozens of drones
9. US, China Defense Ministers Hold First Meeting
10. Chinese defence chief says it is up to U.S. to improve bilateral ties
11. Behind Nato’s defensive ‘shield’ lies weakness and division. Ukraine will pay the price
12. A case study in American propaganda - Responsible Statecraft
13. Bringing Justice Home: Dispatches from the ISIS ‘Beatles’ Trial
14. The Russian invasion has clear implications for the US Army
15. Nicaragua authorizes entry of Russian troops, planes, ships
16. How China Hacked US Phone Networks
17. Proxy war or not, Ukraine shows why moral hazards matter
18. 10th Mountain Commander Says Leaders Need to Leave Soldiers Alone After Hours
19. Guns aren’t going away. What if we treated gun violence that way?
20. Trump’s Air Force One Deal Pains the Pentagon, Not Just Boeing
1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JUNE 11 (PUTIN'S WAR)
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JUNE 11
Kateryna Stepanenko, Mason Clark, and George Barros
June 11, 6:00 pm ET
Click here to see ISW's interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
Ukrainian intelligence assesses that the Russian military is extending its planning to fight a longer war, though Russian force generation and reserves likely remain poor. Deputy Head of the Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Vadym Skibitsky stated the GUR received confirmed information that Russian forces have extended their war planning for the next 120 days, extending to October 2022.[1] Skibitsky said that Russian forces will adjust the plan depending on their successes in Donbas and noted that the Russian General Staff is modifying their invasion plans almost every month.[2] Skibitsky’s statement likely indicates the Kremlin has, at a minimum, acknowledged it cannot achieve its objectives in Ukraine quickly and is further adjusting its military objectives in an attempt to correct the initial deficiencies in the invasion of Ukraine. Skibitsky also claimed that Russian forces have an additional 40 battalion tactical groups (BTGs) in reserve, after having already deployed 103 BTGs to Ukraine. This report is highly unlikely to mean Russian forces retain 40 full-strength and effective BTGs in Russia. At most, these “BTGs” are likely small collections of personnel cobbled together from other units. The Russian military is additionally unlikely to be holding such a significant portion of its force in reserve due to continuing manpower shortages in existing frontline units.
Ukrainian officials continued to increase their requests for Western offensive and defensive equipment, particularly regarding capabilities necessary to combat Russian artillery superiority. Head of the Ukrainian Northern Operational Command Dmytro Krasilnikov reported that Ukrainian forces are experiencing a shortage in long-range artillery systems, while Russian artillery continues to overpower Ukrainian infantry. Ukrainian Advisor to Cabinet of Ministers Oleksandr Danylyuk stated that Russian forces adopted a new unspecified strategy that allows them to make more careful maneuvers.[3] Danylyuk added that Russian forces have more resources than Ukraine, which would prove advantageous in a protracted conflict. Severodonetsk Mayor Oleksandr Stryuk said that Ukrainian defenders need long-range artillery and air defense systems to strike against advancing Russian troops in Luhansk Oblast.[4] Ukrainian forces will need consistent Western support, particularly regarding artillery systems, as Russian numbers and resources take their toll on Ukrainian forces in increasingly positional warfare.
Key Takeaways
- Russian forces continued to conduct ground offensives within the Severodonetsk area, but Ukrainian defenders retain control of the industrial area of the city as of June 11.
- Russian forces likely resumed efforts to cut the T1303 Hirske-Lysyschansk highway and launched failed assaults on settlements along the T1302 Bakhmut-Lysychank highway.
- Russian forces continued assaults on settlements southwest and southeast of Izyum in an effort to resume drives on Slovyansk.
- Ukrainian forces likely resumed counteroffensives northwest of Kherson City on June 11, south of their previous operations.
- Russian occupation officials distributed the first batch of Russian passports in Kherson City and Melitopol.
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 three 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;
- 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 launched ground assaults on Severodonetsk and several surrounding settlements on June 11. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces are resisting Russian assaults on Severodonetsk and repelled a Russian attack on Metolkine, just southeast of Severodonetsk.[5] The Luhansk People’s Republic Ambassador to Russia, Rodion Miroshnik, claimed that Russian forces encircled 300 to 400 Ukrainian servicemen at the Azot Chemical Plant in Severodonetsk, but Ukrainian officials maintained that Ukrainian forces control a third of the city, including the industrial zone.[6] Russian forces continued to launch offensive operations against Toshkivka, likely in an effort to secure the western Siverskyi Donets riverbank.[7]
Russian forces conducted offensive operations east and west of Popasna likely to interdict Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Lysychansk and Severodonetsk. Russian forces withdrew to their previously occupied position after launching failed attacks against Mykolaivka and Berestove, both located in the vicinity of the Bakhmut-Lysychansk T1302 highway.[8] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces are also attempting to seize Nyrokove (approximately 5 km east of T1302) and fighting is ongoing in the area.[9] Ukrainian forces reportedly foiled Russian reconnaissance operations in Volodymyrivka, approximately 16 km east of Bakhmut. Russian forces are additionally resuming their operations to control the Hirske-Lysychansk T1303 highway, east of Popasna. Luhansk Oblast Head Serhiy Haidai stated that Russian forces entered Orihove (approximately 4 km east of T1303) and are strengthening positions at the northern outskirts of the settlement.[10] Geolocated footage showed that Russian and Chechen units also took control over a train station in Komyshuvakha (approximately 7 km west of T1303) and will likely attempt to link up with units advancing from Orihove.[11]
Russian forced resumed attacks southwest of Izyum and towards Slovyansk on June 11. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched a series of unsuccessful assaults on Brazhkivka and Virnopillia to reach Barvinkove, approximately 35km southwest of Izyum.[12] Ukrainian forces also repelled Russian assaults on Dolyna, a settlement located on the E40 highway to Slovyansk.[13] Geolocated footage showed that Russian forces entered the northern outskirts of Bohorodychne (approximately 25 km southeast of Izyum) on June 11.[14] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces replenished fuel and ammunition in the Lyman area in preparation for offensive operations toward Slovyansk and Siversk.[15] ISW previously assessed that Russian forces may attempt to cut off Ukrainian GLOCs in Siversk and conduct a shallower encirclement in lieu of an advance on Slovyansk.[16] Geolocated imagery also showed that Russian forces constructed a new bridge along the Russian GLOCs to Izyum in southeastern Kharkiv Oblast, which may also indicate that Russian forces will continue to reinforce the Slovyansk and Siversk offensive operations.[17]
Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv City (Russian objective: Withdraw forces to the north and defend ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum)
There were no significant developments in northern Kharkiv Oblast on June 11. Russian forces fired on Kharkiv City and Ukrainian positions northeast of the city.[18] Ukrainian forces continued to target Russian ammunition depots in occupied settlements south of Kharkiv City.[19]
Supporting Effort #2—Southern Axis (Objective: Defend Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts against Ukrainian counterattacks)
Ukrainian forces likely resumed counteroffensives in northwestern Kherson Oblast on June 11, threatening Russian positions north of Kherson City. The Kherson City Council reported that Ukrainian forces are conducting counteroffensives in Kyselivka, Soldatske, and Oleksandrivka, all within 40 km of Kherson City.[20] The Kherson City Council added that Ukrainian forces liberated Tavriyske, approximately 39km northwest of Kherson City, but the Ukrainian General Staff did not confirm the reports of Ukrainian counteroffensives in the area. Ukrainian military journalist Roman Bochkala previously reported that Ukrainian forces liberated Blahodatne (just north of Kyselivka) on June 8, and Ukrainian forces may have continued counteroffensive operations in the area.[21] A successful counteroffensive on Kyselivka would place Ukrainian forces just 15 km north of the northern boundary of Kherson City. The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command stated that Russian forces continued to fortify positions and erect concrete structures around the North Crimean Canal.[22]
Russian forces did not resume offensive operations in Zaporizhia Oblast on June 11. Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov noted that Ukrainian forces moved the Zaporizhia frontline 5 to 7 km south in the past two weeks, likely due to Russian prioritization of offensives around Luhansk Oblast or personnel rotations, though ISW cannot confirm the exact locations of these claimed Ukrainian gains.[23]
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 distributed Russian passports in Kherson City and Melitopol for the first time on June 11. Ukrainian sources reported that 25 Ukrainian citizens received Russian passports in Kherson City, as did 30 residents in Melitopol.[24] Self-appointed Kherson Oblast occupation head Vladimir Rogov received the first Russian passport.[25] Ukrainian officials claimed that only Russian collaborators and local occupation authorities received Russian passports, but ISW is unable to verify these claims.[26] Pro-Russian Telegram channel Redovka reported that Kherson Oblast occupation authorities will begin distributing pensions in rubles in the coming days.[27] The Kremlin is likely attempting to institutionalize the ruble in occupied territories by targeting pensioners.
The Kremlin continued to export Ukrainian produce and grain to Crimea and Russia from occupied Ukrainian territories. The Luhansk Oblast Department of Agroindustrial Development reported that Russian forces transported 15,000 tons of sunflower seeds and 10,000 of grain from Luhansk Oblast.[28] Geolocated footage also showed Russian forces transporting grain from Starobilsk, approximately 45km east of Severodonetsk to Russia on June 11.[29] Russian TV outlets also celebrated that Russian occupation authorities transported the Ukrainian cherry harvest from Melitopol to Crimea.[30]
2. Opinion | Zelensky calls for international support for Taiwan before China attacks
Excerpts:
“We must not leave them behind at the mercy of another country which is more powerful in financial terms, in territorial terms and in terms of equipment,” Zelensky said. “And therefore, if there is a way out diplomatically, we need to use the diplomatic way. But it must be a preemptive way, not the one that comes after the war has started.”
Zelensky’s remarks represented the most assertive defense of Taiwan and its right to exist that he or any member of his government has made to date. Since the Russian invasion began, the Ukrainian government has been careful not to run afoul of Beijing, which Ukraine sees as potentially both a helpful or harmful actor. China has not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has parroted Russia’s propaganda blaming the West. But Beijing has stopped short of actively supporting the Russian invasion.
The Taiwanese government has been eager to draw similarities between its situation vis-a-vis China and Ukraine’s suffering at the hands of Russia. But the Chinese government angrily rejects any such comparison, claiming that Taiwan is already part of China and therefore represents an internal matter not subject to any international scrutiny.
Opinion | Zelensky calls for international support for Taiwan before China attacks
SINGAPORE — While appealing to Asian nations for support to fend off Russia’s invasion on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the international community should help Taiwan resist China’s aggression now, before Beijing attacks the island democracy it claims as its own province.
The comments risk upsetting Ukraine’s delicate balancing act with China; nevertheless, Zelensky insisted that aggressors must be confronted wherever they emerge. Asian countries must not wait for the crisis to act on Taiwan’s behalf, which would be repeating the mistake Europe made before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine.
Zelensky’s remarks followed a video address he made to the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual conference of Asian and Pacific defense and diplomatic officials organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. Zelensky told the assembled dignitaries that the Ukraine crisis was an urgent issue not just for Europe, but for Asia as well. He warned countries sitting on the sidelines they would soon face food, energy and economic crises unless Putin was quickly defeated.
Following his prepared remarks, I asked Zelensky what advice he had regarding Taiwan, which is facing a similar (although not yet violent) campaign of economic and military coercion from its neighbor, China. He responded that Ukraine provides a lesson for the international community: that it should come to the aid of countries facing aggression before war breaks out.
“No one benefits from [war], apart from certain political leaders who are not content with the present level of their ambitions. Therefore, they keep growing their appetites, their ambitions,” Zelensky said, without mentioning Chinese President Xi Jinping by name. “The world enables these leaders to grow their appetites for now, therefore we need a diplomatic resolution to support countries that are in need of help.”
The Ukraine example shows that once violence breaks out, the human costs are staggering, Zelensky said, so every effort must be made to find a diplomatic solution to avoid outright conflict, if possible. But at the same time, he said, the international community must intervene before tensions spill over into violence to ensure a smaller country can stand up to an aggressor.
“We must not leave them behind at the mercy of another country which is more powerful in financial terms, in territorial terms and in terms of equipment,” Zelensky said. “And therefore, if there is a way out diplomatically, we need to use the diplomatic way. But it must be a preemptive way, not the one that comes after the war has started.”
Zelensky’s remarks represented the most assertive defense of Taiwan and its right to exist that he or any member of his government has made to date. Since the Russian invasion began, the Ukrainian government has been careful not to run afoul of Beijing, which Ukraine sees as potentially both a helpful or harmful actor. China has not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has parroted Russia’s propaganda blaming the West. But Beijing has stopped short of actively supporting the Russian invasion.
The Taiwanese government has been eager to draw similarities between its situation vis-a-vis China and Ukraine’s suffering at the hands of Russia. But the Chinese government angrily rejects any such comparison, claiming that Taiwan is already part of China and therefore represents an internal matter not subject to any international scrutiny.
Beijing’s sensitivity over the Taiwan issue was on full display at the conference, where U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with China’s minister of national defense, Gen. Wei Fenghe on Friday. According to a U.S. official, Austin confronted Wei about China’s increasing intimidation of Taiwan, which threatens to upset a long-standing but fragile status quo, and rejected China’s contention that the Taiwan Strait is wholly owned by China.
“We’ve witnessed a steady increase in provocative and destabilizing military activity near Taiwan. And that includes PLA [People’s Liberation Army] aircraft flying near Taiwan in record numbers in recent months — and on a nearly daily basis,” Austin said in a speech Saturday. “Maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait isn’t just a U.S. interest. It’s a matter of international concern.”
After Austin’s meeting with Wei, China’s defense ministry blamed the United States and “Taiwan independence forces” for upsetting the status quo. Beijing also claimed that Wei had told Austin China would not hesitate to start a war over the issue if necessary and “smash to smithereens any Taiwan independence plot.” U.S. sources told me that Wei never said those things inside his meeting with Austin.
Despite China’s determined efforts to deny that the Ukraine and Taiwan situations are linked, several Asian leaders at the Singapore conference said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a wake-up call for the region in terms of a possible Chinese attack on Taiwan. As Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said while addressing the conference Friday evening, “Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow.”
3. China accuses US of trying to 'hijack' support in Asia
Is China worried? Is the US doing better in Asia than some critics think?
