Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"He who is not content with what he has, would not be content with what he would like to have."

- Socrates

"Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated."

- Coretta Scott King

"The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The willingness to learn is a choice."

- Brian Herbert

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 5, 2023

2. A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul

3. Analysis: China’s Military Influence in Africa Grows as Russia’s Diminishes

4. Beijing airs documentary showing China army's prep for Taiwan attack: Report

5. What a counter-drone system says about US aid to Ukraine

6. As War Grinds On, It Expands Beyond Old Battlefields

7. U.S. Support for the Philippines in the South China Sea

8. What to make of a surprise shake-up in China’s nuclear force

9. USAF Will Retire the U-2 in 2026. Until Then, Expect ‘Unique, Innovative’ Uses

10. Sweden is now much more capitalist than US

11. Western Diplomats Need to Stop Whining About Ukraine

12. Ukraine’s elite forces rely on technology to strike behind enemy lines

13. How the Strong Commandant System Caught Up with the Marine Corps

14. Putin's other battle… for influence in Africa: How Kremlin's shady meddling is bearing fruit

15. The cloud, fiber optics and hiding in basements: Army races to adapt to new command post threats

16. Will China Embrace Nuclear Brinkmanship as It Reaches Nuclear Parity?

17. Tomb Guard Braves Storm

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 5, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-5-2023

Key Takeaways:

Ukrainian forces struck a Russian oil tanker on August 4 with a naval drone in the second attack on Russian ships in the Black Sea in two consecutive days.
Ukrainian officials issued a notice to mariners that Ukraine may strike vessels near Russia’s Black Sea ports – a measured response to continued Russian strikes against Odesa – Ukraine's main port – since July 17.
Ukrainian naval strikes are likely part of a deliberate interdiction campaign aimed at setting favorable conditions for larger counteroffensive operations.
Ukrainian forces continue to draw Russian forces to the Bakhmut area and fix them there despite a slower tempo of Ukrainian operations there.
Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks in southern Ukraine on August 5, part of a continuing pattern of limited Ukrainian ground attacks accompanying Ukrainian efforts to interdict Russian logistics and headquarters in rear areas.
Senior officials from reportedly 40 countries, including the US, China, and India, began talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on August 5 aimed at drafting a set of key principles to guide the future settlement of the war in Ukraine.
Russian forces conducted offensive operations northeast of Kupyansk, along the Svatove-Kreminna line, in the Bakhmut area, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front, in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced along the Svatove-Kreminna line and the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front.
Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front, in western Donetsk Oblast, in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced along the Svatove-Kremmina line.
Pardoned Wagner Group convict fighters continue to increase recidivism rates in Russia.
Russian officials continue to transport Ukrainian children from occupied regions to Russia under the guise of summer vacations.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, AUGUST 5, 2023

Aug 5, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Riley Bailey, Nicole Wolkov, Angelica Evans, George Barros, Kateryna Stepanenko, and Frederick W. Kagan

August 5, 2023, 6:30 pm ET

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

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

Note: The data cutoff for this product was 12:00 pm ET on August 5. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the August 6 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Ukrainian forces struck a Russian oil tanker on August 4 with a naval drone in the second attack on Russian ships in the Black Sea in two consecutive days. The Moscow Times identified the tanker as the chemical tanker SIG, which is currently under US sanctions for supplying jet fuel to Russian forces in Syria.[1] Sources within the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) confirmed to the Ukrainian outlet Suspilne that the SBU and the Ukrainian Navy struck the ship near the Kerch Strait Bridge using a naval drone.[2] The Russian Federal Agency for Sea and Inland Water Transport (Rosmorrechflot) reported that the strike on the SIG occurred 27 kilometers south of the Kerch Strait Bridge, and Russian milbloggers claimed that the attack caused Russian authorities to suspend traffic on the bridge.[3] Russian news aggregator Baza reported that the naval drone punched a two-by-one meter hole in the SIG’s engine room, and state Russian outlets claimed that the incident did not result in an oil spill.[4] A Russian milblogger claimed that the Ukrainian naval drone intentionally targeted the SIG’s engine room because targeting the stern creates the least likelihood of an oil spill and is where the most expensive and difficult-to-repair equipment is located.[5] The nature and location on the ship of the attack suggest that Ukrainian forces intended to disable the ship without generating significant ecological consequences. Ukrainian forces have long targeted the Kerch Strait Bridge in order to degrade Russian military logistics in southern Ukraine, and the attack on the SIG is likely part of a wider effort to disable ships involved in supplying Russian military forces and the location of the attack near the bridge suggests that it was part of a larger effort to disrupt Russian logistics along a key Russian ground line of communication (GLOC).[6]

Ukrainian officials issued a notice to mariners that Ukraine may strike vessels near Russia’s Black Sea ports – a measured response to continued Russian strikes against Odesa – Ukraine's main port – since July 17.[7] The Ukrainian State Hydrographic Service at the State Service of Maritime and River Transport posted a notice to mariners on August 4 announcing a “military threat” in the vicinity of the internal and external roadsteads at the ports of Taman, Anapa, Novorossiysk, Gelendzhik, Tuapse, and Sochi, until further notice.[8] The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense also cryptically tweeted ”Two can play that game,” without further context on August 5 - likely a reference to the Russian military’s continued strikes against Odesa’s port infrastructure since July 17.[9] This Ukrainian warning may deter merchant activity and international commercial shipping to and from Russia in the Black Sea.

Ukrainian naval strikes are likely part of a deliberate interdiction campaign aimed at setting favorable conditions for larger counteroffensive operations. A Ukrainian naval drone struck the Russian Olenegorsky Gornyak Ropucha-class landing ship on the night of August 3 to 4.[10] Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Representative Andriy Yusov stated on August 5 that the damage to the Olenegorsky Gornyak is very significant and suggested that the ship will not be operational for some time.[11] The UK Ministry of Defense (UK MoD) reported that images of the ship show it listing at 30 to 40 degrees, which suggests either that several watertight compartments were breached by the drone strike or that the crew’s efforts to control the damage were ineffective.[12] UK MoD reported that the Olenegorsky Gornyak is typically assigned to Russia’s Northern Fleet but has lately been ferrying military and civilian traffic between Russia and occupied Crimea following traffic disruptions to the Kerch Strait Bridge caused by previous Ukrainian strikes.[13] Previous Ukrainian interdiction efforts have mainly focused on Russian military targets on land, but it seems that Ukrainian forces are now expanding their efforts to include naval targets as part of these efforts. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly stated their commitment to a deliberate interdiction campaign against Russian military targets in order to degrade Russian logistics and defensive capabilities to set favorable conditions for future Ukrainian counteroffensive activity.[14] Ukrainian forces are thus continuing to set conditions for future decisive operations via an interdiction campaign as they did before and during counteroffensive operations in Kharkiv and Kherson oblasts in 2022, now striking much deeper into Russian rear areas and incorporating maritime targets.

Ukrainian forces continue to draw Russian forces to the Bakhmut area and fix them there despite a slower tempo of Ukrainian operations there. Ukrainian offensive operations on Bakhmut’s southern and northern flanks have slowed in recent days, and Russian and Ukrainian sources did not report any Ukrainian ground attacks in the area on August 5.[15] The rate of Ukrainian advances in the Bakhmut area has also slowed in recent weeks. Ukrainian operations around Bakhmut have drawn additional Russian units and formations to the Bakhmut area and have kept Russian forces in the area, which was likely one of their primary objectives. Russian forces have deployed elite formations and units to support defensive operations around Bakhmut, including elements of the 98th Guards Airborne (VDV) Division, the 11th VDV Brigade, the 106th VDV Division, and the 364th Spetsnaz Brigade (Russian General Staff Main Directorate).[16] ISW has also observed speculation that elements of the 31st VDV Brigade are now defending Bakhmut’s southern flank and inconclusive footage suggesting that elements of the 150th Motorized Rifle Division (8th Guards Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) recently arrived in the Bakhmut direction.[17] The arrival of these units and formations in the Bakhmut area represents the commitment of a sizable amount of combat power that Russian forces could otherwise have used to support offensive operations in Luhansk and Kharkiv oblasts or to reinforce Russian defensive operations in southern Ukraine.

Ukrainian counteroffensive operations also appear to be successfully fixing Russian forces in this area, as ISW has yet to observe elements of these forces deploying to other parts of Ukraine. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar stated on August 4 that Russian forces are continuing to commit a large number of forces in the Bakhmut direction in hopes of recapturing recently lost dominant heights north of Bakhmut City.[18]

Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks in southern Ukraine on August 5, part of a continuing pattern of limited Ukrainian ground attacks accompanying Ukrainian efforts to interdict Russian logistics and headquarters in rear areas. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations in the Berdyansk (western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast area) and Melitopol (western Zaporizhia) directions. Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks in both areas and are advancing near Orikhiv.[19] Russian sources have routinely characterized Ukrainian attacks in southern Ukraine as up to a company in size with minimal armored vehicle or tank support.[20] These small Ukrainian ground attacks indicate that Ukrainian forces are continuing to conserve uncommitted reserves for larger mechanized attacks. Limited Ukrainian ground attacks can set conditions for larger mechanized attacks when the Ukrainian deep interdiction campaign has generated effects on the battlefield and can also support Ukrainian efforts to achieve an asymmetrical attrition gradient. Larger Ukrainian mechanized offensive operations have been sporadic since the start of the counteroffensive in early June, and ISW did not observe visual evidence or other observable signatures indicating a large assault near Orikhiv that Russian sources claimed occurred on July 26.[21] Russian sources may have exaggerated the Ukrainian attack in order to portray the Ukrainian counteroffensive operations as a failure. The New York Times reported that two anonymous Pentagon officials said on July 26 the ”main thrust” of the counteroffensive had begun, although it was not clear if those officials were referring to the July 26 attack, and other unnamed US officials subsequently walked those comments back.[22] Ukrainian forces are clearly not committing to large, massed mechanized counteroffensive operations in the Zaporizhia direction as their interdiction campaign proceeds, although they continue to conduct a series of variously-sized but relatively small attacks across the front line that are having the effects of fixing Russian forces in place, tiring them, and attriting them, as ISW has previously observed.[23]

Senior officials from reportedly 40 countries, including the US, China, and India, began talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on August 5 aimed at drafting a set of key principles to guide the future settlement of the war in Ukraine. US National Security Spokesperson John Kirby stated on August 3 that the White House does not expect any “tangible deliverables” from the talks in Saudi Arabia and that the talks are a continuation of the process to promote a peace formula proposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.[24]

Key Takeaways:

Ukrainian forces struck a Russian oil tanker on August 4 with a naval drone in the second attack on Russian ships in the Black Sea in two consecutive days.
Ukrainian officials issued a notice to mariners that Ukraine may strike vessels near Russia’s Black Sea ports – a measured response to continued Russian strikes against Odesa – Ukraine's main port – since July 17.
Ukrainian naval strikes are likely part of a deliberate interdiction campaign aimed at setting favorable conditions for larger counteroffensive operations.
Ukrainian forces continue to draw Russian forces to the Bakhmut area and fix them there despite a slower tempo of Ukrainian operations there.
Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks in southern Ukraine on August 5, part of a continuing pattern of limited Ukrainian ground attacks accompanying Ukrainian efforts to interdict Russian logistics and headquarters in rear areas.
Senior officials from reportedly 40 countries, including the US, China, and India, began talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on August 5 aimed at drafting a set of key principles to guide the future settlement of the war in Ukraine.
Russian forces conducted offensive operations northeast of Kupyansk, along the Svatove-Kreminna line, in the Bakhmut area, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front, in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced along the Svatove-Kreminna line and the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front.
Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front, in western Donetsk Oblast, in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced along the Svatove-Kremmina line.
Pardoned Wagner Group convict fighters continue to increase recidivism rates in Russia.
Russian officials continue to transport Ukrainian children from occupied regions to Russia under the guise of summer vacations.

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

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)

Russian forces continued offensive operations northeast of Kupyansk on August 5 but made no confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Vilshana (15km northeast of Kupyansk) and Synkivka (8km northeast of Kupyansk).[25] Former Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Interior Minister Vitaly Kiselyov claimed on August 4 that Russian forces advanced 3-5km along the front line and 2km into Ukrainian defenses in the Kupyansk direction.[26] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of Kiselyov's claims, which are likely part of a pattern of continued unverified Russian claims of extensive Russian gains along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line.[27] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar stated that Russian forces have concentrated the largest number of their forces in the Kupyansk direction.[28]

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations along the Svatove-Kremmina line and advanced as of August 5. Geolocated footage published on August 4 shows that Ukrainian forces advanced east of Verkhnokamianske (18km south of Kreminna).[29] The Russian MoD and Russian Central Grouping of Forces Spokesperson Alexander Savchuk claimed on August 5 that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful attacks near the Serebryanske forest area in Luhansk Oblast and Torske (15km west of Kreminna) and Bilohorivka (34km south of Kreminna) in Donetsk Oblast.[30] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces counterattacked near Nadiya (15km east of Svatove), Novoyehorivka (16km southwest of Svatove), and Karmazynivka (13km southwest of Svatove).[31] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed on August 4 that unspecified elements of the Russian 21st Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Combined Arms Army, Central Military District) repelled a Ukrainian attack near Karmazynivka.[32]

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line and advanced as of August 5. Geolocated footage published on August 4 shows that Russian forces advanced further on the west bank of the Zherebets River west of Karmazynivka.[33] The Ukrainian General Staff reported on August 5 that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Bilohorivka (12km south of Kreminna) in Luhansk Oblast.[34] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces advanced into Novoselivske (14km northwest of Svatove) and control the settlement, although ISW has not observed visual confirmation of this claim.[35] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces continued offensive operations near the Serebryanske forest area.[36]

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

Russian and Ukrainian sources did not report any continued Ukrainian ground attacks in the Bakhmut direction on August 5. The Wall Street Journal reported on August 5 that Ukrainian soldiers in the Bakhmut direction stated that Russian defensive operations and counterattacks have slowed Ukrainian advances in recent days.[37] The Wall Street Journal also reported that Ukrainian soldiers stated that Ukrainian advances have been marginal in the Bakhmut area due to heavy Russian artillery bombardments.[38] A Russian milblogger noted on August 4 that the tempo of fighting in the Bakhmut direction has notably decreased in recent days.[39]

Russian forces counterattacked in the Bakhmut area on August 5 but did not advance. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces are preventing Russian forces from advancing near Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut) and Kurdyumivka (13km southwest of Bakhmut).[40] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar stated on August 4 that Russian forces are committing a large number of forces to the Bakhmut direction and where they are focused on recapturing dominant heights north of Bakhmut.[41] A Russian milblogger claimed on August 5 that Russian forces counterattacked near Klishchiivka and attempted to move towards Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut) from Bakhmut, but did not specify the results of these actions.[42]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted limited unsuccessful ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front on August 5. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported that elements of the Russian Southern Grouping of Forces repelled Ukrainian assaults near Avdiivka and Staromykhailivka (19km southwest of Avdiivka).[43]

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City front on August 5 and advanced. Geolocated footage published on August 4 indicates that Russian forces made marginal gains south of Krasnohorivka (22km southwest of Avdiivka).[44] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Avdiivka, Staromykhailivka, Krasnohorivka, and Marinka (27km southwest of Avdiivka).[45] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces captured three unspecified lines of Ukrainian fortifications northeast of Avdiivka and conducted assaults near Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka).[46] Former Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Deputy Interior Minister Vitaly Kiselyov claimed on August 4 that Russian forces advanced up to 2km into Ukrainian defenses along a 1.5km front in the Marinka area, although ISW has not observed any visual confirmation of this claim.[47]

