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Quotes of the Day:
“You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.”
- Ayn Rand
“Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.”
- Albert Einstein
This is timely insight from a 1959 interview with the philosopher Bertrand Russell about what he would say to a distant future generation of humans:
“I should like to say two things, one intellectual and one moral. The intellectual thing I should want to say is this: When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed. But look only, and solely, at what are the facts. That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say.
The moral thing I should wish to say… I should say love is wise, hatred is foolish. In this world which is getting more closely and closely interconnected we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way and if we are to live together and not die together we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.”
“The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.”
- Bertrand Russell
1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 12, 2023
2. Defense secretary taps Pacific Fleet’s Paparo to be top Navy officer
3. Ukraine’s Winnable War
4. What Does the West Really Know About Xi’s China?
5. Ceding ground in Ukraine, Russia kills civilians in apartment block strike
6. Russia releases video of captured German tanks, U.S. fighting vehicles in Ukraine
7. Americans Should Prepare for Cyber Sabotage From Chinese Hackers, US Official Warns
8. Why Norms Matter More than Ever for Space Deterrence and Defense
9. Marine Corps in 'civil war' with mysterious group of senior retired officers
10. America’s Allies Are More Dependent on Washington Than Ever Before
11. Five urgent steps to prevent American military defeat in the Pacific
12. Skulls left scattered after Ukraine dam breach may be from second world war
13. Bipartisan Coalition Urges Biden to Send ATACMS to Ukraine
14. U.S. Plans to Rejoin Unesco to Counter China’s Growing Sway
15. Proposal to end Senate standoff over military promotions goes nowhere
16. CPI Report Shows Inflation Has Been Cut in Half From Last Year’s Peak
17. House lawmakers back plans for biggest military pay raise in 22 years
18. The Tragedy of Foreign-Policy Realism
19. China spinning a ‘web’ of influence campaigns to win over Taiwan
20. Xi Prepares China for ‘Extreme’ Scenarios, Including Conflict with the West
21. China Creates a Coast Guard Like No Other, Seeking Supremacy in Asian Seas
22. Unlikely bipartisan coalitions could signal congressional readiness to trim US presence overseas
23. One of Ukraine's New US-Equipped 'Storm' Brigades Spotted in the East
1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 12, 2023
Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-12-2023
Key Takeaways
- Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in at least three sectors of the front on June 12.
- Russian forces reportedly launched a counterattack on June 12 following Ukrainian tactical gains near the Vremivka salient in western Donetsk Oblast on June 11.
- Russian milbloggers claimed that poor weather conditions grounded Russian aircraft, impeding Russian defenses against Ukrainian attacks near the administrative border between Donetsk and Zaporizhia oblasts.
- Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin announced on June 11 that he had received an order from the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) to subordinate his forces under the Russian military command.
- The Russian MoD formalization efforts are likely intended to centralize control of Russian irregular personnel and supplies to respond to Ukraine’s counteroffensive, as well as restrict Prigozhin's independence.
- Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov continues efforts to rhetorically align himself with the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and further distancing himself from Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin.
- Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks south of Kreminna.
- Ukrainian and Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks around Bakhmut.
- Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.
- Ukrainian forces conducted ground attacks near the administrative border of Donetsk and Zaporizhia oblasts and made gains as of June 12.
- Russian sources reported that Ukrainian forces conducted limited counteroffensive operations southwest of Orikhiv.
- Social media video footage circulated on June 12 reportedly shows Russian barrier troops shooting Russian forces that abandoned their positions somewhere in Ukraine.
- Russia continues to strengthen the legal regime in occupied areas of Ukraine under martial law.
RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, JUNE 12, 2023
Jun 12, 2023 - Press ISW
Download the PDF
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 12, 2023
Kateryna Stepanenko, Karolina Hird, Grace Mappes, Nicole Wolkov, George Barros, and Mason Clark
June 12, 2023, 5:20pm ET
Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.
Note: The data cutoff for this product was 1:30pm ET on June 12. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the June 13 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.
Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in at least three sectors of the front and made territorial gains on June 12. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported on June 12 that Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk and Tavrisk (Zaporizhia) directions have advanced 6.5km and retaken 90 square kilometers of territory over the past week.[1] Malyar added that Ukrainian forces liberated one settlement in western Zaporizhia Oblast and six settlements in eastern Zaporizhia and western Donetsk oblasts in the same period. Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty stated that Ukrainian troops continued counterattacks on the flanks of Bakhmut and advanced 250 to 700 meters in unspecified areas on the outskirts of the city.[2] Russian sources noted that Ukrainian forces continued counterattacks on Russian positions southwest, north and northwest of Bakhmut, particularly near Berkhivka (3km northwest of Bakhmut).[3] Geolocated footage posted on June 12 additionally indicates that Ukrainian forces have made limited advances in western Donetsk Oblast south of Velyka Novosilka.[4] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces are trying to counterattack in this area and that fighting continued in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast area over the course of June 12.[5] Russian milbloggers additionally reported Ukrainian combat activity in western Zaporizhia Oblast near Orikhiv, but noted that the intensity of attacks on this sector has decreased somewhat.[6]
Russian forces reportedly launched a counterattack on June 12 in western Donetsk Oblast following Ukrainian tactical gains near the Vremivka salient on June 11. Russian sources reported that elements of the Russian 127th Motorized Rifle Division (5th Combined Arms Army, Eastern Military District) launched a large counterattack against Ukrainian forces in the Vremivka salient on June 12.[7] Russian forces have made no confirmed territorial gains in these counterattacks as of this publication, though some Russian sources reported that Russian forces recaptured Makarivka (5km south of Velyka Novosilka).[8] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported that Ukrainian forces still control Makarivka as of June 12.[9] A Russian source reported that fighting in the Vremivka salient as ongoing and that the results of the battle are unclear.[10] Ardent nationalist and former Russian officer Igor Girkin claimed that, if true, these reports confirm the success of Russian flexible defense tactics in the area and that the Russian military command cares more about wearing down Ukrainian forces than regaining territory.[11] Girkin claimed that the typical defense of Russian forces is to retreat to rear areas to draw Ukrainian infantry out from Ukrainian air defense and electronic warfare coverage. Girkin claimed that Russian forces then attack the area with tank and air defense support in order to prevent the Ukrainian forces from deploying air defense elements forward to newly gained areas.
Russian milbloggers claimed that poor weather conditions grounded Russian aircraft, impeding Russian defenses against Ukrainian attacks near the administrative border between Donetsk and Zaporizhia oblasts. Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces managed to make tactical gains on June 11 due to heavy rain and fog preventing Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) and army aviation (rotary wing aircraft) from striking Ukrainian force concentrations.[12] Russian sources reported that Russian VKS and army aviation resumed intense airstrikes against Ukrainian forces on June 12 after the rain cleared.[13] Girkin claimed that the weather will play an important role in determining the outcome of operations in this sector in the coming days.[14]
Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin announced on June 11 that he had received an order from the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) to subordinate his forces to Russian military command.[15] Prigozhin published a claimed segment of the letter from the Russian MoD, which instructs Wagner and other Russian volunteer military formations to inform the Joint Staff of Russian Grouping of Forces about their numbers of forces, reserves, and the supplies they have received from the Russian MoD by June 15.[16] Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu previously announced on June 10 that Russian volunteer personnel must sign contracts directly with the Russian MoD by July 1.[17] Prigozhin later claimed that Wagner is receiving 2.5 times more recruits after the recent “provocative announcements about the need to terminate the existence of Wagner private military company [PMC],” stating that Russian volunteers are joining Wagner to avoid signing contracts with the Russian MoD.[18] Prigozhin accused the Russian MoD of using this formalization effort to harm Wagner amidst the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensives.[19]
The Russian MoD formalization efforts are likely intended to centralize control of Russian irregular personnel and supplies to respond to Ukraine’s counteroffensive, as well as restrict Prigozhin's independence. A Wagner-affiliated milblogger claimed that Shoigu’s new decree legalizes the destruction of PMCs and that the Russian MoD will use this decree to stop providing Wagner forces with ammunition, medical assistance, and military equipment.[20] A member of the Russian State Duma Defense Committee (and an avid critic of Wagner) Viktor Sobolev claimed that the Russian MoD will not permit volunteers to participate in hostilities without signing a military contract with the Russian MoD, which may make it illegal for Wagner forces to operate on the frontlines.[21] Russian milbloggers implied that the order may allow the Russian MoD to retain contract servicemen longer on the frontlines, as they claim the Russian MoD is less likely to abide by contract periods than PMCs like Wagner.[22] One prominent milblogger claimed that the timing of Shoigu’s announcement is strange given that Ukrainian forces just launched a counteroffensive, and another noted that the Russian MoD is prioritizing bureaucratically eliminating Wagner instead of focusing on the counteroffensive.[23] The Russian military command similarly ordered formalization of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics’ (DNR and LNR) militias in January and February ahead of the Russian winter offensive.[24] Shoigu and the Russian military command may be leverage possibly regaining some favor with Russian President Vladimir Putin after Russian forces successfully conducted some defensive operations in southern Ukraine to pursue the formalization of Russian irregular forces that they likely originally planned in winter 2023. Prigozhin’s operations on the Bakhmut frontline in winter and spring 2023 and the Russian MoD’s lack of decisive victories in Donbas may have limited the Russian MoD’s ability to pursue its desired formalization of Russian forces. The move is likely militarily sound and in part unrelated to the dispute with Prigozhin, as a formal accounting and direct control of Russia’s array of irregular formations will likely enable the Russian military command to redeploy forces as needed.
Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov continues efforts to rhetorically align himself with the Russian MoD and further distance himself from Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin. Kadyrov reported on June 12 that several Chechen commanders, including Akhmat Special Forces Commander Major General Apti Alaudinov, met with Russian Deputy Chief of the General Staff Colonel General Alexei Kim to sign a military contract with the Russian MoD that will grant Akhmat forces the same legal status, rights, and benefits as official MoD personnel.[25] Kadyrov emphasized the importance of this contract for the effectiveness of Akhmat troops and claimed that Chechen fighters have been instrumental in supporting Russian operations in Ukraine.[26] Kadyrov’s public display of agreement with the Russian MoD further aligns him and Akhmat troops with the official Russian military apparatus while further distancing Kadyrov from Prigozhin, who notably is pushing back on the MoD contracts as a direct attack on the Wagner Group.[27] Kadyrov will likely continue efforts to curry favor with the MoD as he tries to increase the prominence of Chechen troops.
Key Takeaways
- Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in at least three sectors of the front on June 12.
- Russian forces reportedly launched a counterattack on June 12 following Ukrainian tactical gains near the Vremivka salient in western Donetsk Oblast on June 11.
- Russian milbloggers claimed that poor weather conditions grounded Russian aircraft, impeding Russian defenses against Ukrainian attacks near the administrative border between Donetsk and Zaporizhia oblasts.
- Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin announced on June 11 that he had received an order from the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) to subordinate his forces under the Russian military command.
- The Russian MoD formalization efforts are likely intended to centralize control of Russian irregular personnel and supplies to respond to Ukraine’s counteroffensive, as well as restrict Prigozhin's independence.
- Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov continues efforts to rhetorically align himself with the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and further distancing himself from Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin.
- Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks south of Kreminna.
- Ukrainian and Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks around Bakhmut.
- Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.
- Ukrainian forces conducted ground attacks near the administrative border of Donetsk and Zaporizhia oblasts and made gains as of June 12.
- Russian sources reported that Ukrainian forces conducted limited counteroffensive operations southwest of Orikhiv.
- Social media video footage circulated on June 12 reportedly shows Russian barrier troops shooting Russian forces that abandoned their positions somewhere in Ukraine.
- Russia continues to strengthen the legal regime in occupied areas of Ukraine under martial law.
We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.
- Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
- Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
- Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
- Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
- Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
- Activities in Russian-occupied areas
Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)
Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks south of Kreminna on June 12. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Bilohorivka (10km south of Kreminna) and Vesele (32km south of Kreminna).[28] A Russian source claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian attack along the Lyman Pershyi-Vilshana line (11km northeast of Kupyansk). Geolocated footage published on June 11 shows elements of the Russian 85th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Luhansk People’s Republic Army Corps) operating near Bilohorivka.[29]
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.
Ukrainian and Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks around Bakhmut on June 12. Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty reported that Ukrainian forces advanced from 250m to 700m on the flanks of Bakhmut.[30] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar stated that over the past week, Ukrainian forces have advanced 1.5km on Bakhmut’s left flank and 3.5km on the right flank, retaking a total of 16 square kilometers of territory.[31] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are storming Berkhivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut) and advancing near Yahidne (1km northwest of Bakhmut) and Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut).[32] The Ukrainian General Staff reported in its 0600 situational report that Russian force conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut) and Bila Hora (12km southwest of Bakhmut) but did not report fighting around Bakhmut in its 1800 situational report.[33] Footage published on June 12 purportedly shows Russian forces of the 200th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (14th Army Corps, Northern Fleet) operating on the flanks of Bakhmut.[34]
Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on June 12. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Avdiivka and Marinka.[35] Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov posted footage reportedly of Chechen “Sever-Akhmat” forces operating in the Marinka direction.[36] Footage published on June 12 purportedly shows the 110th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (1st Donetsk People’s Republic Army Corps) operating near Krasnohorivka (5km north of Marinka).[37] The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled two Ukrainian attacks north of Avdiivka.[38] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful assault operations near Opytne (3km southwest of Avdiivka) and Vodyane (7km southwest of Avdiivka).[39]
Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes)
Ukrainian forces conducted ground attacks near the administrative border of Donetsk and Zaporizhia oblasts and made gains as of June 12. Geolocated footage shows that Ukrainian forces advanced to positions west of Novodonetske (11km southeast of Velyka Novosilka).[40] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar and other Ukrainian official sources confirmed on June 12 that Ukrainian forces liberated areas south and southwest of Velyka Novosilka, including Levadne (20km southwest), Novodarivka (15km southwest), Neskuchne (immediately south), Storozheve (3km south), Blahodatne (3km south), and Makarivka (5km south).[41] These statements refute Russian claims that the 127th Motorized Rifle Division (5th Combined Arms Army, Eastern Military District) recaptured Makarivka as well as claims that Novodarivka is still contested as of June 12.[42] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces continued to counterattack and advance south of Makarivka on June 12.[43] Some Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces advanced five to six kilometers south of Makarivka and that Russian forces fell back as far as 10 kilometers south of Velyka Novosilka.[44] Milbloggers also reported continued Ukrainian counterattacks southwest of Velyka Novosilka.[45] One milblogger reported that the status of Russian positions in Rivnopil (9km southwest of Velyka Novosilka) is unclear and that Russian forces may have to withdraw from the settlement due to Ukrainian advances east of Rivnopil and south of Velyka Novosilka.[46] Russian and Ukrainian sources claimed on June 12 that Russian forces destroyed a dam on the Mokry Yaly River south of Velyka Novosilka on June 11, after Russian sources initially claimed that Ukrainian forces blew the dam.[47] Milbloggers claimed that the “Storm” detachment of the Russian 40th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet) captured abandoned Western armored vehicles southeast of Velyka Novosilka.[48]
Russian sources reported that Ukrainian forces conducted limited counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast on June 12. Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted sabotage and reconnaissance along the front line in the Orikhiv area.[49] Other Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces have conducted relatively few counterattacks in the Orikhiv area, and that Russian aviation used guided aerial bombs to strike Ukrainian reserves in the area.[50] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar confirmed that Ukrainian forces liberated Lobkove (26km southwest of Orikhiv) on an unspecified date.[51] A Russian milblogger claimed that the Russian 417th Reconnaissance Battalion (42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) is operating on the first line of defense in the Robotyne-Verbove direction south and southeast of Orikhiv.[52] Some Russian sources claimed that Russian forces repelled small Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups south of Hulyaipole overnight on June 11 to 12.[53]
Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)
Social media video footage circulated on June 12 reportedly shows Russian barrier troops – specialized units that threaten to shoot their own retreating personnel or compel offensives – shooting Russian forces that abandoned their positions somewhere in Ukraine.[54] ISW is unable to confirm whether the footage is authentic at this time. The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense reported in November 2022 that Russian forces in Ukraine probably started deploying “barrier troops” and “blocking units” to Ukraine and that Russian generals likely want their subordinate commanders to shoot deserters, including possibly authorizing personnel kill their own deserting servicemen.[55]
Russian forces are deploying coastal missile systems to Bryansk Oblast. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported, citing local partisans, that Russian forces transferred a division of the “Bal” costal missile system to Bryansk Oblast from its permanent dislocation in Utash, Krasnodar Krai.[56] The Resistance Center noted that these systems belong to the Russian 11th Separate Coastal Missile and Artillery Brigade of the Black Sea Fleet, and that Russian forces will use these coastal systems to strike surface targets due to lack of other missile systems. The Resistance Center noted that “Bal” systems use Kh-35/35U missiles that have an increased strike range of 500km after modernization in 2021.
The Russian military command is reportedly deploying more conscripts to Russian regions bordering Ukraine. Relatives told a Russian independent outlet Mobilization News that the Russian military command is deploying conscripts from the Russian 96th Separate Reconnaissance Brigade (1st Guards Tank Army, Western Military District) from Nizhny Novgorod to Moscow Oblast and later to the border areas of Belgorod or Bryansk oblasts.[57] One mother reported that mobilized personnel are currently training conscripts in Moscow Oblast and that conscripts will depart for border areas on June 13.
Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces continue to suffer from high casualties and low morale. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that there has been an increase in desertion cases among Russian “Storm-Z” assault units, and that Russian forces are continuing to suffer significant casualties in the Bakhmut area with 50 servicemen arriving at a military hospital in Perseanovka, Rostov Oblast.[58] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that 25 Russian servicemen deserted from Mariupol and Novoazovsk due to “unofficial suspension of vacations” that were originally promised by the Russian leadership.[59]
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 authorities continue to struggle with the implementation of a border regime between occupied Ukraine and Russia. Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Head Artem Lysohor reported on June 12 that Russian authorities are continuing inspections at the border between Mylove, occupied Luhansk Oblast, and Rostov Oblast, despite the fact that under Russian law Luhansk and Rostov are different regions of the same country.[60] Lysohor also noted that Russian authorities are checking for both Russian passports and local registration at border crossing points.[61]
Russia continues to strengthen the legal regime in occupied areas of Ukraine under martial law. Russian media reported on June 11 that the Russian State Duma may consider amendments to the Code of Administrative Offensives that would introduce administrative liability of a 500-1,000 ruble ($6 to $12) fine or arrest for up to 30 days for violating the martial law regime.[62] As ISW has previously reported, martial law is operating in the occupied parts of Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts, occupied Crimea, and Russian border regions.[63] Russian authorities have recently undertaken various measures to strengthen legal controls over areas of Ukraine under martial law.[64]
Significant activity in Belarus (Russian efforts to increase its military presence in Belarus and further integrate Belarus into Russian-favorable frameworks).
ISW will continue to report daily observed Russian and Belarusian military activity in Belarus, as part of ongoing Kremlin efforts to increase their control over Belarus and other Russian actions in Belarus.
Nothing significant to report.
Note: ISW does not receive any classified material from any source, uses only publicly available information, and draws extensively on Russian, Ukrainian, and Western reporting and social media as well as commercially available satellite imagery and other geospatial data as the basis for these reports. References to all sources used are provided in the endnotes of each update.
2. Defense secretary taps Pacific Fleet’s Paparo to be top Navy officer
Defense secretary taps Pacific Fleet’s Paparo to be top Navy officer
navytimes.com · by Geoff Ziezulewicz · June 12, 2023
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has recommended to the president that Adm. Samuel Paparo, the commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, become the Navy’s 33rd chief of naval operations.
NBC News first reported Monday that Paparo’s name was sent to the White House last week.
Two defense officials with direct knowledge of the process, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter, confirmed the accuracy of the NBC report.
President Joe Biden would still need to formally nominate Paparo and send the pick to Congress for approval.
Monday’s news flew in the face of conventional Beltway wisdom, with some news reports and talking heads predicting that the current vice chief of naval operations, Adm. Lisa Franchetti, would become the next CNO and the first woman to hold the title and to serve on the Joint Chiefs.
Multiple sources said privately that high-ranking Pentagon officials were operating under the assumption Franchetti would be nominated for CNO right up until the NBC story broke. Last week, several current and retired flag officers told Defense News that Franchetti’s selection for the job was among the “worst-kept secrets” in Washington.
White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Paparo assumed command of PACFLEET — the tip of the Navy spear when it comes to containing China — in May 2021.
His spokesperson did not return a request for comment Monday afternoon.
While Franchetti was expected to be nominated as CNO, command of PACFLEET has in the past often led to the job of leading the joint-force U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, a route taken by current INDOPACOM head Adm. John Aquilino.
Navy officials declined to comment on the Paparo nomination Monday, and Defense Department officials declined to provide an on-record comment by Navy Times’ deadline.
“This is a Presidential decision,” Navy spokesman Rear Adm. Ryan Perry said in a statement. “The United States Navy has several highly qualified senior leaders, and it would be inappropriate to speculate which leader the President will nominate to serve as the next Chief of Naval Operations.”
The current CNO, Adm. Mike Gilday, became the top naval officer in August 2019.
Gilday is statutorily required to step down after four years. His last day will be Aug. 21, and the following day a new leader will have to be in charge. If Biden’s pick for CNO cannot be confirmed by that date — a possibility, as Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville is not allowing military nominations to move forward in the Senate — then Franchetti will be called upon to perform the duties of CNO.
Arnold Punaro, a former staff director on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Defense News that the services’ current vice chiefs can perform the duties of chief with no limitations, should there be a delay in the Senate confirming new service chiefs.
About Geoff Ziezulewicz and Megan Eckstein
Geoff is a senior staff reporter for Military Times, focusing on the Navy. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was most recently a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He welcomes any and all kinds of tips at geoffz@militarytimes.com.
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.
3. Ukraine’s Winnable War
Excerpts:
As for the notion that this war represents a distraction from other, more urgent and important Western national security concerns, nothing could be further from the truth. Thanks to the conflict, NATO is sapping its enemy’s strength and learning invaluable lessons about the nature of modern combat—from the amount of materiel required to the importance of mixing commercial and military technology to the need for constant innovation and agile weapons development.
