Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“If you are a serious practitioner in the military, you have to be a voracious reader. If you’re not well-read, it becomes readily apparent.”

- General (Ret) Scott Miller

“If folks can't imagine you as human, all the policy in the world is irrelevant.”

- Ta-Nehisi Coates

“Society needs more individuals who understand their duty to act, rather than merely asserting their freedom to act. True progress arises from a profound sense of responsibility.”

- Seneca The Younger

1. How Hamas built a force to attack Israel on 7 October

2. Israel investigates an elusive, horrific enemy: Rape as a weapon of war

3. Extend the Cease-Fire in Gaza—but Don’t Stop There

4. China Takes Advantage of a New Era of World War

5. Unforgettable Episodes From a 21-Day Covert Assignment in Myanmar

6. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 27, 2023

7. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, November 27, 2023

8. US military to fly aid to Gazans as WH warns of next phase of war

9. In race to make artillery shells, US, EU see different results

10. Tip of the Spear - USSOCOM, October 2023 | SOF News

11. The Masterminds (House China Committee)

12. Freed Israeli hostage describes deteriorating conditions while being held by Hamas

13. Tensions are bubbling up at thirsty Arizona alfalfa farms as foreign firms exploit unregulated water

14. Ukraine’s new enemy: war fatigue in the West

15. Attacks on US troops in Middle East have diminished, Pentagon says

16. Intercepted calls from the front lines in Ukraine show a growing number of Russian soldiers want out

17. Army releases first doctrinal publication focused on information

18. Delay in China’s Annual Fall Party Plenum Meeting: A Sign of Deepening Institutional Erosion?

19. What to watch as Congress negotiates final defense policy bill

20. Air Samurai: Is Naval Aviation Overtraining Pilots in the Age of Automation?

21. A Stalemate Strategy for Ukraine

22. Erasing Tibet

23. Marine Infantry veteran says enlisted shouldn't become officers — mayhem ensues

1. How Hamas built a force to attack Israel on 7 October

Excerpts:

Five armed Palestinian groups joined Hamas in the deadly 7 October attack on Israel after training together in military-style exercises from 2020 onwards, BBC News analysis shows.

The groups carried out joint drills in Gaza which closely resembled the tactics used during the deadly assault - including at a site less than 1km (0.6 miles) from the barrier with Israel - and posted them on social media.

They practised hostage-taking, raiding compounds and breaching Israel's defences during these exercises, the last of which was held just 25 days before the attack.

How Hamas built a force to attack Israel on 7 October

BBC

27th November 2023, 12:05 EST

By Abdelali Ragad, Richard Irvine-Brown, Benedict Garman and Sean Seddon

BBC Arabic and BBC Verify

By Abdelali Ragad, Richard Irvine-Brown, Benedict Garman and Sean SeddonBBC Arabic and BBC Verify

Joint military drills were held between Palestinian armed factions from 2020 onwards

Five armed Palestinian groups joined Hamas in the deadly 7 October attack on Israel after training together in military-style exercises from 2020 onwards, BBC News analysis shows.

The groups carried out joint drills in Gaza which closely resembled the tactics used during the deadly assault - including at a site less than 1km (0.6 miles) from the barrier with Israel - and posted them on social media.

They practised hostage-taking, raiding compounds and breaching Israel's defences during these exercises, the last of which was held just 25 days before the attack.

BBC Arabic and BBC Verify have collated evidence which shows how Hamas brought together Gaza's factions to hone their combat methods - and ultimately execute a raid into Israel which has plunged the region into war.

'A sign of unity'

On 29 December 2020, Hamas's overall leader Ismail Haniyeh declared the first of four drills codenamed Strong Pillar a "strong message and a sign of unity" between Gaza's various armed factions.

As the most powerful of Gaza's armed groups, Hamas was the dominant force in a coalition which brought together 10 other Palestinian factions in a war games-style exercise overseen by a "joint operation room".

The structure was set up in 2018 to coordinate Gaza's armed factions under a central command.

WATCH: Videos reveal how armed groups trained together before 7 October attacks

Prior to 2018, Hamas had formally coordinated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Gaza's second largest armed faction and - like Hamas - a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK and other countries.

Hamas had also fought alongside other groups in previous conflicts, but the 2020 drill was billed in propaganda as evidence a wider array of groups were being unified.

Hamas's leader said the first drill reflected the "permanent readiness" of the armed factions.

The 2020 exercise was the first of four joint drills held over three years, each of which was documented in polished videos posted on public social media channels.

The BBC has visually identified 10 groups, including PIJ, by their distinctive headbands and emblems training alongside Hamas during the Strong Pillar drills in footage posted on the messaging app Telegram.

Following the 7 October attack, five of the groups went on to post videos claiming to show them taking part in the assault. Three others issued written statements on Telegram claiming to have participated.

The role of these groups has come into sharp focus as pressure builds on Hamas to find dozens of women and children believed to have been taken as captives from Israel into Gaza by other factions on 7 October.

Three groups - PIJ, the Mujahideen Brigades and Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades - claim to have seized Israeli hostages on that day.

Efforts to extend the temporary truce in Gaza were said to be hinging on Hamas locating those hostages.

While these groups are drawn from a broad ideological spectrum ranging from hard-line Islamist to relatively secular, all shared a willingness to use violence against Israel.

Hamas statements repeatedly stressed the theme of unity between Gaza's disparate armed groups. The group suggested they were equal partners in the joint drills, whilst it continued to play a leading role in the plans to attack Israel.

Footage from the first drill shows masked commanders in a bunker appearing to conduct the exercise, and begins with a volley of rocket fire.

