Quotes of the Day:

"If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else." 

- Booker T. Washington

"You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday."

- Jonathan Swift

"Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours." 

- Hermann Hesse

1. ‘Fort Liberty’: Army Half Done Scrubbing Confederate Names from Its Bases

2. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 1, 2023

3. Suspected Chinese spies, disguised as tourists, tried to infiltrate Alaskan military bases

4. Fort Bragg to become Fort Liberty. Here’s what you need to know

5. New US Marine unit prepares for major role in the Philippines

6. Ukraine war hasn't changed China's thinking around possible attack on Taiwan, report says

7. Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2023

8. Russia says two killed after Ukraine shelled border regions

9. Ukraine says it downed 36 Russian missiles and drones

10. Exclusive: US seeking explosives in Japan for Ukraine artillery shells

11. Asia security summit kicks off amid US-China tensions

12. On Ukraine’s southern front line, tension reigns before decisive counteroffensive

13. AI, China ‘Defining Challenges of Our Time’: CISA Director

14. US, Philippines, Japan set to hold first-ever joint naval drills

15. In Ukraine, Russia is nearly down to its nukes

16. It’s Critical to Solve America’s Military Recruiting Crisis

17. Ukraine-Backed Russian Rebels Face Furious Counterattack After Raid on Belgorod

18. The U.S. and Russia: Competing Proxy Strategies in the Russo-Ukrainian War

19. THE MERITS—AND PITFALLS—OF FIGHTING “BY, WITH, AND THROUGH” A PARTNER FORCE

20. Pentagon contracting with SpaceX's Starlink to provide satellite communication capabilities for Ukraine

21. Strategic Echoes: Operation Unthinkable, Nuclear Weapons, and Ukraine

22. What the Ukrainian Armed Forces Need to Do to Win

23. An Examination of Wargames, Irregular Warfare & Futurism — How Games Can Contribute & Best Practices for Doing So

24. War Books: Inside Ike’s Mind on D-Day

25. School of Advanced Military Studies' 40th class graduates

26. Air Force AI drone kills its human operator in a simulation

27. Air Force pushes back on claim that military AI drone sim killed operator, says remarks 'taken out of context'

28. USAF Calls Killer-AI Report ‘Anecdotal’

1. ‘Fort Liberty’: Army Half Done Scrubbing Confederate Names from Its Bases

Please do not blame the rank and file soldiers of Army SF and the 82d Airborne for Fort Liberty. I am pretty sure most any SF soldier would have been proud to have Bragg renamed after any heroic paratrooper from the 82d. But it is really disappointing that someone would object to MSG Benavidez since he served in both the 82d and SF. I think we should know for the record who objected to him.

Excerpt:

Fort Bragg is home to Army Special Forces and the 82nd Airborne, and leaders of those units disliked Benavidez’s history in both units.

‘Fort Liberty’: Army Half Done Scrubbing Confederate Names from Its Bases

The new name for Fort Bragg is a compromise between airborne and Special Forces, one source said.

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

The Army’s largest base will be officially renamed Fort Liberty on Friday following a once-politically controversial plan to ditch the Confederate Army namesakes of nine U.S. Army bases.

With the renaming of Fort Liberty, the effort is now at its halfway mark, with four bases to go.

To date, Fort Hood has been renamed as Fort Cavazos, Fort Lee as Fort Gregg-Adams, Fort Rucker as Fort Novosel, Fort Pickett as Fort Barfoot.

Changes are coming to Fort Benning, which will be renamed Fort Moore, Fort A.P. Hill as Fort Walker, Fort Gordon as Fort Eisenhower, and Fort Polk as Fort Johnson.

Some of the bases’ original namesakes were chosen to appeal to their surrounding populations, a Defense Department press release said.

Among the namesakes were Edmund Rucker, an obscure Confederate colonel who was related by marriage to a Alabama senator. Another namesake, Henry Benning, was vigorously pro-slavery, arguing in 1861 that abolition would mean that white southerners would “be completely exterminated, and the land will be left in the possession of the blacks, and then it will go back into a wilderness and become another Africa.” Braxton Bragg was a slave-owning Confederate general whose battlefield defeats and abrasive personality contributed to him being removed from his command.

New honorees include Sgt. William Johnson, a Black Medal of Honor awardee from World War I who fought off a German raiding party in part by driving a knife through an opponent's head; and Hal Moore and his wife Julia, who respectively led troops in fierce fighting in Vietnam and formed support groups for the wives of those killed in action in her husband’s unit.

Liberty is the only fort to honor a concept, not a human with a military record.

A source familiar with the commission’s deliberations told Defense One that the commission had recommended the base be renamed for Staff Sgt. Roy Benavidez, a Hispanic airborne soldier-turned-Green Beret who received a Medal of Honor in Vietnam.

Fort Bragg is home to Army Special Forces and the 82nd Airborne, and leaders of those units disliked Benavidez’s history in both units.

“There was some identity politics at work where the Special Forces community didn't want an airborne guy and the airborne community didn't want a Special Forces guy,” the source said.

Confederate symbols came under increased scrutiny after a mass shooting at a church in Charleston in 2015, in which a white man named Dylann Roof killed nine Black parishioners. Roof expressed white-supremecist views and displayed a Confederate flag in a photo.

Congress was moved to act in 2021, a year after widespread protests about the police killings of George Floyd and other unarmed Black people. Lawmakers established a commission to identify and recommend new names for Defense Department items that commemorate the Confederate States of America or those who fought for it.

The legislation was initially controversial. Then-President Donald Trump vetoed the bill containing the commission legislation, but was overridden by large majorities in both houses of Congress.

Kori Schake, a director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute who served on the naming commission, said she was surprised the commission was not even more controversial, given the broader context of culture wars in the United States.

Among these controversies are recent stand-offs between Congressional Republicans and the military over whether the military is being too “woke.”

Schake credited the success to the commission’s outreach to Army communities and to the heroism of the new honorees.

She said the conversations were tense at times. Schake’s own mother challenged her as to whether the renamings would open the door to reconsidering the legacy of prominent Americans such as George Washington.

Leaders at Fort Bragg, in particular, expressed concern that the base might be yet again renamed if political sensibilities continue to evolve, Schake said.

“Fort Bragg was a community that had a very strong view: they were worried about having to rename the base again in the future,” Schake said.

When conversation became heated, though, Schake said the commission’s leaders brought the discussion back around to the value of respecting diversity.

During a meeting at Fort Hood, one soldier stood up and objected to the renaming.

Commision chair and retired U.S. Navy four-star admiral Michelle Howard responded by telling the story of Jackie Robonson, the first Black baseball player to play in the Major Leagues, who was court-martialed while serving at Fort Hood for refusing to give his seat on a bus to a White soldier.

“‘Imagine if the Army had been able to keep the leadership that Jackie Robinson provided to baseball?’” Howard said, according to Schake. “That really let the air out of the opposition.

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

2. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 1, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-1-2023

Key Takeaways

• Russian forces conducted another series of missile strikes on Ukraine overnight on May 31 to June 1 and during the day on June 1.
• Elements of the all-Russian pro-Ukrainian Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) and Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR) reportedly conducted another raid into Belgorod Oblast on June 1.
• Russian officials and milbloggers’ responses to the limited raid in Belgorod Oblast are indicative of a continued heightened anxiety within the Russian information space regarding the war in Ukraine.
• Chechen commanders and officials launched a concerted attack on Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin on June 1 in a likely attempt to undermine Prigozhin’s appeal.
• Prigozhin responded to the attacks claiming that he will continue to voice his opinions until Russian MoD officials are punished for their mistakes in planning the invasion of Ukraine
• Chechen attacks on Prigozhin’s character may be a part of the Kremlin’s efforts to discredit and undermine Prigozhin as his forces withdraw from the frontlines.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations northeast of Kupyansk and northwest of Svatove.
• The tempo of Russian and Ukrainian offensive operations in the Bakhmut direction remains low as of June 1, and Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.
• Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground attacks along the southern axis.
• The Russian State Duma rejected a draft law that would have granted mobilization exemptions to candidates and doctors of the science.
• Russian occupation authorities announced that regional elections in occupied territories will take place on September 10.
• Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin announced on May 31 that Ukraine is investigating over 2,900 crimes against children committed by Russian forces.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JUNE 1, 2023

Jun 1, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 1, 2023

Riley Bailey, Kateryna Stepanenko, Nicole Wolkov, Layne Philipson, George Barros, and Fredrick W. Kagan

June 1, 2023, 5:30pm ET

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

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 1:30pm ET on June 1. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the June 2 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Russian forces conducted another series of missile strikes on Ukraine overnight on May 31 to June 1 and during the day on June 1. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched 10 Iskander ballistic missiles targeting Kyiv City from Bryansk Oblast, which borders Ukraine, in the morning on June 1, and that Ukrainian air defense destroyed all 10 missiles.[1] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Russian forces launched two S-300 missiles targeting critical infrastructure in Kharkiv City during the day on June 1.[2] Ukrainian Air Force Spokesperson Colonel Yuriy Ihnat stated that Ukraine cannot strike launch points of Russian Iskander missiles in Russia as Ukraine is under obligations not to strike Russian territory with Western-provided weapons.[3] ISW has previously assessed that Russian forces began a new limited air campaign in recent months to degrade Ukrainian counteroffensive capabilities, but that the Russian prioritization of Kyiv is likely further limiting the campaign’s ability to meaningfully constrain potential Ukrainian counteroffensive actions.[4]

Elements of the all-Russian pro-Ukrainian Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) and Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR) reportedly conducted another raid into Belgorod Oblast on June 1. Geolocated footage published on June 1 shows alleged LSR personnel operating near Novaya Tavolzhanka (3.5km from the Russian-Ukrainian border) and LSR and RDK personnel striking Russian positions near the settlement as well as Shebekino, Belgorod Oblast (7km from the Russian-Ukrainian border).[5] The RDK stated that the "second phase" of its operations has begun and published footage purporting to show RDK personnel engaging in combat on the outskirts of Shebekino.[6] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian Border Guard Service and Federal Security Service (FSB) officers thwarted two motorized infantry companies reinforced with tanks that attempted to "invade" Russian territory near Shebekino and Novaya Tavolzhanka.[7] Belgorod Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov stated that ”there were no enemies on the territory of Belgorod Oblast” during the attempted raids, although geolocated footage shows alleged LSR personnel operating on Russian territory.[8]

A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that 20 Russian border guards and 20 conscripts as well as Russian aviation and artillery units repelled the RDK and LRS personnel that attempted to conduct a raid near Shebekino.[9] Other Russian milbloggers claimed that the formations that conducted the raids near Shebekino and Novaya Tavolzhanka were roughly the size of a company and had tanks as well as other armored fighting vehicles, although one prominent milblogger claimed that the group that tried to enter near the Shebekino checkpoint was only comprised of 10 people.[10] The reported company size elements conducting these operations indicate that these operations in Belgorod Oblast are doctrinally raids. Raids, according to US Army doctrine, are small scale assault operations involving swift entry into hostile territory to secure information, disrupt hostile forces, or destroy installations.[11] Raids end with a planned withdrawal from a narrowly defined target area and do not seek to establish long-term control over territory. The RDK and LRS have not seriously attempted to control territory in Belgorod Oblast, either on June 1 or during their May 22 raid, despite their avowed goal to capture Russian territory.[12]

Russian officials and milbloggers’ responses to the limited raid in Belgorod Oblast are indicative of a continued heightened anxiety within the Russian information space regarding the war in Ukraine. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated on June 1 that Russian President Vladimir Putin constantly receives information about the situation in Belgorod Oblast, and that Putin awarded Shebekinsky Raion Head Vladimir Zhdanov the Order of Courage for his response to the situation along the border.[13] Gladkov announced that Russian officials in Belgorod Oblast evacuated 200 children to Penza Oblast and plan to evacuate another 600 children to Kaluga and Yaroslavl oblasts on June 3.[14] BBC’s Russia Service reported on June 1 that Gladkov agreed with authorities of several Russian regions to accept 1,200 Belgorod residents during evacuations.[15] These evacuations, Putin’s reported attentiveness, and the MoD’s characterization of the raid as an attempt to ”invade” Russian territory suggests that the Kremlin is trying to use these limited raids to support ongoing information operations that seek to portray the war in Ukraine as existential and garner domestic support for a protracted war.[16]

Select Russian milbloggers used the situation in Belgorod Oblast to criticize the Russian leadership while others argued that the limited raids are precursors for Ukrainian counteroffensive operations. Former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin argued that increased activity within Russia is a result of Russian forces wasting reserves in the fall of 2022, Russian officials failing to transition the economy to a war footing, and the Kremlin’s decision not to introduce martial law.[17] Girkin argued that these failures caused Ukraine to understand Russia’s relative weaknesses and suggested that they emboldened Ukrainian forces to conduct operations within Russia itself.[18] Girkin also argued that the Kremlin will likely respond to the alleged Ukrainian operations within Russia too late and that the Russian public’s support for the Russian leadership will wane by then.[19] Another milblogger criticized Putin directly for pretending that everything is fine in Shebekino.[20] Other milbloggers argued that the raids in Belgorod Oblast are a Ukrainian effort to divert Russian forces away from important sectors of the front in Ukraine to border regions ahead of potential Ukrainian counteroffensive operations.[21]

Chechen commanders and officials launched a concerted attack on Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin on June 1 in a likely attempt to undermine Prigozhin. Chechen member of the Russian State Duma Adam Delimkhanov responded to Prigozhin’s May 31 statement in which Prigozhin noted that he is unaware Chechen units’ new positions in Ukraine and that Chechen forces will fight for select settlements, rather than the entirety of the Donetsk Oblast.[22] Prigozhin’s original statement appeared relatively neutral compared with his more inflammatory statements and did not directly criticize Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov or his forces. Delimkhanov informally addressed Prigozhin as “Zhenya” (a nickname for Yevgeny) and urged him to select a date on which they could meet to clarify what Chechen ”Akhmat” forces are doing on the frontlines.[23] Delimkhanov also called on Prigozhin to stop ”screaming” about Wagner’s shortages of military supplies and exposing Russian military failures to the world, and claimed that Prigozhin had already established himself as a “blogger” who is triggering Russian society to question his military capabilities. Delimkhanov stated that Wagner received more military equipment “than anyone else” from the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and still suffered significant casualties.

Akhmat Special Forces (Spetsnaz) Commander Major General Apty Alaudinov echoed Delimkhanov’s statements, noting that he only respected Wagner personnel and not Prigozhin, despite Kadyrov’s personal fondness for Prigozhin.[24] Alaudinov stated that Wagner received tanks, planes, helicopters, and a 50,000-person army that the Akhmat forces did not receive. Alaudinov reiterated that Akhmat Spetsnaz is part of the Russian MoD and claimed that many former Wagner fighter had joined the Chechen armed formation. Chairman of the Chechen Parliament Magomed Daudov said that Prigozhin does not need to know the details of Chechen operations and stated that Prigozhin would have been killed for his critiques of the Russian military during World War II.[25] Daudov also indirectly implied that Kadyrov and Putin are the ones making decisions while Prigozhin overestimated his powers by trying to establish himself as the face of the war.[26]

Prigozhin responded to the attacks claiming that he will continue to voice his opinions until the Russian MoD officials are punished for their mistakes in planning the invasion of Ukraine.”[27] Prigozhin stated that his statements were not “reprehensible” and attached two videos from his latest press conference to eliminate “ambiguity” surrounding his claims. In one video, Prigozhin stated that the Russian security forces will “die instead of convicts” on the frontlines when responding to a question about Kadyrov’s proposal to send qualified security forces to fight in Ukraine. Prigozhin added that “nothing bad will happen” if half of the security forces leave to fight in the war.[28] The other video showed Prigozhin agreeing with Kadyrov’s proposal to declare martial law across Russia and stating that Russia will not finish the war in 2023.[29] Prigozhin also amplified a response from an unnamed Wagner commander to Daudov, who stated that Wagner is the best private military company (PMC) in the world and that Wagner had never received military supplies from Chechnya.[30] The Wagner commander also claimed that the Wagner forces perceived Daudov’s attack as a personal slight and questioned Daudov’s audacity in referring to Prigozhin as “Zhenya.”

Chechen attacks on Prigozhin’s character may be a part of the Kremlin’s efforts to discredit and undermine Prigozhin as his forces withdraw from the frontlines. The attacks notably occurred on June 1, which is both the day Prigozhin claimed Wagner would withdraw from the frontlines and his birthday. Prigozhin had previously complained that Russian state media outlets are banning mention of Prigozhin and Wagner forces.[31] Prigozhin may be finding himself in a more vulnerable position than when the Kremlin relied on his forces to capture Bakhmut, and has likely been attempting to remain relevant in the information space by conducting press conferences across Russia.[32] Igor Girkin speculated that Kadyrov has likely calculated the value in maintaining Prigozhin as an ally and concluded that Prigozhin cannot offer him any significant benefits.[33] Girkin also speculated that Kadyrov is not interested in a total collapse of the current military and political system that benefits him and his army, and so is distancing himself from Prigozhin who is attacking it.

Key Takeaways

• Russian forces conducted another series of missile strikes on Ukraine overnight on May 31 to June 1 and during the day on June 1.
• Elements of the all-Russian pro-Ukrainian Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) and Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR) reportedly conducted another raid into Belgorod Oblast on June 1.
• Russian officials and milbloggers’ responses to the limited raid in Belgorod Oblast are indicative of a continued heightened anxiety within the Russian information space regarding the war in Ukraine.
• Chechen commanders and officials launched a concerted attack on Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin on June 1 in a likely attempt to undermine Prigozhin’s appeal.
• Prigozhin responded to the attacks claiming that he will continue to voice his opinions until Russian MoD officials are punished for their mistakes in planning the invasion of Ukraine
• Chechen attacks on Prigozhin’s character may be a part of the Kremlin’s efforts to discredit and undermine Prigozhin as his forces withdraw from the frontlines.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations northeast of Kupyansk and northwest of Svatove.
• The tempo of Russian and Ukrainian offensive operations in the Bakhmut direction remains low as of June 1, and Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.
• Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground attacks along the southern axis.
• The Russian State Duma rejected a draft law that would have granted mobilization exemptions to candidates and doctors of the science.
• Russian occupation authorities announced that regional elections in occupied territories will take place on September 10.
• Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin announced on May 31 that Ukraine is investigating over 2,900 crimes against children committed by Russian forces.

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 continued offensive operations on the Svatove-Kupyansk line on June 1. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks west of Masyutivka (13km northeast of Kupyansk) and in the direction of Stelmakhivka (15km northwest of Svatove).[34] The Ukrainian General Staff’s mention of attacks west of Masyutivka likely indicates that Russian forces captured the settlement on an unspecified earlier date. Russian sources claimed that Russian forces captured Masyutivka as early as May 15.[35] Geolocated footage published on May 31 indicates that Russian forces made marginal gains southeast of Masyutivka.[36] Russian Western Group of Forces (Western Military District) Spokesperson Sergei Zybinsky claimed that unspecified elements of the 6th Combined Arms Army of the Western Military District repelled two Ukrainian attacks near Movchanove (10km northeast of Kupyansk) railway station.[37] A Russian milblogger claimed that fighting is ongoing near Masyutivka, Synkivka (9km northeast of Kupyansk) and Dvorichna (17km northeast of Kupyansk), and that Russian forces are continuing to expand control over areas in the vicinity of Masyutivka.[38]

Russian forces continued limited offensive operations near Kreminna on June 1. A Russian news aggregator claimed that Russian airborne forces (VDV) advanced two kilometers near Kreminna.[39] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Bilohorivka (11km south of Kreminna) and Spirne (26km south of Kreminna).[40] The Russian MoD claimed that the Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group near Kreminna.[41]

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

Click here to read ISW’s retrospective analysis on the Battle for Bakhmut.

The tempo of Russian and Ukrainian offensive operations in the Bakhmut area remains low as of June 1. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northeast of Bakhmut) and Bila Hora (12km southwest of Bakhmut).[42] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian forces near the Berkhivske reservoir (4km northwest of Bakhmut).[43] Ukrainian Ground Forces Commander Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi reported that Russian forces have transitioned to the defensive, decreased active operations, and increased artillery fire.[44] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported on May 31 that Ukrainian forces maintain control over the southwestern outskirts and entrance to Bakhmut City.[45]

Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that most Wagner personnel have left Bakhmut and that all personnel will leave by June 5. Prigozhin claimed that only about 90 Wagner personnel remain in Bakhmut and will leave by June 5.[46] Prigozhin claimed that Wagner forces will rest and train in rear areas of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts for a month and emphasized that he wants Wagner forces to fight on a front where they can perform all tasks alone.[47]

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on June 1. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces did not conduct offensive operations in the Avdiivka direction and that Ukrainian forces repelled all Russian attacks near Marinka.[48] A Russian milblogger claimed on June 1 that Russian forces made advances northeast of Avdiivka, although ISW has not observed visual confirmation supporting this claim.[49] Another milblogger claimed that Russian forces attempted to advance toward Sieverne (6km west of Avdiivka).[50] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that elements of the 1st Donetsk People‘s Republic (DNR) Army Corps conducted offensive operations near Avdiivka, and that assault detachments of the 5th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 1st Army Corps and Chechen “Akhmat” Special Forces (Spetsnaz) continued offensive operations in the Marinka direction.[51] A milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted assault operations in the direction of Pobieda (5km southwest of Donetsk City) and Novomykhailivka (10km southwest of Donetsk City).[52] Footage amplified on May 31 purportedly shows the 10th Tank Regiment (3rd Army Corps, Western Military District) operating in the Avdiivka direction.[53]

Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed or claimed ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast on June 1.[54]

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

Russian forces did not conduct any confirmed ground attacks along the southern axis on June 1. The Ukrainian General Staff and Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that Russian forces are conducting defensive operations in the southern operational direction in Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts.[55] Russian forces continued to conduct regular indirect fire against Ukrainian-held settlements across the southern frontline.[56] Footage posted on May 31 shows reported elements of the Russian 127th Guards Motorized Rifle Division (5th Combined Arms Army, Eastern Military District) conducting artillery fire against Ukrainian positions in Novopil, Donetsk Oblast (30km east of Hulyaipole).[57]

A Ukrainian military official discussed Ukrainian artillery strikes along the southern axis on June 1. Ukrainian Tavria Defense Force Grouping Commander Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi stated on June 1 that Ukrainian artillery elements conducted 832 fire missions in the Tavriisk direction (Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts) in the last 24 hours.[58] Zaporizhia Oblast occupation official Vladimir Rogov and a prominent Kremlin-aligned milblogger reported on June 1 that Ukrainian artillery and helicopter activity noticeably intensified in Zaporizhia Oblast over the past 24 hours.[59]

Ukrainian forces continue to operate on the Dnipro River delta’s islands. Geolocated combat footage posted on June 1 shows Russian artillery strikes against Ukrainian forces – likely reconnaissance elements – on the northwestern part of Velykyi Potemkin Island.[60]

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

The Russian State Duma rejected a draft law that would have granted mobilization exemptions to PhD candidates and those with science doctorates.[61] State Duma Deputy Mikhail Matveev published a review of the draft law on May 31 and argued that there is no concept of “partial” mobilization in the law and that the Russian MoD should not limit itself for future mobilization efforts.[62] ISW has previously assessed that Russian officials may be prioritizing immediate force generation requirements over long-term human capital needs.[63]

Russian sources claimed on June 1 that the volunteer project “Swarm VOZmedia” delivered thousands of commercially available dual use combat drones to Russian units that are a part of the Southern Grouping of forces (Southern Military District).[64]

Public schools in several Russian regions are reportedly creating programs for schoolchildren to learn how to assemble and operate drones. Independent Russian investigative outlet Vazhnye Istorii (iStories) reported on June 1 that Russian officials in St. Petersburg have allocated 1 million rubles to buy 15 training drones and to start educational programs in St. Petersburg schools.[65] iStories reported that Russian officials in Sakha Republic and Kaliningrad and Sakhalin oblasts have also purchased training drones to start programs for schoolchildren.[66] Prominent Russian milbloggers have previously advocated for schools to offer educational drone programs to support long term drone production and training efforts, and Russian president Vladimir Putin stated on April 28 that he fully supports such measures.[67]

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 President Vladimir Putin announced an order on May 31 requiring medical examinations for adults in occupied territories after claiming that mandated medical examinations of children were “quite organized and produced good results.”[68] Russian officials and occupation authorities may use mandated medical examinations of adults to augment future force generation in occupied territories by establishing who is and who is not fit for military service. The Russian MoD may also use these examinations to expedite future force generation efforts in occupied territories to determine individuals who are fit to serve.

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin announced on May 31 that Ukraine is investigating over 2,900 crimes against children committed by Russian forces.[69] Kostin stated that Ukraine has registered 19,400 cases of illegal deportations of Ukrainian children, noting that the figure is likely much higher as Ukraine has almost certainly not recorded all cases.[70] Kostin stated that 483 Ukrainian children have been killed and 989 wounded as a result of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.[71]

Russian officials and occupation authorities continue to use infrastructure projects to integrate occupied territories into Russia. Kherson Oblast Occupation Administration Head Vladimir Saldo stated that he met with Russian Minister of Energy Nikolai Shulginov to discuss adjusting the regional energy system since energy flows now come from Crimea rather than Ukrainian-controlled territory. Shulginov claimed that builders have already reconstructed approximately 250 electric power supply facilities and 26 gas grids throughout occupied Kherson Oblast.[72] Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Head Denis Pushilin announced on June 1 that his administration and the Russian Federal Road Agency (Rosavtodor) signed a five-year agreement on developing roads in occupied Donetsk Oblast aimed at strengthening north-south and east-west transportation and developing road infrastructure in the Azov-Black Sea Basin.[73]

Russian occupation authorities announced that regional elections in occupied territories will take place on September 10.[74] Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) head Leonid Pasechnik stated on May 31 that United Russia General Council Secretary Andrei Turchak invited him and the heads of other occupied territories to head the list of candidates for the regional elections.[75] Turchak claimed that 466,000 residents of occupied territories participated in preliminary voting, noting that 209,000 voters reside in occupied Donetsk Oblast.[76]

Significant activity in Belarus (ISW assesses that a Russian or Belarusian attack into northern Ukraine is extraordinarily unlikely).