Elements of the pro-Ukrainian, all-Russian Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR) claimed on August 5 that they destroyed a Russian ammunition depot in Zaitseve, Donetsk Oblast (21km south of Bakhmut).[48] Geolocated footage published on August 5 shows an explosion at a Russian ammunition warehouse northwest of Zaitseve.[49]

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

A Russian source claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted limited ground attacks in western Donetsk Oblast on August 5 and made limited advances. A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted attacks in the Vuhledar area, advanced into contested territory, and reached unspecified Russian defense lines.[50]

Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area on August 5 but did not make confirmed or claimed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the Berdyansk direction (western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area).[51] Russian Eastern Grouping of Forces Spokesperson Oleg Chekhov claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian attack in the direction of Urozhaine and two Ukrainian infantry groups northeast of Staromayorske and south of Zolota Nyva (12km southeast of Velyka Novosilka).[52]

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area on August 5 but did not make confirmed or claimed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully tried to recapture lost positions near Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka) and in the direction of Blahodatne (5km south of Velyka Novosilka).[53] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces counterattacked near Urozhaine (9km south of Velyka Novosilka).[54] Footage amplified on August 5 purportedly shows reconnaissance elements of the 14th Spetsnaz Brigade (Main Directorate of the General Staff [GRU]) operating in the Vuhledar direction.[55] Geolocated footage published on August 3 shows elements of the 40th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet) in the Velyka Novosilka area.[56]

Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast on August 5 but did not make confirmed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continue counteroffensive operations in the Melitopol direction (western Zaporizhia Oblast area).[57] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are advancing near Orikhiv and that Ukrainian infantry groups continue to attack Russian positions along the Kopani-Robotyne-Verbove line (10km southwest to 17km southeast of Orikhiv).[58] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully conducted up to a company-sized attack near Robotyne.[59]

Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks in western Zaporizhia Oblast on August 5 but did not make confirmed or claimed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Robotyne (12km south of Orikhiv) and Novopokrovka (13km southeast of Orikhiv).[60] Footage published on August 5 purportedly shows elements of the 177th Naval Infantry Regiment (Caspian Sea Flotilla) operating near Robotyne.[61]

A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are intensifying operations on the left (east) bank of the Dnipro River. The milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces have increased activity in the Dnipro River Delta, intensified shelling on Oleshky (7km southeast of Kherson City), and that Ukrainian forces continue to hold positions near Antonivsky Bridge and the adjacent dacha area.[62] Footage published on August 5 purportedly show Russian forces striking Ukrainian positions near the Antonivsky Bridge with precision-guided munitions.[63]

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

Pardoned Wagner Group convict fighters continue to increase recidivism rates in Russia. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty reported on August 5 that Russian police arrested two former convicts who served in Wagner for the murder of six people in a village in the Republic of Karelia on August 3.[64]

An Ossetian military source reported on August 5 that over 12,000 Ossetian men have left the North Ossetia–Alania Republic to fight in Ukraine.[65] The Russian Federal State Statistics Service assesses that about 680,748 residents live in the North Ossetia–Alania Republic as of 2023.[66] The Ossetian source’s claim, if true, means that almost two percent of the entire population of the North Ossetia-Alania Republic has deployed to Ukraine.

Russian forces continue to accumulate large losses from Russia’s war in Ukraine. Dutch open-source group Oryx assessed that Russian forces are visually confirmed to have lost at least 2,203 tanks between February 24, 2022, and August 5, 2023.[67] The BBC reported on August 4 that it was able to confirm the names of 29,217 Russian servicemen killed in action in Ukraine and that the full number of Russian war dead is twice as large.[68]

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

Russian officials continue to transport Ukrainian children from occupied regions to Russia under the guise of summer vacations. Head of the Republic of Mordovia Artyom Zdunov visited 76 Ukrainian children and teenagers from occupied Kalanchak Raion (Kherson Oblast) and 18 chaperones at the “Lesnaya Skazka” sanatorium in Saransk, Republic of Mordovia on August 5.[69] The Kherson Oblast Occupation Administration claimed that Zdunov personally offered these children a vacation at ”Lesnaya Skazka” which would last between July 17 and August 11.[70]

Secretary of the United Russia Party General Council Andrey Turchak announced on August 4 that acting heads of the Russian occupation administrations – Denis Pushilin, Leonid Pasechnik, Yevgeny Balitsky, and Vladimir Saldo – will be the official United Russia Party candidates in regional elections in occupied Ukrainian regions scheduled for September.[71]

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

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. A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul

A fascinating read.

A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul

The Times unraveled a financial network that stretches from Chicago to Shanghai and uses American nonprofits to push Chinese talking points worldwide.

The New York Times · by Ishaan Jhaveri · August 5, 2023

Neville Roy Singham, right, in 2016 with the activist Jodie Evans. In 2017, they married and he sold his tech firm.

The Times unraveled a financial network that stretches from Chicago to Shanghai and uses American nonprofits to push Chinese talking points worldwide.

Neville Roy Singham, right, in 2016 with the activist Jodie Evans. In 2017, they married and he sold his tech firm.

Mara Hvistendahl is an investigative reporter focused on China. David A. Fahrenthold investigates nonprofits from Washington. Lynsey Chutel reported from South Africa and Ishaan Jhaveri from New York.

Aug. 5, 2023

The protest in London’s bustling Chinatown brought together a variety of activist groups to oppose a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. So it was peculiar when a street brawl broke out among mostly ethnic Chinese demonstrators.

Witnesses said the fight, in November 2021, started when men aligned with the event’s organizers, including a group called No Cold War, attacked activists supporting the democracy movement in Hong Kong.

On the surface, No Cold War is a loose collective run mostly by American and British activists who say the West’s rhetoric against China has distracted from issues like climate change and racial injustice.

In fact, a New York Times investigation found, it is part of a lavishly funded influence campaign that defends China and pushes its propaganda. At the center is a charismatic American millionaire, Neville Roy Singham, who is known as a socialist benefactor of far-left causes.

What is less known, and is hidden amid a tangle of nonprofit groups and shell companies, is that Mr. Singham works closely with the Chinese government media machine and is financing its propaganda worldwide.

From a think tank in Massachusetts to an event space in Manhattan, from a political party in South Africa to news organizations in India and Brazil, The Times tracked hundreds of millions of dollars to groups linked to Mr. Singham that mix progressive advocacy with Chinese government talking points.

Some, like No Cold War, popped up in recent years. Others, like the American antiwar group Code Pink, have morphed over time. Code Pink once criticized China’s rights record but now defends its internment of the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs, which human rights experts have labeled a crime against humanity.

These groups are funded through American nonprofits flush with at least $275 million in donations.

But Mr. Singham, 69, himself sits in Shanghai, where one outlet in his network is co-producing a YouTube show financed in part by the city’s propaganda department. Two others are working with a Chinese university to “spread China’s voice to the world.” And last month, Mr. Singham joined a Communist Party workshop about promoting the party internationally.

Protesters in Chinatown, London, in 2021. One of the groups that organized the protest, No Cold War, has links to Mr. Singham.Credit...Picture Capital/Alamy

Mr. Singham says he does not work at the direction of the Chinese government. But the line between him and the propaganda apparatus is so blurry that he shares office space — and his groups share staff members — with a company whose goal is to educate foreigners about “the miracles that China has created on the world stage.”

Years of research have shown how disinformation, both homegrown and foreign-backed, influences mainstream conservative discourse. Mr. Singham’s network shows what that process looks like on the left.

He and his allies are on the front line of what Communist Party officials call a “smokeless war.” Under the rule of Xi Jinping, China has expanded state media operations, teamed up with overseas outlets and cultivated foreign influencers. The goal is to disguise propaganda as independent content.

Mr. Singham’s groups have produced YouTube videos that, together, racked up millions of views. They also seek to influence real-world politics by meeting with congressional aides, training politicians in Africa, running candidates in South African elections and organizing protests like the one in London that erupted into violence.

The result is a seemingly organic bloom of far-left groups that echo Chinese government talking points, echo one another, and are echoed in turn by the Chinese state media.

Because the network is built on the back of American nonprofit groups, tax experts said, Mr. Singham may have been eligible for tax deductions for his donations.

The Times untangled the web of charities and shell companies using nonprofit and corporate filings, internal documents and interviews with over two dozen former employees of groups linked to Mr. Singham. Some groups, including No Cold War, do not seem to exist as legal entities but are tied to the network through domain registration records and shared organizers.

None of Mr. Singham’s nonprofits have registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, as is required of groups that seek to influence public opinion on behalf of foreign powers. That usually applies to groups taking money or orders from foreign governments. Legal experts said Mr. Singham’s network was an unusual case.

Most of the groups in Mr. Singham’s network declined to answer questions from The Times. Three said they had never received money or instructions from a foreign government or political party.

Speculation about Mr. Singham first emerged on Twitter among self-described anti-fascists. Reports followed in the publication New Lines and the South African investigative outlet amaBhungane. The authorities in India raided a news organization tied to Mr. Singham during a crackdown on the press, accusing it of having ties to the Chinese government but offering no proof.

The Times investigation is the first to unravel the funding and document Mr. Singham’s ties to Chinese propaganda interests.

Mr. Singham did not offer substantive answers to questions about those ties. He said he abided by the tax laws in countries where he was active.

“I categorically deny and repudiate any suggestion that I am a member of, work for, take orders from, or follow instructions of any political party or government or their representatives,” he wrote in an email. “I am solely guided by my beliefs, which are my long-held personal views.”

Indeed, his associates say Mr. Singham has long admired Maoism, the Communist ideology that gave rise to modern China. He praised Venezuela under the leftist president Hugo Chávez as a “phenomenally democratic place.” And a decade before moving to China, he said the world could learn from its governing approach.

The son of a leftist academic, Archibald Singham, Mr. Singham is a longtime activist who founded the Chicago-based software consultancy Thoughtworks.

There, Mr. Singham came across as a charming showman who prided himself on creating an egalitarian corporate culture. He was unabashed about his politics. A former company technical director, Majdi Haroun, recalled Mr. Singham lecturing him on the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. Mr. Haroun said employees sometimes jokingly called each other “comrade.”

In 2017, Mr. Singham married Jodie Evans, a former Democratic political adviser and the co-founder of Code Pink. The wedding, in Jamaica, was a “Who’s Who” of progressivism. Photos from the event show Amy Goodman, host of “Democracy Now!”; Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream; and V, the playwright formerly known as Eve Ensler, who wrote “The Vagina Monologues.”

It was also a working event. The invitation described a panel discussion called “The Future of the Left.”

A screen grab of the wedding website — Mr. Singham goes by Roy — with a scheduled panel discussion called “The Future of the Left.”Credit...oneloveunionjodieandroy.com

Mr. Singham had a plan for that future. He had quietly funded left-wing causes while at Thoughtworks. But his activism was about to intensify. Six months after his wedding, he sold Thoughtworks to a private equity firm. A copy of the sale agreement put the price at $785 million.

“I decided that at my age and extreme privilege, the best thing I could do was to give away most of my money in my lifetime,” he said in his statement.

The Network Takes Shape

While other moguls slapped their names on foundations, Mr. Singham sent his money through a system that concealed his giving.

At its center were four new nonprofits with dust-dry names like “United Community Fund” and “Justice and Education Fund.” They have almost no real-world footprints, listing their addresses only as UPS store mailboxes in Illinois, Wisconsin and New York.

Because American nonprofit groups do not need to disclose individual donors, these four nonprofits worked like a financial geyser, throwing out a shower of money from an invisible source.

In their public filings, none list Mr. Singham as a board member or donor. “I do not control them,” he said in his statement, “although I have been known to share my opinions.”

In reality, Mr. Singham has close ties to all four.

The largest is run by Ms. Evans. The group’s founding bylaws say that Mr. Singham can fire her and the rest of the board. They also require that the group dissolve after Mr. Singham’s death.

Jodie Evans in Washington in 2019. She is a former Democratic political adviser and the co-founder of the group Code Pink.Credit...Leigh Green/Alamy

The other three groups were founded by former Thoughtworks employees, according to interviews with other former Thoughtworks staff members and résumés posted online.

In his statement, Mr. Singham acknowledged giving his money to unnamed intermediaries that fit the description of these four UPS store nonprofits. And several groups that received donations from them have identified Mr. Singham as the source.

One of them is the Massachusetts-based think tank Tricontinental. Its executive director, Vijay Prashad, recounted Mr. Singham’s financing in 2021. “A Marxist with a massive software company!” he wrote on Twitter.

Tricontinental produces videos and articles on socialist issues. Mr. Prashad did not answer questions about Mr. Singham, but said the organization followed the law. “We do not and have never received funds or instructions from any government or political party,” he said in a statement.

From the UPS store nonprofits, millions of dollars flowed around the world. The Times tracked money to a South African political party, YouTube channels in the United States and nonprofits in Ghana and Zambia. In Brazil, records show, money flowed to a group that produces a publication, Brasil de Fato, that intersperses articles about land rights with praise for Xi Jinping.

In New Delhi, corporate filings show, Mr. Singham’s network financed a news site, NewsClick, that sprinkled its coverage with Chinese government talking points. “China’s history continues to inspire the working classes,” one video said.

These groups operate in coordination. They have cross-posted articles and shared one another’s content on social media hundreds of times. Many share staff members and office space. They organize events together and interview one another’s representatives without disclosing their ties.

‘Hijacked’ in South Africa

Several times a year, activists and politicians from across Africa fly to South Africa for boot camps at the Nkrumah School, set in a popular safari area.

They come to learn to organize workers and left-wing movements. Once on campus, though, some attendees are surprised to find Chinese topics seeping into the curriculum.

At a recent session, reading packets said that the United States was waging a “hybrid war” against China by distorting information about Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Xinjiang region where Uyghurs were held in camps.

The packets praised Chinese loans, calling them “an opportunity for African states to construct genuine, and sovereign, development projects.” No mention was made of China’s role in a recent debt crisis in Zambia.

“They’re being rounded up to be fed Chinese propaganda,” said Cebelihle Mbuyisa, a former employee who helped prepare materials for the workshop. “Whole social movements on the African continent are being hijacked by what looks like a foreign policy instrument of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Those who objected were shouted down or not invited back, four past attendees said.

U.S. tax records show that one of the UPS store nonprofits, the People’s Support Foundation, donated at least $450,000 for training at the school. On Instagram, Ms. Evans described a photo of the grounds as “Roy’s new place.”

The $450,000 was just part of Mr. Singham’s efforts in South Africa. In all, the foundation has sent $5.6 million to groups that run the school; a news organization; and the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party, a fringe party launched ahead of the 2019 election.

Former party members said they were perplexed that, despite severe local unemployment and poverty, the party seemed interested in China. Mr. Singham, for example, urged them to attend an online lecture by a Chinese academic, Li Bo of Fudan University, an email shows.

After a party member called China’s presence in Africa “a second colonization,” leaders responded defensively in a WhatsApp group. “When it came to us questioning certain behaviors from the Chinese state, that was a no-no,” said Lindiwe Mkhumbane, a former member.

In a statement, the party said its members have attended workshops on progressive issues but that it had never forced anyone to attend.

Mr. Singham also funded an online news start-up, New Frame, according to a recording obtained by The Times. One employee, Aragorn Eloff, said Mr. Singham interviewed him for a job.

The outlet hired talented reporters and paid them well. Readership was small, but the stated goal was “quality, not clicks.”

Its former top editor has denied that New Frame had a pro-China slant. But a former reporter, Anna Majavu, said that an editor removed criticism of Chinese labor practices from a story on mining. “The resistance from the editor was purely political,” she said.

And in June 2022, an editor, Darryl Accone, wrote a resignation letter criticizing New Frame’s soft coverage of China and Russia. The “unavoidable conclusion,” he wrote, “is that this is an ideological directive emanating from above and outside New Frame.”