Battlefield success is the ultimate advertisement for any weapons system, and Ukraine’s performance means the demand for cutting-edge Western artillery, armor, and air defenses will only grow. The war has revealed dramatic shortcomings in the Western defense industrial base, but luckily in time to fix them before the situation becomes truly critical for its own security. Those who complain that there are not enough munitions to defend Ukraine, Taiwan, and the United States simultaneously are right. But the solution to the problem is not cutting off Ukraine; it is producing more stuff. Doing so will require the reform of sclerotic institutions and inefficient procurement practices, this time in Washington rather than Kyiv. The Department of Defense will have to mentally reclassify the conflict in Ukraine and learn its lessons; it is not a nuisance but a warning. Meanwhile, supporters of the war in both the administration and Congress will have to secure enough long-term funding to restore domestic production lines for crucial materiel ranging from guns to tanks, shells to drones, missiles to planes. This war is the most urgent and important issue on the national security agenda, and Western governments need to treat it as such.
The Taiwanese, like the Ukrainians, understand that their security is best served by forcing Russia to return to the status quo ante, no matter what the costs. “I think pushing back on aggression is the key message that will help to deter any consideration or miscalculation that an invasion can be conducted unpunished, without costs, in a rapid way,” Bi-khim Hsiao, Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the United States, told reporters recently. “We must ensure that anyone contemplating the possibility of an invasion understands that, and that is why Ukraine’s success in defending against aggression is so important also for Taiwan.” China hawks in Washington should agree, rather than portraying the Ukrainian conflict as the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong enemy.
However improbably, what began as a challenge to the American-sponsored global system is causing a revival of it, something a Ukrainian victory would drive home with a vengeance. In Ukraine, the United States is not unilaterally imposing its will on other countries but leading a broad coalition to restore international order. It is not committing war crimes but preventing them. It is not acting as the world’s policeman or as a global bully but as the arsenal of democracy. And it has been doing all this effectively and efficiently, without firing a gun or losing a single soldier. The effort to date has been a model of how to blend hard and soft power in a single strategy. Now it’s time to finish the job.
Ukraine’s Winnable War
Why the West Should Help Kyiv Retake All Its Territory
June 13, 2023
Foreign Affairs · by Gideon Rose · June 13, 2023
In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in an attempt to conquer the country and erase the independence it had gained after the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades earlier. Given the vast disparities in size and strength between the belligerents, almost nobody gave the defenders much of a chance. Pessimists thought Kyiv would succumb in days or weeks. Optimists thought it might take months. Few believed Ukraine could ever beat back its attacker.
“A satisfying victory is likely out of reach,” wrote the Russia experts Thomas Graham and Rajan Menon in Foreign Affairs a month after the invasion began. “Ukraine and its Western backers are in no position to defeat Russia on any reasonable timescale.” Around the same time, the political scientist Samuel Charap agreed: “Ukraine’s brave resistance—even combined with ever-greater Western pressure on Moscow—is highly unlikely to overcome Russia’s military advantages, let alone topple Putin. Without some kind of deal with the Kremlin, the best outcome is probably a long, arduous war that Russia is likely to win anyway.” Three months into the war, the historians Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage argued that “a full-scale Ukrainian military defeat of Russia, including the retaking of Crimea, verges on fantasy.” Four months after that, the political scientist Emma Ashford upgraded a Ukrainian victory to a “dangerous fantasy.”
Just as Russia has surprised everyone by its poor military performance, however, Ukraine has surprised everyone, as well, punching far above its weight throughout the conflict. Russia’s attempt to take the capital was thwarted, and then its attempts to consolidate gains in the east and the south were disrupted. Russian troops were forced to withdraw from the Kharkiv region and Kherson. A brutal Russian air campaign against civilian infrastructure stiffened Ukraine’s will instead of breaking it. Recent Russian offensives in Bakhmut and elsewhere gained little ground at vast cost. And now, with Russian forces softened, Ukraine is launching a counteroffensive to take back more territory.
A common view of the war sees it as a military deadlock destined to end with a negotiated settlement far short of each side’s original goals. “Later this year, a stalemate is likely to emerge along a new line of contact,” argued the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, and the political scientist Charles Kupchan in April, and at that point the United States should nudge Ukraine into recognizing that “pursuing a full military victory” would be unwise. “An end to the war that leaves Ukraine in full control over all of its internationally recognized territory . . . remains a highly unlikely outcome,” asserted the political scientists Samuel Charap and Miranda Priebe in January, and so Washington should “condition future military aid on a Ukrainian commitment to negotiations” involving territorial compromise.
It is indeed likely that there will be a lull in the fighting after Ukraine’s coming offensive, as Kyiv consolidates its gains. But that will be only a pause in a still fluid conflict, not the emergence of a deadlock. There has not been and need not be a stalemate, thanks to Western military support and Ukraine’s remarkable ability to transform it into battlefield success. The world has not witnessed such a fruitful strategic collaboration since Israel used Western assistance to achieve devastating victories over larger, Soviet-supported Arab forces in 1967 and 1973. Because of the effectiveness of this partnership, there is no need to pressure Ukraine into a compromise peace. Instead, the United States and Europe should enable it to continue pushing Russian forces back to Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders. A true status-quo-ante ending to the war, reversing the gains Russia has made since its initial 2014 incursion, is not only possible but also the best option to shoot for. It would liberate Ukraine. It would establish a solid foundation for regional security. It would prove the liberal international order has a future as well as a past. And it would provide a winning model for post-hegemonic U.S. global leadership.
UKRAINE CAN WIN
The chief goal of Western governments over the past year and a half has been to help Ukraine stave off defeat. The United States, Europe, and other friendly countries have given large amounts of economic aid and increasingly powerful weapons to Kyiv, which has used them to keep itself in the fight. To avoid provoking Moscow, however, the West has kept a lid on the amount and nature of its help. It has avoided the possibility of direct clashes between NATO and Russian forces and eschewed direct attacks on Russia and its regime. And it has carefully chosen the weapons it sends, incrementally doling out some but not all the materiel Ukraine has requested.
Much of this is simple prudence, reflecting standard aspects of war in the nuclear age. It makes sense to keep Western intervention indirect and to limit the theater of combat, and those restrictions on the fighting should be maintained or even enforced more strictly, so as to prevent any more attacks on Moscow. But Ukraine’s demonstrated ability to put military aid to good use makes it sensible to relax the restrictions on that front, given how much reward can come from minimal added risk. As U.S. President Richard Nixon pointed out to his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, when supplying military aid to Israel during the Yom Kippur war in 1973, “Look, Henry, we’re going to get just as much blame for sending three [planes], if we send 30, or a hundred, or whatever we’ve got, so send them everything that flies. The main thing is—make it work.”
Rather than limiting conventional military aid to Ukraine, accordingly, the United States and Europe should increase the flow: more armor, artillery, and ammunition; improved air defenses; squadrons of fourth-generation jet fighters—the conventional works, for as long as it takes. Such a course is not only the right thing to do. It is also the best way to end the war, either by teeing up the possibility of a durable negotiated settlement or by allowing Kyiv’s forces to gain positions that they could defend indefinitely with continued assistance.
Many consider this policy option futile, dangerous, or distracting. Russia cannot be beaten, they say, because it will always have more resources to throw into the fight and an insatiable will to avoid defeat. Attempts to force Russia backward and retake Crimea could lead to nuclear escalation. And a focus on Ukraine and Russia comes at the expense of other, more important problems, such as Taiwan and China. All these concerns, however, are overblown.
A TEST OF WILLS
“Where are you in the war?” I asked a senior Ukrainian military official during a recent trip to Ukraine sponsored by the Renew Democracy Initiative. “Toward the end of the first half,” he replied. And in the second half, they’re coming out hot.
At first, Western aid was sharply curtailed. “We asked, ‘Can we have Stingers?’” Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov recounted. “We were told, ‘No, dig trenches and kill as many Russians as you can before it’s over.’ People thought our victory was impossible.” But as Ukrainian forces held out and continued to fight, the United States, European countries, and other friends of Ukraine eventually supplied a vast array of ever more sophisticated weapons. The Stingers came, and the HIMARS, and the Patriots, which I watched shoot down Russia’s supposedly unstoppable hypersonic Kinzhal missiles. Now, Reznikov said, Ukraine has “Bradleys, Strykers, Abrams, Leopards, and more.” And, eventually, the armor will be supported by F-16s.
The fresh, well-equipped, highly motivated Ukrainian brigades taking part in the offensive, meanwhile, are facing tired Russian forces with low spirits, little personal investment, and mediocre leadership. Like the Arab countries that fought Israel half a century ago, Russia has more manpower and materiel than its opponent but isn’t putting them to good use. “Russia has a huge set of tools but no understanding of how to employ them effectively,” the senior Ukrainian military official said. “There is nothing surprising about their war. They are using the classic Soviet approach; nothing has changed.” And Russia has no strategic plan; ever since the initial invasion failed, it has been improvising, with its commanders increasingly at odds. Moscow’s resources are becoming constrained through attrition and sanctions, and at this point its forces are no longer capable of significant offensive progress. The Ukrainians will be attacking elaborate fortifications, and the Russians are likely to be better at defense than offense. But this offensive should nevertheless make major gains and continue Ukraine’s track record of changing outsiders’ views about what outcomes are ultimately possible. (Earlier in the conflict, I was among those who thought it made sense for Ukraine to shoot for the 2022 status quo ante rather than the 2014 one.)
Officials in Kyiv do not believe this campaign alone can end the war. “Our goal is the full expulsion of Russia from Ukrainian territory,” said Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “If the offensive achieves that, it will be the last. If not, there will be more. If our weapons supplies get cut off, Ukraine will just shift to lower intensity war. We won’t give up; we won’t accept territorial losses.” Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv and a former world heavyweight champion boxer, echoed the point. “The goal is the 1991 borders, including Crimea. Maybe this year, maybe not. We can hope, but just have to keep going. It’s only a matter of time before Russia breaks.” Like the Russians, the Ukrainians see the war as not just a test of arms but a test of wills, and are convinced they have the advantage in both.
THE NUCLEAR BOGEYMAN
Many outside observers worry about what Russian President Vladimir Putin might do before such a break occurs, such as resort to the use of nuclear weapons. “Some Western analysts suggest that the United States and NATO should call the Kremlin’s bluff—they should more forthrightly back the Ukrainians and drive Russian forces out of Ukraine,” wrote the political scientist Nina Tannenwald in February, characterizing this as “a cavalier approach to the risk of nuclear escalation.” A proper approach to the risk, she claims, would recognize that the “shadow of nuclear weapons” constrains Ukraine’s options and means that “a good outcome for Kyiv will be more complicated to attain, and invariably less satisfying.” Charap and Priebe concurred: “Russian nuclear use in this war is plausible,” they wrote, and trying to prevent it should be “a paramount priority for the United States.” Putin is determined to fight to the bitter end no matter what the cost, asserted the scholars Rose McDermott, Reid Pauly, and Paul Slovi, and “is a man whom humanity will wish it had kept away from its most dangerous weapons.”
That is certainly true already. But humanity has survived those weapons being in far worse and less stable hands, from the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to the Chinese tyrant Mao Zedong to the brutal Kim dynasty in North Korea, and there is no reason to believe the pattern of post-1945 nuclear nonuse will change. The Ukrainians themselves, who would bear the brunt of any nuclear attack, know all about the supposed Russian redlines but are significantly less concerned than their American and European counterparts about crossing them.
“Professionally, I’m obliged to worry about nukes,” said the senior Ukrainian military official. “But I don’t see a high probability of it.” Kuleba, for his part, believes that “nuclear deterrence worked in the past, and it will continue to do so.” Reznikov was even more blunt: “I’m sure the nuclear threat is a bluff. Their weapons are out of date, and Moscow can’t be sure they’ll work. The Chinese and Indians have told them not to use nukes. And there is no place to use them. Battlefield use would hurt them as well as us, and general use would provoke retaliation and end any chance of negotiations.”
Washington sees the absence of Russian nuclear use so far as a triumph of its risk management. Kyiv sees it as confirmation that the threat was minor to begin with. The Ukrainians have inflicted hundreds of thousands of Russian casualties in the war and have suffered almost as many themselves. They don’t think Moscow is holding back effective military options or limiting its brutality; they see an enemy that is desperately throwing into the fight whatever it thinks might work. In Kyiv’s view, the conflict has stayed conventional because nuclear weapons are not particularly useful instruments of war, especially for close-in fighting over neighboring territory and friendly populations that Moscow is ostensibly trying to rescue. Nothing about that will change because of Kyiv’s conventional military successes. And even the execution of Moscow’s nuclear threats would not necessarily reverse the trend of the fighting and lead to a Russian victory.
The Ukrainians, in short, see a gap between the objective realities of the Russian situation and the Kremlin’s recognition of it. The next several months of fighting should reduce that gap, and then things will get interesting.
HOW TO PLAY THE ENDGAME
“This won’t be the last battle of the war,” the senior military official said. “Russia will need to suffer more to concede defeat. And the war won’t end even when we attain all the 1991 territory. Because we’ll still have an enemy neighbor. The end of this war is not just pushing out Russia and reclaiming our territory, but convincing Russia not to think about trying it again a few years down the road. We have no intention of leaving this war to our children.”
What might have seemed mere bravado a year and a half ago now sounds like a plausible strategic plan. When this offensive is over, Ukraine will probably have broken through Russian lines, regained significant chunks of territory, and put itself in a position to credibly threaten the remaining Russian-held areas over the long term, including Crimea. From there, Kyiv’s friends should prepare it to launch future offensives that could regain Ukraine all of its internationally recognized territory. Depending on the timing of Russia’s decision to cut its losses, this could lead to any of three scenarios, which might be called “Egypt 1973,” “Korea 1951,” and “Korea 1953.”
In the Yom Kippur War, the United States helped Israel gain the upper hand against Egypt and Syria and then used that threat for diplomatic leverage. As Kissinger put it to Nixon, “The strategy now diplomatically is to go for a cease-fire and maneuver to link it loosely to a permanent settlement. For pressure, we will begin a massive supply effort and stop it only with a cease-fire.” When the Israelis reached the Suez Canal and encircled Egyptian forces there, Washington brokered a deal that stopped the fighting, allowed the Egyptian forces to escape, and segued to broader peace negotiations, ultimately producing a settlement that has remained the bedrock of regional security ever since.
Russia has more manpower and materiel than its opponent but isn’t putting them to good use.
Like the Egyptians in 1973, a sensible government in Moscow today might respond to the prospect of imminent military catastrophe by accepting reality and agreeing to serious negotiations, trading an end to the fighting and recognition of Ukraine’s gains and future security concerns for, say, a new Russian-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty that allowed Moscow to continue basing its Black Sea Fleet in Crimea. It seems unlikely that the current Russian regime would make such a deal, but it is not impossible.
Even a credible threat to retake all Ukrainian territory, however, might not be enough to induce a true change of heart in Moscow, in which case it will be necessary to execute the threat, with Washington and its partners continuing to support Ukraine until its forces reach the 1991 borders. This would trigger the two hypothetical scenarios that echo the Korean War, both of which start with the restoration of the territorial status quo ante.
When North Korean forces attacked across the 38th parallel in June 1950, the United States backed South Korea and led a United Nations operation “to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace and security in the area.” The fortunes of war shifted back and forth in the months afterward, but by the early summer of 1951, the frontlines had begun to stabilize around the belligerents’ original positions, and the Truman administration decided that would be a logical place to end things. As Secretary of State Dean Acheson framed the U.S. position in June, “our aim is to stop the attack, end the aggression . . . , restore peace, providing against the renewal of the aggression. Those are the military purposes for which, as I understand it, the U.N. troops are fighting.” On June 23, the Soviet ambassador to the UN, Jacob Malik, suggested in a radio address that both sides agree to an armistice at the 38th parallel, and direct cease-fire negotiations between the belligerents began two weeks later. After two more years of fighting, an armistice was finally signed that froze the war along almost the exact same line of contact.
In Ukraine, this Korea 1951 scenario would involve Kyiv retaking all its territory and then continuing to hold it against renewed enemy attacks, fighting an open-ended war to secure its gains but being prepared to stop whenever the Russians are. Eventually, that could evolve into the Korea 1953 scenario, in which all sides agree that enough is enough and move to codify the outcome in a negotiated settlement that secures the territorial status quo ante. At that point, Ukraine’s friends could help it survive and thrive over the long term, offering a path to eventual membership in both the EU and NATO and locking Ukraine securely into Europe once and for all.
The fighting must continue until Moscow accepts that it cannot achieve territorial gains by military force.
The root cause of the war is Russia’s refusal to accept the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its willingness to take its former empire back by force. That problem will be fully solved only when Moscow accepts that its empire is gone for good and readjusts to life as a normal country rather than an international predator. Until that day comes, a Korean-style armistice would not be a bad model for Ukraine, as Charap recently noted: “In the nearly 70 years since, there has not been another outbreak of war on the peninsula. Meanwhile, South Korea emerged from the devastation of the 1950s to become an economic powerhouse and eventually a thriving democracy. A postwar Ukraine that is similarly prosperous and democratic with a strong Western commitment to its security would represent a genuine strategic victory.”
What Charap misses, however, is that this does not suggest rewarding aggression by leaving Moscow with significant territorial gains in Ukraine, because North Korea was not allowed to keep chunks of South Korea. The Korea analogy does not strengthen the case for starting negotiations now—to the contrary, it bolsters the argument for pushing Russian forces back across the prewar dividing line, fighting them off from there until they accept a draw, and then securing the line so they don’t cross it again.
Put simply, the fighting must continue until Moscow accepts that it cannot achieve territorial gains by military force. Until that psychological turning point is reached, Ukraine and its backers will have little choice but to keep frustrating Russia militarily. When Russia is ready to accept such an outcome, sanctions and other restrictions could be lifted. Before then, it will exhaust itself further in vain, stagnating on the international sidelines, hemmed in by a strong defensive line running from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea—a new iron curtain pulled down not to keep captured countries in but to keep their would-be capturer out.
It took defeat in two world wars before Germany got the message that aggression didn’t pay. It might take defeat not just in Ukraine but also in a second Cold War for Russia to learn the same lesson. Until then, the wall must be guarded. Just like the last time. A satisfactory outcome could take years to achieve, and the costs for Ukraine and its Western partners will be high. But the costs of not doing so would be even higher and come not just in Ukraine but throughout Europe and around the world.
THE WAR AFTER THE WAR
For the larger conflict to end, Russia will have to continue evolving. So will Ukraine. Domestic democratization is the war’s second front, and the struggle there will continue long after the guns in the east and the south are silent. The providers of foreign aid are right to care about corruption and accountability. The Ukrainians do, too. In November 2013, the Ukrainian journalist Mustafa Nayyem wrote a Facebook post calling on people to join him in the streets to protest Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s abandonment of an emerging partnership with Europe. This sparked what came to be known as the Maidan revolution, a mass popular uprising that toppled Yanukovych’s regime. A decade later, Nayyem, now a member of parliament, is the head of the State Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development and one of the key figures managing Ukraine’s reconstruction. “This war is the ultimate Russian response to Euromaidan,” he says. “It is the continuing and culmination of Ukraine’s fight for independence and freedom. We are escaping from our past, and the corruption is part of that. Reform is crucial, not just reconstruction. If our domestic promises aren’t fulfilled, after victory you’ll have another Maidan.”
Klitschko agrees. “Rebuilding buildings is not enough. It’s important to build the rule of law and democratic institutions. We need judicial reform, military reform, procurement reform. People expect a new and better country after the war.”
On this front, the Biden administration and other Western governments should embrace war skeptics and their concerns, matching generous aid with strong protections on how it is used. It is rare to hear foreign aid recipients begging for conditionality, but that is what Ukraine is doing. Be truly good friends, they say; support us but hold us to high standards.
FINISH THE JOB
As for the notion that this war represents a distraction from other, more urgent and important Western national security concerns, nothing could be further from the truth. Thanks to the conflict, NATO is sapping its enemy’s strength and learning invaluable lessons about the nature of modern combat—from the amount of materiel required to the importance of mixing commercial and military technology to the need for constant innovation and agile weapons development.
Battlefield success is the ultimate advertisement for any weapons system, and Ukraine’s performance means the demand for cutting-edge Western artillery, armor, and air defenses will only grow. The war has revealed dramatic shortcomings in the Western defense industrial base, but luckily in time to fix them before the situation becomes truly critical for its own security. Those who complain that there are not enough munitions to defend Ukraine, Taiwan, and the United States simultaneously are right. But the solution to the problem is not cutting off Ukraine; it is producing more stuff. Doing so will require the reform of sclerotic institutions and inefficient procurement practices, this time in Washington rather than Kyiv. The Department of Defense will have to mentally reclassify the conflict in Ukraine and learn its lessons; it is not a nuisance but a warning. Meanwhile, supporters of the war in both the administration and Congress will have to secure enough long-term funding to restore domestic production lines for crucial materiel ranging from guns to tanks, shells to drones, missiles to planes. This war is the most urgent and important issue on the national security agenda, and Western governments need to treat it as such.
The Taiwanese, like the Ukrainians, understand that their security is best served by forcing Russia to return to the status quo ante, no matter what the costs. “I think pushing back on aggression is the key message that will help to deter any consideration or miscalculation that an invasion can be conducted unpunished, without costs, in a rapid way,” Bi-khim Hsiao, Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the United States, told reporters recently. “We must ensure that anyone contemplating the possibility of an invasion understands that, and that is why Ukraine’s success in defending against aggression is so important also for Taiwan.” China hawks in Washington should agree, rather than portraying the Ukrainian conflict as the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong enemy.
However improbably, what began as a challenge to the American-sponsored global system is causing a revival of it, something a Ukrainian victory would drive home with a vengeance. In Ukraine, the United States is not unilaterally imposing its will on other countries but leading a broad coalition to restore international order. It is not committing war crimes but preventing them. It is not acting as the world’s policeman or as a global bully but as the arsenal of democracy. And it has been doing all this effectively and efficiently, without firing a gun or losing a single soldier. The effort to date has been a model of how to blend hard and soft power in a single strategy. Now it’s time to finish the job.
