Quotes of the Day:

"Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, or morbid minds."

- Thomas Jefferson

"It's not only for unanswered questions that we seek knowledge but also for the examination of unquestioned answers."

- Anodea Judith, American author, therapist, and public speaker

(would this help with recruiting today?)

ARE YOU A COWARD? This is not for you. We badly need a brave man. He must be between 23 to 25 years old, in perfect health, at least six feet tall, weigh about 190 pounds, fluent in English with some French, proficient with all weapons, some knowledge of engineering and mathematics essential, willing to travel, no family or emotional ties, indomitably courageous and handsome of face and figure. Permanent employment, very high pay, glorious adventure, great danger. You must apply in person, 17, rue Dante, Nice, 2me etage, appt D." 

- Robert A. Heinlein - Glory Road

1. Opinion | The U.S. is back in East Asia — but for how long?

2. China’s blueprint for an alternative world order

3. And are the Pentagon's criticism's of its strategy fair?

4. Ukraine Situation Report: Kyiv's Forces Enter Robotyne

5. Zelensky's spies 'masterminded string of daring drone attacks inside Russia which have seen five of Putin's jets blown up within three days'

6. China helping to arm Russia with helicopters, drones and metals

7. The Senate's defense-policy bill looks for threats in the rear-view mirror

8. Dollar’s Domination Of World Trade Will End, Putin Tells BRICS Summit

9. Ukraine to cost half-trillion more if war ends now

10. Former US Defense Secretary visits NE Syria, calls to support AANES

11. A Gen Z Marine Explores Solutions to the Military's Recruiting Crisis in 'We Don't Want You, Uncle Sam'

12. Manliness, Prestige and Cash: How Military Service Is Sold on Russian TV

13. Ukraine’s Reset: A Slow and Bloody Advance on Foot

14. Is it safe to release water from Fukushima’s nuclear plant? What to know.

15. Opinion | The Space Force needs to get bigger

16. A Divorce Between the Navy and Cyber Command Would Be Dangerous

17.  Biden’s Asia Diplomacy Is Still Incomplete

18. Report to Congress on South China Sea Disputes - USNI News

19. Exposed: the Chinese spy using LinkedIn to hunt UK secrets

20. Republican isolationism: Abandoning Ukraine is no way to make America great again

21. Russia and Iran Deepen Military Cooperation

22. The U.S. Navy Is Now Paying a Price For Its Littoral Combat Ship Mistakes

23. Zelensky Calls Meeting with Serbian President ‘Fruitful’

24. Biden Heads to G20, Sends Harris to ASEAN, East Asia Summits

25. Case studies: US military assistance in Africa doesn't work - Responsible Statecraft

26. In Latest Moon Race, India Lands First in Southern Polar Region

27. Delusions of Détente – Why America and China Will Be Enduring Rivals

28. Is the American Military Too 'Woke'?

29. Biden Pushes Woke Military Officers as Sen. Tuberville Holds Firm

30. An internet troll’s guide to ‘OPSEC’

1. Opinion | The U.S. is back in East Asia — but for how long?

Hey, note "JAROPUS."

Excerpts:

Put together with other Biden efforts in Asia, a new strategic architecture for the region becomes visible. There’s also the Quad group (the United States, Japan, Australia, India); AUKUS (Australia, Britain and the United States); and JAROPUS (Japan, the Philippines and the United States), an acronym Emanuel himself coined.

Opinion | The U.S. is back in East Asia — but for how long?

The Washington Post · by Josh Rogin · August 22, 2023

President Biden’s summit last week at Camp David with the leaders of Japan and South Korea was an historic, hard-fought achievement for the governments of all three allies. The question is whether the Biden administration can do enough in the time it has left to ensure this progress can’t be reversed. Let’s hope so.

The meeting was the clearest sign yet that China’s aggressive regional expansion and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is driving democracies in Asia to completely rethink their strategic situation. Japan is doubling its defense budget over the next five years. South Korea is reconciling with the country that occupied its land and abused its people during the last century. While most eyes were focused on the U.S.-China bilateral relationship, the Biden administration was working behind the scenes to take advantage of Beijing’s stumbles to bring these frenemies together after decades of estrangement. The summit shows their strategy is working — but it only goes so far and the clock is ticking.

“The strategic plates have shifted,” U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel told me. “The one thing that China never wanted to see is happening.”

But it’s telling that the first reporter called on at the summit news conference chose to ask Biden why Asian countries should have confidence in the United States’ long-term commitment. After all, Biden’s predecessor (and likely opponent next year) threatened to abandon Asian allies, shook them down for money, wanted to withdraw U.S. troops from the region, and spent his time clumsily courting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“This isn’t just about one summit,” Biden replied. “What makes today different is it actually launches a series of initiatives that are actually institutional changes in how we deal with one another. … And all of this will create momentum.”

In other words, the Biden team is acutely aware of how even big diplomatic accomplishments can be undone. Remember, these are some of the same people who worked on the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran. The Biden administration has 17 months left in its current term to cement the three countries’ cooperation on security, economics, technology, supply chains and development.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida are also taking big political risks by pursuing policies such as coordinating technology restrictions on China and deepening missile-defense cooperation, which will surely irritate the Chinese government. Both Japan and South Korea depend heavily on the Chinese economy, and Beijing is known to use such leverage against foreign leaders who irk them.

“We’re trying to build really firm foundations that weather the changes of the politics in any of our countries,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told me during an interview, adding that all three leaders want to build something “that can command support from the institutions of each country indefinitely out into the future.”

The work to make the Camp David summit happen began even before Biden took office, Sullivan said. The president decided early on he wanted to devote significant resources to this push. In April 2021, Sullivan hosted his counterparts from Tokyo and Seoul in Annapolis to kick off the effort.

Sullivan explained to me how the administration approached the allies: “I basically said, ‘Look, I have instructions from the president, as does Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken, to really work on this trilateral cooperation, to try to build it out in a way where it becomes an enduring feature of the Indo-Pacific security architecture and economic architecture — and we’ve got to get to work on this.’”

In May 2021, Blinken and his two counterparts met on the sidelines of the Group of Seven Summit in Britain. After that, they would meet together whenever the three were in the same place at the same time. Similar trilateral meetings sprouted up among the allies’ defense and military officials.

Luck is sometimes defined as the intersection of preparedness and opportunity. Biden caught two significant breaks when new leaders took the helm in both Japan and South Korea. Kishida, who took office in October 2021, hails from the more South Korea-friendly side of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Yoon, who took office in May 2022, had fond childhood memories of Japan, where his father was a professor.

These three leaders came together for the first time in June 2022 during the NATO summit in Madrid. The symbolism could not have been clearer. Japan and South Korea were both willing to put aside their historic differences and join with Western countries to coordinate responses to the combined China-Russia threat.

Last week’s meeting in Camp David, with the famous backdrop and the personal touches (Biden and Kishida called each other “Fumio” and “Joe”), was designed to send the message that the United States is willing to make new long-term commitments to its allies. The risk is that Camp David could end up being the high-water mark of that effort rather than a steppingstone.

“In the blocking and tackling of diplomacy, you often gain a yard here or couple yards there, and then sometimes you get a big open run up the middle for 10 yards. … That’s what this is,” Emanuel told me. The job now, the ambassador added, is to maintain that intensity during the implementation phase.

Put together with other Biden efforts in Asia, a new strategic architecture for the region becomes visible. There’s also the Quad group (the United States, Japan, Australia, India); AUKUS (Australia, Britain and the United States); and JAROPUS (Japan, the Philippines and the United States), an acronym Emanuel himself coined.

These various relationships do not add up to an Asian version of NATO. Instead, they comprise a network of overlapping relationships that form what Sullivan calls “a latticework approach” to responding to China’s regional expansion. Right now, the military aspects are the most developed, while the economic and trade side is the most lacking. But if officials in Beijing are wondering who is most responsible for driving these countries together, they need only to look in the mirror.

The Washington Post · by Josh Rogin · August 22, 2023

2. China’s blueprint for an alternative world order

My thesis: China seeks to export its authoritarian political system around the world in order to dominate regions, co-opt or coerce international organizations, create economic conditions favorable to China alone, and displace democratic institutions.

China’s blueprint for an alternative world order

Financial Times · by James Kynge · August 22, 2023

When Xi Jinping, China’s leader, delivered an “important speech” at the UN in September 2021, it appeared to be little more than a list of feelgood clichés. He said that the world needed “harmony between man and nature” and added that economic development should bring “benefits for all”.

So short on specifics was his address that the international media mostly ignored it. Through subsequent elaborations, however, that speech has taken on a crucial significance. This is because Xi used it to propose a new scheme called the Global Development Initiative, which is now gaining recognition as a foundation stone in China’s blueprint for an alternative world order to challenge that of the US-led west.

Ostensibly, the GDI is a Chinese-led multilateral programme to promote development, alleviate poverty and improve health in the developing world. But along with two follow-up initiatives also announced by Xi — the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilisation Initiative — it represents China’s boldest move yet to enlist the support of the “global south” to amplify Beijing’s voice on the world stage and build up China’s profile in the UN, Chinese officials and commentators say.

“[Xi’s initiatives] show China’s clearest intention yet to update the rules of global governance that were written by the collective west in the aftermath of world war two,” says Yu Jie, senior research fellow at Chatham House, a think-tank in London.

“The initiatives illuminate Beijing’s moves to carve out its own space in international affairs because it is firmly convinced that China’s relations with the collective west will remain turbulent for a decade to come,” she adds.

The rise of the middle powers

This is the second in a series on how the stand-off between America and China has ushered in a new era of opportunity for countries across the world

Part 1: The à la carte world: our new geopolitical order

Part 2: China’s blueprint for an alternative world order

Part 3 on Wednesday: UAE and Saudi Arabia — the Gulf powerhouses

Part 4 on Thursday: The fight to dethrone the dollar as the world’s currency

The key to China’s blueprint is to steadily institutionalise its leadership over the developing world by creating, expanding and funding a raft of China-led groupings of countries, according to Chinese officials and commentators. They add that the aims of this strategy are largely two-fold: to ensure that a broad swath of the world remains open to Chinese trade and investment and to use the voting power of developing countries at the UN and in other forums to project Chinese power and values.

The crucial context to this strategy is that by seeking increased leadership over the global south, China is throwing in its lot with the largest and fastest-growing part of the world. The 152 countries classified as developing at the UN vastly outstrip their developed counterparts on yardsticks such as population size and population growth, GDP growth rates over the past two decades and overall contribution to global GDP growth as measured by purchasing power parity.

For the first time ever, China exported more in the early part of this year to the developing world — as represented by the countries that make up the Belt and Road Initiative — than it exported to the US, EU and Japan combined (see chart), according to data collected by Dongwu Securities, a Chinese brokerage.

“China will always be a member of the family of developing countries,” Xi told a forum in 2021. “We will continue to do our utmost in raising the representation and voice of developing nations in the global governance system.”

The list of international institutions in which Beijing hopes to magnify its influence and, by extension, that of the developing world is getting longer. It includes the UN, the World Trade Organization, the G20 and others, Chinese officials say. In addition, Beijing also intends to expand the membership and raise the profile of several groupings in which it already plays a leading role, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Brics group and others.

Chinese president Xi Jinping remotely addresses the UN General Assembly in September 2021. Xi used the speech to propose a new scheme called the Global Development Initiative © Mary Altaffer/Pool/Reuters

“We should not take the Chinese Communist party’s endeavours to establish a new world order lightly,” says Xu Chenggang, senior research scholar at Stanford University’s Center on China’s Economy and Institutions.

“Developing countries with authoritarian regimes, particularly those in conflict with the US and other democracies, are finding that China’s new order is beneficial to their domestic authoritarian rule and their foreign policy,” he adds.

Multilateralism with Chinese characteristics

The UN — with its 15 specialised agencies that exercise global governance in several areas such as finance, telecoms, health and hunger alleviation — lies at the “very centre” of China’s worldview and its plans to boost its influence, says one senior Chinese official, who declined to be identified.

It is also a focus of Beijing’s attempt to gain influence through Xi’s three initiatives. The most important move so far has come in the form of a new UN forum that China founded in 2020. Called the “Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative”, it has about 70 member countries, has held its first ministerial meeting and has won the endorsement of UN secretary- general António Guterres, according to official Chinese documents.

The full list of member countries in the group is confidential, a UN spokesperson and Chinese officials say. However, a list compiled by the Financial Times of 20 countries believed to be members, shows that the group includes many of China’s biggest debtors under the BRI. Through the initiative, Chinese financial institutions have lent nearly $1tn mainly for infrastructure projects in the developing world since 2013.

A study by AidData, a US-based research lab, shows that the 20 countries on the list have displayed impressive loyalty to China in the form of votes at the UN. Between 2013 and 2020, each of them have voted with China on at least 75 per cent of occasions in the UN General Assembly (see chart), the main policymaking body which issues recommendations on global crises, manages internal UN appointments and oversees the UN’s budget.

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In the case of Cambodia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe — all of which owe hefty debts to China — their voting alignment with China in the assembly registered at 80 per cent or above, according to the research.

The correlation between increased lending and greater voting fealty was consistent across the sample. “When countries vote with China in the UN General Assembly, they are richly rewarded,” says Bradley Parks, executive director of AidData. “Beijing is dusting off an old playbook and using its largesse to purchase foreign policy favours.

“On average, a 10 per cent increase in voting alignment with China in the UN General Assembly yields a 276 per cent increase in aid and credit from Beijing,” he adds, quoting research on voting patterns from a new book by Axel Dreher and colleagues called Banking on Beijing.

These correlations do not prove that countries vote with China purely because of the debts they owe. Several other factors may also be in play such as political allegiances, trade and investment ties and agendas common to developing countries.

Nevertheless, such loyalty represents a resource that China can draw on in future UN votes, says Courtney Fung, a UN expert at the Lowy Institute, a think-tank based in Australia.

“China can harness these relationships in UN votes or debates to support and underline just how well-accepted China’s positions are within the UN system,” Fung says.

One focus of China’s UN strategy is lobbying. If Beijing can secure the allegiance of the majority of 152 developing countries — out of 193 UN member states — it stands to prevail and correspondingly amplify its voice in world affairs, Chinese officials say.

Recent general assembly resolutions have covered a gamut of issues, including financing for peacebuilding, pandemic prevention and a “new partnership” for Africa’s development.

But, as China’s recent experience shows, it is not only in the broadest forums such as general assembly where the votes of developing countries loyal to China have turned out to be crucial.

In October last year, the UN Human Rights Council voted down a western-led motion to hold a debate on China’s human rights abuses after a cohort of developing countries backed Beijing. The council has 47 members, of whom 19 voted against the motion, 17 for and 11 abstained.

A Uyghur man sits on a park bench in Kashgar city in Xinjiang province. Developing countries last year backed Beijing in a UN vote on human rights © Pedro Pardo/AFP/Getty Images

It was only the second time in the council’s 16-year history that a motion had been rejected. But what made the defeat even more extraordinary was that it came just weeks after a finding by the UN Office of the High Commission for Human Rights that “serious human rights violations” had been committed by Beijing against Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, a region in north-west China.

Following that victory, China then enlisted 66 countries — most of them recipients of Chinese lending under the BRI — to support a statement at the UN praising its human rights record. Its signatories outnumbered the 50 mostly western countries that endorsed a rival statement which condemned China.

Beyond such one-off battles, China is starting to use the “Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative” to promote its own definitions of key concepts in an effort to undercut those used by the US-led west. One of these is “true multilateralism”, which it defines as equal status for all countries.

The whole idea of [China’s definition of] multilateralism is to oppose what Beijing sees as American hegemony

This vision is distinct from what China sees as the abuses of the US-led world order, which it characterises as “bloc politics under the disguise of multilateralism” or attempts to impose the “rules made by a few countries” under the pretext of multilateralism, according to an official Chinese document.

“The whole idea of [China’s definition of] multilateralism is to oppose what Beijing sees as American hegemony,” says Collin Koh, senior fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Another key Chinese strategy is to present itself as a global peacemaker, partly to counter the reputational damage it suffered when its strategic partner, Russia, invaded Ukraine last year. Crucial to this ambition is the Global Security Initiative (GSI), which was proposed last year by Xi and is designed as a China-led multilateral forum.

Its aim is to wrest influence away from the US on global security issues while elevating its own role, officials say. Part of the strategy to achieve this is to call for a “bigger UN role in security affairs” while expanding Beijing’s own role within the UN peacekeeping hierarchy.

This focus on the UN echoes that of the GDI and highlights a crucial feature of Xi’s three initiatives: rather than seeking to create a whole new world order, Beijing’s aim is to repurpose the UN’s authority to more squarely serve China.

China is the second largest contributor — after the US — to the UN’s peacekeeping budget and it supplies more UN peacekeeping troops than the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council combined, according to Courtney Fung’s research. Over a dozen Chinese officers have had top military posts in the UN’s Department of Peace Operations, a foundation stone in the UN architecture, Fung adds.

Although the DPO has been led by French officials since 1997, Beijing hopes that in time one of its officials will be chosen either to lead the DPO or one of its three main offices, Chinese officials say.

Chinese peacekeepers deployed by the UN Mission in South Sudan patrol the UN Protection of Civilians site in Juba in 2016. Beyond the UN, China plans to boost the participation of developing countries in international forums © Albert Gonzalez Farran/AFP/Getty Images

For Beijing, the prestige it accords UN peacekeeping is part of a bigger push to align itself with the cause of peace. In March, it brokered a landmark deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, ending a seven-year rift. In May, Xi proposed a four-point plan aimed at working towards peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Officials from Beijing also attended a forum held this month in Saudi Arabia on resolving the conflict in Ukraine. European officials told the FT that China’s participation had been “constructive” and said that Beijing had signalled its willingness to attend further talks.

Institutional expansion

In spite of its official adherence to “true multilateralism” — the concept of equal status for all states — China has a complex position on reforming the UN. It relishes its position as one of the five permanent members — along with the US, UK, France and Russia — of the UN Security Council “P5”, which allows it to veto resolutions.

It is understood to be open to the idea of expanding the permanent membership from the current five. But it privately opposes the inclusion of Japan and India, both of which are strategic rivals to China, according to diplomats, who declined to be identified. This opposition in effect stymies a proposal to accept the “G4” — Germany, Brazil, India and Japan — as permanent members.

To Collin Koh, this stance lays bare the hollowness of China’s claim to want to bring true multilateralism to the UN decision-making process. “I don’t think China is trying . . . to devolve major decision-making authority from the P5,” Koh says. “But of course this would not stop Beijing from continuing to put itself up as the unwavering, faithful leading advocate of the global south.”

Beyond the UN, China has a raft of plans to boost the participation of developing countries in international forums and, in so doing, to bolster its own standing.

In the G20, which Beijing treats as a key forum to engage with the west, China became the first country last year to push for membership for the African Union, which comprises 55 member states from the continent. If membership is granted at a summit scheduled for September in New Delhi, the G20’s membership will expand to 21 and developing world representation will grow close to parity with that of the developed world.

A street food vendor serves customers next to a sign for a Pak China supermarket in Gwadar, Balochistan, Pakistan. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation embraces both Pakistan and India, which acknowledge their mutually hostile ties © Asim Hafeez/Bloomberg

China is also hoping to expand the Brics group beyond its current members — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — so that it becomes a counterweight to the G7, a group of developed powers. More than 20 countries have submitted applications to join the grouping at a summit this week in South Africa, diplomats said.

Another multilateral organisation in the throes of expansion is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a security grouping founded by China that has nine countries as full members and is due to absorb Belarus as its tenth. Four of the members — China, Russia, India and Pakistan — are nuclear powers and Moscow sees the group “as the core of a China- and Russian-led anti-western bloc,” according to a paper from the European Council on Foreign Relations think-tank.

Nevertheless, the SCO’s membership also betrays a common flaw with Chinese multilateralism. The opaque parameters it uses to launch its initiatives and institutions allows countries to look past the rivalries they have with others in the group. But it does nothing to heal the rifts.

Thus the SCO embraces both Pakistan and India, which acknowledge their mutually hostile ties. India’s relationship with China itself is also tense on several fronts.

“The vague language of most of the initiatives made it easy for countries to pay lip service to them. China could then point to this rhetorical support as evidence that a large number of countries backed its world view,” says Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center, a think-tank in Washington.

“However, these countries would only be willing to accommodate China’s demands up to a certain point. When push came to shove, they would follow their own interests,” she adds.

Additional reporting by Joseph Leahy in Beijing

Financial Times · by James Kynge · August 22, 2023

3. Ukraine's offensive: is it failing? And are the Pentagon's criticism's of its strategy fair?

From the preeminent scholar of strategy, Sir Lawrence Freedman.

Excerpts:

The situation with Russia is not at all comparable to 1945. It is not facing an existential challenge – just a fiasco with a supposedly limited operation that went badly wrong. Ukraine is not going to march on Moscow to demand surrender. There are no demands for Russian territory to be handed over, or at least not territory internationally recognised as Russian. If Putin had not raised the stakes by claiming so much of Ukraine for Russia then it might not have been too hard to walk away. The cumulative effect of his disastrous policies has been to turn this special military operation into a struggle for the future of his regime and his concept of the Russian state.

At some point Moscow may decide that it must seek a route out of this morass but we can only guess what it will take to get this decision and when it might occur. We do not know enough about the interaction between the various external pressures on Russia and the internal decision-making. Only on occasion do we get glimpses of the tensions within the elite, of which the Wagner mutiny was the most extreme example. As Ukraine and its Western allies cannot force a decision on Moscow, all that can be done is keep up the pressure and accept that this may have to be done for months, even years. This is not because the war definitely will go on this long but because it might, and because Putin is more likely to seek a way out if he recognises that time is not on his side. This pressure can take a number of forms - at sea, in drone strikes against targets in Russia, attacking supply lines into Crimea, keeping up the pressure on its economy, demonstrating that Ukraine is not too far away from membership of the EU and NATO.

This is why the decision to send F-16s to Ukraine is important. It will certainly not help with the current offensive as it is unlikely that they will be flying much before next summer. But for that very reason they signal understanding of the potential length of this war. That is also why it is essential to step up production of ammunition and other war material. If it is likely that fighting will continue well into the next year then that should be reflected in Ukrainian strategy. Grumbles about slow progress should not lead to pressure to push harder than is feasible or prudent during the current offensive. The aim should be to get in as good a position as possible for the coming stages of the war and also to think about how best to sustain and develop capabilities for these stages. Whether Ukrainian forces do well or badly in the coming months it will still be essential to think long-term.

Ukraine's offensive: is it failing?

And are the Pentagon's criticism's of its strategy fair?

https://samf.substack.com/p/ukraines-offensive-is-it-failing?r=7i07&utm

LAWRENCE FREEDMAN

AUG 23, 2023

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Ukrainian soldiers fire with D-30 artillery at Russian positions in the direction of Klishchiivka (Photo by Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images).

The Russo-Ukraine War has reached its eighteen-month mark with no end in sight because neither side, for now, has a convincing route to a military victory. The Ukrainian offensive, which began in June, was presented as a means to liberate a substantial amount of territory from Russian occupation, and potentially cause a crisis in Russian military confidence that might oblige Moscow to recognise that the game was up, and that it was time to cut its losses.

This prospect was always optimistic, not only because of the difficulties of retaking well-defended territory but also because of Putin’s reluctance to admit defeat even when his army suffers setbacks. Recently a new narrative has started to take hold in some commentaries on the state of the war, notably from Pentagon officials, to the effect that the offensive is turning out to be a deep disappointment. Questions are now being raised about whether this is a war that Ukraine can ever win. Perhaps it is Kyiv that should be looking to cut its losses, conceding territory in return for peace.

This gloom is overdone. There is still uncertainty about how the current round of fighting will develop. Ukraine still holds the initiative. But the challenges are real and it does Ukraine no favours to suggest that they can easily be overcome. The basic problem, however, is the one that has been present from the start. Bringing this war to an end is a political as well as a military process, and the political process we understand least is in Moscow. 

This war is far removed from those of the 18^th and 19^th centuries when battle would decide the dispute that had caused the war. Classical military strategy was geared to ‘decisive’ battles which would start at dawn and end at dusk. When they were over the results could be tallied – who controlled the battlefield and had broken the opposing army – and the ‘decision’ of war announced. That required both sides to accept the result. Increasingly, however, it became harder to achieve a decisive battle. Even after a defeat in battle if there was some means of continuing the fight and recouping its losses then a country would carry on. More war would appear as a lesser evil than a humiliating peace. Look what it took in 1945 to convince both the Germans and Japanese that they had lost and could not continue.

A Failing Offensive?

The recent flurry of newspaper reports suggesting that the Ukrainian campaign has run into trouble began on 17 August when the Washington Post quoted anonymous US officials lamenting that insufficient territory has been liberated and that vital targets have yet to be taken. Of these the city of Melitopol was highlighted as the ‘gateway to Crimea,’ located ‘at the intersection of two important highways and a railroad line that allow Russia to move military personnel and equipment from the peninsula to other occupied territories in southern Ukraine.’ This was followed by another piece, three days later, continuing the lament, observing that ‘the counteroffensive shows signs of stalling.’ The Russians were far from crumbling, not only ‘putting up fierce resistance’ but ‘even making offensive advances.’

The timing of these stories was surprising. A number of analysts were cautious from the start about how easy it would be to break through Russian lines and the time it might take to make significant progress. (This was my assessment from 10 June in the Sunday Times). It was soon evident that the caution as warranted. The first moves in the offensive, in early June, had not gone well. But it was also evident that the Ukrainians had adjusted their tactics accordingly. As I, and many others, noted hopes for dashing manoeuvres were soon replaced by a more realistic focus on small-scale engagements, eating away at Russian forward positions and logistic networks using Ukraine’s advantages in the quality if not the quantity of their artillery. The expectations of a decisive breakthrough over the coming months were soon swapped for the more realistic prospect of a campaign that could continue until the autumn when it would need to wind down because of resource constraints, especially ammunition, and boggier conditions.

The Institute for the Study of War observed that the intelligence assessment cited by the Washington Post was at best ‘premature’ and that it was odd to make so much of Melitopol as an objective. ‘Ukraine has many options for severing critical Russian ground lines of communication along the northern Sea of Azov coast of which the seizure of Melitopol is only one.’ Yet Melitopol was set as the main objective for the offensive and its not surprising that this is how it is being judged. It may be that other opportunities will come into view over the coming weeks but if they do they will not have been part of the original plan.

It is one of the clichés of strategy that events are unlikely to unfold in ways that meet the timetable and targets of a plan of campaign. (‘No plan survives contact with the enemy – von Moltke; ‘everyone has a plan ‘till they get punched in the mouth’ – Mike Tyson.) This is why armies, and their commanders, tend to be evaluated by their ability to adapt and improvise. It is the rare operation that goes ‘according to plan’ or ‘on schedule’.

Risk Aversion

Part of the negative assessment was a simple recognition that the Russians had done a good job constructing defences that were hard to pass. But there was another part of the critique that caught my attention. The original Post article noted the casualties suffered by the Ukrainians during the early stages of the offensive, adding that:

Joint war games conducted by the U.S., British and Ukrainian militaries anticipated such losses but envisioned Kyiv accepting the casualties as the cost of piercing through Russia’s main defensive line, said U.S. and Western officials.

The article then suggested that the Pentagon had ‘recommended multiple times that Ukraine concentrate a large mass of forces on a single breakthrough point.’ This picked up on a debate that had been underway from early in the year when Kyiv decided to commit substantial forces to the defence of the eastern city of Bakhmut, despite its limited strategic relevance and the high human cost.

The Ukrainians have for months poured tremendous resources into Bakhmut, including soldiers, ammunition and time, but they have lost control of the city and have made only modest gains in capturing territory around it. And while the close-in, trench-line fighting is different in Bakhmut from the problem of mines in the south, the focus has left some in the Biden administration concerned that overcommitting in the east may have eroded the potency of the counteroffensive in the south.

The Financial Times appears to have been talking to the same unnamed officials:

One point of tension between US and Ukrainian officials has centred on how Kyiv has deployed its military. US officials have encouraged Ukraine to be less risk-averse and fully commit its forces to the main axis of the counteroffensive in the south so it would have a chance of breaking through Russian lines to reach the Sea of Azov, effectively cutting Russia’s land bridge in southern Ukraine to Crimea, a critical military hub. Washington has also urged Ukraine to send more combat power to the south, and stop concentrating on the east, where almost half of its forces are engaged. But Ukraine has instead deployed some of its best fighting units in eastern Ukraine in a battle to recapture Bakhmut.

Now the New York Times has weighed in with a similar analysis, complaining that too many troops, including some of the best combat units, are in the wrong places. Again the division of effort between the south and east is critcised, regretting that more has not been moved to the south to push through ‘even if the Ukrainians lose more soldiers and equipment in the process.’ This critique, it reports, reflects American doctrine that always demands

‘a main effort to ensure that maximum resources go to a single front, even if supporting forces are fighting in other areas to hedge against failure or spread-out enemy defenses.’

How valid is this critique?

First, there is a distinction between being risk-averse and reckless. The problem was not that Ukraine was unwilling to attempt company and battalion armoured assaults but that when it did so ‘Russian anti-tank capabilities just proved too strong.’ If they had been mounted on a larger scale it is not clear that the gains would have been much greater, although the casualties would certainly have been higher. A concentrated force for a concerted push would have been spotted and likely caught by Russian artillery. And it would still have been held up by the minefields. The Americans have not recently undertaken an operation of this sort and would only do so with assets the Ukrainians lack. As the New York times acknowledged

‘American officials’ criticisms of Ukraine’s counteroffensive are often cast through the lens of a generation of military officers who have never experienced a war of this scale and intensity.’

The lesson here is not that the Ukrainians failed to achieve what the Americans might have hoped to achieve in similar circumstances but that it was unrealistic to expect them to try. Having tried the Ukrainians reverted to smaller-scale operations that they understood better and knew how to execute. The challenge now is to coordinate these more effectively so that there can be more concentration of force and fire.