‘Always Follow the Party’

Mr. Singham’s office, adorned in red and yellow, sits on the 18th floor of Shanghai’s swanky Times Square.

A visit shows that he is not alone.

He shares the office with a Chinese media company called Maku Group, which says its goal is to “tell China’s story well,” a term commonly used for foreign propaganda. In a Chinese-language job advertisement, Maku says it produces text, audio and videos for “global networks of popular media and progressive think tanks.”

It can be hard to tell where Maku begins and Mr. Singham’s groups end.

Nonprofit filings show that nearly $1.8 million flowed from one of the UPS store nonprofits to Maku Group. And in 2021, according to a Chinese-language news release, Maku and Tricontinental agreed to work with a Shanghai university to “tell China’s story” in Chinese and English.

Maku’s website shows young people gathering in Mr. Singham’s office, facing a red banner that reads, in Chinese, “Always Follow the Party.” Resting on a shelf is a plate depicting Xi Jinping.

Maku Group did not respond to a request to comment. After The Times began asking questions, its website went down for maintenance.

In 2020, Mr. Singham emailed his friends to introduce a newsletter, now called Dongsheng News, that covers China in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Drawing stories from the state media, it blends lighthearted news with bureaucratic official prose.

Dongsheng’s editors, in China, come from Tricontinental, but its address leads to the People’s Forum, a Manhattan event space also funded by Mr. Singham. Dongsheng “provides unique progressive coverage of China that has been sadly missing,” Mr. Singham told friends.

His ties to the propaganda machine date back at least to 2019, when, corporate documents show, he started a consulting business with Chinese partners. Those partners are active in the propaganda apparatus, co-owning with the municipal government of Tongren a media company that promotes anti-poverty policies.

The small, southwest city of Tongren might seem a niche topic. But organizations in Mr. Singham’s network have published at least a dozen items about peasants there.

Code Pink

Ms. Evans, 68, was once a Democratic insider who managed the 1992 presidential campaign of the California governor Jerry Brown.

After the 2001 terrorist attacks, she reinvented herself as an activist. She became known for pink peace-sign earrings and sit-ins that ended with her arrest.

She helped form Code Pink to protest the looming war in Iraq. The group became notorious for disrupting Capitol Hill hearings.

Ms. Evans has organized around progressive causes like climate change, gender and racism. Until a few years ago, she readily criticized China’s authoritarian government.

“We demand China stop brutal repression of their women’s human rights defenders,” she wrote on Twitter in 2015. She later posted on Instagram a photo with the Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei.

A demonstrator from Code Pink interrupted witness testimony during a House committee hearing in February.Credit...Anna Rose Layden/Bloomberg

Since 2017, about a quarter of Code Pink’s donations — more than $1.4 million — have come from two groups linked to Mr. Singham, nonprofit records show. The first was one of the UPS store nonprofits. The second was a charity that Goldman Sachs offers as a conduit for clients’ giving, and that Mr. Singham has used in the past.

Ms. Evans now stridently supports China. She casts it as a defender of the oppressed and a model for economic growth without slavery or war. “If the U.S. crushes China,” she said in 2021, it “would cut off hope for the human race and life on Earth.”

She describes the Uyghurs as terrorists and defends their mass detention. “We have to do something,” she said in 2021. In a recent YouTube video chat, she was asked if she had anything negative to say about China.

“I can’t, for the life of me, think of anything,” Ms. Evans responded. She ultimately had one complaint: She had trouble using China’s phone-based payment apps.

Ms. Evans declined to answer questions about funding from her husband but said Code Pink had never taken money from any government. “I deny your suggestion that I follow the direction of any political party, my husband or any other government or their representatives,” she said in a written statement. “I have always followed my values.”

Few on the American political left would discuss the couple publicly, fearing lawsuits or harassment. Others said that criticism would undermine progressive causes. But Howie Hawkins, the 2020 Green Party presidential nominee, said he had soured on Code Pink and others in the Singham network that presented themselves as pro-labor but supported governments that suppressed workers. “To defend that, or excuse that, really pushes them outside what the left ought to be,” he said.

Code Pink is not alone among left-wing groups in raising concerns about anti-Asian discrimination and tensions between Beijing and Washington.

But Code Pink goes further, defending the Chinese government’s policies. In a 2021 video, a staff member compared Hong Kong’s pro-democracy demonstrators to the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 that year.

In June, Code Pink activists visited staff members on the House Select Committee on China unannounced. In the office of Representative Seth Moulton, Democrat of Massachusetts, activists denied evidence of forced labor in Xinjiang and said the congressman should visit and see how happy people were there, according to an aide.

“They are capitalizing on very legitimate concerns in order to push this pro-authoritarian narrative,” said Brian Hioe, an editor with New Bloom, a progressive Taiwanese news site. “And their ideas end up circulating in a way that affects mainstream discourse.”

Chinese state media accounts have retweeted people and organizations in Mr. Singham’s network at least 122 times since February 2020, a Times analysis found, mostly accounts connected with No Cold War and Code Pink.

This May, Mr. Singham attended the opening of a media institute in Shanghai. Organizers distributed tote bags reading “Communications as solidarity.”

This photo, from the Chinese news site Guancha, shows Mr. Singham, front right, at a breakout session last month during a Chinese Communist Party forum.Credit...guancha.cn

A photo shows Mr. Singham sitting up front, next to Yu Yunquan, an official from a publishing group under the Communist Party’s powerful Central Committee.

Just last month, Mr. Singham attended a Chinese Communist Party propaganda forum. In a photo, taken during a breakout session on how to promote the party abroad, Mr. Singham is seen jotting in a notebook adorned with a red hammer and sickle.

Joy Dong, Michael Forsythe, Flávia Milhorance, Liu Yi and Suhasini Raj contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy and Michelle Lum contributed research.

Mara Hvistendahl is an investigative correspondent focused on Asia. @MaraHvistendahl More about Mara Hvistendahl

David A. Fahrenthold is an investigative reporter covering the world of nonprofits. More about David A. Fahrenthold

Lynsey Chutel covers Southern Africa from the Johannesburg bureau and also writes about Africa for The Times's international morning newsletters. She previously worked for Foreign Policy, Quartz and the Associated Press. More about Lynsey Chutel

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Rich U.S. Leftist Linked to Web Of Global Chinese Propaganda

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The New York Times · by Ishaan Jhaveri · August 5, 2023

3. Analysis: China’s Military Influence in Africa Grows as Russia’s Diminishes

Analysis: China’s Military Influence in Africa Grows as Russia’s Diminishes

August 04, 2023 3:27 PM

Kate Bartlett

voanews.com · August 4, 2023

JOHANNESBURG —

China’s People’s Liberation Army marked the 96th anniversary of its founding this week with President Xi Jinping overseeing celebrations in China, but the anniversary was also commemorated in many African countries where Beijing has influence and is keen on expanding military cooperation.

Among them was Zimbabwe, where ties with the PLA date back to the 1960s and China’s support for the guerilla movement — now the ruling party — that fought for the country’s independence from white minority rule.

"The precious memories of the solidarity and synergy between our two armies are our shared legacy which continues to shape and inject momentum to our relations nowadays," China Ambassador to Zimbabwe Zhou Ding said at a reception attended by Zimbabwe’s acting minister of defense and army officials from both nations.

Zhou noted that just the previous week, Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa had commended a group of young Zimbabwean pilots who trained for four years in China, reflecting “the fraternal relations between our two countries and our two militaries,” Zimbabwe’s state-owned newspaper, the Herald, reported. Mnangagwa himself trained at the PLA Army Command College in Nanjing.

Paul Nantulya, a research associate at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, told VOA the PLA anniversary celebrations are not only happening in Zimbabwe.

“You’re going to see the same thing in South Africa, Kenya and all these embassies where you have a military attaché. ... With the case of Zimbabwe, I think what China wants to put across is the special relationship that it has with Zanu-PF first and foremost,” he said, referring to the ruling party.

Beijing airs documentary showing China army's prep for Taiwan attack: Report

hindustantimes.com · August 6, 2023

ByMallika Soni

Aug 06, 2023 08:28 AM IST

China-Taiwan Conflict: During the documentary, a pilot in a stealth fighter jet vows to launch a suicide attack if necessary, as per the report.

Beijing might be trying to send strong signals about its preparation for an attack on Taiwan as China's People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers were seen pledging to sacrifice themselves during the eight-episode documentary series Zhu Meng, or “chasing dreams” which was aired on state broadcaster CCTV, South China Morning Post reported. The documentary marks PLA’s 96th anniversary and showed the readiness of China's army to fight “at any second”.

China-Taiwan Conflict: Chinese and Taiwanese flags are seen in this illustration.(Reuters)

What was seen in the documentary?

During the documentary, a pilot in a stealth fighter jet vows to launch a suicide attack if necessary, as per the report. “My fighter would be my last missile, rushing towards the enemy if in a real battle I had used up all my ammunition,” Li Peng, a J-20 pilot from Wang Hai Squadron, is heard saying.

Zuo Feng, a frogman of the PLA Navy’s minesweeper unit, adds, “If war broke out and the conditions were too difficult to safely remove the naval mines in actual combat, we will use our own bodies to clear a safe pathway for our landing forces."

The series included personal stories of dozens of PLA soldiers and showed footage of military exercises especially around Taiwan. “The centennial goal of the PLA must be realised," it said. Concentrating on Joint Sword- an exercise that took place around Taiwan in April- Wang Xinjie, a member of the PLA’s amphibious assault group, is seen practising a group charge “with fire cover from bombers, land and ship-launched missiles, rockets and helicopters”, the report claimed.

“I would like to go and see the other side of the strait,” Wang Xinjie said, adding “I have been preparing for that day.”

The documentary also shows footage of the PLA’s Shandong aircraft carrier releasing four J-15 jet fighters in attack formation while sailing through the Taiwan Strait this year.

“As for urban combat, the meat grinder of modern warfare, we have to very carefully calculate,” Fan Lizhong, the special tactics unit commander, can be heard saying.

“It would definitely be incredibly painful to face the casualties of our comrades on the battlefield one after another, but as a commander not only must I have the judgment and ability to respond calmly to emergencies, but also the ideas and awareness for joint warfare under modern conditions, and always be ready to fight," Fan Lizhong continued as per the report.

What's going on in Taiwan?

Beijing regards self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway province and insists that it would never give up the use of force to take it back. Most countries, including the United States, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state. Although, many are opposed to a change of status quo by force.

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Mallika Soni
hindustantimes.com · August 6, 2023

5. What a counter-drone system says about US aid to Ukraine

Excerpts:

Still, given the existential threat Ukraine faces, the U.S. could do more to pick up speed, according to Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at CSIS who has tracked U.S. support for Ukraine. The U.S. is “still operating at a peacetime pace,” when it comes to acquisitions, he said.

Some industry leaders would like to see the acquisition process accelerated. Greg Hayes, CEO of defense giant RTX, complained of “institutional resistance” to awarding Ukraine-related contracts more quickly. Rayes also said Pentagon reluctance to waive regulations designed to prevent company price gouging were adding “six to nine months…to the procurement process.”

Sanders contrasted the current acquisition with the all-out effort the U.S. made to acquire mine-resistant vehicles amid frequent bomb attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. The U.S. was comfortable with acquiring vehicles it ultimately decided to scrap or store in large numbers because of the urgent threat posed by improvised explosives.

“If we were as engaged in conflict as Ukrainians right now, if we were directly having losses at their level, we would be revolutionizing our production system in ways we are not today,” he said.

What a counter-drone system says about US aid to Ukraine

Many programs are moving quickly—but there’s plenty of room for improvement.

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

Following a stream of Russian drone attacks that plunged Kyiv into darkness last year, the Defense Department unveiled a plan in early April: send anti-drone gun and missile trucks to Ukraine.

The 19 unidentified trucks were “important capabilities,” a senior U.S. defense official said at the time, listing them alongside more well-known systems like the Patriot surface-to-air missile.

Four months later, the Defense Department has yet to deliver the trucks. They haven’t even been built—because the Pentagon has not yet offered a contract to Northrop Grumman, the company that manufactures them.

The delay shows that even as the Pentagon works to speed up its acquisition procedures, there is room for improvement. And, said some in the defense industry and the think-tank community, it shows the United States must do more and move more quickly to help Ukraine.

The initial concept for supplying Ukraine with anti-drone gun trucks was meant to deal with Russian attacks on Ukrainian power stations, often by means of cheap, Iranian-produced loitering munitions called Shaheds. The push-propeller drones pack a smaller punch than Russia’s ballistic and cruise missiles, yet still helped plunge Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine into darkness during an icy winter.

In response, the Office of the Secretary of Defense tasked an Army office with coming up with a counter-drone solution that could be delivered within 30 to 90 days of a contract award, the Army office involved said in a press conference in July.

The office that ran the test, the Army’s Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office, rushed to set up the competition on a “very short” timeline, according to Col. Michael Parent. Trucks firing missiles and at least one truck firing a gun were tested against targets in the same weight class as the Shahed loitering munition.

The test ran from Jan. 23 to Feb. 3. On April 4, Defense officials announced they would send nine counter-drone gun trucks and ten counter-drone mobile missile systems to Ukraine.

The officials said the shipments were to be paid for with money allocated under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. USAI funding is for manufacturing weapons for Ukraine from scratch, not for arms drawn from Pentagon warehouses.

Northrop Grumman has spent the past four months waiting for a contract.

“It's been next week for the last two months,” said Rob Menti, an air defense portfolio manager at Northrop Grumman.

Defense One contacted the Defense Department for comment, but did not receive an answer by press time.

Another complicating factor: the truck is an experimental platform and has no established production line.

The company began developing a counter-drone gun platform years ago in the hope that government orders would emerge. The system consists of a guidance module that tracks enemy drones and a Bushmaster cannon that shoots exploding rounds to shred them.

While the system initially had no production line, Northrop has provided Menti’s unit with engineering money to at least start to build three trucks following the Defense Department announcement, Menti said.

Others also wait

Northrop is not the only company waiting on USAI contracts.

In July, the Pentagon said there were “commitments” to spend $16.4 billion in USAI money appropriated by Congress. But the government has signed contracts for $7 billion, or less than half.

Money spent under the other major vehicle for supporting Ukraine, the Presidential Drawdown Authority, is going slightly faster. This authority, which pays to replace U.S. military arms sent to Ukraine, has funded contracts worth $9.7 billion. That’s just over half the value of the $18.2 billion in arms and support sent to Ukraine.

Army leaders are happy with the pace. Defense acquisition and contracting officers “have been very successful over the last year, year and a half, in responding to this challenge,” said Army Under Secretary Gabe Camarillo in an interview with Defense One.

“Even in the last three months, I think there's been like $400 or $500 million of contracts that were awarded very, very quickly,” Camarillo said, “And these are negotiations that could in some instances take months or a year and they're now taking a matter of weeks to get done.”

The speed at which the government has supplied weapons to Ukraine is notable, agreed Greg Sanders, a defense analyst at think tank CSIS, who called the government response “remarkable.”

According to data compiled by Sanders, the $7 billion obligated so far under USAI compares favorably with the historial U.S. yearly spending on munitions, which have rarely gone beyond $25 billion in any year since 2000. “It’s a large chunk of change,” Sanders said.

Still, given the existential threat Ukraine faces, the U.S. could do more to pick up speed, according to Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at CSIS who has tracked U.S. support for Ukraine. The U.S. is “still operating at a peacetime pace,” when it comes to acquisitions, he said.

Some industry leaders would like to see the acquisition process accelerated. Greg Hayes, CEO of defense giant RTX, complained of “institutional resistance” to awarding Ukraine-related contracts more quickly. Rayes also said Pentagon reluctance to waive regulations designed to prevent company price gouging were adding “six to nine months…to the procurement process.”

