Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is. And you must bend to its power or love a lie."

- Miyamoto Musashi

“In retrospect, all revolutions seem inevitable.

Beforehand, all revolutions seem impossible.”

—Ambassador Michael McFaul

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see."

- Arthur Schopenhauer

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 29, 2023

2. How US trainers helped Ukraine reinvent its doctrine

3. Zelenskyy to Xi Jinping: Come to Ukraine

4. ‘Stone Ghost’ secret intel network may expand to more nations: DIA

5. Milley Says War With China, Russia Not Inevitable

6. Could The US Dollar Collapse?

7. First vice foreign minister tapped as new ambassador to U.S.

8. Has Congress Learned the Lessons of the Iraq War?

9. Fostering a Fourth Democratic Wave: A playbook for countering the authoritarian threat

10. Ukraine Situation Report: Wagner Has Up To 36,000 Troops In Bakhmut Says Top US General

11. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's testimony on the ASU IWC at the Senate Armed Services Committee

12. WATCH: Retired Lt. Col.'s Remarks Receive Thunderous Applause From House Foreign Affairs Committee

13. Pentagon Leaders Still Say ‘No’ to F-16s, MQ-9s for Ukraine

14. 'It's not a pretty picture': Russia's support is growing in the developing world

15. Pentagon urged to use federal workforce instead of contractors

16. Two Black Hawks crash near Fort Campbell, casualties reported

17. China threatens to retaliate if McCarthy meets Taiwan leader

18. Why Force Fails

19. Russia Won’t Sit Idly by after Finland and Sweden Join NATO

20. China’s diplomatic wins rise from America’s losses

21. How China overreached and lost its grip in the Pacific

22. Strengthening the Medical Sphere of Influence Through Guerilla Trauma Systems and Covert Medical Intelligence Networks

23. Preliminary Lessons from Russia’s Unconventional Operations During the Russo-Ukrainian War, February 2022–February 2023

24. Bipolar disorder: my blessing and my curse

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 29, 2023

Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-29-2023

Key Takeaways

Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on March 29 to review strategic and long-term cooperation agreements that will likely intensify Russia and Iran’s bilateral security relationship.
Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin seized on the recent story of the sentencing of a Tula Oblast father for his 12-year-old daughter’s antiwar drawing to promote the Wagner Group’s reputation and ameliorate his own personal image.
Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov’s demonstrative response to an attack on a police station in Chechnya suggests that he may be concerned about the stability of his authoritarian rule.
Russian authorities arrested Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) naval department head Colonel Sergey Volkov for corruption-related charges.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov stated on March 27 that Ukrainian forces may be planning to launch a counteroffensive in April or May depending on weather conditions.
Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line.
Russian forces continued offensive operations in and around Bakhmut and along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi visited the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) for the second time.
Russian occupation authorities continue to implement measures to integrate occupied territories into the Russian administrative and legal system.
The Belarusian Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported that planned activities are ongoing to call up those liable for military service for military training and to retrain reserve servicemen in military registration specialties.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MARCH 29, 2023

Mar 29, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 29, 2023

Riley Bailey, Karolina Hird, Nicole Wolkov, Layne Philipson, and Frederick W. Kagan

March 29, 5:45pm ET

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

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

Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on March 29 to review strategic and long-term cooperation agreements that will likely intensify Russia and Iran’s bilateral security relationship. Abdollahian stated that Russian and Iranian officials are in the final stage of signing a cooperation agreement.[1] Lavrov promoted Iran’s “Hormoz Peace Plan” for security in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman and stated that the Kremlin demands an immediate return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).[2] Abdollahian and Lavrov likely discussed continued Russian efforts to procure Iranian weapon systems for use in Ukraine and a finalized agreement for Russia to provide Iran with Su-35 attack aircraft.[3] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on March 29 that Iranian Pouya Air Transport resumed regular flights between Tehran and Moscow on March 13 likely to support weapons transfers.[4] The Ukrainian Resistance Center also reported that Iranian officials are planning to deliver Shahed-131 drones to Wagner Group personnel and that Wagner personnel have started training to operate the drones, although ISW has not observed confirmation that Wagner Group personnel have used Iranian-made drones in Ukraine.[5] ISW previously assessed that Russia is relying on Iran for military and technological support in Ukraine and that some Iranian personnel are likely in Ukraine directly supporting Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure.[6] Iran is likely attempting to solidify a bilateral security relationship with Russia in which the two are more equal partners and will likely increase weapons transfers to Russia in pursuit of this goal.

Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin seized on the recent story of the sentencing of a Tula Oblast father for his 12-year-old daughter’s antiwar drawing to promote the Wagner Group’s reputation and ameliorate his own personal image. Prigozhin’s press service posted a letter on March 28 signed by Prigozhin, Wagner commander Dmitry Utkin, and Wagner-affiliated director of the “Liga” veteran's organization Andrey Troshev addressed to Tula Oblast prosecutor Alexander Gritsaenko stating that the signatories consider Gritsaenko’s issuance of a two-year prison sentence to Aleksey Moskalev unfair.[7] Moskalev was charged with “discrediting the armed forces” after his 12-year-old daughter Masha drew an antiwar picture with a Ukrainian flag in her school art class in April 2022.[8] Masha was taken into state custody and now lives in a juvenile shelter, and Moskalev fled house arrest the night before his sentencing and was sentenced to two years in prison in absentia.[9] Prigozhin’s letter suggests that Tula Oblast check the legality of Gritsaenko’s sentencing and recommends that Wagner-affiliated lawyers participate in the case on Moskalev’s side, noting that it is tragic that both Masha and children of dead Wagner fighters end up in orphanages.[10] Prigozhin’s response to Moskalev’s sentencing is particularly ironic considering that Prigozhin was initially one of the biggest and loudest supporters of the law on punishing those who ”discredit” Russian forces.[11] It is therefore likely that Prigozhin seized on the discourse surrounding Moskalev to further his own reputation and advocate for the Wagner Group, especially by choosing to highlight the plight of orphans of Wagner fighters who die in Ukraine.[12] Prigozhin may seek to maintain his own domestic relevance by continuing to closely involve himself in such developing stories, especially by affiliating his newest campaign for relevance with Utkin and Troshev—two well-established and notorious Wagner-affiliated personalities. The letter attempts to portray Wagner's leadership as a united front against elements of the Russian bureaucracy.[13]

Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov’s demonstrative response to an attack on a police station in Chechnya suggests that he may be concerned about the stability of his authoritarian rule. Kadyrov claimed that Chechen authorities killed two unidentified men attempting to conduct an attack in Gudermes, Chechnya on the night of March 28, and Russian sources amplified footage purporting to show the two men shooting at a local police department.[14] Kadyrov’s Special Forces University is in Gudermes, although it is not clear if the attack was connected to the facility. Kadyrov published footage of himself, his 15-year-old son, and an entourage of Chechen officials and security personnel visiting the scene of the attack and inspecting the mangled bodies of the assailants.[15] Kadyrov likely meant this demonstrative inspection of the bodies to enhance his strongman image and signal to Chechens that any form of internal resistance to his rule will be eliminated. The fact that Kadyrov’s response to the attack was so immediate and heavy-handed suggests that he is concerned about the potential for internal resistance within Chechnya to undermine his authoritarian rule of the autonomous republic. Kadyrov recently meet with President Vladimir Putin on March 13 to promote Chechnya’s relevance in the Russian political and military sphere, and ISW assessed that Putin may seize upon Kadyrov‘s fears about falling out of favor with Putin to pressure Kadyrov into increasing the role of Chechen fighters in combat operations in Ukraine.[16] Kadyrov likely sees any sign of internal instability in Chechnya as a threat to Putin’s continued favor.

Russian authorities arrested Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) naval department head Colonel Sergey Volkov for corruption-related charges. The 235th Garrison Military Court in Moscow arrested Volkov on March 29 for abuse of authority charges in connection with the sale of low-quality radar systems at heavily inflated prices, and an official investigation reportedly found that his actions amounted to damages of 395.5 million rubles (roughly $5 million).[17] The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and Rosgvardia recently launched a criminal case against the Deputy Commander of the Rosgvardia’s Central District, Major General Vadim Dragomiretsky, on March 20 for corruption-related charges.[18] The recent criminal proceedings against two Rosgvardia commanders may suggest that Russian authorities are conducting a sweeping corruption probe within Rosgvardia. The criminal proceedings are notable because commanders of conventional Russian forces have not been fired, let alone arrested, since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the same rate or in such high-profile circumstances as the Rosgvardia cases. It is highly unlikely that corruption in the Rosgvardia is more pronounced than it is in the Russian Armed Forces. The Rosgvardia notably includes elements responsible for Russia’s domestic regime security. Putin likely pays very close attention to the reliability and loyalty of some Rosgvardia personnel, apart from concerns he may have about corruption in that organization.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov stated on March 27 that Ukrainian forces may be planning to launch a counteroffensive in April or May depending on weather conditions. In an interview with Estonian news outlet ERR, Reznikov stated that the Ukrainian General Staff might decide to use recently received Leopard 2 tanks in a possible spring counterattack.[19] Leopard 2 and Challenger 2 tanks arrived in Ukraine on March 27, and US officials announced the acceleration of the deployment of Abrams tanks and Patriot missile systems to Ukraine on March 21.[20] The arrival of equipment in Ukraine likely sets conditions for a Ukrainian counteroffensive, although a delay is likely between the arrival of new equipment in Ukraine’s ability to use it in a counteroffensive.

Key Takeaways

Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on March 29 to review strategic and long-term cooperation agreements that will likely intensify Russia and Iran’s bilateral security relationship.
Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin seized on the recent story of the sentencing of a Tula Oblast father for his 12-year-old daughter’s antiwar drawing to promote the Wagner Group’s reputation and ameliorate his own personal image.
Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov’s demonstrative response to an attack on a police station in Chechnya suggests that he may be concerned about the stability of his authoritarian rule.
Russian authorities arrested Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) naval department head Colonel Sergey Volkov for corruption-related charges.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov stated on March 27 that Ukrainian forces may be planning to launch a counteroffensive in April or May depending on weather conditions.
Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line.
Russian forces continued offensive operations in and around Bakhmut and along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi visited the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) for the second time.
Russian occupation authorities continue to implement measures to integrate occupied territories into the Russian administrative and legal system.
The Belarusian Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported that planned activities are ongoing to call up those liable for military service for military training and to retrain reserve servicemen in military registration specialties.

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

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

Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on March 29. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful ground attacks near Krokhmalne (20km northwest of Svatove), Novoselivske (14km northwest of Svatove), Stelmakhivka (12km northwest of Svatove), Bilohorivka (10km south of Kreminna), Verkhnokamianske (18km south of Kreminna), Vymika (27km southwest of Kreminna), and Berestove (30km south of Kreminna).[21] Geolocated footage published on March 26 shows elements of the Russian 6th Combined Arms Army (Western Military District) striking Ukrainian positions northeast of Kupyansk.[22] Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty stated on March 28 that Russian forces continue to use ”classic army tactics” with a considerable number of armored vehicles in the Kupyansk-Lyman direction.[23] A Russian milblogger posted footage on March 28 purportedly showing the 3rd Guards Spetsnaz Brigade operating near the Siverskyi Donets River south of Kreminna.[24] Another milblogger claimed that Russian forces continue to advance in the forests around Kreminna.[25] Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Military Administration reported on March 29 that Russian forces are concentrating their main efforts on offensive operations in the Lyman direction and that Russian forces attempted to storm Bilohorivka.[26] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces regained lost positions and made unspecified advances near Bilohorivka.[27] The milblogger also claimed that Russian forces pushed through Ukrainian defenses near Torske (14km west of Kreminna) and unsuccessfully attacked Ukrainian positions near Terny, Nevske, and Makiivka, all 17 to 21km northwest of Kreminna. ISW has not observed visual confirmation that supports a Ukrainian advance near Bilohorivka or a Russian advance near Torske.

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces maintain their presence in the Kursk and Belgorod Oblast border areas.[28] Russian forces likely maintain their presence in Kursk and Belgorod oblasts in an attempt to keep Ukrainian forces from deploying to other parts of the frontline.

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

Russian forces continued offensive operations in and around Bakhmut on March 29. Geolocated footage published on March 28 and 29 indicates that Russian forces advanced in southern and southwestern Bakhmut.[29] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted offensive operations near Khromove (2km west of Bakhmut) and advanced in northern parts of Bakhmut.[30] Russian milbloggers claimed on March 28 and 29 that Wagner Group fighters advanced further in the southern part of Bakhmut.[31] A Russian milblogger claimed on March 28 that Wagner fighters are intensifying their offensives within Bakhmut itself because conventional Russian forces strengthened Russian positions north and south of the city to defend against potential Ukrainian counterattacks, supporting ISW‘s assessment that conventional Russian elements are likely increasingly supporting Wagner operations in this area.[32] The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (UK MoD) reported that Russian forces are continuing to conduct assaults on Bakhmut at a reduced tempo in comparison to recent weeks.[33] Russian milbloggers claimed that Wagner fighters advanced near Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut) on March 29 and that Ukrainian forces continued attempts to push Russian forces back from the T0504 highway as of March 28.[34] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations within 11km northwest of Bakhmut near Orikhovo-Vasylivka and Bohdanivka and within 16km southwest of Bakhmut near Ivanivske, Predtechyne, and Ozarianivka.[35] The Ukrainian General Staff acknowledged that Russian forces conducted partially successful assaults on Bakhmut but did not specify the details of those assaults.[36] ISW assessed that Wagner Group forces likely occupied the AZOM industrial complex in northern Bakhmut and made additional gains in the city on March 28.[37]

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City frontline on March 29. Geolocated footage published on March 29 indicates that Russian forces likely advanced north of Vodyane (8km southwest of Avdiivka) and in Vesele (7km northeast of Avdiivka).[38] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces made unspecified gains in Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka) and continued offensive operations near Nevelske (15km southwest of Avdiivka).[39] Russian milbloggers amplified footage on March 28 purporting to show the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) 5th Brigade of the 1st Army Corps operating near Marinka (27km southwest of Avdiivka).[40] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Avdiivka itself; within 14km north of Avdiivka near Novokalynove, Krasnohorivka, and Stepove; and within 27km southwest of Avdiivka near Sieverne, Pervomaiske, and Marinka.[41]

Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast on March 29. Russian Eastern Grouping of Forces Spokesperson Aleksandr Gordeev claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted two reconnaissance-in-force operations in unspecified areas in western Donetsk Oblast.[42]Former Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) minister Vitaly Kisleyov amplified footage on March 29 of a servicemember of the 14th Separate Guards Special Purpose Brigade of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (GRU) near Vuhledar (30km southwest of Donetsk City).[43]

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

Ukrainian forces continued striking Russian positions and concentration areas in southern Ukraine on March 29. Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted a HIMARS strike against an electrical substation at a railway depot in occupied Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast.[44] Geolocated footage posted on March 29 shows smoke rising near the railway depot in Melitopol following the strike.[45] Geolocated footage posted on March 28 additionally shows Ukrainian forces striking Russian positions near Oleshky, east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast.[46] Russian sources reported that Russian air defense shot down a Ukrainian drone over Simferopol, occupied Crimea on March 29.[47]

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi visited the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) for the second time on March 29.[48] Grossi reportedly spent several hours at the ZNPP and to observe how the situation at the plant has changed since his first visit, talk to nuclear engineers at the plant, and act as a guarantor for IAEA personnel rotation.[49] Grossi told reporters that ”it is obvious that military activity is increasing in this whole region” and called for the observance of every possible measure to safeguard the ZNPP.[50]

Russian forces continue efforts to fortify positions in occupied Crimea. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on March 29 that Russian troops are building trenches and fortifications in the Armiansk and Dzhankoi regions of Crimea and that Russian forces are using civilians to build some of the defenses.[51]

Russian forces otherwise conducted routine shelling in Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Zaporizhia oblasts on March 29.[52] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command noted that Russian forces dropped guided aerial bombs on Beryslav, Kherson Oblast, from a Su-35 aircraft.[53]

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

The Russia defense industrial base (DIB) continues efforts to expand its production capabilities. Russian outlet Kommersant reported on March 29 that the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service is offering to provide convict labor to Russian defense industrial conglomerate Rostec for the manufacture and supply of certain low-skill products.[54] Rostec reportedly has sent the proposal to Rostec leadership for consideration.[55] The UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) previously assessed that the Russian DIB is increasingly using prison labor to meet war-time manufacturing demand.[56] While convict labor is unlikely to be used to produce very technical defense products, convicts will likely be used in the production of certain lower-quality and more basic items, therefore freeing up more labor capacity for more technical products that are sorely needed for the war effort.