China accuses US of trying to 'hijack' support in Asia
AP · by SYAWALLUDIN ZAIN and DAVID RISING · June 12, 2022
SINGAPORE (AP) — China’s defense minister accused the United States on Sunday of trying to “hijack” the support of countries in the Asia-Pacific region to turn them against Beijing, saying Washington is seeking to advance its own interests “under the guise of multilateralism.”
Defense Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe lashed out at U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, rejecting his “smearing accusation” the day before at the Shangri-La Dialogue that China was causing instability with its claim to the self-governing island of Taiwan and its increased military activity in the area.
Austin had stressed the need for multilateral partnerships with nations in the Indo-Pacific, which Wei suggested was an attempt to back China into a corner.
“No country should impose its will on others or bully others under the guise of multilateralism,” he said. “ The strategy is an attempt to build an exclusive small group in the name of a free and open Indo-Pacific to hijack countries in our region and target one specific country — it is a strategy to create conflict and confrontation to contain and encircle others.”
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China has been rapidly modernizing its military and seeking to expand its influence and ambitions in the region, recently signing a security agreement with the Solomon Islands that many fear could lead to a Chinese naval base in the Pacific, and breaking ground this past week on a naval port expansion project in Cambodia that could give Beijing a foothold in the Gulf of Thailand.
Last year U.S. officials accused China of testing a hypersonic missile, a weapon harder for missile defense systems to counter, but China insisted it had been a “routine test of a spacecraft.”
Answering a question about the test on Sunday, Wei came the closest so far to acknowledging it was, indeed, a hypersonic missile, saying, “As for hypersonic weapons, many countries are developing weapons and I think there’s no surprise that China is doing so.”
“China will develop its military,” he added. “I think it’s natural.”
The U.S. and its allies have responded with so-called freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, sometimes encountering a pushback from China’s military.
Wei accused the U.S. of “meddling in the affairs of our region” with the patrols, and “flexing the muscles by sending warships and warplanes on a rampage in the South China Sea.”
China has squared off with the Philippines and Vietnam, among others, over maritime claims and Wei said it was up to the countries in the region to find their own solutions.
“China calls for turning the South China Sea into a sea of peace, friendship and cooperation,” he said. “This is the shared wish and responsibility of countries in the region.”
Taiwan and China split during a civil war in 1949, but China claims the island as its own territory, and has not ruled out the use of military force to take it, while maintaining it is a domestic political issue.
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Washington follows a “one-China” policy, which recognizes Beijing but allows informal relations and defense ties with Taipei. It provides arms to Taiwan and follows a “strategic ambiguity” approach about how far it would be willing to go to defend Taiwan in the face of a Chinese invasion. At the same time, it does not support Taiwanese independence.
Austin on Saturday accused China of threatening to change the status quo on Taiwan with a “steady increase in provocative and destabilizing military activity” near the island.
Wei fired back Sunday that the U.S. was not adhering to its “one-China” policy, saying “it keeps playing the Taiwan card against China.”
He said China’s “greatest wish” was “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan, but also made clear Beijing was willing to do whatever it took to realize its goals.
“China will definitely realize its reunification,” he said. “China’s reunification is a great cause of the Chinese nation, and it is a historical trend that no one and no force can stop.”
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He added that China would “resolutely crush any attempt to pursue Taiwan independence.”
“We will not hesitate to fight, we will fight at all costs and we will fight to the very end,” he said. “This is the only choice for China.”
Wei and Austin met one-on-one on Saturday, and Taiwan featured prominently in their discussions, according to the U.S.
On Sunday, Wei met with Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles, which the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported was the first high-level meeting between the two countries in more than two years.
Marles said it had been three years since Chinese and Australian defense ministers had met, and called the meeting a “critical first step.”
“As Sec. Austin observed after his own meeting with Defense Minister Wei, it is really important in these times to have open lines of dialogue,” he told reporters.
“Australia and China’s relationship is complex and it’s precisely because of this complexity that it is really important that we are engaging in dialogue right now.”
_____
Rising reported from Bangkok. Zen Soo in Hong Kong and Caroline Chen in Beijing contributed to this report.
AP · by SYAWALLUDIN ZAIN and DAVID RISING · June 12, 2022
4. US defense chief says China muscling neighbors, plundering resources in Pacific
Competing narratives, US and the PRC.
US defense chief says China muscling neighbors, plundering resources in Pacific
CNN · by Brad Lendon and Oren Liebermann, CNN
Singapore (CNN)US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called out China on Saturday for a series of coercive, aggressive and dangerous actions that threaten stability around Asia and vowed the United States would stand by partners to resist any pressure.
"Indo-Pacific countries shouldn't face political intimidation, economic coercion, or harassment by maritime militias," Austin said in a keynote speech to the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's premier defense conference.
"The PRC's moves threaten to undermine security, and stability, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific," Austin said, using the acronym to refer to the country by its official name, the People's Republic of China.
He listed a series of areas where he said China is muscling its neighbors, including sending large numbers of warplanes into the skies near Taiwan, dangerously intercepting the patrol planes of US allies, and illegal fishing operations that "plunder the region's provisions."
Taiwan tensions
Taiwan played a key role in Austin's address, as it did during a bilateral meeting between Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe on Friday evening.
During that meeting, both sides accused the other of trying to change the decades-long status quo over the self-governed island of Taiwan.
Austin on Saturday denied any such action from Washington.
"We're determined to uphold the status quo that has served this region so well for so long," he said. Under the "One China" policy, the US acknowledges China's position that Taiwan is part of China, but has never officially recognized Beijing's claim to the democratic island of 23 million.
But Austin said China was operating differently.
"We've witnessed a steady increase in provocative and destabilizing military activity near Taiwan. That includes PLA aircraft flying near Taiwan in record numbers in recent months -- and on a nearly daily basis," he said, referring to flights of Chinese warplanes into Taiwan's air defense identification zone.
China later Saturday called Austin's speech a "confrontation."
"There were many unfounded accusations against China, and we expressed our strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these false accusations," Lt. Gen. Zhang Zhenzhong, deputy chief of the Joint Staff Department of China's Central Military Commission, told reporters.
Zhang accused the US of not abiding by the promise to not support "Taiwan Independence," saying the US is "obviously inconsistent in its words and deeds."
On Friday, China had accused Washington of threatening the status quo over the island with things like arms sales, something Beijing says "has seriously undermined China's sovereignty and security interests."
In his meeting with Austin, Wei reiterated China's longstanding position that it was prepared to go to war if Taiwan declares independence from the mainland.
"Defense Minister Wei Fenghe emphasized that if anyone dares to separate Taiwan from China, the Chinese military will spare no effort to fight a war and shatter any 'Taiwan independence' attempts at any cost, and resolutely safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity," Wu Qian, a spokesperson for China's Defense Ministry said at a news conference following the meeting.
Austin said Saturday the US does not want war in the region.
"We do not seek confrontation or conflict. And we do not seek a new Cold War, an Asian NATO, or a region split into hostile blocs," he said.
But Austin said Washington was unflinching in its support for allies and partners.
And his accusations against China on Saturday went well beyond Taiwan.
"In the East China Sea, (China's) expanding fishing fleet is sparking tensions with its neighbors. In the South China Sea, (China) is using outposts on man-made islands bristling with advanced weaponry to advance its illegal maritime claims," Austin said.
"We're seeing (Chinese) vessels plunder the region's provisions, operating illegally within the territorial waters of other Indo-Pacific countries. And further to the west, we're seeing Beijing continue to harden its position along the border that it shares with India."
'Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow'
Earlier in his address, Austin pointed to Russia's invasion of Ukraine as an example of the "turmoil" that can ensue when nations veer from international laws.
"Russia's invasion of Ukraine is what happens when oppressors trample the rules that protect us all," he said. "It's what happens when big powers decide that their imperial appetites matter more than the rights of their peaceful neighbors. And it's a preview of a possible world of chaos and turmoil that none of us would want to live in."
How a war a continent away can affect Pacific security was also brought to the forefront of the discussion on Friday night by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in a keynote speech at Shangri-La.
"Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow," Kishida said, adding that to ensure its security Tokyo would be substantially increasing its defense budget.
"We will not rule out any options, including so-called 'counterstrike capabilities,' and will realistically consider what is necessary to protect the lives and livelihoods of our people," he said.
Austin on Saturday noted the bigger roles that Japan and other allies are playing in US Pacific policies, listing a series of joint military exercises in which they have participated.
Another of those partners is India, which along with Japan and Australia is a member of the informal Quad alliance.
"We're also weaving closer ties with other partners," Austin said. "I'm especially thinking of India, the world's largest democracy. We believe that its growing military capability and technological prowess can be a stabilizing force in the region."
In a key move in Oceania, where China as been making a push to make new security and economic agreements with small island states, Austin said Washington was making "unprecedented" US Coast Guard investments.
That will include for the first time permanently stationing a Coast Guard cutter in the region for the first time, he said.
Zhang, the Chinese military official, said later Saturday that the US strategy in the Indo-Pacific is to "maintain its hegemony."
"The United States is trying to form a small circle in the Asia-Pacific region by roping in some countries to incite against some other countries," Zhang said, accusing the US of trying to "push the Indo-Pacific region into the trap of geopolitical games and camp confrontation."
Austin said earlier the Biden administration was prepared to step up to be a leader in and a guarantor of the free and open Indo-Pacific it espouses.
"Big powers carry big responsibilities," Austin said. "And so we'll do our part to manage these tensions responsibly, to prevent conflict, and to pursue peace and prosperity."
CNN's Yong Xiong in Seoul contributed to this report.
CNN · by Brad Lendon and Oren Liebermann, CNN
5. Ukraine's teen drone hero "happy that we destroyed someone"
A whole of society resistance. Everyone fights for the defense of their nation.
Ukraine's teen drone hero "happy that we destroyed someone"
AP · by HANNA ARHIROVA · June 12, 2022
KOLONSCHYNA, Ukraine (AP) — As Russian tanks and trucks rumbled close to their village, a Ukrainian teenager and his father stealthily launched their small drone into the air.
Working as a team, they took bird’s-eye photos of the armored column moving toward Kyiv and pinpointed its coordinates, swiftly messaging the precious information to the Ukrainian military.
Within minutes, artillery batteries rained shells down on the invading forces, with deadly effect.
Andriy Pokrasa, 15, and his dad, Stanislav, are being hailed in Ukraine for their volunteer aerial reconnaissance work in the early days of the invasion, when Russian troops barreling in from the north made an ultimately failed attempt to take the capital and bring the country to its knees.
For a full week after the Feb. 24 invasion, the pair made repeated sorties with their drone — risking capture or worse had Russian troops been aware of their snooping.
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“These were some of the scariest moments of my life,” Andriy recounted as he demonstrated his piloting skills for an Associated Press team of journalists.
“We provided the photos and the location to the armed forces,” he said. “They narrowed down the coordinates more accurately and transmitted them by walkie-talkie, so as to adjust the artillery.”
His father was happy to leave the piloting to the boy.
“I can operate the drone, but my son does it much better. We immediately decided he would do it,” Stanislav Pokrasa, 41, said.
They aren’t sure how many Russian targets were destroyed using information they provided. But they saw the devastation wrought on the Russian convoy when they later flew the drone back over the charred hulks of trucks and tanks near a town west of Kyiv and off a strategically important highway that leads to the capital.
“There were more than 20 Russian military vehicles destroyed, among them fuel trucks and tanks,” the father said.
As Russian and Ukrainian forces battled furiously for control of Kyiv’s outskirts, Ukrainian soldiers finally urged the Pokrasa family to leave their village, which Russian troops subsequently occupied.
With all adult men up to age 60 under government orders to stay in the country, the elder Pokrasa couldn’t join his wife and son when they fled to neighboring Poland.
They came back a few weeks ago, when Andriy had finished his school year.
“I was happy that we destroyed someone,” he said. “I was happy that I contributed, that I was able to do something. Not just sitting and waiting.”
___
AP journalist John Leicester contributed to this report from Kyiv, Ukraine.
___
AP · by HANNA ARHIROVA · June 12, 2022
6. Give Ukraine a Chance to Win
If you want to give peace a chance make sure you give Ukraine a chance to win. (said only with some tongue in cheek - I do think we need to do everything necessary to ensure the protection and defense of the sovereign nation of Ukraine).
Give Ukraine a Chance to Win
The last few weeks have seen the rise of ‘Ukraine fatigue.’ Early expectations were that Russia would win the war quickly. The Western debate was initially whether we should support an insurgency. Then came a burst of enthusiasm that Russia might lose. This is fading now. The conflict seems to be settling into a war of attrition.
Russia is making gains in Donbas but at a high cost. Ukraine is pushing back elsewhere, and Western arms shipments will likely help it blunt concentrated Russian power in the east. That said, a Ukrainian counteroffensive to take back much of what Russia now controls in Ukraine would be extraordinarily difficult. A long slog seems likely over the summer, with the initiative slowly passing to Ukraine as sanctions crimp Russia’s ability to replace losses and as Western weapons level the playing field.
Why Push Ukraine to End the War?
As Ukraine’s effort to expel the Russians has slowed, Western pundits began to panic and demand that it push Ukraine to make concessions to end the war. Most notoriously, Henry Kissinger said this. That seemed to give cover to Western European leaders to start hedging on support for Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, Ukraine sharply rejected this.
It was right to do so. The core of the argument that we should arm-twist Ukraine into surrendering turns on the highly contestable notion, articulated most clearly by Kissinger, that Russia is a great power, entitling it to unique deference and special privileges. As French President Emmanuel Macron put it, “Russia must not be humiliated.” This is both empirically and strategically debatable.
Empirically, it is increasingly hard to argue that Russia is a great power; indeed, Ukraine is breaking Russia’s claim to that status as we speak. This is a point I have belabored in the pages before (here, here, here). The only solid claims Russia has to great power status now are its nuclear weapons and sheer geographic size. Russia’s economy is middling now – smaller than South Korea’s, for example – and will decline sharply because of the wartime sanctions placed on it. It may even fall out of the G-20 in a year or two. Its population too is of middling size and stagnant. It has third world levels of corruption, and that corruption has bled into its military undercutting logistics, training, morale, and so on, in turn inhibiting its ability to support a large military in the field. Its brain drain undercuts innovation, as does its closed, repressive political system.
