Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.”

- Viktor Frankl

“You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea.”

- Sophocles

“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

- Malcolm X

1. C.I.A. Director Visits Israel and the Middle East Amid Israel-Hamas War

2. Iran Might Have Miscalculated in Gaza

3. Israel's military operations will deal a huge blow to Hamas. But is it even possible to completely destroy them?

4. Inside the Top-Secret Military Concert Series You've Never Heard Of

5. The People’s Liberation Army is not yet as formidable as the West fears

6. Hamas and the New Lessons of Irregular Warfare

7. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 6, 2023

8. Iran Update, November 6, 2023

9. The US is quietly arming Taiwan to the teeth

10. China’s Gray-Zone Tactics Show the U.S.-Philippine Alliance Is Working

11. Special Operations News - November 6, 2023 | SOF News

12. Defense Department Report Shows Decline in Armed Forces Population While Percentage of Military Women Rises Slightly

13. China has acquired a global network of strategically vital ports

14. China Resists Efforts to Free ‘Wrongfully Detained’ Americans

15. Soldiers' winning idea hides friendly radio calls in a sea of noise

16. Troops’ data is for sale. That puts national security at risk: report

17. Israelis overwhelmingly are confident in the justice of the Gaza war, even as world sentiment sours

1. C.I.A. Director Visits Israel and the Middle East Amid Israel-Hamas War

C.I.A. Director Visits Israel and the Middle East Amid Israel-Hamas War

William J. Burns’s visit comes as the United States tries to prod Israel to pursue a more targeted approach to attacking Hamas, allow pauses in the fighting and do more to avoid civilian casualties.

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William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, is one of the Biden administration’s most trusted voices on Middle East issues.Credit...Michael A. McCoy for The New York Times

By Julian E. Barnes

Reporting from Washington

Nov. 5, 2023

William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, arrived in Israel on Sunday for discussions with leaders and intelligence officials, the first stop in a multicountry trip in the region, according to U.S. officials.

The visit comes as the United States is trying to prod Israel to pursue a more targeted approach to attacking Hamas, allow pauses in the fighting for aid to enter Gaza and do more to avoid civilian casualties.

The United States is also looking to expand its intelligence sharing with Israel, providing information that could be useful about hostage locations or any follow-on attacks by Hamas. A U.S. official briefed on Mr. Burns’s trip said he planned to reinforce the American commitment to intelligence cooperation with partners in the region.

Mr. Burns will travel to several Middle Eastern countries for discussions about the situation in Gaza, ongoing hostage negotiations and the importance of deterring the war with Hamas from widening to a broader context, the U.S. official said.

Reactions to the Conflict in the U.S.

Protests: Tens of thousands of demonstrators crowded the streets of American cities on Oct. 4 to denounce Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Here is a snapshot of the many different groups calling for a cease-fire.
Jewish Viewers: Fox News, long a preferred source of news for the right, has become an information refuge for some American Jews who believe that the mainstream media has been too hostile to Israel.
American Chefs: The war is spilling over into the food world, with food professionals starting petitions and dishes like hummus becoming weaponized like never before.
A Polarizing Debate: As tensions mount on U.S. college campuses, Republican politicians and activists have waded into the emotional debate that is playing out among students and faculty members.

U.S. officials have been visiting Israel at a regular cadence since war broke out after Hamas fighters attacked Israeli towns on Oct. 7 and killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians. Israel has retaliated with a punishing air campaign and ground invasion into Gaza, where Hamas is in control. More than 9,000 Palestinians have been killed in airstrikes since Israel began retaliating, according to Gaza’s health ministry. U.S. officials said their estimates of the number of Palestinians killed were similar.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken arrived on Friday to make the case to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and key national security officials that there are more effective ways to cripple Hamas than the intense air campaign.

Israel-Hamas War: Live Updates

Updated Nov. 6, 2023, 5:14 p.m. ET50 minutes ago50 minutes ago

A spokeswoman for the C.I.A. said the agency does not comment on the director’s travel.

Mr. Burns, who has extensive experience in the region, visited as key intelligence leaders in Israel have been heavily criticized for failing to detect the attack and the threat from Hamas more broadly.

As one of the Biden administration’s most trusted voices on Middle East issues, Mr. Burns has become something of a roving troubleshooting diplomat for the White House.

The visits by American officials, particularly President Biden, have made an impact on Israelis, many of whom have been frustrated with Mr. Netanyahu’s handling of the crisis. Still, there are tensions between Israeli officials and their American counterparts, as the United States pushes Israel to embrace a military campaign that takes more care to minimize civilian casualties.

American officials say they are not telling Israelis what to do, but they are advising them about their own experiences with the Iraq war and drilling into Mr. Netanyahu’s government the importance of not imitating America’s missteps after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Mr. Burns’s visit to Arab countries may be as important as his meetings in Israel.

His exact itinerary is unclear, but he is expected to visit Jordan. King Abdullah II canceled a meeting with Mr. Biden after a blast at a Gaza hospital led to high casualties. While the United States and Israel have blamed Hamas for the explosion, Hamas has said Israel is responsible. Much of Jordan’s population is ethnically Palestinian, putting the country, a close U.S. ally that has a peace treaty with Israel, in an especially tricky position as it navigates the fallout from the war.

Mr. Burns has a particularly close relationship with King Abdullah. He was the ambassador to Jordan when King Hussein died and Abdullah ascended to the throne. King Abdullah recently wrote a letter praising Mr. Burns’s diplomatic skills for a ceremony honoring the C.I.A. director

Julian E. Barnes covers the U.S. intelligence agencies and international security matters for The Times. He has written about security issues for more than two decades. More about Julian E. Barnes

A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 6, 2023, Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: C.I.A. Chief Begins Visit To Mideast Amid War. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

2. Iran Might Have Miscalculated in Gaza

Excerpts:

The real question in the Middle East these days isn’t what Israel or Hamas will do next. It is whether Team Biden has finally awakened from its enchanted sleep. Does the White House understand that the Israeli-Palestinian problem, while real and consequential, pales before Iran’s unappeasable drive for power as the region’s leading cause of war and unrest? Has it learned that every penny that goes to the mullahs feeds their ambitions?

If so, better days are coming for a region that could use some hope. If not, the insane ambitions of a brutal regime will produce more horrors in years to come.

Iran Might Have Miscalculated in Gaza

It had an interest in dividing Israel from Arab states. So far that hasn’t happened.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-might-have-miscalculated-in-gaza-abraham-accords-arab-allies-70bc087a?mod=hp_opin_pos_5#cxrecs_s

By Walter Russell Mead

Nov. 6, 2023 5:47 pm ET

Rubble after an Israeli bombing in Rafah, Gaza, Nov. 6. PHOTO: ABED RAHIM KHATIB/ZUMA PRESS

Most news and commentary describes the war in Gaza as the latest brutal episode in the conflict between Israelis and Arabs. That is one dimension, but from the perspective of world-power politics, it isn’t the most important. What really matters in the Middle East is the battle between Iran, increasingly backed by Russia and China, and the loose and uneasy group of anti-Iranian powers that includes Israel and the American-backed Arab states.

There is much about the Gaza war that we still don’t know: how long it will last, what the death toll will be, how many hostages can be rescued or returned, and how successful Israel will be in its declared objective of destroying Hamas.

But so far, from a global perspective, the most important fact is that Iran isn’t getting what it wanted from the war. Iran’s objective in arming, training and encouraging Hamas wasn’t solely to cause Israel pain. The real goal was to disrupt the gradual deepening of the strategic ties between Israel and its most important Arab neighbors.

The picture has been clear for some time to those not hypnotized by the condescending Iran apologists who lulled a generation of credulous Democratic foreign-policy officials into seeing Tehran as a possible American partner. Iran’s rulers, believing that controlling the Middle East’s energy resources and religious sites would make the country a world power, want to establish themselves as the dominant force in the region.

Sunni Arabs have long viewed Iran as a religious rival and a security threat. More recently, as Iran’s march to hegemony left a trail of ruined countries and bloody corpses, suspicion solidified into terror and loathing. Tehran’s support for Bashar al-Assad in Syria is responsible for many times more deaths and refugees than all the Israeli-Palestinian wars combined. Iran’s support for Hezbollah converted once-prosperous Lebanon into a poverty-stricken Iranian satellite. Tehran’s allies keep Iraq in a state of miserable unrest while Iranian support for Houthi forces in Yemen drove one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of our time.

We don’t yet know how closely Iran was involved in the planning and timing of last month’s attacks, but it’s clearer what the mullahs hoped the attacks would accomplish. At one level, Iran wanted to remind everyone how savage and powerful the country and its proxies have become. Terror serves Iranian state interests.

Beyond that, Tehran hoped to disrupt the emerging anti-Iran bloc in the Middle East. The idea was that Hamas’s dramatic attacks would electrify public opinion in the region against Israel, the U.S. and the Arab rulers willing to work with them. This, Tehran hoped, would drive a wedge between the Arabs and Israelis as Arab rulers sought to placate their angry publics by abandoning any plans to work closely with Israel.

So far, this plan has failed. Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have all signaled that they intend, once the storm has passed, to go on working with Jerusalem for a safer, more stable Middle East. Worse from Iran’s point of view, the Arabs are committing to a revived form of Palestinian governance that can exclude Iran’s proxies from both the West Bank and Gaza.

This isn’t because the conservative Arab states love Israel or the U.S. It is because their survival requires checking Tehran.

This isn’t only about deterring Iranian aggression. It is about building a regional environment in which their countries can flourish. Arab leaders may not care for Western-style democracy, but they need to develop their economies. With populations and expectations rising, and with the long-term future of fossil fuels uncertain, the Gulf states need to do more than pump oil out of the ground.

Instead of dividing Israel from the Arab states, the Hamas attacks reminded sensible people across the Middle East how important it is to hold Iran in check. The Gulf states need stability, and Iran and its murderous proxies are mortal threats to the economic future that Arab rulers want and their people need.

The real question in the Middle East these days isn’t what Israel or Hamas will do next. It is whether Team Biden has finally awakened from its enchanted sleep. Does the White House understand that the Israeli-Palestinian problem, while real and consequential, pales before Iran’s unappeasable drive for power as the region’s leading cause of war and unrest? Has it learned that every penny that goes to the mullahs feeds their ambitions?

If so, better days are coming for a region that could use some hope. If not, the insane ambitions of a brutal regime will produce more horrors in years to come.

Appeared in the November 7, 2023, print edition as 'Iran Might Have Miscalculated in Gaza'.

3. Israel's military operations will deal a huge blow to Hamas. But is it even possible to completely destroy them?

Excerpts:

After nine days of Israeli operations in Gaza in 2021, US President Biden informed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he "was out of runway" and a ceasefire was declared two days later. While the Israelis may have more latitude this time because of the magnitude of the October attacks, the strategic clock is still ticking.

As such, Israel has prioritised northern Gaza and will reassess whether it has the strategic flexibility for further operations once this operation is complete.

Regardless, there will be a lot of brutal and bloody fighting ahead on the ground — and under the ground — in the coming weeks. The casualties on all sides will mount. And the vicious information war that rages around the world will continue to put pressure on Israel to moderate the violence.

But given Netanyahu's determination to see this Gaza operation through to the end, a reduction in violence is unlikely in the very near future.

Israel's military operations will deal a huge blow to Hamas. But is it even possible to completely destroy them?

ABC.net.au · by Mick Ryan · November 6, 2023

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) last Friday completed an important component of its operation in Gaza.

An armoured thrust across the middle of Gaza reached the sea. This has the effect of isolating northern Gaza from the rest of the territory. But it also heralds a new phase in the ongoing Israeli military action, Operation Swords of Iron.

The IDF now occupies a large section of middle Gaza and appears set to stay for some time. Open-source intelligence indicates that Israel has rapidly constructed a string of strong points across the trunk of Gaza. These strong points, constructed by the armoured bulldozers, will form a cordon that has several purposes in the next phase of Israel's Gaza operation.

The IDF now occupies a large section of middle Gaza, and appears set to stay for some time.(Israel Defense Forces via Reuters)

One reason for isolating northern Gaza is to ensure Hamas is cut off from external sources of support. The cordon will prevent support from southern Gaza moving north to Hamas terrorists. But it will also allow civilians to escape the combat occurring to the north, while preventing Hamas from fleeing south.

While Israeli forces are manning this southern cordon, a large ground force has been advancing on two major axes – from the north and the north east – into Gaza City.

The aim of this is to continue squeezing Hamas, forcing them into a smaller and smaller area where they can be detected and destroyed. The IDF will also be seeking to find Hamas infrastructure in northern Gaza, including confirming the locations of the extensive underground network used to move fighters and store weapons. At the same time the IDF will desperately be seeking hostages that might be held in northern Gaza.

These operations will involve armoured ground forces, crewed and uncrewed aircraft as well as electronic reconnaissance and human intelligence operations.

The IDF has sent ground forces into Gaza. ((Israel Defense Forces via AP)

The deaths of civilians and hostages may be hard to avoid

The mission to destroy Hamas and the mission to retrieve hostages however will be difficult to reconcile. Given the amount of destruction involved in engaging and killing Hamas fighters, it is difficult to avoid civilian casualties or the potential deaths of hostages.

The Israeli operations in Gaza are likely to take some time — possibly weeks or months. The intensity of fighting will increase, and the casualty count for IDF soldiers, Hamas militants and civilians is likely to rise.

During this time Israel will need to balance military missions, avoiding civilian casualties, recovering hostages and keeping an eye on the inevitable strategic clock that is ticking.

Can Hamas be destroyed?

An important issue for the Gaza operation is whether it is actually possible to destroy Hamas.

Certainly, the IDF operations will deal a lethal blow to Hamas, kill many of its followers and destroy its infrastructure. But, like all wars, more than military operations are needed to achieve long term, stable political solutions. Military operations can only be successful if they are conducted in support of political objectives.

To "destroy" Hamas will require severing the support it receives from organisations such as Hezbollah, and from Iran. But it will also require a long-term political and social remedies that eliminate the reasons why young men in Gaza feel a need to join organisations like Hamas.

Hamas's purpose and ideas would need to be made irrelevant to the people of Gaza.

Without these issues being addressed, the current Israeli operations are at risk of just being a more violent form of Israel's "mowing the grass" strategy for Gaza that preceded October 7.

The current Israeli operations risk just being a more violent form of Israel's existing strategy for Gaza.(AP Photo: Felipe Dana)

After Gaza, what comes next?

A final question is this: after northern Gaza, what comes next?

The government of Israel has several options. It could withdraw its forces and continue a lower intensity operation to destroy Hamas infrastructure and hunt down those who participated in the October 7 atrocities. Alternatively, it could use northern Gaza as a launch point for an advance into southern Gaza.

What weapons do both sides have in the Israel-Gaza war?

Despite having a highly advanced military, in Gaza Israeli soldiers will be facing off with Hamas in scenarios that may work in the militants' favour.

But the government of Israel will understand that, despite its desire to destroy Hamas in all of Gaza, its allies only have limited strategic endurance for supporting this. The US government, despite its support for Israel, has been signalling its dissatisfaction with the level of civilian casualties in the past two weeks.

After nine days of Israeli operations in Gaza in 2021, US President Biden informed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he "was out of runway" and a ceasefire was declared two days later. While the Israelis may have more latitude this time because of the magnitude of the October attacks, the strategic clock is still ticking.

As such, Israel has prioritised northern Gaza and will reassess whether it has the strategic flexibility for further operations once this operation is complete.

Regardless, there will be a lot of brutal and bloody fighting ahead on the ground — and under the ground — in the coming weeks. The casualties on all sides will mount. And the vicious information war that rages around the world will continue to put pressure on Israel to moderate the violence.

But given Netanyahu's determination to see this Gaza operation through to the end, a reduction in violence is unlikely in the very near future.

Mick Ryan is a strategist and retired Australian Army major general. He served in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan, and as a strategist on the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is also a non-resident fellow of the Lowy Institute and at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

ABC.net.au · by Mick Ryan · November 6, 2023

4. Inside the Top-Secret Military Concert Series You've Never Heard Of

And on a more positive note with all the grim news of the day/week/month/year. Some people are doing very good work for our military.

Inside the Top-Secret Military Concert Series You've Never Heard Of

Rolling Stone · by Kevin Maurer · November 2, 2023

I t’s a Tuesday night, and I pull up to Tampa’s Amalie Arena. There’s no fanfare — no crowds lining up outside; no bright, flashing signage; nothing. My Uber driver asks if there’s an event in the area. But in just three hours, three-time Grammy-winning country superstar Brad Paisley will share the stage with a former Delta Force operator turned singer-songwriter, a former Green Beret, and a military spouse making a run at country-music glory.

But unless you were told about it, you’d have no idea a top-secret military rock concert series is about to kick off. You’d have no idea the venue is going to be filled with defense contractors, service members, and even a few generals all dressed in jeans and T-shirts. I’ve covered special operations for two decades, and I’d never heard of these events until earlier this year, when a special-operations veteran I know told me about the concerts, which feature national-headline acts performing on the same stage as bands made up of veterans. And the series has raised more than $7 million from tickets and donations for the children of fallen special-operations personnel and CIA officers.

The covert concerts started in 2012 in Washington, D.C. No press. No marketing. The locations and dates are closely guarded. It’s one of those things you need to hear about. Kind of like Fight Club. It started in Washington and has expanded to Tampa, Florida, home of special-operations command. The next show is in early November in the D.C. area.

Derek (right) served more than a decade in special operations. Operator Relief Fund

The concert series is dubbed SOFstock, which gets its name from a mashup of the acronym for special-operations forces (SOF) and Woodstock. In May, a few hours before the show, I meet with Pack, the founder, to talk about the night’s show and the impact it has on the special-operations community. (He asked that his full name not be used for security reasons and, I suspect, to also keep the mystique of the event.)

Pack speaks in machine-gun bursts as he ping-pongs from our interview to concert prep to excitement over the programs he and his small team have built. Not a vet himself, Pack tells me two decades of war special operations have shouldered the brunt of the load, and this is his way to give back. He got the idea for the concert when he worked for Merrill Lynch in mergers and acquisitions of private government-contracting companies. During a tour of a defense contractor’s office, Pack noticed a jam room with instruments. The company owner told him his coders — during marathon work sessions — blew off steam by jamming. Music was a common language, a way to bond. Pack figured he could use the same idea to bring the defense community together to raise money for children of the fallen. And it sure beat the stuffy gala-circuit foundations usually used to fundraise.

The concerts started as a battle of bands made up of members of the defense community, but now the stage is headlined by professionals. The event is fueled by defense contractors who pay several hundred dollars a ticket for food, booze, and access to special-operations and intelligence-community leaders. The guest list is a closely guarded secret, but Pack confirms it was well-attended by Special Operations Command staff, the Tampa-based headquarters that oversees the SEALs and Green Berets.

The concert’s beneficiaries are the children of fallen special-operators or CIA officers who have had their entire university education paid through ticket sales to the event and donations from the concerts’ auctions. About a dozen recipients took the stage in Tampa before the auction to show where every dollar is going. But with the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the number of killed or wounded has declined, prompting Pack to shift his attention to not only helping the children of the fallen but also treating special-operations veterans nationwide who suffer from physical and mental wounds, namely “Operator Syndrome,” a combination of post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury (TBI), and other conditions, which often results in sleep disorders, chronic pain, depression, suicidal ideation, and cognitive deterioration.

“We have a duty to take care of their kids when they’re gone,” Pack says. “We have a duty to help them transition out.”

While we talk, his phone chirps as emails, text messages, and calls come in looking for last-minute tickets based on word of mouth.