The Wagner Group is continuing to push domestic recruitment efforts. A Wagner-affiliated recruitment advertisement Telegram channel claimed on March 28 that Wagner recruitment centers are already operating in most Russian regions and that Wagner uses mobile recruitment centers to reach even the smallest rural towns and communities.[57] Russian media reported that Wagner has also run recruitment advertisements on local TV channels in Rostov, Tyumen and Novosibirsk oblasts and Krasnodar Krai over the last few weeks.[58]

Russian regions continue recruitment efforts for contract servicemen. Siberia-based outlet Tayga.info reported that the Iskitim, Novosibirsk Oblast military department claimed that over 50 people came to a mobile registration point for contract servicemen in one day and that the local government in Tomsk is independently advertising contract service.[59] Russian outlet ASTRA similarly reported on March 28 that local officials in Moscow Oblast have also begun advertising contract service.[60] The Kremlin previously reportedly tasked the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) with recruiting 400,000 contract servicemen starting on April 1, and that the Russian MoD likely delegated this task down to Russian federal subjects, which now appear to be preparing for the April 1 date with the aforementioned advertising campaigns.[61]

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

Russian occupation authorities continue to implement measures to integrate occupied territories into the Russian administrative and legal system. The Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Military Administration reported on March 29 that the “Prosecutors of the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR)” will recruit Russians to serve as prosecutors instead of locals, noting that Russians are exempt from passing the exams otherwise necessary for the post.[62] A Russian source posted an official LNR decree on March 29 on the abolition of formal LNR state authorities in connection with further integration into the Russian legal system.[63]

Russian occupation authorities continue to promote increased integration into the Russian economy. The Kherson Oblast occupation administration noted on March 29 that participants in the Free Economic Zone (FEZ) established in occupied Kherson Oblast will be exempt from paying specific regional taxes.[64] Kherson Oblast occupation authorities also claimed that the FEZ will lead to a reduction in insurance premium rates to 7.6%.[65] The Kherson Oblast occupation administration also amplified the Russian Federal Tax Service's claim on March 29 that those businesses and enterprises that complete state registration will not be required to pay state duty taxes, emphasizing that the rule will only be valid until December 31, 2023.[66]

Russian occupation authorities continue efforts to eradicate Ukrainian culture and history by replacing Ukrainian landmarks with Russian monuments. The Kherson Oblast occupation administration amplified Kherson Oblast occupation chairperson Andrey Alekseenko’s order on March 29 to create monuments commemorating the Great Patriotic War (World War II) in occupied Kherson Oblast. Alekseenko ordered that all monuments be erected by May 9 (the date of the Moscow Victory Day Parade) and claimed that heads of districts and ministries, youth and social movements, every enterprise, and every school will take part in constructing the monuments.[67]

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

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

The Belarusian Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported on March 29 that planned activities are ongoing to call up those liable for military service for military training and to retrain reserve servicemen in military registration specialties.[68]

The Belarusian MoD additionally reported on March 29 that Belarusian Chief of Missile Forces and Artillery, Colonel Ruslan Chekhov, is overseeing a bilateral exercise with artillery brigades to train aerial reconnaissance and counterbattery fire in difficult weather conditions.[69]

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

[1] https://www.irna dot ir/news/85068891/%D8%AF%D8%B1-%DA%AF%D8%A7%D9%85-%D9%86%D9%87%D8%A7%DB%8C%DB%8C-%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%B6%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%87%D8%AF%D9%87-%D9%87%D9%85%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1%DB%8C-%D9%87%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D9%85%D8%B4%D8%AA%D8%B1%DA%A9-%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%88-%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3%DB%8C%D9%87-%D9%87%D8%B3%D8%AA%DB%8C%D9%85

[2] https://www.tasnimnews dot com/fa/news/1402/01/09/2873132/امیرعبدالهیان-پاسخ-ما-در-شرق-فرات-به-آمریکا-قاطع-بود-لاوروف-خواستار-ازسرگیری-سریع-برجام-هستیم ; https://www.irna dot ir/news/85069158/%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%81-%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%85-%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%B1%DB%8C%D9%85-%D9%87%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D8%BA%DB%8C%D8%B1%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%88%D9%86%DB%8C-%D8%B9%D9%84%DB%8C%D9%87-%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A8%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%AF-%D9%84%D8%BA%D9%88-%D8%B4%D9%88%D8%AF ;

[3] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign... ; https://twitter.com/IrnaEnglish/status/1634481569300709377

[4] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/03/29/iran-ta-rf-posylyuyut-spivrobitnycztvo/

[5] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/03/29/iran-ta-rf-posylyuyut-spivrobitnycztvo/

[6] https://isw.pub/UkrWar021323

[7] https://t.me/concordgroup_official/658

[8] https://meduza dot io/en/feature/2023/03/28/dad-you-are-my-hero

[9] https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/03/28/dad-you-are-my-hero

[10] https://t.me/concordgroup_official/658

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

[12] https://t.me/concordgroup_official/658

[13] https://isw.pub/UkrWar032823

[14] https://t.me/rybar/45175 ; https://t.me/milinfolive/98605

[15] https://t.me/RKadyrov_95/3473 https://t.me/RKadyrov_95/3474

[16] https://isw.pub/UkrWar031323

[17] https://tass dot ru/proisshestviya/17399317 ; https://t.me/readovkanews/55715; https://t.me/readovkanews/55719

[18] https://isw.pub/UkrWar032123

[19] https://www.err dot ee/1608927257/reznikov-err-ile-sellel-aastal-naeme-ukrainale-vaga-positiivseid-muutusi; https://meduza dot io/news/2023/03/29/ministr-oborony-ukrainy-kontrnastuplenie-nachnetsya-v-aprele-mae

[20] https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/21/politics/us-patriots-ukraine/index.html; https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/03/27/world/russia-ukraine-news#ukrain...

[21] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0EXN2XYQVz6vhZ3mpyru... https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0LSB1iUsxJMMc36sTM8a...

[22] https://twitter.com/JdgObserver/status/1641115749233172480; https://t.me/warjournaltg/20693

[23] https://armyinform.com dot ua/2023/03/28/za-mynulu-dobu-na-lymansko-kupyanskomu-napryamku-vorog-zdijsnyv-ponad-300-obstriliv-pozyczij-syl-oborony-ukrayiny-sergij-cherevatyj/

[24] https://t.me/kremlinprachka/23731; https://t.me/milinfolive/98598

[25] https://t.me/rybar/45184

[26] https://t.me/luhanskaVTSA/9524

[27] https://t.me/wargonzo/11651

[28] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0LSB1iUsxJMMc36sTM8a... https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0EXN2XYQVz6vhZ3mpyru...

[29] https://t.me/DPSUkr/10283 ; https://twitter.com/War_cube_/status/164... ; https://t.me/WarArchive_ua/597; https://twitter.com/JagdBandera/status/...

[30] https://t.me/wargonzo/11651

[31] https://t.me/z_arhiv/19946; https://t.me/yaremshooter/1211; https://t.... ; https://t.me/rybar/45184

[32] https://t.me/voenkorKotenok/46392; https://t.me/boris_rozhin/81639 ; https://isw.pub/UkrWar032523

[33] https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1640967749080952834

[34] https://t.me/voenkorKotenok/46392; https://t.me/boris_rozhin/81639 ; https://t.me/wargonzo/11651

[35] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0EXN2XYQVz6vhZ3mpyru... ; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0LSB1iUsxJMMc36sTM8a...

[36] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0EXN2XYQVz6vhZ3mpyru... ; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0LSB1iUsxJMMc36sTM8a...

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

[38] https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1641070102341734400; https://t.co... ; https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1641123956961820682; https://twitter.com/EjShahid/status/1641126210817212428

[39] https://t.me/milinfolive/98611 ; https://t.me/readovkanews/55675; https://t.me/readovkanews/55667

[40] https://t.me/milchronicles/1718; https://t.me/boris_rozhin/81656

[41] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0EXN2XYQVz6vhZ3mpyru... ; https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0LSB1iUsxJMMc36sTM8a...

[42] https://t.me/mod_russia/25197

[43] https://t.me/kommunist/16651

[44] https://t.me/vrogov/8396; https://t.me/vrogov/8397; https://t.me/vrogo... https://t.me/boris_rozhin/81685; https://t.me/vrogov/8404; https://t.me/kommunist/16652; https://t.me/basurin_e/401; https://t.me/rybar/45187; https://t.me/rybar/45183; https://t.me/rybar/45186

[45] https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1640968581985841154?s=20; https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1640912359890755586?s=20; ht...

[46] https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1640639220946485248; https://t.co...

[47] https://t.me/Aksenov82/2298 ; https://t.me/milinfolive/98638

[48] https://t.me/energoatom_ua/12562; https://t.me/energoatom_ua/12571

[49] https://t.me/energoatom_ua/12571; https://t.me/energoatom_ua/12562

[50] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/29/un-nuclear-watchdog-says-f...

[51] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0LSB1iUsxJMMc36sTM8a...

[52] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0LSB1iUsxJMMc36sTM8a... https://t.me/zoda_gov_ua/17874; https://t.me/mykolaivskaODA/4676; https://t.me/rybar/45187; https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=739884824353289

[53] https://www.facebook.com/OperationalCommandSouth/posts/pfbid02fy1VWmV6gi...

[54] https://www.kommersant dot ru/doc/5901489

[55] https://meduza dot io/news/2023/03/29/kommersant-fsin-predlozhila-rostehu-ispolzovat-trud-zaklyuchennyh-na-predpriyatiyah-goskorporatsii; https://www.kommersant dot ru/doc/5901489

[56] https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1613788473063874560/photo/1

[57] https://t.me/wagner_employment/31;

[58] https://t.me/news_sirena/12934; https://t.me/cit_backup/1421; https://t.me/news_sirena/12951

[59] https://t.me/Taygainfo/40319

[60] https://t.me/astrapress/23925

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

[62] https://t.me/luhanskaVTSA/9524

[63] https://t.me/boris_rozhin/81672;%20https://lug-info%20dot%20com/document...

[64] https://t.me/VGA_Kherson/8140; https://t.me/budem_zhit/3586

[65] https://t.me/VGA_Kherson/8140; https://t.me/budem_zhit/3586

[66] https://t.me/VGA_Kherson/8151

[67] https://t.me/VGA_Kherson/8150; https://t.me/aakherson/27

[68] https://t.me/modmilby/24895

[69] https://t.me/modmilby/24902

How US trainers helped Ukraine reinvent its doctrine

Defense News · by Davis Winkie · March 28, 2023

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — One of the U.S. Army’s smallest security assistance assets has had an outsized effect on the battlefield in Ukraine, and its role is expected to grow.

The service’s training partnerships with foreign nations range from deployments of security force assistance brigades to the Joint Combined Exchange Training events that Special Forces A-teams conduct around the globe. But only one office is regularly trains allies and partners on new capabilities: the Security Assistance Training Management Organization.

SATMO provides training on equipment sold to friendly nations, its commander Col. Andrew Clark explained in an interview. Its small teams are funded by the host nation and work under the U.S. State Department when teaching new technology, allowing flexibility compared to traditional Army cooperation efforts.

And in Ukraine, Clark said, his command’s doctrine advisory groups and trainers have helped Kyiv reinvent and reform its fighting style, force structure and professional military education. The post-Soviet nation’s existing warfighting playbook was dominated by Soviet- and Russian-influenced concepts.

Starting in 2016, SATMO advisers embedded in Kyiv and at Ukrainian bases, Clark said. “We were focused on bringing Ukraine to a NATO standard when it comes to doctrine and operations.”

The doctrine advisers trained Ukraine’s own doctrine writers, working from NATO operating concepts, and assisted in establishing a major training center in the country’s west, Clark added. Other members of the team went to the country’s National Defence University and helped standardize the logistics curriculum in addition to teaching classes there.

The mission continued up until they departed ahead of Russia’s renewed invasion in February 2022.

These efforts occurred alongside special operations community-led initiatives to help Ukraine prepare for an insurgency should its military fold amid a Russian onslaught.

Clark acknowledged “we can’t quantify” the impact that concepts- and capability-focused advising had on Ukraine’s armed forces, but he said many of the nation’s battlefield successes were linked to ideas honed with SATMO’s help — namely logistics and decentralized command philosophy.

“The Ukrainians have far exceeded Western expectations in their ability to supply and maintain their forces, and we had a logistics adviser there specifically working on that,” the colonel said. “[It’s] not perfect, but we’ve seen a flexibility in planning and operations that is inherent in Western doctrine [that is] not inherent in the Soviet style of top-down command.”

With the war in its second year, other countries in Europe are buying American weapons to fill gaps left when sending existing stocks to Ukraine. When new gear arrives in the donor countries, Clark said, his troops will be there to help get U.S. allies up to speed.

Clark also pointed at his command’s cost efficiency, thanks to legal requirements that hosts foot the training bill. All it takes is people and time.

“With a very small investment on the U.S. Army’s behalf in terms of manpower, we build super-important, high-end, niche capabilities for allies in partners,” he said. “But they really do help us.”

About Davis Winkie

Davis Winkie is a senior reporter covering the Army, specializing in accountability reporting, personnel issues and military justice. He joined Military Times in 2020. Davis studied history at Vanderbilt University and UNC-Chapel Hill, writing a master's thesis about how the Cold War-era Defense Department influenced Hollywood's WWII movies.

3. Zelenskyy to Xi Jinping: Come to Ukraine

Zelenskyy to Xi Jinping: Come to Ukraine

Politico · by Nicolas Camut · March 29, 2023

‘We are ready to see him here,’ Ukrainian president says.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has recently signaled his openness to Chinese-led peace talks | Roman Pilipey/Getty Images

March 29, 2023 9:53 am CET

2 minutes read

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday invited his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to Ukraine, for what would be the first direct communication between the two leaders since the beginning of Russia’s all-out war on Ukraine.

“We are ready to see [Xi] here,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with the Associated Press, a U.S. newswire, on a train to Kyiv, adding, “I want to speak with him.”

“I had contact with him before full-scale war. But during all this year, more than one year, I didn’t have [contact],” Zelenskyy said.

In spite of being a key ally to Russia, Xi has sought to position Beijing as a peace broker between Moscow and Kyiv in recent months — spurring criticism from EU and NATO officials, who raised doubts over China’s capacity to act as a neutral intermediary.

Yet, Zelenskyy has recently signaled his openness to Chinese-led peace talks, using Beijing’s 12-point peace plan as a basis.

“I think some of the Chinese proposals respect international law, and I think we can work on it with China,” the Ukrainian president said earlier this month.

Ahead of Xi’s visit to Moscow last week, the Wall Street Journal reported the trip would give the Ukrainian and Chinese presidents an occasion to speak over the phone.

But talks did not take place, and the Xi-Putin summit ended with both leaders endorsing a joint statement that seemed to back Russia’s narrative, making no offer to withdraw Russian forces from Ukraine while blaming NATO expansion for sparking the war.

4. ‘Stone Ghost’ secret intel network may expand to more nations: DIA

‘Stone Ghost’ secret intel network may expand to more nations: DIA

c4isrnet.com · by Courtney Albon · March 29, 2023

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency plans to upgrade its international intelligence-sharing system to allow more seamless collaboration with a broader coalition of allies.

DIA uses the top-secret system to communicate with and share intelligence among the U.S. and its Five Eyes partners — the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Chief Information Officer Doug Cossa told reporters the agency will begin designing an upgrade to Stone Ghost in fiscal 2024 to allow information to be shared with more countries as needed.

“The idea is to add and remove coalitions based on the intelligence problem set that we’re uniquely focused on collectively,” Cossa said during a March 23 briefing at DIA headquarters in Washington. “That’s really where the focus of those modernization efforts will go: [H]ow do you add and remove partners on the fly?”

The agency has the ability to share information with other countries, but doing so requires a separate system. As the Defense Department’s lead organization for open-source intelligence, DIA processes an increasing amount of data, Cossa said, and being able to maintain that information seamlessly and quickly within a single network is important.

DIA operates more than a dozen international information systems, including Stone Ghost. Cossa said the agency is increasingly applying zero-trust principles to those networks — a cybersecurity approach that emphasizes regular validation that every user, function and piece of hardware that connects to a system is authorized.

That work partly relies on artificial intelligence to automate activity logs and evaluate trends, he said.

“Traditionally we lock the doors and we lock the windows and we don’t worry about what’s going on inside,” Cossa said. “Zero trust is taking that same principle but applying it to our networks, meaning we’re not just locking the doors and windows, but we’re constantly revalidating and checking.”

About Courtney Albon

Courtney Albon is C4ISRNET’s space and emerging technology reporter. She has covered the U.S. military since 2012, with a focus on the Air Force and Space Force. She has reported on some of the Defense Department’s most significant acquisition, budget and policy challenges.

5. Milley Says War With China, Russia Not Inevitable

Excerpts:

Milley noted that there are nearly 250,000 troops deployed in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America, combating terrorism and working with allies and partners.

"Operational readiness rates are higher now than they've been in many years. Currently, 60% of our active force is at the highest state of readiness and could deploy to combat in less than 30 days, well exceeding the minimum of the one-third standard that we've always had. Ten percent of our force could deploy in less than 96 hours. The United States military is ready," he said.

Milley Says War With China, Russia Not Inevitable

March 29, 2023 | By David Vergun , DOD News

defense.gov · by David Vergun

The United States must remain the most powerful nation on Earth if peace is to continue between the U.S., China and Russia, said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, who testified today about the Defense Department’s fiscal year 2024 budget request at a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

Carrier Flyover

EA-18G Growler jets, assigned to the Navy’s “Gauntlets” of Electronic Attack Squadron 136, fly over the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the Pacific Ocean, March 26, 2023.

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Photo By: Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Leon Vonguyen

VIRIN: 230326-N-EE352-2443

For the first time, the United States is facing two major nuclear powers, whose vital national security interests are in competition with the U.S. Both China and Russia have the means to threaten U.S. national security, he said. "But war with either is neither inevitable nor imminent."

Fighting a war with Russia and China simultaneously would be very difficult, he added.

A high state of readiness and modernization will deter aggression, and the fiscal year 2024 budget request of $842 billion will ensure that the joint force remains the most lethal and capable military in the world, he said.

"There is nothing more expensive than fighting a war. And preparing for war is also very expensive, but fighting a war is the most expensive. Preparing for war will deter that war," he said.

Milley outlined global security efforts by the United States and its allies and partners.

Security assistance for Ukraine should continue, as it is in the interest of national security, he said.

Dynamic Front

A soldier assigned to Charlie Battery, 1-7 Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Combat Brigade, 1st Infantry Division conducts live-fire training during Exercise Dynamic Front in Grafenwohr, Germany, March 27, 2023. Dynamic Front is a combined U.S., NATO exercise that tests joint interoperability.