Strategically, the argument to force Ukraine to give in is also weak. Much of it turns on overwrought assessments that NATO and Russia will (somehow) slide into a war or a nuclear exchange. Both of these prospects are highly unlikely. Putin is a risk-taker, but not a nihilist, and if he was genuinely concerned a huge, NATO-Russia war was imminent, he would not be allowing his army to be ground down, day after day, in Ukraine. Biden too has shown caution. Proxy wars are common, and neither the Vietnam nor Afghanistan (of the 1980s) wars escalated into a superpower conflict.
Further, it is in the West’s strategic interest to see Putin’s ability to wreak havoc in international relations reduced. This does not mean we should overthrow him, sanction Ukrainian attacks on Russia, or give Kyiv a blank check. But it is simply bizarre to insist that the burden of restoring stability in Europe – Kissinger’s goal – be placed on Ukraine when it is Putin who started the war. Ukraine is now very obviously blocking Putin’s ability to stir up trouble further west. That is very much in the West’s interest.
No one can seriously believe that if Ukraine concedes to Putin today, that he will not come back to destabilize the region once again when Russia re-strengthens. Putin has been on a revisionist course, seeking to overturn the post-Cold War settlement, for over fifteen years. If he wins in Ukraine, he will go back to his same old tricks of trying to divide the West and foment frozen conflicts. There is nothing in Putin’s history as Russian leader to suggest he values the stability Macron, Kissinger, and others so desperately want.
Putin need not be ‘humiliated,’ but he should learn that there is a limit to how long the West will let him make trouble before it draws a line. Ukraine, where Putin has permitted death squads to operate in occupied territory, is pretty obviously that line.
At Least Give Ukraine a Chance to Win
International relations theory notes that conflicts frequently turn toward negotiation when the combatants reach a ‘mutually hurting stalemate.’ This conflict is not there. Russia still believes it can win, at least in the east.
So, Russia is not interested in Kissingerian stability. It wants to win. Ukraine is defending the West against Putin’s ability to continue to stir up trouble. That is in our interest. And they are the victim – of quite savage bombardments of civilians and organized executions. The least we can do is give them the chance to win, and then facilitate a settlement when both sides reach that mutually hurting stalemate.
Robert E. Kelly is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Pusan National University in South Korea and a 1945 Contributing Editor. Follow his work on his website or on Twitter.
7. Integrated Air and Missile Defense: Early Lessons from the Russia-Ukraine War
Excerpt:
The success of even limited Ukrainian active air and missile defenses provides a powerful rationale for IAMD to be fielded at scale, especially for cruise missile defense and counter-UAS. For the U.S., it appears there are some successful paths for counter-UAS capabilities emerging. However, the lack of sufficient progress for cruise missile defense, eitherat home or in EUCOM and INDOPACOM has not yet awakened swift, comprehensive, and concrete U.S. actions, nor has the importance of integrating combined and joint IAMD assets via BMC2 with its vital allies and partners.
Integrated Air and Missile Defense: Early Lessons from the Russia-Ukraine War
As the deadly Russia-Ukraine conflict moves to new phases, the U.S., its allies, and partners must heed critical and emerging insights from this hot war. After more than one hundred days of high-intensity conflict, some clear and compelling initial insights for the U.S. and Allied Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) are emerging. The effectiveness of IAMD systems in countering both missiles and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) have been critical elements in this conflict–with a continued evolution in competition between fires and the defender. A clear understanding of these dynamics and the key lessons they provide will be vital for the U.S. and its allies to mitigate capability and capacity shortfalls while enhancing and revising operational approaches in Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and elsewhere around the globe. These are initial insights and preliminary lessons learned, developed using open-source information, so additional insights and revisions are expected later, with the benefit of in-depth evaluation(s) and more complete data.
Missile Threats and IAMD
There does not yet appear to be a definitive breakdown of missiles expended by type. Based on pre-war inventories of Transportable Erector Launchers (TELs) for Russian SRBMs, the majority of TELs (~150) likely consisted of those for Iskanders (e.g., Iskander-M or SS-26 Stone as designated by NATO). While Iskander batteries can fire both SRBMs and cruise missiles, the majority of them are likely reserved for SRBMs. Russian cruise missiles can be launched on the ground (using TELs), in the air from bombers and fighters, and from the sea with surface ships and submarines. Therefore, based on the number of SRBM missile launchers pre-conflict, as well as early missile strikes and missile attack reports—which mainly appear to describe cruise missile strikes—over 60% of the Russian missiles fired against Ukraine have likely been cruise missiles of diverse types. There is some evidence that the Russians have launched over 1,000 cruise missiles based on reports that approximately 10% are being shot down (according to Ukrainian officials) with 120 cruise missiles shot down by day 100.
While earlier reports indicated that a high percentage of cruise missiles were not hitting their targets, recent testimony from the Commander of U.S. Northern Command, General Glen VanHerck, has called this into question. However, Ukraine has had measured success at shooting down cruise missiles but lacks the ability to strike at the sources of these launches (or the “archers”). Ultimately, shooting down individual missiles (the ”arrows”) one at a time is not an effective long-term strategy for IAMD against Russia. Successfully destroying launch sites, launchers, and associated equipment (e.g., radars, BMC2) will be far more impactful, better-defending civilians, military personnel, and critical assets.
The key lesson for the U.S. and its allies, both in Europe and around the world, is that simply having the proper IAMD capability is insufficient. IAMD systems must be acquired in sufficient quantity, be well postured before a conflict begins, and be protected against attack. Sound posturing requires distribution of the assets, dispersal based on indications and warnings with no single points of failure (redundant) and protected. Protection of IAMD assets (e.g., S-300s, PAC-3s, THAADs) should include passive defenses measures, such as hardened shelters and Camouflage, Concealment and Deception (CCD); active defenses, including counter-UAS and cruise missile defense; left of launch counter-offensive capabilities; and retaliatory strike capabilities against enemy launchers. According to Dr. Uzi Rabin, the father of Israel’s missile defense programs, the Ukrainian forces early on, “lost 22 S-300 launchers and 17 other short-range Ground-Based Air Defense (GBAD) batteries” (primary source). Jane’s open-source Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) showed how Ukrainian IAMD assets were poorly defended— both passively and actively (Slide 13). This is verified by Dr. Rabin’s reporting, which stated, “With no effective protection, Ukraine’s air bases, logistic centers and ammunition depots are largely exposed to Russian deep-striking precision cruise missiles” (para 25).
Lessons Learned and a Way Forward
Ukrainian active air and missile defenses appear to have done better against the Russian threats and Russian airpower than most experts believed would be the case before the war. Many experts attribute that to Russian failures and Ukrainian successes but the mix is still yet to be determined. Nevertheless, the Ukrainians have had real successes, and this appears to have been a critical element that prevented a fait accompli for all of Ukraine in the early weeks of the conflict, despite their initial losses of IAMD systems and key air bases.
The U.S., partners, and allies must pursue a dedicated effort to analyze IAMD lessons learned, both now and after this conflict is over. From that analysis, there should be recommendations regarding passive defense of IAMD assets and combined active defense against UAS, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. To mitigate or eliminate launch systems, they must develop enhanced approaches for left-of launch and attack operations, such as those laid out in JP 3-01, as well as retaliatory strike capabilities. In addition, there should be a comprehensive assessment of the UAS—counter-UAS interactions in this conflict and its implications regarding defending IAMD assets.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict has also exposed glaring capability gaps in the U.S., allies, and partners’ IAMD approaches, especially against cruise missile and UAS threats. U.S. and allied forces have currently provided very few near-term solutions. For example, the US Army’s Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2-Intercept Block 1 (IFPC 2-I) has not yet fielded any significant cruise missile defense capability or capacity and is still years away from posture and presence outside the U.S. In the counter-UAS arena, the U.S. Army has made significant strides by deploying IM-SHORAD in record time, adopting new counter-UAS systems, such as the Mobile-Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Integrated Defense System (M-LIDS), and developing critical sensors like the Army’s Long-Range Persistent Sensor (ALPS). The same sort of urgency should be encouraged for other IAMD capabilities. Additionally, other options should be considered to fill capability and capacity gaps due to delays in IFPC 2-I, including the U.S. Marine Corp’s Iron Dome, the Strategic Capability Office’s (SCO) Hypervelocity Ground Weapon System, the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, the Japanese Ground Self Defense Forces’ Chu-SAMs, and promising directed energy solutions. Finally, there are a few reports of Man-Portable Air Defense systems, such as the French-made Mistral having some success in defeating Russian cruise missiles. These innovations should be analyzed, and some pursued as bridging solutions for the U.S., allies, and partners, until more dedicated systems are fielded.
For the U.S., allies, and partners to enhance critical defensive capabilities in Europe and the Indo-Pacific—fully integrated Battle Management Command and Control (BMC2) must also be developed and fielded. BMC2 must be designed to integrate air and missile defenses for the ballistic, cruise, and UAS threats, and should include joint and partner integration. MDA has succeeded achieved success in this area for ballistic missile defenses and is making tremendous progress on development of architectures that would support regional defense designs against multiple missile threats. Their work is ongoing to support United States European Command (EUCOM), United States Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), and the Homeland. This ongoing development may be the best embodiment of the Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) vision. Work still needs to be done to make BMC2 connections between C-sUAS and traditional air and missile defense (AMD), as well as ensuring key partners and allies can be fully integrated into the architecture.
Russian Kalibr cruise missile. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The success of even limited Ukrainian active air and missile defenses provides a powerful rationale for IAMD to be fielded at scale, especially for cruise missile defense and counter-UAS. For the U.S., it appears there are some successful paths for counter-UAS capabilities emerging. However, the lack of sufficient progress for cruise missile defense, eitherat home or in EUCOM and INDOPACOM has not yet awakened swift, comprehensive, and concrete U.S. actions, nor has the importance of integrating combined and joint IAMD assets via BMC2 with its vital allies and partners.
About the Author: Dr. Carl Rehberg is a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Carl was founder and director of the Headquarters Air Force Asia-Pacific Cell, which played a pivotal role in the development of Air Force strategy, force development, planning, analysis and warfighting concepts supporting initiatives related to Asia-Pacific and the DoD Third Offset Strategy. Carl spearheaded the establishment of the China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI) and led the development of innovative concepts and capability proposals to improve DoD’s joint resiliency and integrated air and missile defenses. Prior to this assignment, he was the Assistant Associate Director for AF Strategic Planning and Director, Analysis Division in the AF QDR organization, leading multiple assessments of future capabilities and force structure.
8. China launched the world's first AI-operated 'mother ship,' an unmanned carrier capable of launching dozens of drones
Excerpts:
The ship will be controlled remotely, and can travel at a maximum speed of 18 knots, or around 20 miles per hour, according to the shipbuilder.
Chen Dake, the director of the laboratory, told the state-run Science and Technology Daily in 2021 that the ship is a new "marine species" that will revolutionize ocean observation.
China is already the world's biggest shipbuilder, and has ambitions to become a "maritime great power".
Although this vessel's capabilities and uses remain to be seen, militaries worldwide have increasingly been focusing on developing drones and unmanned vehicles.
Funaiole noted that China has invested considerable resources into various unmanned platforms, such as drones and autonomous vehicles, to strengthen the position of its navy.
"This will be part of the future of warfare," he said.
China launched the world's first AI-operated 'mother ship,' an unmanned carrier capable of launching dozens of drones
An aerial view of Whitsun Reef, Spratly Islands, South China Sea imaged 24 March 2021.
Gallo Images/Orbital Horizon/Copernicus Sentinel Data 2021)
- China launched a crewless ship capable of carrying dozens of drones.
- The ship, named Zhu Hai Yun, uses an artificial intelligence system to navigate autonomously.
- Beijing has touted it as a maritime research tool, but experts suggest it has potential as a military vessel.
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China has launched the world's first crewless drone carrier that uses artificial intelligence to navigate autonomously in open water.
Beijing has officially described it as a maritime research tool, but some experts have said the ship has the potential to be used as a military vessel.
The autonomous ship, the Zhu Hai Yun (pictured here) is around 290 feet long, 45 feet wide, and 20 feet deep and can carry dozens of air, sea, and submersible drones equipped with different observation instruments, according to the shipbuilder, CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipping Co.
It describes the vessel as "epoch making" and the "world's first intelligent unmanned system mother ship."
—Venkatesh Ragupathi (@venkatesh_Ragu) May 28, 2022
"The most immediate benefit to China is likely data collection," Matthew Funaiole, senior fellow of China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Insider.
"From a purely science standpoint, which is the angle China is promoting, we could see Chinese drones (both surface and subsurface, and launched from the Zhu Hai Yun) contributing to disaster mitigation, environmental monitoring, etc."
However, the drone mothership could also be used by China's military to gather intelligence in the contested South China Sea, which several countries have made competing territorial claims over.
"When dealing with China, we rarely have perfect insight into their intentions, but as we have seen with its activities in the South China Sea, scientific ventures can be a precursor or otherwise support military objectives," Funaiole said.
"Technology, especially information collection systems, often have dual use applications. Data collected by China from autonomous systems could aid with surveillance, domain awareness, help PLA [People's Liberation Army] submarines navigate, enhance China's ASW [anti-submarine warfare] capabilities, etc."
The ship was first unveiled in May, but is expected to be delivered by the end of 2022 after completing sea trials, according to the South China Morning Post.
Unmanned platforms could be the "future of warfare"
The vessel uses the world's first AI system called Intelligent Mobile Ocean Stereo Observing System, developed by the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory, according to the South China Morning Post.
The ship will be controlled remotely, and can travel at a maximum speed of 18 knots, or around 20 miles per hour, according to the shipbuilder.
Chen Dake, the director of the laboratory, told the state-run Science and Technology Daily in 2021 that the ship is a new "marine species" that will revolutionize ocean observation.
Although this vessel's capabilities and uses remain to be seen, militaries worldwide have increasingly been focusing on developing drones and unmanned vehicles.
Funaiole noted that China has invested considerable resources into various unmanned platforms, such as drones and autonomous vehicles, to strengthen the position of its navy.
"This will be part of the future of warfare," he said.
9. US, China Defense Ministers Hold First Meeting
Excerpts:
During their meeting, both Austin and Wei emphasized the importance of keeping the relationship stable. “Responsibly” managing conflict and competition has been a theme in China-U.S. relations since the first virtual Biden-Xi summit in November 2021, which introduced the Biden administration mantra of installing “guardrails” for the relationship. U.S. defense officials continued to use the phrase to describe Austin’s meeting with Wei.