Second, there is a debate still underway about the extent of the commitment to the east, and the decision to allow experienced units to fight there while fresh ones were being prepared for the offensive in the south. On the one hand Bakhmut was lost and at a heavy cost to Ukraine. On other other the Russians appear unsure about what to do with the ruined city now they have it. They also took heavy losses and the battle opened up the sharp argument between the Wagner Group and the Ministry of Defence that led to a brief mutiny. It was not an area that Ukraine could have neglected because of its importance to Moscow. It was (and to a degree still is) the main focus for Russian offensive operations. The issue now is whether Ukraine should concentrate on more defensive operations in the east, given that it is going to be a stretch to retake Bakhmut, and commit more forces to the south.

Third, the accusation of risk aversion has normally been directed at Washington. It is now a standard critique of the Biden Administration that while it has done a good job on maintaining alliance unity and providing Ukraine with substantial diplomatic, economic, and military assistance. When it comes to the capabilities that are most vital to current operations - artillery, ammunition, air defences - the Pentagon’s support has made all the difference. The criticism is mainly directed at capabilities that would have helped Ukraine strike targets well behind the front lines, which have either been held back completely, or seen allies make the running (such as the UK with cruise missiles and now Denmark and the Netherlands with F-16s), or have been belatedly authorised. The Ukrainians are still waiting for the long-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).

This reluctance to hand over higher-end capabilities has been justified by concerns about provoking Russia into nuclear escalation, although this is no longer seen as pressing a concern as it was last year. Critics argued that the risk was exaggerated and that Russia has already escalated in ways that hurt the Ukrainians. The nuclear risk is obviously not trivial, and it may be that moving carefully and incrementally has allowed possible Russian ‘red lines’ to be passed without major reactions, but one can understand Ukrainian frustration when capabilities start to arrive long after they would have first been useful and while they are routinely suffering attacks on civil society and the economy.

Fourth, casualty aversion has featured highly in decisions on US force employment in recent decades, in part because of concerns that public opinion would not tolerate significant losses in those interventions when the most vital national interests were not at stake. One of the reasons for the US military’s emphasis on manoeuvre over attrition when thinking about full-scale war has been the hope that this could get wars over quickly and keep casualties down. The idea is to avoid crude trades of firepower in favour of operations designed to surprise and disorient the enemy. This approach, however, tends to play down the important of advantages in firepower which can suppress enemy air and artillery and blast holes in defensive positions and so make manoeuvre possible. Ukraine has not enjoyed these advantages.

In some ways, therefore, this criticism of Ukrainian forces for being too risk averse and not punching hard enough seems not only to be misplaced but also a reversion to an earlier American approach to the use of force, before the fixation with manoeuvre, when American generals accepted the bloody logic of direct attacks if that was the only way to a quick victory and avoiding even larger losses over time.

I found one example of the US complaining about the risk aversion of an ally in a book I’ve been reading by James Conroy’s about the January 1943 Casablanca Conference. This is when the Americans and British forged a common strategy for the Second World War. The British Chiefs of Staff were worried that the Americans were too much in a rush to invade occupied France, and that without proper preparations this could lead to carnage. American strategy, according to Conroy, was ‘rooted in the bludgeoning style of Ulysses S. Grant. Americans won their wars with enormous wealth, industry, manpower, and hubris.’

‘They built a powerful army when the need arose, attacked the enemy’s strength as quickly as possible, and took and inflicted casualties until he stopped struggling. Anything less was a distraction.’ (p.19)

These attitudes die hard, but a country fighting with limited resources, and already feeling the losses already incurred, was bound to be more cautious. That was the attitude of the British in 1943 (and wariness about American attitudes to risk were reinforced during the Korean war and could even be seen up to the liberation of Kuwait in 1991). It is unsurprising that it is now Ukraine’s attitude.

We can see a similar mass army mentality displayed by Russia. It has always gone for the numbers, assuming a plentiful supply of troops and armour, sufficient to crush opponents, while adopting an unsentimental attitude to the human costs of war. Hence the Russian command’s attitude towards attrition is not so much to fight differently to conserve resources but to step up production of new equipment and find more soldiers to do the fighting.

What if Ukraine Fails?

Not long before the Ukrainians began their latest offensive I attended a conference which considered the implications of various possible outcomes – success, failure or some sort of draw – for both the course of the war and western policy. I was in a group looking at the consequences of failure. It was depressingly easy to write the scenario. It was clear that the Ukrainians would want to push through from Zaporizhzhia in the South to divide Russian forces and reach the sea (the ‘success’ scenario) and it was equally clear the Russians knew this and had prepared extensive defences. If these defences did their job the offensive would fail: Ukrainian forces would be rebuffed, suffer heavy losses, and possibly be left vulnerable to Russian counterattacks.

As this scenario was discussed I came to the conclusion that this dismal outcome would not lead to a major shift in Western policy. Others argued that this sort of failure, or just a lack of palpable success, was bound to mean an agonising reappraisal. More aid to Ukraine would be seen as throwing good money after bad and the clamour for some negotiated peace with Russia would grow. This case has been made for some time and the recent news reports have given it added vigour.

Yet unless the Ukrainian position became truly catastrophic, it is hard to see why Western governments would or should agree to an about turn. Even if this offensive falters, Ukraine would still not be defeated. It would continue the fight so long as its territory was under a cruel occupation. At the conference those gloomiest about the prospects for Ukrainian success did not suggest that the Russians had the capacity to mount a breakthrough offensive of their own – after all they had been trying during the first months of the year and achieved little. There has been a lot of noise on the Russian blogosphere about how Russian forces have been advancing towards Kupyansk in the east. The Ukrainians seem to see this as a manageable challenge, largely for show, but it can’t be ignored and has the effect of drawing forces away from their own offensive operations.

Such mini-offensives bring Russia no closer to achieving any of its shifting war aims. Surviving the Russian onslaught and liberating occupied territory continues to unify the Ukrainian people. Kyiv’s western backers have not abandoned it. The aid packages keep coming. The costs to Western countries of continuing support are manageable, especially as they are not actually doing the fighting – this situation cannot be compared with the disillusion that set in with Vietnam and Iraq as casualties mounted and a sense of futility grew. If they abandoned Ukraine after one setback, however serious, this would confirm the impression from Afghanistan, that they are unreliable allies, and would be hardly comfort to other countries, say Taiwan, that might hope for future support.

There is now the issue of whether Donald Trump can win the Presidency next year, but even if he did his inauguration would not be until January 2025. And for the moment all that we know about his Ukraine policy is that he believes that he could settle the war in no time at all. (Republicans remain split – for sure some of the would-be presidential nominees want to cut back on support but others in Congress are demanding that Biden give Ukraine more).

Most tellingly, even if there was some temptation to explore a cease-fire there is no reason to suppose that Putin would be interested. From his perspective he does not yet have enough Ukrainian territory to consider his project complete. Once he saw support for Ukraine weakening then he would raise his demands.

What if Russia Fails?

In practice Ukraine is pushing back slowly but surely, imposing heavy costs while eating away at Russian capabilities. Perhaps aware that the recent stories about slow progress were harmful for national morale as well as international support, Ukraine has put more effort into demonstrating that it is moving forward and is confident of eventual victory. Thus one story in the New York Times offers a more optimistic take,. A deputy battalion commander of the 80th Airborne Assault Brigade, fighting on the eastern front, is quoted describing his early disappointment at their inability to ‘punch quickly through to the sea,’ but how now ‘with cunning, with Western equipment, the Ukrainian armed forces are breaking through their defences,’ so that success was ‘just a question of time.’ He claimed that Russian forces were in a relatively poor shape and how they were being worn down by cluster munitions. Even the Washington Post has found space to argue that cluster munitions are causing real problems for Russian forces.

The village of Robotyne which has been fought over for some time is now in Ukraine’s hands. There are still possibilities for further significant advances and some time to achieve them. Ukraine’s forces are fully committed and there are no more reserves to be committed. There is perhaps another couple of months of fighting before the Ukrainians will start to be affected by ammunition shortages. By this time both sides may be feeling weary and depleted after the year’s exertions and be looking to regroup as much as attack.

The hope behind the Ukrainian offensive was that a sufficiently substantial blow would force Moscow into its own reappraisal, scaling back its demands. This was not an unreasonable hope. At some point if the Russian military can no longer cope and begins to retreat then even Putin’s most loyal acolytes would wonder whether there was much point to this war. But it has been evident since last September that Putin was determined to continue the fight, not least because he dare not be seen to have failed. He had even raised the stakes though mobilising more men for the army and announcing that much of Ukraine was now to be considered Russian. It would therefore require quite a military blow to shake up decision-making in Moscow, and that would need the Ukrainians to exceed expectations.

We should not lose sight of the scale of Russian losses thus far and the failure of its own recent offensives. It has been showing signs of stress but the army has not given up, and it manages occasional mini-offensives, while missile and drone strikes hurt the Ukrainians economically and socially as well as militarily. Russia’s economy is not in great shape but nor is it facing a chronic crisis. So even if the Ukrainian offensive prospered there could be no guarantee of its political effect.

The situation with Russia is not at all comparable to 1945. It is not facing an existential challenge – just a fiasco with a supposedly limited operation that went badly wrong. Ukraine is not going to march on Moscow to demand surrender. There are no demands for Russian territory to be handed over, or at least not territory internationally recognised as Russian. If Putin had not raised the stakes by claiming so much of Ukraine for Russia then it might not have been too hard to walk away. The cumulative effect of his disastrous policies has been to turn this special military operation into a struggle for the future of his regime and his concept of the Russian state.

At some point Moscow may decide that it must seek a route out of this morass but we can only guess what it will take to get this decision and when it might occur. We do not know enough about the interaction between the various external pressures on Russia and the internal decision-making. Only on occasion do we get glimpses of the tensions within the elite, of which the Wagner mutiny was the most extreme example. As Ukraine and its Western allies cannot force a decision on Moscow, all that can be done is keep up the pressure and accept that this may have to be done for months, even years. This is not because the war definitely will go on this long but because it might, and because Putin is more likely to seek a way out if he recognises that time is not on his side. This pressure can take a number of forms - at sea, in drone strikes against targets in Russia, attacking supply lines into Crimea, keeping up the pressure on its economy, demonstrating that Ukraine is not too far away from membership of the EU and NATO.

This is why the decision to send F-16s to Ukraine is important. It will certainly not help with the current offensive as it is unlikely that they will be flying much before next summer. But for that very reason they signal understanding of the potential length of this war. That is also why it is essential to step up production of ammunition and other war material. If it is likely that fighting will continue well into the next year then that should be reflected in Ukrainian strategy. Grumbles about slow progress should not lead to pressure to push harder than is feasible or prudent during the current offensive. The aim should be to get in as good a position as possible for the coming stages of the war and also to think about how best to sustain and develop capabilities for these stages. Whether Ukrainian forces do well or badly in the coming months it will still be essential to think long-term.

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4. Ukraine Situation Report: Kyiv's Forces Enter Robotyne

Ukraine Situation Report: Kyiv's Forces Enter Robotyne

After two months of fighting, Ukraine’s 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade says it broke through heavy Russian defenses and entered Robotyne.

BY

HOWARD ALTMAN

|

PUBLISHED AUG 22, 2023 7:52 PM EDT

thedrive.com · by Howard Altman · August 22, 2023

1. The War Zone

After two months of fighting, Ukraine’s 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade says it broke through heavy Russian defenses and entered Robotyne.

byHoward Altman| PUBLISHED Aug 22, 2023 7:52 PM EDT

The War Zone

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Ukraine's 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade says it entered the strategic Zaporizhzhia Oblast town of Robotyne Tuesday with the help of Bradley Fighting Vehicles and rescued civilians under heavy fire.

“Two months of fierce fighting and the fighters of our brigade with the support of other units broke through the [multi-layered] line of defense of the occupiers,” the brigade said Tuesday on its Facebook page. “The first thing the military did was to inform the locals of the need to leave urgently, as the enemy cynically continues to wipe the village off the face of the earth.”

In a video released Tuesday by the brigade, Robotyne residents are seen greeting the troops who liberated them from 18 months of Russian occupation. The video opens with a drone shot of a column of Bradley Fighting Vehicles entering Roboytne, then cuts to troops dismounting from the Bradleys and being greeted by grateful residents at an undisclosed location.

"Already in a safer place, medics of the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade examined the civilians and gave them the opportunity to call their relatives," the brigade said on its Facebook page.

Soldiers of the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade rescued civilians from Robotyne, (47th Separate Mechanized Brigade photo)

But the danger there is not over.

“Soldiers of the 47th brigade, which entered the village of Robotyne with a fight, organized the evacuation of civilians on the Bradley,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Tuesday on her Telegram channel. “Our fighters perform planned combat work and destroy the enemy. In response, the Russians are continuously shelling Robotyne with artillery. Fighting continues.”

The U.S.-trained 47th - which operates donated Leopard 2 tanks as well as the Bradleys - has borne the brunt of difficult fighting in this sector of the front. It was their vehicles that were seen destroyed in June south of Mala Tokmachka in imagery widely shared on social media.

It is unclear how much of Robotyne has been liberated. The Kremlin-connected Rybar Telegram channel on Tuesday claimed that "fierce fighting" is still going on there.

"The Armed Forces of Ukraine are trying to cling to the center of the village with the tactics of 'meat assaults,'" Rybar claimed, using a phrase common on both sides for costly attempts at advancing.

The Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) on Tuesday said it repelled some attacks near Robotyne, but did not specifically address the claims that the 47th has entered the town.

“Geolocated footage published on August 20 and August 21 indicates that Ukrainian forces reached the central part of Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv) and broke through some Russian defenses south of Mala Tokmachka (9km southeast of Orikhiv)," the Institute for the Study of War said in its Aug. 21 assessment.

The liberation of Roboytne would be another small but important step in Ukraine's counteroffensive efforts in the push southward toward Melitopol, which, as we explained in December, is a key objective that must be overcome or bypassed in any effort to liberate Crimea or at least cut off Russia's land bridge to the occupied peninsula.

Located on the TO408 Highway, Robotyne is about 15 miles north of Tokmak, a heavily fortified Russian garrison city in occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast, which has to be taken or bypassed before Ukraine can reach Melitopol.

The coming days should show just how much momentum Ukraine has gained by breaking through the defenses of Roboytne.

Before we head into the latest news from Ukraine, The War Zone readers can catch up on our previous rolling coverage of the war here.

The Latest

The first group of eight Ukrainian pilots is now in Denmark to learn how to fly F-16 Vipers, the Danish Defense Ministry said today in a statement.

The eight pilots have arrived at the Danish military air base in Skrydstrup along with 65 personnel who will be trained in maintaining and servicing the jets, the Danish armed forces said in a statement, Reuters reported Tuesday.

Denmark, as we reported Sunday, has also agreed to provide Ukraine with 19 F-16s. The Netherlands also pledged an unspecified number to Ukraine, with at least 42 aircraft in total being donated. You can read more about that in our story here.

Separately, English language training for Ukrainian Air Force pilots is underway in the U.K., a U.S. Air Force official told The War Zone Tuesday morning. Those are the pilots U.S. Air Force Gen. James Hecker, head of U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), as well as NATO's Allied Air Command and U.S. Air Forces Africa (AFAFRICA) referred to last Friday.

During a press briefing Tuesday, Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon's top spokesman, said while the U.S. is ready to train Ukrainian pilots here if European capacity is reached, no bases have yet been selected to conduct that training.

The Russian Defense Ministry on Tuesday claimed that two drones - an MQ-9 Reaper and TB-2 Bayraktar - operating over the Black Sea close to Crimea changed course after Russian fighters were launched.

“In order to prevent a possible violation of the state border of the Russian Federation and to counter UAVs conducting radio-technical reconnaissance, two Russian fighter jets from on-duty air defense forces were raised,” the Russian MoD claimed on its Telegram channel. “As a result of the actions, the UAVs changed their flight direction and left the areas where aerial reconnaissance was being conducted.”

The Russian MoD did not say how close to Crimea the drones got or how long they were operating in the area. Nor did they specify who owned the TB-2 Bayraktar, which are made by Turkey but have been operated by the Ukrainian Air Force, especially during the early phases of this all-out war.

U.S. Air Force MQ-9s operate over the Black Sea frequently. The use of TB-2s by Ukraine has been significantly curtailed overall due to the fortification of Russia's anti-air umbrella over and beyond the front lines.

Seeing these two airframes operating together, if what Russia claims is true, is highly unusual.

We reached out to the Pentagon and U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) for additional details and will update this story with any information provided.

The Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) also claimed its jets destroyed two Ukrainian vessels in the Black Sea in the past 24 hours.

The first incident took place last night, according to the Russian MoD, which said that “the crew of an Su-30SM [Flanker multi-role fighter] aircraft of the Black Sea Fleet's Naval Aviation destroyed an AFU reconnaissance boat near Russian gas platform in the Black Sea.”

The Russian MoD did not provide further details about what kind of boat or exactly where.

But they did provide details about an attack it said occurred around 11 a.m. Moscow time on Tuesday. The MoD said one of its fighters destroyed a U.S.-supplied Willard Sea Force high-speed patrol boat with a Ukrainian landing force east of Snake Island.

They released video of that, showing what appears to be the aircraft’s 30mm autocannon firing at and apparently destroying the boat, which tried to evade the attack with a zig-zag pattern. After several misses, the boat appears to be hit, but then the video cuts out.

Speaking of Crimea, Ukrainian Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Defense Intelligence Directorate, made an ominous veiled threat Tuesday of future Ukrainian attacks on the peninsula Russia has occupied since 2014.

In an interview with the ITV news agency Tuesday, Budanov stated that while there are individuals who are "very afraid" of the de-occupation of Crimea, there are also "a lot of people on the peninsula who are eagerly anticipating this outcome.”

"We need to instill confidence that their hopes are not in vain," Budanov said.

"That is why initiatives like the Crimean Platform are crucial. This involves resistance in the temporarily occupied territories and the removal of occupiers from our Crimea. Our actions are apparent now, with more to come in the next few days."

Asked by The War Zone for more details about what he means, Budanov offered a typically cryptic response.

"We will see," he said. "Wait."

The GUR also said that Russia is preparing for additional attacks on the Kerch Bridge, which was heavily damaged July 17 by a Ukrainian drone boat attack, which you can read more about here.

Russia is beginning to sink a second ferry to create a barrier around the bridge to protect it from future drone boat attacks, the GUR said Tuesday. The Russians plan to sink six ferries in that effort, the GUR claimed.

"Between the flooded ferries, the Russians intend to establish a boon fence. In this way, the enemy seeks to protect the Kerch bridge from defeat."

The bridge is being targeted to choke off Russian logistics, the GUR said.

"Periodic successful attacks by the Security and Defense Forces of Ukraine on this legitimate military goal led to serious damage to the construction of the bridge, in particular its road and railway canvases. Recent strikes on the Kerch bridge once again worsened the situation for the grouping of enemy troops in southern Ukraine and caused a hysterical reaction of the military and political leadership of the Moscow."

In addition to being used against vehicles, First Person Video (FPV) drones are also attacking personnel. In this video, a Russian FPV drone is seen attacking a Ukrainian soldier in a trench.

In this video, a Russian FPV drone attacks a Ukrainian soldier walking down a path. The drone is seen flying over two soldiers, then turning around to attack one of them. The soldier is seen trying to get out of its path before the video cuts to another drone view of an explosion seemingly in that location.

Ukrainians captured a Russian position and with it, a stack of Rubles, which they shared. But no one was getting rich. These 100 Ruble bills are worth about $1.06 a piece, if they can even find any place in Ukraine that will take them.

And finally, when it comes to recreation, it appears Ukrainian armor crews gravitate toward what can only be described as a tankman's holiday.

The New York Times' Thomas Gibbons-Neff caught up with several Ukrainian troops relaxing during downtime from hard battles by playing the World of Tanks video game.

“I’m playing from time to time, when I have a bit of free time,” said Lt. Nazar Vernyhora, who last year gained public attention for his command of a real tank that destroyed armored personnel carriers and damaged a Russian tank during a battle outside of Kyiv, Gibbons-Neff reported.

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

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

thedrive.com · by Howard Altman · August 22, 2023

5. Zelensky's spies 'masterminded string of daring drone attacks inside Russia which have seen five of Putin's jets blown up within three days'

​One way to try to overcome Russian air superiority: destroy aircraft on the ground. 

Zelensky's spies 'masterminded string of daring drone attacks inside Russia which have seen five of Putin's jets blown up within three days'

• One of the air base attacks happened more than 400 miles away from Ukraine  

By EIRIAN JANE PROSSER 

UPDATED: 20:55 EDT, 22 August 2023

Daily Mail · by Eirian Jane Prosser · August 23, 2023

Ukrainian spies are reportedly behind a string of drone attacks inside Russia that have seen five of Putin's jets blown up within just three days.

The Ministry of Defence claimed last night that the attacks in Russia have come from within its own territory, while Ukraine media insisted the attacks had been carried out by saboteurs.

The Government pointed to the destruction of a Tupolev Tu-22 supersonic bomber on Saturday night, at the the Soltsy-2 air base south of St Petersburg.

The military port is some 400 miles away from Ukraine's border making it 'unlikely' that the drone attack was launched within Vlodymyr Zelenskys country.

'The Russian Defence Ministry said that a copter-style uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) was responsible for the attack,' the MoD told the Telegraph.

'If true, this adds weight to the assessment that some UAV attacks against Russian military targets are being launched from inside Russian territory. Copter UAVs are unlikely to have the range to reach Soltsky-2 from outside Russia.'

Ukrainian spies are reportedly behind a string of drone attacks inside Russia that have seen five of Putin's jets blown up within just three days

Pictured: A Russian warplane burns on the Soltsy air base in the Novgorod region in northwestern Russia

The Government pointed to the destruction of a Tupolev Tu-22 supersonic bomber on Saturday night, at the the Soltsy-2 air base south of St Petersburg

The attacks on Russian airfields on Saturday and Monday destroyed two Russian bombers and damaged two other aircraft, according to Ukrainska Pravda, as the war approaches its 18-month milestone.

Ukrainian media also attributed Monday's strike against the Shaikovka air base in the south-western Kaluga region which is about 180 miles north-east of the Ukrainian border.

Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov told the Ukrainian LIGA.net news outlet on Monday that at least one Russian warplane was damaged in the attack on Shaikovka.

He said it was carried out by people who worked in close coordination with Ukrainian military intelligence but gave no further details.

The Russian Defence Ministry said the attack on Soltsy damaged one aircraft. It did not comment on the reported attack on Shaikovka, but Russian media did.

Ukraine has been seeking to take the war into the heart of Russia since earlier this year.

It has increasingly targeted Moscow's military assets behind the front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine and at the same time has launched drones against Moscow, most recently early on Tuesday.

Kyiv is also trying to keep up the pressure on the Kremlin along multiple fronts, pursuing a counter-offensive at various points along the 900-mile front line, as well as diplomatically by obtaining pledges of more weaponry from its Western allies, including F-16 warplanes.

Tupolev Tu-22M bombers sit on the apron of the Soltsy air base in the Novgorod region of northwestern Russia on August 16

But the apron of the Soltsy air base in the Novgorod region of northwestern Russia sits empty on August 21 following recent drone strikes

Ukraine's deputy defense minister Hanna Malyar said on Tuesday that the Ukrainian military have entered the south-eastern village of Robotyne in the frontline Zaporizhzhia region and were coming under continuous shelling by Russian forces.

Some previous Ukrainian attacks on Russian air bases involved Soviet-designed drones powered by turbojet engines. They have a range of up to 600 miles.

But the strikes in recent days apparently used primitive small drones, which would corroborate the possibility that they were launched by saboteurs.

Also on Monday, a Russian pensioner walking in a forest about 370 miles north of the Ukrainian border came across the remains of a drone painted in the blue and yellow colours of the Ukrainian flag.

Pictures shared on Russian social media channels show that the drone had 'Glory to Ukraine' inscribed on a broken wing and 'Glory to the heroes' written on the other wing, the Russian telegram channel Baza said on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, a recent spate of drone attacks apparently targeting Moscow continued early on Tuesday but were thwarted by Russian air defence systems, Russia's Ministry of Defence said.

However, falling wreckage of one drone shattered an apartment building's windows and damaged vehicles in Moscow's western suburbs.

There were no reports of injuries in the latest drone attacks that Russia blamed on Kyiv.

Though the drone attacks on Russian soil have occurred almost daily in recent weeks, they have caused little damage and there have been no casualties.

Flights at several Moscow airports were temporarily suspended on Tuesday as a security precaution amid the attacks, authorities said.

Two other drones were jammed and crashed in the western Bryansk region bordering Ukraine, the defence ministry said.

Ukraine has not acknowledged responsibility for the attempted drone strikes, nor have senior Russian leaders made any comment about the development.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to speak via video-link at a meeting this week in Johannesburg of leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

He is under threat of arrest if he travels abroad due to an International Criminal Court arrest warrant and will not attend the so-called Brics talks in person.

Daily Mail · by Eirian Jane Prosser · August 23, 2023

6. China helping to arm Russia with helicopters, drones and metals

Excerpts:

None of the companies replied to The Telegraph’s requests for comment. Some, such as CEK, could not be reached.

The Telegraph reviewed extensive data showing Chinese exports of materials to Russian defence contractors and military equipment manufacturers, since the start of 2022 through the first quarter of this year.

Findings are based on analysis of data obtained from OEC and Molfar.

China helping to arm Russia with helicopters, drones and metals

Russian firms have received tens of thousands of Chinese shipments since the war in Ukraine began

By

Sophia Yan

19 August 2023 • 7:00am

The Telegraph · by Sophia Yan

China is helping to arm Russia with helicopters, drones, optical sights and crucial metals used by the defence industry, a Telegraph investigation has found.

Russian firms – including sanctioned companies – involved in the production of missile launchers, armoured vehicles, and strategic bombers, have received tens of thousands of shipments from China since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began through the first quarter of this year.

It comes as China, which insists it remains neutral, is attempting to position itself as a key peace-broker in talks aimed at ending the conflict.

Trade between China and Russia is set to surpass $200 billion this year, a new record high, even as Chinese exports to other countries have fallen significantly.

Exports of goods with potential military uses rose by more than three times in the year which ended this June, compared to the one prior, according to analysis from the Observatory of Economic Complexity, a trade data visualiser.

Dual-use goods

Such goods are classified as dual-use, meaning they also have civilian purposes, allowing China to skirt international sanctions and claim that it conducts only legal trade with Russia. China’s support appears to be helping Russia weather sanctions, calling into question the effectiveness of a crucial part of the West’s campaign against Moscow aimed at crippling Russia’s economy.

One Chinese company sent 1,000 drones to Russia in the two months before the war, according to figures compiled by Molfar Global, an open source research organisation. That firm, Shantou Honghu Plastics, describes itself as a wholesaler of children’s toys on its website and social media profiles.

The drones were sent to a Russian firm called Samson, which similarly describes itself as a wholesaler of games and toys and appears to be a shell company, stating only 10,000 rubles in capital to its name, according to a public company registry.

Then, four days after war broke out in Ukraine, Chinese company Hems999 supplied two helicopters. Another Chinese firm, Tianjin Huarong Aviation, has transferred four Airbus helicopters to Russia since the war began.

All were received by Russian firm Ural Helicopter, whose primary customer is the Russian National Guard, deployed to Ukraine and led by Viktor Zolotov, a longtime bodyguard to Putin.

Chinese firms have also sent optical sights to more than 50 Russian companies from the start of 2022 through the first quarter of this year. Imports of these products nearly doubled to $2.5 million last year, compared to the one prior.

Yiwu Wojie Optics Instrument accounted for the majority of optical sights – about 2,500 – furnished to Russian firm CEK, which has previously supplied such goods and night vision equipment to the Russian internal affairs ministry, according to data pulled by Molfar from 52wmb, a Chinese trade data aggregator.

Invoices state such equipment is for “hunting,” though the devices could be fitted to military weapons, and offer enhanced vision for military operations.

Russian imports of raw materials soar

Chinese exports of turbojets and radar missile navigation systems have also been sent via India and Costa Rica before being re-exported to Russia, according to Molfar research, in an apparent effort to evade sanctions.

According to the trade data, Russia’s imports of raw materials and components vital for the manufacture of armaments have soared.

China exported $18 million of titanium alloy products to Russia in 2022, nearly double the year prior.

Lightweight and heat-resistant titanium alloys are a key material used to manufacture military aircraft and weapons.

Titanium plates and rods were shipped from China to NPP Start, a developer of air-defence missile launchers which is part of Russia’s Rostec defence conglomerate.

Titanium products have also been sent to S7 Technics, which performs aircraft maintenance and repair, and has done work for an organisation that oversees the air transport of Putin and other Kremlin officials.

S7 is also working to make aircraft spare parts so that Russian airlines can keep their fleets operational after sanctions cut off supplies of Western-made components for Airbus and Boeing planes.

Chinese companies also sent deliveries of magnesium alloys to Tupolev, which builds and helps maintain long-range bombers like the Tu-95 and Tu-160M, which have been used to launch cruise missile attacks on Ukraine.

0612 Tupolev Tu-95

Companies linked to the production of Kamaz vehicles – whose armoured carriers, like the Kamaz Typhoon, transport Russian troops and cargo – have received at least 520 shipments from China.

Goods included spare parts, welding machines and laser machine tools that can be used for manufacturing weapons and military equipment.

Steel was sent by China to Russian firms involved in the production of, or make engines for, Kamaz armoured vehicles. One of Russia’s largest firms, Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works – which collaborates in making Kamaz vehicles – was amongst those receiving shipments, and has been sanctioned by the US and Ukraine.

Some of the Chinese firms, such as Wuxi Tianxing Steel and Xi’an Alpha Metal even have offices in Moscow or company websites in Russian, making little effort to hide their military links, splashing pictures of fighter jets and naval ships on their homepages.