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Photo By: Army Sgt Khalan Moore

VIRIN: 230327-A-XG046-0022

Iran, he said, has taken actions to improve its capabilities to produce a nuclear weapon, he said.

"From the time of an Iranian decision, Iran could produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon in less than two weeks. And it would only take several more months to produce an actual nuclear weapon," Milley said.

"The United States military has developed multiple options for our national leadership to consider if or when Iran decides to develop a nuclear weapon," he said.

The United States remains committed, as a matter of policy, that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon, the chairman said.

North Korea's continued ballistic missile testing and nuclear weapons development pose threats to the U.S. homeland and allies and partners, he said.

Spotlight: Focus on Indo-Pacific

"We stand shoulder to shoulder with the Republic of Korea to continue to deter North Korea aggression," he said.

Manning the Rails

Sailors man the rails as the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz pulls into Busan, South Korea, March 28, 2023.

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Photo By: Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Samuel Osborn

VIRIN: 230328-N-KU796-1125C

In addition to South Korea, bilateral alliances with other countries — such as Japan, Australia, Thailand and the Philippines, along with partner nations — provides increased security in the region in the face of aggressive behavior from China.

Milley noted that there are nearly 250,000 troops deployed in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America, combating terrorism and working with allies and partners.

"Operational readiness rates are higher now than they've been in many years. Currently, 60% of our active force is at the highest state of readiness and could deploy to combat in less than 30 days, well exceeding the minimum of the one-third standard that we've always had. Ten percent of our force could deploy in less than 96 hours. The United States military is ready," he said.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III also testified, emphasizing the importance of passing this "strategy-driven budget" in a timely manner.

Besides readiness and modernization, the requested budget will take care of service members and their families, he said.

"The single most effective way that this committee can support the department and our outstanding troops is with an on-time, full-year appropriation," Austin said.

FY 2024 Defense Budget FY 2024 Defense Budget: https://www.defense.gov/Spotlights/FY2024-Defense-Budget/

defense.gov · by David Vergun

6. Could The US Dollar Collapse?

Excerpts:

The bottom line

Currencies can and do collapse, but it’s not a minor event. When a currency collapses, it’s down to a significant economic or political event in a country that has a huge impact on its citizens.

It’s not a likely outcome at all in most countries around the world, and that’s particularly true for the United States. This is down to the US dollar's status as the global reserve currency.

So while technically the US dollar could collapse, the chances of that happening any time soon are incredibly slim.

For investors, currency collapses can impact their portfolios if they invest globally (as they should be). The best way to protect against this is through sufficient diversification. By having assets spread across different industries and in different currencies, it limits the potential damage of a currency collapse on a portfolio.

Could The US Dollar Collapse?

Forbes · by Q.ai - Powering a Personal Wealth Movement · March 29, 2023

(Photo by Luis ROBAYO / AFP) (Photo by LUIS ROBAYO/AFP via Getty Images)

AFP via Getty Images

Key Takeaways

A currency collapse is when a country's currency loses all its value and becomes practically worthless in day to day use
This is generally as a result of political or economic upheaval, hyperinflation or war
It’s not a common occurrence, but we’ve seen it happen before in various places around the world
For investors, it’s a risk to be aware of, though luckily it’s fairly easy to protect yourself against it
While technically the US dollar could collapse, it’s backing from the largest economy in the world and its status as the global reserve currency, makes that highly unlikely

Whoa, that’s a big statement. If you're someone from Argentina, Venezuela or Russia, you understand the realities of what can happen when your home currency fails. It’s a big deal, and it can cause immense financial damage to the economy and individuals.

But is it actually realistic to think that the US Dollar, the world's reserve currency, could collapse too?

Look, we’ll cut to the chase. It’s unlikely. But, it’s not impossible. Nothing is in the world of money and finance. For investors, it’s important to understand the potential outcomes that could impact their finances, even if they’re unlikely.

So in this article, we’re going to walk you through what actually happens when a currency collapses, how it could impact investors, and what they can do to protect against it.

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What is a currency collapse?

A currency collapse is when a currency loses all of its value. This might seem crazy, but it makes more sense when you consider that money is simply an IOU from the government. It used to be that paper money, coins and even numbers on a bank statement represented an amount of gold in reserve.

In those days, money represented an IOU for that amount of gold. Now, the system isn’t fully backed by gold, but the concept remains the same. Now, they’re backed by the weight of the United States, reflecting everything within the economy.

So in order for a dollar to have value, society needs to believe that the United States has value. Given how many taxpayers, businesses and valuable assets are in the US, it’s hard to argue that it doesn’t have value. In fact, the reason why the US was able to move off the gold standard was because it had so much economic value.

So, a currency collapse is when there is no longer any trust that the asset, country or organization has sufficient value to reflect the currency.

This can happen for a number of reasons.

Hyperinflation

When hyperinflation occurs, every dollar becomes less valuable. $10 might buy you a 12 case of Pepsi today, and then tomorrow that same $10 only buys you six Pepsi’s. The currency’s value becomes less and less, and this can create a spiral that ends up in it becoming practically worthless.

We’ve seen an example of this in Zimbabwe in the early 2000’s.

Political Instability

While not something we expect to see in the US, governments can be overthrown. When there is a military coup, a war or another event resulting in political upheaval, a country’s currency can often be a casualty.

High Debt

Many countries have high levels of debt these days, but this is all relative to the strength of the underlying economy. When a country has very high debt and a shrinking economy, this can cause a flight of assets and a collapse of the currency.

These are just a few examples. Others include trade imbalances, loss of status as a global reserve currency, natural disasters or war. All of them relate to instability within a country, as the currency is reflective of the global financial systems trust in that country.

The US dollar’s special status

Unlike any other country in the world, the US dollar has a special place in the global financial system. That’s because it is the global reserve currency. That means that it’s considered as the safest currency there is, with many other countries keeping US dollars in reserve.

This isn’t just a theoretical detail, it’s a practical one too. For example, many global financial contracts are denominated in US dollars, and many countries who have struggled to maintain a stable currency use US dollars as their own national currency.

Right now there are 11 foreign countries that use the US dollar as their official currency. These include Panama, El Salvador, Zimbabwe and Timor Leste.

The US dollar has been able to gain and maintain this special status because of the strength of the economy. The US is still the biggest economy in the world by far, with an annual GDP of $23 trillion. Second is China with $17.7 trillion, and way back in third is Japan with $4.9 trillion.

All of this is to say, for the US dollar to collapse would take something pretty major. Like, a WWIII type situation.

And despite all of the uncertainty around the world, the US still remains one of the most stable countries there is. The chances that we see a collapse of the US dollar are very slim, and if it did happen, we'd probably have bigger problems to worry about than our investments.

Like where to get clean water and what to hunt for our dinner.

How does currency collapse impact investors?

Investments are inherently tied to the currency they’re held in. If you hold US stocks which are denominated in dollars, you need dollars to buy and sell them. That’s fine if the currency remains stable and you live in the United States, but it can cause havoc if it doesn’t or you don’t.

When a currency collapses, investors can see their assets plummet in value, purely on the exchange rate alone. Not only that, but during times of economic and political crisis, governments will often restrict the movement of currency in an attempt to limit the damage.

So currency risk is a really important factor for investors. Anyone looking to invest in assets denominated in a ‘risky’ currency, should understand the additional risks involved, and expect the potential for additional returns for taking that higher risk.

The bottom line

Currencies can and do collapse, but it’s not a minor event. When a currency collapses, it’s down to a significant economic or political event in a country that has a huge impact on its citizens.

It’s not a likely outcome at all in most countries around the world, and that’s particularly true for the United States. This is down to the US dollar's status as the global reserve currency.

So while technically the US dollar could collapse, the chances of that happening any time soon are incredibly slim.

For investors, currency collapses can impact their portfolios if they invest globally (as they should be). The best way to protect against this is through sufficient diversification. By having assets spread across different industries and in different currencies, it limits the potential damage of a currency collapse on a portfolio.

If you prefer to stick to investing in the US for now, Q.ai’s AI-powered Active Indexer Kit allows you to do just that, without having to lift a finger. It offers access to a range of ETFs that cover the entire US market, offering significant diversification with an AI edge.

Download Q.ai today for access to AI-powered investment strategies.

Forbes · by Q.ai - Powering a Personal Wealth Movement · March 29, 2023

7. First vice foreign minister tapped as new ambassador to U.S. |

At least President Yoon acts quickly to fill the holes.

First vice foreign minister tapped as new ambassador to U.S. | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 이해아 · March 30, 2023

SEOUL, March 30 (Yonhap) -- First Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong has been tapped to be the new ambassador to the United States, a diplomatic source said Thursday, a day after the current ambassador was named the new national security adviser.

Cho would replace Ambassador Cho Tae-yong, who was picked to replace Kim Sung-han as the national security adviser Wednesday.

Kim announced his resignation the same day amid reports of trouble over a planning issue related to President Yoon Suk Yeol's state visit to the United States next month.

Yoon plans to nominate Cho Hyun-dong as the new ambassador and request Washington's consent, known as an agrement, as soon as possible, given that his state visit is less than a month away, on April 26.

The nominee previously served as a minister at the South Korean Embassy in Washington and also handled the North Korean nuclear issue.

First Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong speaks during a press briefing with foreign correspondents in Seoul, in this March 10, 2023, file photo. (Yonhap)

hague@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 이해아 · March 30, 2023

8. Has Congress Learned the Lessons of the Iraq War?

Excerpts;

It’s a positive development that leaders in Congress are attempting to use tools first created in the 1970s in efforts to curb current U.S. military interventions, while attempting to roll back the ability of the executive branch to launch new ones. But it’s time to create new tools that may be more effective.

In addition to ending the authorizations for the use of military force that justified both the Iraq war and the broader war on terror—and voting to invoke its powers under Section 502B—Congress needs to further strengthen its hand in policy debates over whether to arm reckless and repressive regimes, a practice that can lead the U.S. into direct or indirect involvement in unnecessary wars. One way to do that is to “flip the script” on arms-sales decision-making so that major sales to key nations must be affirmatively approved by Congress, rather than relying on occasional resolutions of disapproval that can be vetoed by the president.

The 20th anniversary of the Iraq intervention is a reminder of the need for Congress to build on recent actions and play a more active role on issues of war and peace.

Has Congress Learned the Lessons of the Iraq War?

Besides repealing the AUMFs, lawmakers ought to create new tools to curb U.S. military interventions.

defenseone.com · by William D. Hartung

The U.S. intervention in Iraq—one of the most disastrous U.S. foreign-policy decisions of the 20th century—commenced 20 years ago this month.

The costs of that conflict are still with us. A new report from the Costs of War Project estimates that the wars in Iraq and Syria have cost $3 trillion to date, including both U.S. government spending for waging the war as well as ancillary costs such as taking care of veterans of the conflict and interest on the debt generated by the funding of the war. Nearly 4,600 U.S. servicemembers died, and hundreds of thousands suffered physical or psychological injuries. Most devastating of all is the fact that up to 200,000 Iraqi civilians died as a result of the conflict.

While the ultimate decision to wage the war falls to the foreign policy team of George W. Bush, a majority of members of Congress bear a measure of responsibility for voting to authorize the administration to go to war. As the war dragged on and it became clear that it was not going to be the “cakewalk” that former Reagan administration official Kenneth Adelman famously claimed it would be, a larger core of members of Congress spoke out against the war, and it became an electoral issue in both the 2006 midterm elections and the 2008 presidential vote. But little was done to implement legislative reforms that might prevent the United States from launching such ill-conceived wars in the future.

This failure to take preventive action contrasts sharply with the array of actions taken by Congress in the wake of the Vietnam War in the 1970s. Congress passed reforms like the War Powers Resolution, which requires Congressional authorization of military action within 60 days of a deployment of U.S. troops overseas; the Arms Export Control Act, which for the first time gave Congress the power to veto major arms sales; and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which imposed penalties for bribery in the export of U.S. aircraft and military systems.

Unfortunately, the most important of these new tools were not effectively used until decades after their passage. The first bicameral majority Congressional vote under the War Powers Resolution didn’t occur until 2019, in the context of efforts to stop U.S. military support for the brutal Saudi intervention in Yemen, which has caused nearly 400,000 direct and indirect deaths. The first successful vote by both houses of Congress against a major arms sale under the Arms Export Control Act came that same year, with respect to a proposed sale of precision-guided bombs to the Royal Saudi Air Force. Unfortunately, both the War Powers measure and the arms sales prohibition were vetoed by the Trump administration.

In addition, section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act is being invoked by Senators Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, to require a State Department report on Saudi Arabia’s human rights practices, which could serve as a step towards further action, up to and including a cut off of security assistance to Riyadh. This is the first time the provision has been employed since 1976.

Another attempt by Congress to exert greater power over issues of war and peace is the ongoing effort by Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., and senators such as Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, to repeal the 2002 authorization of military force with respect to Iraq, which has been misused to justify U.S. involvement in other conflicts that have nothing to do with the war in Iraq. A measure to repeal the authorization may come to a Senate vote this week.

With the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the sharp reduction of U.S. troops in Iraq—from over 160,000 at the peak of the war to about 2,500 now—U.S. interventionism has taken a different turn, with greater reliance on deploying relatively small numbers of Special Forces, engagement in drone strikes, and the arming and training of allies around the world. These activities are little discussed in any detail, despite the fact that the U.S. armed 103 countries over the past five years, and that the Brown Costs of War project has identified U.S. counterterror operations in at least 85 countries.

It’s a positive development that leaders in Congress are attempting to use tools first created in the 1970s in efforts to curb current U.S. military interventions, while attempting to roll back the ability of the executive branch to launch new ones. But it’s time to create new tools that may be more effective.

In addition to ending the authorizations for the use of military force that justified both the Iraq war and the broader war on terror—and voting to invoke its powers under Section 502B—Congress needs to further strengthen its hand in policy debates over whether to arm reckless and repressive regimes, a practice that can lead the U.S. into direct or indirect involvement in unnecessary wars. One way to do that is to “flip the script” on arms-sales decision-making so that major sales to key nations must be affirmatively approved by Congress, rather than relying on occasional resolutions of disapproval that can be vetoed by the president.

The 20th anniversary of the Iraq intervention is a reminder of the need for Congress to build on recent actions and play a more active role on issues of war and peace.

William D. Hartung is a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

defenseone.com · by William D. Hartung

9. Fostering a Fourth Democratic Wave: A playbook for countering the authoritarian threat

All UW practitioners should read and study this and add it to their reference files

The entire 92 page report can be downloaded here. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Fostering-a-Fourth-Democratic-Wave-A-Playbook-for-Countering-the-Authoritarian-Threat.pdf

In the ARIS studies Chapter 10 of Human Factors Considerations of Underground

in Insurgencies is devoted to non-violent resistance techniques (based on Gene Sharp's research) https://www.soc.mil/ARIS/books/pdf/HumanFactorsS.pdf

Fostering a Fourth Democratic Wave: A playbook for countering the authoritarian threat

By Hardy Merriman, Patrick Quirk, and Ash Jain

atlanticcouncil.org · by sodal · March 28, 2023

Report

March 28, 2023 • 8:00 am ET

DOWNLOAD PDF

Fostering a Fourth Democratic Wave is a joint project between the Atlantic Council and the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), aimed at catalyzing support for nonviolent pro-democracy movements fighting against authoritarian rule.

The project recognizes that civil resistance movements—using tactics such as strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, and a range of other nonviolent tactics—are one of the most powerful forces for democracy worldwide and therefore central to reversing the last seventeen years of democratic recession.

The project produced a three-part report, titled Fostering a Fourth Democratic Wave: A Playbook for Countering the Authoritarian Threat, that:

Proposes new approaches and tools to support civil resistance movements
Advances a new international norm — the “Right to Assist” pro-democracy movements
Develops strategic and tactical options to constrain authoritarian regimes and drive up the cost of their repression

Introduction

The security of the United States, democratic allies, and humanity’s future depends significantly on the state of democracy worldwide.

Yet over the past seventeen years, authoritarianism has risen globally, while democracy shows alarming decline. Dictatorial regimes in China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and many other countries have become more repressive. Meanwhile, democracies in all parts of the world have backslid, with some regressing completely into authoritarianism.

This playbook focuses on a key factor that can help reverse both of these trends. Popular civil resistance movements—using tactics such as strikes, boycotts, protests, and many other tactics of noncooperation—are historically one of the most powerful drivers of democracy worldwide. They can play a central role in transforming authoritarian regimes and countering democratic backsliding. We offer recommendations for how the United States and democratic allies can adeptly support and enable these movements.

The stakes in this contest over global governance could not be higher. A more authoritarian world is a world dangerous for democracies. As autocrats support each other, abuse their own populations, and undermine democratic states, they also perpetrate and create conditions for violent conflict, atrocities, humanitarian crises, the growth of violent non-state actors, subversion of multilateral institutions, and transnational corruption. These produce massive human suffering, and further exacerbate internal weaknesses of democratic governments, thereby creating a positive feedback loop that contributes greatly to the present-day autocratic wave.

Turning the tide now requires urgency, clear vision, strategy, collective action, discipline, and innovative tactics. Democracies must unify, strengthen their alliances, and go on offense because the future depends on it.

Yet this threat can be countered. Three previous global democratic waves have emerged from democratic troughs. Developing a strategy to catalyze a fourth wave begins with a clear-eyed look at the challenges we currently face. Externally, democracies confront an increasingly existential conflict waged against them, with authoritarian governments using democratic openness to enable them to spread corruption, undermine government institutions, influence economic decision-making, and manipulate the information environment. Simultaneously, many democracies are experiencing legitimacy crises due to long-standing failure to deliver adequately for their constituents. This core weakness has made them more vulnerable to populism, polarization, disruptive information technologies, external authoritarian attacks, and internal demagogues who now use a well-trod path to weaken democratic governance from the inside out. Past denial about the potency of these threats enabled them to grow. Turning the tide now requires urgency, clear vision, strategy, collective action, discipline, and innovative tactics. Democracies must unify, strengthen their alliances, and go on offense because the future depends on it.