A high-ranking official calls asking for tickets for some of the commanders at Special Operations Command. Pack tells the man how to secure tickets, but only after he jokingly asks the generals and admirals to provide a video showing them doing 25 pushups to unlock the ticket code. Another email arrives begging for tickets for some Air Force special-operations leaders.

“These men and women that do these things in the shadow community,” Pack says, “these are the best we have.”

Before the Tampa show in May Operator Relief Fund

Plus, when Paisley takes the stage a few hours from now, he wants the arena floor full.

IT’S AN HOUR BEFORE THE SHOW, and the arena is busy as Paisley’s road crew makes final preparations on the stage and lights. The doors open around 6 p.m., and it doesn’t take long for the lobby to fill up.

Backstage, Derek — a former Delta Force operator who served more than a decade in special operations — waits. He’s minutes from taking the same stage as Paisley and his band. He’ll open the show playing songs that he wrote as a young ranger early in his military career. Now retired, this is his next mission.

“I sold all my guns and got guitars,” Derek says.

Derek has Springsteen vibes with a thick chest and biceps under a banded-collar shirt. Sitting in a dressing room, he fidgets with his hands. It’s quiet despite the crowd filling the arena less than 50 feet away. This is Derek’s first gig. His mind drifts to his old job and doing missions in Iraq. Everyone wanted to be the first man through the door during a raid, something he did with no fear, he tells me.

“I believe a thousand percent I’m going to handle whatever’s in there before they do,” he says. “Right? That’s the case onstage. I feel like I can go into that mission place. I am trying not to be scared into making mistakes out there.”

Derek retired from the military in 2017 after 20 years, including 13 years in Delta Force, the Army’s top-tier counterterrorism unit. Doctors at Walter Reed diagnosed him in 2016 with TBI. While scrolling a playlist, it dawns on him how much he uses songs to trigger memories. He bought his first rock record when he was 11 and started playing guitar soon afterward. Playing took a back seat to the war, but he returned to music and in 2020 enrolled at Berklee College of Music.

When it’s time to start, he climbs onstage and straps a guitar across his chest. A few concertgoers stop to watch. He’s the opener, and most focus on getting that first beer or finding a spot to watch Paisley.

But Derek is focused on the chords. By the time he starts to strum, the nerves are lost in the words and music. By the second song, Derek has crawled all the way inside of his set, full of lyric-forward acoustic tunes written from his experience as a soldier and as a veteran making the transition to civilian life. One standout tune — “Boxes and Bows” — written for his wife about a hard time in their marriage, gets the most applause.

Operator Relief Fund

Before Paisley takes the stage, there is a short auction hosted by Rob Riggle. After a few jokes, members of the crowd surround the T-shape stage and hold up paddles as auction items flash on the video screens. A professional auctioneer keeps the bids coming, raising $100,000 for a white straw cowboy hat signed by Paisley.

Then Paisley — who declined an interview request — finally takes the stage and blows through his set of greatest hits: “Mud on the Tires,” “I’m Going to Miss Her,” “Alcohol.”

Backstage after the show, Derek collects his stuff from a dressing room not far from Paisley’s. He just shared the stage with a country legend for his first gig. Derek’s new mission is to find another audience.

Meanwhile, I find Pack in the seats to the left of the stage. He is happy.

As volunteers and Paisley’s road crew pack up, Pack is already thinking about how to spend the money. He won’t disclose the amount raised — by my math he raked in about half a million, including $100,000 for the auctioned hat alone — but he knows every dollar raised is going to support either a child whose parent gave the last full measure or an operator searching for some peace after two decades of war.

This story has been updated with the correct amount of money raised by SOFStock.

Rolling Stone · by Kevin Maurer · November 2, 2023

5. The People’s Liberation Army is not yet as formidable as the West fears

Conclusion:

Underestimating the PLA would be dangerous. But overestimating it would be too. As in the cold war, that can breed mutual insecurity and unnecessary confrontation. Amplifying Mr Xi’s threats could also discourage some leaders from confronting him when they should. That’s in part what allowed Russia to annex much of Ukraine with impunity in 2014. A ruthlessly balanced view of the PLA is essential both to avoid war and, if necessary, to win one.

The People’s Liberation Army is not yet as formidable as the West fears

Overestimating China’s armed forces would be dangerous, argues Jeremy Page

The Economist

In 1957 America was gripped by fears of a “missile gap” with the Soviet Union. The Kremlin had stunned the world with a test flight of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and the launch of Sputnik. An American intelligence report predicted that by 1962, the Soviets could have 500 ICBMs, outstripping America’s arsenal. When word of that leaked, a political furore erupted. Eyeing the presidency from his Senate seat, John F. Kennedy demanded action to prevent a Soviet “shortcut to world domination”.

It was bunkum. By his 1961 inauguration, spooks had new satellite images. The Soviets actually had about six ICBMs late that year, to America’s 60. But Kennedy stayed the course; his rhetoric and continued atomic buildup stoked tensions with the Kremlin that erupted in the Cuban missile crisis. As for the prior years, Lyndon Johnson would observe in 1967: “We were doing things we didn’t need to do. We were building things we didn’t need to build.”

Military history is rich with tales of a similar cautionary ilk: overestimating an adversary can be as risky as underrating one. Aerial drones, cyber-espionage and high-resolution satellite imagery promised better results. And yet egregious miscalculation continues. Recently Western governments were stunned by the poor performance of Russian forces in Ukraine. All of which raises a high-stakes question for America and the rest of the world: how accurate is their appraisal of China’s military power?

China’s armed forces, known as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), have undergone an extraordinary transformation. When China normalised relations with America and began opening its economy in 1979, the PLA was an ill-equipped force designed to fight on its land borders. Even that was not something it did well, as Vietnam showed that year when it repelled a Chinese invasion.

Today, China boasts the world’s biggest army and navy, its third-largest air force and one of its most potent arsenals of conventional missiles, including some that can hit America’s Pacific bases. And though America and Russia each have more than ten times as many nuclear warheads, China is modernising its stockpile, which the Pentagon believes could double to 1,000 by 2030.

The PLA has grown more active, too. It has built artificial islands in the South China Sea and regularly sends ships and planes to enforce maritime claims there. Its troops have clashed with India’s on a disputed Himalayan border. It has opened its first overseas base, in Djibouti, and wants more. And it has significantly expanded operations around Taiwan, the self-governed island that China claims and America pledges to help defend. Alarmed by China’s build-up, senior American military commanders have warned that an attack on Taiwan could be imminent.

And yet, seen from Beijing, the PLA is still far from being ready for war with America. To feel assured of victory in a conflict such as one over Taiwan, it must overcome several old problems, including a convoluted command structure, inadequate logistics and a lack of combat experience, having not fought a war since the one with Vietnam. It must also confront new challenges, including lessons from the war in Ukraine, American curbs on high-tech exports to China and a dearth of technologically skilled recruits.

The PLA must also battle what President Xi Jinping has called “peace disease”, a lax internal culture bred from decades without fighting. For much of that time the armed forces grew notorious for their far-reaching and often corrupt business dealings. Their most deadly engagement in the last 44 years was with their own countrymen, in the massacre of protesters in Beijing in 1989.

All this must be done in an authoritarian system that discourages reporting problems to the top, impeding reform efforts. Since 2016 Mr Xi has tried to modernise the PLA with its biggest overhaul in six decades, streamlining its ossified Soviet-era structures and trying to enable joint operations among all services. But that is taking longer than hoped. A crackdown on indiscipline has fallen short, judging by the sacking in July of the two top generals in the PLA Rocket Force, which handles nuclear and conventional missiles. They are believed to be under investigation for corruption or leaking secrets. American officials think General Li Shangfu, who was sacked as defence minister in October, is also in custody.

This special report will examine the PLA’s vulnerabilities, rather than its strengths, and explore their implications for America and its allies. The aim is not to portray the PLA as a “paper tiger”: the threat it poses is real. The goal rather is to provide balance to a public debate that has at times resembled the more paranoid periods of the cold war, and risks replicating that era’s errors.

Guessing game

Like their cold-war forebears, intelligence officers assessing the PLA often focus on hardware. Much of it is visible from space, in parades or during exercises. Hardware is also easy to represent in war games. But gauging a country’s capacity to use such equipment in war is far harder. So too is assessing China’s strategic intent. That often involves parsing ambiguous public remarks.

A case in point is the discussion around when China might attack Taiwan. Soon after taking power in 2012, Mr Xi linked Taiwan’s unification with the mainland to his broader goal of “national rejuvenation” by 2049, the centenary of Communist rule. In 2017 he set the PLA a new target of being “basically” modernised by 2035. Then, three years later, he ordered it to speed progress towards modernisation by its own centenary in 2027.

American officials say they have intelligence suggesting that Mr Xi has ordered the PLA to have the capability to invade Taiwan by 2027. That does not mean he has decided to attack by then, says William Burns, the CIA chief. But such distinctions are often lost in media coverage, political debate and remarks from military leaders. Take, for example, Air Force General Mike Minihan’s recent warning to his officers: “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.”

The lack of nuance is, to an extent, understandable. Mr Xi could miscalculate, as Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, did on Ukraine. And even if Mr Xi does not plan to attack Taiwan by 2027, it makes sense for America to prepare. For its military chiefs that means motivating troops, seeking congressional funding and battling over resources between services and regional commands.

But some China hawks say America must do much more: cut down on visas for Chinese tech students; double defence spending (and the size of the navy); deploy a surge of forces to Asia; and explicitly end more than 40 years of “strategic ambiguity” about whether America would directly defend Taiwan. Many Republicans cite focusing on China as a reason to cut support for Ukraine. And in perhaps the most direct echo of the late 1950s, some are demanding a significant expansion of America’s nuclear arsenal.

Many academic, military and intelligence experts on the PLA—in the West and among China’s neighbours—fear that such measures could backfire. If America escalates support for Taiwan too far, it could convince Mr Xi that he has to strike, ready or not. An American defence splurge now might be hard to sustain and could cause vulnerabilities later when that equipment is retired and new types of arms are needed. Attracting China’s tech talent helps to undermine its military ambitions. Cutting support for Ukraine could hand the Kremlin a victory that would ultimately strengthen Mr Xi. And a big American nuclear build-up could push the world further into a new nuclear arms race.

As for 2027, some PLA-watchers note that Mr Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, also set a deadline. He instructed the PLA to achieve “major progress” by 2020 towards being able to “win local wars” in high-tech conditions. That soon became the year by which many American defence officials thought China wanted to be able to take Taiwan. Yet the deadline passed quietly.

Opinion among PLA specialists is by no means uniform. Many worry that American plans to defend Taiwan are woefully inadequate. Some fear that a presidential election in Taiwan in January 2024 could prompt Mr Xi to act, perhaps by seizing one of its outlying islands or imposing a blockade. Others see a potential window of vulnerability in the four or five years after 2027 when Mr Xi, who by then is likely to be in a fourth term in office, could demand action on Taiwan before the island’s current military modernisation efforts have fully borne fruit.

But such hawkish views have lately dominated Western public discourse, shaped in part by headlines about China’s latest military capabilities and by America’s febrile pre-election politics. There has also been a lot of new research on the PLA, much of it by think-tanks ultimately funded by the Pentagon. They tend to focus on what China can do, rather than what it cannot. Less funding—and public attention—goes to research on the PLA’s weak points.

Underestimating the PLA would be dangerous. But overestimating it would be too. As in the cold war, that can breed mutual insecurity and unnecessary confrontation. Amplifying Mr Xi’s threats could also discourage some leaders from confronting him when they should. That’s in part what allowed Russia to annex much of Ukraine with impunity in 2014. A ruthlessly balanced view of the PLA is essential both to avoid war and, if necessary, to win one. ■

The Economist

6. Hamas and the New Lessons of Irregular Warfare

Perhaps John F. Kennedy could have written this. Or maybe President Obama.

"This is another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient in its origins - war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins; war by ambush instead of combat; by infiltration instead of aggression, seeking victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him. It requires - in those situations where we must encounter it - a whole new kind of strategy, a wholly different kind of force, and therefore, a new and wholly different kind of military training."

President John F. Kennedy, 1962

"History teaches us that the nations that grow comfortable with the old ways and complacent in the face of new threats, those nations do not long endure. And in the 21st century, we do not have the luxury of deciding which challenges to prepare for and which to ignore. We must overcome the full spectrum of threats - the conventional and the unconventional; the nation state and the terrorist network; the spread of deadly technologies and the spread of hateful ideologies; 18th century-style piracy and 21st century cyber threats."

President Barack H. Obama, 2009

Excerpts:

Irregular warfare, like hybrid warfare, gray-zone competition, and other nebulous concepts, has a hazy definition. U.S. military strategists and planners have struggled to define irregular warfare and have adopted a multitude of meanings, resulting in a lack of strategic focus that has hampered Washington and its allies from adequately addressing the spectrum of irregular threats.

....

First, high-tech tools do not always guarantee an advantage; low-tech means used effectively can trump more advanced defenses.

....

Second, the low-tech innovation methods, tactics, and capabilities that Hamas utilized are not new

...

Third, and relatedly, irregular adversaries will eventually learn how to beat their target’s capabilities.

...

Fourth, it is essential for actors to preemptively develop and maintain nonmilitary options to respond in an irregular warfare scenario.

...

Other countries are taking note of emerging irregular warfare tactics. Taiwan has been a careful observer of the Ukrainian conflict to distill lessons that can help the island nation defend itself against a possible future Chinese hybrid warfare assault. Inspired—or, perhaps, forewarned—by the Ukrainian example, Taiwan has launched an ambitious drone strategy to build up its domestic manufacturing capabilities, with Taiwanese leaders extolling the concept of asymmetric warfare to make Taiwan that much harder for China to capture.

The dynamics of interstate competition are drastically changing, taking on traits more frequently found in indirect strategies and irregular tactics. This shift is glaringly seen in the ongoing confrontation between Israel and Hamas, the latter of which personifies the traditional characteristics of a violent nonstate actor waging irregular warfare.

The growing trend of states having to contend with various irregular forces or proxies serves as a resounding call to action for military planners and security strategists. It is imperative that they diligently explore and strengthen their defenses against the intricate challenges posed by irregular warfare. Importantly, this should be done now, by taking a close look at the ongoing conflicts—so that nations can glean these complex lessons without having to enter the crucible of actual combat.

Hamas and the New Lessons of Irregular Warfare

Military strategies need urgent revisions to counter—and learn from—fast-evolving irregular threats.

By Varsha Koduvayur, a senior analyst at the Irregular Warfare Center, and Peter Chin, an advisor for the Irregular Warfare Center.

Foreign Policy · by Varsha Koduvayur, Peter Chin · November 6, 2023

On Oct. 7, the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched its most audacious attack on Israel, catching the country by surprise. Militants poured into Israeli towns, leaving horrific carnage in their wake as a barrage of thousands of missiles complemented the land assault. While the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) initially mounted a sluggish response, the conflict is now conflagrating further, with a death toll of thousands that is sure to rise with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vow that Hamas will be “crushed.”

Hamas’s offensive powerfully demonstrates the impact and importance of irregular warfare. Based on the group’s success in bleeding Israel, the conflict highlights several key lessons on this type of warfare—and how to counter it.

Irregular warfare, like hybrid warfare, gray-zone competition, and other nebulous concepts, has a hazy definition. U.S. military strategists and planners have struggled to define irregular warfare and have adopted a multitude of meanings, resulting in a lack of strategic focus that has hampered Washington and its allies from adequately addressing the spectrum of irregular threats.

That said, the characteristics of irregular warfare are fairly clear: the utilization of asymmetric, multidimensional, and indirect means to achieve a desired outcome, usually by a country or force that lacks the means to succeed in a conventional military clash. Asymmetric means are unconventional tactics that seek to close the gap between capabilities; multidimensional refers to simultaneous activities in military, political, informational, and other realms; indirect describes tactics that seek to avoid a conventional, head-to-head military clash. By these benchmarks, Hamas’s offensive against Israel is a classic irregular warfare scenario.

Hamas attacked simultaneously across air, land, and sea, circumventing the much more powerful Israeli Defense Forces. Pumping an estimated 2,200 rockets into Israeli territory in the early morning on Oct. 7, Hamas overwhelmed Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome missile defense system. Under cover of the missile barrage, bulldozers tore through the supposedly well-fortified border of the Gaza Strip, allowing hundreds of militants through.

Those militants then attacked IDF bases and rampaged Israeli towns, utilizing extreme violence for a shock-and-awe effect that had the intended byproduct of boxing Israel into a heavy military response. To that end, Hamas indiscriminately killed or mutilated civilians, advertising its murder spree by quickly releasing abundant videos. Other Israelis were abducted back to Gaza as hostages, presumably to use as human shields, another irregular tactic that Hamas has long favored. As Israeli airstrikes attempt to decimate the militants, Hamas will be able to point to the images of civilian casualties that it seeks as it fights its war in another domain—that of narratives and information, allowing the group to chip away at international support for Israel. Its operatives will simply go underground into Gaza’s network of tunnels to move and conduct attacks, demonstrating the group’s progress in clandestine logistics.

Months and even years of planning, tradecraft, training, and coordination preceded the attack under the supposedly watchful eye of Israel’s Mossad and Shin Bet intelligence agencies. Documents reportedly found by Israeli soldiers suggest that the plan was hatched in October 2022. Hence, it is difficult to believe that Hamas does not have an underlying objective. Surely the group war-gamed Israel’s response and figured that Israel’s inevitable counterattack against Gaza would give Hamas—and its external supporter, Iran—the grand prize: stopping the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Hamas did not utilize any never-before-seen irregular warfare techniques, tactics, or doctrine. Instead, it uniquely combined existing irregular tactics for great strategic gains. Nonstate actors fight with what they have and get creative regarding what they do not. As they usually do not possess tanks, helicopters, fighter planes, or other equipment in their arsenals, they avoid direct attacks on security and defense forces, instead opting for indirect means and methods. And through its usage of indirect means, Hamas illuminates four key lessons on irregular warfare and its future evolution for the international community.

First, high-tech tools do not always guarantee an advantage; low-tech means used effectively can trump more advanced defenses. Hamas employed traditional clandestine tradecraft to beat Israel’s technological edge. Utilizing human intelligence, Hamas gathered granular data on its Israeli targets, including vulnerabilities in military equipment and detailed layouts of the bases and towns it attacked. Israel’s super-fortified border with Gaza, replete with sensor technology, cameras, and other features, was no match for Hamas’s combination of drones, paragliders, bulldozers, motorcycles, and rockets.

Indeed, Hamas fighters even filmed a video near the border fence and posted it just days before the attack, foreshadowing the exact steps they utilized in the assault. Ultimately, Israel likely overrelied on the protection afforded by its advanced capabilities, turning a blind eye to the possibility of low-tech innovation.

Second, the low-tech innovation methods, tactics, and capabilities that Hamas utilized are not new. The group simply found a way to implement them in a lethal and effective combination. The paragliders, drones, snipers, missiles, motorcycle assault troops, and rubber boats that Hamas used were applied in a combined, coordinated, multidimensional, and asymmetric fashion.

In the words of a senior retired Israeli officer, Israel knew the individual tactics that Hamas used; the shock “was the coordination between all those systems.” That adversaries will adapt their tactics, and in the process produce new evolutions in their overall modus operandi, should be understood as a hallmark of irregular warfare. When it comes to preparing for and countering this type of warfare, actors need to track how their adversaries might give older means a facelift or combine familiar tactics in such a way as to effectively create new ones—for which defenders might be unprepared.

Third, and relatedly, irregular adversaries will eventually learn how to beat their target’s capabilities. Or, if not quite beat them, at least overwhelm the target long enough to notch a strategic advantage, as Hamas did, knocking out Iron Dome through its sheer volume of attacks. Indeed, one of irregular warfare’s defining traits is how actors utilize asymmetric and indirect tactics to circumvent stronger capabilities.