Foreign Affairs · by Gideon Rose · June 13, 2023
4. What Does the West Really Know About Xi’s China?
Excerpts:
Xi’s own biggest fear must be that he is chairing his country’s emerging decline.
Words matter in Chinese politics. The extraordinary emphasis on Xi’s personal role, unseen since the godlike worship of Mao, reveals not only the extent of his power but also the degree to which the party clings to his leadership. When the CCP gushes about “the status of Comrade Xi Jinping as the core of the party’s Central Committee and of the whole party” or about “the guiding role of Xi Jinping Thought,” it exposes some of its own uncertainty and insecurity. Today, even economic growth is less important than party power. For instance, controlling big companies is necessary even if it leads to them being less productive and profitable. No wonder some Chinese business leaders have started seeing the reform era as a gigantic scam patterned on Lenin’s New Economic Policy in the Soviet Union: to them, it seems that the party allowed business to create wealth just in order to confiscate it. Many wealthy people want to get out of China, at least for now.
Xi’s own biggest fear must be that, rather than presiding over China’s inevitable rise, he is chairing his country’s emerging decline. The economy is not doing well under the triple whammy of unnecessary and unpredictable government intervention, COVID-19 aftereffects, and declining rates of investment, both domestic and foreign. Meanwhile, the CCP has helped provoke severe diplomatic conflicts with all of China’s main markets in Australia, Europe, Japan, and North America. And the country is facing demographic decline at a scale and speed never seen before in the modern era. All of this must make Xi fear that instead of being a twenty-first-century Stalin or Mao, he may end up instead as China’s Brezhnev, catalyzing the gradual erosion of the values he holds dear.
Observers can see only the outward contours of Xi’s mindset. Much else is unknowable. For instance, it is impossible to tell how certain Xi is in his estimates of international politics. Outsiders do not know for sure how much influence the military and the intelligence services have on China’s foreign policy. Many in the West assume that the aggressive style of Beijing’s diplomats come from a need to show off China’s newfound strength and purpose as well as the superiority of Xi’s leadership. But it remains unclear how important extreme nationalism is to this style, and therefore whether it will necessarily be a lasting element in Chinese decision-making. And, most important for U.S. policy, analysts in the West do not know Xi’s timeline for his ostensible goals, such as absorbing Taiwan or attaining military preponderance in eastern Asia and the western Pacific.
Xi is reportedly fond of quoting two of Mao’s most famous sayings, both found in the Little Red Book. “All views that overestimate the strength of the enemy and underestimate the strength of the people are wrong,” goes the first one. The second quote is even clearer. “There are two winds in the world today, the east wind and the west wind,” Mao told the Soviets in 1957. “Either the east wind prevails over the west wind or the west wind prevails over the east wind. It is characteristic of the situation today, I believe, that the east wind is prevailing over the west wind.” Xi seems to agree. But he apparently needs a vast army of weathermen to tell him exactly which way the wind is blowing.
What Does the West Really Know About Xi’s China?
Why Outsiders Struggle to Understand Beijing’s Decision-Making
June 13, 2023
Foreign Affairs · by Odd Arne Westad · June 13, 2023
Figuring out how policy decisions are made in authoritarian regimes has always been hard. Winston Churchill famously referred to Soviet policymaking as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”—and he was not much wrong. Observers in the West could see the policy output of the Soviet Union, be it under Joseph Stalin or Leonid Brezhnev, by what those leaders said publicly and how they acted. But it was not easy to figure out what was going on inside their regimes, because access to information was so limited and fear prevented insiders from communicating even what they thought outsiders ought to know. In spite of occasional intelligence breakthroughs, U.S. policymaking was severely handicapped by a lack of understanding of how policy was made on the other side.
A similar situation is now taking shape with regard to China. Insights into decision-making in Beijing are harder to get than they have been for 50 years. The main reason for this is that the Chinese Communist Party is more authoritarian and less open than it has been at any point since Mao Zedong was in charge. People close to power are more fearful, and access to information is less widespread, even within the higher echelons of the regime. Outside observers therefore know much less than they did in decades past about how the party’s leaders arrive at their conclusions with regard to foreign policy. People in China are not yet experiencing the degree of fear and secrecy that they did under Mao, but they are getting there.
The big issue for foreign policy analysts is to figure out what they can know with some certainty about Chinese decision-making and what they cannot. And in establishing this knowledge, they need to watch out for common analytic errors, including forms of “past dependency” and mirror imaging. The former relates to the belief that patterns of the past will somehow be repeated in the present. The latter assumes that all governments and all politics tend to function in the same way, although within different settings. Some U.S. presidents have assumed that Chinese leaders’ view of the world will change very little and that they therefore will make decisions consistent with those of the past. Other U.S. leaders have tried to deal with their Chinese counterparts as if they were senators from the opposing political party or reluctant business partners. Such approaches have generally ended very badly.
POWER WITH A PURPOSE
What do analysts in the West know about the making of China’s foreign policy under President Xi Jinping? They know that in China, as in all major countries, foreign policy is first and foremost a reflection of domestic priorities. Xi has spent his time in office attempting to destroy all internal bases of power except his own. He wants to centralize authority around the leadership of the CCP and wipe out party factions, provincial groups, and business tycoons who could stand in his way. Xi believes that he needs such powers for several interrelated reasons. He believes in authoritarian rule and is convinced that it is a superior form of government to democracy. He concluded, early in his tenure, that his predecessors had been weak and that their weakness had given rise to domestic chaos and corruption, as well as to an unwillingness to stand up for China’s interests abroad. And he sees China under his rule as having entered a triumphant new era, the successes of which have so alarmed the West, and the United States in particular, that these countries, who are by nature inimical to China, will do anything to prevent China’s continued rise.
The United States has given CCP leaders many reasons to fear U.S. power and distrust U.S. intentions. But it is unlikely that such actions, however ill-advised, have made Xi an authoritarian set on profoundly changing his country’s development path. Xi surveyed China’s road through the reform era since the 1970s and saw much that he did not like, especially the economic, geographic, and institutional dispersal of power. He did not, of course, deplore China’s remarkable economic growth, but he wanted that growth to serve a purpose beyond merely making some people rich. Xi’s aim for the past decade has been the promulgation of such a purpose, which he believes lies in recentralization, the consolidation of party power, and confrontation with the United States. All of his key initiatives, such as Belt and Road, the China Dream, and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, have been made to serve this aim.
How well Xi’s purpose coincides with the views of the CCP elite, never mind the population as a whole, is very hard to tell. There is little doubt that his concerns about corruption and lax governance were shared by many Chinese in the early 2010s. The contempt with which newly rich Chinese treated officials and ordinary people alike was bound to create resentment and bitterness. The image of “Xi Dada” (roughly meaning “big daddy Xi”) as a people’s emperor who punished corruption and humbled haughty business leaders was a genuinely popular one, at least for a while. It was not until Xi grossly overreacted to the COVID-19 pandemic that the public began to ask tougher questions about his intentions. By then, however, it was much too late; Xi had consolidated his power within the CCP and the party had extended its reach into society more deeply than at any point since the Mao era. Repression and surveillance are now everywhere, although few expect a return to the labor camps and mass executions of the 1950s and 1960s. But current conditions are a far cry from the relatively liberal era that stretched from Mao’s death in 1976 until Xi’s rise.
BEIJING’S WHO’S WHO
The reason why Xi could undertake his wholesale reevaluation of policies and the setting of new purposes without any form of discussion, except at the highest levels of the CCP, is indicative of the almost total lack of political pluralism in China and the lack of democracy within the party. Xi, by virtue of being the general secretary of the CCP, has unlimited power over the party’s organization because of the principle of “democratic centralism” inherited from Lenin and Stalin, via Mao. When a decision has been taken at the party center—in theory by the CCP Central Committee but in reality by Xi and his tight-knit entourage—party members at all levels have one task: obeying directives and carrying them out. In the 1990s and the first decade of this century, CCP officials claimed that there was no need to change these structures, because more liberal practices were so entrenched among the party faithful. They did not realize, or refused to reflect on, the obvious fact that a general secretary could use the full powers of that position to eradicate any trace of liberalism within the party. Xi’s style of decision-making is one of the consequences of this failure of imagination.
For much of the past 40 years, CCP leaders have wanted to even out the power of the party apparatus with that of government institutions, which—at least in theory—represented the whole country, including the 93 percent of the population who are not members of the CCP. The party has always been the center of power. But diversifying the ways in which ordinary people encountered the state helped create a sense of equity and balance. It also increased the party’s legitimacy. Outsiders could be made to believe that the CCP was almost like a typical political party in power rather than a revolutionary organization that conquered the country by force. CCP leaders have often presented themselves in public not solely as party figures but also as government officials. And CCP political theorists began discussing a more limited and clearly defined role for the party within the Chinese system of government, including experiments with political participation at the grassroots and straw polls for lower-level leadership positions.
Xi has reversed all of this. Now, party institutions and CCP Central Committee commissions take precedence over those representing the government. A number of top-level councils on economic policy, planning, and military and strategic affairs have changed from primarily serving the State Council, China’s central government, to working almost exclusively for the CCP Politburo. The Central Military Commission, which directs all of China’s armed forces, has always been headed by the party’s most senior leader. But now it is openly referred to as the “Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China” much more often than the “Central Military Commission of the People's Republic of China.” Sometimes, the earlier government-style naming conventions are kept for external use. The Cyberspace Administration of China, a government institution, is in reality the “Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission of the CCP.” And the Taiwan and Hong Kong offices of the State Council are identical to the CCP Secretariat’s “work offices” dealing with the same regions.
Party leaders lay bare a striking combination of hubris and fear.
This trend toward emphasizing party power is perhaps most visible on national security issues. Under Xi, the CCP’s Central National Security Commission has become the key institution for all foreign and security problems, often presenting the Politburo with ready-made proposals for decisions. In some cases, the commission proposes policies directly to Xi, through the general secretary’s office, without going through the Politburo. Although other central party commissions dealing with international issues have kept some of their influence, they are now clearly subordinate to the commission on day-to-day issues. The Central Foreign Affairs Commission, headed by a former foreign minister and current Politburo member, Wang Yi, mainly deals with foreign policy at the strategic level and does not meet, even at the deputies level, with anything like the frequency of the security commission.
The new prominence of the party’s Central National Security Commission is, in part, a response to what has been a complicated and confused list of government and party institutions that contribute to the making of China’s foreign policy. Beijing insiders still list 18 or 19 different organizations that, at least on paper, have the right to propose policies to the Politburo (with the Foreign Ministry halfway down that list in terms of influence). But although some centralization may have been unavoidable, this is centralization with Xi’s characteristics. The purpose seems to be to make all other national security bureaucracies subservient to one commission, through which Xi can exercise his power.
Knowing who serves on the CNSC is therefore of utmost importance for understanding China’s foreign-policy making. The full composition of the commission and its key staffers is secret. But a partial picture is available. The commission is, unsurprisingly, chaired by Xi, with Premier Li Qiang and National People’s Congress Chair Zhao Leji as his deputies. The fourth-ranked CCP leader, Wang Huning, is also a member, and, according to sources in Beijing, Wang—who started out as a foreign affairs expert—is perhaps the most influential presence after Xi himself. Cai Qi, Xi’s chief of staff, who has served on the CNSC since its inception, coordinates its day-to-day work, assisted by his deputy Liu Haixing. Liu is the son of Liu Shuqing, a diplomat and intelligence officer who set up the CNSC’s predecessor organization in the 1990s. Liu Jianchao, director of the CCP’s International Liaison Department, and his deputy Guo Yezhou are influential members, since their department has supplied many of the commission’s staffers. Under Xi, Politburo members Wang Yi, Chen Wenqing, and General Zhang Youxia serve on the commission as, respectively, the senior foreign affairs, state security and intelligence, and military leaders. Even though they rank below the most important authorities in their fields, Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Defense Minister Li Shangfu are known to have Xi’s ear, and they may have more influence on the CNSC than their predecessors did when they held these offices. Interestingly, in terms of priorities, Qin’s expertise is in how to present China’s foreign policy abroad. And Li, an aerospace engineer by training, has a career dealing with space and cyber issues.
IT’S XI’S WORLD
Xi has adopted a much broader concept of national security than his predecessors. The CNSC has working groups on nuclear security, cybersecurity, and biosecurity. But it also has sub-groups setting policy for internal security and terrorist threats. Its new fields of concentration are what it calls “ideological security” and “identity security.” Ideological security refers to the CCP leaders’ fear of what they see as U.S.-instigated “color revolutions” in other countries. Identity security is much broader. It includes how to build a patriotic image of the CCP and how to get Chinese people to equate criticism of the CCP to criticism of China and of the Chinese nation. National security, in other words, is as much about domestic politics as it is about international affairs and as much about the hearts and minds of the Chinese people as about military preparedness and new types of weapons.
There is little doubt that Xi uses the extended national concept, just as he has used his anticorruption campaign, to control what other party leaders say and do. He has often issued thinly veiled criticisms of former leaders, including Deng Xiaoping and other early reformers, for not doing enough to make China secure and for not standing up for China’s interests. The message, so clear in Xi’s unprecedented election to a third term as general secretary, is that only Xi can defeat the threats that China and the CCP face.
In seeing security threats everywhere, party leaders lay bare a striking combination of hubris and fear. Although they believe that the future belongs to them, they are afraid of domestic subversion. Xi’s aggressive and confrontational style suits this dilemma perfectly. Xi has become the guarantor of security for the CCP but also for many Chinese who see the outside world as threatening. Most officials are trying to adopt his style and work toward what they understand—not always clearly—as his aims.
Xi’s own biggest fear must be that he is chairing his country’s emerging decline.
Words matter in Chinese politics. The extraordinary emphasis on Xi’s personal role, unseen since the godlike worship of Mao, reveals not only the extent of his power but also the degree to which the party clings to his leadership. When the CCP gushes about “the status of Comrade Xi Jinping as the core of the party’s Central Committee and of the whole party” or about “the guiding role of Xi Jinping Thought,” it exposes some of its own uncertainty and insecurity. Today, even economic growth is less important than party power. For instance, controlling big companies is necessary even if it leads to them being less productive and profitable. No wonder some Chinese business leaders have started seeing the reform era as a gigantic scam patterned on Lenin’s New Economic Policy in the Soviet Union: to them, it seems that the party allowed business to create wealth just in order to confiscate it. Many wealthy people want to get out of China, at least for now.
Xi’s own biggest fear must be that, rather than presiding over China’s inevitable rise, he is chairing his country’s emerging decline. The economy is not doing well under the triple whammy of unnecessary and unpredictable government intervention, COVID-19 aftereffects, and declining rates of investment, both domestic and foreign. Meanwhile, the CCP has helped provoke severe diplomatic conflicts with all of China’s main markets in Australia, Europe, Japan, and North America. And the country is facing demographic decline at a scale and speed never seen before in the modern era. All of this must make Xi fear that instead of being a twenty-first-century Stalin or Mao, he may end up instead as China’s Brezhnev, catalyzing the gradual erosion of the values he holds dear.
Observers can see only the outward contours of Xi’s mindset. Much else is unknowable. For instance, it is impossible to tell how certain Xi is in his estimates of international politics. Outsiders do not know for sure how much influence the military and the intelligence services have on China’s foreign policy. Many in the West assume that the aggressive style of Beijing’s diplomats come from a need to show off China’s newfound strength and purpose as well as the superiority of Xi’s leadership. But it remains unclear how important extreme nationalism is to this style, and therefore whether it will necessarily be a lasting element in Chinese decision-making. And, most important for U.S. policy, analysts in the West do not know Xi’s timeline for his ostensible goals, such as absorbing Taiwan or attaining military preponderance in eastern Asia and the western Pacific.
Xi is reportedly fond of quoting two of Mao’s most famous sayings, both found in the Little Red Book. “All views that overestimate the strength of the enemy and underestimate the strength of the people are wrong,” goes the first one. The second quote is even clearer. “There are two winds in the world today, the east wind and the west wind,” Mao told the Soviets in 1957. “Either the east wind prevails over the west wind or the west wind prevails over the east wind. It is characteristic of the situation today, I believe, that the east wind is prevailing over the west wind.” Xi seems to agree. But he apparently needs a vast army of weathermen to tell him exactly which way the wind is blowing.
Foreign Affairs · by Odd Arne Westad · June 13, 2023
5. Ceding ground in Ukraine, Russia kills civilians in apartment block strike
Ceding ground in Ukraine, Russia kills civilians in apartment block strike
Reuters · by Max Hunder
- Summary
- More residents feared trapped under rubble
- Kyiv claims to have recaptured 90 square km
- Military experts say main Ukrainian assault yet to begin
KRYVYI RIH, Ukraine, June 13 (Reuters) - A Russian missile strike killed at least six civilians in an apartment building in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's hometown on Tuesday, while Moscow's forces yielded ground in the early stages of a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Residents sobbed outside the burnt-out apartment block and smoke billowed after the early-morning attack in Kryvyi Rih, a half-hour drive from the huge reservoir emptied last week by the destruction of a dam that flooded a swathe of southern Ukraine.
Officials said at least 25 people were wounded and others could still be trapped under the rubble of the five-storey apartment block hit early in the morning.
Survivors described two explosions. Olha Chernousova said she was thrown out of her bed by a violent blast wave. She escaped onto her balcony to wait for rescuers. "I thought I would have to jump into a tree."
The street and courtyard were strewn with glass and bricks. At least five cars were ruined husks.
"Russian killers continue their war against residential buildings, ordinary cities and people," Zelenskiy said on Telegram. The Ukrainian president was born in the city.
Moscow denies intentionally targeting civilians. It has stepped up missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities in recent weeks as Kyiv unleashed a long-awaited counteroffensive to recapture territory held by Russian troops.
After seven months of a huge Russian offensive that yielded scant gains despite the bloodiest ground combat in Europe since World War Two, Ukraine began its assault last week.
So far the offensive is still in its early days, with tens of thousands of fresh Ukrainian troops and hundreds of Western armoured vehicles yet to be committed to the fight.
Confirmed video footage from villages over the past two days show that Ukraine has already captured more ground than at any time since November.
[1/7] A view shows a residential building heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine June 13, 2023. Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military-Civil Administration Serhii Lysak via Telegram/Handout via REUTERS
But it has yet to pierce Russia's main defensive lines, which Moscow has had months to prepare.
Russia has also accused Ukraine of cross-border shelling as Kyiv carries out counteroffensive operations. The governor of Kursk in Russia said on Tuesday several houses had been damaged and power supplies disrupted in two villages in the region near the border. Ukraine does not comment on reports of incidents in Russia.
During the early hours of Tuesday, air raid sirens blared across the whole of Ukraine, with Kyiv's military officials saying air defence forces destroyed all Russian missiles targeting the capital.
Ukraine's top military command said that air forces destroyed 10 out of 14 cruise missiles Russia launched on Ukraine and one of four Iranian-made drones.
After a week of giving little or no information about its offensive, Ukraine said on Monday it had recaptured seven settlements so far. Troops have advanced up to 6.5 km (four miles) and seized 90 square km of ground along a 100 km-long stretch of the southern front line, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said.
Russia has not acknowledged any Ukrainian gains and says its forces have repelled advances since June 4.
Russia's Defence Ministry released video footage on Tuesday of what it said were German-made Leopard tanks and U.S.-made Bradley Fighting Vehicles captured by Russian forces in a battle with Ukrainian forces.
Reuters could not immediately verify the location or timing of the footage.
Military analysts say the fighting so far is probably still probing attacks by the Ukrainians who have yet to unleash the bulk of their forces, while Russia's main defensive fortifications still lie further back.
Last week's destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam created a humanitarian disaster across both sides of the front line in the war zone and could damage agriculture in one of the world's breadbaskets for decades.
Both sides have accused each other of sabotaging it. Western countries say Ukraine would have had no reason to inflict such a catastrophe on itself, especially just as its forces were taking the offensive.
Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Angus MacSwan
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Reuters · by Max Hunder
6. Russia releases video of captured German tanks, U.S. fighting vehicles in Ukraine
Russia releases video of captured German tanks, U.S. fighting vehicles in Ukraine
Reuters · by Reuters
June 13 (Reuters) - Russia's Defence Ministry released video footage on Tuesday of what it said were German-made Leopard tanks and U.S.-made Bradley Fighting Vehicles captured by Russian forces in a battle with Ukrainian troops.
Reuters could not immediately verify the location and timing of the footage, which the Defence Ministry said was filmed on the Zaporizhzhia front in southern Ukraine, one of the areas where Ukrainian forces have been trying to counter-attack.
What appeared to be two German-made Leopard tanks were shown in the footage, which was released on the ministry's official channel on the Telegram messaging application, along with two damaged U.S.-made Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
In a short statement accompanying the footage, the ministry called the captured military hardware "our trophies" and said the video showed soldiers from its Vostok (East) military grouping inspecting the equipment.
It noted that the engines of some of the vehicles were still running, evidence it said of how quickly their Ukrainian crews had fled.
Reuters cannot verify such battlefield accounts.
Ukraine said on Monday its troops had recaptured a string of villages from Russian forces along an approximately 100-km (60-mile) front in the southeast since starting its long-anticipated counteroffensive last week.
Unconfirmed reports from Russian military bloggers suggest Russian forces may have recaptured some territory which they ceded in recent days.
Reporting by Andrew Osborn and Felix Light Editing by Gareth Jones
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Reuters · by Reuters
7. Americans Should Prepare for Cyber Sabotage From Chinese Hackers, US Official Warns
Stay alert. Be vigilant. Be resilient.
Americans Should Prepare for Cyber Sabotage From Chinese Hackers, US Official Warns
By Reuters
|
June 12, 2023, at 2:14 p.m.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2023-06-12/americans-should-prepare-for-cyber-sabotage-from-chinese-hackers-us-official-warns
By Raphael Satter
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chinese hackers are all but certain to disrupt American critical infrastructure, such as pipelines and railways, in the event of a conflict with the United States, a senior U.S. cybersecurity official said Monday.
In comments made during an appearance at the Aspen Institute in Washington, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly said Beijing was making major investments in the capability to sabotage U.S. infrastructure.
"This, I think, is the real threat that we need to be prepared for, and to focus on, and to build resilience against," she told her audience.