Any strategy to counter authoritarianism will entail action on multiple fronts. By articulating in this playbook how to better support and create an enabling environment for pro-democracy civil resistance movements, we focus on one of the greatest foreign policy opportunities available today—engaging the power potential of populations worldwide who want to protect and advance human rights and democratic rule. Our allies are found not only in fellow governments and registered civil society organizations, but also among billions of people who live daily under either weakening democracies or the abuse of dictatorship.

Authors

Americas Civil Society Democratic Transitions Europe & Eurasia Indo-Pacific International Norms Middle East Politics & Diplomacy Resilience & Society Security & Defense

Image: Opposition supporters rally against Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, June 2, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins - RC121A2BC480

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atlanticcouncil.org · by sodal · March 28, 2023

10. Ukraine Situation Report: Wagner Has Up To 36,000 Troops In Bakhmut Says Top US General

Ukraine Situation Report: Wagner Has Up To 36,000 Troops In Bakhmut Says Top US General

Bakhmut is “a slaughter-fest for the Russians” who “are getting hammered” there, Mark Milley told Congress.

HOWARD ALTMAN

PUBLISHED MAR 29, 2023 9:48 PM EDT

thedrive.com · by Howard Altman · March 29, 2023

The Wagner private military group has about 6,000 “actual mercenaries” fighting around the embattled city of Bakhmut with another 20,000 to 30,000 recruits “many of who come from prisons,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testified before the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday.

“They are suffering an enormous amount of casualties in the Bakhmut area of Ukraine,” Army Gen. Mark Milley told the House Armed Services Committee. Ukrainian forces, he said, are inflicting “a lot of death and destruction on those guys.”

The “Ukrainians are doing a very effective area defense that has proven to be very costly to the Russians,” Milley said. “For about the last 20, 21 days, the Russians have not made any progress whatsoever. So it's a slaughter-fest for the Russians. They're getting hammered in the vicinity of Bakhmut. The Ukrainians have fought very, very well. That's also true across the entire frontline trace from Kreminna all the way down to Kherson. The Ukrainians have fought a remarkable defensive fight and the Russians have not achieved their strategic objectives.”

While Milley may have been generalizing — there may have been some small gains made by Russian forces during this time period — the Russian push in Bakhmut, he added, is not a separate battle, but part of their larger offensive that has sputtered.

“I think the Russian offensive began some time ago and in fits and starts and has not achieved the momentum and success that they expected to achieve.”

Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner’s capo di tutti capi, said that the heavy price paid by his forces has been worth it.

"If Wagner PMC dies in the Bakhmut meat grinder and takes the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the forces given to it with it, then we have fulfilled our historical role," Prigozhin said Wednesday in a stunning admission on his Telegram channel.

“After the capture of Popasnaya, the battle for Bakhmut was planned back in the summer of 2022,” he said. “PMC Wagner is systematically following this path.”

Referring to his troops in the colloquial term "musicians" - a nod to German composer Richard Wagner, the inspiration for his organization’s name - Prigozhin said the fight for Bakhmut has taken a toll on both sides.

Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin attends the funeral of one of his troops who died fighting Ukraine. (AP Photo, File)

“This battle destroyed the army of Ukraine and pretty battered [the] ‘musicians,’" he said. “The victory of the ‘musicians’ will dramatically turn the special operation upside down, since only the Russian army will remain on the chessboard. The flanks - south and north - must go and tear everything that remains of the Ukrainian army. That's when history will turn back.”

In an interview with The Associated Press, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky justified his decision to keep fighting in Bakhmut, despite those losses.

Should Bakhmut fall completely to Moscow’s forces, Russian President Vladimir Putin would “sell this victory to the West, to his society, to China, to Iran,” Zelensky told AP.

“If he will feel some blood — smell that we are weak — he will push, push, push,” Zelensky said.

Zelensky told AP that a loss anywhere at this stage in the war could put Ukraine’s hard-fought momentum at risk.

“We can’t lose the steps because the war is a pie — pieces of victories. Small victories, small steps,” he said.

“Zelensky’s comments were an acknowledgment that losing the 7-month-long battle for Bakhmut — the longest of the war thus far — would be more of a costly political defeat than a tactical one,” AP reported.

“Our society will feel tired,” he said, talking about the strategic and political fallout should Bakhmut fall. “Our society will push me to have compromise with them.”

But there are also purely military reasons to keep that fight going, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told the Estonian ERR news agency on Monday.

"We have reduced their [Russian's] offensive capability and stabilized the front, allowing us to prepare for a counteroffensive," Reznikov said. "They [the Russians] have suffered heavy losses, with at least 500 soldiers killed or wounded every day. This means that each day brings our victory and their defeat closer."

Reznikov’s Defense Ministry (MoD) on Wednesday acknowledged the challenges at Bakhmut.

“The enemy continues its assault on the city of Bakhmut, with partial success," the MoD said on its Telegram channel. “However, our defenders courageously hold the city [and] repel numerous enemy attacks.”

The MoD claimed its forces repelled 48 Russian attacks on Bakhmut and other nearby towns in the Donetsk Oblast in the past 24 hours.

As the cost in personnel and equipment in the seven-month-long battle for Bakhmut mounts for both sides, the coming months will show whether it was worth it for Ukraine to expend the resources it did there.

Before we dive into the latest updates from Ukraine, The War Zone readers can get caught up on our previous rolling coverage here.

The Latest

Ukraine apparently launched another attack on Crimea Wednesday.

There was “an explosion near the Gvardeyskoye air base” in Crimea, the Russian Baza news agency reported Wednesday on its Telegram channel.

The main unit at Gvardeyskoye is the 37th Composite Aviation Regiment, which flies Su-24M Fencer swing-wing combat jets and Su-25SM Frogfoot ground attack aircraft.

“Local residents post videos from the site," Baza reported. "Local authorities said that the explosion is related to the work of air defense. According to preliminary data, a drone was shot down.”

“A UAV was shot down in the Simferopol region,” Sergey Aksyonov, the Kremlin-appointed occupation governor of Crimea, said on his Telegram channel. ”Fell into the field. There are no casualties or destruction. Trust only trusted sources of information.”

Crimea has been a frequent target of Ukrainian attacks from the air and sea. You can read more about that in our coverage here.

Ukraine also fired again over the border in Belgorod, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on his Telegram channel Wednesday.

"At the moment, the village of Cheremoshnoye, Belgorod region, is being shelled," Gladkov said. "According to preliminary data, no victims. There is damage to the power supply in several settlements of the region. Emergency and operational services went to the site to eliminate the consequences and reconnect subscribers to backup power sources."

As with Crimea, the Belgorod region has been a frequent target of Ukraine. Since April 2022, there have been multiple reports of Ukraine's armed forces striking at targets in Belgorod, which lies just on the opposite side of the country's northeastern border.

Ukrainian forces also struck in Melitopol, a Zaporizhzhia Oblast town that, as we reported back in December, will likely be a key focus of any future offensive aimed toward Crimea.

If you ever wanted to see just how insane trench warfare can be, check out this video complied by Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov from his interview with and combat camera footage shot by Ruslan Gubavrev, an infantryman of the 22nd Motorized Infantry Battalion, 92nd Brigade.

The footage is from a battle that took place on Feb. 16 near Svatove in the Luhansk Oblast.

Gubarev was awarded the "Golden Cross" badge of honor personally by Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Swedish-provided RBS-56 BILL 2 anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) have apparently appeared in Ukraine.

Speaking of ATGMs, Ukrainian paratroopers reportedly shot down one, and maybe two Russian Ka-52 helicopters with their own homegrown ATGM, according to this video posted why the 95th Airborne Assault Brigade which claimed the attack.

Women who serve as medical personnel for Russian front-line troops have been threatened into sexual relations with officers, according to interviews conducted by the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/RadioLiberty (RFE/RL).

“According to Margarita, when she was at war, she did not notice the changes that had taken place with herself, but when she returned to Russia, she realized that her psyche was completely broken,” RFE/RL reported. “She tells about what she saw and experienced in a calm, even voice, but this makes the stories about the murder of soldiers by her own colleagues, bullying drunk officers…and forcing married women from the medical company into sexual relations sound even more terrible. Margarita, herself could not be broken and ‘put’ under someone, although they tried from the first day.”

Ukraine needs long-range air defense systems and fighter aircraft to deal with the guided bombs Russian aircraft are launching more frequently, Air Forces spokesperson Col. Yurii Ignat said Tuesday on Ukrainian national television, according to The New Voice of Ukraine media outlet.

"We can see a recent increase in the activity of their tactical aircraft that launch not only long-range missiles, but also guided bombs on the areas close to the frontline," Ignat said.

The best way to counter this threat is to keep Russian aircraft, which launch missiles and guided bombs, away from the border and the frontline, he added.

Russia said Ignat, is using FAB-500 Soviet-designed air-dropped bombs that have been modernized to guided ones.

"It's guided bombs of the Soviet times with 'wing-kits' attached to them that are capable of targeting by GPS coordinates. A Russian fighter jet can stay beyond the reach of our air defense and drop bombs from a distance of about 40-50 km [about 25 to 31 miles] away from the border or the frontline," Ignat said.

Images of that conversion first appeared online in January, which you can read about here. It was apparently first used earlier this month.

The Russian modification appears to be similar to the Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range precision-guided bombs, or JDAM-ERs the U.S. has provided to Ukraine.

Standard JDAM kits are designed to be mated to various types of Mk 80-series dumb bombs, and other munitions designed around that same form factor, transforming them into precision-guided weapons. The complete JDAM kit consists of a new tail, which contains a GPS-assisted inertial navigation system (INS) guidance system, and strakes that go elsewhere along the bomb body giving it a limited ability to glide to its designated target.

You can read more about those weapons here.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu recently visited munitions plants as his nation tries to boost its production of ammo that it is running through at the incredible pace of more than 400,000 shells per month, Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said earlier this month, according to FT.

The U.S., meanwhile, will double monthly production of 155mm artillery shells to 24,000 by year’s end and increase it sixfold within five years, Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo said Tuesday, according to Defense One.

All told, the Pentagon will spend $1.45 billion to upgrade production facilities in an effort to replenish U.S. stocks and to provide more rounds to Ukraine, Camarillo told reporters at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Force Symposium here. In addition, the Army is also boosting production of Javelin anti-tank missiles and Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, or GMLRS, he said.

Production of Javelin missiles will more than double to 330 a month, and production of launchers will double to 41 a month, Camarillo said, according to Defense One. It will cost $349 million to add factory lines, purchase equipment, and hire second shifts, he said. The Army is also upping monthly GMLRS production from 566 missiles to 1,110 by 2026, Camarillo said.

The first six Leopard 2A4 main battle tanks from Spain should arrive in Ukraine after Easter, according to Spain's El Pais news agency. The tanks have been upgraded and have engaged in firing exercises, El Pais reported.

Earlier this week, Reznikov was seen in video riding in a Challenger 2 tank. Today, he posted a video of himself in a German-provided Marder armored vehicle, one of the 40 that arrived in Ukraine this week.

What's old remains new in this ongoing conflict. In this case, it appears that Ukraine has been using modified Soviet World War II-era anti-tank bombs as munitions dropped on Russians by drones.

Russian authorities are looking into whether the March 16th explosion at the FSB Boarder Guard headquarters in Rostov-on-Don in Russia was the result of border guards mishandling a Ukrainian drone, the Russian Baza news agency reported on its Telegram channel Wednesday.

The guards may have mistaken a strike drone for a reconnaissance drone, Baza reported.

“Most likely, the security forces tried to inspect the UAV on their own and, if possible, get a record from the camera with which it was equipped (whether it was a personal initiative or an order from the leadership is being checked),” Baza reported. “However, while disassembling [it], the UAV exploded, and then the fire spread to the warehouse. Three employees dismantling the drone died.”

A Ukrainian hacking group was able to infiltrate the email of a Russian pilot and convince his wife to get the spouses of other pilots to stage a group photo of them in their husband's uniforms.

The InformNapalm volunteer intelligence community “received from Ukrainian hacktivists of the Cyber Resistance team the e-mail dumps and other private correspondence of a Russian war criminal, commander of the 960th Assault Aviation Regiment (military unit 75387), Colonel Sergey Atroshchenko,” InformNapalm reported. “His regiment is stationed at an airfield near the city of Primorsko-Akhtarsk in the Krasnodar Krai, on the shores of the Sea of Azov.”

The hacktivists “monitored the colonel’s correspondence for several months and made the most effective use of the leaks in the interests of the Ukrainian Defense Forces. At present, given the refusal of Col. Atroshchenko to cooperate with the Ukrainian intelligence agencies, a decision has been made to make public the fact of the hack as well as some sensitive information about him and his regiment.”

The group photo was part of that effort, which provides a lot more detail about the unit and its aircraft. The document dump also includes private photos sent to the colonel by his wife.

A Russian single father whose daughter was reported for drawing an anti-war picture has been given a two-year jail term for discrediting the army, according to the BBC.

Alexei Moskalev, 53, however, was not in court in Yefremov for the verdict. The court press secretary said he had escaped house arrest.

"I don't know where he is," his lawyer Vladimir Biliyenko told the BBC.

His daughter Masha, 13, was sent to a children's home in early March when the criminal case began.

Moskalev was accused of repeatedly criticizing the Russian army on social media and had appeared in court the day before.

And finally, the beaver is back!

A few days ago, we showed you a video of Ukrainian forces trying to remove a beaver from a trench. Well, new video has emerged, showing those troops still battling that beaver.

That's it for now. We'll update this story when there's more news to report about Ukraine.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

thedrive.com · by Howard Altman · March 29, 2023

11. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's testimony on the ASU IWC at the Senate Armed Services Committee

3 min 41 second video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCGg9QAsqr0

Setting aside the politics of the establishment of the IW center, what was very important about the exchange that I think most will overlook is the Senator noting what the CJCS said about the importance of IW and specifically in INDOPACOM, and then the Senator reaffirming it. We need a champion for IW - senior leadership - and it would be great to have DOD and Congress on the same sheet of music regarding IW (not just the IWC). All the great work the IWC has done and will due will be for naught unless we have senior champions (and not only in DOD but in the rest of the interagency as well – as the Senator noted - it is about getting the strategy right in IW and that was the real intent of Congress which I believe was just using the stand up of the IWC as a forcing function (and yes also to honor the late Senator McCain )- but again the real intent is for the US national security apparatus to be able to get IW right.)

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's testimony on the ASU IWC at the Senate Armed Services Committee

12. WATCH: Retired Lt. Col.'s Remarks Receive Thunderous Applause From House Foreign Affairs Committee

This is a powerful video of Scott Mann's testimony on the Afghanistan evacuation. It is worth the 6 minutes to watch. Thanks to a firend for flagging this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qEhMQ2ijd8

WATCH: Retired Lt. Col.'s Remarks Receive Thunderous Applause From House Foreign Affairs Committee

1,384,806 views Mar 18, 2023

The House Foreign Affairs Committee received testimony from Retired Lt. Col. David Scott Mann, Founder of Task Force Pineapple, at a hearing about the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last week.

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Pentagon Leaders Still Say ‘No’ to F-16s, MQ-9s for Ukraine

airandspaceforces.com · by Chris Gordon · March 29, 2023

March 29, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

Top U.S. defense officials dismissed the notion that the U.S. would provide aircraft—manned or unmanned—anytime soon to Ukraine in Congressional hearings March 28 and 29.

While Kyiv has repeatedly asked for F-16 fighters and MQ-9 drones, the Biden administration has refrained from providing them and argued the systems would be of limited use to Ukraine in the current phase of its fight against Russia’s invasion.

Instead, U.S. officials argue Ukraine has more pressing needs such as air defense, armor, and artillery. They also contend that Russia’s own capable air defense systems would limit the utility and employment of manned aircraft.

“That air domain is a very hostile airspace because of the capability that the Russians have for air defense,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 28.

Much of the debate has focused on manned fourth-generation fighters, such as F-16s. Pentagon and White House officials have not ruled out providing them to the Ukrainians, but have suggested that such a move may only come after the war is over.

“That won’t help them in this current fight,” Austin said. “And will they have a capability at some point down the road? We all believe that they will, and what that looks like, it could look like F-16s, it could look like some other fourth-generation aircraft.”

Poland and Slovakia have recently said they are providing 17 Soviet-era MiG fighters to Ukraine. The top U.S. Air Force leader in Europe, Gen. James B. Hecker, said those aircraft would mark a helpful capacity boost to Ukraine, which has already lost about 60 planes, but they will not significantly change battlefield dynamics. The U.S. is also providing an unspecified number of JDAM extended-range guided bombs for Ukraine’s air force.

Still, while members of Congress have expressed a willingness to send aircraft, Biden administration officials are holding out even as Ukraine prepares for a spring counteroffensive against the Russians.

Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, told Congress in late February that providing F-16s to Ukraine would be costly and time-consuming—older F-16s would cost at least $2 billion, he estimated. At least two Ukrainian pilots have traveled to the U.S. to evaluate their skills in simulators, U.S. officials have said.

“If you’re talking to F-16s, whenever you make that decision, in order to put together what needs to be put together to provide that capability is going to be 18 months or so in the making,” Austin said. “We will continue to work with our allies and partners to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs.”

Ukrainian Su-27 takes off for another combat mission.