In practice, that means seeking new channels of communication, including a “crisis communications working group” and lines of communication between both top leaders and theater-level commanders, CNN reported. The intent is to increase the ability of both sides to manage a crisis.
Austin emphasized this point to Wei. According to the Defense Department readout, “Secretary Austin discussed the need to responsibly manage competition and maintain open lines of communication” and also “underscored the importance of the People’s Liberation Army engaging in substantive dialogue on improving crisis communications and reducing strategic risk.”
Wei, meanwhile, said that “China hopes to establish healthily and stably developing major power relations with the United States,” adding that “stable relations between the two militaries are essential to the development of bilateral relations.”
US, China Defense Ministers Hold First Meeting
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Defense Minister Wei Fenghe spoke in Singapore, part of an effort to add “guardrails” to the China-U.S. competition.
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U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin held his first meeting with China’s Minister of Defense Wei Fenghe on Friday, on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. Both men are also slated to speak later at the conference, Asia’s premier security forum, which draws defense ministers from across the region and beyond.
The bilateral meeting was a welcome return to direct communication between top Chinese and U.S. defense officials. Previously, the Biden administration had attempted to have Austin speak directly to General Xu Qiliang, the vice chair of China’s Central Military Commission. Xu, second only to President (and CMC Chair) Xi Jinping, outranks Wei in China’s defense hierarchy, and the Biden administration was keen to overturn precedent and put Austin regularly in touch with a more powerful representative of China’s military. Last year, Austin rejected a proposed meeting with Wei in Singapore “in favour of pushing for a call with Xu,” the Financial Times reported in May 2021, citing an unnamed U.S. defense official.
China, however, stood firm in insisting that Wei was the proper counterpart to speak with Austin. Chinese officials told South China Morning Post, also in May 2021, that the repeated insistence on a meeting with Xu was seen as a “diplomatic faux pas.”
It seems the Biden administration has given up on getting a direct line to Xu and instead opted to accept Wei as Austin’s counterpart in China. The two held their first phone call in April 2022, a precursor to their in-person meeting today.
During their meeting, both Austin and Wei emphasized the importance of keeping the relationship stable. “Responsibly” managing conflict and competition has been a theme in China-U.S. relations since the first virtual Biden-Xi summit in November 2021, which introduced the Biden administration mantra of installing “guardrails” for the relationship. U.S. defense officials continued to use the phrase to describe Austin’s meeting with Wei.
In practice, that means seeking new channels of communication, including a “crisis communications working group” and lines of communication between both top leaders and theater-level commanders, CNN reported. The intent is to increase the ability of both sides to manage a crisis.
Austin emphasized this point to Wei. According to the Defense Department readout, “Secretary Austin discussed the need to responsibly manage competition and maintain open lines of communication” and also “underscored the importance of the People’s Liberation Army engaging in substantive dialogue on improving crisis communications and reducing strategic risk.”
Wei, meanwhile, said that “China hopes to establish healthily and stably developing major power relations with the United States,” adding that “stable relations between the two militaries are essential to the development of bilateral relations.”
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However, Wei also conditioned any improvements on a change in U.S. behavior: The United States “must not attack and smear China, contain and suppress China” and “must not interfere in China’s internal affairs nor harm China’s interest.”
Austin and Wei also discussed “global and regional security issues,” including North Korea and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – two areas where the United States and China have vastly different stances and approaches. Interestingly, the U.S. readout did not mention the South China Sea as one of the issues discussed, but the Chinese readout did.
But both readouts agreed that the major security issue on the agenda was Taiwan.
Just ahead of the Austin-Wei meeting, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense announced U.S. approval of an arms sale worth $120 million to provide “spare parts and technical assistance for Taiwan’s Navy.” U.S. arms sales to Taiwan have been a perennial friction point in China-U.S. relations since normalization in 1979, frequently raised by Chinese interlocutors as one of the top barriers to defense ties in particular. China even temporarily suspended defense exchanges with the U.S. entirely following the Obama administration’s first arms sale to Taiwan in 2010 (including canceling a planned meeting with then-U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates following the 2010 Shangri-La Dialogue).
The arms sale did not scupper the defense ministers’ meeting this time, but did elicit a sharp rebuke from China. “China strongly condemned and resolutely opposed” the latest arms sale, Tan Kefei, a spokesperson from China’s Ministry of National Defense, said on Friday, just ahead of the Austin-Wei meeting. Tan added that “the US arms sales to China’s Taiwan region have grossly interfered in China’s internal affairs, seriously undermined China’s national sovereignty and security interests, and gravely sabotaged peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to this.”
Wei also discussed the issue at length with Austin, based on the Chinese summary. He emphasized that “Taiwan is China’s Taiwan” and pledged that China’s “government and military” would “firmly smash any ‘Taiwan independence’ plot and firmly safeguard the reunification of the motherland.” He also reiterated China’s opposition to the latest U.S. arms sale to Taiwan, which Wei said “seriously harms China’s sovereignty and security interests.”
For his part, Austin “reiterated to General Wei that the United States remains committed to our longstanding one China policy, which is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three U.S.-China Joint Communiques, and the Six Assurances.” While China prefers to stress its three joint communiques with the United States, the Biden administration has been emphasizing that its “one China policy” also includes previous commitments to Taiwan – which, among other things, promise the continuation of arms sales.
Austin also expressed U.S. “opposition to unilateral changes to the status quo, and called on the PRC to refrain from further destabilizing actions toward Taiwan.”
We will be hearing more from Austin and Wei in the next few days. According to the official IISS schedule for the Shangri-La Dialogue, Austin will be giving a speech on “Next Steps for the United States’ Indo-Pacific Strategy” at 8:30 a.m. local time on Saturday, June 11. Wei will be giving his own speech on “China’s Vision for Regional Order” at 8:30 a.m. on June 12. While they won’t be directly speaking to each other, their respective outlines of U.S. and Chinese visions for regional security will very much be in dialogue – and competition – with each other.
China’s Ministry of National Defense said Wei’s speech will “comprehensively introduce China’s policy, concept and practical actions in practicing real multilateralism, safeguarding regional peace and stability, and promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.” As part of that, Wei will likely expand in more detail on China’s “Global Security Initiative,” a concept briefly introduced by President Xi Jinping at the Boao Forum for Asia in late April. In his conversation with Austin, Wei said the GSI “clearly indicated the right direction for mankind to overcome the crises” facing the world today.
10. Chinese defence chief says it is up to U.S. to improve bilateral ties
The PRC puts the ball in the US court. We should not play their game.
Chinese defence chief says it is up to U.S. to improve bilateral ties
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China's State Councilor and Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe answers questions from the audience at a plenary session during the 19th Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore June 12, 2022. REUTERS/Caroline Chia
SINGAPORE, June 12 (Reuters) - Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe said on Sunday that it was up to the United States to improve the bilateral relationship, saying that the ties were at a critical juncture.
"We request the U.S. side to stop smearing and containing China. Stop interfering in China's internal affairs. The bilateral relationship cannot improve unless the U.S. side can do that," Wei, dressed in the uniform of a general in the People's Liberation Army, told delegates at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's premier security meeting.
Reporting by Chen Lin; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan
11. Behind Nato’s defensive ‘shield’ lies weakness and division. Ukraine will pay the price
So, according to Mr. Tisdall it is not all peach s and cream or a rosy picture at NATO.
Behind Nato’s defensive ‘shield’ lies weakness and division. Ukraine will pay the price
Miscalculations by the west opened the way for Russia’s invasion. As Kyiv’s outgunned forces fight for survival, the alliance risks another catastrophic failure
A shield deters an enemy and signifies resolve. It is also something to hide behind, in order to avoid a fight. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has been used for both purposes by US and European politicians of varying degrees of valour.
But what if the shield is broken or fundamentally flawed? The western powers may be about to find out. Nato’s summit in Madrid this month is billed as its most consequential, “transformative” gathering since the cold war era. Expect much self-congratulation over how the 30-country alliance united to protect the “free world” against Russian aggression. Yet huge question marks remain.
Speaking in Poland in March, Joe Biden, US president and de facto Nato boss, set the tone. He vowed to defend “every inch of Nato territory with the full force of our collective power” – while keeping out of the war. Months later, Biden remains infuriatingly vague about long-term outcomes.
Ben Wallace, the UK’s defence secretary, echoed this refrain last week in Iceland. Russia’s Vladimir Putin may target Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia next, Wallace warned, because, like Ukraine, he does not view them as “real” countries. But, like Biden, Britain has no discernible plan to ensure that an independent Ukraine survives.
While many allies have stepped up, important European Nato members cower behind an alliance they previously disparaged and neglected. They use it to avoid making costly national commitments to Kyiv that might anger Moscow.
Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s inoffensive secretary general, will struggle to repair these fissures. Poland and other “frontline” states want a tougher approach, including permanent positioning of additional troops, heavy weapons and planes on Russia’s borders. In response, Nato officials promise “robust and historic” decisions.
As for Ukraine, its leadership has all but abandoned hopes of membership, solemnly promised at Nato’s 2008 Bucharest summit, and has ceased calling for direct military intervention. “Of course, we will hear words of support… we are very grateful for that,” said its foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba. Having previously accused Nato of “doing nothing”, he does not expect concrete action in Madrid on accession or, for example, “Black Sea security”.
Nato could and should be exerting greater pressure on Russian forces, so helping persuade Putin to end his genocidal war
But if, as expected, the war grinds on, if both sides grow desperate, if the diplomatic impasse deepens, and if the threat of wider conflict rises, Nato’s long unaddressed weaknesses and vulnerabilities will become both more obvious and more hazardous for those crouching behind its battlements. Its post-Soviet bluff may finally be called.
It would be unrealistic to expect seamless political unanimity in so large an organisation. But the fact that each member has an equal say when, in terms of military capacity, they are absurdly unequal, hinders swift, bold decision-making. A Russian nuclear or chemical provocation, for example, would be likely to produce a paralysing cacophony of conflicting voices within Nato – and Putin surely knows it.
At the same time, there is huge over-reliance on the US, a military superpower without whose agreement nothing happens and behind whose might the laggards lurk, refusing to pay their way.
Organisationally and militarily, too, Nato is all over the place. It has three joint command headquarters – in Italy, the Netherlands and the US. But its top general is based in Belgium. Inter-operability of different countries’ weapons systems is lacking, as are joint training exercises, arms procurement and intelligence-sharing.
Nato is due to publish its 10-yearly “strategic concept” on how to deal with all this, plus trans-national terrorism, destabilising climate change, cyber warfare and the rise of anti-democratic states. It’s a tall order.
Yet if it is to move forward effectively on these numerous fronts, Nato must also look back, admit past mistakes and accept some responsibility for the current crisis.
By keeping Ukraine in membership limbo while failing to punish Putin for war crimes in Chechnya and Syria, his 2008 attack on Georgia, his annexation of Crimea and his post-2014 Donbas proxy war, complacent western leaders unwittingly paved the way for today’s catastrophe.
After the Soviet collapse in 1991, Nato dropped the ball. Like football fans invading the pitch before the final whistle, they thought it was all over! But it wasn’t, and it isn’t.
Right now, Putin is battering the shield, putting the west to the test. If its risk-averse approach does not change, there may soon be nowhere left to hide. Will Nato fail again?
12. A case study in American propaganda - Responsible Statecraft
Quite the hit job. I send out ISW 's daily SITREP on Putin's War because it is useful analysis.
This is quite a critique ("the Kagan industrial complex"). But this is printed in Responsible Statecraft of the Quincy Institute. The Quincy institute is funded in part by the Koch Brothers and George Soros. Strange bedfellows indeed.
But when it comes to accusations of spin I think the author may suffer from the pot calling the kettle black.
A case study in American propaganda - Responsible Statecraft
What is the Institute for the Study of War? And why do America’s elite media outlets trust it for all of their on-the-ground Ukraine information?
This article first appeared in the Nonzero Newsletter and is republished with the author’s permission.
Here’s a joke I recently heard a Russian tell:
A Russian is on an airliner heading to the US, and the American in the seat next to him asks, “So what brings you to the US?” The Russian replies, “I’m studying the American approach to propaganda.” The American says, “What propaganda?” The Russian says, “That’s what I mean.”
If you don’t get the point, I can help. A few weeks before I heard this joke, I heard a Russian make the point explicitly: Yes, Russia’s state-controlled media is full of propaganda, but at least most Russians are aware of that and take the prevailing narrative with a grain of salt; Americans, in contrast, seem unaware that their own prevailing narratives are slanted.
I think there’s some truth to this, and I think the Ukraine war is a case in point. I don’t just mean that mainstream media’s coverage of the war is biased (though I think it is, as tends to be the case during wars). I mean this coverage exemplifies the difference between American and Russia propaganda—and so helps explain the difference, asserted by that joke, between American and Russian attitudes toward propaganda.
The main reason for this attitudinal difference, I think, isn’t that Americans are more gullible than Russians. It’s that America is a liberal democracy with a fairly complicated media ecosystem. It’s harder in this pluralistic system than in Russia for a single powerful person or institution to create a single dominant narrative. So if propaganda is going to happen here, it will have to happen less straightforwardly than in Russia, with less in the way of centralized control. And that makes it harder to pin down.
In other words: A pluralistic system, while in some ways making it more difficult for propaganda to prevail, also offers the propaganda that does prevail good camouflage.
At least, that’s my working hypothesis. One way to flesh out this hypothesis is to take a look at a DC think thank called the Institute for the Study of War.
The name may sound familiar. If you’ve been reading much about the Ukraine war, you’ve probably come across it. Reporters who draw on research from ISW often credit it.
But there are two things about the Institute for the Study of War that you may not know.
First is the extent of its influence. Since war broke out in February, ISW has been the elite media’s go-to think tank for information and analysis. Barely a day goes by that it isn’t cited by a reporter in either the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Wall Street Journal. In the past six days—the first six days of this month—it has been cited in at least ten articles that appeared in one of those outlets.
The second thing you may not be aware of is how ideological the academic-sounding Institute for the Study of War is. It has neoconservative roots and is run and staffed by pretty extreme hawks. Over the years it has gotten funding from various corners of the arms industry—General Dynamics, Raytheon, lesser known defense contractors, and big companies, like General Motors, that aren’t known as defense contractors but do get Pentagon contracts.