It cuts to heavily armed fighters overrunning a mocked-up tank marked with an Israeli flag, detaining a crew member and dragging him away as a prisoner, as well as raiding buildings.

We know from videos and harrowing witness statements that both tactics were used to capture soldiers and target civilians on 7 October, when around 1,200 people were killed and an estimated 240 hostages were taken.

The first Strong Pillar drill propaganda video showed a command room overseeing the joint exercise

Telling the world

The second Strong Pillar drill was held almost exactly one year later.

Ayman Nofal, a commander in the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades - the official name for Hamas's armed wing - said the aim of the exercise on 26 December 2021 was to "affirm the unity of the resistance factions".

He said the drills would "tell the enemy that the walls and engineering measures on the borders of Gaza will not protect them".

Another Hamas statement said the "joint military manoeuvres" were designed to "simulate the liberation of settlements near Gaza" - which is how the group refers to Israeli communities.

The exercise was repeated on 28 December 2022, and propaganda images of fighters practising clearing buildings and overrunning tanks in what appears to be a replica of a military base were published to mark the event.

The exercises were reported on in Israel, so it's inconceivable they were not being closely monitored by the country's extensive intelligence agencies.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have previously carried out air strikes to disrupt Hamas's training activities. In April 2023, they bombed the site used for the first Strong Pillar drill.

Weeks before the attacks, female surveillance soldiers near the Gaza border reportedly warned of unusually high drone activity and that Hamas was training to take over observation posts with replicas of their positions.

But, according to reports in the Israeli media, they say they were ignored.

Brigadier General Amir Avivi, a former IDF deputy commander in Gaza, told the BBC: "There was a lot of intelligence that they were doing this training - after all, the videos are public, and this was happening just hundreds of metres from the fence (with Israel)."

But he said while the military knew about the drills, they "didn't see what they were training for".

The IDF said they "eliminated" Nofal on 17 October 2023, the first senior Hamas military leader to be killed during the conflict.

Hiding in plain sight

Hamas went to great lengths to make sure the drills were realistic.

In 2022, fighters practised storming a mock Israeli military base built just 2.6km (1.6 miles) from the Erez crossing, a route between Gaza and Israel controlled by the IDF.

BBC Verify has pinpointed the site in the far north of Gaza, just 800m (0.5 miles) from the barrier, by matching geographic features seen in the training footage to aerial images of the area. As of November 2023, the site was still visible on Bing Maps.

The training camp was within 1.6km (1 mile) of an Israeli observation tower and an elevated observation box, elements in a security barrier Israel has spent hundreds of millions of dollars constructing.

The mock base is on land dug several metres below ground level, so it may not have been immediately visible to any nearby Israeli patrols - but the smoke rising from the explosions surely would have been, and the IDF is known to use aerial surveillance.

Hamas used this site to practise storming buildings, taking hostages at gunpoint and destroying security barriers.

BBC Verify has used publicly available information - including satellite imagery - to locate 14 training sites at nine different locations across Gaza.

They even trained twice at a site less than 1.6 km (1 mile) from the United Nations' aid agency distribution centre, and which was visible in the background of an official video published by the agency in December 2022.

Land, sea and air

On 10 September 2023, the so-called joint committee room published images on its dedicated Telegram channel of men in military uniforms carrying out surveillance of military installations along the Gaza barrier.

Two days later, the fourth Strong Pillar military exercise was staged, and by 7 October, all the tactics that would be deployed in the unprecedented attack had been rehearsed.

Fighters were filmed riding in the same type of white Toyota pickup trucks which were seen roaming through southern Israel the following month.

The propaganda video shows gunmen raiding mock buildings and firing at dummy targets inside, as well as training to storm a beach using a boat and underwater divers. Israel has said it repelled attempted Hamas boat landings on its shores on 7 October.

The fourth and final Strong Pillar drill saw fighters training on raiding buildings

However, Hamas did not publicise its training with motorcycles and paragliders as part of the Strong Pillar propaganda.

A training video posted by Hamas three days after 7 October shows fences and barriers being demolished to allow motorcycles to pass through, a tactic they used to reach communities in southern Israel. We have not identified similar earlier videos.

Footage of fighters using paragliding equipment was also not published until the 7 October attack was under way.

In a training video shared on the day of the attack, gunmen are seen landing in a mock kibbutz at an airstrip we have located to a site north of Rafah in southern Gaza.

BBC Verify established it was recorded some time before 25 August 2022, and was stored in a computer file titled Eagle Squadron, the name Hamas uses for its aerial division - suggesting the paragliders plan was in the works for over a year.

The element of surprise

Before 7 October, Hamas was thought to have about 30,000 fighters in the Gaza Strip, according to reports quoting IDF commanders. It was also thought that Hamas could draw on several thousands of fighters from smaller groups.

Hamas is by far the most powerful of the Palestinian armed groups, even without the support of other factions - suggesting its interest in galvanising the factions was driven by an attempt to secure broad support within Gaza at least as much as bolstering its own numbers.

The IDF has previously estimated 1,500 fighters joined the 7 October raids. The Times of Israel reported earlier this month the IDF now believes the number was closer to 3,000.

Whatever the true number, it means only a relatively small fraction of the total number of armed operatives in Gaza took part. It is not possible to verify precise numbers for how many fighters from smaller groups took part in the attack or the Strong Pillar drills.

While Hamas was building cross-faction support in the build-up to the attack, Hisham Jaber, a former Brigadier General in the Lebanese army who is now a security analyst at the Middle East Centre for Studies and Research, said he believed only Hamas was aware of the ultimate plan, and it was "probable [they] asked other factions to join on the day".