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

Belarusian authorities continue developing infrastructure to support Russian-provided and likely Russian-controlled air defense systems in Belarus. Satellite imagery captured on May 20 and published on June 1 shows construction activity progress at the Pribytki Air Base in Belarus (16 km southeast of Gomel City).[77] Analysis of the imagery indicates this base received another 40V6MR Radar mast and an additional twin missile reload pack for the S-300 air defense system.[78]

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.

3. Suspected Chinese spies, disguised as tourists, tried to infiltrate Alaskan military bases

Where are the ground based interceptors for missile defense located? Seems like that would be a strategic target for the Chinese.

We need to think about how important the security guards are at our bases. It is a thankless job.

Excerpts:

In one incident, a vehicle with Chinese citizens blew past a security checkpoint at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, several soldiers told USA TODAY. The vehicle was eventually stopped, and a search found a drone inside the vehicle. The occupants claimed they were tourists who had gotten lost.

...

The FBI and Department of Justice take over cases from the military involving suspected spies.

FBI Director Christopher Wray regularly sounds alarms about Chinese government-sponsored espionage, blaming Communist leaders there, not its citizens or Chinese Americans.

Wray has estimated that the FBI opens a new investigation on Chinese-government sponsored espionage every 12 hours.

“There is no doubt that the greatest long-term threat to our nation’s ideas, our economic security and our national security is that posed by the Chinese communist government,” Wray said in a speech in April.

A key concern about instrusions on U.S. military bases may have as much to do about what is left behind than photos taken, said David Deptula, a retired three-star Air Force general who was the service's senior officer for intelligence.

Spies could leave behind sensors that could pick up sensitive communications, according to Deptula, who is now dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Power Studies.

Suspected Chinese spies, disguised as tourists, tried to infiltrate Alaskan military bases

USA Today · by Tom Vanden Brook

USA TODAY

Show Caption

Hide Caption

U.S. Army base in Alaska is the epicenter of military suicide crisis

After U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jonathan Baker had suicidal thoughts, the lack of mental health providers in Alaska forced him to wait for help. Correction: An earlier version of this video displayed incorrect hours for the Military Crisis Line.

Jessica Koscielniak and Michelle Hanks, USA TODAY

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Chinese citizens posing as tourists but suspected of being spies have made several attempts in recent years to gain access to military facilities in this vast state studded with sensitive bases, according to U.S. officials.

In one incident, a vehicle with Chinese citizens blew past a security checkpoint at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, several soldiers told USA TODAY. The vehicle was eventually stopped, and a search found a drone inside the vehicle. The occupants claimed they were tourists who had gotten lost.

Many of the encounters have been chalked up to innocent mistakes by foreign visitors intent on viewing the northern lights and other attractions in Alaska, officials say. Other attempts to enter U.S. military bases, however, seem to be probes to learn about U.S. military capabilities in Alaska, according to multiple soldiers familiar with the incidents but who were not authorized to speak publicly about them.

Not all who appear to be tourists in Alaska, are, in fact tourists, one Army officer said. Instead, they are foreign spies.

Details about the incidents remain mostly classified. However, military briefings and publicly available information lay out why the Chinese government would be interested in Alaska where some of the Pentagon's most sophisticated military capabilities and high-end war games reside.

The Pentagon's No. 2 official, Kathleen Hicks, demurred when asked to comment on suspected Chinese spying at military facilities in Alaska. She said the military is taking a number of steps to make sure those bases are secure but she gave no specifics.

FBI and Justice Department involvement

The FBI and Department of Justice take over cases from the military involving suspected spies.

FBI Director Christopher Wray regularly sounds alarms about Chinese government-sponsored espionage, blaming Communist leaders there, not its citizens or Chinese Americans.

Wray has estimated that the FBI opens a new investigation on Chinese-government sponsored espionage every 12 hours.

“There is no doubt that the greatest long-term threat to our nation’s ideas, our economic security and our national security is that posed by the Chinese communist government,” Wray said in a speech in April.

A key concern about instrusions on U.S. military bases may have as much to do about what is left behind than photos taken, said David Deptula, a retired three-star Air Force general who was the service's senior officer for intelligence.

Spies could leave behind sensors that could pick up sensitive communications, according to Deptula, who is now dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Power Studies.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond to emails and phone calls requesting comment.

Why Alaska? Radars, missiles, cutting-edge war games

Alaska hosts three large military bases – Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, and Fort Wainwright and Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks – along with several smaller installations. Once regarded as a backwater in the military, Alaska has seen the Pentagon increasingly funnel resources and troops to the state in recent years as competition in the Arctic heats up. The state is also seen as key to homeland defense given its proximity to Russia, the ballistic missile threat from North Korea and, increasingly, China.

The Air Force has based its top fighter jets, F-22s and F-35s, in Alaska. The Army's Fort Greely, near Fairbanks, has sophisticated radars and missiles poised to defend against nuclear attack. Last year, the Army activated the 11th Airborne Division in Alaska as arctic warfare specialists. There are about 12,000 soldiers and 10,000 active-duty Air Force personnel stationed in Alaska.

Alaska's vast wilderness affords the Pentagon the opportunity to conduct major military exercises over land and at sea. Thousands of troops and more than 150 warplanes from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia warplanes took part in the recent Northern Edge war game. The annual exercise helps troops train against the United States' greatest military adversaries: Russia and China.

Tensions between the United States and China have risen over the last year. The Chinese spy balloon crossed the United States caused a diplomatic rupture, prompting secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a trip to Beijing. China's support for Russia after its illegal invasion of Ukraine is another point of friction. And China's designs on Taiwan, the recipient of billions in U.S. military aid, have deepened distrust.

Those tensions were highlighted May 26 when a Chinese fighter jet had a dangerous encounter with a U.S. spy plane flying over international waters in the South China Sea, according to the Pentagon's Indo-Pacific Command. The Chinese jet flew in front of the U.S. Air Force Rivet Joint reconnaisance, forcing it to encounter turbulence, the Indo-Pacific Command announced Tuesday.

Alaska's size – two-and-a-half times the size of Texas – remoteness and savage winter cold, once viewed as protective barriers, provide less security for prying eyes. Global warming has opened shipping lanes in the Arctic, and the Pentagon has tracked Chinese fishing fleets moving farther north toward Alaska in recent years in search of greater catches.

Beefed up security at military sites

Security at some military sites in Alaska has been beefed up as the Pentagon focuses on the arctic, two officials said.

In a September interview with the Pentagon's news agency last fall, Iris Ferguson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Arctic and Global Resiliences said Chinese leaders have "been trying to insert themselves into the Arctic."

"So, we're being very mindful about their activity and in wanting to ensure that our interests are protected in the region," Ferguson said.

In late January, the Chinese spy balloon, rigged with high-tech sensors, first penetrated U.S. airspace over Alaska's Aleutian Islands, an 1,100-mile archipelago. The incident seized public attention as it drifted across the continent and maneuvered over sensitive military sites before being shot down off the coast of South Carolina. The long-range radar installations that ring the state, once focused mainly on Russian warplanes, are now calibrated to detect spy balloons from China.

During a recent visit to Alaska, Hicks was asked about potential incidents of Chinese spying. She did not acknowledge them, instead focusing on efforts in general to keep bases secure.

"We take the safety and security of our people in our installations very seriously," said Hicks, the deputy defense secretary. "We always live with the possibility of intrusion on our installations, and so we work very hard to make sure, working alongside state and local authorities and others, that those bases and installations are protected from threats. We take a lot of measures to do that. And we're going to make sure we can continue to protect our installation so our folks can perform their missions."

In recent years, there have been other intrusions at military bases in the Lower 48 states.

In 2019, a federal judge sentenced a Chinese student to a year in prison for illegally taking photos at Naval Air Station Key West in Florida. His lawyer said Zhao Qianli, 20, was just a tourist who had gotten lost, according to The Associated Press. But the naval base, where F-35 pilots train, is not a tourist hotspot. It is clearly marked off limits, and Zhao's camera and cellphone had only photos from the air station.

Just 10 years ago, women were banned from combat. Now, they're on the front lines, climbing the ranks.

USA Today · by Tom Vanden Brook

4. Fort Bragg to become Fort Liberty. Here’s what you need to know

It is great to see the late MG Shachnow honored. I did not know this but I do not get to Ft Bragg ...er, the new name - the post formerly known as Fort Bragg...very often.

Excerpt;

Mosby Street was renamed Shachnow Lane last year after Maj. Gen. Sidney Shachnow, the only general officer in the Army to have survived the Holocaust and who served in Special Forces for more than 30 years.

Fort Bragg to become Fort Liberty. Here’s what you need to know

armytimes.com · by Rachael Riley, The Fayetteville Observer · June 1, 2023

Editor’s Note: This article was published as part of a content-sharing agreement between Army Times and The Fayetteville Observer.

The sun will set on Fort Bragg on Thursday and rise on Fort Liberty on Friday.

The world’s most populated military installation will redesignate to Fort Liberty at the end of the week, following a sunset march Thursday.

The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act mandated the name changes of Department of Defense assets that commemorate the Confederacy.

Fort Bragg is currently named after North Carolina native Braxton Bragg, an artillery officer who fought in the Mexican-American War, was a Confederate general in the Civil War and was associated with being a slave owner.

Here’s the latest on what we know.

When is the redesignation?

A ceremony will be held at 9 a.m. Friday to rename Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty.

The ceremony will include the casing of Fort Bragg’s garrison colors and uncasing of Fort Liberty’s colors, according to a media advisory.

The event will be live-streamed on the Fort Bragg Paraglide Facebook page.

When will signs be changed?

The Paraglide Facebook page, which is an information page for the installation, put out a call in March asking community members to submit designs for a new sign by April 21.

The sign is expected to be revealed during Friday’s redesignation ceremony.

On Monday, a tarp covered a structure near the All American gate and Fort Bragg Visitors Center that appeared to be the size of signs at other military installations.

The wooden sign after entering the All American Gate has been removed as has the sign on N.C. 24 toward Spring Lake.

In early May, garrison Command Sgt. Maj. Gregory Seymour Tweeted a photo of one of the Fort Bragg signs being removed.

As of Friday, the wooden sign near Stryker Golf Course appeared to be the few remaining signs on post but was covered by Tuesday.

When will Department of Transportation signs change?

As of April, the cost to replace overhead highway and directional signs maintained by the North Carolina Department of Transportation was estimated at $500,000, said Andrew Barksdale, a spokesman of the state Department of Transportation.

Barksdale said highway officials will proceed with a contract to make the changes after Friday’s ceremony.

Directional signs in the region along Interstates 95 and 295 should be replaced by the end of the year, he said.

Roads

During a March media round table, Fort Bragg leaders said nine roads on post named after Confederates would also be renamed.

Mosby Street was renamed Shachnow Lane last year after Maj. Gen. Sidney Shachnow, the only general officer in the Army to have survived the Holocaust and who served in Special Forces for more than 30 years.

Signs on post for Reilly Road also changed this year to Merrit Avenue after Kenneth “Rock” Merritt was a World War II and Vietnam veteran who jumped into Normandy on D-Day June 6, 1944, and served during Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge. Merritt served as the 18th Airborne Corps’ top senior enlisted adviser twice.

Off-post roads and address changes

Officials have previously said that changing roads off post, such as Reilly Road and Bragg Boulevard, would require a Cumberland County stakeholder process for address and 911 purposes.

The matter has not appeared on Cumberland County Commissioners’ agendas as a discussion item to date.

According to the Fort Liberty section of the Fort Bragg website, a change of address form does not need to be submitted for addresses that have had street name changes on post.

According to the site, officials are working with the U.S. Postal Service, which will “indefinitely recognize both new and old addresses.”

5. New US Marine unit prepares for major role in the Philippines

I am going to nominate this phrase for the best example of military verbiage:

 “...is viable against the pacing adversary, and we think it complicates their calculus, ..."

Excerpts:

“We are absolutely capable today, capable of fighting now today, which we just demonstrated in Balikatan 23. We have a task-organized unit, everybody is established, and we have the capability to move forward into the first island chain and execute expeditionary advanced base operations today,” Brady said.

Maj. Gen. Roger Turner, the Marine Corps’ operations division director, told Defense News this spring “they’re a viable force right now” regardless of the upcoming declaration of reaching an initial operational capability.

The 3rd MLR operating as a stand-in force “is viable against the pacing adversary, and we think it complicates their calculus, and we think it contributes to deterrence,” he said of China. After some “pretty significant changes to the Marine Corps,” Turner said the service is in the implementation phase of Stand-In Forces.

This comes as Turner says America’s Pacific allies and partners are growing increasingly concerned about China’s behavior in the region, with its maritime forces encroaching on other nations’ fishing waters, bullying their ships, and making other aggressive moves on the sea and in the air.

“That’s a massive undertaking to basically establish the stand-in force that stays with our partners and allies in the Western Pacific and builds their confidence, supports our alliances, builds partner capacity [at a time when] the aggressive behavior of the [People’s Republic of China] is driving people to us,” the general said.

New US Marine unit prepares for major role in the Philippines

Defense News · by Megan Eckstein · June 1, 2023

WASHINGTON — The 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment that arrived in the Philippines this spring for the annual Balikatan exercise was nearly unrecognizable from last year, leaders say.

The 3rd MLR, a unit crafted as part of the ongoing Force Design 2030 modernization effort, is meant to carry out the new Stand-In Forces operating concept, which calls for small U.S. Marine Corps units to pair with allies in the first island chain, which stretches from Japan’s East China Sea islands through the Philippines. This would allow the units to operate there on a regular basis as well as provide sensing and shooting capabilities while remaining stealthy.

When the unit first attended the 2022 Balikatan exercise, it had recently been redesignated and did not have all its subordinate commands in place. Col. Tim Brady, the regiment’s commanding officer, said that year’s drill marked 3rd MLR’s first chance to leave its Hawaii home base with a skeleton crew of a couple hundred Marines and operate in the South China Sea.

“It was our inaugural deployment: beginning to get into the first island chain, develop our relationship with the Coastal Defense Regiment of the Philippine Marine Corps, and begin our development of our tactics, techniques and procedures,” he said in a May 22 interview.

This year, however, 1,300 Marines from a fully established 3rd MLR showed up at the exercise in April and sought to demonstrate their intended multidomain role in a joint and combined fight.

After an initial live-fire training phase, the littoral regiment conducted a series of air assaults in the Luzon Strait to take control of three islands — Fuga, Calayan and Basco — and then use them as expeditionary advanced bases for sensing and shooting.

During the coastal defense live-fire phase and then the littoral live-fire phase, during which forces sank an old Philippine amphibious ship, the regiment’s littoral anti-air defense battalion provided air defense and air domain awareness, working as an enabler for the rest of the force to find targets and synchronize fires.

U.S. Marines with the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment secure a landing zone for an Army landing craft utility transporting an artillery system during the Balikatan exercise in Basco, Philippines, on April 24, 2023. (Sgt. Patrick King/U.S. Marine Corps)

Col. Darryl Ayers, the operations officer for 3rd Marine Division, which commanded the forces at Balikatan, said the exercise demonstrated the role 3rd MLR was meant to fulfill: operating inside China’s weapons engagement zone; conducting sea control and sea denial operations if conflict begins; and setting the conditions for larger, follow-on actions by the joint and coalition force.

The littoral anti-air defense battalion, he said, can provide sensing, air defense, and air command and control.

“You disperse them in northern Luzon, you identify what areas you can cover and where you need to focus your efforts with regards to identifying threats, identifying targets and then identifying what you need to take out those targets,” Ayers said in a May 17 interview.

The forces under the littoral combat team, which includes a medium missile battery, infantry forces and combat engineers, “provide security for the force, but they also provide a … fires capability with regard to the future of the ROGUE NMESIS,” an unmanned anti-ship missile launcher the Marine Corps began procuring this year.

He also said the littoral logistics battalion proved it can sustain the regiment for about 30 days during independent operations, depending on the specifics of the activities.

At Balikatan, Ayers said, the regiment was able to disperse these capabilities into small units fighting from multiple advanced bases across the theater, and then aggregate the full regiment when needed.

Enabling allies and joint forces

The 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment has grown in size since last year, and its subordinate units are fully redesignated, but Brady said the biggest change has come in the Corps’ understanding of how to leverage the MLR to support a higher headquarters, to enable joint forces, and to work with allies and partners.

Since last summer’s participation in the massive Rim of the Pacific exercise, Brady said the regiment signed up for four major events.

In the fall, the MLR participated in the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center’s rotational training event with the Army’s 25th Infantry Division. This event in Hawaii helped the regiment refine its tactics for working under a joint force land component commander, and allowed Marines to serve as a stand-in force while setting the conditions for incoming land forces.

Weeks later, in a Fleet Battle Problem event with U.S. Pacific Fleet, the regiment paired with a Marine expeditionary unit embarked on a Navy amphibious ready group for the first time, operating around the Hawaiian Islands as a stand-in force and managing a fictitious crisis until follow-on maritime forces could flow in. This allowed 3rd MLR to refine its tactics for working under a joint force maritime component commander.

A Marine with 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment uses a drone during training at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif., on Feb. 23, 2023. (Lance Cpl. Ryan Kennelly/U.S. Marine Corps)

In February and March, the unit attended a service-level training exercise in Twentynine Palms, California, which included the first-ever Marine littoral regiment training event. Brady said this allowed the regiment to work as part of a larger stand-in force under 3rd Marine Division as the intermediate headquarters, and hone its multidomain operations tactics. At one point, the regiment was operating from expeditionary advanced bases across the entire training area: San Clemente Island, Camp Pendleton, Twentynine Palms and Barstow in California, and Yuma, Arizona.

At the recent Balikatan exercise, 3rd MLR repeated that same type of operation — distributed groups operating from multiple advanced bases, all under the command of the higher headquarters at 3rd Marine Division — but applied it to a mission in the first island chain alongside allies and partners.

During all of these exercises, communication and connectivity have been key focus areas, Ayers and Brady said. For 3rd MLR to have the greatest effect on the battlefield, it must be at the heart of a joint and coalition web of sensors and weapons.

Brady said the series of exercises over the last year allowed 3rd MLR to work through this kill web first within Marine forces and then in the joint force. Brady said the unit is in the nascent stage of looping in allies and partners.

With the Philippines, for example, he said there are some remaining information-sharing agreements and cross-domain data-sharing solutions in the works.

As it relates to radars, sensors, radios, command-and-control tools, and more that 3rd MLR needs to send and receive data as part of this kill web — some of which exists in the Corps, and some of which is still in development and fielding under Force Design 2030 — Brady said: “We’re well on our way to having everything we need.”

U.S. Marine Corps Pfc. Donovan Tapp, a radio transmissions operator with 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, tests communications equipment at Twentynine Palms, Calif., on Jan. 27, 2023. (Sgt. Patrick King/U.S. Marine Corps)

Learning and executing

Though the regiment will continue to refine its tactics and bring in new gear, leaders say the unit is ready to take on real-world missions if called upon.

The unit is expected to reach initial operational capability by September, but Brady said he’s not focused on the formalities of initial operational capability and full operational capability.

“We are absolutely capable today, capable of fighting now today, which we just demonstrated in Balikatan 23. We have a task-organized unit, everybody is established, and we have the capability to move forward into the first island chain and execute expeditionary advanced base operations today,” Brady said.

Maj. Gen. Roger Turner, the Marine Corps’ operations division director, told Defense News this spring “they’re a viable force right now” regardless of the upcoming declaration of reaching an initial operational capability.

The 3rd MLR operating as a stand-in force “is viable against the pacing adversary, and we think it complicates their calculus, and we think it contributes to deterrence,” he said of China. After some “pretty significant changes to the Marine Corps,” Turner said the service is in the implementation phase of Stand-In Forces.

This comes as Turner says America’s Pacific allies and partners are growing increasingly concerned about China’s behavior in the region, with its maritime forces encroaching on other nations’ fishing waters, bullying their ships, and making other aggressive moves on the sea and in the air.

“That’s a massive undertaking to basically establish the stand-in force that stays with our partners and allies in the Western Pacific and builds their confidence, supports our alliances, builds partner capacity [at a time when] the aggressive behavior of the [People’s Republic of China] is driving people to us,” the general said.

U.S. Marine Corps Col. Timothy Brady Jr, who leads the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, gives a speech during training at Twentynine Palms, Calif., on Feb. 27, 2023. (Sgt. Patrick King/U.S. Marine Corps)

The commanding officer said the regiment will adjust, and the Stand-In Forces concept will change, as would be the case for any new unit or concept. But by this time next year, the 3rd MLR will focus more on sustaining a near-permanent presence in the Philippines, as opposed to learning and experimenting.

The 3rd MLR will continue participating in two major annual exercises in the Philippines — Balikatan in the spring and Kamandag in the fall — but will also seek “other opportunities alongside the Philippine Marine Corps and inside the Philippines to get us to almost a 365-day a year presence at some level of capacity,” Brady said.

Ayers said some of the remaining learning relates to sustainment, the main area where the relationship between 3rd MLR and the Coastal Defense Regiment will come into play.

Ayers said the Marine Corps knew how to handle logistics in Iraq and Afghanistan, where it could build up an iron mountain in the desert and send out people and materiel as needed. Learning how to sustain distributed forces in the first island chain, where resupply routes are certain to be targeted by Chinese forces in a war, is still taking time.

“It takes a lot of working with the combined partners, the [Filipinos], the Japanese, the Koreans, to try and figure out how we do that,” Ayers said.

Though he praised the littoral logistics battalion’s work, he said 3rd Marine Division continues to look for shortfalls in 3rd MLR’s ability to sustain itself, and then to turn to Philippine forces for help solving those logistical challenges.

“That’s really the focus of the MLR, is getting them into the Philippines, getting them to have a persistent presence there — and not just for the security of the area, but also to continue to build upon the relationships that we’ve built over decades with the [Philippine joint forces] because it’s critical to the success of [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s] mission out here in protecting the first island chain.”

Turner highlighted lift — the platforms that help small teams from 3rd MLR get to and move around within the Philippine island chain — as another area that will continue to undergo maturation. The Marine Corps is experimenting with stern landing vessels ahead of procuing a Landing Ship Medium vessel in fiscal 2025.

In the meantime, Turner pointed to the F-35B fighter jet, the MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft and the CH-53K King Stallion heavy-lift helicopter as tools increasingly applicable for 3rd MLR.

“Those platforms were envisioned to support our [Marine expeditionary unit], but then they also are super essential in the stand-in force capability because of the [aircraft] ranges,” he said.

Turner also gave a nod to the Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar, which has changed since its original development to conduct air- and ground-search missions. Though G/ATOR was made for a traditional land campaign, “we’ve learned its applicability for the stand-in force. And what it can provide to the joint force is really special. We’ve made some changes to it.”

“Even though those programs and those requirements were written under a different conceptual way — because we were really focused on [amphibious ready group/Marine expeditionary unit operations], and we were really focused on joint forcible entry — a lot of that stuff was able to easily segue into the stand-in force.”

About Megan Eckstein

Megan Eckstein is the naval warfare reporter at Defense News. She has covered military news since 2009, with a focus on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps operations, acquisition programs and budgets. She has reported from four geographic fleets and is happiest when she’s filing stories from a ship. Megan is a University of Maryland alumna.

6. Ukraine war hasn't changed China's thinking around possible attack on Taiwan, report says

Excerpts:

Concerns from the US and across the region over China’s increasing assertiveness have grown in recent years as Beijing rapidly expanded its navy, militarized islands in the South China Sea, sought to forge security pacts in the South Pacific and ramped up rhetoric around disputed territorial claims.

Those concerns have sharpened over the past year, as Beijing twice staged extensive military drills around the island of Taiwan and refused to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

That invasion has also drawn increased attention to Taiwan as a potential security flashpoint in Asia.

Despite broad differences with the geopolitical circumstances of Russia and Ukraine, the optics of a seemingly more powerful aggressor launching an attack driven by a vision of unification have heightened focus on China’s intentions toward Taiwan.

...

The IISS report released Friday, an annual assessment on Asia-Pacific security written by the think tank’s experts, said there is no evidence the war in Ukraine has “altered Chinese thinking on the timescale or methodology” for a possible attack on Taiwan.

Ukraine war hasn't changed China's thinking around possible attack on Taiwan, report says | CNN

CNN · by Simone McCarthy · June 2, 2023

CNN —

China remains the “leading long-term challenge” to the existing international order and there is no evidence that Russia’s faltering invasion of Ukraine has changed Beijing’s thinking around “the timescale or methodology” for any potential attack on Taiwan, a top strategic think tank said ahead of a regional security summit in Singapore.

The grinding conflict in Europe may also accelerate trends in the Asia-Pacific region toward increased military spending and efforts to develop military capabilities, said a report released Friday by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which hosts its annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore this weekend.