Sanders contrasted the current acquisition with the all-out effort the U.S. made to acquire mine-resistant vehicles amid frequent bomb attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. The U.S. was comfortable with acquiring vehicles it ultimately decided to scrap or store in large numbers because of the urgent threat posed by improvised explosives.

“If we were as engaged in conflict as Ukrainians right now, if we were directly having losses at their level, we would be revolutionizing our production system in ways we are not today,” he said.

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

6. As War Grinds On, It Expands Beyond Old Battlefields

Excerpts:

Hours earlier, in his nightly address, Mr. Zelensky again pleaded for a united world order against Russia. And he remained stubborn on the need to fight back.

“The main thing is that all of us in Ukraine and everyone in the world, who value a normal life, work at one hundred percent without any stop for the sake of victory,” Mr. Zelensky said. “Our unity, our ability to build strength, and our ability to bring war back to where it came from. It is the most tangible for Russia.”

As War Grinds On, It Expands Beyond Old Battlefields

The New York Times · by Vivek Shankar · August 6, 2023

Russia has turned to regular attacks on the Black Sea, a vital economic hub, while Ukraine has grown bolder, with strikes hitting Moscow and Russian ships.

Damaged buildings in Kharkiv on Friday.Credit...Emile Ducke for The New York Times

Aug. 6, 2023, 4:01 a.m. ET

Ukrainian strikes on Russian ships in the Black Sea. Waves of drones fired on Moscow. A Russian attack on a Ukrainian port on the Danube river near the Romanian border. With these strikes, both sides have opened a new dimension to the 17-month-old war, which until now had largely been fought in grinding battles in Ukraine.

And they are taking the war to people and areas that may have been spared the brunt of the fighting. For Ukraine, the increasingly bolder attacks are part of a stated objective to try to force ordinary Russians to reckon with the toll of the war. For Russia, which in recent weeks also has increasingly targeted the Black Sea port of Odesa, it is part of a campaign to expand attacks on Kyiv’s ability to export its agricultural products, a vital part of Ukraine’s economy.

Nearly a year and a half after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, thousands of Ukrainian civilians have died and millions more have become inured to the brutality of war. But the budding new theaters of battle are a sign that as the fighting stretches on, more and more people will have to suffer the toll of the war.

Talks to end the fighting have yet to yield any significant progress, but Kyiv, under the leadership of President Volodymyr Zelensky, is pushing on both fronts: diplomatic and military.

Ukrainians buying snacks at a park in Zaporizhzhia on Saturday.Credit...Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times

As part of the diplomatic push, representatives from Ukraine and about 40 other countries — with the notable exception of Russia — gathered in Saudi Arabia over the weekend in an effort to build international consensus for a peace settlement. The parties agreed broadly that the contours of international law would have to be followed to bring a stop to fighting. And China, which has cast itself as neutral, was open to the idea of holding further discussions, according to a European Union official.

Over the weekend in Ukraine, Russian strikes claimed more civilian lives and damaged homes, according to Ukrainian officials, who did not immediately give details about the number of victims and casualties. Moscow fired dozens of missiles at Ukrainian troops and civilian targets, forcing Ukrainian officials to briefly put many regions under air alert warnings on Saturday night.

On Sunday morning, explosions were reported in the Kharkiv region, in Ukraine’s east. It was not immediately clear what caused the blasts and how much, if any, damage or casualties they caused. Earlier Sunday, Ukrainian military officials said that the country’s air defense had shot down about 20 Russian Kalibr cruise missiles. It wasn’t immediately possible to verify that claim. Mr. Zelensky praised Ukrainian soldiers fighting aerial battles and lauded them in honor of Air Force day on Sunday in Ukraine.

Hours earlier, in his nightly address, Mr. Zelensky again pleaded for a united world order against Russia. And he remained stubborn on the need to fight back.

“The main thing is that all of us in Ukraine and everyone in the world, who value a normal life, work at one hundred percent without any stop for the sake of victory,” Mr. Zelensky said. “Our unity, our ability to build strength, and our ability to bring war back to where it came from. It is the most tangible for Russia.”

Matina Stevis-Gridneff contributed reporting.

Vivek Shankar is a senior staff editor on the International desk. Previously, he worked for Bloomberg News in San Francisco, Sydney and Washington. More about Vivek Shankar

The New York Times · by Vivek Shankar · August 6, 2023

7. U.S. Support for the Philippines in the South China Sea

U.S. Support for the Philippines in the South China Sea - United States Department of State

state.gov · by Office of the Spokesperson

Home Office of the Spokesperson Press Releases...U.S. Support for the Philippines in the South China Sea

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U.S. Support for the Philippines in the South China Sea

Press Statement

August 5, 2023

The United States stands with our Philippine allies in the face of dangerous actions by the Coast Guard and maritime militia of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to obstruct an August 5 Philippine resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea. Firing water cannons and employing unsafe blocking maneuvers, PRC ships interfered with the Philippines’ lawful exercise of high seas freedom of navigation and jeopardized the safety of the Philippine vessels and crew.

Such actions by the PRC are inconsistent with international law and are the latest in repeated threats to the status quo in the South China Sea, directly threatening regional peace and stability. By impeding necessary provisions from reaching the Filipino servicemembers stationed at Second Thomas Shoal, the PRC has also undertaken unwarranted interference in lawful Philippine maritime operations.

As made clear by an international tribunal’s legally binding decision issued in July 2016, the PRC has no lawful claim to the maritime area around Second Thomas Shoal, which is located well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

The United States reiterates, pursuant to the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, the arbitral decision is final and legally binding on the PRC and the Philippines. The United States calls upon the PRC to abide by the arbitral ruling as well as to respect the freedom of navigation – a right to which all states are entitled.

The United States reaffirms an armed attack on Philippine public vessels, aircraft, and armed forces—including those of its Coast Guard in the South China Sea—would invoke U.S. mutual defense commitments under Article IV of the 1951 U.S. Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.

state.gov · by Office of the Spokesperson

8. What to make of a surprise shake-up in China’s nuclear force

Excerpts:

There are indications that the Rocket Force’s troubles extend to other current and former officers as well. At least one former deputy commander is under investigation and another took his own life in early July, according to recent reports, albeit unconfirmed. There is even speculation that the problems may implicate General Wei, the former Rocket Force commander who stepped down as defence minister in March.

The upheaval may also be linked to recent changes in the operations of the Rocket Force, which is now frequently put on alert, requiring its troops to be ready to mount warheads on missiles, says Phillip Saunders of America’s National Defense University. Those and other recent changes suggest that China is moving away from its longstanding “no first use” policy—to launch atomic weapons only after sustaining a nuclear attack—towards one of “launch on warning”, whereby it would fire them as soon as it detected incoming nuclear missiles.

“That puts a big premium on the political loyalty and reliability of the Rocket Force commanders out in the field. And if the force is corrupt, and people are paying for promotions, that’s a breakdown of political responsibility right there,” says Mr Saunders. If military secrets have indeed been leaked, he adds, “it might mean that there’s people who can’t be trusted within the nuclear chain of command. That would be a very serious issue.”

What to make of a surprise shake-up in China’s nuclear force

More of Xi Jinping’s appointees run into trouble

The Economist

THE LAST time that China’s supreme leader, Xi Jinping, purged the top tiers of the military elite, he could blame their venality on his predecessors. His two most senior scalps, Generals Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, were both accused of taking massive bribes in exchange for promotions. But not on Mr Xi’s watch. The generals had joined the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission, which oversees the armed forces, in 1999 and retired as its vice chairmen in 2012, the year that Mr Xi took power.

The downfall of General Li Yuchao, the commander of China’s Rocket Force, and its political commissar, General Xu Zhongbo, touches Mr Xi more directly. He put them in charge of China’s land-based nuclear and conventional missiles. No reason was given when official media announced on July 31st that they had been replaced. Nor was there any indication of their fate, although there is speculation that General Li and other Rocket Force officials could be under investigation for corruption or leaking military secrets.

Whatever the trigger, their premature removal confirms the biggest clean-out of the military top brass in almost a decade. That suggests that Mr Xi’s efforts to reform the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are facing more obstacles than previously thought. It is also the latest example of his own appointees running into trouble, in what some see as a sign of his own misjudgment, and of divisions within the elite. Last month saw the equally sudden removal as foreign minister of Qin Gang, who was given that post by Mr Xi in December.

Mr Xi’s supporters might argue that he is injecting new momentum into two of his signature domestic initiatives—an anti-corruption drive and a programme to transform the PLA into a modern fighting force. They might also make the case that he is demonstrating a commendable resistance to favouritism by not shielding protégés. Still, the suddenness and scale of the upheaval, the lack of any clear explanation and the persistent rumours of further scandal all reflect badly on his leadership, and suggest an unusual degree of turmoil in the corridors of power.

The changes at the Rocket Force surprised many experts on the PLA because the service has been a priority for Mr Xi in recent years. “If there is one service that you want to be utterly incorruptible, it would be the one in control of nuclear missiles,” says Timothy Heath of the RAND Corporation, an American think-tank. “Clearly, there’s something going on that has made Xi Jinping uneasy about his fellow elites.”

Formerly known as the PLA Second Artillery Corps, the Rocket Force was renamed and upgraded in 2015. It became a separate service with equivalent status to the army, navy and air force, a reflection of its growing importance to Mr Xi’s military ambitions. Another signal came in 2018, when its former commander, General Wei Fenghe, was promoted to defence minister. He was the only person without an army background to have held that post.

The Rocket Force now oversees the world’s biggest arsenal of land-based missiles. Among them are hundreds of conventional cruise and ballistic missiles, many of which are designed to target American ships in a potential war over Taiwan. They also include most of China’s estimated 300 intercontinental ballistic missiles and 400 nuclear warheads, according to the Pentagon’s latest annual report on China’s armed forces.

The Rocket Force’s share of China’s military budget is thought to have been rapidly expanding, too. In recent years it has been at the centre of an upgrade of China’s nuclear arsenal that is unprecedented in its scale and complexity, according to the Pentagon. It predicts that China could have as many as 1,500 warheads by 2035—the deadline Mr Xi has set for the PLA’s “basic modernisation”.

Although there is as yet no public indication that funds from this programme have been misused, big military-spending schemes have often enabled embezzlement, kickbacks and other types of graft. The background of the Rocket Force’s new commander, General Wang Houbin, and its new political commissar, General Xu Xisheng, also suggests that Mr Xi is bringing in outsiders to disrupt patronage networks in the service. General Wang has spent his entire career so far in the navy, while General Xu has previously worked only in the air force.

“To drop both the commander and the political commissar at the same time may be a first. And then to replace them with outsiders is really very telling,” says Brendan Mulvaney of the China Aerospace Studies Institute, a US Air Force think-tank. “There is probably some deep rot at the top of the Rocket Force, but I have no idea if it’s money, women, secrets or some combination.”

Mr Mulvaney notes that General Xu, who as political commissar is responsible for enforcing ideology and party discipline, is a full member of the party’s central committee. He thus has higher political status than General Wang, who is not a member of the body. That underlines the message that the party retains ultimate authority over the PLA, which is technically its armed wing rather than a national force, as in most other countries.

There are indications that the Rocket Force’s troubles extend to other current and former officers as well. At least one former deputy commander is under investigation and another took his own life in early July, according to recent reports, albeit unconfirmed. There is even speculation that the problems may implicate General Wei, the former Rocket Force commander who stepped down as defence minister in March.

The upheaval may also be linked to recent changes in the operations of the Rocket Force, which is now frequently put on alert, requiring its troops to be ready to mount warheads on missiles, says Phillip Saunders of America’s National Defense University. Those and other recent changes suggest that China is moving away from its longstanding “no first use” policy—to launch atomic weapons only after sustaining a nuclear attack—towards one of “launch on warning”, whereby it would fire them as soon as it detected incoming nuclear missiles.

“That puts a big premium on the political loyalty and reliability of the Rocket Force commanders out in the field. And if the force is corrupt, and people are paying for promotions, that’s a breakdown of political responsibility right there,” says Mr Saunders. If military secrets have indeed been leaked, he adds, “it might mean that there’s people who can’t be trusted within the nuclear chain of command. That would be a very serious issue.” ■

Subscribers can sign up to Drum Tower, our new weekly newsletter, to understand what the world makes of China—and what China makes of the world.

The Economist

9. USAF Will Retire the U-2 in 2026. Until Then, Expect ‘Unique, Innovative’ Uses

I think the question is will we have a platform (or platforms) that will be able to provide the same (or hopefully superior) capabilities?

Some of these statements seem to argue that we need to maintain the U-2. But not being an airpower expert I am only guessing.

Excerpt:

“Our focus right now is working with [Air Combat Command] to maintain full viability of the plane through the service life, maintaining as much trade space for senior leaders,” Collins told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “We are working toward the Air Force’s position to the best of our ability. But what we’re doing predominantly is focusing on how we ensure that we don’t create a scenario in which we’re not able to meet mission need because of things like obsolescence.”

...

“We’re using U-2 in unique and innovative ways and as a surrogate platform, decreasing risk for our fifth-gen fighters,” said Williams. “All we’re doing is decreasing risk and increasing the technical mature for stuff we’ll use on the F-35, F-22.

...

In addition to buying down risk and freeing up fighters like the F-35 and F-22, using the U-2 as a surrogate has another benefit.

“We’re focusing on showing that as we develop future capability, not only are we doing the survivability, but also the ability to plug and play sensors, not being platform-specific, but platform agnostic,” Collins said.

USAF Will Retire the U-2 in 2026. Until Then, Expect ‘Unique, Innovative’ Uses

airandspaceforces.com · by Greg Hadley · August 2, 2023

Aug. 2, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

DAYTON, Ohio—The Air Force plans to retire its U-2 Dragon Lady fleet in fiscal 2026—but until then, officials say they’re hard at work to keep the iconic high-altitude surveillance planes flying and testing out technology that may be used on future aircraft.

The plan to divest the U-2 was first reported by Aviation Week and Air Force Times, citing a line tucked into Air Force budget documents that “expectations are for protective NDAA language to be waived … allowing the USAF to move forward with U-2 divestment in FY 2026.”

Col. William Collins, senior materiel leader for high-altitude intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, confirmed the plan to reporters at the Life Cycle Industry Days conference on Aug. 1—the first official Air Force comment on the future of the U-2 since the plan emerged.

“Our focus right now is working with [Air Combat Command] to maintain full viability of the plane through the service life, maintaining as much trade space for senior leaders,” Collins told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “We are working toward the Air Force’s position to the best of our ability. But what we’re doing predominantly is focusing on how we ensure that we don’t create a scenario in which we’re not able to meet mission need because of things like obsolescence.”

While the orginial U-2 first flew in 1955, the current aircraft date back to the 1980s, with the final one delivered in 1989. That was followed by an upgrade in the early 1990s. But the fleet’s average age is now nearly 40 years old, and the Air Force faces diminishing manufacturing sources for key parts, Collins said.

Still, the U-2 remains unique in the Air Force inventory as the service’s only manned high-altitude ISR platform. An icon of the Cold War era, the Dragon Lady returned to headlines earlier this year when one flew over the Chinese surveillance balloon transiting the continental U.S. The Pentagon subsequently released an image from the U-2 cockpit showing the balloon.

With the ability to fly at altitudes in excess of 70,000 feet, demand from combatant commanders continues, Collins said, so the Air Force wants to keep the fleet in flying shape into 2026. USAF asked for $16.8 million in research and development, $54.7 million in procurement, and $17 million in operations and maintenance to the U-2 in fiscal 2024.

The aircraft’s uses also aren’t limited solely to ISR, said Col. Joshua Williams, program executive officer for ISR and special operations forces.

“We’re using U-2 in unique and innovative ways and as a surrogate platform, decreasing risk for our fifth-gen fighters,” said Williams. “All we’re doing is decreasing risk and increasing the technical mature for stuff we’ll use on the F-35, F-22.