Watch: Video purportedly shows captured Israeli tank in Gaza

Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer in security studies at Kings College London, told the BBC: "While there was centralised planning, execution was de-centralised, with each squad operationalising the plan as they saw fit."

He said he had spoken to people inside Hamas who were surprised by the weakness of Israel's defences, and assessed militants likely bypassed Israel's surveillance technology by communicating offline.

Hugh Lovatt, a Middle East analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Israel would have been aware of the joint training drills but "reached the wrong conclusion", assessing they amounted to the "standard" activity of paramilitary groups in the Palestinian territories, rather than being "indicative of a looming large-scale attack".

Asked about the issues raised in this article, the Israel Defense Forces said it was "currently focused on eliminating the threat from the terrorist organisation Hamas" and questions about any potential failures "will be looked into in a later stage".

It could be several years until Israel formally reckons with whether it missed opportunities to prevent the 7 October massacre.

The ramifications for its military, intelligence services and government could be seismic.

Additional reporting by Paul Brown, Kumar Malhotra and Abdirahim Saeed

BBC

2. Israel investigates an elusive, horrific enemy: Rape as a weapon of war

The brutality. This is indefensible.

Israel investigates an elusive, horrific enemy: Rape as a weapon of war

By Shira Rubin

Updated November 25, 2023 at 3:07 a.m. EST|Published November 25, 2023 at 1:00 a.m. EST

The Washington Post · by Shira Rubin · November 25, 2023

Updated November 25, 2023 at 3:07 a.m. EST|Published November 25, 2023 at 1:00 a.m. EST

Warning: The following report includes graphic descriptions of sexual violence.

TEL AVIV — The first indications of possible sexual violence came as early as Oct. 7, the day that thousands of Hamas and other fighters streamed into Israeli towns and began live-streaming bloodshed and torture.

Footage showed several women stripped of their clothing. One video showed a woman, her hands zip-tied behind her back, with blood on the crotch of her pants.

Later came testimony from witnesses and first responders. One witness described in graphic detail a gang rape at the Nova rave site near Re’im. An Israeli reserve combat paramedic told The Post that he found the bodies of teenage girls with signs of sexual assault.

Combatants from Gaza overran 22 Israeli communities, killed at least 1,200 and took 240 hostage in the surprise attack. But their greater goal, sexual trauma specialists say, was to introduce terror against women — and children and other unarmed civilians — as a means of spreading fear.

“The torture of women was weaponized to destroy communities, to destroy a people, to destroy a nation,” said Cochav Elkayam Levy, the head of a nongovernmental commission investigating crimes perpetrated against women and children on Oct. 7.

Hamas denies that its fighters use rape or assault against women as a weapon of war. To do so, Hamas official Basem Naim said, would go against its founding Islamic principles. The group, he said, considers “any sexual relationship or activity outside of marriage to be completely haram” — forbidden by Islam.

“Whoever does this kind of act is committing a major infraction and would be punished both legally and on Judgment Day,” he told The Washington Post. “So our soldiers would not go close to this forbidden” act.

Earlier this month, Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau based in Qatar, also said in an interview with the BBC that “women, children and civilians were exempt” from Hamas’s attacks — despite a death toll that was made up mostly of those groups.

The Israeli commission, established by Elkayam-Levy, is working to compile a comprehensive database of the assault that day, based on the testimonies of survivors, witnesses, medical examiners, first responders, police and militants themselves, many of whom participated first from behind the camera, as they recorded their actions, and later in front of the camera, as they were interrogated by Israeli security forces.

That’s in addition to the investigation by Israel’s police in coordination with the military and Shin Beit, the internal security service. The agencies have been building a case on charges of mass murder, rape, torture and bodily mutilation.

Authorities invited journalists this month to view a video compilation that drew from at least 60,000 clips and more than 1,000 witness statements.

“There was humiliation through rape on the morning of Oct. 7,” Israeli Police Chief Kobi Shabtai said.

“There was worse evidence that we were not able to show,” he said. “They cut limbs and genitals, they raped, they abused corpses. There were sadistic sexual acts.” It’s unclear whether authorities have accounts directly from rape survivors.

Israel has experience and training in mass casualty events, but never before on the scale of Oct. 7, the bloodiest day in the country’s history.

Israel is not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and Israeli authorities have not said whether they intend to prosecute Hamas militants for war crimes. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly condemned ICC investigations of war crimes allegedly perpetrated by Israeli and Palestinian forces in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israel-Gaza war

Israel and Hamas have agreed to a deal to extend the pause in fighting in Gaza by two days, Qatar announced. Under the deal, additional hostages would be released from the Gaza Strip each day in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. These are some of the hostages released so far, including a 4-year-old American girl.

For context: Understand what’s behind the Israel-Gaza war.

End of carousel

Some forces in the Middle East, including those of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Islamic State, have used systematic rape as a weapon. But many armed groups consider the act taboo, even in war. The practice has never been used systematically in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to experts.

Naim, the Hamas official, said the group’s fighters “did not commit any infraction that related to harassment or rape.”

“We affirm that all these Israeli claims are inaccurate,” he said.

The mission to identify and document rape and gender-based violence has been a grass-roots effort, focusing on providing care to witnesses and survivors while also recognizing what specialists say is the possibility that most or all of the victims were killed.

The country’s several dozen sexual trauma specialists have been meeting with female survivors of Oct. 7 in clinics or in the hotels where the women are long-term guests, unable to return to damaged or destroyed homes in what is now a designated military zone.

