​Quotes of the Day:

"Even in former days Korea was known as the hermit kingdom for its stubborn resistance to outsiders, and if you wanted to create a totally isolated and hermetic society, northern Korea in the years after the 1953 'armistice' would have been the place to start. It was bounded on two sides by the sea, and to the south by the impregnable and uncrossable DMZ, which divided it from South Korea. Its northern frontier consisted of a long stretch of China and a short stretch of Siberia; in other words its only continuous neighbors were Mao and Stalin. (The next nearest neighbor was Japan, historic enemy of the Koreans, and cruel colonial occupier until 1945.) Add to that the fact that almost every work of man had been reduced to shards by the Korean War. Air Force general Curtis Lemay later boasted that 'we burned down every town in North Korea,' and that he grounded his bombers only when there were no more targets to hit anywhere north of the 38th parallel. Pyongyang was an ashen moonscape. It was Year Zero. Kim Il Sung could create a laboratory, with controlled conditions, where he alone would be the engineer of the human soul." 

- Christopher Hitchens.

"I must study politics and war that my son may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy." 

- John Adams

"It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.... This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking." 

- Isaac Asimov

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 25, 2023

2. China is erasing mention of its former foreign minister. But it still hasn’t said why

3. The State Department’s China Shortfall Revealed

4. Xi Jinping Is Trying to Adapt to Failure

5. Federal judge vacates Bowe Bergdahl's conviction and dishonorable discharge

6. Dismissal Of China’s Foreign Minister Reflects Internal Turmoil – Analysis

7.  Proposed military slush fund would risk new boondoggles: Experts - Responsible Statecraft

8. Matt Gaetz, Rick Scott fear Air Force may move Special Ops command off Hurlburt Field

9. It’s past time to unleash the defense commissaries

10. Ex-NSA, CIA official Harry Coker in line to be next National Cyber Director: White House

11. Biden picks next Pentagon policy chief, testing Tuberville’s blockade (Derek Chollet)

12. The war in Ukraine is spurring a revolution in drone warfare using AI

13. Senate Targets China, Voting to Restrict Farmland Purchases and U.S. Investment

14. Special Operations News Update - July 26, 2023 | SOF News

15.  Rand Paul fights to preserve the Constitution's prominence over NATO authority

16. Biden picks Allvin to be next Air Force top officer

17. Prigozhin as Petitioner: Making Sense of the “March for Justice”

18. The Oppenheimer Film, The Nuclear Bombing Of Japan And The Lies Told

19. 

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 25, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-25-2023

Key Takeaways:

•  Russian President Vladimir Putin continued to manifest concern over potential threats that the Wagner Group and its financier Yevgeny Prigozhin may pose during an impromptu two-day extension of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s visit to St. Petersburg. Lukashenko likely seeks to leverage his power over the Wagner Group to gain concessions from Putin.
• Russian leadership is attempting to mitigate the security vacuum left by the Wagner Group’s departure by creating formalized but decentralized military “enterprises” on the basis of federal subjects (regions).
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front and advanced on July 25.
• Russian forces conducted another series of Shahed drone strikes on rear areas of Ukraine overnight on July 24-25.
• The Angry Patriots Club continues efforts to cast former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin (Strelkov) as an opposition figure and may be attempting to appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin through rhetoric about the illegality of Girkin’s arrest.
• Putin and the Kremlin reportedly failed to respond promptly to the Wagner Group’s June 24 rebellion, leaving local Russian officials to make decisions concerning the group’s drive on Moscow.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations near Svatove, Kreminna, the Bakhmut area, the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area, and the Zaporizhia-Donetsk Oblast border area and made claimed advances near Svatove, Kreminna, and Bakhmut.
• Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations near Kreminna, the Bakhmut area, the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area, along the administrative border between Zaporizhia and Donetsk oblasts, and western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced in the Bakhmut area, in some areas along the administrative border between Zaporizhia and Donetsk oblasts, and west of Orikhiv.
• US intelligence officials warned on July 25 that Russia’s drone supply will dramatically increase as a result of continued bilateral Russo-Iranian cooperation.
• Russian officials continue efforts to deconflict legal discrepancies as part of the incorporation of occupied territories.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JULY 25, 2023

Jul 25, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 25, 2023

Nicole Wolkov, Angelica Evans, Riley Bailey, Karolina Hird, Christina Harward, and Frederick W. Kagan

July 25, 2023, 7:20pm 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 map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.

Note: The data cutoff for this product was 12:30pm ET on July 25. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the July 26 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin continued to manifest concern over potential threats that the Wagner Group and its financier Yevgeny Prigozhin may pose during an impromptu two-day extension of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s visit to St. Petersburg. BBC’s Russian Service reported on July 25 that Putin told Lukashenko at the beginning of their July 23 meeting that Putin was ready to adjust his schedule to prolong Lukashenko’s visit and “discuss important topics in more detail.”[1] Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov reported on July 25 that Putin and Lukashenko intended to “’synchronize watches’ and exchange views” but not sign any agreements during their prolonged meeting.[2] Peskov also reported that Putin and Lukashenko discussed the Wagner Group, the Union State, and external threats on the borders of Russia and Belarus.[3] Putin’s decision to prolong his meeting with Lukashenko likely shows Putin’s continued concerns about Wagner, which it appears that Lukashenko did not allay.

Lukashenko likely seeks to leverage his power over the Wagner Group to gain concessions from Putin. A Russian insider source claimed that the Wagner Group was the most important topic during the Putin-Lukashenko meeting, and that Lukashenko sought more economic assistance to Belarus through Union State programs.[4] The insider source also claimed that Putin wanted Belarus to be more involved in the war in Ukraine and rejected Lukashenko’s compromise offer to have Belarusian forces conduct a show of force on Belarus’ border with Ukraine.[5]  Lukashenko was likely trying to leverage Putin’s concern over the Wagner Group throughout the entire visit to Russia to gain favorable conditions in Belarusian-Russian relations while deflecting Putin’s demands for closer integration into the Union State and support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Russian leadership is attempting to mitigate the security vacuum left by the Wagner Group’s departure by creating formalized but decentralized military “enterprises” on the basis of federal subjects (regions). The Russian State Duma adopted the second and third readings of amendments to the federal law regulating the circulation of weapons in constituent entities of the Russian Federation on July 25 that will allow heads of Russian federal subjects to create specialized state unitary enterprises.[6] Russian opposition media noted that certain intricacies in the amendments allow regional heads to create regionally based militarized state enterprises that are analogous to private military companies (PMCs) during a period of mobilization under martial law.[7] The amendments notably require regional and local budgets to finance the special enterprises, which will be equipped with small arms by the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and will assist the Russian State Security Service (FSB), Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) and other military authorities in ensuring public order and border security.[8] The amendments would allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to create the enterprises on a temporary basis and later abolish them, after which these enterprises would have to transfer all small arms and other weapons back to the Russian MoD within a month.[9]

The Kremlin is likely trying to balance two competing security requirements—the need for combat capable formations that can fulfill roles left by the Wagner Group following their armed rebellion and relocation to Belarus and the desire not to recreate the systemic threats to the Russian state that Wagner’s independence posed. The creation of formal militarized state enterprises that will fulfill border security and domestic law enforcement tasks is likely intended in part to remedy the gap left by Wagner. However, the fact that these enterprises are so heavily decentralized and will operate under the auspices of internal security organs on the basis and expense of regional and local governments suggests that the Russian military leadership is very alive to the risk of recreating a powerful Wagner analogue and is therefore trying to limit the scale and power each individual enterprise can obtain. These state enterprises also appear to be a renewed iteration of the failed volunteer battalion model that Russian regions employed throughout the summer of 2022, but these enterprises will operate under formalized and consolidated domestic security organs such as the FSB, likely to mitigate many of the weaknesses in the old volunteer battalion system.

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front and advanced on July 25.[10] Geolocated footage published on July 25 shows that Ukrainian forces have made tactically significant gains south of Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut).[11] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in the Bakhmut, Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast), and Berdyansk (Zaporizhia-Donetsk Oblast border area) directions.[12] Ukrainian sources reported that Ukrainian forces advanced up to 750 meters in the direction of Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka), and Russian sources claimed Ukrainian forces made marginal advances west of Orikhiv.[13] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported that Russian forces are dying at a rate eight times higher than Ukrainian forces in the Bakhmut area and 5.3 times higher in the Berdyansk and Melitopol directions.[14] ISW has previously assessed that Ukrainian counteroffensive operations aim to create an asymmetrical attrition gradient that conserves Ukrainian manpower at the cost of a slower rate of territorial gains, while gradually wearing down Russian manpower and equipment.[15]

Russian forces conducted another series of Shahed drone strikes on rear areas of Ukraine overnight on July 24-25. Ukrainian Air Force Spokesperson Colonel Yuriy Ihnat reported on July 25 that Ukrainian forces recorded the launch of about 10 Shahed drones, five of which Ukrainian forces destroyed.[16] Ukrainian military sources reported drones over Kyiv City and Cherkasy, Sumy, Poltava, and Zhytomyr oblasts.[17] The Kyiv City Military Administration noted that this was the sixth drone strike on the capital city in July alone.[18] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and other Russian sources claimed that the strikes targeted Ukrainian concentration areas, Western-provided military equipment and other military infrastructure, but Ukrainian sources noted that many of the drones struck open fields and empty hangars.[19]

The Angry Patriots Club continues efforts to cast former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin (Strelkov) as an opposition figure and may be attempting to appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin through rhetoric about the illegality of Girkin’s arrest. The Angry Patriots Club, known in the Russian information space for its virulent pro-war, ultranationalist rhetoric and willingness to criticize the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), the Kremlin, and even Putin himself, has unexpectedly postured itself as an organization concerned about the rule of law following Girkin’s arrest.[20] The organization is attempting to cast Girkin as an opposition figure in Russian politics by arguing that his arrest is unlawful and by launching the social media campaign “#FreedomtoStrelkov.”[21] The Angry Patriots Club may be employing rhetoric about the illegality of Girkin’s arrest as an appeal to Putin, who has historically (and ironically) portrayed himself as a defender of Russian democracy and has seemingly been hesitant to abandon the veil of legitimacy that Russia’s democratic institutions provide his authoritarian and corrupt rule.[22] The Angry Patriots Club may believe that the veneer of legality in Russia is personally important to Putin and that Putin might feel compelled to intervene if he believes Girkin’s arrest and detention is illegal. It is a further irony that Girkin’s statements seem straightforwardly to violate Russia’s repressive laws prohibiting criticism of the war and its leaders.[23] Russian opposition figures Alexei Navalny and Mikhail Khodorkovsky amplified the Angry Patriots Club’s framing of Girkin as a political prisoner and his arrest as illegal, though it is unclear how Navalny and Khodorkovsky intend for their support to affect Girkin’s detention and eventual sentencing.[24]

Putin and the Kremlin reportedly failed to respond promptly to the Wagner Group’s June 24 rebellion, leaving local Russian officials to make decisions concerning the group’s drive on Moscow. The Washington Post reported on July 25 that Ukrainian and European security officials stated that Putin did not issue orders for most of June 24 despite warnings from Russian security services about the likelihood of the rebellion at least two or three days beforehand.[25] Russian security services reportedly increased security at several strategic locations, including the Kremlin, in the days before the rebellion but took no other actions.[26] Regional Russian officials reportedly had to decide how to respond to the rebellion, and regional military and security officials were reportedly the ones that decided not to try to stop Wagner convoys by force.[27] The Kremlin’s and Putin’s alleged lack of response indicates that the Russian security apparatus had likely not prepared for a direct challenge to the Russian military leadership and likely did not have the capacity to quickly bring the rebellion to an end. The Kremlin is likely aware that its paralysis highlighted a degree of regime instability and appears to be consolidating Russia’s internal security apparatus in the Rosgvardia (Russian National Guard) to prepare for further internal threats and to signal resolve.[28] Putin’s failure to act quickly also suggests that he is uncertain about his ability to rally the Russian elite around him and may indicate how factional internal Kremlin politics have become. A senior NATO official reportedly stated that unspecified senior Russian political figures in Moscow appeared ready to rally behind Prigozhin in the event that Wagner’s rebellion succeeded.[29] The Kremlin is likely trying to identify Russian elites who may have been prepared to side with Prigozhin and likely views regional officials’ decisions not to stop Wagner's advance as an indicator of disloyalty. Tula Oblast Governor and former head of Russia’s Special Operations Forces Alexei Dyumin has likely drawn further suspicion due to his previous affiliations with Prigozhin and his role in the negotiations that ended the rebellion.[30]

Key Takeaways:

•  Russian President Vladimir Putin continued to manifest concern over potential threats that the Wagner Group and its financier Yevgeny Prigozhin may pose during an impromptu two-day extension of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s visit to St. Petersburg. Lukashenko likely seeks to leverage his power over the Wagner Group to gain concessions from Putin.
• Russian leadership is attempting to mitigate the security vacuum left by the Wagner Group’s departure by creating formalized but decentralized military “enterprises” on the basis of federal subjects (regions).
• Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front and advanced on July 25.
• Russian forces conducted another series of Shahed drone strikes on rear areas of Ukraine overnight on July 24-25.
• The Angry Patriots Club continues efforts to cast former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin (Strelkov) as an opposition figure and may be attempting to appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin through rhetoric about the illegality of Girkin’s arrest.
• Putin and the Kremlin reportedly failed to respond promptly to the Wagner Group’s June 24 rebellion, leaving local Russian officials to make decisions concerning the group’s drive on Moscow.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations near Svatove, Kreminna, the Bakhmut area, the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area, and the Zaporizhia-Donetsk Oblast border area and made claimed advances near Svatove, Kreminna, and Bakhmut.
• Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations near Kreminna, the Bakhmut area, the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area, along the administrative border between Zaporizhia and Donetsk oblasts, and western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced in the Bakhmut area, in some areas along the administrative border between Zaporizhia and Donetsk oblasts, and west of Orikhiv.
• US intelligence officials warned on July 25 that Russia’s drone supply will dramatically increase as a result of continued bilateral Russo-Iranian cooperation.
• Russian officials continue efforts to deconflict legal discrepancies as part of the incorporation of occupied territories.

We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because these 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 the Ukrainian 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 push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast) 

Russian forces conducted offensive operations near Svatove and made claimed advances on July 25. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that elements of the 15th Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Combined Arms Army, Central Military District) captured Serhiivka (12km southwest of Svatove) and advanced along a front four kilometers wide to a depth of two kilometers in the area.[31] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of this claim, however. Russian sources claimed that Russian forces crossed the Zherebets River and attacked Ukrainian positions near Karmazynivka (12km southwest of Svatove).[32] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces expanded their foothold near Novoyehorivka (15km southwest of Svatove).[33] Former Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Head Serhiy Haidai reported on July 25 that Russian forces are attacking in groups of 50 to 70 personnel and are using “Storm-Z” units in the Kupyansk and Lyman directions.[34]

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks near Kreminna and made claimed advances on July 25. The Russian MoD claimed that elements of the 234th Airborne Assault Regiment (76th Air Assault Division) repelled Ukrainian attacks in the Serebryanske forest area (10km southwest of Kreminna), counterattacked, and advanced 1.5 kilometers.[35] ISW has not observed visual evidence to confirm this claim. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful attacks south of Dibrova (7km southwest of Kreminna).[36] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Torske (15km west of Kreminna).[37]

The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Kreminna and did not make any advances on July 25. The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Chervonopopivka (6km north of Kreminna), Nevske (18km northwest of Kreminna), Bilohorivka (10km south of Kreminna), Torske, and in the Serebryanske forest area.[38]

Recent Russian MoD claims of Russian advances along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line may be exaggerated in order to draw attention away from Ukrainian counteroffensive efforts elsewhere along the front, as ISW has previously assessed.[39] Russian milbloggers are not widely amplifying or circulating the Russian MoD’s claims of Russian gains, which is a deviation from the typical information space cycle and suggests that the MoD claims are likely exaggerated for rhetorical effect. Ukrainian military sources have additionally not acknowledged any fighting in these areas over the past several days, even as they acknowledge Russian ground attacks elsewhere in the theater. ISW has not observed either visual confirmation or additional milblogger speculation of fighting or gains in these areas.