Trade through back channels

China may also be supplying raw materials to Russia through back channels.

Beijing and Moscow, have reportedly held secret talks with Iran to supply ammonium perchlorate, a chemical compound used to propel ballistic missiles – a deal, if agreed, that would likely be hidden from official trade registers.

Russia has not published trade data since the invasion began, though figures from China, its top trading partner, indicate that Beijing has become a crucial lifeline, even as Putin has become ostracised on the world stage, and both Western companies and countries have cut ties with Moscow.

Xi Jinping the Chinese leader, has met Putin several times, including in the weeks before war broke out, but only agreed to one hour-long phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, in April.

Beijing issued a 12-point “peace statement” earlier this year that rehashed its position and did not propose any solutions to ending the war.

China participated in a second round of peace talks in Saudi Arabia on August 6, after opting against attending the first round earlier this year. It still refuses to describe what is happening in Ukraine as an “invasion”.

None of the companies replied to The Telegraph’s requests for comment. Some, such as CEK, could not be reached.

The Telegraph reviewed extensive data showing Chinese exports of materials to Russian defence contractors and military equipment manufacturers, since the start of 2022 through the first quarter of this year.

Findings are based on analysis of data obtained from OEC and Molfar.

The Telegraph · by Sophia Yan

7. The Senate's defense-policy bill looks for threats in the rear-view mirror

The Senate's defense-policy bill looks for threats in the rear-view mirror​

The upper house orders up an investigation of the 2020 SolarWinds hack while saying all but nothing about AI.

By Michael Mestrovich

CISO, RUBRIK

AUGUST 22, 2023

defenseone.com · by Michael Mestrovich | August 22, 2023 06:00 AM ET

The Senate in late July passed the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2024, setting up a clash with the House when Congress reconvenes after Labor Day.

The $886 billion package includes a 5.2 percent pay raise for troops — the largest increase in 22 years — and policies for the Department of Defense to counter adversaries at a time of rising threats. Worthy moves, to be sure, but I wish the bill packed a bigger wallop on cybersecurity. Here are four initiatives I would like to have seen included.

Better understanding of how artificial intelligence can be used to fight hackers

Here’s a head-scratcher: The defense bill would require the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to thoroughly investigate the landmark 2020 SolarWinds attack – which already has been thoroughly studied and feels like yesterday’s news – while there’s little to nothing about one of the most talked-about technology topics of the day, AI.

The Washington Post reported that “it’s become a point of contention” among some legislators that the Cyber Safety Review Board, designed to investigate breaches in the way that the National Transportation Safety Board evaluates air crashes, never looked into the SolarWinds attack. Fair enough, but AI will be a game changer for years to come, and I’d think its implications for cybersecurity would have attracted lawmakers’ attention.

Specifically, at a time when cyber criminals are increasingly adopting AI techniques – and sharing their techniques with other bad actors across the dark web – AI also is emerging as a powerful weapon to detect and thwart attacks.

How can the Pentagon and civilian agencies better use AI to improve their cybersecurity posture? That’s a question, with appropriate policy direction, I would have liked to see addressed in the bill.

A mandate for stronger cooperation with allies

The bill includes 10 bipartisan recommendations advanced by the House China Committee to protect Taiwan, including one requiring DOD to cooperate with Taiwan on cybersecurity. That’s an excellent idea, but the bill could have gone further and addressed international collaboration on a broader scale to help ensure the U.S. is working with all its allies on enhancing cyberdefenses.

Make no mistake, that cooperation is happening — for example in July 2021, when the U.S. and allies, including the European Union, the United Kingdom and NATO, criticized China for “irresponsible and destabilizing behavior in cyberspace” and announced several actions meant to counter it.

But in today’s especially volatile world, the more that this kind of cooperation can be expanded and formalized, the better off we’ll be.

A good example is a bipartisan bill sponsored in June by Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and James Lankford, R-Okla. It would allow the Department of Homeland Security to quickly provide cyberdefense support to foreign partners, such as Ukraine, and ensure that CISA can work with international allies to protect critical infrastructure assets.

Here’s hoping this move makes it into the final version of the bill.

Broadening voluntary services from private sector experts

The measure allows DOD and the military services to accept voluntary services from cybersecurity experts in the private sector. That’s an important and helpful change because the government traditionally is not allowed to accept such free services.

I support this idea wholeheartedly — my only reservation is that the Washington Post reported the proposal is “meant to strengthen the legal footing of the Marine Corps Cyber Auxiliary program, which trains Marines to hone their cyber skills, and allow other services to create their own similar programs.” I’d like to see more clarity and specificity around the initiative in a broader way, encouraging the entire defense establishment to take advantage of these services.

A move toward longer-term rather than one-year-at-a-time funding

IT dollars, including for cybersecurity, must be reauthorized every year. When I was running IT or cyber programs in the federal government, for example, I could buy equipment authorized in a given fiscal year, but I was limited in managing multi-year efforts such as expanding the workforce or acquiring new software licenses. Without knowing if the money would keep flowing to support those programs in the following years, I had to carefully place bets, sometimes to the detriment of what was truly needed for a layered, multi-component cyberdefense.

Multi-year budgets for IT and cyber as part of the authorization process would allow for better and more strategic and coordinated planning. Long-term projects such as military base construction have always worked this way, yet IT historically has been pigeonholed as a cost-efficiency driver whose entire budgets should be re-evaluated year to year. I wish the bill had found a way to recognize IT and cybersecurity as critical mission drivers and finance them in a way that makes more sense.

With measures such as these four, the defense bill could have put a stronger foot forward on cybersecurity. As the legislation weaves through the Senate and, most likely, a conference committee in the coming days, perhaps these and other ideas can still find their way into the package.

Michael Mestrovich is chief information security officer at zero-trust data security company Rubrik. He is a former acting CISO at the Central Intelligence Agency and Principal Deputy CIO at the Department of State.

defenseone.com · by Michael Mestrovich | August 22, 2023 06:00 AM ET

8. Dollar’s Domination Of World Trade Will End, Putin Tells BRICS Summit

​I think we can be sure of one thing. It will not be the ruble that replaces the dollar.

Dollar’s Domination Of World Trade Will End, Putin Tells BRICS Summit

eurasiareview.com · by Arab News · August 23, 2023

By Lama Alhamawi

The days of the US dollar’s domination of trade among BRICS countries are numbered, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.

Putin told the bloc’s summit that members would discuss switching trade away from the dollar and into national currencies, and the BRICS New Development Bank would play a key role.

“The objective, irreversible process of de-dollarization of our economic ties is gaining momentum,” he said.

Security has been boosted across Johannesburg, where South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is hosting China’s President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and about 50 other leaders.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Farhan bin Faisal is leading the Kingdom’s delegation at the summit, where the bloc of large emerging economies seeks to assert its voice as a counterweight to the Western-led international order. The BRICS members — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — represent more than 40percent of the world’s population.

Putin, unable to attend in person because of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant, addressed the summit by video. He said the bloc was on course to meet the aspirations of most of the world’s population.

“We cooperate on the principles of equality, partnership support, respect for each other’s interests, and this is the essence of the future-oriented strategic course of our association, a course that meets the aspirations of the main part of the world community, the so-called global majority,” he said.

Despite Putin’s rejection of the dollar, Brazilian President Lula da Silva said a common BRICS trading currency would be aimed solely at easing trade between emerging nations. “We do not want to be a counterpoint to the G7, G20 or the US,” Lula said. “We just want to organize ourselves.”

Lula also said he was in favor of other countries joining the alliance, mentioning Indonesia as a potential new member.

The three-day summit will hear calls for more economic cooperation and collaboration in areas such as health, education and climate change — but with a growing sentiment that the developing world is not being served by Western-led institutions.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa held separate talks with Xi in Pretoria, and said he was seeking “Chinese support for South Africa and Africa’s call for the reform of global governance institutions, notably the UN Security Council.”

eurasiareview.com · by Arab News · August 23, 2023

9. Ukraine to cost half-trillion more if war ends now

Ukraine is probably the first country since WWII where a real Marshall Plan could work due to its economic and political system (though they are not without their challenges).

Excerpts:

Ukraine will end up being the most costly operation ever carried out by the United States. The US Marshall Plan for European reconstruction after World War II cost the United States $13.3 billion. That amount, in 2023 dollars, would be $173 billion, roughly a third of what reconstruction would cost for Ukraine.

There will be a strong lobbying effort by some US companies that anticipate getting rich providing support to Ukraine (these in addition to the usual suspects in defense industries).

We have seen them before in the Iraq reconstruction exercise. This lobbying will provide bait to Democrats and Republicans who otherwise might walk away from the war. But will it be enough to go against the will of American voters?

Americans can rightly ask: What are we getting for these huge outlays that will seriously burden US taxpayers? The US policy on Ukraine is a disaster from many angles, but for sure one of them is the huge dollar cost in supporting this endless misadventure.

Ukraine to cost half-trillion more if war ends now​

Ukraine war will end up being the most costly and perhaps corrupt foreign operation ever carried out by the United States

asiatimes.com · by Stephen Bryen · August 23, 2023

If the Ukraine war ended tomorrow, the United States still would need to send hundreds of billions in aid to that country. The bill includes continuation of military assistance, budget support for the Ukrainian government and reconstruction assistance.

President Biden has just asked for another US$24 billion to support Ukraine, primarily for military equipment but also budget support ($7.3 billion). While Congress is increasingly skeptical about another huge chunk of money to fund an endless conflict, this is peanuts compared with what will be asked after the war ends.

The World Bank has done a revised estimate on reconstruction needs, based on data from the first year of the war (February 2022 to February 2023). The Bank says that Ukraine needs $411 billion for reconstruction over a ten-year period.

That estimate will need to be significantly increased to account for February to August 2023 and beyond. It would make sense to think that even if the war stopped tomorrow, reconstruction aid would come to $600 billion or more, or more than half a trillion dollars.

For purposes of comparison, the war in Iraq featured a reconstruction program of $60 billion. The US also spent $90 billion over twelve years to support Afghanistan (although the war continued in that country.)

There is no doubt that most of the US assistance to Afghanistan was probably stolen or went over to the Taliban. On top of that, billions’ worth of US war-fighting equipment was left in place and is now used by the Taliban.

In the case of Iraq, most of the aid was wasted thanks to bad management, corruption and poor planning.

The US and its allies will need to cough up $60 billion annually to support Ukraine, and expect that a lot of it will be stolen. It will have to keep the funding up for 10 years.

Consider that Germany has committed to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes” at $5 billion annually. But the German government in power is likely to be replaced soon, and that pledge is about as worthless as the Weimar mark.

Likewise, the UK economy is very dodgy, and finding serious money in future will prove a real challenge. The bottom line is that most of the money will have to come from Uncle Sam.

A devastated power facility that will need costly repairs in Ukraine. Image: Twitter

It may be that some Washington insiders are thinking that the best thing is to prolong the war as long as possible, because if the fighting continues the US just needs to provide military assistance and budget support for the government, but not reconstruction assistance.

In effect, that is the Biden administration policy. By continuing the war the Biden government thinks it can convince Congress to keep paying and they can keep Ukraine “alive” by forking over arms and money to pay salaries and for needed supplies.

But will Congress be willing to keep spending for an endless war? It is likely Congress will want to know where the money is going, how it is used, and how the US government accounts for its spending.

Most Americans oppose more aid to Ukraine. We are entering an election period with the first Republican presidential debates coming soon. Ukraine is sure to be an issue and some candidates, like Robert Kennedy Jr, who identifies for the time being as a Democrat, already are speaking out against supporting the war.

This could mean Biden will have a huge problem trying to get a skittish Congress, including his fellow Democrats, to sign up for more spending on a losing proposition.

It has long been understood that Ukraine is a corrupt country. Ukrainian politicians, including Zelensky, have offshored some of their wealth (Zelensky has a villa in Tuscany on the seashore in Forte dei Marmi which he bought before he entered politics and now rents to Russian clients at 12,000 euros a month).

President Biden’s son Hunter is embroiled in an investigation of payments and other activities centered partly on Ukraine’s Burisma energy holding company and in part on transactions in China. A Republican-dominated committee in the House of Representatives has sought to tie the president to the matters under investigation.

When the “big” reconstruction money starts flowing, assuming that happens, political and military officials in Ukraine will enthusiastically help the United States line their pockets.

Ukraine’s corruption was highly visible this month as President Zelensky fired all the military recruiters in the country because they were selling recruitment passes to young men seeking to avoid the war.

Ukraine will end up being the most costly operation ever carried out by the United States. The US Marshall Plan for European reconstruction after World War II cost the United States $13.3 billion. That amount, in 2023 dollars, would be $173 billion, roughly a third of what reconstruction would cost for Ukraine.

The war will leave a lot to be cleaned up. Pictured here is a house hit by a missile, Shevchenkivskyi district of Kiev on April 28, 2022. Photo: State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Kiev

There will be a strong lobbying effort by some US companies that anticipate getting rich providing support to Ukraine (these in addition to the usual suspects in defense industries).

We have seen them before in the Iraq reconstruction exercise. This lobbying will provide bait to Democrats and Republicans who otherwise might walk away from the war. But will it be enough to go against the will of American voters?

Americans can rightly ask: What are we getting for these huge outlays that will seriously burden US taxpayers? The US policy on Ukraine is a disaster from many angles, but for sure one of them is the huge dollar cost in supporting this endless misadventure.

Stephen Bryen is a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy and the Yorktown Institute. This article was originally published on Weapons and Strategy, his Substack. Asia Times is republishing the article with permission.

Related

asiatimes.com · by Stephen Bryen · August 23, 2023

10. Former US Defense Secretary visits NE Syria, calls to support AANES

Former US Defense Secretary visits NE Syria, calls to support AANES

npasyria.com · by publish · August 20, 2023

QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Former US Secretary of Defense, Christopher Miller, called on the US to support the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) and to preserve the “unique experience”.

The AANES’ Foreign Relations Department said in a statement on Sunday that Miller visited northeastern Syria on August 16 and held several meetings in the region.

Miller acted as US Secretary of Defense from Nov. 9, 2020, to Jan. 20, 2021. He previously served as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center from Aug. 10 to Nov. 9, 2020.

According to the statement, the former US official called to support stabilization efforts in the region and discussed the challenges and threats the AANES is facing and the need to support it politically and financially.

He also tackled the issue of camps and prisons, saying that they require a greater support, “so far, these matters need more efforts.”

Badran Chiya Kurd, co-chair of Foreign Relations Department, talked about general issues and explained the challenges facing the region. He also stressed the necessity of joint cooperation to guarantee the achievement of stability in the region.

By Agid Meshmesh

npasyria.com · by publish · August 20, 2023

11. A Gen Z Marine Explores Solutions to the Military's Recruiting Crisis in 'We Don't Want You, Uncle Sam'

Probably a book all of us old timers need to read. I just downloaded the Kindle version.

Conclusion:

Those are just a few interesting examples. In all, Weiss offers 21 chapters of fact-based problems and solutions written with "the intention of diagnosing and solving a real and serious issue facing our nation," coming from the personal experiences of a Gen Z military officer who did a lot of research to help solve it.

A Gen Z Marine Explores Solutions to the Military's Recruiting Crisis in 'We Don't Want You, Uncle Sam'

military.com · by Blake Stilwell · August 22, 2023

As an Amazon Associate, Military.com earns from qualifying purchases.

In August 2021, the U.S. Army released its latest attempt to reach potential recruits from the generational cohort known as 'Generation Z.' Called​​ "First Steps," it's a series of brief "documentaries" that attempts to capture the spirit and emotions associated with life as a young recruit. A drill sergeant is never seen, but we can hear marching cadence in one of the videos, a siren song that quickly morphs into a sick beat.

Will these spots resonate with Gen Z, the generation of Americans born after 1997? The Army certainly hopes so: In 2018, it invested $4 billion in marketing over the next 10 years to reach them. But so far, that effort has come up short, with the Army expecting to fall 15,000 recruits short of its goal in 2023 -- the largest shortfall of all branches of the U.S. military. The Navy expects to be 10,000 recruits short while the Air Force will miss its goal by 3,000; only the Marine Corps believes it will meet its own needs.

Gen Z interest in military service is low and only dropping lower. The Wall Street Journal reports that only 9% of American youth ages 16-21 said they would consider enlisting in 2022, which is down from the 13% recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic. It appears no one wants to join the military, and the military can't seem to figure out what to do about it.

There is one Gen Z officer who believes he has the answer to the military's recruiting woes. Second Lt. Matthew Weiss is a 25-year-old Marine Corps intelligence officer whose new book, "'We Don't Want You, Uncle Sam: Examining the Military Recruiting Crisis with Generation Z" lays out what he believes are some of the major problems his generation has with military service -- and what the military can do about it.

Before joining the Marine Corps, Weiss worked for Anduril Industries, now a defense contractor specializing in artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons systems. During Weiss' time there, it was a tech startup, and he observed how the company attracted new talent as they graduated from college, even in a highly competitive sector.

Matthew Weiss, author of "We Don't Want You, Uncle Sam."

Weiss went on to study business at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, earning a bachelor's degree and an MBA there. Though young, a newly minted Marine Corps officer with his background might have some of the answers the Department of Defense has spent years and billions searching for.

Weiss breaks down the book into four parts, analyzing Gen Z recruitment, bringing military working conditions and generation expectations into alignment, an analysis of sociocultural influences and "Scope of Service," how the military can give back to society.

Some of Weiss' proposed issues are ones the military might expect from Zoomers. based on what it thinks it knows about the youth of America. Others might be wholly unexpected. But there are places where the values of military services and the values of Gen Z align.

"We Don't Want You, Uncle Sam" is available on Kindle ebook and paperback now.

For starters, the book says Gen Z needs an impact they can strive toward; a unique calling, bigger than the individual. Weiss suggests determined mentorship, where Gen Z service members would provide a certain number of hours per year talking to potential recruits, a "Z-Z, heart-heart meaning discussion."

Weiss also believes the current military pay structure is "incongruous" for a generation that watches their peers gain followers on social media. In their mind, better performance should mean more money. To that end, he suggests performance bonuses be added to military pay for those who succeed.

A somewhat counterintuitive suggestion Weiss offers is rooted in Gen Z's connection to devices. Some, Weiss believes, are being "crushed" by the "constant pinging," causing them to crave time to be unplugged from the rest of the world. The military can offer this like no other institution, he says, with real-world responsibilities and experiences away from their devices.

Those are just a few interesting examples. In all, Weiss offers 21 chapters of fact-based problems and solutions written with "the intention of diagnosing and solving a real and serious issue facing our nation," coming from the personal experiences of a Gen Z military officer who did a lot of research to help solve it.

“We Don't Want You, Uncle Sam: Examining the Military Recruiting Crisis with Generation Z” is on sale now in both paperback and on Amazon Kindle e-readers.

-- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, or on LinkedIn.

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military.com · by Blake Stilwell · August 22, 2023

12. Manliness, Prestige and Cash: How Military Service Is Sold on Russian TV

I suppose this Heinlein quote would be something they would use in Russia (note sarcasm).

ARE YOU A COWARD? This is not for you. We badly need a brave man. He must be between 23 to 25 years old, in perfect health, at least six feet tall, weigh about 190 pounds, fluent in English with some French, proficient with all weapons, some knowledge of engineering and mathematics essential, willing to travel, no family or emotional ties, indomitably courageous and handsome of face and figure. Permanent employment, very high pay, glorious adventure, great danger. You must apply in person, 17, rue Dante, Nice, 2me etage, appt D." 

- Robert A. Heinlein - Glory Road

Manliness, Prestige and Cash: How Military Service Is Sold on Russian TV

The New York Times · by Natalie Reneau · August 23, 2023

The Times tracked several months of Russian state messaging in the Kremlin’s effort to recruit soldiers.

Credit...Russian Military Ad

By Alina Lobzina, Sarah Kerr and

Aug. 23, 2023Updated 6:39 a.m. ET

A supermarket security guard, a taxi driver, a guy at the gym. The Russian government has a message for all of them: Aren’t you a man?

And don’t you want to earn more money?

Last spring, the Russian military kicked off a new recruitment drive for the war in Ukraine, seeking to replace tens of thousands of dead and wounded without having to resort to an unpopular draft. For the last four months, The New York Times has tracked how the campaign played out on Russian state television and social media, and found that recruitment messages focused on the Kremlin’s official rationale for the invasion — an existential threat from the West against Russians — played only a supporting role.

Rather, there were frequent appeals to masculinity, sometimes voiced by soldiers’ wives and other women interviewed on television news. There were incessant reminders of above-average pay and benefits for military servicemen. And the messages — appearing both in video ads produced by the Defense Ministry and on regular TV newscasts — stress the ease of signing up, promising relief from Russia’s notorious bureaucracy.

Credit...A portion of an ad distributed by the Russian Ministry of Defense in April.

The campaign appeared to start in April. Online, the Defense Ministry published a splashy video ad focusing on two central motivations: machismo, and money. It defines military service as more meaningful — and manly — than what’s depicted as the Russian man’s typical, humdrum existence. After moody shots of civilians transforming into modern warriors, the ad ends with a more down-to-earth reminder: “Monthly payments starting at 204,000 rubles,” or about $2,000.

The themes in the Russian Defense Ministry’s recruitment campaign are picked up frequently in television newscasts — as would be expected, since all of Russia’s major television channels are controlled by the state. But the news anchors and reporters delivering the message are essentially acting as glorified recruiters themselves, repeatedly reminding viewers of the quick-dial phone number — 1-1-7 — they can turn to if they want to sign up to fight.

Since the invasion’s beginning, state television newscasts have been offering viewers a sanitized view of the war. Death and injury of Russians is rarely mentioned. The war itself is referred to with the Kremlin’s anodyne term, “special military operation,” or simply by the term’s Russian initials: “the S.V.O.”

But there are signs that, at least in some regions, the costs of war have now become too widespread to ignore. During a local morning newscast in the city of Irkutsk, in Siberia, on Aug. 9, a reporter introduces a piece about new “mobile” recruitment stands with an interview of a Ukraine war veteran wounded last year.

“I got all the payments that contract servicemen are entitled to if they’re wounded,” the veteran, Nikolai Karpenko, says.

“Contract military service, Nikolai says, gave him the chance to show that he’s a real defender of the fatherland,” the reporter intones.

The message: Yes, you could get hurt, but the government will take care of you. And you will have shown your patriotism.

Credit...A Russia1 TV news segment from early August.

The recruitment drive appears to have borne some fruit. The Kremlin has been able to keep its invasion going without resorting to a second draft, after mobilizing some 300,000 civilians last fall. And Ukraine’s counteroffensive this summer has run into fierce Russian resistance.

But analysts believe that Russia’s official recruitment figures, claiming that 1,400 people were signing up per day last month, are likely to be overstated — and that a second draft could still come. New laws passed this summer would make it much harder for Russians to dodge the draft if another were declared.

“Soldiers are not being relieved or regularly rotated on the front, suggesting there is still a manpower problem,” said Dara Massicot, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation who studies the Russian military. “It looks like the Kremlin is waiting as long as possible again to make a decision on mobilization, like last fall.”

A prime incentive: money

Ever since the invasion’s beginning, the Kremlin has deployed Russia’s vast wealth to motivate men to sign up to fight — and to mollify families that lost loved ones. The advertised minimum monthly pay of about $2,000 a month, at the current exchange rate, is nearly triple the nationwide average income; families of soldiers killed in action are paid $50,000, enough to purchase a decent home in many regions.

One recurring state TV ad shows just how central material benefits are to the recruitment drive. Set to rock music, it reels off specific benefits like a “land tax exemption,” “compensation for household utility bills,” and vouchers for sanatoriums, or health resorts.

“Here, you’ll be treated fairly,” the ad concludes.

Credit...An ad released earlier this year by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Television news reports follow up that message by emphasizing a streamlined process for signing up.

An April 18 segment aired on Channel 1, one of the main nationwide channels, describes joining the ranks of the military as being as simple as filling out some routine paperwork. It compares recruitment offices to the user-friendly service centers that the government rolled out across the country in recent years to streamline and digitize the country’s daunting bureaucracy.

“There’s an electronic queue, and volunteers are always ready to consult and help,” the reporter says, as the camera shows a young woman in a sweater with “Volunteer” written across the back.

Credit...A portion of a news segment on Russia 1 TV from April.

Be a Patriot, Fulfill a Childhood Dream

The appeal to masculinity is pervasive, attempting to tap into deeply entrenched expectations of duty and service for Russian males. The April 18 news segment, for instance, refers to being a soldier as “unquestionably the manliest job.’’

At times, the appeal is blatant and superficial.

The same Channel 1 report featured a message from a man identified as a “commander of assault groups.”

“Here, you can find yourselves as real men, earn a fair salary, and make all your childhood dreams and wishes come true,” he says.

Credit...A portion of a news segment on Russia1 TV from April.

The message that service is a man’s duty also sometimes comes from fresh recruits and their families. The April 18 clip also shows three cousins boarding buses to head to training. The reporter declares that their wives, sisters and mothers “supported the decisions of their loved ones.”

One of the cousins says that his brothers, colleagues and classmates were already in the military and that “everything is going well.”

“It’s kind of hard to stay here while they are there,” he says.

Credit...A portion of a news segment on Russia1 TV from April.

Suffering peeks through

The realities of the war itself are described sparingly, if at all. On the nightly news, the action on the battlefield is often described in stilted roll-calls of “heroes” that don’t specify whether the men are still alive. In a segment from June 7, a sergeant is praised for having restored communications with his unit despite continuous shelling, while another was said to have “personally destroyed” a Ukrainian machine-gun crew.

Credit...A news segment from early June on Russia1 TV.

But in some cases, the suffering of military families comes to light, even as state television attempts to cast the government as taking care of them. In the same Aug. 9 Irkutsk newscast that reported on new mobile recruitment stands, another segment heralds the opening of a new support center for soldiers’ families.

It includes an interview with the wife of a soldier who, she says, has had only one two-week vacation since volunteering for the war last September.

“It’s getting harder and harder every day,” she says.

Credit...A news segment from August on Russia1 TV.

Anton Troianovski is the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times. He was previously Moscow bureau chief of The Washington Post and spent nine years with The Wall Street Journal in Berlin and New York. More about Anton Troianovski

Sarah Kerr is a reporter and producer in The Times’s video unit, covering national and international stories and breaking news. More about Sarah Kerr

Natalie Reneau is a senior video editor for the Visual Investigations team. More about Natalie Reneau

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The New York Times · by Natalie Reneau · August 23, 2023

13. Ukraine’s Reset: A Slow and Bloody Advance on Foot

Ukraine’s Reset: A Slow and Bloody Advance on Foot

After the failures of the initial armored assaults, which were blunted by Russian defenses, Kyiv resorted to small units attacking one position at a time

By James MarsonFollow

Aug. 23, 2023 12:01 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-counteroffensive-b06589fa?mod=hp_lead_pos7

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine—The Ukrainians on the front lines of the counteroffensive were crouched in the woods when they spotted the Russian patrol.

The five troops had left behind their U.S.-supplied armored vehicles, which proved easy targets for Russian artillery. Instead, after walking for hours, they were aiming to retake territory by yards. The company had already seized three trenches in close-quarter combat. Winning in the woods would move them another small step toward the Azov coast, their ultimate goal, which would slice the Russian occupying army in two.

After a brief skirmish, the Ukrainians withdrew, fearful that a larger Russian force could be lurking, two of them recalled. Then they realized one of their comrades was missing. As the Ukrainians moved back, he came crawling toward them, his left leg bloodied and limp. A member of the unit dragged the injured man away as others opened fire.

A 48-year-old journalist nicknamed Reporter brought up the rear. Suddenly, grenades began flying. After one explosion, Reporter cried out, “I’m a 300!” Soviet-era code for a battlefield casualty. By the end of the day, only three of the five-strong team would be able to fight on.

This is what the Ukrainian counteroffensive looks like after two months: a slow and bloody advance on foot.

Mars, a member of the brigade injured in the assault on the woods, recuperates in a hospital. He works for the U.S. candy company, which explains his nom de guerre. PHOTO: EMANUELE SATOLLI FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Units such as this one—part of 2nd Company of the 1st Battalion of the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade—were trained and equipped by the U.S. and its allies to use heavy equipment to smash through entrenched Russian positions and advance deep into occupied territory. The Russians had prepared, too, by laying dense minefields and digging deep trenches across the patchwork of farm fields.

When the Ukrainians launched their assaults at the start of June, their Western-supplied tanks and armored vehicles struggled to advance under withering fire from helicopters, antitank missiles and artillery.

So in late June, Ukraine switched tactics, and started advancing methodically in small units, a new phase in the conflict that is proving to be arduous, slow and risky. Instead of sweeping across the fields, the company from the 47th began battling a few hundred yards at a time, with occasional success—the brigade said on Tuesday its troops had taken the village of Robotyne—but with danger lurking in every trench and tree line.

Russian-controlled area

Front line

Russian fortifications

As of June 1

June 1

Aug. 20

Added after June 1

Donetsk

A failed June 17 assault makes clear that armored attacks aren’t working

2

Velyka Novosilka

Zaporizhzhia

Orikhiv

Nikopol

Tokmak

Mariupol

The plan: Blast a path to the coast in tanks and armored vehicles

1

The Ukrainian unit pivots to a slow advance, largely on foot

3

Melitopol

UKRAINE

Sea of Azov

Detail

25 miles

25 km

Note: Fortifications were identified using satellite imagery. The associated dates reflect when the images were taken.

Sources: Brady Africk, American Enterprise Institute (Russian fortifications); Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project (Russian-controlled area, front lines)

Emma Brown/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The original plan

The 47th Brigade was honed for Ukraine’s D-Day. With the war largely stalemated late last year, and Russia occupying nearly 20% of the country, Ukrainian commanders singled out the former volunteer battalion for expansion, which meant receiving training abroad and equipment from Western allies.