She cautioned that Americans needed to be prepared for the likelihood that Beijing's hackers would dodge their defenses and cause damage in the physical world.
"Given the formidable nature of the threat from Chinese state actors, given the size of their capability, given how much resources and effort they're putting into it, it's going to be very, very difficult for us to prevent disruptions from happening," she said.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request seeking a reaction to the warning.
Easterly's comments followed a question about an alleged Chinese hacking group known as Volt Typhoon, which U.S. officials and cybersecurity companies accused of positioning itself to carry out destructive cyberattacks in the event of a conflict.
Her comments expanded on a warning issued earlier this year by the U.S. intelligence community, which said in its annual threat assessment that Beijing "certainly would consider undertaking aggressive cyber operations against U.S. homeland critical infrastructure" and military targets should Chinese decisionmakers believe a major fight with the United States were imminent.
(Reporting by Raphael Satter; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
8. Why Norms Matter More than Ever for Space Deterrence and Defense
Conclusion:
Because of the pace of progress in space today, if the United States does not play a leading role in supporting the development of norms of behavior for space, norms will develop without U.S. input. This raises the risk that the U.S. national security space enterprise would then be put in the position of choosing between complying with norms counter to U.S. interests or violating the norms and becoming subject to pressure, responses, and censure by the international community. Norms, when done right, can be helpful for defense and deterrence, but it still takes effort and cooperation to strike the right balance. Forfeiting a role in that discussion could also mean forfeiting the benefits of a strategically, environmentally, and politically sound norm regime.
Such a norm regime could be incredibly complex and feature a diverse range of norms. To address problems of confusion and unintended escalation during a crisis, key norms could include clarifying which behaviors in space would be seen as threatening and promoting the use of lines of communication and points of contact between operators. The norms on threatening behaviors can also contribute to the planning and coordination of responses to those threats. Standards for interoperability, norms for information sharing and threat education, and other norms for standards and resources to help vulnerable space actors protect themselves in space and cyberspace can make the whole of U.S. industry and allied coalitions more resilient.
Norms do not solve all problems of space security. They can, however, provide more stable and predictable paths to peace in a crisis, support coalitions and coordination, and enhance responses to threats. Current efforts to build norms are a vital component in a comprehensive U.S. strategy to ensure security and stability in space.
Why Norms Matter More than Ever for Space Deterrence and Defense - War on the Rocks
warontherocks.com · by Robin Dickey · June 13, 2023
Diplomacy and defense have always gone hand-in-hand, and space is no exception. Space has become a fundamental part of daily life and of U.S. national security, ranging from command and control to intelligence and navigation. As the uses of space grow in significance, so too has the question of how to keep space systems safe and secure, and one of the potential answers to that question is to fill in gaps in norms of responsible behavior for space. What may seem like a relatively niche topic actually supports a broad swath of U.S. strategic objectives and has become a central line of effort in protecting national security interests in the space domain. America’s space norm efforts have moved beyond broad public statements and into national defense policies and strategies.
In response, some commentators have questioned the value of space norms for defense and deterrence. After all, a norm cannot prevent a determined adversary from taking aggressive actions, nor can it intercept a missile or shield a satellite from attack. Criticisms include allegations that nonbinding norms are relatively toothless, that they can unnecessarily constrain U.S. behavior, or that bad actors will simply ignore norms and do what they want anyway. There is some validity in each of these critiques. Yet, norms do play a crucial role in space security, as they have in other domains for centuries.
Very few norms have been fully developed yet from a space security perspective, and further developing norms of behavior for space is an important project for defense and deterrence in the domain. While norms constrain some freedom of action, they can also play a key role in: dispelling confusion; facilitating coordination among allies and partners during crisis or conflict; and identifying and responding to aggression. These impacts can help achieve the ultimate space security goals of preventing conflict in space, persevering through conflict should it occur, and protecting the use of space for future generations in the United States and around the world.
Become a Member
While many of these dynamics have not been truly tested in space due to (thankfully) the lack of open warfare in the domain to date, similar norms have performed these roles in other domains for decades or centuries. Norm development is one of many tools that can and should be applied strategically to preserve stability and promote U.S. interests in space. While there are many potential norms that could be considered as components of a norm-enabled space security strategy, of particular value could be norms such as identifying “threatening” on-orbit behaviors, establishing lines of communication between satellite operators, developing standards for interoperability of systems and data, and promoting information sharing and resource provision to potentially vulnerable space actors. The benefits of space norms to deterrence and defense appear to outweigh the costs, and those benefits should not be ignored just because their effects are often subtle.
What’s in a Norm?
One of the greatest challenges in debating the value of norms for space is that there is no commonly accepted definition for what a norm is. Sometimes the term “norm” is used to refer only to nonbinding guidelines for behavior, while in other cases it is used most broadly. There can also be confusion over whether “norm” means “normal” (as in something that is commonly done) or rather “normative,” referring to a value judgement that some behaviors are good and others are bad. One definition adapted from academic literature gives a productive lens for thinking about norms in the space context as generally accepted standards of appropriate behavior.
Generally accepted standards of appropriate behavior can take on many different forms and can be established in many different ways, but the “generally accepted” part is key. Thus far, norms of behavior in space have been limited to broad legal principles such as avoiding “harmful contamination” of space, unwritten agreements such as respecting the right of satellites to “fly” over the territory of different countries on Earth, and nonbinding guidelines for limiting orbital debris and operating sustainably. As such, some senior leaders in the United States have characterized space as the “Wild, Wild West.” While space is not entirely a legal or diplomatic vacuum as that description implies, there are significant gaps, overlaps, and ambiguities leaving lots of room to grow in terms of building common expectations on what behaviors are acceptable or not.
The current space security norm development efforts pursued by the United States include a wide range of approaches. U.S. Space Command has publicized specific responsible behaviors that it models in operations, the United States has announced a unilateral commitment to not conduct destructive direct-ascent anti-satellite missile tests that has been mirrored by other countries and a widely supported U.N. resolution, and discussions in a U.N. open-ended working group have tried to build common understanding among countries on potential space security norms.
Cutting Through Confusion
Norms can help prevent crises based on miscommunication or misperception from escalating into conflict. Many tragedies and violent incidents have occurred due to failures of communication. For example, several commercial airliners have been shot down because they were misidentified as a military aircraft. In some cases, the pilot didn’t receive warnings to change course or was completely unaware that a military saw them as a threat and was about to shoot. There are already early signs of similar issues in space, such as China claiming SpaceX doesn’t answer messages when Starlink satellites get close to China’s crewed space station. Limits on space situational awareness — and a lack of clear and consistent means to contact relevant satellite operators in a crisis — create a dangerous foundation for perceived threats to spiral into hostile actions in space.
Norms help avoid or defuse these crises by ensuring that all space actors know which behaviors might be seen as threatening so benign actors can avoid them. Lines of communication and standards for space situational awareness can help operators resolve disputes and get a common picture of the situation. These kinds of norms provide off-ramps to avoid escalation when possible by providing alternatives to risk postures of shooting at potential threats first and asking questions later. Issues of defense and deterrence are difficult enough without the fog and friction of conflict: Norms can help cut through this fog, which may someday make the difference between peace and an unintended war.
Coordinating with Allies and Partners
Another important and often overlooked role for norms in defense is in coordinating actions among partners and allies. Friction between allies who are not on the same page operationally can be a major obstacle to acting as partners. In an infamous tale of the Napoleonic Wars, the Austrian army got encircled and defeated in 1805 reportedly because their allies, the Russians, were using a different calendar that put them twelve days behind. Today, coalitions are growing ever more complex, with operations often including participants from different services, countries, and commercial actors as well as militaries. The war in Ukraine has demonstrated the particular diversity of space actors who may participate in a conflict and indicates the difficulty of anticipating all potential partners. Norms help ensure diverse actors are already following similar standards for things like information sharing and system interoperability, removing potential challenges to coalition formation faster than having to resolve such issues bilaterally. In this broad sense, there are already numerous norms for describing activity in space, including for fundamental things like how to specify orbital parameters for satellites and debris objects.
Norms also help to mitigate the risk of technical or organizational “weak links” within a coalition. When there is no single leader to set rules and control quality for an entire group, norms can incentivize raising technologies and practices up to an acceptable minimal level across the team. This is particularly relevant as the Department of Defense partners with an increasingly diverse range of companies and especially non-traditional providers, some of which have fewer resources and less experience than others. For example, common cybersecurity standards for commercial space operators could minimize the possibility of “weak links” that could become targets of cyberattacks. Therefore, norms can help to make the interconnected space enterprise more resilient.
Identifying and Responding to Aggression
Perhaps most importantly, norms can help identify, deter, or respond to hostile behaviors. As senior national security space official Audrey Schaffer put it, norms “can play a critical role in detecting and responding to threats.” Violation of an internationally recognized norm may provide a signal of hostile intent or potential future escalation, enabling those threatened to monitor, prepare, and mobilize others for action. Norms also strengthen the application of rules of engagement by clarifying the definition of hostile or threatening acts and enabling decisions on self-defense. The existence of a norm alone is unlikely to stop a determined nation from hostile action, but clear norms accepted by multiple nations that have access to their diplomatic, military, and economic elements of national power can reduce the barriers to international responses to aggressive behaviors in space, thus making deterrence more credible and effective. The norm effect can range from generating political or economic support for a unilateral response to triggering an international coalition to punish or roll back the norm violator. When Russia broke norms of territorial integrity and began committing war crimes in Ukraine, the United States was able to help rally an international response including unprecedented sanctions on Russia, massive security assistance to Ukraine, and votes by 141 countries in the United Nations to condemn the invasion.
Even if the mere existence of a norm does not prevent bad actors from violating it, the use of norms to identify and organize collective responses to hostile behaviors helps to disincentivize violations. The measure of the strength of a norm is not whether it remains unviolated forever, but in the breadth and intensity of the response to a violation. As such, a well-developed norm will convey not only which behaviors are acceptable or unacceptable, but also demonstrate incentives and disincentives to motivate actors to follow the norm and impose consequences on those who do not. The pairing of incentives with specific behaviors is at the heart of norm development, even when the incentives are not explicit, and taking a strategic approach to appropriately pairing behaviors and incentives could greatly increase the comprehensiveness and effectiveness of norms for space.
This dynamic speaks to the larger relationship between diplomacy and war. Norms of behavior are means to achieve political ends, and they are a potential tool just like military weapons or fortifications. The pursuit of norms of behavior is not mutually exclusive with the development of military plans and capabilities, and the strategic use of both these tools in tandem can accomplish more in space defense and deterrence than either can apart. As Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force, put it: “We have the ability to live well within the responsible behaviors. We wrote the responsible behaviors around how we think business should be done. These are not handcuffs that prevent us from doing anything that we want to do.” Space security experts and decision-makers would do well to think of norms and defense not as in competition with each other, but as complementary parts of a strategic whole.
Conclusion
Because of the pace of progress in space today, if the United States does not play a leading role in supporting the development of norms of behavior for space, norms will develop without U.S. input. This raises the risk that the U.S. national security space enterprise would then be put in the position of choosing between complying with norms counter to U.S. interests or violating the norms and becoming subject to pressure, responses, and censure by the international community. Norms, when done right, can be helpful for defense and deterrence, but it still takes effort and cooperation to strike the right balance. Forfeiting a role in that discussion could also mean forfeiting the benefits of a strategically, environmentally, and politically sound norm regime.
Such a norm regime could be incredibly complex and feature a diverse range of norms. To address problems of confusion and unintended escalation during a crisis, key norms could include clarifying which behaviors in space would be seen as threatening and promoting the use of lines of communication and points of contact between operators. The norms on threatening behaviors can also contribute to the planning and coordination of responses to those threats. Standards for interoperability, norms for information sharing and threat education, and other norms for standards and resources to help vulnerable space actors protect themselves in space and cyberspace can make the whole of U.S. industry and allied coalitions more resilient.
Norms do not solve all problems of space security. They can, however, provide more stable and predictable paths to peace in a crisis, support coalitions and coordination, and enhance responses to threats. Current efforts to build norms are a vital component in a comprehensive U.S. strategy to ensure security and stability in space.
Become a Member
Robin Dickey is a member of the technical staff at The Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy. She focuses on space policy and strategy issues related to national security, geopolitics, and international relations.
Image: NASA
Commentary
warontherocks.com · by Robin Dickey · June 13, 2023
9. Marine Corps in 'civil war' with mysterious group of senior retired officers
"Mysterious?" It seems that they have been transparent. What is the mystery?
Excerpts:
In his Force Design 2030 plan, Berger has pushed for smaller units that are lighter and more technologically-equipped to prepare the U.S. for potential conflict with China. Berger’s plan included the departure from the military branch’s use of tanks and reduced the number of artillery units and infantry Marines in order to fund experimental “Stand-in Forces” and “Expeditionary Advanced Based Operations,” a CSIS analysis concluded.
Retired Marine Corps officers argue that Force Design 2030 risks U.S. national security by undermining the character of the Marine Corps, violating long-standing protocols, and diminishing the Marine Corps’ ability to handle worldwide threats.
The different perspectives between the retired Marine Corps officers and the current leadership of the military branch highlights the ongoing cultural debate centered around the Marine Corps.
“Their ‘debate’ is indeed a cultural issue, not a war fighting issues,” Brian Kerg, a fellow at the Marine Corps University’s Kulak Center, explained in a statement on twitter.
Marine Corps in 'civil war' with mysterious group of senior retired officers
americanmilitarynews.com · by Timothy Frudd · June 12, 2023
Current U.S. Marine Corps leadership is hotly divided with retired officers on Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger’s service restructuring plan.
According to The Daily Caller, a vocal group of retired Marine officers believe the outgoing commandant’s restructuring plan will “undercut” the Marine Corps’ fundamental character, as well as America’s national security.
“There is an intellectual civil war going on in the Marine Corps,” Mark Cancian, retired Marine Corps Reserve colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said.
Berger announced the new Force Design 2030 vision in 2020. The plan was based on assumptions made regarding China’s ability to present the most significant threat to the United States over the next decade and the Indo-Pacific as the geographic location that posed the highest likelihood for potential conflict.
“We cannot accept or accede to recommendations for incremental change or better versions of legacy capabilities, but must pursue transformational capabilities that will provide naval fleets and joint force commanders with a competitive advantage in the gray zone and during contingency,” Force Design 2030’s policy stated.
In his Force Design 2030 plan, Berger has pushed for smaller units that are lighter and more technologically-equipped to prepare the U.S. for potential conflict with China. Berger’s plan included the departure from the military branch’s use of tanks and reduced the number of artillery units and infantry Marines in order to fund experimental “Stand-in Forces” and “Expeditionary Advanced Based Operations,” a CSIS analysis concluded.
Retired Marine Corps officers argue that Force Design 2030 risks U.S. national security by undermining the character of the Marine Corps, violating long-standing protocols, and diminishing the Marine Corps’ ability to handle worldwide threats.
The different perspectives between the retired Marine Corps officers and the current leadership of the military branch highlights the ongoing cultural debate centered around the Marine Corps.
“Their ‘debate’ is indeed a cultural issue, not a war fighting issues,” Brian Kerg, a fellow at the Marine Corps University’s Kulak Center, explained in a statement on twitter.
In an effort to address the current “civil war” in the Marine Corps and address concerns with Force Design 2030, Berger updated the plan earlier this year.
“The first two pages of the update seek to refute the generals’ criticisms, portraying FD 2030 as global, combined arms, force in readiness,” Cancian told The Daily Caller.
Assistant Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith has also explained that the transformation of the Marine Corps does not mean that the Marine Corps will completely abandon its role as a “crisis response force.” Instead, he said the Marine Corps units in the Pacific will be trained, equipped, and reorganized to be able to address the threat of China, while still remaining effective in other areas of potential conflict around the world.
americanmilitarynews.com · by Timothy Frudd · June 12, 2023
10. America’s Allies Are More Dependent on Washington Than Ever Before
More dependence or better integration?
Excerpts:
U.S. allies’ growing dependency, however, is revealed through several of the Biden administration’s recent undertakings: it sold nuclear-powered submarines to Australia as part of the AUKUS security pact, agreed to supply Ukraine with battle tanks despite Pentagon resistance, and recommitted to using the U.S. nuclear arsenal to deter a North Korean attack on South Korea. Finland finalized its NATO membership in April, but instead of its supposedly capable military guarding its border with Russia, it appears U.S. forces will be shouldering that burden instead.
American partners in Europe and the Indo-Pacific initially reacted to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by pledging to rapidly increase their defense spending and expand their military capacities, but over a year later, there is little evidence this has occurred.
...
If Washington truly wishes to have a robust global alliance network, it must take tangible actions to create more balanced and sustainable international partnerships that prioritize core U.S. national interests. Having capable allies is a necessary foundation for promoting a safe and peaceful world.
America’s Allies Are More Dependent on Washington Than Ever Before
By Grant Golub
June 13, 2023
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/06/13/americas_allies_are_more_dependent_on_washington_than_ever_before_940323.html
At the latest G-7 summit in Japan, President Biden signaled he would allow Ukrainian pilots to be trained on American-made F-16 fighter jets, moving toward permitting other countries to transfer the planes to Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia. It was the latest in a series of policy decisions his administration has made this spring to apparently bolster America’s international partners as they face potential threats.
However, the Biden administration’s actions over the last several months show U.S. allies are still overwhelmingly reliant on Washington. This dependence hurts America’s ability to focus on its core national interests and to invest its limited resources in the American people at home.
Washington’s alliance network is often praised for ostensibly helping to strengthen America’s global influence, to enhance U.S. credibility, and to reduce the costs incurred for accomplishing national foreign policy objectives.
U.S. allies’ growing dependency, however, is revealed through several of the Biden administration’s recent undertakings: it sold nuclear-powered submarines to Australia as part of the AUKUS security pact, agreed to supply Ukraine with battle tanks despite Pentagon resistance, and recommitted to using the U.S. nuclear arsenal to deter a North Korean attack on South Korea. Finland finalized its NATO membership in April, but instead of its supposedly capable military guarding its border with Russia, it appears U.S. forces will be shouldering that burden instead.
American partners in Europe and the Indo-Pacific initially reacted to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by pledging to rapidly increase their defense spending and expand their military capacities, but over a year later, there is little evidence this has occurred.
Three days after the invasion began, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, Europe’s wealthiest country, proclaimed a Zeitenwende in German defense policy and committed 100 billion euros to significantly expand Germany’s military budget. Yet since then, Berlin has slowly backtracked on this commitment for several reasons: Russia poses a much more limited threat to European security than initially feared and Washington has sent additional U.S. troops to Europe and provided the bulk of military aid to Ukraine.
In fact, the Russo-Ukrainian conflict has laid bare the shocking state of U.S. allies’ defense capabilities. Germany, for instance, only has enough ammunition stocks for a few days of combat. The German military possesses 300 coveted Leopard 2 tanks, but less than half are serviceable. Spain has a similar number of Leopard tanks, but over one-third of them are combat ineffective or in disrepair.
Europeans’ artillery reserves are not much better and are being greatly depleted by supporting Ukraine. France, for example, has sent more than one-third of its artillery pieces to Ukraine while Denmark has nearly donated its entire arsenal. There are also scarce supplies of gunpowder, plastic explosives, and TNT throughout the European Union due to underinvestment, hobbling the EU’s ability to scale up defense production and replenish these stockpiles. This has left the United States in a position where it continues to backstop its rich European partners.
America’s Indo-Pacific allies are similarly accustomed to Washington’s protection. South Korea, for instance, invests a considerable amount in its defense at nearly 3 percent of its GDP, but Seoul’s military strategy is premised upon the U.S. nuclear umbrella safeguarding it from a North Korean assault or invasion. As Pyongyang further develops its nuclear capabilities, South Korea’s defense posture indicates Seoul expects Washington to come to its aid in the event of a crisis on the Korean Peninsula.
Australia and Japan, two important U.S. allies which are members of the Quad, also rely on American largesse. The Australian military is modern and well-equipped, but it is small and the country lacks a self-sufficient defense industrial base. Canberra is massively dependent on U.S. munitions production, leaving it vulnerable in a military conflict. At the same time, Japan is the third-wealthiest nation in the world, but consistently fails to boost its defense spending due to its generous security alliance with the United States.
Washington is not blameless for this state of affairs. For decades, it has called on U.S. allies to sustain greater shares of the defense burden while largely neglecting to take concrete actions to make this happen. This has helped allow other countries to become dependent on American military protection while letting their own defense capabilities atrophy.
The United States must begin to end this dependency by taking steps to shift the defense burden to its allies. Burden shifting is often dismissed by many analysts in Washington because they argue it is risky, would save little money, and could sever important ties between America and its overseas partners.
These concerns are exaggerated. The United States cannot confront its main adversaries indefinitely while Washington’s international allies are affluent enough to provide for their own defense. For starters, retooling U.S. defense commitments by drawing down American forces stationed in wealthy allied nations would help enable burden shifting and permit Washington to redirect its limited resources toward core national security objectives, such as completing the pivot to Asia.
If Washington truly wishes to have a robust global alliance network, it must take tangible actions to create more balanced and sustainable international partnerships that prioritize core U.S. national interests. Having capable allies is a necessary foundation for promoting a safe and peaceful world.
Grant Golub is an Assistant Professor of American History at the U.S. Army War College and a Non-Resident Fellow at Defense Priorities. His views are his own and do not reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, the Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense.
11. Five urgent steps to prevent American military defeat in the Pacific
Some important insights. As an aside, like most conventional military analysis there is very little thought given to the SOF contribution (it can be incorporated broadly into the strengthening Taiwan's ability to defend itself by advising and assisting the development of a civil resistance capability which can contribute to not only defense but also unconventional deterrence).
Excerpts:
The good news is that such an outcome is not inevitable if Washington takes several steps this year. These include:
- Enhancing the United States’ ability to strike attacking Chinese forces.
- Strengthening Taiwan’s ability to defend itself.
- Bolstering the survivability of forward-positioned U.S. forces.
-
Improving the ability of the United States and its partners — principally Taiwan, Japan and Australia — to fight together.
- Building more cyber-resilient U.S. infrastructure to support military mobility and economic continuity.