But it would be easier for him if the F-16 helped him. pic.twitter.com/1Cps5GlNHh— Ukrainian Air Force (@KpsZSU) March 24, 2023

Another system the U.S. has declined to provide is the unmanned MQ-9 Reaper drone. MQ-9s have been a hallmark of U.S. counterterrorism operations in the Middle East, most notably firing Hellfire missiles at targets. They have the ability to loiter for over 20 hours and gather intelligence.

They also appear to be available. The Air Force wants to divest 48 older MQ-9s in fiscal 2024, and the manufacturer of the aircraft, General Atomics, has pledged to provide its company-owned drones to Ukraine.

But the U.S. has instead opted to give Ukraine smaller tactical drones for ISR and strike missions, and both Austin and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it would not be feasible for Ukraine to use MQ-9s.

“It is not a survivable platform if they try to use that in that environment,” Austin said.

A U.S. MQ-9 on a surveillance mission was downed recently over the Black Sea when a Russian fighter jet clipped its propeller while harassing the American drone, leading the USAF to crash it into the water.

“It’s big and slow,” Milley said of the MQ-9, which has a 20-meter wingspan and a cruising speed of about 230 miles per hour. “It’s going to get nailed by the Russian air defense systems. And in terms of its capabilities, I’m not sure what it’ll get you beyond the smaller, faster, more nimble UAV systems that we are providing, as well as some other countries are providing.”

Critics of the administration’s policy say MQ-9s would not have to go directly into Russian integrated air defense systems (IADS) to be useful to Kyiv.

“The proposed use of the MQ-9 is as a long-range sensing and targeting aircraft at a stand-off range—not to fly into the teeth of a fully robust and operational IADS,” retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Moreover, Deptula argued, if the U.S. donated MQ-9s it planned to get rid of anyway, the aircraft could provide value to Ukraine even if they were shot down. For example, the drones could force Russia to expend air defenses of its own and could also highlight Russian radars so Ukrainian forces could attack them with air-to-surface missiles or surface-to-surface missiles, especially if the U.S. opted to provide Army ATACMS missiles to Kyiv.

Deptula—who planned the air campaign for Operation Desert Storm and the opening attacks of Operation Enduring Freedom—said that the administration appears to be “deterred by the concern of escalation” with Russia and is not “making choices that provide the best military advice for the Ukrainians.”

Congress

Russia-Ukraine

airandspaceforces.com · by Chris Gordon · March 29, 2023

14. 'It's not a pretty picture': Russia's support is growing in the developing world

Russia seems to be having some success in strategic competition even as it prosecutes Putin's War.

'It's not a pretty picture': Russia's support is growing in the developing world

CNBC · by Elliot Smith · March 30, 2023

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso - Jan. 20, 2023: A banner of Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen during a protest to support the Burkina Faso President Captain Ibrahim Traore and to demand the departure of France's ambassador and military forces.

OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT/AFP via Getty Images

Russia's sphere of influence is growing as propaganda and diplomatic efforts gather momentum and Western powers fail to counter the Kremlin's narratives, analysts suggest.

A report from the Economist Intelligence Unit earlier this month indicated that net support for Russia had grown in the year since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as Moscow ramps up its diplomatic charm offensive of previously neutral or geopolitically unaligned countries.

Assessing countries' enforcement of sanctions, U.N. voting patterns, domestic political trends and official statements alongside economic, political, military and historical ties, the EIU observed a significant uptick in the number of countries now leaning toward Russia — from 29 last year to 35 today.

"China remains the most significant country in this category, but other developing countries (notably South Africa, Mali and Burkina Faso) have also moved into this grouping, which accounts for 33% of the world's population," the EIU report said, adding that these trends highlight Russia's growing influence in Africa.

Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this month and the two leaders vowed to deepen economic ties.

watch now

VIDEO2:5002:50

China is 'openly playing in Russia's backyard' with Central Asia summit

Squawk Box Asia

While South Africa caused controversy in February by holding joint military drills with Russia and China on the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine. South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor indicated that the "massive transfer of arms" from the West to Ukraine had changed Pretoria's outlook and lauded the country's "growing economic bilateral relationship" with Moscow.

The EIU said the number of neutral countries rose from 32 to 35, now representing almost 31% of the global population.

"Some previously Western-aligned countries, including Colombia, Turkey and Qatar, have moved into this category as their governments are seeking to reap economic benefits from engaging with both sides," the EIU said.

"However, both Russia and China are upping the ante in recruiting those countries that are non-aligned and neutral."

By contrast, the number of countries actively condemning Russia fell from 131 to 122. The U.S. and European Union-led bloc including "West-leaning" countries represents around 36% of the global population, and has exhibited a "strong level of collaboration on sanctions" along with consistent military and economic support to Ukraine, the report said.

However, this bloc also represents just under 68% of global GDP, highlighting an emerging disconnect between wealthy Western economies and the Global South.

watch now

VIDEO3:2703:27

China's Ukraine peace proposal not seen as serious: Ex-U.S. defense secretary

Squawk Box Asia

"Russian propaganda in developing countries is working extremely well, stoking up resentment against former colonial powers, and I would say also fueling the idea that sanctions from Western countries are fueling global food insecurity, global energy insecurity especially in emerging countries," EIU Global Forecasting Director Agathe Demarais told CNBC.

"Obviously this is wrong, this is not the case, but I think that it works very well in disinformation campaigns, propaganda campaigns."

The Russian government has been contacted for comment.

Demarais highlighted that there is a perceived "hypocrisy" in Western condemnations of Russia in the Global South, given the history of Western military intervention — a sentiment Russia has sought to foment in order to deflect attention from its actions in Ukraine.

Many in developed Western countries view the idea of Russia being an "appealing" and "attractive" country to some in the Global South as "impossible," Demarais said, which underestimates the power of Russia's message and its positioning of itself as a savior.

Russia and China have increasingly represented themselves to developing nations as alternatives to the West as economic and military partners, in that neither will attach demands around democracy or human rights to diplomatic relations.

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Consultancy discusses China's and India's demand for Russian oil

Squawk Box Asia

"There is a lack of willingness to acknowledge that people may not be thinking like we do, and it is really worrying," Demarais said.

Western leaders "are thinking about it in terms of we are on the right side of history, which is true, but it doesn't mean we don't need to explain it."

Countering organized Russian propaganda first requires acknowledging the problem, and building awareness about the aims and effectiveness of sanctions, she said.

"I think there is a lack of knowledge about sanctions and how they work, what they do etc., and Russia is obviously using this to its advantage. It's going to be a very long-term trend, I'm not sure there is any quick magical fix. It's not a pretty picture."

A 'regional conflict'

The largest economy and population center still falling under the EIU's "neutral" designation was India, and Moscow claimed earlier this week that oil exports to India increased 22-fold last year.

At the recent Raisina Dialogue geopolitics forum in New Delhi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was the subject of laughter from delegates when he suggested that the Ukraine war was "launched against" Russia.

However, he received supportive applause when bemoaning Western hypocrisy and double standards as he highlighted the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and other perceived Western transgressions.

He also tried to advance the narrative that sanctions from the West were responsible for grain supply shortages experienced by developing countries as a result of the war.

Rachel Rizzo, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Europe Center, was in the audience, and told CNBC that perspectives on the war were starkly different in India.

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Russia-Ukraine war: China is winning either way, think tank says

Squawk Box Asia

"What becomes clear when you get outside of U.S./European circles is that for us, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the very clear centerpiece of much of our policy decisions and conversations, and then when you talk to people that aren't in the U.S. or Europe, it becomes clear that the conflict is very much regional, and a much smaller part of a broader puzzle," Rizzo told CNBC via telephone from Washington D.C.

"What I thought was interesting that I heard a few times was that this is a regional conflict that the U.S. and Europe, particularly the U.S., have made global because of our great power competition with Russia and our global sanctions regime."

She said many developing countries are being placed in positions they "don't want to be in" by demands from the U.S. and Europe to more outwardly side with Ukraine, even though many nations constituting the Global South actually voted in favor of the U.N. resolution condemning the invasion.

"What has happened in the U.S. is this framework of democracies versus autocracies has been the framing position of Biden and his foreign policy, and I don't think that lands for a lot of the rest of the world, and it's not a framework that I think countries identify with in many ways," Rizzo said.

"It's interesting to see how the conversations that we have here don't necessarily reflect what's happening in countries that are very important, I think, to our foreign policy and our geopolitical standing."

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The priority for Beijing is to deepen its relationship with Russia, analyst says

Capital Connection

She also suggested it was overly simplistic to attribute the shifting sands primarily to Russian disinformation campaigns, as this underestimates countries' agency and self-interest.

"Not every country that decides to accept Russian energy imports etc., or has pro-Russian sentiment throughout their populations, not all of that is a result of Russian information campaigns or disinformation campaigns," she said.

"Some of this is the very real consequences of Russia looking at these countries as opportunities, the U.S. not being seen as the benevolent hegemonic power as we like to see ourselves. It is much more complicated than Russia pushing disinformation narratives., and unfortunately I think when you attribute, as we like to do, pro-Russian sentiment to that, you lose a whole lot of what is actually going on."

CNBC · by Elliot Smith · March 30, 2023

15. Pentagon urged to use federal workforce instead of contractors

Will there be a backlash against contractors? The truth is DOD cannot function without contractors. Or function the way it currently does without them.

Pentagon urged to use federal workforce instead of contractors

federaltimes.com · by Molly Weisner · March 29, 2023

As the Pentagon looks to industry to fortify its national security posture against global rivals Russia and China, the largest federal employee union is urging defense leaders not to overlook the federal workforce when standing up existing military depots.

The American Federation of Government Employees sent a letter to Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday pressing him and the Biden administration to fortify the government’s in-house defense resources, which the union says have been weakened by sequestration, furloughs, temporary employment and underinvestment.

“We must invest in and fully deploy existing federal facilities to fully meet the urgent requirements in Ukraine that are straining our global military supply and equipment capability,” Everett Kelley, AFGE’s national president, said in the letter. “Moreover, federal facilities can be mobilized on demand rather than having to coax, incentivize or nationalize the private sector.

As the Defense Department prioritizes expanding munitions production for Ukraine and for domestic stockpiles, and shoring up shipbuilding, AFGE said there are 80,000 civilian employees “ready to meet these national security challenges” through the organic industrial base — the department’s collection of arsenals, shipyards and ammo plants that repair and maintain weapons.

The commercial industrial base builds the systems and equipment, and the department ensures those systems are maintained and operational over the years. Each military department manages its depots, though the under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment is in charge of policymaking and oversight.

This network of at-the-ready storehouses and arsenals has raised concerns in recent years over its declining condition as equipment has surpassed its service life and costs to remedy backlogs of facility projects have grown by several billion dollars since 2017. And annual contract spending went up by nearly $100 billion from 2017 to 2021, reaching $637 billion.

Though lawmakers increased military department’s increasing minimum investment requirement in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, AFGE said the workforce standing up these resources also needs attention.

“Total force management statutes need to be strengthened and complied with to prevent salami slicing, hiring freezes and arbitrary personnel constraints” that harm readiness and stress the force, Kelley said. “To do otherwise simply shifts work from the civilian workforce onto more expensive contractors and overburdens military personnel.”

Pay gaps

AFGE says that wages for workers at certain military depots has lagged, in some cases as much as 25% behind those who were salaried in 2020.

Gaps like that occur when the pay scale system for military depot employees are set at a different locality pay boundary than for salaried employees, who may benefit from a higher-income metropolitan market. Appropriations bills also establish pay caps for increases affecting wage-grade employees.

In 2023, the increase was set to 4.79%.

Unions and the the Federal Prevailing Rate Advisory Committee have recommended eliminating that cap. Doing so would cost roughly $254 million per year, for about 212,000 employees in the Defense Department and other agencies, according to Kelly.

The Defense Department has also been prodded in the past to examine its use of term and temporary employees by the Government Accountability Office.

From 2016 through 2019, DoD increased term personnel by 40% and decreased temporary personnel by 3%, most of whom were employed by the Department of the Army, according to GAO analysis.

Defense agencies may rely on these hiring authorities given by Congress when the scale of combat operations is hard to predict, leading to surges in equipment use and erratic maintenance schedules and sources of funding.

Kelly countered that using temporary employment creates instability, especially as many of these employees are “really performing enduring functions.”

“At present, the [organic industrial base] continues to fully support warfighter requirements, but also faces a number of challenges including the ongoing effects of COVID-19, aging infrastructure and equipment, workforce development and retention, supply chain instability and the need to balance sustainment requirements of new and legacy systems,” said Steven Morani, the acting assistant secretary of defense for sustainment at the time before the House Armed Services Committee in 2021.

He noted that the department’s strategy to rebuild and strengthen the organic industrial base has four main strategic areas of focus: infrastructure, equipment, workforce development developing and continuous assessment and reporting.

Morani also testified that there’s steep competition with the private sector to recruit personnel with skills in software maintenance, as well as traditional mechanical and manual tools. That challenge sometimes forces the department to rely on contracted maintenance, which he said “does not provide the same responsiveness and agility as an organic workforce.”

Statutorily, not more than half of each military department’s annual depot maintenance funding can be used for work done by private-sector contractors.

Bryant Harris contributed reporting.

About Molly Weisner

Molly Weisner is a staff reporter for Federal Times where she covers labor, policy and contracting pertaining to the government workforce. She made previous stops at USA Today and McClatchy as a digital producer, and worked at The New York Times as a copy editor. Molly majored in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

16. Two Black Hawks crash near Fort Campbell, casualties reported

It should not be forgotten that military training is inherently dangerous. That said, the best way to prevent accidents is to keep training. With less training the accident rate will rise.

Two Black Hawks crash near Fort Campbell, casualties reported

armytimes.com · by Davis Winkie · March 30, 2023

Two HH-60 Black Hawk helicopters flying out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, crashed Wednesday evening, “resulting in several casualties,” officials confirmed.

The crash occurred around 10 p.m. local time in Trigg County, Kentucky, during a “routine training mission,” according to a 101st Airborne Division press release. The helicopters belong to the division.

The release said the crew’s status is “unknown,” but Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said on social media that “fatalities are expected.”

Local radio station WKDZ reported that the county coroner responded to the crash, which one eyewitness reported may have been a collision. Army Times could not independently verify the details of the crash sequence.

“Right now the focus is on the [s]oldiers and their families who were involved,” division officials wrote in a statement accompanying the release.

Officials have yet to specify how many soldiers were aboard the two helicopters.

In February, Tennessee Guard Chief Warrant Officer 3 Daniel Wadham and Chief Warrant Officer 3 Danny Randolph died when the Black Hawk helicopter they were piloting crashed near Huntsville, Alabama.

This is a developing story.

About Davis Winkie

17. China threatens to retaliate if McCarthy meets Taiwan leader

Excerpts:

Speaking later Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said China will “closely follow the development of the situation and resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Mao said the United States was “conducting dangerous activities that undermine the political foundation of bilateral ties.”

McCarthy, a Republican from California, has said he will meet with Tsai when she is in the U.S. and has not ruled out the possibility of traveling to Taiwan in a show of support.

China threatens to retaliate if McCarthy meets Taiwan leader

federaltimes.com · by The Associated Press · March 29, 2023

China threatened retaliation on Wednesday if U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy meets with Taiwan’s president during her upcoming trip through Los Angeles.

President Tsai Ing-wen left Taiwan on Wednesday afternoon on a tour of the island’s diplomatic allies in the Americas which she framed as a chance to demonstrate Taiwan’s commitment to democratic values on the world stage.

Tsai is scheduled to transit through New York on Thursday before heading to Guatemala and Belize. She is expected to stop in Los Angeles on her way back to Taiwan on April 5, when a meeting with McCarthy is tentatively scheduled.

The planned meeting has triggered fears of a heavy-handed Chinese reaction amid heightened friction between Beijing and Washington over U.S. support for Taiwan and trade and human rights issues.

The spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, Zhu Fenglian, denounced Tsai’s stopovers and demanded that no U.S. officials meet with her.

“We firmly oppose this and will take resolute countermeasures,” Zhu said at a news conference. The U.S. should “refrain from arranging Tsai Ing-wen’s transit visits and even contact with American officials and take concrete actions to fulfill its solemn commitment not to support Taiwan independence,” she said.

Beijing claims self-governing Taiwan is part of its territory and threatens to bring the island under its control by force if necessary.

Speaking later Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said China will “closely follow the development of the situation and resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Mao said the United States was “conducting dangerous activities that undermine the political foundation of bilateral ties.”

McCarthy, a Republican from California, has said he will meet with Tsai when she is in the U.S. and has not ruled out the possibility of traveling to Taiwan in a show of support.

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., talks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington on March 24, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Following a visit by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in 2022, Beijing launched missiles over the area, deployed warships across the median line of the Taiwan Strait and carried out military exercises in a simulated blockade of the island. Beijing also suspended climate talks with the U.S. and restricted military-to-military communication with the Pentagon.

Tsai told reporters before boarding her plane that “I want to tell the whole world democratic Taiwan will resolutely safeguard the values of freedom and democracy and will continue to be a force for good in the world, continuing a cycle of goodness, strengthening the resilience of democracy in the world.”

“External pressure will not obstruct our resolution to engage with the world,” she said.

Diplomatic pressure

Beijing has recently ramped up diplomatic pressure against Taiwan by poaching its dwindling number of diplomatic allies while also sending military fighter jets flying toward the island on a near-daily basis. Earlier this month, Honduras established diplomatic relations with China, leaving Taiwan with only 13 countries that recognize it as a sovereign state.