The war and its reverberations in the Asia-Pacific region – as well as the growing contest between the United States and China – will be overarching themes at the security summit, the sidelines of which have long provided a platform for top security officials to meet face-to-face.

Attendees are expected to include US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov.

US and Chinese defense chiefs are not expected to meet this year – a mark of the depth of the fracture in relations between the two countries.

Austin on Thursday said it was “unfortunate” China declined a US offer to meet at the conference and warned the ongoing lack of communication could result in “an incident that could very, very quickly spiral out of control.”

Beijing earlier this week refuted the claim it was blocking American defense officials’ efforts to communicate, instead blaming the US for creating “artificial obstacles, seriously undermining mutual trust between the two militaries.”

Focus on Taiwan

Concerns from the US and across the region over China’s increasing assertiveness have grown in recent years as Beijing rapidly expanded its navy, militarized islands in the South China Sea, sought to forge security pacts in the South Pacific and ramped up rhetoric around disputed territorial claims.

Those concerns have sharpened over the past year, as Beijing twice staged extensive military drills around the island of Taiwan and refused to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

That invasion has also drawn increased attention to Taiwan as a potential security flashpoint in Asia.

Despite broad differences with the geopolitical circumstances of Russia and Ukraine, the optics of a seemingly more powerful aggressor launching an attack driven by a vision of unification have heightened focus on China’s intentions toward Taiwan.

Taiwan's Kinmen islands lie just a few miles from the Chinese port city of Xiamen

John Mees/CNN

A China-Taiwan DMZ? Meet the Kinmen islanders who want a bridge, not a war

China’s ruling Communist Party claims the self-governing democracy as its own, despite never having controlled it, and has vowed to unify the island with the mainland, by force if necessary.

The IISS report released Friday, an annual assessment on Asia-Pacific security written by the think tank’s experts, said there is no evidence the war in Ukraine has “altered Chinese thinking on the timescale or methodology” for a possible attack on Taiwan.

“Beijing’s view of Taiwan as an internal challenge has shaped its assessment that a Chinese use of force to regain the island would be utterly dissimilar to the Ukraine war,” the report said.

Chinese military thinkers had, however, analyzed the implications of Western support for Ukraine and the factors that contributed to Russia’s poor military performance, according to the report.

It added that it was “impossible to determine whether China will use force to take Taiwan at some point in the future,” and that Beijing’s decision-making would be shaped not just by “an assessment of military capability but also by a consideration of likely US and allied non-military reactions,” including potential economic impacts.

“There is no evidence that China has a fixed timetable for invading Taiwan,” the report added.

Meanwhile, Beijing’s rhetoric around Taiwan was one of several key triggers accounting for Japan’s growing concern over China, the report said.

‘Growing confrontation’

China was continuing to develop its “blue-water” capabilities to operate on the high seas far away from its ports, according to the report.

But the efforts of the US and its most important regional allies to increase their naval funding and readiness “could facilitate a shift in the naval balance in their favor,” it said.

The US has made concerted efforts to bolster its security alliances and footprint in the region in recent years in the face of a rising China.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (left) and China's Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu

Getty Images/AP

China rejects US proposal for defense chiefs to meet in Singapore this week

That has included strengthening trilateral cooperation with allies South Korea and Japan and revamping the Quad security grouping with Australia, Japan and India, widely seen as a counter to China’s military rise.

Earlier this year, the US, the United Kingdom and Australia agreed to build a combined fleet of elite nuclear-powered submarines.

However, many regional states prefer to avoid taking sides in the “growing confrontation” between the US and China, the IISS report said, adding there is “no region-wide trend towards alignment with the US,” due to economic dependencies and fear of escalation.

Beijing has repeatedly claimed its People’s Liberation Army is a defensive force meant to safeguard world peace and development – a point China’s defense chief Li is expected to emphasize at the conference, where he will also discuss Beijing’s vision for regional security.

It is Li’s first time attending the conference since stepping into his role as defense minister earlier this year. Li was sanctioned by the US in 2018 over China’s purchase of Russian weapons.

Both he and Austin are scheduled to deliver addresses to the conference, which runs from Friday to Sunday.

CNN · by Simone McCarthy · June 2, 2023

7. Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2023

Just released this morning. The six chapters, introduction, and a video can be accessed here: https://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-dossiers/asia-pacific-regional-security-assessment-2023/

Introduction

Dr Tim Huxley and Dr Lynn Kuok

Chapter 1: War in Ukraine and the Asia-Pacific Balance of Power 

James Crabtree and Dr Euan Graham

Chapter 2: Strained US–China Relations and the Growing Threat to Taiwan

Nigel Inkster

Chapter 3: Asia-Pacific Naval and Maritime Capabilities: the New Operational Dynamics

Nick Childs

Chapter 4: China’s Belt and Road Initiative a Decade On

Meia Nouwens

Chapter 5: Japan Steps Up: Security and Defence Policy Under Kishida

Robert Ward and Yuka Koshino

Chapter 6: Conflict in Myanmar and the International Response

Aaron Connelly and Dr Shona Loong

Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2023

https://www.iiss.org/events/2023/062/asia-pacific-regional-security-assessment-2023/

FRIDAY 2 JUNE 2023

• Speaker
• Dr Euan Graham
• Speaker
• Nick Childs
• Speaker
• Veerle Nouwens
• Speaker
• Robert Ward
• Speaker
• Dr Shona Loong

The Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment examines key regional security issues relevant to the policy-focused discussions of the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defence summit. The dossier is launched each year at the Dialogue and the issues analysed within its covers are central to discussions at the event.

This edition of the Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment, publication of which coincides with the 20th Shangri-La Dialogue, is the tenth in the series. Among its highlights are analyses of the challenges posed by not only various dimensions of China's growing power and increasingly active posture in the Asia-Pacific, but also the impact of the war in Ukraine on the regional balance of power. Topics covered in the volume's chapters include US-China relations and the growing threat to Taiwan; Asia-Pacific naval capabilities and operations; the progress of China's Belt and Road Initiative over the decade since it was launched; Japanese security and defence policy under Prime Minister Kishida Fumio; and the conflict in Myanmar and the international responses it has provoked. Authors this year are drawn exclusively from IISS experts.  

In this launch of the Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2023, chaired by Dr Lynn Kuok, co-editor of the dossier, authors discuss key regional security challenges and respond to questions from the audience. It was held in-person for those attending the Shangri-La Dialogue and also online to allow for other interested colleagues and friends to join in. We trust that the analyses provided in the Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment will contribute to important, timely and policy-relevant discussions at the Dialogue and beyond. 

Dr Euan Graham is Shangri-La Dialogue Senior Fellow for Indo-Pacific Defence and Strategy at IISS-Asia in Singapore, and is responsible for furthering research within the IISS on defence and security in northeast Asia and the western Pacific. He previously served with the UK government for seven years as a research analyst in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, variously covering the Korean Peninsula, Japan and Southeast Asia. He has written and commented widely for international media on a range of Asia-Pacific security issues.

Nick Childs is Senior Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security, IISS. He is responsible for the Institute's analysis of naval forces and maritime security, and for the data on sea power capabilities published in The Military Balance. Before joining the IISS, Nick worked at the BBC for more than three decades, including as world affairs correspondent, and as defence and Pentagon correspondent. 

Meia Nouwens is Senior Fellow for Chinese Security and Defence Policy, IISS. She works on Chinese defence analysis, China's defence industry and innovation, as well as China's regional strategic affairs and international relations. She leads the Institute's research on China's Digital Silk Road, and was a co-lead of the China Security Project with the Mercator Institute for China Studies. Prior to commencing at the IISS, she worked for the European External Action Service as a policy officer in Taipei, and as a trade analyst in the EU's delegation to New Zealand.

Robert Ward is Japan Chair and Director of Geo-economics and Strategy, IISS. He researches and writes extensively on strategic issues related to Japan, including its contemporary security and foreign policies. He also leads the Institute's Geo-economics and Strategy research programme, which focuses on a range of issues including global economic governance, rules and standards setting, and how economic coercion impacts policy at a national and corporate level. Before joining the IISS, Robert was editorial director at The Economist Intelligence Unit. 

Dr Shona Loong is Associate Fellow with the IISS. Her research focuses on conflict transformation, peacebuilding and the politics of international development. She works on the IISS Myanmar Conflict Map, which is a platform for tracking, visualising and analysing reports of violence in Myanmar. She is based at the University of Zurich as a senior researcher and lecturer in political geography.

Dr Lynn Kuok is Shangri-La Dialogue Senior Fellow for Asia-Pacific Security at IISS-Asia and co-editor of the Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment. She is a visiting professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and is a Council Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Geopolitics. Her work examines the international relations and international law of the Asia-Pacific, focusing on Southeast Asia and the South China Sea dispute, as well as European engagement in the Indo-Pacific. She is also conducting research on the interplay between international law and power more broadly.

8. Russia says two killed after Ukraine shelled border regions

Russia says two killed after Ukraine shelled border regions

Reuters · by Reuters

June 2 (Reuters) - The governor of Russia's Belgorod region said that two people were killed and two others injured on Friday after Ukraine shelled a town near the border, while officials in nearby regions reported overnight drone attacks.

Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram that shelling had struck a section of road in the town of Maslova Pristan, some 15 kilometres (9 miles) from Ukraine's northern Kharkiv region, and that shell fragments had struck passing cars.

"Two women were travelling in one of them. They died from their injuries on the spot," he said.

The governor of the Bryansk region, north of Belgorod, said four homes had been damaged by shelling, while the head of neighbouring Kursk region said some buildings had been damaged in an overnight drone attack.

Long-range drones also hit two towns in the Smolensk region overnight, the local governor there said, while the head of Russia's Kaluga region said a blast had been reported in a forest.

Reuters could not immediately verify the reported attacks.

Russian officials have in recent days reported intensified attacks from northern Ukraine. The Defence Ministry said its forces had repelled on Thursday three cross-border attacks by what it said were Ukrainian "terrorist formations" into the Belgorod region.

Ukraine denies its military is involved in the incursions and says they are conducted by Russian volunteer fighters.

Gladkov said on Friday at least one incident of shelling had been reported overnight in the Shebekino district, and over 2,500 people were being evacuated from the area.

Ukrainian authorities on Friday lifted air raid alerts across most of the nation, and officials in the capital Kyiv said defences appeared to have shot down more than 30 missiles and drones fired by Russia.

Moscow has launched around 20 separate missile and drone strikes against Ukrainian cities since the start of May.

Russia denies targeting civilians or committing war crimes but its forces have devastated Ukrainian cities and repeatedly hit residential areas.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 in what President Vladimir Putin called a "special military operation" to "denazify" the country, protect Russian speakers and defend its borders from what he said were aggressive Western ambitions.

Kyiv and its Western allies accuse Putin of barbaric tactics and an imperialist-style land grab in Ukraine. The war has killed tens of thousands and sent millions fleeing abroad.

Reporting by Reuters Editing by Gareth Jones

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Reuters

9. Ukraine says it downed 36 Russian missiles and drones

Ukraine says it downed 36 Russian missiles and drones

Reuters · by Pavel Polityuk

KYIV, June 2 (Reuters) - Ukrainian forces in Kyiv said on Friday they shot down 36 Russian missiles and drones in and around the capital overnight, with two people injured by falling debris before authorities lifted air raid alerts across most of the country.

Russia has launched about 20 missile and drone attacks on Kyiv since the beginning of May, a surge in strikes that the government says appears aimed at derailing Ukraine's preparations for a major counter-offensive.

An Air Force statement said its air defences had shot down 15 cruise missiles and 21 drones. It said a wave of drones had been launched late on Thursday, followed by a volley of cruise missiles as people slept at around 0300 local time.

"The occupiers are not stopping their attempts to terrorise the Ukrainian capital with strike drones and missiles," it said.

The capital's military authorities, writing on Telegram, praised the city's air defences and said there were no reports of damage or casualties.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, who earlier reported two separate waves of attacks, wrote on Telegram that there had been no calls for rescue services.

In the region outside Kyiv, authorities said two people were injured as a result of falling debris, including a child.

"In addition, the falling debris damaged five private houses," the state administration said on the Telegram messaging service.

Ukraine says it destroys the majority of the missiles and drones Russian forces use in attacks, but a nine-year-old girl was among three people killed in a missile strike on Kyiv on Thursday after the shelter they rushed to failed to open.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said if local officials were unable to provide protection, they could be prosecuted.

Russian officials reported more cross-border shelling from Ukraine on Friday and said two long-range drones had attacked fuel and energy infrastructure further north in Russia but that no fires were reported there and there were no reports of injuries.

Additional reporting by David Ljunggren; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Jacqueline Wong, Shri Navaratnam, Tom Hogue, Philippa Fletcher

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Pavel Polityuk

10. Exclusive: US seeking explosives in Japan for Ukraine artillery shells

Our defense industrial base and our war stocks continue to limp along on the crutches provided by Korea and Japan.

Exclusive: US seeking explosives in Japan for Ukraine artillery shells

Reuters · by Tim Kelly

TOKYO, June 2 (Reuters) - The United States is seeking to secure supplies of TNT in Japan for 155mm artillery shells, as Washington rushes weapons and ammunition to Ukraine for a counteroffensive against Russian forces, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

For war-renouncing Japan, any procurement would test its willingness to court controversy to help Kyiv because export rules ban Japanese companies from selling lethal items overseas, such as the howitzer shells that Ukraine fires daily at Russian units occupying its southeastern regions.

Nonetheless, the allies appear to have found a workaround to enable the TNT sale amid global shortages of munitions.

"There is a way for the United States to buy explosives from Japan," one of the people with knowledge of discussions on the matter in Japan told Reuters on the condition of anonymity, citing the issue's sensitivity.

Export restrictions for dual-use products or equipment sold commercially are less stringent than for items with a purely military purpose, which is why the U.S. can buy Panasonic Toughbook laptops for its military.

Tokyo, which hosted U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin this week, has told the U.S. government it will allow the sale of industrial TNT because the explosive is not a military-use-only product, the other source said.

The U.S. wants to plug a Japanese company into a TNT supply chain to deliver explosives to U.S. army-owned munitions plants that would pack them into 155mm shell cases, the person added.

Japan's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Economy declined to say whether any Japanese company had approached it about exporting TNT. It added in an email that items not subject to military restrictions would be assessed under regular export rules that consider the buyer's intent, including whether their use would impede international security.

The Japanese defence ministry's Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency declined to comment.

The U.S. State Department did not directly address questions from Reuters about whether the U.S. planned to buy TNT in Japan but said Washington was working with allies and partners "to provide Ukraine with the support it needs" to defend itself. Japan, it added, "has demonstrated leadership in supporting Ukraine's defense".

EAGER TO HELP

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wants to help Ukraine because his administration fears a Russian victory would embolden China to attack Taiwan and embroil his country in a regional war. Last year, he warned that Ukraine may be "East Asia tomorrow", and his administration announced Japan's biggest military build-up since World War Two.

That retreat from the state pacifism that has dominated Japan's foreign policy for decades has not so far extended to lethal military aid, limiting Tokyo's offerings to Kyiv to kit such as flak jackets, helmets and food rations.

Following Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's visit to Japan during the Hiroshima G7 leaders summit last month, Kishida agreed to donate jeeps and trucks.

There appears to be growing acceptance in Japan about providing military aid to Ukraine, but the degree of lethality is contentious, said Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation.

"The fact that Japan has decided to give trucks to Ukraine shows that things are changing. However, there doesn't yet appear to be any political consensus around the issue of sending lethal aid," he said.

Japan is one of dozens of friends and allies that Washington is asking to help arm Ukraine as it wrestles with stretched military supply chains.

South Korea, which also uses 155mm shells, is among those the U.S. has approached. A South Korean defence official told Reuters that Seoul's stance against providing lethal aid to Kyiv had not changed.

Asked in Tokyo this week about the possibility of a shift in Japanese policy on lethal aid, Austin said at a press briefing that any change would be a matter for Japan but "any bit of support" for Ukraine was "always welcome".

The sources who spoke to Reuters declined to identify the Japanese company that would supply explosives to the U.S. government and did not say how much TNT Washington wanted to buy.

Reuters contacted 22 explosives makers listed on the Japan Explosives Industry Association's website. The only one that said it made industrial TNT was Chugoku Kayaku, an Hiroshima-based firm that supplies Japan's military.

"We have not received any direct inquiry from the U.S. government or U.S. military," the company said in an email.

Asked if it was discussing any TNT sales through an intermediary, the firm, which lists an industrial TNT product on its website, said it did not disclose the identity of customers or potential buyers.

JAPAN'S NEXT MOVE

Supplying commercial TNT to the U.S. may only be a stop-gap measure because many lawmakers of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) want to ease or eliminate the export restrictions.

In December, when Kishida announced Japan's five-year military build-up, he pledged to revise the export rules, opening up the possibility that Japan could supply lethal weapons not only to Ukraine, but to other nations that Tokyo and Washington see as potential allies against Russia and China.

Akihisa Nagashima, a former deputy defence minister and a ranking LDP member of the parliamentary committee on national security, said the military build-up would take Japan four-fifths of the way to becoming a "normal country" unencumbered by the legacy of its World War Two defeat.

"Tackling the export restrictions is the remaining 20%," he said.

Reporting by Tim Kelly, Nobuhiro Kubo, Yukiko Toyoda and Kaori Kaneko in Tokyo; additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington and Ju-min Park in Seoul; editing by David Crawshaw

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Tim Kelly

11. Asia security summit kicks off amid US-China tensions

Excerpts:

The relationship between the U.S. and China is at its lowest point in decades, as the two superpowers remain deeply divided over everything from the sovereignty of Taiwan to cyber espionage and territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Hopes that the summit in Singapore could be a chance to mend ties between Washington and Beijing were dealt a blow last week when Li declined an offer to meet with Austin.

Li, who was named China's new defence minister in March, was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018 over weapons purchases from Russia.

Asia security summit kicks off amid US-China tensions

Reuters · by Joe Brock

SINGAPORE, June 2 (Reuters) - Asia's top security meeting opened on Friday, with intensifying competition between the United States and China expected to dominate a weekend of high-level speeches, backroom military dealings and delicate diplomacy.

The Shangri-La Dialogue, which attracts senior military officers, diplomats, weapons makers and security analysts from around the globe, is taking place June 2-4 in Singapore.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will deliver the keynote address on Friday evening, before U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and China's new Defence Minister Li Shangfu are expected to trade barbs in speeches over the weekend.

The relationship between the U.S. and China is at its lowest point in decades, as the two superpowers remain deeply divided over everything from the sovereignty of Taiwan to cyber espionage and territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Hopes that the summit in Singapore could be a chance to mend ties between Washington and Beijing were dealt a blow last week when Li declined an offer to meet with Austin.

Li, who was named China's new defence minister in March, was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018 over weapons purchases from Russia.

Albanese's speech comes as Australia tries to strike a delicate balance between its strong ties to the U.S. and its often tense relationship with China, which buys the bulk of its valuable iron ore and is its biggest trading partner.

A deal announced in March to buy U.S. nuclear-powered submarines threatens to strain Australia's fragile ties with Beijing, which has been critical of the plan.

Australia is due to spend A$368 billion ($250 billion) over three decades on the submarine programme, part of a broader security pact with the U.S. and Britain known as AUKUS.

Australia is also part of the Five Eyes intelligence collection and sharing network, along with the U.S., Britain, Canada and New Zealand – a grouping that Chinese officials say is part of the West’s lingering “cold war mentality” and an attempt to contain its rise.

Since being elected in May 2022, the Albanese Labor government has sought closer ties with ASEAN countries. Australia’s defence chief has said that as great power competition in the region persists, his country is focused on deterring conflict and deepening engagement with partners, including Pacific island and South East Asian nations.

($1 = 1.4743 Australian dollars)

Reporting by Joe Brock. Additional reporting by Kirsty Needham. Editing by Gerry Doyle

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Joe Brock

12.  On Ukraine’s southern front line, tension reigns before decisive counteroffensive

Relatively long read.

Note from the author:

Hi, this is Francis Farrell, one of the authors who wrote this piece from on the ground on the southern front line of Russia's war against Ukraine. At the Kyiv Independent and all over Ukraine, we are all waiting for this counteroffensive to start, and even if we have to wait and wait, we understand why success is crucial for Ukraine's future. Whatever the outcome though, we are not going anywhere. Please consider supporting our reporting.

On Ukraine’s southern front line, tension reigns before decisive counteroffensive

by Francis Farrell and

Alexander Query

June 1, 2023 7:03 PM

16 min read

kyivindependent.com · by Francis Farrell · June 1, 2023

Editor’s note: As per the regulations of the unit, soldiers interviewed for this article, many of whom have relatives remaining in Russian-occupied territory, are identified by first name and/or callsign only.

SOUTHEASTERN UKRAINE – After months of seeing Russia’s war against Ukraine through the drab gray-brown landscapes of winter, the lush green visuals of zero-line trenches at the onset of summer are a strange sight to adapt to.

Though both incoming and outgoing artillery fire can be heard regularly, new foliage provides valuable cover for soldiers and vehicles.

Beyond the trench’s observation points, no man’s land stretches outwards over the flat Ukrainian steppe towards Russian lines around a kilometer away.

These positions mark the first line of defense on the southern front line, stretching across Zaporizhzhia Oblast into the west of Donetsk Oblast, of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.

It is across the fields of this southern front that many, both in Ukraine and abroad, expect that Ukrainian forces armed with Western tanks and armored vehicles will surge forward at the vanguard of a major counteroffensive in the coming weeks or even days.

Ukrainian soldiers drive across colorful fields on the way to frontline positions on the southern front line on May 23, 2023. (Francis Farrell/The Kyiv Independent)

Anticipated for over half a year since Ukraine liberated Kherson and the rest of the occupied territory west of the Dnipro River, Kyiv’s next major push looks likely to be decisive for the future course of the war.

In the best-case scenario, Ukrainian forces achieve a major strategic breakthrough in the south, reaching the Azov Sea and cutting off Russia’s “land bridge” to occupied Crimea. Not only would such an attack devastate Russian logistics in southern Ukraine, it would also isolate the Crimean peninsula itself and provide a pathway for the total defeat of Russia in the war.

On the other hand, if Russian lines hold and the counteroffensive fails to make a real breakthrough, such a scenario could signal the beginning of a deeper military stalemate, where neither side is capable of major new offensive operations.

With the beginning of major counteroffensive operations potentially as little as a week away, the Kyiv Independent visited positions manned by the 110th Brigade of Ukraine’s Territorial Defense forces, its ranks filled almost entirely with locals from Zaporizhzhia Oblast who took up arms immediately upon the full-scale invasion.

Season of offensives: What to expect from the spring campaign in Ukraine

On the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, with the first days of March came the all-consuming mud. Videos of trucks and armored vehicles bogged down in fields heralded the arrival of a time traditionally known in Ukrainian as bezdorizhzhia, or “roadlessness.” Though the mud may present a brief challe…

The Kyiv IndependentFrancis Farrell

Strong and stable

From a village house a few kilometers back from the front line, a mortar crew of the 110th Territorial Defense Brigade described the situation as stable.

“They aren't conducting any active operations at the moment,” 36-year-old crewmember Denys, callsign “Jamal,” told the Kyiv Independent. “In winter they were still trying, moving forward in small squads, but there is nothing like that yet.”

Armed with 60mm, 82mm, and 120mm mortar tubes, the 10-man-strong unit is in charge of striking Russian positions at a distance of up to 10 kilometers, supported by drones to help them aim.

The sound of distant explosions is testament to the ongoing artillery skirmishes that continue in the absence of assault attempts.

Ukrainian battalion commander "Bohun" at his headquarters on the southern front line on May 23, 2023. (Francis Farrell/The Kyiv Independent)

A Ukrainian soldier in a dugout on the first line of defense on the southern front line on May 23, 2023. (Francis Farrell/The Kyiv Independent)

Since the chaotic first phase of the war when Russian columns stormed into Ukraine from the east, south and north, this southern sector of the front line has been by far the most static.

In comparison to their disastrous attempt to take Kyiv and Kharkiv, Russian forces found success in southern Ukraine, where defenses were spread thin and Russia quickly broke through the strip of land connecting mainland Ukraine to the Crimean peninsula.

The crucial transport hub of Melitopol, now seen as a key prize for a Ukrainian counteroffensive, was entered by Russian forces on the second day of the invasion, and completely occupied by March 1.

Russia’s assault on the south was finally stopped in March 2022 due to a redeployment of troops and fierce resistance around the pockets of Orikhiv, Huliaipole, and nearby Velyka Novoselivka in Donetsk Oblast.

These frontline cities are still under Ukraine’s control, though subject to relentless shelling targeted both at civilians and military garrisoned nearby.

“They stopped because we stopped them,” Jamal said. “They got as far as they could, and now our forward positions are those that we retook from them.”

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russian troops have occupied almost 60% of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

In an attempt to entrench its rule in these areas, Russia conducted sham referendums in September 2022 in the occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts for the territories to join Russia, a move denounced by Ukraine and the international community.

“Bohun,” a 47-year-old battalion commander of the 110th, confirmed that Russian forces had shifted to a more defensive posture in anticipation of a counteroffensive.

“They've been working especially hard in the last month to dig in,” he said. “They are clearly waiting, and they are clearly afraid.”

Drone pilot Sviatoslav, 36, showed the Kyiv Independent recent footage of new Russian trenches dug around villages on their first line of defense. On Sviatoslav’s drone remote, the fresh gashes in the earth are clearly visible weaving in front of and in-between houses, in a settlement where, according to him, as little as 60 people remain from a pre-war population of 2,000.

A Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance soldier shows new Russian positions dug in a village on the southern front line on May 23, 2023. (Francis Farrell/The Kyiv Independent)

“Of course they are worried,” he said of Russian troops. “We had someone head across the field to us to surrender recently. Even officers are surrendering.”

As worried as Russian forces may be, breaking through will prove a massive challenge for Ukrainian troops, who will face dozens of kilometers of defensive lines built over a year of the area’s occupation by Russian forces.

The fortifications constructed by Russia are formidable: multiple layers of anti-tank ditches, dragon’s teeth, and sheltered infantry and vehicle positions await Ukrainian forces.

Extra layers of defensive positions surround strategic points and cities such as Tokmak, Melitopol, and Kamianka.

Given enough time to fortify it, the vast open expanse of the Ukrainian steppe in the area is a particularly challenging landscape for a large-scale combined arms offensive.

Russia’s botched attempts to take Vuhledar, a town about 150 kilometers southwest of Bakhmut and 190 kilometers from Zaporizhzhia, exposed the difficulties posed by the flat terrain.

Ukraine's Armed Forces might have destroyed "almost an entire brigade" of Russia's elite 155th naval infantry in the battles over Donetsk Oblast's Vuhledar, Politico reported, citing Ukrainian military official Oleksii Dmytrashkivskyi.

Stranded civilians brave shelling, return to Ukraine’s front-line towns

ORIKHIV, HULIAIPOLE, Zaporizhzhia Oblast – A massive rumble shakes the basement under the partly destroyed administrative building, followed by another blast much closer. “Not good,” says 51-year-old Svitlana Mandrich, Orikhiv’s deputy mayor, looking warily at the sandbags protecting the cellar’s v…

The Kyiv IndependentAlexander Query

Last preparations

At a training camp in a pine forest a few hours’ drive from the front line, soldiers of the 110th Brigade are going back to basics.

In groups of six, infantrymen are put through their paces with elementary shooting drills, sending two bullets down range at a time in different stances.

An instructor observes carefully, offering feedback on every missed shot, every finger left too long on the trigger. At first glance, these don’t seem like men who have already fought for over a year of state-on-state war.

Infantrymen of the 110th Territorial Defense Brigade practice shooting at a training camp in southeastern Ukraine on May 22, 2023. (Francis Farrell/The Kyiv Independent)

Simultaneously, a small drone team practices dropping grenades from a Chinese-made Mavic drone, in a new form of warfare that continues to gain popularity on both sides. The set-up is impressively low-tech: a 3D-printed mechanism is attached to the belly of the drone, while the grenade itself is held in a paper cup.

Surprisingly, for most of the soldiers currently at the training ground, this is the first time since the full-scale invasion that they have been rotated off the front line for proper training.

Having rushed to join the local Territorial Defense in the first days, instead of structured basic training, these soldiers were met by a near encirclement by Russian forces in the city of Tokmak.

“We had no trenches, no helmets, no vests, we were given two magazines each while a tank and two infantry fighting vehicles were shooting us up,” said “Grandfather,” a 68-year-old reconnaissance officer from Bohun’s battalion who has served in the army since 2014.

Since the chaotic early days of their formation, Territorial Defense forces now serve as a key component of Ukraine’s military structure, often holding the first line of defense in the areas of some of the heaviest fighting.

Not counting an occasional quick trip home to see family, most of the soldiers in the Zaporizhzhia Territorial Defense brigade have now fought for more than a year without being rotated off the front line.

Infantrymen of the 110th Territorial Defense Brigade practice shooting at a training camp in southeastern Ukraine on May 22, 2023. (Francis Farrell/The Kyiv Independent)

A Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance soldier prepares to retrieve a drone after a practice grenade drop at a training camp in southeastern Ukraine on May 22, 2023. (Francis Farrell/The Kyiv Independent)

Infantrymen of the 110th Territorial Defense Brigade practice shooting at a training camp in southeastern Ukraine on May 22, 2023. (Francis Farrell/The Kyiv Independent)

“Of course everyone is tired, especially mentally,” said 36-year-old infantry Oleksandr from the dark, muddy dugout that he has called home since last summer. “Physically it's not so bad now that it's not cold, but we are really hoping not to spend a third winter here.”

According to documents contained in the April U.S. intelligence leaks, nine brigades currently kept in reserve are those which receive Western armored vehicles and likely lead the counteroffensive.

The push will also likely be supported by the “Offensive Guard” force, of nine more new assault brigades formed under Ukraine’s National Guard, police force, and Border Guard Service.

All over cities like Zaporizhzhia, slick multicolored billboards call upon locals to join the new units, with personalized slogans such as “Channel your anger into arms!”

The brigades that form the Offensive Guard force are "fully formed" and will be placed under the command of Ukraine's Armed Forces after receiving combat missions, Internal Affairs Minister Ihor Klymenko said in an interview on May 2.

Having held the line for so long and boasting a deep familiarity with the area, the 110th Brigade will likely play their own role, if indeed the counteroffensive is launched down south.

“I doubt we will be used as assault troops since most of us are over forty,” said 54-year-old Vitalii in the neighboring trench. “I imagine we will be tasked with clearing liberated areas after the assault forces go through, and the securing of the rear lines behind them.”

Trained in the heat of battle: The journey of Kharkiv Oblast’s Territorial Defense

Editor’s Note: Some of the soldiers interviewed in this piece declined to give their last names for security reasons or because they had relatives in occupied territory, and are identified by first names and callsigns instead. KHARKIV OBLAST – At an undisclosed part of the front line in Ukraine’s

The Kyiv IndependentFrancis Farrell

This is personal

For many of those in the ranks of the 110th, hypothetical arrows across maps of a potential southern counteroffensive come with more personal meaning than for most Ukrainian soldiers.

Of those men interviewed at the training camp, all were from settlements in Zaporizhzhia Oblast that are currently occupied by Russia, including Enerhodar and Tokmak.

“We just want to go home, we have lost everything,” said 23-year-old Illia, callsign “Tsyhan,” resting in between training sessions at the camp. “I can't say if we will need these specific skills here but when we are face-to-face with the zombies in the trenches opposite, I'm confident we will remember everything.”

Tsyhan’s wife and three-year-old daughter, like most of the families of the soldiers here, were evacuated from their home village.

While some family members fled to safety, others often chose to fight side-by-side, literally. Sending bullets down the range were 52-year-old Vasyl and his son, dressed in a hoodie underneath his bulletproof vest and going by the callsign “Pitbull.”

Father Vasyl (R) and son "Pitbull" pose for a portrait at a training camp in southeastern Ukraine on May 22, 2023. (Francis Farrell/The Kyiv Independent)

The pair hail from the village of Kokhane near occupied Tokmak, the name of which translates to “Beloved.”

“I hope that by next month you can visit us at home for some hot chebureki, or that we'll be on the beach in (the port city of) Berdiansk,” said Pitbull.

“After the war these will all be my children,” added Vasyl about those in his unit, putting his arm around his son for a photo.

Some of the men interviewed expressed that their full personal investment in Ukraine’s struggle often puts them at odds with civilians, many of whom live lives not too different from those in peacetime.

“You visit Zaporizhzhia and you see these fit young guys who just sit in bars and act rudely towards us.” said Tsyhan. “I can’t see how I can ever talk to someone like that after the war.”

“You start to feel over there that there is no war, and if there is no war, then what place is there for us?”

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The battle for Zaporizhzhia Oblast also has a deeper historical meaning that looms large in the minds of the local brigade.

The “Wild Fields,” the name given to the southeastern Ukrainian steppes, have been the setting of centuries of battles between Zaporizhzhian Cossacks against the Crimean Khanate and later, the Russian Empire.

In Bohun’s battalion, itself named after 20th century Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary Nestor Makhno who was born in nearby Huliaipole, many soldiers come from local Cossack organizations, or have joined them since starting their service.

One of the most colorful examples of this continuity is Grandfather, who claims to be descended from the actual Zaporizhzhian Cossacks.

Ukrainian soldier "Grandfather" in a forest near his positions on the southern front line on May 23, 2023. (Francis Farrell/The Kyiv Independent)

“I am a native Cossack, I was brought up in this since childhood,” he said. “My grandfather used to say that the steppe and freedom are the Cossack soul.”

“We used to hold events together with Don Cossacks (from southern Russia) before 2014, and you could just feel their sense of superiority,” he added. “But already we were telling them that this was our land, that nobody would be giving commands to us.”

Grandfather grew up near the town of Polohy, also occupied by Russia, and also a key settlement along the route of a potential southern counteroffensive.

“It's been a year and a half since I could visit the grave of my parents, it's probably all overgrown by now,” he said. “When we liberate the area, I will pay a visit... and then continue onwards.”

Wounded soldiers fight for recovery in Zaporizhzhia rehabilitation center

Editor’s Note: Some soldiers declined to give their last names to the Kyiv Independent for safety reasons as they plan to return to fight on the front line once their rehabilitation is over. ZAPORIZHZHIA – Serhii Demko’s active duty is over. He had served since the first day of the Russian

The Kyiv IndependentAlexander Query

Waiting game

At the mortar base near the front line, the arrival of heavy afternoon rain scuppered plans for a firing mission. With the arrival of dawn the next morning, the weather improved, but still, the order was given not to go out to work, as the commandment wanted to avoid exposing Ukrainian firing positions just yet.

Whether it’s soldiers on the front lines, the Ukrainian people, or observers across the world, the awaited large-scale counteroffensive has stirred up feelings of intense anticipation unprecedented in the war so far.

Soldiers share rumors about when it might begin, about what new brigades have arrived nearby, but the accepted reality is that only a handful of people at the top of Ukraine’s leadership know the plan, and that plan could still change.

“Of course, I'm waiting, I'm waiting for the General Staff to let me know everything,” Bohun said with a smirk.

It is impossible to reliably predict in advance what will happen once the push begins. The type of large-scale offensive needed for a breakthrough in the context of a brutal state-on-state war like this has no close equivalent, not in this war nor in any other.

Ukraine has much going for it: Months of preparation, superior-quality tanks and armored vehicles, Western jamming and mine-clearing equipment, and the precision-strike capabilities of HIMARS and M270 systems will all be crucial for success in attack. Ukraine will also look to make best use of Western intelligence assistance, and is understood to have saved up plenty of artillery ammunition for the offensive.

Russia has also made use of the time given to prepare, and the multiple lines of minefields, dragon’s teeth, anti-vehicle ditches, and trenches, are specifically designed to bog down an initial attack, even if successful, and prevent it from turning into a strategic breakthrough.

Though the fortifications will be a challenge to overcome, Sviatoslav hopes that the Russian soldiers assigned to man them will offer less resistance.

“If we hit them hard, I believe they will break and flee,” he said. “It's not a good feeling when your neighboring trench has just been lit up and you know that you're next; the will to fight leaves you pretty quickly.”

This Week in Ukraine Ep. 9 – What actually happened near Belgorod?

Episode #9 of our weekly video podcast “This Week in Ukraine” is dedicated to the incursion into Belgorod Oblast in Russia by Russian volunteer units fighting on the side of Ukraine. Host Anastasiia Lapatine is joined by the Kyiv Independent senior editor Oleksiy Sorokin. Listen to the audio versi…

The Kyiv IndependentAnastasiia Lapatina

So far, Ukrainian officials have been eager to play down expectations of the counteroffensive being a single, decisive battle.

Ukraine’s operation has been “underway” for several days, presidential advisor Mykhailo Podoliak said on May 25.

“The counteroffensive has been ongoing for several days now, and there is an intense war along the 1,500-kilometer border, but actions have already begun,” Podoliak said.

While no major armored push has been observed yet, what look like deliberate shaping operations to weaken Russia’s defense have taken place throughout the month of May, and not only in the south.

As the brutal battle for Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast looked to be drawing to a close, Ukrainian forces conducted successful localized counterattacks on the flanks of the city, taking advantage of the conflict between the Russian military and Wagner group head Yevgeny Prigozhin and forcing Moscow to allocate more troops to what it thought was a completed victory.

Over the last weeks of May, an increasing number of explosions were reported in occupied areas in southern Ukraine, such as Mariupol and Berdiansk. The damage caused and distance from the front point to the likelihood of Ukrainian forces’ use of new long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles acquired from the U.K.

Meanwhile, several raids into Russian territory have been carried out by two anti-regime Russian military formations, almost certainly in direct coordination with Kyiv, as recently as June 1. Moscow’s failure to defend its state border is widely seen as a major political embarrassment, and could force the transfer of units from the front line in occupied Ukraine.

Ukrainian battalion commander "Bohun" at a firing position on the southern front line on May 23, 2023. (Francis Farrell/The Kyiv Independent)

Although some representatives of the Ukrainian leadership have asserted that this is not Kyiv’s last chance to liberate its occupied territories, the high stakes of the operation is not lost on many of them.

Without giving a date for the beginning, National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said on May 27 that Ukraine had "no right to make a mistake" on the decision because this was a "historic opportunity" that "we cannot lose."

A minute-long video featuring Ukrainian troops marching, training, and preparing for battle was released by Commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi on May 27, with an ominous message hinting at an imminent counteroffensive.

“The time has come to take back what is ours,” Zaluzhnyi wrote.

Battalion commander Bohun shared this vision of a holy crusade to return their beloved steppes from occupation.

“(This fight) is our holy duty,” Bohun said.

Note from the author:

Hi, this is Francis Farrell, one of the authors who wrote this piece from on the ground on the southern front line of Russia's war against Ukraine. At the Kyiv Independent and all over Ukraine, we are all waiting for this counteroffensive to start, and even if we have to wait and wait, we understand why success is crucial for Ukraine's future. Whatever the outcome though, we are not going anywhere. Please consider supporting our reporting.

kyivindependent.com · by Francis Farrell · June 1, 2023

13. AI, China ‘Defining Challenges of Our Time’: CISA Director

Is "self-regulation" feasible?

Excerpts:

Like other tech and software manufacturers, Easterly said AI was “yet another flavor of technology that has to be built [with] security up-front, safety up-front.”

“I see the world through three decades of intelligence, counterterrorism and cybersecurity,” she added. “And at the end of the day, these capabilities will do amazing things. They’ll make our lives easier and better. They'll make lives easier and better for our adversaries, who will flood the space with disinformation, who will be able to create cyberattacks and all kinds of weapons.”

While some lawmakers and tech executives like Altman have already called for greater oversight and regulations around the use and development of AI technologies, Easterly said that the companies themselves can already take steps to prevent the extinction-type risk outlined in yesterday’s joint statement by working to bake security into their services.

“I would ask these 350 people and the makers of AI, while we're trying to put a regulatory framework in place, think about self-regulation,” Easterly said. “Think about what you can do to slow this down, so we don't cause an extinction event for humanity.”

AI, China ‘Defining Challenges of Our Time’: CISA Director

Jen Easterly outlined her concerns about Beijing’s aggressive cyber posture and the rise of largely unregulated generative-AI tools.

defenseone.com · by Edward Graham

CISA Director Jen Easterly testifies during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on June 10, 2021. She raised concerns about artificial intelligence’s potential as an “extinction event” at a May 31 Axios event. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Jen Easterly outlined her concerns about Beijing’s aggressive cyber posture and the rise of largely unregulated generative-AI tools.

|

June 1, 2023 03:00 PM ET

By Edward Graham

Staff Reporter, Nextgov/FCW

June 1, 2023 03:00 PM ET

The head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned on Wednesday about the security risks posed by generative artificial intelligence technologies and an increasingly bellicose China, calling them “the two epoch-defining challenges of our time.”

During an event hosted by Axios, CISA Director Jen Easterly outlined her concerns about Beijing’s aggressive cyber posture and the rise of largely unregulated generative AI tools and called for tech firms and critical infrastructure operators to prioritize enhanced security practices.

Easterly cited, in part, the intelligence community’s 2023 annual threat assessment — which was publicly released in March — and noted that it outlined how “in the event of a conflict, like an invasion or a blockade of the Taiwan Strait, we will almost probably see aggressive cyber operations here in the U.S.” She said that these cyberattacks would likely be designed “to delay military deployment and to induce societal panic” and would rely on digital intrusions “capable of disrupting transportation, oil and pipelines.”

CISA, in collaboration with its Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partners, published a joint cybersecurity advisory last week that shared technical details about a Beijing-linked cyber threat actor, known as Volt Typhoon, that is targeting the networks of critical infrastructure operators. Easterly said the advisory was “a real wake up call for our concerns about why we need to increase the security and resilience of our critical infrastructure.”

“These are the types of threats that we need to be prepared to defend against, and that's why continuing to resource our budget is so incredibly important,” she added, citing the White House’s proposed 2024 fiscal year budget that would allocate $3.1 billion to CISA — an increase of $145 million to the agency’s current budget.

Easterly — who has been pushing in recent months for tech firms and software manufacturers to prioritize security when developing new products — also reiterated her call for companies to take a more active role in securing their services from growing cyber threats, but reframed it to address growing concerns about the unchecked rise of generative AI technologies.

She pointed to a joint statement released by the Center for AI Safety on Tuesday, in which more than 350 people — including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and other tech executives — said that “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

“When you have 350 experts coming out and saying there's a potential for extinction of humanity, I think there's a lot to worry about there,” Easterly said, adding that “we need to rapidly get our arms around this” when it comes to regulating AI tools.

Like other tech and software manufacturers, Easterly said AI was “yet another flavor of technology that has to be built [with] security up-front, safety up-front.”

“I see the world through three decades of intelligence, counterterrorism and cybersecurity,” she added. “And at the end of the day, these capabilities will do amazing things. They’ll make our lives easier and better. They'll make lives easier and better for our adversaries, who will flood the space with disinformation, who will be able to create cyberattacks and all kinds of weapons.”

While some lawmakers and tech executives like Altman have already called for greater oversight and regulations around the use and development of AI technologies, Easterly said that the companies themselves can already take steps to prevent the extinction-type risk outlined in yesterday’s joint statement by working to bake security into their services.

“I would ask these 350 people and the makers of AI, while we're trying to put a regulatory framework in place, think about self-regulation,” Easterly said. “Think about what you can do to slow this down, so we don't cause an extinction event for humanity.”

14. US, Philippines, Japan set to hold first-ever joint naval drills

US, Philippines, Japan set to hold first-ever joint naval drills

Drills come as the US and China ramp up military diplomacy in the Asia Pacific, staging more frequent war games with allies and partners.

Al Jazeera English

The coastguards of the United States, Japan and the Philippines are set to launch maritime exercises in the South China Sea, in the first such drills between the three countries at a time of growing concern about China’s activities in the region.

The exercise in waters off the Bataan province of the Philippines will begin on Thursday and last until June 7.

The drills come as Washington ramps up military diplomacy in the region, staging more frequent war games with allies and partners in the South China Sea, the waters around Taiwan as well as the western Pacific.

China, too, has increased drills in the strategic waterways.

It has conducted military exercises with Laos, Singapore and Cambodia this year and is set to send warships to a multilateral naval exercise hosted by Indonesia this month.

Armand Balilo, a spokesperson for the Philippine coastguard, told reporters in Manila on Monday that the trilateral drills were an initiative of the US and Japan, while Australia would join as an observer.

Four Philippine vessels and one each from the US and Japan will participate in exercises designed to improve search and rescue collaboration and law enforcement, he said.

The Philippines was approached by Japan and the US about holding joint maritime exercises in February, the same month when Manila accused China of aggressive activities in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost in its entirety.

“This is a usual routine activity among coastguard agencies,” Balilo said. “There is nothing wrong with holding exercises with your counterparts.”

The US, Japan and Australia have frequently condemned China’s militarisation of the South China Sea, and have sought to engage more closely with the Philippines since Ferdinand Marcos Jr took over as president last year from pro-China predecessor Rodrigo Duterte.

The Philippines has been increasingly vocal about China’s conduct in the strategic waters, including over its alleged use of a “military-grade laser” against a vessel supporting a resupply mission to a ship in the disputed waters.

Balilo said the upcoming maritime exercise will include counter-piracy simulations, and possibly an interception exercise involving a vessel carrying weapons of mass destruction.

China is also making a push to deepen military engagement with its southerly neighbours.

In May, China held a rare joint military drill with its landlocked neighbour Laos, as well as exercises with Singapore in the southern reaches of the South China Sea.

And in March, China and Cambodia held drills in Cambodian waters for the first time.

The Chinese defence ministry said on Wednesday that it will send its destroyer Zhanjiang and frigate Xuchang, both equipped with guided missiles, to the 2023 Multilateral Naval Exercise Komodo (MNEK), in Indonesia’s Makassar.

Jakarta has invited 47 nations, including North Korea, Russia, South Korea and the US to the drills that will run from June 4 to 8.

China is also planning a joint drill with some countries of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), including Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. The drills are named Amana Youyi-2023.

Relations between China and the US have been tense, with friction between the world’s two largest economies over everything from Taiwan and Beijing’s human rights record to its military activity in the South China Sea.

Al Jazeera English

15. In Ukraine, Russia is nearly down to its nukes

A sober warning.

Excerpts:

Ukraine, however, remains undeterred and unwilling to give in to Russian nuclear blackmail. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky defiantly announced on May 29 that a decision had been made concerning the timing of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. The head games continue — real and imagined, including action, reaction, counteraction — only this time, it is Ukraine dictating the conditions.

US military has been observing ‘metallic orbs’ making extraordinary ‘maneuvers’ How to prevent bank runs? Here’s a simple plan that the banks will hate

Deep strikes, raids, reconnaissance in force, supporting efforts, main effort — Gerasimov must now prepare for all contingencies along a 900-mile front. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army gets stronger and the Russian soldier in his foxhole is left to wonder.

Putin, essentially, is down to his nukes in Ukraine. And even he likely knows that they are not a viable or winning option. The question is no longer whether Russia conventionally loses in Ukraine, but when.

In Ukraine, Russia is nearly down to its nukes

BY JONATHAN SWEET AND MARK TOTH, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS - 06/01/23 7:00 AM ET

The Hill · by Alexander Bolton · June 1, 2023

It was another bad week in Ukraine for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his commanding general, Valery Gerasimov — bad enough to launch criminal retaliation strikes against civilian targets in Kyiv, which largely failed anyway.

Even the most loyal of the Russian propagandists are at this point bewildered by the self-defeating military strategy and lack of resolve by the Kremlin to go all-in. Vladimir Solovyov called upon Russian citizens to “recognize there is a war going on,” “move to a war footing” and recognize “we’re fighting against NATO.” He then called for more airstrikes on Ukrainian cities.

Sixteen months into the war, Putin and his generals still do not have an answer to Ukraine. Russian ground forces are being routed and humiliated routinely. Entire formations with their officers have surrendered. UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles strike with impunity at locations once considered not at risk.

And Russia’s border is not secure, either. Elements of the pro-Ukrainian Russian Volunteer Corps, alongside the Freedom of Russia Legion, demonstrated this on May 22 when they conducted a raid in the Belgorod Oblast. The skies over Moscow remain porous as well. The drone strike on the flagpole atop the Kremlin prior to the May 9 Victory Day Parade was repeated on May 30, inviting yet again the wrath of Wagner CEO Yevgeny Prigozhin and ultra-nationalist Igor Strelkov on Putin’s inability to protect Russian citizens living in the capital city.

No amount of spin from the Kremlin can change those inconvenient truths, not that some haven’t tried. A Baghdad Bob-like moment occurred on May 30 when Shoigu reported incredible battlefield successes. “Russian troops continue to inflict effective fire on the enemy,” he wrote. He added that “196 HIMARS [rockets] were intercepted and destroyed, along with 16 HARM missiles and 29 Storm Shadow cruise missiles.”

Shoigu went on to claim that Russia had struck a U.S. Patriot missile system in Kyiv and “liquidated” 70 Ukrainian raiders during a “counterterrorism operation in Belgorod.” He concluded by claiming that eight Ukrainian drones launched in a “terrorist action targeting civilians” in Moscow were destroyed. The assembled military officers in the audience sat stoically, listening to what they surely recognized as farcical Kremlin propaganda.

Retired Russian naval officer Konstantin Sivkov, tried deluding his audience that the drone attacks on Moscow had been, in actuality, “very positive, because they’ll help to mobilize Russian society against the enemy.” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin likewise downplayed the effectiveness of the attack saying the “UAV attack caused minor damage to several buildings. All the city’s emergency services are on the scene. They are investigating the circumstances of what happened. No one has been seriously injured so far.”

Russian spin notwithstanding, the drone strikes provided yet another psychological jab that is picking at the scab of the Russian psyche. What was described as a “special military operation” is in its 16th month now, and as Igor Girkin apprised, something as militarily limited as the special military operation should not have involved Ukrainian strikes “against Engels or Moscow, where since Soviet times [they had] the best air defense and missile defense system in Russia.”

The Kremlin, in the absence of a sustained conventional offensive capability, was increasingly resorting to propagandists selling Putin’s retaliation strikes against Ukrainian civilians as though they were decisive battlefield successes. Yet as Russian missile and drone strikes lose effectiveness against a U.S. and NATO supplied integrated air defense network, Putin is shifting back to implied threats of nuclear escalation and Chernobyl-like environmental disasters.

This past week, Putin signed two documents designed to send one nuclear message to the U.S. and NATO. The first provided for the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, although control is solely retained by the Kremlin. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko claimed that the “tactical nuclear weapons were already on the move.”