The specialists have been hosting webinars, studying rape as a weapon of war in places such as Ukraine or Bosnia and communicating with other professionals in the field. They are sharing information on things like eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, prolonged exposure therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help women begin to take control over traumatic memories, created under fire and likely processed erratically in the following weeks, as the war raged on and hostages, including survivors’ loved ones, remained in captivity in Gaza.

The specialists advise against asking a person whether they were raped. Instead, it’s important to let them know that they’re not alone. One might say: “There have been reports of sexual violence. Is it possible you know something about it?”

“You throw out a thread and see if they take it,” said sexual trauma clinic director Inbal Brenner, the assistant director of Lev-Hasharon Mental Health Center in central Israel. Mental health care providers, many of whom were traumatized, too, are grappling with the challenges of Oct. 7, which compounded sexual violence with a kind of namelessness, she said.

“There’s always dehumanization in rape,” she said. “But here it’s also nationalistic, which is very difficult to measure.”

The commission isn’t necessarily encouraging survivors to report their assaults to police. Telling the facts of their experiences to investigators in offices for the record could clash with the primary goal of returning a sense of control or a sense of self.

One woman, her face blurred and her identity concealed in a video statement to police, said she saw a gang rape at the Nova rave near Re’im during the Oct. 7 attack, as she lay down, pretending to be dead.

The witness saw a woman bleeding from the back, she said, first bent over, then pulled back up by combatants. One man pulled the woman’s long hair and raped her, the witness said, then passed her onto another man, who also raped her before shooting her in the head.

“He didn’t pick up his pants,” the witness said. “He shot her while inside her.”

Survivors and witnesses have been reluctant to come forward, specialists say.

“There is always underreporting in sexual violence,” said Orit Sulitzeanu, who runs the Association of Rape Crisis Centers, based in Tel Aviv. “But with war crimes we know there will be extreme underreporting.”

Under those conditions, first responders and morgue workers have become a key source of information.

“We saw many women with bloody underwear, with broken bones, broken legs, broken pelvises,” said Shari, a volunteer worker at the Shura military morgue. She spoke on the condition that her last name be withheld to discuss the sensitive issue.

An Israeli reserve combat paramedic who spoke on the condition of anonymity to comply with military protocol told The Post that he found the bodies of two teenage girls in their bedroom with indications of sexual assault.

“One was on the bed. Her arm was dangling from the bed frame. Her legs were bare, with bruises, and she had a bullet hole in the chest-neck area,” he said. “The other was lying on the floor, on her stomach, her legs spread and her pants pulled down toward her knees. There was a liquid on her back that looked like semen. She was shot in the back of the head.”

Devorah Bauman, a gynecologist, said women sometimes provide testimony indirectly — saying, for example, “that they heard there was rape in a neighbor’s house, or that there was an adolescent who was raped in front of her grandmother, in a nearby house. They are speaking indirectly, but I am not sure that it didn’t happen to them.”

Bauman is director of the Bet Ami Center, which treats rape survivors at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. She’s helping to prepare hospitals to receive women and possibly men if and when they come forward. They could include hostages now held in Gaza by Hamas and other groups. Ninety of the approximately 240 hostages taken from Israel on Oct. 7 are women or girls.

Kinneret Stern’s cousin sold jewelry at the Nova rave, and was among the people kidnapped. As the family searched for her, they were shown a video of the woman, posted apparently by her captors, in a ditch and begging for her life.

“This is one of the Jewish dogs,” a man says. “Any man here will see what we will do to her, and we are here in the field.”

The “video implies the nightmare that every woman is afraid of, of not being able to defend her own body,” Stern said. “It’s an issue that we dare not even say out loud.”

Sarah Dadouch in Beirut and Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.

The Washington Post · by Shira Rubin · November 25, 2023

3. Extend the Cease-Fire in Gaza—but Don’t Stop There

Excerpts:

Washington should also support a democratic process that would create a legitimate Palestinian leadership, one that could make credible commitments on behalf of the Palestinian people. To be clear, the United States has neither the right nor the ability to decide who should lead the Palestinians. Indeed, the George W. Bush administration’s presumption that it did have that right led directly to Hamas's taking control of Gaza in 2007. The United States can, however, bolster those Palestinian leaders who want peace with Israel by showing that nonviolence and diplomacy offer a better path to liberation for the Palestinian people than does terrorist violence. The United States can strengthen the legitimacy of such leaders by upgrading Washington’s own bilateral relations with the PLO (which recognized Israel in 1993), exercising existing executive authority to terminate the decades-old legislative designation of the PLO as a terrorist organization, and reopening the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem serving Palestinians. At the same time, Washington should work with regional and international partners to construct a major economic support program benefiting the Palestinian people.

The United States must also stop blocking international organizations and discouraging other countries from recognizing Palestinian statehood. Although only the Israelis and Palestinians can reach a comprehensive resolution to the conflict, Palestinians are well within their rights to seek recognition of their state from international organizations and foreign governments. Binding themselves to the obligations of statehood and acceding to treaties that require responsible conduct is a nonviolent way of doing so—one that accords with international law and that should be applauded, not discouraged or penalized. The United States should therefore cease delegitimizing those efforts and instead welcome them as beneficial to the prospects for a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Biden has been a strong supporter of Israel for his entire political career. He has built up enormous credibility among the Israeli people with his effusive embrace of their country since October 7. Now is the time for Biden to use that credibility to push the Israeli government in the right direction. He can easily make the case that such steps are not in tension with his promised support for Israel’s long-term security; in fact, they would be the fulfillment of that promise.