The members of the 2nd Company were typical. Roman Pankratov, a 38-year-old who had managed the garden section at a branch of Ukraine’s equivalent of Home Depot, became a machine-gunner. Among the assault infantry were Olena Ivanenko, a 41-year-old restaurateur, and Olena Kuznetsova, a 27-year-old schoolteacher from Bucha who enlisted after she returned to her hometown to find dead bodies on the streets. Mykhailo Kotsyurba, a 38-year-old realtor, became the commander of a Bradley, the U.S. Army’s main infantry-fighting vehicle.

In Latvia, they spent five weeks learning the basics of infantry fighting. They traveled to Germany for a month and a half to learn how to use a Bradley.

The 47th Brigade operates a Bradley near Zaporizhzhia in June. The first wave of Ukraine’s heavily armored assault failed to penetrate Russian defensive lines. PHOTO: SERHII NUZHNENKO/REUTERS

Reporter, a journalist named Dmytro Rybakov, transferred to 2nd Company late last year from another unit in the 47th. He became an assistant to Pankratov, who had the nickname Sad, or Garden. “He liked our fighting spirit,” said Sad. “People didn’t need anyone to motivate them to learn.”

Reporter, a father to two teenage daughters, who has an interest in history and philosophy, stood out for his intelligence and enthusiasm. He also complained to Sad about work in the kitchen when he thought they should be training. “I’m not here to clean jars,” he told Sad. “I came to liberate my homeland.”

After lunch one day in Germany, Reporter left his rifle behind in the canteen, according to soldiers in the company. As a punishment, an officer made him carry a stick instead. His fellow soldiers considered it excessive, but Reporter took it on the chin. He wrote RPG-22 on the stick, the name of a Soviet-designed rocket launcher, and carried it with his head held high.

“I’m not here to clean jars,” said Dmytro Rybakov, known as Reporter. “I came to liberate my homeland.” PHOTO: RYBAKOV FAMILY

When Ukraine launched the first phase of the counteroffensive in June, the 47th Brigade was assigned one of the toughest tasks: to blast a path down the shortest route to the Sea of Azov from the city of Orikhiv.

In the first 10 days, 2nd Company didn’t once dismount from their Bradleys and enter battle. Vehicles lost their way through confusion or a lack of night-vision equipment. One demining vehicle was blown up by mines laid by the Ukrainians themselves. When they got closer to enemy lines, the Russian defense was ferocious.

In one assault, a Russian antitank missile struck and disabled the lead vehicle in a long Ukrainian column as it entered a minefield, recalled Kotsyurba, the Bradley commander, better known as Kocherha, or Fire Iron. The vehicles behind it were stuck, and the Russians jammed their communications, then fired antitank missiles, rocket artillery and laser-guided missiles from helicopters. 

One Leopard tank, turning to escape, detonated two land mines. Kocherha managed to pull his Bradley out after its turret stopped turning.

Two further attempts a few nights later ended similarly. The Russians were clearly zeroed in on the route.

Olena Ivanenko, a restaurateur, seen here in a cap, attends the funeral for a fellow member of the 47th Brigade. PHOTO: EMANUELE SATOLLI FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The pivot

The next assault—and its failures—became a turning point. On June 17, the company set out to take two parallel trenches about 1 1/2 miles long. The operation was supposed to clear a path to a Russian supply route.

They started early in the morning. Once a path had been cleared through a minefield, Kocherha’s Bradley set out for the nearest trench, followed by a second Bradley with eight troops crammed inside, including Reporter.

Kocherha set his troops down at the trench when an antitank missile hit the second Bradley 70 yards short of its target, concussing the crew. One of them managed to scramble out and open a small door. The troops ran for the trench.

Kocherha’s Bradley was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade, disabling the turret and the gun. The attack temporarily blinded Kocherha. He was concussed and injured on his arm.

Kocherha shows damage to a Bradley from an earlier incident involving a mine. PHOTO: MYKHAILO KOTSYURBA

The platoon pressed along the trench, which was more than 7-feet deep. At times, they were so close to Russian troops they made eye contact, Reporter later told his family. Ivanenko, the restaurateur better known as Ryzh, turned and saw Reporter. Unlike most of the others, she later recalled, he had no fear in his eyes. “I’ll cover you,” he said. They pushed forward.

The Ukrainians needed to dig firing positions to fend off Russian counterattacks. Sad spotted that Reporter had a shovel and told him to dig.

“I can’t,” Reporter responded. His fingers were curled tight. He couldn’t relax them because of the adrenaline coursing through his body. 

Sad had the same problem. It took them 15 minutes to unclench.

Over several hours, the Ukrainians held off repeated Russian counter attacks that were backed by rocket artillery and mortars. As dusk fell, they were short on water and ammunition. Reinforcements hadn’t arrived, and they were under threat of being surrounded.

As the Ukrainians prepared to pull out, Reporter said he would stay to provide covering fire. Others encouraged him to leave, but he refused. “I came to fight,” he told them.

The withdrawing troops included Sad, Ryzh and Eiry, the nickname for Kuznetsova, the teacher from Bucha. They struggled more than a mile up a slope toward the Ukrainian positions, exhausted, dehydrated and carrying the weapons of the walking wounded. 

Barely 20 yards from their goal, a Russian tank emerged and fired a shell, killing three of them and badly wounding four. Shrapnel hit Ryzh in the calf and Eiry in the arm. Sad was severely concussed and went into cardiac arrest. Medics revived him.

Reporter was nowhere to be seen, and they chalked him up as missing, presumed dead.

Mykhailo Kotsyurba, 38, also known as Kocherha, became the commander of a Bradley, the U.S. Army’s main infantry-fighting vehicle. PHOTO: EMANUELE SATOLLI FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Plan B

Reporter turned up the following morning. He told the others that he had hunkered down overnight, killed a couple of Russian looters, and followed tank tracks back to Ukrainian positions at first light. The rest of 2nd Company began to look at him as among their bravest fighters.

But the assault’s failure had sapped morale. It was clear the Ukrainians would have to change tactics. They were losing armored vehicles at an unsustainable rate for little gain.

So they reverted to tactics used by other Ukrainian units earlier in the war: using small units to advance methodically, defeating one Russian position after another. Other Ukrainian units made a similar switch after having faced the same kinds of losses.

Assault squads would walk miles on foot, facing dehydration in the scorching heat as well as an entrenched enemy. They hugged tree lines for rare cover on the open steppe, or moved at night to avoid detection. Bradleys were a target for the Russians, so they would be used primarily to deliver troops or to evacuate the wounded. They were advancing. Reporter’s wife thought on a video call that he looked exhausted.

“When, every time you go out, your fellow soldiers are killed and injured, it’s psychologically tough,” said Donbas, a member of the brigade. PHOTO: EMANUELE SATOLLI FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Over several days in mid-July, the company pushed the Russians out of three trenches of about 200 yards each along the edge of a wooded area. The woods now became a new front line. On July 17, Reporter, Donbas, a 23-year-old miner, and Mars, a 39-year-old sales supervisor at the eponymous confectionary company, were among the squad sent to clear it.

They crept along the trenches then into the trees and took up defensive positions to wait for instructions. Donbas spotted a Russian patrol and opened fire before starting a pullback to the nearest trench.

When they noticed Mars wasn’t with them, they crept back toward the woods and saw him crawling toward them, his left leg bloodied and limp. A bullet and shrapnel from a grenade had torn a 2-inch hole in the bone.

The Ukrainians took it in turns to pull Mars. They had made it to the trench when an automatic grenade launcher began firing at them, apparently directed by an aerial drone. Everyone took cover as best they could, in a dugout or in burrows made by Russian soldiers. Reporter hunkered down in the trench. 

Seconds later, Donbas heard Reporter cry out.

Donbas dashed to his colleague, but had to return to cover as grenades rained in again. Donbas returned and saw smoke: Shrapnel had pierced Reporter’s radio and set it on fire. A Russian grenade had exploded right next to him, spraying his right leg, arm and torso with shrapnel, according to Donbas and a video of the aftermath. Reporter was still conscious, mumbling something about a drone, as his colleagues applied tourniquets. Two men carried him to the next trench, while others helped Mars.

When they reached the second trench, they were targeted by an explosive drone. Other soldiers used an antidrone rifle to disable it before it hit.

Reporter was dead. The men turned their attention to Mars. Hours later, an armored car came to evacuate him. As it sped away, a Russian tank fired and blew apart its tires. Somehow, the car made it to safety. Mars is now in hospital in western Ukraine facing a long rehabilitation.

Roman Pankratov, machine-gun operator from the 47th Brigade, attends Reporter’s funeral. PHOTO: SERHII KOROVAYNY FOR WALL STREET JOURNAL

Donbas is fighting in southeastern Ukraine. He is one of many questioning why their commanders seemed to throw them into such dangerous assaults.

“The brigade is highly motivated. No one has ever said, ‘I’m not going,’ ” said Donbas. “But when, every time you go out, your fellow soldiers are killed and injured, it’s psychologically tough.”

Many members of 2nd Company gathered at Reporter’s funeral. Days later, they went to another, for 24-year-old Yulia Shevchenko, killed when a headquarters building was hit by a Russian missile. They talk, without question, of returning to the fight.

Ryzh was planning extra training to overcome her fear of grenades. Eiry went to Bucha to fetch an off-road buggy funded by volunteers that she hopes will allow the soldiers to move quickly and less conspicuously.

Kocherha’s arm is in a sling and he can’t make a ball with his fist because of nerve damage. He is scheduled for an operation to remove shrapnel from his arm. Asked whether he would return to the front after recovery, he said, “My guys are there.”

Sad left the hospital at the start of August. He sat in a park in his hometown of Chernihiv one recent day, and mused about how most of the civilian men passing by would end up serving in the military. “It’s a question of our existence,” he said.

Friends, relatives and comrades from the 47th at Reporter’s funeral. “He liked our fighting spirit,” said one. PHOTO: SERHII KOROVAYNY FOR WALL STREET JOURNAL

Write to James Marson at james.marson@wsj.com

​14. Is it safe to release water from Fukushima’s nuclear plant? What to know.

Is it safe to release water from Fukushima’s nuclear plant? What to know.

By Ellen Francis and Amudalat Ajasa

August 22, 2023 at 6:27 p.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Ellen Francis · August 22, 2023

Large tanks have for years stored contaminated water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, the site of one of the worst ever nuclear disasters. But with space running out, Japan plans to start releasing more than 1 million metric tons of treated water — or more than 500 Olympic-size swimming pools — into the Pacific Ocean this week.

Japanese authorities and the United Nations’s nuclear watchdog have deemed the process, which is expected to take more than three decades, safe. But the plan faces opposition from Japan’s fishing industry and neighboring countries.

Here’s what to know:

Is it safe to release the water from the Fukushima nuclear plant?

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pledged Tuesday that the treated water release would be conducted safely and its impact monitored closely. Japanese authorities have described it as a necessary step in decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi plant some 12 years after a massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami led to a meltdown of three nuclear reactors.

After a two-year review, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced in July that Japan’s approach is “consistent with relevant international safety standards.” The IAEA, which has now opened an office at the plant, said Tuesday it would remain on-site to assess the safety of the release over time.

Scientists who back the IAEA’s green light note that facilities worldwide have carried out such releases, which are within regulatory standards.

“At any other nuclear site in the world, this would be considered a ‘routine’ release of treated wastewater with very low levels of radioactivity,” said Jim Smith, an environmental science professor at University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom.

Other scientists, including a panel consulted by 18 Pacific Island countries, have warned they haven’t seen enough information to support the release’s safety. The possible impact on the ocean, they added, has not been fully examined.

Jacques Lochard, former vice-chair of the International Commission on Radiological Protection, an independent advisory body, described Japan’s water discharge system as “very efficient.” However, he added “that there has not really been any real consultation with the local populations” — a problem he said it was not too late to address.

What impact could the water have on marine life?

The IAEA concluded the plan for “controlled, gradual discharges of the treated water to the sea,” would have a “negligible radiological impact” on people and the environment.

Bob Richmond, a research professor at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and director of the Kewalo Marine Laboratory, said the contamination from radionuclides in the waste water could transfer from the bottom of the food web through small organisms like phytoplankton to the largest, such as tuna.

These radionuclides then accumulate over time, eventually reaching levels high enough to damage DNA and RNA cells if ingested through seafood, such as oysters and lobsters, Richmond said. That could trigger long-term cancer concerns, he added.

“We can’t keep using the ocean as the ultimate dumping ground for everything we don’t want on land without severe consequences,” Richmond said.

Richmond warned the impacts from Japan’s decision will first be felt throughout the Japanese coastal communities, and then across the world through ocean currents, ocean life and being transported by plastics.

“The radionuclides will not stay within Japan’s borders. They’ll spread across the Pacific and eventually around the world,” he said. “The consequences will show up over time and not immediately.”

Who opposes the plan?

Despite those assurances from the Japanese government and the IAEA, the fishing industry and environmental groups have urged Tokyo to drop the plan, raising questions about its consequences.

Greenpeace East Asia criticized the discharge plan on Tuesday, saying it ignores scientific evidence and concerns from fishing operators.

Ahead of Fukushima’s fishing season in September, the fishing industry worries about potential reputational damage to their goods, which still carry the stigma of radioactive exposure. “Scientific safety and safety from a social point is different,” the head of the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations, said this week.

The Japanese government has said it would monitor the water quality after the release, promising compensation to offset the impact on fishing operators’ livelihoods.

The release has also faced objections by officials and protesters in South Korea, even as the South Korean government said the plan meets international standards if the water is handled as planned.

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said he opposed the decision, vowing to “immediately activate import control measures” against Japanese food, he said in an online statement on Tuesday.

Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry called the decision “selfish and irresponsible” in a news conference on Tuesday.

“The ocean sustains humanity. It is not a sewer for Japan’s nuclear-contaminated water,” Wenbin said.

How is the water treated, and what is Tritium?

The water goes through a filtration system meant to remove radioactive elements. To reduce concentrations of Tritium, a radioactive material that is difficult to separate from water, authorities will also dilute the wastewater before discharging it into the ocean.

Japanese authorities say the concentration of tritium will drop to background ocean levels after the dilution. The plan, set to start Thursday, involves discharging the treated water at a maximum rate of 132,000 gallons per day through an underwater tunnel off the coast of Japan. The IAEA will monitor the release process.

The amount of tritium in the wastewater release is expected to be about seven times lower than the World Health Organization drinking water limit for tritium, Smith said. People are exposed to tritium in small amounts in tap water and in rain.

“There will be trace amounts of other radioactivity in the release as the treatment isn’t 100 percent perfect, as at other nuclear sites around the world,” he said, adding that these “will be at insignificant levels.”

Julia Mio Inuma, Min Joo Kim and Michelle Ye Hee Lee contributed to this report.

The Washington Post · by Ellen Francis · August 22, 2023

15. Opinion | The Space Force needs to get bigger

Conclusion:

Space now is inescapably a domain of potential conflict. The mission, Saltzman said bluntly, is “space superiority — protect ours, deny theirs.” We have a Space Force, and it needs to get bigger and more influential to do its job.

Opinion | The Space Force needs to get bigger

The Washington Post · by David Ignatius · August 22, 2023

Gen. Chance Saltzman says being commander of the U.S. Space Force is like “jumping on a merry-go-round that’s spinning very fast.” His service is less than four years old, a military toddler, yet it must prepare to combat China in what could be the decisive battle zone of the future.

The Space Force had a painful birth in 2019. Its champion was President Donald Trump, which guaranteed controversy. The military brass initially opposed its creation, and the intelligence community zealously protected its own space agencies. But the “Guardians,” as the new service’s members are known, managed to stand up and begin playing the Pentagon power game effectively.

Saltzman admitted during an interview that the Space Force has had some “growing pains.” The service is tiny, with fewer than 13,000 officers, enlisted personnel and civilians, according to Saltzman’s staff. (The Marine Corps, by contrast, has about 177,000 active-duty members.) The Space Force doesn’t have enough command slots to compete with the other services, let alone people to fill them. And unlike other branches, its missions are so secret that the public knows little about what it does.

“It’s just too damn small,” says John Hamre, head of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an influential early supporter of the force’s creation. He argues that to meet the enormous challenges ahead, the Space Force will need to build a larger ecosystem to develop personnel, weapons and strategic heft.

Saltzman agreed that resources are stretched. “We get out-staffed” in key Pentagon meetings and committees, he said, with other services sometimes overmatching Space Force 10 to 1 in staff preparation. “Quantity is its own kind of quality,” he said. “If that means we’ve got to get bigger, I’m okay with that.”

Saltzman has just embarked on some important innovations that will expand the force’s capabilities. A new targeting cell, known as the 75th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Squadron, was launched this month, with a spooky skeleton-head insignia, at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado.

“We need to conduct intel for space,” explained Saltzman. His new unit will use ground and space sensors to assess the capabilities, intent and maneuverability of potential adversaries’ satellites. “Ultimately … we’re talking about targets — what the targets are that we would have to effect,” he said, adding: “You have to know what you’re doing in order to jam a satellite or create a disruptive effect.”

Space defense is partly about resiliency, Saltzman said. The United States is vulnerable now because too much of its intelligence and communications capabilities are carried on a few satellites, inevitably described as “exquisite” platforms, but also sitting ducks.

Saltzman said that vulnerability is beginning to change, through a new program called the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. A constellation of low Earth orbit satellites will create a mesh network in space for communications and other uses. The first 10 satellites were launched in April, and 18 more are scheduled by year’s end, with an additional 160 next year. The network could grow to as many as 1,000 satellites.

In this proliferation of low Earth orbiters, the Space Force is following the small-satellite revolution pioneered by the Starlink constellation launched by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The proliferated array “is a much tougher targeting problem,” Saltzman said. “We’re actually seeing the effects of that in Ukraine with the Starlink constellation. Russians are trying to jam that,” without success.

Saltzman’s mission is complicated by the fact that there are so many other government players in space. On the intelligence side, the National Reconnaissance Office manages surveillance satellites, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency oversees mapping, targeting and other tactical collection. Aside from the Space Force, the military has a joint U.S. Space Command, and the Air Force and other services also have their own space units. It’s potentially a jumble of overlapping missions.

China, interestingly, has gone in the other direction — toward consolidation of high-tech military assets. Beijing’s Strategic Support Force, created in late 2015, is a People’s Liberation Army hybrid that combines cyber, space and electronic warfare as well as psychological operations. It’s one-stop shopping for advanced information warfare.

The Space Force, in theory, should provide better coordination for U.S. efforts. Saltzman can now argue space priorities in the “tank” at the Pentagon with other military chiefs of staff. There’s a space-integration cell within the joint staff, and a joint panel to oversee the different services’ space requirements. But none of this will work if the Space Force isn’t big enough to hold its seat at the table and drive war-gaming and strategic planning.

Anyone who doubts that this is an era of great-power competition between the United States and China should look at what’s happening in space. And frankly, America is late to this race. Saltzman recalled that, as recently as 2015, the Pentagon debated whether a top Air Force general “would be allowed to say ‘space’ and ‘warfighting’ in the same sentence.”

Space now is inescapably a domain of potential conflict. The mission, Saltzman said bluntly, is “space superiority — protect ours, deny theirs.” We have a Space Force, and it needs to get bigger and more influential to do its job.

The Washington Post · by David Ignatius · August 22, 2023

16. A Divorce Between the Navy and Cyber Command Would Be Dangerous

Is there really serious consideration of a "combatant command opt-out policy?"

Excerpts:

A secretary of defense decision allowing the Navy to opt out of Cyber Command could create a precedent that affects the perceived value added of integrated jointness itself. Could a service struggling to perform adequately be allowed to pick which combatant command they wish to staff? Staffing Cyber Command currently costs resources to all the services. Under the potential warfighting scenarios now envisioned, the Air Force might find it more cost effective to put more personnel and resources in the combatant command staffs that support, say, expeditionary manned aviation rather than a domain like cyber that might not be perceived as decisive. While it is hard to imagine the Army opting out of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command staff under the premise that the role of land forces would be limited in the envisioned East Asia scenario, that is a possibility if a combatant command “opt-out policy” becomes accepted. Whether the jointness norm that all services have a near equal slice of every mission is desirable is a question beyond the scope of this article, but certainly giving services the option to opt out or be pushed out undermines the unified defense effort.

Seeking Creative Alternatives

One alternative approach may be a separate Cyber Service akin to U.S. Space Force. If the Navy cannot afford to build and contribute sufficiently skilled forces, why should any service have to? The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act explicitly calls for study of this possibility, which would effectively eject all the services from Cyber Command. It could result in all the services facing the same potential cyber deficits as a Navy-Cyber Command divorce.

A second idea is for the Navy to give the entirety of its naval Cyber Command mission over to the Marine Corps, in law a co-equal naval service. Former Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger followed all recent commandants in vociferously arguing that the Marine Corps needs to get back to sea and naval operations, creating a sea-control-from-the-land mission. The corps has also expressed a very firm commitment to developing advanced cyber capabilities in accordance with their traditional and unchanging commitment to combined arms warfare. Amphibious Marine Corps cyber operations personnel could serve the cyber warfare area commanders in strike groups as well as being the naval representation on staff with Cyber Command.

With those options aside, however, the balance of possibilities argues the Navy, Cyber Command, and the security of the nation are each worse off if the Navy divorces Cyber Command. The secretary of defense should report back to Congress with but a single word: “continue.”

A Divorce Between the Navy and Cyber Command Would Be Dangerous - War on the Rocks

CHRIS C. DEMCHAK, SAM TANGREDI, AND MICHAEL POZNANSKY

warontherocks.com · by Chris C. Demchak · August 23, 2023

Frustrated by reports of the U.S. Navy’s underperformance in cyber operations, Congress has made an unusual request. The Fiscal Year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act instructs the secretary of defense to report to Congress by 2024 on whether the Navy should continue contributing forces to U.S. Cyber Command. This request raises the unprecedented possibility that an armed service would not contribute forces to a joint combatant command.

The National Defense Authorization Act provision may be merely an expression of congressional pique. In any event, the consequences of extricating the Navy from Cyber Command would be far-reaching. They would be harmful to the Navy, Cyber Command, and the overall defense of the nation. For the Navy in particular, it could undermine recruitment and retention of cyber talent, impede relevant experience and joint competency of Navy personnel, reduce relevant access, increase bureaucratic friction, and create issues involving legal authorities. Moreover, without Navy presence in planning and operations, Cyber Command could miss the distinctiveness of maritime issues in its preparations for a major Indo-Pacific conflict. Finally, excusing the Navy from Cyber Command decreases the effectiveness of joint operations critical to successful campaigns against an all-domain peer power in an increasingly hostile cybered world.

Rather than separation, the Navy should give its soon-to-be-created cyber billets sufficient tools, training, and talent to succeed at Cyber Command. There are, of course, alternative futures that would change the analysis here, such as the creation of a separate cyber service (which the National Defense Authorization Act also identifies as worthy of study) or the Navy giving its naval Cyber Command mission to the Marine Corps. While a thorough examination of these options is beyond our scope, the bottom line is that the Navy unilaterally leaving Cyber Command entails unique downsides.

Frustration with the Navy’s Cyber Performance

In 2018, as U.S. Cyber Command was gaining new capabilities and authorities, numerous senators raised questions about why the Air Force and Army budget requests for cyberspace were more than double that of the Navy and why certain Navy requirements were going unfunded. Within the Tenth Fleet — the Navy force component to Cyber Command — cyber has remained but one of the mission areas competing for resources. The Navy’s fleet cyber commander is dual-hatted with Tenth Fleet’s commander and is responsible for providing those resources. This arrangement does not appear to provide sufficient commitment to resourcing cyber operations. During a hearing in the House Armed Services Committee on the Fiscal Year 2023 Navy budget request, Rep. James Langevin stated multiple concerns about the state of the Navy’s cyber forces. He also pointed out that “the Secretary’s 28 pages of written testimony for today’s event meant to reflect the highest priorities of the Navy doesn’t mention cyber once.”

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Part of the challenge is that the Navy has not had a single designator for cyberspace. Instead, three communities — cryptologic warfare officers, information professionals, and cyber warfare engineers — have different roles and responsibilities Moreover, the Navy lacks what are known as “service-retained cyber forces” capable of effectively performing tasks such as “securing sea lines of communication” beyond 12 nautical miles from U.S. shores.

The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act directly addresses some of these challenges and calls for a review of others. Regarding the fractured nature of cyber expertise, the Act directs the Navy to create a specific cyber “designator,” an occupational specialty separate from that of cryptologic warfare officers. Establishing a cyber designator has been previously discussed within the Navy without a clear decision. Now it is no longer optional. To ensure the formal establishment of a new naval cyber community, Congress has mandated that Navy cryptological officers not be in command of cyber operations personnel.

As mentioned, the latest authorization act specifically calls for the secretary of defense to review “Whether the Navy should no longer be responsible for developing and presenting forces to the United States Cyber Command as part of the Cyber Mission Force or Cyberspace Operations Forces.” While this provision clearly reflects congressional frustration, it suggests a desire for a workable solution by highlighting the issues concerning Navy cyber directly to the secretary of defense level. The demand for a specific review increases the likelihood of Department of Defense pressure on the Navy to reorganize its cyber force and possibly shape its cyber forces to be more similar to the other services. Although it is too soon to tell what will ultimately transpire because of this review, it is already evident that a divorce between the Navy and Cyber Command would be bad for the Navy and bad for Cyber Command. From the very start, such a decision would appear to contradict the congressional desire to strengthen naval cyber as found in other provisions of the same defense bill.

Undermining the Navy

Not having Navy cyber members embedded within Cyber Command would undermine the Navy’s future cyber competence in six significant ways.

Hobbling Recruitment and Retention of Cyber Personnel

The Navy already has had difficulty recruiting cyber personnel. The service offers an uncertain career path created by a so far vague status in the overall information warfare organization. It shows reluctance to create bonuses and retention pay on a par with the other services, and an seeming lack of urgency in dealing with cyber threats. Losing the career experience of the fully functional and more prestigious Cyber Command would deter some of the most promising recruits. Mid-grade cyber personnel would likely chafe at the lack of equal opportunities and status in their domain-relevant community, making retention even more problematic.

Reducing Experience and Joint Competency

The result would be a lack of opportunities for Navy cyber warfighters to have the full range of experience needed. Not only would they lack the knowledge of the capabilities, practices, and procedures of the other services, but they would also lack the experiential learning born of conceiving, staffing, and acting in national and Department of Defense decision-making and execution of higher-level cyber operations. Classroom-based joint professional military education is not a substitute for the hands-on skill development available in Cyber Command, or for developing Navy cyber competence in translating the commander’s intent into the complexity, urgency, and delicateness of the full spectrum of cyber operations.

Furthermore, Navy cyber officers and sailors would have to learn the full range of cyber operations including both offense and defense while limited to a largely defensive, diminished, and legally constrained role in developing their cyber expertise. Operational experience in offense (or close cooperation with those who do offensive missions) is essential for effectiveness in defense. The Navy’s cyber protection will need a deep understanding of attacker tactics, the ways in which attackers find vulnerabilities, the variety of tactics, techniques, and procedures that attackers use to press defensive measures, the operational challenges to attackers, and how to stay ahead of the developments in attacker innovations. Expertise in defensive cyber operations requires more than awareness of the various attack modes, monitoring, best practices, and the ability to recover from a breach. Even traditional threat hunting in one’s own networks does not give the breadth of experience required to anticipate adversary innovation and campaign flexibilities. Until legislation changes, the bulk of the offensive cyber authorities rests in the dual-hatted commander of Cyber Command. Thinking from the adversary’s point of view is essential to defense, but so is the hands-on experience currently only available by working in or for Cyber Command’s hunt forward cyber teams.

Strained Access to Robust Infrastructure

The Navy is unlikely to have or spend the money to replicate the wide range of skills and infrastructure to which it has access today as a component command of Cyber Command. Through its dual-hat command relationship with the National Security Agency and the control of its own budget, Cyber Command now operates considerable amounts of cyber infrastructure that dwarf what the Navy could set aside for cyber. After the departure of its forces from Cyber Command and even with the best of intentions across two large organizations negotiating for scarce resources, Navy cyber teams will never have access to the same extent of funds or timing necessary to maintain a fully capable cyber defense force, let alone one sufficiently competent in offensive capabilities.

Reinforcing Bureaucratic Walls

If the Navy leaves U.S. Cyber Command, it will be on the other side of the bureaucratic walls of four-star staff silos when it asks for cyber help from Cyber Command or other services. The ensuing reluctance to help might be especially present if Cyber Command had been forced to pick up the tab in personnel and resources for missing Navy support. Navy priorities would have even less weight than they might or might not have right now. The absence of naval personnel means no future commanders of Cyber Command will have a naval background, with the resulting lack of familiarity encouraging them, whether intentionally or not, to favor their own service personnel and concerns. It is not clear whether the commander, Fleet Cyber Command, will continue to personally report to commander, Cyber Command if the Navy component withdraws. This could further harden potential silos.

Legal Authorities

An adequate working knowledge of cyber offense needs the kinds of hands-on development of experience that generally requires the legal authorities afforded to Cyber Command, not the individual services. Without this practical knowledge, the Navy would still have the right to invite itself into joint cyber offensive operations, but, over time, the other services and Cyber Command itself might not want the less-experienced Navy personnel on their team. There is an evolving discussion over whether the legal authority to conduct offensive cyber operations should remain solely with Cyber Command, and generally not be delegated to combatant commanders.. For a variety of reasons including coordination, limitations of collateral damage risks, and avoidance of friendly fire, Cyber Command has long been reluctant to delegate offensive cyber operations outside of its operational command of service cyber components in the Cyber Mission Force. If the Navy realizes it needs offensive capability and moves to develop its own cyber offense forces, but no legislation or executive directives change, those units will either pose a nontrivial possibility of disruptive cyber crossfire or, more likely, be severely constrained in what actions they have authorities to perform in peacetime. If the divorce from Cyber Command incurs these cyber deficits in a significant way, then the delegation of such authorities might never occur even if the Navy is the service is doing the bulk of the warfighting in a major theater.