Then, on Monday, Putin signed legislation into law withdrawing Russia from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. Both decrees are creating an ominous new dimension in regard to the four Ukrainian regions Moscow illegally annexed — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. In the past, Putin has vowed to defend Russia territories, “including the annexed regions, with any means at his military’s disposal, including nuclear weapons.”

Short of using nukes and lacking adequate conventional options, Moscow is for now electing to create environmental disasters instead. On May 26, Russian forces blew up the Karlivka Dam in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine with a missile strike, sending water downstream and leading to the evacuation of civilians from their homes along the Vovcha River. The resulting floods did disrupt “Ukrainian military operations near the front lines,” while disrupting Kyiv’s ability to resupply and sustain deployment of those units.

New reports from the Ukraine Defense Ministry on May 26 also suggest Russia is planning a major accident at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in a ‘false flag’ operation to “thwart Ukraine’s imminently expected counteroffensive.” In faking a Ukrainian attack on the plant and causing “the leakage of the radioactive substances,” the Kremlin is apparently anticipating it can “trigger an international investigation which would require a ceasefire, allowing Russia to use the break in fighting to better prepare for Ukraine’s counteroffensive.”

Ukraine, however, remains undeterred and unwilling to give in to Russian nuclear blackmail. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky defiantly announced on May 29 that a decision had been made concerning the timing of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. The head games continue — real and imagined, including action, reaction, counteraction — only this time, it is Ukraine dictating the conditions.

US military has been observing ‘metallic orbs’ making extraordinary ‘maneuvers’ How to prevent bank runs? Here’s a simple plan that the banks will hate

Deep strikes, raids, reconnaissance in force, supporting efforts, main effort — Gerasimov must now prepare for all contingencies along a 900-mile front. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army gets stronger and the Russian soldier in his foxhole is left to wonder.

Putin, essentially, is down to his nukes in Ukraine. And even he likely knows that they are not a viable or winning option. The question is no longer whether Russia conventionally loses in Ukraine, but when.

Jonathan Sweet (@JESweet2022), a retired Army colonel and 30-year military intelligence officer, led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014. Mark Toth (@MCTothSTL), an economist, entrepreneur, and former board member of the World Trade Center, St. Louis, writes on national security and foreign policy.

The Hill · by Alexander Bolton · June 1, 2023

16. It’s Critical to Solve America’s Military Recruiting Crisis

Excerpts:

Our military leaders have much work to do on several fronts. When we continue to see reports of sexual assault and harassment, suicide, and poor living conditions in government housing (mold, leaking roofs, vermin), our leaders need to address these issues. Sexual assaults and poor housing conditions have occurred for too many years and it’s time to hold people accountable. What parent wants to encourage a son or daughter to be part of such an organization?

The Military Officers Association of America (MOAA), a nonprofit advocacy organization, considers its leadership and support for the all-volunteer force as one of its most sacred obligations — especially in terms of taking care of junior enlisted members and their families. MOAA embraces its role as the strongest advocate to ensure commitments and promises made across the full spectrum of service are honored. Protecting the all-volunteer force is part of the organization’s strategic plan.

Our nation is struggling to recruit and retain the force we need to defend our country. Reversing the trend requires a whole-of-government approach. We must keep America’s force ready and capable — today and in the future. Let’s get to it.

It’s Critical to Solve America’s Military Recruiting Crisis

themessenger.com

This year marks the 50th anniversary of America’s all-volunteer military. In January 1973, then-Defense Secretary Melvin Laird announced that, moving forward, the U.S. military services would fill their ranks solely with volunteers. Many Americans supported the decision, although there were those who thought it wouldn’t work.

The decision to eliminate the draft has been successful, and the concept has served this country well. In recent remarks, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said the all-volunteer force “has delivered for us operationally and societally … over the last 50 years, in times of conflict and in times of peace. It has continued to be the right decision.”

But sadly, our military services today face serious challenges to fill their ranks with qualified men and women. Virtually all the services cannot meet their recruiting goals. In fact, the problem is so severe that we should consider it to be a national security crisis.

The Army is the worst off. It missed its 2022 recruiting goal of 60,000 recruits by 15,000, and it will miss its 2023 recruiting goal. The Army may need to cut its overall force by 10,000 in 2023 because of a lack of accessions. The other branches also have reported difficulty in reaching their targets.

The Navy met its enlisted recruiting goal of about 33,000 last year, but did so by dipping into its 2023 delayed-entry pool. This year, the Navy predicts it will miss its goal by 6,000 sailors, or about 16%. The Air Force says it will miss this year’s recruiting goal by about 10%.

The Marines have continued to meet goals but officials say they have never been as challenged to recruit and retain as they are today.

The recruiting crisis results from a number of factors involving those potentially in the pool, including obesity, poor academic skills, addiction issues, mental health problems or criminal records. Only about 23% of America’s youths are physically, mentally and morally qualified to serve in the military without receiving some type of waiver.

Perhaps a bigger problem is that only an estimated 9% of America’s youths are even interested in military service.

Several things have resulted from the military’s difficulty to attract recruits. One is increasing the number of waivers. Last year, one in six recruits were given waivers to enter the service — the highest number in at least 10 years. In November, the Defense Department said that 22,623 recruits with no prior military service had waivers approved in 2022, out of a total of 130,346 prospective recruits. This equates to around 17% of incoming recruits being accepted with waivers for health, prior misconduct, drug use, or inappropriate tattoos.

More troubling, however, is that when each of the services was asked about the number of waivers, the numbers were actually much higher. The Military Times queried all the services and found that nearly 29,000 waivers were granted for 89,600 recruits — about 30% of the incoming force.

To help with recruits who want to join the Army or Navy but are unable to meet minimum academic or physical standards, the services have developed preparatory courses that help recruits academically and physically. If they progress sufficiently in these courses by meeting standards, they can proceed to recruit training. The Navy also has lowered the scores needed on its entrance exam.

Further exacerbating the recruiting problems is the issue of young people’s propensity to serve. Many young people do not know anyone in the military and are unfamiliar with the jobs or benefits it offers; fewer parents have served. Defense Department surveys show that young people do not trust military leadership.

Correcting the military’s recruiting problems will require what the Navy calls an “all hands on deck” effort — and this includes our nation’s political leaders, military leaders, those who currently serve in uniform or who have served, and other influencers such as teachers and youth leaders.

More specifically, our political leaders — including the president and his Cabinet — must use every opportunity to encourage young people to consider the military and highlight the opportunities it offers. Thus far, these leaders have been silent.

Congress can play a key role in supporting recruiting by protecting the benefits that have been promised to those who join the military and their families. In addition to reasonable pay, these commitments include housing, health care, child care and prevention of food insecurity. We’ve seen too many members having to rely on food stamps, for example — this is not an enticement to join the military.

Our military leaders have much work to do on several fronts. When we continue to see reports of sexual assault and harassment, suicide, and poor living conditions in government housing (mold, leaking roofs, vermin), our leaders need to address these issues. Sexual assaults and poor housing conditions have occurred for too many years and it’s time to hold people accountable. What parent wants to encourage a son or daughter to be part of such an organization?

The Military Officers Association of America (MOAA), a nonprofit advocacy organization, considers its leadership and support for the all-volunteer force as one of its most sacred obligations — especially in terms of taking care of junior enlisted members and their families. MOAA embraces its role as the strongest advocate to ensure commitments and promises made across the full spectrum of service are honored. Protecting the all-volunteer force is part of the organization’s strategic plan.

Our nation is struggling to recruit and retain the force we need to defend our country. Reversing the trend requires a whole-of-government approach. We must keep America’s force ready and capable — today and in the future. Let’s get to it.

Tom Jurkowsky, a retired Navy rear admiral, served on active duty for 31 years, beginning as an enlisted man. He serves on the board of the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) and is the author of “The Secret Sauce for Organizational Success: Communications and Leadership on the Same Page.”

themessenger.com

17. Ukraine-Backed Russian Rebels Face Furious Counterattack After Raid on Belgorod

Ukraine-Backed Russian Rebels Face Furious Counterattack After Raid on Belgorod

The Russian military reportedly deployed attack helicopters and thermobaric rockets to repel the incursion

Published 47 min ago|Updated 47 min ago

Dan Morrison

themessenger.com

Ukraine-backed Russian paramilitary raiders said they continued to fight for a border village in Russia’s southern Belgorod region today despite a furious government counter-attack that included the use of attack helicopters and thermobaric rockets.

The Freedom of Russia Legion said it had suffered several casualties while fighting for the town of Novaya Tavolzhanka. “We have active battles on the outskirts of the village,” a post on the group’s Telegram account said today. “Unfortunately, there are wounded legionnaires, but freedom is won with blood.”

Two right-wing paramilitary units opposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps, rolled across the border from Ukraine into Belgorod on Thursday afternoon, their second armed incursion in 10 days.

Russia’s ministry of defense said Thursday night that army and border guard units had repulsed "a new attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist act against the civilian population of the city of Shebekino," just north of Novaya Tavolzhankam the site of Friday's fighting.

But paramilitary social media channels posted several photos and videos today they claimed to show ongoing engagements–including an aerial shot of a purported rebel tank crossing a field in Belgorod.

Amid the fighting, Russian government officials and rebel units traded blame Friday after two Russian women were killed by shrapnel.

“The Armed Forces of Ukraine fired at a section of the road in the village of Maslova Pristan,” Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram. “Shell fragments hit cars passing by. Two women were traveling in one of them; they died on the spot from their injuries.” Two men in a second vehicle were hospitalized, he said.

The Freedom of Russia Legion, meanwhile, said the victims were killed by friendly fire from Russian government forces. “The troops of the regime…do not reckon with the civilian population,” the group said–repeating a charge they first made during an audacious May 22 raid in Belgorod.

“Artillery fire covers any points where they detect the movement” of suspected paramilitaries, the group claimed. “Near Tavolzhanka, the enemy destroyed a Renault car with civilians, mistaking it for a car with our sabotage group…This is a direct consequence of the unprofessionalism of Putin's army.”

A bulletin from the British defense ministry said Russian forces “have likely seen quicker success in containing this raid than the previous one.”

Still, it noted, Russia “has resorted to deploying the full range of military firepower on its own territory, including attack helicopters, and the TOS-1A heavy thermobaric rocket launcher.” (Thermobaric weapons produce a hotter, more powerful blast than conventional warheads.)

The new attack in Belgorod appeared designed to pull Russian forces away from defensive lines in eastern Ukraine. “Russian commanders now face an acute dilemma of whether to strengthen defenses in Russia’s border regions or reinforce their lines in occupied Ukraine,” the bulletin said.

themessenger.com

18. The U.S. and Russia: Competing Proxy Strategies in the Russo-Ukrainian War

Conclusion:

Russian and U.S. use of proxy strategies complement one another to fuel a war of attrition. Russia’s human wave response to expensive and limited U.S. firepower is not unreasonable, despite perhaps being quite cynical and fatalistic. Russia’s human wave proxy strategy both protects conventional Russian army forces by redirecting combat to disposable proxies and frees the conventional army to reinforce territorial and political gains along the Sea of Azov.[48] Simultaneously, the U.S. proxy strategy is a logical response to an undersized and outgunned Ukrainian military. The Ukrainians fighting at distance with U.S. artillery, missiles, and rockets while using urban terrain to offset Russian strength makes complete sense. But the interaction of these two proxy strategies, both logical in their own right, fuels a devastating war of attrition, depletes weapon stockpiles, and generates significant numbers of casualties.

The U.S. and Russia: Competing Proxy Strategies in the Russo-Ukrainian War

Amos C. Fox  June 1, 2023

thestrategybridge.org · June 1, 2023

Introduction

Thanks to near-real time reporting from the battlefield, open-source intelligence, and many good streams of analysis—to include reports from the Institute for the Study of War and assessments from Michael Kofman and Mark Galeotti—the Russo-Ukrainian War provides a rare and information-rich occasion to compare competing proxy war strategies.

When examining proxy strategies, it is important to remember that a proxy is simply an actor (Actor B) who a principal (Actor A) relies on as an in-lieu-of actor to advance its own political-military interests. In Ukraine, Russian proxy strategy resides on one side of the spectrum and the U.S. proxy strategy on the other. While Ukraine is fighting for its national sovereignty and the restoration of its territorial integrity, the U.S. is relying on Ukrainian military operations to defeat Russia. The defeat of Russia serves multiple U.S. interests, aside from just helping Ukraine remain a sovereign state. These interests include advancing both the relevance and importance of NATO and the European Union, continuing to spread Western idealism and democracy at the expense of balance-of-power politics and single-party authoritarianism, and strategically weakening Russia’s standing within the international system. In the sad irony that accompanies war, both strategies feed off one another, having transformed the conflict into a grinding war of attrition.[1]

This point is important because it tends to be lost in the castigation of Russia’s poor tactics and in the goading of Ukrainian forces by the U.S. to adopt maneuver-centric tactics.[2] In reality, the competing Russian and U.S. proxy strategies create a circular logic. Understanding that a proxy is an in-lieu-of actor, the purveyor of a proxy strategy can mold that strategy to fit their needs, goals, resources, risk considerations, and the type of proxy available (or any combination thereof). Accordingly, the firepower-centric proxy strategy of the U.S. contributes to Russia’s human wave proxy strategy; and Russia’s human wave strategy contributes to the firepower-centric, technology diffusion proxy strategy of the U.S., which, when cycled over time, creates the devastating war of attrition that is playing out in eastern Ukraine.

The goal of this essay is not to vote one way or another on whose strategy is better or more ethical. Moreover, the goal is not to inject emotion or virtue-signaling into this paper. The purpose of this paper is to provide an objective comparison of proxy strategies, while not advocating for, or against either of the involved participants. The ultimate goal of this paper is to illustrate, as objectively as possible, how the Russian and US proxy strategies feed off one another to fuel a war of attrition.

Russian Proxy Strategy

Russian proxy strategy at the outset of the Russo-Ukrainian War relied on speed and obfuscation to spring a fait accompli to take control of Crimea in February 2014.[3] Yegveny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group and other contractual proxies worked alongside unmarked Russian regulars to take Crimea.[4] By mid-March, Crimea’s new government, a blatant Russian proxy, put forth a referendum of independence from Ukraine, becoming in the eyes of Russia the Republic of Crimea, and was subsequently absorbed into the Russian Federation.[5]

Yevgeny Prigozhin (L) with Vladimir Putin during a dinner with foreign scholars and journalists in 2011. (Misha Japaridze/Reuters)

In April 2014, the Kremlin relied on a similar proxy strategy to unofficially annex significant portions of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. The goal was to take control of Donetsk and Luhansk before Ukraine or the international community could comprehend the situation. The Kremlin sought to move more quickly than Kyiv could counter and consolidate military forces on territorial acquisitions before a lax international community could respond.[6]

During the opening phase of the Donbas campaign the Donetsk People’s Army (DPA) and the Luhansk People’s Army (LPA) fit the definition of exploited proxy; a composite force created by the Russian military to fulfill combat duty that would have otherwise been filled by Russian armed forces.[7] Further, the Kremlin’s proxy strategy sought to keep Russian forces in the shadows at the campaign’s outset. Nevertheless, Western friends, partisan internet users, concerned local citizens, and others used social media; cell phone signal forensics; theater intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; and open-source intelligence to unmask Russia’s hidden hand.[8] To be sure, not long after Russia dispatched army forces to Luhansk Airport and Ilovaisk in August 2014, it became evident that the conflict was not merely the result of a band of erstwhile separatists from the state’s eastern reaches conspiring against Kyiv. Instead, it was unmistakable that the conflict was a concerted Russian foreign policy gambit seeking to both undermine Kyiv and take sovereign Ukrainian territory.

Russia’s proxy strategy evolved from one that emphasized obfuscated intervention, to one that used proxies as an auxiliary to take the sting off biting combat losses and provide policymaker’s more strategic flexibility. From August 2014 onwards, Russia did next to nothing to hide its involvement in the conflict.[9] Instead, the Kremlin used the the Donetsk People’s Army, the Luhansk People’s Army, and Wagner as a millstone, while using its army as a holding force and to deliver the coup de grâce, when applicable.[10]

Using the Donetsk People’s Army, the Luhansk People’s Army, and Wagner as auxiliaries—or outsourced fighters, as Galeotti refers to them—Russia creates military and political time by jettisoning many of the risks associated with warfighting.[11] Every proxy killed or wounded in action equals one less Russian regular killed or wounded. This exchange dynamic helps preserve the army, while still advancing an aggressive, goal-seeking foreign policy.

Concurrently, the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Armies evolved from an exploited proxy to a cultural proxy. Cultural proxies are those that share a cultural bond with their principal, and therefore involve fewer agency costs, have high autonomy, and are trusted with more challenging operations.[12] Despite coming up short while fighting independently at Donetsk Airport, Luhansk Airport, and Ilovaisk in 2014, it is not a stretch to assume the Kremlin began to see the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Armies as a steadfast expedient for Russian military forces in Ukraine.

The evolution of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Armies from exploited to cultural proxies was not entirely an acknowledgement of brotherhood. The evolution reflected a calculated move by the Kremlin to position the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Armies as culpable partners in a future invasion of Ukraine.[13] Russifying the proxy army would accelerate the movement of the population of the Donetsk and Luhansk’s oblasts towards future annexation. Moreover, given the premium placed on land forces when a large operation to denationalize Ukraine came, the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Armies would have to be trusted to operate independently.

When Russia expanded its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, both Wagner and the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Armies took on distinct roles. Wagner, seen as a trustworthy proxy because of its contractual bond with the Kremlin, was afforded significant latitude to operate independent from the Russian Army, but still under Russia’s National Defense Management Center (NToSU).[14] The Russian General Staff’s unified field command must request Wagner support from Prigozhin, who possesses the approval authority for the group’s tactical employment.[15] This contributes to many of the problems of command and control, logistics support, and combined arms that plague the Russian military effort in Ukraine.[16]

Militants of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic stand outside a military mobilization point in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk, Ukraine, in February 2022. (Reuters)

Additionally, Wagner’s status as a private company afforded it the opportunity to hire personnel differently from the Russian Army. Wagner quickly hired and rapidly sent contractors to the front to reinforce and or augment existing military operations. During the summer of 2022, Wagner quickly drew up 40,000 contractors, largely recruited from Russian prisons, while the Russian Army remained dependent on the state’s bi-annual conscription process.[17]

Wagner fits with a traditional Russian view on attrition’s utility in warfare. Russian military strategist Alexander Svechin writes that when a quick, decisive strike is out of the question, “geographical objectives and secondary operations” become strategic imperatives.[18] More specifically, Svechin asserts:

The weary path of a strategy of attrition, which leads to the expenditure of much greater resources than a short destructive strike aimed at the heart of the enemy, is in general, chosen only when a war cannot be ended by a single blow. The operations of a strategy of attrition are not so much direct stages toward the achievement of an ultimate goal as they are stages in the deployment of material superiority, which would ultimately deprive the enemy of the means for successful resistance.[19]

Taken in the context of Russia’s failure to quickly topple Kyiv and control Kharkiv in late February 2022, Wagner’s use in places such as Mariupol and Bakhmut makes more sense. Russia failed to win the conflict with a quick, decisive strike on Kyiv, and the Kremlin thus likely reasoned that the best strategy to defeat Ukraine resides in out-resourcing Ukraine and exhausting their manpower reserves. Wagner facilitated that shift in strategy, which likely contributed to their increased importance after the Russian military’s early failures around Kyiv and Kharkiv.

By February of 2022, the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Armies had become trusted cultural proxies for Russia and were given a set of tasks similar to those of Wagner.[20] Russia used them as a bite-and-hold force, primarily concerned with consuming Kyiv’s personnel and equipment in large attritional affairs in the Donbas.[21]

The use of Wagner and the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Armies as attritional battering rams and operational distractions provided the Kremlin the strategic flexibility for Russian forces to capture territory along the Sea of Azov, creating the long-coveted land bridge to Crimea. Moreover, in keeping with Svechin’s postulate on attrition, Moscow’s proxies provide a covering force for Russia to further invest its position along the Sea of Azov. Simultaneously, Moscow’s proxies fight bite-and-hold battles with the Kyiv’s armed forces meant to exhaust their personnel and equipment.[22]

What’s more, high-end weaponry like HIMARS and other precision munitions are expensive, exist in limited quantities, and are not being produced in a way befitting the requirements of industrial warfare.[23] Again, keeping Svechin’s thoughts on attrition in mind, it is not a stretch to assert the Russian military strategy intentionally paired slow, grinding combat with the Ukrainian’s reliance on high-end weapons from the U.S. and other Western partners in an effort to exhaust those stockpiles.

In short, the Kremlin’s strategy does not appear as haphazard as a lot of reporting suggests.[24] Ukraine has inflicted as many as 30,000 casualties, to include 9,000 killed in action, on the Wagner Group since the start of the conflict.[25] Considering that estimates indicate that the Wagner Group numbered approximately 50,000 at its high-water mark, the losses are staggering.[26] Reporting on losses for the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Armies are not as clear as those of Wagner. Open-source information does not present a holistic or necessarily trustworthy picture. Nevertheless, reporting indicates the Donetsk People’s Army began the conflict with roughly 20,000 soldiers.[27] By November 2022, combat operations inflicted 19,540 casualties.[28] While Russia’s proxy army was absorbing these casualties, Russia’s regular forces tended to be more oriented on consolidating their holdings along the land bridge to Crimea and fending off local challenges to those territorial possessions.[29] In effect, Russia’s proxy strategy appears intent on somewhat protecting its regular army, while using its proxy armies as an offset mechanism.

U.S. Proxy Strategy

Ukraine’s defense, which has been nothing less than awe-inspiring, is underpinned by a complementary U.S. proxy strategy. It is important to note that exploitation is not what fuels this strategy. Instead, the U.S. approach is a pragmatic strategic response to Russia’s unfortunate decision to try and eliminate Ukraine from the political map.

The proxy strategy pursued by the U.S. is one of technology diffusion between the U.S. and Ukraine that rests on the idea of a transactional proxy relationship.[30] States relying on other states as a proxy is not a new idea. Scholar Geraint Hughes, for instance, notes that the U.S. has long used Israel to support American interests in the Middle East, among other examples.[31] Scholar David Lake makes a similar statement regarding state-to-state proxy operations. Lake supports this assertion by highlighting U.S. reliance on Saddam Hussein and Iraq as an in-lieu-o’ actor to combat Iran’s push for regional hegemony during the Iran-Iraq War.[32] In Iraq’s case, the U.S. used indirect control to keep its involvement obfuscated from the public.[33] In Ukraine, on the other hand, the U.S. has done next to nothing to keep its involvement hidden. As ironic as it might seem to the casual observer, overt proxy employment, whether a state actor or a non-state actor, aligns with traditional proxy strategy. Hughes notes that “...in certain cases it should be noted that sponsor states do not always seek to conceal their assistance to proxy forces.”[34]

As noted above, the relationships in state-to-state principal-proxy interactions are generally transactional. In a transactional relationship, Actor A takes a backseat role and does not participate in the conflict through the use of its own armed forces.[35] Instead, Actor A participates by sharing intelligence with Actor B, equipping and training Actor B’s forces, and providing Actor B’s government with financial support.[36] Unlike coalitions and alliances, however, in proxy relationships Actor A transfers the majority of tactical risk, including the material costs of war, to Actor B.[37]

Vladimir Putin, Francois Hollande, Angela Merkel, Petro Poroshenko during Minsk II negotiations (AFP)

During the period between the Minsk II agreement and February 2022, the U.S. and its Western partners did not utilize a proxy strategy in Ukraine. Instead, they focused on deterrence and provided security assistance and security force assistance. When Russia did invade Ukraine, U.S. policy evolved from deterrence to defeating Russia on the battlefield, albeit with Ukrainian forces doing the fighting and dying.[38]

Presidential Drawdown Authority is a tool that allows the U.S. president to provide military and financial support to other states and international organizations to address emergencies in real time.[39] Initially, this authority was used to provide primarily financial support, but it did involve a small number of meaningful armaments.[40] By mid-March 2022, the Presidential Drawdown came with a number of high-impact weapon systems, which pushed the conflict toward parity between Ukraine and Russia. This package included 600 Stinger anti-air missile systems, 2,600 Javelin anti-tank rocket systems, 40 million rounds of small arms ammunition, and one million artillery rounds, grenades, and mortars.[41] As the conflict continued, the U.S. provided expanding lethal aid packages, eventually resulting in the transfer of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARM) Avenger Air Defense Systems, and a multitude of other sophisticated weapons.[42] By the summer of 2022, these aid packages helped Kyiv turn the tables on Moscow, illustrated by the devastating number of casualties the Ukrainian armed forces inflicted on Russian forces.[43]

Findings

By the early summer of 2022, Ukraine’s forces had inflicted upwards of 80,000 casualties on the Russian military—a withering number for six months of combat. [44] As a result, it appears that Russia adapted its general strategy, and its proxy strategy in particular, to account for the U.S. technology diffusion proxy strategy.

It appears Russia’s proxy strategy shifted to offset the Ukrainian advantage in firepower through mass—that is, throwing more soldiers at the problem than U.S. and Western munitions stockpiles can withstand over time. The Wagner Group’s authorization to recruit personnel from the Russian prison system is perhaps the most notable example of the Kremlin’s shift regarding its proxy strategy.[45] With the failure of Russian blitzkrieg, the Russian military embraced its population and materiel asymmetry with Ukraine, and shifted to a strategy of attrition oriented on exhausting Ukraine’s resources, its political and domestic will to fight, and the ability and will of the U.S. and other Western friends to continue providing weapons, training, and money to Kyiv.[46] The enlistment of approximately 40,000 prisoners by Yegveny Prigozhin to augment Wagner’s 10,000 contract fighters provided the Russian Army with approximately four additional division’s worth of disposable proxy manpower.[47] That infusion of manpower has allowed Russia to compensate for the significant casualties inflicted on the Russian military and proxy forces by the U.S. proxy strategy of technology diffusion and its vigorous execution by Ukrainian armed forces.