Ukraine provides another example of this maxim, with Kyiv innovatively turning commercial drones into explosive-bearing weapons that have damaged much more expensive Russian equipment. Thus, states must constantly evolve and strengthen their capabilities while developing new ones. Steps need to be taken to proactively prepare for adversarial encroachment, such as through war-gaming and red teaming what an adversary can or will do in the future. And these preparations need to account for irregular tactics—no matter the adversary—instead of focusing only on conventional military capabilities.

Fourth, it is essential for actors to preemptively develop and maintain nonmilitary options to respond in an irregular warfare scenario. Israel currently finds itself in a bind: Military means are its main option to squash Hamas in the short term, yet the damage that these means will wreak on the lives of Gaza’s civilians and civil infrastructure will certainly cause blowback. Nonmilitary optionality—such as conducting information operations to chip away at adversarial messaging, or utilizing economic tactics, as China has done, to chip away at an adversary’s economic foundations—that can deliver near-term wins will be vitally important in future irregular warfare scenarios.

Hamas’s offensive is replete with lessons on irregular warfare. This tactic is likely to play a defining role in future conflicts, especially ones with an asymmetry in power, reputation, or legitimacy among their actors.

Russia’s war in Ukraine also bears powerful witness to the salience of irregular warfare. On one side, Russia utilizes asymmetric means—Iranian-made drones—to knock out key nodes of Ukrainian infrastructure, such as power plants, and to grind down the Ukrainian population’s morale.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has also used asymmetric means to defend itself. Kyiv carries out massed attacks using its aforementioned inexpensive drones, which can penetrate far into Russian territory and bomb airbases, damaging the equipment that Russia would use against Kyiv. Lacking a navy and long-range anti-ship missiles to defeat the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Ukraine has also come up with an innovative, inexpensive, and domestically produced sea drone to destroy Russian warships.

Other countries are taking note of emerging irregular warfare tactics. Taiwan has been a careful observer of the Ukrainian conflict to distill lessons that can help the island nation defend itself against a possible future Chinese hybrid warfare assault. Inspired—or, perhaps, forewarned—by the Ukrainian example, Taiwan has launched an ambitious drone strategy to build up its domestic manufacturing capabilities, with Taiwanese leaders extolling the concept of asymmetric warfare to make Taiwan that much harder for China to capture.

The dynamics of interstate competition are drastically changing, taking on traits more frequently found in indirect strategies and irregular tactics. This shift is glaringly seen in the ongoing confrontation between Israel and Hamas, the latter of which personifies the traditional characteristics of a violent nonstate actor waging irregular warfare.

The growing trend of states having to contend with various irregular forces or proxies serves as a resounding call to action for military planners and security strategists. It is imperative that they diligently explore and strengthen their defenses against the intricate challenges posed by irregular warfare. Importantly, this should be done now, by taking a close look at the ongoing conflicts—so that nations can glean these complex lessons without having to enter the crucible of actual combat.

Foreign Policy · by Varsha Koduvayur, Peter Chin · November 6, 2023

7. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 6, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-6-2023

Key Takeaways:

Imprisoned ardent nationalist and former Russian officer Igor Girkin argued that Russian forces will be “even less capable of offensive operations than they are now” by spring 2024 given the current nature of Russian offensive operations along the frontline.
Russian milbloggers appear to be grappling with how Russian forces can overcome wider operational challenges in Ukraine, likely in response to Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi’s recent essay on the subject of “positional warfare,” and not coming to optimistic conclusions.
Select Russian milbloggers specifically argued that the use of small infantry assaults groups will allow both Russian and Ukrainian forces to better achieve operational objectives along the front. Russian sources suggested that some Ukrainian forces may already be fielding the small infantry assault groups that these sources are advocating for.
The war in Ukraine is likely exacerbating an emerging identity crisis within Russian society resulting from tensions between Russian identity and Russian nationalism.
Russian forces conducted missile and drones strikes against rear areas in southern Ukraine on the evening of November 5 and on the night of November 5 to 6 as well as the largest series of glide bomb strikes to date against targets in Kherson Oblast on November 5.
The Russian military appears to have increased its stock of high-precision missiles due to reported increases in Russian missile production more rapidly than previous forecasts had suggested.
Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations near Bakhmut and in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, near Avdiivka, west and southwest of Donetsk City, in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, in eastern Zaporizhia Oblast, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced in some areas on November 6.
Russian occupation officials are expanding military recruitment and registration offices in occupied territories, likely in support of coercive mobilization efforts.
Russian officials continue to weaponize youth engagement programs to consolidate social control of occupied areas of Ukraine.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 6, 2023

Nov 6, 2023 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 6, 2023

Kateryna Stepanenko, Karolina Hird, Riley Bailey, Christina Harward, and Frederick W. Kagan

November 6, 2023, 6:50pm ET

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

Click here to see ISW’s 3D control of terrain topographic map of Ukraine. Use of a computer (not a mobile device) is strongly recommended for using this data-heavy tool.

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

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 1:00pm ET on November 6. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the November 7 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Imprisoned ardent nationalist and former Russian officer Igor Girkin argued that Russian forces will be “even less capable of offensive operations than they are now” by spring 2024 given the current nature of Russian offensive operations along the frontline.[1] Girkin’s wife, Miroslava Reginskaya, published a hand-written letter from Girkin dated October 26, in which he summarized the frontline situation in Ukraine for the month of October. Girkin claimed that the situation for Russian forces is “gradually deteriorating” and that Russian forces are showcasing “growing weakness (compared to [Ukraine’s] capabilities,” despite Russia’s “generally successful repulsion” of the Ukrainian offensive over the summer and fall of 2023. Girkin argued that Russian forces were not only unable to start broad offensive operations at the beginning of the fall season but were also unable to complete even limited offensive operations to achieve operationally significant goals – namely around Kupyansk, Lyman, and Avdiivka. Girkin claimed that Russian forces failed to advance in the Kupyansk direction and are now impaled in battles on “the distant approaches to the city,” while also failing to change the situation in the Lyman direction. Girkin added that tactical advances around Avdiivka led to significant losses in Russian manpower and equipment and did not lead to the further development of the Russian offensive. Girkin observed that the Avdiivka offensive demonstrated Russian forces’ inability “to achieve superiority on a very narrow sector of the front” despite Russia’s careful preparations, good coordination of strike forces and means for the initial stage of the offensive, and the abundance of ammunition “unheard of since the assault on Bakhmut.”

Girkin suggested that Russian efforts to repel Ukrainian localized attacks across the frontline and simultaneous fall-winter offensive operations will likely degrade Russian offensive and defensive potential by spring 2024. Girkin noted that Russian forces would need to spend the rest of the fall-winter campaign on the defensive to try to eliminate emerging operational crises – such as the Ukrainian presence in the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast. Girkin argued that Russian forces will continue to be “incapable of any broad offensive actions” even if Ukrainian forces are unable to “knock out” Russian frontline units, fail to achieve a breakthrough over the fall-winter season, and are exhausted. Girkin, however, added that such a “positional scenario” is not guaranteed and that he fears that Ukrainian forces may be successful in breaking Russian forces that have already been exhausted by months of combat. Girkin’s suggestion that ongoing Russian offensive operations are harming the prospects for future Russian operations is notable because Russian forces still must repel Ukrainian offensive operations while attempting to initiate their own offensives. The timing of current Russian offensives around Avdiivka was also somewhat odd and suboptimal because the rainy and muddy weather has predictably hindered Russian operations.[2] ISW continues to assess that fall and winter weather conditions are unlikely to preclude Russian or Ukrainian offensives.[3]

Girkin implied that additional Western military aid to Ukraine and the lack of mobilization in Russia could allow Ukraine to end positional warfare and conduct successful offensive operations in 2024. Girkin stated that Ukrainian forces are continuing to use Western-provided materiel to target the Russian rear and even destroy the Berdyansk airfield in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast against the backdrop of Russian offensives in Avdiivka. Girkin implied that Ukrainian forces would continue to devastate the Russian rear over the winter as Russian forces continued to push for limited offensive operations. Girkin stated that once Ukraine receives Western-provided F-16 fighter jets, Ukrainian forces could have localized advantages for a short period of time on any section of the frontline. Girkin added that Ukraine could be “seriously strengthened in military-technical terms” with Western military equipment. Girkin also claimed that Ukraine currently has superiority in manpower over Russian forces due to a lack of mobilization in Russia and that the Kremlin is unlikely to call up mobilization before spring 2024 due to upcoming presidential elections. Girkin noted that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) is unlikely to recruit “hundreds of thousands” of new contract servicemen because Russia has exhausted the recruitment potential for new contract servicemen and volunteers. Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi’s long essay, “Modern Positional Warfare and How to Win It,” similarly argues that Western-provided military equipment and air superiority among other things will allow Ukraine to overcome positional warfare.[4]

Russian milbloggers appear to be grappling with how Russian forces can overcome wider operational challenges in Ukraine, likely in response to Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi’s recent essay on the subject of “positional warfare.” Select milbloggers argued that specific changes in battlefield tactics will allow Russian forces to achieve their desired operational objectives in the current difficult operational environment.[5] Another milblogger argued that Russia should not celebrate Zaluzhnyi’s discussion of Ukrainian difficulties with positional warfare and that Russian forces need to prepare for a long, challenging war.[6] The milblogger argued that Russia is currently no closer to victory in Ukraine and expressed concerns that Russian forces will likely face a renewed Ukrainian counteroffensive in the winter.[7] The milblogger’s discussion of a large Ukrainian counteroffensive effort in the winter suggests that he expects that Russian forces will not completely seize the initiative in the coming months and therefore will not be able to launch a larger offensive effort that would preclude Ukrainian forces from committing resources to counteroffensive operations. The wider Russian information space has offered a relatively muted response to Zaluzhnyi’s essay, and Russian ultranationalists appear to be applying Zaluzhnyi’s discussions about the challenges of the operational environment in Ukraine to Russia’s offensive campaign and not coming to very optimistic conclusions.[8]

Select Russian milbloggers specifically argued that the use of small infantry assault groups will allow both Russian and Ukrainian forces to better achieve operational objectives along the front. Russian milbloggers argued on November 3 and 6 that concentrated attacks with large forces attempting to break through a stable defense to full depth is increasingly ineffective and suggested that small infantry groups with comprehensive support may be more effective at achieving significant operational effects in the current operational environment.[9] One of the milbloggers argued that the initial phases of the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive and the ongoing Russian offensive effort near Avdiivka are similar in that both operations made some initial advances at the cost of irretrievable manpower and equipment losses.[10] The milblogger argued that throughout the war in Ukraine, heavy losses during such large, mechanized assaults have prompted Russian and Ukrainian forces to increasingly rely on smaller ad-hoc infantry groups in subsequent operations.[11] The Ukrainian command changed tactics to rely more on infantry assaults following early setbacks in the counteroffensive in June 2023, and Ukrainian forces proceeded to make significant advances in the following months.[12] It remains to be seen if Russian forces will show the same adaptability near Avdiivka, especially since repeated offensive failures suggest that the Russian General Staff has failed to internalize and disseminate lessons learned from previous costly large, mechanized assaults.[13] The milblogger argued that it would be more advantageous to prepare specialized small infantry assault groups with sufficient technological capabilities, specifically in reconnaissance and communication, ahead of offensive operations instead of switching to small infantry assault tactics only after larger, mechanized assaults prove too costly to continue.[14]

Russian sources suggested that some Ukrainian forces may already be fielding the small infantry assault groups that these sources are advocating for. A Russian milblogger noted that Ukrainian forces already appear to be employing this adaptation in ongoing ground operations on the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast, where the milblogger claimed that small Ukrainian assault groups operating at the operational-tactical level have been able to divert considerable Russian combat resources and attention from elsewhere along the front.[15] The milblogger argued that lower-level Russian commanders have previously made some progress in preparing such small infantry groups south of Bakhmut but that the Russian command’s insistence on manpower-intensive frontal assaults quickly rendered these groups combat ineffective.[16] The milblogger’s observations suggest that Ukrainian forces may be once again successfully adapting to aspects of the battlefield in Ukraine while Russian forces struggle to do so. Select elements of the Russian military have shown the propensity for successful adaptation, particularly in defensive operations during the Ukrainian counteroffensive in western Zaporizhia Oblast, but the Russian command will likely continue to struggle with instituting any successful change in tactics and capabilities writ-large throughout the theater.[17]

The war in Ukraine is likely exacerbating an emerging identity crisis within Russian society resulting from tensions between Russian identity and Russian nationalism. Russian "Vostok" Battalion Commander and Russian Orthodox ideologue Alexander Khodakovsky wrote two long Telegram posts on November 6 about what it means to be "Russian," acknowledging a schism in Russian national identity that has largely resulted from the ideological arguments advanced to justify and mobilize support for Russia's war in Ukraine.[18] Khodakovsky shared an anecdote of an unidentified Chechen general who, he claimed, conducted a "genetic study" to identify "the ethnic composition " of his Russian friends and found out that "Russian genes" were not dominant.[19] Khodakovsky used this anecdote to offer commentary on what it means to be "Russian," and concluded that it is not "ethnogenetic," but rather a matter of morals and ideologies, observing that Russian nationalism is "hysteria" resulting from a lack of consolidated Russian identity.[20] Khodakovsky thereby appears to offer the suggestion that when one fixates on a genetic definition of what it means to be Russian, the destructive and toxic ideologies of nationalism appear and erase broader and more socio-cultural and linguistic definitions of identity. Khodakovsky warned that a population that lacks a coherent identity can easily destroy itself from within.[21]

Khodakovsky's musings offer insight into some socio-cultural implications of Russia's pursuit of ideological goals in its war in Ukraine. In several ways, the war has narrowed the conception of what it means to be Russian among Russian ideologues, particularly as concepts of identity are increasingly defined by hyper-nationalist and pro-war information space voices who amplify the Kremin's ideological line on the war and redirect it at domestic audiences.[22] Whereas Russian identity was largely defined before the war linguistically and culturally as enshrined in the Russian concepts of "compatriots abroad" and "Russkyi Mir," the war has focused Russian identity more narrowly on Russian ethnonationalism that echoes the Kremlin's ideological justifications for the war.[23] Russia's deliberate campaign to "Russify" Ukraine through the invasion has generated clear social impacts within Russia itself, particularly aimed at ethnic minority and migrant communities, which have paradoxically been forced by the Russian government to bear the brunt of force generation efforts for the war.[24] Russian nationalist commentators have increasingly fixated on demographic transitions facing Russia particularly relating to the balance between “Russians” and “minorities” within the Russian population, further reinforcing concepts of what it means for Russia to be a fundamentally "Russian" state.[25] Khodakovsky responded to this apparent schism in Russian society by underlining some of the inherent dangers of defining what it means to be Russian as a matter of genetics and notably drew criticism from some more virulently nationalist commentators for being "Russophobic" in his conclusions.[26] Both Khodakovsky's observations and the immediate response to his conclusions underline a fundamental dilemma facing Russia as it continues its war in Ukraine—the dilemma of how to reconcile the hyper-nationalist ideologies on which the Kremlin increasingly relies to justify the war and demand greater sacrifices from its people with Moscow’s desire to continue to increase the burden of mobilization on disenfranchised minority communities, while also maintaining a sense of Russian identity that society can coalesce behind as the war continues.

Russian forces conducted missile and drone strikes against rear areas in southern Ukraine on the evening of November 5 and on the night of November 5 to 6 as well as the largest series of glide bomb strikes to date against targets in Kherson Oblast on November 5. Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that Russian forces launched a Kh-59 cruise missile at Dnipro City and a Kh-31P anti-radar missile at Odesa City on November 5.[27] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command stated that Ukrainian air defenses shot down the Kh-59 missile and that the Kh-31P missile struck an infrastructure facility in Odesa City.[28] The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russian forces also conducted missile and drone strikes on the night of November 5 to 6 with a Kh-31 anti-radar missile and a Kh-59 cruise missile launched from occupied Kherson Oblast, a P-800 Onyx anti-ship missile and an Iskander-M ballistic missile launched from occupied Crimea, and 22 Shahed-131/136 drones launched from Cape Chauda, occupied Crimea.[29] The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Ukrainian forces destroyed the Kh-59 missile and 15 drones.[30] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that the Russian strikes targeted port infrastructure in Odesa Oblast and civilian infrastructure in Kherson City and damaged residential buildings, port infrastructure, transportation infrastructure, and other civil infrastructure.[31] Ukrainian Odesa Oblast Military Administration Head Oleh Kiper reported that a Russian strike partially damaged the Odesa National Art Museum.[32] Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko stated that Russian forces launched 87 glide bombs on populated areas in Kherson Oblast on November 5 - the largest number of glide bombs that Russian forces have launched to date since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.[33]

The Russian military appears to have increased its stock of high-precision missiles due to reported increases in Russian missile production more rapidly than previous forecasts had suggested. Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Spokesperson Vadym Skibitskyi stated on November 6 that Russian forces have a total of 870 high-precision operational-strategic and strategic missiles in reserve. Skibitskyi previously stated on August 28 that Russian forces had a total of 585 long-range missiles in reserve, indicating that Russian forces have increased their missile reserves by 285 missiles since August.[34] Skibitskyi added on November 6 that Russian forces produced a total of 115 long-range high-precision missiles in October: 30 Iskander-M cruise missiles, 12 Iskander-K cruise missiles, 20 Kalibr cruise missiles, 40 Kh-101 cruise missiles, 9 Kh-32 cruise missiles, and 4 Kinzhal ballistic missiles.[35] Skibitiskyi stated on August 28 that Russian defense enterprises were struggling to produce several dozens of specific types of missiles a month due to foreign component shortages, and the increase of 285 missiles in Russian reserves since late August — with 115 of that total being produced in October alone — indicates that Russia has increased its domestic production of missiles faster than had been forecasted.[36]

Skibitskyi also commented on Russian domestic drone production on November 6, stating that the GUR has not observed the movement of Shahed drones from Iran to Russia as Iran has fulfilled its first Shahed supply contracts with Russia.[37] Skibitskyi stated that Iran may still send small batches of Shaheds to Russia, however.[38] Skibitskyi also stated that Russia has begun to increase the domestic assembly of Shahed drones with components from Iran including at the factory in Alabuga, Tatarstan Republic.[39] Skibitskyi added that predicted Russian missile and drone strikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure in the upcoming winter will likely not be as “primitive” as the strike series during the winter of 2022-2023.[40] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has recently commented on Ukraine’s urgent need for air defense systems.[41]

Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations near Bakhmut and in western Zaporizhia Oblast. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Bakhmut and Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast) directions.[42] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces counterattacked near Krasnohorivka (6km northwest of Avdiivka) between November 3 and November 5, thereby forcing Russian troops to withdraw from part of the railway track in the area.[43] The Russian “Russkiy Legion” (BARS-13) irregular armed formation claimed that Ukrainian forces were successfully pressuring Russian forces near Stepove and the "Tsarska Okhota" restaurant south of Avdiivka.[44]

Key Takeaways:

Imprisoned ardent nationalist and former Russian officer Igor Girkin argued that Russian forces will be “even less capable of offensive operations than they are now” by spring 2024 given the current nature of Russian offensive operations along the frontline.
Russian milbloggers appear to be grappling with how Russian forces can overcome wider operational challenges in Ukraine, likely in response to Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi’s recent essay on the subject of “positional warfare,” and not coming to optimistic conclusions.
Select Russian milbloggers specifically argued that the use of small infantry assaults groups will allow both Russian and Ukrainian forces to better achieve operational objectives along the front. Russian sources suggested that some Ukrainian forces may already be fielding the small infantry assault groups that these sources are advocating for.
The war in Ukraine is likely exacerbating an emerging identity crisis within Russian society resulting from tensions between Russian identity and Russian nationalism.
Russian forces conducted missile and drones strikes against rear areas in southern Ukraine on the evening of November 5 and on the night of November 5 to 6 as well as the largest series of glide bomb strikes to date against targets in Kherson Oblast on November 5.
The Russian military appears to have increased its stock of high-precision missiles due to reported increases in Russian missile production more rapidly than previous forecasts had suggested.
Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations near Bakhmut and in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, near Avdiivka, west and southwest of Donetsk City, in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, in eastern Zaporizhia Oblast, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and advanced in some areas on November 6.
Russian occupation officials are expanding military recruitment and registration offices in occupied territories, likely in support of coercive mobilization efforts.
Russian officials continue to weaponize youth engagement programs to consolidate social control of occupied areas of Ukraine.