Before saying more about ISW, I want to emphasize that I’m not claiming to have caught it in some capital crime. The Institute doesn’t spread untruths, even if it’s selective about the truths it promotes and tactical in how it arranges them. That’s part of my point: One reason propaganda often flies under the radar in America is that it can be subtle.
Another claim I’m not making is that ISW has exerted pivotal influence in the case of Ukraine. I’m not even saying the larger network of hawkish think tanks it’s part of has been pivotal. When a big country run by a famously ruthless autocrat invades a smaller neighbor that’s a democracy, Americans will naturally (and rightly) side with the country that got invaded and will favor giving it support. In that sense, the Institute for the Study of War, along with other voices that advocate robust military spending, has been pushing on an open door.
Still, $54 billion is a lot of money, and that’s how much aid, most of it military, the US has committed to Ukraine over the past three months. And the $40 billion of that passed by Congress in May got overwhelming support (368-57 in the House, 86-11 in the Senate)—pretty remarkable at a time when inflation is widely feared and deficit spending is widely said to be one of its causes.
Whatever you think of this aid—and, again, I consider helping a nation resist invasion a generically good cause—you can’t deny that the climate of American opinion on Ukraine is very favorable for defense contractors. I think the Institute for the Study of War is one reason for that—even if a small reason among bigger ones. And, more to the point, ISW is a case study in how influence on a wartime narrative can be exerted in barely perceptible ways.
The president and founder of the Institute for the Study of War is Kimberly Kagan, a military historian who is married to Frederick Kagan, who is also a military historian and does work for ISW. Frederick is a well-known neoconservative, though not as well-known as his brother Robert. In the 1990s, Robert Kagan, along with Bill Kristol (who is on ISW’s board), founded the Project for a New American Century, which in the view of some observers played an important role in convincing George W. Bush to invade Iraq.
Kimberly and Frederick Kagan have cultivated close ties to the Defense Department—sometimes raising questions about whether the ties were too close. A 2012 Washington Post piece said General David Petraeus had turned the couple into “de facto senior advisers.” The Post continued:
The pro-bono relationship, which is now being scrutinized by military lawyers, yielded valuable benefits for the general and the couple. The Kagans’ proximity to Petraeus, the country’s most-famous living general, provided an incentive for defense contractors to contribute to Kim Kagan’s think tank [ISW]. For Petraeus, embracing two respected national security analysts in GOP circles helped to shore up support for the [Afghanistan] war among Republican leaders on Capitol Hill.
All of this helps explain why noted phrasemaker Mickey Kaus has called the Kagan family “the Kagan industrial complex.” Speaking of which:
Robert Kagan’s wife, Victoria Nuland, is the state department official who very publicly supported Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan Revolution—the overthrow of pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych, which led Russia to seize Crimea and give military support to secessionist rebels in the Donbass. Nuland also played a behind-the-scenes role in this transition of power that, according to some of her detractors, amounted to orchestrating a coup.
And as long as we’re going down rabbit holes: The Kagan-Kristol Project for a New American Century was funded by arms makers, thanks largely to the work of Lockheed Martin executive Bruce P. Jackson, who became a director of PNAC. Jackson had earlier organized the US Committee to Expand NATO, which successfully lobbied for what its name suggests it lobbied for. Some people think NATO expansion—in particular George W. Bush’s 2008 addition of Ukraine to the list of future members—helped cause the Ukraine war, but in any event NATO expansion has over the past quarter century made lots and lots of money for Lockheed Martin and other arms makers.
But I digress. Back to the Institute for the Study of War.
ISW, like some other highly ideological think tanks, exerts its influence along two main paths: (1) explicitly opining about policies; (2) doing reporting and analysis that is ostensibly objective but may implicitly favor certain policies. For example:
As Sarah Lazare of In These Times has pointed out, in August of last year, as the US was withdrawing from Afghanistan (1) retired Gen. Jack Keane, chairman of ISW’s board, was on TV arguing against the pullout, while (2) ISW was putting out papers that didn’t explicitly oppose withdrawal but warned of various kinds of bad consequences. (Lazare notes that, at the same time, the CEO of CACI International, one of ISW’s funders, was warning on a conference call that the Afghanistan withdrawal would hurt its profits in the next fiscal year.)
In the case of the Ukraine War, ISW’s reporting and analysis activities have been extraordinary. The Institute issues daily battlefield updates, complete with maps of three regions of Ukraine that show shifts in territorial control. These summaries are intelligently and crisply written and cover a lot of ground efficiently. If I were a newspaper reporter writing about the war, I would find them appealing.
So are you ready for my big reveals about glaring bias in ISW analysis? There aren’t any! That’s part of my point: The bias imparted by ISW is subtle. Its incremental effects are barely perceptible, but they add up over time. And what they add up to, basically, is The War According to Our Side. Little shadings here and there create more or less the picture of the war that the Ukrainian government is trying to present.
Here, for example, is a paragraph from a Wall Street Journal piece last week: “Ukrainian forces in the south, near Kherson, conducted a successful counteroffensive over the weekend, according to the Institute for the Study of War. Though they were unlikely to retake more territory, they might force Russia to deploy more resources to the region.”
Wait a second! You’re calling a counteroffensive that takes no territory “successful”? Just because it “might” force Russia to redeploy forces?
Well, OK, but if that’s your criterion, shouldn’t you have called some past Russian assaults around Kharkiv that took no territory “successful”? After all, it was speculated that their purpose was to keep Ukraine from concentrating more resources in the Donbass.
No, calling a superficially unsuccessful Russian attack successful isn’t the kind of thing ISW does. The kind of thing it does is depict superficially successful Russian attacks as only mixed successes. Thus, on the day that the big story was Russia’s penetrating the perimeter of the important city of Severodonetsk, the Wall Street Journal could at least leaven that bad news with this: “Russia’s forces were so concentrated on Severodonetsk that they likely wouldn’t be able to conduct major operations elsewhere in the country, according to the Institute for the Study of War.”
Maybe so. But given that Severodonetsk is the last big obstacle to Russia’s securing control of Luhansk province—one of the two provinces Putin originally vowed to secure in the course of this war—that would seem to be meager consolation.
I’m not saying it doesn’t qualify as a silver lining of sorts. But I am saying that ISW consistently finds more Ukrainian silver linings than Russian silver linings. Way, way, way more.
It may not take much conscious effort for the crew of five ISW analysts (including Frederick Kagan) who prepare these reports to put a pro-Ukraine spin on them. To some extent the spin is structural; ISW seems to have a policy of taking battlefield reports from the Ukrainian government seriously but not taking reports from the Russian government seriously.
Among the consequences of this policy is a subtle and important one:
Since the Ukrainian government, naturally enough, isn’t eager to concede combat losses, some Russian battlefield successes aren’t very recent by the time Ukraine, and hence ISW, acknowledges them. And you don’t lead with old news! So here, for example, is the first sentence of ISW’s summary of events for May 22 (boldfaced, in keeping with ISW practice for the lead sentence of each day’s summary): “Russian forces made only minimal gains in eastern Ukraine on May 22.” And here is the sentence that is relegated to second place and isn’t boldfaced: “New reporting confirmed that Russian troops previously recaptured Rubizhne in northern Kharkiv Oblast, on May 19.”
Capturing a village near the city of Kharkiv seems like bigger news than not capturing any villages in the East. So why doesn’t ISW lead with that? Because it’s old news—it happened several days earlier. But back when it happened, ISW couldn’t confidently report it, because only Russia, not Ukraine, had said it happened. So newspaper reporters relying on ISW wouldn’t have become aware of this setback for Ukraine until it was too stale to bother with. This slow-motion burial of bad news happens again and again; it’s built into ISW’s methodology.
When you add up all of ISW’s little instances of spin, how much do they matter? I don’t know. (Who’s got time to even find them all, much less add them up?) Certainly if you drew a schematic diagram of American propaganda as it pertains to national security—including all the interest groups that try to impart their spin, and where their money comes from, and which media they succeed in influencing, and so on—ISW wouldn’t come close to dominating the diagram.
But that’s one of my main points. This diagram isn’t as streamlined as the Russian version would be. There are so many moving parts in American opinionmaking machinery that it’s hard to figure out what’s going on—hard to follow all the institutionally imparted biases to their roots.
Indeed—and I guess this is my other main point—it’s apparently hard to follow even a single institution’s bias to its roots. I feel pretty sure that very few readers of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, or the Washington Post read passages attributed to the Institute for the Study of War with the grain of salt that is appropriate, given its ideology and its funding—because, for one thing, they don’t know about the ideology and the funding.
More surprisingly—and more depressingly—a lot of presumably sophisticated American journalists seem equally uninformed. At least, that’s the only explanation I have for why America’s elite media outlets routinely and uncritically relay ISW takes.
Thus, the New York Times yesterday reported: “Ukraine has retaken large parts of Severodonetsk, the Luhansk city Russia has concentrated on capturing, the Institute for the Study of War reported on Sunday. The Washington-based research group said Ukraine’s ability to push Russian troops back to the city’s eastern outskirts was more evidence of Moscow’s declining combat power.”
Now, it may well be that Moscow’s declining combat power is the explanation for any recent Ukrainian advances, and that the wind is therefore at Ukraine’s back (though this morning’s Washington Post headline—“Severodonetsk situation ‘has worsened’ for Ukraine, official says”—suggests maybe not). But if I were a reporter and I knew about ISW’s background, I don’t think I’d be relaying its conjectures unless I was balancing them with conjectures from think tanks that are considerably less hawkish.
Which, by the way, would be hard to do, because there aren’t any considerably less hawkish think tanks that provide elaborate daily analysis of the Ukraine war, in part because the less hawkish you are, the harder it is to get funding. There are no huge companies whose profits are tied directly to military restraint the way General Dynamics’s profits are tied to militarism.
That’s why if you see an op-ed on Ukraine—or Afghanistan or Iran or whatever—written by somebody at a think tank, the chances are good that the think tank has gotten money from defense contractors. And if you see a think tanker on cable news talking about those subjects, ditto. Not to mention the fact that, as Aditi Ramaswami and Andrew Perez documented in Jacobin, many talking heads who opine on the Ukraine war are getting money from the arms makers themselves (just as many Afghanistan war talking heads did).
I’m not saying the talking heads you see are shills. Think tanks don’t pay people to say things they don’t believe. Think tanks hire people who already believe things the funders of the think tanks want everyone—including you—to believe.
The sincerity with which these experts can thus profess their beliefs is one reason American propaganda is inconspicuous. Another reason is institutional diversity: different newspapers, different cable channels, different think tanks!
This much diversity is better than less diversity—one of many reasons I’d rather live in America than in Russia. Still, sometimes the diversity belies a deeper narrative unity, a unity grounded in the power of highly motivated special interests. And that’s especially true when the subject is national security.
Supporting Ukraine is a good cause. But undiscerning support is never a good policy. And it’s especially not good in the current situation—a war involving a nuclear superpower and various regional tinderboxes. So any impediments to a clear view of what’s going on in Ukraine, however subtle they may be, are things we should try to identify and overcome. And if you ask, “What impediments?” the answer is: “That’s what I mean.”
Robert Wright is the author, most recently of “Why Buddhism is True” (2017) and of “The Evolution of God” (2009), which was a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His other books include “The Moral Animal,” which The New York Times Book Review named one of the ten best books of 1994, and “Nonzero,” which Bill Clinton called “astonishing” and instructed White House staff members to read. In 2009 Wright was named by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the top 100 global thinkers. Wright is a contributing editor at The New Republic and a contributor to Time and Slate. He has also written for The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Foreign Policy, and the op-ed pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Financial Times. His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and his awards include the National Magazine Award for Essay and Criticism. He has taught courses in philosophy and religion at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania. He is Visiting Professor of Science and Religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York, and is editor-in-chief of the websites Bloggingheads.tv and MeaningofLife.tv.
13. Bringing Justice Home: Dispatches from the ISIS ‘Beatles’ Trial
There has been no other reporting on this trial with this kind of analysis. Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware make a number of important assessments.
Excerpts:
But perhaps the trial’s most important legacy was recentering the victims in the public record. The jury heard stories of extraordinary bravery, perhaps none more than Steven Sotloff, who was singled out for special attention because the captors suspected he was Jewish. Although Steven often wore extra layers of clothing to soften the blows during his regular beatings, he never admitted to his faith. The victims were journalists and aid workers, all of whom traveled to Syria to help those suffering, or at least to tell their stories. They should never have been belligerents in this war, but remembering them for the sacrifices they made is critical. Renewed efforts must now be made to bring home other victims—like journalist and Georgetown University law student Austin Tice.
Nothing will ever bring back those we have lost, nor will anything fill the holes forever stabbed into the hearts of the families. But maybe, just maybe, the trial in Alexandria will bring some closure, and some comfort in the knowledge that each of the torturers will pay for the pain they caused with their lives and freedoms. And, maybe, it might provide some long-awaited proof that America does, after all, look after its own—always.
“It's been a long cold lonely winter,” George Harrison, of the original Beatles, sang all those years ago. “It feels like years since it's been here. Here comes the Sun.”
Bringing Justice Home: Dispatches from the ISIS ‘Beatles’ Trial
Terrorists fail when we choose light over darkness—when peaceful justice prevails over anger and fear.
Terrorists seek to divide—to scare, to hurt, to break. They fail when we choose unity. They fail when we choose light over darkness—when peaceful justice prevails over anger and fear. And in April, in a ninth-floor federal courtroom in northern Virginia, light, and justice won.
The Alexandria courtroom provided the setting for the much-anticipated so-called “Beatles” terrorism trial, which saw British Islamic State member El Shafee Elsheikh, otherwise known as Jihadi Ringo and captured in early 2018 by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), tried on eight counts, ranging from hostage-taking to conspiracy to providing material support to terrorists. His co-defendant, Alexanda Kotey, had earlier pled guilty. Both had been extradited to the United States in 2020 after the U.S. government agreed to remove the possibility of the death penalty.