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

Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in the Bakhmut area and made tactically significant gains south of Bakhmut on July 25. Geolocated footage posted on July 25 shows that Ukrainian forces advanced south of Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut).[40] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces gained a position on the heights adjacent to Klishchiivka on July 24 and that there is heavy fighting on the outskirts of the settlement.[41] Several milbloggers also claimed that Ukrainian forces occupied a section of the heights near Klishchiivka and that Ukrainian forces entered the southern and southwestern outskirts of the settlement.[42] One Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces occupy 90 percent of the forest area along the western outskirts of Klishchiivka.[43] Several milbloggers claimed that neither Russian nor Ukrainian forces control the entire settlement, however.[44] The Ukrainian General Staff reported on July 25 that Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations north and south of Bakhmut and that Russian forces withdrew from Andriivka (20km southwest of Bakhmut and directly south of Klishchiivka.[45]  A Russian milblogger also claimed that Ukrainian forces broke through Russian defensive lines to Andriivka (10km southwest of Bakhmut), though other milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces have increased offensive operations but have not advanced to the settlement.[46]

Russian forces continued ground attacks in the Bakhmut area on July 25 and reportedly advanced north of Bakhmut. The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations northwest of Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut), south of Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut), east of Stupochky (12km southwest of Bakhmut), near Dyliivka (15km southwest of Bakhmut), and west of Klishchiivka.[47] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that elements of the Russian Southern Grouping of Forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Klishchiivka and Zaitseve (20km south of Bakhmut).[48] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces regained control of the outskirts of Berkhivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut) and unspecified territory and positions in the forest area near Yahidne (2km north of Bakhmut).[49] Another milblogger claimed that Russian forces unsuccessfully counterattacked near Bohdanivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut), Orikhovo-Vasylivka, and Klishchiivka and did not advance.[50] Several milbloggers amplified footage claiming to show elements of the Russian 14th Territorial Defense Battalion ”Ghost” (4th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade, Luhansk People’s Republic’s [LNR] 2nd Army Corps) operating near Klishchiivka.[51]

Russian sources reported that Ukrainian forces conducted ground attacks in the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area on July 25 and did not advance. The Russian MoD claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka) and Marinka (on the southwestern outskirts of Donetsk City).[52]

Russian forces conducted ground attacks in the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area on July 25 but did not advance. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Avdiivka, Pervomaiske, Marinka, and Krasnohorivka (directly west of Donetsk City).[53] A Russian milblogger posted footage claiming to show elements of the Russian 1st Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade “Slavic” (Donetsk People’s Republic’s [DNR] 1st Army Corps) operating near Opytne (4km southwest of Avdiivka).[54]

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

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations along the administrative border between Zaporizhia and Donetsk oblasts on July 25 and reportedly made gains in some areas. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Berdyansk (Zaporizhia-Donetsk Oblast border area) direction and achieved success in the direction of Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka).[55] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Major Valerii Shershen stated that Ukrainian forces advanced up to 750m in the direction of Staromayorske.[56] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported that Russian elements of the Eastern Grouping of Forces repelled four Ukrainian assaults near Staromayorske.[57] A Russian milblogger claimed that a small Ukrainian infantry group conducted an assault on the northern outskirts of Staromayorske.[58] Russian sources also claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian assaults near Pryyutne (16km southwest of Velyka Novosilka) and Urozhaine (9km south of Velyka Novosilka).[59] Russian milbloggers amplified footage on July 25 showing elements of the Donetsk People‘s Republic (DNR) ”Kaskad” Operational Tactical Combat Formation operating near Novomayorske (18km southeast of Velyka Novosilka) and elements of the 14th Spetsnaz Brigade (Main Directorate of the General Staff [GRU]) operating in an unspecified location in western Donetsk Oblast.[60] 

Russian forces conducted limited counterattacks in the Zaporizhia-Donetsk Oblast border area but did not advance on July 25. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted an unsuccessful ground attack in the direction of Rivnopil (11km southwest of Velyka Novosilka).[61] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces also unsuccessfully counterattacked near Pryyutne.[62]

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast and reportedly made marginal advances west of Orikhiv on July 25. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensives in the Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast) direction.[63] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted assaults from near Lobkove (26km southwest of Orikhiv) towards Luhove (31km southwest of Orikhiv) and noted that Ukrainian forces in the area usually conduct assaults from near Pyatykhatky (25km southwest of Orikhiv) towards Zherebyanky (26km southwest of Orikhiv).[64] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces retreated to unspecified prepared lines of defense in the area.[65] Other Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian assaults in the Pyatykhatky area and that Russian artillery units struck a small Ukrainian group with armored vehicles that tried to advance in the direction of Robotyne (12km south of Orikhiv).[66]

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Director Raphael Grossi acknowledged on July 24 that Russian forces have laid additional mines on the periphery of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).[67] Grossi stated that IAEA inspectors saw additional Russian mines in a buffer zone between the ZNPP’s internal and external perimeter barriers.[68] Grossi reiterated that the IAEA has been aware of the previous placement of mines outside of the ZNPP perimeter and at places within the ZNPP perimeter.[69]

A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian artillery units prevented a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group from landing near the Antonivsky Bridge on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast.[70]

A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted another strike on rear Russian targets in Crimea on July 25. The milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces struck a Russian military equipment repair facility near Kremnivka (51km north of Simferopol) with three Storm Shadow cruise missiles, damaging three units of unspecified equipment.[71]

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Ukrainian forces attacked a Russian patrol ship with naval drones on the night of July 24 to 25. The MoD claimed that Russian forces destroyed two Ukrainian naval drones within a kilometer of the “Sergey Kotov” patrol ship of the Black Sea Fleet as it was conducting navigation control tasks 370km southwest of Sevastopol.[72]

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

US intelligence officials warned on July 25 that Russia’s drone supply will dramatically increase as a result of continued bilateral Russo-Iranian cooperation. Analysts from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) told reporters that after the completion of the Shahed drone manufacturing facility in the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia will likely have a stockpile of drones “orders of magnitude larger” than what Russia has been able to procure from Iran to date.[73]

The Russian military is allegedly continuing dangerous and illogical ammunition storage practices. A Kremlin-affiliated Russian milblogger claimed that Russian inspectors reprimanded Russian forces along the front line in southern Ukraine for placing ammunition stores at a distance from one another.[74] ISW has observed footage of the recent Ukrainian strikes on Russian ammunition depots in Crimea that suggests that the Russian military is concentrating ammunition stores at least in rear areas such that Ukrainian strikes trigger many secondary explosions over a long period of time. Sound practice dictates separating smaller ammunition stores from one another whenever possible. The allegation that select Russian commanders are countermanding local commanders’ sounder storage plans and reprimanding those commanders for trying to do the tactically appropriate thing speaks to several of the systemic command and control issues faced by Russian troops in southern Ukraine.

The Russian State Duma adopted numerous laws and amendments on July 25 related to Russia’s war effort. The State Duma adopted amendments that would raise the upper limit of the conscription age, meaning that Russian citizens aged 18-30 will be eligible for conscription starting in January 2024.[75] The head of the State Duma Defense Committee Andrey Kartapolov stated that the Russian legislature amended the law because ”the demographic situation is serious” and is affecting the number of citizens available for mobilization.[76] Kartapolov said that the amendments were written ”for a major war, for general mobilization,“ suggesting the amendments were not related to the ongoing so-called ”special military operation” but rather for a hypothetical future large-scale war.[77] The Duma also adopted a law that would simplify the public procurement procedures of the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and is aimed at expediting the process of supplying military formations operating in Ukraine.[78] The Duma additionally approved amendments that will allow citizens to be detained for 30 days under martial law rather than the current 48 hours.[79] The Duma is also considering amendments that would prohibit Russian citizens from leaving the country as soon as authorities enter their summonses into the electronic register.[80]

Activities 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 officials continue efforts to deconflict legal discrepancies as part of the incorporation of occupied territories. The Southern Military District (SMD) military court began hearing criminal cases for 18 members of the Ukrainian “Aidar” battalion on July 25.[81] Russian state newswire TASS reported that Russian occupation officials initially started proceedings under Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) criminal code but that Russian officials have reclassified the case under the Russian criminal code.[82] Russian authorities recently transferred sham trials for 22 ”Azov militants” from occupied Mariupol to Rostov-on-Don, Rostov Oblast, reportedly due to bureaucratic challenges resulting from discrepancies between DNR and Russian legal statutes.[83]

Ukrainian sources confirmed that additional Russian government organs are involved in the relocation of Ukrainian children from occupied territories to Russia. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on July 25 that the Russian Ministry of Nature organized vacations for 77 children from occupied Zaporizhia Oblast to Stavropol Krai in coordination with administrators at the Stavropol State Pedagogical Insitute.[84]

Significant activity in Belarus (Russian efforts to increase its military presence in Belarus and further integrate Belarus into Russian-favorable frameworks and Wagner Group activity in Belarus).

A Wagner-affiliated source claimed that remaining Wagner forces will leave occupied Luhansk Oblast by August 1 due to the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) requiring that all Wagner personnel leave the “special operation” zone by August 1.[85]  Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed in June prior to the rebellion that Wagner forces would return to fight in Ukraine on August 5 following two months of training and rest.[86] It is unlikely that Wagner forces will rejoin hostilities in Ukraine in the foreseeable future because they lack the requisite heavy weaponry. The Russian MoD reported that Wagner forces planned to relinquish all heavy weaponry on June 27, geolocated footage of Wagner convoys moving to Belarus does not show them transporting heavy weaponry to new training grounds, and satellite images of Wagner camps in Belarus do not show heavy weaponry in or near the camps.[87] Wagner Group fighters may have the combat capability to fight in Ukraine in small infantry groups armed with basic small arms, but this is unlikely if the Russian MoD ordered that all Wagner forces leave occupied Luhansk Oblast by August 1. ISW continues to assess that Wagner forces in Belarus currently pose no significant threat to Ukraine or to NATO.[88]

Wagner forces continue to train Belarusian forces. Geolocated footage published on July 24 shows Wagner personnel training Belarusian forces at a training ground near Brest, Brest Oblast.[89] Photos published on July 24 purportedly show Wagner commanders with the Belarusian Special Rapid Response (SOBR) commander, Minsk Special Police (OMON) commander, the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs who is also 3rd Separate Red Banner Spetsnaz Brigade (also known as Military Unit 3214) commander, and the “Almaz” Special Anti-Terrorism Unit commander, after joint training at an unspecified location in Belarus.[90] Photos published on July 25 purportedly show joint training between Wagner forces and the Belarusian 51st Artillery Brigade near Asipovichy, Mogilev Oblast.[91] The Belarusian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Wagner instructors are conducting joint exercises with various Belarusian forces including special operations, mechanized, engineering, radiation, chemical, and biological protection, and communications units.[92]

ISW will continue to report daily observed Russian and Belarusian military activity in Belarus, as part of ongoing Kremlin efforts to increase their control over Belarus and other Russian actions in Belarus.

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.

2. China is erasing mention of its former foreign minister. But it still hasn’t said why

China is erasing mention of its former foreign minister. But it still hasn’t said why

Analysis by Simone McCarthy

Updated 4:03 AM EDT, Wed July 26, 2023

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/26/china/xi-jinping-foreign-ministry-qin-gang-wang-yi-intl-hnk/index.html?utm_source=pocket_saves

Video shows scene at shooting in New Zealand

Hong KongCNN — 

Five weeks ago, the world watched as China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Beijing for high stakes talks between the two powers.

But anyone looking for reference to that important event on the website of China’s Foreign Ministry will be disappointed, as that meeting – and all of Qin’s activities as foreign minister – has been erased from the record following a head-spinning leadership shake-up Tuesday that saw Qin abruptly replaced by his predecessor Wang Yi.

The shock ouster, approved by a top body within China’s rubber-stamp legislature, had followed weeks of questions and speculation about Qin’s fate after he disappeared from public view in late June, without a clear explanation.

The latest twist in the saga – the complete erasure of Qin’s swift, six-month tenure as foreign minister and his replacement by Wang, who held that post for roughly a decade before a promotion late last year – only serves to deepen the mystery.

Qin’s whereabouts, the reason for his removal, and his ultimate fate as a member of China’s Communist Party all remain unknown.

Unanswered questions about official decision-making are standard in China, where the political system is notoriously opaque and has only become more so under Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Senior Chinese officials have disappeared from public view in the past only to turn up months later in announcements they’ve been under secret disciplinary investigation.

But the circumstances that have played out in recent weeks surrounding Qin – widely seen as a trusted aide of Xi and one of China’s most recognizable officials as the face of its foreign policy and a former ambassador to the US – has brought those features of China’s political system into the global spotlight.

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This is the last time China's foreign minister was seen in public

01:10 - Source: CNN

“The lack of transparency is already a well known issue for the Chinese bureaucracy. And decisions are fine until they are not. And when they are not, it usually creates much bigger trouble for the system,” said Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Washington-based think tank Stimson Center.

“The swift replacement does not reflect well on Xi for sure. At the minimum, people will be questioning what went wrong and made the replacement necessary. But it also suggests that the cause must be grave for (Qin) to be removed,” she added.

Meanwhile, the timing of the episode, as China has been campaigning to present its leadership as an appealing alternative to that of the West, only ups the potentially damaging optics.

“Qin’s removal will reinforce perceptions abroad that the Communist Party is an opaque and unreliable diplomatic partner … (and) do no favors for Beijing’s international efforts to portray its governance system as worthy of praise and emulation,” said Neil Thomas, a fellow for Chinese Politics at Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis.

What this means for China, and Xi

Qin’s appointment to the post of foreign minister last year over more experienced candidates was seen as a sign of deep trust bestowed on him by Xi, who stacked China’s leadership with his close allies as he consolidated power last year while entering a norm-breaking third term as leader.

“It is widely believed that Xi has a very small inner circle of people that he consults, and on top of that is over confident and makes decisions based on his own instincts,” said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific program.

“Qin is his protege, and therefore this will necessarily reflect badly on Xi. However, that doesn’t mean that this episode will pose a challenge to his power,” she said.

As the news of the leadership changes were flashed by Chinese state media Tuesday evening, China’s vast apparatus for controlling public discussion around political and social events moved into gear.

Xi Jinping's foreign minister ousted after month-long unexplained absence from public view

Social media hashtags relating to Qin’s removal were censored on the popular Chinese social media app Weibo, including at least one that aimed to evade censors by discussing the decision under a hashtag about a television show set around the time of China’s ancient Qin dynasty.

Meanwhile, hashtags about Wang’s appointment remained live on the platform Wednesday morning, but were only showing posts from verified accounts, largely state media or government agencies, without any user generated comments visible.

“It is likely that the official media outlets will propagate the idea that the top leadership is wise in removing a senior official who had been trusted and henceforth was found making mistakes,” said Li Mingjiang, an associate professor of international relations at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

Depending on what further information comes about Qin’s circumstances, Chinese media “can always spin around to say that this is an example of the Party’s determination to take strict disciplinary actions whenever a senior official is found of doing things wrong,” he added.

It remains unclear when, or if, further information will be released about the reasons for Qin’s removal, and that void in information has been filled with rampant rumor and speculation.