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

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line and made confirmed advances on November 6. Geolocated footage published on November 6 indicates that Russian forces advanced southwest of Pershotravneve (24km east of Kupyansk).[45] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced near Stepova Novoselivka (18km southeast of Kupyansk).[46] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Synkivka (8km northeast of Kupyansk), Petropavlivka (7km east of Kupyansk), Ivanivka (20km southeast of Kupyansk), and Stelmakhivka (15km northwest of Svatove) and stated that Russian forces did not conduct any offensive actions in the Lyman direction.[47] A Russian milblogger claimed that there were meeting engagements in the Serebryanske forest area (10km southwest of Kreminna).[48] The Ukrainian Assistant Head of the 15th “Steel Border” Mobile Border Detachment Ivan Shevtsov stated on November 5 that about 250 former Wagner fighters have arrived in the Kupyansk-Lyman direction to manage assault operations by regular Russian forces and “Storm” and “Storm-Z” units consisting mostly of convicts.[49]

The Russian MoD claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Synkivka, Zahoruykivka (15km east of Kupyansk), Tymkivka (18km east of Kupyansk) near Kupyansk on November 6.[50]

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

Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Bakhmut direction on November 6 and made confirmed advances. Geolocated footage posted on November 6 shows that Russian forces made marginal advances northward along a road near Vasyukivka (about 12km north of Bakhmut).[51] A Ukrainian source and several Russian milbloggers additionally claimed that Russian forces made gains near the Bekrhivka reservoir (directly northwest of Bakhmut), with some sources claiming that Russian forces control the whole reservoir and some claiming that they only control the southern shore.[52] ISW has not yet observed visual confirmation of purported Russian gains in the Berkhivka area. Russian sources amplified footage reportedly showing elements of the Russian 58th Special Purpose Brigade (formerly the 3rd Donetsk People's Republic [DNR] Spetsnaz Brigade) fighting near Bakhmut.[53] A Russian BARS (Combat Reserve)-affiliated source claimed that Russian forces are successfully pushing Ukrainian forces away from positions between Klishchiivka and Andriivka.[54] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully tried to regain lost positions near Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut) and Andriivka (10km southwest of Bakhmut) and attacked near Bohdanivka (7km west of Bakhmut), Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut), and Pivdenne (21km southwest of Bakhmut) but did not advance.[55]

Ukrainian forces counterattacked in the Bakhmut direction on November 6 but did not make any claimed or confirmed advances. A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces "periodically" counterattack across the railway line between Klishchiivka and Andriivka, and another milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are attacking along the entire Klishchiivka-Andriivka-Kurdyumivka (12km southwest of Bakhmut) line.[56] The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Ukrainian forces continued offensive actions south of Bakhmut.[57]

Russian forces continued offensive operations near Avdiivka on November 6 and reportedly advanced. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces broke through the railway line near Stepove (7km northwest of Avdiivka) and maintained control of the waste heap area north of Avdiivka.[58] Ukrainian military observe Konstantyn Mashovets similarly noted that elements of the Russian 15th Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Combined Arms Army, Central Military District) conducted a successful attack near Stepove and pushed Ukrainian forces out of a stronghold in the area.[59] Mashovets also reported that Russian forces captured territory in a segment of the front behind the railway line near the northern part of the Avdiivka Coke Plant (just north of Avdiivka), although ISW has not yet observed visual confirmation of Mashovets' claims.[60] Russian sources claimed that fighting continues south, east, and north of Avdiivka and that Russian forces continue to advance in some areas.[61] Several Russian milbloggers remarked that Russian offensive operations towards Avdiivka have already been an operational success because they have alleviated the intensity of Ukrainian artillery strikes on Donetsk City and its environs.[62] Ukrainian military observer Yuryi Butusov warned that Russian forces are preparing for another wave of renewed assaults on Avdiivka with fresher reserves, and Mashovets noted that Russian forces have recently deployed understrength elements of the 239th Tank Regiment (90th Tank Division, 41st Combined Arms Army, Central Military District) to the Avdiivka area to further support offensive operations.[63] The Ukrainian General Staff reported unsuccessful Russian attacks near Avdiivka, Stepove, Tonenke (5km west of Avdiivka), Sieverne (5km west of Avdiivka), and Pervomaiske (10km southwest of Avdiivka).[64]

Ukrainian forces reportedly counterattacked near Avdiivka and restored some lost positions as of November 6. A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces counterattacked near Krasnohorivka (6km northwest of Avdiivka) between November 3 and November 5, thereby forcing Russian troops to withdraw from part of the railway track.[65] The Russian “Russkiy Legion” (BARS-13) irregular armed formation claimed that Ukrainian forces were successfully pressuring Russian forces near Stepove and the "Tsarska Okhota" restaurant south of Avdiivka.[66]

Russian forces continued offensive operations west and southwest of Donetsk City on November 6 and made confirmed advances. Geolocated footage posted on November 6 shows that Russian forces have advanced south of Novomykhailivka, about 12km southwest of Donetsk City.[67] The Ukrainian General Staff reported unsuccessful Russian attacks near Marinka and Krasnohorivka (both on the southwestern outskirts of Donetsk City) and Novomykhailivka.[68] A Russian news aggregator claimed that Russian forces attacked on the western outskirts of Marinka on November 5.[69] A Russian milblogger posted footage purportedly of elements of the 68th Army Corps (Eastern Military District) striking Ukrainian positions in the Novomykhailivka area.[70]

Ukrainian forces did not conduct any claimed or confirmed ground attacks southwest of Donetsk City on November 6.

Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted a strike on Russian military assets in occupied southern Donetsk Oblast on November 5. Ukrainian and Russian sources reported that a Ukrainian missile struck near an ammunition warehouse in Siedove (45km east of Mariupol), and geolocated footage shows a large explosion near Siedove on the night of November 5.[71] Ukrainian sources speculated that the strike hit an ammunition depot and damaged Russian helicopters and other military equipment.[72] Russian milbloggers offered diverging claims on which missiles Ukrainian forces may have used, claiming that they were either air-launched cruise missiles or ground-launched ballistic missiles such as ATAMCS.[73] ISW has not observed confirmation of a Ukrainian ATACMS launch as of the time of this publication. Some Russian sources denied the strike outright and claimed that the damage to the warehouse was caused by an accidental fire.[74]

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

Russian forces conducted ground attacks in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on November 6 but did not make confirmed advances. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces managed to reach Staromayorske (10km south of Velyka Novosilka) from the southwest and counterattacked from the direction of Zavitne Bazhannya (12km south of Velyka Novosilka).[75] The milblogger also claimed that Russian advances from the Pryyutne (15km southwest of Velyka Novosilka) area are putting pressure on Ukrainian positions in Staromayorske.[76] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Staromayorske, however.[77] Russian milbloggers also claimed that Russian forces remain active near Pryyutne and Urozhaine (9km south of Velyka Novosilka).[78] The Russian “Vostok” Battalion, which operates in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, claimed that current poor weather is unsuitable for high combat activity and that there are mostly artillery duels along the frontline.[79] A Russian milblogger claimed that positional battles are ongoing in western Donetsk and eastern Zaporizhia oblasts.[80]

Russian forces made limited confirmed territorial gains in eastern Zaporizhia Oblast on an unspecified date. Geolocated footage published on November 6 indicates that Russian forces slightly advanced east of Zahirne (11km southwest of Hulyaipole).[81]

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast but did not make claimed or confirmed advances.[82] The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian attack near Robotyne.[83] A Russian milblogger claimed that positional battles are ongoing near Verbove (8km east of Robotyne) and that Ukrainian forces are trying to disrupt Russian defense systems in the area, likely implying Russian fortifications.[84] Another Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces conduct periodic local attacks with limited forces near Kopani (5km northwest of Robotyne), Robotyne, Verbove, and Novoprokopivka (just south of Robotyne) that are unsuccessful.[85] Another milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces took advantage of poor weather and limited visibility to conduct assaults near Verbove but were not successful.[86]

Russian sources claimed that Russian forces made incremental territorial gains in western Zaporizhia Oblast on November 6, but ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claims. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian attack near Robotyne and seized two unspecified Ukrainian positions after counterattacking in the area.[87] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Russian forces attacked near Robotyne and attempted to advance from Verbove.[88] Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets assessed that unspecified elements of the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division (58th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District [SMD]) decided to “prove themselves” through a series of unsuccessful attacks south of Robotyne after the Russian command rotated other elements of the 42nd Division and subordinated them to the 136th Motorized Rifle Brigade (58th Combined Arms Army).[89]

Russian forces conducted localized attacks southwest of Orikhiv in western Zaporizhia Oblast on November 6 but did not make any claimed or confirmed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults north of Nesteryanka (10km southwest of Orikhiv) and near Pyatykhatky (23km southwest of Orikhiv).[90] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Russian forces are attacking in the Zaporizhia direction and attacked near Pyatykhatky from the direction of Kopani. A Russian milblogger claimed that neither Ukrainian nor Russian forces control Kamyanske (30km west of Orikhiv).[91]

Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces retained their positions in the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast as of November 6.[92] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces still maintain positions in one part of Krynky (30km east of Kherson City and about 2km inland from the Dnipro River shoreline) despite Russian efforts to push Ukrainian forces from the east bank of the Dnipro River.[93] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces expanded control over their positions north of Pidstepne (17km east of Kherson City).[94] Another Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian attack near Krynky and that elements of the Russian 177th Naval Infantry Regiment (Caspian Flotilla) are shelling Ukrainian positions in west (right) bank Kherson Oblast.[95] Mashovets also assessed that the Russian military command plans to commit two more “Storm-Z” assault detachments to the zones of responsibility of the Russian 26th Motorized Rifle Regiment (70th Guards Motorized Rifle Division, SMD) or the 144th Motorized Rifle Brigade (SMD) from the direction of Korsunka (43km northeast of Kherson City).[96]

Geolocated footage from November 4 confirms that Ukrainian forces hit the Russian Askold missile carrier, a Karakurt-class corvette that the Russian Black Sea Fleet (BSF) launched in 2021, at the Zalyv Shipyard in Kerch, Crimea.[97] Open-source geolocation project GeoConfirmed observed that Ukrainian forces targeted Askold missile carrier with multiple deep strike missiles.[98]

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

Russian occupation officials are expanding military recruitment and registration offices in occupied territories, likely in support of coercive mobilization efforts. Russian senator for occupied Kherson Oblast Konstantin Basyuk stated on November 4 that he met with the Kherson Oblast occupation military commissar to discuss the opening of military recruitment and registration offices in Henichesk, Nova Kakhovka, Kakhovka, and other unspecified settlements in Kherson Oblast.[99] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on November 6 that Russian occupation officials have already formed new military recruitment and registration offices in occupied southern Ukraine.[100] Basyuk asserted that enlistment in the Russian Armed Forces is wholly voluntary for residents in occupied Kherson Oblast, but ISW has routinely observed Russian occupation officials coerce and force residents into military service.[101]

Russian officials in Moscow Oblast are reportedly intensifying contract recruitment efforts. Russian opposition outlet Mobilization News reported on November 6 that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) began a temporary contract recruitment campaign that will last between November 1 and November 26, during which Russian officials will offer individuals from Moscow Oblast million ruble ($10,790) lump sum payments.[102] A Russian insider source claimed that on November 6 the recruitment campaign was for an unspecified “elite” unit and that Moscow Oblast Governor Andrey Vorobyov is actively raising funds for the recruitment campaign.[103]

Russian Technological Adaptations (Russian objective: Introduce technological innovations to optimize systems for use in Ukraine)

Nothing significant to report.

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

Russian officials continue to weaponize youth engagement programs to consolidate social control of occupied areas of Ukraine. Several Russian officials, including Donetsk Oblast occupation head Denis Pushilin, Luhansk Oblast occupation head Leonid Pasechnik, and Kherson Oblast occupation head Vladimir Saldo, and First Deputy Head of the Russian Presidential Administration Sergei Kiriyenko attended the "Big Change" youth competition at the "Artek" children's center in occupied Crimea.[104] The competition is reportedly meant for children aged 14-16 and revolves around the theme "Serve Fatherland and Remember," which disseminates Russian patriotic ideals and ideologies to youth in occupied Ukraine. Pushilin noted that he spoke to a girl from occupied Donetsk Oblast at Artek, suggesting that Russian occupation officials may be using this program to further remove children from their homes in occupied Ukraine and expose them to Russian military-patriotic education.[105]

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

Nothing significant to report.

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

A Ukrainian military observer stated on November 6 that Belarusian forces replaced elements of the Belarusian 383rd Air Assault Battalion of the 36th Airborne Assault Brigade with elements of the 3rd Airborne Battalion of the 103rd Airborne Brigade near the border with Ukraine.[106]

Note: ISW does not receive any classified material from any source, uses only publicly available information, and draws extensively on Russian, Ukrainian, and Western reporting and social media as well as commercially available satellite imagery and other geospatial data as the basis for these reports. References to all sources used are provided in the endnotes of each update.

8. Iran Update, November 6, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-november-6-2023

Key Takeaways:

Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht said the IDF is slowly closing in on Gaza City.
Israeli ground forces advanced toward the Sheikh Hamad Hospital along the northwestern Gazan coast.
Palestinian militias mortared Israeli forces on the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel on November 6, which is consistent with CTP-ISW's assessment that Palestinian militias are attempting to harass and disrupt Israeli ground lines of communication (GLOC).
The IDF reportedly advanced toward Tal al Hawa on November 6.
Clashes between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces in the West Bank continued at their usual rate on November 6.
The Hebron branch of the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade threatened suicide attacks against Israeli forces on November 5.
Lebanese Hezbollah (LH) and the al Qassem Brigades conducted four cross-border attacks into northern Israel on November 6.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dismissed US calls for Iran to restrain its proxies in Iraq during a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al Sudani in Tehran on November 6.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq—an umbrella group of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—doubled its rate of claimed attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria and claimed that it fired a missile at US forces.
Iranian-backed Iraqi proxy Ashab al Kahf threatened to target the US Embassy in Iraq, which is consistent with calls for escalation from Kataib Hezbollah.

IRAN UPDATE, NOVEMBER 6, 2023

Nov 6, 2023 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Iran Update, November 6, 2023

Ashka Jhaveri, Peter Mills, Annika Ganzeveld, Kathryn Tyson, and Brian Carter

Information Cutoff: 2pm ET

The Iran Update provides insights into Iranian and Iranian-sponsored activities abroad that undermine regional stability and threaten US forces and interests. It also covers events and trends that affect the stability and decision-making of the Iranian regime. The Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) provides these updates regularly based on regional events. For more on developments in Iran and the region, see our interactive map of Iran and the Middle East.

Note: CTP and ISW have refocused the update to cover the Israel-Hamas war. The new sections address developments in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria, as well as noteworthy activity from Iran’s Axis of Resistance. We do not report in detail on war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We utterly condemn violations of the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

Click here to see CTP and ISW’s interactive map of Israeli ground operations. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.

Key Takeaways:

Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht said the IDF is slowly closing in on Gaza City.
Israeli ground forces advanced toward the Sheikh Hamad Hospital along the northwestern Gazan coast.
Palestinian militias mortared Israeli forces on the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel on November 6, which is consistent with CTP-ISW's assessment that Palestinian militias are attempting to harass and disrupt Israeli ground lines of communication (GLOC).
The IDF reportedly advanced toward Tal al Hawa on November 6.
Clashes between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces in the West Bank continued at their usual rate on November 6.
The Hebron branch of the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade threatened suicide attacks against Israeli forces on November 5.
Lebanese Hezbollah (LH) and the al Qassem Brigades conducted four cross-border attacks into northern Israel on November 6.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dismissed US calls for Iran to restrain its proxies in Iraq during a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al Sudani in Tehran on November 6.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq—an umbrella group of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—doubled its rate of claimed attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria and claimed that it fired a missile at US forces.
Iranian-backed Iraqi proxy Ashab al Kahf threatened to target the US Embassy in Iraq, which is consistent with calls for escalation from Kataib Hezbollah.

Gaza Strip

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

Erode the will of the Israeli political establishment and public to launch and sustain a major ground operation into the Gaza Strip
Degrade IDF material and morale around the Gaza Strip

Israeli Clearing Operations

Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht said the IDF is slowly closing in on Gaza City.[1] The IDF Air Force and Navy struck over 450 targets in the previous 24 hours, including Hamas military compounds, observation posts, and firing positions.[2] The IDF said that it seized a Hamas position used for various military operations.[3] Additionally, the IDF published footage on November 6 of its effort to transport ammunition, medical equipment, food, and advanced weapons to support fighting in Gaza.[4]

Hamas militants attacked IDF forces advancing inland from the northwest Gaza Strip coast. The al Qassem Brigades—the militant wing of Hamas—claimed that it fired an anti-tank missile at an IDF tank and engaged the IDF with small arms in the Sultan neighborhood south of Beit Lahiya.[5] Commercially available satellite imagery captured on November 6 shows flattened terrain in the area between Sultan and al Toam Roads, which indicates that Israeli tanks or bulldozers operated in the Sultan neighborhood south of Beit Lahiya. Palestinian militias claimed that they engaged IDF forces further south operating in or around the al Shati Refugee Camp on November 6. Gazan residents said on November 6 that Israeli airstrikes hit close to the al Shati camp[6] The al Qassem Brigades claimed that it destroyed four IDF vehicles on the outskirts of the camp, and 27 military vehicles in the last 48 hours.[7] The al Quds Brigades —the militant wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)—claimed that it destroyed an IDF vehicle near al Maqousi with a bomb stuck to the vehicle.[8] Other insurgent groups in the region used “sticky bombs” to assassinate targets inside vehicles.[9]

Israeli ground forces advanced toward the Sheikh Hamad Hospital along the northwestern Gazan coast. IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari released footage on November 5 that shows Hamas fighters using the Hamad Hospital for military operations.[10] The videos show Hamas militants firing small arms at the IDF from the hospital.[11] Independent analysts on X (Twitter) geolocated the footage of clashes and a tunnel shaft to the Hamad Hospital.[12]

Palestinian militias mortared Israeli forces on the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel on November 6, which is consistent with CTP-ISW's assessment that Palestinian militias are attempting to harass and disrupt Israeli ground lines of communication (GLOC).[13] The al Qassem Brigades and al Quds Brigades mortared IDF vehicles near the Erez military checkpoint in the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli forces crossed into the Gaza Strip at and near Erez on October 29.[14] The al Qassem Brigades mortared IDF forces east of Juhor ad Dik.[15] Israeli forces crossed into the central Gaza Strip from near Juhor ad Dik at the beginning of the ground operation.

Fighting behind the Israeli forward line of advance is consistent with the doctrinal definition of “clear,” which is a tactical task that “requires the commander to remove all enemy forces and eliminate organized resistance within an assigned area.” The IDF opened a secure population evacuation corridor on November 6 to enable residents in the northern Gaza Strip to move south in view of military activity.