Elsheikh’s daily outfit of neat glasses and smart shirts constructed a student look designed to make him appear more sympathetic, but his swaggering walk betrayed the same arrogance that drove him to play a key role in a hostage-taking scheme that resulted in the taking of over two dozen Western hostages—mostly journalists and aid workers. Four Americans—James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Peter (Abdulrahman) Kassig, and Kayla Mueller—were killed, the first three beheaded as part of ISIS propaganda videos. Two British citizens—David Haines and Alan Henning—were similarly murdered, while another, John Cantlie, remains missing. A range of hostages from European countries were brutally tortured but released; others, from Japan and Russia and beyond, were not so lucky.
On April 14, Elsheikh was found guilty of all charges. He awaits sentencing later this summer. Kotey has been sentenced to eight concurrent life sentences, with the possibility of a return to the United Kingdom after fifteen years, a stipulation of his plea agreement. Beyond the immediate impact on these terrorists and the families of their victims, though, the trial has significant implications for U.S. counterterrorism, the ability of the justice system to prosecute international terrorists, and the future of U.S. hostage policy.
The first conclusion to be drawn from the Beatles trial in Alexandria is also the most important: Americans so rarely get to see an international terrorist brought to justice here in the homeland, and the trial showcased the power of the American justice system to prosecute and incarcerate such individuals. The constitutional right to a speedy and fair trial—as stipulated by the Sixth Amendment—was rigorously applied by Judge T.S. Ellis III throughout the court proceedings that lasted two-and-a-half weeks and heard testimony from thirty-five prosecution witnesses. The trial thus stood in marked contrast to the futile two-decade-long effort to bring to justice Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, and the other terrorists incarcerated at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A total of some 800 persons have been imprisoned at the facility since 2002. Fewer than forty currently remain there. None have been accorded anything even resembling the due process that unfolded in Alexandria in late March through mid-April. It is a stain on our democracy.
The treatment of the Guantanamo detainees, in fact, figured prominently throughout the trial. A succession of witnesses, that included former hostages, testified how the “Beatles” justified the ill-treatment of their American captives with that of co-religionists there. Just as KSM was subjected to waterboarding and other torture, so were the Western hostages held by ISIS. They were also attired in orange jumpsuits like the Guantanamo detainees in each of the cruel execution videos that ISIS subsequently released. Indeed, throughout the trial, the stanza from W.H. Auden’s well-known poem, “September 1, 1939,” came to mind. “I and the public know/What all schoolchildren learn/Those to whom evil is done/Do evil in return.” This is not in the least meant to imply any moral equivalency between the U.S. treatment of the Guantanamo detainees with that of ISIS’s heinous treatment of its captives, but to illuminate the lasting, however unintended, consequences of America’s ill-conceived detention policy and the constant references to it throughout the trial.
The Guantanamo debacle has had implications for families of victims, too, and the Alexandria courtroom provided a venue where families of the fallen and former hostages could speak directly to their tormentors, an opportunity unfortunately all-too-rare in the post 9/11 era. In one of the trial’s regular themes, the victims one by one faced the defendants with heads held high. One of the family members, defiant, told Kotey and Elsheikh at the former’s sentencing that they would no longer be allowed to torment her. “I forgive you,” she declared—a heartbreaking, cutting, and yet so hopeful show of grace and fortitude. Judge Ellis, too, displayed compassion not earned by the defendants’ actions. Soon after sentencing Kotey to eight concurrent life sentences, Ellis referenced the terrorist’s aforementioned plea deal: “I do hope you get to go home,” Ellis told the terrorist.
The trial, then, showcased America at its very best: responding to unspeakable horror and unimaginable evil with patience and the protection of a defendant’s human rights. In fact, precisely that point was made by the father of one of the victims, at Kotey’s sentencing. Carl Mueller had lost faith in America and his government during his daughter’s ordeal, he said, but faith had been restored during the trial. Judge Ellis, who has sat on the court since the Reagan administration, was moved to tears by the sentiment.
The Beatles trial was not a victory of counterterrorism—conversely, counterterrorism failed on this occasion, because crimes were committed in the first place. But it provides a promising model for how the justice system can effectively respond to terrorism. As Christopher Costa, a retired U.S. Army Special Forces officer and the former senior National Security Council official responsible for counterterrorism, who played a critical role in the kinetic counterterrorism fight against the Islamic State, writes, “legal arrows in terms of investigations, extraditions, and trials are more potent than simply killing terrorists.” Can that be expanded? Can it provide a model for how to finally end indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay, in U.S. civilian court? At the very least, the Beatles trial opened the door to such new possibilities.
Secondly, the trial provided a timely reminder that terrorism remains an important and persistent threat, and that Western defense strategists cannot completely move on to other priorities. Despite our collective (and quite correct) laser focus on Ukraine over the past three months, international terrorism has continued to purr—most notably during a string of savage attacks in Israel. The trial clearly depicted the enduring ability of the twisted and corrupt Salafi-jihadist ideology to inspire individuals to acts of barbary.
Elsheikh said almost nothing throughout the proceedings. As is his constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment, he was not required to testify in his defense. Judge Ellis emphasized to the jury that Elsheikh’s refusal to do so should not be taken as suggestive of any guilt. “I do not wish to testify” was the only word he spoke. But his silence and general demeanor arguably imparted an image of unapologetic self-righteousness if not outright remorselessness. Indeed, the defense would repeatedly claim that Elsheikh was just a “simple ISIS soldier” inadvertently caught up in the heinous acts of violence attributed to that group and a case of mistaken identity. The prosecution drove home the point that in at least a half-dozen videotaped interviews with the press after his capture, Elsheikh admitted to being one of the “Beatles.”
The twenty-five-page long letter sent by Kotey to Judge Ellis hoping to avoid incarceration in one of America’s high-security, “supermax” prisons highlighted the absence of remorse and continued justification of ISIS’s savagery and brutality. In it, Kotey bemoaned his feckless youth and socio-economic disadvantages that he experienced growing up in Britain. A convert to Islam, Kotey explained the gravitational pull of the Salafi-jihadi ideology promulgated by terrorist movements like both Al Qaeda and ISIS to “young Muslims of my generation.” Citing the CIA’s “black sites,” Guantanamo, and the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Kotey blamed the United States and the West for waging a war on Islam as the reasons he left Britain to fight Syria in March 2012. It was imperative that he do so, Kotey explained, even if it meant never seeing his then-eight-year-old daughter. ISIS had “no monopoly on the use of violence” in the region, he declared, before fatuously claiming that, “contrary to what might have been perceived, no malice was harboured, personally, towards the captives, nor their families.” Kotey’s utter lack of remorse and his hollow protestations that he was a soldier simply executing his duties underscore how the extensive counter-radicalization efforts undertaken by the British government following the 2005 London transport suicide attacks failed to have any impact on Elsheikh, Kotey, and the 800 or so other Britons who joined ISIS and its precursor groups until its caliphate was finally defeated in 2019. This ideology, and the groups it inspires, remain a threat.
Finally, the trial revealed, in an unprecedentedly harsh light, the inconsistencies and incredulity of American hostage policy—which not only refuses to pay ransoms but bars families from negotiating for their loved ones—as well as its failure to deter terrorist kidnapping of Americans. Repeated testimony from the European survivors—whose governments either allegedly paid ransoms or did not prevent their families from independently raising funds for that purpose—explained how the “Beatles” separated their captives based on whether their governments paid ransoms or did not—with the Americans, British, Japanese, and Russian hostages receiving appreciably worse treatment, and ultimately paying with their lives. The testimony thus underscored how utterly inconsequential America’s “no concessions” hostage policy was either in deterring the future seizure by terrorists of U.S. citizens or winning the safe release of those held captive. The fact that both the United States and Britain historically have been the countries whose citizens are most frequently taken hostage challenges the wisdom and effectiveness of a policy that reportedly was the product of an off-hand remark by then-Secretary of State William P. Rogers that the United States must have a “masculine policy” in responding to terrorist threats and demands. At the time of its adaption in 1973, this policy resulted in the immediate deaths of two American diplomats held by Palestinian terrorists. It has continued to account for the acute pain and suffering of American hostages themselves and their families for nearly half a century, as testimony throughout the trial revealed. The trial thus thrust into stark light the importance of a rethink on U.S. hostage policy.
But perhaps the trial’s most important legacy was recentering the victims in the public record. The jury heard stories of extraordinary bravery, perhaps none more than Steven Sotloff, who was singled out for special attention because the captors suspected he was Jewish. Although Steven often wore extra layers of clothing to soften the blows during his regular beatings, he never admitted to his faith. The victims were journalists and aid workers, all of whom traveled to Syria to help those suffering, or at least to tell their stories. They should never have been belligerents in this war, but remembering them for the sacrifices they made is critical. Renewed efforts must now be made to bring home other victims—like journalist and Georgetown University law student Austin Tice.
Nothing will ever bring back those we have lost, nor will anything fill the holes forever stabbed into the hearts of the families. But maybe, just maybe, the trial in Alexandria will bring some closure, and some comfort in the knowledge that each of the torturers will pay for the pain they caused with their lives and freedoms. And, maybe, it might provide some long-awaited proof that America does, after all, look after its own—always.
“It's been a long cold lonely winter,” George Harrison, of the original Beatles, sang all those years ago. “It feels like years since it's been here. Here comes the Sun.”
Bruce Hoffman is a professor at Georgetown University and the Shelby Cullom & Kathryn W. Davis senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security at the Council on Foreign Relations. Hoffman served as an expert witness called by the government in the El Shafee Elsheikh trial.
Jacob Ware is a research associate for counterterrorism at the Council on Foreign Relations and an adjunct professor in Georgetown’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.
Image: Reuters.
14. The Russian invasion has clear implications for the US Army
Excerpts:
That should inspire the U.S. military to aggressively pursue possible counter-measures. Simple armor is not going to work, and the next generation of military technology must demonstrate the agility that electronics mixed with kinetic systems can create.
The U.S. Army must incorporate this new threat without disregarding any of the old. And it cannot do so by simply adding another defensive mechanism. That’s how combat vehicles grow to ponderous weights over time.
The defensive zone must extend well beyond the vehicle itself. Using digital communications, the vehicles must work together as a team, making a hemispherical bubble that is mutually supportive and protective. Sensor data from any source must be digitally analyzed in the context of the vehicle to allow anticipation.
Weapons and sensors combine to form zones of protection at different distances from the vehicle. Armed UAVs can provide fires against a target at a great distance. Loitering munitions launched from the vehicle or a nearby carrier can provide a closer-in protective layer focused on killing an inbound threat or engaging the shooter. Electronic and directed energy counter-measures must be considered as well.
The U.S. Army must make this layered system central to future combat vehicle designs to reduce the need for thick and heavy armor and open the door to much lighter and more agile vehicles.
The Russian invasion has clear implications for the US Army
You don’t need a highly classified briefing on the war in Ukraine in a sealed room in the Pentagon to see warfare changes that will affect U.S. doctrine and weapons.
Russian tanks littering the battlefield have broken turrets and burned hulls — but their defensive side armor is still intact. Small and large ships alike have been sunk not by a navy but soldiers behind joysticks. Ukrainian forces are avoiding costly engagements on the battlefield, instead using their knowledge of the battlespace to create ambushes.
At the center of this new warfare is not cyber but a new kinetic system: loitering munitions. Loitering munitions are a kind of unmanned aerial system that incorporates the smarts of a drone with some form of explosive charge. Unlike cyber, loitering munitions add kinetic effects — meaning destructive capabilities.
Most prominent in the news is the Javelin missile system. Usually considered simply a missile, it is in essence a UAS loitering munition. The loitering time is just short because the target is defined at launch, letting it quickly and autonomously home in on the target during terminal flight.
The Switchblade 300 UAS can loiter for some time looking for its target and, once found, dive in for destruction with an internal explosive wrapped in shrapnel. Its precision means it can be flown into windows, down hatches, or into vulnerable components like optics and communications gear. Its big brother, the Switchblade 600, is about twice the size, with greater range and loitering capabilities, and can easily penetrate the top of any Russian armor system.
To extend the range and loitering time, these and other similar systems have been mounted on conventional UAS drones. When used in swarms, drones have been shown to confuse radars and mask approaching UAS loitering munitions. There have been recent reports of these systems attacking patrol boats and large landing craft, demonstrating the power and flexibility of this mode of attack.
Weapon systems like tanks have generally been designed with side protection and only enough armor on top to deflect fragments from air-burst artillery rounds. This has proven insufficient, with Russia reportedly losing 600 to1,000 tanks. Russian soldiers have begun trying to counter this threat by putting cages, sandbags, rocks and just about anything they can find on top of vehicles, so far with little success.
The U.S. military has similar vulnerabilities to this method of attack with relatively thin top armor. But, unlike the Russians, it recognized some time ago the need for an Active Protection System (APS) able to defeat similar threats without adding significant weight.
U.S. M1 Abrams tanks in Europe sport the Israeli Trophy APS, proven to defeat many inbound missiles. Development of a full hemispherical defense through integrated APS is underway, which could allow further reduction in armor requirements.
While individual defenses of a vehicle remain critical, not all systems need or could afford all forms of defense. The Army is in the process of fielding its first directed energy systems, which can help to interdict some of these threats from above. Near, mid, and far defenses work together against inbound threats.
War is always a process of finding counter-measures to offset new technology. Right now, loitering munitions have the upper hand.
That should inspire the U.S. military to aggressively pursue possible counter-measures. Simple armor is not going to work, and the next generation of military technology must demonstrate the agility that electronics mixed with kinetic systems can create.
The U.S. Army must incorporate this new threat without disregarding any of the old. And it cannot do so by simply adding another defensive mechanism. That’s how combat vehicles grow to ponderous weights over time.
The defensive zone must extend well beyond the vehicle itself. Using digital communications, the vehicles must work together as a team, making a hemispherical bubble that is mutually supportive and protective. Sensor data from any source must be digitally analyzed in the context of the vehicle to allow anticipation.
Weapons and sensors combine to form zones of protection at different distances from the vehicle. Armed UAVs can provide fires against a target at a great distance. Loitering munitions launched from the vehicle or a nearby carrier can provide a closer-in protective layer focused on killing an inbound threat or engaging the shooter. Electronic and directed energy counter-measures must be considered as well.
The U.S. Army must make this layered system central to future combat vehicle designs to reduce the need for thick and heavy armor and open the door to much lighter and more agile vehicles.
Bruce Jette was assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, technology and logistics from 2018 to 2021. A retired colonel, he was founding director of the U.S. Army Rapid Equipping Force.
