Quotes of the Day:

“War itself is, of course, a form of madness. It’s hardly a civilized pursuit. It’s amazing how we spend so much time inventing devices to kill each other and so little time working on how to achieve peace.” 

- Walter Cronkite

 "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is." 

- Attributed to a computer scientist named Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut and Yogi Berra

Rules of the Rucksack:

1. No matter how carefully you pack, a rucksack is always too small.

2. No matter how small, a rucksack is always too heavy.

3. No matter how heavy, a rucksack will never contain what you want.

4. No matter what you need, it's always at the bottom.

1. Israel Knew Hamas’s Attack Plan More Than a Year Ago

2. We have China’s ‘anti-access’ challenge exactly backward

3. Military intelligence: Joint operation with local resistance sabotages Moscow Oblast railway line

4. Russia's main link to China "paralyzed" after tunnel "sabotage"—reports

5. China-Taiwan Weekly Update, November 30, 2023

6. Israel’s Gaza Ground Invasion and the Return of “Strategic Depth”

7. Satellite photos show how the US Air Force is reclaiming a WWII-era airfield from the jungle to prepare to dodge Chinese missiles

8. Chinese Private Security Companies: Neither Blackwater Nor the Wagner GroupChinese Private Security Companies: Neither Blackwater Nor the Wagner Group

9. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 30, 2023

10. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, November 30, 2023

11. Experts warn Hamas in a holy war against all Western civilization

12. Marine Corps looks at ocean glider for rapid resupply to fight China

13. War resumes in Gaza after truce collapses

14. Mike Pompeo: What Made Henry Kissinger Truly Special

15. Facing failure, Estonia pushes EU ammunition target for Ukraine

16. 5 Things To Know About The Pentagon’s Information Strategy

17. Military to Curtail Recruiting and Duty Station Moves if Congress Resorts to a Yearlong Stopgap Budget, Joint Chiefs Chairman Warns

18. Exclusive: Judge orders FBI to hand over 9/11 documents on Saudi spy

19. Half of US would recommend military service to loved ones, report says

20. Myanmar's military is losing ground against coordinated nationwide attacks, buoying opposition hopes

21. The Philippines opens a new monitoring base on a remote island in the disputed South China Sea

22. Homeland Missile Defense Is a 'Must Pay' Bill

23. Putin’s War Party

24. Judging Henry Kissinger By Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

25. The AP Interview: Ukraine's Zelenskyy says the war with Russia is in a new phase as winter looms

26. As US Army transforms, it's gleaning lessons about high- and low-tech fighting from Ukraine, Israel

27. ​China's military buildup enough to win a war with US

28. What Kissinger Didn't Understand By George Packer

29. Biden's MUTINY on Israel: State Dept insiders warn of internal turmoil

30. Defense bill, passed 62 years in a row, faces partisan minefields in Senate, House

1. Israel Knew Hamas’s Attack Plan More Than a Year Ago

Of course the outline for the 9-11 attacks were found on a computer recovered from a Manila Hotel during a raid on an Al Qaeda cell in 1995. I think the 9-11 attack was deemed aspirational and the focus was on bringing down an aircraft with the bomb and assasintation plots of the US President and the Pope.

Excerpts:

But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.

....

The failures to connect the dots echoed another analytical failure more than two decades ago, when the American authorities also had multiple indications that the terrorist group Al Qaeda was preparing an assault. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were largely a failure of analysis and imagination, a government commission concluded.

“The Israeli intelligence failure on Oct. 7 is sounding more and more like our 9/11,” said Ted Singer, a recently retired senior C.I.A. official who worked extensively in the Middle East. “The failure will be a gap in analysis to paint a convincing picture to military and political leadership that Hamas had the intention to launch the attack when it did.”

Israel Knew Hamas’s Attack Plan More Than a Year Ago

By Ronen Bergman and Adam Goldman

Reporting from Tel Aviv

Nov. 30, 2023, 

7:16 p.m. ET

The New York Times · by Adam Goldman · December 1, 2023

A blueprint reviewed by The Times laid out the attack in detail. Israeli officials dismissed it as aspirational and ignored specific warnings.

Hamas-led gunmen seized an Israeli military vehicle after infiltrating areas of southern Israel during the Oct. 7 attacks. A blueprint for similar attacks was circulating among Israeli leaders long before Hamas struck.Credit...Ahmed Zakot/Reuters

Nov. 30, 2023, 7:16 p.m. ET

Israeli officials obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.

The approximately 40-page document, which the Israeli authorities code-named “Jericho Wall,” outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people.

The translated document, which was reviewed by The New York Times, did not set a date for the attack, but described a methodical assault designed to overwhelm the fortifications around the Gaza Strip, take over Israeli cities and storm key military bases, including a division headquarters.

Hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision. The document called for a barrage of rockets at the outset of the attack, drones to knock out the security cameras and automated machine guns along the border, and gunmen to pour into Israel en masse in paragliders, on motorcycles and on foot — all of which happened on Oct. 7.

The plan also included details about the location and size of Israeli military forces, communication hubs and other sensitive information, raising questions about how Hamas gathered its intelligence and whether there were leaks inside the Israeli security establishment.

The document circulated widely among Israeli military and intelligence leaders, but experts determined that an attack of that scale and ambition was beyond Hamas’s capabilities, according to documents and officials. It is unclear whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top political leaders saw the document, as well.

A woman running to the concrete shelter at her home in Ashkelon, Israel, after a rocket siren sounded on Oct. 7.Credit...Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times

Last year, shortly after the document was obtained, officials in the Israeli military’s Gaza division, which is responsible for defending the border with Gaza, said that Hamas’s intentions were unclear.

“It is not yet possible to determine whether the plan has been fully accepted and how it will be manifested,” read a military assessment reviewed by The Times.

Then, in July, just three months before the attacks, a veteran analyst with Unit 8200, Israel’s signals intelligence agency, warned that Hamas had conducted an intense, daylong training exercise that appeared similar to what was outlined in the blueprint.

But a colonel in the Gaza division brushed off her concerns, according to encrypted emails viewed by The Times.

“I utterly refute that the scenario is imaginary,” the analyst wrote in the email exchanges. The Hamas training exercise, she said, fully matched “the content of Jericho Wall.”

“It is a plan designed to start a war,” she added. “It’s not just a raid on a village.”

Officials privately concede that, had the military taken these warnings seriously and redirected significant reinforcements to the south, where Hamas attacked, Israel could have blunted the attacks or possibly even prevented them.

Israeli soldiers were deployed in an area where civilians were killed in the southern city of Sderot on Oct. 7.

Instead, the Israeli military was unprepared as terrorists streamed out of the Gaza Strip. It was the deadliest day in Israel’s history.

Israeli security officials have already acknowledged that they failed to protect the country, and the government is expected to assemble a commission to study the events leading up to the attacks. The Jericho Wall document lays bare a yearslong cascade of missteps that culminated in what officials now regard as the worst Israeli intelligence failure since the surprise attack that led to the Arab-Israeli war of 1973.

Underpinning all these failures was a single, fatally inaccurate belief that Hamas lacked the capability to attack and would not dare to do so. That belief was so ingrained in the Israeli government, officials said, that they disregarded growing evidence to the contrary.

The Israeli military and the Israeli Security Agency, which is in charge of counterterrorism in Gaza, declined to comment.

Officials would not say how they obtained the Jericho Wall document, but it was among several versions of attack plans collected over the years. A 2016 Defense Ministry memorandum viewed by The Times, for example, says, “Hamas intends to move the next confrontation into Israeli territory.”

Such an attack would most likely involve hostage-taking and “occupying an Israeli community (and perhaps even a number of communities),” the memo reads.

Vehicles caught fire in Ashkelon, Israel, as rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7.Credit...Ilan Rosenberg/Reuters

The Jericho Wall document, named for the ancient fortifications in the modern-day West Bank, was even more explicit. It detailed rocket attacks to distract Israeli soldiers and send them hurrying into bunkers, and drones to disable the elaborate security measures along the border fence separating Israel and Gaza.

Hamas fighters would then break through 60 points in the wall, storming across the border into Israel. The document begins with a quote from the Quran: “Surprise them through the gate. If you do, you will certainly prevail.”

The same phrase has been widely used by Hamas in its videos and statements since Oct. 7.

One of the most important objectives outlined in the document was to overrun the Israeli military base in Re’im, which is home to the Gaza division responsible for protecting the region. Other bases that fell under the division’s command were also listed.

Hamas carried out that objective on Oct. 7, rampaging through Re’im and overrunning parts of the base.

The audacity of the blueprint, officials said, made it easy to underestimate. All militaries write plans that they never use, and Israeli officials assessed that, even if Hamas invaded, it might muster a force of a few dozen, not the hundreds who ultimately attacked.

Israel had also misread Hamas’s actions. The group had negotiated for permits to allow Palestinians to work in Israel, which Israeli officials took as a sign that Hamas was not looking for a war.

But Hamas had been drafting attack plans for many years, and Israeli officials had gotten hold of previous iterations of them. What could have been an intelligence coup turned into one of the worst miscalculations in Israel’s 75-year history.

A truck reportedly transported a captured Israeli woman in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Oct. 7.

In September 2016, the defense minister’s office compiled a top-secret memorandum based on a much earlier iteration of a Hamas attack plan. The memorandum, which was signed by the defense minister at the time, Avigdor Lieberman, said that an invasion and hostage-taking would “lead to severe damage to the consciousness and morale of the citizens of Israel.”

The memo, which was viewed by The Times, said that Hamas had purchased sophisticated weapons, GPS jammers and drones. It also said that Hamas had increased its fighting force to 27,000 people — having added 6,000 to its ranks in a two-year period. Hamas had hoped to reach 40,000 by 2020, the memo determined.

Last year, after Israel obtained the Jericho Wall document, the military’s Gaza division drafted its own intelligence assessment of this latest invasion plan.

Hamas had “decided to plan a new raid, unprecedented in its scope,” analysts wrote in the assessment reviewed by The Times. It said that Hamas intended to carry out a deception operation followed by a “large-scale maneuver” with the aim of overwhelming the division.

But the Gaza division referred to the plan as a “compass.” In other words, the division determined that Hamas knew where it wanted to go but had not arrived there yet.

On July 6, 2023, the veteran Unit 8200 analyst wrote to a group of other intelligence experts that dozens of Hamas commandos had recently conducted training exercises, with senior Hamas commanders observing.

The training included a dry run of shooting down Israeli aircraft and taking over a kibbutz and a military training base, killing all the cadets. During the exercise, Hamas fighters used the same phrase from the Quran that appeared at the top of the Jericho Wall attack plan, she wrote in the email exchanges viewed by The Times.

The analyst warned that the drill closely followed the Jericho Wall plan, and that Hamas was building the capacity to carry it out.

The colonel in the Gaza division applauded the analysis but said the exercise was part of a “totally imaginative” scenario, not an indication of Hamas’s ability to pull it off.

“In short, let’s wait patiently,” the colonel wrote.

An Israeli soldier in the southern city of Sderot near the bodies of Israelis killed by Palestinian gunmen who entered from the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7.Credit...Tsafrir Abayov/Associated Press

The back-and-forth continued, with some colleagues supporting the analyst’s original conclusion. Soon, she invoked the lessons of the 1973 war, in which Syrian and Egyptian armies overran Israeli defenses. Israeli forces regrouped and repelled the invasion, but the intelligence failure has long served as a lesson for Israeli security officials.

“We already underwent a similar experience 50 years ago on the southern front in connection with a scenario that seemed imaginary, and history may repeat itself if we are not careful,” the analyst wrote to her colleagues.

While ominous, none of the emails predicted that war was imminent. Nor did the analyst challenge the conventional wisdom among Israeli intelligence officials that Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, was not interested in war with Israel. But she correctly assessed that Hamas’s capabilities had drastically improved. The gap between the possible and the aspirational had narrowed significantly.

The failures to connect the dots echoed another analytical failure more than two decades ago, when the American authorities also had multiple indications that the terrorist group Al Qaeda was preparing an assault. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were largely a failure of analysis and imagination, a government commission concluded.

“The Israeli intelligence failure on Oct. 7 is sounding more and more like our 9/11,” said Ted Singer, a recently retired senior C.I.A. official who worked extensively in the Middle East. “The failure will be a gap in analysis to paint a convincing picture to military and political leadership that Hamas had the intention to launch the attack when it did.”

The breached security fence in the village of Kfar Azza, Israel, three days after it was attacked by Hamas.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

Ronen Bergman is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, based in Tel Aviv. His latest book is “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations,” published by Random House. More about Ronen Bergman

Adam Goldman writes about the F.B.I. and national security. He has been a journalist for more than two decades. More about Adam Goldman

38

The New York Times · by Adam Goldman · December 1, 2023

2. We have China’s ‘anti-access’ challenge exactly backward

Excerpt:

In conclusion, our shared challenges in Asia demand acknowledging the realities of our situation and investing wisely in accessible, effective solutions. Through this, we can forge deeper partnerships, increase regional security, and send a resolute message that complicates any plan for aggression in the region.

We have China’s ‘anti-access’ challenge exactly backward

Stronger regional security depends on getting this right—then setting aside our wants for our needs.

BY PETER W. SINGER

STRATEGIST, NEW AMERICA

NOVEMBER 29, 2023

defenseone.com · by Peter W. Singer

When one looks across the span of the Pacific, one fundamental strategic truth stands out: the U.S. and every single one of our partners in the region—traditional allies such as Japan and Taiwan, off-and-on allies like the Philippines, new and would-be partners like Vietnam and Indonesia—are what are known as “status quo powers.” None are driven by expansionist ambitions; rather, each seeks simply to safeguard their territories.

Understanding this is crucial because it flips the way that U.S. defense analysts typically talk about the challenge of China. They constantly frame it around the problem of “anti-access, area denial,” or A2AD, capabilities that the growing Chinese military has built up over the last decade, where they are the ones with the cost-imposition advantage.

Yet, our core challenge is not actually how to pop that A2AD bubble; we do not actually want to seize and hold any territory currently held by the People’s Liberation Army. It is actually the inverse: how can we create our own robust anti-access aerial denial around our bases and allies, with our own cost advantages? This is the actual path to ensure that China is deterred from ever choosing the path of conflict.

When the situation is viewed this way, it reveals three lines of effort that we would do well to bolster.

The first is to recognize the shared challenge for every nation now contending with the Chinese military: Defense of territory and effective and affordable aerial and maritime domain awareness. Gray-zone operations have become the norm. Daily incursions test the defenses of nations, whether by forcing Japanese and Taiwanese fighter jets to scramble to escort yet another PLAAF jet flying into their air zones to Chinese fisheries and militia harassing the Philippines. The goal of our adversary is to wear us down gradually, to strain our systems, exhaust our people and budgets, and, most of all, erode the norms, until it is the incursion zones that become the new borders.

The second is the need for the real networks that underscore the kind of meaningful partnerships to meet this challenge. Look at the U.S.-Japan alliance; it goes beyond mere treaties and shared military hardware. Its strength lies in both the human relationships and shared information networks. These extend from air defense computer and sensor networks to officer exchanges into joint staffs. This interconnectedness improves deterrence, sending a clear message to potential aggressors. Extending this model beyond Japan and Australia to more of our Southeast Asian nations is not just strategic; it is essential.

Finally, our spending to meet these challenges should align with the real needs of our allies. If we want to succeed, we must resist the allure of expensive capabilities that can be operated only in limited numbers and by only the wealthiest of nations.

If we want aerial and maritime domain awareness, it needs to be a plug-and-play network, open and accessible to every state. Think of NATO’s Maritime Unmanned Systems Initiative. (MUSI), or the Task Force 59 model now being tested out by the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet and its partners in the Middle East, which are working to turn the region’s seas transparent. Rather than a handful of sensors, what these point the way to is a network of thousands of sailors and hundreds of businesses, from tens of nations, deploying scores of cheap aerial and naval drones. This network and scale not only foster cooperation, but also facilitate the rapid sharing of information and human expertise, building the real kind of partnerships that matter in times of conflict.

The same holds for the systems that don’t merely sense but strike, which is also needed to make real these networks and partnership. It certainly appeals to sell our partners expensive warships, high-performance jets and drones, and exquisite missiles; every product they buy not only creates profits for American firms, but also drives down our own military’s purchase costs. But large, costly systems are neither what the lessons of the Ukraine war are teaching is good for them or us. Nor are they what our partners can afford in scale.

Instead, mobile, cost-effective air defense and coastal anti-ship missiles that are hard to find and destroy, but deny China air and sea superiority, would be invaluable to every partner state. These capabilities are also inherently defensive and thus less controversial to buy, a key issue both for their own governments and publics and their interplay with a China constantly seeking to divide. These systems take away a key opposing argument, as only pose a threat to China if it is the one that chooses aggression.

Similarly, it is notable how little discussion of nor budget spending has been on the weapon that has sunk more warships than any other over the last 50 years: the humble naval mine. Here again, it may not drive major corporate profits or fulfill the dreams of an Air Force pilot from either the U.S. or our partners to do something as basic as drop mines. But, the availability of sea mines, in heavy numbers, able to be deployed rapidly to close off access to harbors and invasion sea lanes would complicate the plans of China’s generals and admirals, far more than the fear of losing a few planes in a dogfight. Indeed, it lies within the history of the region, as it is what the U.S. did in WWII and Vietnam, while the North Koreans did it back to us so successfully, that a message to the commander of the U.S. fleet in 1950 lamented, “The U.S. Navy has lost control of the seas in Korean waters to a nation without a Navy, using pre-World War I weapons.”

In conclusion, our shared challenges in Asia demand acknowledging the realities of our situation and investing wisely in accessible, effective solutions. Through this, we can forge deeper partnerships, increase regional security, and send a resolute message that complicates any plan for aggression in the region.

P.W. Singer is Strategist and Senior Fellow at New America and Managing Partner at Useful Fiction.

defenseone.com · by Peter W. Singer

3. Military intelligence: Joint operation with local resistance sabotages Moscow Oblast railway line

Long live the resistance.

And just another anecdote about how special operations forces can contribute in large scale combat operations.

Military intelligence: Joint operation with local resistance sabotages Moscow Oblast railway line

news.yahoo.com

Trains in the region around Moscow were disrupted at the end of November "as a result of a special measure implemented together with the resistance movement," Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR) announced on Nov. 30.

In a video the HUR posted to social media, a person in a snowy environment appears to set fire to two railway relay boxes, which control signals for train operators. The person appears to be acting alone.

"Disruptions in the work of the railway are becoming more frequent" in Russia, the HUR captioned the video.

According to the military intelligence agency, one relay box was burnt down near the village of Lazenki in Novo-Peredelkino District, on the outskirts of Moscow.

Another relay box was burnt down to the south of Moscow near the village of Artemevo, located around 10 kilometers from Moscow's Domodedovo International Airport.

These are "important sections of the Russian railway in Moscow Oblast," the HUR said.

"Fire, chaos and paralysis on the Russian railway is another consequence of the Russian criminal war against Ukraine."

Earlier in November, state-owned Moscow Railways reported that a freight train had been derailed by unknown people in Ryazan Oblast, causing 19 carriages to fall off the tracks.

According to Russian Telegram channels, locals said that they heard explosions around the time the train derailed.

The Kyiv Independent has not independently confirmed the reports.

We’ve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.

news.yahoo.com

4. Russia's main link to China "paralyzed" after tunnel "sabotage"—reports

Russia's main link to China "paralyzed" after tunnel "sabotage"—reports

Newsweek · by Isabel van Brugen · November 30, 2023

Russia's main rail link to China has been left paralyzed after Ukraine's Security Service blew up a tunnel in the Russian republic of Buryatia, it has been reported.

The explosions in the Severomuysky Tunnel were masterminded by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), "paralyzing the only serious route of railway communication between the Russian Federation and China," news outlet RBC-Ukraine reported on Thursday, citing sources with knowledge of the matter.

The Severomuysky Tunnel is a railroad connection on the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) in northwestern Buryatia.

The Soviet-built BAM is a crucial transit railway that cuts through Siberia and is used to deliver cargo shipments to Asia. It is one of the world's longest railway networks, stretching around 4,300 kilometers, or almost 2,700 miles.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has pushed to modernize the country's railways, including the BAM, in order to handle the rapid increase in freight traffic from China to Europe, and to reduce transport times between ports in Russia's Far East and the country's western border.

An RBC-Ukraine source said that Russia used the route for military supplies.

Russian-language Telegram channel Baza, which is linked to Russia's security services, said that a fuel tank caught fire while moving through the tunnel in Buryatia in the early hours of Thursday.

"It was probably sabotage," the channel reported Thursday, adding that there were no casualties.

"What caused the fire is still unknown. Police and FSB officers are working on the spot. Also, police and special services officers are working on the train parking areas," Baza reported. The FSB is Russia's main state security agency and the principal successor to the Soviet-era KGB.

Ukrainian publication Ukrainska Pravda also reported that the tunnel was blown up by the SBU.

"Four explosive devices went off during the movement of the freight train. Now the FSB is working on the spot, and railway workers are unsuccessfully trying to minimize the consequences of the SBU's special operation," a source told Ukrainska Pravda.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) attend a welcoming ceremony on May 20, 2014, in Shanghai. Russia’s main rail link to China has reportedly been left paralyzed after Ukraine's Security Service blew up a tunnel in the Russian republic of Buryatia. Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images

Ukrainska Pravda's source also said that the BAM is the only major railway connection between Russia and China and that it has been used to transport military supplies. And currently this route, which Russia uses, specifically for military supplies, is paralyzed.

Newsweek has contacted the foreign ministries of Russia and Ukraine and the SBU for comment via email. The SBU has yet to comment on the reports.

Do you have a tip on a world news story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about the Russia-Ukraine war? Let us know via worldnews@newsweek.com.

Update 11/30/23 at 6:05 a.m.: This story was updated with additional information.

Uncommon Knowledge

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek · by Isabel van Brugen · November 30, 2023

5. China-Taiwan Weekly Update, November 30, 2023

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/china%E2%80%93taiwan-weekly-update-november-30-2023

Key Takeaways

1. Kuomintang (KMT) candidate Hou Yu-ih and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) candidate Ko Wen-je registered as separate presidential candidates on November 24. A fragmented opposition is advantageous for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate and frontrunner Lai Ching-te but does not guarantee his victory.
2. A US congressional decision not to renew funding for the Compacts of Free Association (COFA) would severely undermine American and Taiwanese national security in the Pacific.
3. A new “action plan” for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the next ten years emphasizes cooperation in green and digital development.
4. People’s Republic of China (PRC) Foreign Minister Wang Yi emphasized economic cooperation and dialogue during a November 24 meeting with French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, likely to persuade individual European countries not to coalesce around European Union (EU) investigations targeting the PRC.
5. The PLA conducted live-fire exercises near its border with Myanmar to strengthen border security and deter an escalation of violence in northern Myanmar.
6. PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi presented an Israeli–Palestinian peace plan to the United Nations Security Council on November 29. Wang’s proposal is consistent with the PRC’s efforts to use the Israel-Hamas War to bolster its image as a fair, responsible broker in contrast to the “biased” United States. The proposal itself is tantamount to Israeli defeat, however.

CHINA–TAIWAN WEEKLY UPDATE, NOVEMBER 30, 2023

Nov 30, 2023 - ISW Press

China-Taiwan Weekly Update, November 30, 2023 

Authors: Nils Peterson, Matthew Sperzel, and Daniel Shats of the Institute for the Study of War 

Editors: Dan Blumenthal and Frederick W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute 

Data Cutoff: November 29 at Noon ET 

The China–Taiwan Weekly Update focuses on the Chinese Communist Party’s paths to controlling Taiwan and relevant cross–Taiwan Strait developments. 

Key Takeaways

1. Kuomintang (KMT) candidate Hou Yu-ih and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) candidate Ko Wen-je registered as separate presidential candidates on November 24. A fragmented opposition is advantageous for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate and frontrunner Lai Ching-te but does not guarantee his victory.
2. A US congressional decision not to renew funding for the Compacts of Free Association (COFA) would severely undermine American and Taiwanese national security in the Pacific.
3. A new “action plan” for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the next ten years emphasizes cooperation in green and digital development.
4. People’s Republic of China (PRC) Foreign Minister Wang Yi emphasized economic cooperation and dialogue during a November 24 meeting with French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, likely to persuade individual European countries not to coalesce around European Union (EU) investigations targeting the PRC.
5. The PLA conducted live-fire exercises near its border with Myanmar to strengthen border security and deter an escalation of violence in northern Myanmar.
6. PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi presented an Israeli–Palestinian peace plan to the United Nations Security Council on November 29. Wang’s proposal is consistent with the PRC’s efforts to use the Israel-Hamas War to bolster its image as a fair, responsible broker in contrast to the “biased” United States. The proposal itself is tantamount to Israeli defeat, however.

Taiwan

Kuomintang (KMT) candidate Hou Yu-ih and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) candidate Ko Wen-je registered as separate presidential candidates on November 24. The parties reconvened for eleventh hour talks on November 23 in a final effort to agree on who would lead a KMT-TPP joint presidential ticket before the November 24 candidate registration deadline.[1] The failure of negotiations ended hopes for a joint ticket. Independent candidate Terry Gou, who mediated the negotiations, dropped out of the race on November 24.[2] Hou and Ko both announced their running mates on the morning of their November 24 registration. Hou’s vice-presidential pick is media personality and former legislator Jaw Shaw-kong.[3] Ko’s vice-presidential pick is TPP legislator Cynthia Wu.[4]

• Jaw founded the pro-unification New Party in 1993, which formalized the separation of the New Kuomintang Alliance faction from the KMT.[5] The New Party has not had representation in the Legislative Yuan since 2012. Jaw reinstated his KMT membership in 2021.[6]
• Wu is a current TPP legislator who Ko appointed to the Legislative Yuan in 2022 after the resignation of founding member Tsai Pi-ru.[7]

A fragmented opposition is advantageous for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate and frontrunner Lai Ching-te but does not guarantee his victory. The KMT’s and TPP’s failure to unite their support bases reduces the opposition’s ability to garner enough support to unseat the DPP. The latest polls show Lai’s previously wide lead of five to ten percentage points has narrowed to just a few percentage points over Hou, however.[8] Three trends have likely contributed to Hou’s rise in support. First, Hou has likely benefited from Gou’s withdrawal from the race.[9] Gou is a former KMT member whose policy platform most closely aligns with Hou. Second, Ko’s corresponding drop in polls suggests that the KMT-leaning portion of his support base is rallying back to Hou as the novelty of the TPP’s presidential debut wears off.[10] A February poll showed that 47 percent of Ko’s supporters would support Hou, with only 32 percent supporting Lai.[11] Third, Hou’s designation of Jaw as vice-presidential candidate is another contributing factor. Jaw is a high-profile figure who commands strong support in the KMT. Jaw’s public-facing roles as the host of the popular talk show Shaw-kong War Room and Chairman of the Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC) make him a recognizable candidate.[12]

The dominant election narrative continues to focus on cross-strait relations. The KMT is doubling down on the narrative that the election is a choice between war and peace. Jaw joined the chorus of KMT voices pushing this narrative during a campaign event on November 25.[13] The DPP is burnishing its reputation as the defender of democracy and freedom. A group of three DPP legislative candidates referred to themselves as the “Taiwan Defense Team,” emphasizing their commitment to rejecting interference from the PRC in Taiwan’s elections and protecting democracy.[14] Lai’s choice of former Taiwanese Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim as his running mate buttresses this election narrative. The DPP’s prioritization of strong ties with the US signals its desire for support in the face of threatening rhetoric and intimidation from the CCP. Lai has touted Hsiao’s foreign policy credentials and her strong relationship with the US as the pair’s biggest strength.

Compacts of Free Association

A US congressional decision to not renew funding for the Compacts of Free Association (COFA) would severely undermine American and Taiwanese national security in the Pacific. These COFAs govern the United States’ relationship with Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands while also granting the United States extensive military access throughout their territories. The United States renewed COFAs with Palau and Micronesia in May.[15] It then did so with the Marshall Islands in October.[16] The signed agreements are now before Congress for funding consideration. Congress previously funded the COFAs for a twenty-year period in 2003.[17] The total cost for all three of the twenty-year agreements would be roughly $7 billion USD spread over the period 2024 to 2043, according to the Congressional Research Service.[18]

These three island countries control key sea-lanes that provide a secure route connecting American allies and partners, such as the Philippines and Taiwan, to the United States territory of Guam and state of Hawaii. Palau and the Marshall Islands are two of the 13 countries that maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan.[19] This international diplomatic recognition is critical to demonstrating the false nature of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) claims that Taiwan is a province of the People’s Republic of China. The loss of COFA funding would present an opportunity for the CCP to expand its economic influence with these strategically vital countries in the Pacific.