The IDF reportedly advanced toward Tal al Hawa on November 6. A Palestinian journalist reported that the IDF is making advances to the Tel al Hawaa neighborhood south of Gaza City. The journalist said that a local hospital closed as the IDF destroyed all access roads in the area.[16] The al Qassem Brigades claimed that it destroyed an IDF tank south of the neighborhood with an RPG on November 6.[17] Palestinian militias have claimed that they attacked Israeli advances from south of Tal al Hawa for three consecutive days.[18]

Palestinian militias in the Gaza Strip conducted indirect fire attacks into Israeli territory, primarily in southern Israel. The al Qassem Brigades claimed responsibility for four indirect fire attacks into the areas immediately adjacent to the Gaza Strip, including two targeting Tel Aviv.[19] The militants launched rockets at the Reim military base, where the IDF unveiled a reestablished observation room on November 6 for one of its intelligence battalions.[20] The al Quds Brigades claimed responsibility for four indirect fire attacks on November 6.[21] The al Quds Brigades’ indirect fire exclusively targeted Israeli towns adjacent to the Gaza Strip.

Hamas is messaging that it can sustain a prolonged war with Israel. The Wall Street Journal reported that unspecified regional officials said that Hamas has privately stated that its weapons arsenal can sustain a prolonged conflict. The Lebanese foreign minister reported that shortly after the October 7 attack, Hamas told the Iranian foreign minister that it could fight for months without additional weapons. Hamas and PIJ have taken measures to prepare for a prolonged war, including reducing indirect fire attacks to conserve stockpiles.[22]

Recorded reports of rocket attacks; CTP-ISW cannot independently verify impact.

West Bank

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

Draw IDF assets and resources toward the West Bank and fix them there

Clashes between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces in the West Bank continued at their usual rate on November 6. CTP-ISW recorded 13 clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the West Bank.[23] CTP-ISW also recorded two instances of Palestinian militants conducting IED attacks against Israeli forces.[24] These clashes and attacks occurred in major West Bank cities including Bethlehem, Jenin, and Nablus. CTP-ISW recorded three anti-Israel demonstrations on November 6.[25]

The al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade’s Tulkarm Battalion threatened revenge on November 6 after Israeli security forces killed Hamas and al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade fighters in a raid on the same day. Israeli forces killed at least three Hamas and al Aqsa fighters during a raid in Tulkarm in the northern West Bank.[26] The al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade’s Tulkarm Battalion said it would avenge its fighters within 24 hours and held a large funeral march for the fighters on November 6.[27] Hamas said that Israeli security forces conducted assassinated the three fighters.[28]

The Hebron branch of the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade threatened suicide attacks against Israeli forces on November 5. The al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade did not provide an explanation for the use of suicide bombs and has not employed suicide attacks since the war began on October 7.[29] The group claimed on November 4 that it had received new weapons and ammunition in Hebron for its fighters, but it did not corroborate these claims.[30]

The Hebron branch of the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade separately claimed that the Palestinian militia group Sons of Commander Abu Jandal is attempting to generate strife through false statements and called for unity on November 6.[31] The militia gave a 24-hour deadline for Mahmoud Abbas to declare a confrontation with the IDF on November 5. The group released a list of its members’ names, which it claimed defected from the Palestinian security services, on November 6.[32] A Palestinian journalist said they vetted the list on November 6 and reported that all of the individuals on the list disavowed involvement with the militia.[33]

This map is not an exhaustive depiction of clashes and demonstrations in the West Bank.

Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

Draw IDF assets and resources toward northern Israel and fix them there
Set conditions for successive campaigns into northern Israel

Lebanese Hezbollah (LH) and the al Qassem Brigades conducted four cross-border attacks into northern Israel on November 6. LH claimed two indirect fire attacks and one direct fire attack targeting Israeli positions in northern Israel.[34] The al Qassem Brigades fired one salvo of 16 rockets from southern Lebanon targeting civilians in Nahariya, east of Acre, northern Israel, on November 6.[35] The al Qassem Brigades last fired a rocket salvo into northern Israel on November 2, when it fired a salvo of 12 rockets at Kiryat Shmona, a border town in northern Israel.[36]

Iran and the Axis of Resistance

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

Demonstrate the capability and willingness of Iran and the Axis of Resistance to escalate against the United States and Israel on multiple fronts
Set conditions to fight a regional war on multiple fronts

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dismissed US calls for Iran to restrain its proxies in Iraq during a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al Sudani in Tehran on November 6. Khamenei stated that Iran and Iraq should coordinate to “increase political pressure” on the United States and Israel.[37] Khamenei also repeated previous claims that the United States is “directing” Israel’s war against Hamas and abetting “Israeli crimes.” Sudani met with Khamenei after meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Baghdad on November 5, during which he and Blinken discussed threats to US forces.[38] Blinken emphasized during his meeting with Sudani that attacks on US positions in Iraq are “totally unacceptable” and that the United States will “take every necessary step to protect [its] people,” as CTP-ISW previously reported.[39]

Khamenei’s call for “political” pressure is part of the Iranian regime’s ongoing effort to cover up its involvement in the Israel-Hamas war. Iranian officials and media have repeatedly framed Iran as a responsible and non-escalatory actor since the start of the war.[40] This narrative ignores the fact that Iran has already facilitated the expansion of the war to Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria by directing and encouraging its proxy and partner militias in these countries to attack US and Israeli targets.
Other Iranian officials also dismissed US calls for restraint on November 6. Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani stated that the United States falsely accuses Iran of directing proxy attacks in the region to distract public opinion from US actions in the Israel-Hamas war.[41] Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian separately announced that the United States sent Iran a message in recent days expressing its desire for a ceasefire. Abdollahian dismissed the message, stating that US calls for a ceasefire contradict US support for "Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip.”[42]

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq—an umbrella group of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—doubled its rate of claimed attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria and claimed that it fired a missile at US forces.[43] This shift comes after key Iranian-backed Iraqi proxy militia Kataib Hezbollah threatened to escalate against the United States in Iraq and the region if US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Baghdad, which Blinken did on November 5. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claims one to three attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria per day on average.

The group released a video showing the launch of several drones and a missile targeting US forces at Tal Baydar, al Tanf, Erbil International Airport, and Ain al Assad Airbase.[44] The group did not say which systems targeted which positions. The missile in the video bears visual similarities to the Iranian-built Fateh-313, which the Iranians used to target US positions in Iraq in January 2020 in retaliation for the US airstrike that killed IRGC-QF commander Qassem Soleimani.[45]

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has claimed 39 attacks targeting US forces in the Middle East since October 18. CENTCOM has not commented on the November 6 attacks at the time of publication.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed it conducted three unspecified separate attacks on Ain al Assad airbase in Anbar Province, Iraq, and a separate attack on Erbil International Airport in northern Iraq on November 6.[46] The group has claimed four attacks on Erbil International Airport and thirteen attacks on Ain al Assad since October 18.
The Islamic Resistance of Iraq claimed it conducted an unspecified attack on US bases at Tal Baydar, in northern Syria, and al Tanf in eastern Syria. The group targeted Tal Baydar for the second time on November 6. It first targeted this position on November 5.[47] Islamic Resistance of Iraq has targeted al Tanf five times since October 18.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed that it targeted an unspecified US base in Iraq and Syria with a medium-range “Aqsa 1” missile for the first time.[48] Prior Islamic Resistance in Iraq-claimed attacks used drones and short-range rockets.

Iranian-backed Iraqi proxy Ashab al Kahf threatened to target the US Embassy in Iraq, which is consistent with calls for escalation from Kataib Hezbollah. Ashab al Kahf is not linked to Kataib Hezbollah, but it is close to other top Iranian proxy groups in Iraq.[49] Ashab al Kahf circulated a statement signed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq announcing the group’s intent to target the US Embassy in Iraq on November 5.[50] Ashab al Kahf released the statement after Blinken’s November 5 meeting with Sudani, during which he discussed ongoing attacks targeting US forces in Iraq and warned of possible US retaliation.[51] The statement claimed that diplomatic efforts to close US bases in Iraq had been exhausted and that military force must be used.

Ashab al Kahf last fired rockets at the US embassy in November 2020.[52] Ashab al Kahf issued several threats to target US forces in Iraq in June and July 2023 and conducted an IED campaign targeting US logistics convoys managed by Iraqi contractors in Iraq, as CTP-ISW previously reported.[53] Ashab al Kahf previously issued threats to target the US embassy in July and August 2023.[54] Iranian-backed Iraqi proxy militia Kataib Hezbollah also threatened on November 4 to escalate attacks on US forces if Blinken visited Baghdad.[55]

Iranian officials condemned Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu’s suggestion that Israel could use a nuclear weapon on the Gaza Strip. Eliyahu made the comment in a radio interview on November 5.[56] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the comment and suspended Eliyahu from participation in cabinet meetings.[57] Iranian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani stated on November 6 that Eliyahu’s comment underscores the threat Israel poses to international safety and security.[58] Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian separately called on the UN Security Council and International Atomic Energy Organization to denuclearize Israel.[59]

9. The US is quietly arming Taiwan to the teeth

Excerpts:

But William Chung, a research fellow at the Institute for National Defence and Security Research in Taipei, says Taiwan still cannot hope to deter China by itself. This is the other lesson from the war in Ukraine.

"International society has to decide whether Taiwan matters," he says. "If the G7 or Nato think Taiwan is important for their own interests, then we have to internationalise the Taiwan situation - because that's what will make China think twice about the cost."

Dr Chung says China's behaviour has, unwittingly, been helping Taiwan do just that.

"China is showing it is expansionist in the South China Sea and the East China Sea," he says . "And we can see the result in Japan where the military budget is now being doubled."

The US is quietly arming Taiwan to the teeth

BBC · by Menu

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Image source, Getty Images

Image caption,

Taiwan under President Tsai Ing-wen has been more vocal about its alliance with the US

By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes

BBC News, Taiwan

When US President Joe Biden recently signed off on a $80m (£64.6m) grant to Taiwan for the purchase of American military equipment, China said it "deplores and opposes" what Washington had done.

To the casual observer it didn't appear a steep sum. It was less than the cost of a single modern fighter jet. Taiwan already has on order more than $14bn worth of US military equipment. Does a miserly $80m more matter?

While fury is Beijing's default response to any military support for Taiwan, this time something was different.

The $80m is not a loan. It comes from American taxpayers. For the first time in more than 40 years, America is using its own money to send weapons to a place it officially doesn't recognise. This is happening under a programme called foreign military finance (FMF).

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year, FMF has been used to send around $4bn of military aid to Kyiv.

It has been used to send billions more to Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and Egypt and so on. But until now it has only ever been given to countries or organisations recognised by the United Nations. Taiwan is not.

After the US switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, it continued to sell weapons to the island under the terms of the Taiwan Relations Act. The key was to sell just enough weapons so Taiwan could defend itself against possible Chinese attack, but not so many that they would destabilise relations between Washington and Beijing. For decades, the US has relied on this so-called strategic ambiguity to do business with China, while remaining Taiwan's staunchest ally.

But in the last decade the military balance across the Taiwan Strait has tipped dramatically in China's favour. The old formula no longer works. Washington insists its policy has not changed but, in crucial ways, it has. The US State Department has been quick to deny FMF implies any recognition of Taiwan.

Image source, Getty Images

Image caption,

Taiwan, a self-governed island, faces the threat of annexation from China

But in Taipei it's apparent that America is redefining its relationship with the island, especially so given the urgency with which Washington is pushing Taiwan to re-arm. And Taiwan, which is outmatched by China, needs the help.

"The US is emphasising the desperate need to improve our military capacity. It is sending a clear message of strategic clarity to Beijing that we stand together," says Wang Ting-yu, a ruling party legislator with close ties to Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, and to US Congressional chiefs.

He says the $80m is the tip of what could be a very large iceberg, and notes that in July President Biden used discretionary powers to approve the sale of military services and equipment worth $500m to Taiwan.

Mr Wang says Taiwan is preparing to send two battalions of ground troops to the US for training, the first time this has happened since the 1970s.

But the key is the money, the beginning of what, he says, could be up to $10bn over the next five years.

Deals involving military equipment can take up to 10 years, says Lai I-Ching, president of the Prospect Foundation, a Taipei-based think-tank. "But with FMF, the US is sending weapons directly from its own stocks and it's US money - so we don't need to go through the whole approval process."

This is important given that a divided Congress has held up billions of dollars worth of aid for Ukraine, although Taiwan appears to have far more bipartisan support.

But the war in Gaza will undoubtedly squeeze America's weapons supply to Taipei, as has the war in Ukraine. President Biden is seeking war aid for Ukraine and Israel, which includes more money for Taiwan too.

Image source, Getty Images

Image caption,

China now boasts the world's larget navy - its navy missile frigate Yulin (R) and a minesweeper hunter Chibi (C) docked in Singapore in May 2023

Ask the Ministry of National Defence in Taipei what US money will be used for, and the response is a knowing smile and tightly sealed lips.

But Dr Lai says it's possible to make educated guesses: Javelin and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles - highly effective weapons that forces can learn to use quickly.

"We don't have enough of them, and we need a lot," he says. "In Ukraine, the Stingers have run out very quickly, and the way Ukraine has been using them suggests we need maybe 10 times the number we currently have."

The assessment of long-time observers is blunt: the island is woefully under-prepared for a Chinese attack.

The list of problems is long. Taiwan's army has hundreds of ageing battle tanks, but too few modern, light missile systems. Its army command structure, tactics and doctrine haven't been updated in half a century. Many front-line units have only 60% of the manpower they should have.

Taiwan's counter-intelligence operations in China are reportedly non-existent and its military conscription system is broken.

In 2013 Taiwan reduced military service from one year to just four months, before reinstating it back to 12 months, a move that takes effect next year. But there are bigger challenges. It's jokingly referred to as a "summer camp" by the young men who go through it.

"There was no regular training," says a recent graduate. "We would go to a shooting range about once every two weeks, and we would use old guns from the 1970s. We did shoot at targets. But there was no proper teaching on how to aim, so everyone kept missing. We did zero exercise. There's a fitness test at the end, but we did no preparation for it."

He described a system in which senior army commanders view these young men with utter indifference and have zero interest in training them, in part because they will be there for such a short time.

Image source, Getty Images

Image caption,

Taiwan's military is vastly outmatched by China

In Washington there is a strong sense that Taiwan is running out of time to reform and rebuild its military. So, the US is also starting to retrain Taiwan's army.

For decades, the island's political and military leaders have leant heavily on the belief that invading the island is much too difficult and risky for China to attempt. Rather like Britain, Taiwan prioritised its navy and air force - at the expense of its army.

"The idea was to engage them in the Taiwan Strait and annihilate them on the beaches. So, we put lots of resources into air and sea defence," says Dr Lai.

But now China has the world's largest navy and a far superior air force. A war-gaming exercise conducted by a think-tank last year found that in a conflict with China, Taiwan's navy and air force would be wiped out in the first 96 hours of battle.

Under intense pressure from Washington, Taipei is switching to a "fortress Taiwan" strategy that would make the island extremely difficult for China to conquer.

The focus will switch to ground troops, infantry and artillery - repelling an invasion on the beaches and, if necessary, fighting the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in the towns and cities, and from bases deep in the island's jungle-covered mountains. But this puts the responsibility for defending Taiwan back on its outdated army.

Image source, Getty Images

Image caption,

Taiwan's biggest advantage is that it's an island with hilly terrain

"After the US cut relations in 1979 our army experienced almost complete isolation. So they are stuck in the Vietnam War-era of US military doctrine," Dr Lai says.

This didn't worry Taipei or Washington until more recently. Through the 1990s and 2000s Taiwanese and US companies were building factories across China.

Beijing was lobbying to join the World Trade Organization - and did. The world embraced the Chinese economy, and the US thought trade and investment would secure peace in the Taiwan Strait.

But the rise of Xi Jinping, and his brand of nationalism, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine have blown apart those comforting assumptions.

For Taiwan the lessons from Ukraine's invasion have been shocking. Artillery has dominated the battlefield - it has a high rate of fire and is terrifyingly accurate.

The paradise islands caught in the US-China crosshairs

Ukrainian crews have learned they must be on the move once they've fired a salvo of shells - or within minutes, Russian "counter-battery fire" comes raining down on their positions.

But many of Taiwan's artillery troops are equipped with Vietnam War or even World War Two-era guns. These are loaded manually and are difficult and slow to move. They would be sitting ducks.

Taiwan's vulnerability is forcing Washington to act. It's why Taiwanese ground troops are being dispatched to the US to train and US trainers are coming to Taipei to embed with Taiwan's marines and special forces.

Image source, Getty Images

Image caption,

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has vowed to take Taiwan by force if necessary

But William Chung, a research fellow at the Institute for National Defence and Security Research in Taipei, says Taiwan still cannot hope to deter China by itself. This is the other lesson from the war in Ukraine.

"International society has to decide whether Taiwan matters," he says. "If the G7 or Nato think Taiwan is important for their own interests, then we have to internationalise the Taiwan situation - because that's what will make China think twice about the cost."

Dr Chung says China's behaviour has, unwittingly, been helping Taiwan do just that.

"China is showing it is expansionist in the South China Sea and the East China Sea," he says . "And we can see the result in Japan where the military budget is now being doubled."

The result, he says, is reshaping alliances in the region - whether it's a historic summit between US, Japan and South Korea, the growing importance of military alliances like the Quad (Japan, the US, Australia and India) and Aukus (UK, US and Australia) that are racing to build next-generation nuclear-powered submarines, or closer ties between the US and the Philippines.

"China is trying to change the status quo across the region," he says. "[And that] means Taiwan security is connected to the South China Sea and East China Sea. It means we are no longer isolated."

There is now fierce debate in Washington about how far the US should go in supporting Taiwan. Many long-time China watchers say any public commitment from the US would provoke Beijing rather than deter it. But Washington also knows that Taiwan cannot hope to defend itself alone.

As one long-time China watcher put it: "We need to keep quiet on the whole issue of strategic ambiguity, while arming Taiwan to the teeth."

10. China’s Gray-Zone Tactics Show the U.S.-Philippine Alliance Is Working

Excerpts:

Regardless, in the coming weeks and months, China is likely to roll out new and creative gray-zone tactics to get the point across that it maintains sovereignty over Second Thomas Shoal. If this happens, then it will only reconfirm the fact that deterrence through the strengthening U.S.-Philippine alliance is actually working. Put a different way, because deterrence is holding, Beijing must reach into its toolkit to find additional coercive gray-zone tactics to stop future resupply missions, short of an armed attack. Rather than view such moves with frustration, Manila and Washington should consider them a victory.

Nonetheless, China’s gray-zone activities could inadvertently result in triggering the Mutual Defense Treaty through an accident at sea that leads to miscalculation, escalation, and armed conflict. This is the scenario that understandably keeps American and Philippine policymakers and strategic planners up at night. As my colleague Blake Herzinger recently argued in these pages, one way of mitigating the potential risk is to remove the Sierra Madre and replace it with a combined forward operating base that includes Philippine forces and U.S. Marine Corps. This could significantly bolster deterrence because the U.S. Navy is much better at repelling Chinese gray-zone activities, according to Herzinger. Doing so, however, could also invite reprisals and put U.S. military personnel and assets unnecessarily and directly in harm’s way.

Alternatively, the United States could unequivocally state that Second Thomas Shoal — and, for that matter, other disputed South China Sea features including Scarborough Shoal and Pag-asa — are covered by the Mutual Defense Treaty if attacked. Washington has done this before. For example, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in 2012 announced that the Obama administration would defend Japan’s Senkaku Islands (China’s Diaoyu) from Chinese aggression, explicitly stating they were covered under Article V of the U.S.-Japanese Mutual Defense Treaty. The problem, however, is that Chinese interference in the East China Sea has continued unabated, with another coast guard standoff happening there just this past week.