When asked earlier this month about why Qin had missed a diplomatic gathering, a ministry spokesperson cited “health reasons.”

During a regular ministry briefing Wednesday, a spokesperson refused to provide information on why Qin was replaced and said the ministry website was “updated in accordance with the relevant regulations,” when asked why records of Qin’s time as foreign minister were removed.

Qin for now appears to have retained his domestic-facing, high-level administrative post as State Councilor.

But observers of elite Chinese politics say that the silence around why he has been replaced and his erasure from the ministry website point to political reasons, which could become clear in coming months if there is an official announcement of an investigation against him.

“Beijing is reserving the flexibility to decide on their stories later. I don’t think an announcement about what happened will happen anytime soon. Beijing will wait till people almost forgot about it to avoid more attention,” said Sun in Washington.

‘Safe hands’

The Foreign Ministry shake-up comes at a particularly sensitive time in China’s international relations. Beijing is seeking to stabilize fractious relations with the United States and woo back a Europe that has been increasingly suspicious of China’s close ties to Russia as it wages war on Ukraine.

And while Qin’s mysterious disappearance and ousting makes for awkward international optics, it also places China’s foreign policy back in the hands of a seasoned veteran who filled the role from 2013 to 2022.

When asked about Qin and Wang in a press briefing Tuesday, American diplomat Blinken said the US would engage with “whoever the relevant Chinese counterparts” are in order to manage the US-China relationship.

“I’ve also known Wang Yi for more than a decade. I’ve met with him repeatedly in my current capacity as Secretary of State and including just recently in Jakarta and I anticipate being able to work well with him as we have in the past,” Blinken said, noting that he “wished (Qin) well.”

Xi Jinping's foreign minister has vanished from public view. His prolonged absence is driving intense speculation

Wang in recent years has been known for his combative “wolf warrior” stance, but has also been seen as a smooth operator, regularly dispatched to tackle China’s thorniest diplomatic issues and meet with close allies, including a February trip to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kept on by Xi despite having reached the standard retirement age during a five-yearly leadership reshuffle last October, he was promoted late last year to the role of China’s top diplomat, overseeing the foreign affairs arm of the ruling Communist Party (a separate and distinct body from that of the government foreign ministry).

It appears he’ll now fill that post and his old one – an arrangement that Asia Society’s Thomas suggests could be temporary while also allowing Wang to navigate a period of months that could see Xi visit the US in November for an economic summit.

His appointment, however, overlooks an ample bench of potential candidates, according to Victor Shih, director of the University of California San Diego’s 21st Century China Center, which “suggests that the top leadership is unsure of a good replacement and opted for a safe option and a pair of steady hands.”

“This desire might give us a hint of what exactly happened to Qin Gang,” he said.

CNN’s Beijing bureau contributed to this report.

3. The State Department’s China Shortfall Revealed

This is quite an indictment of our years of an "Asia pivot."

Excerpt:

The State Department’s Asia branch has been underfunded for decades. Feith said that during the Trump administration, U.S. officials and diplomats did a counting exercise that showed that only between 8 percent and 10 percent of total American foreign aid was going to the Indo-Pacific region.

The State Department’s China Shortfall Revealed

Diplomats need more money to counter the other superpower in the Indo-Pacific, but they may have to wait.

By Robbie Gramer and Jack Detsch

FP subscribers can now receive digests of new stories written by these authors.

Foreign Policy · by Robbie Gramer, Jack Detsch · July 25, 2023

A State Department report requested by members of Congress and obtained by Foreign Policy has revealed a significant shortfall in funding to counter China in the Indo-Pacific.

The Biden administration says matching China’s growing diplomatic and military muscle in the Indo-Pacific is one of its top priorities. Yet according to State Department budget documents, there is a $41.3 billion gap between what the Biden administration has given the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and what those departments anticipate needing to carry out that mission over the next five years.

“The Department’s and USAID’s capacity to achieve its goals in the Indo-Pacific is dependent on our personnel, facilities, and operational posture,” said the report, which was sent to Congress in July. “Driving resources to the Indo-Pacific will be critical to our success in the region and in our strategic competition with the PRC,” the report added, using a widely utilized U.S. government acronym for the People’s Republic of China.

“U.S. foreign assistance spending for the Indo-Pacific has long been way short of where it needs to be and grossly out of proportion to the region’s strategic importance,” said David Feith, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs during the Trump administration. “The diplomatic footprint hasn’t been what it’s needed to be. The foreign assistance spending hasn’t been what it has needed to be. … They also haven’t spent in all of the right ways.”

The priorities put forward by the agencies include driving $10 billion in U.S. military aid to Taiwan over the next five years to steel the island against the threat of a Chinese assault, expanded assistance to the Pacific Island nations where Beijing has made significant diplomatic inroads over the past year, and building up American embassies and outposts in Maldives, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, and Kiribati.

“A lack of a U.S. presence in Maldives and multiple Pacific Island nations undercuts U.S. efforts to engage as an indispensable partner during a time of heightened strategic competition,” the report said.

The State Department also views Bali and Makassar, Indonesia; Cebu, Philippines; Nouméa on the French-held island of New Caledonia; and Christchurch, New Zealand, as potential candidates for new diplomatic posts if the agency gets a budget boost. State also hopes to add consulates in Bengaluru and Ahmedabad, both among the five largest cities in India.

The request for funding, which Congress asked for last year, includes $2 billion in yearly U.S. military aid to Taiwan to build up its air and missile defenses and coastal protection against a Chinese attack. The State Department also wants to give countries in Asia $170 million to beef up their cyberdefenses, as well as $100 million to add intelligence assets in maritime hotspots like the South China Sea.

The agencies also want to inject nearly $4 billion into strategic infrastructure in developing countries in Asia to offset a trillion-dollar-plus annual gap in infrastructure investment and to give poorer nations an American alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative that has saddled countries in South and East Asia with billions of dollars in debt to Beijing. The United States is also looking to up the Indo-Pacific economic crisis fund with nearly $500 million in the next five years to prevent countries from defaulting on Chinese debt.

It would also direct more than $150 million to a joint hydropower project between India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, part of almost $900 million in clean energy projects. The State Department also wants $7 billion for the so-called Compacts of Free Association, U.S. treaties with three Western Pacific islands that compensate them for early Cold War nuclear tests, provide billions in American economic assistance to the region, and allow citizens to live and work in the United States in exchange for U.S. military access.

Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have admonished State Department officials for not doing enough to counter China in the Indo-Pacific region as China’s growing presence in Africa and Latin America has competed for the attention of diplomats.

“We’re still woefully underperforming in the Indo-Pacific, and we’re not competing with the PRC from a position of strength,” Rep. Young Kim, a California Republican, told top State Department and USAID officials at a hearing on July 18.

A core focus of her criticism was on the State Department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (EAP), a regional bureau that now wields outsized influence in U.S. foreign-policy machinations given Washington’s new fixation on competing with China.

“East Asia and the Pacific Islands are on the front lines of our competition with China, and yet EAP remains a small fraction of the State Department’s overall budget and programming,” she said.

And Ami Bera, a California Democrat and the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs panel on the Indo-Pacific, echoed the same line of attack.

“The [Indo-Pacific] region has remained under-resourced when considering its geostrategic importance, economic heft, and staggering population,” he said. “If the U.S. is going to outcompete Beijing in the Indo-Pacific, we cannot cut resources from key national security agencies.”

Behind closed doors, top State Department officials have told lawmakers and aides that the East Asia bureau has been outgunned by the needs of other regions in the race to get funding to counter China. That Congress asked for the submission is a sign that it’s pushing the State Department’s Asia branch to get more active in budget fights. Such direct lobbying is standard operating procedure for the U.S. military’s geographic combatant commands.

Congressional aides and former officials expressed concern that the Biden administration isn’t going to put up the money to match its tough talk on China.

“If we continue funding at the same levels now, we will never get there,” said one congressional aide, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk candidly about behind-the-scenes budget negotiations. The congressional aide said that a shortage of career diplomats and civil servants within EAP dating back to the Obama administration has given the office less heft in budget negotiations, especially as China’s global reach has given the State Department’s other regional bureaus the ability to ask for funding to counter Beijing’s military and diplomatic presence.

Though the State Department’s East Asia and Pacific and South and Central Asian Affairs bureaus have seen increases from the money that Congress has enacted – part of a State Department budget that got a nearly $4 billion global bump last year – lawmakers and aides are worried that given the scope of the U.S. diplomatic competition with China, both are two of the most underfunded offices within the State Department.

The State Department’s Asia branch has been underfunded for decades. Feith said that during the Trump administration, U.S. officials and diplomats did a counting exercise that showed that only between 8 percent and 10 percent of total American foreign aid was going to the Indo-Pacific region.

In 2020, the State Department told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that about 4 percent to 5 percent of its foreign aid budget was being spent in the Indo-Pacific, Feith said.

“You’re talking about single digits, and this was already when we were supposed to be almost a decade into a pivot to Asia,” he said. “It was just woefully inadequate.”

There are headwinds on Capitol Hill that make progress difficult. Even with the House China select committee holding hearings on prime-time television, the State Department’s beefed-up Asia wish list might not even come true for another year. Under the debt ceiling deal between the Biden administration and congressional Republicans in May, Congress agreed to fund U.S. priorities in the Indo-Pacific but proposed a more than 30 percent cut to the State Department and USAID budgets.

“You can’t really compete with the number of boots on the ground that China has,” said Bonnie Glick, a former deputy administrator of USAID during the Trump administration. “Their population is enormous. So they have an ability to have representation everywhere.”

Even if the agency gets the diplomatic heft it’s asking for, former officials aren’t expecting the State Department to go punch for punch with Chinese officials in their backyard.

“It’s these little steps that we’ve taken that are significant,” Glick said. “But China takes big steps. That’s the difference.”

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Foreign Policy · by Robbie Gramer, Jack Detsch · July 25, 2023

4. Xi Jinping Is Trying to Adapt to Failure

Excerpt:

Xi has tough tasks ahead in his third term: balancing growth with security in economic policy, balancing ambition with restraint in foreign policy, and balancing competing sub-factions in elite politics. The base case outcome of this balancing act is that China will muddle through, continuing to build its national power while falling short of its full economic potential. But in the long term, slowing growth, less predictable governance, and an increasingly hostile external environment, if left unchanged, are making national stagnation more likely than national rejuvenation.

Xi Jinping Is Trying to Adapt to Failure

China is in a far worse position than when he took office.

By Neil Thomas, a Fellow for Chinese Politics at Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis.

Foreign Policy · by Neil Thomas · July 24, 2023

Xi Jinping has ruled China for over a decade, but the way he rules it is changing. Xi faces domestic and international environments that are markedly worse than when he took office in 2012 as general secretary. The economy is struggling, confidence is faltering, debt is looming, and strategic competition with the United States and its allies is endangering the future of China’s technological advancement and economic growth.

Xi Jinping has ruled China for over a decade, but the way he rules it is changing. Xi faces domestic and international environments that are markedly worse than when he took office in 2012 as general secretary. The economy is struggling, confidence is faltering, debt is looming, and strategic competition with the United States and its allies is endangering the future of China’s technological advancement and economic growth.

Many analyses still portray Chinese politics in relatively static terms, as either returning to growth-oriented practicality post-COVID or as having discarded economic concerns to pursue authoritarian control and geopolitical dominance. But what such takes miss is that policymaking is becoming increasingly volatile, as China’s mounting challenges lead Beijing into deeper swings between the politics of its ideological agenda and the pragmatism of delivering a baseline of economic growth. This volatility stems mostly from three balancing acts: balancing growth with security in economic policy, balancing diplomatic struggle against U.S. global leadership with avoiding economic decoupling from the West, and balancing competition between different factions in elite politics.

The logo of ChinaFile in English and Mandarin.

This article was originally published in ChinaFile.

The defining theme of domestic policymaking in Xi’s third term could be the securitization of everything, especially economic policy. Xi’s report to the 20th Party Congress in October 2022—an authoritative policy document in the Chinese Communist Party system—said that national security should “permeate every aspect and the whole process” of governance, instructed the party to “comprehensively strengthen the national security system” by 2035, and added a new section on national security to the report’s usually fixed structure. In May, Xi chaired the first post-congress meeting of his Central National Security Commission, the readout of which declared “the complexity and enormity of the national security issues that we are currently facing” to have “increased significantly.”

The party leadership’s pro-growth sentiment this year has been undermined by raids of foreign firms, national security bans on Western chips, and amendments to the Anti-Espionage Law that expand its application to businesses. Sources in Beijing also suggest the government is planning to launch a Chinese equivalent to the United States’ Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which will escalate scrutiny of foreign investors in China.

Xi’s rising focus on security seems driven mainly by a belief that China must reduce its economic and technological dependencies on the United States and its allies in an era of intensifying geopolitical competition. In March, he accused Western countries and especially the United States of “implementing comprehensive containment, encirclement, and suppression against China, bringing unprecedentedly severe challenges for China’s development.” This is almost certainly a reference to the sanctions, export controls, and reshoring policies adopted by the Trump and now Biden administrations in Washington.

The official summary of a May meeting of Xi’s Central Financial and Economic Commission said that Beijing will invest heavily in creating a “modern industrial system” built around manufacturing and innovation. Western high-tech firms will be welcome, but Xi hopes they will help boost China’s “self-reliance” on a “whole-nation system” of homegrown competitors.

The securitization of economic policy is likely to bring clearer party leadership and stronger intervention in almost all areas of the Chinese economy. Recent years saw an uptick of ideological interventions in specific industries—for example, banning for-profit tutoring to ameliorate educational inequality, restricting video gaming to curb youth internet addiction, and regulating platform technology companies to limit their market power and political clout.

The sense from Beijing now, by contrast, is more expansive: The party needs to supervise the whole economy to protect its security. In April, the Central Comprehensively Deepening Reforms Commission (CCDRC), arguably Xi’s most influential policy coordination body, held a meeting whose readout said the party should determine “for whom to innovate, who should innovate, what to innovate, and how to innovate” by “holistically planning the whole chain of technology innovation.”

Increasingly, firms will be expected to align with policy objectives. Some of this alignment will be coerced, through legislation mandating firms contribute to intelligence or military projects, for example, but the more prevalent mechanism will likely be firms proactively falling into line to avoid the fate of companies caught up in previous rectification campaigns. The CCDRC readout said the party would “actively encourage and effectively guide private enterprises to participate in major national innovation.” Xi is not anti-business or anti-market, he is simply pro-party; he wants to better harness private-sector activity to advance his goals for the party-state.

Security is not everything, however, as “development” formally remains ahead of “security” as a priority for Xi’s administration, at least in authoritative party documents like last year’s congress report. Xi has directed authorities to balance development and security. This signifies that economic growth is still crucial, but he believes greater concessions must be made to safeguard national security. The worry both inside and outside China is that security policies will compound the surprisingly rapid slowdown in China’s post-COVID recovery and hamstring the country’s economic trajectory. Confusion will rise, with Beijing periodically switching its emphasis between growth and security, and Xi’s economic and security teams each vying for the upper hand.

Witness the bewilderment of foreign firms in China right now as local governments appeal for their investments while central authorities stifle the business services essential for such commitments. The continued centralization of power and tightening of policy execution mean that slight shifts in messaging will ripple through the bureaucracy even quicker, more frequently, and more damagingly than before. Uncertainty is already depressing private-sector investment, dimming the prospects of the Chinese economy.