China

A new “action plan” for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the next ten years emphasizes cooperation in green and digital development. The State Council’s Office of the Leading Group for Promoting the Belt and Road Initiative released a document entitled “Vision and Actions for High-Quality Belt and Road Cooperation: Brighter Prospects for the Next Decade” on November 24. The document said that the BRI’s second decade would focus on international cooperation in new fields such as green and digital development, scientific and technological innovation, and health. The document also said the BRI should prioritize "small but beautiful" projects and engage in more projects with "small investment, quick results, and good economic, social and environmental benefits.” The document set five broad objectives for the next decade: building a more efficient connectivity network, deepening comprehensive and practical cooperation, enhancing the sense of gain for participating countries' peoples, establishing a new system to support China's open economy, and promoting the vision of a global community of shared future. The BRI will continue to promote its original five priorities: policy coordination, infrastructure connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people-to-people ties.[20]

• People’s Daily and Qiushi, which are CCP publications targeted at party cadre, both stressed on November 26 the need to expand the breadth and depth of cooperation in building the Belt and Road, improving the development of China–Europe freight trains, and promoting green development.[21]

New adjustments to BRI priorities partly reflect problems the initiative has faced related to environmental concerns and investment risks. The PRC has invested over one trillion dollars in various Belt and Road infrastructure projects in around 150 countries since 2013.[22] The PRC has also faced both criticism and financial risks from massive and often unprofitable BRI infrastructure projects that have burdened developing countries with debts they are unable to repay.[23] The PRC announced at the 2021 UN General Assembly that it would cease construction of overseas coal plants and increase investments in renewable energy.[24] It has adjusted to focus on “small but beautiful” projects,[25] tightened standards to improve debt sustainability,[26] and pursued less resource-intensive priorities such as the Digital Silk Road.[27]

People’s Republic of China (PRC) Foreign Minister Wang Yi emphasized economic cooperation and dialogue during a November 24 meeting with French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, likely to persuade individual European countries not to coalesce around European Union (EU) investigations targeting the PRC. Colonna pledged an increase in the number and duration of visas issued to Chinese students studying in France as part of an effort to facilitate Sino–French people-to-people exchanges. Colonna also stated that France counted on “the vigilance of the Chinese authorities so that no structure in China … contributes directly or indirectly to Russia’s illegal war effort in Ukraine.”[28] PRC MFA spokesman Wang Wenbin stated in a November 27 press conference that China and France agreed to deepen cooperation in economics, cultural exchanges, and emerging scientific technologies.[29]

Colonna’s meetings in the PRC are part of a larger trend of Sino-European engagement throughout 2023. French President Emmanuel Macron and CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping previously emphasized the importance in the same areas of cooperation in their April meeting in Beijing.[30] EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed displeasure at unfair Chinese trade practices during the April EU-French joint visit to the PRC.[31] Chinese Premier Li Qiang similarly emphasized economic cooperation with German and French officials in late June during a visit to France and Germany.[32] Li told audiences of German politicians and business figures that Germany and China do not have “fundamental conflicts of interest” and that “risk prevention and cooperation are not mutually exclusive.”[33] He also called for a “more resilient” Sino-French industrial supply chain while in France.[34] The targeted PRC efforts to increase economic cooperation with Germany and France aim to buttress an ailing Chinese economy while also preventing an EU consensus on “de-risking” from materializing and threatening Chinese financial and supply chain interests. Von der Leyen previously announced an investigation into electric vehicle subsidies in China as part of this de-risking effort during her September 15 State of the Union speech.[35] A divided EU would suit CCP objectives vis-à-vis Europe ahead of an excepted December 7–8 summit between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping, and Premier Li Qiang.

The prolific CCP state media coverage of an upsurge in respiratory illnesses in northern China indicates that the party is fearful of appearing to be incompetent public health managers to its own citizenry in the aftermath of the pandemic. The state health apparatus responded publicly shortly after the current disease outbreak came to light, in marked contrast to the CCP’s delayed response after the start of COVID-19. Deputy Director of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention Wang Quanyi advised the wearing of face masks beginning on November 24.[36] The National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) urged the PRC populace on November 26, particularly children and the elderly, to receive vaccinations against respiratory diseases.[37] English and Chinese language state media reported that this upsurge occurred due to the circulation of known pathogens among the populace. It further stated that these pathogens cause diseases such as influenza, adenovirus, and mycoplasma pneumonia.[38]

The guidance to wear masks aims to prevent disease spread and demonstrate that the CCP-controlled governmental organs can effectively manage initial disease outbreaks without worldwide consequences like COVID-19. The public governmental response differed from the party’s response at the beginning of COVID-19, when the Public Security Bureau investigated whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang before he died from COVID-19 in February 2020.[39] The CCP’s English- and Chinese-language messaging indicate that the party aims to avoid recreating the image of irresponsible negligence that it endured in the aftermath of Li’s death.

The PLA conducted live-fire exercises near its border with Myanmar to strengthen border security and deter an escalation of violence in northern Myanmar. The PLA Southern Theater Command announced the start of three days of live-fire military drills in southwest Yunnan Province near the border with Myanmar on November 25.[40] The PLA deployed multiple types of artillery and counter-battery radars as part of the drills. It claimed that these exercises were intended to test rapid maneuvering, border blockade, and fire strike capabilities.[41] A PLA Daily editorial on November 26 called for an immediate ceasefire in northern Myanmar. This call is consistent with statements by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on November 16, 20, and 28.[42] Northern Myanmar has been engulfed in violence since a “brotherhood alliance” of three ethnic rebel groups launched attacks on Myanmar’s military junta government on October 27.[43] The violence has nearly ended legal PRC–Myanmar cross-border trade,[44] caused an unknown number of Chinese casualties,[45] and sent thousands of refugees to seek safety in the PRC.[46]

• One of the rebel groups claimed to have seized a key border gate and trading point on November 25, the same day the PLA exercises began.[47] About 120 trucks in a convoy carrying building materials and consumer goods from the PRC into Myanmar were destroyed by fire on November 24 in what the Myanmar government called a “terrorist attack.”[48] Local insurgents denied responsibility.[49]

Israel-Hamas War

PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi presented an Israeli–Palestinian peace plan to the United Nations Security Council on November 29. The PRC is president of the UN Security Council for the month of November.[50] Wang called for implementing a “comprehensive cease-fire” and releasing “people in captivity,” providing humanitarian supplies to Gaza, and pursuing the two-state solution.[51] His proposal came after CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping stated his desire on November 21 for “all parties” to implement an immediate ceasefire, end collective punishments against the people of Gaza, allow the flow of humanitarian relief, and prevent the conflict from spreading across the Middle East.[52]

Wang’s proposal is consistent with the PRC’s efforts to use the Israel–Hamas war to bolster its image as a fair, responsible broker in contrast to the “biased” United States. The PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and state propaganda outlets have repeatedly condemned violence between Palestine and Israel since October 7 but never condemned Hamas. They continue to call for an immediate ceasefire and promote a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.[53] The PRC’s targeted criticism of Israel and call for an immediate ceasefire align with the views of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Arab states.[54] The PRC MFA and state-owned outlets, such as the Global Times, previously criticized US support for Israel and claimed that the PRC has no “selfish interest” in the conflict and is committed to bringing peace and justice.[55] The PRC proposal would be tantamount to a defeat for Israel, as CTP and ISW reported on November 29.[56]

6. Israel’s Gaza Ground Invasion and the Return of “Strategic Depth”

Conclusion:

If Israel wants to create security and stability on its southern border, it needs a plan to leave Gaza, not to aimlessly entrench itself within it. In the words of Giora Eiland, the former head of Israel’s National Security Council: “withdrawal is like having life-saving surgery: even though it is very painful right now, you need it to cure you in the long run.” The longer Israel prolongs its occupation of Gaza with no coherent plan for exit and a political vision for the territory’s future, the more painful an eventual but inescapable withdrawal will be.

Israel’s Gaza Ground Invasion and the Return of “Strategic Depth” - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Rob Geist Pinfold · December 1, 2023

On Oct. 28, the Israel Defense Forces entered the Gaza Strip and ended weeks of speculation over when, how, and if Israel would re-occupy the coastal enclave. Eschewing a rapid shock-and-awe style offensive, the Israeli military has instead bisected Gaza and encircled the territory’s urban areas, suggesting that Israeli forces are settling in for a prolonged siege of Hamas’ strongholds. These operational choices reflect the Israeli leadership’s political declarations. Government ministers have repeatedly warned that the fighting will take months, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently declared that Israel will “indefinitely” control and oversee Gaza’s “security.”

Despite both sides agreeing to a temporary cease-fire, Israeli forces have not withdrawn from the Gaza Strip. Israel’s government is adamant that the truce will be a temporary one and that its military operations will shortly resume and even expand to southern Gaza.

That the Israel Defense Forces’ presence in Gaza appears open-ended and increasingly entrenched makes it all the more important to address the “how does this all end?” question. It was the Israeli government’s internal dissensus and its lack of coherent answers to this question that delayed the Israeli military’s Gaza intervention, with the Biden administration pressing the Netanyahu-led government for answers.

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The government’s indecision is both surprising and unsurprising. On the one hand, its unusually salient modern history of occupations makes Israel well-placed to learn from these diverse experiences. On the other, that the Israeli government has repeatedly failed to do so suggests it could make the same mistakes today. Israel’s two most recent territorial withdrawals were from southern Lebanon in 2000 and — most presciently — the Gaza Strip in 2005. In both these occupations, Israel pursued “strategic depth:” the indefinite control of foreign territory in order to enhance its national security. But in neither case did Israel achieve its objectives and then withdraw from a position of strength. Instead, in Gaza and southern Lebanon alike, Israel sank into what I term the “occupation trap,” where an occupier indefinitely prolongs an occupation even though they recognize the status quo not only no longer serves their political or security interests but actually harms them.

The Logic of Strategic Depth

Territory is a finite resource for Israel. A country barely bigger than the U.S. state of New Jersey, Israel is only 15 kilometers wide at its narrowest point. Half of its population and the vast majority of its industrial, commercial, and societal hubs are concentrated in a slender coastal strip of around 100 kilometers.

It is therefore unsurprising that multiple governments have pursued a policy of strategic depth. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel captured the Gaza Strip. It later also occupied 1,100 square kilometers of Lebanese territory in its so-called “security zone” from 1985. In Gaza, Israel imported over 8,000 civilian settlers, whereas its Lebanese allies were Christian-led indigenous militia groups. But in both cases the strategic logic was identical: The Israeli military prefers to conduct wars outside of its own territory. It occupied foreign territory to contain the threats emanating from those territories, while pushing the fighting away from its vulnerable urban heartlands.

After it withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel replaced strategic depth with a new policy, which tacitly accepted Hamas’ rule over the coastal enclave. Instead of advocating regime change, Israel sought to deter Hamas by “mowing the grass:” regularly and periodically responding to any provocations with a significant show of force. By primarily using air and artillery power to do so, Israel avoided a perceived need for a prolonged physical presence within Gaza itself.

But Hamas’ surprise attack on Oct. 7 and the unprecedented number of casualties led to a perception that neither “mowing the grass” nor keeping the Israel Defense Forces east of the Israel-Gaza border can guarantee Israel’s security. This is not a fringe view. Foreign Minister Eli Cohen openly declared that Gaza’s territory would “shrink,” whereas Defense Minister Yoav Gallant explicitly called for an indefinite buffer zone within the Gaza Strip that would push the border away from Israel. In short: Mowing the grass is out, strategic depth is back in.

Lessons From Gaza and Southern Lebanon

The problem with strategic depth is that it at best constitutes conflict management and at worst exacerbates Israel’s security threats. The southern Lebanese “security zone” sought to displace Palestinian militant groups who employed the territory as a base to infiltrate into Israel. Similarly, the Israel Defense Forces’ counter-insurgency campaign in Gaza targeted secular nationalist Palestinian organizations that had launched cross-border raids into Israel for decades.

Both occupations successfully degraded these hostile groups. But friction between occupier and occupied created new violent rivals: Hizballah and Hamas. In Lebanon, Hizballah increased their political power because of the security zone, not in spite of it. The occupation also failed to blunt Hizballah militarily, with the group’s attacks only increasing in their frequency and lethality until Israel withdrew in May 2000. Many Israelis wrongly believe that Hamas first exercised political and military power in Gaza after the Israeli military left the territory in 2005. In fact, long before this event and while Israel continued to occupy parts of the Gaza Strip, Hamas had already created a state-within-a-state inside the territory’s dense, impoverished urban cityscapes, which the Israeli military failed to curtail.

Israel, on the other hand, found that both occupations sapped its military power, stymied its operational freedom, and divided the country domestically. While the Israel Defense Forces faced the logistical nightmare of protecting 8,000 isolated civilian settlers inside Gaza, Hamas’ rockets flew over the soldiers’ heads into Israel itself. Successive Israeli governments balked at losing around 25 soldiers a year in Lebanon and sought to drive this number down by curtailing the Israeli Defense Forces’ operational freedom. This in turn only emboldened and strengthened Hizballah by ceding control of more territory to the Islamist group. In both cases, the international community saw the Israeli military as an illegal occupier, meaning that any kinetic responses to enemy violence faced rapid condemnation and calls for a cease-fire, which Israel’s governments soon relented to. As a result, both these occupations began as a policy that most Israelis supported, but ended when a critical mass of public and elite opinion backed an exit as an alternative to the status quo.

Avoiding the Occupation Trap

Israel’s historical experiences in Gaza and southern Lebanon are thus cautionary tales of strategic depth failing to provide security. Shlomo Brom, former director of the Israel Defense Forces’ Strategic Planning Division, argues that Israel sought to “protect our borders around Gaza by providing Hamas with more convenient targets: the soldiers and settlers of the Gaza Strip.” Former prime minister Ehud Barak claims that: “We were protecting our front line in southern Lebanon as if it were the walls of Jerusalem. We brought in heavier weapons and more troops and without even noticing we were not defending anything strategic.”

These quotes capture the flaws of re-instituting strategic depth in the Gaza Strip today. Strategic depth may push the fighting away from the Gaza border. But Israel’s experiences within Gaza and Lebanon illustrate that each occupation only served to provide hostile groups political legitimacy and easy targets for their attacks. Correspondingly, after it left the territory in 2005 up until the Oct. 7 attacks this year, Israeli casualties from Gaza-based attacks declined significantly. Israel may soon establish a buffer zone along the territory’s borders, but this policy will not end the enduring rocket threat emanating from deeper within Gaza.

Critically, Barak’s quote illustrates that Israel risks sinking into the occupation trap, where an occupier perpetuates its control and even entrenches itself in that territory despite the fact that the status quo fails to provide security. Occupiers often perceive that having spent so much in time, blood, and treasure, a withdrawal is neither a viable nor a desirable option. This problem of path dependency is a timeless one: George Orwell recalled a British officer in colonial Burma in the 1920s making the contradictory assertion and plea that: “We’ve no right to be in this blasted country at all. Only now we’re here for God’s sake let’s stay here.”

Hamas’ shocking brutality and the scale of its attacks on Oct. 7 ensured an Israeli ground invasion and military occupation of at least parts of Gaza was inevitable. Nevertheless, Israel cannot and should not rely on strategic depth to achieve its long-term security needs. Strategic depth is a poor substitute for a coherent plan to convert any Israeli military victories into a long-term political endgame to simultaneously disarm and rehabilitate the Gaza Strip.

How This Could All End

This begets the obvious question: Does this alternative exist? Any viable substitute to strategic depth must fulfill two goals: (i) demilitarize Gaza to allow the Israel Defense Forces to withdraw from the territory and to prevent a future Israeli re-occupation; and (ii) rapidly rebuild civilian and governmental infrastructure to delegitimize and disincentivize any further Palestinian violence. To say that achieving both in tandem is tricky is a significant understatement. Yet, a substitute to indefinite occupation does exist: handing policing to a multinational, Arab-led force, whilst ceding political and administrative control over Gazans’ daily lives to the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli military would maintain control over the Israel-Gaza border. At the same time, Israel would need to end its blockade of the territory to permit reconstruction.

To maximize its legitimacy, this effort would be U.S.-sanctioned but Arab-led, with these actors and others — such as the European Union — providing funds for reconstruction. Israel could gradually cede security control to a multinational peacekeeping force, before exiting the territory entirely. In the longer term, the multinational force would itself incrementally hand security responsibility to the Palestinian Authority. Eventual Palestinian control in Gaza is a must for legitimacy and security alike. Given that the Palestinians have fought years for a state, they are unlikely to endorse an indefinite foreign presence in Gaza. Concurrently, foreign control of the territory’s security is necessary, given that the Palestinian Authority currently lacks the means to police the West Bank. As such, adding Gaza to its responsibilities in the near future is a non-starter. This endgame may be risky, but it is rapidly becoming the preference of the Biden administration, who will have to work hard to induce and incentivize Arab states to overcome their reluctance to become involved directly.

Yet the key stumbling block is not the U.S.-aligned Arab states: Israel’s governing coalition will almost certainly reject this plan, because it would lead to a Palestinian state. Illustrating how entrenched this opposition really is, a leaked document from Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence suggested that ethnically cleansing Gaza by forcibly removing its Palestinian residents to Egypt was politically preferable to the “existential threat” of Palestinian statehood. Activists from Israel’s far-right coalition government have held rallies in Tel Aviv under the ominous slogan of “Occupy, Expel, Settle.” But re-settling Gaza is a fantasy, which the Biden administration has frequently warned would constitute a red line. Without a radical plan to remake the status quo, a more likely scenario is an indefinite Israeli occupation that fails to achieve its goals, followed by a hasty, controversial withdrawal and a return to the status quo ante — Afghanistan is but the latest example of this persistent trend in the history of occupations and exits.

By blocking meaningful political change in the Gaza Strip, Israel appears to be headed for an indefinite holding strategy that doesn’t replace mowing the lawn with strategic depth but instead combines these approaches. Israel wants to have it both ways: achieving strategic depth by indefinitely occupying small parts of Gaza, whilst staying out of the territory’s urban areas. Netanyahu has refused to cede any power over Gaza’s civilian, political, or bureaucratic affairs to either the Palestinian Authority or a multinational force. Yet, one thing that unites Israel’s divided political and military elites is that no-one wants to govern and police Gaza’s urban areas. This would create a power vacuum that Hamas could exploit to regain power and re-arm. If Israel really does want to create a new reality in Gaza that diverges from the pre-Oct. 7 status quo, this would be the wrong way to go about it. Instead, Israeli policy would directly facilitate a return to a familiar pattern of fortified borders and buffer zones, whilst its military intermittently raids and bombards the parts of Gaza that it does not control directly.

If Israel wants to create security and stability on its southern border, it needs a plan to leave Gaza, not to aimlessly entrench itself within it. In the words of Giora Eiland, the former head of Israel’s National Security Council: “withdrawal is like having life-saving surgery: even though it is very painful right now, you need it to cure you in the long run.” The longer Israel prolongs its occupation of Gaza with no coherent plan for exit and a political vision for the territory’s future, the more painful an eventual but inescapable withdrawal will be.

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Rob Geist Pinfold is a lecturer in Peace and Security at Durham University’s School of Government and International Affairs and a research fellow at Charles University’s Peace Research Center Prague. This article employs data from his book, Understanding Territorial Withdrawal: Israeli Occupations and Exits (Oxford University Press, 2023).

Image: Israel Defense Force

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Rob Geist Pinfold · December 1, 2023

7. Satellite photos show how the US Air Force is reclaiming a WWII-era airfield from the jungle to prepare to dodge Chinese missiles

I am reminded of Nimitz and MacArthur in the Pacific and island hopping.

Photos and images at the link: https://www.businessinsider.com/satellite-photos-air-force-ace-airfield-tinian-pacific-island-2023-11https://www.businessinsider.com/satellite-photos-air-force-ace-airfield-tinian-pacific-island-2023-11

Satellite photos show how the US Air Force is reclaiming a WWII-era airfield from the jungle to prepare to dodge Chinese missiles

Christopher Woody Nov 30, 2023, 11:08 AM EST

Business Insider · by Christopher Woody

A US Air Force C-130J takes off from Tinian in February 2018.US Air Force/Airman 1st Class Christopher Quail

• The US Air Force is developing more dispersed bases to counter the threat posed by China's missiles.
• That effort includes construction at established facilities and the reclamation of disused outposts.
• Satellite photos show how far work has come on Tinian, a remote but strategically located Pacific island.

The US Air Force has been scouring the Pacific for more airfields, seeking alternatives to the handful of sprawling bases in the region that it has built up and relied on for decades.

The search is part of an effort to disperse US forces to counter the growing reach of the Chinese military, which has developed long-range missiles that could strike the US's main operating bases hard at the beginning of a war.

US troops have ventured to remote corners of the Pacific and to bases rarely used since World War II — including the island of Tinian, where they are reclaiming an airfield that last saw major use by B-29 bombers in 1944 and 1945.

Tinian International Airport in August 2021.SkyFi

Tinian "has one airfield that's the international airfield, and there's another airfield, which was the largest B-29 base during World War II. It is largely overgrown by the jungle, but the runways and the taxiways are still underneath," Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, commander of US Pacific Air Forces, said at an Air and Space Forces Association conference in September.

The Allies captured Tinian from the Japanese in August 1944, bringing US bombers within 1,500 miles of Japan. US engineers quickly began building what became the biggest and busiest air base of the war. US planes were eventually flying from six 8,500-foot runways at West Field and North Field, the latter of which launched the B-29s that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

West Field is now the site of Tinian International Airport and has one operating runway, while North Field is no longer in use. The island is part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory.

Tinian International Airport in November 2023.SkyFi

US military exercises, especially for austere and expeditionary operations, have continued on Tinian, but the airport is small and of limited use to modern aircraft — Marines set up mobile arresting gear to land F/A-18D jets there during an exercise in 2012.

In 2016, the Air Force selected the airport to host a "divert airfield" to support its training and ensure its aircraft could meet mission requirements if access to other airfields in the region was "limited or denied." Officials broke ground there in February 2022.

The refurbished runway, just north of the airport's main runway, is meant to support agile combat employment, or ACE, a concept for dispersed operations that envisions aircraft and airmen deploying from main "hub" bases to less developed "spoke" bases.

ACE is part of Air Force operations around the world, but it was developed with the Pacific in mind.

The US Air Force wants a "divert airfield" on Tinian to use if access to other bases in the Western Pacific is limited or denied.Google Maps

"We're going to be clearing out the jungle" on that airfield, Wilsbach said in September. "We're going to be resurfacing some of the surfaces there so that we will have a very large and very functional agile combat employment base — an additional base to be able to operate from — and we have several other projects like that around the region that we'll be getting after."

Documents released in March as part of the Air Force's 2024 budget request outline several projects at Tinian, asking for $78 million for them during that fiscal year.

An airfield development project includes "demolition of World War II-era airfield pavements," clearing and leveling surfaces, and installing drainage, utilities, and secure fencing. A fuel pipeline project involves installing storage tanks, pipes, and safety equipment to allow ships to unload fuel for transport to the airfield by pipeline and truck.

A mobile arresting gear catches an FA-18D at Tinian's West Field in May 2012.US Marine Corps/Lance Cpl. J. Gage Karwick

A parking apron project involves paving aircraft parking and taxiways, the latter of which have to meet the Pentagon's "standards for ground control operations for large frame aircraft," the documents say. The apron will be big enough for 12 KC-135 and KC-46 tanker aircraft and related fueling equipment.

"The airfield, roadway, port, and pipeline improvements will provide vital strategic, operational, and exercise capabilities for the US forces. The expanded divert airfield on Tinian will offer a valuable additional operating location for various peacetime activities, including responses to natural disasters in the region," Capt. Gerald Peden, spokesman for Pacific Air Forces, said in response to questions about the work at Tinian.

"Air Force engineers are scheduled to remove the vegetation that have penetrated through the cracks and joints of the old pavement surfaces," Peden added. "This vegetation consists mostly of grass, bushes, and small trees [and] will be removed manually and/or using heavy equipment. This is the first step in preparing the airfield for the actual repair work."

Making ACE 'meaningful'

Japanese, Australian, and US C-130s over Tinian's North Field in February 2015.US Air Force/Tech. Sgt. Jason Robertson

Tinian is isolated, but the investment isn't. Construction there "is part of a larger effort to expand facilities and general basing options in the Pacific," including on Guam, a nearby US territory that hosts major military facilities, Peden said.

The work on Guam includes upgrades to the taxiway and parking areas at Northwest Field, which closed in 1949 but has remained in limited use. There has been more activity at Northwest Field as the focus on ACE has increased, and Peden said it "is now capable of supporting various aircraft operations."

The budget documents also list projects at allies' airfields. Money is allotted for work at Tindal air base — including $93 million to build a parking apron for six B-52 bombers — and Darwin air base, both of which are in Australia's Northern Territory.

The documents also request $35 million for a new parking apron for US military aircraft at Cesar Basa air base in the Philippines, one of several bases where Manila has granted the US military expanded access.

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US Air Force engineers conduct a rapid-airfield-repair drill at Guam's Northwest Field in October 2019.US Air Force/Airman 1st Class Michael S. Murphy

Speaking to reporters before the budget documents were released, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, the service's top civilian official, said the Air Force was "generally trying to expand the target set" and "to make the idea of agile combat employment meaningful" by having "places where we can go that are ready for us."

The agreement to increase access to Philippine bases, which after long-delayed implementation now applies to nine facilities, "was something of a coup," Kendall said at an event this month, adding that the Pentagon was talking to Japan "about being able to operate off of some of their military bases as well as our own so we have more flexibility."

US partners elsewhere in the Pacific "offer other opportunities, but they are going to require investment," Kendall said, echoing Wilsbach and other officials who stress that continued funding is needed to establish new facilities, deploy pre-positioned equipment, and conduct effective ACE exercises.

Australian and Japanese forces during an exercise on Tinian in February 2019.Master Sgt. JT May III

"Those are some of the resources that I argue for when I go back to headquarters," Wilsbach said in September, adding that in recent budgets, "I feel like I'm getting the resources I need, especially on construction."

"The one area where I can handle a lot more resources is the purchasing of the pre-positioning of equipment — of parts, fuel, water, food," Wilsbach said. "We're putting together packages that we're pre-positioning in theater, and so I can handle a significant amount [of] more resources to purchase that stuff and then get it out into the region."

Simply spreading out may not be enough to sustain operations in a war. Experts say more dispersed bases would put additional strain on a logistical network that adversaries are sure to attack and would require installing a mix of active defenses to shoot down incoming missiles and passive defenses such as hardened shelters and camouflage.

The Air Force is working with the rest of the military to address those challenges, Thomas Lawhead, acting deputy chief of staff for Air Force Futures, said at an event this month.

A US Air Force F-35A takes off from Tinian International Airport in February 2022.US Air Force/Senior Airman Joseph P. LeVeille

The Air Force has used recent budgets to "put a good amount of money" into pre-positioning equipment and is working with the Army, which has traditionally been responsible for air defense, on "an integrated air- and missile-defense mix study" in addition to a study of Guam's air- and missile-defense needs, Lawhead said.

In a major war, ACE, base defense, and logistics "all need to be orchestrated and commanded-and-controlled together" and "are what's going to enable us to actually generate" flight operations in such a conflict, Lawhead said, adding that the service will continue to refine ACE through exercises by Pacific Air Forces and other commands.

China and North Korea have made clear that they could target Guam and islands nearby, which only adds to the urgency of the Air Force's preparations to use and defend its outposts there.

"Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are strategic locations that require agility to defend if we find ourselves in a contested and degraded environment," Peden said. "Due to operational security, we can't go into details on the exact locations, but our intent is to further resource this region."

Business Insider · by Christopher Woody

8. Chinese Private Security Companies: Neither Blackwater Nor the Wagner GroupChinese Private Security Companies: Neither Blackwater Nor the Wagner Group

This is an area of strategic competition that is not being explored. The entire one belt one road should be a template for analysis of potential operations.

Considerations for China’s OBOR

(AKA Belt and Road Initiative (BRI))

•What is the resistance potential against OBOR?

•Is it supportable and exploitable?

•Adapted resistance operation concept – resist PRC/CCP malign influence, wolf and debt trap diplomacy? – Chinese PMCs?

•How to develop a supporting campaign plan to support the new US Strategic Approach to China;

•Promoting American Prosperity

•Advancing American Influence

•Preserving Peace Through Strength

•US Strategic Approach to China: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/U.S.-Strategic-Approach-to-The-Peoples-Republic-of-China-Report-5.20.20.pdf

•State Department Plays a Key Role in New US China Strategy https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2020/06/23/state-plays-key-role-in-new-china-strategy/

•How to Support the GEC?

•Information and Influence Activities

•How to Support State?

•Blue Dot Network

•Economic Prosperity Network

•Is there a role for the 2 SOF “trinities?”

•Irregular Warfare, Unconventional Warfare, Support to Political Warfare

•The Comparative advantage of SOF: Governance, Influence, Support to indigenous forces and populations

Chinese Private Security Companies: Neither Blackwater Nor the Wagner Group - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Alessandro Arduino · December 1, 2023

Since the launch of the Belt and Road initiative in 2013, Chinese private military companies envisioned working with U.S. firms like Blackwater. They sought to replicate Blackwater’s role in Iraq, safeguarding China’s Belt and Road initiative against criminal and militant violence. In doing so, they also sought to benefit from the newfound legitimacy of private military companies as opposed to old-fashioned mercenaries.

But the private military and security business changes quickly. Heightened tensions with the United States have left Chinese state-owned enterprises less willing to collaborate with security contractors from the United States and Europe. For a time, the rise of the Russian Wagner Group offered a new model, blending mercenary work with quasi-private proxy service for authoritarian states. At one point, Russian private military companies tried to insert themselves in the lucrative business of protecting the Belt and Road initiative from Africa to the Middle East, and even at sea against pirates. However, the appeal of this approach also proved short-lived, with Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny making his methods appear distinctly threatening in Beijing.

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Now, Chinese security experts continue to weigh the merits and drawbacks of both Blackwater and Wagner models. The Chinese Communist Party government remains unconvinced by either, steadfastly committed to the Maoist principle that “the party controls the gun.” But despite Beijing’s reluctance, Chinese private security firms are likely to play an increasingly pivotal role in protecting Chinese interests and enhancing security capabilities in a realm where the line between private and public is seldom clear.