Half In and Half Out Multiplies Gaps

Removing Navy personnel from Cyber Command does not mean the service leaves its other interactions with the National Security Agency. The relationship through cryptological service members deeply intertwined with the National Security Agency will continue. As things stand, the Navy would continue to have the option to participate in joint cyber operations. The Defense Information Systems Agency will continue to defend the back office of the entire Department of Defense. One presumes the other services will pick up the slack in Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Forces — including cyber training curriculum responsibilities currently held by the Navy. In 2022 Cyber Command received advanced budget authority and took over the advanced cyber training of its service components’ cyber personnel. It is not clear how a Navy separated from Cyber Command would benefit from this training — perhaps it would have to pay as any outside agency (but not service) must do. The gap could grow quite large between what other services learn and can provide, and what the Navy’s cyber officers and enlisted sailors know how to do effectively in cyber operations once deployed. The Navy’s cyber forces are unlikely to be prepared for the large-scale hybrid fight likely to come in the future.

Undermining Cyber Command and Beyond

Cyber Command stands to lose more than just assets if the Navy were to unilaterally be excused from participation. One of the primary warfighting domains — the maritime environment — would not automatically be represented across the range of Cyber Command’s activities. Without built-in naval representation, maritime targets and issues are likely to receive less prioritization on a daily basis, whether by virtue of limited organizational attention or lack of awareness of maritime-relevant targets. The divorce adds one more seam in the operational coordination across the Department of Defense community.

While cyber operators from the Army or Air Force may be able to master a variety of complex systems over time, they would likely have more difficulty providing surrogate maritime and service-specific representation in decision-making at Cyber Command. Each traditional warfighting domain has its own assets, concepts, and operational contributions that at times overlap and at times conflict with others. The maritime environment in particular entails a high degree of mobility and unique potentials for loitering, deception, and access. Understanding the unique aspects of ships, ports, or other maritime platforms, whether it be the Automatic Identification System or other navigational capabilities, gives cyber operators additional context for understanding the maritime-relevant networks which they are defending or attacking. It would be difficult for a joint force of Army, Air Force, or cyber agency teams to be effective in a maritime environment while “plugging their joint laptops into systems that are the operational responsibility of a Navy commanding officer.”

A lack of naval representation could also impede Cyber Command’s capacity to “operationalize the battlespace” in important ways by neglecting maritime factors in the operational picture. The Command Vision of U.S. Cyber Command’s current commander, Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, calls for the organization to “[e]nsure every process … aligns to the cyberspace operational environment.” Without maritime-oriented operators in the room to help identify requirements, and to contribute to discussions of battle damage assessment as it pertains to relevant platforms and the like, a skewed picture could emerge. If the Navy unexpectedly heavily funds the acquisition, retention, and development of its own cyber experts to work closely and largely uniquely with forward-deployed strike groups and individual warships, then Cyber Command not only has to compete with the Navy for these individuals, but also has to coordinate with them through siloed channels to avoid cross-purposes in operations.

A secretary of defense decision allowing the Navy to opt out of Cyber Command could create a precedent that affects the perceived value added of integrated jointness itself. Could a service struggling to perform adequately be allowed to pick which combatant command they wish to staff? Staffing Cyber Command currently costs resources to all the services. Under the potential warfighting scenarios now envisioned, the Air Force might find it more cost effective to put more personnel and resources in the combatant command staffs that support, say, expeditionary manned aviation rather than a domain like cyber that might not be perceived as decisive. While it is hard to imagine the Army opting out of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command staff under the premise that the role of land forces would be limited in the envisioned East Asia scenario, that is a possibility if a combatant command “opt-out policy” becomes accepted. Whether the jointness norm that all services have a near equal slice of every mission is desirable is a question beyond the scope of this article, but certainly giving services the option to opt out or be pushed out undermines the unified defense effort.

Seeking Creative Alternatives

One alternative approach may be a separate Cyber Service akin to U.S. Space Force. If the Navy cannot afford to build and contribute sufficiently skilled forces, why should any service have to? The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act explicitly calls for study of this possibility, which would effectively eject all the services from Cyber Command. It could result in all the services facing the same potential cyber deficits as a Navy-Cyber Command divorce.

A second idea is for the Navy to give the entirety of its naval Cyber Command mission over to the Marine Corps, in law a co-equal naval service. Former Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger followed all recent commandants in vociferously arguing that the Marine Corps needs to get back to sea and naval operations, creating a sea-control-from-the-land mission. The corps has also expressed a very firm commitment to developing advanced cyber capabilities in accordance with their traditional and unchanging commitment to combined arms warfare. Amphibious Marine Corps cyber operations personnel could serve the cyber warfare area commanders in strike groups as well as being the naval representation on staff with Cyber Command.

With those options aside, however, the balance of possibilities argues the Navy, Cyber Command, and the security of the nation are each worse off if the Navy divorces Cyber Command. The secretary of defense should report back to Congress with but a single word: “continue.”

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Dr. Chris C. Demchak is Grace Hopper Chair of Cyber Security as well as the Senior Cyber Scholar in the Cyber and Innovation Policy Institute at the U.S. Naval War College.

Dr. Sam Tangredi is the Leidos Chair of Future Warfare Studies, the director of the Institute for Future Warfare Studies, and a senior scholar with Cyber and Innovation Policy Institute in the Strategic and Operational Research Department. He is a retired Navy captain and surface warfare officer specializing in naval strategy.

Dr. Michael Poznansky is an associate professor in the Strategic and Operational Research Department and a core faculty member of the Cyber & Innovation Policy Institute at the U.S. Naval War College. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

All ideas are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the position of any element of the U.S. government.

Image: Department of Defense

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Chris C. Demchak · August 23, 2023

17. Biden’s Asia Diplomacy Is Still Incomplete

Important warning from Zack Cooper which I hope the administration will consider.

Excerpts:

The United States cannot succeed in the broader Indo-Pacific region if it appears to expend time and energy only on those countries willing to openly balance against China. By skipping the ASEAN and East Asia summits in Jakarta, Biden will raise questions about American strategy and reliability. Perception in the region will be that the United States is downgrading ties with Indonesia over its unwillingness to sign up for initiatives that might be perceived as undermining Jakarta’s strategic autonomy. The task for the Biden team in the next year will be to undo this impression from Indonesia to Singapore to New Zealand to the Pacific Islands. Doing so without a robust trade policy will be challenging.

The World Cup may just have finished, but Biden is about to score an own goal by skipping this year’s ASEAN and EAS meetings. Washington must change its approach to convince regional players that it will be a reliable partner across the Indo-Pacific.

Biden’s Asia Diplomacy Is Still Incomplete - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Zack Cooper · August 23, 2023

Images of President Joe Biden, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida together at Camp David are a powerful reminder of the progress that the Biden administration has made with key allies and partners in recent years. Washington has made some notable achievements, from this meeting to the reinvigoration of the Quad, establishment of AUKUS, and basing deals with the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. Still, it is hard to give Biden more than an incomplete grade for his approach to the Indo-Pacific.

U.S. policy elsewhere in the region appears stuck in neutral, particularly in Southeast Asia. Five years ago, I suggested that the Donald Trump administration’s approach to the Indo-Pacific could be described as “a tale of two Asia policies” — the United States had been successful in some domains yet was failing badly in others. Today, this is still true. Regional leaders are deeply disappointed by America’s rejection of trade liberalization as well as its inconsistent diplomatic engagement. Biden’s head-scratching decision to skip this year’s East Asia Summit and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting in Indonesia will raise many eyebrows.

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How can the United States make so much progress in some parts of the Indo-Pacific yet struggle elsewhere? The answer is simple: the Biden team has excelled at pushing open doors unlocked by Beijing’s overreach in the security sphere. Leaders in Beijing blame Washington for “containment, encirclement, and suppression,” but the reality is that Chinese leaders are largely to blame for their own regional predicament. But where China appears less threatening, the task is not so simple because U.S. leaders appear unwilling to provide the types of economic and diplomatic engagement many partners seek. Washington has picked the low-hanging fruit; what’s left now will prove more difficult to reach.

Beijing Coerces, Biden Capitalizes

The United States has made some remarkable progress with key Indo-Pacific countries in the last few years. In the first eight months of 2023, Biden has already hosted his Japanese, Korean, Philippine, and Indian counterparts in Washington and has also launched major initiatives with Australia and Papua New Guinea. But Biden’s biggest breakthroughs have been made possible by China’s deep unpopularity triggered by its aggressive overreach. Consider the following initiatives:

AUKUS

The Australia–United Kingdom–United States arrangement occurred after China’s unpopularity spiked in Canberra and London. In the United Kingdom, China’s unfavorability rose from 37 percent in 2015 to 69 percent in 2023, due in part to Beijing’s repression in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, in Australia, the percentage of Australians reporting that China was more of a security threat than an economic partner rose from 15 percent in 2015 to 63 percent last year, after a prolonged economic coercion campaign by China.

Quad

The Australia–India–Japan–United States quadrilateral arrangement was also enabled by an increase in China’s unfavorability. In India, 32 percent had an unfavorable view of China in 2015, but after Beijing’s reckless violence on the Sino-Indian border, that figure increased to 67 percent in 2023. In Japan and Australia, China’s unfavorability in 2023 stood at 87 percent, higher even than China’s 83 percent unfavorability in the United States.

Trilateral

The Camp David summit between Japan, South Korea, and the United States would not have been possible without China’s economic coercion against South Korea. Beijing’s unfavorability in Seoul rose from 37 percent to 77 percent from 2015 to 2023, due in large part to China’s reaction to South Korea’s decision to place a missile defense battery on the peninsula.

Philippines

The United States has also made notable progress with the Philippines, including a new base access arrangement announced in April. There, too, Beijing has overreached, with its pressure on Manila leading to the highest preference for the United States over China (78.8 percent) among all experts in Southeast Asia. Beijing’s coercion at Second Thomas Shoal is only likely to accelerate this dynamic.

G7

Although it is not an Indo-Pacific group, the G7 has taken a series of surprisingly strong stances on China in recent years. China’s domestic repression and support for Russia are key factors. In 2015, China’s unfavorability stood at 37 percent in the United Kingdom, 48 percent in Canada, 49 percent in France, 57 percent in Italy, and 60 percent in Germany. By 2023, those figures had risen to 69 percent in the United Kingdom, 79 percent in Canada, 72 percent in France, 58 percent in Italy, and 76 percent in Germany, to say nothing of Japan and the United States.

To be clear, China’s unpopularity may be necessary for America’s progress with AUKUS, the Quad, the Trilateral, the Philippines, and the G7, but it is by no means sufficient. The Trump team capitalized on the opportunity with the Quad, and the Biden team has smartly built on that progress and added several major new initiatives. These recent diplomatic achievements have been impressive. But Americans must recognize that Washington’s success is due in no small part to Beijing’s overreach. Recent U.S. progress therefore remains focused on those countries most concerned by China’s assertive security behavior. Although these countries account for a substantial portion of global economic production, much of the rest of the region does not share their degree of concern about China, so there are real challenges ahead, particularly in Southeast Asia.

America Stumbles, ASEAN Hedges

Although the Biden team has done an excellent job of capitalizing on opportunities presented by China, there is reason to be concerned that additional progress may prove more difficult. Biden’s diplomatic engagement and trade strategy are not attracting much support in the rest of the Indo-Pacific, particularly in Southeast Asia. Expectations may have been unfairly high, but it should be a warning sign that 60 percent of Southeast Asian experts report that U.S. engagement with the region has decreased or remained unchanged under the Biden administration.

To understand why, one need only review diplomatic engagement in Southeast Asia. When Biden attended his first ASEAN Summit as president in 2021, he promised, “You can expect to see me personally showing up and reaching out to you.” In 2022, he told ASEAN leaders that they were “at the heart of my administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy.” In 2023, however, he won’t be able repeat either of those promises at the ASEAN Summit, because Biden won’t there or at the East Asia Summit.

Coming so soon after Biden cancelled trips to Papua New Guinea and Australia, the decision not to attend the summits in Indonesia will be seen as another sign of inconsistent U.S. engagement. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan described “reengaging with ASEAN and APEC as cornerstones of our engagement in the Indo-Pacific.” But Biden also did not go to the last Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit. Thus far, Biden’s attendance record looks more like that of Donald Trump than Barack Obama.

President Obama made it a point to attend the yearly Asian summits, going to fifteen of twenty-two (68 percent) of the in-person meetings and skipping them entirely in only one of his eight years. President Trump only made it to two of eight (25 percent) in-person summits. Many expected that Biden would mark a return to Obama’s approach, but he will have gone to only three of six meetings in person. And the United States hosts APEC this year, so he hardly gets credit for attending.

Once again, it seems that Washington is saying one thing and doing another. What makes this particularly strange is that Indonesia is such an important player. It is home to over 275 million people, behind only India, China, and the United States. Indonesia accounts for roughly a third of economic production in Southeast Asia. And its leadership within ASEAN and geographic position astride numerous maritime chokepoints make it a vital strategic partner. Even more confusingly, Biden is going to Vietnam on the trip that was supposed to include Indonesia, so it appears that this is a conscious decision to downgrade ties with ASEAN’s biggest country.

In addition to this apparent diplomatic downgrade, the administration continues to get an incomplete grade in the economic arena. Biden did not withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership — that was a decision made by Trump. But Biden has followed Trump’s lead by being unwilling to discuss new trade deals. Instead, the United States is offering the region an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework focusing on aligning standards and regulations. The administration argues that a “new Washington consensus” on trade will “build a fairer, more durable global economic order.” Yet few in the Indo-Pacific want this new consensus — what they seek is access to the large and thriving U.S. market.

As Singapore’s ambassador to the United States said, “When you don’t have market access, there’s no real trade policy. … The countries of the region are somewhat disappointed that we’re not getting the kind of trade agenda that we would have liked from the U.S.” The Biden team is unlikely to reverse course, even though it looks likely that China will eventually join the Comprehensive and Progress Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Unless Washington gets off the sidelines, most in Southeast Asia will therefore remain skeptical of U.S. economic engagement.

Time to Finish the Assignment

How will observers in Southeast Asia and beyond make sense of these dynamics? If trends continue, foreign leaders could come to believe that public opposition to China is the litmus test for consequential U.S. engagement. U.S. leaders appear to have a two-tiered regional approach: ambitious engagement with countries that are openly balancing against China, but limited time for those countries that prefer to hedge. In short, Biden is investing in the balancers but not the hedgers. Relationships with Washington could therefore appear transactional and instrumental, which is an accusation often launched against Beijing. There is a real danger that this will undermine the Biden team’s own messaging in its Indo-Pacific strategy, which described American interests in the region as being independent of its rivalry with China.

The United States cannot succeed in the broader Indo-Pacific region if it appears to expend time and energy only on those countries willing to openly balance against China. By skipping the ASEAN and East Asia summits in Jakarta, Biden will raise questions about American strategy and reliability. Perception in the region will be that the United States is downgrading ties with Indonesia over its unwillingness to sign up for initiatives that might be perceived as undermining Jakarta’s strategic autonomy. The task for the Biden team in the next year will be to undo this impression from Indonesia to Singapore to New Zealand to the Pacific Islands. Doing so without a robust trade policy will be challenging.

The World Cup may just have finished, but Biden is about to score an own goal by skipping this year’s ASEAN and EAS meetings. Washington must change its approach to convince regional players that it will be a reliable partner across the Indo-Pacific.

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Zack Cooper is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a lecturer at Princeton University. He co-hosts the Net Assessment podcast for War on the Rocks

Image: The White House

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Zack Cooper · August 23, 2023

18. Report to Congress on South China Sea Disputes - USNI News

​Download the 3 page report here: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10607

Report to Congress on South China Sea Disputes - USNI News

news.usni.org · August 22, 2023

The following is the Aug. 21, 2023, Congressional Research Service report, China Primer: South China Sea Disputes.

From the report

Multiple Asian governments assert sovereignty over rocks, reefs, and other geographic features in the heavily trafficked South China Sea (SCS), with the People’s Republic of China (PRC or China) arguably making the most assertive claims. The United States makes no territorial claim in the SCS and takes no position on sovereignty over any of the geographic features in the SCS, but U.S. officials have urged that disputes be settled without coercion and on the basis of international law. Separate from the sovereignty disputes, the governments of the United States, China, and other countries disagree over what rights international law grants foreign militaries to fly, sail, and operate in a country’s territorial sea or Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The last several Congresses have examined China’s efforts to use coercion and intimidation to increase its influence in the SCS and have passed legislation aimed at improving the ability of the United States and its partners to protect their interests, including freedom of navigation and overflight.

The SCS is one of the world’s most heavily trafficked waterways. An estimated $3.4 trillion in ship-borne commerce transits the sea each year, including energy supplies to U.S. treaty allies Japan and South Korea. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the SCS contains about 11 billion barrels of oil rated as “proved” or “probable” reserves—a level similar to the amount of proved oil reserves in Mexico—and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The SCS also contains significant fish stocks, coral, and other undersea resources.

Ongoing Disputes

Disputes over Sovereignty

PRC officials assert “indisputable sovereignty over these islands [of the SCS] and their adjacent waters” without defining “adjacent waters.” The PRC government depicts its claims with a “nine-dash line” that encompasses approximately 62% of the SCS, according to the U.S. Department of State. (The estimate is based on the International Hydrographic Organization’s definition of the SCS’s geographic limits—a definition cited by the State Department that includes waters well to the south and west of the nine-dash line, extending toward the southern part of the Malay Peninsula.) The PRC has never explained definitively what the dashed line signifies.

In the northern part of the SCS, China, Taiwan, and Vietnam contest sovereignty of the Paracel Islands; China has occupied them since 1974. The PRC and Taiwan also claim Pratas Island, which Taiwan controls. In the southern part of the sea, China, Taiwan, and Vietnam each claim all of the approximately 200 Spratly Islands, while Brunei, Malaysia, and the Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally, claim some of them. Vietnam occupies the most land features in the island chain; Taiwan occupies the largest. In the eastern part of the sea, China, Taiwan, and the Philippines claim Scarborough Shoal; China has controlled it since 2012. China’s “nine-dash line” and Taiwan’s similar “eleven-dash line” overlap with the theoretical 200-nautical-mile (nm) EEZs that five Southeast Asian countries—Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam—could claim from their mainland coasts under the 1994 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Dispute over Freedom of the Seas

A dispute over how to interpret UNCLOS underlies U.S.-China tensions over U.S. military operations in and over the SCS and other waters off China’s coast. The United States and most other countries interpret UNCLOS as giving coastal states the right to regulate economic activities within their EEZs, but not the right to regulate navigation and overflight through the EEZ, including by military ships and aircraft. China, Vietnam, and some other countries hold the minority view that UNCLOS allows them to regulate both economic activity and foreign militaries’ navigation and overflight through their EEZs.

The U.S. Navy routinely operates in the SCS and the Taiwan Strait, including transits of the Taiwan Strait and Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) near the Spratly and Paracel islands to challenge maritime claims that the United States considers to be excessive. U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft fly surveillance and reconnaissance missions in international airspace above the waters of the SCS, including airspace that is close to (but outside of) China’s airspace. China regularly conducts military activities in the SCS, and objects strenuously to U.S. military activities there. PRC officials often say that U.S. military operations in the SCS undermine regional stability.

China and the other SCS claimants (except Taiwan, which is not a member of the U.N.) are parties to UNCLOS. The United States is not a party, but has long had a policy of abiding by UNCLOS provisions relating to territorial waters, the EEZ, and navigational rights. UNCLOS allows state parties to claim 12-nm territorial seas and 200-nm EEZs around their coastlines and “naturally formed” land features that can “sustain human habitation.” Naturally formed land features that remain above water at high tide, but which are not habitable, are entitled to 12-nm territorial seas, but they are not entitled to 200-nm EEZs.

Download document here.

Related

news.usni.org · August 22, 2023

19. Exposed: the Chinese spy using LinkedIn to hunt UK secrets

Lots of Robin Zhang's on Linkedin. Fortunately I am not connected to any of them. And my self esteem is hurt because this Robin Zhang did not think I was important enough to connect with (but he was focused on the UK so I am somewhat relieved).

Then again I need to remind myself of this: “Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.” - T.S. Eliot

Exposed: the Chinese spy using LinkedIn to hunt UK secrets

A Times investigation reveals that ‘Robin Zhang’ has been offering cash and contracts on an industrial scale for at least five years

The Times · by Fiona Hamilton, Chief Reporter · August 23, 2023

A single Chinese spy is using LinkedIn profiles to try to lure thousands of British officials to hand over state secrets in exchange for large sums of money and lucrative business deals, The Times has learnt.

The intelligence officer for Beijing’s main spy agency created a string of aliases and fake companies to target security officials, civil servants, scientists and academics with access to classified information or commercially sensitive technology.

Western security services believe the operative, whose main alias is Robin Zhang, is the most prolific spy for a hostile state working against British interests in a generation. He is understood to have operated almost entirely from behind a desk, probably from the Chinese Ministry of State Security’s headquarters in Beijing.

Fake security companies

Sources said Zhang had operated on an industrial scale for at least five years, during which time targeting British and other western officials on LinkedIn became his day job.

A Times investigation has exposed Zhang’s profiles on LinkedIn, the world’s biggest professional networking site, which has 930 million users. He created fake security companies and websites to shore up credibility and even claimed to have been educated at a leading London university.

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Zhang contacted officials working in sensitive areas, such as the military, science and technology and politics, to try to build relationships. He offered a recruitment consultant £8,000 for every time they handed over details of a candidate from the intelligence services, and offered a former military intelligence official large sums of cash for information on Britain’s counterterrorism work. Other targets were told they could have all-expenses paid trips to China and a slot on lucrative conference circuits.

Zhang’s real identity cannot be published because it would place the identities of western spies at risk. However, The Times has been told that his main pseudonyms are Zhang, Eric Chen Yixi, Robin Cao, Lincoln Lam, John Lee and Eric Kim. He claimed to be linked to security companies based in Shanghai and used stock images or photographs of innocent people for his online profiles.

Tom Tugendhat, the security minister, warned that Chinese intelligence was using LinkedIn to target British citizens. “It’s not just government employees who need to exercise caution, it’s businesses with commercially sensitive information, as well as researchers and academics,” he said.

Officials have been warned that online correspondents may not be who they appear to be

Intelligence chiefs have repeatedly warned that China is using espionage to target the UK’s technology and research, and trying to erode its commercial advantages. Two years ago MI5 launched its Think Before You Link campaign to raise awareness of the online dangers posed by hostile state operatives.

Zhang is believed to have initially focused on defence contractors, civil servants and targets in sensitive business areas. He has since switched to targeting think tanks and academics who are still considered vulnerable and do not always realise the value of the information they possess.

Flattered by praise, tempted by cash

Zhang’s methods were crude but he operated in the knowledge that many targets would not perform even cursory checks despite their backgrounds in defence, politics and other sensitive sectors. Some were so keen for private-sector work that they sent him CVs and fell for it when he flattered their work. Others were lured by the offer of cash.

One target described him as “unprofessional and pushy” as he offered cash in return for sensitive information on bilateral relations with China. Another, a recruitment consultant, became suspicious when Zhang offered between £6,000 and £8,000 for details of a candidate in the intelligence services.

Sources said Zhang’s techniques were extremely effective because they were conducted on an industrial scale. It is an espionage technique easily operated from Beijing, with the ultimate goal to get targets to travel to China where they could be coerced into revealing more information.

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Zhang used stock images, or sometimes real photographs of innocent people, to create LinkedIn pages to send out unsolicited requests for consultancy work. He has purported to work for Hujie Security Services, a legitimate Shanghai company that is listed on the Chinese stock exchange, but he also created other fake companies. A Google search for them might find a website, but typically no content beyond the homepage.

Zhang, who is believed to be working inside China, had a stock, introductory script in which he described his work, usually in security or recruitment, before offering cash for a report, an invitation to an all-expense paid trip to a conference, or other lucrative business opportunities. He often moved his targets to holding conversations on WeChat, the Chinese instant messaging social media, and introduced them to other “senior” consultants in his company, thought to be his colleagues or other aliases he used.

• Why LinkedIn is a dream for spies targeting Britain

Typically, security sources said, he would ask a target for a report on a subject within their expertise. At first it would be benign, but could escalate quickly to requests for information or documents that were secret. Zhang would emphasise the need for sources within government, or copies of original documents to prove their provenance. Once that had been achieved he could persuade his targets into a long-lasting relationship.

Pushy tactics

One, a foreign citizen who was offered paid consultancy work writing reports on China’s bilateral relations, said: “The company’s details were vague and didn’t add up. Robin came across as unprofessional and pushy, offering me cash and asking for sensitive information on China’s relations with my home country.”

Philip Ingram, a former colonel whose expertise includes specialist cyber-intelligence work and knowledge of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, accepted a LinkedIn request from “Robin” five years ago.

Ingram told The Times that very quickly he was asked to write a report on British counterterrorism networks. His alarm bells rang because there were no details about the company, and he became even more suspicious when Robin told him: “We would want to get inside information that isn’t easily accessible to anyone.”

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Ingram cut off contact after he was invited to China, “where they would have tried to set up a honeytrap or some form of coercion”. He added: “I’m certain there’s an entire department at MSS that is using these tactics.”

To others, Zhang purported to be a security adviser who was “glad to make friends with any international senior consultant”. His interests were listed as Beth Comstock, the former vice-chairwoman of General Electric, BBC News and an international security exhibition that attracts experts and hundreds of companies to London each year.

Hujie Security Services, the legitimate Shanghai company at which Zhang claimed to be a consultant, provides physical and technological security. It did not respond to questions. There is no suggestion that Zhang was an employee, or that the company was involved in any way.

Paid in cash

One of Zhang’s colleagues at MSS, who used the alias “Ken”, also claimed to work at Hujie.

He contacted a western security professional on LinkedIn and asked for information on a series of topics. The target was paid in cash or physical gifts, with little explanation for why online transfers were not possible. Ken routinely asked for documents that were not in the public domain, and the target got the impression that Ken was unable to travel or was concerned about leaving China.

Ken is also believed to be one of two MSS handlers involved in the case of the Bondi businessman Alexander Csergo, who has been detained by the Australian authorities since April accused of swapping reports on business and politics in exchange for envelopes of cash.

Zhang’s main LinkedIn account was deleted after one of his targets, a recruitment consultant, became suspicious when he asked them to identify recruitment candidates with access to sensitive material, and those from intelligence organisations. Zhang offered to pay thousands of pounds for each one. The consultant said: “It felt as though Robin was hoping the individual would remain employed with a security organisation and continue to obtain sensitive or classified material.”

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They cut off contact when, despite Zhang’s claims, they could not find any indication that he had attended King’s College London on its alumni pages [the university refused to confirm or deny Zhang’s enrolment due to data protection reasons], and realised his profile picture was a stock passport image.

Fake photos

The spy used the photo but not the name of an innocent entrepreneur in Hong Kong

The Times found the photograph used for Zhang’s LinkedIn profile on at least six websites, where it was used for purported identities including a teacher from a Chinese academy for fine arts, an estate agent, a precious metals analyst and a traffic accident lawyer.

Another profile using the pseudonym Eric Chen listed a completely fake company, DAS Security. There is an unrelated legitimate DAS Security in Hangzhou, which appears to be a coincidence.

The Chen profile also used a photograph that is believed to be of a successful entrepreneur in Hong Kong who is entirely unconnected to the espionage operation.

Martin Thorley, a senior analyst covering the Asia Pacific region at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, was unsurprised about the sloppy approach and attributed it to a “target culture”.

He said: “The system has huge capacity but at the same time many elements have become ossified; power is centralised and it can be very difficult to hold bosses to account. In large institutions like the MSS, this often manifests itself in the form of inefficiency and illogical working methods. I’d speculate, in this case, the individual thought to be responsible has got a list of metrics to hit and is going to hit those numbers without caring too much about the details.”

A million potential targets

Charlie Parton, a former diplomat who spent 22 years working in China, likened the LinkedIn espionage operation to a “fishing trawl where you throw out the nets and see what comes back”.

He added: “LinkedIn is a valuable resource because people put a lot of information on it. Immediately there’s a lot of individuals and you know where they’re working and a lot about their history.

“Say MSS has a million potential targets. LinkedIn might reduce it to 50,000. Spray out messages to 5,000 and see who bites, you might have 500. With minimal effort you’ve gone down to a manageable number and start doing operations against the ones that seem most likely to be of use.”

Parton, now a senior associate fellow at the think tanks the Council On Geostrategy and RUSI, said the Chinese language did not distinguish between the word information and the word intelligence, and neither did its spies.

The corollary was that they were in a massive trawl for all kinds of material. Parton said the Chinese were trying to understand how western systems worked, the right people to approach to try to influence, and, ultimately, to try to gain classified material.

He said: “That’s why it’s such a broad front of attack. Ultimately in order to recruit the best agents, the ones able to tell you classified stuff as well, you need to have an idea of what you’re trying to penetrate — you need to know the personalities, the ‘organogram’ of a place.”

Sources said it was impossible to know the extent of Zhang’s success, how many targets he successfully lured and the damage he has done to British interests.

However, in July a landmark report by the Intelligence and Security Committee said China had penetrated “every sector” of the economy and even attempted to place one of its assets in Britain’s security services.

‘Infiltrated parliament’

Last year MI5 issued a rare security alert to MPs warning that Christine Lee, an alleged female Chinese agent, had infiltrated parliament on behalf of the ruling Communist Party.

Ken McCallum, director-general of MI5, has previously warned about the use of LinkedIn for 10,000 disguised approaches to Britons on networking sites by foreign spies. He did not name China but The Times understands that Zhang and his team at MSS are considered responsible for the vast majority.