Gaza has endured multiple wars since 2007, and the pattern is always the same: a few weeks in which everyone agrees that the underlying crisis must be addressed, and then everyone forgets. The catastrophe now unfolding is a result of that pattern. It must not be repeated. It is hard to imagine that anything good could come of the last two months of horror and bloodshed. But an American commitment to a sustained diplomatic process grounded in international law would be a giant leap toward a secure and peaceful future for both peoples.

Extend the Cease-Fire in Gaza—but Don’t Stop There

Regional Diplomacy and an Overhaul of U.S. Policy Could Produce Lasting Peace

By Matthew Duss and Nancy Okail

November 27, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Matthew Duss and Nancy Okail · November 27, 2023

Recent days have seen the first good news out of Gaza in a long time. As part of a U.S.-brokered cease-fire that began last Friday and will expire tomorrow, Hamas has released dozens of the more than 200 people it took hostage during its October 7 attack on Israel; those released include many of the children whom the group took captive. For its part, Israel has released 150 Palestinian prisoners, paused its bombardment of Gaza, and allowed more humanitarian supplies into the territory, providing a brief respite to the millions of civilians there who have suffered immensely for weeks.

The agreement holds open the prospect that the parties could extend it, and U.S. President Joe Biden said yesterday that his administration was working to that end. That is the right call. Now, the Biden administration must make clear why such an extension is in the interests of both the Israeli and the Palestinian people, as well as the interests of the United States and its international partners. An extended cease-fire could facilitate the return of more Israeli hostages and reduce the risk of deepening the humanitarian catastrophe among Gaza’s civilians. It could also help calm tensions in the West Bank and reduce the risk that the war could escalate by drawing in outside actors, such as the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and its patron, Iran.

But extending the cease-fire should be just the first step in a larger process that would require intensive U.S.-backed regional diplomacy—and an overhaul of American policy. When Biden took office in 2021, he was determined not to spend his time and energy on fruitless efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the war in Gaza has shown that the issue cannot be ignored. To make good on Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s November 8 statement that there can be no return to a manifestly unsustainable status quo ante, the United States must change its overall approach and commit to a broad-based diplomatic process that can finally resolve the conflict and prioritize rights and dignity for people in the region.

The United States’ global reputation and credibility have been severely damaged by its seemingly unconditional backing of Israel’s devastating military campaign in Gaza. But the United States remains the only country with the relationships and influence necessary to secure an extension of the cease-fire and facilitate a process that might lead, at long last, to a conflict-ending agreement.

TALK THE TALK

If an extended cease-fire holds, it could pave the way for a resolution to the current war. Any agreement must end Israel’s blockade and functional imprisonment of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. It must also deny Hamas the capability to launch attacks on Israel. The Israeli government’s stated goal of “ending Hamas” is understandable in light of the group’s October 7 atrocities, but it is unrealistic. Hamas will endure as a political movement as long as the denial of Palestinian rights endures. It is not possible to “end” Hamas, but it is possible to make Hamas irrelevant by addressing the anger and hopelessness on which it feeds. Finally, any just resolution would entail a reckoning with the mass civilian casualties on each side. The United States has supported the International Criminal Court’s investigation into Russian atrocities in Ukraine. Washington must do the same in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

An extended cease-fire would also afford Washington a chance to get serious about using diplomacy to resolve the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a just manner. To do so, however, the Biden administration must explicitly break with former U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vision of piecemeal bilateral normalization agreements—the so-called Abraham Accords—between Israel and Arab- and Muslim-majority autocracies. Far from creating peace, that approach—which Biden adopted shortly after taking office—merely gives cover to permanent Israeli control of the occupied Palestinian territories and the denial of fundamental Palestinian national, political, and human rights, in violation of international law. Trump and Netanyahu’s model involved Washington essentially bribing autocratic regimes into recognizing Israel with promises of U.S. weapons and security assurances. But “arms for peace” has been a failure: it has led to the increased militarization of the region but no increase in stability—as the war in Gaza shows.

More broadly, the United States should also abandon its failed policy of facilitating direct, bilateral negotiations between parties with a massive imbalance of military and diplomatic power. Instead, if an extended cease-fire holds, Washington should immediately convene the parties that met in February to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and issued the so-called Aqaba Communique: Egypt, Israel, Jordan, the United States, and representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). This time, however, Turkey and Qatar—U.S. security partners who maintain open channels to Iran and Hamas—should be invited, as well.

The goal should be to secure a comprehensive resolution of the conflict in accordance with international law. This would include universal normalization and recognition of the national rights of both the Israelis and the Palestinians while ensuring their security and well-being. Participants could propose different models as terms of reference. One potential model is the Arab Peace Initiative, which proposed full Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for an end to the occupation that began in 1967, a just resolution of the Palestinian refugee issue, and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Another potential model is an Israeli-Palestinian confederation arrangement such as the one recently proposed by the Israeli group A Land for All, which seek to maneuver around legitimate doubts regarding the desirability and feasibility of full partition and separation. Whatever formula emerges, it must contend with the baseline reality that the indefinite Israeli occupation and de facto annexation of Palestinian territory is illegal under international law. A failure to counter Israeli efforts to establish permanent, undemocratic control in these territories will doom any diplomatic conflict resolution effort and feed more violence. A just resolution must also ensure the rights of Palestinians in all of the territories: Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Any approach that keeps Gaza separate will fail because it is an integral part of the Palestinian nation.

WALK THE WALK

In addition to leading regional diplomacy, Washington must reorient its own policies, ending its practice of merely criticizing Israel’s deepening occupation and instead taking concrete steps to end it. The absence of any meaningful consequences for Israel’s constant, aggressive settlement expansion has boosted the country’s extremist pro-settlement right wing. Washington must reinstate legal guidance that settlements are inconsistent with international law. Doing so would reaffirm a genuinely rules-based international order by bringing the United States in line with the overwhelming international legal consensus embodied in the Geneva Conventions, which make clear that occupying powers may not transfer their own populations into territories they militarily occupy. The Biden administration’s recent announcement that it is considering imposing sanctions against Israeli settlers involved in attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank is an encouraging sign that Washington is finally starting to take this longstanding problem seriously.