Mixed messages about growth and security will hit market confidence, but the biggest issue for business between China and the West is the momentum behind high-tech decoupling in the U.S. alliance system, which will likely be aggravated by Xi’s growing diplomatic pushback against Western global leadership in his third term. Xi helped broker a normalization of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, put China forward as a mediating party in any future peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, and offered to play a larger role in Israel-Palestine negotiations. He renewed efforts to promote a multipolar international order through his Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, and Global Civilization Initiative. And he has eschewed provocation by sustaining dialogue with Western leaders, moderating some of the more extreme “wolf warrior” diplomacy, and telling his foreign-policy team to improve global narratives about China.

Xi’s diplomatic push to position China as a vital economic partner, a political champion of the developing world, and an indispensable stakeholder in addressing transnational problems such as climate change and public health is partly to counterbalance the rising hostility of the United States and its allies. There is also a strong domestic angle, with Xi looking to shore up his legitimacy at a time of economic difficulty. Many analysts guess that Xi sees unification with Taiwan as a requirement to justify his extended tenure, because it would surpass the accomplishments of past paramount leaders. But another less risky, more rewarding way to do that would be for Xi to become a global leader on par with the U.S. president in his gravitas and his weight in international affairs—something that neither Mao Zedong nor Deng Xiaoping ever really achieved.

Notwithstanding the Biden administration’s desire to stabilize bilateral ties, China’s efforts to project diplomatic influence will probably enhance the perception of threat from Beijing in Washington and, to a lesser degree, in other Western capitals. The U.S. will likely push further policies designed to weaken China’s geo-economic power, particularly if Republicans win the White House in 2024. This could exacerbate Xi’s domestic growth troubles, but he can also invoke Western threats to stoke popular nationalism and highlight the importance of party unity around his leadership. This dynamic could become a vicious cycle of short-term political gain but longer-term geopolitical pain.

As China’s economic and diplomatic challenges continue to grow, so too does Xi’s grip on the party. He engineered the retirement of any lingering political rivals at the 20th Party Congress and filled high-ranking posts with loyalists. This situation may seem paradoxical, but what matters for Xi is not winning a popular vote but controlling key instruments of authoritarian power, namely the military, the security services, the anti-corruption apparatus, the personnel department, and the propaganda machinery. On this metric, surrounded by people he chose, Xi’s dominance has never seemed so pronounced.

Yet Xi’s ability to pick his own team does not necessarily mean that his people all get along with each other. The most significant development in Chinese elite politics during the next five years could be the emergence of “sub-factional” rivalries between various clusters of Xi supporters. Xi has assembled a leadership team with representatives from groups of officials who used to work for him in different provinces and rode his coattails into the party center. This arrangement appears to help Xi ensure that no one else becomes too powerful, as he can play allies off against one another, even though such tactics may come at the expense of stable and predictable policymaking.

Xi is the decisive actor in personnel and policy decisions, but people on the ground suggest that a fierce competition is unfolding behind the scenes between networks of Xi-aligned cadres, especially those connected to him through Zhejiang province and Fujian province. These two sub-factions respectively trace their influence up to Politburo Standing Committee members Li Qiang and Cai Qi. Vice Premier He Lifeng is also a major Fujian powerbroker. Both groups are reportedly trying to maneuver their associates into lower-level positions in key institutions, including the General Office that manages party business, the Organization Department that oversees personnel, and economic agencies like the National Development and Reform Commission.

Sub-factional jockeying under Xi differs from previous models of factional politics, which helped explain elite contention under Xi’s predecessors. Internal debates over the leadership and vision of the party boss will be nearly absent, but what may seem like minor differences in policy implementation or ideological emphasis could come to serve as platforms and disguises for political battles between sub-factions. Such power fragmentation would inevitably impact Beijing’s already-weakened governance capacity and hinder the effective realization of central policies.

Xi has tough tasks ahead in his third term: balancing growth with security in economic policy, balancing ambition with restraint in foreign policy, and balancing competing sub-factions in elite politics. The base case outcome of this balancing act is that China will muddle through, continuing to build its national power while falling short of its full economic potential. But in the long term, slowing growth, less predictable governance, and an increasingly hostile external environment, if left unchanged, are making national stagnation more likely than national rejuvenation.

Foreign Policy · by Neil Thomas · July 24, 2023

5. Federal judge vacates Bowe Bergdahl's conviction and dishonorable discharge

Actually should be a good opportunity to retry him and make sure he gets a prison sentence this time. I am not a lawyer (except the barracks kind) but it would seem to me that this was thrown out on a technicality so I hope there is the possibility of a retrial. This time he needs the book thrown at him. There needs to be justice for those injured or killed over the years trying to recover him. He should also be fined for the amount of resources diverted for 5 years of trying to recover him. But I suppose if a leader made such comments it would be thrown out for undo command influence.

Federal judge vacates Bowe Bergdahl's conviction and dishonorable discharge | CNN Politics

CNN · by Piper Hudspeth Blackburn · July 26, 2023

CNN —

A federal judge on Tuesday vacated Bowe Bergdahl’s dishonorable discharge from the US Army, roughly six years after the former soldier was convicted of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy after abandoning his outpost in Afghanistan in 2009.

US District Judge Reggie B. Walton found that the military judge who had ordered the dishonorable discharge had failed to disclose that he had applied to be an immigration judge, a job within the executive branch, during the Trump administration in a possible conflict of interest.

Then-military judge Army Col. Jeffery Nance oversaw the court martial and ruled in November 2017 that Bergdahl would receive a dishonorable discharge from the US Army but avoid prison time. The former soldier’s rank was reduced from sergeant to private, and he was also ordered to pay $10,000 from his salary.

Walton’s 63-page decision vacated all of the judge’s rulings after October 2017, when he applied for the immigration post.

Because the military judge was applying to an executive branch position, “a situation in which he might reasonably be expected to appeal to the president’s expressed interest in the plaintiff’s conviction and punishment,” Walton found that “a reasonable person” could doubt the judge’s ability to remain neutral.

Bergdahl disappeared from his base in Afghanistan in June 2009 and was held in captivity by the Taliban until May 2014. He has said he was tortured and beaten during his five-year captivity, spending months chained to a bed or locked in a cage while his health deteriorated. He has also said that he was completely isolated and told he would be killed and never see his family again.

Released in in a controversial exchange for five Guantanamo Bay detainees, Bergdahl pleaded guilty in October 2017, facing the possibility of life in prison.

While US Army prosecutors had requested a 14-year sentence, Bergdahl’s attorneys had asked for a punishment of dishonorable discharge.

Then-President Donald Trump criticized the decision on Twitter in 2017, calling it a “complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military.” Along with calling out Bergdahl as a “traitor” during his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump had also said at the time that he “should be shot” for deserting his post.

CNN’s Dakin Andone, Devon M. Sayers, Holly Yan and Nick Valencia contributed to this report.

CNN · by Piper Hudspeth Blackburn · July 26, 2023

6. Dismissal Of China’s Foreign Minister Reflects Internal Turmoil – Analysis

Here is an assessment from a friend who is a Chinese expat (who was at Tienenman as a student and left shortly thereafter):

"It shows the unstable nature of CCP and has weakened Xi’s position."

Dismissal Of China’s Foreign Minister Reflects Internal Turmoil – Analysis

eurasiareview.com · by VOA · July 25, 2023

By William Yang

The top decision-making body of China’s rubber-stamp parliament voted Tuesday to oust foreign minister Qin Gang and reappoint his predecessor Wang Yi to the role.

Analysts say the surprising personnel reshuffle weeks after Qin disappeared from public view reflects turmoil in China’s diplomatic system and expect it will have a negative impact on Beijing’s engagement with other countries.

The 57-year-old career diplomat has long been viewed as one of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s trusted allies. Qin was appointed as China’s foreign minister last December, after serving as the ambassador to the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic. He disappeared from the public’s view after meeting officials from Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Russia on June 25.

“Qin’s political career is over and I believe Wang will only play a transitional role amid this simmering crisis in China’s diplomatic system,” Wu Qiang, an independent academic in China, told VOA. He added that Qin’s removal and the rumors that have been associated with his disappearance reflect the level of uncertainty within China’s top leadership.

China’s state media have not elaborated on Qin’s removal but it follows weeks of speculation over his prolonged public disappearance. The lack of information about Qin’s situation follows the Chinese Communist Party’s long-standing practice of not discussing sensitive issues.

“There is no explanation of his removal, which creates an impression of lack of due process, uncertainty and arbitrariness,” said Ian Chong, an expert on China’s foreign policy at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Qin, viewed as an outspoken representative of China around the world, was believed to have played a pivotal role in facilitating the restoration of communication between Beijing and Washington in recent weeks. As of Tuesday evening local time, China had removed information about Qin from the foreign ministry’s website.

Some observers say Qin’s rapid rise through the ranks reflects the risks that come with Xi’s “one-man politics,” as personnel appointments are no longer determined through a robust internal review process.

“China used to be very rigorous on personnel appointment, which includes reviewing candidates’ background and consultation with different stakeholders,” said Alfred Wu, an expert on Chinese politics at the National University of Singapore.

He told VOA that Xi Jinping’s centralized decision-making process has “disabled” the checks and balances that used to exist in the Communist Party.

“China’s system is broken,” Wu said.

An attempt to minimize the impact of Qin’s removal

Analysts think the decision to replace Qin with an experienced figure such as Wang reflects a wish by China’s top leadership to minimize the impact of the sudden personnel change.

“At this point, the leadership might not be confident in Qin’s deputies, so they hope to appoint someone who represents a certain degree of continuity as China’s foreign minister,” Chong from NUS told VOA.

Independent Chinese expert Wu adds that Beijing hopes to minimize the impact of Qin’s removal by appointing a familiar figure like Wang to the role of foreign minister.

“Beijing wants to do some damage control to its interaction with other countries, and replacing Qin with Wang can avoid creating more uncertainty,” he explained.

Wang, who was China’s foreign minister between 2013 and 2022, is now both the Communist Party’s director of foreign affairs and China’s foreign minister, which some experts say could be counterproductive to China’s foreign policy implementation.

“Wang’s appointment may be seen as a transitional arrangement, which may compromise the effectiveness of China’s international outreach,” said Wen-ti Sung, an expert on Chinese politics at the Australian National University. He believes predictability and transparency are essential to “regularizing” dialogues and trust-building.

No change in China’s foreign policy direction

Qin’s removal comes amid China’s efforts to restart its diplomatic activities after emerging from the three-year-long zero-COVID lockdown. In recent months, Xi has held bilateral meetings with dozens of world leaders and Beijing has organized several international meetings with allies in different parts of the world.

Chinese expert Wu believes the surprise shakeup in China’s diplomatic system won’t affect the direction of China’s foreign policy, as foreign ministers serve mainly to execute, not decide foreign policy in China.

“No matter who is the foreign minister, China will stick to the ‘head-of-state’ diplomacy in the near future, and its priority will be the APEC Summit held in the U.S. at the end of 2023,” he told VOA.

Even though China’s foreign policy direction will remain unchanged, Wu thinks there will be less “personal style” once Wang assumes the role of foreign minister.

“Wang will likely have to modify his tough diplomatic style and adopt a more moderate approach because that’s what China needs when dealing with the wide range of diplomatic challenges it faces,” he said.

eurasiareview.com · by VOA · July 25, 2023

7. Proposed military slush fund would risk new boondoggles: Experts - Responsible Statecraft

Excerpt:

The Pentagon, for its part, says the proposal is necessary to deal with the “very aggressive contest for military technology superiority” between the United States and China. But watchdogs are doubtful about the potential upsides of such a provision. “It could lock in expenditures and commitments prior to Congressional approval, which would violate the basic principle of Congress’s power of the purse,” argued Bill Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute.

Proposed military slush fund would risk new boondoggles: Experts - Responsible Statecraft

responsiblestatecraft.org · by Connor Echols · July 26, 2023

Proposed military slush fund would risk new boondoggles: Experts

A proposal supported by ex-NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg would speed up DoD acquisition authority without Congressional approval.

July 26, 2023

Written by

Connor Echols

Proposed military slush fund would risk new boondoggles: Experts

As U.S. competition with China reaches a fever pace, Congress should give the Department of Defense the ability to initiate some contracts without having to secure funding from lawmakers, according to Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City and current chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board.

The proposal, which Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall first pitched earlier this year, would allow military leaders to “fill gaps as they arise, without having to wait on the passage of annual appropriations,” as Bloomberg wrote in Defense News on Monday. “There is always risk — financial and operational — in adopting cutting-edge technologies, but keeping the U.S. military the world’s foremost power requires greater appetite for risk.”

The Pentagon, for its part, says the proposal is necessary to deal with the “very aggressive contest for military technology superiority” between the United States and China. But watchdogs are doubtful about the potential upsides of such a provision. “It could lock in expenditures and commitments prior to Congressional approval, which would violate the basic principle of Congress’s power of the purse,” argued Bill Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute.

“Moving more quickly doesn’t always produce better results,” Hartung argued. “The U.S. arsenal is littered with dysfunctional systems that were rushed into production without adequate testing; and the new enthusiasm for AI and hypersonics risks bringing in unqualified or unscrupulous contractors looking to cash in on a new flood of [research and development] funding.”

The proposal also contributes to “China threat inflation” and opens up new avenues for acquisitions that DoD is unlikely to handle well, according to Julia Gledhill of the Project on Government Oversight. “The proposal lacks strong enforcement language to hold the Pentagon back from pursuing programs that fail to complete preliminary design reviews, or fail the reviews completely,” Gledhill added.

The House chose not to include the measure in this year’s defense policy bill, but it remains possible that the Senate will include the “Rapid Response To Emergent Technology Advancements or Threats” provision in its version of the National Defense Authorization Act.

If the proposal does become law, the Pentagon would have up to $300 million each year to start developing new technology that would either “leverage an emergent technological advancement of value to the national defense” or “provide a rapid response to an emerging threat.”

As Bloomberg noted, the House version of the NDAA includes a pair of pilot programs that would grant the Pentagon a portion of Congress’s acquisition authority and ease restrictions on weapons purchases. But those programs pale in comparison to the one put forward by Kendall, which would give DoD significant leverage over lawmakers in decisions about future spending priorities.

8. Matt Gaetz, Rick Scott fear Air Force may move Special Ops command off Hurlburt Field

I have not heard anything about AFSOC moving. But it would be quite a change. Three would likely be some huge military construction (MILCON) requirements that will take 5 or more years to complete and that would require Congressional approval. I would be surprised if this is in the works or anything more than exploratory at this stage. And if something is going on below the radar it now appears that there will be significant blowback from the Florida congressional delegation. 

Matt Gaetz, Rick Scott fear Air Force may move Special Ops command off Hurlburt Field

pnj.com · by Tom McLaughlin

Pensacola News Journal

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott and Florida's First District Congressman Matt Gaetz promised Tuesday to work aggressively to thwart action by the Department of the Air Force they believe could drastically impact the Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field.

In a conference call, Scott said that he, Gaetz and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, Republicans all, had been contacted three days ago by Frank Kendall, the Secretary of the Air Force, to schedule a Friday phone call to discuss "programmatic basing actions" involving Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona.

Scott said the legislators have not been able to confirm anything since receiving the cryptic message and the Air Force has been tight lipped about revealing anything else before Friday.

"We have said we would be willing to talk any time but have heard nothing," Scott said. "We think they are probably talking about Hurlburt, and I assume they are talking about Special Forces."

Defense budget controversy: House passes controversial Defense bill after clashes over abortion, climate change and Ukraine policies

The Air Force Special Operations Command has called Hurlburt Field in southwest Okaloosa County home since 1990. AFSOC, as it is called, is considered one of 10 major commands operating under the Air Force umbrella. According to Scott, Hurlburt is home to 26,000 active duty military, families and contractors.

The timing of Kendall's planned phone call is suspicious, the senator said, because it will come one day after the Senate votes to pass the National Defense Authorization Act approving Department of Defense budgets and the same day both houses of Congress recess for five weeks.