Five urgent steps to prevent American military defeat in the Pacific
Defense News · by Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery (ret.) and Bradley Bowman · June 12, 2023
As lawmakers in Washington move this month to consider the fiscal 2024 defense budget and annual defense authorization bill, the United States is on a path toward military defeat in the Pacific.
China’s strategic investments threaten to outpace the Pentagon’s ability to expand munitions stocks, integrate emerging technologies and weapon systems, and maintain the ability to fight at long distances from America’s shores.
Repeated wargaming of Taiwan conflict scenarios in the 2027 time frame demonstrates that even if the United States acts promptly and decisively once the conflict begins, American military forces would often be stretched too thin to support Taiwan quickly enough to prevent a fait accompli.
The good news is that such an outcome is not inevitable if Washington takes several steps this year. These include:
- Enhancing the United States’ ability to strike attacking Chinese forces.
- Strengthening Taiwan’s ability to defend itself.
- Bolstering the survivability of forward-positioned U.S. forces.
-
Improving the ability of the United States and its partners — principally Taiwan, Japan and Australia — to fight together.
- Building more cyber-resilient U.S. infrastructure to support military mobility and economic continuity.
Admittedly, deterring and defeating aggression from the People’s Republic of China is easier said than done. That is because Beijing is undertaking the most ambitious and extensive military modernization effort in the history of the PRC, focusing its efforts on defeating the U.S. military and taking Taiwan.
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Opposing such aggression would also be difficult because the United States is trying to deter conflict in areas within 100 miles of Chinese ports and airfields, but 8,000 miles from the U.S. West Coast. To make matters worse, in several likely scenarios in the Taiwan Strait, Beijing would likely enjoy “first mover” advantage — potentially concealing preparations for an actual attack behind the guise of yet another military exercise and deciding when and where to strike the first blow.
So what can be done?
Wargaming and operational exercises show that long-range strike weapons are America’s most reliable tool to both win a conflict with China and reduce U.S. casualties. Because of the cost of long-range strike systems, the U.S. military will require a large and mixed inventory of expensive, high-lethality weapons and less expensive swarming munitions.
The U.S. military should develop the capability to launch these munitions from as many platforms as possible to create difficult dilemmas for the People’s Liberation Army. That includes leveraging one of the U.S. military’s greatest remaining asymmetric advantages: the continuing stealthiness of U.S. attack submarines.
Relatedly, to support effective bomber actions in the Western Pacific, the United States will also need to leverage advanced fighter aircraft and newly delivered air-battle management assets, eventually including the E-7 Wedgetail aircraft, to regain control over Taiwan’s airspace and offset China’s geographic proximity to the battlefield.
In addition to bolstering American offensive capabilities, the United States simultaneously needs to help Taiwan reach an appropriate level of defensive self-sufficiency to survive the adversary’s initial onslaught before U.S. and allied forces can arrive in numbers. While Congress authorized up to $2 billion per year in assistance to Taiwan in the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act, the funding still needs to be appropriated.
Other necessary supporting efforts for Taiwan include prioritizing and expediting the delivery of foreign military sales by cutting red tape and bolstering industrial capacity; pre-positioning key munitions in Taiwan that U.S. or Taiwan forces can use in a crisis; and strengthening Taiwan’s cyber capacity to withstand Beijing’s cyberattacks.
To ensure U.S. forces can fight within the second island chain, Washington has to mitigate forward basing vulnerabilities, particularly vulnerabilities related to missile defense. (The first island chain runs parallel to the mainland of the Asian continent, starting in the Kuril Islands, through the Japanese Archipelago; includes Taiwan and the northwestern portion of the Philippines; and finishes in Borneo. The second island chain runs parallel to the first farther out to sea and includes Japan’s Bonin Islands and Volcano Islands; the Mariana Islands, including Guam; the Western Caroline Islands; and extends to Western New Guinea.)
Key among these efforts is the need to develop U.S. hypersonic defensive countermeasures, which currently lag Beijing’s offensive technology development. It will significantly undermine deterrence if China has an offensive hypersonic capability before the United States is able to defend against such a threat.
Indeed, we should expect that China will attack U.S. air bases with swarm assaults consisting of a broad range of missiles and drones. To facilitate their survival and combat effectiveness, U.S. air assets will need to be able to disperse and operate in a nimble and unpredictable manner to alternate locations. That’s the big idea behind the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment concept, which deserves congressional support and oversight.
While the United States should do everything it can to ready its own forces, it should also leverage the most valuable advantage it holds over the Chinese Communist Party — allies. Wargames often assess the value of operational force integration with partners, such as Japan, Australia or Taiwan, and the results are consistently clear: When U.S. and partner forces are more coordinated and integrated, they are more likely to win and more likely to win with fewer casualties.
The United States can support this objective by conducting increased training and exercises with Taiwan, and it can improve its operational partnership with Taiwan, Japan and Australia by rapidly establishing a dedicated joint force headquarters in the Indo-Pacific theater to integrate mission command and control with partners.
Lastly, to support the military’s mobility and resiliency, we must better protect the cyber, information and critical infrastructure systems that support the projection and sustainment of forces from the United States. That will require increased efforts to improve the security of American ports, airports, power-generation facilities and rail systems.
There is a clear and affordable path to deterring aggression in the Pacific — or at least preventing American military defeat. But action needs to be taken by Congress in this year’s NDAA and defense appropriations legislation to match China’s rapid military investment and development.
If Congress makes targeted investments to meet the five key objectives laid out above, America’s ability to project power, impose costs and deter aggression can be retained using only a small portion of the defense budget.
Retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank. He previously served as policy director of the Senate Armed Services Committee under Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and as director of operations (J3) at U. S. Pacific Command. Bradley Bowman is senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at FDD. He previously served as a national security adviser to members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, and was an officer in the U.S. Army.
12. Skulls left scattered after Ukraine dam breach may be from second world war
Gruesome.
Skulls left scattered after Ukraine dam breach may be from second world war
Mudflats are littered with bones, some of which may be remains from battle 80 years ago near Nikopol
The Guardian · by Julian Borger · June 12, 2023
The emptying of the vast reservoir along the Dnipro River in Ukraine as a result of the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam last week has left mudflats littered with skeletons, according to footage posted online, in a reminder of the region’s violent past.
Videos taken on Ukrainian-held and Russian-occupied sides of the Dnipro where the reservoir used to be, show skulls scattered in the ooze, one wearing a second world war helmet. The footage could not be independently verified due to fighting in the area.
Historians say some of the remains may be of people who died in a huge battle fought 80 years ago over the same terrain now at the centre of Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian occupation, around Nikopol and Kamianka-Dniprovska.
The Battle of the Dnipro (or Dnieper, in the Russian version) was the focus of one of the biggest military operations of the second world war, the Soviet army’s counterattack against the German army, involving more than 6 million troops.
In late 1943, the focus was on Nikopol, on the right bank of the river, the site of metal ore mines that Hitler was determined to hold on to. Today, Nikopol is a frontline town held by Ukrainians, looking across the mudflats where the reservoir was and the Dnipro, at the occupied town of Kamianka-Dniprovska and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
In late 1943, the Wehrmacht struggled to hold out against troops of the Soviet Southwest Front, led by Marshal Rodion Malinovsky, and they were forced to abandon the town in February 1944.
Andrii Solonets, a historian at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, said: “The losses of Soviet troops ranged from 30,000 to 60,000 people. The losses of German and Romanian troops were up to 20,000 people. So in theory this video showing the helmet and skull could be linked to those events.”
An expert on German military relics in Ukraine, Oleksii Kokot, said that while dead Red Army soldiers were buried in the ground, “dead German soldiers were just left lying in the fields … therefore, these could really be German soldiers”.
Many of the German bodies were left lying in marshes, which were then submerged with the building of the Nova Kakhovka dam in 1956.
Recovering the Wehrmacht remains would involve the German War Graves Commission, but that may have to wait until the current war on the Dnipro has ended.
The Guardian · by Julian Borger · June 12, 2023
13. Bipartisan Coalition Urges Biden to Send ATACMS to Ukraine
And they need DPICM as well.
Bipartisan Coalition Urges Biden to Send ATACMS to Ukraine
John Hardie
Russia Program Deputy Director
fdd.org · · June 12, 2023
A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers introduced a resolution on Friday urging the Biden administration to send Ukraine the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). These missiles would facilitate Kyiv’s ongoing counteroffensive by allowing Ukraine to strike high-value military targets in Russian-occupied territory deep behind the front lines.
Congressman Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Europe, introduced the resolution. Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) co-sponsored it along with Reps. Joe Wilson (R-SC), Bill Keating (D-MA), Ted Lieu (D-CA), and Jared Golden (D-ME). The resolution calls on the administration “to immediately provide Army Tactical Missile Systems to Ukraine in sufficient quantity to hasten Ukraine’s victory against Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression while still maintaining United States military readiness.”
Modern variants of ATACMS have a range of up to 300 kilometers and carry a 500-pound warhead. These missiles offer more than triple the range of Ukraine’s Western-supplied Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) rounds. By striking Russian command-and-control posts, key logistics nodes, and other high-value targets, the Ukrainian military could use ATACMS to degrade Russia’s ability to resist Ukrainian advances.
Although Kyiv has already received Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles from the United Kingdom, providing ATACMS would still be worthwhile. It would offer valuable additional capacity, allowing Ukraine to strike more targets. ATACMS would also be more survivable. These missiles are fired from mobile ground launchers that Russia has so far proven unable to fix and destroy. By contrast, Ukrainian Su-24 aircraft carrying the Storm Shadow must brave lethal Russian air defenses. The ATACMS rounds themselves would also be tougher to intercept, as they travel nearly four times faster.
Most important, ATACMS has a longer range than the Storm Shadow, which can hit targets roughly 250 kilometers away. That additional range would allow Ukraine to hold at risk all of Crimea as well as the Kerch Bridge, which connects the peninsula to Russia. Moscow relies on that bridge to supply its troops in southern Ukraine. But it lies at the ragged edge of the Storm Shadow’s range, requiring Ukrainian pilots to fly right up to the front line to strike it — a perilous proposition. Tellingly, Ukraine has yet to hit the bridge with a Storm Shadow.
The Biden administration has rebuffed Kyiv’s repeated requests for ATACMS out of a fear of inviting Russian escalation and depleting U.S. stockpiles. Both those concerns are overstated.
Ukraine has conducted numerous Storm Shadow strikes deep in the Russian rear, and France plans to send Kyiv its own version of that missile. Yet Moscow has not retaliated militarily against the United Kingdom, France, or any other NATO ally. Nor has Russia employed weapons of mass destruction against Ukraine.
Washington could further reduce the risk of escalation by stipulating that Kyiv may use ATACMS only against targets in occupied Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. The Ukrainian military has dutifully abided by similar commitments regarding the Storm Shadow and GMLRS.
Regarding U.S. stocks, the resolution notes that “the United States and allied countries collectively possess thousands of ATACMS that could be transferred to Ukraine.” Congress would do well to force the Pentagon to prove it cannot afford to spare even a few dozen of these missiles.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 authorized the Pentagon to strike a multiyear contract to purchase 1,700 ATACMS, which could replenish U.S. stocks. Since Russia launched its 2022 invasion, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency has greenlit the potential sale of a total of 211 ATACMS to Australia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, the Netherlands, and Morocco. What is more, the Pentagon already plans to replace ATACMS with the more capable Precision Strike Missile, which is expected to reach initial operating capability later this year.
Ukraine likely faces many months of tough fighting ahead. By providing ATACMS now, Washington can hasten Ukrainian battlefield victories while saving Ukrainian lives and American treasure.
John Hardie is deputy director of the Russia Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he also contributes to FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP). For more analysis from John and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow John on Twitter @JohnH105. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_CMPP. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.
fdd.org · by Jack Sullivan · June 12, 2023
14. U.S. Plans to Rejoin Unesco to Counter China’s Growing Sway
If we are going to conduct strategic competition then we need to compete across the board which should include international organizations. China is certainly trying to coerce and co-opt them for its benefit.
To repeat my thesis: China seeks to export its authoritarian political system around the world in order to dominate regions, co-opt or coerce international organizations, create economic conditions favorable to China alone, and displace democratic institutions.
We should not cede the battlefield to the PRC otherwise as General Milley says in the Joint Concept for Competing, we will lose without fighting.
U.S. Plans to Rejoin Unesco to Counter China’s Growing Sway
Biden administration is seeking readmission in July, plans to pay arrears
By Noemie BisserbeFollow
and Stacy MeichtryFollow
Updated June 12, 2023 9:06 am ET
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-moves-to-rejoin-unesco-to-counter-chinas-growing-sway-344eeb94
PARIS—The U.S. is moving to rejoin Unesco—with plans to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in membership fees—in a bid to counter the growing influence of China and other adversaries at the United Nations culture and heritage organization.
On Thursday, a delegation of U.S. diplomats delivered a letter to Unesco Director-General Audrey Azoulay seeking readmission next month to the Paris-based organization. In the letter, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, a senior State Department official said the Biden administration plans to request an appropriation of $150 million from Congress for fiscal 2024 to pay Unesco, adding that similar contributions would be made in ensuing years until the country’s membership arrears are fully repaid. The U.S. currently owes Unesco $619 million, according to the organization.
The move aims to reverse the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2017, when it cited a need for overhauls at the organization as well as its “continuing anti-Israel bias.” Since then, China has become one of Unesco’s largest donors. The organization’s No. 2 official is now Chinese, positioning Beijing to help steer discussions at the organization on issues ranging from press freedom to education in Ukraine and other war-torn countries.
In an interview, Azoulay said the U.S. was eager to re-establish its influence at an organization that—in addition to designating heritage sites around the world—is at the forefront of global efforts to develop guidelines for artificial intelligence and other sensitive technologies.
“The U.S. are coming back because Unesco has grown stronger, and because it is dealing with issues that concern them,” she added.
In its letter, the State Department said the Biden administration planned to work with Congress to provide additional funding of $10 million in support of certain Unesco programs, including the preservation of cultural heritage in Ukraine and education about the Holocaust.
A spokeswoman for the State Department said rejoining Unesco “would address a critical gap in American global leadership, where our competitors are finding new and worrying opportunities to erode the values that underpin the international system.”
On Monday, Azoulay summoned ambassadors from Unesco’s 193 member states to a closed-door meeting in Paris to discuss the U.S.’s return. In the interview, she said she planned to hold a vote this month on the matter. The U.S. needs the support from a majority of member states.
The vote is likely to pass, officials say, because the Biden administration is planning to replenish Unesco’s coffers.
The $619 million the U.S. owes, Azoulay said, covers missed contributions that date back to 2011. That is when the Obama administration began withholding funds after Unesco conferred membership on the Palestinian territories. U.S. legislation prohibits funding to any U.N. agency that recognizes Palestinian territories as a full member.
Unesco designated the Old City of Hebron a Palestinian heritage site in 2017. PHOTO: HAZEM BADER/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
The loss of U.S. funding had a crippling impact on Unesco, which at the time counted on the U.S. for 22% of its $500 million budget.
In 2017, Unesco designated the Old City of Hebron and Tomb of the Patriarchs as Palestinian heritage sites despite diplomatic efforts by Israel and political pressure from the U.S. to derail the designation. Months later, the Trump administration decided to withdraw from the organization. Unesco denied any bias against Israel.
Azoulay took over at Unesco later that year. One of the first countries she visited was China, where she met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In 2018, she appointed a Chinese diplomat, Xing Qu, as Unesco’s deputy director-general. The move ensured Unesco’s leadership reflected the various nationalities of its members, according to Azoulay’s spokesman.
She also launched mediation talks among Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories, reaching out to members individually to build consensus ahead of executive board meetings. Those talks continued even after Israel left the organization in 2019.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on U.S. plans to rejoin Unesco.
“We have proven that it is possible to build consensus,” Azoulay said. “There are always risks, and responsibility lies with the member states.”
After President Biden’s election, Azoulay traveled to Washington and successfully pressed lawmakers in Congress to waive the funding prohibition for Unesco, which the U.S. helped found in the wake of World War II.
Biden has previously reversed President Trump’s decision to exit from the World Health Organization, another U.N. body, and has rejoined the Paris climate accord, negotiated through the U.N.
Those moves signal his emphasis on working through international organizations and U.S. partners on world problems, even when Washington officials have differences with an organization or a particular ally.
The approach stands in contrast with Trump who pressured allies by leaving or threatening to withdraw from organizations that his administration disapproved of, sometimes as a way to gain leverage with the group.
Biden, Azoulay said, has “showed a recommitment to multilateralism.”
William Mauldin contributed to this article.
Write to Noemie Bisserbe at noemie.bisserbe@wsj.com and Stacy Meichtry at Stacy.Meichtry@wsj.com
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Appeared in the June 13, 2023, print edition as 'U.S. Moves to Rejoin Unesco in Bid to Stem Beijing’s Influence'.
15. Proposal to end Senate standoff over military promotions goes nowhere
We have truly lost our way in Congress
Proposal to end Senate standoff over military promotions goes nowhere
militarytimes.com · by Tara Copp · June 13, 2023
Hopes were dashed Monday for an imminent end to a Senate standoff that has delayed the promotions of more than 200 military officers and could delay the confirmation of President Joe Biden’s pick for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama has been blocking the nominations to pressure the Defense Department to rescind a policy that reimburses service members who have to travel out of state for abortions and other reproductive care. Alabama is among the states where abortion is now illegal.
A proposal to hold a Senate debate over Pentagon abortion policies as part of the annual defense bill negotiations was seen by some senators as the best prospect for getting Tuberville to lift those holds, but his office said Monday that Tuberville was opposed.
The hold affects everyone from four-star Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, who was nominated to serve as the next chairman of the joint chiefs, to scores of one, two and three-star officers who are assigned to new base commands.
It also affects their families, who usually relocate over the summer to their new military communities so school-age children can get settled in before fall.
And it stretches to hundreds more younger military personnel who don’t need Senate confirmation but are still effected by the hold because they are assigned to serve as staff or aides to the relocating generals. Those aides move their families as well. So they are essentially stuck, too.
That essentially leaves two options. First, Tuberville’s office said Congress could vote to change a U.S. law that prohibits federal funding for abortions except in the case of rape, incest or threat to life of the pregnant woman, which Tuberville has said the Pentagon is circumventing through its new policy. Changing that law is unlikely in the Republican-controlled House.
That leaves Senate Democratic leadership with the unattractive option of getting past Tuberville’s hold by calling for a separate Senate vote on each individual nomination. Due to debate rules, a Senate Democratic staffer said this would take an estimated two to three days per nomination and might get done by the end of the year but only if the Senate did nothing else for the rest of the session.
The debate over the holds comes as Tuberville is engaged in another dispute with the Pentagon over the future headquarters of U.S. Space Command. Tuberville is fighting to bring the headquarters to Huntsville, Alabama. Both his office and the Pentagon say that decision is unrelated.
16. CPI Report Shows Inflation Has Been Cut in Half From Last Year’s Peak
I hope this does not deflate congressional plans to increase military pay for the troops.
Nice graph at the link below
CPI Report Shows Inflation Has Been Cut in Half From Last Year’s Peak
U.S. May consumer prices rose 4.0% from year earlier
By Gwynn GuilfordFollow
Updated June 13, 2023 8:49 am ET
https://www.wsj.com/articles/consumer-price-index-report-may-inflation-cafcbef5
May inflation was around half of last year’s peak but remained far above what Federal Reserve officials would like to see.
The consumer-price index rose 4% in May from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Tuesday, well below the recent peak of 9.1% last June and down from April’s 4.9% increase.
Federal Reserve officials are meeting June 13-14 to decide their next steps to cool inflation, which they would like to see at 2%. They could hold interest rates steady at the meeting, while preparing to increase rates again in the summer or the fall if they don’t think enough progress has been made on inflation.
So-called core consumer prices, which excludes volatile food and energy categories, climbed 5.3% in May from a year earlier, down from 5.5% in April. Economists see core prices as a better predictor of future inflation. Core prices remain elevated in part because an earlier surge in housing-rental prices continues to show up in the inflation figures.
Overall consumer prices increased a seasonally adjusted 0.1% in May from the prior month, down from April’s 0.4% increase. Core consumer prices rose 0.4% in May from the prior month, the same pace as in April and March.
May’s increase in inflation was driven by rising housing prices along with higher used vehicles and food prices, the Labor Department said. Energy prices declined 3.6% in May from April.
The Fed has aggressively raised rates from low levels starting last year to slow economic growth and tame inflation. Fed officials in May raised the benchmark interest rate to the current range between 5% and 5.25%, the highest level in 16 years.
Fed officials are looking for signs that inflation is moving closer to its target. Despite its efforts, inflation remains stubbornly high.
“Making slow progress is the big problem,” said Omair Sharif, who leads forecasting firm Inflation Insights. “There’s still a lot of debate among Fed officials over ‘how much more do we need to do?’”
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The Federal Reserve begins its meeting the same day as the most-watched inflation metric is released and ends right before a pivotal U.S. retail sales report. Here are three things to watch out for this week. Photo: Nam Y. Huh
The U.S. economy has maintained momentum this year, staving off predictions of recession. The job market remains robust and consumers have boosted their spending, though one measure shows economic output is falling. A possible credit crunch following the March collapse of a few regional banks could crimp the economy.
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How should the Fed respond to the latest CPI report? Join the conversation below.
The Fed may need time to assess whether its rate policies and banking sector stresses are exerting sufficient downward pressure on prices, said Aichi Amemiya, U.S. economist at Nomura Securities, referring to the slowing of price increases.
While inflation has cooled significantly, higher prices for many goods and services are weighing on household spending decisions.
Geovanni Williams, 45 years old, said the biggest hit to his wallet recently is higher prices for his two children to play on traveling sports teams.
Geovanni Williams traveling to a basketball tournament with his children. PHOTO: GEOVANNI WILLIAMS
“Airline tickets, hotels—all of that has gone up. The fees to participate in these tournaments have gone up,” said Williams, who lives in Fairfax, Va., and works at a credit union. “Prior to the pandemic, those might have been no more than $40 for a weekend pass. Now they’re more like $65, $75, $85.”