Perhaps the best solution is what has already been happening: The United States should continue to offer military assistance and training to the Philippines so that Manila can increasingly counter China on its own while Washington continues to remind and warn Beijing that Article V must not be violated. This is the least risky option that also holds the greatest chance of success.

China’s Gray-Zone Tactics Show the U.S.-Philippine Alliance Is Working - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Derek Grossman · November 7, 2023

For the last several months, the Chinese government has steadily ramped up its coercive gray-zone tactics in order to interfere with Philippine civilian resupply missions of troops aboard the BRP Sierra Madre at Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea. In 1999, Manila intentionally ran the World War II-era ship aground on this disputed shoal, establishing a permanent military presence, to demonstrate Philippine sovereignty there. Since then, Philippine resupply missions have consistently faced Chinese harassment.

This year, such activities, which are non-kinetic and meant to achieve national objectives without warfare, have clearly intensified. Beijing has shone a military-grade laser to blind the Philippine coast guard, fired a water cannon at Philippine vessels, conducted dangerous maneuvers near coast guard vessels, and most recently, on Oct. 22, intentionally rammed resupply and escorting Philippine ships.

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In response to the latest and most serious incident, the Philippine government summoned the Chinese ambassador to express its deep concerns and filed its 55th diplomatic protest of the year. But, fortunately for Manila, it is not alone. The longstanding U.S.-Philippine security alliance gives Manila the confidence needed to stand up to China. In particular, Article V of the Mutual Defense Treaty states:

… an armed attack on either of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack on the metropolitan territory of either of the Parties, or on the island territories under its jurisdiction in the Pacific or on its armed forces, public vessels or aircraft [emphasis added] in the Pacific.

If the Mutual Defense Treaty is tripped, then the U.S. military is very likely to intervene in the Second Thomas Shoal dispute, or perhaps in disputes over other South China Sea features like Chinese-controlled Scarborough Shoal or Philippine-inhabited and increasingly threatened Pag-asa Island. Chinese military assertiveness is on the rise in this region primarily because the People’s Liberation Army, unlike in previous years, now has both the capability and capacity to harrass rival vessels, especially as supported by artificial island construction and militarization of nearby features, including Mischief Reef, Subi Reef, and Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands.

Going forward, there are a range of potential options American officials might consider to counter Chinese gray-zone activities in the region. For example, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps could play a direct role in future Second Thomas Shoal standoffs, thereby bolstering deterrence. But this might inadvertently result in a more muscular and destabilizing Chinese response. Manila and Washington may alternatively designate Second Thomas Shoal and other disputed features as falling directly under the purview of Article V of the Mutual Defense Treaty, but doing this for Japan’s Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute with China in the East China Sea has not tamped down China’s coercive gray-zone tactics. Rather, the United States should probably just stay the course by providing military assistance and training to the Philippines, while continuing to remind and warn Beijing that Article V must not be violated.

Chinese Gray-Zone Tactics

Within the context of the Second Thomas Shoal dispute, the U.S. government has consistently reiterated the terms of the Mutual Defense Treaty. Last month, when asked about China’s bullying of the Philippines, President Joe Biden responded by saying that “the United States defense commitment to the Philippines is ironclad. Any attack on Filipino aircraft, vessels, or armed forces will invoke our mutual defense treaty with the Philippines.” Additionally, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro held a phone call and their readout contained similar language. Right after the incident, Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, spoke with his Philippine counterpart, Eduardo M. Año, and Sullivan noted that the Mutual Defense Treaty extends to armed attacks against Philippine coast guard operations in the South China Sea. Washington also deployed the U.S. Coast Guard’s fast-response cutter, CGC Frederick Hatch, to the Philippines, in a display of its continued security commitment.

So far, the U.S.-Philippine alliance has succeeded in deterring an armed attack against the Philippines, its government, and its military assets. But Beijing’s intensifying efforts to leverage gray-zone tactics is nevertheless a cause for concern. China could cross the line, whether purposefully or inadvertently, that would trigger the Mutual Defense Treaty and lead to war.

One reason China might purposefully cross the line is that Beijing perceives Washington to be overly distracted with supporting Ukraine against Russia in Eastern Europe, and now Israel against Hamas and potentially Hizballah and Iran in the Middle East. Indeed, Beijing may have authorized the latest and riskiest ramming maneuvers in order to test American resolve while conflicts on the other side of the world are competing for Washington’s attention. Beijing might view the current international context as an ideal time for launching a surprise attack on the Philippines in order to eliminate future resupply missions to Second Thomas Shoal and remove the Sierra Madre once and for all.

Potential Scenarios

This, however, is unlikely. If anything, the U.S.-Philippine alliance is the healthiest it has been since its inception, in 1951. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, unlike his anti-America and China-friendly predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, is committed to deepening and expanding the alliance to address the rising threat from China. The Biden administration has responded to Marcos’ commitment by, in turn, significantly strengthening the alliance. Along with Manila, the United States has agreed to expand the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement from five bases to nine, which will enable the U.S. military to pre-position equipment and temporarily deploy troops to these locations in the Philippines and contend with a range of contingencies, including Chinese attacks in the South China Sea. The political leadership in Washington and Manila are further set to launch joint patrols later this year, and the Philippines is already benefitting from multilateral patrols, namely between the United States, Australia, and Japan, to bolster deterrence as well. Teodoro recently stated that the latest incident “could result in more willing nations to join our fight.” These trends would have to make China, at a minimum, think twice about intentionally triggering the Mutual Defense Treaty.

The more likely scenario in the South China Sea is that, while China escalates its gray-zone tactics, these tactics remain just below the threshold of bringing the Mutual Defense Treaty into play. Beijing has already conducted numerous non-kinetic operations around Second Thomas Shoal, but there are others it still might consider. For example, Beijing could ram future resupply or Philippine coast guard ships harder to create more damage (the latest incident created little to no damage). Separately, in September, the Philippine coast guard removed a floating barrier China had laid to cordon off Scarborough Shoal, another disputed feature within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. Beijing might attempt to lay a similar floating barrier near Second Thomas Shoal. Establishing a total blockade around Second Thomas Shoal, with artificial barriers or Chinese coast guard and fishing militia ships, however, might reasonably be considered by both Manila and Washington as an act of war.

Alternatively, Beijing could instruct its coast guard to fully exercise the law passed in 2021 calling upon the service to “take all necessary measures, including the use of weapons when national sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction are being illegally infringed upon by foreign organizations or individuals at sea.” In response, the Chinese coast guard, on the high end, is authorized to fire upon rival ships. Although Beijing would probably be circumspect about doing this against the Philippine coast guard or other Philippine government or military vessels, it could fire upon Philippine fishing boats with no affiliation to Manila to send a message and ensure the Mutual Defense Treaty is not activated. The Chinese coast guard might also fire warning shots with live ammunition to deter resupply missions. Another possibility is that the Chinese coast guard boards and detains resupply crew ships, but doing so would likely be considered a hostile act — tantamount to an armed attack — which could, again, invoke the Mutual Defense Treaty, especially if Philippine government or military officials are involved.

Conclusion

Regardless, in the coming weeks and months, China is likely to roll out new and creative gray-zone tactics to get the point across that it maintains sovereignty over Second Thomas Shoal. If this happens, then it will only reconfirm the fact that deterrence through the strengthening U.S.-Philippine alliance is actually working. Put a different way, because deterrence is holding, Beijing must reach into its toolkit to find additional coercive gray-zone tactics to stop future resupply missions, short of an armed attack. Rather than view such moves with frustration, Manila and Washington should consider them a victory.

Nonetheless, China’s gray-zone activities could inadvertently result in triggering the Mutual Defense Treaty through an accident at sea that leads to miscalculation, escalation, and armed conflict. This is the scenario that understandably keeps American and Philippine policymakers and strategic planners up at night. As my colleague Blake Herzinger recently argued in these pages, one way of mitigating the potential risk is to remove the Sierra Madre and replace it with a combined forward operating base that includes Philippine forces and U.S. Marine Corps. This could significantly bolster deterrence because the U.S. Navy is much better at repelling Chinese gray-zone activities, according to Herzinger. Doing so, however, could also invite reprisals and put U.S. military personnel and assets unnecessarily and directly in harm’s way.

Alternatively, the United States could unequivocally state that Second Thomas Shoal — and, for that matter, other disputed South China Sea features including Scarborough Shoal and Pag-asa — are covered by the Mutual Defense Treaty if attacked. Washington has done this before. For example, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in 2012 announced that the Obama administration would defend Japan’s Senkaku Islands (China’s Diaoyu) from Chinese aggression, explicitly stating they were covered under Article V of the U.S.-Japanese Mutual Defense Treaty. The problem, however, is that Chinese interference in the East China Sea has continued unabated, with another coast guard standoff happening there just this past week.

Perhaps the best solution is what has already been happening: The United States should continue to offer military assistance and training to the Philippines so that Manila can increasingly counter China on its own while Washington continues to remind and warn Beijing that Article V must not be violated. This is the least risky option that also holds the greatest chance of success.

Become a Member

Derek Grossman is a senior defense analyst at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California. He formerly served as the daily intelligence briefer to the assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs at the Department of Defense.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Derek Grossman · November 7, 2023

11. Special Operations News - November 6, 2023 | SOF News

Special Operations News - November 6, 2023 | SOF News

sof.news · by SOF News · November 6, 2023

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

Photo / Image: An East-coast-based U.S. Naval Special Warfare Operator (SEAL) prepares to descend below the surface during dive training with Polish special forces, June 27, 2023. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Katie Cox)

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

SOF News

USSOCOM Brief. George Englehart has penned an article that describes the history, purpose, core operations, organization, and mission of the United States Special Operations Command. (Grey Dynamics, Oct 31, 2023).

ARSOF Personnel Cuts Looming. As many as 3,000 positions may be taken out of the force structure for Army special operations forces. Many supporters of the cuts state the strategic competition with China and Russia has replaced the counterterrorism focus of SOF during the 20 years of the Global War on Terror. However, this ignores the fact that the U.S. special operations community has done much more that CT over the past few decades. “Personnel cuts and force redesign ahead for Army special operations”, Army Times, November 1, 2023. Representative Mike Waltz (FL-R), a former Green Beret, has come out strongly against SOF cuts within the Army. “Army Making a Mistake in Cuts to Special Operations Forces”, Op-Ed Mike Waltz, November 3, 2023.

PSYOP Needs Growth not Cuts. Retired Army Col. Robert Curris, a former 4th PSYOP Group commander, argues that psychological operations capabilities need to be protected from cuts proposed by ‘big Army’. He says that a decline in PSYOP capabilities is a strategic error that will have severe implications for U.S. national security. “The Army needs to invest in psychological operations, not cut them”, Military Times, November 1, 2023.

Former Sgt. Maj. of Army and SF Soldier Passes Away. Retired Sgt. Maj. of the Army Glen Morrell died on October 26, 2023. He enlisted in the Army in 1953. He served with the 82nd Airborne Division and Special Forces. He served three tours in Vietnam while assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group. “Former SMA Glen Morrell Dies”, Association of the United States Army, November 2, 2023.

Covert SOF Music Concerts. The secret music concerts benefit the children of fallen special operators and CIA members. “Inside the Top-Secret Military Concert Series You’ve Never Heard Of”, Rolling Stone, November 2, 2023.

Air Force Special Reconnaissance. The replacement of AFSOC’s Special Operations Weather Teams (SOWT) is AFSOCs Special Reconnaissance teams. Future missions during conflict might include observing enemy anti-air defenses, gathering intelligence on enemy troop movements, scouting for landing zones, . . and yes, weather reports. “Inside the Air Force’s Newest SOF Career: Special Reconnaissance”, Air and Space Forces Magazine, November 2, 2023.

Electric Bikes of the Recon Marines. Jeff Schogol reports on the use of electric dirt bikes that will allow Recon Marines to cross terrain that is impassable for other military vehicles. One type of electric bike is the Zero MMX. The bikes are quieter and have a smaller heat signature than other vehicles. “Recon Marines will use electric dirt bikes on next deployment”, Task & Purpose, November 1, 2023.

SEAC Retirement. Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman Ramon “CZ” Colon-Lopez is retiring after a 33-year Air Force Career. As a Pararescueman, he was the first special operator chosen to serve as the enlisted advisor to the chairman. “Retiring SEAC Calls on Americans to Support Service Members“, DOD, November 3, 2023.

Acing SEAL Training. All of your burning questions about BUD/S answered. “BUD/S: Everything You Need to Ace Navy SEAL Training”, Task & Purpose, October 31, 2023.

Deep Dives, Coin Checks, and . . . More. George Hand, a retired SF MSG, describes on 130′ dive where more than the usual coin check took place. “Even When Deep Diving, U.S. Special Forces Never Turn Down a Challenge”, National Interest, November 2, 2023.

SOF’s Flux Raider. The 19th Special Forces Group is currently evaluating a specialized grip module for the P320 pistol that was recently adopted as the M17 and M18. A remarkable feature is the removable fire control unit (FCU) that allows the user to switch grip modules, barrel lengths, slides, and calibers quite easily. Pistols are getting so much more complicated – like everything else. “SOCOM’s Potential New Firearm Is a Revolution”, by Travis Pike, SANDBOXX, November 2, 2023.

MIT Students Assist in SOF R&D. SOCOM Ignite connects students with research scientists and special operations forces to address the pressing technology needs of SOF operators. This program, in its fourth year, invites cadets from the military academies and ROTC programs to participate. Learn more in “Military students innovate technology solutions for US Special Operations Command”, MIT News, October 31, 2023.

SOF Language Training. The GAO released a report about SOF language training (SOF News, 1 Nov 2023) that contained eight recommendations for improving how the languages are managed within SOF. U.S. special operators speak many different languages from all parts of the world; however, it is difficult to sustain those skills. Some former SOF language managers are criticizing the report saying that recommends micro-management of the program at the general officer level, rather than at the unit level (where the needs are known to local unit language program managers). Read more in “Report: Special operations forces need to rethink language training”, Task & Purpose, November 1, 2023.

International SOF

Afghan Commandos at Risk. Dozens of Afghans who served in special forces units funded and trained by the United Kingdom have been murdered or tortured by the Taliban. The members of CF333 and ATF444 were paid by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office; however, they have been rejected under the UK’s scheme for relocating Afghans who worked with the UK. Read more in “Abandoned Afghan Commandos”, Lighthouse Reports, November 1, 2023.

JCET With Spanish GOA. Green Berets with the U.S. Army’s 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) concluded a nearly two-month joint combined exchange training — known as JCET — with members of the Spanish Army’s Grupo Especial de Operaciones near Alicante. “Green Berets partner with Spanish special operations forces for training”, U.S. Army, October 30, 2023.

Head of Ukraine SOF Dismissed. Viktor Khorenko, the commander of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO), has been removed from command. Serhiy Lupanchuk is the new SSO commander. (Kyiv Post, 5 Nov 2023)

Non-State SOF. The Hamas terrorist group’s attacks that took place on October 7th against Israel shocked the world. What Israel seemed to have missed (an intelligence failure) is the growing democratization of technology that is providing new and dangerous capabilities to non-state actors. This new technology is helping non-state actors to develop a special operations capability. “AL-AQSA Storm Heralds the Rise of Non-state Special Operations”, War on the Rocks, November 2, 2023.

SOF History

November 8 is the annual JFK Wreath Laying Day at Arlington National Cemetery. This event, conducted by Green Berets, has taken place since the burial of John F. Kennedy after his assassination.

https://sof.news/events/green-beret-wreath-laying-ceremony/

On November 13, 2001, Kabul fell to the Northern Alliance. Green Berets would enter the city the next day. The Northern Alliance were also advised and assisted by other SOF elements such as the 49th Public Affairs Detachment (ABN) out of Bragg, Psychological Operations elements, and 1st Battalion 87th Infantry Regiment out of Ft. Drum, NY. The initial operation name was Operation Stronghold Freedom and these U.S. service members made up the Joint Special Operations Task Force-North (JSOTF-N).

Conflict in Israel and Gaza

Conflict Update. Hamas and other Palestinian militant / terrorist groups are continuing their rocket fire on civilians in southern Israel. Some rockets are being fired from the Red Sea area and are being intercepted by the Arrow Aerial Defense System. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are striking hundreds of military targets each day in Gaza. Communication and internet services in Gaza Strip have been intermittent during the entire conflict. There have been cyber-attacks conducted by hacker supporters of both sides of the conflict. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have left Gaza City and the northern portion of Gaza Strip after repeated warnings to evacuate (IDF Twitter, 6 Nov 2023) the area by the IDF. (CRS map evacuation zone) The northern section of Gaza Strip has been cut off from the southern sector; one evacuation route has been left open by the IDF for Palestinians to evacuate to the southern sector. The IDF has encircled Gaza City and have entered some sectors of the city.

Hostages. According to the IDF there are about 238 hostages still being held by the terrorist group Hamas. Some of these hostages believed held may already have been killed by Hamas. Over half of the hostages taken by the Palestinian terrorist organization hold foreign passports. The largest contingent of foreign nationals held are from Thailand. It is believed that there are 12 U.S. hostages held. Senior Pentagon officials say U.S. commandos on the ground are aiding efforts to ‘identify hostages’. Several other nations have also moved ‘special operators’ closer to Israel for contingency operations. Read more in “US special forces said deployed to help Israel track down hostages held in Gaza”, The Times of Israel, November 1, 2023.

Rafah Border Crossing. Severely injured Palestinians and some foreign nationals have been able to pass through the border from Gaza into Egypt. (Reuters, Nov 1, 2023) The border point is tightly controlled by the Egyptians. Hundreds of aid trucks have crossed from Egypt to Gaza – the contents of the trucks usually end up in the control of Hamas. The Independent YouTube channel has posted a live camera feed of the Rafah Crossing. See a recent Congressional Research Service report on evacuating U.S. citizens (PDF, 30 Oct 2023)

SOAA Helps with Evacuations. The Special Operations Association of America is assisting in the evacuation of U.S. citizens from Gaza and Israel. Read about it in “U.S. military veterans are helping Americans get out of Gaza”, The Washington Post, November 2, 2023. More that 300 Americans (some dual passport holders) were able to leave Gaza over the past week.

Gaza Aid Stolen by Hamas. On Monday, October 30, 2023, the U.S. Department of State accused the Hamas terrorist organization of stealing food and fuel meant for civilians in the Gaza Strip and diverting the aid to Hamas terrorist fighters. The aid is coming in on trucks through the Raffa Crossing along the Egypt Gaza border. (Twitter, Oct 30, 2023) On average, about 20 aid trucks a day are entering Gaza. The Jordanian Air Force has air dropped aid (Axios, 6 Nov 2023) to a Jordanian field hospital in Gaza in coordination with the Israeli military, bypassing the Raffa Crossing.

The Tunnels of Gaza. The Palestinians use an extensive tunnel system from which to conduct both offensive and defensive operations. Bombing the tunnels is one way of rendering the tunnels useless. But there is a better way. Jeff Goodson, a retired Foreign Service Officer, worked in the Gaza Strip doing development work and knows the lay of the land. He presents his ideas here in “Flood the Gaza Tunnels”, Real Clear Defense, November 1, 2023.

Social Media and Satellites. Getting comprehensive reports about the situation on the battlefield of a conflict or war is usually difficult. However, technology has now progressed that social media and commercial satellite images can provide the battlefield updates. “Satellites and social media offer hints about Israel’s ground war strategy in Gaza”, by Geoff Brumfiel and Daniel Wood, National Public Radio, November 3, 2023.