The United States should also cease using its UN Security Council veto to shield Israel from accurate and appropriate criticism for its settlement and annexation-related activities. Washington must no longer allow Israel or any other country to use weapons purchased from the United States or financed by U.S. aid to violate international humanitarian law—as Israel likely has during the Gaza war—or for any purposes proscribed by U.S. law. By meaningfully enforcing existing U.S. laws, including those prohibiting aid to military forces with records of gross human rights violations, the Biden administration could incentivize better Israeli behavior and make good on Biden’s pledge to put human rights at the center of American foreign policy.

Washington should also support a democratic process that would create a legitimate Palestinian leadership, one that could make credible commitments on behalf of the Palestinian people. To be clear, the United States has neither the right nor the ability to decide who should lead the Palestinians. Indeed, the George W. Bush administration’s presumption that it did have that right led directly to Hamas's taking control of Gaza in 2007. The United States can, however, bolster those Palestinian leaders who want peace with Israel by showing that nonviolence and diplomacy offer a better path to liberation for the Palestinian people than does terrorist violence. The United States can strengthen the legitimacy of such leaders by upgrading Washington’s own bilateral relations with the PLO (which recognized Israel in 1993), exercising existing executive authority to terminate the decades-old legislative designation of the PLO as a terrorist organization, and reopening the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem serving Palestinians. At the same time, Washington should work with regional and international partners to construct a major economic support program benefiting the Palestinian people.

“Arms for peace” has been a failure.

The United States must also stop blocking international organizations and discouraging other countries from recognizing Palestinian statehood. Although only the Israelis and Palestinians can reach a comprehensive resolution to the conflict, Palestinians are well within their rights to seek recognition of their state from international organizations and foreign governments. Binding themselves to the obligations of statehood and acceding to treaties that require responsible conduct is a nonviolent way of doing so—one that accords with international law and that should be applauded, not discouraged or penalized. The United States should therefore cease delegitimizing those efforts and instead welcome them as beneficial to the prospects for a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Biden has been a strong supporter of Israel for his entire political career. He has built up enormous credibility among the Israeli people with his effusive embrace of their country since October 7. Now is the time for Biden to use that credibility to push the Israeli government in the right direction. He can easily make the case that such steps are not in tension with his promised support for Israel’s long-term security; in fact, they would be the fulfillment of that promise.

Gaza has endured multiple wars since 2007, and the pattern is always the same: a few weeks in which everyone agrees that the underlying crisis must be addressed, and then everyone forgets. The catastrophe now unfolding is a result of that pattern. It must not be repeated. It is hard to imagine that anything good could come of the last two months of horror and bloodshed. But an American commitment to a sustained diplomatic process grounded in international law would be a giant leap toward a secure and peaceful future for both peoples.

MATTHEW DUSS is Executive Vice President of the Center for International Policy. From 2017 to 2022, he was a Foreign Policy Adviser to U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
NANCY OKAIL is President and CEO of the Center for International Policy.
MORE BY MATTHEW DUSS MORE BY NANCY OKAIL

Foreign Affairs · by Matthew Duss and Nancy Okail · November 27, 2023

4. China Takes Advantage of a New Era of World War

Excerpts:

The net result is that the PRC enjoys an unexpected geopolitical boost even as it backs Washington’s adversaries in their wars and whittles away at U.S. alliances in Asia. While soothing China may be an understandable inclination in the current geopolitical climate, doing so will only encourage Beijing to continue its harassment campaigns. Analysts who argued years ago that the United States needed a military to conduct decisive military operations in three theaters simultaneously anticipated this geopolitical moment. Right now, the military is built to fight only one big war, and American security is suffering as a result.

The United States still has some time to deter China from starting a full-scale war in the Western Pacific, reverse Ukraine’s fortunes, and keep Iran from escalating its proxy wars, but not much. It will require a rapid bipartisan agreement to increase the American stock of munitions both for its own inventory and for transfer to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel and to provide more money to bolster the U.S. nuclear submarine force, the Pacific’s deterrence workhorse. The Congress and the President need to increase the defense budget by 5 percent annually for the foreseeable future to adequately resource the Pentagon’s new posture plans in the Pacific and European theaters. The U.S. strategic goal should be for its allies to defeat Beijing’s proxies and undermine its military intimidation. Nothing less will arrest a slide into a larger conflagration.

China Takes Advantage of a New Era of World War

Beijing is emboldening Russia and Iran while increasing belligerence in East Asia.

The National Interest · by Dan Blumenthal · November 27, 2023

International politics is now defined by a world at war. The United States is consumed with a stalemate in Ukraine’s resistance to Russian aggression and what promises to be a long war by Israel to eradicate the terror group Hamas and its affiliates. This Middle East conflict may escalate as Iran, through its proxies, carries out attacks against both the United States and the Jewish State.

Though China is portraying itself as a fair and just potential broker of peace in the Middle East and Europe in contrast to America’s supposed warmongering, it is actually intensifying its own military and political pressure against Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines. It is also backing the aggressors in Europe and the Middle East. Over the near term, Beijing will be tempted to take even greater military risks unless Washington better prepares for this new era of global conflict.