According to budget documents, that “stuff” includes sensors and capabilities related to the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System and the Pentagon’s broader Joint All-Domain Command and Control effort.

“What we’re focused on is a code-compliant processor capability that provides open mission systems, so that we can bear out that ability to be leveraged on fifth-gen, sixth-gen platforms,” Collins said. “We’re also looking at demoing some [signals intelligence] capability that can also be potentially used on future platforms.”

In addition to buying down risk and freeing up fighters like the F-35 and F-22, using the U-2 as a surrogate has another benefit.

“We’re focusing on showing that as we develop future capability, not only are we doing the survivability, but also the ability to plug and play sensors, not being platform-specific, but platform agnostic,” Collins said.

Particularly for ABMS, Air Force leaders have stressed the importance of sensors being able to fit into a broader architecture.

But while the U-2 may benefit sixth-generation platforms and ABMS by testing out future tech, the Air Force’s plans for its main mission of high-altitude ISR are changing fundamentally, as well. The service’s other high-altitude ISR platform, the RQ-4 Global Hawk drone, is slated to be retired in 2027, a year after the sunset of the U-2 fleet.

“There’s going to be a lot more space involved,” Williams said. “Especially in the contested environments the U-2 and these platforms fly in, it’s a different problem and a different answer.”

Air

airandspaceforces.com · by Greg Hadley · August 2, 2023

10. Sweden is now much more capitalist than US

Excerpts:

These radical socialist policies alienated even those who were sympathetic to the Swedish Social Democratic Party’s project. Astrid Lindgren, the world-famous author of a raft of children’s classics, including the Pippi Longstocking series, is just one example. By the 1930s, she had become a supporter of the Social Democrats. But Lindgren was also hit by the high tax rates and vented her indignation by publishing a satirical “tax fairy tale” in a leading Swedish daily newspaper, where she calculated that her earnings in 1976 had been subject to a 102% (!) marginal tax rate.

Pushback against socialist ideas increasingly gained momentum, and by the 1990s, there was a comprehensive countermovement that, without fundamentally questioning the Swedish model of high taxes and comprehensive welfare benefits, nevertheless eliminated many of its excesses. A major tax reform in 1990 and 1991 slashed taxes in all areas and later abolished inheritance, gift, and wealth taxes. The number of billionaires in Sweden has risen sharply ever since.

Sweden is now much more capitalist than US

by Rainer Zitelmann August 05, 2023 09:00 AM

Washington Examiner · August 5, 2023

Many people think of Sweden as a “democratic socialist” country. But this is a big mistake.

In a survey on popular perceptions of the market economy and capitalism, which I commissioned from Ipsos MORI for my book In Defense of Capitalism, Sweden was one of the countries with the most pronounced pro-market attitudes. In just six of 34 surveyed countries was support for the market economy stronger. In questions that explicitly use the term “capitalism,” approval drops, but even then, there are only nine countries that have a more positive attitude toward capitalism than Sweden — and 24 countries in which attitudes are more negative.

JACK SMITH'S DANGEROUS CRIMINALIZATION OF DISSENT

Another survey, also from Ipsos MORI, found that social envy targeting the rich is significantly lower in Sweden than in Germany and France and at the same (comparatively low) level as in the United States.

If Sweden was once a socialist country, that was several decades ago. But just as people find it difficult to shrug off an established image long after they have changed, so too do nations. We are generally very slow to adjust our familiar image of a country.

In the Heritage Foundation’s most recent Index of Economic Freedom, Sweden is among the 10 most market-oriented economies.

In 10th place in the 2023 index, Sweden is well ahead of the U.S., at 25th. What is particularly remarkable is how Sweden’s score has increased. Sweden gained a total of 16 points over the past 28 years — rising from 61.4 points in 1995 to 77.5 points in 2023. Only a handful of countries, including Vietnam and Poland, saw a somewhat larger increase in economic freedom. In comparison, the U.S. lost 6 points during the same period and, with a score of 70.6 points, is now well behind Sweden.

Nevertheless, if you look for features of socialism in Sweden, you will find them. Swedish government spending is still high, amounting to 49.6% of GDP from 2020 to 2022. And while the tax burden in Sweden is nowhere near what it once was, the top tax rate for individuals is still high at 55% and the top tax rate for businesses is 20.6%. On the other hand, what many people don’t know is that, unlike many other countries, Sweden no longer has inheritance, gift, or wealth taxes, all of which have been abolished.

So, there are still remnants of socialism in Sweden today, even though capitalist features have come to dominate. The “socialist” image of Sweden and other Scandinavian countries stems from the 1970s and '80s. As late as 1960, for every 100 Swedes who earned most of their income in the private sector, there were 38 who received their money from the state. Thirty years later, in 1990, that number had risen to 151. During the same period, the number of people working in the private sector decreased from 3 million to 2.6 million, while the number of people receiving most of their money from the state grew from 1.1 million to 3.9 million.

These radical socialist policies alienated even those who were sympathetic to the Swedish Social Democratic Party’s project. Astrid Lindgren, the world-famous author of a raft of children’s classics, including the Pippi Longstocking series, is just one example. By the 1930s, she had become a supporter of the Social Democrats. But Lindgren was also hit by the high tax rates and vented her indignation by publishing a satirical “tax fairy tale” in a leading Swedish daily newspaper, where she calculated that her earnings in 1976 had been subject to a 102% (!) marginal tax rate.

Pushback against socialist ideas increasingly gained momentum, and by the 1990s, there was a comprehensive countermovement that, without fundamentally questioning the Swedish model of high taxes and comprehensive welfare benefits, nevertheless eliminated many of its excesses. A major tax reform in 1990 and 1991 slashed taxes in all areas and later abolished inheritance, gift, and wealth taxes. The number of billionaires in Sweden has risen sharply ever since.

In his book It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who has mistakenly cited Sweden as a model for his flavor of “socialism,” said there should not be a single billionaire in the U.S. He probably doesn’t know that the number of billionaires in Sweden today, relative to population size, is 60% higher than in the U.S.

Rainer Zitelmann is the author of the book In Defense of Capitalism.

Washington Examiner · August 5, 2023

11. Western Diplomats Need to Stop Whining About Ukraine

Excerpts:

Ukrainian officials are thankful. Analysis of their speeches reveals plenty of expressions of gratitude. But they are also insistent and vociferous in their cries for help. They would be both inhuman and derelict in their duty if they were to be anything else. Hopefully, after a whiskey (or two) on the plane back to Washington or London, Western officials simmer down and return to some level of maturity in understanding their beleaguered ally.

Unfortunately, the impulse behind the whining can also manifest in subtler, but no less pernicious, forms. Much of the public discussion of Ukraine reveals a tendency to patronize that country and others that escaped Russian rule. As Toomas Ilves, a former president of Estonia, acidly observed, “When I was at university in the mid-1970s, no one referred to Germany as ‘the former Third Reich.’ And yet today, more than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we keep on being referred to as ‘former Soviet bloc countries.’” Tropes about Ukrainian corruption abound, not without reason—but one may also legitimately ask why so many members of Congress enter the House or Senate with modest means and leave as multimillionaires, or why the children of U.S. presidents make fortunes off foreign countries, or, for that matter, why building in New York City is so infernally expensive.

The latest, richest example of Western condescension came in a report by German military intelligence that complains that although the Ukrainians are good students in their training courses, they are not following Western doctrine and, worse, are promoting officers on the basis of combat experience rather than theoretical knowledge. Similar, if less cutting, views have leaked out of the Pentagon.

Western Diplomats Need to Stop Whining About Ukraine

Allies can be exasperating. But try being invaded by your neighbor and lectured by everyone else.

By Eliot A. Cohen

The Atlantic · by Eliot A. Cohen · August 4, 2023

“The history of all coalitions is a tale of the reciprocal complaints of allies.” Thus said Winston Churchill, who knew whereof he spoke. This summer of discontent has been one punctuated by complaints: from Ukrainian officials desperate for weapons, and from Western diplomats and soldiers who think that the Ukrainians are ungrateful for the tanks, training, and other goods they have received.

Most of the Western sputtering occurred in and around last month’s NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, through anonymous leaks and public grumbles. Indeed, according to one report, the U.S. administration was so miffed by Volodymyr Zelensky’s complaint about the slowness of the NATO accession process that some advocated watering down language about NATO membership for Kyiv. Withdrawing the word invitation from the communiqué would, in their view, be a suitable punishment for a mean tweet.

Phillips Payson O’Brien: Stop micromanaging the war in Ukraine

One gasps at the petulance on display here, as at otherwise staunch British Defense Minister Ben Wallace’s snap about Ukraine treating its Western suppliers as a kind of Amazon of weaponry.

Peevishness about allies is a common and understandable mood that all senior diplomats and national-security officials eventually experience. A monologue sooner or later goes on in their heads that sounds something like this:

I’m lucky if I get a decent night’s sleep once a week. I leave work before my kids are up and get back after they’re asleep, six and sometimes seven days a week. I stress eat and can’t take a vacation without being called back to the office. Meanwhile, everybody thinks that the [insert ally’s name] are a bunch of victims or heroes, when they are, in fact, manipulative, ungrateful little bastards who don’t have a clue what I am doing to save them from [name a rival official, nation, or department of government]. And their American sympathizers are a bunch of nasty dupes who are just as ignorant, but with fewer excuses.

The adult thing to do in such cases is to get in a workout, complain to one’s loving spouse, or commit these thoughts to a diary for the delectation of historians who will read too much into what are, in sober hindsight, mere tantrums. To mention them to the press, or, even worse, act upon them is unfair and irresponsible.

Such eruptions occur when officials let their irritations suppress their empathy. At the moment of peak whine, they forget what it means to have a fifth of your country occupied, or to know that a far bigger country is attempting, every night, to smash your power plants, blockade your ports, and destroy your crops. They are not holding in the forefront of their minds obliterated towns and mass graves. They do not know what it is to welcome back exchanged prisoners of war who have been castrated. Or to mourn old men and women murdered, or younger men and women tortured and raped. Or to worry frantically about thousands of children kidnapped. They forget that while a Western official’s sleep may be interrupted by a phone call or an alarm clock, a Ukrainian official’s sleep is more likely (and more often) interrupted by a siren or the crash of a missile slamming into an apartment block.

Read: The children Russia kidnapped

Ukrainian officials are thankful. Analysis of their speeches reveals plenty of expressions of gratitude. But they are also insistent and vociferous in their cries for help. They would be both inhuman and derelict in their duty if they were to be anything else. Hopefully, after a whiskey (or two) on the plane back to Washington or London, Western officials simmer down and return to some level of maturity in understanding their beleaguered ally.

Unfortunately, the impulse behind the whining can also manifest in subtler, but no less pernicious, forms. Much of the public discussion of Ukraine reveals a tendency to patronize that country and others that escaped Russian rule. As Toomas Ilves, a former president of Estonia, acidly observed, “When I was at university in the mid-1970s, no one referred to Germany as ‘the former Third Reich.’ And yet today, more than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we keep on being referred to as ‘former Soviet bloc countries.’” Tropes about Ukrainian corruption abound, not without reason—but one may also legitimately ask why so many members of Congress enter the House or Senate with modest means and leave as multimillionaires, or why the children of U.S. presidents make fortunes off foreign countries, or, for that matter, why building in New York City is so infernally expensive.

The latest, richest example of Western condescension came in a report by German military intelligence that complains that although the Ukrainians are good students in their training courses, they are not following Western doctrine and, worse, are promoting officers on the basis of combat experience rather than theoretical knowledge. Similar, if less cutting, views have leaked out of the Pentagon.

Criticism by the German military of any country’s combat performance may be taken with a grain of salt. After all, the Bundeswehr has not seen serious combat in nearly eight decades. In Afghanistan, Germany was notorious for having considerably fewer than 10 percent of its thousands of in-country troops outside the wire of its forward operating bases at any time. One might further observe that when, long ago, the German army did fight wars, it, too, tended to promote experienced and successful combat leaders, as wartime armies usually do.

American complaints about the pace of Ukraine’s counteroffensive and its failure to achieve rapid breakthroughs are similarly misplaced. The Ukrainians indeed received a diverse array of tanks and armored vehicles, but they have far less mine-clearing equipment than they need. They tried doing it our way—attempting to pierce dense Russian defenses and break out into open territory—and paid a price. After 10 days they decided to take a different approach, more careful and incremental, and better suited to their own capabilities (particularly their precision long-range weapons) and the challenge they faced. That is, by historical standards, fast adaptation. By contrast, the United States Army took a good four years to develop an operational approach to counterinsurgency in Iraq that yielded success in defeating the remnants of the Baathist regime and al-Qaeda-oriented terrorists.

A besetting sin of big militaries, particularly America’s, is to think that their way is either the best way or the only way. As a result of this assumption, the United States builds inferior, mirror-image militaries in smaller allies facing insurgency or external threat. These forces tend to fail because they are unsuited to their environment or simply lack the resources that the U.S. military possesses in plenty. The Vietnamese and, later, the Afghan armies are good examples of this tendency—and Washington’s postwar bad-mouthing of its slaughtered clients, rather than critical self-examination of what it set them up for, is reprehensible.

The Ukrainians are now fighting a slow, patient war in which they are dismantling Russian artillery, ammunition depots, and command posts without weapons such as American ATACMS and German Taurus missiles that would make this sensible approach faster and more effective. They know far more about fighting Russians than anyone in any Western military knows, and they are experiencing a combat environment that no Western military has encountered since World War II. Modesty, never an American strong suit, is in order.

Eliot A. Cohen: It’s not enough for Ukraine to win. Russia has to lose.

One way to increase understanding among Ukraine’s friends would be to put substantial military legations in Kyiv. American colonels and generals do not have to go on patrols or storm tree lines, but they would benefit from continuous, in-country, face-to-face contact with their Ukrainian counterparts. They would be able to communicate realistic assessments of the fighting and of Ukrainian tactical and operational requirements. They would also convey to Ukraine a reassurance that videoconferences cannot, and perhaps bring a bit of humility to deliberations in Washington.

Such an effort entails risks, but that’s what soldiers sign up for. Maintaining a continuous physical presence in Ukraine with a high-level military mission, supplemented by frequent visits from the head of the U.S. European Command and other senior leaders, would be invaluable in making the judgments that could help Ukraine defeat Russia, regain its territory, and win this war. And winning, not whining, is what it’s all about.

The Atlantic · by Eliot A. Cohen · August 4, 2023

12. Ukraine’s elite forces rely on technology to strike behind enemy lines

Excerpts:

The drone, made of Styrofoam-like material and costing $1,500, crashed into one of the antennas, detonating on contact. With the Russians’ jamming ability suddenly disrupted, the Ukrainians then destroyed the tower with a strike from a U.S.-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS. The missile slammed into the structure with the sort of precision the Ukrainians have come to rely on in their 17-month fight to expel the Russian occupiers. But had the drone not disabled one of the antennas first, the HIMARS rocket likely would have missed.

That sort of operation has become a trademark of special forces units such as the Security Service of Ukraine’s “A,” or Alpha, division, which recently granted Washington Post journalists rare access to their teams assisting regular military brigades in Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which now stretches across the country’s southeast.

The nature of this war — fought mostly at a distance with artillery and with the sides separated by densely mined fields — has forced traditional special operators to transition from covert tactics they used more often earlier in the conflict. Now, the fighting is largely done with technology, including a wide array of self-detonating drones, while the skilled soldiers direct them from a safe distance — a preferable risk-to-reward ratio than sneaking behind Russian lines.