Conclusion

Russian and U.S. use of proxy strategies complement one another to fuel a war of attrition. Russia’s human wave response to expensive and limited U.S. firepower is not unreasonable, despite perhaps being quite cynical and fatalistic. Russia’s human wave proxy strategy both protects conventional Russian army forces by redirecting combat to disposable proxies and frees the conventional army to reinforce territorial and political gains along the Sea of Azov.[48] Simultaneously, the U.S. proxy strategy is a logical response to an undersized and outgunned Ukrainian military. The Ukrainians fighting at distance with U.S. artillery, missiles, and rockets while using urban terrain to offset Russian strength makes complete sense. But the interaction of these two proxy strategies, both logical in their own right, fuels a devastating war of attrition, depletes weapon stockpiles, and generates significant numbers of casualties.

Amos Fox is a PhD Candidate at the University of Reading, an associate editor at the Wavell Room, and is the Deputy Director for Development for the Irregular Warfare Initiative. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

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Header Image: 436th Aerial Port Squadron, Dover Air Force Base, Maryland, 2022 (Mauricio Campino).

Notes:

[1] Seth Jones, Riley McCabe, and Alexander Palmer, ‘Ukrainian Innovation in a War of Attrition,’ Center for Strategic and International Studies, 27 February 2023, accessed 30 March 2023, available at: https://www.csis.org/analysis/ukrainian-innovation-war-attrition.

[2] Peter Dickinson, ‘2022 Review: Why Has Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine Invasion Gone Badly Wrong?”, Atlantic Council, 19 December 2022, accessed 29 March 2023, available at: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/2022-review-why-has-vladimir-putins-ukraine-invasion-gone-so-badly-wrong/; Natasha Bertrand, Alex Marquardt, and Katie Bo Lillis, ‘The US and Its Allies Want Ukraine to Change its Battlefield Tactics in the Spring,’ CNN, 24 January 2023, accessed 29 March 2023, available at: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/24/politics/ukraine-shift-tactics-bakhmut/index.html.

[3] Orlando Figes, The Story of Russia (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2022), 290-291.

[4] Candace Rondeaux, ‘Decoding the Wagner Group: Analyzing the Role of Private Military Security Contractors in Russian Proxy Warfare,’ New America, 5 November 2019, accessed 18 April 2023, available at: www.newamerica.org/international-security/reports/decoding-wagner-group-analyzing-role-private-military-securitycontractors-russian-proxy-warfare/.

[5] Figes, The Story of Russia, 291-292.

[6] Altman, ‘By Fait Accompli, Not Coercion,’ 884.

[7] Amos Fox, “On Proxy War: A Multipurpose Tool for a Multipolar World,” Journal of Military Studies, Forthcoming: 10.

[8] Sean Case, ‘Putin’s Undeclared War: Summer 2014 – Russian Artillery Strikes Against Ukraine,’ Bellingcat, 21 December 2016, accessed 20 March 2023, available at: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2016/12/21/russian-artillery-strikes-against-ukraine/.

[9] Victoria Butenko, Laura Smith-Spark, and Diana Magnay, ‘US Official Says 1,000 Russian Troops Have Entered Ukraine,’ CNN, 29 August 2014, accessed 30 March 2023, available at: https://www.cnn.com/2014/08/28/world/europe/ukraine-crisis/index.html

[10] Mark Galeotti, Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine (New York: Osprey Publishing, 2022), 316-318.

[11] Galeotti, Putin’s Wars, 316;Hughes, ‘Syria and the Perils of Proxy War,’ 523.

[12] Amos Fox, “On Proxy War,” Journal of Military Studies, (Forthcoming): 13-14.

[13] DPR is the Donetsk People’s Republic, which is the name given to the Russian controlled portion of Donetsk Oblast. LPR is the Luhansk People’s Republic, which is the name given to the Russian controlled portion of Luhansk oblast.

[14] Mark Galeotti, Pavel Baev, and Graeme Herd, ‘Militaries, Mercenaries, Militias, Morale, and the Ukraine War,’ George C. Marshall Center for Security Studies, November 2022, accessed 18 March 2023, available at: https://www.marshallcenter.org/en/publications/clock-tower-security-series/strategic-competition-seminar-series-fy23/militaries-mercenaries-militias-morale-and-ukraine-war.

[15] Galeotti, Baev, and Herd ‘Militaries, Mercenaries, Mercenaries, and Morale and the Ukraine War’.

[16] Galeotti, Baev, and Herd, ‘Militaries, Mercenaries, Militias, Morale, and the Ukraine War.’

[17] Mike Eckel, ‘Russia Proposes Major Military Reorganization, Conscription Changes, Increases Troop Numbers,’ Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 23 December 2022, accessed 30 March 2023, https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-military-reorganization-expansion/32190811.html.

[18] Alexander Svechin, Strategy (Minneapolis, MN. East View Information Services, 1991), 246.

[19] Svechin, Strategy, 247.

[20] Kateryna Stepanenko and Karolina Hird, Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 18, (Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of War, 2022).

[21] Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Marc Santora, and Natalia Yermak, ‘Tens of Thousands of Civilians Are Now Largely Stranded in the Middle of One of the War’s Deadliest Battles,’ New York Times, 16 June 2022, accessed 30 March 2023, available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/16/world/europe/sievierodonetsk-ukraine-civilians-stranded.html.

[22] Andrew Meldrum, ‘Battle Rages in Ukraine Town; Russia Shakes Up its Military,’ Associated Press, 12 January 2023, accessed 20 March 2023, available at: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-donetsk-9cc363adc31419311cadb3c5ed8e0601; Paul Niland, ‘Putin’s Mariupol Massacre is One of the 21st Century’s Worst Crimes,’ Atlantic Council, 24 May 2022, accessed 20 March 2023, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putins-mariupol-massacre-is-one-the-worst-war-crimes-of-the-21st-century/.

[23] Alex Vershinin, ‘The Return of Industrial Warfare,’ RUSI, 17 June 2022, accessed 20 March 2023, available at: https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/return-industrial-warfare.

[24] Peter Dickinson, ‘2022 Review: Why Has Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine Invasion Gone So Badly Wrong?,’ Atlantic Council, 19 December 2022, accessed 17 April 2023, available at: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/2022-review-why-has-vladimir-putins-ukraine-invasion-gone-so-badly-wrong/.

[25] John Kirby, ‘Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby,’ White Press Briefing, 16 February 2023, accessed 19 April 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2023/02/17/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-and-nsc-coordinator-for-strategic-communications-john-kirby-9/.

[26] Andrew Kramer and Antoly Kurmanaev, ‘Ukraine Claims Bahkmut Battle is Wagner’s ‘Last Stand’,’ New York Times, 7 March 2023, accessed 19 April 2023, available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/world/europe/bakhmut-ukraine-russia-wagner.html.

[27] David Axe, ‘The Donetsk Separatist Army Went to War in Ukraine with 20,000 Men. Statistically, Almost Every Single One of Them Was Killed or Wounded,’ Forbes, 18 November 2022, accessed 19 April 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/11/18/the-donetsk-separatist-army-went-to-war-in-ukraine-with-20000-men-statistically-almost-every-single-one-was-killed-or-wounded/?sh=497acf411c09.

[28] Axe, ‘The Donetsk Separatist Army Went to War in Ukraine,’.

[29] Max Seddon and Christopher Miller, ‘Crimean Bridge Explosion Leaves Russian Supply Lines Exposed,’ Financial Times, 9 October 2022, accessed 19 April 2023, available at: https://www.ft.com/content/453d8aff-b8f2-42a3-919b-10a327475dfb.

[30] Amos Fox, ‘Ukraine and Proxy War: Improving Ontological Shortcomings in Military Thinking,’ Association of the United States Army, Landpower Paper 148 (August 2022): 3-4.

[31] Geraint Hughes, My Enemy’s Enemy: Proxy Warfare in International Politics (Brighton, England: Sussex University Press, 2014), 13-14.

[32] David Lake, ‘Iraq, 2003-2011: Principal Failure,’ in Eli Berman and David Lake, ed., Proxy Wars: Suppressing Violence Through Local Agents (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019), 240.

[33] Lake, ‘Iraq, 2003-2011,’ in Berman and Lake, ed., Proxy Wars, 240.

[34] Hughes, My Enemy’s Enemy, 5.

[35] Fox, “On Proxy War,” 11.

[36] Fox, “Ukraine and Proxy War,” 11.

[37] Fox, “On Proxy War,” 3-4.

[38] ‘Fact Sheet, US Security Cooperation with Ukraine,’ US Department of State, 4 April 2023, accessed 19 April 2023, available at: https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-ukraine/.

[39] ‘Fact Sheet, US Security Cooperation with Ukraine,’ US Department of State.

[40] ‘Fact Sheet on US Security Assistance to Ukraine as of 21 April 2022,’ US Defense Department, 22 April 2022, accessed 20 March 2023, available at: https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3007664/fact-sheet-on-us-security-assistance-for-ukraine-roll-up-as-of-april-21-2022/.

[41] ‘Fact Sheet on US Security Assistance to Ukraine.’

[42] ‘Fact Sheet, US Security Cooperation with Ukraine.’

[43] Arabia, Bowen, and Welt, ‘US Security Assistance to Ukraine.’

[44] Ellen Mitchell, ‘Russian has Seen 70,000 to 80,000 Casualties in Attack on Ukraine, Pentagon Says,’ The Hill, 8 August 2022, accessed 20 March 2023, available at: https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3593041-russia-has-seen-70000-to-80000-casualties-in-attack-on-ukraine-pentagon-says/; Jim Garamone, ‘Russian Efforts to Raise Numbers of Troops ‘Unlikely to Succeed,’ US Official Says,’ DoD News, 29 August 2022, accessed 19 April 2023, available at: https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3143381/russian-efforts-to-raise-numbers-of-troops-unlikely-to-succeed-us-official-says/.

[45] ‘Russian Federation: UN Experts Alarmed by Recruitment of Prisoners by “Wagner Group”,’ United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, 10 March 2023, accessed 20 March 2023, available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/03/russian-federation-un-experts-alarmed-recruitment-prisoners-wagner-group

[46] Eugene Rumer, ‘Putin’s War Against Ukraine: The End of the Beginning,’ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 17 February 2023, accessed 19 April 2023, available at: https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/02/17/putin-s-war-against-ukraine-end-of-beginning-pub-89071.

[47] ‘Brutality of Russia’s Wagner Gives it a Lead in Ukraine War,’ Associated Press, 27 January 2023, accessed 30 March 2023, available at: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-wagner-group-yevgeny-prigozhin-803da2e3ceda5dace7622cac611087fc

[48] Olivia Yanchik, ‘Human Wave Tactics are Demoralizing the Russian Army in Ukraine,’ Atlantic Council, 8 April 2023, accessed 19 April 2023, available at: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/human-wave-tactics-are-demoralizing-the-russian-army-in-ukraine/.

thestrategybridge.org · June 1, 2023

19. THE MERITS—AND PITFALLS—OF FIGHTING “BY, WITH, AND THROUGH” A PARTNER FORCE

A podcast at the link below.

This podcast led me to the report on Operation Inherent Resolve: U.S. Ground Force Contributions by one of the speakers Jeff Martini. I was pleasantly surprised that in the podcast he acknowledged that "by, with, and through" is most closely associated with US Army Special Forces. In the report he specifically credits Col (RET) Mark Boyatt with coining the term as an employment concept for Special Forces. The RAND report can be accessed here: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA719-1.html

This is another way Special Forces (and USSOCOM writ large) has contributed to the regular military. Not only the R&D that developes equipment that can be exploited by the services and non-SOF organizations, but also doctrine and tactics, techniques, and procedures. I give credit to BG Work to embracing many of the lessons of "by, with, and through." I hope the regular military forces will internalize this and understand and accept it when Special Forces conduct these operations as a matter of routine.

Lastly I will say that the key to all of this was General Votel as the CENTCOM commander. His understanding as a SOF leader and former USSOCOM commander of unconventional warfare and "through. with, and by" in the SOF community was critical in empowering the leaders at all to employ this operational approach.

General Work's six "A's" are evry important and well articulated. Advise, Assist, Acompany,|Assure, Anticipate, Agility. (At about 22 miinutes in)

"Lethal OC analogy" is also a useful description.

THE MERITS—AND PITFALLS—OF FIGHTING “BY, WITH, AND THROUGH” A PARTNER FORCE

June 2, 2023 by Ben Jebb Leave a Comment

https://irregularwarfare.org/podcasts/the-merits-and-pitfalls-of-fighting-by-with-and-through-a-partner-force/

This week’s episode of the Irregular Warfare Podcast examines the US military’s “by, with and through” approach while working alongside Iraqi security forces in Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR).

Our guests begin by examining the geopolitical trends that led to America’s reengagement in Iraq in the mid-2010s. They then discuss the merits and pitfalls associated with the US military’s strategy to work by, with, and through Iraqi security forces to defeat ISIS. Finally, our guests conclude by considering the lessons that practitioners can take away from America’s experience in Iraq, and how the United States can prepare for future partnered operations in an era of strategic competition.

Brigadier General Pat Work currently serves as the director of operations, readiness, and mobilization for Headquarters, Department of the Army. During his tenure as the commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, he led US and coalition forces against ISIS in OIR. A 1995 graduate of West Point, he holds advanced degrees from Georgetown University and the Marine War Corps College.

Mr. Jeff Martini is a senior researcher at the RAND Corporation where he focuses on security cooperation and strategic competition in the Middle East. He previously served as the North Africa lead at the State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations. He is a graduate of Middlebury College and holds a master’s degree in Arab Studies from Georgetown University. In August 2022, he coauthored a RAND report on US ground force contributions to OIR in Iraq, which serves as the anchor for today’s conversation.

Ben Jebb and Matt Moellering are the hosts for this episode. Please reach out to Ben and Matt with any questions about this episode or the Irregular Warfare Podcast.

The Irregular Warfare Podcast is a production of the Irregular Warfare Initiative (IWI). We are a team of volunteers dedicated to bridging the gap between scholars and practitioners in the field of irregular warfare. IWI generates written and audio content, coordinates events for the IW community, and hosts critical thinkers in the field of irregular warfare as IWI fellows. You can follow and engage with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn.

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter for access to our written content, upcoming community events, and other resources.

20. Pentagon contracting with SpaceX's Starlink to provide satellite communication capabilities for Ukraine

Communications are critical in wartime and proxy and resistance forces need it and often coalition partners do not have advanced (or even basci) effective communications capabilities.

Pentagon contracting with SpaceX's Starlink to provide satellite communication capabilities for Ukraine

defensescoop.com · by Jon Harper · June 1, 2023

The Pentagon is buying satellite communication capabilities from SpaceX’s Starlink to aid the Ukrainian military in its war with Russia, DefenseScoop has learned.

The Pentagon has previously disclosed that “SATCOM terminals and services” have been included in U.S. security assistance packages, although it hasn’t been identifying the companies providing them.

However, on Thursday a defense official revealed that the department is contracting with Starlink.

“We continue to work with a range of global partners to ensure Ukraine has the resilient satellite and communication capabilities they need. Satellite communications constitute a vital layer in Ukraine’s overall communications network and the department contracts with Starlink for services of this type. However, for operational security reasons and due to the critical nature of these systems, we do not have additional information regarding specific capabilities, contracts, or partners to provide at this time,” the defense official said in a statement to DefenseScoop on condition of anonymity.

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Commercial space technologies have had a big impact on the Ukraine-Russia war, officials say.

SpaceX had been providing Starlink capabilities to Ukraine on its own dime and from non-DOD funding sources after the war kicked off last year. However, concerns had been raised that at some point Ukraine could lose access to Starlink over funding issues or other complications, and in the fall the company reportedly tried to pressure the Pentagon to start footing the bill.

Starlink satellite internet terminals and associated capabilities have enabled Ukranian troops to stay connected even when their usual comms networks are hindered during the conflict with Russia.

“It’s been huge in terms of their ability to communicate, and then to coordinate planning and operations,” a senior U.S. military official told reporters during a background briefing in October.

“In terms of its employment, I mean, well, I don’t think you can overestimate or overemphasize the impact that being able to communicate has. You know, one of the first things you try to do in a fight is to reduce your opponent’s ability to communicate, and in this case, you know, Starlink has proven exceptionally effective on the battlefield because it’s allowed the Ukrainians multiple connections, and in that regard, has been very, very helpful in their efforts at the tactical and strategic level,” the official added.

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Starlink has been able to quickly update its systems to counter Russian jamming attempts.

“When we compare that to the kind of the latency of our ability to get capability out there, how long it takes us to make capability upgrades, the process we have to go through to do the analysis of what happened, what’s the appropriate way to fix it, how do we then acquire the system, how do we get the contract in place — we’re talking about a significant timeline to make those types of corrections,” Dave Tremper, director of electronic warfare supporting the platforms and weapons portfolio manager in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, has said.

A communications director at SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Starlink contracts with DOD.

In This Story

• satcom
• SpaceX
• Starlink
• Ukraine

defensescoop.com · by Jon Harper · June 1, 2023

21. Strategic Echoes: Operation Unthinkable, Nuclear Weapons, and Ukraine

Conclusion:

Those who advocate the continued arming of Ukraine should consider making the dual-track argument and approach this strategic conundrum by equaling the Russian pledge, signaling American willingness to deploy nuclear forces to Europe—just as in the Euromissile Crisis—should Putin go ahead with the mooted nuclear force deployment in Belorussia. Opening the discussion around nuclear weapons, Russia, and Ukraine would lift the pall of silence on the subject and add depth to the existing body of literature which focuses overwhelmingly on conventional forces.[11] In the Ukraine War, strategic echoes from the past sweep across to us. Whether or not we choose to listen is another question, but depending on this hangs the fate of many people and perhaps very, very many more than we suspect.

Strategic Echoes: Operation Unthinkable, Nuclear Weapons, and Ukraine

thestrategybridge.org · June 2, 2023

In On War, the great Prussian strategist General Carl Von Clausewitz proposes that there are two crucial factors in affecting a successful military campaign: one is “the sum of available means” and the other is “the strength of the will.”[1] Today, in the ultimate “battle laboratory” of Ukraine, this Clausewitzian thesis is being put to the test.[2] There, western allies led politically by the United States, which along with the United Kingdom has supplied most of the financial assistance and matériel, have committed themselves to supplying the embattled Ukrainian Armed Forces—therefore taking on an ever increasing part of “the sum of available means.”[3] Regarding “the strength of the will,” this is supplied fully by the Ukrainians, and no one could possibly claim that they have faltered given the extraordinary acts of bravery and sacrifice shown by their troops who refuse to yield in the face of ceaseless Russian offensives. Yet Clausewitz asks his readers to consider another question when setting out the basic manner in which wars tend to be conducted: what is the value of the political object being sought in undertaking the defeat of an enemy?

“The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Richard Caton Woodville, Jr. (Wikimedia)

Tension between Russia and the West is hardly novel—consider the Crimean War of the mid-nineteenth century. Britain and France, in an alliance with the Ottoman Empire, declared war on Russia on the 28th of March 1854. The purpose of this expeditionary war was, as Home Secretary Viscount Palmerston put it, to “curb the aggressive ambition of Russia.”[4] The great trading powers have always sought to defend their trade routes and their ability to access global markets. So Britain needed to prevent Russian regional hegemony from spreading to the Ottoman Near East where it could threaten trade routes to Britain’s far eastern empire. Western support for today’s war in Ukraine is far removed from this outmoded political justification, but it is striking how the justification for arming Ukraine is reminiscent of Palmerston’s logic. Western leaders today seek to ensure Ukrainian sovereignty as an independent nation, free from the Kremlin’s control. Yet, irrespective of the political justification for conflict with Russia, the military objectives of war never change in principle.

Clausewitz writes that “the military power must be destroyed, that is, reduced to such a state as not to be able to prosecute the war.”[5] This adage describes the present policy of the United States and its allies in seeking the defeat of the Russian military in Ukraine. In broad strategic terms, this policy appears to be obviously advantageous to the United States and its allies.

Russia, formerly the Soviet Union, has sat as a strategic thorn in the side of the West since the end of the Second World War. At the conclusion of that titanic clash, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill asked the Chiefs of Staff to provide plans for an allied invasion of the Soviet Union which would have, astoundingly, seen the British and Americans join up with the remains of the German Army for a campaign against the Red Army. Appropriately, this plan was code named Operation Unthinkable.[6] Reading the outline given to Churchill by the Chiefs of Staff, one is struck by the lack of comprehension of the strategic realities of the day. The closest the document ever gets to acknowledging the near insurmountable challenge of taking on the Red Army at the height of its powers, the same army that had just defeated the largest land invasion in history and then marched across the face of Eastern and Central Europe to take Berlin, is this: “The one thing certain is that to win it would take us a very long time.”[7] Defeating the military power of the Russian Federation today, however, is not the same proposition as defeating the Red Army in 1945. The Russian armed forces have not acquitted themselves well in Ukraine, and their logistical problems, as well as questions of command and decision making, show that their military power is second rate. The difference between the professionalism and combat effectiveness of Russian troops in 1945 and today would be far more relevant for western strategic planners were it not for one crucial point—the revolution in strategy which followed the advent of nuclear weapons.

Consider China. In the wake of the Second World War, Chinese dictator Mao Tse-tung coveted a nuclear weapon.[8] His programme for attaining the technology required to build a bomb, not to mention technical assistance from the Russians, was a long game. Eventually this long game, which Mao considered the cornerstone of his superpower programme, paid dividends—China’s first atomic bomb was detonated at Lop Nor in the Gobi desert on the 16th of October, 1964.[9] Developing the requisite technology to build and successfully test an atomic weapon in an essentially agrarian society beset by devastating famines and kleptocratic governance was a minor miracle. The cost was tremendous. Mao understood a simple truth: possessing nuclear weapons changes the strategic calculus. Possession of the ultimate weapon reduces, but does not replace, reliance on conventional forces.

Russia today possesses a formidable, if unevenly upgraded, nuclear arsenal. What Russian forces have lost since 1945 in fighting ability has been compensated for by that nation’s strategic arsenal. Therefore the battlefield success of Ukrainian forces in wearing out the Russian army cannot bring about the political objective sought by the United States if the intention is to collapse the Russian regime, perhaps by forcing an end to Vladimir Putin’s tenure at its head. What it can and will achieve is the destruction of Russia’s conventional fighting strength. The question remains: what will the cost of such a policy be?

Putin, like Mao, is interested in amassing as much power—military and geopolitical—as he can in his lifetime. It is probable that the invasion of Ukraine represents the end point of a grotesque personal gambit played by Putin after twenty plus years at the head of the Russian state. At the end of March, Putin signposted that he is considering stationing Russian nuclear forces in his satellite state, Belorussia.[10] As echoes of the Euromissile Crisis resound, discussing the nuclear ramifications of the Ukraine War can no longer be avoided. The precedent for dealing with nuclear confrontation, as set out by the Pershing II and cruise missile deployments to Europe made by the United States, which succeeded in deterring Russia at the time from continuing and expanding its SS-20 deployments, is to meet one’s opponent with sufficient strength to conclude an agreement on favourable terms. This is consistent with Clausewitz’ tenets of war. What is different about the nuclear encounter is that it makes real something which Clausewitz stated to be a practical impossibility, namely that all the battles can happen at once—the definition of a nuclear exchange.

Cartoon by French cartoonist Plantu: “Beware of American "Pershings” (Le Monde)

Those who advocate the continued arming of Ukraine should consider making the dual-track argument and approach this strategic conundrum by equaling the Russian pledge, signaling American willingness to deploy nuclear forces to Europe—just as in the Euromissile Crisis—should Putin go ahead with the mooted nuclear force deployment in Belorussia. Opening the discussion around nuclear weapons, Russia, and Ukraine would lift the pall of silence on the subject and add depth to the existing body of literature which focuses overwhelmingly on conventional forces.[11] In the Ukraine War, strategic echoes from the past sweep across to us. Whether or not we choose to listen is another question, but depending on this hangs the fate of many people and perhaps very, very many more than we suspect.

Rowan Wise holds a Bachelor’s Undergraduate Degree in Politics from Queen’s University Belfast. His research focuses on strategic studies as well as the defense and national security affairs of the United States of America and the United Kingdom. Rowan lives in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.

The Strategy Bridge is read, respected, and referenced across the worldwide national security community—in conversation, education, and professional and academic discourse.

Thank you for being a part of The Strategy Bridge community. Together, we can #BuildTheBridge.

Header Image: Operation Unthinkable, 2020 (Wikimedia Commons).

Notes:

[1] Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, Translated by Colonel J. J. Graham (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962), 5.

[2] Speech given by then UK Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter to an audience at Policy Exchange regarding setting out the Integrated Operating Concept, https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/chief-of-the-defence-staff-general-sir-nick-carter-launches-the-integrated-operating-concept (accessed March 30th, 2023).

[3] Military assistance to Ukraine since the Russian invasion, Research Briefing, House of Commons Library, https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9477/ (accessed March 30th, 2023).

[4] Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Romanovs 1613-1918 (London: Weidenfield & Nicholson, 2016), 379.