China is benefiting from global conflict in several ways. It is backing Russia and Iran while scoring international propaganda wins in parts of the world that do not like Western foreign policy. Moreover, Beijing sees a freer hand for its coercion campaigns as it notes gaping deficits in U.S. weapons production capacity and military posture.

The Biden administration’s eager search for a “floor” in its relationship with Beijing resulted in a bilateral summit that helped Xi Jinping’s global image.

China Throws Russia a Lifeline

As Washington struggles with a piecemeal Ukraine strategy, China has ensured Russia can continue fighting for the foreseeable future. Trade between China and Russia has grown 30 percent this year, and total business in 2023 is expected to break $190 billion, last year’s record total. More than a third of all Russian oil exports now go to China, providing the Kremlin with a crucial source of war funding. China has also become a major player in Russia’s consumer market, with one of every two cars sold in Russia today, for example, originating in China. In addition, the PRC is reportedly assisting Iran in its development and provision of drones to Moscow. Xi also feted Putin at his recent Belt and Road Forum, reaffirming his commitment to the “no limits” partnership the two countries had signed at the beginning of Russia’s war on Ukraine and stressed the two would work together against the heavy-handed “bloc politics” that the United States allegedly promotes. Xi emphasized that Russia is a key part of his long-term strategy, stating at the forum that “developing the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination with ever-lasting good neighborliness and mutually beneficial cooperation is not an expediency, but a long-term commitment.” Beijing views Russia as a kindred spirit in its own national project of undoing the U.S. alliance system and building an alternative world order. A Russian victory in Europe has become a top Chinese priority.

China backs Iran

Meanwhile, Iran has moved toward a more offensive strategy, strengthening the “Axis of Resistance” and Tehran’s own expeditionary operations that target U.S. forces and its Israeli ally.

With China’s help, Iran can fund this destabilizing strategy for some time to come. In the past two years, Iran’s oil shipments to China returned to pre-sanctions levels, and China’s crude oil imports from Iran reached a new high at the end of 2022. China is Iran’s top trading partner. At the same time, China is providing diplomatic and military support to the Islamic Republic. With Beijing’s assistance, Iran has formally joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the security bloc led by China and Russia. At the same time, China’s military ties with the Islamic Republic are also growing. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi hosted Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe in April 2022, and the two countries agreed to collaborate on military strategy. Iran, China, and Russia conducted a five-day naval drill in the Gulf of Oman earlier this year. Tehran Last February, Raisi traveled to Beijing, and the two countries signed twenty agreements worth billions of dollars. Iran can now rely on China as an economic safety valve while also avoiding military and diplomatic isolation despite being the world’s number one state sponsor of terror.

In another nod toward Iran and its allies, China has refused to condemn Hamas after its barbaric attack against Israel and instead portrays Israel as the aggressor in the conflict while criticizing U.S. support for the Jewish State. Beijing has even allowed antisemitic tropes to proliferate on its internet, implying Jewish control over American policy and amplifying its overt hostility to a key U.S. ally. These Chinese stratagems play well in much of the non-aligned world, which sees the United States as too close to Israel.

Meanwhile, China Coerces its Neighbors

Meanwhile, as it throws support behind Russia and provides critical support to an Iran on the move, China is itself engaged in three simultaneous coercion campaigns against Manila, Tokyo, and Taipei. Its air, maritime, and cyber harassment of Taiwan has escalated to dangerous levels. At the same time, its pressure against Japan in the East China Sea is ceaseless, with ever larger Chinese vessels contesting China’s control over the Senkakus. Most recently, Beijing has raised tensions with Manila once again. The Chinese Coast Guard and China’s quasi-military “maritime militia” have blocked and harassed the Philippine Coast Guard and military as they attempt to resupply the BRP Sierra Madre in the Second Thomas Shoal. The shoal is well within the Philippines Exclusive Economic Zone, though China claims it. Beijing is trying to control the entirety of the West Philippine Sea, which is Filipino maritime territory.

President Biden has sent an aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, to Manila from Japan to put some muscle behind its claim that it will defend the Philippines. But this is in addition to the two carrier strike groups the United States has deployed to deter Iran and its proxies from escalating the ongoing war in Israel. To defeat these campaigns of coercion and subversion, the U.S. will have to increase both its military presence and diplomatic engagement to build a more robust counter-China coalition. Unfortunately, Washington finds itself unprepared for Chinese coercive tactics, having underfunded its defense for over a decade.

An Overly Cautious Washington is Stretched Thin

China has room to maneuver as Washington is proving itself over-stretched, the consequence of years of underfunding its national security policies. Washington has organized an impressive coalition to arm and assist Ukraine, including over $75 billion in military and other aid to Kyiv. It is likewise providing military assistance to Israel and has sent more force into the Middle East to deter Iranian aggression throughout the region. But its Ukraine strategy has been slow and insufficient, allowing Russia to organize hard-to-break defensive positions in the Ukrainian areas it controls. Moreover, the war has revealed great strains in the U.S. defense industrial base’s production capacity and ability to assist allies. If current trends continue, Ukraine could lose the war, which would amount to a serious blow to U.S. grand strategy and the fate of NATO. China’s closest ally will have prevailed even in the face of Western resistance, an outcome that will raise doubts in Beijing’s mind about Washington’s will and ability to follow through with its commitments. Japan and other Asian allies who have supported Ukraine will question U.S. geopolitical will. Iran would be tempted to turn the current conflagration in Israel into something far more devastating.