Ukraine’s elite forces rely on technology to strike behind enemy lines

By Isabelle Khurshudyan, Sasha Maslov and Kamila Hrabchuk

August 6, 2023 at 1:00 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Isabelle Khurshudyan · August 6, 2023

Europe

August 6, 2023 at 1:00 a.m. EDT

ZAPORIZHZHIA REGION, Ukraine — Some of Ukraine’s most elite special forces are now operating slightly back from the front line — with virtual-reality glasses that give a drone’s-eye view.

Last year, there were opportunities to creep into Russian-occupied territory at night to take out enemy targets. Now, with vast minefields and other fortified Russian defenses stalling Ukraine’s sweeping counteroffensive, a UAV armed with explosives does that during daylight instead.

A three-man team last month manually directed a drone to hit a cluster of antennas affixed to a tower in Polohy, a town occupied by Russian troops in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region. The Russians were using the electronic warfare system to spoil the work of Ukraine’s satellite-guided rockets.

The drone, made of Styrofoam-like material and costing $1,500, crashed into one of the antennas, detonating on contact. With the Russians’ jamming ability suddenly disrupted, the Ukrainians then destroyed the tower with a strike from a U.S.-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS. The missile slammed into the structure with the sort of precision the Ukrainians have come to rely on in their 17-month fight to expel the Russian occupiers. But had the drone not disabled one of the antennas first, the HIMARS rocket likely would have missed.

That sort of operation has become a trademark of special forces units such as the Security Service of Ukraine’s “A,” or Alpha, division, which recently granted Washington Post journalists rare access to their teams assisting regular military brigades in Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which now stretches across the country’s southeast.

The nature of this war — fought mostly at a distance with artillery and with the sides separated by densely mined fields — has forced traditional special operators to transition from covert tactics they used more often earlier in the conflict. Now, the fighting is largely done with technology, including a wide array of self-detonating drones, while the skilled soldiers direct them from a safe distance — a preferable risk-to-reward ratio than sneaking behind Russian lines.

“What is the problem with going behind enemy lines? Total mining,” said Oleh, the first deputy director of the Alpha forces, who, like others in this story, asked to be identified only by his first name for security reasons. “It’s almost impossible to go somewhere secretly. You have to use some kind of demining equipment. This means you will already be identified.”

The work of the Alpha units offered a window into the early challenges in Ukraine’s counteroffensive, where limited advances have been hard-gained as the Russians have hunkered down in defenses prepared over many months. Alpha fighters are trained to do everything from firing an antitank missile to operating a mobile air-defense system. Their snipers are regarded as the best in Ukraine. But all have turned their focus to drones lately as their targets became more difficult to reach.

The struggles of the Alpha fighters illustrate the steep challenges the Ukrainian military now faces at every level — even among its most elite and effective units — as it runs into a Russian force that has prepared and adjusted since its repeated missteps last fall when Ukraine recaptured large swaths of territory in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions.

The eastern front line, near the besieged city of Bakhmut, is less mined than the wide fields of the southern Zaporizhzhia region. But it is still hard to get close to the Russians. Recently, a team of Oleh’s fighters had “a relatively shallow entry” into enemy turf near there and 14 of them were wounded, he said.

“And with our resources, the loss of 14 people is a huge loss for us,” Oleh said. “Yes, the enemy also suffers losses. But again, are our losses appropriate in these conditions and are they justified? I cannot use these 14 people in other operations in the near future.”

“The things that could be done a year and a half ago or a year ago, which were relatively safe and were done, now we need to assess the appropriateness,” he added.

Ukraine’s main internal security service, the SBU, created its Alpha division in 1994 with a focus on counterterrorism operations. That work remains, but more has been added amid war.

The head of the SBU, Vasyl Maliuk, recently confirmed that its specialists were responsible for attacking the Crimean Bridge last year, a dramatic strike that temporarily disrupted a key Russian supply route. The service has also been behind recent sea drone strikes on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, according to a Ukrainian official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

When the Russians were trying to capture of Kyiv, Alpha’s main task was protecting the government and its leaders, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, Oleh said. But since last year, he has spent most of his time in Zaporizhzhia, now overseeing Alpha units assisting in the main focus of Ukraine’s counteroffensive — a bid to sever the land corridor between Russia and Crimea.

Alpha is selective: To get in, you have to pass a fitness test, a polygraph and a psychological examination. Efforts to widen recruiting during the war to form a separate assault unit yielded just 80 new members, Oleh said.

Like other special forces, Alpha teams can sometimes have the same functions as regular military brigades, such as operating a howitzer. But their assignments are typically done in small groups — intended to inflict high enemy losses using fewer resources.

The entire Alpha division has just one artillery gun, a 105mm British L119 that’s currently in the Zaporizhzhia region, used by a group that calls itself “Tiger Woods,” because its strikes are as accurate as the American golfer. At a base near the town of Orikhiv, the fighters have a satellite image of the Zaporizhzhia plains divided into squares. Often the fighting, they said, is taking place in the thin tree lines that separate each field. That’s where the Russians have their posts and hide their weapons.

Because of the dense network of mines, the Ukrainians are advancing, slowly, on foot. Here, south of Orikhiv, they have moved more than two miles since the counteroffensive started in early June, the Alpha soldiers said.

Recently, they said, a group of soldiers approached a Russian trench line they thought was abandoned. As they started to walk through it, they realized the trench was booby-trapped with mines. All five Ukrainians were injured by the blasts, and the Russians, who had been hiding nearby, then started shooting, killing four of them. One wounded soldier escaped after other Ukrainian units started firing shells at the trench. They had watched the ambush of their comrades on a feed from a reconnaissance drone.

“Mines are everywhere, on the outskirts of the trenches,” said Ilya, an officer in Alpha’s artillery unit. “First, it has to be cleared by artillery, then assault groups will go. If the assault group encounters any resistance, it’s back to the artillery, then back to the assault groups. Very slowly. But this is our reality.”

Rather than contending with minefields, where Alpha has achieved greatest success is with loitering munitions, which range in size and cost. The three-man team that destroyed the antenna tower focuses on targets related to Russians’ jamming ability and communication infrastructure.

A second group working in the Zaporizhzhia region recently used a RAM II self-detonating drone made in Ukraine, which looks like a small gray plane with a propeller in the back and can fly up to 25 miles.

The Alpha division alone this year has damaged or destroyed more than 322 tanks and armored vehicles, 48 artillery systems and 65 special equipment objects, including electronic warfare, said Oleh, the deputy director.

But “now it is more difficult,” said Pasha, who heads the Alpha unit launching the RAM II drones.

Since last year, the Russians have been using a Pole-21 electronic warfare system that suppresses all satellite navigation over an area of up to 150 square kilometers. That means “we fly by landmarks, we don’t have GPS here at all,” Pasha said. And often, just when the drone might have a target in sight, the feed will go dark because of the Russians’ jamming.

It’s placed a premium on targeting the electronic warfare systems themselves.

“We have very precise means,” Pasha said. “The military prioritizes giving us a target to hit, and only then, if we can’t hit it, they transfer it to HIMARS or artillery — because artillery may not hit at all, and HIMARS also has nuances. If the electronic warfare is working, it may not hit the target either.”

In preparation for the Ukrainians’ counteroffensive, the Russians concentrated more of their electronic warfare systems in the Zaporizhzhia region, Pasha said. It’s made him yearn for a change of scenery.

“We liked working in the Donetsk region better,” Pasha told Oleh. “There are more targets there. There is more active work there, and there is less electronic warfare. … This area is the most fortified. And they are simply in a dead-end defense.”

“Then let's work here for the last day, and then I'll give an order, you'll be transferred there,” Oleh told him.

“No problem,” Pasha said. “We need results — to destroy the enemy.”

An Alpha sniper group near the eastern city Bakhmut said the Russians are dug into their defenses there, too, making it difficult to find targets. The Russians “enter their positions in the morning and do not leave the dugout until night,” said Felix, one of Alpha’s snipers.

His unit hasn’t had traditional sniper work since early May, he said, focusing on reconnaissance in the meantime.

There were more opportunities last year, he said. A year ago, when the western bank of the Kherson region was still occupied, Felix and two others from his sniper unit received intelligence from locals in an occupied village about a Russian military commander. They studied where cows walked through the fields, marking which areas appeared not to be mine. Then at night, the group crossed the Inhulets River by foot, quietly entering enemy-held territory and planting MON-90 mines on the road near his car before retreating, he said.

“He stood out because of his vehicle,” Felix said. “Since he was the boss, the car had to be more beautiful and so on.”

The group then waited for the right opportunity before remotely detonating the explosives. “After he was neutralized, they had a big panic. They were a bit depressed,” Felix said with a laugh.

He lamented that the same kind of mission wouldn’t be possible now because the Russians have more intensely mined everything ahead of their outposts. “It’s a bit more of a gamble,” Felix said.

The Washington Post · by Isabelle Khurshudyan · August 6, 2023

13. How the Strong Commandant System Caught Up with the Marine Corps

Excerpts:

At the present time, the Marine Corps does not have a confirmed commandant. Berger's anointed successor is pending congressional confirmation, which is held up over a non-military matter. If, and when, he is finally confirmed, the new commandant will have to be his own man, able to reevaluate the damage to the Corps done by his predecessor. Even if he decides to reverse course, it will take at least a decade to repair the Berger legacy. A strong commandant system works, but only if the person selected is wise, not delusional.

How the Strong Commandant System Caught Up with the Marine Corps

military.com · by 3 Aug 2023 Military.com | By Gary Anderson · August 3, 2023

The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Military.com. If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to opinions@military.com for consideration.

Forty years ago, I was the speech writer for the commandant of the Marine Corps. One of my additional duties was to write speeches when a retired commandant came on active duty to stand in for the current commandant when he could not attend a big event. I would also be tapped as the traveling aide for the former commandant.

One day, I was escorting Gen. Leonard Chapman, who had been the 24th commandant. On our flight to the speech site, I had the temerity to ask a question. I had always been fascinated that -- unlike the other service chiefs, each of whom had a variety of competing constituencies -- the commandant of the Marine Corps had virtually unlimited power over the Corps, matched only by the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. I asked him why he thought that had come about.

He gave it some thought for a moment.

"We grew from an organization that was less than a regiment in size to the nearly 200,000 Marines we have today [1983]," he said. "The commandant has always been seen as a super-regimental commander. That has been a strength, but it is also a potential weakness. If we ever get a truly bad one, it could destroy the Corps."

It has taken four decades, but his pessimistic prediction may have come true. Gen. David Berger, who recently retired, may well be the commandant who doomed the Corps.

There have been several transformational commandants in the storied history of the Marine Corps. Chapman would not claim to be one of them. However, during the nadir of the Vietnam War, when the other services were lowering standards to increase recruitment, Chapman doubled down.

Readers of a certain age will remember Marine Corps recruiting slogans such as "We never promised you a rose garden" and "Nobody likes to fight, but somebody has to know how."

A few years later, in the wake of a weak commandant, Medal of Honor recipient Gen. Lou Wilson stopped by Hawaii during a swing through the Pacific and reiterated Marine Corps values as the all-volunteer force kicked in. I was a company commander at the time. Under pressure to recruit and retain less-than-quality Marines, Wilson said, "We would have a quality Corps if all that was left was him, the sergeant major, and the flag and the Bible."

He and Chapman saw the Marine Corps through the worst of Vietnam and its post-war doldrums. They paved the way for the future.

Other 20th-century commandants recognized threats and opportunities facing the Corps and acted decisively using that absolute power in a transformational way. The first was Gen. John Lejeune.

Following World War I, many critics of the Marine Corps claimed that it was merely a second land army and was expendable, despite its exemplary performance in combat. Lejeune pushed the Marine Corps toward a more traditional naval mission in pursuit of amphibious operations in an anticipated war with Japan. That vision paid great dividends in World War II battles such as Guadalcanal, Tarawa and Iwo Jima.

During the period of military angst following Vietnam, there was much hand-wringing about the military being too unimaginative to fight outnumbered against the forces that the Soviet Union could bring to bear against the U.S. and NATO. Over the objections of the sitting commandant, Navy Secretary James Webb selected Al Gray as the next person to head the Corps.

Gray wasted no time in imprinting his vision of maneuver warfare on the service as a doctrine for fighting outnumbered and winning. He also created the concept of turning the forward-deployed Marine Corps Amphibious units into Marine Expeditionary Units Special Operations Capable, or MEU (SOC), to deal with the growing terrorist threats and other operations short of war worldwide. That vision proved its worth in real war during Operation Desert Storm, as well as evacuation operations of American citizens in Somalia and humanitarian operations in Bangladesh and the Philippines.

By the mid-1990s, other threats arose, requiring new ways of thinking and the potential use of innovative technologies. When he became commandant, Gen. Charles Krulak expanded the small Marine Corps Experimental Unit into the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, which examined emerging threats such as urban warfare, as well as nuclear, chemical and biological (NBC) weapons. Believing basic training not to be challenging enough, he instituted a capstone recruit training event -- "the Crucible" -- that recruits had to survive to earn their Eagle, Globe and Anchor insignia. That foresight paid off in places like Fallujah, Ramadi and Helmand province in Afghanistan.

Change can be disruptive, and most transformational commandants were followed by successors who institutionalized the reforms while keeping the ship on a steady course. Commandants such as Robert Barrow, Carl Mundy and James Conway kept the organization advancing while resisting attempts by civilian administrations to force the Marine Corps to adopt trendy progressive reforms like decriminalizing drug use; they believed that the combat readiness of the Corps would be degraded by such notions.

Having a strong commandant at the helm proved to be critical in the superb performance of Marines in wartime operations as well as peacetime emergencies. No matter how large or small the mission, the Marine Corps was ready.

It should be noted that the transformational commandants did not divest the service of existing capabilities. In the case of Lejeune, Gray and Krulak, the new mission and capabilities were additive; many came by spending other people's money.

Unfortunately, Chapman's fear of a misguided commandant came to pass with the elevation of Berger in 2019. For whatever reason, Berger believed that the Marine Corps needed radical change. He resurrected the fear of the Corps being seen as a second land army in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan and directed a change to concentrating on deterring or fighting a naval war with China called Force Design 2030 (FD 2030).

To buy the anti-ship missiles needed to fight this war -- which probably won't happen -- Berger divested many of the capabilities that had allowed the service to contribute to big wars while still serving critical roles in pop-up crises that have traditionally made the Marine Corps useful to the nation. This came to a head when Berger had to admit to top military leadership that the Marine Corps could not respond to an evacuation mission in Sudan and a disaster relief crisis in Turkey. For the first time in its storied history, the Marine Corps had to say, "Sorry, we can't do the mission."

The transformational commandants of the last century used war gaming and field experimentation to test their new concepts. In the case of the development of amphibious operations, literally hundreds of war games were conducted at the Naval War College, combined with several force-on-force fleet exercises. Bad ideas were discarded, and good ones tested. The same was true of Gray's development of maneuver warfare and Krulak's urban projects.

Berger's efforts are opaque because the few war games he sponsored were classified. One major field experiment was conducted, and the scenario has been criticized as being biased to favor the defending FD 2030 team. There is no public data to intellectually justify the billions in divestment of capabilities to buy the new toys Berger wanted.

At the present time, the Marine Corps does not have a confirmed commandant. Berger's anointed successor is pending congressional confirmation, which is held up over a non-military matter. If, and when, he is finally confirmed, the new commandant will have to be his own man, able to reevaluate the damage to the Corps done by his predecessor. Even if he decides to reverse course, it will take at least a decade to repair the Berger legacy. A strong commandant system works, but only if the person selected is wise, not delusional.