Legal Origins

The evolution of Chinese private security companies began in the 1990s with a set of laws that allowed, in a very restricted way, the licensing of private security companies in mainland China. The regulation was part of Premier Deng Xiaoping’s broader policy of China “opening up” to the West and allowed a limited privatization of the state security function. According to the law, only former military and police personnel could apply to the relevant authorities for a license and register a private security company, and private security officers could not carry weapons. Future amendments to the law expanded the sector’s reach, but the earlier limitations are still shaping the evolution of private security companies with “Chinese characteristics.”

In 2009 a new law amended some of the earlier limits. It gave private security companies the option to provide armed escort services while transporting cash and valuable goods, and dropped the stipulation that only former public security officers could be licensed. Nevertheless, most of the several thousand Chinese private security companies based in mainland China are still founded and directed by former security officers, and the core personnel are recruited from the People’s Liberation Army, People’s Armed Police, and the police force. At the same time, the detailed law on private security companies operating within China exists in tension with the lack of precise rules and regulations for the private security companies abroad. The ongoing legal vacuum leaves the entire sector open to competition from semilegal Chinese private security companies that set up shop overseas without the proper licensing at home.

The Limits of Low Risk

Building global infrastructure across sometimes unstable or conflict-prone parts of Eurasia is a dangerous business. Beijing has intensified efforts to secure the Belt and Road initiative by conducting comprehensive regional threat assessments and providing security training to its overseas workers, but threats continue to surge at an alarming rate. Despite this, Beijing was not prepared to send the People’s Liberation Army to protect its citizens overseas with boots on the ground. So, ready or not, the evolving Chinese private security sector filled this security gap.

Except for the Chinese state energy companies, most state-owned enterprises have been trying to avoid trouble by investing in countries that Beijing deems safe or capable of protecting its citizens and infrastructures. This makes work more manageable for the security companies they employ. For example, in Africa, leading Chinese private security companies such as Haiwei, Huaxinzhongan, Kunlun Lion Security, and Frontier Services Group operate in relatively stable regions from Egypt to Kenya and Uganda.

However, numerous smaller Chinese private security companies are venturing into far more precarious environments without the proper resources to confront militants and criminal threats. The rapid shift in threat environments from Islamabad to Bamako has demonstrated that Beijing’s security evaluation and crisis response must adapt more swiftly than initially anticipated. In South Asia, the $63 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is facing a rise in insurgent violence, as reflected in the Baloch female suicide bomber who killed three Chinese educators from the Confucius Institute and the frequent attacks that claimed the lives of Chinese workers. After U.S.-led coalition troops left Afghanistan, the Islamic State in Khorasan Province began to focus its wrath on China. Similarly, in Africa, criminal violence against Chinese miners, including killing and kidnapping for ransom, is on the rise.

Competing Models

While the Chinese private security sector was actively transforming to cope with growing overseas challenges, Beijing has imposed restrictions on the private security companies’ access to weaponry, compelling them to rely on armed personnel from local or international organizations. As a result, Chinese private security companies are still tasked with a passive role including asset protection from riots, theft, kidnapping for ransom, terrorism, or even maritime piracy. This is the core reason why, during the last decade, numerous Chinese military experts have advocated for the professionalization and restructuring of the sector, possibly emulating Western private military models or even adopting elements from the Russian approach.

After the launch of the Belt and Road initiative, the Chinese private security sector first experimented briefly with the Blackwater model. This was exemplified by the establishment of Frontier Services Group, a joint venture in Hong Kong co-founded by Erik Prince in collaboration with the Chinese state conglomerate China CITIC Bank. However, as tensions between China and the United States intensified, the prominence of the Blackwater-inspired model within Frontier Services Group and the broader Chinese private security sector started to decline. In April 2021, Prince stepped down from his position as the executive director and deputy chairman of the company. As of now, Frontier Services Group is under the leadership of Li Xiaopeng, former director of one of the prominent Chinese private security companies, Dewei International Security Limited, which was recently acquired by Frontier Services Group.

Before Prigozhin’s untimely death, Chinese security companies had begun to consider partnerships with Russian private military companies. They were drawn to three key advantages offered by providers like Moran: experienced contractors with proven track record in battle, no apparent Western connections that could compromise the confidentiality of state-owned enterprises, and competitive pricing.

Yet there were always bound to be complications. Fundamentally, the Belt and Road initiative demands stability while the Wagner Group thrives in chaos. This poses a paradoxical challenge for Beijing and Moscow’s “no-limits friendship.’’ The actions of unregulated and heavily armed Russian mercenaries in areas experiencing growing Chinese investments have become a murky aspect of the competition. In March 2023, the unresolved murder of nine Chinese miners in the Central African Republic raised suspicions about Russian mercenaries associated with the Wagner Group potentially staking their claim in the profitable gold mines. Despite having new leadership, the Wagner Group remains under the same client, the Kremlin, and continues to expand its influence into the Middle East and North Africa region, which overlaps with Chinese interests in natural resource exploitation. In this context, Russian propaganda touts the Wagner Group as offering the attractive prospect of “armed stability” from Mali to Niger, but it remains to be seen whether the group’s claims about their efficiency in counter-terrorist operations are accurate.

All this is taking place at a time when the power dynamic has shifted in favor of Beijing. Moscow cannot match China’s economic expansion, but the deployment of mercenaries and private military companies as geopolitical placeholders in uncertain times helps Russia gain the confidence of military leaders in regions susceptible to military coups.

Meanwhile, the pandemic accelerated the Chinese security sector’s consolidation, reducing the mid-size Chinese private security companies’ avenues for profit and forcing mergers, hostile acquisitions, or even bankruptcy among hundreds of companies. At the same time, COVID-19 not only created a huge business disruption overseas but also added additional services that the private security companies had to perform at home. Lastly, the automation of security functions using facial recognition and AI for crowd control has significantly reduced the need for a large number of security personnel. This has both limited the demand for local security guards and opened up opportunities for Chinese private security companies operating abroad to export advanced surveillance technologies.

During the pandemic, the limitations on international travel constrained new deals and reduced the scale of ongoing Belt and Road initiative projects. Therefore, proper security solutions were the first to be hacked down by the Chinese state-owned enterprises’ cost-reduction programs. Also, the pandemic severely limited in-person meetings and the under-the-table corruption that surrounds the expansion of small semi-legal Chinese private security companies abroad. A manager working for a prominent Chinese private security company mentioned that several small Chinese private security companies that used to maintain their international client portfolio by bribing their way out of problems were in dire need of face-to-face meetings: “Giving red envelopes [cash] to smooth new deals and acquire local licenses and permits is not going to be easy on Zoom.”

Policy Dilemmas

Now, amidst rising violence overseas and industry disruptions at home, it will be harder for the Chinese private security sector to continue keeping a low profile. This, in turn, is forcing the Chinese government to confront a fundamental question: How can it safeguard its global interests without outsourcing the use of force security to entities resembling Wagner or fully privatizing security firms along the Blackwater model? In my upcoming book Money for Mayhem I explore how the Chinese academic community views private security companies as a proper solution for minimizing political tensions with host governments, particularly in nations scarred by colonial history and armed conflicts.

Over the recent decades, Beijing’s ability to project its image as a developing country rather than a former colonial power while still benefitting from the U.S. security umbrella has shielded Chinese workers and investments. However, the present starkly contrasts this facade as Beijing finds itself entangled in the complex web of security challenges.

While noninterference is a constant feature of China’s foreign policy, it is increasingly up for debate as China aspires to a greater role in the international order. So far, Beijing is opting for a pragmatic approach: slowly departing from noninterference when a specific opportunity arises. In the “New Era of International Relations Not Defined by the U.S.,” the increasingly complex and fluid environment benefits Beijing’s privatization of the monopoly of security services abroad. However, the rising violence and uncertainty are not providing the necessary time for the Chinese private security sector to prepare for new threats.

From a legal perspective, some Chinese scholars emphatically assert that government-mandated military operations should not be delegated to external parties. Within this context, Chinese scholars pinpoint a crucial contradiction originating from the practices of the United States and the United Kingdom, which have outsourced numerous military functions since the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. This outsourcing, they contend, carries a substantial risk of triggering widespread human rights violations. Consequently, the majority of the scholars strongly recommend that the development of Chinese private security sector policies should adhere to the guidelines of the Chinese central government, in alignment with the U.N. mandate on the obligations of contracting parties and the responsibility to abstain from delegating “inherent” governmental functions.

The critiques put forth by Chinese researchers on the state of the national private security sector can be summarized in four points. First, within the realm of domestic law, regulations have been steadily evolving since the enactment of the primary legislation on private security companies. However, the legal framework for the establishment and qualifications of security companies operating abroad remains uncertain. While regulations for enterprises engaging in overseas business have improved in areas such as financial requirements, human resources management, and state support, the security sector has lagged behind in this regard.

The second critique pertains to the Belt and Road initiative, highlighting the absence of a streamlined process, often referred to as a “one-stop shop,” for acquiring essential operational information. Various ministries and government departments, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to public security, have overlapping administrative regulations concerning the expansion of private security companies in overseas markets. While there is a clear recognition of the need to protect China’s overseas interests in the face of escalating security challenges, the establishment of a cohesive regulatory framework remains uncertain.

The third critique addresses the expertise gap between Chinese private security companies and their international counterparts. Chinese personnel, particularly retired military personnel, often lack the experience to handle unforeseen crises in foreign territories and may struggle with communication in English or local languages. Additionally, they are deficient in risk prevention and risk management capabilities. To address these deficiencies, Chinese private security companies need to cultivate talent capable of effectively communicating and collaborating with foreign law enforcement agencies, participating in overseas security operations, and managing outsourced resources.

As for the fourth point, researchers concur that Chinese private security companies operating abroad must rigorously adhere to the laws of the host country and relevant international legal norms. They are urged to present the Belt and Road initiative in a positive light, promote China’s image, and leave a favorable impression in the host country to earn the trust and recognition of the local population. Furthermore, the industry should actively develop overseas security products that leverage China’s rapid technological development and production capabilities.

What’s Next

Three developments during Xi presidency are likely to lead to more Chinese private security companies venturing overseas: the ongoing preference for state-owned enterprises, the acceleration of civil-military integration, and an increase of violent attacks against Chinese individuals and infrastructure abroad. Safeguarding Chinese ports and vital sea communication routes, collecting critical local intelligence, and deploying personnel for non-combatant evacuation operations are just a few of the strategic offerings within the future arsenal of Chinese private security companies. Given China’s growing global economic and diplomatic engagement, the Chinese government will increasingly rely on private security companies, whatever its reservations. Beijing clearly does not want to replicate the Russian experience, but it remains to be seen how effectively it can keep control over this growing industry.

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Dr. Alessandro Arduino is an affiliate lecturer at the Lau China Institute at King’s College London and a member of the advisory group for the International Code of Conduct Association. He is the author of Money for Mayhem: Mercenaries, Private Military Companies, Drones, and the Future of War and China’s Private Army: Protecting the New Silk Road.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Alessandro Arduino · December 1, 2023

9. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 30, 2023

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-30-2023

Key Takeaways:

• A recent Russian opinion poll indicates that the number of Russians who fully support the war in Ukraine has almost halved since February 2023 and that more Russians support a withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine than do not.
• The Russian war in Ukraine has created new social tensions and exacerbated existing ones within Russia, which remain highly visible in the Russian information space despite ongoing Kremlin censorship efforts.
• The Kremlin is likely concerned about how changing Russian perceptions of the Russian war in Ukraine will affect the outcome of the March 2024 Russian presidential election and is implementing measures to ensure that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actual electoral support does not rest on Russian battlefield successes.
• Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitri Peskov confirmed on November 30 that Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold his annual live “Direct Line” forum and annual press conference in tandem on December 14.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov notably did not promote Kremlin information operations feigning interest in negotiations during his speech at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in North Macedonia on November 30, and instead promoted escalatory rhetoric about Moldova.
• Russian forces conducted multiple series of missile and drone strikes on Ukraine that struck civilian infrastructure on November 29 and 30.
• Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian military bureaucracy is impeding Russian drone usage and acquisition among Russian forces operating on east (left) bank Kherson Oblast amid continued complaints about weak Russian capabilities on the east bank.
• The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) was reportedly involved in an explosion that caused disruptions on a section of the East Siberian Railway connecting Russia and China on the night of November 29.
• The Kremlin continues to advance its strategic slow-burn effort to absorb Belarus through the Union State structure.
• Russian forces continued 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, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast but did not make any confirmed advances.
• A Ukrainian military observer stated that Russian authorities’ plan to form two tank battalions in about four months using equipment from two long-term weapons and equipment stores indicates a lack of combat-ready weapons and military equipment.
• Occupation and Russian government officials continue efforts to militarize Ukrainian youth in occupied Ukraine.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 30, 2023

Nov 30, 2023 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 30, 2023

Nicole Wolkov, Christina Harward, Angelica Evans, Grace Mappes, Riley Bailey, George Barros, and Frederick W Kagan

November 30, 2023, 6:45pm 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 12:40pm ET on November 30. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the December 1 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

A recent Russian opinion poll indicates that the number of Russians who fully support the war in Ukraine has almost halved since February 2023 and that more Russians support a withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine than do not. Independent Russian opposition polling organization Chronicles stated that data from its October 17-22, 2023, telephone survey indicates that respondents who are “consistent” supporters of the war - those who expressed support for the war, do not support a withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine without Russia having achieved its war aims, and think that Russia should prioritize military spending - decreased from 22 percent to 12 percent between February 2023 and October 2023.[1] Chronicles stated that 40 percent of respondents supported a withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine without Russia having achieved its war aims, and that this number has remained consistent at about 39 to 40 percent throughout 2023. Chronicles stated that 33 percent of respondents did not support a Russian withdrawal and favored a continuation of the war and noted that this number has been consistently decreasing from 47 percent in February 2023 and 39 percent in July 2023. Recent polling by the independent Russian polling organization Levada Center published on October 31 indicated that 55 percent of respondents believed that Russia should begin peace negotiations whereas 38 percent favored continuing the war.[2]

The Russian war in Ukraine has created new social tensions and exacerbated existing ones within Russia, which remain highly visible in the Russian information space despite ongoing Kremlin censorship efforts. Relatives of mobilized personnel continue making widespread complaints and appeals for aid for mobilized personnel despite reported Russian efforts to censor such complaints.[3] Russian opposition outlet Vazhnye Istorii reported on November 29 that Russians have sent over 180,000 complaints about issues concerning the Ministry of Defense (MoD) to the Russian Presidential Office for Working with Citizens’ Appeals since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.[4] The majority of these complaints reportedly concern payments to soldiers, mobilization status, missing persons, and poor medical care.[5] The Kremlin has also been capitalizing on recent ethnic tensions in Russia to support ongoing force generation measures and appeal to Russian ultranationalists, establishing a cycle that keeps these tensions at the forefront of ultranationalist dialogue.[6] The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that protest activity and social tension are increasing in Russia, particularly in western Russia, due to the war in Ukraine and that the top echelons of Russian leadership are discussing these tensions.[7] The GUR noted that increasing crime, alcohol abuse, inflation, and high consumer goods prices also contribute to rising social tensions, and many of these factors are likely exacerbated by the continued Russian war in Ukraine.[8] The Kremlin has consistently failed to place Russian society on a wartime footing to support the Russian war effort, and the shifting poll numbers and exacerbated social tensions indicate that this failure is having a tangible effect on Russian society ahead of the 2024 Russian presidential elections.[9]

The Kremlin is likely concerned about how changing Russian perceptions of the Russian war in Ukraine will affect the outcome of the March 2024 Russian presidential election and is implementing measures to ensure that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actual electoral support does not rest on Russian battlefield successes. Russian President Vladimir Putin will reportedly center his presidential campaign on Russia’s alleged domestic stability and increased criticism of the West instead of focusing on the war.[10] Putin and other Russian government officials have already signaled their intention to intensify censorship efforts by claiming that some Russian citizens who left Russia and others still in Russia have begun efforts to discredit the upcoming Russian presidential elections and that Russia will do “everything necessary” to prevent election meddling.[11] Russian authorities have also attempted to consolidate control over the Russian information space and have intensified measures encouraging self-censorship.[12] Russian milbloggers suggested that Russian political officials financing Telegram channels ordered milbloggers to cease debates and criticisms about the Russian military prior to the Russian presidential elections.[13] The Kremlin has likely attempted to shore up popular support for Putin throughout Russia by establishing a network of “proxies” to campaign on Putin’s behalf.[14]

Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitri Peskov confirmed on November 30 that Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold his annual live “Direct Line” forum and annual press conference in tandem on December 14.[15] Putin will likely use the tandem event to roll out his still unannounced presidential campaign following the official start of the Russian presidential campaign season on December 13.[16]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov notably did not promote Kremlin information operations feigning interest in negotiations during his speech at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in North Macedonia on November 30, and instead promoted escalatory rhetoric about Moldova. Lavrov claimed that the OSCE is turning into an appendage of NATO and the European Union (EU) and said that the organization is "on the brink of an abyss.”[17] Lavrov’s speech notably did not include a long-standing Russian information operation aimed at portraying Russia as willing to negotiate with Ukraine.[18] Lavrov previously claimed on November 27 that the West is currently trying to "freeze" the war to gain time and rearm Ukraine for future attacks on Russia.[19] The OSCE is meant to serve as a neutral platform in negotiations, among other functions, and would have provided an appropriate diplomatic forum for Lavrov to promote negotiations with the West, but Lavrov notably made no such overture. Russia previously weaponized the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine to support Russian information operations to obfuscate Russia’s participation in its initial hybrid war against Ukraine, which Russia began in 2014, and to support Russian operations.[20] Russian forces reportedly commandeered OSCE off-road vehicles to support Russian combat operations in Luhansk Oblast in January 2023.[21] Lavrov’s criticism of the OSCE reflects Russia’s continuing unwillingness to engage in serious cooperation with the OSCE that would be necessary to start meaningful negotiations. Lavrov used his speech to threaten Moldova by claiming that it would become the “next victim in the West’s hybrid war against Russia.”[22]

Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov also argued that negotiations with Ukraine would be disadvantageous to Russia on November 29 due to Russia’s more "strategically and economically advantageous position.”[23] Kadyrov claimed that Russia must make Ukraine’s leadership surrender. Kadyrov does not speak for the Kremlin, but his statement reflects a wider shift in Russian rhetoric portraying a pause in Russian offensive operations as detrimental to the prospects for a Russian victory in Ukraine.

Russian forces conducted multiple series of missile and drone strikes on Ukraine that struck civilian infrastructure on November 29 and 30. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched eight S-300 missiles and 20 Shahed-131/136 drones on the night of November 29-30.[24] Ukrainian military officials reported that Ukrainian forces downed 14 of the drones.[25] Ukrainian Air Force Spokesperson Colonel Yuriy Ihnat stated that Ukrainian forces destroyed the first wave of Shahed drones over Odesa Oblast and that Russian forces then launched drones in several directions towards northern and western Ukraine, including Khmelnytskyi Oblast.[26] Ihnat continued to praise the work of Ukrainian mobile fire groups in shooting down Russian drones.[27] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command stated that a Russian drone damaged a historic preserved building in Odesa Oblast.[28] Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko stated that S-300 missiles struck residential buildings and police departments in Pokrovsk, Novohrodivka, and Myrnohrad in Donetsk Oblast.[29] The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported on November 29 that there were several explosions near the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant within a 20-minute period and warned that several nuclear sites in Ukraine are exposed to Russian strikes.[30] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Russian forces launched seven Shahed drones during the day on November 30 and that Ukrainian forces shot down five of the drones.[31]

Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian military bureaucracy is impeding Russian drone usage and acquisition among Russian forces operating on east (left) bank Kherson Oblast amid continued complaints about weak Russian capabilities on the east bank. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) warehouses storing various types of drones and electronic warfare (EW) equipment are full despite drone shortages among Russian forces operating on the left bank of Kherson Oblast.[32] The milblogger claimed that Russian authorities are not interested in reading through applications and filling out the paperwork associated with sending new drones to the frontline.[33] The milblogger also complained that Russian personnel have to “go through seven circles of hell” in order to request a replacement drone.[34] Another prominent milblogger outlined the seven pieces of information that Russian units need to submit to the Russian military to record the destruction of a drone and request a replacement, which include proving that the drone had been destroyed during normal weather conditions and that Russian forces were not using electronic warfare systems at the time of the drone’s destruction.[35] Other Russian milbloggers recently complained on November 25 that military bureaucracy at the brigade and division level is preventing Russian frontline soldiers from applying for drones directly from the MoD.[36] ISW has previously reported that Russian milbloggers have complained about various problems among Russian forces operating on the east bank of Kherson Oblast but has observed that these alleged problems do not necessarily translate into significant battlefield effects.[37] The founder of a Ukrainian drone company, Maksym Sheremet, told Forbes Ukraine in an article published on November 29 that Russian companies manufacture approximately 300,000 first-person viewer (FPV) drones per month.[38]

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) was reportedly involved in an explosion that caused disruptions on a section of the East Siberian Railway connecting Russia and China on the night of November 29. Russian Railways and the East Siberian Transport Prosecutor’s Office stated that a freight train caught fire in the Severomuysky Tunnel on the Itykit-Okusikan section of the East Siberian Railway in the Republic of Buryatia on the night of November 29.[39] Russian Railways stated that the fire did not interrupt train traffic, but Russian opposition outlet Baza stated that 10 trains were delayed.[40] Baza reported that two railway cars carrying diesel fuel detonated, igniting six total railway cars.[41] Several Ukrainian outlets reported that Ukrainian intelligence sources stated that four explosive devices detonated on the railway as part of an SBU operation and that the railway line, which is the only major railway line between Russia and China and is used to transport military supplies, is “paralyzed.”[42] Russian opposition outlet Astra stated that Russia uses the railway to transport weapons from North Korea.[43] The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) stated that disruptions in railway lines in Russia are becoming more frequent and are causing serious logistics complications due to the resulting delays.[44]

The Kremlin continues to advance its strategic slow-burn effort to absorb Belarus through the Union State structure. The Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Belarusian Ministry of Economy agreed to a new package of Union State integration measures for 2024-2026 to advance the Kremlin’s effort to absorb Belarus through the Union State on November 29.[45] Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko will likely sign the integration package during an upcoming Union State Supreme State Council meeting, possibly in 2024.[46] Lukashenko has previously resisted the Kremlin’s efforts to further integrate Belarus into the Union State, although recent events, including the death of Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin and the collapse of the June 24, 2023 agreement between Putin, Prigozhin, and Lukashenko that gave Wagner sanctuary in Belarus, have likely degraded Lukashenko’s ability to resist further Union State integration efforts.[47] Lukashenko recently portrayed himself as the guarantor of Belarusian statehood ahead of Belarusian parliamentary elections in 2024 and presidential elections in 2025, stating on November 10 that incoming young Belarusian leaders should ascend to office with the goal of “saving the country [Belarus].”[48]

Key Takeaways:

• A recent Russian opinion poll indicates that the number of Russians who fully support the war in Ukraine has almost halved since February 2023 and that more Russians support a withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine than do not.
• The Russian war in Ukraine has created new social tensions and exacerbated existing ones within Russia, which remain highly visible in the Russian information space despite ongoing Kremlin censorship efforts.
• The Kremlin is likely concerned about how changing Russian perceptions of the Russian war in Ukraine will affect the outcome of the March 2024 Russian presidential election and is implementing measures to ensure that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actual electoral support does not rest on Russian battlefield successes.
• Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitri Peskov confirmed on November 30 that Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold his annual live “Direct Line” forum and annual press conference in tandem on December 14.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov notably did not promote Kremlin information operations feigning interest in negotiations during his speech at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in North Macedonia on November 30, and instead promoted escalatory rhetoric about Moldova.
• Russian forces conducted multiple series of missile and drone strikes on Ukraine that struck civilian infrastructure on November 29 and 30.
• Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian military bureaucracy is impeding Russian drone usage and acquisition among Russian forces operating on east (left) bank Kherson Oblast amid continued complaints about weak Russian capabilities on the east bank.
• The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) was reportedly involved in an explosion that caused disruptions on a section of the East Siberian Railway connecting Russia and China on the night of November 29.
• The Kremlin continues to advance its strategic slow-burn effort to absorb Belarus through the Union State structure.
• Russian forces continued 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, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast but did not make any confirmed advances.
• A Ukrainian military observer stated that Russian authorities’ plan to form two tank battalions in about four months using equipment from two long-term weapons and equipment stores indicates a lack of combat-ready weapons and military equipment.
• Occupation and Russian government officials continue efforts to militarize Ukrainian youth in occupied 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
• Russian Technological Adaptations
• 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 localized offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove line on November 30 but did not make any confirmed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled seven Russian assaults near Synkivka (9km northeast of Kupyansk), Petropavlivka (7km east of Kupyansk), and Stelmakhivka (18km northwest of Svatove).[49] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces pushed Ukrainian forces out of unspecified positions near Lyman Pershyi (11km northeast of Kupyansk), entered the outskirts of Synkivka, and penetrated Ukrainian defenses along the Tymkivka-Ivanivka-Kyslivka line (20km to 23km southeast of Kupyansk).[50] ISW has not observed any visual confirmation of these claimed Russian advances.

Russian forces temporarily intensified localized offensive operations near Kreminna on November 30 but did not make any confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Yampolivka (16km west of Kreminna), Torske (15km west of Kreminna), Terny (17km west of Kreminna), and the Serebryanske forest area (10km south of Kreminna).[51] The Ukrainian General Staff reported in its earlier situation report that Ukrainian forces repelled 24 assaults in the Lyman direction but reported only four repelled Russian assaults in the area in its later situation report for November 30.[52] Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets stated that elements of the Russian 20th Combined Arms Army (Western Military District) and the new 25th Combined Arms Army resumed offensive operation in the Lyman direction to dislodge Ukrainian forces from the left bank of the Zherebets River (a tributary to the Siversky Donets River that flows into the Siversky Donets River from the north).[53] ISW has not observed evidence indicating a concerted Russian offensive effort to advance towards the Zherebets River, however.

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on November 30. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that unspecified elements of the Russia Western Grouping of Forces repelled two Ukrainian assaults near Synkivka and that unspecified elements of the Russian Central Grouping of Forces repelled a Ukrainian attack near Yampolivka.[54]

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 reportedly made multiple advances near Bakhmut on November 30. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced south of the Berkhivka Reservoir (3km northwest of Bakhmut) and near Bohdanivka (5km northwest of Bakhmut).[55] One milblogger claimed that Russian forces also captured a section of the Bakhmut-Chasiv Yar highway near Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut).[56] Russian milbloggers reiterated claims that Russian forces, in particular the 11th Separate Airborne (VDV) Brigade, captured Khromove and advanced in forest areas north and northwest of the settlement, but ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claims.[57] Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets stated that Russian forces captured multiple Ukrainian positions near Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut), north of Khromove, and in the direction of Bohdanivka.[58] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks near Bohdanivka, Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut), Andriivka (10km southwest of Bakhmut), and Klishchiivka.[59] A Russian milblogger posted footage on November 29 of elements of the Russian 98th VDV Division operating near Bakhmut.[60]

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations near Bakhmut on November 30 but did not advance. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued assault actions south of Bakhmut.[61] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful attacks near the Berkhivka Reservoir and Klishchiivka.[62]

Russian forces continued offensive operations near Avdiivka and reportedly advanced on November 30. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced west of the railway line near Stepove (3km northwest of Avdiivka) and near Novokalynove (11km northwest of Avdiivka).[63] Russian sources claimed on November 29 and 30 that Russian forces also advanced north of the industrial zone southeast of Avdiivka and that fighting is ongoing near the Avdiivka Coke Plant and the adjacent waste heap.[64] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks near Stepove, Novokalynove, Avdiivka, Sieverne (6km west of Avdiivka), and Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka); east of Novobakhmutivka (11km northeast of Avdiivka); and south of Tonenke (7km west of Avdiivka).[65] Ukrainian outlet Suspilne reported that the frozen ground near Avdiivka has already softened into mud, complicating both Russian and Ukrainian forces’ ability to operate vehicles.[66] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Colonel Oleksandr Shtupun stated that Russian forces are conducting glide bomb strikes with Su-35 aircraft near Avdiivka.[67]

Russian forces continued assaults west and southwest of Donetsk City on November 30 but did not make confirmed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful ground attacks near Krasnohorivka (directly west of Donetsk City) and Novomykhailivka (10km southwest of Donetsk City).[68] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces also unsuccessfully attacked in Marinka (directly west of Donetsk City).[69] Russian military officials claimed that Russian forces repelled at least three Ukrainian attacks in Marinka and near Novomykhailivka on November 30.[70]

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

Russian forces continued limited ground attacks in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on November 30 and made a confirmed advance. Geolocated footage published on November 29 shows elements of the Russian 394th Motorized Rifle Regiment (127th Motorized Rifle Division, 5th Combined Arms Army, Eastern Military District) capturing Ukrainian positions southwest of Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka).[71] ISW had previously assessed that Russian forces’ front line has been beyond these positions, and the footage indicates that Russian forces are likely not northwest of these positions. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks south of Prechystivka (18km southeast of Velyka Novosilka).[72] Several Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces captured several unspecified Ukrainian positions along the Pryyutne-Staromayorske line (15km southwest to 9km south of Velyka Novosilka).[73]

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast on November 30 but did not make confirmed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast) direction.[74] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and other Russian sources claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks north of Verbove (9km east of Robotyne).[75] Russian milbloggers noted that poor weather conditions continue to impede vehicle movement and artillery operations but noted that drones continue to operate.[76]

Russian forces continued limited ground attacks in western Zaporizhia Oblast on November 30 but did not make confirmed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled at least 14 Russian attacks near Robotyne and northwest and west of Verbove.[77] Several Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces captured unspecified positions west of Robotyne and near Verbove.[78] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Colonel Oleksandr Shtupun stated that Russian forces have become “somewhat more active” in the Zaporizhia direction and are trying to recapture lost positions.[79]

Ukrainian forces continued ground attacks on the left (east) bank of Kherson Oblast on November 30 but did not make confirmed or claimed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces maintain positions on the east bank of the Dnipro River.[80] Several Russian sources claimed that fighting is ongoing near Krynky (30km northeast of Kherson City and 2km from the Dnipro River) and that Russian aviation and artillery continue to heavily strike the area.[81] A prominent Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are unsuccessfully attempting to advance south of Krynky.[82]

The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (UK MoD) reported on November 30 that elements of the newly formed Russian 104th Guards Airborne (VDV) Division have likely deployed to Kherson Oblast, consistent with ISW’s previous observations.[83] The UK MoD reported that the Russian 337th VDV Regiment and Russian 52nd VDV Artillery Brigade will likely be subordinate to the 104th Guards VDV Division.[84] ISW recently observed reports that elements of the 328th VDV Regiment (104th Guards VDV Division) are currently defending in the Krynky area.[85]

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

Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets stated that Russian authorities plan to form two tank battalions by April 1, 2024, using equipment from two long-term weapons and equipment stores, indicating a lack of combat-ready weapons and military equipment.[86] Mashovets stated that Russian authorities are planning to form one tank battalion within the 19th Motorized Rifle Division (58th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Southern Military District [SMD]) and one tank battalion within the 20th Motorized Rifle Division (8th CAA, SMD) using equipment from the 1061 Material and Technical Support Center in Rostov-on-Don and the 904 Mobilization Deployment Support Center in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky in Rostov Oblast.