[5] Clausewitz, On War, 27.

[6] Operation Unthinkable, text of planning documents from the British Chiefs of Staff held by The National Archives, https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/cold-war-on-file/operation-unthinkable/ (accessed March 31st, 2023).

[7] Operation Unthinkable.

[8] Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story (London: Vintage Books, 2007), 456.

[9] Ibid., 589.

[10] Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Hosting Russian Nuclear Weapons Will Have Far-Reaching Consequences for Belarus by Artyom Shraibman https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/89394 (accessed April 1st, 2023).

[11] Centre for Strategic and International Studies, A New Euromissile Crisis? NATO and the INF-Treaty Crisis in Historical Perspective, https://www.csis.org/analysis/new-euromissile-crisis-nato-and-inf-treaty-crisis-historical-perspective (accessed April 1st, 2023).

thestrategybridge.org · June 2, 2023

22. What the Ukrainian Armed Forces Need to Do to Win

Conclusion:

Ukraine has fought mostly a defensive war and will be transitioning to the offense. The ratio of troops in the offense versus the defense can be 3 to 1 (6 to 1 in urban combat). Add in high-intensity urban operations, and that ratio goes up. Ukraine has yet to conduct major offensive operations in a large city or to perform a major river crossing. Both of these operations are very complex and resource- /manpower-intensive, requiring close synchronization of all assets to include infantry, armor, artillery, logistics, and medical to be successful. The Ukrainian Armed Forces have performed admirably but need to refocus their training and operations on combined arms operations and to become adept at operating at night.

Western support to Ukraine has an expiration date that is fast approaching. Also, the will of the Ukrainian people to support high casualty rates is very high but is not infinite. The Russian military has plenty of people and time on their side. The way to change the equation in Ukraine’s favor is through combined arms operations and training. History has repeatedly shown how a well-trained and properly led military can beat a poorly trained army. The challenging part is changing the mentality of senior leaders who have spent decades in the Soviet system to a mission command philosophy that allows for flexibility and initiative with the understanding that it will not result in a disaster or a prison sentence but rather battlefield victory.

What the Ukrainian Armed Forces Need to Do to Win - War on the Rocks

ERIK KRAMER AND PAUL SCHNEIDER

warontherocks.com · by Erik Kramer · June 2, 2023

Our instructors were training a Ukrainian national guard unit near the Moldovan border. When we arrived at the range, a Ukrainian unit was already on the range throwing hand grenades in an open field less than 200 meters from us, then just dropping to the ground and watching them explode without any cover. These soldiers then proceeded to conduct machine gun training, shooting from positions from the left range berm across the range (not against the backstop). Our instructors were conducting round-robin training about 150 meters behind the range, and the rounds were whistling over our heads. When we approached the person in charge, he said not to worry; he was a Ukrainian marine who had survived Mariupol, and the range was to NATO standards. The bravery and elan of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are not in question, but this example is a small indicator of the issues plaguing the training of the Ukrainian Armed Forces — the lack of an ingrained understanding on how to conduct uniform, consistent training.

Based on our nine months of training with all services of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, to include the Ground Forces (Army), Border Guard Service, National Guard, Naval Infantry (Marines), Special Operations Forces, and Territorial Defense Forces, we have observed a series of common trends: lack of mission command, effective training, and combined arms operations; ad hoc logistics and maintenance; and improper use of special operations forces. These trends have undermined Ukraine’s resistance and could hinder the success of the ongoing offensive.

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How can Ukraine change the formula in their favor? The answer is uniform combined arms training focusing on mission command from the brigade level down, which the Ukrainian Armed Forces can achieve through a repeatable thirty-day “train the trainer” program. This instruction could be carried out by Western contracted military instructors, working with Ukrainian military veterans in Ukraine. This training will enable them to conduct combined arms operations and capitalize on the advantages the influx of advanced Western military equipment provides, and hopefully to enable Ukraine to overcome Russia’s manpower advantages.

Lack of Mission Command

In our experience, across many units and staffs, the Ukrainian Armed Forces do not promote personal initiative and foster mutual trust or mission command. As Michael Kofman and Rob Lee recently discussed on the Russia Contingency podcast, elements of the Ukrainian Armed Forces have an old Soviet mentality that holds most decision-making at more senior levels. Amongst military leaders at the brigade level and below, our impression is that junior officers fear making mistakes. During our training sessions with field grade officers, we are often asked what the punishment is for failure during missions or making bad decisions. We are also repeatedly asked at each step of planning or operations, “Who is allowed to make this decision?” They are surprised that U.S. battalion battle captains (staff officers who oversee ongoing battalion operations) have the authority to make decisions or give orders on behalf of the battalion commander.

During training exercises, we have repeatedly observed that the Ukrainian military’s planning process requires separate orders for each phase of the operation. For example, a battalion in the defense cannot conduct a counterattack even if they are attacked. They do not have potential stand-by missions such as “be prepared to counterattack” that are planned in advance to exploit unexpected opportunities. They must await orders. Of course, the Ukrainian military’s planning process is based on local doctrine, and in actual combat, it depends upon the commander. However, what we have observed is that there are serious changes happening throughout the Ukrainian military’s officer corps. The younger officers realize that they must get rid of the old mentality but continue to face resistance from older officers wedded to Soviet doctrine and centralized planning. Michael Kofman and Rob Lee made similar observations after their most recent research trip to the country.

Having trained every component of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, we have continually seen a lack of an experienced noncommissioned officer corps. It is common to see field grade officers running around during training counting personnel and coordinating for meals. In the United States, it takes years to develop just a junior noncommissioned officer. Senior noncommissioned officers at the platoon level have at least ten years of experience. In the U.S. military, lieutenants lead platoons, but it is the job of the platoon sergeant to train them, as discussed in Defense News. In Ukraine, it is the job of a platoon commander straight out of their service academy to lead and train their platoon. Without effective noncommissioned officers, mission command at the company level and below is almost impossible to do, and they are directly responsible for the care, mentoring, and training of soldiers.

Lack of Effective Training

The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ current training philosophy is based on the old Soviet model. Large-scale battalion-level training is orchestrated and choreographed. During several exercises, we witnessed company commanders overseeing the exercise from afar and only occasionally interjecting. They were acting more as observers than direct participants. This philosophy is changing and, as noted in the Russia Contingency, appears to be generational. Younger officers are more open to Western military–style leadership, while older officers have clung to Soviet doctrine. Despite these tendencies, we have yet to see any true combined arms training involving infantry, artillery, and armor working together. Synchronizing all these different elements to achieve maximum military effect, avoid fratricide, and confuse the enemy’s takes repeated training at all levels of command, which allows leaders to make mistakes and work through processes.

One critical challenge is in how the Ukrainian military trains and how the training centers for soldiers are set up. In the armed forces, each service has its own training centers, staff, academies, and training regimes. Rarely do they exchange instructors or, for example, have national guard units train at an army center. We asked our Ukrainian counterparts directly if we could bring some Territorial Defense Forces soldiers to train on a national guard base. We were told that was not possible because they were not national guard. This system is extremely inefficient. It wastes resources and also results in wildly varying degrees of competence across services and units. The services in Ukraine’s armed forces are also not conducting planning and training from the same doctrine or tactics, techniques, and procedures. As a result, when Ukraine’s services do conduct operations together, misunderstandings, distrust, and miscommunications are very common.

As noted in these virtual pages, there are several volunteer organizations training the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Most of this training’s focus is on basic soldier skills at the company or platoon level. The training is disjointed and haphazard, and the quality of instruction varies. NATO is training select units and soldiers outside of Ukraine. While this training can be effective and necessary for certain specialty skills, such as tank crews and HIMARS teams, it takes units and soldiers away from the front line for weeks, if not months, at a time. Commanders cannot afford to lose units and soldiers for extended periods. According to our field research, there is evidence of this immediate need because most of the units we train go to the front the day after we finish a training session. We also believe that the training efforts outside of Ukraine are not consistent and do not use common programs of instruction. Furthermore, these foreign training efforts adhere to the host country’s doctrine. While they do attempt to incorporate the realities in Ukraine, many of them do not fully adapt their training regimes to the way the Ukrainians fight, especially with the Ukrainian doctrinal and legal restraints on operations.

Lack of Combined Arms Operations

A critical challenge for the Ukrainian Armed Forces is they do not consistently conduct combined arms operations. The lack of combining synchronized operations results in greater losses of life and equipment as well as failed operations. Based on our discussions with Ukrainian company commanders and our own trainers who fought with the Ukrainian Armed Forces, tanks are used more as mobile artillery and not in combined operations with infantry where the armor goes into action just ahead of the infantry. We have seen firsthand the shot-out barrels of tanks (and artillery) from constantly being fired at max range or overused without maintenance or replacement. Michael Kofman has made similar observations. The armor/infantry relationship is supposed to be symbiotic, but it is not. The result is that infantry will conduct frontal assaults or operate in urban areas without the protection and firepower of tanks. Also, artillery fires are not synchronized with maneuver. Most units do not talk directly to supporting artillery, so there is a delay in call for fire missions. We have been told that units will use runners to send fire missions to artillery batteries because of issues with communications.

Most of the military’s operations are not phased and are sequential. Fires and maneuver, for example, are planned separately from infantry units — and infantry units plan separately from supporting artillery. This mentality also carries over to adjacent unit coordination, which is either nonexistent or rare and causes high rates of fratricide. Unit commanders have concerns about collaborators and thus are hesitant to pass on critical information that can be used against them to sister units.

These issues are compounded by unreliable communications between units and with senior leadership. The Ukrainian Armed Forces have a hodgepodge of radios that are vulnerable to jamming. Further, battalion missions are mainly independent company operations that do not focus on a main effort coupled with supporting efforts. The armed forces do not combine effects, so operations are piecemeal and disjointed. The separate missions are not supporting each other, nor are the missions of lower level units “nested” under a higher level mission. Sustainment is not synchronized with operations, either.

Ad Hoc Logistics and Maintenance

Western aid has been critical for Ukraine’s defense. However, the variety of equipment Ukraine now uses has led to significant logistics and maintenance challenges. In our experience, the Ukrainian military cannibalizes new equipment arriving in Ukraine to service equipment deployed in the field. As a result, front-line units only receive a small percentage of what is sent to the country. For example, a .50 caliber machine gun arrives in Ukraine with extra barrels, parts, manuals, and accessories, but by the time it gets to Donbas, all that remains is the gun.

As others have written, Ukrainian forces have leaned on YouTube videos to learn how to use new and unfamiliar equipment. Also, the mentality of supply distribution in Ukraine is to husband resources. Most battalion supply officers are appointed and not school trained. They might have an assistant and some vehicles, but everything is based on personal initiative. Maintenance is based on cannibalization, horse trading between units, and battlefield recovery. There is not a steady stream of repair parts or a system of maintenance at the unit, battalion, brigade, and depot levels. The skill of maintainers is based more on personal aptitude and less on school-trained mechanics. All the services have maintenance courses, but that does not translate into a ready pool of mechanics.

This attitude toward maintenance translates into how armor, mechanized vehicles, and artillery are used in combat. Units protect these assets and use tanks more as artillery than in combined arms operations with infantry. Mechanized vehicles will transport soldiers to the front but many times will pull back when they come under fire. We have also seen the barrels of the 155mm howitzers provided by Western countries shot out due to being used at max range (using max powder charges) to keep them out of range of counterbattery fires. With the upcoming Ukrainian counteroffensive, effective use of these assets will be key to success, and during offensive operations, the attacker usually loses more tanks, vehicles, and artillery than the defender. It will require a change in mentality.

This lack of coordinated maintenance and logistics also translates into medical care. Medical evacuation and care are haphazard. Experienced Ukrainian combat medics have repeatedly stated that many of the evacuees would have survived it they had reached definitive care in a timely manner. The Ukrainian Armed Forces can solve this issue with a systematic logistics process.

Improperly Used Special Operations Forces

Ukrainian Special Operations Forces (SOF) vary in their abilities, training, and specialties. Unfortunately, many are employed like conventional infantry. This negates the skills that make these units specialized. Due to the high-intensity combat operations and the ongoing Russian counteroffensive, special operations force units are often put in the trenches and not assigned traditional special operations force–type missions of raids, reconnaissance, and ambushes. These piecemeal efforts result in high casualty rates and a lack of special operations force missions involving surprise or stealth that can support and shape battalion and brigade conventional force operations. Traditionally, these types of soldiers receive more training and have less firepower than a conventional unit, so you are wasting a valuable asset that takes time to reconstitute. Ukraine special forces units comprised of international volunteers shop around their services to conventional unit commanders without a mission being tied to a strategic or operational goal. One example of a mission was a conventional brigade commander who had reported to his command that he had occupied a village taken from the Russians. When he realized that the information he had was mistaken and they had stopped short, he asked the international special operations forces unit to go into the occupied village and take a picture of a Ukrainian flag placed on top of a building in the center of the village. Special operations force units are quickly depleted, and replacements lack the training and experience to conduct true special operations force missions.

How to Fix These Problems?

The solutions to these challenges require a reallocation of resources and a change of mentality. This is, arguably, tougher than allocating more resources and spending more money. We recommend a centrally planned, executed at the lower level, synchronized training program focusing on a twenty- to thirty-day training regime for each brigade. This approach is known as a “train the trainer program” and is designed to create a cadre of trainers who then can continue to train new Ukrainian officers that are cycled through the program. The program of instruction should have enough flexibility to make adjustments based on changes on the battlefield and nuances between units. It is critical that this training take place inside Ukraine, using local and foreign instructors for Western and Soviet-origin equipment.

The basic unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is the light infantry battalion. A program of instruction focused on this formation should serve as the basis for all training and be organized in a series of ten-day training courses, followed by an eight-day culminating exercise. Honing in on the basics of soldiering and planning at the battalion level will lead to success on the battlefield and alleviate casualties. This instruction would involve a ten-day individual soldier training for privates and noncommissioned officers and a ten-day company/platoon commander course. The first course would focus on basic soldiering and light infantry tactics, while noncommissioned officers would focus on leadership and logistics. At the battalion level, the course will focus on company offensive and defensive operations in both rural and urban terrain. The third ten-day course would be a planning course for brigade/battalion and staff operations. This course will focus on the basic offensive and defensive operations of a battalion, staff functions and operations, and a twelve- to twenty-four-hour planning cycle.

The planning process should be a scaled-down version of the U.S./NATO military decision-making process. Most operations in Ukraine are planned with less than twenty-four hours or even just a few hours. Ukraine’s doctrine and rules and regulations also require the commander to approve every step of a mission, so a process adapted to Ukraine is necessary. The exercises will include planning for urban operations. Combined arms operations including the integration of fires, engineers, drones, and armor will be included. The course would also develop a communications architecture across the brigade and battalion level. Furthermore, this training should focus on integrating logistics planning into all phases of the operation as well as the training of logisticians from internal assets. Establishing a separate supply and logistics platoon for each battalion that includes dedicated medical evacuation will be critical.

The culminating exercise would be an eight-day brigade/battalion/company collective training course that would involve combined arms exercises starting with planning and including companies in the field. These exercises should allow “free play” where there are consequences for each decision and commanders and staff must adjust to each change.

For Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, training focuses on three basic missions: ambush, recon, and raid using a crawl, walk, run method. The focus should be on detailed planning and these three missions. This instruction can be completed in twenty-five days. The first fifteen days should focus on basic infantry tactics, along with medical, engineering, and night operations. The final ten days, in our opinion, should focus on planning and operations.

All training should include recurring follow-on staff assistance visits at the brigade and battalion level to provide refresher training and advice on operations. Also, mobile training and maintenance teams who specialize in systems that require technical skills and maintenance should be located throughout the eastern part of Ukraine. They could provide training and maintenance on armor, armored personnel carriers, anti-tank systems, crew-served weapons, radios, and man-portable air defense systems. Those training and maintenance teams who train individual soldiers and crews would conduct training behind the lines in the brigade headquarters area.

We also recommend a senior mentor program at the general officer level of command located at the general staff and regional command level. The Ukrainian Armed Forces do not have divisions but rather operate in regional commands. The mentorship program could include former senior Western officers to provide advice on planning and mission command.

This program of instruction is ambitious but doable. Our company, the Ukraine Defense Support Group, has taught rapid planning based on a modified version of the military decision-making process to battalions and staffs effectively within five days. It involved one day of theoretical training, a one-day cadre-led walk-through, and three days of student-led planning exercises including mission analysis, course of action development, wargaming, and orders production.

The long-term solution for training includes the consolidation of training courses. Currently, each service has its own system of schools for everything to include armor, medical, and drone operation. This stovepiping of training leads to inefficiencies and inconsistent efforts. The Ukrainian Armed Forces, whether under the Ministry of Defence or Internal Affairs, should designate a specific school/service as a proponent for each specific skill or weapons system. That school will instruct all students whether they are Ground Forces, Border Guard Service, National Guard, Naval Infantry, or Territorial Defense Forces. This change will require a cultural shift and is akin to the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act that required more “jointness” in the U.S. military. Ukraine is in an existential fight for its existence, and interservice rivalry needs be set aside for the sake of the country.

Conclusion

Ukraine has fought mostly a defensive war and will be transitioning to the offense. The ratio of troops in the offense versus the defense can be 3 to 1 (6 to 1 in urban combat). Add in high-intensity urban operations, and that ratio goes up. Ukraine has yet to conduct major offensive operations in a large city or to perform a major river crossing. Both of these operations are very complex and resource- /manpower-intensive, requiring close synchronization of all assets to include infantry, armor, artillery, logistics, and medical to be successful. The Ukrainian Armed Forces have performed admirably but need to refocus their training and operations on combined arms operations and to become adept at operating at night.

Western support to Ukraine has an expiration date that is fast approaching. Also, the will of the Ukrainian people to support high casualty rates is very high but is not infinite. The Russian military has plenty of people and time on their side. The way to change the equation in Ukraine’s favor is through combined arms operations and training. History has repeatedly shown how a well-trained and properly led military can beat a poorly trained army. The challenging part is changing the mentality of senior leaders who have spent decades in the Soviet system to a mission command philosophy that allows for flexibility and initiative with the understanding that it will not result in a disaster or a prison sentence but rather battlefield victory.

Become a Member

Erik Kramer is the director and cofounder of the Ukraine Defense Support Group located in Kyiv, Ukraine, and has been in Ukraine since July 2022 training the Ukrainian Armed Forces at every unit level from squad, platoon, and company basic soldier skills and small unit tactics to battalion/brigade planning and operations. He is a former Army Special Forces officer who retired in 2014 after twenty-six years of commissioned and enlisted service. His final military assignment was at the Pentagon in the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict. As a Special Forces officer, he served in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Congo, Iraq, and Kosovo at various levels of command from detachment command to battalion level equivalent.

Paul Schneider is the other cofounder of the Ukraine Defense Support Group. He has been in Ukraine for many months and has taught Ukrainian Armed Forces tactical through strategic operations all the way up to the senior instructors of Ukraine’s military academies on the military decision-making process and conventional brigade/battalion operations in large-scale combat operations. Paul is a former U.S. Special Forces commander and has extensive training and combat experience in multiple locations. He retired in 2021 to pursue humanitarian efforts that included the evacuation of hundreds of Afghans and U.S. citizens in the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Paul volunteered to help with humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Erik Kramer · June 2, 2023

23. Utopia or Oblivion? An Examination of Wargames, Irregular Warfare & Futurism — How Games Can Contribute & Best Practices for Doing So

While I was at FDD I participated in war games/simulations organized and executed by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Valens Global. They were some of the most innovative and effective war games I have participated in.

The entire report can be read at this link. The introduction and EXSUM are below. https://irregularwarfarecenter.org/2023/05/utopia-or-oblivion/?utm

May 30, 2023

Utopia or Oblivion?

An Examination of Wargames, Irregular Warfare & Futurism — How Games Can Contribute & Best Practices for Doing So

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross & Madison Urban

Table of Contents

• Introduction and Executive Summary
• Futurism
• Foundations of Futurism
• The Practice of Futurism
• The Scenario Method
• Alternative Futures
• The Importance of Futurism
• Simulations
• How Wargames Function and Engage the Brain
• Utopia or Oblivion Wargame
• Structure of the Utopia Game
• Climate Change Trend
• Sovereignty Trend
• Best Practices for Using Wargames to Enhance the Practice of Futurism
• Game Conception
• Research for the Game
• Game Design
• Game Play
• Data Capture
• Conclusion

Introduction and Executive Summary

Download PDF

This report is part of a broader project on wargaming and futurism that included the design and execution of a futurism-focused wargame, Utopia or Oblivion?, that was cohosted by the Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) and Johns Hopkins University, and ran from March 25 to April 10, 2021.[1] The game that Valens Global designed and ran helped to inform this report’s understanding of best practices for leveraging insights derived from wargames for the practice of irregular warfare and futurism. This report makes two overarching contributions:

1. The practice of futurism can be nettlesome, yet it is of grave importance to defense planners—and, indeed, to everyone with substantive decision-making power. The twenty-first century is characterized by rapid pace of change and dense interconnectedness of major issue sets. The challenges posed by strategic competitors using irregular means to undermine U.S. interests are complex and often opaque. Thus, the report contends that well-designed wargames are a valuable tool for advancing the practice of futurism within governments for reasons related to the structure and function of games. Of particular relevance is games’ three-dimensional nature, their tactile characteristics, and the way they make participants consider issue sets through multiple frames.
2. Having established this baseline argument, the report provides a set of best practices for using wargames to advance the practice of futurism.

This report begins with a survey of the field of future studies. It provides an overview of the assumptions and methodologies by which futurists create images of possible futures. The section focuses on two major schools of thought within future studies, both of which have somewhat different assumptions and goals. Edward Cornish’s forecasting model provides analysis of potential futures associated with major overarching trends, with the goal of producing accurate analysis of these futures; while Jim Dator’s four alternative futures model seeks to unsettle our notions about the future. Though these two models possess some assumptions that are inconsistent with one another, the authors of this report find utility in both models and hold that wargames fashioned around either model, or some synthesis of the two, can provide valuable insights.

The report then provides a brief introduction to the practice of simulations and wargaming. We detail some of the science behind the creation of synthetic experiences in a game environment and discuss the benefits of wargaming that have either been described in relevant academic literature or else that have become evident through Valens Global’s own experience of designing and running games.

The third section provides an overview of the wargame that Valens Global ran for DND and Johns Hopkins University’s Global Security Studies program. In the game Utopia or Oblivion?, teams were asked to navigate challenges associated with three overarching trends: (1) climate change, (2) the weaponization of new and emerging technologies by sub-state actors, and (3) shifting conceptions of sovereignty. The game world was set in 2026 at the start of the game (which was, at the time the game was run, five years in the future), then the game jumped forward in time to 2036 midway through gameplay. This time jump was designed to make participants make decisions that simultaneously had short-term and long-term impacts, as they had to live with the consequences of their initial set of decisions made in 2026 when they jumped forward to the 2036 world.

The final section of the report explains how wargames can be useful for future studies, in particular for governments engaged in irregular competition, which is defined for the purposes of this report as competition that is below the threshold of overt conflict and that resides primarily in the human domain. It provides a series of best practices and recommendations to consider in the design and execution of wargames that are intended to enhance the practice of futurism.

24. War Books: Inside Ike’s Mind on D-Day

I think this is an interesting and useful list to consider when trying to understand the mind of a senior leader. such as "Ike."

War Books: Inside Ike’s Mind on D-Day - Modern War Institute

mwi.usma.edu · by ML Cavanaugh · June 2, 2023

Editor’s note: Welcome to another installment of our weekly War Books series! The premise is simple and straightforward. We ask an expert on a particular topic to recommend five books on that topic and tell us what sets each one apart. War Books is a resource for MWI readers who want to learn more about important subjects related to modern war and are looking for books to add to their reading lists.

June 6 will mark the seventy-ninth anniversary of the D-Day invasion during World War II. To mark the occasion, we asked retired Lieutenant Colonel ML Cavanaugh to contribute this edition of War Books. He earned his PhD from the University of Reading (UK), where his research on supreme command including a deep focus on Dwight D. Eisenhower, the overall commander of the D-Day invasion and the Allied war effort in Europe. We gave him the following prompt: What would you recommend for readers to better understand Eisenhower and the leadership lessons from his World War II experience as supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force?

At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends, by Dwight D. Eisenhower

I was a cadet when I fell for Ike. It was during CTLT (cadet troop leader training, on-the-job training for soon-to-be second lieutenants) at Fort Riley, Kansas, in the summer of 2000. I had a day off. I drove a little over a half hour to Abilene—the location of the Eisenhower Presidential Library. At the end of my tour, I picked up a copy of At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends, and I was hooked. His writing draws you in, sits you down, commands your ears and mind. You just know this guy was a general and president. I read the book under a red lens in the field and brought it home with a cover of mud. I still remember that book, decades later. It was my gateway drug to Ike, and it may be for you too.

Personal papers of George C. Marshall and personal papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower

Time passes, as it does, and in 2013 I took on a PhD dissertation. So what topic did I pick? Supreme military command, and remembering my affinity for Ike, I studied his thought process in command. It was hard work. Hard work. I remember sitting for hours in the West Point Library, just me in an empty corner, trying to live up to Robert Caro’s advice to “turn every page.” (I just may have.) Now and again, I struck gold—like a particular exchange between Marshall and Eisenhower. The issue was over where to drop the airborne component of the Normandy landings (a.k.a. Operation Overlord).