U.S. administration officials in a call with reporters ahead of Tsai’s arrival underscored that her transit is in line with what she and her predecessors have done in the past. Tsai has made six transits through the U.S. — stopovers that have included meetings with members of Congress and members of the Taiwanese diaspora -- during her presidency.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive visit, said Tsai is also expected to meet with American Institute in Taiwan chair Laura Rosenberger. AIT is the U.S. government-run nonprofit that carries out unofficial relations with Taiwan.

One official added that “there is absolutely no reason” for Beijing to use Tsai’s stopover “as an excuse or a pretext to carry out aggressive or coercive activities aimed at Taiwan.”

Beijing sees official American contact with Taiwan as encouragement to make the island’s decades-old de facto independence permanent, a step U.S. leaders say they don’t support. Pelosi was the highest-ranking elected American official to visit the island since then-Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1997.

China protests US Navy surveillance plane’s Taiwan Strait flight

The U.S. 7th Fleet said a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace on Monday.

Under its “one China” policy, the U.S. acknowledges Beijing’s view that it has sovereignty over Taiwan, but considers Taiwan’s status as unsettled. Taiwan is an important partner for Washington in the Indo-Pacific.

U.S. officials are increasingly worried about China attempting to make good on its long-stated goal of bringing Taiwan under its control. The sides split at the end of a civil war in 1949 and Beijing sees U.S. politicians’ visits as conspiring with Tsai’s pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party to make the separation permanent and stymy China’s rise as a global power.

The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which has governed U.S. relations with the island, does not require Washington to step in militarily if China invades but makes it American policy to ensure Taiwan has the resources to defend itself and to prevent any unilateral change of status by Beijing.

Tensions spiked earlier this year when U.S. President Joe Biden ordered a Chinese spy balloon shot down after it traversed the continental United States. The Biden administration has also said U.S. intelligence findings show that China is weighing sending arms to Russia for its war in Ukraine, but has no evidence Beijing has done so yet.

China, however, has provided Russia with an economic lifeline and political support, and President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in Moscow earlier this month. That was the first face-to-face meeting between the allies since before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago.

The Biden administration postponed a planned visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony Blinken following the balloon controversy but has signaled it would like to get such a visit back on track.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao said the blame for tensions lies squarely with Washington for boosting relations with Tsai. Beijing has frozen almost all contacts with Tsai’s administration since shortly after she was elected to the first of her two terms in 2016.

“It is not that China overreacts. It is that the U.S. kept emboldening Taiwan independence forces, which is egregious in nature,” Mao said at a daily briefing.

Tsai’s state visits coincide with a 12-day trip to China by her predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, of the pro-unification Nationalist Party, in an appeal to voters whose descendants arrived with Chiang Kai-shek’s defeated forces in 1949.

Ma has been visiting sites in the former Nationalist capital of Nanjing and emphasizing historical and cultural links between the sides, while avoiding the politically sensitive topics of China’s determination to eliminate Taiwan’s international presence and refusal to recognize its government.

Tsai is barred from seeking a third term and her party is widely expected to nominate Vice President Lai Ching-te to run for the presidency in January.

18. Why Force Fails

Who can provide accurate information on local conditions? (See excerpt below) A rhetorical question. I outline who can contribute to that here:Eight Points of Irregular Warfare https://maxoki161.blogspot.com/2018/07/eight-points-of-special-warfare.html

4. Assessment - must conduct continuous assessment to gain understanding - tactical, operational, and strategic. Assessments are key to developing strategy and campaign plans and anticipating potential conflict. Assessments allow you to challenge assumptions and determine if a rebalance of ways and means with the acceptable, durable, political arrangement is required. Understand the indigenous way of war and adapt to it. Do not force the US way of war upon indigenous forces if it is counter to their history, customs, traditions, and abilities.

5. Assure US and indigenous interests are sufficiently aligned. If indigenous and US interests are not sufficiently aligned the mission will fail. If the US has stronger interest than the indigenous force we can create an “assistance paradox” - if indigenous forces believe the US mission is "no fail” and the US forces will not allow them to fail and therefore they do not need to try too hard. They may very well benefit from long term US aid and support which may be their objective for accepting support in the first place.

SOF (Special Forces, PSYOP, and Civil Affairs) can contribute to assessment. If I were king for a day I would establish a simple UW or resistance "PIR" that SOF would seek to obtain during all overseas missions. This would (should) be done as a matter of routine. This would contribute to providing information on local conditions.

UW Standing “PIR” For Resistance

•Assessments – Special Forces Area Study/Area Assessment, PSYOP Target Audience Analysis, and Civil Affairs Civil Information Management

•Who is the resistance?

–Leaders, groups, former military, in or out of government, etc.

•What are the objectives of the resistance?

–Do they align with US and friends, partners, and allies?

•Where is it operating?

–From where is it getting support?

•When did it begin?

–When will it/did it commence operations?

•Why is there a resistance or the potential for resistance?

–What are the underlying causes/drivers?

•How will it turn out?

–E.g., what is the assessment of success or failure of the resistance?

•Most important - An expert recommendation: Should the US support or counter the resistance and if so how?

Excerpts:

Policymakers must have accurate information on local conditions to evaluate the chances of a proposed intervention’s success. To ensure that policymakers get the information they need, the intelligence services should elevate and weight more heavily the voices of diverse local experts—including those with the stature and inclination to provide candid information that Washington might not welcome—in their briefings and analyses. Such figures can provide more accurate indications of the potential risks that local political attitudes and dynamics could present to U.S. military interventions. These experts should also work with the intelligence and defense leadership in Washington to identify third parties who have the capabilities, interests, and intention to interfere with intervention plans, as well as the conditions that might prompt such interference. If China were to invade Taiwan, for example, North Korea or Russia might become involved. The challenge will be understanding how and when each might intervene. Taking seriously other political leaders’ redlines will be an essential part of the planning for any U.S. military intervention.

Future U.S. military interventions are likely, but costly failures need not be.

Finally, policymakers need more detailed and timely information to assess the military power of the United States’ adversaries and partners, which the intelligence services have often struggled to provide. In advance of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, for example, the U.S. government overestimated Russian military strength and underestimated Ukrainian capabilities. As a result, policymakers expected—and even started planning for—a swift Russian victory. Developing a more reliable understanding of the military capabilities of other adversaries and partners must become a top priority for the intelligence community. Analysts need to do more than count tanks, ships, and aircraft; they also need to take into account more sophisticated assessments of the social, economic, and industrial foundations of a country’s military power, the political and strategic culture of that power, and its commitment to fighting.

Future U.S. military interventions are likely, but costly failures need not be. A more effective policy requires Washington to rethink its view of military intervention: it is not a hammer for all nails but a specialized tool best used sparingly and carefully.

Why Force Fails

The Dismal Track Record of U.S. Military Interventions

By Jennifer Kavanagh and Bryan Frederick

March 30, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Jennifer Kavanagh and Bryan Frederick · March 30, 2023

American soldiers have been deployed abroad almost continuously since the end of World War II. The best-known foreign interventions—in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq—were large, long, and costly. But there have been dozens of other such deployments, many smaller or shorter, for purposes ranging from deterrence to training. Taken as a whole, these operations have had a decidedly mixed record. Some, such as Operation Desert Storm in 1991, which swept the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait, largely succeeded. But others—such as those in Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere—were disappointments or outright failures. It is these unsuccessful post–Cold War interventions that have engendered serious doubts among policymakers and the public about the role of force in U.S. foreign policy.

Even so, U.S. decision-making still has a strong bias in favor of military intervention. When crises emerge, the pressure for a U.S. military response is often immediate, on the grounds that it is better to try to control the situation than to do nothing. But in many cases, the United States could likely have achieved its goals without intervening militarily. To explore how often U.S. military interventions have advanced U.S. objectives, we built a database of conflicts and crises that involved U.S. interests between 1946 and 2018. Conflict cases were drawn from the Uppsala Conflict Data Project and crisis cases came from the International Crisis Behavior data set. To identify cases involving U.S. interests, we looked for conflicts and crises that posed a direct threat to the U.S. homeland or to a U.S. treaty ally, occurred in a region of high strategic importance for the United States, or involved a large-scale humanitarian crisis. We then identified those conflicts and crises that prompted the deployment of U.S. military forces. To be counted as an intervention, the U.S. forces had to meet certain thresholds (at least 100 personnel for a full year, or a larger presence for a shorter time in the case of ground interventions). For each conflict or crisis, we also collected information on several outcome measures including conflict or crisis duration, intensity, changes in economic development and democratic institutions in the country affected by the conflict or crisis. Of the 222 conflicts and crises from 1946 to 2018 that involved U.S. interests, the United States chose to intervene on 50 occasions and not to intervene on 172.

Our findings flip the conventional wisdom on its head: irrespective of whether the United States intervened, the outcomes were largely the same. Across each of the dimensions we considered there was no statistically significant difference between the cases that prompted an intervention and those that did not. In other words, the evidence that U.S. military interventions are consistently achieving their goals is sparse. But this does not mean that all interventions fail. A closer look suggests that there is a subset of operations that is more likely to advance U.S. interests and achieve U.S. objectives: those that had clear, achievable goals and were informed by accurate assessments of local conditions.

Washington desperately needs to rethink its relationship to military force. Above all, it needs to stop regarding military adventures as the go-to solution for all potential threats. At the same time, however, it cannot view every potential intervention as an inevitable disaster that will divert resources from domestic priorities. The real danger is not military interventions per se but large ones with expansive objectives that are out of touch with the reality on the ground. Those are the ones that gamble with U.S. blood and treasure.

WHY FORCE FAILS

Clearly, some military interventions do advance U.S. interests. Our research shows that small, short interventions with narrow objectives that are well suited to military force can succeed. In the 1980s, for example, U.S. planes and aircraft carriers thwarted Libyan attempts to control the Gulf of Sidra. And in 1998, American cruise missiles struck targets in Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation for al Qaeda’s bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

But when used in the wrong circumstances, interventions can fail disastrously. Large ones are particularly risky. Although massive applications of force can sometimes be the only way to achieve high-stakes U.S. objectives—as in World War II and the Korean War—they are nonetheless a big bet. If not done carefully, large interventions can turn into resource-consuming failures, saddled with expansive political goals that cannot be accomplished by military force alone.

The U.S. military is poorly equipped to handle political tasks. Military force can bring down a dictatorship, but it cannot establish an effective and democratic replacement. Nor can it stabilize long-running civil wars or overcome age-old ethnic divides. U.S. military interventions that have sought to accomplish such goals—in Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq—have failed. Even the tasks that military forces are well suited for—raising a partner army, for example—can fail when the scope of the task is too large or when the mission does not receive enough support. For evidence of that, look no further than the collapse of local security forces in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2021.

Before World War II, the United States intervened primarily to conquer other lands or defend its own.

Although there is strong evidence that setting such expansive goals often leads to failure, our analysis shows that the decision to use military intervention to accomplish broad objectives has become increasingly common since World War II. Before the war, the United States intervened primarily to conquer other lands or defend its own. But after, when the Cold War began, American ambitions grew. Washington now sought to enhance regional security, oppose communism, rebuild countries, and promote global norms. After the Cold War, counterterrorism was added to the list of goals, and although the United States did not intervene more frequently, its aims steadily became more wide-ranging. Not surprisingly, heightened ambitions lowered the success rate of American interventions, and despite having the most powerful military on the planet, the United States often met with failure. Since the early 1990s, then, the share of interventions that failed to achieve their objectives has risen steadily. Pre-1945, our analysis suggests the United States achieved about 80 percent of its intervention objectives. During the Cold War, however, it achieved its objectives only about 60 percent of the time, and in the post-Cold War period, the rate of success has fallen to just under 50 percent.

Critics might argue that our study has a selection problem, if the crises and conflicts in which the United States intervened were also the ones that were most likely to fail no matter what. But there is little evidence to support that objection. Dozens of case studies suggest that there is no relationship between the difficulty of the underlying circumstances and the likelihood of intervention: there are plenty of hard cases in which the United States intervened and plenty of easy cases in which it chose not to. But, as constraints on U.S. military power faded during and after the Cold War, the United States did adopt more and more expansive goals for the interventions it chose to pursue and was consequently less and less able to achieve these goals by relying solely on military force.

WASHINGTON’S RECORD OF FAILURE

Why have so many American interventions gone awry? One of the key findings of our research concerns when a military intervention is likeliest to succeed: when it decisively shifts the local balance of power in favor of the United States and its allies. This means that some of the most important determinants of success are the military strength of U.S. proxies and adversaries, the level of popular support for U.S. aims, and the degree to which third parties can interfere. Yet Washington tends to consider these factors too late (or even not at all), and it is prone to rely on inaccurate or insufficient information when it does.

The United States has a particularly dismal track record when it comes to correctly assessing others’ military power. During the Vietnam War, U.S. policymakers vastly underestimated the effectiveness of the Viet Cong and, therefore, misjudged the odds of success. The United States has often made a similar mistake when evaluating its partners. In Vietnam, Washington was too optimistic about the capabilities and self-sufficiency of its South Vietnamese partner, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. In 1979, the United States overestimated the ability of its longtime ally in Iran, the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to quell domestic unrest and was surprised by his rapid fall from power. More recently, Washington had too much confidence in the skill and commitment of the security forces it had built in Afghanistan, which collapsed quickly in the face of the Taliban’s advances.

The cost of these errors is high. Overestimating a partner’s capabilities or underestimating an adversary’s strengths can lead policymakers to start risky or costly interventions that they would have avoided with better information. Such misjudgments can also lead them to justify prolonging interventions that have no plausible route to success. Indeed, a lack of local support has been the undoing of many a U.S. military intervention. When the United States intervened in Haiti in 1994, U.S. policymakers mistakenly equated Haitians’ support for removing the military junta with enthusiasm for a U.S.-backed democratic government. Likewise, in Iraq after 2003, the Pentagon’s rosy assessments of the public’s enthusiasm for political transformation meant that U.S. forces were unprepared for the insurgency that followed.

U.S. policymakers have also often been surprised by the power of third parties to act as spoilers. Foreign militias, neighboring states, and other rivals have repeatedly ruined the United States’ best-laid plans. In 1950, U.S. policymakers failed to predict Chinese intervention in the Korean War. They would repeat the mistake in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, when they were surprised by the swift ascendance of Iranian militias. In both cases, the involvement of the third party should have been foreseeable, and Washington’s failure to take it into account was costly.

THE POWER OF THE POSSIBLE

There will always be situations in which military intervention is the best or only option for the United States. But policymakers must also recognize that in many cases, the best response to a crisis or potential threat is to take no military action at all and rely instead on diplomacy or sanctions—or simply learn to live with an elevated threat.

The United States should never deploy its military without first asking whether doing so can rapidly and sufficiently shift the local balance of power to enable U.S. forces or partners to achieve their goals. If the answer is no or maybe, then policymakers should favor nonmilitary alternatives. Policymakers should apply especially stringent scrutiny to proposals that involve large interventions. And they should be cautious of setting expansive objectives. Often, such goals conflate objectives that would be nice to have with those that are essential. After the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, for example, the narrowly defined counterterrorism mission became intertwined with a broad, nation-building project, thus transforming an aspiration into a national security priority, even though no truly vital U.S. interests were at stake. Rather than increasing an intervention’s size or duration to take on more ambitious goals, policymakers should instead focus on those goals that are achievable.

Policymakers must have accurate information on local conditions to evaluate the chances of a proposed intervention’s success. To ensure that policymakers get the information they need, the intelligence services should elevate and weight more heavily the voices of diverse local experts—including those with the stature and inclination to provide candid information that Washington might not welcome—in their briefings and analyses. Such figures can provide more accurate indications of the potential risks that local political attitudes and dynamics could present to U.S. military interventions. These experts should also work with the intelligence and defense leadership in Washington to identify third parties who have the capabilities, interests, and intention to interfere with intervention plans, as well as the conditions that might prompt such interference. If China were to invade Taiwan, for example, North Korea or Russia might become involved. The challenge will be understanding how and when each might intervene. Taking seriously other political leaders’ redlines will be an essential part of the planning for any U.S. military intervention.

Future U.S. military interventions are likely, but costly failures need not be.

Finally, policymakers need more detailed and timely information to assess the military power of the United States’ adversaries and partners, which the intelligence services have often struggled to provide. In advance of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, for example, the U.S. government overestimated Russian military strength and underestimated Ukrainian capabilities. As a result, policymakers expected—and even started planning for—a swift Russian victory. Developing a more reliable understanding of the military capabilities of other adversaries and partners must become a top priority for the intelligence community. Analysts need to do more than count tanks, ships, and aircraft; they also need to take into account more sophisticated assessments of the social, economic, and industrial foundations of a country’s military power, the political and strategic culture of that power, and its commitment to fighting.

Future U.S. military interventions are likely, but costly failures need not be. A more effective policy requires Washington to rethink its view of military intervention: it is not a hammer for all nails but a specialized tool best used sparingly and carefully.

JENNIFER KAVANAGH is Senior Fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
BRYAN FREDERICK is a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation.

Foreign Affairs · by Jennifer Kavanagh and Bryan Frederick · March 30, 2023

19. Russia Won’t Sit Idly by after Finland and Sweden Join NATO

Conclusion:

Finnish and Swedish accession can dramatically increase regional stability. Yet the alliance cannot afford to ignore the accompanying risks. The steps suggested above will help ensure that NATO is ready for any response that Russia has in mind.

Russia Won’t Sit Idly by after Finland and Sweden Join NATO - War on the Rocks

NICHOLAS LOKKER AND HELI HAUTALA

warontherocks.com · by Nicholas Lokker · March 30, 2023

When Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership last spring, Russia’s reaction was negative but muted. It consisted only of words, not actions — in all likelihood due to Russia’s preoccupation with its war against Ukraine. Yet we should not assume that Russia will refrain from responding in the future. The Kremlin made its position clear years ago: there will be consequences from Finnish and Swedish NATO membership. Finnish president Sauli Niinistö offered one illustration of Russia’s approach in an interview in February 2022, recalling Vladimir Putin’s warning from 2016: “When we look across the border now, we see a Finn on the other side. If Finland joins NATO, we will see an enemy.”