The Russian government is reportedly offering debt forgiveness as an incentive for Russian military service. Exiled Russian opposition outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe stated on November 29 that the Russian Federal Bailiff Service is attempting to recruit debtors to sign contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) to fight in Ukraine in exchange for debt forgiveness.[87] Novaya Gazeta Europe stated that Russian servicemen fighting in Ukraine are not required to make debt payments, except alimony payments, after signing a contract with the Russian MoD and that Russian authorities will not seize recruits’ cars or apartments, block their bank cards, or prohibit them from leaving Russia while serving in the Russian military. Novaya Gazeta Europe also stated that prisoner recruits who signed contracts with the Wagner Group and then the Russian MoD are also not required to pay their court-ordered material or moral damage payments to victims.

Recruitment quotas issued by the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) are reportedly affecting how Russian federal subjects recruit volunteers for volunteer battalions. Russian opposition outlet Idel Realii, citing a recruiter for the BARS-13 battalion (Russian Combat Reserve of the Country), stated on November 30 that the Russian MoD issued quotas for the number of volunteers federal subjects must recruit.[88] The BARS-13 source told Idel Realii that some federal subjects are not sending some recruits to Ukraine immediately but are keeping them in Russia temporarily so as to count them towards future quota orders. Other federal subjects, such as the Republic of Sakha, reportedly cannot meet their recruitment quotas, leading unspecified authorities in these regions to “buy” recruits from other federal subjects.

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

Kremlin newswire TASS stated on November 29 that Russian forces in Ukraine will receive updated “Hortensia-10” first-person viewer (FPV) drones in early December 2023.[89] The “Hortensia-10” FPV drones reportedly will have an increased payload of up to five kilograms, a drop release system, and thermal imagers. The “Hortensia-10” FPV drones will reportedly have a flight time of 6.5 minutes and a range of six to nine kilometers - a slight difference from the six to eight-minute flight time and seven-kilometer range of the previous model, the “Hortensia-7.”[90]

Russian forces are reportedly using Ukrainian Kyivstar SIM cards to control Shahed drones. A Ukrainian source stated on November 29 that a downed Russian Shahed drone included a Kyivstar SIM card, which reportedly allows Russian forces to exploit the Kyivstar mobile network to track the drone’s location and change its flight path.[91]

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)

Occupation and Russian government officials continue efforts to militarize Ukrainian youth in occupied Ukraine. Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) head Leonid Pasechnik announced on November 30 that occupation officials will open a branch of the “Warrior” Military Sports Training Center in occupied Luhansk Oblast in the summer of 2024.[92] Pasechnik stated that the training center will prepare young Ukrainian “pre-conscripts,” likely minors and college-age Ukrainians, for service in the Russian Armed Forces by improving physical fitness, strengthening morale, and teaching military skills such as drone operation. Pasechnik claimed that the training center will prepare Ukrainian teenagers to “become real men” worthy of and ready to defend Russia. Pasechnik claimed that Russian Presidential Administration First Deputy Head Sergei Kiriyenko initiated the revival of “Warrior” training centers throughout Russia and occupied Ukraine and promised to raise money for the training center during his recent visit to occupied Luhansk Oblast.

The Ukrainian General Staff reported on November 30 that Russian forces will only allow residents with Russian passports to travel through the Henichesk border checkpoint, connecting occupied Kherson Oblast with Crimea, starting in 2024.[93]

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

Russian sources characterized NATO’s annual “Freezing Winds” exercises as escalatory amid deteriorating Russian-Finnish relations. A Kremlin-affiliated Russian milblogger claimed on November 29 that several NATO reconnaissance aircraft are operating near the Russian-Finnish border at a “high intensity” under the pretext of NATO exercises.[94] The milblogger claimed that Finland’s decision to close its border crossings with Russia and participate in increasingly frequent NATO exercises are reminiscent of “one famous country [Ukraine]” after 2014. Russian media also expressed concern on November 29 and 30 about NATO’s “Freezing Winds” exercises and accused Finland of “artificially” heightening tensions in the Russian-Finnish bilateral relationship.[95]

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)

See topline text.

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.

10. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, November 30, 2023

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-november-30-2023

Key Takeaways:

1. Members of the Israeli policy community have expressed concerns in recent days that Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” has built the capability to attack Israel from the West Bank and Lebanon in addition to the Gaza Strip. These concerns are consistent with Iranian leaders’ intent to threaten Israel and its population from multiple different directions simultaneously and thereby drive citizens away from living in Israel.
2. Israel and Hamas extended the humanitarian pause agreement for an additional day, meaning that the pause is set to expire on December 1 at 0000 EST. Israel and Hamas completed the seventh swap of hostages in the Gaza Strip for Israeli-held Palestinian and Arab-Israeli prisoners on November 30 in accordance with the humanitarian pause agreement.
3. Israeli officials are emphasizing their continued commitment to destroying Hamas and their immediate military readiness. Hamas is signaling its preparedness for further fighting as well.
4. Palestinian fighters conducted nine attacks targeting Israeli forces in the West Bank. Hamas conducted a shooting attack targeting Israeli civilians in Jerusalem as well.
5. Members of the Axis of Resistance threatened to resume their regional attacks on US and Israeli targets if Israel resumes military operations in the Gaza Strip after the humanitarian pause ends.
6. An explosion occurred at a Houthi military facility in Sanaa, Yemen. The Houthis have claimed responsibility for several attacks on Israel and Israeli-owned tankers in the Red Sea throughout the Israel-Hamas war.

IRAN UPDATE, NOVEMBER 30, 2023

Nov 30, 2023 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Iran Update, November 30, 2023

Andie Parry, Annika Ganzeveld, Ashka Jhaveri, Kathryn Tyson, Peter Mills, and Nicholas Carl

Information Cutoff: 5:00 pm EST

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:

1. Members of the Israeli policy community have expressed concerns in recent days that Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” has built the capability to attack Israel from the West Bank and Lebanon in addition to the Gaza Strip. These concerns are consistent with Iranian leaders’ intent to threaten Israel and its population from multiple different directions simultaneously and thereby drive citizens away from living in Israel.
2. Israel and Hamas extended the humanitarian pause agreement for an additional day, meaning that the pause is set to expire on December 1 at 0000 EST. Israel and Hamas completed the seventh swap of hostages in the Gaza Strip for Israeli-held Palestinian and Arab-Israeli prisoners on November 30 in accordance with the humanitarian pause agreement.
3. Israeli officials are emphasizing their continued commitment to destroying Hamas and their immediate military readiness. Hamas is signaling its preparedness for further fighting as well.
4. Palestinian fighters conducted nine attacks targeting Israeli forces in the West Bank. Hamas conducted a shooting attack targeting Israeli civilians in Jerusalem as well.
5. Members of the Axis of Resistance threatened to resume their regional attacks on US and Israeli targets if Israel resumes military operations in the Gaza Strip after the humanitarian pause ends.
6. An explosion occurred at a Houthi military facility in Sanaa, Yemen. The Houthis have claimed responsibility for several attacks on Israel and Israeli-owned tankers in the Red Sea throughout the Israel-Hamas war.

Members of the Israeli policy community have expressed concerns in recent days that Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” has built the capability to attack Israel from the West Bank and Lebanon in addition to the Gaza Strip. An Israeli think tank published an article on November 29 describing the risk of a Lebanese Hezbollah (LH) ground attack into northern Israel in a way similar to Hamas’ October 7 attack.[1] The article stated that LH “poses a significant challenge for the IDF and still poses a clear and present danger.” Mark Regev—a senior adviser to the Israeli prime minister—similarly warned on November 30 that Hamas seeks to attack Israeli targets inside and from the West Bank.[2] Regev expressed concern that Hamas could conduct an escalation from the West Bank into Israel similar to Hamas’ October 7 attack. CTP-ISW has reported extensively on how Iran has invested in building military capabilities and infrastructure in the West Bank in recent months.[3]

These concerns are consistent with Iranian leaders’ intent to threaten Israel and its population from multiple different directions simultaneously and thereby drive citizens away from living in Israel. Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Commander Major General Hossein Salami advocated for LH and Palestinian militia ground attacks into Israel during an interview with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s website in August 2022.[4] Salami argued that such attacks would stoke internal chaos and facilitate migration away from Israel. Iran’s defense minister, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Gharaei Ashtiani, more recently boasted on November 18 that Hamas’ October 7 attack has reduced migration to Israel by creating economic, political, and security crises for the country.[5]

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.

Israel and Hamas extended the humanitarian pause agreement for an additional day, meaning that the pause is set to expire on December 1 at 0000 EST. Israel, Hamas, and Qatar confirmed the extension late on November 29.[6] The Qatari Foreign Affairs Ministry stated the extension includes the same conditions as the previous pause agreement, which involve a cessation of all military activities and the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.[7] No further extension was announced at the time of this writing.

Israel and Hamas completed the seventh swap of hostages in the Gaza Strip for Israeli-held Palestinian and Arab-Israeli prisoners on November 30 in accordance with the humanitarian pause agreement. Hamas released eight Israeli hostages to the Red Cross on November 30.[8] The agreement stipulates that Hamas must release ten hostages to extend the pause an additional day, but Israel agreed to count two of the hostages whom Hamas released yesterday as part of the most recent ten.[9] Hamas previously released 12 Israelis on November 29, including two dual Israeli-Russian citizens through a separate negotiation process with Russia.[10] The al Qassem Brigades—the militant wing of Hamas— said that it released the Russian citizens as a sign of appreciation for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s support for Palestine.[11] Israel released 22 Palestinian youth and eight Arab-Israel women from detention on November 30.[12]

Israeli officials are emphasizing their continued commitment to destroying Hamas and their immediate military readiness. Hamas is signaling its preparedness for further fighting as well. The IDF spokesperson stated on November 30 that the IDF is ready to resume the fighting and is prepared to attack at any hour, including the night of November 30, if the pause is not renewed for another day.[13] Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stated that Israel will take as long as needed to win the war in the Gaza Strip against Hamas in a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.[14] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu similarly reiterated his oath to eliminate Hamas, saying that “nothing will stop us” after his meeting with Blinken.[15] Netanyahu also spoke to Blinken about the "next phase” of fighting.[16] The al Qassem Brigades issued on Telegram a warning to its fighters to be on high alert on the evening of November 29 before Israel and Hamas renewed the pause.[17] Hamas does not ordinarily issue orders to its fighters on this public channel, suggesting the statement was intended to message Hamas’ military readiness.

The United Nations confirmed that 10,500 liters of fuel reached two northern Gaza Strip hospitals on November 29.[18] The Palestinian Red Crescent Society and UNRWA delivered medical supplies and fuel to al Ahli hospital and al Sahaba hospital. This fuel will operate the hospitals' generators for about a week. The United Nations noted the lack of fuel in the northern Gaza Strip is disrupting water filtration plants, however. The Gazan Health Ministry director stated on November 30 that that fuel had not reached hospitals in Gaza city and the northern parts of the strip, which is preventing hospitals from resuming their full operations, according to Lebanese Hezbollah-affiliated media.[19]

NOTE: The IDF has said that its forces are stationed along ceasefire lines across the Gaza Strip during the pause in fighting. CTP-ISW's map of Israeli clearing operations shows reported Israeli clearing operations and the claimed furthest Israeli advances. CTP-ISW will not be mapping the shift in Israeli operating areas during the humanitarian pause.

The IDF reported that it intercepted a “suspicious target” outside the Gaza Strip over Netivot on November 30.[20] Israel frequently uses the term “suspicious target” to refer to direct and indirect fire attacks into Israeli territory. Israel has not confirmed from where the target originated and said that the event is under investigation. No group claimed the attack. Palestinian militias had not conducted indirect fire attacks into Israel from the Gaza Strip since the humanitarian pause began on November 24.[21]

West Bank

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

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

Palestinian fighters conducted nine attacks targeting Israeli forces in the West Bank on November 30.[22] The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades—the self-proclaimed militant wing of Fatah—engaged Israeli forces in three small arms clashes in Qalaqiya, Tubas, and Tulkarm.[23] The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades also detonated an IED targeting Israeli forces during an Israeli raid in the Tulkarm refugee camp. The al Quds Brigades separately detonated an IED on Israeli forces in Tubas.[24]

Hamas conducted a shooting attack targeting Israeli civilians in Jerusalem on November 30.[25] Two Hamas gunmen fired on Israeli civilians at a bus stop near an entrance to the city before off-duty Israeli soldiers and an armed civilian killed the gunmen.[26] The Hamas attack killed three Israeli civilians and wounded at least eight others. The attack does not represent a technical violation of the humanitarian pause, which appears to apply only to the Gaza Strip based on statements made by Israel, Hamas, and Qatar. Hamas praised the attackers and said that the attack was in response to Israeli violations and ”massacres” in the Gaza Strip and West Bank and Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners.[27] Hamas also called for an ”escalation of resistance” against Israel without specifying further. The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, al Quds Brigades, and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine celebrated the attack and reiterated the unity of their fighters with one another.[28]

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

LH and other Iranian-backed militias did not claim any attacks into northern Israel on November 30. The IDF intercepted an unspecified “aerial target” that crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory on November 30.[29] No group claimed responsibility for the unspecified ”aerial target”.

Iran and 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

Members of the Axis of Resistance threatened on November 30 to resume their regional attacks on US and Israeli targets if Israel resumes military operations in the Gaza Strip after the humanitarian pause ends. The Axis of Resistance—likely under Iranian direction—has conducted dozens of attacks against US and Israeli targets across the Middle East since the war began but largely stopped these attacks since the pause began on November 24. The Axis of Resistance has continued to attack and seize Israeli-operated tankers in this period, however.

• The Islamic Resistance in Iraq—a coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—stated that it will escalate against the United States inside and outside Iraq if Israel resumes operations in the Gaza Strip. This statement is consistent with the threats that its constituent militias have made against the United States in recent days.[30] The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed 74 attacks on US positions in Iraq and Syria between October 18 and November 23. Neither the Islamic Resistance in Iraq nor any of its affiliated militias have claimed any attacks on US forces since the pause took effect in the Gaza Strip on November 24.[31]
• The Houthi movement military spokesperson said on November 30 that the Houthis are ready to resume military operations against Israel if Israel resumes operations in the Gaza Strip.[32] Houthi Ambassador to Iran Ebrahim al Daylami said in a meeting with Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian in Tehran on November 30 that the decision to target Israel and Israeli assets in the Red Sea is meant to defend the people of the Gaza Strip.[33] The Houthis did not officially affirm its commitment to the Israel-Hamas truce.

An explosion occurred at a Houthi military facility in Sanaa, Yemen, on November 30. Local footage shows a large cloud of smoke in the Jabal Attan area of Sanaa.[34] An independent analyst on X (Twitter) geolocated the footage to a Houthi missile base.[35] Israeli media, citing unspecified Saudi media, reported that a missile strike cause an explosion at a Houthi missile depot located in a closed military zone.[36] A Houthi Political Bureau member claimed that the explosion was caused by an unexploded piece of ordinance in a mountainous area, without mentioning the military facility.[37] The US Department of Defense press secretary confirmed on November 30 that the US military did not target a Houthi base in Yemen.[38] The Houthis have claimed responsibility for several attacks on Israel and Israeli-owned tankers in the Red Sea throughout the Israel-Hamas war.

Iranian Armed Forces General Staff Chief Major General Mohammad Bagheri discussed expanding Iranian-Saudi military ties during a phone call with Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman al Saud on November 30.[39] They also discussed “important issues in the Islamic world,” possibly including the Israel-Hamas war. Bagheri has discussed the war with foreign defense officials on numerous occasions since the war began. Bagheri held separate phone calls with the Russian and Qatari defense ministers on October 19, for example.[40]

Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian criticized the Emirati government for hosting Israeli President Isaac Herzog during a phone call with his Emirati counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan on November 30.[41] Abdollahian stated that Herzog’s presence at the UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai warrants “serious consideration.” IRGC-affiliated media separately reported that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi did not attend the conference “in protest” against Herzog’s presence.[42] The Iranian regime has consistently pressured Arab and Muslim countries, especially ones that have normalized relations with Israel, since the Israel-Hamas war began to cut diplomatic and economic ties with Israel.

The Artesh and IRGC navies conducted a joint naval exercise with the Royal Navy of Oman in the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman on November 30.[43] Iranian media reported that the naval forces monitored maritime traffic as part of the exercise. Iran and Oman have regularly conducted joint exercises in recent years, such as in December 2021.[44]

Assembly of Experts member Rahim Tavakol revealed that an Assembly of Experts committee is discussing deputy supreme leader candidates during an interview with Iranian reformist-affiliated media on November 28.[45] The Assembly of Experts is an Iranian regime entity constitutionally responsible for monitoring the supreme leader and selecting his successor. The committee that Tavakol mentioned is the same three-person committee that is reportedly responsible for preparing a short list of potential candidates to succeed Ali Khamenei.[46] Tavakol confirmed that he is a member of the committee and did not deny when asked about reports that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Friday Prayer Leader Ahmad Khatami are the other members. Khatami is a staunch hardliner who entered the Assembly of Experts in 1999.[47] Any individual holding the position of deputy supreme leader would be an obvious candidate to replace current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei when he dies.

Some Western observers have noted that the Assembly of Experts is discussing deputy supreme leader candidates amid rumors of Khamenei’s deteriorating health.[48] An equally if not more plausible explanation is that the officials are having this discussion in the context of the upcoming Assembly of Experts election in March 2024. Assembly of Experts members are elected every eight years, meaning that the next assembly will probably select the next supreme leader given that Khamenei is 84 years old.[49]

The Islamic Republic has had only one deputy supreme leader in its history thus far. The Assembly of Experts appointed Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri in 1985 to the position under then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini and designated him as Khomeini’s successor.[50] Khomeini dismissed Montazeri in 1989 for questioning regime policies, such as the regime’s mass execution of political prisoners in 1988.[51] The regime placed Montazeri under house arrest until 2003, and he died in 2009.[52]

Artesh Coordination Deputy Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari claimed on November 30 that Israel has withdrawn its forces from the Caucasus since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7.[53] The Iranian regime has historically accused Baku of allowing Israel to use Azerbaijani territory to launch operations against Iran, as CTP-ISW has reported on numerous occasions.[54]

11. Experts warn Hamas in a holy war against all Western civilization

Experts warn Hamas in a holy war against all Western civilization - ISRAEL21c

Four experts explain why ‘the West is next’ isn’t just a catchy scare phrase but an accurate description of the threat Hamas poses to Western civilization.

israel21c.org · by Ben Suissa · November 30, 2023

“Oh, don’t be naïve. Hamas would chop your head off too.”

This and similar messages were plastered on billboards across the United States by JewBelong.org following the October 7 Hamas murders, kidnappings and atrocities in Israel’s Gaza border communities.

The billboards intend to shock Americans into recognizing that Israel is fighting their fight, too.

JewBelong cofounder Archie Gottesman warns that Hamas is “in a holy war against the Western way of life. They are an oppressive organization that will not stop with the Jews and Israel. … Standing up to the hate is crucial for all of us.”

Controversial though the group’s tactics may be, it’s hardly the only one ringing the #WestIsNext alarm bell.

Prof. Jonathan Rynhold, senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. Photo courtesy of BIU

“The Israel-Hamas war is about defending the ‘free world’ and standing up for civilization and decency against barbarism and monstrous depravity,” says Prof. Jonathan Rynhold, a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University.

“The transnational ideology with which Hamas is associated poses a serious threat to the security and safety of all citizens in every free society. Israel must win or else jihadis will be emboldened to use similar methods against other members of the free world,” he warns.

Threat to the free world

Lt. Col. (res.) Shay Har-Zvi, senior fellow in the Institute for Policy and Strategy at Reichman University and former acting director general of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, sees the war between Israel and Hamas as a global confrontation between two axes.

“One is led by the United States, European states, moderate Arab countries and Israel; and the other is led by Iran and supported by Russia, China, Hamas, Hezbollah and other militias in the region” such as the Yemenite Houthis.

Agreeing with US President Biden’s assertion that “both Putin and Hamas are fighting to wipe a neighboring democracy off the map” to ignite and take advantage of regional instability, Har-Zvi says Russia is happy to see America’s focus shifting from Ukraine to the Middle East.

“Israel must win or else jihadis will be emboldened to use similar methods against other members of the free world.”

“Putin has even made statements supporting Hamas. This is why President Biden has supported us from the beginning despite criticism from radical elements in the Democratic party and within his own administration,” says Har-Zvi.

Dr. Lt. Col. Shay Har-Zvi, senior fellow in the Institute for Policy and Strategy at Reichman University. Photo by Gilad Kavalerchik

“He understands that the outcome of the war will have severe implications for the entire Middle East in the long run. If we succeed to eliminate Hamas, we could revive normalization negotiations with Saudi Arabia. If we don’t succeed, Hamas will try to take over Judea and Samaria, and that will endanger stability in Jordan and beyond,” he says.

Concerning moderate Arab countries, “There is a huge difference between strategic interests and constraints,” says Har-Zvi. “They are under pressure from the public to support Hamas and criticize Israel but they understand we must win this war.”

Gulf countries know, Rynhold says, that “whoever has their hands on the oil spigot has huge geostrategic power.”

They need Israel to help them avoid losing that power if Iran and its proxies were to join Hamas in a regional war.

“Regional war would change the whole balance of power. All US allies would weaken and Iran would be a stronghold backed by Russia and China.” And if they were to turn off the oil spigot, the world economy would grind to a halt.

“This is why the Middle East is really, really important to protecting the free world and why Israel is a critical piece of that puzzle,” says Rynhold.

Writer and North American history scholar Prof. Gil Troy, a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, adds that the free world “cannot afford to have Israel lose.”

“Don’t give evil the victory, don’t give Russia and China the victory, don’t give Iran the victory. Most important, the free world must recognize Iran’s role in all this and start strangling it economically — while bullying Qatar politically/diplomatically.”

Hamas = ISIS

Har-Zvi says Israel has two objectives: eliminating Hamas militarily and bringing back all the hostages, including four Israeli citizens held in Gaza for years.

Western leaders have given Israel the legitimacy needed to achieve these objectives by clearly equating Hamas with Islamic State (ISIS) in terms of ideology and war crimes.

“As Western leaders continue to fight to eliminate ISIS, they give Israel license to eliminate Hamas, and Hamas understands this,” Har-Zvi tells ISRAEL21c.

“If Hamas won’t be eliminated after what it did on October 7, it might encourage other groups to carry out terror attacks in the West.”

Rynhold notes that Western countries experienced instances in 2015 “when people who went to Syria to fight for Islamic State would come home and use what they learned in their own societies.”

There’s a real danger of this “contagion” spreading and inspiring other terrorist acts, adds Rynhold. “These type of things jump across countries; they trigger one another.”

Juliana Geron Pilon, senior fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization and a board member of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations, believes Israel will win the war.

Dr. Juliana Geran Pilon, senior fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization. Photo courtesy of Juliana Geran Pilon

“But how decisively and how soon and at what cost? Hamas is like ISIS, and ISIS is not gone. If there are elements of Hamas continuing to affect the wellbeing of Israelis, it’s not over,” Pilon says.

“The continuing problem will have to involve Israel’s and the rest of the world’s understanding of how to be a bulwark against this brand of terrorism and asymmetric warfare that disregards morality and international law.”

Testing ground for the West

Rynhold says Israel is a testing ground for how Western armies will have to fight future wars in defense of democracy.

“If you create rules that don’t allow Israel to win, it sets a dangerous precedent and creates a battlefield favorable to the terrorists. A general normative standard will gain political traction that does not allow free societies to defend themselves effectively,” he says.

“If I apply a standard that says, ‘If you’re in a hospital, even if the other side has committed a war crime by storing its weapons there, you can’t attack it,’ then how can I win? And how can I win if a terrorist group uses human shields?

“The war is right inside your heart and your mind and your immediate neighborhood and what you do on a daily basis.”

“I must have rules that distinguish me from the barbarians but that also allow me to win.”

Without such rules, “whenever the West is engaged in fighting any kind of terrorist, people will say, ‘This is against international law, this is undemocratic.’ You have to have a way of fighting that is realistic. You can’t expect your own soldiers to die in order to protect terrorists.”

The concept of proportionality, he says, is often misunderstood and unfairly applied.

“If you can’t kill more than the enemy, you’re unlikely to win the war. Proportionality isn’t a numbers game. It’s about the amount of force you use and risks you take with civilians on the other side to achieve a legitimate military objective. And that has to be decided by the commander in the field, not by someone talking to you on television.”

Little Satan, big Satan

All of the above explains why the United States is supplying arms to the sole democracy in the Middle East; why it sent two aircraft carriers to Israel’s northern Mediterranean coast; and why Biden’s senior energy adviser went to Lebanon and Qatar in an effort to contain cross-border attacks on Israel from Iranian proxies.

“Israel and America are the two covenantal, liberal, nationalist countries that are in the crosshairs against the enemies of freedom and democracy,” says Pilon.

Not everyone understands this danger, she adds.

“When Iran talks about ‘big Satan’ and ‘little Satan,’ that means the United States and Israel. But throughout the still relatively civilized world, there is historic and strategic ignorance. People don’t know what’s going on. Even influential policymakers I’ve spoken to, what they don’t know boggles the mind.”

Furthermore, Americans are wary of getting involved in foreign conflicts — especially following long, costly and fruitless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Rynhold says.

However, “America learned after Pearl Harbor that you cannot isolate yourself. You can defend yourself when the threat is smaller and farther away, or wait till it’s bigger and closer to home and your potential allies have been defeated,” he says.

“President Biden understands that giving aid to stable, strong democratic allies can keep the threat farther away. If America loses its democratic allies it will have less power to defend itself and give the other side more.”

Tactically speaking, Har-Zvi adds, “there are some differences with the United States. They asked us to give humanitarian aid to Gaza, which is President Biden’s way of saying ‘Help us to help you. You need legitimacy to continue this war.’ It’s going to be a long war and we need that legitimacy from American and European leaders.”

West is next, or now?

So, is the West next?

“We aren’t next,” says Pilon, who is based in Washington, DC.

“We are here now. The war is right inside your heart and your mind and your immediate neighborhood and what you do on a daily basis. This is a war that tests all of us and our reactions. It flushes out the strengths and weaknesses of the moral fiber of the Western world.”

The anti-Israel, antisemitic, pro-terrorist reaction seen in media outlets and college campuses, she says, has actually had a positive outcome.

“Besides exposing tactics of disinformation and profound hypocrisy among the elite, it has also awakened people to the need to know more. They are reading websites and books about Israel because everybody is affected. We have no choice but to understand what is going on as honestly and accurately as possible.”

She and Troy emphasize that while Jews across the Western world are afraid, the threat goes well beyond them.

“The savagery of October 7 didn’t just target the Jews but civilization itself,” says Troy.

“Western civilization lives and dies by certain norms. When barbarians violate them repeatedly, gleefully, sadistically — and get away with it — we all suffer. The boundaries that contain barbaric behavior weaken unless the West responds strongly.”

Moreover, says Troy, “the decades-long lies reinforced in the last few weeks — that Hamas sadists are ‘freedom fighters’ and that hospitals and mosques filled with armaments are not legitimate targets and that Israel’s attempt to defend itself is genocidal — all these don’t just libel the Jews but try to undermine civilization itself.”

Pilon sums up: “As long as the Hamas war is still with us, we in the West are going to be a part of it.”

israel21c.org · by Ben Suissa · November 30, 2023

12. Marine Corps looks at ocean glider for rapid resupply to fight China

Excerpts:

Regent’s current seaglider model ― and the one the Warfighting Lab would be assessing ― is the 12-passenger Viceroy.

The glider can travel up to 180 miles on a single charge, but the company is working to stretch that range outward as battery technology improves, Bill Thalheimer, co-founder and CEO of Regent, told Marine Corps Times in an interview. He theorizes the range could reach 500 miles by the end of the decade.