His 16-year-old daughter recently played in basketball tournaments in Alabama and Virginia Beach, and she will soon travel to events in Chicago and Atlantic City, N.J.
Williams said he has cut his spending to make up the difference, shifting from takeout dinners from Cava Mezze to preparing food at home. He also canceled his cable plan. “I was paying $230 a month—and with all the sports, my kids are never here anyway,” he said.
Write to Gwynn Guilford at gwynn.guilford@wsj.com
17. House lawmakers back plans for biggest military pay raise in 22 years
Will the reports of the decline in inflation rates cause Congress to rethink this?
House lawmakers back plans for biggest military pay raise in 22 years
militarytimes.com · by Leo Shane III · June 12, 2023
Service members would see their biggest pay raise in 22 years starting in January under budget plans unveiled by a key House committee on Monday.
The move — a 5.2% raise for 2024 — would mean boosts of more than $1,500 for most junior enlisted troops next year and thousands more for higher ranks. Combined with the 2023 pay raise that went into effect five months ago, troops could see a nearly 10% increase in basic pay over a two-year span, and even more financial gains after re-enlistment bonuses and housing stipend increases are factored in.
The plans for a 5.2% pay raise for troops next year are included in the first draft from Republican leaders of the House Armed Services Committee’s annual defense authorization bill, a massive budget policy measure that contains hundreds of spending guidelines and operational changes for the military. President Joe Biden also recommended a 5.2% raise in his budget proposal earlier this year, showing bipartisan support for the proposal.
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Troops could see monthly bonuses, better housing pay under House plan
A draft version of the annual defense authorization bill calls for more financial support for younger troops.
While the measure still has numerous legislative hurdles before it becomes law, including this proposed 5.2% pay raise in the initial drafts offers a strong signal that GOP lawmakers will back that mark as a baseline for troops pay. The mark matches federal estimates for keeping military pay on pace with the raise in civilian wages in recent years.
Over the last 20 years, lawmakers have either matched or exceeded the administration’s requests on military pay boosts. Congress has passed the legislation for the last 62 consecutive years.
For an enlisted military member ranked E-4 with three years in service, the 5.2% pay raise would mean about $1,700 more next year in take-home pay compared to their 2023 paychecks. For senior enlisted and junior officers, the hike equals about $3,000 more. For an O-4 with 12 years of service, it’s more than $5,400 in extra pay in 2024.
And junior officers could see even more money in their paychecks under the House plan. The defense authorization draft bill also calls for creation of a monthly bonus for troops rank E-6 and below to counter the effects of inflation. Specifics of how much that extra pay could be have not yet been finalized.
The measure also includes provisions to loosen rules regarding eligibility for the Basic Needs Allowance — a stipend aimed at military families earning at or just above the poverty line — and provide more generous housing stipends in regions where rent prices have risen.
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Your 2023 Military Times Pay and Benefits Guide
Service members should know how their pay and benefits have changed in 2023, whether its for health care, retirement, education, housing or something else.
The Senate Armed Services Committee is expected to unveil its draft of the annual authorization bill next week. If they also back the 5.2% pay raise mark, the issue is unlikely to be a sticking point in the months of negotiations ahead to reconcile the two chambers’ separate bill drafts.
However, actually providing the money for Defense Department officials to spend falls to the congressional appropriations committees, who have not yet released details of their plans for fiscal 2024 defense spending. The separate committees have generally agreed on the paycheck hikes in the past, and consulted on appropriate spending levels before any one committee commits publicly to a pay raise.
About Leo Shane III
Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.
18. The Tragedy of Foreign-Policy Realism
A review of Elbridge Colby's book.
Excerpt:
The Strategy of Denial isn’t a book of this kind. It is long, carefully written, and meticulously argued. Since writing it, Colby has given countless interviews, appeared on innumerable panels, and done everything else that could help convince Americans inside and outside government that a change of course is badly needed. In a world of increasingly detached elites uninterested in real debate or new ideas, and sometimes even openly taunting us with their obvious senility, Elbridge Colby is a welcome exception. He might be regarded as an American approximation of Sergei Witte, the tireless Russian reformer of the late Tsarist era. Like Witte, Colby is driven by a manic, seemingly boundless energy in his holy mission to put right all that is broken in the American regime. One doesn’t have to agree with Colby to recognize him as the most unflagging foreign-policy reformer in Washington today. To be sure, there isn’t very fierce competition for that honor right now, but that doesn’t detract from Colby’s significance.
The Tragedy of Foreign-Policy Realism
Malcom Kyeyune
June 8, 2023
compactmag.com
By now it has become obvious to most observers that the United States is undergoing a profound transition. Wherever one turns, monumental changes are underway, affecting both the domestic health of the republic and its economic and military relations with the rest of the world. In April, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde delivered a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations reflecting on the new spirit of the times. The world is turning multipolar, Lagarde stressed, and great changes are coming whether we want them or not. She concluded the speech by paraphrasing Hemingway: “Fragmentation can happen in two ways: gradually, and then suddenly.” Around the same time, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan delivered a speech criticizing “tax cutting and deregulation, privatization over public action, and trade liberalization as an end in itself.” He declared a “New Washington Consensus” that would, in effect, systematically overturn the neoliberal policy orthodoxies of the previous four decades.
Reflecting on the changes underway is a fully bipartisan pastime in an otherwise bitterly polarized America. Nobody seriously claims that the world is going to stay the same anymore. People just disagree on who will put his mark on the emerging order. This is a struggle with many participants, representing a bewildering variety of outlooks, all vying for the distant possibility of building a new hegemony.
One of the most articulate, energetic, and important figures trying to shape America’s future is Elbridge A. Colby, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense. Colby’s stint at the Pentagon covered the first half of the Trump administration. Since departing from that role, he has been extremely busy. Among other things, he has co-founded the Marathon Initiative, a think tank that aims to help future US administrations chart a better course on China and great-power competition generally. He has also written a book, The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict, which appeared in 2021.
The Strategy of Denial is Colby’s only book. This particular fact says a great deal about who Colby is and what it is he is trying to do. In the transnational world of think tanks, of well-paid fellows, of lavish dinners paid for by Saudi or Chinese money, of endless panel discussions in which nobody manages to say anything memorable, most of the books written aren’t meant to be read—but to win and maintain sinecures. The book itself is a formality. If naked, open bribery were more accepted in Western culture, many of these books would never be written. How many new books about Ronald Reagan does the Acela corridor need?
“Colby is driven by a manic, seemingly boundless energy.”
The Strategy of Denial isn’t a book of this kind. It is long, carefully written, and meticulously argued. Since writing it, Colby has given countless interviews, appeared on innumerable panels, and done everything else that could help convince Americans inside and outside government that a change of course is badly needed. In a world of increasingly detached elites uninterested in real debate or new ideas, and sometimes even openly taunting us with their obvious senility, Elbridge Colby is a welcome exception. He might be regarded as an American approximation of Sergei Witte, the tireless Russian reformer of the late Tsarist era. Like Witte, Colby is driven by a manic, seemingly boundless energy in his holy mission to put right all that is broken in the American regime. One doesn’t have to agree with Colby to recognize him as the most unflagging foreign-policy reformer in Washington today. To be sure, there isn’t very fierce competition for that honor right now, but that doesn’t detract from Colby’s significance.
Unfortunately, few of his critics bother to give his actual arguments the time of day. He has been called a warmonger and a neocon, and is regularly denounced as a mindless “China hawk” in the vein of John Bolton. Given that there are dozens of hours of long-form interviews with Colby, available on the internet free of charge, and that he seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Twitter, where he responds to and debates with all kinds of interlocutors with a rare level of openness and honesty, Elbridge Colby might actually be the one man in American public life who can’t be accused of trying to hide or distort his own views for political gain.
To make a good-faith attempt to summarize Colby’s views, one should begin by saying that he is, above all, a firm believer in the realist theory of international relations, and in realism in the broad vernacular sense as well. We can think whatever we want about this fact, but America is an empire, and with that comes a large number of pressures and obligations. To shrink from that reality is not noble—it is foolish and perhaps even suicidal. Reflecting on the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq earlier this year, Colby quoted Talleyrand: It was “worse than a crime: It was a blunder.” Like many other realist thinkers, such as Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, he regards the last several decades of idealist liberal foreign policy as one long chain of catastrophic blunders.
Following its Cold-War victory over the Soviet Union, the United States resembled France as it emerged from the great revolution and the bloody overthrow of the Bourbon monarchy: an aggressive, ideologically charged power, to which the old rules of give-and-take and strategic balance no longer applied. In no just universe could the old rules and laws written by princes and priests conspire to bind free men, the French revolutionaries boldly proclaimed. Or as Robespierre put it: “Any law which violates the inalienable rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all.” What’s more, they were willing to fight and give their lives to prove that they meant it.
Hence, if you were a ruler in another European country at the time when the revolutionary fires burned the brightest in Paris, you couldn’t safely make deals with these people. You couldn’t predict what they would do, and you couldn’t even really hope to understand how they thought. France, unshackled from the outdated mores of the ancien régime, recognized no limits as it pursued its mission: It would “save” the rest of the world, beginning with its immediate neighbors and hated rivals, and it would do so at bayonet-point if need be.
America thought and acted much the same way in the years after it ascended to unipolar hegemony. In his Second Inaugural, former President George W. Bush declared: “Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world … The United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.” One cluster bomb at a time, one billowing cloud of toxic white phosphorus after the next, the Serbs, the Iraqis, the Afghans, eventually even the Iranians and the North Koreans, would all be saved, integrated into the global order of free trade and universal rights.
The endpoint of all these dreams was predictable from the start. As the years went on, more and more old hands from the long Cold War began to perceive the disastrous path America was taking. Statesmen like Zbigniew Brzezinski, Chalmers Johnson, and George Kennan increasingly saw the dangers lurking just ahead and tried in their own way to sound the alarm. As the Bush administration’s designs in Iraq were becoming clear in late 2002, a nearly 100-year-old Kennan held a news conference in which he cautioned that “war seldom ever leads to good ends.” Brzezinski and Johnson offered similar warnings. They were, at best, politely ignored. For both revolutionary Paris and revolutionary Washington, the quest to liberate and uplift the rest of the world would eventually culminate in millions of deaths, civil war, chaos, famine, and the ruination of entire countries—including, finally, the revolutionary homeland.
“Colby doesn’t promise America a world without war.”
To describe Elbridge Colby as a warmonger against that backdrop is grossly inaccurate. While there probably are many newly minted “China hawks” today who have never seen an American war they didn’t like, Colby is different. Like any realist, he knows that man has waged war since time immemorial. With this in mind, his goal is to grapple calmly with the question of when wars are necessary, why they are likely to happen, and what can be done to deter them or, if deterrence fails—to win them. He opposed the US invasion of Iraq, warning that the war would end in “quagmire, destabilization, and defeat.” The same fundamental worldview leads him to conclude that the United States should be prepared for war with China over Taiwan, as he argued last year in Foreign Affairs, “precisely to deter and thus avoid it.”
Colby doesn’t promise America a world without war. He does, however, argue forcefully for a world without limitless ideological war. He warns against framing conflict with China as a fundamental ideological conflict, on the grounds that “trying to change China’s ideology raises the stakes in a competition that already is going to be very dangerous and intense.” What must be avoided at all costs is an “existential cage match” with zero-sum stakes. Colby’s approach, it is reasonable to surmise, would result in a world with fewer wars than the world of “bringing the Serbs to heel” (as a 1999 cover of Time put it), of Operation Iraqi Freedom, of spreading the virtues and sublime joys of Burger King, twerking, and cyber feminism at gunpoint to the dustiest corners of the Hindu Kush. To paint the efforts of Colby and other realists to get America to step back from the brink as “warmongering” is absurd. Given the dismal reality of the last 30 years of American foreign policy, their attempt to change course is laudable.
Nonetheless, there is a tragedy at the heart of the American realist project, and no one in Washington illustrates that tragedy better than Elbridge Colby. The problem isn’t that realism is “wrong.” It is a framework better equipped to explain today’s world than liberal internationalism ever was or could hope to be. Rather, the tragedy of great-power realism is that its truths can only weaken America in the year 2023.
Indeed, beneath the surface, the dream of a world without war might actually turn out to be less unlikely than the dream of Elbridge Colby. Far from being mere idealism, a future without war can at least be credibly portrayed as a sort of brutal historical inevitability: Once the sun runs out of fuel and begins to swallow the earth, there will be no wars of any kind waged on our planet. The peace of the grave is the one true peace eternal. In the fullness of time, all things will be taken into its silent embrace. But no matter how many years it manages to persist, the world will never witness an America that thinks, lives, breathes, and wages war based on “realism.”
To understand the nature of this tragedy, it’s unnecessary to range much farther afield. No, here for once the real answers are right in front of us, hidden close to home. They are disguised in the words spoken by the realists themselves, and there is no better source to consult than the dean of contemporary foreign-policy realism, the University of Chicago’s John Mearsheimer. Over his long and distinguished career, Mearsheimer has increasingly been invited to give talks to Chinese and other non-Western audiences. He often humorously comments on this, sharing anecdotes about telling his Chinese hosts that it felt good to be “finally home.” The joke is that Mearsheimer doesn’t speak Chinese, but the Chinese do speak his language—that is, they think about the world in realist terms. “America is not a realist nation” has been a recurring phrase of Mearsheimer’s over many years.
There are two levels on which the statement “America is not a realist nation” can be said to be true. The first level is descriptive. Plainly put, neither politicians, nor pundits, nor policy analysts have much good to say about realism, nor do ordinary Americans seem to find it compelling. After 9/11, almost everyone in the United States rallied to the idea of spreading liberty across the world, a kind of global American revolution. It was just as much a bottom-up as it was a top-down phenomenon. Two decades later, with the fruits of that revolution rotting on the vine, what now interests a significant and growing number of Americans—and what Donald Trump offered himself up as a conduit for—is still not realism. It is more accurately called restraint, or even isolationism. The grumbling of the American electorate and the earthquake that shook the GOP and brought Trump to power wasn’t a longing for more sound policy documents or another seminar on “American grand strategy.” It was a desire for the lies to stop, the forever wars to end, and for the burdens of empire to be lifted, or at least made lighter.
In other words, “America is not a realist nation” can simply be parsed as “America is a nation in which realist ideas are not currently popular.” This is a true statement, but it is not the only reading of those words. Realism is a theory about the behavior of states. Like all theories, it is an attempt at drawing a map, and a map can never be as large in scale or as detailed as the territory it represents. As such, realism must make many concessions to the sheer complexity of reality and the epistemological limits of human knowledge; it must reduce scale in order to increase readability. One such concession is that realist theory assumes countries to be “black boxes,” meaning, as Mearsheimer explains, that it “pays little attention to individuals or domestic political considerations such as ideology.” Realism cannot explain what goes on inside the box, but as long as you assume that countries are black boxes, the theory can do its work of providing you with both explanatory and predictive power.
However, you also have to assume that the black box works. But this isn’t always the case. The political status of the island of Taiwan today is the direct result of a “black box” called the Qing Empire, which one day simply decided to no longer work. Instead, it broke apart into a large number of fragments, catalyzing a brutal and decades-long series of large and small civil wars.
The life cycle of states, the human passions that sustain them or overthrow them—these things are all beyond the ken of the theory of realism, both by design and by practical necessity. The French Revolution, then, was the story of another black box we call the Bourbon monarchy that simply stopped working for 30 years. Once the Girondins took power, once the Great Terror and September Massacres consolidated the revolutionary grip on the warmaking powers of the state, the predictive and explanatory value of realism nosedived down to near zero. Roughly 200 years later, America’s own turn towards revolutionary fervor began the moment it was freed from the discipline that the existence of a real superpower rival, the Soviet Union, imposed on it.
The realists saw a country named “America”—a country with a tumultuous, millenarian history since the time before its official founding—and assumed it to be another black box, a power like any other. They then assumed the box called America would continue to work, as all boxes normally do. But the box named America refused to comply.
This brings us to the true and profound meaning of Mearsheimer's statement that “America is not a realist country.” This meaning is not merely descriptive, but genuinely metaphysical: America is a country that cannot run on, legitimate itself by, understand itself through, or inspire a sense of genuine national cohesion through realism.
The Soviet Bloc fell apart not because it was destroyed by overwhelming forces from outside, but because, by the end, nobody inside it believed in it or wanted to fight for it anymore. When the order came down to stop the protesters attempting to topple the Berlin Wall, the soldiers and functionaries shrugged and ignored the command. What was the point? As the USSR itself entered into its final spasms of dysfunction and collapse, there was no one left who had any real will to defend it. Thus it came to be that the black box once called the Soviet Union simply stopped working one day.
What, then, is to become of America? Colby’s The Strategy of Denial is instructive on this point, if not as intended. Few books on foreign policy are so well written and tightly argued. The chapters link up naturally and tightly, like interlocking scales in a suit of armor. But there is a chink in that impressive armor. At the beginning and end of the book, Colby explains the purpose of American strategy. It is here where things fall apart.
Colby points out that in a vibrant democracy, the question of a nation’s strategy can never be truly settled, but nonetheless “certain fundamental goals” can be agreed upon by Americans. Apart from preventing the United States from being militarily attacked by a hostile foreign power, American strategy should aim to sustain a free, autonomous, and vigorous democratic-republican political order, as well as economic flourishing and growth. In short, America has three “national objectives”: physical security, freedom, and prosperity.
Peace, freedom, prosperity. It is the shared belief in the future promise of these things, and in the already existing reality of these things, that gives America its cohesion. For the Soviet Union, comparably, it wasn’t prudent “national objectives” or smart moves by soldiers, administrators, and generals on some grand strategic chessboard that gave rise to faith in communism. Rather, it was faith in communism that provided the motivating force for those soldiers, administrators, and generals in the first place.
“States don’t run on realism.”
Realism can help us understand the interests of states, but states don’t run on realism. Realism isn’t what allows them to be born, to cohere, and to expand. Instead, states run on what we can call “magic,” and that magic can differ greatly from state to state and from time period to time period. The magic that the Bourbon monarchy ran on isn’t the magic of America or Tang dynasty China, but that is fine. The Bourbon magic sustained the Bourbons for hundreds of years, but once it ran out, it was impossible to bring it back. The Bourbons were reinstated as rulers of France by the force of foreign arms, but they could only manage to meekly hang on for 15 years before they were overthrown again. Louis Philippe, who succeeded them, didn’t do much better: 18 years after assuming a French throne much reduced in prestige and power, he, too, was overthrown.
As long as the French kings still had the mysterious magic that had conferred authority on them for hundreds of years, it was impossible to get rid of them. The moment they lost the magic, it proved impossible to keep them in power. When communism still had its magic, young Bolsheviks endured exile and persecution and death without so much as flinching. They sang songs praising their own martyrdom, they spat in the eyes of their executioners, and they thought nothing of hardening themselves to fight one of the most brutal and pitiless civil wars in modern history. Just 70 years later, that magic was gone. When the end came, the direct blood descendants of those fanatical Bolsheviks couldn’t rouse themselves from their stupor to defend their sinecures.
In order to justify why America needs to embrace his realism, Elbridge Colby has no choice but to invoke the most primal form of American magic, in the form of his “national objectives.” He has no choice because that magic is the only hope he has of ever explaining what the point of it all is. Sadly, the moment he tries to conjure that particularly American form of magic he has already denounced his own work, because the magic that has animated America for much of its existence is fundamentally at odds with any realist strategic assessments. John Mearsheimer is correct: America is not a realist country. This doesn’t just mean that realist ideas aren’t popular, but that realist ideas are deeply inimical to the very basic legitimacy that America needs to cohere as a state.
This isn’t an airy, abstract argument. The question of the magic that sustains regimes is in fact brutally practical. The guards at the Berlin Wall checkpoints really did ask themselves what the point of trying to stop protesters was, and when they couldn’t come up with a good answer, they simply gave up. In 2023, America’s model of a volunteer military is in rapid collapse. The Army missed its recruiting target by 25 percent last year, and a 2021 survey found a steep decline in active-duty members and veterans who would recommend enlisting to their children—a serious problem, since the armed services have long relied heavily upon military families to supply new recruits. Like the Berlin Wall guards, America’s sons and daughters are asking themselves what the point of it all is, and they can no longer come up with an answer.
Recently, Colby courted controversy on Twitter by endorsing Rep. Seth Moulton’s statement that “we should make it very clear to the Chinese, if you invade Taiwan, we will blow up” Taiwan Semiconductor, which supplies close to 60 percent of the world’s microchips. Again, people rushed to call Colby a bloodthirsty warmonger, a neocon, and a baby-eating imperialist. But such attacks were not only intellectually uncharitable, they also fail to appreciate both the greatness and the massive, inescapable tragedy inherent in what Colby is trying to achieve.
From Colby’s perspective, blowing up Taiwan’s semiconductor industry in order to prevent it from being used by the Chinese isn’t a “punishment” for the Taiwanese. The strategic principle at stake, as he has explained, is that “America and its allies can’t afford the PRC to have such dominance over global semiconductors.” The Taiwanese themselves, who don’t want to fall under Chinese control, should understand this better than anyone. On the grand chessboard, the sacrifice of a pawn may be necessary to forestall a much greater loss down the road for all who have an interest in forestalling Chinese hegemony. To denounce this position as bloodthirsty is to miss the point. But again, the American state doesn’t and won’t run on this sort of realism. It runs on its own—dying and sputtering—form of magic, and it will accept no other fuel source. To keep this faith alive, America must continue to regard itself as the altruistic defender and savior of the Taiwanese people against Chinese tyranny. This is the tragedy of Colby’s attempt to save America: The act of nakedly despoiling and impoverishing a country for long-term strategic advantage will merely further dim the few magical embers that still remain to be called upon.
“In reality, it is the realists who are naive about the way the world works.”
American realists hope that their ideas can prompt a retrenchment back to solid terrain, like an army pulling back and giving up territory in order to shorten its front. But at the current juncture, the project of substituting American idealism with realism isn’t akin to amputating a leg to save the life of the patient: It is more like the administration of a lethal poison directly into the heart of the patient. The realists attack the liberal and neoconservative architects of America’s 30 years of failed wars and idealistic excess as lacking in understanding of the world, not grasping the magnitude of the irony at play. In reality, it is the realists who are naive about the way the world works.