Scott said he and Gaetz have worked both when he was governor and Gaetz a state representative and now in Congress to protect the state's military and ensure that the men and women in uniform have had the resources they need to fulfill their mission.

"We have busted our butts," he said. "I have never heard from anybody in the military saying we are not fulfilling our military's needs in Florida."

He said he, Gaetz and Rubio are poised to be "very aggressive" in working to keep the Special Operations Command at Hurlburt and protect any other Florida commands that might be threatened.

"We are going to do everything in our power to prevent the Biden Administration from playing politics," Scott said.

Presumably, shifting AFSOC personnel to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base would prove an economic boon to Arizona, a state much more likely than Florida to be tightly contested in next year's presidential election.

From the archives: AFSOC commander addresses Air Force racial disparity review

Efforts to contact public information officers at Hurlburt Field or the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force were not successful Tuesday. A sergeant in the public affairs office at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base said he had heard nothing about troop movement onto the base and was attempting to get more information at press time Tuesday.

Gaetz said the work he and Scott had done to protect and preserve the military mission in Florida had put the state in a good position to defend against efforts like those they suspect Kendall is attempting.

"To me, this is suspicious," the congressman, whose Panhandle district is also home to Naval Air Station Pensacola, Whiting Field, Eglin Air Force Base, Duke Field and the Seventh Special Forces Group, said. "There is nothing to show Florida is not the best location to house these commands."

Gaetz said the U.S. Navy could also be accused of attempting to thwart the efforts of Panhandle Republicans to preserve the sanctity of the area's military bases. He said he had asked the Navy to place construction of a hangar to house the Blue Angels precision flying team on its list of National Defense Authorization Act priorities, but the Navy had declined to do so.

"Had they done that, Senator Scott and I would have been able to get the funding needed," Gaetz said. "It takes two to tango."

Scott said that any sudden move by the Air Force to move the Hurlburt Field Special Operations Command would violate a time-honored process by which commands are traditionally transferred from one location to another. He said the decision to headquarter the Space Force Command in Huntsville, Ala., was an example of how the process is supposed to work.

"Something out of the blue like this is pretty interesting. There's no process and they don't want to talk until after the NDAA passes," he said.

pnj.com · by Tom McLaughlin

9. It’s past time to unleash the defense commissaries

It’s past time to unleash the defense commissaries

militarytimes.com · by Elaine McCusker · July 26, 2023

Should the federal government save at least $1 billion annually in taxpayer money while delivering better service, more choices and lower costs to active and retired U.S. military members and their families?

How could the answer to this question be anything other than “yes?”

So, why have we not done it?

The Department of Defense operates 236 commissaries — defense-speak for grocery stores — in 13 countries and 2 U.S. territories. These grocery stores have a long tradition, dating back to 1825 where they started on Army bases so Army officers could make purchases for their personal use while paying at-cost prices. The stated purpose, eligibility and management of the commissaries has evolved over the last 198 years and is now managed by the Defense Commissary Agency, or DeCA. The next evolutionary iteration is long overdue.

As with many historical programs set up to provide convenience and support to military families located in austere locations, the commissaries are now seen more as an earned benefit. That is fine. If the commissaries are to be considered a part of the overall military compensation package, they should be as good as they can be in delivering service and cost savings to patrons while maintaining budget-neutral operations for the taxpayer.

But according to numerous reviews, studies, and assessments over the last decade, the commissaries are not currently meeting any of these three objectives.

First, delivery of services. According to a recent General Accountability Office, or GAO, study DeCA’s sales of groceries and other goods have fallen over $1 billion in the past 6 years. Service members and their families have many, better choices and are signaling with their shopping habits that they prefer the convenience, selection, service and products available in commercial grocery stores that are more readily available than ever.

As Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Reed noted at a 2021 Defense Writers Group event, “outside the gate of every base I’ve been to lately, there’s either a Costco or a Walmart, so there is some appeal to the military audience.”

Second, cost savings to patrons. The same GAO study noted that DeCA claims to deliver an average discount of 23.7% over other stores, but needs roughly a billion dollars in annual federal funding to do that.

And it is not even certain that estimated average savings of is accurate. The House Defense Appropriations Committee expressed concern that DeCA has not implemented GAO recommendations to calculate customer savings more accurately.

Third, the commissaries are hardly self-sustaining. DeCA finances the operating costs of commissaries, areas, and headquarters activities primarily with a direct appropriation managed through a working capital fund. DeCA’s reliance on this appropriation has increased from $1.15 billion in 2021 to $1.45 billion in the 2024 request. A 26% increase is not exactly a self-sufficient path.

In summary, defense commissary sales are down. Choices and services are limited, prompting patrons to go elsewhere. And costs are up.

Change is overdue. Granted, change can be scary. And we don’t want to incur even more additional costs or risk diminished benefits to service members their families and retirees.

There is a solution. Unleash the commissaries from government control, use the free market, and leverage the supply chains, distribution networks, and management expertise of successful, national commercial grocery stores. We should not hesitate to test this solution through an immediate pilot program in the U.S.

One such pilot, proposed by the MARC Group, could be conducted to compare the commissary benefit provided by DeCA to a top-10 commercial alternative supermarket at no cost to the taxpayer. It would take place at a military base with equal-sized commissaries within miles of each other, such as Fort Liberty in North Carolina.

The pilot would include an empirical test designed to provide real data to determine if a supermarket chain can operate base grocery stores more efficiently and deliver greater savings, quality and selection.

The supermarket chains available for participation in the pilot currently operate 7,500 stores with over $80 billion in sales. For comparison, DeCA operates 177 stores in the U.S. with $4 billion in sales. Key services and attributes such as employment opportunities for families, on-site free childcare, and store hours would be included. Data collection would include customer satisfaction and be overseen by a top-ranked accounting firm.

The recent debate on the budget deal along with comments and priorities during markup of the fiscal year 2024 defense funding and policy bills make clear Congressional interest in finding savings while providing full quality of life support to the military.

The Defense Department should immediately use existing authorities to conduct a pilot to unleash the commissaries from government control and provide better service to eligible patrons at no cost to the taxpayer.

Elaine McCusker is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. She is a former acting undersecretary of defense (comptroller).

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10. Ex-NSA, CIA official Harry Coker in line to be next National Cyber Director: White House

Ex-NSA, CIA official Harry Coker in line to be next National Cyber Director: White House - Breaking Defense

breakingdefense.com · by Jaspreet Gill · July 25, 2023

Harry Coker, then-executive director for the National Security Agency, testified before Congress on May 23, 2019. (Screengrab)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden intends to nominate a former senior National Security Agency official, Harry Coker, to be the next national cyber director, the White House announced today.

If confirmed into his role, Coker will fill a critical role left open months after the departure of Chris Inglis, who was appointed as the first-ever national cyber director in 2021.

Coker served 20 years in the US Navy, and was most recently the executive director of the National Security Agency before leaving in 2019. Before that he was director of open source enterprise in the Central Intelligence Agency’s directorate of digital innovation, according to the announcement. He’s currently a senior fellow at Auburn’s McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., and Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, co-chairs of the congressional Cyberspace Solarium Commission (CSC), said they were “relieved” a new cyber director had been chosen, and they “strongly support[ed]” Coker, who they described as a “natural choice” for the post.

“Looking forward, it is important to reiterate the necessity of strong, permanent leadership in the Office of the National Cyber Director,” the two said in a statement. “The NCD is effectively the ‘coach’ of the U. S. cybersecurity team, and it is important that the leadership is Senate-confirmed and accountable to both the President and Congress.”

Tech news outlet The Record reported earlier this month that Kemba Walden, who has been serving as the acting deputy national cyber director, was informed she would not be nominated for the position. Walden confirmed to The Washington Post that she had withdrawn her name for consideration, and the outlet reported that personal debt was allegedly the reason she would not be nominated.

In his role, Coker will lead the implementation of the White House’s National Cybersecurity Strategy. Released in March, the 35-page strategy called for securing the US’s digital future and defending the digital ecosystem against foreign adversaries like China and Russia.

Speaking to reporters ahead of the strategy’s release, Walden told reporters the strategy “fundamentally reimagines America’s cyber social contract” as the Biden administration seeks to “rebalance the responsibility for managing cyber risk onto those who are most able to bear it.”

“We ask individuals, small businesses and local governments to shoulder a significant burden for defending us all,” she said. “This isn’t just unfair, it’s ineffective. The biggest, most capable and best positioned actors in our digital ecosystem can and should shoulder a greater share of the burden for managing cyber risk and keeping us all safe.”

11. Biden picks next Pentagon policy chief, testing Tuberville’s blockade (Derek Chollet)

Biden picks next Pentagon policy chief, testing Tuberville’s blockade

The Washington Post · by Missy Ryan · July 25, 2023

The White House said Tuesday that President Biden will nominate a new Pentagon policy chief, a position the administration deems central to navigating challenges posed by China and Russia but one at risk of encountering the same standoff with congressional Republicans that has stymied the confirmation of other defense nominees.

Officials said the administration would send the Senate Biden’s selection of Derek Chollet, who now serves as counselor to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, to become undersecretary of defense for policy.

Biden’s nomination of Chollet to replace Colin Kahl, who stepped down this month, comes amid a feud over abortion policy that has resulted in the stalling of hundreds of nominees for military and defense positions, including Biden’s pick to head the Marine Corps. If the impasse continues, it could result in other high-level vacancies in coming months, including the military’s most senior position, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, imposed the hold in protest of an administration policy that enables the Pentagon to reimburse service members for travel expenses required to access abortions and other reproductive care if they are stationed in states where, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, such procedures are difficult or impossible to obtain.

Tuberville has said the agency’s “radical” policy exceeds administration authority. “We are here to make the law, not the Pentagon,” he said last week.

While many Republicans sympathize with Tuberville’s views on abortion, influential lawmakers including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have said they do not back delaying military nominees. Tuberville has said the Senate could hold individual votes for nominees, which critics reject as onerous and time-consuming.

While Biden and other Democrats have warned that the hold could damage U.S. security and further politicize the military, Tuberville has refused to abandon his position despite administration officials’ defense of the policy and appeals from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The dispute casts a shadow over the largely bipartisan cooperation that characterizes support for defense spending and many military initiatives.

It’s not clear whether the impasse can be resolved before it affects Chollet, whose résumé includes a host of key national security roles including assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs; senior director for strategic planning on the National Security Council; principal deputy director of the State Department’s policy planning office; and speechwriter to then-U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard C. Holbrooke.

Chollet is expected to remain in his State Department role until he is confirmed. As the department’s counselor, he has advised Blinken on issues including China’s projection into the South China Sea and attempts to deepen Israel’s normalization with Arab states.

When Chollet served as a senior Pentagon policy official under then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel during the Obama administration, he often traveled as part of Hagel’s entourage on foreign trips, providing input on the U.S. response to issues including China’s military rise and the violent ascent of the Islamic State.

Hagel, a onetime Republican senator from Nebraska, said that he saw in Chollet — a fellow Nebraskan — a combination of expertise and modesty. “That’s one of the things I’ve always appreciated about him, because he does have a lot of ability but he can handle that very well,” Hagel said. “He gets along with people.”

Eric Edelman, who was undersecretary of defense for policy during the Republican George W. Bush administration, said that while Chollet had served under Democratic presidents, they both understood that “there’s much more continuity than difference between administrations because they’re all wrestling with the same problems.”

Current and former officials stress the centrality of the undersecretary for policy position, often described as the Pentagon’s No. 3 job, which oversees a sprawling network of regional and topical offices and several agencies. It is known for being a particularly grueling position given the urgency and unpredictability of military operations and global security threats.

“There’s nothing that doesn’t eventually land, or initially come out of, that office that DOD does,” Hagel said, using an acronym for the Department of Defense. “That’s strategy, that’s implementation, that’s everything … And that’s why every secretary really relies on that undersecretary and his or her team.”

In his previous Pentagon policy role, Chollet also worked extensively with Austin, who at that time was a four-star Army general serving as the head of U.S. Central Command.

As Austin has done repeatedly, Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh urged Tuberville to end his hold on nominees, which administration officials say has plunged hundreds of officers and their families into a state of uncertainty. A group of Democratic senators appealed to McConnell on Monday to increase Republican pressure on Tuberville to soften his position.

“It is essential that the Department of Defense have a Senate-confirmed undersecretary for policy as this role is the key policy adviser to Secretary Austin and provides vital strategic guidance in support of U.S. national security interests worldwide,” Singh said.

Edelman said that having a Senate-confirmed individual in the job would provide additional heft at a moment when the Pentagon is seeking to navigate tensions with Russia over the war in Ukraine and with China amid that country’s rapid military development, in addition to threats posed by North Korea and Iran.

Following Kahl’s departure this month, his onetime deputy, Sasha Baker, is serving in the role on an interim basis.

“The United States arguably is now facing perhaps the most complex set of national security challenges it’s ever faced,” Edelman said. “The idea that you would go for some long period of time without the third-ranking policy person in the Pentagon confirmed is, I think, highly irresponsible.”

The Washington Post · by Missy Ryan · July 25, 2023

12. The war in Ukraine is spurring a revolution in drone warfare using AI

Please go to the link for proper formatting adn to view the graphics: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/26/drones-ai-ukraine-war-innovation/

The war in Ukraine is spurring a revolution in drone warfare using AI

The advent of AI-enabled drones holds huge promise for Ukraine’s military but may also be exploited by nefarious non-state actors

By John Hudson and Kostiantyn Khudov

July 26, 2023 at 1:00 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by John Hudson · July 26, 2023

By

and

Kostiantyn Khudov

July 26, 2023 at 1:00 a.m. EDT

LVIV, Ukraine — In an open test field in rural Ukraine, a drone equipped with a bomb lost connection with its human operator after coming under attack by electronic jamming equipment — but instead of crashing to the ground, the drone accelerated toward its target and destroyed it.

The drone avoided the fate of thousands of other uncrewed aircraft in this war by relying on new artificial intelligence software that accounts for the electronic interference now commonly deployed by Russia, stabilizing the drone and keeping it locked on a preselected target. AI capabilities help the drone complete its mission even if its target moves, representing a significant upgrade from existing drones that track specific coordinates.

Such AI technology, under development by a growing number of Ukrainian drone companies, is one of several innovative leaps underway in Kyiv’s domestic drone market that are accelerating and democratizing the lethality of unmanned warfare — especially crucial for Ukraine’s outgunned military, which is fighting a larger and better-equipped Russian enemy.

The improvements in speed, flight range, payload capacity and other capabilities are having an immediate impact on the battlefield, enabling Ukraine to destroy Russian vehicles, blow up surveillance posts and even wreck parts of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s prized Crimean Bridge in an operation last week involving explosive-laden naval drones.

The design and software innovations, as well as mass dissemination of piloting know-how, are also likely to influence the way drones are used far beyond the war in Ukraine, with serious implications for governments confronting separatist militias, drug cartels and extremist groups seeking to gain a technological edge.

“With tens of thousands of people going through drone training on both sides of this war, it is very likely that this experience is spreading far and wide, including to nefarious actors,” said Samuel Bendett, a Russia-focused drone expert at CNA, a Washington-based think tank.

Ukraine, which is known for agriculture and other heavy industry, is not an obvious setting for drone innovation. The exigencies of war, however, have turned the country into a kind of super lab of invention, attracting investment from vaunted business luminaries including former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt. More than 200 Ukrainian companies involved in drone production are now working hand-in-glove with military units on the front lines to tweak and augment drones to improve their ability to kill and spy on the enemy.

“This is a 24/7 technology race,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said in an interview at his office in Kyiv, the capital. “The challenge is that every product in every category must be changed daily to gain an advantage.”