Report on Israel Hamas Conflict. The Congressional Research Service has published Israel and Hamas 2023 Conflict in Brief: Overview, U.S. Policy, and Options for Congress, CRS RA47828, November 1, 2023, PDF, 16 pages. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47828

References: Map Gaza Strip (2005), and more maps of Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Israel.

Ukraine Conflict

Examining the Ukraine Conflict. Victor Andrusiv, a member of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, writes on the prospects of the defeat of the Russian army in Ukraine and the implications for the international scene. “A Vision of Russian Defeat”, Wilson Center, October 31, 2023.

More U.S. Security Assistance. On November 3, 2023, the Department of Defense announced that it is sending another $125 million in assistance to Ukraine. This includes munitions for NASAMS, HIMARS, artillery, TOWs, Javelins, and other types of weapons. “Biden Administration Announces New Security Assistance for Ukraine”, DOD, November 3, 2023.

Interactive Map. Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine by the Insitute for the Study of War and Critical Threats.

On storymaps.arcgis.com

National Security and Commentary

IW and DOD. At the NDAI SO/LIC Symposium held last week Chris Maier, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, said that U.S. SOCOM isn’t necessarily the lead for irregular warfare. He believes that the DOD has a lot more work to do when it comes to addressing irregular warfare and asymmetric issues like the gray zone. “Senior Pentagon official calls on DOD component to more fully embrace irregular, asymmetric warfare”, by Mark Pomerleau, Defensescoop, November 1, 2023.

SOCCENT FWD Yemen (SFY) – a Tripwire? Ken Klippenstein argues that special operations troops currently stationed in Yemen could possibly create geopolitical complications. He says this in light of recent drone and missile attacks by the Houthis against Israel. “Secret U.S. Military Presence in Yemen Adds a Twist to Houthi Attack on Israel”, The Intercept, November 2, 2023.

WH Fact Sheet on AI. The White House has issued an Executive Order that ensures that America can manage the risks of artificial intelligence. The EO establishes new standards for AI safety and security, protects privacy, and promotes innovation and competition. (White House Fact Sheet, Oct 30, 2023)

“Secure the Border Act”. On May 11, 2023, the House passed the Secure the Border Act of 2023 (H.R. 2). The bill would, among other things, make significant changes to federal immigration laws with respect to border security, asylum, and detention. On September 14, 2023, a companion bill was introduced in the Senate (S. 2824). This In Focus examines H.R. 2, focusing specifically on provisions governing asylum, applicants for admission, and parole. The Secure the Border Act (H.R. 2): Asylum-Related Reforms, Congressional Research Service, CRS IF12522, October 30, 2023, PDF, 3 pages. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12522

Information Operations

Language and IW. A recent article explores one example of how language is weaponized to attain strategic and geopolitical goals. Learn how Russia uses ‘de-Romanization tactics’ to influence the course of events in eastern Europe. “The Weaponization of Language in Irregular Warfare: Moldova, a Case Study”, by Olga Raluca Chiriac and Dan Dungaciu, Irregular Warfare Initiative, November 2, 2023.

Podcast – Subversion: The Strategic Weaponization of Narratives. Listen to two academics on how states weaponize strategic narratives to control the information space and achieve their interests. Irregular Warfare Initiative, October 20, 2023, one hour. https://irregularwarfare.org/podcasts/subversion-the-strategic-weaponization-of-narratives/

Social Media – Fact and Fiction. During international crises, it is common for social media to be flooded with images, videos, and bold claims. It can become overwhelming for a public seeking the facts. “Separating Fact from Fiction on Social Media in Times of Conflict”, Bellingcat, October 26, 2023.

Great Power Competition

A Worldly Irregular War. Two members of the RAND Corporation, Alexander Noyes and Daniel Egel, argue that the United States is currently in an irregular war with its strategic competitors. Russia and China have historically relied on proxy forces, but now seem more willing to deploy their own forces to undermine U.S. allies and partners. The United States, according to Noyes and Egel, are not currently ready for this irregular fight. “Winning the Irregular War”, Newsweek, November 2, 2023.

Memes vs. Missiles. An article by Steve Ferenzi and others argue that a new approach is needed for North Korea – one that prioritizes the information instrument of power that will set conditions for eventual regime transition. “Memes vs. Missiles? Cognitive Access Denial and the North Korea Problem”, Irregular Warfare Center, October 31, 2023.

CRS Report – FY2024 NDAA: U.S. Military Posture in the Indo-Pacific. According to the 2022 National Security Strategy the Indo-Pacific is the most significant region of the world and People’s Republic of China presents the most comprehensive and serious challenge to U.S. national security. Congressional Research Service, CRS IN12273, October 20, 2023, PDF, 5 pages. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12273

Russian Ties with Libya Increasing. Russia is moving to expand its military presence in eastern Libya – a plan that could lead to a naval base. “Putin’s move to secure Libya bases is new regional worry for U.S.”, The Japan Times, November 6, 2023.

SOF News welcomes the submission of articles for publication. If it is related to special operations, current conflicts, national security, or defense then we are interested.

Afghanistan

Sandhurst in the Sand. One of the legacies of the British involvement in Afghanistan was supposed to be a training complex to educate the future officers of the Afghan National Army. The site was located near Kabul and was referred to as Sandhurst in the Sand. Read more in an article posted by Forces.net on November 1, 2023.

DoS and Others – Joint Statement. Special Representatives and Envoys for Afghanistan from Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States met in Rome on 18 October 2023. They decided to continue their regular consultations at senior officials’ level as a means of developing consistent joint policies on Afghanistan and promoting coherent approaches of the group to the outstanding challenges of present-day Afghanistan. Read more in “Joint Statement on Afghanistan”, Department of State, October 31, 2023.

SIVs – Slow Process. An April analysis by the Association of Wartime Allies estimated that at the current pace, it will take 31 years to relocate and resettle all 175,000 Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants from Afghanistan. SIGAR, October 2023 report, page 30.

SOF News Book Shop

View our selection of books about special operations forces at the SOF News Book Shop.

Books, Podcasts, Videos, and Movies

Sentinel. The November 2023 issue of the Sentinel is now online. Published by Chapter 78 of the Special Forces Association, this magazine contains articles of interest to the special operations community. This month’s issue contains an excerpt of the book Jon Robert Cavaiani: A Wolf Remembered. Jon was a Special Forces NCO who won the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Vietnam War. Other articles are on topics such as the Son Tay Raid, honoring members of MACV-SOG, rescuing a downed pilot at Khe Sanh, and more. https://www.specialforces78.com/chapter-78-newsletter-for-november-2023/

IWI Monthly Newsletter. The October 2023 issue of the Irregular Warfare Initiative newsletter is available for viewing.

Podcast – Gen (R) Scott Miller. The former command of JSOC and the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan talks about attending West Point, Task Force Ranger, Afghanistan, and life after retirement. West Point Association of Graduates, October 25, 2023, 40 minutes. https://www.westpointaog.org/news/podcast-leaders-never-arrive-with-gen-r-scott-miller-83/

Video – Jump – Be All You Can Be. The Army has come out with another recruiting video. This one features airborne troops conducting a parachute jump from a Chinook. GoArmy, YouTube, November 5, 2023, 30 seconds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m25KI4RAm4c

Video – How Russia is Restructuring Wagner Group’s Africa Operations. Russia is putting in a new power structure to take over the Wagner Group’s sprawling operations in Africa. Wall Street Journal, November 2, 2023, 6 minutes. (possible paywall)

Video – MACV SOG Extraction Techniques – The McGuire Rig. Watch a vintage detailed account about USAF 20th Special Operations Squadron pilots flying their Hueys to extract special operations teams from the jungles of Vietnam. MACV SOG, YouTube, November 2023, 6 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM9MCH7Aeoc

Upcoming Events

November 29-30, 2023

SOF & Irregular Warfare Symposium

Defense Strategies Institute

December 8, 2023

Winter Cruise

Combat Diver Association

December 8-10, 2023

2023 Civil Affairs Conference

Civil Affairs Association

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

sof.news · by SOF News · November 6, 2023

12. Defense Department Report Shows Decline in Armed Forces Population While Percentage of Military Women Rises Slightly

Defense Department Report Shows Decline in Armed Forces Population While Percentage of Military Women Rises Slightly

defense.gov

Release

Immediate Release

Nov. 6, 2023 |×

The Defense Department's newly released 2022 Demographics Profile of the Military Community shows the number of service members dropped 2.7% over the previous year while the percentage of women in the military inched upward.

According to the annual demographics report, the active-duty and selected reserve population was 58,282 lower than in 2021, for a total of 2,077,630 service members. Over the same period, the percentage of women increased slightly – rising to 17.5% of the active duty force from 17.3% and 21.6% of the selected reserve from 21.4%. Since 2005, the percentage of active duty military women has increased by 2.9% while the percentage of women in the selected reserve has risen by 4.4%. The annual report contains the latest publicly available information on the makeup of the military community, including service members and their dependents.

Data highlighted in the report includes information from all services, including gender, race, age, education, family members, paygrades and geographic location. It provides a standard resource for policymakers, program planners and those doing analysis to support the military community.

"The Demographics Profile of the Military Community and research conducted by the Department ensures we have the quality data we need to understand and respond to the ever-changing needs of our service members and their families," said Patricia Montes Barron, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Military Community and Family Policy. "The updated demographic data and trends help the Department assess and tailor our policies and programs to best support our Service members and their families."

The annual demographics profile report is the only comprehensive, publicly released snapshot of armed forces demographics from the Defense Department. It provides a detailed look at the people who make up the military community — active duty and reserve members and their families from all service branches.

Data from the 2022 report can be viewed in a fully interactive dashboard that allows users to select and view the latest available demographic data by various criteria, such as service branch, gender, paygrade and state of current residence.

To capture data unique to reserve component women in the military, the 2022 demographics profile features a new interactive infographic to display key demographics related to their personal, family and military life. This infographic compliments the interactive infographic of women in the active-duty military launched with the 2021 demographics profile.

The annual demographics report is available on Military OneSource.

About Military OneSource

Military OneSource is a DOD-funded program that is both a call center and a website providing comprehensive information, resources and assistance on every aspect of military life. Service members and the families of active duty, National Guard and reserve (regardless of activation status), Coast Guard members when activated for the Navy, DOD expeditionary civilians and survivors are eligible for Military OneSource services, which are available worldwide 24 hours a day, seven days a week, free to the user.

About Military Community and Family Policy

Military Community and Family Policy is directly responsible for establishing and overseeing quality-of-life policies and programs that help our service members, their families and survivors be well and mission ready. Military OneSource is the gateway to programs and services that support the everyday needs of the 4.5 million service members and immediate family members of the military community. These DOD services can be accessed 24/7/365 around the world.

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13. China has acquired a global network of strategically vital ports

Please go to the link to view the maps and graphics and proper formatting. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2023/china-ports-trade-military-navy/

China has acquired a global network of strategically vital ports

Beijing’s investments along some of the world’s key waterways have significant military implications

By Liz Sly and

Júlia Ledur

Nov. 6 at 5:05 p.m.

The Washington Post · by Liz Sly · November 6, 2023

A decade ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the Maritime Silk Road, the oceanic component of his flagship Belt and Road Initiative aimed at improving China’s access to world markets by investing in transportation infrastructure. The initiative’s investments have since slowed as Chinese growth falters, the United States pushes back and countries question the indebtedness the projects brought.

China’s Global Leap

At every point of the compass, China is quietly laying the foundations of its new international order.

But China has already secured a significant stake in a network of global ports that are central to world trade and freedom of navigation. Although the stated goal of the investments was commercial, the United States and its allies have grown increasingly concerned about the potential military implications.

Xi has frequently talked of his ambition to turn China into a “maritime superpower.” The port network offers a glimpse into the reach of those ambitions.

China’s ambitious sea route runs south from the coast of China through the major transit route of the Indian Ocean and the busiest maritime choke points of the Middle East, ending up in Europe.

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When Xi announced his plan, China had stakes in 44 ports globally, providing a foundation for his strategy.

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A decade later, China owns or operates ports and terminals at nearly 100 locations in over 50 countries, spanning every ocean and every continent. Many are located along some of the world’s most strategic waterways.

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The majority of the investments have been made by companies owned by the Chinese government, effectively making Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party the biggest operator of the ports that lie at the heart of global supply chains.

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The expansion is critical to China’s economic power and has significant military implications as well, analysts say. “This is not coincidental,” said Carol Evans, director of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College. “I firmly believe there is a strategic aspect to the particular ports they’re targeting for investment.”

The stated aim of this maritime network is commercial: to enhance and streamline China’s access to worldwide markets. In 2018, China expanded its maritime footprint at the Khalifa port in the United Arab Emirates, an important connector between Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Chinese state-owned Cosco Shipping built a commercial container terminal at the port, which it now operates.

Satellite imagery showing Chinese-operated container terminal at the Khalifa Port

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Why we’re tracking China’s global influence

The Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to forge new economic and diplomatic alliances, including through its Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, are now well known. Also, at every point of the compass, Beijing is laying the foundations of its new international order and shaping places and institutions outside its borders in its image.

Where we went and why

We looked for places where China’s efforts had gone relatively unnoticed. We sought to show the breadth of China’s ambitions — from collecting DNA information to policing to media representation.

Our team fanned out across the world, reporting from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Central America and Europe.

How we reported this series

Shibani Mahtani reported on Chinese influence in Singaporean media and vocational education in Indonesia and Lao indebtedness to China.

Michael Miller traveled to Fiji, detailing the fallout from China’s policing agreement.

Joby Warrick and Cate Brown reported on China leading the arms race of mass-collecting DNA data.

How we reported this series

Karen DeYoung traveled to Tegucigalpa to report on the Honduran government’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with China, breaking its ties with Taiwan.

Lily Kuo traveled to Kingston, Jamaica, to examine how China is positioning itself to dominate the deep-sea mining industry that will be crucial to developing next-generation technology with military and civilian applications.

We are continuing to document Beijing’s reach.

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But the investments go beyond that. They give Beijing a window into the business dealings of competitors and could be used to help China defend its supply routes, spy on U.S. military movements and potentially engage U.S. shipping, according to analysts. Chinese-owned ports or terminals are already ports of call for Chinese warships, such as the flotilla that entered the Nigerian port of Lagos in July.

In late 2015, China acknowledged it was building a military base adjacent to the Chinese-operated port of Djibouti. The African base was officially opened in 2017, only six miles away from a U.S. military base in the country. Located at the narrow entrance to the Red Sea, Djibouti is on one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, where about 10 percent of global oil exports and 20 percent of commercial goods pass through the narrow strait to and from the Suez Canal.

Satellite imagery showing a Chinese military base adjacent to the Djibouti Port

Port of Djibouti

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Beijing is decades away from matching the U.S. military presence worldwide, but China has the biggest and fastest-growing navy in the world, and increasingly it is venturing beyond the shores of eastern Asia.

Charts showing number of Chinese ports and navy battle force ships

Total number of ports owned or

operated by Chinese companies

105

100

1990

2000

2010

2020

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navy battle force ships

U.S.

China

351

350

294

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2000

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battle force ships

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China

351

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294

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2010

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or operated by Chinese companies

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U.S.

China

105

100

351

350

294

250

150

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2010

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2020

1990

1995

2000

2005

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by Chinese companies

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force ships

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China

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351

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From having no naval presence in the Indian Ocean two decades ago, for instance, China now maintains six to eight warships in the region at any given time, U.S. officials say.

A journey along the Maritime Silk Road</span> illustrates some of the strategic advantages of <span class="dot ports"></span><span class="key-label">China’s port investments.</span>

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Indian Ocean</h3>A route for some major <span class="shipping-lane key-label">shipping lanes</span> and <span class="dot allports"></span><span class="global-ports key-label">global ports</span>, the Indian Ocean was an early priority for China. About 80 percent of China’s trade crosses the ocean, including almost all of its oil. China’s port investments seem designed to protect the route. Beijing, for instance, has secured a 99-year lease at the port of Hambantota in Sri Lanka, giving it an important foothold on the busy shipping lane between Asia and the West.

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Persian Gulf and Red Sea</h3>China’s interest in these port locations goes beyond purely commercial concerns, U.S. officials say. Many are located at strategic chokepoints with high <span class="ship-traffic key-label">shipping traffic</span>. At these locations, sea routes are narrow and ships are potentially vulnerable.

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Strait of Hormuz</h3>Leaked U.S. intelligence documents earlier this year suggested that China has revived an effort to establish military facilities at the United Arab Emirates port of Khalifa in the Persian Gulf, by the crucial Strait of Hormuz and just 50 miles away from an important U.S. military base.

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Djibouti</h3>China has already established one military facility adjoining a commercial port operation, in Djibouti, at the mouth of the Red Sea. U.S. officials say there are indications that it is scouting for more.

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Suez Canal</h3>Beijing has also been growing its influence in ports on Egypt’s Suez Canal, a vital human-built waterway that provides a shortcut from Asia to Europe. Earlier this year, Chinese shipping companies announced investments in terminals at the ports of Ain Sokhna and Alexandria.

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Europe</h3>China already controls or has major investments in more than 20 European ports, giving it significant sway over the continent’s supply routes. Many serve as vital logistics and transshipment points for NATO and the U.S. Navy. “It’s a significant national and economic security concern,” said Michael Wessel of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

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Logink ports</h3>One way in which China has secured a commanding position is through a little-known software system called Logink, a digital logistics platform owned by the Chinese government. So far, at least 24 ports worldwide, including Rotterdam and Hamburg, <span class="dot logink"></span><span class="china-port key-label">have adopted the Logink system.</span>

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Logink potentially gives China access to vast quantities of normally proprietary information on the movements, management and pricing of goods moving around the world. The U.S. Transportation Department issued an advisory in August warning U.S. companies and agencies to avoid interacting with the system because of the risk of espionage and cyberattack.

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The Americas</h3>The original Maritime Silk Road, as laid out in Chinese documents, focused on three main routes. The plan has expanded to include the Atlantic and the Americas. Latin America is one of the fastest-growing destinations for Chinese port investments. China manages ports at both ends of the Panama Canal. It is building from scratch a $3 billion megaport at Chancay in Peru that will transform trade between China and Latin America, enabling the world’s largest shipping containers to dock on the continent for the first time.

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The United States is still the world’s biggest military power, with about 750 bases overseas. China, with only one, is a long way from matching U.S. naval power, said Stephen Watts of the Rand Corp. “The implications of these far-flung bases have been overblown,” he said. “China would be easily overcome in these small outposts if it came to a shooting match.”

But China’s port network presents a different kind of challenge to U.S. security interests, separate from the threat of war, said Isaac Kardon of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. China is now the world’s premier commercial maritime power, and its strategic hold over the world’s supply routes could be used to interdict or restrict U.S. trade, troop movements and freedom of navigation in a range of different ways. “It’s an asymmetrical threat,” he said.

About this story

Story editing by Reem Akkad and Peter Finn. Project editing by Courtney Kan. Story by Liz Sly. Maps by Júlia Ledur. Design and development by Kat Rudell-Brooks and Yutao Chen. Charts by Cate Brown. Graphics editing by Samuel Granados. Design editing by Joe Moore. Photo editing by Jennifer Samuel. Copy editing by Vanessa Larson. Additional development by Dylan Moriarty.

Sources: Data on ports owned or operated by China is from Isaac B. Kardon’s and Wendy Leutert’s study “Pier Competitor: China’s Power Position in Global Ports,” International Security 2022; 46 (4): 9-47. Data on global ports and shipping traffic density is from the World Bank and the United Nations Code for Trade and Transport Locations (UN/LOCODE) global repository (as of July 2020). Satellite imagery is from Maxar Technologies. Shipping lanes are from the CIA’s Map of the World Oceans from October 2012, georeferenced and updated by the researcher Paul Benden. Rivers and bathymetry from Natural Earth.