In light of that expected trajectory, Thalheimer said, the military use case for the gliders in maritime regions like the Indo-Pacific became clear. The novelty of the platform also lends itself to experimentation by entities like the Warfighting Lab.

The Viceroy seaglider initially will be comparable in cost to a small aircraft such as a Cessna Grand Caravan or DHC-6 Twin Otter, he said, although the company expects the cost to come down as more enter production. Those planes cost between $2 and $4 million new.

The yet-to-be-completed fully operational prototype will weigh 15,000 pounds, handle a payload of 3,500 pounds and have a 65-foot wingspan.

Marine Corps looks at ocean glider for rapid resupply to fight China

marinecorpstimes.com · by Hope Hodge Seck · November 30, 2023

The challenge of effective emergency resupply and medical transport in austere and isolated regions such as the Indo-Pacific has led the Marine Corps to invest in “hoverbike” drones and robot mules.

Now, the Corps is investing millions in a developmental “flying ferry” that purports to solve the same problem.

The Marine Corps Warfighting Lab has signed a nearly $5 million contract to test out hydrofoiling seagliders, which may provide an innovative solution for medical evacuation and resupply in littoral regions.

The contract is with Rhode Island-based Regent, a three-year-old company developing all-electric gliders for defense and commercial use. The company announced in November 2022 it had assembled a defense advisory board of retired general and flag officers, notably including Gen. Robert Neller, the 37th commandant of the Marine Corps.

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These seagliders, still in development, represent a boat-aircraft hybrid that has no direct parallel in the commercial or military world. A hydrofoiling base, or small platform that touches the water, allows the body of the glider to stay “airborne” while in motion a short distance above the water’s surface, though not actually in flight. Regent says it has sold 467 of the craft so far to commercial aviation and ferry customers around the world, and has an order backlog totaling nearly $8 billion.

Regent’s current seaglider model ― and the one the Warfighting Lab would be assessing ― is the 12-passenger Viceroy.

The glider can travel up to 180 miles on a single charge, but the company is working to stretch that range outward as battery technology improves, Bill Thalheimer, co-founder and CEO of Regent, told Marine Corps Times in an interview. He theorizes the range could reach 500 miles by the end of the decade.

In light of that expected trajectory, Thalheimer said, the military use case for the gliders in maritime regions like the Indo-Pacific became clear. The novelty of the platform also lends itself to experimentation by entities like the Warfighting Lab.

The Viceroy seaglider initially will be comparable in cost to a small aircraft such as a Cessna Grand Caravan or DHC-6 Twin Otter, he said, although the company expects the cost to come down as more enter production. Those planes cost between $2 and $4 million new.

The yet-to-be-completed fully operational prototype will weigh 15,000 pounds, handle a payload of 3,500 pounds and have a 65-foot wingspan.

Thalheimer said the glider could fill a known gap in the Marines’ high-speed logistics mission in the Pacific while freeing up helicopters and other longer-range assets for different tasks.

The range of Marine Corps experimentation efforts with light and low-cost platforms that can cover coastal distances fast ― perhaps spanning the distance between an expeditionary advanced base in the littorals and a better-equipped medical center in time to provide care to a wounded Marine within the critical Golden Hour ― speaks to the difficulty of the problem. Former Commandant Gen. David Berger said earlier this year that logistics represents the Corps’ greatest current challenge.

The seagliders “address a recognized gap within the U.S. Department of Defense for high-speed, low-cost, low-signature, runway-independent mobility in the littorals and fulfill a range of mission sets including troop and cargo transport, expeditionary advanced base operations, and communications,” Regent said in a released statement.

The news of the new glider development contract coincides with the publication of an article by Marine Corps Capt. Trevor Shimulunas arguing for a similar concept: unmanned, single-use aerial gliders for small unit logistics.

“Glider systems decrease the risk of detection by enemy forces,” Shimulunas writes for U.S. Naval Institute Magazine Proceedings. “Released at a significant standoff distance from the supported unit, gliders could eliminate the risk of audible detection, and their small size and color scheme would decrease risk of visual detection.”

Notably, the kinds of unmanned gliders Shimulunas describes are smaller and less expensive than Regent’s model, and would only carry cargo, not passengers.

The Warfighting Lab, Thalheimer said, will be conducting three separate demonstrations as part of the agreement with Regent: a float demo, a hydrofoil demo and a flight demo.

These initial “barebones” demonstrations, he said, will prove out the aircraft’s abilities to operate through its full operating envelope.

According to Regent’s announcement about the Marine Corps contract, the demonstration period will culminate “in a live technical demonstration of the full-scale prototype during a large-scale exercise hosted by the U.S. Government.” Thalheimer did not provide additional details about this planned exercise, saying those conversations are just beginning. The Marine Corps is not purchasing any seagliders in the contract, he said. The Corps’ investment, he added, will allow for maturation of the technology and validation of the concept. Thalheimer added the company was also pursuing conversations with the Coast Guard, which may have a use for seagliders for maritime patrol.

Marine Corps officials did not immediately respond to an inquiry about Regent and its plans to demonstrate the glider.

In addition to logistics and medevac between and around expeditionary forward bases in the littorals, Thalheimer said the Viceroy could serve as an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platform or an ad hoc communications network when equipped with the right payload.

“They’re essentially aircraft with unlimited loiter time, because they can land and take off in the water,” he said.

In a statement, Neller highlighted this intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance use case, saying speed and signature management in the littorals was critical.

“REGENT seagliders provide the ability to distribute multiple capabilities in the littorals, including logistics, command and control, and ISR,” he said. “The REGENT seaglider capabilities will create success.”

While the prospect of a manned seaglider without armament or built-in defenses operating in a potentially contested future littoral environment might give many pause, Thalheimer said the company is addressing that concern.

Regent expects to develop a future unmanned and autonomous version of the glider soon, he said, adding that its current control system already is highly automated and adaptation will be made easier due to the simplicity of conducting testing over water rather than in trafficked areas.

The currently planned manned version, though, offers certain advantages over traditional aircraft, Thalheimer said. The complexity of training pilots to fly the glider is much less than with a conventional military aircraft, meaning requirements can be lessened and training length shortened, he said.

“These can be enlisted service men and women who are at the helm of this, driving it like a boat with essentially all the capabilities of an aircraft,” he said.

About Hope Hodge Seck

Hope Hodge Seck is an award-winning investigative and enterprise reporter covering the U.S. military and national defense. The former managing editor of Military.com, her work has also appeared in the Washington Post, Politico Magazine, USA Today and Popular Mechanics.

13. War resumes in Gaza after truce collapses

War resumes in Gaza after truce collapses

Reuters · by Nidal Al-Mughrabi

• Summary
• LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
• Israeli leaflets call Gaza's main southern city Khan Younis a 'dangerous fighting zone'

GAZA, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Israeli warplanes pounded Gaza, sending scores of wounded and dead pouring into hospitals, and rocket sirens blared in southern Israel on Friday as war resumed after a week-old truce ran out with no deal to extend it.

As the deadline lapsed, Reuters journalists in Khan Younis in southern Gaza saw eastern areas come under intensive bombardment, sending columns of smoke rising into the sky. Residents took to the streets, fleeing for shelter further west and ferrying dead and injured people into hospitals.

In the north of the enclave, previously the main war zone, huge plumes of smoke rose above the ruins, seen from across the fence in Israel. The rattle of gunfire and thud of explosions rang out above the sound of barking dogs.

Barely two hours after the truce expired, Gaza health officials reported that 54 people had already been killed and dozens wounded in air strikes that hit at least eight homes.

Medics and witnesses said the bombing was most intensive in Khan Younis and Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, areas where hundreds of thousands of Gazans have been sheltering from fighting further north. Houses in central and northern areas were also hit.

"Anas, my son!" wailed the mother of Anas Anwar al-Masri, a boy lying on a stretcher with a head injury in the corridor of Nasser hospital in Khan Younis. "I don't have anyone but you!"

Gazans feared that the intense bombing of southern Gaza heralded an expansion of the war into areas Israel had previously described as safe.

Leaflets dropped on eastern areas of the main southern city Khan Younis ordered residents of four towns to evacuate - not to other areas in Khan Younis as in the past, but further south to the crowded town of Rafah on the Egyptian border.

"You have to evacuate immediately and go to the shelters in the Rafah area. Khan Younis is a dangerous fighting zone. You have been warned," said the leaflets, written in Arabic.

Israel released a link to a map showing Gaza divided into hundreds of districts, which it said would be used in future to communicate which areas were safe.

SIDES BLAME EACH OTHER FOR COLLAPSE

[1/13]An Israeli military helicopter releases a flare over the Israel-Gaza border, after a temporary truce between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas expired, as seen from southern Israel, December 1, 2023. REUTERS/Amir Cohen Acquire Licensing Rights

Each side accused the other of rejecting terms to extend the truce, which had involved freeing hostages seized by Hamas and other militants in the deadly Oct. 7 raid into Israel that precipitated the war, and the release of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

"With the resumption of fighting we emphasise: The Israeli government is committed to achieving the goals of the war - to free our hostages, to eliminate Hamas, and to ensure that Gaza will never pose a threat to the residents of Israel," the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Ezzat El Rashq, a member of the Hamas political bureau, said on the group's website: "What Israel did not achieve during the fifty days before the truce, it will not achieve by continuing its aggression after the truce."

The pause which began on Nov. 24 and was extended twice, had allowed for daily exchanges of Israeli hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian detainees, while trucks brought in aid.

Israel, which rejects calls for a permanent ceasefire, had said the temporary truce could continue as long as Hamas released 10 hostages each day. But after seven days during which women, children and foreign hostages were freed, mediators failed at the final hour to find a formula to release more, possibly including Israeli men.

Qatar, which has played a central role in mediation efforts, said negotiations were still ongoing with Israelis and Palestinians to restore the truce, but that Israel's renewed bombardment of Gaza had complicated its efforts.

Israel has sworn to annihilate Hamas in response to the Oct. 7 rampage by the militant group, when Israel says gunmen killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages. Hamas, sworn to Israel's destruction, has ruled Gaza since 2007.

Israel's bombardment and ground invasion have laid waste to much of the territory. Palestinian health authorities deemed reliable by the United Nations say more than 15,000 Gazans have been confirmed killed and thousands more are missing and feared buried under rubble.

The United Nations says as many as 80% of Gaza's 2.3 million have been driven from their homes, with no way to escape the narrow territory, many sleeping rough in makeshift shelters.

Israel has imposed a total siege, and residents and humanitarian agencies say aid that arrived during the truce was trivial compared to the vast needs of so many displaced people.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who had met Israeli and Palestinian officials on Thursday on his third trip to the region since the war began, declined to comment on the collapse of the truce to reporters travelling on his plane.

The day before, Blinken had called on Israel to do more to protect civilians once fighting resumes. He had praised the truce and said Washington hoped it would be extended.

Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Mohammed Salem and Roleen Tafakji in Gaza, Humeyra Pamuk in Tel Aviv, Ari Rabinovich and Emily Rose in Jerusalem, Andrew Mills in Doha and Reuters bureaux; Writing by Cynthia Osterman, Lincoln Feast, Peter Graff; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Philippa Fletcher

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Nidal Al-Mughrabi

Thomson Reuters

A senior correspondent with nearly 25 years’ experience covering the Palestinian-Israeli conflict including several wars and the signing of the first historic peace accord between the two sides.

Reuters · by Nidal Al-Mughrabi

14. Mike Pompeo: What Made Henry Kissinger Truly Special

Mike Pompeo: What Made Henry Kissinger Truly Special

Henry Kissinger’s belief in American greatness was grounded in two fundamental recognitions: That the American economy was the most dynamic and innovative in the world, and that American military power had no equal.

The National Interest · by Michael R. Pompeo · November 30, 2023

Henry Kissinger passed away this week at the age of 100. His passing marks the loss of a great American and a model of service.

From the day he came to the United States as a teenager fleeing Nazi Germany, Dr. Kissinger dedicated his life to serving this great country and keeping America safe. Throughout his career in public service, Henry Kissinger left an indelible mark on America's history and the world.

Dr. Kissinger has often received criticism for his realist approach to politics, yet Kissinger’s critics misunderstand his essential character: He was a man who believed deeply in America and our way of life. He understood that America is great, that America is good, and that America is exceptional. And that is why he was so successful as America’s top diplomat.

Henry Kissinger’s belief in American greatness was grounded in two fundamental recognitions: That the American economy was the most dynamic and innovative in the world, and that American military power had no equal.

Admirably, Kissinger used these tools of greatness to accomplish truly good outcomes for America. His diplomatic efforts following the Yom Kippur War resulted in a landmark shift in America’s approach to the Jewish nation state in favor of Israel – a shift that has remained today and has made both America and the Middle East safer. His work to negotiate the first arms-limitations talks between the United States and Russia was equally important both in his time and future decades. Like the rest of the work throughout his career in public service, these efforts were spurred on not by the amoral desire to acquire and wield power, but rather by the genuine desire to contribute to the ordering of a world in which the United States, and all that it stood for, would be secure and prosperous.

So long as he made progress toward this objective, Dr. Kissinger was willing to be called every bad name in the book by his critics. For this commitment, we should remember him as a great American.

Crucially, at the core of Henry Kissinger’s worldview was also his unshakeable belief that America was exceptional. He understood America’s inherent promise and cherished our foundational values, all the more important to him given his own family’s flight from Nazi Germany when he was just 15 years old, as well as the experience he gained serving in the U.S. Army just five years later – including the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Ahrlem.

Kissinger’s recollections of his early years in the United States time reflect that his appreciation for America was grounded in his love for the unique character of the American people: “I always remembered the thrill when I first walked the streets of New York City. Seeing a group of boys, I began to cross to the other side to avoid being beaten up. And then I remembered where I was.”

He was in America, a place he described as “a dream, an incredible place where tolerance was natural and personal freedom unchallenged.” It is impossible to understand Dr. Kissinger’s work in service to America without first understanding his deep appreciation for the United States, his respect for its principles, and his love for the American people. I pray that his reality remains ours for years to come.

Dr. Kissinger’s love of the United States and his motivation to serve it was evident even in his final years. At the age of 96, he made the trip back to his old stomping grounds at Foggy Bottom to headline the Department of State’s 230th Anniversary celebration during my tenure as Secretary of State. Even more importantly, he graciously offered advice to me on countless occasions. He was always supportive and consistently demonstrated a remarkable command of the issues facing America abroad; his wisdom made me better and more prepared after every one of our conversations. I will always be grateful for his advice and help.

Henry Kissinger realized both the enormous importance of our country and the threats to its existence. His realist approach to the world was not devoid of morality; instead, it was taken in service to a much higher good, the good to which he firmly believed the United States was dedicated. In the face of the challenges that beset America today, our greatest hope must be that our leaders act with the same devotion to America’s foundational principles that Henry Kissinger displayed during his life.

About the Author

Mike Pompeo, a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute, served as the 70th U.S. Secretary of State (2018-21) and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2017-18). You can follow home on Twitter: @MikePompeo.

The National Interest · by Michael R. Pompeo · November 30, 2023

15. Facing failure, Estonia pushes EU ammunition target for Ukraine

Excerpts:

“One of the big things we struggle with in Europe, is there is little visibility on what have been the bigger orders from different nations’ to their defense industry and what they are doing. A majority of nations do not share the information,” she said.

The overall vagueness could also be due to political hedging, Duneton added, without wanting to name specific countries. “A possibility could be that they haven’t put any orders into the pipelines, in which case we must ask: Are they really willing to finance those orders? Industry cannot extend its production infinitely if they do not see orders coming in.”

The outcome of Ukraine’s defense is considered existential for Estonia, as officials there believe a victorious Moscow could target the Baltics next, Duneton said.

“It is possible that this threat perception is not as widely shared by all, as of course it always depends on where one is geographically located, but from our perspective, we need to pull all the stops to make Ukraine win,” she said.

Facing failure, Estonia pushes EU ammunition target for Ukraine

Defense News · by Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo · November 30, 2023

MILAN — The European Union’s sluggish progress in drastically increasing ammunition supplies to Ukraine has Baltic nation Estonia nervous about some member nations’ internal politics getting in the way, according to a senior Estonian defense official.

“On our part, we are constantly pushing different nations to not give up because the timeline of deliveries is next March, so we still have a couple of months ahead of us to either fully reach it or at least get as close to it as possible,” Tuuli Duneton, undersecretary for defense policy said, told Defense News in an interview.

“I wouldn’t say I am entirely pessimistic about the EU target, but a lot remains to be done,” she added.

Estonia was a key initiator last spring of an EU plan to jointly deliver 1 million rounds of ammunition to Ukraine by March 2024.

Duneton’s comments came after Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on Kyiv’s backers to ensure that the country has enough 155mm artillery shells to repel invading Russian forces, with companies synced to execute substantial production increases.

For now, the number of shells delivered is 300,000, according to Kuleba.

“We need to create a Euro-Atlantic common area of defense industries,” he said ahead of a meeting with his NATO counterparts in Brussels this week.

In Tallinn’s view, the diagnosis of what went wrong so far in producing the envisioned amount is more complicated than EU leaders’ initial reaction of pointing the finger at industry.

“Altogether, European nations have not in previous years placed significant orders for 155mm ammunition, and all of a sudden there is a need to put peak orders on the market right away,” Duneton said. “Simultaneously, many bigger states, the same who are struggling to fulfill NATO’s 2%, are scrambling to achieve that target while facing their own domestic issues.”

A contributing factor is the secrecy with which some governments treat Ukraine support and related domestic production increases, which makes to difficult to compare notes among member nations.

“One of the big things we struggle with in Europe, is there is little visibility on what have been the bigger orders from different nations’ to their defense industry and what they are doing. A majority of nations do not share the information,” she said.

The overall vagueness could also be due to political hedging, Duneton added, without wanting to name specific countries. “A possibility could be that they haven’t put any orders into the pipelines, in which case we must ask: Are they really willing to finance those orders? Industry cannot extend its production infinitely if they do not see orders coming in.”

The outcome of Ukraine’s defense is considered existential for Estonia, as officials there believe a victorious Moscow could target the Baltics next, Duneton said.

“It is possible that this threat perception is not as widely shared by all, as of course it always depends on where one is geographically located, but from our perspective, we need to pull all the stops to make Ukraine win,” she said.

Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. She covers a wide range of topics related to military procurement and international security, and specializes in reporting on the aviation sector. She is based in Milan, Italy.

16. 5 Things To Know About The Pentagon’s Information Strategy

I am not from Missouri but I say: Show Me on number 2. And tell me how we are going to change the culture and learn to "lead with influence."

The 5:

1) We All Live In An Information Environment

2) Informational Power Should Not Be an Afterthought

3) Threats In the Information Environment Are Getting Worse

4) The Military Can’t Go It Alone

5) The Strategy Is Incomplete

5 Things To Know About The Pentagon’s Information Strategy

Forbes · by Jill Goldenziel · November 30, 2023

... [+]Getty Images

This month, the US Department of Defense released its new Strategy for Operations in the Information Environment. Signed by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in July, the strategy represents the Department’s first update to this strategy since 2016. Here’s what to know about the new strategy—and what’s missing:

1) We All Live In An Information Environment

DoD defines the information environment as the “aggregate of social, cultural, linguistic, psychological, technical, and physical factors that affect how humans and automated systems derive meaning from, act upon, and are impacted by information, including the individuals, organizations, and systems that collect, process, disseminate or use information.” Operations in the Information Environment (OIE) may include military actions that employ multiple information forces to affect others’ behavior, influencing foreign actors, attacking and exploiting information about relevant actors, networks, and systems; and protecting friendly information, networks, and systems.

OIE is a concept broader than “information operations.” Information operations involve the employment of information-related capabilities during military operations to affect an adversary’s behavior or protect U.S. military efforts. The term OIE reflects a broadening of the Department’s thinking about the ways that it, together with the Department of State and other Government agencies, can employ information as an instrument of national power—and ways that US adversaries use information against it. As the DoD explores the best ways to integrate informational power, each service has organized its information-related capabilities and relevant terminology somewhat differently. The Marine Corps, for example, stopped using the term OIE in favor of “information warfighting function.”

2) Informational Power Should Not Be an Afterthought

Informational power will be critical for the U.S. military to succeed, inside and outside of armed conflict. The strategy recognizes that the military is less comfortable using information than other weapons in its arsenal. Military planners and commanders often view operations in the information environment as an afterthought. The strategy calls for a cultural shift to better understand and incorporate informational power into strategy, operations, and activities throughout the Department. The Department aims to positively affect the drivers of human and automated system behaviors, shape the environments in which the military operates, and reinforce U.S. legitimacy.

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3) Threats In the Information Environment Are Getting Worse

U.S. adversaries have adeptly leveraged disinformation and deception and manipulated the information environment. Russia’s attempts to undermine the U.S. electoral process and sow discord in American society are well known. Russia continues to try to undermine U.S. alliances and interests through a vast network of proxies. China uses informational power to support its geostrategic and economic goals, and employs Kremlin-like tactics to exploit U.S. societal divisions via social media. China is also using lawfare in the information environment to bolster its illegal claims in the South China Sea. Iran and North Korea focus their informational power on cyber, deception, and malign influence to create regional instability and threaten U.S. interests.

4) The Military Can’t Go It Alone

Partnerships are critical for the DoD to outmatch U.S. adversaries in the information environment. Working with partners and allies, who know their own and regional languages, cultures, and people best, will be critical to achieving military success abroad. Close to home, the DoD must work closely with other government agencies, particularly the intelligence community and the Department of State, which handles public diplomacy. The DoD also plans to engage academia, the private sector, NGOs, tribal governments, and others in its efforts.

5) The Strategy Is Incomplete

The strategy’s broad aims will be fleshed out in an implementation plan in the coming months. The “I-Plan,” as such documents are known in government circles, will have many gaps to fill. After the controversial and swift death of the Department of Homeland Security’s Orwellian-sounding Disinformation Governance Board last year, the Pentagon would do well to transparently flesh out the roles and responsibilities of its eerily-named “Strategic Information Oversight Board.” The document makes an offhand reference to “the risk of potential exposure of United States persons to information intended exclusively for foreign audiences.” This phrase should raise the eyebrows of any American concerned about First Amendment rights and government accountability—as well as partners and allies wondering if they’re being told the truth. A glaring omission from the DoD’s wish list of partners is the press—which has been practicing information as an instrument of power far longer than the Pentagon—and which is a partner the military cannot afford to lose. And the DoD’s plan to rapidly increase its civilian and military workforce in order to improve its informational power will mean new employment opportunities, fertile recruiting ground, and potential risks. As with all strategies, the devil will be in the details of implementation.

Forbes · by Jill Goldenziel · November 30, 2023

17. Military to Curtail Recruiting and Duty Station Moves if Congress Resorts to a Yearlong Stopgap Budget, Joint Chiefs Chairman Warns

​Thanks Congress. You do so well taking care of our national security. Note the potential long term impacts of your actions (or lack of action).

Military to Curtail Recruiting and Duty Station Moves if Congress Resorts to a Yearlong Stopgap Budget, Joint Chiefs Chairman Warns

military.com · by Rebecca Kheel · November 30, 2023

Military personnel funding would have a $5.8 billion shortfall and no new military construction projects would be able to start if Congress does not pass a regular full-year Pentagon spending bill for this fiscal year, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned in a recent letter to Congress.

"DoD has never operated under a year-long CR; it would be historically costly to the Joint Force," Gen. Charles "C.Q." Brown wrote to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday.

Since the start of the fiscal year at the beginning of October, the Defense Department, along with the rest of the federal government, has been operating under a stopgap spending measure known as a continuing resolution, or CR, because lawmakers have been unable to agree to regular full-year appropriations bills.

Brown's letter warns Congress against relying on the temporary measures through next October, rather than passing traditional budget legislation with new funding levels.

CRs essentially put the government on autopilot by extending the previous year's funding level while preventing new programs from starting. They have been standard for Congress to pass for the first few months of the fiscal year in recent decades, but a yearlong CR would be unprecedented.

Under the current stopgap measure, most Pentagon funding expires Feb. 2. Military construction funding has an earlier deadline of Jan. 19.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., reportedly told senators during a closed-door meeting Wednesday that if a full-year spending agreement is not reached by Feb. 2, he would move forward on a yearlong CR, according to Bloomberg.

But also Wednesday, the House Freedom Caucus, a bloc of far-right Republicans that has successfully stymied congressional work several times this year, softened its demand for steep domestic spending cuts. The shift raises the prospects of lawmakers being able to reach a spending agreement.

Military personnel funding is at particular risk during a yearlong CR because, by law, service members get a pay raise on Jan. 1 regardless of whether the Pentagon gets increased funding to cover the raise. That forces the department to take money for the pay bump from other personnel accounts.

The last time the specter of a full-year CR was raised, military officials warned of devastating consequences for service members, including disrupting permanent change of station moves and bonuses.

Brown's recent letter, released by Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, echoes those concerns.

"A yearlong CR would create a $5.8 billion shortfall in military personnel funding and exacerbate recruiting and retention challenges," Brown wrote. "DoD would be forced to delay service member moves and slow recruiting to offset the costs of the 5.2% pay raise for the military."

The hit to recruiting efforts would come at a time when most of the military has already been unable to make its recruiting goals.

Brown also singled out a yearlong CR's effect on military construction, which has received heightened attention in recent months after a watchdog report detailed unlivable barracks conditions.

"Military construction projects are, by definition, new starts, so a yearlong CR could cause a yearlong delay in construction projects intended to modernize our installations and improve quality of life," he wrote.

At the Department of Veterans Affairs, Secretary Denis McDonough declined Wednesday to discuss the details of what a yearlong CR would mean for his agency because the prospect of extended stopgap spending is "so speculative." The VA's funding deadline in the current CR is Jan. 19.

"We're able to do what we do much more effectively when we have a full-year appropriation," McDonough said at a news conference. "I really hope that Congress takes advantage of this time between now and middle of January to get us an appropriation for the rest of the year."

-- Rebecca Kheel can be reached at rebecca.kheel@military.com. Follow her on X @reporterkheel.

military.com · by Rebecca Kheel · November 30, 2023

18. Exclusive: Judge orders FBI to hand over 9/11 documents on Saudi spy

Excerpt:

“The accused [9/11 defendants] are charged with a conspiracy, so existing evidence from the criminal investigations into that conspiracy is relevant to this case,” wrote Air Force Col. Michael McCall, the military judge presiding over the prosecution of Khalid Shaikh Mohamad and others in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. “It is notable that the prosecution has not argued that additional materials do not exist, nor has it asserted a privilege over the information.”

Exclusive: Judge orders FBI to hand over 9/11 documents on Saudi spy

Omar al-Bayoumi was the subject of FBI investigations that stretched over more than 20 years

https://www.spytalk.co/p/exclusive-judge-orders-fbi-to-hand?utm

SETH HETTENA

DEC 1, 2023

A military judge has ordered the FBI to hand over 3,000 pages of documents involving a Saudi intelligence asset who assisted the first two hijackers to arrive in the United States, information that the U.S. government has fought to keep secret for more than two decades. 

The order issued Thursday by a judge overseeing the case of 9/11 defendants in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba covers FBI documents referencing Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi living in San Diego who played a critical role in helping two newly arrived hijackers settle in the United States.

“The accused [9/11 defendants] are charged with a conspiracy, so existing evidence from the criminal investigations into that conspiracy is relevant to this case,” wrote Air Force Col. Michael McCall, the military judge presiding over the prosecution of Khalid Shaikh Mohamad and others in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. “It is notable that the prosecution has not argued that additional materials do not exist, nor has it asserted a privilege over the information.”

9/11 widow Terry Strada (center) and other stricken families have long campaigned for transparency on Saudi connections to the hijackers (Getty)

Prosecutor Ed Ryan told the court last month that the remaining files on Bayoumi contain both classified and foreign government information. Judge McCall gave prosecutors until January 2 to hand over the documents.

Bayoumi was a subject of FBI investigations for more than 20 years. He became the focus of intense scrutiny after 9/11. FBI agents learned that Bayoumi encouraged two Saudi hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, to come to San Diego. Once there, he helped them open bank accounts, found them an apartment, paid their security deposit, co-signed their lease, and threw a welcoming party for them. 

SpyTalk reported earlier this year about a previously unknown, five-year investigation into Bayoumi by the defense team at Guantanamo. Four unnamed former FBI agents involved in the 9/11 investigation told a defense investigator they believed that Bayoumi was at the center of an operation on U.S. soil by the CIA, working in conjunction with Saudi intelligence, to penetrate Al Qaeda. One former FBI agent indicated that the CIA has “operational” files on Bayoumi that predated 9/11 and were still being suppressed. (The CIA denied withholding information but stopped short of claiming that such files do not exist.)   

.Bayoumi was long suspected to have been a Saudi intelligence agent, allegations that he long denied. FBI files declassified on President Biden’s orders revealed that Bayoumi was paid a monthly stipend as a “cooptee” of the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency. (A cooptee is a citizen of a country, but not an officer or employee of that country’s intelligence service, who assists that service on a temporary or opportunity basis.) According to the declassified FBI memo, Bayoumi was paid by, and reported to, Prince Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud, the longtime Saudi ambassador to the United States and close friend of the Bush family. 

Family members who lost loved ones on 9/11 have been thwarted in their attempts to learn more about Bayoumi and his connections to the Saudi government. “The defense counsel for those accused of mass murder on 9/11 is getting more access to documents than the terror victims themselves,” said Brett Eagleson, who lost his father after al-Qaida operatives commandeered commercial airlines and crashed them into the World Trade Center. 