Fedorov, 32, is in charge of Ukraine’s “Army of Drones” program, an effort to maximize Kyiv’s use of reconnaissance and attack drones to offset Russia’s big advantage in air and artillery power.

The program has assisted private companies in training more than 10,000 drone operators in the past year, with the goal of training an additional 10,000 over the next six months.

Russia’s air force is estimated to be 10 times larger than Ukraine’s, but Kyiv has kept much of it grounded after shooting down several fighter jets in the opening days of the conflict. Drones have allowed Ukraine to surveil and hit sensitive targets far behind enemy lines while improving the accuracy of its conventional artillery.

Drones have far less firepower than fighter jets, however, which is why Kyiv has requested F-16s and other big-ticket items such as ATACMS (shorthand for Army Tactical Missile System) long-range missile systems. In the meantime, cultivating a domestic drone industry is a top priority.

Fedorov’s team fast-tracks drone procurement contracts between the companies and the Defense Ministry, shortening a process “from two years to two months,” said Dmytro Kovalchuk, a co-founder of the Kyiv-based drone maker Warbirds of Ukraine who has benefited from the streamlined process.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, has shared Russian jamming technology with the drone companies, allowing them to test their products against some of the world’s most sophisticated electronic warfare weapons — a privilege the vast majority of international drone companies do not have.

“In the West, you cannot just fire up a jammer and interfere with big parts of the spectrum just to test your product,” said Andrey Liscovich, a former Uber executive who left Silicon Valley to aid Ukraine’s war effort. “You need a special license, and even when you have it, it only applies to a narrow cordoned-off area.”

“That’s why this is one of the areas that Ukraine has a very real opportunity to develop a world-class solution,” Liscovich said.

Drone makers are also receiving constant feedback from the front lines, allowing them to make immediate adjustments to reduce vulnerabilities and improve lethality. “Solving for the end user is one of the most challenging and important problems,” Liscovich said.

Russia, which was slow to realize the importance of offensive drones in the conflict, has recently responded by building a volunteer drone army of its own and introducing new electronic jamming weapons into the field. Its use of self-detonating drones, including the ZALA Lancet and the Iranian-made Shahed, have menaced Ukraine’s cities and blunted Ukraine’s slow-churning counteroffensive.

Ukraine estimates that Russia is destroying about 1,000 Ukrainian drones per month, Fedorov said. Other estimates put the loss rate at 10,000 per month, pushing Kyiv to find ways to increase production of uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), in what has quickly become the largest drone war in history.

The types of drones under development in Ukraine run the gamut.

Ukrainian-made drones

SOIKA

Manufacturer: Warbirds

Range: 18.6 miles

Flight duration: 60 min.

SAKER SCOUT

Manufacturer:

Twist Robotics

Range:

6.2 miles

Flight duration:

60 min.

Payload:

6.6 lbs.

PUNISHER

Manufacturer: UA Dynamics

Range: 28 miles

UB-75HE

Unguided bomb high-explosive caliber 75 mm

UKRANIAN NAVAL DRONE

Manufacturer:

Ukraine

Max speed:

50 mph

Range:

up to 497 miles

Combat load:

up to 440 lbs.

Autonomy:

up to

60 hours

Length 18 ft.

Note: Illustrations not to scale.

Sources: Warbirds, UA Dynamics, Twist Robotics

SAMUEL GRANADOS / THE WASHINGTON POST

Ukrainian-made drones

SOIKA

Manufacturer: Warbirds

Range: 18.6 miles

Flight duration: 60 min.

PUNISHER

Manufacturer: UA Dynamics

Range: 28 miles

UB-75HE

Unguided bomb high-explosive caliber 75 mm

SAKER SCOUT

Manufacturer:

Twist Robotics

Range:

6.2 miles

Flight duration:

60 min.

Payload:

6.6 lbs.

UKRANIAN NAVAL DRONE

Manufacturer:

Ukraine

Max speed:

50 mph

Range:

up to 497 miles

Combat load:

up to 440 lbs

Autonomy:

up to

60 hours

Length 18 ft.

Note: Illustrations not to scale.

Sources: Warbirds, UA Dynamics, Twist Robotics

SAMUEL GRANADOS / THE WASHINGTON POST

In an idyllic field of tall sunflowers outside Kyiv, employees of drone maker UA Dynamics ran a test of the Punisher, a whisper-quiet attack drone with a thin frame that is difficult to spot in the sky. During the exercise, the drone dropped a 5½-pound dummy payload a few feet away from a group of unsuspecting test observers who were caught off guard because of the machine’s almost silent motor. The company is building a new attack drone it says can carry four such payloads, totaling about 22 pounds, said Max Subbotin, a company spokesman.

In the western city of Lviv, engineers with Twist Robotics presented test videos of their AI-powered software, which could provide a major upgrade for Ukraine’s arsenal of First Person View, or FPV, drones. The inexpensive UAVs, which Ukraine produces thousands of every month, can carry bombs but are vulnerable to Russian jamming. The new AI-powered targeting, however, allows the FPV to stay locked on its target even if the craft loses contact with the human operator because of jamming or the presence of a large physical object such as a hill, said Rostyslav Olenchyn, a co-founder of Twist Robotics.

“After the target is locked, the drone is guided by this system,” Olenchyn said. The drone’s sensors recognize the target’s physical features and adjusts the craft’s trajectory accordingly.

“It’s a poor man’s Javelin,” said an engineer for Twist Robotics, referring to the American-made, shoulder-fired missile to illustrate how FPV drones can substitute for conventional weapons that are often a scarce resource for Ukraine’s military.

Schmidt, the former Google executive, is bullish on Ukraine’s domestic drone market and has committed $10 million alongside other investors into D3, a Ukrainian start-up accelerator that invests in drones and other defense technology.

“Ukraine has continually out-innovated the enemy,” Schmidt wrote in a column for the Wall Street Journal earlier this month after returning from a recent trip to the country.

Schmidt, who has advised the Pentagon on AI technology, hailed Ukrainian advances in drone technology, including AI software and UAVs that operate without GPS guidance. He shared his belief that drones would play a decisive future role by land, air and sea in demining fields and forming “ruthless swarms of AI-empowered kamikaze drones.”

“The future of war will be dictated and waged by drones,” Schmidt concluded.

Schmidt, who met with Ukraine’s defense minister during another visit to the country last fall, is believed to be interested in contributing millions of dollars in Ukraine to scale up the manufacturing of drones, people familiar with the matter said. A spokeswoman for Schmidt declined to comment.

The acceleration of drone technology has worried security experts given the growing number of non-state actors that have used UAVs for lethal purposes, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and Mexico-based drug cartels.

But while the cost of building an airplane-size drone like an MQ-9 Reaper is beyond the capabilities of such groups, obtaining and utilizing AI-assisted drone software is not.

“Once that software has been developed, it’s effectively costless for that software to proliferate and be reused elsewhere,” said Paul Scharre, a drone expert at the Center for a New American Security and the author of the book “Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.” “It’s really easy for non-state actors to go online, obtain the software and repurpose it.”

Major military powers have long grappled with the ethics of allowing machines to use lethal force in combat. President Biden’s top military adviser, Gen. Mark A. Milley, has said the United States requires that “humans” remain in the “decision-making loop,” and recently called on other major militaries to adopt the same standards.

The new targeting technology still requires the human operator to select the target, said Kovalchuk, whose drone company also uses the AI software. But once the selection happens, the drone pursues the target and releases the munition — resulting in a gap between the human decision and the lethal act.

Ukrainians who have tested the new software insist that the machine’s role is limited and “acceptable,” Kovalchuk said. “We’re not targeting civilians,” he said. “And we consider a mistake of five to 10 meters acceptable.”

Fedorov conceded that the spread of AI technology represents a “threat to the future,” but underscored that Kyiv must prioritize its immediate fight for survival.

The Ukraine conflict is also giving rise to much less sophisticated methods for weaponizing drones.

Each Ukrainian brigade, for instance, is equipped with a 3D printer that troops use to build the mechanism that holds and releases bombs from commercially available drones. The process is easily replicable, experts say.

“Manuals are being published in both Russian and Ukrainian on how to fly a drone, operate a quadcopter and avoid detection,” Bendett said. “Can nefarious actors worldwide use this experience and technology? Absolutely.”

But while technologists have marveled at the innovation happening in Ukraine’s drone space, some caution that it is not a panacea for Kyiv’s daunting military challenges.

Liscovich, the former Uber executive, said Ukraine’s attack drones are unlikely to provide a decisive advantage in the counteroffensive because of their limited range and payload size, and the uneven terrain across many miles of dense Russian minefields and trenches.

Instead, he said, Ukraine’s spy drones hold the most promise for giving Kyiv an edge. “Reconnaissance drones act as a direct multiplier on the efficacy of nearly all weapons in Ukraine’s arsenal, especially artillery, providing the greatest immediate leverage on the battlefield,” he said.

David L. Stern and Isabelle Khurshudyan in Kyiv and Alex Horton in Washington contributed to this report.

The Washington Post · by John Hudson · July 26, 2023

13.  Senate Targets China, Voting to Restrict Farmland Purchases and U.S. Investment

Senate Targets China, Voting to Restrict Farmland Purchases and U.S. Investment

By Karoun Demirjian

Reporting from the Capitol

July 25, 2023

阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版

The New York Times · by Karoun Demirjian · July 25, 2023

Senators voted overwhelmingly to block Chinese businesses from buying farmland and mandate that American investment in the country’s national security industries be tracked.

By broad bipartisan margins, senators voted to block businesses based in China from purchasing farmland in the United States.Credit...Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times

By

Reporting from the Capitol

July 25, 2023, 7:24 p.m. ET

The Senate on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to block businesses based in China from purchasing farmland in the United States and place new mandates on Americans investing in the country’s national security industries, taking the first legislative steps of the new Congress to counter Beijing’s espionage activities and curtail its economic power.

The provisions, which would need to clear the House to become law, are a far cry from more ambitious efforts to target China’s economy through export controls and undermine its intelligence gathering and influence operations in the United States through a TikTok ban or other restrictions. But they represent a significant opening salvo for the Senate, where lawmakers have struggled for months to capitalize on widespread enthusiasm on Capitol Hill for taking action against China.

By broad bipartisan margins, senators voted to add the measures to the annual defense policy bill. One, which passed by a vote of 91 to 7, would ban the sale of farmland to certain foreign adversaries to bar businesses based in or working as agents of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from purchasing a controlling interest in U.S. farmland or other agribusiness. A second, which was approved 91 to 6, would require Americans to notify the Treasury Department within 14 days of making any investments in the national security industries of those four countries, including artificial intelligence, semiconductors and hypersonics production.

“This is a critical step toward making sure we aren’t handing over valuable American assets to foreign entities who want to replace us as the world’s leading military and economic power,” Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana and co-author of the farmland measure, said on the Senate floor.

The measures gained traction in recent months as lawmakers sought to build on the momentum of an industrial policy bill enacted last year, which directed sweeping investments toward the U.S. semiconductor industry. The farmland measure, aimed at clamping down on China’s ability to gain vantage points for intelligence gathering in the United States, received particular focus after the incursion of a Chinese spy balloon over U.S. airspace.

“It’s no exaggeration to say that we’ve helped build their economy into a near-peer status, helped them finance a military that threatens us and our allies in the Indo-Pacific,” Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas and co-author of the measure tracking investments, said on the Senate floor. “We need to understand as policymakers exactly what is going on.”

The legislation mirrors efforts by the Biden administration, which has for many months been working on an executive order forcing venture capital and private equity firms making investments in China to share more information with the government, as well as prohibit investments outright in a few key sectors that could be crucial to military prowess, like quantum computing and artificial intelligence.

Supporters see the measure as important for closing a loophole in American economic defenses against China: The United States currently restricts exports of certain advanced technologies to China, but it does not prohibit partnerships that help to fund the development of those technologies within China itself.

Financial firms and others have pushed back against the restrictions, saying that measures that are too broad could cause economic damage and put U.S. companies at a disadvantage against global competitors, who could rush into the Chinese market to take their place.

But the rules are largely finalized and could be issued in the coming weeks or months, according to people familiar with the plans.

Ana Swanson contributed reporting.

The New York Times · by Karoun Demirjian · July 25, 2023

By Karoun Demirjian

Reporting from the Capitol

July 25, 2023

阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版

The New York Times · by Karoun Demirjian · July 25, 2023

Senators voted overwhelmingly to block Chinese businesses from buying farmland and mandate that American investment in the country’s national security industries be tracked.

By broad bipartisan margins, senators voted to block businesses based in China from purchasing farmland in the United States.Credit...Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times

By

Reporting from the Capitol

July 25, 2023, 7:24 p.m. ET

The Senate on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to block businesses based in China from purchasing farmland in the United States and place new mandates on Americans investing in the country’s national security industries, taking the first legislative steps of the new Congress to counter Beijing’s espionage activities and curtail its economic power.

The provisions, which would need to clear the House to become law, are a far cry from more ambitious efforts to target China’s economy through export controls and undermine its intelligence gathering and influence operations in the United States through a TikTok ban or other restrictions. But they represent a significant opening salvo for the Senate, where lawmakers have struggled for months to capitalize on widespread enthusiasm on Capitol Hill for taking action against China.

By broad bipartisan margins, senators voted to add the measures to the annual defense policy bill. One, which passed by a vote of 91 to 7, would ban the sale of farmland to certain foreign adversaries to bar businesses based in or working as agents of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from purchasing a controlling interest in U.S. farmland or other agribusiness. A second, which was approved 91 to 6, would require Americans to notify the Treasury Department within 14 days of making any investments in the national security industries of those four countries, including artificial intelligence, semiconductors and hypersonics production.

“This is a critical step toward making sure we aren’t handing over valuable American assets to foreign entities who want to replace us as the world’s leading military and economic power,” Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana and co-author of the farmland measure, said on the Senate floor.

The measures gained traction in recent months as lawmakers sought to build on the momentum of an industrial policy bill enacted last year, which directed sweeping investments toward the U.S. semiconductor industry. The farmland measure, aimed at clamping down on China’s ability to gain vantage points for intelligence gathering in the United States, received particular focus after the incursion of a Chinese spy balloon over U.S. airspace.

“It’s no exaggeration to say that we’ve helped build their economy into a near-peer status, helped them finance a military that threatens us and our allies in the Indo-Pacific,” Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas and co-author of the measure tracking investments, said on the Senate floor. “We need to understand as policymakers exactly what is going on.”

The legislation mirrors efforts by the Biden administration, which has for many months been working on an executive order forcing venture capital and private equity firms making investments in China to share more information with the government, as well as prohibit investments outright in a few key sectors that could be crucial to military prowess, like quantum computing and artificial intelligence.

Supporters see the measure as important for closing a loophole in American economic defenses against China: The United States currently restricts exports of certain advanced technologies to China, but it does not prohibit partnerships that help to fund the development of those technologies within China itself.

Financial firms and others have pushed back against the restrictions, saying that measures that are too broad could cause economic damage and put U.S. companies at a disadvantage against global competitors, who could rush into the Chinese market to take their place.

But the rules are largely finalized and could be issued in the coming weeks or months, according to people familiar with the plans.

Ana Swanson contributed reporting.

The New York Times · by Karoun Demirjian · July 25, 2023

14. Special Operations News Update - July 26, 2023 | SOF News

Special Operations News Update - July 26, 2023 | SOF News

sof.news · by SOF News · July 26, 2023

Curated news, analysis, and commentary about special operations, national security, and conflicts around the world.

Photo / Image: U.S. Navy and Royal Thai Navy Special Warfare operators conduct maritime interdiction operations during FLASH TORCH 2023-1. (Petty Officer 1st Class Alex Smedgard, Feb 16, 2023, Sattahip, Thailand)

Do you receive our daily newsletter? If not, you can sign up here and enjoy it five (almost) days a week with your morning coffee (or afternoon tea depending on where in the world you are).