Ken McCallum, the director-general of MI5, had warned about the use of LinkedIn for 10,000 disguised approaches to Britons on networking sites by foreign spies

YUI MOK/PA

Zhang is still believed to be operating using different aliases, although many of his profiles have disappeared since LinkedIn cracked down on fake profiles five years ago. LinkedIn said it actively sought out signs of state-sponsored activity and removed fake accounts.

China is actively trying to undermine Britain with “aggressive foreign policy”, the chairwoman of the foreign affairs committee has said, as she warned the spying tactics revealed by The Times were part of a plan to gain technological advantage.

Alicia Kearns, who also heads the China research group of MPs, told Times Radio she had not been approached by operatives such as Zhang, but was “absolutely certain that hostile states are tracking me and trying to undermine me and trying to make me feel threatened so that I’m silent about some of those egregious acts they undertake”.

She added: “The reality is there are MPs who have faced attempted honey traps, there are MPs who will have been given money, and there will [have been] MPs who have also had all sorts of approaches.”

A LinkedIn spokesman said: “Creating a fake account is a clear violation of our terms of service. Our Threat Prevention & Defense team actively seeks out signs of state-sponsored activity and removes fake accounts using information we uncover and intelligence from a variety of sources, including government agencies.”

The National Security Bill, which became law and replaced the Official Secrets Act last month, contains a range of new powers to make it easier to prosecute the passing of information to hostile states.

Tugendhat said: “We’re taking action to disrupt and deter these threats. Our new National Security Act has put our espionage laws back on the front foot, and MI5 are helping people understand the hallmarks of fake profiles used by foreign spies and other malicious actors through their Think Before You Link campaign.”

How to protect yourself

• Uncover stock images by reverse image searching profile pictures on Google

• Beware of companies not listed with Companies House, or if they do not have information beyond the website’s homepage.

• Mutual connections on LinkedIn does not always mean an individual is credible; they may have added others to their profile to trick you.

• Look out for vague job descriptions, syntax errors and profiles that lack details you can confirm elsewhere.

• When offered quick money for consultancy reports, or all-expenses-paid trips, remember the old adage that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is.

The Times · by Fiona Hamilton, Chief Reporter · August 23, 2023

20. Republican isolationism: Abandoning Ukraine is no way to make America great again

Republican isolationism: Abandoning Ukraine is no way to make America great again

washingtontimes.com · by Clifford D. May

By - - Tuesday, August 22, 2023

OPINION:

A growing number of Republicans now think the U.S. should abandon Ukraine and — by extension — give Russian dictator Vladimir Putin a great and historic victory.

A CNN/SSRS poll released earlier this month quantified the trend: 71% of GOP voters don’t want Congress to authorize further funding for Ukraine. Fifty-nine percent think the U.S. has done enough to help Ukrainians defend their independence, their homeland and their families.

By contrast, 62% of Democrats support new funding for Ukraine, and 61% say the U.S. should do more to prevent Mr. Putin from winning the barbaric war he launched with his February 2022 invasion.

How is it that Democrats are embracing the Reagan Doctrine — assisting a nation fighting for its freedom for reasons both strategic and moral — while more and more Republicans (MAGA Republicans?) are rejecting it?

Perhaps you think I’m living in the past because the Soviet Union lies on the ash heap of history, and international communism threatens us no more. Let’s examine those propositions.

Mr. Putin has said that the collapse of his native Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century.” This statement suggests that he’d like to resurrect it in some form.

Days before his invasion of Ukraine, he and Xi Jinping, head of China’s ruling Communist Party, forged a partnership “without limits.”

Mr. Putin may not quote Karl Marx on the labor theory of value, but he does admire Stalin, the brutal Soviet dictator. Just last week, a 26-foot-tall Stalin statue was erected in Russia’s Pskov region, which borders Estonia, a former Soviet possession and now a NATO member.

So, while Mr. Putin may not be a communist, he is a fellow traveler. He’s also a sworn enemy of the United States. His other great friend is Ali Khamenei, dictator of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who for decades has vowed “Death to America!”

The two men are cooperating to expand the Kremlin’s supply of drones and other weapons useful for killing Ukrainian men, women and children. Simultaneously, Tehran is seeking to purchase Su-35 fighter jets, helicopters and other military equipment from Russia.

These Russian, Iranian and Chinese dictators believe their power is rising while that of the U.S. and its allies is declining.

A few data points in support of their view: In 2020, Beijing deprived the people of Hong Kong of their freedoms in violation of clear treaty obligations. The American-led “international community” shrugged.

In 2021, the U.S. fled from the Taliban (and al Qaeda) in Afghanistan. Mr. Putin perhaps thought: “If a bunch of ragtag terrorists can make Americans run, why am I hesitating?”

Less than a year later, he invaded Ukraine. He expected a skirmish akin to his invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014 and his invasion and seizure of two slices of Georgia in 2008 — violations of international law that brought no serious consequences.

Ukrainians fought harder and better than expected. President Biden — credit where it’s due — rallied NATO members to provide Ukrainians with weapons and ammunition. But he never explained clearly and persuasively what was at stake. And, wary of “provoking” Mr. Putin, the delivery of materiel has been slow and unsteady.

Mr. Biden’s advisers probably hoped Mr. Putin would seek an “offramp” — negotiations leading to a frozen conflict. He hasn’t.

Instead, Mr. Putin has been waiting for Americans to do what most Republicans appear eager to do now: Get tired. Give up. Move on.

If Americans do that, at least it will be the end of the story, right? No, not right.

Should Mr. Putin prevail in Ukraine, expect him to utilize Ukrainian resources — natural and human — to continue to expand his neo-Soviet empire. Belarus is already a vassal state. What sovereignty Georgia and Armenia have left will likely be erased. Kazakhstan may be on the menu.

Mr. Putin restored Russian clout to the Middle East by helping, along with Tehran, to prop up Bashar Assad, Syria’s mass-murdering dictator. Former President Barack Obama made that easy for him.

But the big prize for Mr. Putin would be to crack NATO. How costly do you think it would be — in blood and treasure — to turn back a Russian blitzkrieg into Lithuania? How long before 59% of GOP voters say we’ve “done enough” to support NATO?

That would be an especially good time for Mr. Xi to take Taiwan. He’ll figure, not without justification, that Americans are unlikely to do more for Taiwan than they did for Ukraine.

After that, expect Japan, South Korea, and other Indo-Pacific nations to acquiesce to Beijing’s hegemony.

There’s more. Russian and Chinese influence has been growing in Latin America and even more in Africa, where both countries have been implementing neo-imperialist policies.

In the Middle East, Beijing has facilitated a detente between Iran’s rulers and the Saudis, who until recently were among America’s most important strategic partners.

And last month, a combined Russian and Chinese naval force carried out a naval patrol near Alaska. One year ago next month, a similar flotilla — including a cruiser-destroyer that can launch more than 100 guided missiles — approached Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.

Testing the waters?

A question for my friends who identify as MAGA Republicans: Do you not see that making America “harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend” — Bernard Lewis’ apt phrase — is no way to make America great again?

“Peace through strength” is the policy to which you should want the U.S. to return. That implies building and maintaining sufficient military might to deter our enemies.

It also implies supporting America’s friends who are fighting America’s enemies so that “America First” does not end up as “American Alone.”

More than 71% of Republicans should understand that.

• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for The Washington Times.

Copyright © 2023 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

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washingtontimes.com · by Clifford D. May

21. Russia and Iran Deepen Military Cooperation

Russia and Iran Deepen Military Cooperation

fdd.org  · August 22, 2023

Latest Developments

Iran’s regular army commander and his Russian counterpart met in Moscow on August 21. Brig. Gen. Kioumars Heydari, commander of the Ground Forces of Iran’s Artesh, met with Gen. Oleg Salyukov. After laying wreaths at Russia’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the two generals held talks at the Russian Ground Forces headquarters. There, they “discussed issues of military cooperation and interaction aimed at implementing projects” designed to bolster the “combat readiness” of their respective militaries, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. According to the Embassy of Iran in Russia, their discussions focused especially on combat training.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said the two parties “reached agreements on further enhancing cooperation between the land forces in various fields.” It added that the Iranian side would visit Russian Ground Forces military education institutions as well as Russian defense-industrial enterprises. The day prior, Iranian state media said Heydari had visited Iran’s booth at Russia’s Army-2023 international defense expo.

Expert Analysis

“This announcement indicates Russia and Iran intend to build on their burgeoning military-technical partnership by expanding their military-to-military ties. While the details remain uncertain, the trendline is clear: Moscow and Tehran’s defense partnership is growing increasingly broad and deep.” — John Hardie, Deputy Director of FDD’s Russia Program

“The Venn diagram between Russia and Iran continues to grow. In addition to rare meetings between senior Russian defense officials and their counterparts in Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff and Artesh on the sidelines of the MCIS conference, sanctioned Iranian defense companies participated in Moscow’s Army-2023 military exposition. For the first time ever, Tehran’s booth at the expo displayed a ballistic missile — perhaps foreshadowing potential missile transfers to supplement Russia’s Iranian-supplied drones.” — Behnam Ben Taleblu, FDD Senior Fellow

Deepening Defense Ties Between Russia and Iran

Russia and Iran have increased their military cooperation since 2015, when Moscow intervened in Syria to save their common ally Bashar al-Assad. In addition to coordinating in Syria, the two countries have held regular military-to-military exchanges and combined exercises. In 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023, Russia and Iran conducted naval drills in the Gulf of Oman. (China joined all but one.) In 2020, Iran participated in the naval portion of Russia’s annual strategic command-staff exercise, which that year focused on the Caucasus.

The two countries have doubled down on their defense partnership following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with Tehran providing drones to Moscow while seeking advanced military equipment in return. Meanwhile, they are sharing intelligence and harassing American forces in Syria as part of a joint effort to drive the United States from the country.

Whereas Russian-Iranian combined exercises to date have focused on naval cooperation, Monday’s agreements may signal that Moscow and Tehran will broaden their scope. For example, Iranian ground troops could join Russia’s next strategic exercise focused on the Caucasus. In addition, Moscow could invite Iranian Ground Forces officers to study at Russian military academies.

Related Analysis

“Russia Plans to Locally Produce 6,000 Iranian Suicide Drones,” FDD Flash Brief

“Iran Aids Russia’s Imperialist War Against Ukraine,” by John Hardie

“Iran Is Now at War With Ukraine,” by John Hardie and Behnam Ben Taleblu

fdd.org  · August 22, 2023

22. The U.S. Navy Is Now Paying a Price For Its Littoral Combat Ship Mistakes

Excerpts:

Involving the PLA Navy would also belie the narrative that the China Coast Guard is merely policing sovereign waters that have belonged to China by right since antiquity, and guarding Chinese vessels engaged in lawful commercial activity. Ultimately—especially if the U.S. Navy upped the ante by stationing brawnier combatants of its own in regional waters—Beijing might well balk at further escalation. If it relented, uneasy peace would resume. If it flung the dice anyway, escalating to armed force, it would reveal itself to be an aggressor preying on its neighbors in defiance of international law. That’s a reputation party leaders ardently want to avoid. And escalation would set in motion consequences no party leader could relish.

There’s already some evidence that using littoral combat ships in this manner yields strategic advantage in the gray zone. Using them to thrust Beijing onto the horns of a dilemma has been tried.

That Stavridis guy is no dummy. We should listen to him—and refuse to blithely throw away hulls that could come in handy.

The U.S. Navy Is Now Paying a Price For Its Littoral Combat Ship Mistakes

There’s already some evidence that using littoral combat ships in this manner yields strategic advantage in the gray zone.

19fortyfive.com · by James Holmes · August 20, 2023

As so often, Admiral Jim Stavridis called it right. Of this week’s decommissioning of USS Sioux City, a Freedom-class littoral combat ship (LCS), after less than five years’ service, the retired NATO supreme allied commander and Fletcher School dean declared: “Hard to figure this one out . . . . Hate to see anything decommissioned when we are so far behind China in overall ship count.”

Yes. It is a head-scratcher.

The retirement of Sioux City and the Aegis cruiser Mobile Bay the week before left the U.S. Navy’s tally at 297 ships of war, to around 340 for China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy. And that deficit vis-à-vis China is only set to widen as American shipbuilding dawdles while China gallops ahead. The U.S. Navy needs new hulls displacing water. And it needs to find ways to wring value from the assets it already has—especially from new assets like Sioux City that have plenty of service life left.

Sioux City did need a repair to its “combining gear,” which yoked its diesel and gas-turbine engines to the drive train for maximum speed. This has been a class-wide problem. But the fix was only going to cost the navy $4-5 million and was slated for an upcoming yard period. (It’s not entirely clear from press reports whether the work was completed before decommissioning. It appears not.) In any event, Sioux City’s material condition wasn’t the reason given for retiring the ship. Accounts vary, but the navy leadership and Congress have seemingly come to believe that littoral combat ships cannot defend themselves in high-intensity combat, and that they dish out too feeble a combat punch to justify keeping them in the inventory.

Their verdict: the return on investment isn’t there unless the LCS qualifies as a frontline combatant. Fleet action is the only standard to measure its worth. But that’s not necessarily the case, is it? Now, I am neither a booster nor a basher of the littoral combat ship. My take on the program remains what it was a decade or so ago, when an editor first asked me to say something about it. Namely that we have these hulls now, and that we can find use for them if we exercise some imagination.

Whether we should have acquired them in their current guise is another question. LCS detractors are correct to depict the process of designing and fielding these vessels as tantamount to malpractice. Shipbuilders and navy magnates premised their design on a slew of claims that were not only not self-evident but flat wrong, such as that a “mission module”—basically the ship’s suite of sensors and armaments—could be changed out in a hurry, repurposing this single-mission ship in the midst of a sea fight. Or that a crew of forty was sufficient for a ship that displaced as much as a light frigate. Or that the crew could get by without maintaining its own equipment, trusting to contractors to do repairs and upkeep in port. And on and on.

These were all intriguing and reasonable-sounding hypotheses at the time. But rather than build a few littoral combat ships and experiment with them at sea to validate, falsify, or amend the concept, the navy bypassed the experimental phase and ordered the ships into mass production. The automotive equivalent would be ordering a concept car into production without taking it out on the road for a spin. No manager would survive such a foreseeably catastrophic decision.

You know what they say about assumptions. Taking something false for granted can lead you down a dreary path.

And yet something bugs me about the service’s attitude toward the LCS program. It’s bipolar. For many years naval officialdom defended the program against all comers, insisting the vessels would pay off. Now it has lurched to the opposite extreme, insisting that high-intensity battle represents the only standard of adequacy for a warship, that the LCS falls short in offensive and defensive warfare, and thus that the LCS contingent should be discarded. QED.

By that logic the navy should scrap all of them except whatever it needs for minesweeping.

Two points. One, as a general rule ships do not fight alone. They fight as part of a fleet and, assuming the battle takes place within reach of shore-based assets, as part of a joint force vying for command of the sea. Joint forces fight joint forces. And yet oftentimes the commentary over this or that platform seems to assume it will be thrown into the teeth of enemy firepower without support from the rest of the composite force. The idea seems to be that matching an individual platform’s capabilities against the worst an opponent can hurl against it lets you render a sound judgment of its fitness.

Aviation commentators are famous for this. How often have you heard proponents of stealth aircraft imply, or say outright, that non-stealthy planes like the A-10 Warthog should be retired because they can’t stand up against modern integrated air defenses? Well, that might be apt criticism if the air force as a whole can’t perform its function, suppressing enemy air defenses so attack planes like the A-10 can do their work in relatively safe skies. Seldom are debates over airframes that holistic, though. There’s an abstract, unreal quality to them.

Same with LCS. One hopes lawmakers have insisted that the sea service conduct wargaming involving fleets and joint forces, simulating real-world operations, rather than letting service representatives just recite technical specifications about sensors and weaponry and pronounce the LCS unfit for battle duty. If the navy is serious about distributed maritime operations, its core concept of recent years, it must accept that not every warship in the surface force is going to be a multi-mission warship like a guided-missile cruiser or destroyer. In fact, distributed maritime operations envisions fielding swarms of smaller, low-end combatants able to fan out in near-shore zones, chiefly among Pacific islands, to deny an antagonist maritime command until such time as U.S. and allied forces can win command for themselves.

In other words, distributed maritime operations do not depend entirely—or even mostly—on capital ships. Lighter combatants are essential to them.

For instance: if senior commanders ordered the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force to close Asia’s first island chain to hostile passage in wartime, as they well might, light surface craft, minelayers, tactical warplanes, and submarines would constitute the platforms of choice in waters along the island chain. Lower-end craft can close a strait to Chinese seaward movement. Meanwhile heavy combatants would roam the Western Pacific east of the island chain, helping stifle any Chinese breakouts while providing cover for lighter forces operating closer in. Littoral combat ships would fit into this scheme alongside heavy battle-force ships.

If it hasn’t already done so, Congress should demand that wargames be held to test out distributed operations merging low- with high-end assets. In all likelihood such trials would demonstrate that the LCS has a part to play in the fights most likely to take place.

And two, service chieftains would profit from reviewing the basics of how to constitute a fleet. A century-plus ago historian Julian S. Corbett explained that no navy can be made up entirely of capital ships. Heavy hitters make up the battle fleet, which goes up against enemy battle fleets in the struggle for command. They shoulder the brunt of combat, so they’re indispensable. But they’re too pricey, specialized, and resource-intensive to buy in bulk. That being the case, a navy needs large numbers of lesser combatants—Corbett calls them “cruisers” and the “flotilla”—to police the sea lanes once command is in hand and the brine is relatively safe, and to perform the multitude of errands that navies must perform apart from fleet engagements. Smaller vessels are cheaper, they’re lightly armed but adequately armed for less-intense missions, and they are affordable in large numbers. Adequacy and numbers are their virtue. A navy cannot do without them.

It would be worth rediscovering Corbett’s logic of fleet design rather than—in effect—insisting that all U.S. Navy ships must be capital ships fit to join the line of battle. It may be that the fleet could use some rebalancing to conform to current operational concepts and the naval wisdom of yore. In which case disposing of the LCS contingent would be a mistake.

To keep this article from sprawling out of control lengthwise, consider just one scenario for LCS operations beneath the threshold of armed conflict. Great-power competition is all the rage in policy and strategy nowadays. That means peacetime strategic competition in theaters such as the South China Sea, where successive U.S. presidential administrations have vowed to uphold the law of the sea in the face of Chinese depredations. Joint coast-guard patrols are reportedly preparing to take to the sea later this year. That’s good. But no coast-guard patrol can stand up to China’s navy should Chinese Communist Party leaders dispatch warships to the scene of a confrontation at, say, Scarborough Shoal or Second Thomas Shoal. Coast-guard cutters will need military backup in times of crisis.

(Aug. 19, 2015) The littoral combat ship USS Fort Worth (LCS 3) assembles in formation with ships from the Royal Malaysian Navy as part of Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) Malaysia 2015. CARAT is an annual, bilateral exercise series with the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and the armed forces of nine partner nations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Joe Bishop/Released)

It does no good to pretend the China challenge is a purely law-enforcement challenge. This is a state challenger deploying irregular and regular means to overthrow the regional order at sea. Those are the terms on which the competition will be waged.

That being the case, a layered, supple counterstrategy is in order. Light U.S. Navy combatants, not cruisers, destroyers, or carriers, should be the option of first resort to furnish the necessary backup for coast-guard efforts. A littoral combat ship, outfitted with a surface-warfare mission module complete with heavy-hitting naval strike missiles, would outgun any China Coast Guard cutter or maritime militia boat. Beijing would be forced to send gray hulls to the scene to restore local superiority and reinforce its claims to sovereignty. In so doing it would remind everyone—once again—who’s the bully in Southeast Asia.

Involving the PLA Navy would also belie the narrative that the China Coast Guard is merely policing sovereign waters that have belonged to China by right since antiquity, and guarding Chinese vessels engaged in lawful commercial activity. Ultimately—especially if the U.S. Navy upped the ante by stationing brawnier combatants of its own in regional waters—Beijing might well balk at further escalation. If it relented, uneasy peace would resume. If it flung the dice anyway, escalating to armed force, it would reveal itself to be an aggressor preying on its neighbors in defiance of international law. That’s a reputation party leaders ardently want to avoid. And escalation would set in motion consequences no party leader could relish.

Littoral Combat Ship. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

There’s already some evidence that using littoral combat ships in this manner yields strategic advantage in the gray zone. Using them to thrust Beijing onto the horns of a dilemma has been tried.

That Stavridis guy is no dummy. We should listen to him—and refuse to blithely throw away hulls that could come in handy.

Author Expertise

Dr. James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College and a Distinguished Fellow at the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation & Future Warfare, Marine Corps University. The views voiced here are his alone. This author is a Contributing Editor for 19FortyFive.

19fortyfive.com · by James Holmes · August 20, 2023

23. Zelensky Calls Meeting with Serbian President ‘Fruitful’

Zelensky Calls Meeting with Serbian President ‘Fruitful’

Tensions between Ukraine and Serbia have been high, with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic saying on Aug. 10 that "If Ukraine recognizes Kosovo’s independence, it will lose everything in one day."

by Ivana Stradner | August 22, 2023, 4:50 pm | Comments (2)

kyivpost.com

In what may be perceived as overtures to ease tensions between Ukraine and Serbia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic met on Monday, Aug. 22.

“An open, honest, and fruitful meeting with the president of Serbia. (We had a) good conversation on respect for the UN Charter and the inviolability of borders” Zelensky posted on Telegram.

The meeting was on the sidelines of the Ukraine-Balkans Summit in Greece, where Vucic, Zelensky, and the leaders of Moldova, Montenegro, Greece, Romania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Croatia signed a document expressing unwavering support for Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.

However, in an interview with Kyiv Post, British MP Alicia Kearns was critical of the Serbian leader.

“For too long Vucic’s pretense at a balancing act has allowed Serbia to get away with egregious acts of intimidation towards and even the kidnapping of three Kosovar police officers from Kosovo,” Kearns said.

Before Monday’s meeting, the only time Zelensky and Vucic had met was on June 1, when they spoke face-to-face on the sidelines of the European Political Community summit in Chisinau.

Despite Serbia’s supposed path to EU membership, its foreign policy is still not in alignment with Brussels as Belgrade has refused to impose sanctions on Russia.

“Serbia is the only country in Europe that has not imposed any sanctions on Russia. The future for Serbia is with the European Union and the United States not with Russia,” US Senator Chris Murphy told reporters in Belgrade on May 25.

More on this topic

Russia ‘Sinking Ferries to Protect Crimean Bridge’

Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Directorate (HUR) claimed that Russia will sink ferries in the Kerch Strait to create a barrier to protect the bridge from attack by Ukraine sea drones.

On Aug. 6, Kyiv Post published an open letter regarding Serbia-Kosovo relations on behalf of Kearns and Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Merezhko, the Head of the Committee on Foreign Policy and Interparliamentary Cooperation.

The letter referred to Kosovo as a sovereign country and a functioning democracy and it urged public criticism of Serbian interference in Kosovo's democratic processes and called for a less “Belgrade-centered” Balkan policy and more even-handedness from the EU, the US, and the UK in addressing regional crises.

The letter was published two months after tensions in Kosovo over mayoral elections and after dozens of NATO peacekeepers were injured in clashes with ethnic Serb protesters in northern Kosovo.

It said that recent events, including boycotts, attacks, and detentions, were evidence of a worsening situation, threatening not only the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue but regional peace.

While the letter commended recent US sanctions on Alexander Vulin, Serbia’s pro-Moscow Intelligence Chief, it called for a re-evaluation of the current approach, advocating for deterrence diplomacy, balance, and proportionality in dealing with Kosovo and Serbia.

Notwithstanding the letter’s reference to Kosovo as sovereign, Kyiv has not yet acted to officially recognize it as an independent country.

Vucic reacted negatively to the letter, on Aug. 10 saying, “If Ukraine recognizes Kosovo’s independence, it will lose everything in one day.”

Merezhko described Vucic's statement as a threat and asserted that Vucic had no right to dictate Ukraine's stance on Kosovo, saying “he doesn't dare to influence the policies of the US, the UK, or Germany.”

Kearns called Vucic’s words “baseless threats against Ukraine.”

“It is he who has taken the decision not to reject the use of violence by nation-states against their neighbors by refusing to join sanctions against Putin’s regime,” she said.

“Vucic and nationalist politicians in Serbia are irredentists – they do not believe in Kosovo’s right to statehood, or I worry even their right to exist,” Kearns said.

Merezhko said that Vucic’s policy in the Balkans mirrors Putin’s policy towards neighboring countries, seeking to achieve “only one thing – more power and influence for himself,” and that Vucic’s policy “resonates with aggressive ultranationalist forces within Serbia.”

The Serbian President has employed a balancing strategy between the West and Russia since he came to power more than a decade ago.

“For the West, Vucic positions Serbia as a strategically important ally in the Balkans, with the idea that Western governments will overlook his destabilizing activities in Kosovo in return for wider regional security,” Kearns said.

But she called for a change in how the US, EU, and UK treat regional issues.

“We should support both the people of Serbia and Kosovo to live in peace, not threatened by one another’s existence. But the current approach is not balanced.”

“It falls on the EU to be absolutely unequivocal when it comes to condemning Serbian irredentism towards Kosovo.”

Meanwhile, Moscow and its proxies would be the biggest beneficiaries of a renewed conflict in the Balkans, Merezhko said.

“The Kremlin would likely utilize the incident to distract the West from its support to Ukraine,” he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently said that rising tensions in Kosovo may lead to a "huge explosion" in the heart of Europe.

“Russia and Lavrov might naively believe that open conflict would distract the West from its commitment to Ukraine, but that is absolutely wrong,” Merezhko said.

“This is why deterrence diplomacy is essential.”

Russia is notorious for its hybrid warfare tactics globally and Moscow has been employing disinformation campaigns in the information space, weaponizing energy, and using the Orthodox Church to advance its goals in the Western Balkans, Merezhko said.

“There is also a strong need to counter Russian propaganda in the region,” he said.

Despite the Kremlin’s influence in the Balkans, the West must be careful “not to exaggerate it,” Kearns said. Although Moscow “may approve of destabilization campaigns towards Kosovo” she believes that they originate in Belgrade.

She said that it is “abundantly clear that nobody would benefit from war,” although she is still deeply concerned about the possibility of conflict in the Balkans.

“Our current approach is simply not working,” she cautioned. “While the UK, US and EU must remain focused on normalizing relations between Serbia and Kosovo and seeking progress on their Euro-Atlantic pathway, we must do so in a way that implements the practices of deterrence diplomacy and de-escalates tensions.”

She also specified the means of implementing deterrence diplomacy, stressing that “this means being robust in calling out destabilizing actions – whoever carries them out – and being clear in stating that we will not tolerate irredentist politics, especially along ethnic lines.”

While Russia’s and Serbia’s media continue to highlight further escalation in Kosovo, Kearns said that “the similarities between Putin’s narrative around Ukraine, and that of Vucic with Kosovo, should chill all our hearts.”

kyivpost.com

24. Biden Heads to G20, Sends Harris to ASEAN, East Asia Summits

Biden Heads to G20, Sends Harris to ASEAN, East Asia Summits​

August 22, 2023 7:53 PM

• Patsy Widakuswara

voanews.com · August 22, 2023

WASHINGTON —

President Joe Biden will attend the G20 Summit in New Delhi, India, but is skipping the U.S.-ASEAN and East Asia Summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, sending Vice President Kamala Harris instead, the White House announced Tuesday.

In a testament to the importance Biden places on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, Biden will be in India September 7-10, arriving two days ahead of the annual gathering of the leaders of the world's 20 largest economies. The heads of state and governments are set to begin their meetings on September 9 and 10. They are to discuss global issues including clean energy transition, mitigating the economic and social impacts of the war in Ukraine, and increasing the capacity of multilateral development banks.

While in New Delhi, Biden will reaffirm the U.S. commitment to the G20 as the premier forum for economic cooperation, including by hosting it in 2026, national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters during a briefing Tuesday.

The U.S.-ASEAN Summit caps high-level official meetings between the United States and the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken participated in last month. The East Asia Summit is a regional forum held annually by ASEAN. Its partners include the U.S., China and Russia.

China's influence

Sullivan pushed back against criticism that by not attending the meetings in person, Biden plays into the perception that the U.S. is ceding influence in the region to China. That is the same criticism aimed at the president in May when domestic negotiations on the debt ceiling forced him to cancel what would have been the first visit by an American president to Papua New Guinea.

"This is going to be a constant tug and pull," Sullivan said to VOA during Tuesday's briefing. He outlined Biden's engagements with regional leaders as evidence of U.S. commitment to the Indo-Pacific, including hosting a trilateral summit with South Korea and Japan last week, attending the G7 and the Quad Leaders' Summit in Hiroshima in May, and hosting the March AUKUS summit with leaders of Australia and the United Kingdom.

"He attended both the first East Asia Summit virtually and the East Asia Summit last year in person," Sullivan said. "He has sent his vice president to Southeast Asia twice, and this will be her third trip there making a substantial investment in ASEAN as an institution and in ASEAN centrality," he added, referring to the group's desire to be the main platform for the region's engagement with external powers.

The administration has indeed bolstered ties with key players in the Indo-Pacific, including Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, and India. All of them have been rewarded with face-to-face diplomacy with Biden — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Indian Prime Minister Modi have all been on White House visits earlier this year. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is scheduled for a state visit in October.

"These countries all have one thing in common: They are balancing more openly against China," said Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Biden skipping the East Asia and ASEAN summits suggests to the region that Washington is treating countries as falling into two tiers: those working with the U.S. to push back against China and those that prefer more autonomy, Cooper told VOA.

"The latter group will see this diplomatic move as suggesting that they are second-tier players from an American perspective," he said. "Putting Indonesia in that situation is a particularly strange decision, given that it is such a large and pivotal regional player."

Biden may be aiming to add another country into the first tier — Vietnam. He is reportedly working on a deal to elevate the country with a strategic partnership that could mean increased military cooperation and U.S. weapons supplies.