Bayoumi was a principal focus of the “28 Pages,” the long-withheld final section of the joint congressional committee’s report on 9/11 that was finally released in 2016.

Omar al-Bayoui (Handout via Blogspot)

Eagleson tells SpyTalk that then-President Trump promised he would declassify information relating to Bayoumi and other matters at a White House meeting with 9/11 families in 2019. The following day, Eagleson said, Trump’s Justice Department invoked the state secrets privilege to block the information from becoming public. 

Judge McCall also denied the defense request for information on Bayoumi’s associates, including Fahad al-Thumairy, an employee of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles and the imam of the King Fahd mosque in Culver City, where his extremist sermons appealed to hardcore attendees. 

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In 2007, the FBI opened Operation Encore to examine the network that supported Hazmi and Mihdhar when they arrived in the United States, barely able to speak English. The FBI closed Operation Encore in 2021 after finding insufficient evidence to charge any Saudi government official with conspiring to help the hijackers carry out the 9/11 attack.

“You have to ask yourself why 22 years later, our government is still fighting tooth and nail to protect documents that implicate Saudi Arabia and Omar al-Bayoumi,” Eagleson said. “The US and Saudi governments were working together. That is the only explanation that anybody has given me that has made any sense.”

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19. Half of US would recommend military service to loved ones, report says

Half of US would recommend military service to loved ones, report says

militarytimes.com · by Meghann Myers · November 30, 2023

Much has been made of the services’ struggles to meet recruiting goals in the last few years, which senior military leaders often blame on a shrinking number of young Americans who meet necessary physical standards, as well as a general drop in overall interest in serving. Some of those struggles may also stem from the messages prospective recruits get from peers and trusted adults, according to new data.

Just over 50% of Americans would encourage a family member or friend to enlist, according to the results of the latest Reagan National Defense Survey, an annual report from the Ronald Reagan Institute designed to take Americans’ temperature on national security issues.

This year’s survey found that while 51% of respondents would encourage military service, 31% would actively discourage it.

The data reflects several narratives that have circulated in recent years, including that the diminishing percentage of the U.S. population who are veterans means fewer people are encouraging the youth in their lives to serve. Elsewhere, many conservative voices have argued that the military’s initiatives supporting diversity and inclusion are turning off their younger peers.

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In general, Americans’ esteem for the military has taken a tumble in recent years.

The survey began asking in 2018 about public confidence in the military as an institution, finding that 70% of respondents were highly confident that year. That number steadily fell to 63% in 2019, and 56% in early 2021. Support that year bottomed out at 45% following multiple controversies between President Donald Trump and the military during his administration, and a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in summer 2021 after President Joe Biden took office.

Sentiments have virtually plateaued across the last two surveys, data shows, with 48% high confidence last year and 46% in the latest results.

Researchers have dug deeper in the past two years, first adding questions about why someone felt varying levels of confidence in the military, then this year asking how those opinions would affect someone’s support of a friend of family member enlisting.

“Overall, we did find that about half of Americans would encourage a loved one to join the military; that number is pretty similar among Democrats and Republicans,” Rachel Hoff, the Ronald Reagan Institute’s policy director, told reporters on Tuesday. “But a full one-third of the American people would discourage their loved one from military service. Again, that number is pretty similar among Democrats and Republicans.”

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The reasons behind discouraging service fall more along partisan lines.

“The number one reason to discourage service is simply that the military is too dangerous,” Hoff continued.

That tracks with what young people report as well. The Defense Department surveys 16-to-24-year-olds three times a year, asking about their interest in military service. The most recent results found that 70% were concerned about the risk of injury or death, while 65% were concerned about post-traumatic stress or developing other long-term psychological effects.

“But I do want to point out that numbers two and three on the list here are actually the top reasons when you look at the lists just for Democrats, just for Republicans,” Hoff said.

For Democrats, the biggest reason was an anti-war or pro-peace personal stance. For Republicans, it was the current political climate and a general distrust of politicians and politics.

Those responses dovetailed with questions about why respondents reported varying degrees of confidence in the military.

This year, the survey asked whether respondents felt the Defense Department is doing an adequate job balancing national defense with efforts to make the military an appealing place to work.

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At 47%, Democrats were more likely to respond that the military is striking that balance. Among Republican respondents, 38% felt that the military was “too focused on social issues.”

Slightly more people, 51%, said they would encourage joining the military than the 46% who said they had a high level of confidence in the military.

Hoff pointed to the top reason both parties cited for why they would support a friend of family member joining as a possible reason why those numbers don’t perfectly align.

“It’s about patriotism, service and honor,” she said, which 31% of respondents selected. “And those are things that sort of might exist outside or … those values might rise above any particular concerns around the current military or civilian leadership … which is clearly what’s driving the declining trend overall and institutional confidence.”

About Meghann Myers

Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members.

20. Myanmar's military is losing ground against coordinated nationwide attacks, buoying opposition hopes

Excerpts:

CHINA’S ROLE

Well aware of Beijing’s irritation over the criminal activity along its border, the Three Brotherhood Alliance underlined as it launched its offensive that it was committed to “combatting the widespread online gambling fraud that has plagued Myanmar.”

Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has tried, unsuccessfully, to turn that on its head and say that the offensive is being funded by the drug trade.

As militia forces have advanced toward the city of Laukkaing, where many of the scam centers were located, their operations have been scattering and many high-level suspects have been captured and turned over to China.

Knowing China’s historic ties to the Brotherhood militias and the influence it wields, supporters of Myanmar’s ruling generals have held several demonstrations in major cities, including in front of the Chinese Embassy in Yangon, accusing China of aiding the militia alliance.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin skirted a question about those allegations this week, instead telling reporters that Beijing “respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Myanmar” and reiterating calls for peace.

But Beijing’s actions speak louder than its words, Horsey said.

“If they really wanted the cease-fire, they do have the leverage to enforce one or get pretty far toward enforcing one,” he said. “They haven’t done that, so that’s telling.”

Myanmar's military is losing ground against coordinated nationwide attacks, buoying opposition hopes

BY DAVID RISING

Updated 6:28 AM EST, December 1, 2023

AP · December 1, 2023

BANGKOK (AP) — About two weeks into a major offensive against Myanmar’s military-run government by an alliance of three well-armed militias of ethnic minorities, an army captain, fighting in a jungle area near the northeastern border with China, lamented that he’d never seen such intense action.

His commander in Myanmar’s 99th Light Infantry Division had been killed in fighting in Shan state the week before and the 35-year-old career soldier said army outposts were in disarray and being hit from all sides.

“I have never faced these kinds of battles before,” the combat veteran told The Associated Press by phone. “This fighting in Shan is unprecedented.” Eight days later the captain was dead himself, killed defending an outpost and hastily buried near where he fell, according to his family.

The coordinated offensive in the northeast has inspired resistance forces around the country to attack, and Myanmar’s military is falling back on almost every front. The army says it’s regrouping and will regain the initiative, but hope is rising among opponents that this could be a turning point in the struggle to oust the army leaders who toppled democratically elected Aung San Suu Kyi almost three years ago.

“The current operation is a great opportunity to change the political situation in Myanmar, ” said Li Kyar Win, spokesperson for the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, one of the three militias known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance that launched the offensive on Oct. 27.

“The goal and purpose of the alliance groups and other resistance forces are the same,” he told the AP. “We are trying to eliminate the military dictatorship.”

Caught by surprise by the attack dubbed Operation 1027, the military has lost more than 180 outposts and strongpoints, including four major bases and four economically important border crossings with China.

Both sides claim they have inflicted heavy tolls on the other, though accurate casualty figures are not available. Nearly 335,000 civilians have been displaced during the current fighting, bringing the total to more than 2 million displaced nationwide, according to the United Nations.

In the latest assault, a coalition of militia forces attacked a town in southeastern Kayin state on Friday, blocking the main road to a key border town with Thailand. Residents said the military responded with artillery and airstrikes.

“This is the biggest battlefield challenge that the Myanmar military has faced for decades,” Richard Horsey, the International Crisis Group’s Myanmar expert, said of the offensive.

“And for the regime, this is by far the most difficult moment it’s faced since the early days of the coup.”

Complicating matters for the military is China ‘s apparent tacit support for the Three Brotherhood Alliance, stemming, at least partially, from Beijing’s growing irritation at the burgeoning drug trade along its border and the proliferation of centers in Myanmar from which cyberscams are run, frequently by Chinese organized crime cartels with workers trafficked from China or elsewhere in the region.

As Operation 1027 has gained ground, thousands of Chinese nationals involved in such operations have been repatriated into police custody in China, giving Beijing little reason to exert pressure on the Brotherhood to stop fighting.

The military, known as the Tatmadaw, remains far bigger and better trained than the resistance forces, and has armor, airpower and even naval assets to fight the lightly armed militias organized by various ethnic minority groups.

But with its unexpectedly quick and widespread losses and overstretched forces, morale is sagging with more troops surrendering and defecting, giving rise to a wary optimism among its diverse opponents.

The current gains are just part of what has been a long struggle, said Nay Phone Latt, a spokesperson for the National Unity Government, the leading opposition organization.

“I would say the revolution has reached the next level, rather than to say it has reached a turning point,” he said.

“What we have now is the results of our preparation, organization and building over nearly the past three years,” he said.

THE OFFENSIVE

The Feb. 1, 2021, seizure of power by army commander Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing brought thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators to the streets of Myanmar’s cities.

Military leaders responded with brutal crackdowns and have arrested more than 25,000 people and killed more than 4,200 as of Friday, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, and U.N. independent investigators earlier this year accused the regime of being responsible for multiple war crimes.

Its violent tactics gave rise to People’s Defense Forces, or PDFs — armed resistance forces that support the National Unity Government, many of which were trained by the ethnic armed organizations the military has fought in the country’s border regions for years.

But resistance was fragmented until Operation 1027, when three of the country’s most powerful armed ethnic groups, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army in northeastern Shan state, and the Arakan Army in western Rakhine state, assembled a force of some 10,000 fighters, according to expert estimates, and rapidly overran military positions.

Sensing weakness and inspired by the early successes of those attacks, the Kachin Independence Army followed by launching new attacks in northern Kachin state, then joined the Arakan Army to help lead a PDF group to take a town in central Sagaing, the heartland of traditional ethnic Bamar support for the Tatmadaw.

In the eastern state of Kayah, also known as Karenni, an alliance of ethnic armed organizations launched their own attacks, beginning a direct assault on Nov. 11 on the state capital of Loikaw, where the Tatmadaw has a regional command base.

In the fierce ongoing fighting for Loikaw, the military is using artillery and airstrikes to pound militia positions.

But Khun Bedu, head of the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force, one of the biggest militias involved in the attack, said it was critical to take the Tatmadaw base.

“We have time, and it is a good opportunity,” he told AP.

Completing the encirclement of Tatmadaw forces, the Arakan Army attacked outposts in its home state of Rakhine in the country’s west on Nov. 13. Their success has been slow, with the Tatmadaw making use of naval power off the west coast to bombard positions, along with concentrated artillery and air strikes, according to a report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Morgan Michaels, who authored the report and runs the IISS Myanmar Conflict Map project, cautioned that the Tatmadaw has been able to concentrate its forces in strong points by abandoning positions and withdrawing, and remains a formidable force.

“It’s not done fighting, and the air and artillery strikes are increasing and becoming more intense,” he said. “So we have to see how that plays out.”

And despite their talk of ridding the country of the military regime, a lot of the fighting is also about the various groups seizing control of territory, especially the MNDAA, which was pushed out of the Kokang area of Shan state, including the capital Laukkaing, more than a decade ago by the military.

“The military could probably end a lot of this with a deal if it needed to,” Michaels said. “It would have to give up something considerable, but I think it could stop the bleeding by giving the MNDAA a considerable concession if they absolutely needed to.”

Still, unlike the civil war in Syria where multiple groups have different and often conflicting objectives, in Myanmar the anti-military groups are not fighting among each other, he said.

“It’s important to emphasize that many groups have the shared goal of either overthrowing or dismantling or severely depleting the capacity of the military regime,” Michaels said.

It was Nov. 15 when the AP first contacted the Tatmadaw captain, reaching him as he was fleeing a position through the jungle near the border town of Monekoe, one of the alliance’s primary targets.

He was able to link up with others, and then led a column back to the Monekoe area to take charge of an outpost on Nov. 22, when he gave the AP a grim assessment of his situation.

“We are surrounded by enemies,” he said, adding that even local army-affiliated militia could not be trusted.

“Here it is difficult to differentiate between who is enemy or friend,” he said.

The captain, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals against himself or his family for talking with the media, said there was not even enough time to eat a meal.

“We have to be always ready in an attack position,” he said as the sound of gunfire and an explosion erupted in the background.

“I can’t keep talking,” he said quickly. “They are coming to attack.”

CHINA’S ROLE

Well aware of Beijing’s irritation over the criminal activity along its border, the Three Brotherhood Alliance underlined as it launched its offensive that it was committed to “combatting the widespread online gambling fraud that has plagued Myanmar.”

Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has tried, unsuccessfully, to turn that on its head and say that the offensive is being funded by the drug trade.

As militia forces have advanced toward the city of Laukkaing, where many of the scam centers were located, their operations have been scattering and many high-level suspects have been captured and turned over to China.

Knowing China’s historic ties to the Brotherhood militias and the influence it wields, supporters of Myanmar’s ruling generals have held several demonstrations in major cities, including in front of the Chinese Embassy in Yangon, accusing China of aiding the militia alliance.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin skirted a question about those allegations this week, instead telling reporters that Beijing “respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Myanmar” and reiterating calls for peace.

But Beijing’s actions speak louder than its words, Horsey said.

“If they really wanted the cease-fire, they do have the leverage to enforce one or get pretty far toward enforcing one,” he said. “They haven’t done that, so that’s telling.”

THE CAPTAIN’S DEATH

The AP last made contact with the captain fighting in Shan state on Nov. 23. The call was short.

“I have something to prepare for our outpost,” he said hurriedly. “I will call you back.”

The next call was from a relative on Nov. 25, who said they had been informed he was killed in a night raid on his outpost and buried on site.

It was not clear exactly where the outpost was located, but only one battle was reported in the region that night.

The Brotherhood’s Ta’ang National Liberation Army said its forces attacked a large military outpost in Lashio township on Nov. 23 and took it early the next day.

In its matter-of-fact report, Ta’ang forces said they seized a howitzer, 78 smaller weapons and ammunition, and found the burial site of “more than 50 enemy.”

___

Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this story.

___

Follow AP’s Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

AP · December 1, 2023

21. The Philippines opens a new monitoring base on a remote island in the disputed South China Sea

Reprise the old Coast Watcher program from WWII.

Photos at the link:  https://apnews.com/article/south-china-sea-disputes-philippines-thitu-island-b19fe639fb1d2127a2d7a77adc59d6a9?utm

Excerpts:

The Philippines claims the region as its most remote offshore township, under its western island province of Palawan. It has encouraged fishing families to move there with incentives such as free rice, to underscore its control over an area also claimed by China and Vietnam.

The 37-hectare (91-acre) island now boasts internet and cellphone connections, a more stable power and water supply, a newly cemented runway, a wharf, grade school, gymnasium and even an evacuation center in times of typhoons. However, Thitu remains a meagre frontier settlement compared to the Chinese-built Subi island, more than 22 kilometers (14 miles) away.

Subi is one of seven mostly submerged reefs that China transformed starting about a decade ago into a missile-protected cluster of island bases, three of them with military-grade runways, sparking alarm among other claimant states in the South China Sea.

Early this year, the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. launched a strategy of exposing China’s provocations in the South China Sea to bring the actions more international attention, according to Philippine officials.The administration reported the Chinese coast guard’s use of a military-grade laser and water cannons and the blocking of Philippine patrol ships and supply boats near disputed shoals, ,

Speaking in Honolulu, where he met U.S. military leaders about two weeks ago, Marcos said the situation in the South China Sea “has become more dire” with China showing interest in atolls and shoals that are “closer and closer” to the Philippine coast.

But he stressed that the Philippines wouldn’t yield.

The Philippines opens a new monitoring base on a remote island in the disputed South China Sea

BY JIM GOMEZ, AARON FAVILA AND JOEAL CALUPITAN

Updated 5:46 AM EST, December 1, 2023

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AP · by JIM GOMEZ · December 1, 2023

By , AARON FAVILA and JOEAL CALUPITAN

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THITU ISLAND, South China Sea (AP) — The Philippines inaugurated a new coast guard monitoring base Friday on an island occupied by Filipino forces in the disputed South China Sea and plans to expand joint patrols with the United States and Australia to counter China’s “pure bullying” in the strategic waterway, a Philippine security official said.

High-seas faceoffs between Chinese and Philippine ships have intensified this year in the contested waters, fueling fears of a larger conflict that could involve the United States. The U.S. has repeatedly warned that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.

China has accused the U.S. of meddling in an Asian dispute and sowing discord in the region.

National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano and other Philippine officials flew to Thitu Island on an air force plane Friday and led a ceremony to open the newly constructed, two-story center that will have radar, ship-tracking and other monitoring equipment to monitor China’s actions in the hotly disputed waters and other problems, including sea accidents.

“It’s no longer gray zone. It’s pure bullying,” Ano told reporters after the seaside ceremony, describing the actions of Chinese ships as openly flouting international law.

Dwarfed by China’s military might, the Philippines decided this year to allow an expansion of the U.S. military presence in its local camps under a 2014 defense pact. It also recently launched joint sea and air patrols with the United States and Australia in a new deterrence strategy that puts the two allied powers on a collision course with Beijing.

Ano said the separate joint patrols involving the U.S. and Australia would continue and could expand to include other nations like Japan once a security agreement being negotiated by Tokyo and Manila was concluded.

“We’re open to like-minded countries to join as observers or participants,” Ano said.

China has warned that such joint naval patrols must not hurt its “territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests.”

Despite Manila’s counter-actions, China reasserted its claim to the sea on Friday.

As the Philippine air force aircraft carrying Ano, presidential adviser Andres Centino, Philippine coast guard chief Admiral Ronnie Gavan and other officials approached Thitu, Ano said Chinese forces transmitted a radio warning for them to stay away.

Ano said the Filipino pilots dismissed the message and in turn routinely asserted Philippine sovereign rights and control over the area.

Peering later through a mounted telescope on the island, Ano said he spotted at least 18 suspected Chinese militia ships scattered off Thitu, including a Chinese navy vessel.

Villagers say they have gotten used to the sight of Chinese ships lurking at a distance from Thitu, but a few say they’re still haunted at times by the fear of Chinese forces arriving on the island.

“I can’t avoid thinking sometimes that they would suddenly barge into our territory,” said Daisy Cojamco, a 51-year-old mother of three whose husband works as a town government employee.

Surrounded by white beaches, the tadpole-shaped Thitu Island is called Pag-asa — Tagalog for hope — by about 250 Filipino villagers. It’s one of nine islands, islets and atolls that have been occupied by Philippine forces since the 1970s in the South China Sea’s Spratlys archipelago.

The Philippines claims the region as its most remote offshore township, under its western island province of Palawan. It has encouraged fishing families to move there with incentives such as free rice, to underscore its control over an area also claimed by China and Vietnam.

The 37-hectare (91-acre) island now boasts internet and cellphone connections, a more stable power and water supply, a newly cemented runway, a wharf, grade school, gymnasium and even an evacuation center in times of typhoons. However, Thitu remains a meagre frontier settlement compared to the Chinese-built Subi island, more than 22 kilometers (14 miles) away.

Subi is one of seven mostly submerged reefs that China transformed starting about a decade ago into a missile-protected cluster of island bases, three of them with military-grade runways, sparking alarm among other claimant states in the South China Sea.

Early this year, the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. launched a strategy of exposing China’s provocations in the South China Sea to bring the actions more international attention, according to Philippine officials.The administration reported the Chinese coast guard’s use of a military-grade laser and water cannons and the blocking of Philippine patrol ships and supply boats near disputed shoals, ,

Speaking in Honolulu, where he met U.S. military leaders about two weeks ago, Marcos said the situation in the South China Sea “has become more dire” with China showing interest in atolls and shoals that are “closer and closer” to the Philippine coast.

But he stressed that the Philippines wouldn’t yield.

“The Philippines will not give a single square inch of our territory to any foreign power,” Marcos warned.

___

Follow AP’s Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

JIM GOMEZ

Gomez is The AP Chief Correspondent in the Philippines.

twittermailto

AP · by JIM GOMEZ · December 1, 2023

22. Homeland Missile Defense Is a 'Must Pay' Bill

Homeland Missile Defense Is a 'Must Pay' Bill

Published 11/30/23 08:00 AM ET

Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Howard “Dallas” Thompson

themessenger.com · November 30, 2023

Once again, political and budgetary dysfunction in our nation’s capital threatens our government’s ability to perform its most basic function: to pay for its own operation. Nested within that pending overarching government budget are a myriad of priorities and “must pay” bills, but none is more important than the defense of the homeland against rogue nations’ intercontinental ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and hypersonic weapons.

In accordance with the deal Congress concluded in June to keep the government operating, if no budget is agreed upon by the early part of next year, a process known as “sequestration” will be triggered, setting into motion a series of budget “cut drills,” the largest and most consequential being within the Department of Defense (DOD).

Because of the rules under a sequestration, these cut drills systemically, historically and disproportionately impact weapons systems modernization programs — some of which are at the top of the DOD’s priorities. They come in an environment of intense pressure upon the DOD as it is called upon to simultaneously support Ukraine and Israel even as it strains to contend with aggression by China, Iran and North Korea.

Congress and the Biden administration cannot fail to consider the very real danger to the homeland posed by these prolific threats, most of which have just recently been addressed by the DOD. While defense against rogue nations’ intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) has been the focus of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) for years, only lately has the department established a viable way ahead for our defense against cruise missiles and hypersonic weapons — both of which are already widely fielded by Russia and China.

Nascent programs such as the Air Force’s Air and Cruise Missile Defense of the Homeland effort and its Over-the-Horizon Radar program are especially vulnerable should Congress stumble into another sequestration. Although much more mature than the others, the MDA’s Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) program, the country’s first line of defense against an Iranian or North Korean long-range missile, could also face crippling cuts without regular order appropriations.

The NGI is the MDA’s most successful effort yet to address shortcomings in our Ground-based Midcourse missile defense system, especially against threats not envisioned when the system was first fielded. After a number of false starts through many years, the MDA decided upon a new approach and issued requests for proposals to industry for a solution.

The MDA selected two teams to compete for the program award. In language inserted into the National Defense Authorization Act, Congress directed that the MDA uphold “fly before you buy” principles. And the Biden administration added funding to the president’s budget request to ensure competition in the development process, through what is known as critical design review.

Members of Iran's paramilitary Basij forces march next to the fourth-generation Khorramshahr ballistic missile Khaibar displayed during an anti-Israel rally to show solidarity with Palestinians, in Tehran on Nov. 24, 2023.STR/AFP via Getty Images

Conveniently, the critical design review aligns within the DOD’s acquisition process with the developmental test and engineering phase of a program. The MDA has announced its intention to buy 10 developmental missiles, in addition to 21 production items, which could be split between the two teams to test. This would allow the MDA to essentially “wring out” the two competing designs and make a much more informed decision on which to select, while mitigating developmental and production risks.

Sequestration cut drills most often result in a tax of equal amount on all programs of record, regardless of performance — no credit is given to well-performing programs versus failures. These drills aim to cut dollars in any way possible, including discontinuing funding for competition before test results are available, which is shortsighted, penny-wise and pound-foolish.

The nation deserves better. Steady and predictable funding support for defenses against our adversaries’ hypersonic weapons, cruise missiles and ICBMs is the only way to overcome years of lethargy and denial and finally provide the United States a real capability to overcome these threats.

The Air Force’s Air and Cruise Missile Defense of the Homeland Analysis of Alternatives study will point the way toward closing significant gaps in our current ability to detect, target and destroy hypersonic and cruise missiles. New Over-the-Horizon Radars, placed strategically throughout North America, will finally provide an ability to detect, track and engage these low-flying, stealthy cruise and hypersonic missiles.

And finally, the NGI is the MDA’s only opportunity to meet and exceed missile defense requirements versus modern-threat ICBMs for the foreseeable future. It is perhaps the model for a successful DOD acquisition strategy, leveraging competition to exact enhancements in schedule and performance.

Leaders in Washington should not turn back the clock to the failed acquisition practices of the past, which valued short-term marginal savings more dearly than real, credible combat capability at a program’s fielding. Congress and the administration should fully support these programs, and the best way to help ensure that is to avoid myopic budget cuts to key modernization efforts that will better protect the U.S. homeland.

Howard “Dallas” Thompson is a retired U.S. Air Force major general and former chief of staff at North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM).

themessenger.com · November 30, 2023

​23. Putin’s War Party

Excerpts:

How long can a country exist in this state of passive and unproductive inertia? Theoretically, Putin could reap advantages by continuing the war but at the same time keeping the population calm, thereby outlasting the West with its supposedly flagging interest. But there are several reasons to question this assumption: first, it is not only Ukraine and the West but also Russia whose resources are being dramatically depleted. Second, surprises are possible, such as the growing wave of discontent among the Russian mobilized soldiers’ families. Even if it doesn’t result in a broader political backlash, the phenomenon has already shown that black swans of different sizes can come from unexpected places at unexpected times.

But where are the redlines that show just how far resources can be depleted and the patience of various sections of the population be tested without triggering a larger collapse? Do these limits even exist in Russia? So far, with a few minor exceptions, everything points to the fact that they do not. Moreover, no matter how much the regime has tightened its grip, change of leadership is not a priority for the Russian public: on the contrary, polls and focus groups show that many people fear a change at the top.

Still, Russians are not ready to die for Putin. In 2018 and 2020, Putin’s ratings fell due to an unpopular decision to increase the retirement age, and then because of the effects of the pandemic; it is possible that other new hits to his popularity will occur in the coming months. Indeed, in the mood of both the public and the elites, there is an invisible yet discernible expectation of such events. For most, however, the yearning is more basic. They desire to end “all this”—meaning getting rid of war—as quickly as possible and begin to live better, more safely, and more peacefully. But it is unlikely that this will happen without regime change.

Putin’s War Party

How Russia’s Election Will Validate Autocracy—and Permanent Conflict With the West

By Andrei Kolesnikov

December 1, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Andrei Kolesnikov · December 1, 2023

“If there is Putin, there is Russia; if there is no Putin, there is no Russia,” the current speaker of the State Duma, the aggressive loyalist Vyacheslav Volodin, pronounced, back in 2014. He was outlining an ideal autocracy, one in which the country would be equated with its ruler and vice versa. At the time Volodin spoke those words, the Kremlin was basking in an upsurge of national euphoria following the annexation of Crimea. With the so-called Putin majority ascendant, the government could hasten its shift toward such a regime with broad popular approval.

But Volodin was a bit ahead of his time. It was not until the 2020 constitutional reform, which “reset” Russia’s presidential term limits and solidified Putin’s mature dictatorship, that his formula was codified in the country’s institutions. And it was in 2022, with the beginning of the “special operation” in Ukraine, that the propaganda meaning of “Putin equals Russia” became starkly apparent. As the Kremlin would have it, Putin’s war is Russia’s war, and by extension, a war involving all Russians—a fanciful notion that not only plays into the hands of regime propagandists but which has been readily embraced by many Western officials, as well. Of course, the real picture is far more complex.

By now, the Putin majority has long since been taken as a given, and no one talks about it anymore. Instead, there is the pro-war majority, which supports the war partly by ignoring it in everyday life. As for the anti-Putin minority, the Kremlin’s long-standing habit of treating with contempt any who dare oppose the president has been transformed into a policy of active persecution and denunciation. Opposition and civil society figures themselves have been systematically discredited, exiled, and eliminated.

Nonetheless, Putin still needs elections to give legitimacy to his eternal rule—and to his unending war. Thus, in March 2024, he will run for president for the fifth time since 2000. And as a result of the 2020 reform, it may not be the last, either. According to the changed constitution, Putin will able to run for office twice more—in 2024 and 2030—meaning that he could rule until 2036, when he will be eighty-three years old. For now, it seems clear that Putin is ready to make full use of that opportunity, at least in the coming vote.

But this time, with the war in the background, there are new rules to the game, and both Putin and the Russian public know them. In exchange for keeping most of them out of the trenches, the passive majority of Russians will continue to support the government. And the elections—or rather, the mass approval of Putin’s activities—will show that the people, at least, are playing along. Ballots have become currency: Russians think that they can buy their own relative tranquility with them, even though there are no guarantees that Putin will keep his side of the bargain.

JUST SAY YES

Given the complete lack of alternatives to Putin, some of his supporters, like the Chechen leader and fierce loyalist Ramzan Kadyrov, have proposed cancelling the 2024 election altogether. Wouldn’t it be easier to forego the vote, on the grounds that the country is at war, and that in any case, the Russian political field has been comprehensively cleared of competitors? Or why not elevate Putin to the title of supreme leader, national leader, or tsar, and then elect a formal president?

But Putin really needs elections, at least in theory. In addition to refreshing his legitimacy, they serve as a way to show that the opposition—through the predictable landslide outcome—remains a tiny minority and cannot go against the overwhelming will of the Russian people. Moreover, by voting for Putin in 2024, Russians will legitimize his war. Even if the active phase of that war ends someday, it will still need to continue through permanent confrontation with the West and as a rationale for unrelenting repression, suppression, and censorship at home.

It is essential for Putin to consolidate his narrative about the war.