SOF News

New Cdr for SOCAFRICA. U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Ronald A. Foy assumed command of the U.S. Special Operations Command Africa during a ceremony held on July 21, 2023. The event took place at Kelley Barracks, Stuttgart, Germany. Foy has experience in senior roles with Naval Special Warfare Group, Joint Reconnaissance Task Force, and the Joint Special Operations Command. His predecessor, Rear. Adm. Milton Sands, will now be serving as the Special Operations Command chief of staff at U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). “SOCAFRICA holds Change of Command Ceremony”, DVIDS, July 21, 2023.

AFSOC Move from Hurlburt to Davis-Monthan? Elected officials from Florida are sounding the alarm about rumors that elements of Air Force Special Operations Command may be moving off of Hurlburt Field, Florida to a new location. (Pensacola News Journal, July 26, 2023).

NSW’s New Mini-Sub. For decades the Navy has been trying to realize a small submarine to transport SEALs inside a pressurized cabin, and now its operational. “Navy SEAL’s Long-Awaited ‘Dry’ Mini-Submarine Capabilty Has Finally Arrived”, The Drive War Zone, July 24, 2023.

Dad Was His Hero. Tom Lane grew up knowing very little about his father – a Green Beret who served a combat tour in Korea and three combat tours in Vietnam. It was only later in life that he learned about his father’s military service. “Dad Always Seemed Bigger Than Life. But I Had No Idea There Was a Hero in the Next Room”, The War Horse, July 26, 2023.

SOF and the Korean War. At the conclusion of World War II many of the Army’s special operations forces were disbanded. The Korean War saw a rebirth of special operations forces – many of which are the foundation of SOF units still in existance. Read more in “Army Special Operations in the Forgotten War”, U.S. Army, 2023.

AFSOC and Performance Nutrition. Tactical Air Control Party students going through training at the Special Warfare Training Wing are learning about nutrition and hydration practices that will keep them healthy and at peak performance during their rigorous training events. “Performance Nutrition in the Special Warfare Training Wing”, DVIDS, July 24, 2023.

International SOF

South Korean Parachute Team Wins Contest. A team of five female special warfare troops finished first overall in an international military parachuting competition in Europe. “Female S. Korean special warfare team wins int’l parachuting contest in Spain”, Yonhap News Agency, July 17, 2023.

Latin American SOF and Navy SEALs Partner Up. Naval Special Warfare units teamed up with special operations units from across the Western hemisphere during a multinational exercise called UNITAS 64. The events included submarine operations, VBSS, and CQC. “Navy SEALs Enhance Maritime Dominance with Partner Forces in Columbia”, DVIDS, July 20, 2023.

Belarus SF Train Near Polish Border. Russia’s Wagner Group is training with Belarusian special forces near the Polish border. (Reuters, July 25, 2023.

Ukraine Conflict

Russian Resilience in Conflicts. Russia has suffered many defeats when invaded by foreign powers but has shown that it can rebound over time with vast armies that it will be used to eventually defeat its invaders. Its record of winning battles and wars on foreign soil is less remarkable. Many observers of the war in Ukraine are predicting a defeat of the Russian forces and expulsion of the occupyers from eastern Ukraine and Crimea. However, Russia’s economy, land mass, and population far exceeds that of Ukraine. It is said that Russia has to lose a war first before it can win. “Have We Forgotten the Russian Way of War?”, by Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness, July 16, 2023.

More U.S. Assistance. The Department of Defense announced additional security assistance to Ukraine. The capabilties in this package include munitions for Patriot air defense systems and NASAMS, Stingers, ammo for HIMARS, and more. “Biden Administration Announces Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine”, DOD News, July 25, 2023. View a fact sheet on U.S. Security Assistance for Ukraine. (DoD, 25 Jul, 2023).

Ex-Marine Injured in Ukraine. Trevor Reed was detained in Russia for nearly three years before being released in a prisoner swap between the U.S. and Russia last year. The State Department confirmed that Reed was injured while fighting in Ukraine. He has been transported to Germany for medical treatment.

Care for Wounded Soldiers. Since the Ukrainian counteroffensive began hospitals have experienced a surge of wounded from the front lines. Ukrainian military personnel are fighting along a 932 mile front. (Associated Press, July 26, 2023).

National Security

IW Education. Paul Burton, a retired Special Forces Colonel, argues that irregular warfare education is a holistic iterative lifelong process for a member of the special operations community. He says the goal of IW education should be to produce practitioners that can think at the master’s degree level and apply that thinking in the trade school of IW practicum. “Irregular Warfare Education a Lifelong Process”, Small Wars Journal, July 17, 2023.

CRS Report – DoS Country Reports on Terrorism: 2001-2021. Every year the Secretary of State is required to provide Congress with an annual country report on terroirsm. This report contains a detailed assessment of international terrorism of major significance. This CRS report provides and overview of the country reports as well as tracking the trends of terrorist attacks over the past twenty years. Congressional Research Service, CRS IF10710, Updated July 21, 2023, PDF, 3 pages.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10710

Ponytails Okay for Now. Female soldiers may wear ponytails for at least another year according to a recent message from the Army’s personnel office. The service loosened its hairstyle regulations in 2021 for women. No word yet on when ‘manbuns’ will be acceptable. (Stars and Stripes, July 26, 2023).

Russia and Hybrid Warfare. Larry Goodson and Marzena Zakowska have collaborated on an essay that details Russia’s use of hybrid warfare and how it has modified its use of hybrid warfare over time to incorporate more conventional means of conflict. “How Russia’s Hybrid Warfare is Changing”, Small Wars Journal, July 17, 2023.

Resistance Strategy and Australia. A geographic reality for Australia is that any phyical threats it may experience will likely be preceded with a security threat to one of its northern neighbors. Andrew Maher argues that Australia needs a ‘Plan B’ with the aim to deter agression in the region by adding ‘support to resistance’ to its portfolio of strategic options. He calls on the resistance operating concept as a basis for this porcupine defense that should be integrated into Australia’s national strategy. “A ‘Plan B’ for the ADF: supporting resistance as a strategy”, The Strategist, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, July 21, 2023.

Wagner Group in Africa. Several hundred fighters of the Russian paramilitary group have arrived in the Central African Republic to ensure security ahead of the elections to be held at the end of July. The group has had a presence in the country for the past five years. “Hundreds of Wagner fighters arrive in Central Africa: Russian security group”, AfricaNews, July 17, 2023.

Mogolia and the Korean Peninsular. David Maxwell, a retired Special Forces officer, recently returned from a trip to Asia. He provides his perspective on Mongolia and how that country can influence the peace process between the two Koreas. “Mongolia and Korean Unification: a Bridge Between North and South”, Global Strat View, July 20, 2023.

Living Under the Taliban. Afghanistan has been governed by the Taliban for nearly two years. Most news reports project the image of a population living under a terror regime. Some say that the people of Afghanistan are living in a more secure environment. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between. “Life under the Taliban”, by Franz Marty, Swiss Institute for Global Affairs, July 25, 2023.

Christians at-Risk in Nigeria. Lela Gilbert details the persecution against Christians in Africa and the onging jihadi attacks in Nigeria … and beyond. “Why is the Biden Administration Overlooking Nigeria’s Jihadi Attacks on Christians?”, The Washington Stand, July 25, 2023.

Blacksmith Publishing is a media partner of SOF News. They are a book publishing firm, sell ‘Pinelander Swag’, have a weekly podcast called The Pinelander.

Upcoming Events

August 5, 2023. Perdido Key, Florida

Deep Dive 2023 Combat Diver Reunion

CDF

August 12, 2023

11th Special Forces Group Reunion

Fort Meade, MD

October 16-20, 2023

SOAR XLVII

Special Operations Association

Books, Pubs, and Reports

Report – Coast Guard Polar Security Cutter (Polar Icebreaker) Program, Congressional Research Service, CRS RL34391, updated July 20, 2023, PDF, 72 pages.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL34391

CRS Report – Strategic Competion in the Arctic, Congressional Research Service, CRS TE10084, July 18, 2023, PDF, 11 pages. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/TE/TE10084

CRS Report – North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons and Missile Programs. A recent Congressional Research Service publication provides an overview of nuclear testing and missile programs of North Korean. CRS IF10472, PDF, 3 pages. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10472

Podcasts, Videos, and Movies

Video – Arctic Edge 2023. Watch U.S. Special Forces train in the Arctic during #AE23, a USNORTHCOM homeland defense exercise demonstrating U.S. military’s capabilities in extreme cold weather. Arctic EDGE 2023 (AE23) is a U.S. Northern Command-led homeland defense exercise demonstrating the U.S. military’s capabilities in extreme cold weather, joint force readiness, and U.S. military commitment to mutual strategic security interests in the Arctic region. (U.S. Army video by Spc. Jarrad Kearney) https://www.dvidshub.net/video/885080/arctic-edge-2023

Video – Diversity in SOF. Watch an episode of Beyond the Beret where a host of topics are covered by some SF NCOs. YouTube, July 16, 2023, one hour. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPLdSxnH384

Podcast – The Future of Casevac. Learn how the excellent casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) system developed and refined over 20 years of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq will need to adapt to large-scale combat operations. Manuel Menendez is a U.S. Army physician assistant and is the incoming Command Surgeon for Special Operations Command North. War Room Podcast, Army War Collge, July 25, 2023. https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/podcasts/casevac/

Podcasts

SOFCAST. United States Special Operations Command

https://linktr.ee/sofcast

The Pinelander. Blacksmith Publishing

https://www.thepinelander.com/

The Indigenous Approach. 1st Special Forces Command

https://open.spotify.com/show/3n3I7g9LSmd143GYCy7pPA

Irregular Warfare Initiative

https://irregularwarfare.org/category/podcasts/

Irregular Warfare Podcast. Modern War Institute at West Point

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/irregular-warfare-podcast/id1514636385

SOF News is not a ‘money making’ enterprise; but we do have administrative, operating, and publishing expenses. Individuals and businesses provide the funds to defray these expenses. Their contributions are deeply appreciated. Learn how you can support SOF News.

sof.news · by SOF News · July 26, 2023

15. Rand Paul fights to preserve the Constitution's prominence over NATO authority

 So here is Article 5:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.htm

​Now I am not an international law expert (except for my degree in barracks lawyering), but I think the operative phrase is "such action as it deems necessary." The way I interpret that is that every member has the right to determine what action it should take - which may include taking no action - especially if Congress refuses to declare war or provide an authorization for the use of military forces. Perhaps that phrase is too vague and should be strengthened. But in my opinion there is nothing in the treaty that threatens our sovereignty. 

​For comparison, here is the similar article (III)from the ROK/US Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) of 1950.

Each Party recognizes that an armed attack in the Pacific area on either of the Parties in territories now under their respective administrative control, or hereafter recognized by one of the Parties as lawfully brought under the administrative control of the other, would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes.

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/kor001.asp

​I think the NATO treaty implies what is specially stated in the ROK/US MDT.  Perhaps so there is no confusion the MDT phrase should be added to the NATO Article 5. Again, I do not think it is necessary. And even if we did make the change it probably would not satisfy Senator Paul.

​Regardless, the US is going to act IAW its constitutional processes and the US has not ceded any sovereignty under any treaty (or the UN for that matter). But speculators will continue to speculate about our forfeiting of sovereignty. 

Rand Paul fights to preserve the Constitution's prominence over NATO authority

by Christopher Tremoglie, Commentary Writer July 26, 2023 02:02 AM

Washington Examiner · July 26, 2023

Last week, the Senate rejected an amendment from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to add to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have reinforced that Article 5 of the NATO treaty does not take precedence over Congress on the issue of declaring war.

It was the latest effort by the Republican senator to ensure NATO isn’t the de facto authority for the United States declaring war. That power belongs to the federal government, not a multilateralist alliance of mostly European countries.

SECRET SERVICE: BIDEN DOG WOULD BE ‘PUT DOWN’ IF NOT PRESIDENT’S PET

Article 5 states that if any member of NATO is attacked, then it is considered an attack on all members, and each country will "take the actions it deems necessary to assist the Ally attacked.”

Paul’s amendment came on the heels of intensified discussions surrounding admitting Ukraine into the alliance. Given the repeated enthusiasm to support Ukraine by Democrats and some long-serving Republican politicians, Paul’s attempt to ensure that Congress, not NATO, decides when the country goes to war, was a logical and sensible request.

“Today I offered an amendment to the NDAA that would have clarified that Article 5 of the NATO treaty does not supersede the constitution,” Paul tweeted last week.

“It should have been an easy vote to affirm the Constitution, to vote against affirming the Constitution actually places doubt in the Constitution. But it was defeated 83-16,” Paul said in a separate tweet.

Today I offered an amendment to the NDAA that would have clarified that Article 5 of the NATO treaty does not supersede the Constitution. https://t.co/KfEwvY81Rv

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 19, 2023

But Paul’s efforts to add an amendment to the NDAA should not be easily dismissed. Democrats have embraced a globalist agenda in recent years that directly threatens the autonomy of the United States.

Multilateralism has become an integral component of contemporary foreign policy in the 21st century. Starting with the Obama administration, of which the current president was a member, Democrats have embraced the Obama doctrine, a foreign policy strategy of “leading from behind.”

Adam Brandon, president of FreedomWorks, reinforced Paul’s viewpoints and concerns. Furthermore, Brandon emphasized the significance of the Constitution’s authority in dictating our nation’s policy during hostile geopolitical matters and that nothing can usurp its authority in times of war — despite the not-so-secret desires of the multilateral enthusiasts present in NATO.

Only 16 U.S. Senators voted for @SenRandPaul's amendment to uphold the Constitution. #ampFW https://t.co/PvPe3N4y8H

— FreedomWorks (@FreedomWorks) July 20, 2023

“The Constitution is very clear: only Congress has the power to declare war. The U.S. must not cede our Constitutional Republic to authoritarian rule, and this NATO War Powers Resolution introduced by Sen. Paul would have reaffirmed this commitment to the American people. It is sad to see that Congress is content with neglecting their lawmaking directive,” Brandon said.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Most people would assume we wouldn’t need any particular amendments to ensure Congress follows the Constitution regarding declaring war, not Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. But that isn’t the world we live in today.

A deterioration in trust between government politicians and questionable allegiances to multilateralist policies warrant this need for skepticism. Paul’s valiant efforts were a subtle nudge to our country’s legislators to remind them that we are the United States of America, not the United States of NATO.

Washington Examiner · July 26, 2023

16. Biden picks Allvin to be next Air Force top officer

Biden picks Allvin to be next Air Force top officer

defenseone.com · by Audrey Decker

Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin speaks at a 2021 meeting at the Pentagon. U.S. Air Force / Eric Dietrich

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Policy

The general is the service’s vice chief of staff.

|

By Audrey Decker

Staff Writer

July 26, 2023 11:08 AM ET

• President Biden has tapped the Air Force’s No. 2 officer, Gen. David Allvin, to be the service’s next chief of staff.

Allvin, who is currently serving as the service’s vice chief of staff, would replace Gen. CQ Brown, who is Biden’s pick to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The nomination was sent to the Senate on Tuesday, according to a notice, but has not been publicly announced.

Allvin, a mobility pilot, has held a number of positions at the Pentagon and NATO. Before service as vice chief, he was the director for strategy, plans, and policy at the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

However, both Allvin and Brown’s nominations will likely be stalled due to Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s hold on all Defense Department nominations, as a protest against Pentagon abortion policy.