-- Gary Anderson retired as chief of staff of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab. He lectures on War Gaming and Alternative Analysis at the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs.

military.com · by 3 Aug 2023 Military.com | By Gary Anderson · August 3, 2023

14. Putin's other battle… for influence in Africa: How Kremlin's shady meddling is bearing fruit

Putin's other battle… for influence in Africa: How Kremlin's shady meddling is bearing fruit after Russian flag-waving protesters took to the streets in Niger to back a coup against the government and its Western allies

By CHRIS PLEASANCE

PUBLISHED: 04:07 EDT, 6 August 2023 | UPDATED: 05:33 EDT, 6 August 2023

Daily Mail · by Chris Pleasance · August 6, 2023

'Down with France, long live Putin': That was the message scrawled on banners by protesters waving the Russian flag in Niger after a coup toppled the government last week.

For Western forces in the country - including the French and Americans - it was a moment of deja vu because, just a year earlier, almost the exact same scene played out around them in neighbouring Mali.

In fact, four countries in the Sahel region - a strip of land just below the Sahara desert - have now kicked out their governments and Western-backed security forces in favour of military juntas that are either openly allied to or being wooed by Russia.

Standing against them is the ever-shrinking ECOWAS alliance, led by Nigeria, who are pledged to spread democracy and have now threatened war against Niger's ruling cabal.

Nigeriens, some holding Russian flags, participate in a march called by supporters of coup leader Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani in Niamey, Niger, Sunday, July 30, 2023

PMC Wagner Group has a presence spread out across Russian-influenced African nations

Nigeriens participate in a march called by supporters of coup leader Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani in Niamey, July 30, 2023. The closest sign reads: 'Down with France. Long live Putin!'

Protesters hold an anti-France placard reading 'France: leave Africa' and waving the flag of Russia during a demonstration on independence day in Niamey on August 3, 2023

Africa is fast-emerging as a second front in Putin's war against the West and, unlike the conflict in Ukraine, this is one that Moscow is winning hands down.

'The war in Ukraine clearly has not diminished Russia's desire to act opportunistically, including in Africa,' researchers from US think-tank Carnegie Endowment for Global Peace wrote earlier this year.

'In fact, the Vladimir Putin regime's break with the West is empowering Moscow's recent outreach to several parts of the continent…

'Working with foreign partners in Africa to counter what [Russia] called 'European colonialism' is officially part of Russia's foreign policy.

'[Russia's] language is blatantly self-serving, but many in the region are receptive to such narratives because of frustration with failed policies from the West.'

According to research by the African Centre, Russia has sought influence in almost two dozen countries from Algeria to Angola using a heady mix of political interference, disinformation campaigns, and military intervention.

That has won the Kremlin some powerful allies, such as South Africa which was accused of shipping weapons to Russia back in May.

But it is in northern Africa, and in particular the Sahel, where Russia has become most influential thanks to the presence of the Wagner Group.

Wagner, the army-for-hire led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, has deployed thousands of mercenaries to the region starting in 2017 and continuing to this day.

Prigozhin has already begun courting Niger's new junta having sent 2,000 men to Mali, and is also courting Burkina Faso.

But his main base of operations is in Sudan - where vicious in-fighting between the military recently broke out - with more troops in Libya and the Central African Republic.

Ostensibly sent to fight groups such as ISIS, research shows Wagner has instead propped up fragile regimes using terrifying levels of violence against civilians and political opponents.

In return, the group has been given licence to plunder natural resources such as gold, diamonds, and timber - and may now have its eye on Niger's uranium mines.

All of which has made hundreds of millions of dollars for Prigozhin, while giving Moscow effective control over states in a strategically important region.

Wagner PMC mercenaries have played a key role in Putin's devastating invasion of Ukraine

Supporters of Niger's ruling junta hold a Russian flag at the start of a protest called to fight for the country's freedom and push back against foreign interference in Niamey, August 3, 2023

Men hold a child dressed in military uniform as they gather with thousands of anti-sanctions protestors in support of the putschist soldiers in the capital Niamey, Niger August 3, 2023

As researchers for the London School of Economics noted: 'A prime example of Russian state capture in Africa is the Central African Republic (CAR).

'President Faustin-Archange Touadéra brokered a deal with Russia for arms, mercenaries and a protection force in return for access to CAR diamond and gold mines.

'A Russian, Valery Zakharov, is now the country's national security advisor.

'Once Russia gained control of the state, CAR's longtime supporter, France, was compelled to pull out, further advancing Moscow's geostrategic interests.'

Meanwhile the ECOWAS alliance is on the back foot - having been forced to expel Guinea, Burkina Faso and Niger over the coups - while the West's military presence is shrinking fast.

Western deployments to Africa go back decades and, in the case of France, to the time of empire when many of the countries in the Sahel were its colonial territories.

That meant, after achieving independence, many of those same countries turned to France and its allies to provide security for their fledgling governments.

But the history of colonialism and, more recently, failed military operations have seen relations deteriorate rapidly.

France's last major deployment to the Sahel, Operation Barkhane, began in 2014 with the ambitious aim of pushing Jihadist groups out of a swathe of Sahel territory.

But the operation dragged on for years, failed to provide security for local people, and prompted a backlash against Western forces.

Three of the original five countries the mission was supposed to protect have since staged coups - Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

Meanwhile Chad, which was the base of operations for Barkhane, saw an attempted coup in 2021 which leaked US intelligence suggests was assisted by Wagner.

And the problem looks set to get worse as Putin, isolated on the world stage thanks to the Ukraine war, is likely to turn to Africa for political support in his war against the West.

'France must leave,' reads one placard, pictured during a demonstration in Niamey, August 3

Russian flags have been pictured throughout the Niger coup, with many Nigeriens resentful towards western powers who some see as embarking on another neocolonial project

Meanwhile Prigozhin, who recently withdrew from the Ukraine war and attempted another coup against Russia's own military, has said Africa will be his focus going forwards.

'Russia has invested minimal time and funding in Africa, but it is still steadily making inroads in various countries,' the Carnegie Institute added.

'It has had most success in internationally isolated and deeply troubled Sahelian states, and it has struggled to make inroads in several African democracies.

'Nevertheless, Moscow has proven that it knows how to take advantage of governance shortfalls, instability, and security vacuums in Africa.'

The researchers continued: 'The most important issue for the region's population is not Russia but the desire for improved security, economic, and social conditions.

'The Wagner Group may offer an easy fix and help individual regimes consolidate power.

'However, addressing the true causes of regional instability—bad governance, human suffering, the devastating impacts of climate change, and armed jihadist groups—requires a well-resourced, multilateral solution.'

That may provide an opportunity for Western nations to out-manoeuvre Moscow and win back influence in the region.

But unless they can overcome past grievances and put together a plan fast, they may find that Russia and its proxies are already too deeply embedded to displace.

Daily Mail · by Chris Pleasance · August 6, 2023

15. The cloud, fiber optics and hiding in basements: Army races to adapt to new command post threats

The cloud, fiber optics and hiding in basements: Army races to adapt to new command post threats - Breaking Defense

Drone-guided artillery strikes have made Ukraine “the graveyard of command posts,” two Army generals have warned. But, Lt. Gen. Milford Beagle and Brig. Gen. Jason Slider told Breaking Defense, better tactics and affordable tech can save lives.

breakingdefense.com · by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. · August 4, 2023

1st Cavalry soldiers set up the main tent for a brigade Tactical Operations Center in a 2010 exercise. (Army photo)

On tomorrow’s battlefield, there’s no safe place for ammo dumps or command posts. Drones will buzz constantly overhead, AI-powered algorithms searching for any sign of life — movement, body heat, wireless signals — that they can target for precision strike. So how can commanders and their staffs survive this new threat, when their very function requires communication?

Ditch that smartphone. Hide in a basement. Turn off every radio you can. Use electronic warfare sensors to scan your own troops for detectable transmissions and shut them off. Offload every function you can to higher headquarters further out of range, transmitting only essential data through an encrypted cloud.

Break up big staffs, like the 200-plus personnel in a divisional Main Command Post, into half a dozen smaller “sub-nodes,” each hiding in a different building or hastily dug bunker, communicating with each other not over Wi-Fi or tactical radio but over ruggedized fiber optic cables a quarter-mile (400 meters) long, unspooled by soldiers through the shelling-shattered windows and rubbled streets.

And every few hours, one of the sub-nodes takes its turn to shut down for a few hours and moved a few hundred yards — never too far for those fiber cables — so that, within a day, the entire formation has relocated, slithering undetected across the battlefield like an amoeba.

That’s the prescription from the US Army’s Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, helmed by Lt. Gen. Milford Beagle, a South Carolinian who’s served everywhere from Afghanistan and Iraq to South Korea.

“This is something I think all armies are going to wrestle with,” Beagle told Breaking Defense. “The US Army certainly has.”

“It is a transparent battlefield,” added Brig. Gen. Jason Slider, who was Beagle’s director of “mission command” until being seconded to the French Army, part of a longstanding officer exchange program. “You will always be under some type of enemy observation, so deception, decoys, and… improved command and control on the move will be very important…. We have concepts written out, there’s experimentation ongoing – [e.g.] AFC Project Convergence. We’re figuring out what works, what doesn’t work. We ‘re keeping our eye on what technology is in the pipeline.”

The good news is that while new gear can help, it doesn’t take a high-tech revolution to develop useful countermeasures to ubiquitous surveillance and precision targeting, the generals and other Combined Arms Center experts say. They can do a lot with just new tactics, organizational tweaks, and some creative use of terrain and technology that’s widely available, like stringing those fiber optic cables between basement hideouts.

“We can better protect ourselves, reduce risk, even with the technologies that are emerging out there currently,” Beagle said.

Russian soldiers look sharp in rigidly rehearsed parades but struggle to improvise on the battlefield. (Photo by Contributor/Getty Images)

Learning Deadly Lessons From Russia’s Disasters

Earlier this year, Beagle, Slider, and a third Army officer, Lt. Col. Matthew Arrol, co-authored an article, ominously titled “The Graveyard of Command Posts,” in which they outlined key lessons that US ground forces should learn from the heavy losses the Russian officer corps has taken in Ukraine.

It may be comforting for American commanders to blame Moscow’s military mishaps on incompetence and say they could never happen to them. Indeed, Beagle and Slider told us in the interview, some of the Russian army’s problems are the result of its overcentralized institutional culture, in which senior commanders must move forward to micromanage overwhelmed subordinates who are routinely punished for showing initiative. At least some of these Russian generals were hit by precision strikes because they were talking on easily traceable civilian cellphones.

The US has struggled with similar self-owns — as when deployed troops using fitness apps gave away the location and even exact layout of secret bases in Syria. But the American culture of initiative and improvisation at all ranks “gives us a bit of an off-ramp,” Slider said, because subordinates can take action without constantly going on the radio to check in. US junior officers are briefed on the overall vision for each operation and trained to take “disciplined initiative” to achieve their “commander’s intent” without waiting for new instructions when things change.

“If all of it were to go south in terms of our ability to communicate,” Beagle said, “then it’s all about understanding intent and developing that at echelons so subordinate commanders and soldiers clearly understand, if I can only transmit once [or] they’re severed completely, then you can operate given that intent and within the spirit of that intent.”

On the flipside, however, America’s bigger defense budget and love for technology means that US command posts are even more lavishly endowed with radio-wave-emitting gadgetry than their Russian counterparts. The US Army is also still struggling to break a generation of bad habits acquired in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“The size, the complexity of our command posts is linked to the past couple decades of fighting a counterinsurgency,” “We had those luxuries and ability to do it.”

An Army soldier uses software to manage a set of tactical servers in 2013 (Army photo)

Going On A Data Diet

Against guerrilla adversaries with no long range weapons and only a handful of drones, the US could build up huge, static Forward Operating Bases with air-conditioned command posts where officers could watch live, full-color, full-motion video (FMV) from drones. But that requires big buildings, high bandwidth, and tremendous emissions of both radio waves and heat (electronics and generators to power them run hot). All of that is easy prey for drone-equipped artillery units like Russia’s — or China’s. So those supersized command posts need to slim down, which includes going on a diet when it comes to data.

“What is it we really need?” Beagle asked. “The ultimate goal at the end of the day is to ensure that the commander has the information that he or she needs [to] understand what’s going on, decide what to do about it, tell someone to do something, [and] keep track of the battle… Everything that does not support that is extraneous.”

The Army’s doing a doctrinal scrub of data requirements at every echelon of the command hierarchy, Slider added, updating what are called Mission Essential Task Lists and deciding the “minimum essential products” for each level from “corps to platoon.”

After two decades of emphasis on village-by-village counterinsurgency by robustly self-sufficient Brigade Combat Teams, which comprise about 4,000 soldiers commanded by a colonel, the Army believes higher headquarters will play a larger role in large-scale wars against Russia or China, so it’s shifting and centralizing many functions, from artillery support to network tech, up to division HQs or even corps.

The goal is not to bloat up the division and corps command posts. Indeed, the Army’s acquisition arm is fielding a new Command Post Computing Environment that consolidates multiple pieces of bulky, specialized hardware — separate “tactical servers” for intelligence, artillery, logistics, and so on — into a single machine running the different functions as software apps. It’s also testing what’s called Command Post Integrated Infrastructure, which replaces traditional CPs housed in tents with mobile command trucks (“expando vans”) that can unfold their sides to accommodate staff, then fold up and drive away in minutes when danger looms.

Future mobile command posts should be in armored vehicles, Beagle and Slider warn, to survive the shrapnel from no-warning strikes. And at the smallest, most forward units, “battalion and below,” Slider said, the goal is to put everything a commander needs on a single ruggedized laptop with the ability to “reach back” through secure communications to get additional data from a cloud computing center safely out of enemy artillery range.

“The cloud is very exciting,” Beagle said, “because … I don’t need to bring all the sever stacks and servers and everything and the power to generate it.” But, he acknowledges, you won’t always have remote access to that cloud server in a battlefield wracked by jamming, hacking, and physical destruction of relays. Rather, he said, at times commanders may decide the risk of detection outweighs the benefit of communication and deliberately turn off some of all of their transmitters, just as submariners sometimes rig for silent running or fighter pilots turn off their radars.

“We’re going to have to go through that culture shift of, you may not have access to all that information,” Beagle said. “[And] if you lose all connectivity, then where’s your backup?… Everything that you do digitally, you need to have a way or practice where you can replicate it in an analog sense, [e.g.] your flat map with an alcohol marker.”

“I definitely don’t want anybody in the audience to think that we’re trying to force our formations to fight blind,” he emphasized. “We’ll fight [equally] with a lot of information, a lot of access, or with very little.”

16. Will China Embrace Nuclear Brinkmanship as It Reaches Nuclear Parity?

Conclusion:

Although the logic of strategic behavior is consistent across time and space, the cultural expectations and the lessons learned over time differ. While China uses all its tools of statecraft to achieve political goals, the West has placed greater emphasis on avoiding unintended conflict, perhaps due to how World War I started and how close the world came to nuclear war in 1962. These differences did not manifest so long as China was in a position of nuclear inferiority. However, as China approaches nuclear parity with the United States, its willingness to use all tools of statecraft may give it an advantage over the U.S. during crises. Washington would do well to consider how this gap in appetites for risk may affect a future crisis in the Indo-Pacific.

Will China Embrace Nuclear Brinkmanship as It Reaches Nuclear Parity?

In the future, China may incorporate nuclear weapons into its framework of political threats, intimidation, and even the use of force to achieve its international goals.

thediplomat.com · by Michael Tkacik · August 5, 2023

A war between the United States and China would have catastrophic global consequences. Thus, deterring Chinese revisionism must be the sine qua non of U.S. policy in the Indo-Pacific. While war has been avoided to date, China’s behavior is increasingly assertive as it seeks to become the dominant global power. China has shown itself adept at utilizing political coercion to achieve its goals. It uses a wide variety of statecraft tools and tactics to achieve its goals, from hybrid warfare to “comprehensive national power” (CNP) to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)’s “Three Warfares” framework to “gray zone tactics.”