15. Nicaragua authorizes entry of Russian troops, planes, ships
Nicaragua authorizes entry of Russian troops, planes, ships
MEXICO CITY (AP) — The government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has authorized Russian troops, planes and ships to deploy to Nicaragua for purposes of training, law enforcement or emergency response.
In a decree published this week, and confirmed by Russia on Thursday, Ortega will allow Russian troops to carry out law enforcement duties, “humanitarian aid, rescue and search missions in emergencies or natural disasters.”
The Nicaraguan government also authorized the presence of small contingents of Russian troops for “exchange of experiences and training.”
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, told the Russian news outlet Sputnik that the measure was “routine.”
“We are talking about a routine — twice a year — procedure for the adoption of a Nicaraguan law on the temporary admission of foreign military personnel to its territory in order to develop cooperation in various areas, including humanitarian and emergency responses, combatting organized crime and drug trafficking,” Zakharova said.
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She noted the law also authorizes troops from the United States, Mexico and other Central American countries for such purposes.
Ortega has been a staunch ally of Russia since his days in the leadership of the 1979 revolution that ousted dictator Anastasio Somoza. Ortega served as president from 1985 to 1990, before being re-elected to power in 2007.
Ortega’s government arrested dozens of political opposition leaders, including most of the potential presidential candidates, in the months before his re-election to a fourth consecutive term last year. His government has shut down dozens of nongovernmental groups that he accuses of working on behalf of foreign interests to destabilize his government. Tens of thousands of Nicaraguans have been chased into exile.
16. How China Hacked US Phone Networks
How China Hacked US Phone Networks
Plus: Russia rattles its cyber sword, a huge Facebook phishing operation is uncovered, feds take down the SSNDOB marketplace, and more.
MATT BURGESS SECURITY11.06.2022 02:00 PM
Wired · by Condé Nast · June 11, 2022
Goldberg’s story was retold at the RSA Conference in San Francisco this week, where WIRED’s Lily Newman has been digging up stories. Also coming out of RSA: a warning that as ransomware becomes less profitable, attackers may turn to business email compromise (BEC) scams to make money—BEC attacks are already highly profitable.
But that's not all, folks. Each week we round up the big security and privacy news we didn't cover ourselves. Click the links for the full stories, and stay safe out there.
For the past two years, state-sponsored hackers working on behalf of the Chinese government have targeted scores of communications technologies, ranging from home routers to large telecom networks. That’s according to the NSA, FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which published a security advisory this week detailing the “widespread” hacking.
Since 2020, Chinese-backed actors have been exploiting publicly known software flaws in hardware and incorporating compromised devices into their own attack infrastructure. According to the US agencies, the attacks typically contained five steps. China’s hackers would use publicly available tools to scan for vulnerabilities in networks. They would then gain initial access through online services, access login details from the systems, get access to routers and copy network traffic, before finally “exfiltrating” victim data.
“Exploiting these vulnerabilities has allowed them to establish broad infrastructure networks to exploit a wide range of public- and private-sector targets,” the agencies say in their joint advisory.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia has been hacked at an unprecedented scale. Now, more than 100 days into the war, tensions around cyber activity are rising. On June 9, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said that its critical infrastructure and government bodies were being hit by cyberattacks and warned that it could lead to military confrontation with the West. “The militarization of the information space by the West, and attempts to turn it into an arena of interstate confrontation, have greatly increased the threat of a direct military clash with unpredictable consequences,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. From the moment Russian troops entered Ukraine, questions have been raised about the potential for escalation if people outside of Ukraine are involved in cyberattacks against Russia. Last week, the head of US Cyber Command told Sky News that its military hackers have been involved in offensive operations that support Ukraine.
Phishing remains one of the most successful ways for criminals to break into people’s accounts and make money—and there’s no better example of this than a newly uncovered Facebook and Facebook Messenger phishing campaign. This week, security researchers at US firm PIXM revealed a huge network of at least 400 phishing pages that are raking in millions of views and have made its creators an estimated $59 million. The scam, which has been running since at least September 2021, directs people to false Facebook login pages where their credentials are hoovered up. What stands out, as noted by the Register, is that the phishing campaign has managed to avoid Facebook’s phishing detection methods more effectively than others.
So far in 2022, police and tech companies have been cracking down on cybercriminals with some success: Raidforums, ZLoader, and the dark-web market Hydra have all been shut down in recent months. That list got a little bit longer this week as the FBI and its international law enforcement took down a marketplace selling the personal information of around 24 million Americans, according to authorities. The SSNDOB marketplace, which was made up of four individual domains, was selling people’s names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers. SSNDOB has existed for around a decade, and in 2013, details obtained from the organization were used in the takeover of Xbox Live accounts. It’s believed the website has made its unknown owners around $22 million since 2015.
More Great WIRED Stories
Wired · by Condé Nast · June 11, 2022
17. Proxy war or not, Ukraine shows why moral hazards matter
Important points that we must consider. Moral hazards matter.
Conclusion:
Proxy relationship or not, both NATO and Ukraine must do more than share interests; they must also align them. This is an ongoing challenge, since the costs and benefits of the fighting continually change for each party.
Meanwhile, the potential for moral hazards never goes away. So far, NATO and the United States have managed escalation while providing sufficient assistance to prevent a Russian victory (if not eventually achieve their defeat). Yet more attention should be paid to the possible proliferation of lethal assistance to ensure the United States will not need to buy back, for instance, Javelin anti-tank systems in the future. Finally, while Ukraine’s soldiers have shown admirable restraint so far, it’s not too late to engage Ukraine on war-crime prevention to avert the potential need for NATO to reconsider its support.
Regardless of how one wants to characterize the United States’ and NATO’s relationship with Ukraine, failure to address these concerns risks tainting NATO’s support, undermining the legitimacy of Ukraine’s cause, and emboldening Russia’s narrative in ways that could be decisive to the conflict’s outcome.
Proxy war or not, Ukraine shows why moral hazards matter
June 9, 2022
In late April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused NATO of waging a “proxy” war against Russia by supporting Ukraine as it defended itself from a Kremlin invasion. “War means war,” he said ominously, implying that the Alliance is stoking Ukraine’s resistance to advance its own interests.
It is easy to dismiss Lavrov’s claim as another product of Kremlin myth-making, and in reality, Ukraine’s status as a proxy for the United States and NATO may be a matter of interpretation. Yet there is a kernel of truth to it: The Alliance is now engaged in a Cold War-style engagement with Moscow, in which both NATO and its Ukrainian partner risk pursuing their interests possibly at the unjust expense of each other.
That the United States’, much less NATO’s, military support for Kyiv raises ethical concerns is no surprise; states rarely provide military assistance to other parties unless their interests are also served. But even well-intentioned pursuits—in this case, helping a strategic ally beat back a stronger aggressor—can end poorly. The more their otherwise shared interests diverge, the higher the risk of failure for both the sponsor and the sponsored. Even when those interests are well-aligned, assistance (especially of the lethal variety) can create moral hazards that may render otherwise just causes too dangerous to pursue.
So whether the United States and its NATO partners are in a textbook proxy relationship with Ukraine matters less than the potential consequences if that relationship isn’t properly managed. Both parties should pay close attention to these possible perils—if not out of a commitment to the values associated with the liberal international order, then at least to deny Russia a narrative that can make its cause seem more legitimate.
The politics of proxy wars
One state providing military support to another does not itself establish a proxy relationship, even if the beneficiary is at war. It is when a sponsor is able to achieve its own goals “by, with, and through” the efforts of the sponsored party that elements of such a relationship emerge. Simply put: Proxy wars allow a sponsor country or entity to more easily achieve goals without committing its own forces directly to the conflict. It does not matter that the interests are shared between the two parties—but that the sponsor would have that interest independent of the relationship.
For example, when US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Washington’s (if not NATO’s) intent was a “weakened” Russia, he introduced a potentially divergent interest from Ukraine’s by suggesting that simply restoring Ukrainian sovereignty wasn’t the end game. President Joe Biden helpfully closed any gaps in a recent New York Times op-ed by affirming that the United States wants “to see a democratic, independent, sovereign, and prosperous” Ukraine, and that “to prolong this war just to inflict pain on Russia” is not its objective.
Even with this helpful clarification, it is important to point out that sharing interests is not the same as aligning them. While both NATO and Ukraine want to defeat Russian aggression now and prevent future outbursts, they may not share an interest in imposing the same costs required to do so. For example, Ukraine arguably has an interest in striking inside Russian territory—but conducting such attacks with NATO-supplied equipment may represent an escalation that is not in NATO’s interest. For that reason, restricting Ukraine’s use of US advanced artillery, for example, seems prudent. This illustrates that despite the best of intentions, interests rarely perfectly align.
Sponsor and proxy interests do not need to be identical. But they should be aligned well enough that the proxy’s success satisfies the sponsor’s interests—or leads to the conclusion of the proxy relationship. If the interests of NATO and Ukraine diverge, for example, then Ukraine’s should generally take priority. And if, from the Ukrainian point of view, the cost of fighting exceeds the cost of settlement, NATO should not get in the way of a settlement. If, on the other hand, the only way to restore Ukraine’s sovereignty is to escalate, then NATO will need to choose between providing support or committing to escalation. A mistake on NATO’s part would be to enable Ukraine to engage in an escalatory cycle that the Alliance is not willing or able to see all the way through.
But proxy wars are not just about aligning interests. Like all wars, they are also guided by international law, which permits wars of self-defense (or the defense of others), certain humanitarian interventions, and other military operations authorized by the United Nations Security Council. There are further ethical concerns not enshrined in law that include proportionality, last resort, and reasonable chance of success. A sponsor’s involvement will not make a fundamentally unjust cause just. However, by lowering the proxy’s costs and risks of fighting, the sponsor can make fighting more proportional, winning more likely, and thus war more attractive.
In this case, helping Ukraine defend itself is a just cause, and aiding the country is clearly permissible. But sponsors’ reasons for intervening should also meet a standard of justice; otherwise, any additional deaths risk being unnecessary. Arming Ukraine to uphold a just international order is clearly permissible—but arming it to, say, open markets or gain access to natural resources for Alliance members is not. (And those do not appear to be NATO’s goals.) Similarly, arming Ukraine simply as a pretext to expand NATO would only feed into the Russian narrative.
Hazardous territory
Even where interests align and the costs of fighting seem reasonable, supporting another’s war is not without moral risk. In the case of proxy wars, moral hazards arise when the sponsored entity assumes greater risk because it knows the sponsor will have to bear some, if not all, of the burden associated with that risk. For example, Ukraine could decide to impose greater costs on Russia than would be necessary to re-establish sovereignty because NATO support underwrites the risk associated with a Russian response.
The presence of moral hazards does not directly affect the legitimacy of a proxy relationship—but failure to manage these hazards can effectively transform an otherwise legally permissible intervention into one that is morally ambiguous or impermissible. Should the conflict expand beyond Ukraine, military assistance be used in ways not intended, or Ukrainian soldiers engage in the kinds of atrocities Russians have in Ukraine, it could undermine the very international order that assistance is meant to uphold.
This concern is particularly relevant when it comes to escalation, the wild card factor in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. With Russia already believing the war is effectively a battle against the West and NATO, there is a two-fold concern here: First is the possibility that a potential Russian defeat could motivate Putin to not only expand the conflict by attacking NATO countries but also resort to using nuclear weapons; and second is NATO sponsors determining in the event of an escalation that continued support is no longer worth the risk, potentially hanging Ukraine out to dry.
Managing escalation also requires calibrating assistance. As mentioned above, prudence can require sponsors to impose limits on assistance to avoid expanding the conflict. But it also makes no moral sense to provide just enough assistance to prolong the war and increase the suffering. This suggests NATO should indeed provide lethal assistance to defeat Russian forces as fast as possible; but since such systems could enable attacks inside Russia, its members must be prepared to bear the practical costs of that escalation, or at least be clear about the limits of their assistance.
Related to escalation is the diffusion of weapons in a post-conflict environment. Probably the best example of this hazard is the spread of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles in Afghanistan following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. After the conflict ended, these missiles were found as far afield as Bosnia, Iran, the Indian-administered Kashmir region, Tunisia, and the Palestinian territories. The same could happen with Ukraine, where an estimated tens of thousands of anti-tank missiles have been handed out to a wide variety of forces. There is no single way to manage this particular moral hazard; but in the case of Ukraine, the United States and NATO should also help Kyiv ensure that it is able to maintain accountability throughout the course of the conflict.
Lastly, the indirect nature of the proxy relationship means sponsors can often be tainted by the potentially unsavory tactics of their proxies. So far, this has not been a major concern for NATO; Ukrainian forces are fighting a just cause on their own territory and appear to be exercising due care relative to civilian casualties. But it is also not difficult to imagine that some Ukrainian soldiers may exact revenge—evidence has already emerged of abuse of captured Russian soldiers—as they retake territory.
Of course, war is brutalizing, and it is generally not possible to prevent all soldiers from committing war crimes. That fact, however, is not an excuse for complacency. What matters is whether the Ukrainian government would be willing and able to hold perpetrators accountable. If they fail on either count, NATO would be in the position of needing to consider withdrawing support or sharing culpability for whatever crimes Ukrainian soldiers commit. To avoid being placed in such a position, NATO sponsors should ensure that Ukrainian forces are committed to upholding international humanitarian law and can hold violators accountable. If those standards aren’t met, NATO should withhold lethal support.
Managing proxy relationships
Proxy relationship or not, both NATO and Ukraine must do more than share interests; they must also align them. This is an ongoing challenge, since the costs and benefits of the fighting continually change for each party.
Meanwhile, the potential for moral hazards never goes away. So far, NATO and the United States have managed escalation while providing sufficient assistance to prevent a Russian victory (if not eventually achieve their defeat). Yet more attention should be paid to the possible proliferation of lethal assistance to ensure the United States will not need to buy back, for instance, Javelin anti-tank systems in the future. Finally, while Ukraine’s soldiers have shown admirable restraint so far, it’s not too late to engage Ukraine on war-crime prevention to avert the potential need for NATO to reconsider its support.
Regardless of how one wants to characterize the United States’ and NATO’s relationship with Ukraine, failure to address these concerns risks tainting NATO’s support, undermining the legitimacy of Ukraine’s cause, and emboldening Russia’s narrative in ways that could be decisive to the conflict’s outcome.