Rather than elections, then, the March vote should be thought of as a kind of acclamation for the leader: they are simply voting yes to the only real choice available. Technically, this is a legitimate form of democratic expression, as enshrined in the constitution—and, apparently, in Russian history. (New textbooks for schools and universities discuss such Russian political traditions as the Novgorod veche, or popular assembly, in which everything was decided by shouting, approval, and acclamation by the crowd.) In other words, in the absence of any political competition, the regime has everything to gain from a fresh acclamation of its rule, and little to lose.

Putin’s high numbers are guaranteed. Some will vote for him out of a sense of falsely understood civic duty, some will be coerced to do so at work: such is the general state of paranoia in today’s Russia that people sometimes take a smartphone picture of their completed ballot and send it to their bosses, after which they get the right to return to their private lives. Other votes may be falsified, including, perhaps, with the help of electronic voting systems.

Still, deciding what content to fill the campaign with is another question. Obviously, it is essential for Putin to consolidate his narrative about the war. As Putin likes to say, “It was not us”: Russia was attacked by the West, and in response began a “national liberation struggle” to free Russia and other peoples enslaved by the West. And since Russians find themselves in a besieged fortress, they must give full support to their commander to repel both the enemy at the gates and the traitors and foreign agents within. By now, this logic has acquired the status of an axiom. Along with it comes a series of arguments—Russia is fighting for a “fairer multipolar world,” Russia is a special “state-civilization”—that justify the war, why it cannot end, and Putin’s rule itself. But what new element can be brought into the current election campaign, except, of course, an abstract declaration of peace and victory?

STORIES ABOUT WHEAT

In theory, the Russian public does not attach much significance to elections. In the minds of most people, there is simply no alternative to Putin, even if they think he is not particularly good. When Russians say “Putin,” they mean the president, and vice versa; like a medieval king, Putin has two bodies—one physical, one symbolic. Putin is the collective “we” of Russians, and voting for him every few years has become a ritual, like raising the flag or singing the national anthem on Mondays in high schools across Russia.

But the war has added a new dimension to this rite. During the “special operation,” an unwritten agreement has been established between the people and their leader. The gist of this special relationship is that as long as the state refrains from dragging (most) people into battle, Russians will not question Putin’s authority. The partial mobilization in the fall of 2022 briefly called into question the state’s promise, but since then the authorities have largely solved the problem. Essentially, they have demobilized Russians psychologically, by maintaining and enforcing a pervasive normality. Thus, Putin himself has focused almost exclusively on domestic issues like addressing economic problems and supporting artificial intelligence, staging meetings with young scientists and talented children. As a result, during the second year of the war, the general mood of the population has been much better, even despite rumors about another possible military mobilization after the election.

One darker cloud has appeared over the Kremlin, in the form of open disgruntlement from families of the men who were mobilized in October 2022. These families are not seeking money, but they want to bring their sons and husbands home. They sense injustice, given that real criminals and brutal killers, who were pulled out of prison to fight in the war, have to serve for only six months before they can return as heroes, while their own sons have been given no reprieve. The government doesn’t have a convincing answer to this challenge: Putin has long been used to fighting the intelligentsia and the liberal opposition, but here he is dealing with discontent from his own social base. These soldiers’ families have not yet coalesced into a formal movement or taken an explicit antiwar stance—a step that would be impossible due to the high level of repression. But every day these families have become more and more politicized.

Putin at the Kremlin, Moscow, September 27, 2023

Mikhail Metzel / Sputnik / Reuters

For the bulk of the population, however, it is enough for the government to regularly tout the country’s economic health and income growth, and the mere fact that the country is not experiencing economic and social collapse is enough to convey an impression of business as usual. The Kremlin also continually highlights its foreign policy “successes.” In this imaginary world, Russia is supported in its confrontation with the West by the “global majority” in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They are not just allies but countries for whom Russia is a ray of light in the gloom. It is assumed that anti-Western rhetoric and offers of economic assistance—or, as in the case of Africa, grain—will automatically lead the former satellites of the USSR back to Russia.

Meanwhile, official Russian media reports about military operations tend to emphasize the continual successes of “our guys” at the front. In these sunny accounts, there are no serious losses, only heroic behavior and victories. These briefings have come to resemble Soviet reports on agricultural achievements: the battle for the harvest is going well, and the only possible feeling can be one of satisfaction.

From a Western point of view, these fantasy narratives seem unlikely to convince anyone. Surely, Russians must be sensitive to their growing isolation and economic hardship, and the ever-growing sacrifice of their young men at the front. But the Putin regime is not built upon active support. All it requires is the indifference of the majority, who mostly find it easier to accept the picture of the world that is imposed from above. By embracing the Putin story, they can retain a sense of moral superiority over a West that, they are told, is seeking to dismember their country, just as Napoleon, Hitler, and the “American imperialists” did in past decades.

From month to month, Russian sociologists report broadly the same findings. Attention to events in Ukraine has stagnated; less than half of respondents say they follow the war closely, according to surveys by the independent Levada Center. On average, their support for the military remains high: about 75 percent of respondents say that they support the actions of the armed forces, including 45 percent who express “strong support.” On the other hand, surveys consistently show that slightly more than a half of respondents favor starting peace negotiations than continuing the war. But since the country has made large sacrifices in the fighting, most of those supporting a settlement would like to get something in return: Russia should keep the “new” territories it has conquered or “restored” to Moscow.

BACK IN THE USSR

Having reframed the “special operation” in Ukraine into a multidimensional war against the West, Putin has no particular urgency to talk about an endgame. In this sense, Putin’s goals for the war are no longer limited to returning Ukraine to Russia but now encompass what has become an existential rematch with the West, in which the Ukraine war is a part of a long, historically significant clash of civilizations. Putin sees himself as completing the mission begun by his historic predecessors, who were always forced to fight Western encroachment. In Putin’s new interpretation, even the Tatar-Mongol yoke—the two centuries of Russian subjugation that followed the invasion of Batu Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, in 1237—was not as harmful as Western influence and Western attacks. And since this is now an open-ended confrontation, the timeline for “victory” will necessarily extend far beyond the next decade.

Ordinary Russians are receptive to ideas about the country’s historical greatness. As polling data have shown for many years, the main source of popular pride in the state today is the country’s glorious past. Russians have a special regard for their imperial history, especially the history of the Soviet Union, and an idealized image of the USSR as a kingdom of justice has begun to emerge. At the same time, helped by acts of erasure by the Putin regime itself, Stalin’s repressions have receded from view or are sometimes considered as something inevitable and even positive. Among the Soviet achievements most remembered by Russians today, the greatest of all is the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War, as Russians refer to World War II.

Accordingly, Putin has continually compared the “special operation” against Ukraine with the war against Nazi Germany. Thus, the celebrated soldiers and generals of the Great Patriotic War are the direct predecessors of today’s military, and by fighting in Putin’s war, Russians can again find redemption in heroic sacrifice. For example, in a speech before this year’s May 9 Victory Day parade, Putin suggested that the West was trying to reverse Russia’s historic victory. “Their goal,” he said, “is to achieve the collapse and destruction of our country, erase the results of the Second World War.”

PEAK PUTIN?

To make his worldview stick, however, Putin needs a viable economic model to sustain the mythmaking. In recent years, and especially since the start of the war, he has complemented his carefully cultivated distrust of the outside world by rejecting what he calls economic and technological “dependence” on the West. In practice, the Kremlin has been eliminating everything Western not through import substitution—which is impossible in a modern economy—but through a new dependence on China. Meanwhile, technology is becoming both more primitive and more expensive, which naturally puts the burden on the end consumer.

Russia’s oil and gas resources—essential for sustaining the country’s extraordinary military expenditures—remain as important as ever. In a way, ideology is being used to make up for the shortfall in energy revenues, and to compensate for the gradual decline in the quality of life. Of course, the regime going to great lengths to maintain the impression that life goes on as normal, and to a degree, this is true: formally, in 2023, the country’s GDP and real incomes of the population are growing. But this is in large measure due to state injections into sectors serving the war and social payments to its participants. That is growth is coming at the expense of the state, and it is unclear how long its resources will last. Risks of fiscal imbalance remain.

Spending more on death means there is less to spend on life.

A larger problem is the lack of an economic vision for the future. As the historian Alexander Etkind notes, “a resource-dependent state is always afraid of the raw materials running out, but the biggest threat of all comes from new technology that makes those materials unnecessary.” Putin has never believed in the energy transition or green economy, but by insisting on preserving Russia’s existing technological structure and petrostate model, his regime has impeded modernization in both a technological and political sense. As a result, the oil and gas economy is not being replaced by a more sustainable model. Notably, some of the countries in the east that are now consuming Russian raw materials may be shifting their energy mix in the future: in time, for example, China may have less demand for Russian energy. But Putin’s autocracy does not care about future generations, much less the environment.

Alongside its dependence on nonrenewable fossil fuels, the Kremlin tends to treat human capital as another expendable commodity. But that doesn’t make the human supply chain any cheaper. On the contrary, it is becoming more expensive: professional soldiers, mercenaries, volunteers, family members of the dead and wounded, and the workers who man Russia’s military-industrial complex (and of which there is currently a grave shortage) must all be paid. Hence, the government has had to reconcile itself to an inexorable growth of wages and social benefits. People’s incomes are growing not because of economic development or advances in the quality of the labor force but simply so the government can sustain hostilities and fuel the continued production of lethal weapons.

For now, the state budget is still balanced, but budget discipline is in a permanent danger because of the state’s chosen priorities. By paying more for defense and security, Russia has fewer resources for people and their health and development. In the Putin economic model, more spending on death means that there is less to spend on life.

SWAN LAKE

So what will Putin’s election campaign look like? Given the current situation, Putin can only offer the public the same model of survival that has become standard since the “special operation” began: to live against the backdrop of war without paying attention to it and wait for “victory” in whatever form the president someday chooses. Again, it is unlikely that that choice will be clearly defined during the election season. The war itself has become a mode of existence for Putin’s system, and there is little reason to expect that it will end any time soon, since that could undercut the urgency of supporting him.

In any case, during periods of peace, Putin’s ratings have often stagnated, whereas they have soared during moments of military “patriotic” hysteria such as the Georgian war of 2008 and the Crimea annexation. The “special operation” has been no exception. Moreover, for now, war fatigue has not yet translated into serious discontent or a decrease in support for the regime. According to Levada, popular support for Putin, as well as for the war and the military, has remained broadly stable, with Putin maintaining around an 80 percent approval rating. In theory, then, the indifference of the pro-war majority suggests that Putin can continue the war for the indefinite future.

The Kremlin’s other option would be to ramp up hostilities, including a new mobilization, whether partial or general, combined with further distancing from the West and more repression at home. But such changes could rock the Kremlin, which at some point risks colliding with an iceberg of extreme public anxiety and a deteriorating economy. Russia’s underlying problems are not going anywhere, and have been slowed down only by the relatively rational actions of the government’s economic managers. Accordingly, maintaining the status quo seems the most likely path forward.

During periods of peace, Putin’s ratings have stagnated.

When Russians go to the polls in March, Putin can count on high voter turnout and continued passive support for the war. Most of them have very low expectations: they have long lived according to the mantra “The main thing is that it shouldn’t get even worse.” But the fresh acclamation of the regime that the election will doubtless bring will not necessarily provide a mandate for truly drastic moves like the full closure of Russia’s borders or the use of nuclear weapons. Indeed, as the Kremlin must understand, the outcome will be less a mandate for radical new changes than a signal that it can continue much as before.

How long can a country exist in this state of passive and unproductive inertia? Theoretically, Putin could reap advantages by continuing the war but at the same time keeping the population calm, thereby outlasting the West with its supposedly flagging interest. But there are several reasons to question this assumption: first, it is not only Ukraine and the West but also Russia whose resources are being dramatically depleted. Second, surprises are possible, such as the growing wave of discontent among the Russian mobilized soldiers’ families. Even if it doesn’t result in a broader political backlash, the phenomenon has already shown that black swans of different sizes can come from unexpected places at unexpected times.

But where are the redlines that show just how far resources can be depleted and the patience of various sections of the population be tested without triggering a larger collapse? Do these limits even exist in Russia? So far, with a few minor exceptions, everything points to the fact that they do not. Moreover, no matter how much the regime has tightened its grip, change of leadership is not a priority for the Russian public: on the contrary, polls and focus groups show that many people fear a change at the top.

Still, Russians are not ready to die for Putin. In 2018 and 2020, Putin’s ratings fell due to an unpopular decision to increase the retirement age, and then because of the effects of the pandemic; it is possible that other new hits to his popularity will occur in the coming months. Indeed, in the mood of both the public and the elites, there is an invisible yet discernible expectation of such events. For most, however, the yearning is more basic. They desire to end “all this”—meaning getting rid of war—as quickly as possible and begin to live better, more safely, and more peacefully. But it is unlikely that this will happen without regime change.

• ANDREI KOLESNIKOV is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
• MORE BY ANDREI KOLESNIKOV

Foreign Affairs · by Andrei Kolesnikov · December 1, 2023

24. Judging Henry Kissinger By Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

Judging Henry Kissinger

Did the Ends Justify the Means?

By Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

November 30, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Joseph S. Nye, Jr. · November 30, 2023

How should one apply morality to Henry Kissinger’s statesmanship? How does one balance his accomplishments against his misdeeds? I have wrestled with those questions since Kissinger was my professor, and later colleague, at Harvard University. In April 2012, I helped interview him before a large audience at Harvard and asked whether, in hindsight, he would have done anything differently during his time as secretary of state for U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. At first, he said no. On second thought, he said he wished he had been more active in the Middle East. But he made no mention of Cambodia, Chile, Pakistan, or Vietnam. A protester in the back of the hall shouted out: “war criminal!”

Kissinger was a complex thinker. As with other postwar European émigrés, such as the international relations theorist Hans Morgenthau, he criticized the naïve idealism of pre–World War II U.S. foreign policy. But Kissinger was not an amoralist. “You can’t look only at power,” he told the audience at Harvard. “States always represent an idea of justice.” In his writings, he noted that world order rested on both a balance of power and a sense of legitimacy. As he once told Winston Lord, his former aide and the ambassador to China from 1985 to 1989, the qualities most needed in a statesman are “character and courage.” Character was needed “because the decisions that are really tough are 51-49,” so leaders must have “moral strength” to make them. Courage was required so leaders could “walk alone part of the way.” In the case of Vietnam, he believed he had a mandate to end the Vietnam War. But, he said, he did not have a mandate to end it “on terms that would undermine America’s ability to defend its allies and the cause of freedom.”

Evaluating ethics in international relations is difficult, and Kissinger’s legacy is particularly complex. Over his long tenure in government, he had many great successes, including with China and the Soviet Union and the Middle East. Kissinger also had major failures, including in how the Vietnam War ended. But on net, his legacy is positive. In a world haunted by the specter of nuclear war, his decisions made the international order more stable and safer.

VALUE JUDGMENT

One of the most important questions for foreign policy practitioners is how to judge morality in the realm of global politics. A true amoralist simply ducks it. A French diplomat, for instance, once told me that since morality made no sense in international relations, he decided everything solely on the interests of France. Yet the choice to reject all other interests was itself a profound moral decision.

There are essentially three different mental maps of world politics, each of which generates a different answer as to how states should behave. Realists accept some moral obligations, but see them as severely limited by the harsh reality of anarchic politics. To these thinkers, prudence is the prime virtue. At the other end of the spectrum are cosmopolitans, who believe that states should treat all humans equally. They see borders as ethically arbitrary and believe that governments have major moral obligations to foreigners. In between are liberals. They believe that states have a serious responsibility to consider in ethics in their decisions, but that the world is divided into communities and states that have moral meaning. Although there is no government above these countries, liberals think the international system has an order to it. The world may be anarchic, but there are enough rudimentary practices and institutions—such as the balance of power between countries, norms, international law, and international organizations—to establish a framework by which states can make meaningful moral choices, at least in most cases.

Realism is the default position that most leaders use. Given that the world is one of sovereign states, this is smart: realism is, in fact, the best place to start. The problem is that many realists stop where they begin, rather than realizing that cosmopolitanism and liberalism are valuable in thinking about how to approach foreign policy. The question is often one of degree, and leaders should not arbitrarily reject human rights and institutions. Since there is never perfect security, they must first figure out what degree of security their states need before considering other values—such as welfare, identity, or the rights of foreigners—in how they make policy. Ultimately, they might factor morals into a wide range of decisions. Most foreign policy choices, after all, do not involve survival. Instead, they involve questions such as whether to sell weapons to authoritarian allies, or whether to criticize the human rights behavior of another country. They involve debates about whether to take in refugees, how to trade, and what to do about issues such as climate change.

Hardcore realists ultimately treat all decisions in terms of national security, very narrowly defined. They are willing to make many morally suspect choices to improve the security of their country. In 1940, after France’s surrender to the Nazis, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill attacked French naval ships on the Algerian coast, killing thousands of now neutral sailors, to prevent the fleet from falling into German hands. In 1945, President Harry Truman used the atomic bomb against Japan, killing more than 100,000 civilians. But by ignoring hard tradeoffs, realist leaders are simply ducking hard moral issues. “Security comes first” and “justice presupposes order,” but leaders have an obligation to assess how closely a situation fits a Hobbesian or Lockean mental map, or whether they could follow other important values without truly jeopardizing their country’s security.

Realism is the default position that most leaders use.

At the same time, leaders cannot always follow simple moral rules. They may need to make amoral choices to prevent even great catastrophes; there are no human rights, for example, among those incinerated in a nuclear war. As Arnold Wolfers, a prominent European-American realist, once said, the most one can hope for in judging the international ethics of leaders is that they make “the best moral choices that circumstances permit.”

This is true, but such a broad rule of prudence can easily be abused when convenient. A leader could claim they had to commit a horrendous act to protect their country when, in fact, the circumstances afforded them much greater leeway. Instead of simply taking policymakers at their word, analysts should judge them in terms of their ends, means, and consequences. To do so, experts can draw from the wisdom of all three mental maps: realism, liberalism and cosmopolitanism, in that order.

Ultimately, as analysts look at ends, they should not expect leaders will pursue justice at the international level in ways that resemble what they might pursue in their domestic societies. Even the renowned liberal philosopher John Rawls believed that the conditions for his theory of justice applied only to domestic society. At the same time, Rawls argued that there were duties beyond borders for a liberal society, and that the list should include mutual aid and respect for institutions that ensure basic human rights. He also wrote that people in a diverse world deserved to determine their own affairs as much as possible. Analysts should therefore ask whether a leader’s goals include a vision that expresses widely attractive values at home and abroad. But they should also ask if a leader’s goals prudently balance attractive values against the assessed risks. In other words, analysts should evaluate if there is a reasonable prospect the leader’s vision can succeed.

When it comes to evaluating ethical means, experts can judge leaders by the long-standing tradition of “just war” criteria, which holds that a state’s use of force must be proportional and discriminate. They can factor in Rawls’ liberal concern for carrying out minimal degrees of intervention in order to respect the rights and institutions of others. As for evaluating consequences, people can ask whether leaders succeeded in promoting their country’s long term national interests; whether they respected cosmopolitan values when possible by avoiding extreme insularity and unnecessary damage to foreigners; and whether they educated their followers by promoting truth and trust that broadened moral discourse.

These criteria are modest and derived from the insights of realism, liberalism, and cosmopolitanism. But they provide some basic guidance that goes beyond a simple generality about prudence. I call this approach “liberal realism.” It begins with realism, but it does not end there.

LOOKING AT THE LEDGER

How does Kissinger measure up on these criteria? He certainly has great successes: the opening to China, establishing détente with the Soviet Union, and managing crises in the Middle East, all of which made the world safer. On China, for instance, Kissinger and Nixon had the vision and temerity to guide world politics away from Cold War bipolarity and reintegrate Beijing into the international system. They had to ignore the ugly nature of Mao Zedong’s totalitarian regime

Similarly, in managing détente and arms control with Moscow, Kissinger had to accept the legitimacy of another totalitarian regime and go slower than many Americans wanted on pushing the Kremlin to allow Jewish emigration. Nonetheless, his position helped lower the risk of nuclear war and create the conditions in which the Soviet Union itself gradually eroded. Here, again, the moral gains far outweighed the costs. And although he took risks by raising the alert level of U.S. nuclear forces to Defcon 3 during the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East, Kissinger’s judgment turned out to be right. Ultimately, he managed to reduce tensions in the region despite the Watergate scandal, which forced Nixon to resign.

But there is another side to the ledger. Kissinger’s failures of moral statesmanship include bombing Cambodia from 1969 to 1970, doing nothing to stop Pakistan’s brutality in the Indian-Pakistani war of 1971, and supporting a coup d’état in Chile in 1973 . Consider, first, Chile. The U.S. government did not instigate the coup that overthrew the country’s democratically elected president and installed a military dictator, but Kissinger it made clear that Washington was not opposed. His defenders argued that Washington had no choice but to back a junta, given that the preceding regime was leftist and might fall into the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. But having a right-wing government in Chile was not really vital to U.S. global credibility in a bipolar world, and the leftist government was not nearly enough of a security threat to justify abetting its overthrow. Kissinger, after all, once likened Chile to a dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica.

In the war of secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan, Kissinger and Nixon were criticized for not condemning Pakistani President Yahya Khan for his repression and bloodshed in Bangladesh, which resulted in the deaths of at least 300,000 Bengalis and sent a flood of refugees into India. Kissinger argued that his silence was needed to secure Yahya’s help on establishing ties with China. But he has admitted that that Nixon’s personal dislike of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, which Kissinger abetted, was also a factor.

The bombing of Cambodia in 1970 was supposed to destroy Viet Cong infiltration routes, but ultimately, the attacks did not shorten or end the war. What they did do is help the genocidal Khmer Rouge take power in Cambodia, resulting in the deaths of over 1.5 million people. For a man who extolled the importance of a long-term vision of protecting freedom, these were three failures.

THE MEANING OF VIETNAM

Then there is the Vietnam War. Kissinger described his policies during the conflict as a would-be success, decisions that could have saved South Vietnam as free society were it not for Watergate and Congress’s decision to withdraw support for U.S. involvement. But this is a self-serving account if a complex history. Kissinger and Nixon originally hoped to link arms control issues to Vietnam, in an effort to get the Soviets pressure on Hanoi to stop attacking the South. But when these hopes proved illusory, they settled for a negotiated solution that would produce what Kissinger called a “decent interval” between U.S. withdrawal and the collapse of the government in Saigon. The United States and the North Vietnamese ultimately signed a peace deal in Paris in January 1973, which allowed the North to leave its army inside the South. When Kissinger was asked, privately, how long he thought the South Vietnamese government could survive, he responded, “If they’re lucky, they can hold out for a year and a half.” Ultimately, he was not far off. (The South survived for just over two.)

Nixon and Kissinger did end the Vietnam War, but their efforts came at a high moral cost. Just over 21,000 Americans died during their three years of stewardship, compared to 36,756 under Johnson and 108 under Kennedy. The toll in Indochina was far greater: millions of Vietnamese and Cambodian were killed under their tenure. Kissinger and Nixon kept fighting to preserve Washington’s credibility—an important attribute in international affairs, but it is far from clear that creating a modest “decent interval” was worth such a devastating toll.

Moral choices are sometimes the lesser of evils. If Kissinger and Nixon had followed the advice of U.S. senators like William Fulbright and George Aiken and withdrawn early on, accepting that Saigon would eventually be defeated, there would have been some damage to American global power, but the country’s credibility suffered anyway, after Saigon fell in 1975 and Washington eventually recovered). Accepting defeat and declaring a withdrawal over the course of 1969 would have been a courageous and politically costly move, and Kissinger and Nixon showed themselves capable of such moves when it came to China. In Vietnam, however, they did not. Instead, their choices did not alter the ultimate outcome, and it proved costly in lives as well as credibility.

Kissinger sometimes failed to live up to his moral virtues of character and courage. Moreover, some of his means were questionable. International relations are a difficult milieu for ethics, and foreign policy in a world of compromises among values. But in terms of the consequences, the world is a better place because of his statesmanship, and his successes outweighed his failures.

• JOSEPH S. NYE, JR., is Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at Harvard and author of Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy From FDR to Trump. His memoir, A Life in the American Century, comes out in January.
• MORE BY JOSEPH S. NYE JR.

Foreign Affairs · by Joseph S. Nye, Jr. · November 30, 2023

25. The AP Interview: Ukraine's Zelenskyy says the war with Russia is in a new phase as winter looms

The AP Interview: Ukraine's Zelenskyy says the war with Russia is in a new phase as winter looms

BY JAMES JORDAN, SAMYA KULLAB AND ILLIA NOVIKOV

Updated 12:03 AM EST, December 1, 2023

AP · December 1, 2023

KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the war with Russia is in a new stage, with winter expected to complicate fighting after a summer counteroffensive that failed to produce desired results due to enduring shortages of weapons and ground forces.

Despite setbacks, however, he said Ukraine won’t give up.

“We have a new phase of war, and that is a fact,” Zelenskyy said in an exclusive interview Thursday with The Associated Press in Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine after a morale-boosting tour of the region. “Winter as a whole is a new phase of war.”

Asked if he was satisfied by the results of the counteroffensive, he gave a complex answer.

“Look, we are not backing down, I am satisfied. We are fighting with the second (best) army in the world, I am satisfied,” he said, referring to the Russian military. But he added: “We are losing people, I’m not satisfied. We didn’t get all the weapons we wanted, I can’t be satisfied, but I also can’t complain too much.”

Zelenskyy also said he fears the Israel-Hamas war threatens to overshadow the conflict in Ukraine, as competing political agendas and limited resources put the flow of Western military aid to Kyiv at risk.

And those concerns are amplified by the tumult that inevitably arises during a U.S. election year and its potential implications for his country, which has seen the international community largely rally around it following Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Commander of Ukraine’s Ground Forces Col.-Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, right, and Roman Mashovets, deputy head of the Presidential Office, look at a map during their visit to the front-line city of Kupiansk, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

The highly anticipated counteroffensive, powered by tens of billions of dollars in Western military aid, including heavy weaponry, did not forge the expected breakthroughs. Now, some Ukrainian officials worry whether further assistance will be as generous.

At the same time, ammunition stockpiles are running low, threatening to bring Ukrainian battlefield operations to a standstill.

With winter set to cloak a wartime Ukraine once again, military leaders must contend with new but familiar challenges as the conflict grinds toward the end of its second full year: There are freezing temperatures and barren fields that leave soldiers exposed. And there’s the renewed threat of widespread Russian aerial assaults in cities that target energy infrastructure and civilians.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy talks to the commander of Ukraine's ground forces, Col.-Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky during a visit to the front-line city of Kupiansk, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

A Ukrainian soldier stands outside a shelter in the front-line city of Kupiansk, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

On Nov. 25, Moscow launched its most extensive drone attack of the war, with most of the 75 Iranian-made Shahed drones targeting Kyiv in a troubling precedent for the months ahead.

“That is why a winter war is difficult,” Zelenskyy said.

He gave a frank appraisal of the last summer’s counteroffensive.

“We wanted faster results. From that perspective, unfortunately, we did not achieve the desired results. And this is a fact,” he said.

Ukraine did not get all the weapons it needed from allies, he said, and limits in the size of his military force precluded a quick advance, he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gestures as he talks during his interview with James Jordan, news director for Europe and Africa for The Associated Press in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

“There is not enough power to achieve the desired results faster. But this does not mean that we should give up, that we have to surrender,” Zelenskyy said. “We are confident in our actions. We fight for what is ours.”

There were some positive takeaways from the last few months, he said.

Ukraine managed to make incremental territorial gains against a better-armed and fortified enemy, Zelenskyy said.

In addition, the might of Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet has been diminished, following Ukrainian attacks that penetrated air defenses and struck its headquarters in occupied Crimea, Zelenskyy added.

And a temporary grain corridor established by Kyiv following Russia’s withdrawal from a wartime agreement to ensure the safe exports is still working.

Zelenskyy, though, isn’t dwelling on the past but is focused on the next stage — boosting domestic arms production.

A sizeable chunk of Ukraine’s budget is allocated for that, but current output is far from enough to turn the tide of war. Now, Zelenskyy is looking to Western allies, including the U.S., to offer favorable loans and contracts to meet that goal.

“This is the way out,” Zelenskyy said, adding that nothing terrifies Russia more than a militarily self-sufficient Ukraine.

When he last met with U.S. President Joe Biden, members of Congress and other top officials, he made one urgent appeal: Give Ukraine cheap loans and licenses to manufacture U.S. weaponry.

“Give us these opportunities, and we will build,” he said he told them. “Whatever effort and time it will take, we will do it, and we will do it very quickly.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacts during his interview with The Associated Press in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Zelenskyy remains concerned that upheaval in the Middle East, the most violent in decades, threatens to take global attention and resources away from Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.

“We already can see the consequences of the international community shifting (attention) because of the tragedy in the Middle East,” he said. “Only the blind don’t recognize this.”

Ukrainians understand “that we also need to fight for attention for the full-scale war,” he said. “We must not allow people to forget about the war here.”

That change in focus could lead to less economic and military assistance for his country, he said. In an apparent attempt to assuage those fears, U.S. and European officials have continued to visit Kyiv since the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.

The shift still concerns him, Zelenskyy said.

“You see, attention equals help. No attention will mean no help. We fight for every bit of attention,” he said. “Without attention, there may be weakness in (the U.S.) Congress.”

Turning to the upcoming U.S. presidential and congressional campaigns, where Biden faces skepticism over his staunch support for Kyiv, Zelenskyy acknowledged that “elections are always a shock, and it is completely understandable.”

A recent AP poll i n the U.S. showed nearly half of Americans think too much is being spent on Ukraine. An increasing number of Republicans are not in favor of sending more aid, and it is not clear if or when a request from the White House for additional aid will be approved by Congress.