China’s revisionist efforts typically occur below the level of outright violence, but are nevertheless illegal under international law or violate the norms and expectations that make up the liberal international order, incomplete though it is. Similarly, China does not appear to distinguish between peacetime and wartime conflict, again giving it an advantage in perpetual struggle.

The one tool of statecraft that China has avoided is nuclear weapons. China has not threatened other states with nuclear weapons and its declaratory policy is “no first use.” Many believe China will continue its no-first-use policy, even after it reaches parity with the United States. But this thinking finds its root in China’s traditional position as an inferior nuclear power and simply projects straight-line into the future. China’s approach to achieving its strategic goals since at least 2008 reveals another possibility: Beijing may incorporate nuclear weapons into its framework of political threats, intimidation, and even the use of force to achieve its international goals. After all, nuclear weapons are another element of CNP.

Note I am not arguing that China will use its nuclear forces as political instruments; rather I am arguing that we should examine the possibility more carefully, given China’s willingness to incorporate all elements of statecraft into its geopolitical strategy.

China is revisionist in nature and willing to violate international law, norms, and expectations. Moreover, China has been willing to walk up to, and sometimes cross, the line of violence in achieving its international goals. Examples of China’s increasingly assertive behavior abound, from its Himalayan border with India, to the East and South China Sea.

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Gray Zone Tactics: The South China Sea and Beyond

China effectively maneuvers at levels just below violent conflict to achieve its goals. For example, in the South China Sea, China deploys fleets of fishing vessels (maritime militias), backed by heavily armed coast guard ships, themselves supported over the horizon by warships. Using these ostensibly civilian assets, China encroaches upon the legal rights of the surrounding states, which are stipulated under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. When these states try to protect their rights, China often escalates, such as by ramming and sinking the smaller state’s vessels, preventing resupply to local outposts, or employing its myriad other tools of statecraft. China has, in essence, conventional escalation dominance.

At the same time, China produces a never-ending onslaught of propaganda and regulations to underscore its version of reality. Beijing created the nine-dash line claim and now insists that maps worldwide depict it. It has created new administrative regions and capitals (Sansha City, Woody Island) to administer its claimed territory. It enacted fishing laws over the entire region and the Chinese Coast Guard enforces these extraterritorial applications of law.

China thus demonstrates a willingness to undermine the status quo through political coercion and threats of violence. Examples proliferate beyond the South China Sea: China cut off trade relations with Lithuania after the country failed to use the name “Taipei” rather than Taiwan with regard to its representative office. Similarly, China imposed punitive tariffs against Australian wine, barley, beef, and other exports after Australia called for an independent investigation into the origins of COVID-19. Not only has China interacted violently with the Philippines in the South China Sea, but it has also punished the Philippines economically. Japan lost access to rare earth minerals when it detained a Chinese fishing boat captain who had trespassed in Japanese administered waters around the Senkaku Islands (claimed by China as the Diaoyu Islands).

China’s intimidation, especially in the Indo-Pacific, is often successful because it carries the very real possibility of overt violence. Given the integration of non-violent coercion, threats of violence, and violence via the application of CNP (something Carl Von Clausewitz would be familiar with), it is reasonable to ask how China might integrate nuclear weapons into its strategy, once it achieves parity with the United States.

Compellence With Nuclear Weapons

There is debate over whether a state can compel action with nuclear weapons. Thomas Schelling argued that compellence was possible, though he acknowledged deterrence was far easier. But given a willingness to breach expectations and take risks, compellence becomes more plausible. Schelling famously used the example of two drivers speeding toward a head-on collision. The most effective strategy to win this game of chicken would be to toss the steering wheel out of the window. China has shown a willingness to take risks during geopolitical competition. Moreover, since China does not seem to acknowledge a clear distinction between the threat of violence and violence itself, it may be that it likewise sees less of a firewall between conventional weapons and nuclear weapons.

This view is a radical departure from mainstream thinking, which emphasizes China’s no-first-use strategy and the implied clear separation of nuclear weapons from other tools of state. But China’s behavior in the South China Sea and elsewhere belies this assumption. The evidence is that China sees no such lines, as demonstrated by gray zone tactics and Sun Tzu’s philosophy that strategy is a continuum rather than a set of discrete options. In this view, then, the only reason Beijing has walled off nuclear weapons is that China has traditionally been a weak nuclear state with very few weapons. But that is changing rapidly as China builds out its nuclear forces.

There are at least two disruptive ways nuclear parity may impact a crisis. First, China may be willing to use nuclear weapons to intimidate other actors. This is not so much the case with small states such as the Philippines or Vietnam, as these states are already intimidated by China’s conventional superiority. Rather, a near-peer state such as Japan might find itself facing an implicit or even explicit nuclear threat from China. China’s parity with the United States means that China has a greater capability to threaten other states with nuclear weapons during a crisis because these states rely on the U.S. extended deterrent, which always faces credibility challenges.

Second, nuclear parity means that there is no longer a strategic backstop of U.S. nuclear superiority in any crisis. To date, every crisis that has occurred between the two states has occurred in an environment of significant U.S. nuclear superiority. China had to remain cognizant that any crisis could wind up going nuclear, which would threaten its existence. To be sure, the existence of overwhelming superiority did not necessarily make U.S. threats likely or credible. Nonetheless, that nuclear differential existed in the past and implicitly influenced crises. It is about to disappear. Thus, the environment in which a future great power crisis occurs will be fundamentally different than it has been in the past.

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This is especially troublesome given that China has sought to use risk as a means of maneuvering for political advantage, while the United States has primarily sought to avoid miscalculation. This willingness to take risks was evident recently in the PLA Navy’s near collision with the USS Chung-Hoon as it transited the Taiwan Straits along with a Canadian frigate. Similarly, only days before that, a Chinese fighter aggressively maneuvered in front of a patrolling U.S. RC-135. U.S. government sources say this aggressive behavior has become more common in recent years. After these incidents, the United States sought to communicate in order to reduce the chances of miscalculation, while China refused such discussions, apparently willing to accept the risk of miscalculation and escalation.

These two disruptive impacts of nuclear parity can be examined through the lens of a hypothetical Taiwan crisis.

Taiwan and Nuclear Escalation

Acknowledging China’s willingness to take risks to undermine the status quo illuminates the current standoff over Taiwan. In a future crisis, China will likely use all of its tools to attempt to eliminate the de facto independent Taiwan, from non-violent to violent methods. In the case of an initially non-violent attempt such as a blockade, China would likely be willing to risk collisions and other dangerous interactions that are just below the threshold of war, such as occurred in the recent RC-135 and Chung-Hoon incidents. Any state attempting to breach the blockade would face intense harassment from China and forcing the blockade would likely require, or inadvertently result in, escalation to violence and presumably, war.

Although notions of an escalation ladder (a la Herman Kahn) have fallen out of favor, it is still helpful to view any such crisis as a set of escalatory interactions whereby each side prefers to avoid war, but one side is willing to take greater risks. China’s preference would be using “operations other than war” (e.g., the blockade) to force Taiwan’s capitulation. But given China’s willingness to take risks and to engage in coercion up to and including violence, China would have an advantage over states seeking to force the blockade. Ultimately, the actors trying to breach the blockade would have to engage in overt violence or to back down.

In the case of Taiwan, any violent engagement would take place well within the range of China’s vast anti-access and area denial arsenal. China would have local escalation dominance. If the United States tried to force the blockade, China could not only sink the ships present, but launch missile assaults on Anderson Air Force base in Guam and numerous other U.S. or allied facilities. It is true that the United States might horizontally escalate into another geographical area or by blockading China, but given that Taiwan has more limited stores than does China, these options are not likely to be successful. The United States would be forced to back down or escalate into a larger war, which itself could escalate to a nuclear exchange.

If limited nuclear escalation was threatened, Schelling’s game of chicken would become central. Which state could more credibly threaten nuclear use? Two factors would be important: willingness and capability. Given that an independent Taiwan represents an existential threat to the Chinese Communist Party’s existence, it is likely that China places greater value on Taiwan than does the United States. Therefore, China is likely willing to take greater risks, up to and including the plausible threat of using nuclear weapons. Put another way, China’s political interest in Taiwan, and therefore willingness to escalate, is greater than the United States’ interest. This willingness to escalate is enhanced by China’s longstanding willingness to take greater risks than its opponents.

Consequently, the only thing stopping China from making successful nuclear threats would be superior U.S. capabilities. This is why China’s move to nuclear parity is so important. It removes the final barrier to China enforcing its will in Taiwan and probably other high value areas such as the South China Sea. Facing a China that in the near future has nuclear parity, if not superiority, the United States would have to ask itself whether Taiwan was worth risking nuclear conflict, especially given China’s ability and willingness to escalate at each opportunity. On the other hand, if China does not have nuclear parity, the United States would retain strategic escalation dominance, and might manage any crisis from a position of strength (though the impact of lesser political interests could still cause the United States to back down).

Conclusion

Although the logic of strategic behavior is consistent across time and space, the cultural expectations and the lessons learned over time differ. While China uses all its tools of statecraft to achieve political goals, the West has placed greater emphasis on avoiding unintended conflict, perhaps due to how World War I started and how close the world came to nuclear war in 1962. These differences did not manifest so long as China was in a position of nuclear inferiority. However, as China approaches nuclear parity with the United States, its willingness to use all tools of statecraft may give it an advantage over the U.S. during crises. Washington would do well to consider how this gap in appetites for risk may affect a future crisis in the Indo-Pacific.

GUEST AUTHOR

Michael Tkacik

Michael Tkacik is a professor of government and directs the School of Honors at Stephen F. Austin State University, The University of Texas System. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland and his M.A. from Columbia University. He has written on nuclear weapons in Asia, as well as China’s revisionist behavior, especially in the South China Sea.

thediplomat.com · by Michael Tkacik · August 5, 2023

17. Tomb Guard Braves Storm

A great American. A great American team.

Photos at the link: https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/Story/Article/3484065/tomb-guard-braves-storm/

Tomb Guard Braves Storm

defense.gov · by Kevin M. Hymel, ANC Historian

Army Pfc. Jessica Kwiatkowski leaned forward as she walked against the wind and rain. As a Tomb Guard with the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, she walked her twenty-one steps in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in the middle of a violent rainstorm on the evening of Saturday, July 29, 2023. Amid the storm, she walked her post without the ability to see.

We couldn't be prouder of the @USArmyOldGuard Soldiers who watch over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Winds reached 60-85 mph in the DC region. This sentinel leans into it and continues marching.

Honor. https://t.co/WcGAnSl8xL

— Arlington National Cemetery (@ArlingtonNatl) July 30, 2023

Rain had speckled and fogged up her sunglasses, making vision impossible. Counting her steps, she made her way to the "Green Box," a one-person-sized shelter on the north side of the Tomb that includes a phone. Once there, she called the Tomb Guard Quarters and told her fellow guards about her dilemma. They told her to just wipe off her glasses. "With what," she asked, "my wet gloves?" Then they told her to walk without her glasses. She refused. "These are like my goggles right now," she told them. She would be just as blind in the lashing rain without them.

Kwiatkowski returned to walking the mat. As the Tomb Plaza flooded with water, she could not see the lines that guided her where to go, so she continued counting her steps. She leaned into the winds as they tried to blow her back. The powerful gusts made her rifle drill movements a challenge. "I couldn't change shoulders without dropping my weapon," she explained. "I just had to take the rifle off [one shoulder] and place it on my other."

As she trudged through the heavy rain and wind, she worried about one thing: "I was surprised my ceremonial cap didn't fly off."

Sentinel Duty

Army Pfc. Jessica Kwiatkowski, assigned to the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, known as "The Old Guard," walks the mat at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va., Aug. 2, 2023.

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Photo By: Elizabeth Fraser, Army

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Ironically, Kwiatkowski had finished "walking the mat" that day well before the rain fell. She had already changed into civilian clothes inside the Quarters during the 4:30 p.m. changing of the guard.

"Towards the end of the guard change, it started drizzling a little bit," said Staff Sgt. Isaiah Jasso, the relief commander who oversaw the 4:30 guard change. The winds also began to gust. The soldier Jasso had just posted to the tomb, Spc. Adam Platt, wore no rain gear, only his blue uniform blouse.

Back at the Quarters, Pfc. Jeffrey Potter, noticed the rain as he watched the guard change on a set of monitors. Not wanting Platt to ruin his uniform, he told Kwiatkowski to get into a "three-minute go" — changing into her uniform and raincoat in three minutes. Kwiatkowski quickly donned her uniform.

As soon as Staff Sgt. Jasso returned to the Quarters with the original guard, he also put on a raincoat. Within three minutes, he and Kwiatkowski were marching out to relieve Platt. To get him out of the rain quickly, Jasso performed a Post One exchange, a shortened version of a guard change that takes only five minutes, compared to the usual ten-minute change.

Spotlight: Value of Service

Once on the Tomb Plaza, Kwiatkowski started walking the mat and thought, "It's not that bad." Then the winds picked up and the rain began to lash, fogging her glasses. Lightning bolts cracked the sky, but she still didn't worry. "I just thought: 'if it gets closer, I'm just going to go into the [Green] Box.'" Only after the storm had passed did she discover that a pine tree near the Tomb had been felled by lightning.

Guarding the Tomb

Army Pfc. Jessica Kwiatkowski and two other soldiers assigned to the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, known as "The Old Guard," keep watch at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va., Aug. 2, 2023.

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Photo By: Elizabeth Fraser, Army

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After ten minutes of walking, Kwiatkowski realized her well-polished shoes were probably ruined. Still unable to see, she decided to just make the best of it.

Inside the Quarters, Potter and Jasso watched Kwiatkowski on the monitors as they waited for the 5 p.m. guard change. They could see the trees around her swaying as the visibility diminished. Suddenly, the power went out. The screens all went dark. Tomb Guards took turns running out into the storm to check on Kwiatkowski, making sure she was okay and that she knew there would be a Post One guard change.

At 5 p.m. the Memorial Amphitheater's clock began to chime, signaling the changing of the guard. As Kwiatkowski walked, another guard, in civilian clothes, gave her hand signals that there would be a Post One guard change, but she could not clearly see them. "I just assumed that he's telling me to go the Green Box," she said. So, she headed to the box until one of the guards told her, "It's a Post One, get back on the mat."

Jasso and the relief guard marched out to Kwiatkowski in almost ankle-deep water. Despite the wind and rain, they put on a sharp changing ceremony. "There were still people out on the stairs under the roof [of the Memorial Amphitheater]," she said. "So, we just had to make it look the best that we could."

The rain and wind were so loud that Jasso could not raise his voice enough to tell the small audience that the cemetery was closing and that they needed to depart. Finally, Pfc. Potter walked over to the visitors and told them, "Sorry guys, I hate to do this, but you have to leave now."

Sacred Duty

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Photo By: Elizabeth Fraser, Army

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Guard Duty

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As Jasso and Kwiatkowski walked back to the Quarters, Kwiatkowski noticed that every single Tomb Guard on duty, both in uniform and in civilian clothes, had come out to watch her make her way back. The two soldiers stepped over downed tree branches and piles of leaves, and as they reached the Quarters' door, they had to walk through a last giant puddle.

Once the guards were back in the Quarters, they all burst out laughing. "It's funny when stuff like that happens," said Kwiatkowski. Jasso felt the same. "It was a good time," he said. "We train for this, we practice for this, it was just another day in the office." The storm proved to be a bonding moment for everyone.

Pfc. Kwiatkowski, who has been walking the mat for eight months, had experienced worse winds in the winter, but the walk on July 29 was special. She reflected, "This was definitely one of my top outside moments."Experience: Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Experience: Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: https://www.defense.gov/multimedia/experience/tomb-of-the-unknown-soldier/

Walking the Mat

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Photo By: Elizabeth Fraser, Army

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defense.gov · by Kevin M. Hymel, ANC Historian

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

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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