America was built to be an altogether different kind of country from the old powers in Europe, or the brutal, despotic and cynical empires of the ancient world. It was to be “a republic, if you can keep it.” The magic that gave it form and has kept it going for 250 years didn’t envision, much less celebrate, the idea of 1,000 military bases on foreign soil, or massive permanent standing armies, or bombing factories 8,000 miles away. It wasn’t meant to include importing millions and millions of people each year in order to drive down wages and turn the entire country into a massive sweatshop. It didn’t involve “fortifying” elections, ever-expanding alphabet agencies illegally wiretapping US citizens, or 20,000 national guardsmen patrolling Washington, DC, with assault rifles and cordoning off the Capitol building. All of these things, and more, have come together to diminish American legitimacy. Pouring yet more poison down the ailing throat of the patient will not help, no matter how well-intentioned the hands holding the bottle may be.
It is likely that future historians will end up drawing lessons radically different from those espoused by realists today about the meaning of America’s self-destructive descent into ideological forever war. To those historians of the future, it may well be the neocons and the liberal interventionists who appear as America’s last generation of elites with a somewhat realistic grasp of the mess they found themselves in. To them, the era of liberal interventionism will likely seem to be the last real attempt to keep that faltering American magic going. Those of us who came of age around the time of the 9/11 attacks can attest to the fact that, at least for a time, they really did succeed. They revived the magic that kept society together, and answered a burning question: “What, exactly, is the point of all this?” But nothing lasts forever. Those who hope to supplant the neocons and liberal interventionists, to keep the empire alive by means of removing all sops to magic and superstition, are the most profoundly idealistic thinkers that America has yet to produce.
Realism is fundamentally true, but truth isn’t magic, and magic isn’t truth. The inability or unwillingness to grasp this is the curse that has bedeviled America’s most brilliant realist thinkers.
In a recent public talk, Mearsheimer was asked whether people in the White House pay much attention to his ideas. Mearsheimer jocularly responded that over roughly half a century, no person from the US government has ever asked him his opinion on anything. He didn’t seem to be particularly bothered by this fact.
Here we see the first side of the Janus face of American great-power realism: the face of the brilliant strategist who has long since made peace with the fact that the princes of the world will pay him no mind. Colby presents us with the second face. Unlike Mearsheimer, he works tirelessly to get the princes to listen before it is too late. His is the face of the selfless, brilliant, and energetic reformer, the Sergei Witte or the late Qing Westernizer—a man who, despite his efforts, will rarely be listened to, and who is cursed with only the power to speed up the death of the system he hopes to salvage.
Genuine tragedy is both deeply appealing and naturally repellent. For tragedy is the story of human greatness, human potential, and human brilliance, and how all those things come to naught in the end. Here, in the final twilight hours of both the American empire and the particular form of folk magic that so heroically built it and then kept it going, one can’t help but be dazzled by the tragedy of America’s most brilliant realist thinkers. For it is their fate to sparkle ever more brightly, when set against a backdrop of creeping dusk.
Malcom Kyeyune is a Compact columnist based in Sweden.
@tinkzorg
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19. China spinning a ‘web’ of influence campaigns to win over Taiwan
Excerpts:
People like Guanghe Fude Temple chairman Liang are increasingly rare in Taiwan as most Taiwanese do not want to see “reunification” any time soon or at all, according to repeated polling.
They also reject Beijing’s longstanding plan for how to make it happen – the “one country, two systems” that was tried in Hong Kong after its 1997 handover and collapsed by 2020.
There are some tremors within the CCP suggesting that a change could be afoot, said GTI’s Dotson. At the CCP’s “Taiwan Work Conference” last month, party official Wang Huning, who oversees United Front policy, appeared to play down “one country, two systems” in favour of another formula titled The Party’s Comprehensive Plan for Resolving the Taiwan Problem in the New Era.
Analysts say this could signal a potential change in the CCP’s “ideological framework” towards Taiwan and one day, an updated “reunification” model, but predicting anything more concrete is impossible at the moment.
In the meantime, the carrot and stick policy will continue as Taiwan can neither stop the PLA from sending daily air force sorties across the Taiwan Strait nor stop its citizens from visiting China or engaging in free speech online. At the end of the year, they will also be able to choose their next president and whether they want a pro-independence leader or one who wants to court Beijing.
“It’s very tricky because Taiwan is a democratic country and the government can’t prohibit mobility rights. We’re worried that visits and exchanges become the CCP’s United Front work,” said INSDR’s Lee. “I think the Chinese government should normalise cross-strait exchanges without political purposes. At the same time, I think those who visit China should be really careful of not falling into the trap of United Front work.”
China spinning a ‘web’ of influence campaigns to win over Taiwan
Away from the headline grabbing military threats, Beijing’s propaganda department is working to woo hearts and minds.
Al Jazeera English · by Erin Hale
Taipei, Taiwan – Squeezed against apartment blocks deep in New Taipei City, the Guanghe Fude Temple, dedicated to the earth god Tudigong, seems like a typical Taoist shrine.
The small house-like structure has marble walls, a tiled roof adorned with dragons and a ticker-tape LED sign – a common addition – protecting an interior of wood-carved reliefs, a sand-filled urn for josh sticks and a more fire-safe wall of electric candles. Then, there is Tudigong himself, wearing a bright gold and red sash.
But Taiwan’s media has alleged the temple is associated with China’s United Front Work Department, a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) agency that leads a wide-reaching influence campaign to “win friends and influence people”.
Speaking to Al Jazeera on a brief tour of the temple, Liang Tsu-wei, the temple committee’s honorary chairman, says the media have it slightly wrong. He insists that while he is a member of the United Front and Taiwan’s fringe pro-China Unionist Party, the temple is neutral ground.
While Liang says he would one day like to see the peaceful reunification of China and Taiwan, he engages in mostly small-scale political activities. “We have a lot of demonstrations and protests against the Democratic Progressive Party government,” he said. “If we think their policies are wrong, we will mobilise thousands of people to demonstrate and protest. But it’s up to [them] to decide whether or not to go.”
By Liang’s telling, the United Front and Unionist Party sound like any other political group active in a democratic society and temples like Guanghe Fude simply offer a casual setting for neighbours to chat and get to know each other.
Liang Tsu-wei, honorary chairman of Guanghe Fude Temple, admits he is a member of the United Front but says the temple is neutral [Erin Hale/Al Jazeera]
But there are also plenty of people, like political scientists and experts in Chinese politics, who see the activity of such groups another way: as a second subversive front in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s campaign to achieve “reunification” and “liberate” democratic Taiwan’s 23 million people by peace or by force by 2049 – the deadline for China’s “national rejuvenation“.
Carrot and stick
The CCP has pledged to take control of Taiwan ever since the Chinese nationalists set up their government on the island after losing China’s Civil War in 1949.
The United Front offers many of the carrots to the headline-grabbing sticks – sanctions, diplomatic isolation and overt threats – of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), China’s principal military force. This dual strategy exists because, despite China’s superior military power, an attack on Taiwan would still carry a great cost to Beijing because it would probably drag in the United States, Taiwan’s main security guarantor.
Worse, if the CCP were to achieve anything less than total victory, it could spell regime change. Convincing Taiwan to come willingly and avoid a devastating war would be a “win-win” for Beijing.
“For Xi and the CCP, peaceful unification with Taiwan is the best plan. They also know peaceful reunification will not work if they withdraw PLA’s military actions against Taiwan. That’s why Xi and the CCP never renounce the right to use force,” said Kuan-chen Lee, an assistant research fellow at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INSDR).
The overall strategy focuses on “changing the perceptions of the Taiwanese people”, Lee said by email. “It attempts to deepen Taiwanese people’s understanding that (1) reunification has advantages; (2) Taiwan independence is a dead end; (3) outsiders cannot be relied on. In other words, the CCP’s priority of pursuing reunification is to sow the seeds of peaceful unification among the people of Taiwan, rather than a full-scale invasion.”
United Front activity comes in many forms, some directed by the United Front Work Department office in Beijing, but sometimes through less formal channels, says John Dotson, deputy director of the Global Taiwan Institute and an expert in Chinese propaganda.
The United Front works openly through “peaceful reunification” groups in Taiwan and abroad, many of which can be traced to the United Front’s China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification. Groups like these and the Unionist Party often take part in “cultural exchanges” with the CCP through group trips to the mainland.
There are also well-known ties between temples in Taiwan and China, particularly those dedicated to the Buddhist-Taoist deity Mazu – the goddess of the sea – and through underworld criminal activity.
Not all of this work is a positive pan-cultural movement, says Gerry Groot, a senior lecturer and expert on the United Front at Australia’s University of Adelaide.
“While United Front work is often presented as winning friends to the Communist Party, the other side of the coin is to delegitimise and isolate enemies in order to destroy them,” he said. “In this case, it’s to win over people in Taiwan to support unification as well as to delegitimise the idea of independence and the notion of Taiwan as any sort of independent entity – and that applies not only to Taiwan but internationally.”
Past United Front campaigns also focused on Taiwan’s “three middles”: the middle and lower class, people in middle and southern Taiwan, and middle to smaller businesses, according to Puma Shen, an expert in Chinese misinformation campaigns and chairperson of Taiwan’s Double Think Lab.
More recently, it has shifted to “grassroots groups” like local elites and leaders as well as younger people under 30, he said, describing its work as a “spiderweb” of influence campaigns.
Celebrities and business people hoping to make it big in China’s far larger market may also end up stumping, sometimes very directly, for the Communist Party and its “One China” vision. Taiwan’s highly partisan media landscape is another major target.
In 2019, an investigation by the United Kingdom’s Financial Times alleged WantWant Holdings, a Taiwanese multinational that owns the pro-Beijing China Times newspaper and the TV stations China Television and Chung T’ien Television (CiTV), had close ties to the CCP as well as Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office and was receiving subsidies from China.
The company denied the allegations but the next year, CiTV lost its broadcasting licence after being accused of spreading Chinese disinformation.
Nostalgia for China
One of the United Front’s best-known targets is its historic enemy the Kuomintang (KMT), according to some analysts.
The KMT led China’s early republican government and has been at odds with the Communist Party since its founding in Shanghai in 1921. The two sides fought against each other at various points until the KMT fled to Taiwan in the 1940s, taking 2 million people with them and stepping in for the Japanese colonial government that had ruled Taiwan for half a century.
Unfortunately, it is the KMT’s nostalgia for its former homeland that is its weak spot, says Groot.
“[The KMT’s] attachment to this idea of Greater China is so strong, that despite the fact that historically, they were the victims of the success of the United Front work, they see this idea of Greater China as greater than themselves,” he told Al Jazeera. “And they’re, once again, willing to align themselves with Communist Party goals, because that’s the only way that unification is going to be achieved in their mind.”
Legislators from the China-friendly KMT protest against the anti-infiltration bill to criminalise political activities backed or funded by mainland China, which was passed in 2019. The slogans include: ‘Protest against a bad law’ and ‘Sanction by Votes’ [File: Chiang Ying-ying/AP Photo]
The same was once true of much of elite Taiwanese society, dominated for decades by families who fled with the KMT and still felt a deep connection to China.
But now, the associations are fading.
Over the past 20 years, Taiwanese increasingly see themselves as either “Taiwanese” or “Taiwanese-Chinese” instead of “Chinese”, according to long-term polling by National Chengchi University, which has sharply changed the political narrative.
KMT leaders, however, continue to hold regular meetings with Communist Party officials, including a recent landmark trip by former President Ma Ying-jeou this year who became the first Taiwanese leader – in or out of office – to visit China since the 1940s.
For the KMT, visiting Beijing is important to keep the lines of communication open during downturns in the relationship between Beijing and Taipei, such as since the 2016 election of President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), with both dismissed by Beijing as “separatists”. Tsai says the people of Taiwan are the only ones who can decide their future.
Party members, like Tso Chen-dong, director of the party’s Mainland Affairs Department, reject concerns they are susceptible to CCP influence.
“It is not that the KMT is open to CCP’s influence, I think we should put this equation in the other direction,” Tso said. “It is the case that the KMT still hopes to influence the CCP’s future policies through dialogue and social interaction so that the status quo can be maintained and the cross-strait relations can be stabilised… I believe the DPP is also trying to do that but the difference is how much success they achieve.”
Even so, the United Front is enough of a concern to all of Taiwan’s political parties for the legislature in 2019 to have passed an anti-infiltration act in response to intensified “United Front work to divide and infiltrate Taiwan” in a threat to its “security, social order, and normal functioning of democratic politics”. The law criminalises giving political donations, canvassing, lobbying, disrupting rallies, or spreading disinformation on behalf of “hostile external forces”, for example, Beijing.
Taiwan’s government has a formidable foe in the United Front.
While the organisation is not actively staging military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, its activities are wide-reaching and more discreet than overt displays of military strength.
Guanghe Fude Temple in Taiwan. Its chairman may be China-friendly but polls suggest fewer people in Taiwan are supportive of becoming part of China [Erin Hale/Al Jazeera]
Some of its work is coordinated from the United Front Work Department in Beijing but much of it is also decentralised, according to Groot.
Every Communist Party committee has its own United Front subcommittee, as does the military and other major organisations, all working towards a common cause. Groot estimates there are “enormous numbers” of people inside and outside China working on United Front efforts, although official numbers and its budget are not public.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative US think tank known for its hawkish views on China, estimated in 2020 that the United Front could employ as many as 40,000 people. Double Think’s Shen estimates it could be as many as 600,000, factoring in the fact that all national, provincial and local members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference could be mobilised to carry out United Front work.
Since taking power in 2012, Chinese President Xi has expanded the work of the organisation, while also raising the salary and prestige of department employees.
United Front is an “all-Party effort”, said John Dotson, deputy director of the Global Taiwan Institute and an expert in Chinese propaganda. He said it is comparable to “astroturfing” or the practice of creating fake organisations and causes to sway public opinion or surreptitiously promote a certain lobbying effort.
The United Front, similarly, may work abroad through foreign exchange groups, embassies, overseas Chinese organisations and even legislators in foreign countries to promote Beijing’s agenda.
Since 2019, the CCP’s propaganda about Taiwan has grown even louder, with declarations that “reunification” is an essential and “inevitable” part of national rejuvenation, according to Dotson, as it continues to spend “considerable effort trying to conduct covert politician influence operations” there.
Whether or not they will succeed, though, is another question.
People like Guanghe Fude Temple chairman Liang are increasingly rare in Taiwan as most Taiwanese do not want to see “reunification” any time soon or at all, according to repeated polling.
Wang Huning (second left) sits on the Politburo Standing Committee [File: Tingshu Wang/Reuters]
They also reject Beijing’s longstanding plan for how to make it happen – the “one country, two systems” that was tried in Hong Kong after its 1997 handover and collapsed by 2020.
There are some tremors within the CCP suggesting that a change could be afoot, said GTI’s Dotson. At the CCP’s “Taiwan Work Conference” last month, party official Wang Huning, who oversees United Front policy, appeared to play down “one country, two systems” in favour of another formula titled The Party’s Comprehensive Plan for Resolving the Taiwan Problem in the New Era.
Analysts say this could signal a potential change in the CCP’s “ideological framework” towards Taiwan and one day, an updated “reunification” model, but predicting anything more concrete is impossible at the moment.
In the meantime, the carrot and stick policy will continue as Taiwan can neither stop the PLA from sending daily air force sorties across the Taiwan Strait nor stop its citizens from visiting China or engaging in free speech online. At the end of the year, they will also be able to choose their next president and whether they want a pro-independence leader or one who wants to court Beijing.
“It’s very tricky because Taiwan is a democratic country and the government can’t prohibit mobility rights. We’re worried that visits and exchanges become the CCP’s United Front work,” said INSDR’s Lee. “I think the Chinese government should normalise cross-strait exchanges without political purposes. At the same time, I think those who visit China should be really careful of not falling into the trap of United Front work.”
Al Jazeera English · by Erin Hale
20. Xi Prepares China for ‘Extreme’ Scenarios, Including Conflict with the West
The recent references to extreme scenarios are at least partly meant to prod policy makers and local leaders to double down on that effort, said policy advisers who consult with authorities in Beijing. Doing so hasn’t been easy for an economy that both counts exports as a traditional driver of growth and relies on Western high-tech.
Senior aides to Xi, including his longtime economic adviser, former Vice Premier Liu He, and Liu’s successor, He Lifeng, have been entrusted with mapping out plans to keep the economy going in the case of much stepped-up U.S. and other Western sanctions—possible scenarios in the event of conflict, the policy advisers said. The “extreme” wording is emerging as a kind of new catchphrase that is also popping up at local levels of government. Local leaders from the coastal metropolis of Shanghai to the landlocked province of Hunan have also vowed to ready their systems for extreme circumstances, according to official releases, which didn’t elaborate.
“Xi’s overriding mission of his coming term is to harden China from external vulnerabilities,” said Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former presidential adviser on China and Asia. “Seen through that lens, it would make sense for Xi to seek to heighten a sense of urgency and importance around strengthening China’s ability to withstand ‘extreme’ conditions.”
Looming over the new Xi-speak is what Beijing sees as increased challenges from Washington over a mission it views as sacred—the eventual reunification with Taiwan.
Xi Prepares China for ‘Extreme’ Scenarios, Including Conflict with the West
Beijing plays up possibility of worsening ties as the U.S. and China set plans for Blinken visit
By Lingling WeiFollow
Updated June 12, 2023 12:07 pm ET
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-xi-jinping-plays-up-possibility-of-worsening-tensions-with-the-west-aac2dff8
As Beijing and Washington move gingerly toward restoring high-level exchanges, Xi Jinping is stepping up his effort to gird China for conflict.
Since late last month, the Chinese leader has twice urged the nation to prepare for what he described as extreme scenarios or conditions—trotting out a phraseology implying the possibilities of escalating tensions as the competition between the U.S. and China intensifies.
At a top-level meeting focused on national security on May 30, the Chinese leader said, “We must be prepared for worst-case and extreme scenarios, and be ready to withstand the major test of high winds, choppy waters and even dangerous storms.”
A week later, Xi extended that concept to the economic arena. While inspecting an industrial park in Inner Mongolia, Xi said efforts to build up the domestic market are aimed at “ensuring normal operation of the national economy under extreme circumstances.”
The comments come as Secretary of State Antony Blinken is planning to travel to China this month as part of the efforts by both governments to rebuild lines of communication derailed by a suspected Chinese spy balloon flying over the American heartland early this year.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to visit Beijing this month. PHOTO: AHMED YOSRI/PRESS POOL
The warnings about extreme conditions running parallel with the effort to mend ties with Washington suggest Xi isn’t letting up on efforts to ringfence the economy and the country against prolonged tensions with the West.
Liu Pengyu, spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said Xi has made it clear the two sides should work together to ensure that the bilateral relations “move forward on the right course without losing direction or speed, still less having a collision.”
The Biden administration wants to establish guardrails around the bilateral relationship to prevent it from evolving into outright conflict. Beijing, on the other hand, appears less interested in the specifics than in the general principles underpinning the relations. In particular, China wants to make sure the U.S. doesn’t cross red lines on matters China considers off limits, such as Taiwan.
Xi, whose political status rivals that of Mao Zedong, shares Mao’s penchant for terms or statements that dramatize perceived foreign threats as a way to secure power. He has mentioned external risks before but the recurring reference to extreme conditions, which came after Xi lashed out at the U.S. for seeking to suppress China’s rise at the legislative session in March, raised new alarms.
Jin Canrong, an influential foreign-policy scholar, didn’t mince words about his interpretation, telling the Global Times, a nationalist newspaper under the Communist Party, that the extreme scenarios Xi referred to mean “the danger of war.”
Bill Bishop, author of the China-focused newsletter Sinocism, noted that Xi’s use of language represents “a significant upgrading of the sense of risk, peril and the need to prepare.”
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China has slowly claimed and militarized disputed territory across the South China Sea, often at the expense of its neighbors. WSJ explains the economic repercussions for the U.S. and countries across the Indo-Pacific, and what the U.S. is doing about it.
Having secured an unprecedented third term in power in October, Xi has time and again signaled that China’s relations with the West—the U.S. in particular—could become much choppier, indicating that a main development goal for the next five years is to build a geopolitically resilient economy that is much less dependent on foreign markets and technology.
The recent references to extreme scenarios are at least partly meant to prod policy makers and local leaders to double down on that effort, said policy advisers who consult with authorities in Beijing. Doing so hasn’t been easy for an economy that both counts exports as a traditional driver of growth and relies on Western high-tech.
Senior aides to Xi, including his longtime economic adviser, former Vice Premier Liu He, and Liu’s successor, He Lifeng, have been entrusted with mapping out plans to keep the economy going in the case of much stepped-up U.S. and other Western sanctions—possible scenarios in the event of conflict, the policy advisers said. The “extreme” wording is emerging as a kind of new catchphrase that is also popping up at local levels of government. Local leaders from the coastal metropolis of Shanghai to the landlocked province of Hunan have also vowed to ready their systems for extreme circumstances, according to official releases, which didn’t elaborate.
“Xi’s overriding mission of his coming term is to harden China from external vulnerabilities,” said Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former presidential adviser on China and Asia. “Seen through that lens, it would make sense for Xi to seek to heighten a sense of urgency and importance around strengthening China’s ability to withstand ‘extreme’ conditions.”
Looming over the new Xi-speak is what Beijing sees as increased challenges from Washington over a mission it views as sacred—the eventual reunification with Taiwan.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping shares Mao Zedong’s penchant for statements that dramatize perceived foreign threats as a way to secure power. PHOTO: MARK CRISTINO/PRESS POOL
The U.S. is committed to bolstering Taiwan’s ability to resist coercive tactics from China under pledges including the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, and the Biden team trumpets its plans to strengthen economic and political links to Taipei. Xi has made reunification with Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a breakaway province, a big part of his “China Dream” of national revival.
There is little sign of imminent Chinese action to take back the island, though there have been plenty of symbolic gestures.
For instance, Chinese airplanes over the past year have significantly ramped up incursions into Taiwan’s air-defense zone. Earlier this month, the U.S. accused a Chinese warship of cutting in front of an American vessel that was taking part in a joint exercise with the Canadian navy in the Taiwan Strait, while Chinese officials essentially blamed the U.S. vessel for encroaching on China’s sovereignty.