​17. Prigozhin as Petitioner: Making Sense of the “March for Justice”

Excerpts:

In his address on June 24, Putin drew a connection between Prigozhin’s mutiny and the “intrigues, squabbles, and politicking” in 1917 that led to “the destruction of the army and collapse of the state,” not to mention “the loss of huge territories,” including, for a time, Ukraine. Yet the myth of the autocrat in Russia is expansive. It permits the leader to be gentle, even forgiving. In the days after the rebellion, Putin, for reasons of personal and military expediency, appears to have granted Prigozhin clemency. Russia needs Wagner’s military capabilities in Ukraine as well as in Africa and the Middle East, and the Russian president has seemingly concluded that Prigozhin’s arrest or execution would threaten that relationship. Indeed, on June 29, Putin even met with his petitioner and thirty-four other Wagner fighters and, according to the Kremlin, “heard out the commanders.”

Even myths have their limits though. Just as Prigozhin may not prove convincing in his appeals to the autocrat, Putin may have moved so quickly toward forgiveness as to suggest weakness instead of compassion. Only time will tell whether both men’s hotheaded behavior can be accommodated by the durable narratives offered by Russian history. As we look to the future, we should remember that, according to the essence of the petition, the petitioner’s fate remains in the hands of the autocrat. Indeed, at some point, Putin might choose a wholly different script if it serves his interests, whether in Moscow or in Ukraine.

Prigozhin as Petitioner: Making Sense of the “March for Justice” - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Anatoly Pinsky · July 26, 2023

On June 23, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, announced the start of a “march for justice.” As many observers have noted in the weeks since, what occurred over the next twenty-four hours had not occurred in Russian history for over a century. It was also simply baffling. A rebellion had been launched by Russians themselves against the chief institutions of their state. Yet, as the rebels were closing in on Moscow, their leader suddenly withdrew his forces and called off the mutiny. The Prigozhin affair was indeed a momentous, puzzling event. Yet, in the proper historical perspective, the march and its outcome emerge as strikingly familiar, even logical. And the most fitting frame is the history of an age-old but stubbornly persistent Russian practice: the delivery of a petition to the autocrat.

Petitioners in Russia, as elsewhere, do not explicitly challenge the power of the autocrat. On the contrary, their appeals reaffirm the source of sovereign authority. To be sure, some Russian petitioners have destabilized their country’s political system, as Prigozhin appears to have done. Still, this was not their intention. In these instances, the autocrat moved to shore up his power, even by offering concessions. Such maneuvers could be shrewd, but sometimes proved to be only a short-term fix.

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No matter the case, in considering the implications of June 23–24, it is instructive that the practice of petitioning has endured, even across such divides as revolution in 1917 and state collapse in 1991. Moreover, the practice has survived as part of an equally persistent political system — one that grants the Russian leader a plenitude of power, to be exercised in keeping with his ambitions, including today in Ukraine.

Tsar-Struck

For centuries, Russians have written petitions to their country’s leader to gain his (or, in the eighteenth century, her) favor. In Muscovy and the Russian empire, illiterate peasants — most of the population — sought out scribes to put their wishes in writing. Often, rural communities sent delegations of khodoki, or “walkers,” to carry their petitions to the capital. But sometimes they went a step further. To ensure the tsar took their appeals seriously, on occasion these peasants fatefully chose to launch insurrections against his officials, whom they accused of failing to execute his benevolent will. As the peasant adage put it, “The tsar wants it, but the boyars resist.” According to the historian Daniel Field, author of the classic Rebels in the Name of the Tsar, “‘it,’ of course, was justice.”

Peasants were not the only Russians who wrote petitions in prerevolutionary Russia. Under the Soviet Union, citizens from all demographics — workers, intellectuals, as well as peasants — sent appeals to Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and their successors. They, too, traveled to Moscow to present their petitions directly to the leader. Under Putin, these older practices have endured. In 2008, peasants from over a dozen Russian regions set out for Moscow to inform the president (then Putin’s placeholder, Dmitry Medvedev) of the sorry state of their villages. In the past and in the present, the entire enterprise — crafting and delivering a petition — was often a performance, choreographed to gain the autocrat’s attention. And, in each performance, one thing was obligatory: rhetorical subordination to the ruler.

Sincere belief in the leader’s benevolence, or so-called naïve monarchism, was not required, however. In Rebels in the Name of the Tsar, Field argued that rebellious Russians — in his case, nineteenth-century peasants — who invoked the tsar’s will were not necessarily his humble servants. Rather, they were sly and opportunistic. For more worldly Russians, belief was more commonly absent. Tsarist officials frequently bent the language of naïve monarchism to their own ends. As Field explained, radical intellectuals even used the tsar’s myth to mobilize peasant rebels behind their cause. Naïve monarchism, however, had staying power. During the Terror of 1937–1938, intellectuals wondered if Stalin was aware of the repression carried out in his name. And, in 2008, the peasants who walked to Moscow carried placards that read, “President, you are misinformed.”

Prigozhin’s Appeal

Yevgeny Prigozhin, to be sure, is no naïve monarchist. Nonetheless, the petition to the autocrat helps us make sense of his puzzling march for justice. Over the course of his march, Prigozhin issued a number of appeals, each of which was addressed to several audiences: to Shoigu and Gerasimov, whom he put on notice; to the rest of the military as well as the security services and national guard, whom he summoned to join him or stand down; and to the Russian people, whose potential support offered him leverage. His primary spectator, however, was the autocrat himself, Vladimir Putin, the patron to whom he had not had access for months. Like so many petitioners before him, Prigozhin chose to put on a performance for the ruler. The fact that a “traditional” play was staged in part on a modern medium, the social messaging app Telegram, does not break the rules of the genre. In recent years, many petitions to the Russian president have been articulated using new media. Indeed, Prigozhin’s intentions have not been lost on some Russians. For example, pro-Kremlin Telegram channels have also interpreted the march as “the presenting of a petition to the capital.”

In his appeals, Prigozhin focused his ire on Shoigu and Gerasimov, whom he accused of misleading the president into launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In doing so, Prigozhin drew on numerous historical features of the petition. For example, his condemnation of Shoigu and Gerasimov was effectively a denunciation, a subset of the petition that became common — and was deemed high-minded — under Stalin. Also, he insisted that, in contrast to the corrupt Shoigu and Gerasimov, his own forces were the true patriots, for they had shed their blood in Ukraine. This trope — selfless sacrifice for the motherland — was frequently used by Soviet veterans of the Civil War and Second World War in their own petitions. Finally, to the lay observer, Prigozhin’s recordings may appear stunningly savage, the utterings of an unhinged man who could not possibly be acting according to a historical logic. Yet, for anyone who has read Soviet-era petitions, Prigozhin’s savagery is not altogether unusual.

Peasant petitioners in prerevolutionary Russia, presented with the tsar’s response by his emissaries, spurned it if it ran counter to their interests. “If the tsar himself had made the journey,” Field wrote, “we may suppose that the peasants would have rejected him as an imposter.” The dissemination of the autocrat’s will was a key problem of governance in the tsarist period, and in much of the Soviet era as well. However, in today’s Russia, the autocrat may easily articulate his word far and wide. On the morning of June 24, Putin did just that. In a televised address, the president made clear that he had received Prigozhin’s petition. In brief, angry remarks, Putin tore up his subject’s appeal, condemning it as “a stab in the back.” Instantly, Prigozhin’s petition was stripped of all coherence, for the Wagner boss was now in breach of the genre’s principal rule — subordination to the autocrat.

Prigozhin did not immediately withdraw his appeal. He chose — in perhaps his most audacious move — to evaluate the autocrat’s word. “The president is deeply mistaken,” Prigozhin stated in another audio recording. “No one is going to confess their guilt at his demand.” This criticism was relatively light, however; Prigozhin had not targeted Putin as such, only a “mistake” the president had made in a single instance. Prigozhin also failed to immediately withdraw his troops.. Then, at 8:24 pm, he posted a final audio recording, announcing — to nearly universal surprise — that his forces had turned around and were returning to their field camps. The bemused response of more than 365,000 Telegram users was to tick the clown emoji under what seemed to be an absurd finale.

Enduring Puzzles

What is absurd in the abstract, however, becomes far less farcical, and perhaps even logical, in historical perspective. The petitioner in Russia is by definition not a revolutionary, and Prigozhin had no desire to stumble into the role. All the same, the long-term consequences of his march are unclear. Indeed, at least one Russian petitioner has unintentionally sparked a revolution. On January 9, 1905, a Russian priest, Father Georgy Gapon, led a march of laborers, members of his “Assembly of Russian Factory Workers,” to the Winter Palace, the tsar’s residence in St. Petersburg. There, Gapon and his union planned to deliver a petition to Nicholas II. Like Wagner, Gapon’s assembly had been created by the Russian state itself, as the tsarist police had hoped to organize workers into a union free of socialist influence. The tsar was not sympathetic. His soldiers and police fired on the demonstrators, killing over 130 of them. The massacre, which became known as “Bloody Sunday,” led to mass strikes, social unrest, and, ultimately, the Revolution of 1905, which resulted in a limited constitutional order.

Still, a final puzzle remains: Why would Prigozhin choose to try to carry his petition to Putin in the first place, since surely he was aware that he had little-to-no chance of earning the autocrat’s sympathy? And how precisely had he planned for this march to unfold anyway? As it happens, rebellions in the name of the autocrat in Russia are commonly quixotic and poorly planned. Under the tsars, peasant rebels regularly rose up against enormous odds and without a coherent strategy. They did so, however, because they were utterly desperate. Under the Soviets, too, citizens penned bilious denunciations of their superiors because these were often their only tools of influence. This is among the key differences between petitioners in Russia and those in the West, where citizens also issue appeals to their leaders but where this is only one tool in a larger political toolbox.

Subject to official censure, most petitioners in Russia offered a simple justification: they had acted according to the autocrat’s true will — or so they had thought. For some, of course, it was harder than for others to convincingly make this claim. Prigozhin’s variation of this defense, which underlines lack of intent, was that he “just kind of lost it.” In the past, petitioners who presented such dubious arguments paid dearly — often with their lives — for the spectacles they had organized. Yet their most fateful error was not that they had chosen to rise up. Rather, it was in the play they had staged: They had put on a performance that their most important spectator, the Russian autocrat himself, not only did not like, but feared could destroy the theater.

The Tsar’s Verdict

In his address on June 24, Putin drew a connection between Prigozhin’s mutiny and the “intrigues, squabbles, and politicking” in 1917 that led to “the destruction of the army and collapse of the state,” not to mention “the loss of huge territories,” including, for a time, Ukraine. Yet the myth of the autocrat in Russia is expansive. It permits the leader to be gentle, even forgiving. In the days after the rebellion, Putin, for reasons of personal and military expediency, appears to have granted Prigozhin clemency. Russia needs Wagner’s military capabilities in Ukraine as well as in Africa and the Middle East, and the Russian president has seemingly concluded that Prigozhin’s arrest or execution would threaten that relationship. Indeed, on June 29, Putin even met with his petitioner and thirty-four other Wagner fighters and, according to the Kremlin, “heard out the commanders.”

Even myths have their limits though. Just as Prigozhin may not prove convincing in his appeals to the autocrat, Putin may have moved so quickly toward forgiveness as to suggest weakness instead of compassion. Only time will tell whether both men’s hotheaded behavior can be accommodated by the durable narratives offered by Russian history. As we look to the future, we should remember that, according to the essence of the petition, the petitioner’s fate remains in the hands of the autocrat. Indeed, at some point, Putin might choose a wholly different script if it serves his interests, whether in Moscow or in Ukraine.

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Anatoly Pinsky is a historian of modern Russia. He is currently a visiting researcher at the Aleksanteri Institute at the University of Helsinki and is completing a book on the cultural history of the Soviet Union.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Anatoly Pinsky · July 26, 2023

18. The Oppenheimer Film, The Nuclear Bombing Of Japan And The Lies Told

The Oppenheimer Film, The Nuclear Bombing Of Japan And The Lies Told – OpEd

eurasiareview.com · by IDN · July 26, 2023

By Jonathan Power

This is what is missing from Christopher Nolan’s powerful film, “Oppenheimer”- the story of the making of the atomic bomb:

Yes, one can blame the wartime leadership of Japan for persisting with the war when the evidence was overpowering that Japan along with Germany had lost World War II.

But also, one can blame the US for using the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki when it knew the allies had Japan on its knees. No knockout blow was needed. The US’s wartime ally, the Soviet Union, was speedily invading Japan from the north.

The events of 1945 were a mixture of Japanese pig-headed militarism and American realpolitik.

The atom bombing of the two cities is always explained by the Americans as a necessary step that was only taken because there remained no other way of forcing capitulation and saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of American troops. The film does not challenge this interpretation. But it is simply not true.

The evidence now available from opened Japanese and Soviet archives suggests that the nuclear bombing was not decisive in persuading Japan to surrender. The Emperor and the war leadership were told about the atomic bombing but it did not affect their will to continue the war. The Soviet invasion did.

Without the Soviet entry into the war the Japanese would have continued to fight until quite a few more atomic bombs had been dropped, until there had been a successful US invasion of the home islands and continued aerial bombardment, combined with a naval blockade. President Harry Truman had a workable alternative to using the atom bomb—to cooperate with Stalin, as Roosevelt and Churchill had done on the Western front.

When the Red Army invaded Manchuria, the Japanese political leadership were taken by total surprise. The invasion undermined their confidence as well as punching a fatal hole in its strategic plan. Without Japan’s surrender, Tokyo knew that the Soviets would occupy Manchuria, southern Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and a good half of Korea and then move further southward into the mainland.

Moreover, it would have compelled Truman to concede Soviet participation in Japan’s post war occupation. This, not the nuclear bombing, was the key factor in deciding to surrender.

The US conventional bombing attacks on Japanese cities in the spring and summer of 1945 were almost as devastating as Hiroshima. They often caused more damage and even more casualties. Altogether 66 Japanese cities were attacked that summer, and a typical raid of 500 bombers could deliver 5 kilotons of bombs. The Hiroshima bomb was the equivalent of 16 kilotons, only three times bigger than the average conventional raid.

Yet neither the conventional nor the nuclear bombing turned the heads of Japan’s leaders. Its Supreme Council did not meet until two days after the Hiroshima attack of August 6th. Yet when the Soviets intervened on August 9th word reached Tokyo by 4.30 am and the Supreme Council met by 10.30am. Following Hiroshima, Emperor Hirohito took no action. He merely asked for “more details”. When he heard of the Soviet invasion, he immediately summoned Lord Privy Seal Koichi Kido and told him, “In the light of the Soviet entry…. It is all the more urgent to find a means to end the war.”

After the war Kido confessed, “If military leaders could convince themselves they were defeated by the power of science but not by lack of spiritual power or strategic errors, they could save face.” The Americans were only too happy to oblige in this 1945 political spin. If the bomb did it, then the US had been the prime instrument in Japan’s defeat. If the bomb did it, US prowess would be enhanced throughout the world.

Before the wartime generation in Japan shuffles away, they should demand that the truth about Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be explained. The film “Oppenheimer” now being viewed almost the world over is a wake-up call. A whole new batch of at least two generations in Japan is being given the bombing’s background. Now they should ask their government to give them the full picture. It will give a measure of peace to a nation’s still troubled mind.

For the US, it’s time to open the archives and level with the people. If voters knew how they were misled by President Truman who made it likely that one day that the bomb might be used again- by the US or some other country- they might give a presidential candidate committed to fast nuclear disarmament a better chance.

* Jonathan Power was for 17 years a foreign affairs columnist and commentator for the International Herald Tribune, now the New York Times. He has also written dozens of columns for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times. He is the European who has appeared most on the opinion pages of these papers.

eurasiareview.com · by IDN · July 26, 2023

19.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com