As we argue in a recent Center for a New American Security report, NATO’s forthcoming enlargement will permanently alter the European security architecture and erode Russia’s geopolitical position. Moscow will see these changes as a threat to its security and is likely to respond in ways that will pose challenges to NATO in both the short and long term. In the short term, the allies will need to counter Moscow’s attempts to undermine NATO’s position in the Nordic-Baltic-Arctic region, including through various gray zone tactics and more aggressive nuclear posturing aimed at compensating for losses in its conventional military capacity. In the long term, NATO must plan for a resurgent Russia, as the country will eventually reconstitute its conventional forces in the North and adapt its force posture in response to NATO’s presence in Finland and Sweden.

New Flanks, New Fears

With Finland and Sweden in NATO, Russia’s northwestern flank becomes more vulnerable. Its border with the alliance will then extend from the Arctic Ocean to the Baltic Sea, which will become almost entirely ringed by NATO countries. Concerningly for Moscow, alliance territory will expand near the strategically important Kola Peninsula in the north and move closer to Russia’s second-largest city of St. Petersburg, located on the Baltic Sea coast. Russia may suspect that the alliance will concentrate more military resources along the lengthy Finnish-Russian border. Additionally, Russia may perceive that it is riskier to carry out naval operations in the Baltic Sea or worry about threats to its Kaliningrad exclave — soon to be surrounded by NATO member states.

Become a Member

The increased exposure of Russia’s military assets on the Kola Peninsula is particularly relevant to Russia’s threat perception. Lying just east of northern Norway and Finland, the Kola Peninsula is of central importance to Russia’s national security. It hosts Russia’s Northern Fleet, which includes ballistic missile submarines that guarantee the country’s second-strike nuclear capability as well as attack submarines and cruise missile-equipped surface vessels that would help Russia to interdict U.S. reinforcement convoys on their way to Europe. The damage done to Russia’s conventional military in Ukraine will increase Moscow’s reliance on its nuclear forces and therefore bolster the importance of the Kola Peninsula to Russian military planners. Additionally, the Kola Peninsula’s location near the Western terminus of the increasingly viable Northern Sea Route will further ensure that the region’s security is a vital Russian interest in the years to come.

One illustration of how the Russian military looks at Finnish and Swedish NATO membership can be found in a Russian Defense Ministry publication from December 2022. The authors of an article dealing with current challenges to Russia’s military security in the Arctic note that even if Finland and Sweden’s accession is mostly a legal formality, as their relations with NATO have already been established, it must be seen as the most urgent challenge for Russia. They provide two reasons for this assessment. First, NATO troops, weaponry, and equipment may be placed in the territory of Finland and Sweden. Second, NATO could deploy “operational-tactical missile complexes” to Finland, which would create threats to both the military-industrial complex in the Arkhangelsk region and transportation infrastructure. The article argues that Russia should prepare for these possible risks by building up its forces in the area as well as planning long-range precision strikes against targets in Finland and Sweden.

Russia’s Response

Already, we are seeing signs of a Russian response. Russian politicians and senior officials have long threatened to take “appropriate military-technical measures” if Finland and Sweden tried to join NATO. In December 2022, and again in mid-January, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu indicated the types of changes that may be underway. Reforms planned for 2023-2026 will include the creation of an army corps in the Republic of Karelia near the border with Finland as well as the re-establishment of the Moscow and Leningrad military districts through the dissolution of the current Western military district. Shoigu stressed in December that the rationale behind these changes was “NATO’s desire to increase its military potential near the Russian borders, as well as to expand the alliance by adding Finland and Sweden”, making it necessary for Moscow to “take retaliatory measures and to create an appropriate grouping of troops in the northwest of Russia.” While Finnish analysts do not see these developments as dramatic, they demonstrate that despite being bogged down in Ukraine, Russia is shifting gears in response to changes to the Northern European security environment.

Even though these proposals signal the intention to react to the perceived threat posed by Finnish and Swedish NATO accession, Russia will have limited ability to do so using conventional military means in the short term. Given its ongoing need to focus on the war against Ukraine, as evidenced by recent reports that it is shifting troops from other theaters, including from areas near Finland, Moscow will for the time being likely rely on gray zone tactics to undermine NATO’s position in the Nordic-Baltic-Arctic region. Recent events suggest these may include attacks on critical infrastructure such as pipelines, undersea cables, or oil and gas fields, as well as acts of terrorism against Western officials. Fears that Moscow will again weaponize asylum seekers, as it did during 2015 and 2016, have already prompted Finland to start to construct fences along its border with Russia. Cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns targeted at Sweden, Finland, and other countries along NATO’s bolstered northeastern flank are an additional possibility.

Nuclear weapons will also assume greater prominence in Russian strategy until the country can reconstitute its forces, which could take a decade or more. In conjunction with Putin’s increasingly aggressive nuclear rhetoric following conventional military losses in Ukraine, Russia has stepped up its nuclear posturing in the High North. Moscow reportedly relocated several nuclear-capable bombers to the Kola Peninsula prior to last October’s nuclear drills, which included tests of all three legs of the Russian nuclear triad in the Arctic. As Russia attempts to meet the apparent increased threat in Northern Europe while its army remains tied down elsewhere, it is likely to double down on aggressive nuclear signaling in the region.

Eventually, however, Russia will recover. And while its military weakness may be temporary, the changes to the European security architecture wrought by its invasion are not. In the long run, then, Moscow is likely to permanently adapt its force posture in response to NATO’s presence in Finland and Sweden. A recent Finnish research report argues that Russia will eventually react to Finnish and Swedish NATO accession by beefing up its forces near Finland, although not to the numbers seen during the Cold War. The author estimates that due to the losses Russia has suffered in Ukraine and the slowness of establishing new forces, it is likely that there will be no significant increase in military power in Finland’s immediate neighborhood before the 2030s.

As Shoigu’s statements also illustrate, Russia will seek to increase conventional deterrence along its northwestern flank as soon as it has the capacity to do so, and it is reasonable to expect actions such as strengthening anti-access/area denial defenses around the Kola Peninsula as well as reinforcing the border with Finland near Saint Petersburg.

Moscow is also likely to act more aggressively in Northern Europe after rebuilding its forces, if not sooner. More frequent provocative air exercises along the borders of Finland and Sweden or harassment of Western ships in the Barents and Baltic seas could seek to probe NATO defenses and intimidate the alliance, helping Russia to regain the advantage in the region. Moscow may focus these maneuvers on strategic choke points such as the Danish Straits and the waters around Gotland, Bornholm, and the Åland Islands. Demonstrations of military prowess may additionally serve as occasions to showcase Russia’s renewed great power status, which has been damaged by its poor performance in Ukraine. Such demonstrations would raise the risk of accidents that could spark a conflict. A renewed military threat to the Baltic states, which have long feared a potential Russian invasion, is also plausible in the long term. On the other hand, the accession of Sweden and Finland will make it easier for NATO to defend the Baltic states, thus increasing the alliance’s defense and deterrence in the region and contributing to regional stability in Northern Europe.

Any new NATO infrastructure in Sweden and Finland — such as upgraded airfields, intelligence facilities, or most critically nuclear weapons — will only intensify Russia’s aggressive posture in the Nordic-Baltic-Arctic region. Finland has already announced that it will station F-35s in Lapland starting in 2026, and more frequent large-scale NATO exercises in Northern Europe are likely as the years go by. As Russia emerges from the war it started in Ukraine, these moves will further raise Moscow’s threat perception and cause it to dedicate greater attention to its Northwestern flank.

What NATO Can Do Now

The new round of NATO enlargement creates a need to manage both the short-term and long-term evolution of the Russian threat. In the short term, NATO — along with the European Union, national governments, private sector companies, and individual citizens — should plan to increase defenses and resilience against hybrid threats. NATO should further demonstrate its willingness to respond proportionally to hybrid attacks attributable to Russia. In response to the heightened Russian nuclear challenge, NATO should review its nuclear posture, including the role of nuclear weapons in extended deterrence and escalation management along with preparations for fighting in environments affected by nuclear fallout.

At the same time, the alliance should plan for the conventional threat posed by a resurgent Russia in the Nordic-Baltic theater without taking steps that would be unduly provocative. The integration of the highly capable Swedish and Finnish militaries into NATO will itself bolster the alliance’s regional deterrence posture, but more can be done. This should include changing the alliance’s command structure, revising its contingency planning in the region, upgrading the Swedish and Finnish reinforcement infrastructure, holding new large-scale exercises in Northern Europe, and improving capabilities in the High North such as air and missile defense and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. It would also be prudent to establish a NATO Air Defense mission for the Baltic Sea region, building on the existing Baltic Air Policing operation.

Allies should also work towards a comprehensive strategy for Northern European security that conceives of the region as a single theater encompassing not only the High North but also the Baltic Sea and North Atlantic. These efforts could include joint determination of regional capability targets within the NATO defense planning process, along with the pooling of Northern European allies’ maritime and aerial surveillance capabilities. It is also important to convince Poland and Germany to take a more active stake in the region’s security, encouraging them to embrace their identities as Baltic Sea countries.

Finally, NATO should foster a sense of broader allied solidarity in Finland and Sweden to facilitate their transition away from an ingrained mindset of neutrality. Helsinki and Stockholm have long focused primarily on their own territorial defense, yet as new members of NATO they will have a responsibility to protect allied territory more broadly. To facilitate this adjustment, other NATO allies should encourage Finland and Sweden to make significant contributions to missions not only on the alliance’s eastern flank, but on its southern flank as well.

Finnish and Swedish accession can dramatically increase regional stability. Yet the alliance cannot afford to ignore the accompanying risks. The steps suggested above will help ensure that NATO is ready for any response that Russia has in mind.

Become a Member

Nicholas Lokker is a researcher in the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. His work focuses on the politics of European integration and security, Russian foreign policy, and transatlantic relations.

Heli Hautala is a career diplomat who is currently on leave from the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. She is an adjunct senior fellow for the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Nicholas Lokker · March 30, 2023

20. China’s diplomatic wins rise from America’s losses

As someone said on social media, China loves a vacuum.

China’s diplomatic wins rise from America’s losses

US is learning the hard way that if you treat everyone else as a pariah you are eventually treated as one yourself

asiatimes.com · by Christopher McCallion · March 30, 2023

China’s diplomatic maneuvers over the past weeks have produced all sorts of alarm among members of the Washington foreign policy establishment and media that America’s influence is being supplanted in favor of a new and hostile “world order.”

The failure to see current events in balance-of-power terms goes a long way toward explaining how this situation has come about in the first place.

Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Moscow to affirm the Sino-Russian “no limits partnership” the same week the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for war crimes against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Earlier in the month, China successfully brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran to re-establish diplomatic ties between the Gulf rivals. In late February, Beijing released a 12-point peace plan for the war in Ukraine to which Kiev signaled both skepticism and openness.

Xi concluded his trip to Moscow by telling Russian President Vladimir Putin “Now there are changes that haven’t happened in 100 years. When we are together, we drive these changes.”

American commentators responded that China is “emerging[…] as the leader of a Eurasian bloc,” that “[a]lliances and rivalries that have governed diplomacy for generations have[…] been upended,” and that an “anti-US world order [is] taking shape.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin share a toast, March 21, 2023. Image: Screengrab / SCMP video / Youtube

The question seems to be limited to “whether this confrontation will heat up, pushing three nuclear powers to the brink of World War III, or merely marks the opening chords of Cold War 2.0. [emphasis mine]”

Few seem interested in asking whether both World War III and Cold War 2.0 can be avoided, or why it is that China has found such a receptive audience for its diplomatic overtures.

A notable exception is Fareed Zakaria’s admirable recent column, which states bluntly that, “America’s unipolar status has corrupted the country’s foreign policy elite. Our foreign policy is all too often an exercise in making demands and issuing threats and condemnations. There is very little effort made to understand the other side’s views or actually negotiate.”

Given the Biden administration’s framing of international politics as a struggle of “democracy vs autocracy” and America’s eschewal of meaningful diplomacy with non-allies, it is unsurprising that Washington would find itself shut out from relations between Beijing, Moscow, Tehran and Riyadh.

Beijing recently stated in unusually strong terms that the US was seeking to “contain” China, an assessment which appears accurate in light of increasingly unambiguous American commitments to Taiwan and Western imposition of export restrictions on technology to China.

Washington’s attempts to isolate and hobble the Russian economy have made it inevitable that Moscow should look east for its energy exports, and increases the possibility of a renminbi-dominated trade zone eroding the global role of the dollar.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s statement that European leaders should turn Putin over to the ICC – a body whose authority the US does not even recognize – not only makes the US look hypocritical in claiming to protect the “rules-based international order,” but is tantamount to a declaration that regime change in Moscow is now official US policy.

This threatens to make the Ukrainian conflict more intractable and dangerous escalation more likely. By issuing an arrest warrant for Putin, the ICC has merely ensured that Moscow can no longer engage in normal diplomacy with the West, including an eventual settlement to the Ukraine war. This all but guarantees that if a broker emerges to negotiate an end to the war, they will not be from the West or reflect its preferences.

While continuing the Trump administration’s hawkish line towards Iran and failing to resuscitate the JCPOA nuclear deal, the Biden administration simultaneously promised to make Saudi Arabia, Tehran’s arch-nemesis, a “pariah.”

Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat (center), in Beijing on March 10, 2023, with counterparts Musaad bin Mohammed Al Aiban of Saudi Arabia and Ali Shamkhani of Iran. Image: China Daily

Despite decades of picking favorites in the region, the US has diminishing influence in either Riyadh or Jerusalem. US saber-rattling remains the primary motivation for Iran to develop nuclear weapons, an outcome the US claims it wants to avoid. And Saudi Arabia and Syria appear to be on the brink of a rapprochement, this time brokered by Moscow.

China’s mediation of a deal in the Middle East, and its growing involvement in the region, are hardly a bad thing for the US. As my colleague Ben Friedman has recently written, there is little to fear from China filling the “vacuum” left by our disengagement from the region.

Indeed, a cynical realpolitiker could only hope that Beijing would be foolish enough to follow in our footsteps.

The scorecard for American diplomacy over the past few decades is not pretty. The US, which has long sought to avoid the emergence of a hegemon on the Eurasian landmass, has united the other two great powers in an entente bound primarily by opposition to the US.

Despite a rough balance of power in the Middle East which should maximize the United States’ bilateral leverage vis-a-vis all parties, the US has somehow found a way to alienate both of the major players in the Gulf.

All this is to say: who’s isolating whom? As the foreign policy establishment wrings its hands over the formation of hostile alliances and being cut out of the diplomatic loop, it might be worth considering that if you treat everyone else as a “pariah,” you eventually become a pariah yourself.

Christopher McCallion is a Fellow at Defense Priorities. This article is republished with the kind permission of Defense Priorities

asiatimes.com · by Christopher McCallion · March 30, 2023

21. How China overreached and lost its grip in the Pacific

Hmmm... is China good or bad at this diplomacy stuff? One article says it is "winning" and another says it is losing its grip?

How China overreached and lost its grip in the Pacific

Beijing’s outreach to strategic region has perceptibly stalled as local tide turns against many of its influence-seeking initiatives and agreements

asiatimes.com · by Denny Roy · March 30, 2023

Xi Jinping is building a track record of overreaching in his foreign policies. Chinese attempts to gain influence among the Pacific island states fit this increasingly familiar pattern.

Last year, the security agreement that Beijing reached with the Solomon Islands stunned the larger liberal democratic countries upon which the Pacific island states have traditionally relied for help: the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

However, a few months into 2023, we have a better perspective on China’s drive for influence in the Pacific. The full picture suggests Beijing’s attempt to make the Pacific a Chinese lake has stalled and will face strong counter-currents for the foreseeable future. Much of the opposition Beijing faces in the Pacific is stimulated by the Chinese government’s own actions — a classic characteristic of overreach.

The situation is underscored by a statement released this month by David Panuelo, the outgoing president of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Panuelo accuses the People’s Republic of China of bribery, bullying and “direct threats against my personal safety” as part of Beijing’s effort to bend FSM to the Chinese agenda. Panuelo is using his few remaining weeks in office to warn his fellow island states that the costs of partnership with Beijing outweigh the benefits.

To be sure, the year 2022 saw two important Chinese policy successes in the Pacific. One was the security agreement that Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare signed with Beijing. Although the official text was not made public, in a leaked draft the Solomons invite Chinese security forces to keep order on the islands and welcome regular visits by PRC warships.

From left to right, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi attend a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, October 9, 2019. Photo: Thomas Peter / Pool

Deployment of Chinese police would usurp Australia’s past role of supplying police reinforcements to the Solomons when needed. Routine stopovers by the Chinese Navy would help fulfill China’s objective of getting a de facto naval base in the Pacific, which could potentially restrict Australia’s freedom of strategic maneuver.

Secondly, China expanded its influence in Kiribati, which like the Solomons switched its diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the PRC in 2019. In 2022, Kiribati made an exception to its strict Covid rules to allow a visit by PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi and the 20 members of his delegation. Wang’s group and the Kiribati government signed 10 non-transparent trade deals.

Observers fear China is gaining exclusive fishing rights in the Kiribati-administered Phoenix Islands Protected Area, a marine preserve the size of California. In July 2022, Kiribati announced it would leave an important regional organization, the Pacific Islands Forum, isolating Kiribati from neighboring governments that might counsel against excess engagement with China. The PRC has proposed upgrading a World War II-era airstrip in Kiribati, raising concerns it could also serve as a Chinese military air base.