When asked about this, Zelenskyy replied bluntly that “the choice of Americans is the choice of Americans.”

But he argued that by helping Ukraine, Americans are also helping themselves.

“In the case of Ukraine, if resilience fails today due to lack of aid and shortages of weapons and funding, it will mean that Russia will most likely invade NATO countries,” he said. “And then the American children will fight.”

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov rides in an APC during a visit to the front-line city of Kupiansk, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Zelenskyy has sought recently to ensure Ukraine’s war machine was running as it should by making a recent shakeup of top-level government officials, touching on another of his goals to fight graft in a post-Soviet institution rife with corruption as a prelude to joining the European Union.

He said he has to know how weapons, supplies, food and even clothing are being delivered to the front — and what fails to get there.

“On one hand, this is not the job of the president, but on the other hand, I can trust those who did not just pass on the information to me, but told me in person,” he said.

The static battle lines have not brought pressure from Ukraine’s allies to negotiate a peace deal with Russia.

“I don’t feel it yet,” he said, although he added: “Some voices are always heard.”

Ukraine wants to “push the formula for peace and involve as many countries of the world as possible, so that they politically isolate Russia,” he noted.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy talks with James Jordan, news director for Europe and Africa for The Associated Press during their visit to the front-line city of Kupiansk, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy poses for a photo after his interview with The Associated Press in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

The war has also made it impossible to hold a presidential election in Ukraine, originally slated for March under the constitution, he said.

Although Zelenskyy said he was ready to hold an election, most Ukrainians are not, believing such a vote to be “dangerous and meaningless” as war rages around them.

With a budget anticipating spending 22% of the country’s GDP for defense and national security, Ukraine’s economy is being restructured around a war with no end in sight, much like the day-to-day lives of its citizens.

That raised another question: How long can Zelenskyy himself cope with being the leader of a country at war?

There are no words to describe how difficult the job is, he said, but he also can’t imagine leaving the post.

“You honestly can’t do that,” he said. “This would be very unfair, wrong and definitely demotivating.”

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

AP · December 1, 2023

26. As US Army transforms, it's gleaning lessons about high- and low-tech fighting from Ukraine, Israel

Good. We must not overlook the low-tech lessons. (and non-tech ones too)

As US Army transforms, it's gleaning lessons about high- and low-tech fighting from Ukraine, Israel - Breaking Defense

Young Bang, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, said the effectiveness of high- and low-tech fighting was "pushing into our guiding principles."

breakingdefense.com · by Jaspreet Gill · November 29, 2023

U.S. Army Sgt. Richard Ruiz, right, and Spc. Cyle Maikfanz, left, both with the 25th Infantry Division, operate a 710 Kobra during the Pacific Manned Unmanned – Initiative July 22, 2016, at Marine Corps Training Area Bellows, Hawaii. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Christopher Hubenthal)

I/ITSEC 2023 — After closely examining conflicts in Israel and Ukraine, as well as technological advances by China, a senior Army official said the service has learned that a future fight is going to require a mix of high- and low-tech tactics.

“If you look at … how we’re actually thinking about the Army in 2040, we’re taking a lot of lessons learned from the current conflicts that are going on right now, whether it’s Ukraine, Russia, lessons learned with Israel, our shift to our peer threats, and there’s a combination of low-tech and high-tech that’s really incorporating … pushing into our guiding principles,” said Young Bang, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology.

Speaking at the I/ITSEC 2023 conference here in Florida, Bang was specifically talking about how the Army is racing towards a “digital transformation” that “really now allows us to accelerate the speed of delivering capabilities to our soldiers.”

Bang did not elaborate on the lessons the Army was taking from Israel and Ukraine, but both conflicts have seen a sometimes surprising mix of high- and low-tech systems — like quadrotor drones that drop “dumb” grenades on tanks, as seen in Ukraine.

The Army’s digital transformation, meanwhile, has been a push to drag the service into the modern, cutting edge era. It has several focus areas in its digital transformation journey, Jen Swanson, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for data, engineering and software, said today, including implementing modern software practices, evolving its open architectures towards to a modular open systems architecture approach and digital engineering.

The service is also focused on implementing a data mesh-based data architecture, scaling and maturing artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, enhancing survivability and resilience in contested cyberspace and electromagnetic spectrum and empowering the Army community.

Execution Mode… For An Engineering Strategy

The Army is also “in execution mode” on its digital engineering strategy after it was approved in September by the service’s under secretary, Swanson said.

“We’re taking digital engineering very seriously in the Army and looking very closely this year at what are the things that we really can get done today and what are the things that we need to invest in the [program objective memorandum] to be able to do more moving forward in the future,”

With digital engineering, the service wants to figure out how to best move from manual processes to an all-digital environment and potentially develop virtual prototypes before it invests significant amounts of money on delivering physical prototypes.

In October, Army Under Secretary Gabe Camirillo told reporters the strategy would be unveiled before the end of the calendar year and will lay the foundation for how the service plans to speed the development of weapon systems. The service is already planning to apply its lessons on two of its major modernization priorities: future vertical lift, which includes both the Future Attack and Reconnaissance Aircraft and the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft, and the XM30 Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle program.

breakingdefense.com · by Jaspreet Gill · November 29, 2023

27. ​China's military buildup enough to win a war with US

Politics is war by other means for China and our adversaries.

Excerpts:

But while we’re talking about a future war, the Chinese reckon they are already at war with the United States.

Indeed, the PRC has been attacking us on economic, financial, biological (think Covid), chemical (think fentanyl), cyber, political, psychological and media/propaganda fronts for a few decades.

The “kinetic” war will come in due course, if it’s even necessary. The US elite and political classes by and large refuse to recognize what China is doing and what it has in store for us. China aims to defeat us and to dominate us.

Even more maddening, Wall Street and the US business class have been funding the Chinese buildup. They have been pressuring successive administrations – and US politicians – not to respond, arguing that we should do nothing that the Chinese won’t like and that might threaten their own gravy trains.

We’re at war and we just might lose.

​China's military buildup enough to win a war with US

Fastest military expansion since WWII and campaign of non-military attacks suggest China is actually already at war with America

asiatimes.com · by Grant Newsham · November 30, 2023

The United States Department of Defense recently published its annual report “Military and Security Developments Involving China.”

This “China Power” report provides a detailed description of the People’s Republic of China‘s military as well as its capabilities and likely objectives. The section on China’s rapid nuclear weapons expansion created a particular stir – especially as it caught many observers by surprise.

A friend asked what this writer made of it all.

But is there really a Chinese military buildup?

American analysts now mostly agree there is a rapid expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal. It reflects the broader, rapid growth of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) capabilities over the last 20 years.

That growth is fairly considered the biggest, fastest military buildup seen in any country since World War II – possibly the fastest in human history.

For many years the expert consensus on China’s nuclear warhead inventory was it numbered around 300 or even fewer. Then, in 2021, that estimate changed – all of a sudden – to over 400. And now it’s estimated to be 500 warheads, with that number expected to double by 2030.

As importantly, the PRC is developing more and increasingly effective and accurate delivery systems for its nuclear weapons.

It’s worth noting that “expert consensus” has usually underestimated the rate at which Chinese military capabilities of various sorts develop. In fact, the experts collectively often miss by a decade or two.

Take PLA Navy aircraft carriers. The thinking was that the Chinese would need decades to even begin to master carrier operations. Indeed, such was the lack of concern – if not condescension – on the US side that the then-PACOM commander, Admiral Timothy Keating, noted in 2009 that he saw nothing wrong with the PLA Navy having aircraft carriers. And that he would do what he could to help, if asked.

Well, now it has three carriers and is rapidly figuring out how to use them.

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The Chinese Navy Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier Liaoning was sighted in the Pacific Ocean east of Okinawa on December 21-22, 2022. The carrier repeatedly landed and departed fighter jets and helicopters for a total of about 180 times. Photo: Ministry of Defense Joint Staff Office

What does it mean for Chinese nuclear options?

One fairly asks if something similar has taken place with estimates of Chinese nuclear weapons. At least, one should consider the possibility that US intelligence has slipped up. (It’s not exactly unusual.) Acknowledging that the PRC in fact might have far more nuclear warheads than currently estimated would also help.

However, such questions are unwelcome by the China experts – and have been for a long time.

Around 2011, Phil Karber, who had served as strategy adviser to Ronald Reagan’s secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger, suggested that China just might have far more than a small arsenal of a few hundred warheads.

That was based partly on the fact that China’s 2nd Artillery Rocket Force (responsible for nuclear weapons operations) had several thousand miles of underground tunnels in which one might hide nuclear weapons.

For this prudent, commonsensical suggestion Karber was savaged and ridiculed by the “‘China hands.” Reportedly, senior-most US intelligence officials instructed that he be discredited.

There are still too many “China experts” who seem to be bending over backward to downplay PRC military capabilities. They insist that there is nothing to worry about – especially when it comes to Taiwan. And they claim that we have plenty of time to prepare before China becomes a real threat.

Image of a simulated attack on Taiwan from mainland China posted by the Chinese military’s Eastern Theater Command on its official WeChat account on April 10, 2023. Photo: Twitter Screenshot / Kyodo

But how serious is the Chinese nuclear threat in terms of fighting and winning wars?

It’s very serious. China will have a huge nuclear arsenal – if it doesn’t have one already. And it’s not just a question of numbers. It’s as much a question of “will” and of whether your enemy (the Americans mostly) think that you just might use your nukes.

The more ruthless side has the advantage. I expect the Chinese to use their nuclear weapons to intimidate both the United States and US partners and allies.

Are you listening, Japan, Australia and South Korea?

Would Beijing actually use nuclear weapons? I do not care to bet my pension that they wouldn’t.

Don’t forget that China’s “no limits” partners, the Russians, have a huge nuclear force. And they just might align it with China’s – at least for purposes of coercion. North Korean, and eventually Iranian nuclear weapons are similarly best regarded as part of the PRC nuclear toolkit.

These nations are not perfect allies, but their strategic interests versus the free world align.

But, since the DOD Report notes that the CCP’s goal is to have a ‘world-class’ military by 2049, don’t we have some time?

By 2049? The PLA is already a capable military that has caught up with and surpassed the US military in certain areas. For example, it has a bigger navy, a massively bigger shipbuilding capacity and a more capable missile force. That includes hypersonic missiles.

And remember that a military need only do a certain thing at a certain time and at a certain place. Indeed, if China picks its time and place, it could give the Americans a bloody nose, if not defeat them. This is particularly the case in the South China Sea where the PLA achieved “de facto” control at least five or six years ago.

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Chinese military power projection for an outright war drops off quickly once one gets, say, 1,000 miles from Chinese borders. But they are aiming to correct this shortcoming – as well as building up a global port and airfield infrastructure to which they will have access – and be able to operate globally, just like the US military.

Just wait five or ten years and see how far they’ve gotten. Probably a lot farther than the “China experts” imagine.

Chinese President Xi Jinping gives a speech to 400 American business people and officials at a dinner in San Francisco on November 15, 2023. Photo: China’s Foreign Ministry

This is not just a shooting war

But while we’re talking about a future war, the Chinese reckon they are already at war with the United States.

Indeed, the PRC has been attacking us on economic, financial, biological (think Covid), chemical (think fentanyl), cyber, political, psychological and media/propaganda fronts for a few decades.

The “kinetic” war will come in due course, if it’s even necessary. The US elite and political classes by and large refuse to recognize what China is doing and what it has in store for us. China aims to defeat us and to dominate us.

Even more maddening, Wall Street and the US business class have been funding the Chinese buildup. They have been pressuring successive administrations – and US politicians – not to respond, arguing that we should do nothing that the Chinese won’t like and that might threaten their own gravy trains.

We’re at war and we just might lose.

Grant Newsham is a retired US Marine officer and former US diplomat. He is the author of the book When China Attacks: A Warning To America. This article was originally published by JAPAN Forward and is republished with permission.

asiatimes.com · by Grant Newsham · November 30, 2023

28. What Kissinger Didn't Understand By George Packer

Kissinger’s Inhuman Diplomacy

WHAT KISSINGER DIDN’T UNDERSTAND

His blindness to human suffering was, in the end, both a moral failure and a strategic one.

By George Packer

The Atlantic · by George Packer · December 1, 2023

Henry Kissinger spent half a century pursuing and using power, and a second half century trying to shape history’s judgment of the first. His longevity, and the frantic activity that ceased only when he stopped breathing, felt like an interminable refusal to disappear until he’d ensured that posthumous admiration would outweigh revulsion. In the end none of it mattered. The historical record—Vietnam and Cambodia, the China opening, the Soviet détente, slaughter in Bangladesh and East Timor, peace in the Middle East, the coup in Chile—was already there. Its interpretation will not be up to him.

Kissinger is a problem to be solved: the problem of a very human inhumanity. For he was, undoubtedly, human—brilliant, insecure, funny, gossipy, curious, devious, self-deprecating, cruel. In Martin Indyk’s book Master of the Game, about Kissinger’s successful efforts to end the 1973 Yom Kippur War, you meet a diplomat with a deep knowledge of the region’s history and personalities, operating with great subtlety and stamina to bring about a state of equilibrium that led to peace between Israel and Egypt. If you read Gary J. Bass’s The Blood Telegram, about the 1971 Pakistani civil war that created Bangladesh, you meet a policy maker with a shocking indifference to human life, willing to aid Pakistan in committing genocide so that Islamabad would continue to be a conduit between Washington and Beijing.

The same worldview informed Kissinger’s actions in both wars. He valued order above all, and order was created in the relations between great powers. Small countries and the lives of ordinary people didn’t matter; America’s missionary idealism was an incorrigible threat to stability. This view led him to warn against humanitarian intervention, and to sacrifice millions of Indochinese and thousands of Americans in prolonging the Vietnam War well after it was lost, in the interest of maintaining “credibility.”

I met Kissinger half a dozen times, and at each encounter I struggled to square my hatred of the historical figure with the charming man in front of me. The first was in 1979, when I was in college; I mentioned that I knew his daughter, Liz. “Does she give you a hard time?” Kissinger intoned dryly. “She gives me a hard time.” I regret to say that I was too polite to ask, “About Cambodia?” The last time was in 2019, at a fundraiser for a library in Connecticut, where we were both selling books. A woman I quickly decided must be his wife, Nancy Kissinger, appeared at my table: “Henry would like to talk to you.” I looked over at an ancient man in shirtsleeves and suspenders, massively slouched in front of a stack of books and a line of autograph seekers. I could hardly believe he was still alive, let alone still publishing.

My biography of Richard Holbrooke—who admired, reviled, and mostly envied Kissinger—contained several unflattering references to the great man, and I wondered if I’d been summoned for one of his notorious chewings-out. Instead, Kissinger told me that he’d enjoyed my book, and added that he’d always considered Holbrooke a good friend. “But the vimin!” he exclaimed, his Bavarian guttural full of wonder. “I didn’t know about all the vimin!” To which I failed, again, to reply that Kissinger was a well-known womanizer himself, or to remind him that, in late 1976, in his last days as secretary of state in the Ford administration, he had called Holbrooke “the most viperous character I know around this town”—a kind of compliment, if you think about the source.

But my most memorable encounter was with a more public Kissinger. It was in the fall of 2015, at a dinner for Chancellor Angela Merkel at the German consul’s residence in Manhattan. I was a last-minute addition to the table and found myself seated next to Ruth Westheimer, the diminutive TV sex therapist, whose presence was a mystery to me. Kissinger was lecturing the chancellor about her decision to allow into Germany a million refugees fleeing wars in Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. He could appreciate the humanitarian desire to save one person, but a million? That was like Rome opening its gates to the barbarians—it would irrevocably alter “German civilization,” said the author of a dissertation on Metternich, admirer of Bismarck, and Jewish refugee from German civilization.

Dr. Ruth, who had been silent throughout dinner, now spoke. Almost apologetically, she told us the story of how, when she was 10, shortly after Kristallnacht, the Gestapo had taken her father away from their home in Frankfurt, and she had never seen him again. Two months later, she was put on a train to Switzerland—part of the rescue of Jewish children just before the start of the war. “If not for the Kindertransport, I would not be here today,” Dr. Ruth said. Kissinger could not have missed her point. They had both been refugees, but only one of them seemed to remember what it had been like. The conversation moved on, but it was now clear why Merkel had wanted Dr. Ruth there.

The problem of Kissinger is not simply the paradox of a man with appealing personal qualities who did some terrible things. After all, he did some good things, too. His diplomacy with the Soviet Union and China remade the world for the better, at least for a time (the world is always un-remaking itself). But the gifts that allowed him to see three or four steps ahead in great-power relations also occluded his vision, sometimes resulting in a strategic myopia. “If you disregard the human costs and the human reality of your decisions, you’re missing not just the moral consequences but the reality of the situations with which you’re dealing,” one of Kissinger’s former colleagues told me upon the news of his death. “In the long run, that reality shapes the policies of nations like our own, and the strategic moves then fail.”

The impersonality of Kissinger’s view of international relations led him to believe that the great powers could order the world’s affairs long after that was possible. He didn’t anticipate that Vietnamese nationalism would defy Soviet control after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. He didn’t see, or perhaps care, that the U.S.-China relationship (which made him rich) could damage America’s manufacturing base and empower Chinese authoritarians. When Russia invaded Ukraine, his analysis seemed to come out of the late Austro-Hungarian period.

The brilliance of Kissinger’s diplomacy in the early ’70s was the last flare of a dying Westphalian light. His heroes were 19th-century statesmen, and he brought their approach to the 20th. He understood world leaders far better than he did the people they led or the rising problems that transcended states. Neither ideological movements nor social conflicts nor human lives were as real to him as the international game of chess.

“Imagine a chessboard in which each piece was actually a king or queen, or the pawns were children, and every time you sacrificed a pawn, a child was killed,” the former colleague said. “You might play chess differently.”

The Atlantic · by George Packer · December 1, 2023

29. Biden's MUTINY on Israel: State Dept insiders warn of internal turmoil

Biden's MUTINY on Israel: State Dept insiders warn of internal turmoil

Biden faces MUTINY over Israel war: State Department insiders warn of 'remarkable and unprecedented' internal turmoil over White House's support for Jerusalem

• Officials at the State Department, in Congress and at USAID have all voiced serious dissent at the Biden administration's stance on the Israel-Hamas war
• One State Department employee, Josh Paul, has resigned: the CIA has warned staffers to keep their social media commentary apolitical
• Analysts said the turmoil is unlike anything seen since the 1980s, and it comes as Joe Biden's approval rating sinks to 40 percent 

By HARRIET ALEXANDER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 23:24 EST, 30 November 2023 | UPDATED: 00:49 EST, 1 December 2023

Daily Mail · by Harriet Alexander For Dailymail.com · December 1, 2023

Joe Biden is facing a significant internal revolt against his administration's stance on the Israel-Hamas war, insiders have said - reflected in nationwide unease at the conflict, and his dismal polls.

The president has been determined to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel following the Hamas terror attack of October 7, which killed 1,200 people.

But he warned Israel's leaders in private and in public not to repeat America's mistakes post 9/11, and be blinded by rage and a desire for revenge.

With 15,000 Gazans killed in seven weeks of bombardment, many inside the Biden administration feel that the White House should do more to rein-in Israel.

Only one person has publicly resigned due to the Gaza onslaught - Josh Paul, a director in the State Department's political-military affairs bureau, which oversees U.S. arms transfers.

But sources told NBC News that the internal unrest - including statements in open letters from government employees - exceeds anything felt in the last 40 years, including the Iraq War and Donald Trump's Muslim ban.

Protesters are seen outside the White House on November 29, calling for an end to the war

Large parts of Gaza have been destroyed, and 15,000 people killed in seven weeks of war

Joe Biden, seen in the Oval Office on Thursday, is coming under intense criticism for not doing enough to rein-in Israel

'It's remarkable and it's unprecedented,' said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank who worked at the State Department from 1978 to 2003.

'I've never seen anything like it.'

The anger has been expressed by hundreds of federal employees signing an open letter demanding the Biden administration push for a cease-fire, and dozens of diplomats at the State Department sending official dissent cables.

At the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), hundreds of employees signed a letter critical of the administration's approach, while hundreds of staff members in Congress have staged protests and signed letters demanding a cease-fire.

They reject what they called a 'blank check' for Israel.

The CIA, meanwhile, last month sent out an internal email reminding staff to keep their posts on social media strictly apolitical and nonpartisan, NBC News reported previously.

One State Department official told NBC: 'Not everyone is demanding a change in policy, but they are advocating for a shift.

'We all saw the pictures on the seventh [of October], and I think there was widespread support for Israel's right to eliminate this threat. But we also saw the pictures that came out after.

'Once pictures started coming out of the rubble of 5,000 dead, 10,000 dead...

'We all know the tools they used to kill them.'

Palestinians search for survivors of an Israeli bombing in Rafah on November 22

Devastated buildings are seen in the Gaza Strip on November 22

Gazans light a fire on Thursday to try and keep warm in the remains of a home in Khan Yunis

Members of the Palestinian Youth Movement carrying Palestinian flags and banners are seen in Washington DC on Thursday

The United States supplies large quantities of weapons to Israel: about $3 billion annually, adjusted for inflation, for the last 50 years. Israel is the largest historical recipient of US security aid.

Biden announced in October that he was sending more, declaring from the Oval Office that he would seek 'an unprecedented support package for Israel's defense' of $14.3 billion.

'We're surging additional military assistance,' he added.

Two State Department officials told NBC that 'their most levelheaded counterparts in the region' were warning that Biden was damaging America's reputation by failing to do more for a cease-fire.

One source told NBC that the unrest was, in part, generational, with younger people more likely to question the United States' massive financial and political support for Israel, against Palestine.

A new NBC News poll shows 70 percent of Democratic voters ages 18 to 34 disapprove of Biden's handling of the war.

Biden's approval rating is currently at one of the lowest points of his presidency, falling from high 50s when he was inaugurated to under 40 percent now.

Just 33 percent of all voters approve of Biden's handling of foreign policy, which is down 8 points from September.

Among Democratic voters, 51 percent believe Israel has gone too far, versus 27 percent who say Israel's military actions are justified.

'They have a different view of U.S. foreign policy than the older generation,' said one source.

'It's a progressive view that sees the U.S. as having made terrible mistakes and not always being on the right side of history.'

Josh Paul, the State Department employee, spent 11 years at the State Department, after stints at the Department of Defense.

Josh Paul resigned from the State Department after 11 years in protest against the conflict

He wrote an op ed for The New York Times on November 17 explaining his reasoning.

'On Oct. 18, I resigned from the State Department because I could not support the provision of U.S. weapons into the conflict in Gaza, where I knew that they would be used to kill thousands of civilians,' he wrote.

'I saw no willingness to re-evaluate a long-term policy that has not led to peace and has actually undermined both regional stability and Israeli security.'

Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, wrote a memo to staff members this in early November saying they were listening to their concerns.

'We've organized forums in Washington to hear from you, and urged managers and teams to have candid discussions at posts around the world precisely so we can hear your feedback and ideas,' said Blinken.

'I've asked our senior leadership to keep doing that. We're listening: what you share is informing our policy and our messages.'

The American Foreign Service Association, the union for the State Department's diplomatic corps, told NBC it was 'heartened' by how the administration has responded to the internal dissent.

'We know that there has been some concern with current policy, in particular by members of Arab American and Muslim American employee organizations at the State Department and elsewhere,' said Tom Yazdgerdi, the association's president.

'We know that these employee groups met with Secretary Blinken and other members of leadership at State.

'That is crucial because dissenting views especially need to be heard and we hope they are taken into consideration.'

Daily Mail · by Harriet Alexander For Dailymail.com · December 1, 2023

​30. Defense bill, passed 62 years in a row, faces partisan minefields in Senate, House

A historic congress if the NDAA fails? I do not think this is the legacy you Congressmen want. Do your jobs.

Defense bill, passed 62 years in a row, faces partisan minefields in Senate, House

BY ALEXANDER BOLTON - 11/30/23 6:00 AM ET

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4334252-defense-bill-passed-62-years-in-a-row-faces-partisan-minefields-in-senate-house/?utm

The annual Defense authorization bill, which has passed on time 62 years in a row, is getting bogged down in battles over issues ranging from abortion to the government’s surveillance authority, threatening to derail its prospects of passing Congress before Christmas. 

With a battle over the annual spending bills postponed until January, the National Defense Authorization Act is one of the few must-pass spending bills left on the agenda. But it’s in real danger of getting stuck.

Senate and House conservatives are warning congressional leaders not to add a short-term surveillance authorization to the bill, and they are demanding it include significant military policy reforms.

Specifically, conservatives are taking aim at the Pentagon’s policies that reimburse the travel expenses of service members who obtain abortions, pay for gender transition surgery and promote critical race theory. 

“We didn’t come here, we didn’t change the rules in January, we didn’t have the fights we’ve had this year to go back to Four Corners-deal negotiating to jam through bad legislation the American people don’t want that doesn’t reform our military to focus on its mission rather than social engineering,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), the policy chair of the House Freedom Caucus. 

Senate Steering Committee Chair Mike Lee (R-Utah), who is leading a push to reform the surveillance program, warned leaders Wednesday not to attach a massive supplemental bill funding military aid to Ukraine or other nonrelated legislative measures to the Defense authorization bill. 

“Increasingly, the NDAA has become the non-appropriations vehicle, Christmas tree vehicle of choice. Like, other than the [appropriations] bill, that’s the catch-all,” he said. “We talked about this a little bit at lunch today. We need to actually have the NDAA be about Defense authorization and not whatever somebody wants to dream up.” 

Lee said if leaders try to add money for Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific region and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine and Gaza, it would spark “legislative Armageddon.”  

“I think they’ll try to, but I think they should not,” he said. 

Lee also voiced opposition to adding a short-term reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act until mid-January or early February.

“I do oppose that effort,” he said. “Right now, there is not a reason to do that.” 

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who wants to end the practice of obtaining FISA-related warrants in secret court, said he will raise a point-of-order objection to adding a short-term FISA extension to the Defense bill.  

“I’m not for extending FISA. I think FISA’s an unconstitutional program. It would be less bad if it were reformed, but without reform, we shouldn’t reauthorize it,” he said. 

The short-term extension under consideration would set the stage for a longer-term extension being added to any spending deal Congress reaches next year.

“What I hear is they’re going to put it on [the Defense bill] for a few months, but the danger of that is that when it rolls into a spending bill, then they just reauthorize it [as part of a spending deal] and we never have the debate,” Paul said. “FISA allows warrants that don’t have to meet the Fourth Amendment standard.” 

The annual Defense authorization bill traditionally has strong bipartisan support, but with the 12 regular appropriations bills on the sideline until 2024, it is becoming a magnet for controversy. 

Another obstacle is a behind-the-scenes battle between Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) over McHenry’s legislation to provide market rules for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. 

Senate Democrats say McHenry is blocking the addition to the defense legislation of Brown’s bipartisan bill to impose new sanctions and anti-money-laundering penalties targeting the fentanyl supply chain, including Chinese chemical suppliers, unless his digital asset market structure legislation is also added.

“McHenry wants his crypto bill passed. His crypto bill is written by industry; it’s going nowhere. Crypto’s not had a good three months, as you’ve noticed — everything from FTX to the other scandals, to Hamas, to fentanyl,” said Brown, who emphasized that his fentanyl bill passed out of the Senate Banking Committee unanimously. 

The FEND Off Fentanyl bill, which was sponsored by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), was included in the Senate’s Defense authorization bill before it passed in July.  Brown is the lead co-sponsor. 

“This could block the whole thing,” fumed Brown, describing Republicans as “irresponsible” for “playing games” and being “willing to block NDAA based on a wish list for the crypto industry.”

Senate sources familiar with the conference negotiations on the Defense bill say Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is backing McHenry’s effort to keep the Senate-passed fentanyl bill off the Defense authorization act unless McHenry’s digital asset market structure bill is also included. 

Spokespeople for McHenry and Johnson did not respond to email requests for comment.  

Another problem for the defense bill popped up this week when Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) threatened to use every procedural tool at his disposal to hold it up on the Senate floor unless it includes language to compensate the victims of nuclear contamination in his state. 

Hawley successfully amended the Senate’s Defense authorization bill in July to extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to cover victims of improperly stored nuclear waste in the St. Louis region. 

That language, however, is now at risk of getting stripped from the bill, which would spark a fight on the Senate floor before Christmas. 

“I’ve talked to the Speaker directly, personally. I’ve talked to the [Senate] majority leader,” he said. “I will absolutely vote for this bill, including all the provisions I’m sure I won’t like in it. But I will absolutely vote for it … if the people of Missouri are taken care of. But if they are removed in some backdoor deal, we’re going to have a big problem.” 

Roy, a leading member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, also vowed a battle in the House if congressional leaders try to pass what he would view as a “watered down” defense bill before Christmas. 

“They want to take this compromise, watered-down NDAA that they’re currently taking to conference committee — they say they’re conferencing it but they’re not. They’re doing a Four-Corners deal, they’re going to go jam it in the conference and then they’re going to take that, add FISA and try to jam it through [the House.] What we’re saying is, ‘No you’re not,'” he said. 

“You pack FISA on NDAA, I’m a hell no on that,” he said. 

“I’m sure that what they’re going to push through is likely abandon the abortion reforms, and I think that’s a mistake,” he added, referring to language included in the House Defense bill to bar the Defense Department from reimbursing travel expenses incurred by service members who get abortions. 

“We better get something significant. If we’re not getting abortion, are you getting transgender surgeries? If you’re not getting transgender surgeries, are you revamping critical race theory and [diversity, equity and inclusion policies?]” he added. 

This story was updated at 9:04 a.m. on Nov. 30.

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