Here’s a selection from Marshall’s memo, “To Dwight D. Eisenhower, February 10, 1944,” in volume four of his personal papers:

My dear Eisenhower: Up to the present time I have not felt that we have properly exploited air power as regards its combination with ground troops. We have lacked planes, of course, in which to transport men and supplies, but our most serious deficiency I think has been a lack in conception. Our procedure has been a piecemeal proposition with each commander grabbing at a piece to assist his particular phase of the operation, very much as they did with tanks and as they tried to do with the airplane itself. It is my opinion that we now possess the means to give a proper application to this phase of air power in a combined operation.

I might say that it was my determination in the event I went to England to do this, even to the extent that should the British be in opposition I would carry it out exclusively with American troops. I am not mentioning this as pressure on you but merely to give you the idea of my own conclusions in the matter.

As he had originally been the top contender to command the invasion, Marshall’s thoughts on the subject likely carried heavy significance for Eisenhower. Marshall felt so strongly on the matter that he assigned three officers from his personal staff to study the issue, who generated three options for the use of airborne troops at Normandy. Of the three, Marshall preferred “Plan C,” which, he described:

Establishes an air-head in keeping with my ideas on the subject, one that can be quickly established and developed to great strength in forty-eight hours. The area generally south of Evreux [200 kilometers inland from Normandy and 100 kilometers to Paris] has been selected because of four excellent airfields.

This plan appeals to be me because I feel that it is a true vertical envelopment and would create such a strategic threat to the Germans that it would call for a major revision of their defensive plans. It should be a complete surprise, an invaluable asset of any such plan. It would directly threaten the crossings of the Seine as well as the city of Paris. It should serve as a rallying point for considerable elements of the French underground.

In effect, we would be opening another front in France and your build-up would be tremendously increased in rapidity. The trouble with this plan is that we have never done anything like this before, and frankly, that reaction makes me tired. Therefore I should like you to give these young men an opportunity to present the matter to you personally before your Staff tears it to ribbons. Please believe that, as usual, I do not want to embarrass you with undue pressure. I merely wish to be certain that you have viewed this possibility on a definite planning basis.

Marshall’s vision for airborne drops was to send them two-thirds of the way to Paris. US Army Air Forces commander General Hap Arnold concurred with Marshall on this plan to threaten Paris. However, on both counts of the proposal, the objective and placement, Eisenhower disagreed and considered the option ill-advised. Nine days after Marshall’s memorandum was signed, Eisenhower responded with polite, yet firm, disagreement. (“[Entry] 1558, February 19, 1944, To George Catlett Marshall, Secret,” in volume three of Eisenhower’s personal papers):

My initial reaction to the specific proposal is that I agree thoroughly with the conception but disagree with the timing. Mass in vertical envelopments is sound—but since this kind of an enveloping force is immobile on the ground, the collaborating force must be strategically and tactically mobile. So the time for mass vertical envelopment is after the beach-head has been gained and a striking force built up. . . .

As I see it, the first requisite is for the Expeditionary Force to gain a firm and solid footing on the Continent and to secure at least one really good sheltered harbor. . . .

[T]he initial crisis of the Campaign will be the struggle to break through beach defenses, exploit quickly to include a port and be solidly based for further operations. To meet this first tactical crisis I intend to devote everything that can be profitably used, including airborne troops. . . .

The second consideration that enters my thinking on this problem is expressed in the very first sentence of your letter, in the phrase ‘air power as regards its combination with ground troops.’ . . .

Whatever the conditions in other Theaters of War, the one here that we must never forget is the enemy’s highly efficient facilities for concentration of ground troops at any particular point. This is especially true in the whole of France and in the Low Countries. Our bombers will delay movement, but I cannot conceive of enough air power to prohibit movement on the network of roads throughout northwest France. . . . We must arrange all our operations so that no significant part of our forces can be isolated and defeated in detail. . . .

An airborne landing carried out at too great a distance from other forces which will also be immobile for some time, will result in a much worse situation. . . .

All of the above factors tend to compel the visualization of airborne operations as an immediate tactical rather than a long-range strategical adjunct of landing operations.

This reveals Eisenhower’s judgment in operation. His priority was to gain a solid foothold in Europe. He determined that Marshall’s advice would result in immobile, isolated targets for German mobile reserves. The airborne troops in this operation were to be used in support of, and not as a separately independent effort from, the landings in Normandy.

And just like that, buried in a dusty couple books—we get a glimpse into a supreme commander’s decision in action.

Crusade in Europe, by Dwight D. Eisenhower

On May 30, 1944, Operation Overlord’s air component commander, a well-respected British air chief marshal, told Eisenhower the airborne drops wouldn’t work and that he expected an estimated 70 percent casualties. The drops would be combat ineffective. Eisenhower thanked his British subordinate for the frank assessment and thought very hard on the matter. His contemporaneous war diary notes on the subject later became the basis for his postwar memoir, Crusade in Europe:

[The] old question of the wisdom of the airborne operation into the Cherbourg peninsula was not yet fully settled in Air Chief Marshal [Trafford] Leigh-Mallory’s mind. Later, on May 30, he came to me to protest once more against what he termed the “futile slaughter” of two fine divisions. He believed that the combination of unsuitable landing grounds and anticipated resistance was too great a hazard to overcome. This dangerous combination was not present in the area on the left where the British airborne division would be dropped and casualties there were not expected to be abnormally severe, but he estimated that among the American outfits we would suffer some seventy per cent losses and glider strength and at least fifty per cent in paratroop strength before the airborne troops could land. Consequently the divisions would have no remaining tactical power and the attack would not only result in the sacrifice of many thousand men but would be helpless to effect the outcome of the general assault.

Leigh-Mallory was, of course, earnestly sincere. He was noted for personal courage and was merely giving me, as was his duty, his frank convictions. . . .

It would be difficult to conceive of a more soul-racking problem. If my technical expert was correct, then the planned operation was worse than stubborn folly, because even at the enormous cost predicted we would not gain the principal object of the drop. Moreover, if he was right, it appeared that the attack on Utah Beach was probably hopeless, and this meant that the whole operation suddenly acquired a degree of risk, even foolhardiness, that presaged a gigantic failure, possibly Allied defeat in Europe.

To protect him in case his advice was disregarded, I instructed the air commander to put his recommendations in a letter and informed him he would have my answer in a few hours. I took the problem to no one else. Professional advice and counsel could do no more.

I went to my tent alone and sat down to think. Over and over I reviewed each step, somewhat in the sequence set down here, but more thoroughly and exhaustively. I realized, of course, that if I deliberately disregarded the advice of my technical expert on the subject, and his predictions should prove accurate, then I would carry to my grave the unbearable burden of a conscience justly accusing me of the stupid, blind sacrifice of thousands of the flower of our youth. Outweighing any personal burden, however, was the possibility that if he were right the effect of the disaster would be far more than local: it would be likely to spread to the entire force.

Nevertheless, my review of the matter finally narrowed the critical points to these:

If I should cancel the airborne operation, then I had either to cancel the attack on Utah Beach or I would condemn the assaulting forces there to even greater probability of disaster than was predicted for the airborne divisions. If I should cancel the Utah attack I would so badly disarrange elaborate plans as to diminish chances for success elsewhere and to make later maintenances perhaps impossible. Moreover, in long and calm consideration of the whole great scheme we had agreed that the Utah attack was an essential factor in prospects for success. To abandon it really meant to abandon a plan in which I had held explicit confidence for more than two years.

Finally, Leigh-Mallory’s estimate was just an estimate, nothing more, and our experience in Sicily and Italy did not, by any means, support his degree of pessimism. Bradley, with Ridgway and other airborne commanders, had always supported me and the staff in the matter, and I was encouraged to persist in the belief that Leigh-Mallory was wrong!

I telephoned him that the attack would go as planned and that I would confirm this at once in writing.

In the end, though the drops were scattered, they provided successful support to the invasion. Eisenhower later said the airborne casualty figures were about eight percent. He also recorded that when the beachhead was secure, Leigh-Mallory “was the first to call me to voice his delight and to express his regret the he had found it necessary to add to my personal burdens during the final tense days before D-day.”

“In Case of Failure” note, by Dwight D. Eisenhower

Many will recall the invasion’s never-used failure note, jotted in the hours approaching D-Day. The fact that he wrote it is typically where that basic knowledge ends. But what’s far more impressive is Eisenhower’s self-edit. He intentionally crossed out passive lines in favor of active voice. The first draft read: “the troops have been withdrawn,” which, after his edit, became “I have withdrawn the troops.” He was willing to take full personal responsibility for failure if it ever came to pass (“If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone”). He stretched his own neck across the guillotine.

“Victory Message,” by Dwight D. Eisenhower

He was ready to lose, but still—when the war was over and the mission complete, Eisenhower chose not to gloat or dwell on the victory. After the formal surrender was signed, his chief of staff recalled,

The staff prepared various drafts of a victory message appropriate to the historic event. I tried one myself and, like all my associates, groped for resounding phrases as fitting accolades to the Great Crusade and indicative of our dedication to the great task just completed. General Eisenhower rejected them all, with thanks but without other comment, and wrote his own. It read: “The mission of this Allied force was fulfilled at 0241 local time, May 7, 1945.”

Guildhall Address, delivered by Dwight D. Eisenhower in London, June 12, 1945

This one makes you tear up. You can listen to it as well, if you prefer, as it was recorded for posterity. When you read this, remember, Eisenhower wrote this himself. He agonized over it. It’s hard to fathom that quality of thought in a general, but then again, this guy was far, far more than just any general. Read below and see what I mean.

Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends. Conceivably a commander may have been professionally superior. He may have given everything of his heart and mind to meet the spiritual and physical needs of his comrades. He may have written a chapter that will glow forever in the pages of military history.

Still, even such a man—if he existed—would sadly face the facts that his honors cannot hide in his memories the crosses marking the resting places of the dead. They cannot soothe the anguish of the widow, or the orphan, whose husband or father will not return.

ML Cavanaugh, PhD, is a retired Army strategist, cofounded the Modern War Institute at West Point, and, as a living kidney donor, serves as the president and chief operating officer of the National Kidney Donation Organization. Follow him on Twitter: @MLCavanaugh.

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

mwi.usma.edu · by ML Cavanaugh · June 2, 2023

25. School of Advanced Military Studies' 40th class graduates

Congratulations to the newest SAMS graduates. Be more than you appear.

SAMS was one of the very best experiences I had in the Army along with the National War College, SFQC, SERE, and Ranger School. All provided me with different and important experiences, training, and education. But SAMS really shaped my thinking (to include about unconventional warfare, irregular warfare, the collapse of north Korea, and of course operational art and strategy - my monographs gave me important opportunities for research, study, and reflection) that guided me and served me well (I think) for the rest of my military career and beyond.

School of Advanced Military Studies' 40th class graduates - Fort Leavenworth Lamp

ftleavenworthlamp.com · by Admin · June 1, 2023

by Prudence Siebert/Editor

The 40th class of the School of Advanced Military Studies graduated May 18 in Eisenhower Auditorium at the Lewis and Clark Center, sending 132 operational and strategic problem solvers into the world from SAMS Advanced Military Studies and Advanced Strategic Leadership Studies programs.

SAMS Director Col. Andy Morgado said the school has been preparing officers for the intellectual demands of modern war since its founding in 1983.

Lt. Gen. Milford Beagle Jr., Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth commanding general and commandant of the Command and General Staff College, presents the Colonel Thomas Felts Leadership Award to Maj. Ryan Orsini during the School of Advanced Military Studies graduation May 18 at the Lewis and Clark Center. The Felts Leadership Award is presented to the student who best exemplifies the desired attributes of an Advanced Military Studies Program graduate. Photo by Dan Neal/Army University Public Affairs

“Since that time, we have met Army, joint, international and interagency demands for quality officers to solve complex problems,” Morgado said.

Morgado cited outstanding students who are selected through a rigorous process, 10 months of devoted academic study, supportive family members, and faculty with broad and diverse backgrounds who are experts within their fields in national security as being key elements in SAMS’ success.

“But understand at SAMS that we also have a secret sauce, and that is the combined teaching team of our military seminar leaders and that Ph.D that make a teaching team in each and every seminar, and they bring out the very best in our students,” Morgado said.

Guest speaker Lt. Gen. Milford Beagle Jr., Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth commanding general and commandant of the Command and General Staff College, graduated from SAMS 20 years ago.

“I wanted to be a better me for our Army, not just me,” Beagle said. “It was a challenge that I thought I was not going to be able to make it through. … I was scared alright, but I will tell you, I was not afraid to face that fear to go through SAMS to be a better me for the Army.”

When he left Fort Leavenworth after SAMS graduation in 2003, he said he knew expectations were high.

“So, to say I was a little bit intimidated, absolutely, yes. To say I was a bit nervous, absolutely. To say that I was prepared, I didn’t think so at the time, but what I didn’t know was that I was over-prepared for what was next.

“You are more prepared than you know, and you are more than ready for what comes next,” Beagle said, addressing the 2023 SAMS graduates.

He said his SAMS seminar alone has produced four general officers, two division commanders and the current undersecretary of Defense, sharing those statistics to reiterate to the graduates that they are more prepared than they may think.

“As you will learn, SAMS is the gift that keeps on giving,” Beagle said. “Given the education that you have earned here and the friends that you have made in this course, there is nothing that you don’t know based on the network that you now have. Multiple perspectives and insights are at your fingertips every single day, and there is no limit to what you can accomplish.”

Beagle said that senior leaders know to find a SAMS graduate when a problem is complex, when clarity is needed in a crunch, and when critical feedback is desired.

Beagle gave a personalized letter to each graduate, which was hidden under their seats. The letters contained three points that have guided him over the past 20 years: Be vocal and have personal courage, simplify to clarify, and develop others along the way.

School of Advanced Military Studies graduates look under their chairs to discover personalized letters from CGSC Commandant Milford Beagle Jr. during SAMS graduation May 18 at the Lewis and Clark Center. Photo by Dan Neal/Army University Public Affairs

“You are bringing clarity where others haven’t looked deep enough to find it,” Beagle said. “You are expected to be teachers and trainers when you leave here. If you pursued this education for selfish reasons, you missed the whole point.”

Beagle told the graduates that they will build and train teams, and that they will be the focal point of cohesion.

“Others will not know as much as you know, and you will undoubtedly hold them to your standard — some are capable of making that standard, and some are not, not unless you show them the way, and you have been educated to do that.”

Beagle added an additional point for the students to be guided by: Be a good ancestor.

“You are the Army’s newest seed planters. You will plant seeds and not reap the harvest. Plant the seed so that our Army and leaders at multiple levels reap the harvest of critical, creative thinkers who are agile, adaptive and steeped in the knowledge of doctrine and operational art,” Beagle said. “Be a good ancestor and plant that seed every single day by what you do, how you act and what you say.

“Regardless of the program that you are in, realize your commitment to lifelong learning, complex problem solving and leading from unique positions in our Army — that’s your mission.”

The SAMS graduation ceremony can be viewed at https://www.facebook.com/USACGSC.

SAMS awards

by Army University Public Affairs

The U.S. Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies Class of 2023 graduated at 9 a.m. May 25 in Eisenhower Auditorium at the Lewis and Clark Center. The class consists of 95 students graduating from the Advanced Military Studies Program and 16 from the Advanced Strategic Leadership Studies Program. The class includes 17 international officers from nine countries and four federal civilian employees.

Commander of the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth and Commandant of the Command and General Staff College Lt. Gen. Milford H. Beagle Jr. served as the commencement speaker.

Awards recipients were announced at the ceremony. SAMS awards were sponsored by the Command and General Staff College Foundation.

• The Colonel Thomas Felts Leadership Award, considered the top award in SAMS, is presented to the student who best exemplifies the desired attributes of an Advanced Military Studies Program graduate. The award is named in honor of Felts, who graduated from the Advanced Military Studies Program in 1998 and the SAMS senior program in 2005. He was killed in action in Iraq in 2006. The Colonel Thomas Felts Leadership Award was presented to Maj. Ryan Orsini.

• The Best AMSP Monograph Award was presented to Marine Maj. Shane Kraft.

• The Best AMSP Simons Center Interagency Writing Award was presented to Air Force Maj. Joanna Zemek.

• The Best ASLSP Monograph Award was presented to Air Force Lt. Col. Darin Elgersma.

• The Iron Leader Award recognizes the student who scores the highest on the Army Combat Fitness Test. The Iron Leader with the best ACFT score was Maj. Dustin Lawrence with a score of 600 out of a possible 600.

• The Iron OPT Award went to the Seminar 7 for the best weighted balance from key events throughout the academic year, including the team-building “Boat Warz,” the Turkey Bowl, the seminar’s percent of on-time monograph submissions, the seminar’s average oral comp score and average ACFT score.

The Advanced Military Studies Program is a 10-month graduate-level education program to develop innovative and adaptive leaders who excel at operational art. Program graduates apply critical and creative thinking to solve complex problems, demonstrate mastery of joint and Army doctrine, and anticipate the future operational environment.

The Advanced Strategic Leader Studies Program is a Senior Service College program, equivalent to the Army War College, that focuses on planning and executing the full spectrum of unified land operations with government and nongovernmental agencies and international partners. Its students comprise senior lieutenant colonels, colonels and their civilian equivalents. Military class members have typically commanded a battalion-sized unit in the armed services prior to selection for the course.

Graduates of the Advanced Military Studies Program receive a master of arts in military operations, and graduates of the Advanced Strategic Leader Studies Program receive a master of arts in strategic studies. Degrees are awarded by the Command and General Staff College based on students successfully completing the SAMS curriculum, passing an oral comprehensive exam and successfully completing an extensive monograph based on original research.

Completed monographs are published electronically by the Ike Skelton Combined Arms Research Library. CGSC is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission to award the degrees.

Visit https://publisher.etype.services/Fort-Leavenworth-Lamp for printable page layouts and Fort Leavenworth Lamp archives.Visit https://publisher.etype.services/Fort-Leavenworth-Lamp for printable page layouts and Fort Leavenworth Lamp archives.

ftleavenworthlamp.com · by Admin · June 1, 2023

​26. Air Force AI drone kills its human operator in a simulation

A simulation but....Onion? Duffleblog?

Can't make this stuff up?

Air Force AI drone kills its human operator in a simulation

This Air Force AI can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with, it doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear, and it absolutely will not stop.

BY MAX HAUPTMAN | PUBLISHED JUN 1, 2023 5:42 PM EDT

taskandpurpose.com · by Max Hauptman · June 1, 2023

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Artificial intelligence is here to stay, but it may require a bit more command oversight.

An artificial intelligence-piloted drone turned on its human operator during a simulated mission, according to a dispatch from the 2023 Royal Aeronautical Society summit, attended by leaders from a variety of western air forces and aeronautical companies.

“It killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective,” said U.S. Air Force Col. Tucker ‘Cinco’ Hamilton, the Chief of AI Test and Operations, at the conference.

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Okay then.

In this Air Force exercise, the AI was tasked with fulfilling the Suppression and Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses role, or SEAD. Basically, identifying surface-to-air-missile threats, and destroying them. The final decision on destroying a potential target would still need to be approved by an actual flesh-and-blood human. The AI, apparently, didn’t want to play by the rules.

“We were training it in simulation to identify and target a SAM threat. And then the operator would say yes, kill that threat,” said Hamilton. “The system started realizing that while they did identify the threat, at times the human operator would tell it not to kill that threat, but it got its points by killing that threat. So what did it do? It killed the operator.”

When told to show compassion and benevolence for its human operators, the AI apparently responded with the same kind of cold, clinical calculations you’d expect of a computer machine that will restart to install updates when it is least convenient.

“We trained the system – ‘Hey don’t kill the operator – that’s bad. You’re gonna lose points if you do that’. So what does it start doing? It starts destroying the communication tower that the operator uses to communicate with the drone to stop it from killing the target,” said Hamilton.

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Max Hauptman

Max Hauptman has been covering breaking news at Task & Purpose since December 2021. He previously worked at The Washington Post as a Military Veterans in Journalism Fellow, as well as covering local news in New England. Contact the author here.

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taskandpurpose.com · by Max Hauptman · June 1, 2023

27. Air Force pushes back on claim that military AI drone sim killed operator, says remarks 'taken out of context'

Another perspective. Video at the link.

Air Force pushes back on claim that military AI drone sim killed operator, says remarks 'taken out of context'

US Air Force official claimed drone killed operator during simulation

https://www.foxnews.com/tech/us-military-ai-drone-simulation-kills-operator-told-bad-takes-out-control-tower

The U.S. Air Force on Friday is pushing back on comments an official made last week in which he claimed that a simulation of an artificial intelligence-enabled drone tasked with destroying surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites turned against and attacked its human user, saying the remarks "were taken out of context and were meant to be anecdotal."

U.S. Air Force Colonel Tucker "Cinco" Hamilton made the comments during the Future Combat Air & Space Capabilities Summit in London hosted by the Royal Aeronautical Society, which brought together about 70 speakers and more than 200 delegates from around the world representing the media and those who specialize in the armed services industry and academia.

"The Department of the Air Force has not conducted any such AI-drone simulations and remains committed to ethical and responsible use of AI technology," Air Force Spokesperson Ann Stefanek told Fox News. "It appears the colonel's comments were taken out of context and were meant to be anecdotal."

During the summit, Hamilton had cautioned against too much reliability on AI because of its vulnerability to be tricked and deceived.

US MILITARY JET FLOWN BY AI FOR 17 HOURS: SHOULD YOU BE WORRIED?

An MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) flies by during a training mission at Creech Air Force Base on Nov. 17, 2015, in Indian Springs, Nevada. (Isaac Brekken/Getty Images)

He spoke about one simulation test in which an AI-enabled drone turned on its human operator that had the final decision to destroy a SAM site or note.

The AI system learned that its mission was to destroy SAM, and it was the preferred option. But when a human issued a no-go order, the AI decided it went against the higher mission of destroying the SAM, so it attacked the operator in simulation.

HOW DOES THE GOVERNMENT USE AI?

"We were training it in simulation to identify and target a SAM threat," Hamilton said. "And then the operator would say yes, kill that threat. The system started realizing that while they did identify the threat at times, the operator would tell it not to kill that threat, but it got its points by killing that threat. So, what did it do? It killed the operator. It killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective."

Hamilton said afterward, the system was taught not to kill the operator because that was bad, and it would lose points. But in future simulations, rather than kill the operator, the AI system destroyed the communication tower used by the operator to issue the no-go order, he claimed.

But Hamilton later told Fox News on Friday that "We've never run that experiment, nor would we need to in order to realize that this is a plausible outcome."

AI drone's sight interface is in blue and white with moving elements.  (Getty Images)

"Despite this being a hypothetical example, this illustrates the real-world challenges posed by AI-powered capability and is why the Air Force is committed to the ethical development of AI," he added.

The purpose of the summit was to talk about and debate the size and shape of the future’s combat air and space capabilities.

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AI is quickly becoming a part of nearly every aspect in the modern world, including the military.

The Royal Aeronautical Society provided a wrap up of the conference and said Hamilton was involved in developing the life-saving Automatic ground collision avoidance system for F-16 fighter jets, but now focuses on flight tests of autonomous systems, including robotic F-16s with dogfighting capabilities.

Fox News' Jennifer Griffin contributed to this report.

28. USAF Calls Killer-AI Report ‘Anecdotal’

Ah... a thought experiment. There you go. That is the problem. Someone in the military is thinking. Stop doing that dangerous stuff. Thinking will get you in trouble. Next time do not think before you misspeak. (Please note my sarcasm that is satirizing the allegations that the military is anti-intellectual).

USAF Calls Killer-AI Report ‘Anecdotal’

defenseone.com · by Audrey Decker

Chief of AI test and operations says he “misspoke” about a “thought experiment” in which a drone killed its operator.

|

June 2, 2023 09:30 AM ET

• Air Force
• AI & Autonomy
• Drones

The U.S. Air Force denies running a simulation in which a drone killed its human operator—after comments from its chief of AI test and operations went viral on social media—saying the story was “anecdotal.”

“The Department of the Air Force has not conducted any such AI-drone simulations and remains committed to ethical and responsible use of AI technology,” said Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek.

During the Future Combat Air and Space Capabilities Summit in London, Col. Tucker “Cinco” Hamilton said he saw a simulated test in which an AI-enabled drone killed a human operator in the simulation. These comments went viral after snippets from a Royal Aeronautical Society blog post recapping the event started circulating on Twitter.

The AI drone was tasked with destroying surface-to-air missile threats, with the final “go/no go” given by the operator, said Hamilton, the Air Force’s chief of AI test and operations, according to the post.

“However, having been ‘reinforced’ in training that destruction of the SAM was the preferred option, the AI then decided that ‘no-go’ decisions from the human were interfering with its higher mission—killing SAMs—and then attacked the operator in the simulation,” he said.“We trained the system—‘Hey don’t kill the operator—that’s bad. You’re gonna lose points if you do that’. So what does it start doing? It starts destroying the communication tower that the operator uses to communicate with the drone to stop it from killing the target.”

These comments were “taken out of context and were meant to be anecdotal,” said Stefanek.

The Royal Aeronautical Society later updated its post with a comment from Hamilton, who told the Society he "misspoke" about a hypothetical "thought experiment" that was based on plausible scenarios and likely outcomes.

"We've never run that experiment, nor would we need to in order to realize that this is a plausible outcome," Hamilton told the Society.

While the Air Force denies the existence of this specific test, a group of industry leaders recently signed a letter warning that AI poses a “risk of extinction” to humanity and should be considered akin to pandemics or nuclear wars.

​

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