The White House has not officially announced a Hanoi stop, but earlier this month, Biden said he will be visiting Vietnam shortly.

'Not a great look'

Skipping summits with Southeast Asian leaders is "not a great look," said Gregory Polling, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"But I think people can overstate the damage here," Polling told VOA. "I also don't think that Vice President Harris' attendance is a snub any more than the fact that [President] Xi Jinping won't be there is a snub."

Beijing usually sends its premier in place of Xi Jinping to the China-ASEAN and East Asia Summits.

Biden attended the U.S.-ASEAN and East Asia Summits in Phnom Penh last November before attending the G-20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia. From Bali, he flew home for a family wedding instead of attending the 2022 APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting in Bangkok, sending Harris in his place.

Harris visited Singapore and Vietnam in 2021. On the heels of her 2022 Bangkok trip, she made an unprecedented stop at Palawan Island in the Philippines that was seen as a rebuke to China. The tiny fishing community borders the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, the center of a protracted dispute between China and nearby countries including the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Sullivan did not respond to questions about whether Harris is set to make a similar gesture during her visit to the region next week.

voanews.com · August 22, 2023

25. Case studies: US military assistance in Africa doesn't work - Responsible Statecraft

The 70 page report  by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs can be downloaded here: https://globalaffairs.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/Less%20is%20More%20-%20US%20SSA%20to%20Africa%208-2023%20-%20Published.pdf

I do not disagree with the importance of a full assessment, risk and otherwise. Only then can we have sufficient understanding: 

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

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

·      Frank Hoffman's Principle of Understanding. I am a supporter of Dr. Frank Hoffman’s idea that we need a new principle of war called understanding.  Although that seems like a no-brainer – as far back as Sun Tzu we have been told that we must know our enemies and know ourselves to be victorious.   We all know we need to understand war and warfare, the conditions that give rise to conflict, and the politics that lead to and end conflict.  Yet even though the need for understanding is so obvious that we think we do not need to even mention it, it is surprising how so many of our failures can be traced to our lack of understanding.  SOF, through its various assessment capabilities and engagement with indigenous populations can make a key contribution to understanding.

https://maxoki161.blogspot.com/2018/07/eight-points-of-special-warfare.html

Excerpts:

All new or planned security assistance programs, it said, should be subject to a “full and systematic risk assessment …to consider potential impact on long-term US interests, such as governance issues that impact political stability, including anti-democratic tendencies, ethnic conflict exacerbation, inequality of resource distribution and government services and accountability of the security services.”

It also calls for much greater and more aggressive Congressional oversight of U.S. security assistance programs and the closing of loopholes in the so-called Leahy laws that ban assistance to abusive units.

In addition to giving greater priority to non-military assistance and “soft-power engagement, Washington should also channel more security assistance through regional bodies, such as the Economic Community of West African States instead of direct country support where the leadership is weak and protection for civilians is questionable.”

Case studies: US military assistance in Africa doesn't work - Responsible Statecraft

responsiblestatecraft.org · by Jim Lobe · August 22, 2023

Case studies: US military assistance in Africa doesn’t work

Authors of new report worry that Washington won’t heed their warnings but double down in an era of Great Power Competition.

August 22, 2023

Written by

Jim Lobe

The recent series of military coups across the Sahelian region should prompt a major reassessment of U.S. military and security assistance to fragile African states, according to a new report by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs that calls for a much greater focus on improving governance.

“Military action might suppress the problem of terrorism, but it will not relieve the underlying conditions that feed it,” according to the report. “Only improved governance can address these grievances, which means good governance is the foundation for long-term stability.”

“It’s time to flip the script,” argue the report’s authors. “US policy in Africa has for too long prioritized short-term security to the detriment of long-term stability by prioritizing the provision of military security assistance. Yet this strategy has neither produced security in Africa nor reduced threats to the United States and its interests.”

Among other recommendations, the 67-page report, entitled, “Less is More: A New Strategy for US Security Assistance to Africa,” which includes several case studies, calls for “rein[ing] in its use of security assistance with partners that fail to demonstrate commitment to the reforms necessary to build long-term stability.” And it worries that the new paradigm of “great-power competition” between the U.S. and Russia or China could result in even greater reliance on military assistance.

“The rise of great-power competition exacerbates the risk that the US national security establishment will double down on its security cooperation strategy in the region out of concern that doing otherwise would leave a vacuum that America’s competitors might fill,” according to the report. “In reality, however, the argument for being more selective in distributing security assistance is even stronger with the return of great-power competition, as values and reputation become increasingly important in attracting support for the United States over other great powers.”

The report, authored by Elizabeth Shackelford, Ethan Kessler, and Emma Sanderson, comes on the heels of a military coup against a democratically elected president who had cooperated particularly closely with both Paris and Washington in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts both in Niger and the wider Sahelian and West African regions. Niger, which has hosted a drone base staffed by some 1100 U.S. soldiers, has received about $500 million in U.S. security and military assistance since 2016.

The coup marked the sixth across the two regions since 2020. Officers who have received at least some U.S. training in the past three years have played key roles in coups in Mali (2020), Guinea (2021), Chad (2021), Burkina Faso (2022), and now Niger. While U.S. training ordinarily includes courses on human rights and respect for civilian rule, the record suggests that these efforts have had limited impact at best.

“Rather than presume that security assistance will enhance stability and increase our influence, the U.S. government should recognize that security assistance in the hands of weak, fragile, or illiberal states is innately risky,” according to the report. “Accordingly, it should use security assistance sparingly and only after assessing that the benefits, should they be attainable, are likely to outweigh the long-term costs.”

The report presents specific country case studies covering Burkina Faso, Cameroon, and Ethiopia. It said in all three countries, “security sector assistance failed to prevent or end the terrorist threat that US assistance was meant to combat, facilitated abusive behavior by the partner country’s military, and ultimately contributed to greater instability in the long term.”

Among other recommendations, the report urges more robust vetting and oversight by the State Department of military units of recipient countries and the tracking and reporting by the U.S. intelligence community of human rights abuses committed by recipient military and security forces to advise other U.S. agencies and provide early warning of destabilizing behavior that can lead to conflict.

All new or planned security assistance programs, it said, should be subject to a “full and systematic risk assessment …to consider potential impact on long-term US interests, such as governance issues that impact political stability, including anti-democratic tendencies, ethnic conflict exacerbation, inequality of resource distribution and government services and accountability of the security services.”

It also calls for much greater and more aggressive Congressional oversight of U.S. security assistance programs and the closing of loopholes in the so-called Leahy laws that ban assistance to abusive units.

In addition to giving greater priority to non-military assistance and “soft-power engagement, Washington should also channel more security assistance through regional bodies, such as the Economic Community of West African States instead of direct country support where the leadership is weak and protection for civilians is questionable.”

Written by

Jim Lobe

responsiblestatecraft.org · by Jim Lobe · August 22, 2023

26. In Latest Moon Race, India Lands First in Southern Polar Region

Congratulations to India. Video at the link.

India Moon Landing

In Latest Moon Race, India Lands First in Southern Polar Region

Days after a Russian lunar landing failed, India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission is set to begin exploring an area of the moon that has yet to be visited. Watch live video here.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/08/23/science/india-moon-landing-chandrayaan-3

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Aug. 23, 2023, 8:35 a.m. ET4 minutes ago

4 minutes ago

The New York Times

The latest on India’s successful moon landing.

Two visitors from India — a lander named Vikram and a rover named Pragyan — landed in the southern polar region of the moon on Wednesday. The two robots, from a mission named Chandrayaan-3, make India the first country to ever reach this part of the lunar surface in one piece — and only the fourth country ever to land on the moon.

The Indian public already takes great pride in the accomplishments of the nation’s space program, which has orbited the moon and Mars and routinely launches satellites above the Earth with far fewer financial resources than other nations. But the achievement of Chandrayaan-3 may be even sweeter.

Here’s what you need to know:

• The Indian mission launched in July, taking a slower, fuel-conscious route toward the moon. Vikram out-endured its Russian counterpart, Luna-25, which launched 13 days ago for the moon. It was scheduled to land on Monday in the same general vicinity as the Indian craft but crashed on Saturday following an engine malfunction.
• That India managed to outdo a nation that put the first satellite, man and woman in space is a measure of the country’s long embrace of the science and technology needed to support a space program. But the landing also comes at a particularly important moment in the South Asian giant’s rise.
• The Aug. 23 landing was selected because it is the day when the sun will rise at the landing site. The mission is to conclude two weeks later when the sun sets. While on the surface, the solar-powered lander and rover will use a range of instruments to make thermal, seismic and mineralogical measurements.

Show more

Aug. 23, 2023, 8:37 a.m. ET2 minutes ago

2 minutes ago

Alex TravelliReporting from mission control in Bengaluru

Modi is speaking: “This is an unprecedented moment," he says, adding, "This is the moment for new, developing India. This is the moment for 1.4 billion” Indians.

Aug. 23, 2023, 8:36 a.m. ET3 minutes ago

3 minutes ago

Alex TravelliReporting from mission control in Bengaluru

A genuine roar rips out, from both Mission Control and the media tent and elsewhere in the ISRO compound: the lander has landed! Mr. Modi’s face was streamed on screen, silently smiling, during the final hundred meters’ descent. Now the speeches begin, and everyone is clapping.

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Aug. 23, 2023, 8:32 a.m. ET6 minutes ago

6 minutes ago

Mujib MashalReporting from New Delhi

The landing attempt, in its final minutes, is being viewed by 7.5 million people on ISRO’s youtube channel, and it is broadcast live on Indian news channels.

Aug. 23, 2023, 8:31 a.m. ET7 minutes ago

7 minutes ago

Kenneth Chang and Jonathan Corum

The moon may be the easiest place in the solar system to land, or crash.

Once a robotic spacecraft is commanded to land on the moon, there is no turning back.

The task is not easy, but in many ways, the moon is the easiest place in the solar system to land a spacecraft from Earth.

It is the closest destination, less than a quarter-million miles away. It is much smaller than Earth or the other planets, so its gravity is weaker and it is easier to slow spacecraft down.

Unlike Mars, the moon’s atmosphere doesn’t generate searing temperatures on the outside of the spacecraft during descent. Venus is even more hellish, with temperatures close to 900 degrees Fahrenheit at the surface and corrosive sulfuric acid in the atmosphere.

Yet when Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the moon on Saturday, two days before a planned landing attempt, it was the latest in a series of impacts, belly flops and hard landings since 1959, when the Soviet Union’s Luna-2 became the first probe to hit the moon.

Some crashes were setbacks. Others were intentional, marking the end of a successful mission. Whatever the cause, space agencies have learned from each collision. Crashes can reveal software glitches or weaknesses in a spacecraft’s design, and they can expose material under the lunar surface for future study.

In the following interactive, take the moon for a spin and see all the places where the United States, the Soviet Union, China, India and others have crashed on the moon:

Racing to Land, or Crash, on the Moon

Six decades of crashes, belly flops and hard landings on the lunar surface.

Show more

Aug. 23, 2023, 8:30 a.m. ET9 minutes ago

9 minutes ago

Kenneth ChangReporting on space and astronomy

This is closer to landing than Chandrayaan-2 got.

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Aug. 23, 2023, 8:30 a.m. ET9 minutes ago

9 minutes ago

Alex TravelliReporting from mission control in Bengaluru

Whoops and cheering as the spacecraft flips from a horizontal to a vertical orientation, at less than 800 meters above the lunar surface.

Aug. 23, 2023, 8:27 a.m. ET11 minutes ago

11 minutes ago

Alex TravelliReporting from mission control in Bengaluru

As the spacecraft continues its automated descent to the moon, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has just shown up on screen in mission control in a video call from South Africa, prompting further applause in the room.

Aug. 23, 2023, 8:25 a.m. ET14 minutes ago

14 minutes ago

Mujib MashalReporting from New Delhi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in South Africa for a meeting of the BRICS countries during the landing attempt. In 2019, Mr. Modi was at the control room to console the emotional scientists after Chandrayaan-2 failed, hugging the weeping chief of that mission.

Aug. 23, 2023, 8:20 a.m. ET19 minutes ago

19 minutes ago

Kenneth ChangReporting on space and astronomy

Chandrayaan-3 is aiming to land in the moon’s south polar region.

Chandrayaan-3 is aiming for a landing site in the moon’s south polar region at about 70 degrees south latitude, or about 370 miles from the south pole. That latitude is about as far south as the edge of Antarctica is on Earth.

The landing site lies on a plateau south of the Manzinus crater and to the west of the Boguslawsky crater. That is roughly in the same neighborhood as where India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission crashed in 2019, and where Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft, which crashed on Saturday, was to set down.

Curtius

Manzinus

Moretus

Chandrayaan-2

crash site

Chandrayaan-3

target landing site

Boguslawsky

South

Pole

By Jonathan Corum | False color map by NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center and Arizona State Univ.

Scientists working on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter described the terrain as “relatively ancient.” The spacecraft is heading to a spot that can be described as flat and boring, compared with more rugged parts of the lunar surface. Mission managers sometimes choose such droll environs to increase the chances of a successful landing.

To date, spacecraft have successfully landed on the moon closer to the equator. The polar regions are intriguing because there is frozen water at the bottom of permanently shadowed craters. If such water can be found in sufficient quantities and extracted, astronauts could use it for future space exploration

Show less

27. Delusions of Détente – Why America and China Will Be Enduring Rivals

Excerpts:

Perhaps Americans could ride out the resulting storm from the safety of the Western Hemisphere, but the history of both world wars suggests they would eventually be sucked into the Eurasian vortex. At a minimum, the United States would need to arm itself to the teeth to hedge against that possibility—as well as against the possibility of a Chinese colossus that sets its sights on U.S. territories in the western Pacific after overrunning East Asia. Either way, the United States would be back where it started—containing China—but without allies, secure supply chains, forward-deployed forces, or much credibility. To compensate, the United States might have to become a garrison state, with its wealth and civil liberties eroded by breakneck militarization.

Capitulation might be worth a try if the only alternatives were a catastrophic hot war or an endless and financially crippling cold war. But there are reasons to hope that U.S. containment of China can be a temporary way station to a brighter future. During the original Cold War, containment was designed to block Soviet advances until the weaknesses of the communist system sapped Moscow’s power and forced the Soviets to radically scale back their ambitions. That should be the same goal with China today, and it may not take four decades to get there. The drivers of China’s rise are already stalling. Slowing growth, soaring debt, autocratic incompetence, capital flight, youth unemployment, and a shrinking population are taking a toll on Chinese comprehensive national power. The CCP has also made enemies near and far. Many of China’s neighbors are beefing up their militaries, and major economies, led by the G-7, which controls more than half the world’s stocks of wealth, are imposing hundreds of new trade and investment barriers on Beijing every year. China garnered goodwill across the global South by doling out more than $1 trillion in loans to over 100 countries. But most of those loans will mature around 2030, and many will not be paid back. It is hard to see how a country saddled with so many liabilities and facing so many rivals can continue to compete with a superpower and its wealthy allies. The United States does not need to contain China forever, just long enough to allow current trends to play out. Should that occur, Xi’s dream of Chinese dominance will start to look unattainable, and his successors may feel compelled to address, through diplomatic moderation and internal reform, the country’s economic stagnation and geopolitical encirclement.

In the meantime, containment does not have to lead to violent conflict. Competition could see the United States and China engage in a technology race that pushes the frontiers of human knowledge to new heights and creates innovative solutions to transnational problems. It could also mean the two rivals cultivate internally peaceful blocs of like-minded states, and in which they use nonviolent means, including the provision of aid, to try to win hearts and minds and expand their influence at the margins. This type of rivalry might not be so bad for the world and certainly would be better than the great-power wars that have characterized most of modern history. The “one world” dream of a single, harmonious international system may be impossible for now, but that does not rule out peaceful, if tense, relations between two rival orders. Containing China in that competition will entail severe risks and costs, but it is the best way to avoid an even more destructive conflict.

Delusions of Détente

Why America and China Will Be Enduring Rivals

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/china-delusions-detente-rivals

By Michael Beckley

September/October 2023

Published on August 22, 2023

With U.S.-Chinese relations worse than they have been in over 50 years, an old fairy tale has resurfaced: if only the United States would talk more to China and accommodate its rise, the two countries could live in peace. The story goes that with ample summitry, Washington could recognize Beijing’s redlines and restore crisis hotlines and cultural exchanges. Over time and through myriad points of face-to-face contact—in other words, reengagement—the two countries could settle into peaceful, if still competitive, coexistence. Talk enough, some analysts contend, and the United States and China might even strike a grand bargain that establishes stable spheres of influence and something akin to a G-2 to solve global problems such as climate change and pandemics.

From this perspective, the dismal state of U.S.-Chinese relations is not an inevitable result of two ideologically opposed great powers clashing over vital interests. Rather, it is a mix-up between partners, blown out of proportion by the United States’ overreaction to counter China’s overreach, as Susan Shirk, a Sinologist and former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, has put it. For the past two decades, the thinking goes, China has simply been doing what rising powers usually do: flexing its muscles and demanding a greater say in global affairs. Although many of China’s actions, such as its menacing of Taiwan, worry advocates of reengagement, the main target of their critique is the United States—specifically, its relentless pursuit of primacy and the self-serving actors behind it.

In this dark imagining, grandstanding politicians, greedy defense contractors, sensationalizing pundits, overzealous human rights activists, and belligerent bureaucrats fan the flames of rivalry for profit, creating an echo chamber that crowds out different perspectives. Some individuals are supposedly repeating hawkish narratives to protect their careers. The result, the journalist and author Fareed Zakaria has argued, is that “Washington has succumbed to dangerous groupthink on China.” The fact that most Americans also hold hawkish views on China just provides more evidence of how irrationally aggressive U.S. policy has become. “The problem today isn’t that Americans are insufficiently concerned about the rise of China,” the historian Max Boot has insisted. “The problem is that they are prey to hysteria and alarmism that could lead the United States into a needless nuclear war.”

For those advocating reengagement, the solution to this cycle of hostility is straightforward. First, defuse tensions through vigorous diplomacy, commerce, and people-to-people exchanges. Next, create a new forum where officials from each country can meet regularly to hash out agreements. According to the historian Adam Tooze, regardless of the exact structure of negotiations, the basic objective is the same: “accommodation of China’s historic rise.” For some advocates of reengagement, accommodation would merely entail reducing trade barriers to China, a move U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen proposed earlier this year. Other observers, however, favor more drastic concessions. The political scientist Graham Allison, for example, has urged in these pages that the United States accept China’s traditional sphere of influence in Asia. Presumably, that would mean giving Beijing greater freedom in the South China Sea, letting go of Taiwan, and relinquishing American power in the region.

It is an enticing vision. The world would certainly be better off if great powers could settle scores through diplomacy rather than by squaring off in a security competition. Yet the history of great-power rivalry, and of U.S.-Chinese relations in particular, suggests that greater engagement is unlikely to mend ties between the countries and, if performed hastily, could actually catalyze violent conflict. Of the more than two dozen great-power rivalries over the past 200 years, none ended with the sides talking their way out of trouble. Instead, rivalries have persisted until one side could no longer carry on the fight or until both sides united against a common enemy. For example, the United States and China paused their rivalry to ally against the Soviet Union during the latter half of the Cold War, a contest that ended only when the Soviet Union sputtered into terminal decline. In every case, shifts in the balance of power were preconditions for sustainable settlements. Before those shifts, periods of détente were usually just chances to regroup and reload for the next round of competition. In some cases, such as when the United Kingdom sought to improve relations with Germany from 1911 to 1914 and again in 1938, pursuing détente paved the road to war.

The United States and China are unlikely to buck this pattern. Their vital interests conflict and are rooted firmly in their respective political systems, geographies, and national experiences. Many of the connections binding the countries together, such as their extensive trade, are also driving them apart by giving policymakers additional reasons to fight and pressure points to exploit. Neither side can make major concessions without exposing itself. And after decades of dealing with each other, both governments have accumulated long lists of grievances and view the other with deep mistrust. The United States tried to work with China repeatedly from the 1970s to the 2010s, yet top Chinese leaders consistently viewed U.S. outreach, especially the American attempt to integrate China into the U.S.-led liberal order, as an insidious form of containment—a plot designed to weaken the grip of the Chinese Communist Party and lock China into economic dependence and political subservience to the West. American outreach to China during this period was more extensive than the proposals being seriously considered by U.S. policymakers today. Nevertheless, these overtures failed to fundamentally change Chinese assessments of American intentions or dissuade efforts by the CCP to dominate East Asia and beyond.

The fact is that the U.S.-Chinese rivalry is unlikely to wind down without a significant shift in the balance of power. The United States needs to make policy choices based on this reality and not get caught up in a fantasy. This does not mean cutting off diplomacy or shutting down talks completely, but being clear eyed about what that type of engagement can realistically achieve. There are reasons to hope for a medium-term mellowing of Chinese power that might open space for a real diplomatic breakthrough. To get there, however, the United States and its allies must deter Chinese aggression in the near term and avoid concessions that disrupt favorable long-term trends.

BAD BLOOD

The United States and China have become what political scientists call “enduring rivals,” meaning countries that have singled each other out for intense security competition. Over the past few centuries, such pairs have accounted for only one percent of the world’s international relationships but more than 80 percent of its wars. Think of the repeated clashes between India and Pakistan, Greece and Turkey, China and Japan, and France and the United Kingdom.

Rivals feud not because they misunderstand each other but because they know each other all too well. They have genuine conflicts of vital and indivisible interests, usually including territorial disputes, the main cause of war. Their redlines and spheres of influence overlap. One side’s attempts to protect itself, such as by modernizing its military, inherently threaten the other. If their economies are intertwined, as is often the case, rivals wield trade as a weapon, seeking to monopolize the production of strategic goods and lord it over the other side. The United Kingdom and Germany, for example, waged a fierce commercial competition before coming to blows in World War I.

Rivals also usually espouse divergent ideologies and view the success or spread of the other side’s system of beliefs as a subversive threat to their own way of life. For instance, revolutionary France not only tried to conquer its European rivals; it also threatened to topple their monarchical regimes through the power of its example. In the lead-up to World War II, fascist powers faced off against democracies, and during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union divided much of the world into capitalist and communist blocs. What is more, rivals share a history of bad blood. Their mutual hostility is fueled by past acts of aggression and the fear of more to come. Just ask the Chinese today how they feel about Japan.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang in Beijing, June 2023

Leah Millis / Reuters

Once underway, rivalries are extremely difficult to end. According to data collected by the political scientists Michael Colaresi, Karen Rasler, and William Thompson, there have been 27 great-power rivalries since 1816. These struggles lasted for more than 50 years on average and ended in one of three ways. By my count, 19 of them—the vast majority—culminated in war, with one side beating the other into submission. Another six rivalries ended with the two sides allying against a common foe. In the early 1900s, for example, the United Kingdom set aside its differences with France, Russia, and the United States to gang up on Germany; the result was World War I. Finally, there was the Cold War. When the Soviet Union collapsed, its rivalries with the United States and China ended peacefully, although in prior decades Moscow had waged a small border war against China and multiple proxy wars with Washington in different parts of the globe. Today, many people fear a new cold war between the United States and China, but historically, that type of tense standoff has been the best possible outcome because it avoids full-scale fighting.

Confronted by this record, those advocating for greater U.S. engagement with China might respond that they do not seek the immediate end of the U.S.-Chinese rivalry but merely détente, a cooling-off period that allows the sides to put guardrails on their relationship. Yet the history of great-power détente provides little comfort. Such periods have rarely lasted long, even under favorable circumstances. The most successful case, the Concert of Europe—an alliance of monarchies founded in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars to crush liberal revolutions—had all the ingredients for a durable détente: a common ideology, a common foe, and partnerships forged in war. But its top leaders stopped meeting after 1822, sending lower-level emissaries instead. By the 1830s, the concert was riven by a cold war between its liberal and conservative members. The concert worked well when members’ core interests aligned, but when the conservative consensus cracked, so did the concert, which erupted in a hot war over Crimea in 1853. That failure illustrates a more general point: guardrails are more often the result of peace, not effective methods to maintain it. They typically are erected in good times or immediately after crises—when they are least needed—only to be destroyed in bad times. The most elaborate guardrails in history were installed after World War I, including the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war and the League of Nations, a formal collective security organization; they failed to prevent World War II.

Those calling for Washington to engage more deeply with Beijing characterize the pursuit of détente as risk free: it might fail, but it can’t hurt and is worth a try. But when conflicts of interest between rivals are severe, overeager efforts to induce détente can be destabilizing. The Anglo-German détente of 1911 to 1914 contributed to the outbreak of World War I by feeding Germany false hopes that the United Kingdom would remain neutral in a continental war. Between 1921 and 1922, the world’s largest naval powers gathered in the U.S. capital to discuss disarmament at the Washington Naval Conference. The effort eventually backfired, however, inching Asia closer to World War II as the United States signaled it would oppose Japanese expansion but would not build the naval power necessary to enforce that prohibition. The Munich Agreement of 1938, which gave Germany permission to annex part of Czechoslovakia, enabled the Nazis to invade Poland the next year. In 1972, the United States and the Soviet Union declared their commitment to “peaceful coexistence” and signed arms control and trade agreements. Détente began to unravel the next year, however, as the superpowers squared off on opposite sides of the Yom Kippur War, followed by a proxy conflict in Angola in 197 5, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and several terrifying nuclear crises in the early 1980s. As so often occurs, détente had meant different things to each side. The Americans thought they had frozen the status quo; the Soviets believed they had been recognized as a superpower with all the attendant privileges, including the right to spread revolution. Once events exposed those conflicting interpretations, the U.S.-Soviet rivalry came roaring back.

The bottom line is that great-power rivalries cannot be papered over with memorandums of understanding. Diplomacy is necessary but insufficient to resolve disputes nonviolently. Sustainable settlements also require stable balances of power, which usually emerge not through happy talk but after one side realizes it can no longer compete.

HATERS GONNA HATE

Today, the U.S.-Chinese relationship has all the trappings of an enduring rivalry. For starters, the main issues under dispute are essentially win-lose affairs. Taiwan can be governed from Taipei or Beijing but not both. The East China and South China Seas can be international waters or a Chinese-controlled lake. Russia can be shunned or supported. Democracy can be promoted or squelched. The Internet can be open or state censored. For the United States, its chain of alliances in East Asia represents vital insurance and a force for stability; for China, it looks like hostile encirclement. How should climate change be handled? Where did COVID-19 come from? Ask around Beijing and Washington, and one is likely to hear irreconcilable answers.

More fundamentally, the two rivals hold divergent visions of international order. The CCP wants a world in which what it sees as ancient autocratic civilizations are free to rule their traditional spheres of influence. The United States, by contrast, wants to consign those spheres to the dustbin of history by protecting the sovereignty of weaker countries and integrating them into an open trade order. The U.S.-Chinese rivalry is more than a set of diplomatic disputes—it is also a struggle to promote different ways of life.

To make matters worse, neither side can credibly reassure the other without losing some ability to hold it accountable. Advocates of reengagement call for the United States and China to respect each other’s redlines. But achieving a sustained thaw in relations would require at least one side to abandon many of its redlines altogether. China wants the United States to end arms sales to Taiwan, slash the overall U.S. military presence in East Asia, share U.S. technology with Chinese companies, reopen the U.S. market to a flood of Chinese exports, stop promoting democracy in China’s neighborhood, and let Russia win its war in Ukraine. The United States, for its part, wants China to dial back its defense spending, refrain from aggression in the Taiwan Strait, cease its militarization of the South China Sea, rein in industrial subsidies and espionage, and withdraw its support for Russia and other autocracies.

Yet neither side could grant such concessions without empowering the other to push for more. If China backed off Taiwan militarily, for example, the island could drift toward independence; but if the United States stopped arming Taiwan, the military balance would shift radically in Beijing’s favor. If China allowed Russia to lose in Ukraine, the CCP would face a reeling nuclear power on its doorstep and a triumphant United States freed to focus on Asia; but if the United States let Russia win, a Chinese-Russian axis could be emboldened to take even more territory, such as Taiwan or the Baltic states, from a demoralized West. If China abandoned its industrial policies, it would further cede technological primacy to the United States; but Washington would not abide Chinese mercantilism without hollowing out both the U.S. economy and what was left of the open global trading order. If the CCP stopped propping up autocracies, it would risk waves of popular revolutions, such as occurred in 1989 and the early years of the twenty-first century, that could energize liberal activists at home and bring to power regimes abroad that would be more inclined to sanction China for its human rights record. If the United States stopped aiding and protecting fledgling democracies, however, some could disappear behind Beijing’s digital iron curtain.

These conflicting interests cannot be traded away by diplomats sitting around a table because they are rooted not just in each country’s political system but also in their historical memories and geographies. Contemporary Chinese political culture is ingrained by two cataclysms: the “century of humiliation” (which took place from 1839 to 1949), when the country was ripped apart by imperialist powers, and the revolutions of 1989 that toppled the Soviet Union and other communist regimes and nearly undid China’s. The CCP’s prime directive is to never let China be bullied or divided again—a goal, China’s leaders believe, that requires relentlessly amassing wealth and power, expanding territorial control, and ruling with an iron fist. As an economic late bloomer, China must use mercantilist methods to climb up global value chains long monopolized by the West. With China surrounded by 19 countries, many of them hostile or unstable, the country’s leaders believe they must carve out a broad security perimeter that includes Taiwan, chunks of India, and most of the East China and South China Seas, where 90 percent of China’s trade and most of its oil flow. Expansion is also a political imperative. The CCP justifies its autocratic rule in part by promising to recover territories lost during the century of humiliation. Demilitarizing those areas now would mean surrendering the CCP’s solemn mission to make China whole again and, consequently, diminishing its ability to use anti-foreign nationalism as a source of legitimacy.