Data on navy battle force ships is from the “China Naval Modernization” report by the Congressional Research Service from May. Data on Logink ports is from the report “LOGINK: Risks From China’s Promotion of a Global Logistics Management Platform,” by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, from September 2022.

The Washington Post · by Liz Sly · November 6, 2023

14. China Resists Efforts to Free ‘Wrongfully Detained’ Americans

China Resists Efforts to Free ‘Wrongfully Detained’ Americans

Mark Swidan’s decade long ordeal prompts calls for amnesty ahead of Xi-Biden summit

https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-resists-efforts-to-free-wrongfully-detained-americans-eece59fc

By James T. Areddy

Nov. 7, 2023 5:30 am ET

A crusading mother. Legal challenges. Human-rights campaigns. Corporate appeals. Congressional resolutions. Pressure from the White House. A United Nations agency plea.

For more than a decade, China has resisted impassioned requests to release a Texan imprisoned under murky and unusual circumstances, Mark Swidan. His case speaks to how the U.S., like other Western powers, has limited leverage in its efforts on behalf of citizens it says are arbitrarily detained in China’s opaque justice system.

The families of Americans detained in China, including some not imprisoned but blocked from leaving the country, hope that this year’s halting resumption of high-level Washington-Beijing engagement can spur the release of their loved ones. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is planning to travel to the U.S. for the first time since 2017 to meet President Biden in San Francisco. Sometimes summits have featured goodwill gestures by Beijing, including amnesty for detainees.

Texan Mark Swidan was detained in 2012 at the end of a trip to mainland China. PHOTO: KATHERINE SWIDAN

But families also worry the halting bilateral engagement has relegated individual Americans ever-lower on the long list of weighty issues that confront the rivals.

“It was very common in advance of a trip either way for prisoners…to be released,” said John Kamm, who heads San Francisco human-rights organization Dui Hua Foundation. “That’s the past.”

China’s government says it applies laws equally regardless of nationality and opposes what it calls foreign interference in its legal affairs.

Chinese authorities last month released an Australian citizen after three years in detention just before a visit to Beijing by Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese. The pardoned woman, Cheng Lei, a former presenter for China’s state broadcaster, had been sentenced only days ahead of her release on espionage charges apparently related to her newsgathering. She told an interviewer that China’s detention system is designed to “make you feel isolated, and bored and pained and desperate.”

The State Department has publicly classified three Americans as “wrongfully detained” in China: 48-year-old Swidan and two China-born, naturalized U.S. citizens in their 60s, Long Island businessman Kai Li and California pastor David Lin, all of them serving lengthy prison sentences. All three have health issues, their families say.

“I don’t understand why those three people are so significant” to China, says Katherine Swidan, Mark’s mother, who has spoken with a parade of top U.S. officials about his case. Calling her son a “pawn” between the nations, she says, “We have the money. We have the power. We have the people. Just find out what they want [in exchange].”

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, left, spoke with journalist Cheng Lei at the airport in Melbourne last month after the journalist’s release. PHOTO: SARAH HODGES/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

The “wrongful” designation indicates the U.S. believes such people are held at least in part because of their American citizenship. U.S. diplomats are therefore empowered to press harder for their release than they might on behalf of ordinary detainees, such as those convicted of violent crimes.

The State Department says American officials continually raise the cases when engaging with Chinese officials. A tally by a senior Biden administration official shows that the “wrongful detainees” have been mentioned by name nearly monthly in face-to-face engagements with China’s foreign ministers since May and that visiting American politicians in recent weeks referenced Lin and Li when they met China’s leader, Xi. “Due to the sensitive nature of these conversations, we aren’t going to publicly discuss our efforts, but they remain ongoing,” a State Department spokesman said.

The U.S. alleges a small number of other nations wrongfully detain Americans too, including Russia, which holds the jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan. Both face espionage charges, which they deny.

What China might accept in exchange for prisoners, current and former U.S. officials say, is far less obvious than with nations such as Russia and Iran that have freed Americans detainees in clear-cut deals. They say the answer could be honoring a Chinese request for the U.S. to hand over certain people wanted on criminal charges there or making an adjustment to American policy that is unrelated to justice issues.

Another area of legal difficulty for Americans and other noncitizens in China is authorities’ blocking them from leaving the country even though they aren’t being prosecuted. The State Department warns exit bans are a growing risk for Americans in China but doesn’t publicize an estimate of how many citizens are subject to them.

The Journal has reported recent bans affecting executives of U.S. advisory firms Kroll and Mintz Group, as well as an employee of Japanese financial firm Nomura. One person ensnared over a debt dispute, self-employed Californian Henry Cai, fears his exit ban will soon enter its seventh year.

Chinese authorities have blocked Henry Cai from leaving the country for years. PHOTO: GILLES SABRIE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Pitfalls in China’s legal system are a major concern of Western governments and human-rights groups, though they agree hardships are often worse for the country’s own citizens and non-Western foreigners; the group Human Rights Watch in October said Chinese authorities repatriated 500 North Koreans to their country, where they could face grave punishment.

“President Biden needs to take advantage of the ongoing flurry of dialogue between the U.S. and China to gain the release of my father, Kai Li, and the other Americans wrongfully detained in China,” said Harrison Li, who recently also made that request in a letter to Biden.

The elder Li sourced aerospace equipment in China before he was detained in 2016 and accused of providing secrets to U.S. authorities. Unsuccessfully, Li’s defense argued the “secrets” were readily found online and that his communication with U.S. agencies was mischaracterized.

Long Island businessman Kai Li was detained in 2016 during one of his trips to China. PHOTO: HARRISON LI

The pastor, Lin, initially drew a life sentence based on fraud allegations that his supporters view as an excuse to jail him for Christian preaching and financial support for unapproved churches in China. The sentence has been cut more than once, most recently around the time Biden and Xi met last year, setting Lin for release in December 2029. His daughter laments, “It’s by the grace of God that he has survived this long already.”

Also, as China began to re-engage with U.S. officials, the U.S. ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, was permitted to see all three Americans designated as wrongfully detained. Mostly though, the State Department says Chinese authorities put roadblocks in front of routine matters, including disrupting what should be monthly consular visits with prisoners that are required under a bilateral treaty. Many visits were suspended during China’s Covid lockdowns, while others took place online.

Swidan’s detention has appeared arbitrary since Chinese police first grabbed him around 11 years ago, according to his supporters. In 2019, a U.N. Human Rights Council working group on arbitrary detention agreed and called on China’s government to immediately release Swidan. This year, a Chinese court rejected Swidan’s appeal.

His odyssey began at the tail end of his first-ever trip to China, in 2012, when Swidan had gone to buy flooring and furniture. He was on the phone telling his mother about the deals he had seen—in part for a house they had bought in Texas—when police burst in and cut the phone line, she says. Authorities had found methamphetamine on Swidan’s local driver and translator, and police told Swidan he was being detained as a possible witness in a drug case.

Katherine Swidan has crusaded for the release of her son, Mark Swidan, from Chinese detention. PHOTO: WAYNE ABBOTT

More than a month later Swidan was indicted on charges that he participated in a drug manufacturing and distribution ring, though prosecutors described him as having a secondary role and recommended a light sentence, according to the U.N. account. The evidence tying him to the drug activity was hearsay, and he wasn’t in China when the alleged offense took place.

A year later Swidan was put on trial. It then took the court more than five years to return its verdict: guilty—with a new description he was the drug operation’s principal. He was sentenced to death but under rules that make it an effective life term. Swidan has maintained his innocence.

During the U.N. agency’s probe, China’s government claimed Swidan “made a confession of guilt during the investigation stage” and said evidence pointed to him as “the principal offender.” To his supporters, any confession Swidan might have made was the result of severe psychological torture.

Kamm, who contributed to the U.N. agency’s research, said he has included Swidan’s name more than 45 times on lists of what he calls U.S.-connected prisoners that he has delivered to Chinese officials. Kamm’s list now includes 21 names and he says he regularly tells Chinese officials, “if you want to improve relations with the United States, how about releasing some Americans, like Mark.”

Swidan’s mother, a 73-year-old who says she learned persistence collecting bills as a credit manager for Dell, says she hasn’t spoken with him by telephone since 2018 but gets letters and drawings that describe dire conditions. She says he has lost many teeth, acquired a scar on his face and broken his hands during his time in the Guangdong province detention center. “He’s been called a Renaissance man because he’s never given up,” she said.

Write to James T. Areddy at James.Areddy@wsj.com

15. Soldiers' winning idea hides friendly radio calls in a sea of noise

Turn soldiers loose and they will be creative problem soldiers.

Soldiers' winning idea hides friendly radio calls in a sea of noise

Innovation competition draws new devices and new methods to a showdown in Hawaii.

defenseone.com · by Jennifer Hlad

Brig. Gen. Pierre Huet, assistant commanding general for operations, XVIII Airborne Corps, congratulates winners of Dragons Lair IX, in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Nov. 2, 2023. U.S. Army / Spc. Casey Brumbach

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Innovation competition draws new devices and new methods to a showdown in Hawaii.

November 6, 2023 10:28 PM ET

By Jennifer Hlad

Senior News Editor, Defense One

November 6, 2023 10:28 PM ET

HONOLULU, Hawaii—A U.S. Army unit was preparing to go to the National Training Center last November when they discovered a problem: an adversary with electronic-warfare gear could “easily identify people talking on their radios…so they needed a way to counteract that.”

Lacking time to fix the problem, the unit handed it off to the Third Infantry Division’s Marne Innovation Team, said Capt. Chris Flournoy, one of the team’s innovation officers. Staff Sgt. Michael Holloway, an electronic warfare soldier, came up with a solution: a low-cost decoy emitter.

“Instead of trying to hide in the spectrum, we want to obfuscate the spectrum. We want to put so much emission into the spectrum” that an adversary “can’t tell what’s real and what’s fake,” Flournoy said.

The emitter, which Flournoy and Holloway hand-soldered in a maker space at Fort Stewart-Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia, recently took first prize in the Dragon’s Lair IX innovation competition here. The soldiers received a Meritorious Service Medal, will be able to attend a military school of their choosing, and earned the chance to implement their idea across the Defense Department.

The soldiers had already tested the emitter in the field at the Joint Readiness Training Center, Holloway said, which “opened up a lot of doors for working with other divisions within 18th Airborne Corps.”

The two runners-up in the competition offered separate improvements for moving injured troops. Chief Warrant Officer 2 William Ensinger and Staff Sgt. Jonathan Ensinger created a “practical replacement” for the Army’s rescue sled, and Chief Patrick McTavish thought of a way to standardize the way the Navy transports patients aboard ships.

The Navy currently moves patients from one level of a ship to another by wrapping a rope around a pipe “a couple of times,” and then attaching that rope to the stretcher “and kind of trying to pull the rope around the pipe,” McTavish said. His idea incorporates rock climbing equipment, “so instead of wrapping the rope around the pipe, now you wrap a sling around the pipe and you clip into the sling with a carabiner.”

McTavish’s method “basically speeds up the process” of setting up the system and moving the injured patient, and also gives corpsmen an advantage by reducing friction and the weight they have to pull on the line, he said.

“It’s a lot more efficient and it’s so much quicker,” McTavish said.

McTavish had been working on his idea for about a year and a half, and had trained other ships on the Pearl Harbor waterfront on it, but was thinking of scrapping it altogether before he heard of the Dragon’s Lair competition, he said. Now, he said, he has promises of funding and help to get it pushed throughout the Navy.

Doug Beck, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, served as a judge for the competition. Beck said it’s “a tremendous way to recognize and develop innovators from within the force.”

Lt. Gen. Chris Donahue, commanding general of Fort Liberty and the 18th Airborne Corps, which co-hosted the competition, said it also allows the corps “to continue our focus to build readiness and retain our status as America’s Contingency Corps. We are incredibly proud of each of the eight innovator teams and look forward to continuing to inspire the talent within our formations.”

16. Troops’ data is for sale. That puts national security at risk: report

Troops’ data is for sale. That puts national security at risk: report

Foreign or malicious actors can get what they need to target military personnel and their families for blackmail, disinfo, and more, Duke researchers find.

BY ALEXANDRA KELLEY

STAFF CORRESPONDENT, NEXTGOV/FCW

NOVEMBER 7, 2023 05:00 AM ET

defenseone.com

Troops’ data is for sale. That puts national security at risk: report - Defense One

By Alexandra Kelley

Staff Correspondent, Nextgov/FCW

November 7, 2023 05:00 AM ET

A new report found that it is easy to buy personal data on U.S. servicemembers online, where it can cost as little as one cent to obtain records through data brokers.

Conducted by researchers at Duke University, the study Data Brokers and the Sale of Data on U.S. Military Personnel examined the availability of sensitive data for U.S. military personnel, including names, home addresses, emails and specific branch information being sold on third-party data-broker platforms.

After scraping or buying data from hundreds of data broker sites, researchers explored how freely available military service information could pose national security threats.

Researchers found only minimal identity verification protocols when buying potentially sensitive data online.

“We found a lack of robust controls when asking some data brokers about buying data on the U.S. military and when actually purchasing data from some data brokers, such as identity verification, background checks or detective controls to ascertain our intended uses for the purchased data,” the report reads.

Researchers were able to purchase demographic characteristics including religious practices, health information and financial data of thousands of both active-duty members and veterans. Some datasets available for sale were so specific that they could list the office of service, such as the U.S. Marine Corps and Pentagon Force Protection Agency.

While the U.S. has grappled with the absence of federal law governing data broker practices, the report places unregulated data sales online into a national security context.

“The inconsistencies of controls when purchasing sensitive, non-public, individually identified data about active-duty members of the military and veterans extends to situations in which data brokers are selling to customers who are outside of the United States,” the report reads.

The report concluded with policy recommendations focused on passing legislation that would bring regulatory guardrails to online user data privacy.

Despite multiple efforts, Congress has still not managed to pass a national data privacy law. Lawmakers chimed in following the release of the report, with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., reiterating the call for comprehensive privacy legislation.

“The researchers findings should be a sobering wake-up call for policy makers that the data broker industry is out of control and poses a serious threat to U.S. national security,” Wyden said in an emailed statement to Nextgov/FCW. “As I have been warning for years, consumer privacy is a national security issue. The United States needs a comprehensive solution to protect Americans’ data from unfriendly nations rather than focusing on ineffective Band-Aids like banning TikTok.”

On the House side, Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., echoed Wyden’s national security concerns.

“These findings are yet another terrible example of the harms posed by the data broker industry and underscore the need to pass comprehensive national privacy legislation and regulate data brokers,” Pallone said in a statement. “Congress needs to pass legislation that minimizes the amount of information that can be collected on Americans, cracks down on the abuses of data brokers and provides consumers with the tools they need to protect their information.”

17. Israelis overwhelmingly are confident in the justice of the Gaza war, even as world sentiment sours

Israelis overwhelmingly are confident in the justice of the Gaza war, even as world sentiment sours

AP · November 6, 2023

JERUSALEM (AP) — At a time when world sentiment has begun to sour on Israel’s devastating offensive in Gaza, the vast majority of Israelis, across the political spectrum, are convinced of the justice of the war.

Still under rocket and missile attacks on several fronts, they have little tolerance for anyone railing against the steep toll the conflict has exacted on the other side. They have rallied to crush Hamas, which breached the country’s borders from the Gaza Strip, killing more than 1,400 people and taking over 240 hostage in an Oct. 7 rampage that triggered the war.

Capturing the prevailing sentiment in Israel, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak said other countries would have reacted the same way to such a cross-border attack with mass casualties.

“The United States would do whatever it takes,” Barak recently told the magazine Foreign Policy. “They would not ask questions about proportionality or anything else.”

Israel has carried out weeks of relentless airstrikes and launched a ground operation in what it says is a mission to destroy Hamas. More than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Entire neighborhoods have been flattened, more than half of the enclave’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, and food, water, fuel and medical supplies have dwindled dangerously under an Israeli siege.

To be sure, Palestinian citizens of Israel on the whole sympathize with the plight of the people of Gaza, while relatives of some hostages have expressed concern about what the bombing campaign means for their loved ones.

But since Oct. 7, the acrimonious polarization that had gripped Israel over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to weaken the country’s courts has largely been replaced with an outburst of national unity. Some 360,000 Israeli reservists have been called up for a war that enjoys broad support, despite fears it will exact a high military toll. An estimated 250,000 people have been displaced by the violence.

Israelis are hanging the blue and white national flag on homes and cars, turning out in throngs to support hostage families, and handing out food at road junctions to soldiers headed to the front.

TV stations broadcast under the slogans, “Israel at war,” and “Together we will win.” A month after the attack, coverage focuses heavily on stories of grief and heroism, with little mention of the situation in Gaza.

Backing for the war effort is pouring in from the home front as the government, caught flat-footed by the attack and distracted by infighting, struggles to meet vast new needs. From blood drives to food banks, volunteers have stepped in. One organization, HaShomer HaChadash, is helping to build bomb shelters, patrol farmlands in border areas, and keep farms going when their workers have been called up.

Israelis overwhelmingly are incensed by growing pro-Palestinian protests across the world — including within their own Palestinian community — and what they see as the demonization of Israel over the soaring Palestinian casualties. A global spike in antisemitic attacks has only deepened their commitment to a Jewish homeland.

“Let them put themselves in our shoes, with unending rocket fire on civilians for years,” said Yosi Schnaider. Four of his relatives, including two young children, are hostages in Gaza. Two others were killed in the Hamas onslaught.

“They’ve been firing on Israel for years, carrying out attacks for years, and (Hamas’) charter says its objective is to destroy Israel and the Jewish entity. What country would put up with that? I invite anyone who opposes (the war) to come here for a week. Then let’s talk.”

While Israel initially was greeted with international sympathy in the first days after the attack, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has drawn calls for a respite in the fighting, including from Israel’s staunchest supporter, U.S. President Joe Biden. Bolivia severed diplomatic ties, and Jordan, Turkey, Chile and Colombia recalled ambassadors.

The ongoing violence has refocused world attention on the Palestinian struggle against more than half a century of Israeli military occupation and its stranglehold on the 5.5 million Palestinians living in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. The last serious peace efforts broke down over a decade ago, and Netanyahu’s government adamantly opposes Palestinian statehood.

At the same time, the fighting has shattered the illusion held by many in Israel that Palestinians could be sidelined because other countries in the region — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and potentially Saudi Arabia — were willing to normalize ties before the conflict was resolved.

Yet Israelis — even those who oppose the occupation — by and large reject any contextualization of the Hamas attack as their military sets out to destroy the Islamic militant group.

A month into the war, Israel is bracing for a long haul. Former Defense Minister Benny Gantz, now part of a special war Cabinet, has predicted the fighting could last a year or more.

As the military moves deeper into Gaza City, the epicenter of the Hamas command, casualties on both sides are expected to surge as combat moves into a dense urban landscape, with a warren of underground tunnels stocked with fighters and munitions.

So far, at least 30 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ground operation began. Israel historically has had a low tolerance for casualties. Complicating matters are the hostage situation and the danger that the fighting will spiral into a devastating multifront conflict. Confrontations with militants in Lebanon, the West Bank, Syria and Yemen are already taking place.

“The big question is, has Israeli society steeled itself on the question of casualties?” Amos Harel, military correspondent for the Haaretz daily, told Army Radio. “After the blow we took on Oct. 7, they may be willing. But after the news starts trickling in, and we understand that this is an invasion with bloodshed on both sides, it won’t be easy to swallow at all.”

___

Full AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

AP · November 6, 2023

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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