Overall, however, the PRC arguably lost ground in the Pacific in 2022 and 2023. Chinese infrastructure building in the Pacific reflects a larger problem with the Belt and Road Initiative, which is proving burdensome for Beijing as indications emerge it may be losing money on the total package of its global loans. The momentum of Chinese economic activity in the Pacific showed signs of slowing in 2022.

China’s development aid to the Pacific peaked in 2016 and has declined annually since then. Actual PRC performance in the delivery of assistance often falls short of initial promises. Some projects are proving difficult to finish. A 2017 deal in which China would build US$4 billion worth of roads in Papua New Guinea, for example, remains in limbo.

Along with the successes, Beijing has suffered some recent setbacks. In May 2022, PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited the region. PRC officials attempted to restrict local media access severely, much the same way the PRC government manages the press inside China.

Wang pitched a sweeping economic, security and training agreement to 10 Pacific states. It included affirmation of the PRC’s “one China” and “non-interference” principles. The response by the Pacific island governments was largely negative, prompting Wang to withdraw the proposal.

In January of this year, Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said his country was terminating an agreement whereby China trained Fijian police. “Our system of democracy and justice systems are different” from China’s, he said, “so we will go back to those that have similar systems with us,” such as Australia and New Zealand.

Largely in reaction to the China-Solomons agreement, the opponents of expanded PRC influence in the Pacific raised their game in 2022. Both the New Zealand and Australian governments increased their development aid to the region. Australia signed a security deal with Vanuatu to head off China from possibly doing the same.

US President Joe Biden hosted Pacific leaders at a US-Pacific Island Country Summit, a first. The US government announced $810 million in new US assistance to the region; plans to open embassies in the Solomon Islands, Kiribati and Tonga; and the resumption of Peace Corps volunteer operations in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) said it will re-establish a mission in Fiji.

Meanwhile, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, comprised of the US, Japan, Australia and India, announced a Maritime Domain Awareness program to augment the capacity of Pacific island states to combat illegal fishing. This Partners in the Blue Pacific initiative, announced in June 2022, aims to coordinate action among the US and its allies to counter what they consider negative PRC activity in the region.

The longer term does not look promising for China in the Pacific. The PRC is at a massive soft power disadvantage vis-à-vis the United States. Pacific island societies are traditionally Christian and favorably inclined toward democratic political systems.

China, of course, falls flat on both of those counts. Pacific islands have significant diaspora communities in the US, but not in China. Given that rising sea levels are a life-or-death issue for much of the Pacific, China earns no extra points for being the world’s top emitter of greenhouse gases (though the US ranks second.)

Photo: Go Greener Oz

Pacific islanders are aware that China’s interest in the Pacific is essentially exploitative. Increasing numbers of islanders are concerned about the downsides of engagement with China: environmental damage, indebtedness, lack of benefit to the local population, worsening of corruption in their countries’ political systems and loss of sovereignty.

Recent research reveals that university students in Papua New Guinea and Fiji — the future elite of their countries — mostly oppose taking additional Chinese aid.

Making non-transparent deals with China goes against the region’s political culture of seeking consensus among the “Pacific family.” The region does not want to become an arena of US-China conflict and tends to blame the new influx of Chinese influence for this danger more than it blames longstanding US influence.

Ironically, Xi-led China has acted more like a neocolonial power than the alleged neocolonial powers of the United States, Australia and New Zealand. These Western democracies now have more than a fair opportunity to shore up their historically close relationships with the Pacific island states.

Denny Roy is a senior fellow at the East-West Center.

asiatimes.com · by Denny Roy · March 30, 2023

22. Strengthening the Medical Sphere of Influence Through Guerilla Trauma Systems and Covert Medical Intelligence Networks

Read this 2LT's bio. His photo must be included with the definition of overachiever.

Strengthening the Medical Sphere of Influence Through Guerilla Trauma Systems and Covert Medical Intelligence Networks - Irregular Warfare Initiative

irregularwarfare.org · by Mason H. Remondelli · March 30, 2023

Mason H. Remondelli

This piece was selected as a finalist in an essay contest co-sponsored by IWI and the Joint Staff J7 Office of Irregular Warfare and Competition (OIWC). Due to the nature of the contest, this piece is published with only minimal inputs from our editorial team. The views expressed do not represent the position of IWI or the US Government, including the Joint Staff J7 OIWC.

For the past twenty years, the US military has been performing counterinsurgency operations in the Middle East against an ambiguous, evasive, yet enduring adversary. The global war on terror was distinguished by its reliance on small-scale, unconventional warfare in which the United States wielded full spectrum dominance in all domains. The military adapted its doctrinal capabilities to defeat the enemy within this dispersed operational context, which also included changes to medical trauma systems that provide combat casualty care. Specialized medical teams’ ability to provide advanced surgical support in this battlespace was enabled by the unopposed aeromedical and tactical evacuation of wounded service members within the golden hour—the period of time after a traumatic injury during which medical intervention is most critical. Unfortunately, this relative luxury is unlikely to endure.

As policymakers shift their attention toward great power competition, however, this luxury likely will not be obtainable in a large-scale, conventional force-on-force fight due to the anti-access/area denial (A2AD) capabilities of Russia and China. A conventional large-scale combat operation against a technologically comparable adversary will also generate substantial combat casualties for US service members and create the need for prolonged-casualty care in a denied, hostile operational context.

To address the challenges in combat casualty care elucidated by a theater-wide distributed multi-domain environment, policymakers and military leaders should establish irregular warfare trauma systems and covert medical intelligence networks to increase the US medical sphere of influence. Asymmetric approaches to combat casualty care and medical intelligence would facilitate military force regeneration and adversarial combatant deterioration, and it would enable the United States to compete and prevail in a prolonged contest against revisionist powers.

Guerrilla Trauma Systems as a Tool of Irregular Warfare

During a period of great power competition and, potentially, conflict, military force sustainment and combat casualty return-to-duty will be paramount to erode adversarial warfighting functions, decrease revisionist global influence, and diminish the enemy’s motivation to fight. Even as the robust A2AD capabilities of competitors such as Russia and China exacerbate the challenges of casualty care and medical evacuations, the United States can establish irregular warfare trauma systems within potential areas of geostrategic contest as a framework for proactive national defense.

The creation of guerilla trauma systems within austere, expeditionary areas key to operational success would need to involve special mission units and special operations forces augmented by special operations medical teams. Such irregular warfare groups, explicitly trained in these mission sets, must locate, evaluate, and influence indigenous populations to assist the United States in its medical care objectives. The selection of indigenous guerilla trauma networks should comprise diffuse, decentralized localization of overlapping battlespaces to provide optimal casualty care at dynamic medical decisive points throughout the constantly changing multidomain environment. Once these indigenous medical groups are identified and assessed, irregular warfare units would emphasize the doctrinal teaching of battlefield medicine, including tactical combat casualty care, damage control surgery, medical evacuation, and trauma systems communication.

Constructing a network of guerrilla trauma systems will allow for pre-hospital treatment of combat casualties far forward on the battlefield by providing life-saving surgical and resuscitative care. Having guerrilla trauma systems installed antecedent to denied, hostile environments will enable continuous on-the-ground medical situational awareness, prolonged-casualty care, and the expeditious movement of casualties, resources, supplies, and personnel through underground resistance support structures. The development of guerilla trauma systems through irregular warfare activities likely will decrease combat casualty mortality, which is vital to force regeneration in the context of large-scale, perpetual strategic competition with states such as China and Russia.

Clandestine Medical Intelligence Networks

To maintain control of the operational environment, the United States should expand its clandestine and irregular warfare medical intelligence networks in areas of geostrategic importance. The implementation of irregular warfare medical intelligence lattices within indigenous and foreign countries will facilitate the gathering, analysis, and assessment of revisionist military medical capabilities. Irregular warfare and clandestine medical intelligence networks will provide key information to understand adversaries’ trauma care clinical practice guidelines, casualty and tactical evacuation protocols, medical resupply logistics, and medical personnel training. By acquiring, integrating, and examining adversarial medical protocols, the US military can exploit weaknesses within enemy medical capabilities and technology.

Covert pursuance of enemy medical intelligence—including tracking the movement of blood products, construction of field hospitals, and tactical evacuation and transportation routes—will allow for the penetration, exploitation, and disintegration of enemy troops in a denied, contested battlespace. Understanding where the enemy will build field hospitals, concentrate medical supplies, and array battlegroups before such actions occur will permit the United States and its allies to preposition long-range precision fires, mass conventional ground forces, and disrupt enemy resupply and evacuation lines. Employing irregular warfare capabilities to increase medical intelligence assets will subvert enemy combat power, dampen logistical resupply capacity, and diminish force-strength sustainment, while simultaneously enhancing combat casualty care, reducing friendly casualty numbers, and increasing the force recovery of the US military.

Psychological and Information Operations

Psychological operations and covert medical information campaigns will be critical tools in the campaign to destabilize revisionist powers. Subverting behaviors of adversarial combatants and foreign civilians through medical psychological and irregular warfare will diminish morale and reduce the will to fight. To accomplish this, the US military should create irregular warfare medical psychological processes that select tangible areas of enemy and foreign citizen vulnerabilities. These medical psychological domains can include broadcasting enemy combat casualties to target the cognitive and emotional systems of adversarial warfighters and sharing casualty totals on Russian and Chinese social media platforms to undermine civilian trust. Controlling the narrative of medical psychological operations throughout the battlespace will enable the United States to shape and influence the motives, behaviors, and reasoning of enemy combatants and civilians toward a favorable US outcome. Reducing adversarial motivation to fight would give the US military opportunity to gain a physical and psychological advantage, which in turn would reduce friendly combat casualties and increase force sustainment for an elongated conflict.

Covert medical and asymmetric warfare information campaigns will play an important role in the concealment of friendly medical logistics, casualty evacuation, and resupply missions. These efforts will be crucial to deceive Chinese and Russian military intelligence agencies from acquiring data that could be used by A2AD technology to destroy US or partner medical supply lines and to disrupt casualty evacuation processes. The ability to feign movement of medical supplies and casualty transportation will be critical for the force sustainment strategy of the United States in a prolonged force-on-force fight. Medical information operations will also be key in decreasing enemy knowledge of friendly blood product transfers and austere medical personnel activity, which are typically nested under and co-located with conventional ground forces. Psychological operations and medical information campaigns will allow the United States to overcome challenges of military force sustainment and combat casualty regeneration caused by Russia and China in the context of great power competition.

Strengthening the Global Medical Sphere of Influence

As US policymakers shift focus toward strategic competition with revisionist powers, increasing the global medical sphere of influence will be essential. To do this, the United States should develop irregular warfare guerilla trauma systems in geostrategic areas of operations that will be decisive in future conflicts. This will enable far-forward pre-hospital and prolonged trauma care to injured service members that will be necessary to overcome the casualty evacuation obstacles posed by the A2AD capabilities of Russia and China. The installation of covert or clandestine medical intelligence and information methodologies will be crucial to control the flow of information and to shape the operational context in a dispersed, irregular, and multidomain environment.

The future of warfare is assumed to be a conventional force-on-force theatre-wide combat operation with the use of land, air, naval, space, and cyber assets. Nested within this large-scale combat operation will be small, modular special operations forces and special mission units employed to undermine enemy command and control, degrade decision-making capabilities, and dampen adversarial motivation to conduct further combat operations. Thus, the US military’s ability to sustain combat effectiveness through personnel force sustainment and recovery will be paramount. Strengthening irregular warfare combat casualty systems and enhancing medical intelligence networks, while simultaneously deteriorating adversarial medical logistical support through clandestine psychological operations and medical disinformation processes, will be crucial for overall mission success.

Second Lieutenant Mason H. Remondelli is an active-duty US Army officer and second-year medical student at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, Maryland. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 2021, earning a B.S. in Life Sciences with Honors and a Minor in Nuclear Science. As a medical student, 2LT Remondelli conducts research within the USU-Department of Surgery focusing on the advancement of austere battlefield medicine, medical intelligence, and prehospital combat casualty care for the future multi-domain environment. In addition to his medical education, 2LT Remondelli is pursuing a graduate degree in International Security through the Harvard University Extension School to bridge the gap between military medicine and security policy studies.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image: US Army Reserve photo by Master Sgt. Michel Sauret.

23. Preliminary Lessons from Russia’s Unconventional Operations During the Russo-Ukrainian War, February 2022–February 2023

The 39 page report can be downloaded here: https://static.rusi.org/202303-SR-Unconventional-Operations-Russo-Ukrainian-War-web-final.pdf.pdf

I have not had a chance to read it yet but it looks promising from the summary and the table of contents.

Preliminary Lessons from Russia’s Unconventional Operations During the Russo-Ukrainian War, February 2022–February 2023

rusi.org

An early analysis of the evidence sheds light on Russia's unconventional operations in its war against Ukraine.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 sent shockwaves around the world as states reacted to the return of high-intensity state-on-state conventional warfare on the European continent. Less attention has been paid to the unconventional aspects of this conflict – and yet, these are essential to understanding Russian actions and methods. The invasion itself can be seen as the intended culmination of a long unconventional campaign waged by Russia against Ukraine. The unconventional operations during the war have often been critical to Russia’s successive theories of victory, even as its conventional forces have failed to achieve their objectives on the battlefield. For those wishing to understand the Russian way of war and to learn lessons for their own defence, it is important to study this unconventional side of the conflict.

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Main Image Credit Russian propaganda poster hanging on the administrative building of Kupiansk, Ukraine. Courtesy of Zuma Press / Alamy

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24. Bipolar disorder: my blessing and my curse

We must take all aspects mental more seriously.

Bipolar disorder: my blessing and my curse

militarytimes.com · by Gregg F. Martin · March 30, 2023

World Bipolar Day commemorates the birthday of iconic bipolar artist Vincent van Gogh on March 30 each year.

I have embraced the moniker, “Bipolar General,” taking great pride and gratitude in the fact that I have survived more than 20 years of bipolar disorder, a brutal disease of the brain that included thrilling mania, hopeless depression and terrifying psychosis (delusions and hallucinations). I survived bipolar hell. I’m on a miraculous journey of recovery, rebuilding my bipolar-shattered life into one of health, happiness and purpose.

From my teens through most of my career, I was at the low end of the bipolar spectrum, experiencing “hyperthymia”, a state of near-continual mild mania. It surely enhanced and boosted my natural talents as a student, athlete and leader, giving me extra energy, enthusiasm, drive, creativity, problem-solving abilities, and more. This condition was below the level of actual bipolar disorder, and was a blessing.

This run lasted from high school, through West Point and Army Ranger School, graduate school at MIT, and throughout most of my Army career, up to the rank of colonel, and even into the first years as a general officer.

My hyperthymia was like a natural miracle drug that worked wonders, until it went too high, morphing into actual bipolar disorder, with my genetic predisposition for the disorder triggered by the intense stress, thrill and euphoria of leading soldiers in combat during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

What I learned in Ranger School helped me through a mental health crisis

The Ranger spirit of “embrace the suck,” never quit, and drive on through to the objective, was key to my recovery and building a new life of meaning and purpose.

By Gregg F. Martin

For the first several years of the full-on disorder, my high-performing mania enhanced my performance. But as it progressed — as yet undiagnosed — my mania took me ever higher and my depression and psychosis plunged me lower.

In 2014, as President of the National Defense University in Washington D.C., I went into full-blown mania and became so disruptive and over-the-top, that I was forced to resign and retire, thus ending my Army career.

Within months, I crashed into hopeless depression and terrifying psychosis, including delusions and hallucinations, and slogged through two years of bipolar hell, where vivid visions and hopes of death were my constant companions.

It took God’s grace, my own will to recover and an army of angels to lift me up and launch me on a journey of recovery: my loving wife Maggie, my devoted battle buddy retired Col. Bill Barko, and the team at the VA hospital in White River Junction, Vermont. Lithium, psychotherapy and a move to bright, warm, sunny Florida were also key.

Seven years into this recovery journey, I am living a wonderful new life of health, happiness and purpose, but with bipolar disorder ever lurking in my brain, threatening to take me down again. I am fighting a “forever war” that requires constant vigilance. I’ve had two dangerous episodes – near misses — in the past two years which could easily have launched a relapse back into full-blown bipolar disorder. I was fortunate.

But while recovering, my hyperthymic personality has mostly returned, and I am a lot like my old, pre-bipolar disorder self: energetic, enthusiastic, driven, creative and happy. After helping me to achieve the rank of two-star general, my bipolar disorder ended my career and nearly destroyed me and all that I value.

My crash and recovery have made me a better person — more humble, kind, generous and empathetic, as well as even more of a people-person. I live in a wonderful place, with a vibrant circle of friends, with an inspirational life purpose of “sharing my bipolar story to help stop the stigma, alleviate suffering, and save lives.” I write, speak and confer on bipolar disorder and mental health. I’ve written my first book. I enjoy my wonderful family. My life is rich and full.

After decades of bipolar benefit, then years of bipolar destruction and hell, my life today on the bipolar spectrum is once again my friend. But over the span of my lifetime, it’s been both a blessing and a curse.

Gregg F. Martin, PhD, is a 36-year Army combat veteran, retired two-star general, and bipolar survivor and thriver. A former president of the National Defense University, he is a qualified Airborne-Ranger-Engineer and Strategist, and a graduate of West Point and MIT. His new book, Bipolar General: My Forever War with Mental Illness, is available at Amazon. For more information, see www.generalgreggmartin.com.

These views are solely those of the author, and do not purport to be the views of the Department of Defense or the U.S. government.

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De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

Access NSS HERE

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RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MARCH 29, 2023

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