An advertisement for the People's Liberation Army in Beijing, November 2021

Thomas Peter / Reuters

American interests are perhaps less entrenched but remain too fixed to give up without a struggle. As a rich democracy surrounded by allies and oceans, the United States likes things the way they are. Its main foreign policy goal is to prevent overseas threats from spoiling the wealth and freedom its citizens enjoy at home. Many Americans would love to avoid foreign entanglements, but the world wars and the Cold War showed that powerful tyrannies can and should be contained—and that it is better to do so early, before an aggressive country has overrun its region, by maintaining strong alliances in peacetime. Americans may eventually forget that lesson as the generations that won World War II and the Cold War pass on. But for now, it continues to shape U.S. foreign policy, especially toward China. When American policymakers observe China trying to redraw the map of East Asia, supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or locking ethnic minorities in concentration camps, they see not just a series of policy disagreements but a multifaceted assault on the order that has undergirded U.S. security and prosperity for generations. With the stakes seemingly so high, compromise, even on a single issue, is hard for leaders on both sides to stomach.

Champions of reengagement correctly point out that China and the United States are bound together by various forms of mutual vulnerability. Neither country wants war, runaway climate change, pandemics, or a global depression. The U.S. and Chinese economies are intertwined. Both governments possess nuclear arsenals and want to prevent other countries from acquiring them. With the costs of conflict so potentially devastating and the benefits of cooperation so manifest, peace should be relatively easy to maintain, at least in theory.

In practice, however, mutual vulnerability may be exacerbating the rivalry. For example, both countries are engaging in conventional military provocations, perhaps under the assumption that the other side would never risk a nuclear exchange by opening fire. Scholars call this the “stability-instability paradox,” whereby excessive faith in nuclear deterrence makes conventional war more likely. Some Chinese analysts argue that the People’s Liberation Army could destroy U.S. bases in East Asia while China’s nuclear forces deter U.S. retaliation against Chinese mainland targets. Meanwhile, some American defense planners advocate decimating China’s navy and air bases early in a conflict, believing that U.S. nuclear superiority would compel China to stand down rather than escalate. Instead of dampening tensions, nuclear weapons may be inflaming them.

The same goes for economic interdependence. As the international relations scholar Dale Copeland has pointed out in Foreign Affairs, when trade partners become geopolitical rivals, they start to fear being cut off from vital goods, markets, and trade routes. To plug their vulnerabilities, they embark on quests for self-reliance, using various instruments of state power, such as aid, loans, bribes, arms sales, technology transfers, and military force, to secure their economic lifelines. The result is a “trade-security spiral” that Copeland has shown helped fuel several of history’s greatest wars. By contrast, the independence of the U.S. and Soviet economies was a stabilizing force in the original Cold War, as the historian John Lewis Gaddis has observed.

China’s economic situation today bears more resemblance to the economies of Germany, Italy, and Japan in the first half of the twentieth century: China imports most of its raw materials through chokepoints it cannot fully control, relies heavily on exports to the United States and its allies for revenue, and has good reason to worry that those countries would cut off its access to resources and markets in a crisis. Having watched the West cripple Russia’s economy with sanctions, China is reportedly redoubling its efforts to decouple from the United States. Through its so-called dual circulation policy, China is using subsidies and trade barriers to reorient its economy around its domestic market and is carving out privileged zones abroad to secure raw materials and markets lacking at home. Those moves, in turn, have alarmed the United States, which is responding with its own campaign for economic primacy. Rather than bringing the two countries together, commerce is driving them farther apart.

ENGAGEMENT OR CONTAINMENT?

Those pushing for more engagement with China argue that the United States should “test the proposition” that diplomatic overtures could kick-start a cycle of cooperation with China, as the scholar Jessica Chen Weiss proposed in Foreign Affairs last year. But that proposition has been tested many times in recent decades, and the results have been far from reassuring. The United States made concessions during that era of engagement that would be unthinkable today, including fast-tracking China’s integration into Western supply chains, transferring weapons to China’s military and advanced technology to CCP-owned firms, welcoming China’s entry into major international organizations, quietly encouraging Taiwan to consider peaceful unification, and downplaying CCP human rights abuses. Yet internal documents reveal that top Chinese leaders repeatedly interpreted such U.S. overtures as insincere or even threatening.

The examples are plentiful. Following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, U.S. President George H. W. Bush sent an apologetic letter to the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping expressing his determination to “get the relationship back on track” after the United States had imposed sanctions in response to the CCP’s brutal crackdown. Bush presumably meant resuming work as tacit allies, with the United States dropping sanctions and furnishing technology, intelligence, and economic access to China. But Deng wasn’t buying it. Instead, as the scholar (and current National Security Council official) Rush Doshi reported, Deng thought the United States had been “deeply involved” in the “counterrevolutionary rebellion” and was “waging a world war without gunsmoke” to overthrow the CCP.

Nine years later, U.S. President Bill Clinton visited Beijing to cement his engagement policy, which included granting China “most favored nation” trading status without the human rights standards normally required of a “nonmarket economy,” the designation the United States assigns to former and current communist countries. In a gesture of goodwill, Clinton became the first U.S. president to publicly articulate the “three no’s” regarding Taiwan: no independence, no two Chinas, and no membership for Taipei in intergovernmental organizations. A few months later, however, the Chinese leader Jiang Zemin warned the CCP foreign policy bureaucracy that Washington’s “so-called engagement policy” had the same aim as a “containment policy”: “to try with ulterior motives to change our country’s socialist system.” Jiang further asserted that “some in the United States and other Western countries will not give up their political plot to westernize and divide our country” and would “put pressure on us in an attempt to overwhelm us and put us down.” The bottom line was that “from now on and for a relatively long period of time, the United States will be our main diplomatic adversary.”

Cold wars are awful but better than hot ones.

During the following decade, the George W. Bush administration encouraged China to become a “responsible stakeholder” in the international order and launched a series of U.S.-Chinese “strategic economic dialogues.” The Obama administration expanded those dialogues to cover all major issues in the relationship and put out a joint statement respecting China’s “core interests”—all in pursuit of “strategic reassurance.” But Chinese leaders were not reassured. As the scholars Andrew Nathan and Andrew Scobell wrote in 2012, after reviewing Chinese sources: “The Chinese believe the United States is a revisionist power that seeks to curtail China’s political influence and harm China’s interests.” Although Chinese leaders welcomed U.S. technology and market access, they were more struck by the threats the United States posed to their regime, including its massive military presence in their region, its efforts to negotiate a trans-Pacific trade bloc that would have excluded Beijing, the army of U.S. nongovernmental organizations meddling in China’s internal affairs, and the numerous times that senior U.S. officials declared that the purpose of engagement was to liberalize China. Bad memories, such as the 1999 U.S. bombing of China’s embassy in Yugoslavia, were much more present in the minds of CCP leaders than good ones—a common psychological phenomenon in a rivalry.

Supporters of reengagement would like to see Washington explain that it wants to include China in a positive-sum international order. But Chinese leaders understand U.S. offers of inclusion perfectly well, perhaps better than many Americans do. They saw what happened when Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev tried to integrate the Soviet Union into the Western order. As Deng predicted, opening the window to the “fresh air” of U.S. engagement also allowed in “flies” in the form of subversive political forces. To prevent something similar from happening in China, the CCP developed an authoritarian capitalist system designed to extract the benefits of an open global order while keeping liberal political pressures at bay. For Americans, this turned out to be as good as it got: a partial Chinese integration that helped the CCP strengthen itself for a future contest over international borders and rules.

That epic struggle now seems at hand. Determined not to suffer Gorbachev’s fate, or worse, Chinese President Xi Jinping has spent his time in power building a fortress around China and himself. His national security strategy calls for the opposite of the reforms and concessions that destroyed the Soviet Communist Party but also brought the Cold War to a peaceful end. A massive military buildup, the reassertion of party control over every institution, an epic campaign to sanctions-proof the CCP: these are not the hallmarks of a regime interested in reengaging with a liberal superpower. Rather, they are the telltale signs of an aggrieved dictatorship gearing up for “worst-case and extreme scenarios and . . . major tests of high winds, choppy waters, and even dangerous storms,” as Xi now repeatedly warns his comrades.

BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES

The most likely scenario in the years to come is a cold war in which the United States and China continue to decouple their strategic economic sectors, maintain a military standoff in East Asia, promote their rival visions of world order, and compete to produce solutions to transnational problems. Cold wars are awful but better than hot ones. Many ties that bind the United States and China—especially their dense economic links—are exacerbating their insecurities and becoming new arenas of conflict. For U.S. policymakers, it may be better to find avenues to create buffers between the two sides than to try to make them more interdependent.

A cold war does not rule out all forms of cooperation. After all, the United States and the Soviet Union worked together to eradicate smallpox even as they competed for dominance. Historically, great-power rivals, even those at war, have often maintained at least some trade in nonstrategic sectors and societal links with each other. Diplomatic talks can continue, provided they are not preceded by destabilizing concessions, as they signal to allies and adversaries alike that the United States is not hell-bent on a superpower throwdown. A cold war does, however, entail U.S. containment of China, a strategy that differs in three fundamental ways from reengagement.

First, containment prioritizes deterrence and denial over reassurance. The United States should mollify China when it can, but not at the expense of weakening U.S. capabilities or sending mixed signals about U.S. resolve on vital issues. For example, the United States can deny support for Taiwanese independence, but it must also accelerate arms sales to Taipei, diversify and harden the U.S. base structure in East Asia, and convey through a robust military presence nearby that a Chinese assault on Taiwan would be met with a severe U.S. response. Similarly, the United States can limit its economic restrictions on China to a “small yard” of sectors, as the Biden administration currently aims to do, but it must also stock up on ammunition, especially antiship missiles, to avoid pairing economic pressure with military negligence—a deadly combination that blazed imperial Japan’s path to Pearl Harbor.

Second, containment reverses the order of carrots and sticks in diplomatic negotiations. Whereas engagement involves enticing one’s opponent to the negotiating table, containment starts by building up capabilities and then pursuing diplomacy from a position of strength. For example, some members of the Trump and Biden administrations reportedly considered unilaterally reducing U.S. tariffs or delaying sanctions on Beijing as a sign of good faith. A better approach would be to hold talks with allies, as occurred at the G-7 meeting in May, to consolidate a free-world economic and security bloc to check Chinese coercion and then collectively seek to settle the trade and technology wars with Beijing.

Yellen meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Beijing, July 2023

Mark Schiefelbein / Reuters

Third, containment measures success by whether the United States effectively defends its interests and values, not by whether U.S.-Chinese relations are friendly. Those promoting reengagement claim that competition with China has consumed U.S. foreign policy and that the United States lacks a vision for the world beyond bludgeoning Beijing. But the United States has espoused the same vision for decades. It is called the liberal order, an open commercial system in which participants can trade and prosper in peace without fear of being gobbled up by revanchist empires. It is the system that made China’s escape from poverty possible by pacifying Japan and giving the Chinese people unprecedented access to foreign capital, technology, and markets. It is the system that American policymakers have repeatedly asked China to help uphold. But the CCP has instead become a serious threat to that system with its aggressive territorial claims, rampant mercantilism, and support for Russia’s brutalization of Ukraine. Some advocates of reengagement call for sacrificing aspects of the order—rules of international trade, and human rights laws—to improve ties with China. Some even suggest offering concessions on international borders and access to waterways in East Asia. A policy of containment would do the opposite by insisting that China compromise its revisionist aims and, if the CCP refuses, accepting that the liberal order will not revolve around a tight U.S.-Chinese partnership any time soon.

Containment may seem counterproductive at first because Chinese leaders will howl with the outrage typical of their “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy. But sometimes the policy that appears most fraught in the near term offers the best chance for a lasting peace—and the policy that seems safest in the moment could be disastrous in the long run. Re-engagement, a seemingly prudent middle course between appeasement and containment, may be the most dangerous of all because it neither satisfies Chinese demands nor deters Beijing from taking what it wants by force. Since Chinese leaders repeatedly perceive U.S. offers of engagement as stealth containment, the choice the United States faces is not between engagement and containment but between a meek and waffling, yet still provocative, form of containment and a clear and firm version that at least has some hope of deterring Chinese aggression.

Then, of course, there is capitulation. The United States could avoid conflict with China, at least in the short term, by recognizing China’s territorial claims and withdrawing U.S. forces from East Asia. Few advocate such extreme concessions. But part of what makes the case for engagement compelling is the implicit assumption that if outreach fails, the United States can always hit the reset button, grant China a sphere of influence, and emerge relatively unscathed. The thinking goes that it is better to accommodate China and risk appeasement than to contain China and risk war.

The problem with capitulation, however, is that Chinese demands cannot be satisfied by the United States alone. To make the CCP happy, Taiwan would have to accept absorption by a brutal dictatorship, and neighboring countries would have to beg Beijing for permission to venture beyond their coastlines. None of that is likely, which is why the most probable result of U.S. retrenchment would be not an immaculate transition to peaceful Chinese hegemony but violent chaos. A fully militarized Japan; a nuclear breakout by Seoul, Taipei, and Tokyo; and an emboldened North Korea are only the most obvious risks. Less obvious are potential knock-on effects, such as the collapse of Asian supply chains and U.S. alliances in Europe, which might not survive the shock of seeing the United States create a security vacuum for China to fill.

Containment does not have to lead to violent conflict.

Perhaps Americans could ride out the resulting storm from the safety of the Western Hemisphere, but the history of both world wars suggests they would eventually be sucked into the Eurasian vortex. At a minimum, the United States would need to arm itself to the teeth to hedge against that possibility—as well as against the possibility of a Chinese colossus that sets its sights on U.S. territories in the western Pacific after overrunning East Asia. Either way, the United States would be back where it started—containing China—but without allies, secure supply chains, forward-deployed forces, or much credibility. To compensate, the United States might have to become a garrison state, with its wealth and civil liberties eroded by breakneck militarization.

Capitulation might be worth a try if the only alternatives were a catastrophic hot war or an endless and financially crippling cold war. But there are reasons to hope that U.S. containment of China can be a temporary way station to a brighter future. During the original Cold War, containment was designed to block Soviet advances until the weaknesses of the communist system sapped Moscow’s power and forced the Soviets to radically scale back their ambitions. That should be the same goal with China today, and it may not take four decades to get there. The drivers of China’s rise are already stalling. Slowing growth, soaring debt, autocratic incompetence, capital flight, youth unemployment, and a shrinking population are taking a toll on Chinese comprehensive national power. The CCP has also made enemies near and far. Many of China’s neighbors are beefing up their militaries, and major economies, led by the G-7, which controls more than half the world’s stocks of wealth, are imposing hundreds of new trade and investment barriers on Beijing every year. China garnered goodwill across the global South by doling out more than $1 trillion in loans to over 100 countries. But most of those loans will mature around 2030, and many will not be paid back. It is hard to see how a country saddled with so many liabilities and facing so many rivals can continue to compete with a superpower and its wealthy allies. The United States does not need to contain China forever, just long enough to allow current trends to play out. Should that occur, Xi’s dream of Chinese dominance will start to look unattainable, and his successors may feel compelled to address, through diplomatic moderation and internal reform, the country’s economic stagnation and geopolitical encirclement.

In the meantime, containment does not have to lead to violent conflict. Competition could see the United States and China engage in a technology race that pushes the frontiers of human knowledge to new heights and creates innovative solutions to transnational problems. It could also mean the two rivals cultivate internally peaceful blocs of like-minded states, and in which they use nonviolent means, including the provision of aid, to try to win hearts and minds and expand their influence at the margins. This type of rivalry might not be so bad for the world and certainly would be better than the great-power wars that have characterized most of modern history. The “one world” dream of a single, harmonious international system may be impossible for now, but that does not rule out peaceful, if tense, relations between two rival orders. Containing China in that competition will entail severe risks and costs, but it is the best way to avoid an even more destructive conflict.

• MICHAEL BECKLEY is Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts University, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Director of the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is the author of Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World’s Sole Superpower.
• MORE BY MICHAEL BECKLEY

28. Is the American Military Too 'Woke'?

Perhaps this is somewhat more objective, less emotional analysis. But will it be read objectively?

Is the American Military Too 'Woke'?

military.com · by 22 Aug 2023 Military.com | By Lawrence J. Korb and Stephen J. Cimbala · August 22, 2023

The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the authors 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.

A theme that keeps dominating certain corners of media commentary is the idea that the U.S. armed forces have become “woke.” In today's vocabulary, this implies that the American military has been overtaken by ideological imperatives that push a far-left political agenda.

Allegedly, U.S. enlisted personnel and officers are being subjected to compulsory exercises in groupthink that devalue the American historical experience, spread contempt for traditional American values and diminish the appeal of military service in favor of other alternatives.

From time to time, concern about political bias in the American armed forces has been voiced both by liberals and conservatives. Some liberals have warned against infiltration of the enlisted ranks by right-wing extremists who regard the American government as fundamentally illegitimate and deserving of overthrow.

Some conservatives have warned against Marxist or postmodern ideas being adopted by government agencies, including the Pentagon, and foisted on officers and enlisted personnel whom they claim are quietly gritting their teeth in resentment.

Is the present-day American military leaning too far to port instead of starboard? Critics who assert this also blame so-called woke Pentagon culture for the challenges facing military recruiters, including declining rates of enlistment.

There are reasons to doubt that the U.S. military is submerged in leftist or woke culture, and that is causing difficulties in military recruitment.

There are other forces driving the recruitment troubles. First, the labor market is one of nearly full employment, with even high-paying jobs in the private sector desperate for suitable applicants. The more attractive the civilian job market proves to be, the more challenging military recruitment always becomes.

Second, the skill set and learning potential expected of recruits to the U.S. armed forces no longer fit the popular civilian image based on 20th-century “dogfaces” and G.I. Joes. For example, infantry recruits today will be expected to deal with complex equipment and training regimens that demand physical durability and cognitive flexibility well beyond that of their fathers and grandfathers. The U.S. Space Force and cyber commands need to be populated by persons at the upper end of the scale for imagination, creativity and the ability to "connect the dots."

Another motive for military recruitment is patriotism. The tradition of serving in the armed forces is often handed down from generation to generation in military families. These multigenerational military families come disproportionally from small-town and rural America, where great pride in military service is combined with shrinking job opportunities in the civilian labor market. That component of the American population is shrinking, meaning that there are fewer and fewer potential recruits from this group.

For the past 50 years, the United States has had an all-volunteer force. That means that the sociological diversity of the armed forces cannot be imposed by fiat in the same way that a force based on conscription can operate.

Diversity means that the American military is open to all races, genders, gender identities, nationalities and so forth -- but the force is made up from persons who self-select military service as a profession (at least temporarily, although some make a career of it). Recruitment rates therefore are less revealing of the true diversity in the armed forces than are retention rates.

In addition, there is a misunderstanding of what training sessions in diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) are intended to accomplish, in or outside of the military. If effectively presented, these sessions are not indoctrinations in political messaging, but awareness-raising opportunities for informed discussion and sharing of experiences.

Granted, some bureaucracies excel in reducing nuanced issues into wood chip fragments of imbecility. But this outcome from DEIB information is neither inevitable nor desirable. Civilian workplaces have developed successful programs in support of diversity, and there is little or no evidence that the Pentagon has failed to meet acceptable standards of professional competency in this area.

Finally, “diversity” in the larger sense implies intellectual diversity, including the encouragement of a clash of ideas about national security policy, military strategy and operational art. Anyone who has taken part in war games, conferences and-or seminars at U.S. war colleges and staff and command colleges can testify to the thorough preparation and intensity of participants as they dissect one another's arguments and analyses.

Large egos and senior rank offer no guarantees against the exposure of weak arguments and assumptions. Many faculty in civilian universities would be surprised to witness the aggressive give-and-take among candidates for general or flag rank in the American armed forces -- compared to the not uncommon groupthink in many civilian faculty offices and classrooms. The American military leadership is awake, not woke.

Lawrence Korb, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, is a former assistant secretary of defense and a retired Navy captain.

Stephen J. Cimbala is distinguished professor of political science at Pennsylvania State University Brandywine and author of numerous works in the fields of U.S. national security studies, deterrence and nuclear arms control.

military.com · by 22 Aug 2023 Military.com | By Lawrence J. Korb and Stephen J. Cimbala · August 22, 2023

29. Biden Pushes Woke Military Officers as Sen. Tuberville Holds Firm

A view from Heritage.

Biden Pushes Woke Military Officers as Sen. Tuberville Holds Firm

dailysignal.com · by Fred Lucas · August 22, 2023

Generals who focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, lecture a “white colonel” about the need for more diverse officers, and proclaim climate change a national security threat seem to be finding rewards in the Biden administration.

In February, Air Force Brig. Gen. Stacy Jo Huser and two other women were part of a panel at the University of Mississippi about diversity and inclusion in the armed forces. The event’s sponsors were the Ole Miss Army ROTC program and the Trent Lott Leadership Institute.

In March, President Joe Biden nominated Huser for promotion to major general.

Hers is one of more than 200 military promotions held up in an effort by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., to undo the Defense Department’s new taxpayer-funded abortion policy.

“President Biden has appointed a bunch of woke advocates to senior positions in the armed forces; at the macro level, that is extremely problematic,” Tom Jones, president of the American Accountability Foundation, told The Daily Signal.

The Senate Armed Services Committee and the full Senate are now being forced to review Biden’s individual military promotions rather than rubber-stamp all of them.

“Sen. Tuberville is 100% right on the abortion policy. But his efforts have exposed that the Senate has done a terrible job of vetting these flag officers,” Jones said.

In February, the Defense Department adopted a policy of allowing three weeks of taxpayer-funded paid leave and reimbursement of travel expenses for enlisted women who get an abortion.

The American Accountability Foundation named several generals nominated by Biden for promotions.

?1/ BREAKING: Here's what the media is trying to hide from you about @SenTuberville's fight to make sure Biden's military appointments are properly vetted.

This is one of the WOKEST slates of military nominees ever assembled. Biden's agenda is clear.

Here's the proof ?

— American Accountability Foundation (@ExposingBiden) August 21, 2023

Jones said there is a “revolving door” from the military to Senate Armed Services Committee staff to defense contractors that causes a certain amount of deference for a president’s nominees.

Biden nominated Army Maj. Gen. Anthony R. Hale for promotion to lieutenant general. Last year, Hale made diversity recruitment for military intelligence officers a priority.

10/ Maj. Gen. Anthony R. Hale (Army), nominated for promotion to Lieutenant General, said “As we look at diversity, equity and inclusion, getting after and doing something about the diversity within our M-I Corps just makes us better.” pic.twitter.com/n25FbMlDQn

— American Accountability Foundation (@ExposingBiden) August 21, 2023

“With regards to African Americans, we’re below 9%,” Hale told KGUN 9 in Tucson, Arizona, noting that minorities in general make up just 30% of military intelligence officers.

“And as we look at diversity, equity, and inclusion, getting after and doing something about the diversity within our MI Corps just makes us better,” Hale said.

Army Lt. Gen. Laura A. Potter, renominated for lieutenant general, focused on climate change in a 2021 speech about rising sea levels.

“We consider that a national security problem,” Potter said in March 2021, according to the Army’s website. “You look at the impact of the changes to the permafrost and an increasingly navigable waterway, or if you look at the archipelagos and the threats of rising water levels, those become potential security challenges for those countries. And they certainly impact how the Army would have to operate.”

In an interview, she also stressed the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, as a priority on two fronts.

“One, how are we growing a diverse MI corps in terms of gender and ethnicity, but also, how are we ensuring our talent management processes aimed for officers that we have diversity within the corps, diversity of assignments and opportunities to expose our soldiers and officers to everything they need to be proficient in their tasks,” Potter said.

Potter also was a member of the women’s panel held in 2021 by the West Point Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Equal Opportunity.

Biden tapped Space Force Brig. Gen. Jody A. Merritt for promotion to major general. She promoted DEI in a post on LinkedIn.

“Such an honor to be on this esteemed panel with you and the other panelists!” Merritt wrote. “United States Space Force #STEM #diversity #inclusion #diversityandinclusion #equality #leadership #womenleaders #genderequality.”

The Daily Caller reported that Merritt had tweeted in favor of gun control. However, the tweet linked by the media outlet appears to have been deleted.

The Daily Signal previously reported on Air Force Col. Ben Jonsson, who Biden nominated for promotion to brigadier general. Jonsson wrote that his fellow “white colonels” are the “biggest barriers” to addressing “racial injustice” in the military because many are “blind to institutional racism.”

In an interview Tuesday on Newsmax, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt said he knew Jonsson well and was “disappointed” in him.

Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt SLAMS military officers for jumping on the DEI bandwagon to get promoted.

He’s reacting to @DailySignal’s story on Col. Ben Jonsson, the DEI-touting officer whose promotion is being held by @SenTuberville. pic.twitter.com/IcJJ7GEMjH

— Rob Bluey (@RobertBluey) August 22, 2023

“If you jump on the bandwagon of the day, which today is the Marxist concept of DEI [and] eliminating the meritocracy, maybe you’ll get promoted,” Holt told Newsmax. “But what I’d rather see is mission-focused officers and leaders who are true to their oath.”

The Daily Signal previously reported that Tuberville had blocked the promotion of Navy Capt. Michael Donnelly, who allowed a drag show on the USS Ronald Reagan, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

The Daily Signal also previously reported on two Air Force generals nominated by Biden for promotions—Lt. Gen. Kevin Schneider as commander of Pacific Forces and Brig. Gen. Elizabeth Arledge as major general.

Schneider had said he wanted DEI to be part of the Air Force’s “DNA.” Arledge has tweeted about the problem of “whiteness.”

Navy Rear Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, also nominated for a promotion, has focused on “gender equality and women’s empowerment” and complained that 80% of Congress is made up of men, The Daily Signal previously reported.

The White House did not respond to an inquiry from The Daily Signal about this report. Previously, Biden has criticized Tuberville for blocking the nominations for military promotions over the abortion issue.

“What Sen. Tuberville is doing is not only wrong—it is dangerous,” Biden said in an official statement July 21. “In this moment of rapidly evolving security environments and intense competition, he is risking our ability to ensure that the United States armed forces remain the greatest fighting force in the history of the world.”

In a July 28 letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Tuberville sought additional information from the Pentagon about how its abortion policy is being implemented. The Alabama Republican wrote:

Since the policy’s implementation and despite my numerous requests, the DoD has refused to provide basic information on the utilization of this policy, such as the budget from which it will draw funds necessary to cover this travel. In fact, the DoD recently provided a briefing for members of the Senate Armed Services Committee which failed to deliver any new information, and frankly, raised more questions than answers.

Tuberville also raised questions about how much his holds on Biden’s nominations actually affect the military. He noted that senators from both parties have used similar moves to get information from the Pentagon.

The Alabama Republican writes in his letter to Austin:

According to the Congressional Research Service, there were approximately 863 active duty general/flag officers as of September 2022. The Pentagon estimates that my ‘hold’ on promotions being passed by unanimous consent could impact approximately 650 nominations by the end of the year. This would amount to roughly 75% of all active duty general/flag officers.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

dailysignal.com · by Fred Lucas · August 22, 2023

30. An internet troll’s guide to ‘OPSEC’

Satire, yes. But we should take our online presence, cyber security, and OPSEC seriously. 

After I throw my cell phone in the sea I will drag my money filled mattress and my gold bars to my new cabin in the woods while wearing a Ghillie suit and become a Howard Huges like recluse.

An internet troll’s guide to ‘OPSEC’

militarytimes.com · by Sarah Sicard · August 22, 2023

(Disclaimer: The satirical story has been created purely for humor and entertainment purposes.)

Operational security is paramount to the success of any military endeavor. As we’ve entered the era of the internet, however, loose lips that sank ships have turned into geo-tagged Snapchats, TikToks, Facebook posts and tweets — now known as Xs. It’s vital, according to every expert in the comment section of a military news article, that no one serving on active duty share anything at any time ever as it puts troops and national security at risk. When you are in the military, your personal security (PERSEC) choices are also a danger.

Therefore, the only real solution is to become a hermit once you sign your life away to Uncle Sam. Here are the best ways to practice OPSEC from a reclusive internet troll’s standpoint.

1. Get off the grid. Buy a cabin in the woods... in cash. Tell no one where it is.

2. Don’t bank. Stuff all your money in your mattress. Bury gold bars in the back yard. Just don’t forget to make yourself an encrypted treasure map so you know where to find it.

3. Chuck your cell phone into the sea. Cellular comms can be infiltrated at any time. Moreover, cell phone use is a gateway to downloading social media apps. Try a rotary phone.

4. Hide your face. There are cameras everywhere these days, including traffic lights. Try not to leave your house without a disguise. Consider investing in a floppy hat and some really big sunglasses so no one can recognize you. Ski masks are a no, however, as they may draw attention to you as a killer or a bank robber.

5. Encrypt your comms. When communicating with loved ones, preferably by mail, invent coded language (phrases, ciphers, keywords) only you and they know. Don’t use real names or ranks ever. Never enclose photos. Paste together letters made from magazine cutouts like a kidnapper so no one can connect you to your own handwriting.

6. Maintain an air of mystery. Don’t tell anyone what you do for a living. Being in the military should be a closely guarded secret. Say you “work for the government,” but don’t elaborate. Never speak of deployments — call them business trips instead. Don’t let your loved ones display yellow ribbons, ask for prayers at church, or put military bumper stickers on their cars.

7. Blend in. Keep a ghillie suit on hand at all times. Better yet, live in it. You’ll get used to the smell... eventually.

8. Be a recluse. The above are all good suggestions, however, the truest way to practice OPSEC is to be a total loner. Don’t have a family, never buy a car, grow your own food, and make your own clothes. Don’t engage with anyone, but if you have to, don’t tell them who you are. It’s mission critical.

Observation Post is the Military Times one-stop shop for all things off-duty. Stories may reflect author observations.

About Sarah Sicard

Sarah Sicard is a Senior Editor with Military Times. She previously served as the Digitial Editor of Military Times and the Army Times Editor. Other work can be found at National Defense Magazine, Task & Purpose, and Defense News.

De Oppresso Liber,

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Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

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