In recent meetings with Western diplomats and business executives, Chinese officials appeared to be trying to make a case that the U.S. will seek to goad China into war over Taiwan. The rhetoric is similar to how China has described Russia’s war in Ukraine. Beijing hasn’t denounced the invasion and has instead blamed Washington and its European allies for provoking Moscow into action.
A Chinese warship crossed the path of a U.S. Navy vessel as it was transiting the Taiwan Strait earlier this month. PHOTO: GLOBAL NEWS/REUTERS
Meanwhile, amid deepening economic woes, Beijing is working on wooing foreign businesses, highlighting the contradictions in Chinese policy.
The same day that Xi spoke of “extreme scenarios” at the national-security meeting, Elon Musk was getting a red-carpet treatment in Beijing, with senior officials seeking to use the visits by the Tesla chief executive and other global business leaders to hit back at the Biden administration’s restrictions on doing business in China.
Beijing’s own attempts recently to bring foreign businesses to heel—involving raids, detentions and investigations targeting U.S. consulting and other firms—have made many global companies already worried about geopolitical tensions even more wary of expanding in the country.
The two-prong approach of preparing for worsened tensions while trying to mend fences with the foreign business community and Washington suggests Xi is taking no chances. While inspecting troops when he toured Inner Mongolia last week, the Chinese leader, in military green, called on the army to “forge the Great Wall of Steel to defend the country and defend the border.”
Write to Lingling Wei at Lingling.Wei@wsj.com
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Appeared in the June 13, 2023, print edition as 'Xi Plays Up Tensions With the West'.
21. China Creates a Coast Guard Like No Other, Seeking Supremacy in Asian Seas
China Creates a Coast Guard Like No Other, Seeking Supremacy in Asian Seas
The New York Times · by Damien Cave · June 13, 2023
analysis
Beijing’s patrol vessels often resemble warships. Now other nations are trying to compete with tougher coast guards of their own.
Philippine Coast Guard personnel in an inflatable boat speeding past a Chinese Coast Guard cutter near a disputed shoal in the South China Sea in April.
By
Damien Cave reported from Taiwan, Singapore, Guam and other parts of Asia.
Published June 12, 2023Updated June 13, 2023, 7:07 a.m. ET
阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版
Seeking to dominate the strategic waterways of Asia, China has deployed an armada of boats that are equipped with 76-millimeter cannons, the capacity to add anti-ship missiles, and they are bigger than U.S. Navy destroyers. But they are not Chinese Navy vessels. Their hulls are painted white, with “China Coast Guard” in block letters on the sides.
In just a decade, China has amassed the world’s largest coast guard fleet, and it is like no other. More militarized, more aggressive in international disputes and less concerned with the usual missions of policing smugglers or search and rescue, the Chinese force has upended 200 years of global coast guard tradition.
It has also set off an arms race. Powering into a gray zone between law enforcement and naval power, Beijing has targeted rivals with ships that can easily sink the vessels most coast guards have used for decades. And in response, other countries that fear Chinese encroachment are rushing to deploy bigger, more heavily armed patrol boats of their own.
The waters around Taiwan, the self-governed island China claims as its own, are one potential battleground. But with coast guard standoffs quietly escalating around the region, officials and analysts increasingly worry about a rising threat: an accident or violent skirmish anywhere in the vast area that China’s Coast Guard roams, which could spark a broader conflict, even a war between major powers.
From March 30 to April 2, a squadron of Chinese Coast Guard ships circled the contested islands that Japan calls the Senkakus for 80 hours and 36 minutes — China’s longest-ever stay, according to maritime data.
Japan later announced a plan to upgrade its coast guard and fold it into the Ministry of Defense.
Sources: C.S.I.S. Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative; Starboard; U.S. Geological Survey; Flanders Marine Institute; Natural Earth
By Agnes Chang
Two more recent incidents also point to new levels of Chinese assertiveness and regional risk:
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Starting around April 8, Chinese patrol ships crowded near Taiwan, threatening for the first time to stop and search Taiwanese vessels during Chinese military drills prompted by a meeting between President Tsai Ing-wen and the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy. Taiwan is now developing plans to pierce any future blockades while hardening its own coast guard.
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On April 23, near a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, one of China’s large cutters maneuvered into the path of a much smaller Philippine patrol boat, forcing its captain to throw its engines into reverse to avoid a collision. A few days later, the United States promised to give the Philippines six new upgraded patrol vessels.
These altercations — along with additional Chinese incursions near Vietnam and the Pacific Island nation of Palau in May and June — fit a pattern of intensifying tensions, marking a major shift in how nations claim territory and protect their interests in the world’s oceans. Coast guards that once acted as watchful eyes and helping hands have become more like navies, drawn into Asia’s geopolitics and deployed as military muscle in waterways that are vital for shipping and natural resources.
From ports in southern China and Taiwan to American bases in Guam, white-hulled coast guard vessels are getting longer and heavier, or smaller and faster. Their guns are also getting bigger, or they are being built to allow for complex weapons systems to be bolted on at a moment’s notice. And the region’s coast guards are working more closely with defense planners, putting them at the vanguard of broader contests in the Indo-Pacific over economic and military power.
“This is not how it was 10 years ago,” said John Bradford, a retired U.S. Navy commander and senior fellow in the Maritime Security Program at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “Many countries across the region have started using their coast guards to assert sovereignty.”
“The idea,” he added, “is that it’s more effective because you’re less likely to push up the escalation ladder because they’re lightly armed. But when a coast guard vessel gets missiles on it, how is it different from a navy vessel except for the color of the paint on the hull?”
A U.S. Coast Guard cutter in Guam in February. The United States has become more active in the Pacific with a new generation of cutters and patrol agreements with several nations.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
The coast guard competition now emerging in Asia began with China’s push to become what it called a “maritime great power.”
That phrase, setting out a national priority, appears in Chinese government documents as far back as 2000, with a definition that includes naval power, fishing prowess, environmental protection and the advancement of territorial claims. The coast guard’s leading role was solidified in 2013 under Xi Jinping, who, in his first year as China’s leader, created the seagoing force by consolidating five agencies.
The coast guard, in China’s eyes, would be a pillar of its rejuvenation as a world power because it would help Beijing control important waterways (and their fishing and mining riches) without spurring a military response from countries flummoxed by the fleet’s not-quite-military heft.
What followed were dozens of confrontations confirming that China’s coast guard — often working with a militia of fishing and other kinds of vessels — could patrol, prod and intimidate rivals with near impunity.
In 2013, there were several tense standoffs in the South China Sea between Chinese Coast Guard vessels and Filipino troops occupying a World War II-era ship called the Sierra Madre.
In 2014, in the same sea off the coast of Vietnam, a Chinese Coast Guard ship rammed a Vietnamese Coast Guard vessel after Vietnam tried to stop China from building an oil rig in contested waters.
In 2016, China’s coast guard rammed free a fishing boat that had been seized by the Indonesian authorities.
A Chinese Coast Guard ship during a military drill near the Taiwan-controlled Matsu Islands in April. Credit...Thomas Peter/Reuters
More recently, China has expanded both the mission and the fighting capacity of its fleet. A 2021 law grants its coast guard — which falls under military control — the right to use lethal force against foreign ships in waters that Beijing claims, including the South China Sea, where it has built forward operating bases on artificial islands.
Regional experts say the provisions violate international law by allowing China’s coast guard, without declaring war, to engage in warlike behavior beyond its national jurisdiction.
And its boats increasingly have the power to do so. China now has around 150 large coast guard patrol ships of at least 1,000 tons, compared to roughly 70 for Japan, 60 for the United States and just a handful for most countries in Asia. The Philippines has 25 patrol ships to deploy in the South China Sea. Taiwan’s coast guard consists of 23 boats, according to U.S. officials.
Many of China’s coast guard vessels are former navy corvettes, capable of long-endurance operations and equipped with helicopter pads, powerful water cannons and guns the same caliber as those on an M1 Abrams tank. Anti-ship cruise missiles that many of the boats once carried could be quickly reattached.
This new fleet of warships dressed up as law enforcement vessels is what many countries in Asia are forced to confront almost daily as China pushes further into disputed territory, for longer periods. And it’s not just in the South China Sea.
On May 11, in the East China Sea, two Chinese Coast Guard vessels breached the 12-mile territorial limit around the Senkaku Islands for the 13th time this year. In 2022, alternating teams of 1,500-ton Chinese Coast Guard vessels spent 336 days circling the disputed islands, up from 171 in 2017, according to Japanese tracking data.
Japanese and Chinese ships near the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea in 2012. Credit...Kyodo News, via Associated Press
“We have confirmed some ships deployed guns,” Hiromune Kikuchi, a Japanese Coast Guard spokesman, said in an interview. “We are concerned that they have increased numbers of large ships with military capabilities.”
Increasingly, so too have the coast guards of other countries.
Vietnam ordered six large coast guard ships from Japan to be delivered by 2025.
South Korea announced last year that it would build nine new 3,000-ton patrol ships for the seas off its western coast, where the maritime boundary with China is unclear.
Japan approved a law in December that will increase its coast guard budget by nearly $1 billion — a 40 percent surge — and fold the fleet into its national defense forces.
The United States and Australia have also become more active in the Pacific with gifts of patrol boats, new maritime surveillance centers and, for the Americans, a new generation of larger Coast Guard cutters and patrol agreements with several nations — adding Papua New Guinea just in recent weeks.
The United States is also now working more closely with Japan and the Philippines in the South China Sea, conducting joint coast guard training exercises in the Philippines last year and again this June, drawing complaints from Beijing.
A Philippine Coast Guard patrol ship and a U.S. Coast Guard cutter during a joint training exercise in the Philippines last year.Credit...Francis R Malasig/EPA-EFE, via Shutterstock
“The coast guards and different nations in the region are maturing,” said Vice Adm. Andrew J. Tiongson, the U.S. Coast Guard’s Pacific Area commander. “I think they’re maturing out of necessity.”
Nowhere is that dynamic more obvious than in the Taiwan Strait and the shipyards of southern Taiwan. On an island at the center of regional anxieties, Taiwan’s coast guard is expanding far more rapidly than its Navy while confronting almost daily challenges from China.
On one recent visit to an industrial area just outside the port of Kaohsiung, workers put the final touches on repairs for a coast guard patrol boat whose nose had been sheared off at sea.
“A Chinese ship hit this boat and broke right through it,” said Hu Yenlu, a former Taiwanese Navy officer who runs Karmin International, a company that builds and repairs Taiwanese Coast Guard vessels.
A few weeks earlier, he said, the patrol boat — a 36-foot rigid inflatable, similar to assault craft used by U.S. Navy Seals — had helped form a cordon with a few others around a suspicious-looking speedboat near Taiwan’s outer islands. That boat had six engines, a common design for China’s maritime militia, and when the Taiwanese Coast Guard asked about its mission, the pilot pushed the throttle and punched through.
“There was no name on that ship, but we know it was Chinese,” said Mr. Hu, recounting the story officials had told him. “When you don’t see a name, you know it’s suspicious.”
Workers in Pingtung City, Taiwan, repairing a coast guard patrol boat whose nose had been sheared off at sea by a Chinese ship.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times
It was one of many collisions and near misses caused by aggressive Chinese tactics near Taiwan, according to maritime officials and boat builders.
On June 3, the U.S. military said that an American naval destroyer, the U.S.S. Chung-Hoon, slowed to avoid a possible collision with a Chinese Navy ship that crossed in front of the Chung-Hoon as it passed through the strait between China and Taiwan.
China’s threat in April to inspect Taiwanese vessels represented another kind of climb up the escalatory ladder. The response to it revealed the blurring lines of aggression at sea.
Taiwan’s Ocean Affairs Council said it had responded to China’s threat by employing a coast guard boat of its own as a shadowing force to “prevent mainland China from endangering the freedom of navigation and safety of our citizens.” A spokesman for Taiwan’s office overseeing relations with Beijing said: “If you interfere, we will hit back.”
A second shipyard near the port in Kaohsiung offered hints of what that might mean.
A new 100-ton patrol boat bobbed in the water with a strong steel hull rather than the lighter materials of earlier iterations, for protection in case of ramming. On one of the piers, a 600-ton coast guard vessel with a fresh coat of white paint waited for engineers to add the same radio and radar that Taiwan’s Navy uses.
On the side, there was a wide gap in the hull — for missile launchers, if needed.
Hisako Ueno contributed reporting from Tokyo, Amy Chang Chien from Taipei and Zixu Wang from Hong Kong.
A correction was made on
June 12, 2023
:
An earlier version of this article misstated the abilities of some large Chinese coast guard ships that are former navy corvettes. Most of them do not have anti-ship missiles; photographs show they have been replaced with water cannons.
How we handle corrections
Damien Cave is the bureau chief in Sydney, Australia. He previously reported from Mexico City, Havana, Beirut and Baghdad. Since joining The Times in 2004, he has also been a deputy National editor, Miami bureau chief and a Metro reporter. @damiencave
A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Beijing Uses Coast Guard Like a Navy
128
The New York Times · by Damien Cave · June 13, 2023
22. Unlikely bipartisan coalitions could signal congressional readiness to trim US presence overseas
If the Somalia vote indicates a willingness to withdraw other troops from overseas and if it extends to our basing arrangements this could be a huge mistake. A basic principle of patrolling: do not give up the high ground - it is hard to walk back up that hill once you have gone down it. Haven't we learned from our hasty withdrawal from Europe in the 1990s?
The tyranny of distance has not been reduced. We are still facing the laws of physics: time and distance.
Unlikely bipartisan coalitions could signal congressional readiness to trim US presence overseas
The Hill · by Alexander Bolton · June 12, 2023
Last month, the House of Representatives defeated a resolution offered by conservative Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to remove about 900 U.S. troops from Somalia. The vote was 102-321, with the votes on the provision split with 52 Republicans and 50 Democrats voting aye. It was an unusual left-right coalition; conservatives such as Gaetz and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) joined liberals such as Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) in favor.
Coalitions like these sets of unlikely bedfellows could signal readiness in Congress to reengage in a long overdue conversation about the scope of the U.S. military’s presence overseas. The talking points espoused by advocates of troop removal, who otherwise seem diametrically opposed on almost every issue, echo familiar cries from politicians and experts alike who argue that the U.S. presence in foreign countries could sometimes exacerbate, rather than prevent, conflict.
During the debate, Gaetz argued, “The U.S. military is not an effective capability to deploy to defeat an ideology. We are not able to permanently stabilize countries by having a presence that can at times be the very basis for the terrorism recruitment that we seem to work against.”
Omar, a Somali American, added that a more extensive debate “should include clear-eyed analysis of U.S. counterterrorism policies, including air strikes and drones, and the consistent problem of civilian casualties of U.S. operations.”
The House vote was pursuant to Section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, a measure to limit the president’s authority to wage war and reassert congressional authority over foreign wars. While President Richard Nixon vetoed the bill, Congress overrode the veto.
However, since 1973, presidents of both parties have largely ignored the measure, except for reporting requirements.
The little-known Section 5(c) permits members of Congress to offer privileged resolutions — meaning that a vote is guaranteed — any time U.S. armed forces are engaged in hostilities outside the territory of the United States without a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization.
This forced vote was not Gaetz’s first and, he has made clear, not his last. Previously, on March 8, a Gaetz resolution to compel the withdrawal of American troops from Syria was beaten 103-321, with close to equal number of Democrats and Republicans voting aye.
Previous debates on terminating overseas conflict have been less bipartisan. During the controversial Vietnam War that convulsed the nation for many years, the majority of the congressional opposition to the war came from Democrats and a much smaller group of moderate Republicans.
For example, a key 1973 vote to stop U.S. bombing over Cambodia was supported by 184 House Democrats and 35 Republicans.
The concern over the president’s almost untrammeled authority to launch wars and military operations that can last years or decades has regularly aroused bipartisan concern.
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This rising concern about overseas bases has been motivated by studies that show extensive American overseas bases — and military engagement — are largely overlooked by Congress and the American public. The United States has about 750 overseas bases in more than 80 countries, according to David Vine, co-founder of the Overseas Base Realignment and Closure Coalition and a professor at American University. In addition, the Biden administration is planning to add bases encircling China, including four new bases in the Philippines, bringing the total in that country to nine. As Vine points out, the United States has more overseas bases than any nation, empire or people in world history. Members of Congress have pressed for the details of all these bases and their associated costs, but the Pentagon has largely stonewalled.
While the Biden administration has promoted a diplomacy-first policy toward resolving crises, the Pentagon has too often taken the lead. Hopefully, efforts like Gaetz’s forcing of votes on these overseas deployments can lead to bipartisan action in Congress for informed votes on sending and retaining overseas deployments.
John Isaacs is a senior fellow at Council for a Livable World
The Hill · by Alexander Bolton · June 12, 2023
23. One of Ukraine's New US-Equipped 'Storm' Brigades Spotted in the East
One of Ukraine's New US-Equipped 'Storm' Brigades Spotted in the East
military.com · by 12 Jun 2023 Military.com | By Adrian Bonenberger · June 12, 2023
This column was written by Military.com reporter Adrian Bonenberger, who trained Ukrainian units for the counteroffensive from March to May.
The video is grainy. It cuts from shot to shot of distant armor driving in single file across a field, hitting mines and getting struck by artillery. Watching it, my stomach twisted into a knot. As I understood it, the video had been recorded by Russian drones. It claimed to prove that the Ukrainian counteroffensive for which so many had such high hopes was foundering.
A failed counteroffensive was bad enough. But there was another reason I viewed the video with trepidation. The accompanying description claimed that one of the units involved in the fighting was Ukraine's 31st Separate Mechanized Brigade -- that dozens of vehicles had been destroyed. Russia had claimed as many as 1,500 Ukrainian troops were killed in the early part of the counteroffensive.
For two weeks at the end of April and beginning of May, I helped train elements of the 31st's reconnaissance battalion. They expected to be at the front of the counteroffensive.
The brigade, fitted out with a variety of U.S.-supplied equipment including MaxxPro mine-resistant, ambush protected vehicles, or MRAPs, was created this year. Its purpose was to take part in Ukraine's counteroffensive. My portion was a company that was itself part of a reconnaissance battalion. The soldiers were to be among the first on the attack in its sector.
When they arrived in the training area where I was living with and training elements of another Ukrainian unit at the end of April, the soldiers of the 31st had already received individual training with weapons and equipment. Some had been soldiers years before. Many were in their 40s, or older. About a dozen appeared to be in their late 50s.
As a unit, the 31st was not prepared to fight when we started training.
Placed on the back foot by Russia's invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, Ukraine has been locked in a bitter struggle with Russia's military ever since. The initiative has swung back and forth between Ukraine and Russia, with Russia seizing large swaths of territory at the outset, and Ukraine returning a good portion of the land to its control over the course of the summer and autumn of 2022. Most recently, Ukraine pulled back from the city of Bakhmut, a strategically inconsequential but symbolically significant battle in which tens of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians lost their lives.
Long awaited and hoped-for, a major operation by Ukraine's Ministry of Defence, involving at least a dozen units and tens of thousands of soldiers, is currently unfolding in the country's north, east and southeast. Hopes are high that the military can liberate more territory. But that depends on how effective the brigades are in taking and holding territory.
Ukraine's MoD has issued cryptic and contradictory messages on social media, with some saying that the counteroffensive is happening, others that it began a week or more earlier, and others still that it has yet to begin in earnest.
That early video of the fighting that showed the battlefield -- and potentially attacks on the 31st -- was shared on June 5 via Telegram by Russians, and subsequently shared on Twitter. It showed Ukrainian armored vehicles driving across a field targeted by what appeared to be artillery and mines. Russia claimed to have destroyed a number of vehicles, and that the remainder had been driven back.
Wondering whether the units were from the 31st, or could have been, I reached out to sources in Ukraine. One of them confirmed that the unit engaged was, in fact, the unit that I had trained, reconnaissance soldiers with the 31st Separate Mechanized Brigade. On June 6, the source claimed that the unit had lost one MRAP in the engagement and that fighting was ongoing.
In war, both sides tend to claim that the enemy is exaggerating its casualties. I was relieved to hear that the unit had suffered less than I feared at first. But more heavy fighting was still ahead for them, and the other brigades taking part in the counteroffensive.
When I was training them, I was not sure where the 31st would go. In late April or early May, Bakhmut still seemed as though it could be a possible destination. I had some indication that the recon elements might be used for more than finding the enemy in maneuver war. I wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not. It's always better to use soldiers according to the tasks they're trained for. Training units at the squad and platoon level in urban movement, and close-quarters battle, or CQB, I had the impression some of them might be used to assault, instead of to reconnoiter.
CQB is a very difficult skill to master -- perhaps the most difficult, alongside those dealing with trench lines or bunkers. A week of training is not sufficient to do anything more than familiarization with the principles. Elite units in the U.S. dedicate much of their time and energy to training for specific CQB scenarios, constructing replicas of buildings they expect to encounter, and training on them with live-fire rounds for weeks.
This unit, elements of a reconnaissance battalion, expected to be entering villages and possibly larger urban areas, and wanted to know how to clear buildings safely if necessary. They were also not thrilled about using MRAPs in reconnaissance, and had concerns about the vehicle's survivability and tall profile.
By the time we finished training together -- I left on May 11 -- the battalion was capable of carrying out missions at the squad level, and had some experience as platoons. It was learning company- and battalion-level logistics and coordination, things that are not simple to perform for seasoned groups, and challenging under the best circumstances. In the ensuing two weeks, before they moved forward to their positions and began the counteroffensive, they continued to make progress.
When I left, it was with a sense of worry for the Ukrainians who would soon be at the front of Russian guns, mixed with admiration for their commitment to victory and stoic attitude. There was no question that the unit had come much closer to being capable of offensive operations than when it started.
The offensive is finally underway, and it looks as though the new units that were mustered mere months ago are making progress against Russia's defensive lines.
-- Adrian Bonenberger, an Army veteran and graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, reports for Military.com. You can reach him at Adrian.bonenberger@monster.com.
military.com · by 12 Jun 2023 Military.com | By Adrian Bonenberger · June 12, 2023
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
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