C. Anthony Pfaff is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and the research professor for strategy, the military profession, and ethics at the US Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute. He is the author of “Proxy War Ethics.” The views expressed here are the author’s own and not necessarily those of the United States government.
18. 10th Mountain Commander Says Leaders Need to Leave Soldiers Alone After Hours
10th Mountain Commander Says Leaders Need to Leave Soldiers Alone After Hours
The commander of the Army's prestigious 10th Mountain Division wants troops to be less glued to their phones, ordering commanders and senior noncommissioned officers to lay off texting soldiers after duty hours. He wants his formations to be careful about their reliance on phones over concerns the constant barrage of social media and messages are impacting troops' mental health.
Maj. Gen. Milford Beagle Jr., commander of the Fort Drum, New York-based division, on Tuesday issued a memo barring leaders under him from texting or calling their subordinates before 5 a.m. or after 6 p.m., with some caveats for exceptional circumstances, including situations involving the well-being of a soldier.
The memo also seeks to stop soldiers from using phones during meetings and field exercises, though Beagle told Military.com in an interview that his intent isn't an outright ban on phones and more of a strong suggestion for troops to be weaned off their devices. Troops lean on cell phones to conduct daily work too frequently, he added, but said the key concern is cell phones' impact on mental health and leaders having a constant digital leash on soldiers. Instead, he said leaders need to figure out how to put information out to soldiers before they're released from duty.
"It's the stress of the phone. It's all the group texts [soldiers are] getting after hours, sometimes late, that don't amount to anything -- stuff leaders can wait until tomorrow or have better planning." Beagle said. "[Leaders] need to make sure they have their business in order so they can put our proper information at the end of the duty day while they have [soldiers] there."
The memo, he said, is more of an indictment on leaders, not the phones themselves. Some soldiers on social media raised concerns over whether Fort Drum was banning troops from using their phones while on duty, which Beagle said isn't the case. Soldiers can still use phones to pass the time and keep in contact with their families.
"I'm not trying to take your phone at all. If you're checking Twitter, I do it between meetings, that's totally fine," Beagle said. "But what I'm not doing is sending a text to one of my commanders on something I can call them on or we can talk about it the next day. … We're not saying if your wife calls you can't take a call; it's about common sense. That's where folks get confused."
Some soldiers told Military.com that senior noncommissioned officers and commanders are notorious for last-minute or late phone calls or texts, mostly with nonurgent updates or demanding information that could easily wait until the next day. The issue is Army-wide, not limited to the 10th Mountain Division, they said.
"I literally got a text from my [first sergeant] asking who could go to some school and what the status is on some online training for my guys. It was [8 p.m.] and I'm having dinner with my family, and the only way to get him this information is to bother all my guys during their personal time," one noncommissioned officer stationed at Fort Drum told Military.com on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. "This could've waited until the next day. And then other times, we might get texts that are hours out of date because someone has poor reception, or whatever."
Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston, the force's top enlisted leader, on Tuesday tweeted an endorsement of Beagle's policy.
"Predictability and training management: Two things that are easy to say, harder to do," Grinston said in a statement on Twitter. "This one makes sense -- what's holding you back from similar rules for your Soldiers?"
19. Guns aren’t going away. What if we treated gun violence that way?
Guns aren’t going away. What if we treated gun violence that way?
How a public health approach can reduce firearm-related injury and death.
Public Health Reporter
June 9, 2022
Gun violence is rising. The national debate over gun control has stalled. And there are more guns than people in the U.S.
But that doesn’t mean addressing these problems is hopeless. Doctors and other health experts are pushing to reframe the terrible toll of violence, unintentional injury and suicide-by-firearm as a public health crisis — borrowing the same holistic, multipronged approach focused on harm reduction that has helped reduce deaths and other harm from car crashes, air pollution and sexually transmitted diseases.
Car crash deaths have declined by nearly half over the past 50 years, and fatalities per mile driven have dropped by nearly 85 percent. “That’s even though we drive more and there are more cars on the road,” said Emmy Betz, an emergency medicine professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “We used a public health approach to understand the scope of the problem and risk factors and developed multiple potential interventions.”
Data showing teen drivers got into more crashes spurred licensing restrictions based on age. Engineering fixes, from seat belts to speed strips on highways, made driving safer for everyone. Better education and drunken driving campaigns helped drivers adopt safer practices. “All these things helped car crash death rates decline,” she said. “A seat belt law alone was not going to fix the problem.”
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Similarly, a single gun control policy won’t solve the problems gun pose. But a harm-reduction approach widens the aperture of how we view the problem and what might be done to reduce the risk of firearm injury or death. In 2020, guns killed more than 45,000 people and seriously injured many more. Firearm-related injuries are among the top five leading causes of death for people under 44, and guns kill more children than anything else in the U.S.
“For most of our country’s history, we’ve addressed gun violence by looking almost exclusively at criminology and law enforcement,” said Shannon Frattaroli, a gun violence researcher at Johns Hopkins University. “From a public health perspective, there’s a more holistic picture.”
That picture includes community violence, but also suicide and unintentional injuries. Instead of waiting for something bad to happen and jailing offenders, the approach “looks for risk factors and opportunities to intervene early, so that we don’t have to see those harms to society occur,” she said. Often those interventions aim to address problems far upstream from when someone pulls a trigger.
Reducing community violence
A public health approach to curbing community violence starts with better understanding of where violence is happening, who is involved and why.
“In any city, you’re going to see stark differences in gun violence across neighborhoods,” said Daniel Webster, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. “We need to understand why that is, it’s not just the natural state of things.”
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Often, levels of gun violence reflect historical disinvestment and discrimination. “The effects of redlining policies dating back to the 1930s endure today. Current rates of gun violence, in essence, have been baked in because of those policy decisions,” he said. Other factors also influence gun violence, he said, “but there’s a continuation of policies over generations that protect wealth and cordon off disadvantage.”
More than half of the nearly 68,000 firearm deaths that occurred in 5- to 24-year-olds from 2007 to 2016 occurred in counties where 15 percent or more residents live below the poverty level, and firearm-related mortality risk was highest in the poorest counties, according to a 2021 study.
Targeting those potential root causes of gun violence can help alleviate it, Webster said. “Reducing blight in neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage significantly reduces shootings,” he said. Converting vacant lots in Philadelphia to green spaces with grass and trees was associated with a nearly 30 percent reduction in police-reported gun violence in neighborhoods below the poverty line, according to a 2018 study. That tracked with residents’ perceptions of crime, which dropped by 36 percent. “It’s incredibly low cost, but high benefit,” Webster said.
Other small studies have shown similar benefits with interventions like demolishing abandoned buildings or reducing the density of alcohol vendors. “Policies that address affordable housing or transportation issues can be key as well,” Webster said. A public health approach is focused on “creating conditions where gun violence is rare,” he said. But too many of these programs are still relatively small-scale. “We need to know whether these programs can actually be part of a public safety system that functions as a system as opposed to a few neighborhoods with a few programs,” he added.
Oakland, California, offers one potential model. After many years of high homicide rates, in 2012 the city launched a multifaceted community violence intervention campaign. The campaign, which involves partnerships between community members, social service providers and law enforcement, sought to identify those at highest risk for engaging in violence and intervene in ways that connect stopping violence with services like mentoring, education and direct assistance. Over the next several years, shootings fell by 32 percent citywide, while most other big cities saw increases.
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“It’s very impressive,” Webster said. “Homicides, shootings, arrests, excessive use of force by police, they all went down in response to this collaborative approach.”
Putting distance between at-risk individuals and firearms
Just owning a gun puts a person at much higher risk of suicide. In California, a 2020 study showed gun owners were about nine times more likely to die by suicide than non-owners. But putting time and space between firearms and people in distress can help.
“If a person in an impulsive, upset moment reaches for a gun, they don’t have a second chance; 90 percent of the time, they die,” said Betz. Reducing access to firearms in such moments can reduce the risk of death “not because the gun makes someone suicidal, but because a gun is lethal,” she said.
Storing guns in a safe or using trigger locks can add a barrier that can allows someone to change their mind, and research shows that locking up guns or keeping them unloaded reduces risk of suicide. Safe storage also makes it harder for kids or other unauthorized users to access weapons in times of distress.
Numerous states have various safe-storage laws, ranging from mandating household firearms be locked away at all times to including trigger-blocking safety locks in all gun sales. Evidence suggests such laws reduce risk of adolescent suicide by 13 percent. They also can help prevent kids from accidentally firing weapons.
Ensuring widespread adoption of safer storage practices will take more than laws. It requires really engaging with different gun-owning communities in ways that resonate and avoid conflict, Betz said. “Language like ‘common sense gun laws’ can be very offensive to some people, because you’re implying they have no common sense if they don’t agree,” she said. “It comes back to respect for differences and being willing to listen,” she said.
That kind of communication can help communities and families learn ways of recognizing when someone might be at risk and take action, Betz added. “We all go through periods when we’re not at our best, maybe it’s substance abuse, depression, a bad divorce, a lot of anger,” she said. “How do we as a community support [such people] to make sure they’re safe while getting treatment?”
That could involve storing guns in a safe space outside the home, including police stations or firearms retailers. But people at risk of harming themselves or others may not be open to such suggestions. In some states, so-called red-flag laws or Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs) allow law enforcement to temporarily remove guns from the situation.
“It’s a promising approach that doesn’t wait for the trigger to be pulled before intervening,” said Frattaroli. “Someone doesn’t just wake up one day and have overwhelming suicidal ideations or the desire to commit a mass shooting, often there are warning signs that the person is on a dangerous trajectory,” she said, including domestic violence or threats. ERPOs allow the community “to temporarily remove guns from the mix while we figure out what’s going on and how best to reroute that trajectory,” she added.
About 19 states and the District of Columbia have extreme-risk laws in place, and most are fairly recent. The specifics of implementation vary, but generally the laws allow concerned individuals (family members, law enforcement and clinicians in some states) to petition the court to force the person to turn over their guns for as much as a year. It also bars them from purchasing guns.
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There’s limited data to evaluate how effective ERPOs are, Frattaroli said, in part because the laws are quite new and there’s lots of variability in implementation. But localities that are investing in implementation show promise, she said. While Florida is sometimes called the “Gunshine State,” it leads in ERPOs issued, Frattaroli said, in part because some areas, like Fort Lauderdale, have specific task forces dedicated to the practice.
Improving the effectiveness of these policies and practices, and developing new ones, will require continued research and experimentation into firearm harm reduction, Frattaroli said. “We have a lot of promising policy proposals, and I’m optimistic that there are more out there,” she said. To advocates of this approach, it’s about taking a step back from when the trigger gets pulled to ask how that gun got into those hands — and what sorts of interventions might stop it.
Thanks to Lillian Barkley for copy editing this article.
20. Trump’s Air Force One Deal Pains the Pentagon, Not Just Boeing
DIsregard the headline. It is about fixed price contracts.
Trump’s Air Force One Deal Pains the Pentagon, Not Just Boeing
- Fixed-price contracts spawn ‘inherent conflict,’ official says
- Air Force’s Hunter is sanguine on resolving remaining issues
June 11, 2022, 8:00 AM EDT
The fixed-price contract for the new Air Force One that Donald Trump talked Boeing Co. into signing hasn’t just caused the $1.5 billion in cumulative losses so far that the company’s CEO has lamented. It has also created headaches for the Air Force.
Under a fixed-price agreement, a company’s incentive is to “finish and minimize costs” while the Pentagon wants “to get every single thing that we said in the contract you have to do and get it done, and we are not going to pay you more for it,” Andrew Hunter, the Air Force’s chief weapons buyer, said in an interview. “It creates this inherent conflict between the two sides.”
The tensions stem from the $3.9 billion contract that then-President Trump pressured Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg to sign in 2018 requiring it to absorb added costs to modify two 747-8 airliners into new presidential jets, the elaborately outfitted and highly secure planes known as Air Force One when a president is on board.
Trump’s deep interest in the presidential plane even extended to proposing a new red, white and blue color scheme, which has now been rejected by the Biden administration.
In a quarterly filing in April, Boeing cited “higher supplier costs, higher costs to finalize certain technical requirements and schedule delays” on the new presidential planes and warned it could face “additional losses in future periods.”
“Air Force One, I’m just going to call a very unique moment, a very unique negotiation, a very unique set of risks that Boeing probably should not have taken,” David Calhoun, Boeing’s current CEO, told analysts then. “But we are where we are, and we’re going to deliver great airplanes.”
Air Force One following an arrival of U.S. President Joe Biden at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland.Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg
Hunter, the Air Force’s assistant secretary for acquisition, said “I don’t think the structure of the contract drove the issues that we have seen with the program,” but “having a fixed-price contract like this, it does raise challenges with how we manage those issues when they arise.”
He said the Air Force will “have to negotiate with Boeing” on potential added compensation for substantial delays on the plane, known as VC-25B.
Boeing said in a statement that the company “made the decision it did in 2018 and agreed to the terms of the fixed price contract. Events have since added to the development risks and challenges, which could not have anticipated at the time. That said, we are moving forward and are fully committed to delivering this aircraft to meet our nation’s call.”
“We continue to make steady progress on the VC-25B program, while navigating through some challenges,” it said.
Two Years Late
The first new Air Force One will be delivered at least two years after its original December 2023 due date and the second one three years after the April 2024 date, according to the service.
The aircraft “does not include new technologies,” the Government Accountability Office said in a report this week. “Instead, it will integrate mature technology from other platforms into existing commercial aircraft.” Boeing started modifying the first aircraft in February 2020 and the second in June 2020.
The GAO said problems have included replacing the supplier for the aircraft’s interior because of “under performance and financial issues,” challenges installing more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) of wire -- almost double that of the commercial version of the aircraft -- and difficulties hiring workers who can meet stringent security clearances.
Asked if the Boeing contract was a good deal for taxpayers, Hunter demurred. “We’ll know when we deliver the aircraft,” he said.
In addition to the $3.9 billion base payment to Boeing, the contract includes $400 million to pay for government testing, initial spares, support equipment, product support, training, and military facilities construction.
Hunter was sanguine the program will right itself. “I don’t see a risk of a failure to perform,” he said. “We’re going to get the aircraft. We will work out the issues that have arisen with wiring and other things, and we’re going to be able to support the president while that is happening” as he will continue to fly the current model.
— With assistance by Julie Johnsson
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