Defense Production Stalls

American strategy in this new era of warfare rests on its ability to provide allies with material support. But the cupboard of armaments is bare. Consider the issue of 155mm artillery shells. Recently, munitions Washington intended to send to Kyiv have been rerouted to Israel. Militaries are devouring them at a rate of tens of thousands per day. As the United States supplies its friends, it is drawing down its stock of munitions, impairing its own military readiness and affecting other security partners such as Taiwan. Similarly, the U.S. has provided Ukraine with 8,500 Javelin anti-tank weapons, which were critical in repelling the initial Russian attack. But U.S. production of these systems is low, and it has already given roughly nine years’ worth of Javelin purchases in nine months. Failure to keep up the supply of weapons has strained Ukraine’s counteroffensive and put it in an unfavorable position to take advantage of any potential breakthroughs.

The Danger of Unpreparedness: Will China Escalate?

Given the failure of Xi’s “zero COVID” pandemic policy and consequent economic difficulties, this would have been precisely the time to apply more pressure on the PRC and pushback on its regional coercive strategies. Instead, the Biden administration is seeking a détente with the global troublemaker. Xi received a feel-good bilateral summit with President Biden, which Washington had chased for many months. Beijing insisted on and received a private dinner with the CEOs of America’s leading companies. They reportedly gave the Chinese dictator a standing ovation, expressing their eagerness to resume business with the People’s Republic as usual. This is a major public relations win for China, boosting Xi’s image at home while demonstrating to allies that Washington will put its commercial interests first in ties with the PRC.

The net result is that the PRC enjoys an unexpected geopolitical boost even as it backs Washington’s adversaries in their wars and whittles away at U.S. alliances in Asia. While soothing China may be an understandable inclination in the current geopolitical climate, doing so will only encourage Beijing to continue its harassment campaigns. Analysts who argued years ago that the United States needed a military to conduct decisive military operations in three theaters simultaneously anticipated this geopolitical moment. Right now, the military is built to fight only one big war, and American security is suffering as a result.

The United States still has some time to deter China from starting a full-scale war in the Western Pacific, reverse Ukraine’s fortunes, and keep Iran from escalating its proxy wars, but not much. It will require a rapid bipartisan agreement to increase the American stock of munitions both for its own inventory and for transfer to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel and to provide more money to bolster the U.S. nuclear submarine force, the Pacific’s deterrence workhorse. The Congress and the President need to increase the defense budget by 5 percent annually for the foreseeable future to adequately resource the Pentagon’s new posture plans in the Pacific and European theaters. The U.S. strategic goal should be for its allies to defeat Beijing’s proxies and undermine its military intimidation. Nothing less will arrest a slide into a larger conflagration.

About the Author

Dan Blumenthal is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on East Asian security issues and Sino-American relations. Mr. Blumenthal has served in and advised the U.S. government on China issues for more than a decade.

Image: Creative Commons/U.S. Navy.

The National Interest · by Dan Blumenthal · November 27, 2023

5. Unforgettable Episodes From a 21-Day Covert Assignment in Myanmar

Excerpts:

My plans to visit the PDF camps here were cancelled twice, once in mid-November of last year and again early in March this year, when the military used helicopter gunships to attack resistance camps, killing at least three functionaries. The camps were relocated frequently to avoid further attacks by the military. Finally, on March 24, I was called to a place not very far from the border, where parliamentarian Thang Sei and some resistance fighters agreed to be interviewed with their photographs, which was accomplished successfully.

My request for an overnight stay was rejected by the PDF functionaries as they were apprehensive over the situation in Tamu. There is a threat in the area not only from the military but also from the junta-aligned local militias known as the Pyu Saw Htee. Landmines had been planted along some routes between Moreh and Tamu. A week later, after I had returned to Imphal, there was an encounter reportedly between the PDF and Pyu Saw Htee at a spot near to where I was given the interviews.

Every covert assignment in a conflict zone throws up surprises, unpredictable situations and unexpected results. The Spring Revolution in Myanmar is multilayered, nuanced, and complex with every region displaying its own characteristics. The information gathered in 21 days offered ample food for thought and the scope to draw conclusions on the situations in Chin State and Sagaing Region.

It is difficult to predict when or how the war would end. But what appears certain is the new path that the Myanmar people have embarked upon. Myanmar will never be the same again.

Unforgettable Episodes From a 21-Day Covert Assignment in Myanmar

thediplomat.com · by Rajeev Bhattacharyya

Crossing a military camp, smoking a ‘COVID-19 cigarette’ and narrowly escaping being mowed down by a truck: The Diplomat’s Rajeev Bhattacharyya shares his experiences.

November 27, 2023

The author (left) on the way to Thantlang from Camp Victoria, the military headquarters of the CNF, in Myanmar’s Chin State.

Credit: Special Arrangement

Reporting from Myanmar has always been challenging, even a dangerous endeavor. For decades, Myanmar under military rule was hard for journalists to access. When the country was under quasi-civilian governments (2011-2021), democratic reforms were initiated, including the restoration of the freedom of the press. This facilitated reporting from regions that had been reeling under instability and unrest for decades.

Then on February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military staged a coup. Leaders of the elected National League for Democracy government were arrested and pro-democracy activists were detained. A massive crackdown on the media followed. It became hazardous again for local and foreign journalists to report from the country.

It was in these circumstances that I decided to visit Myanmar. My objective was to report on the resistance to junta rule. Since the chances of reaching a rebel camp from Yangon through regular routes and legitimate channels, and returning home unscathed from the assignment, were near impossible, I decided to sneak into the country through the India-Myanmar border.

Between April and May of last year, I met some leaders and functionaries of the resistance groups at various points along the India-Myanmar border in the Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur. The success of my visit, I realized hinged on establishing contacts ahead and in availing the services of a translator. During the planning phase, I zeroed in on five places in Chin State and Sagaing Region to visit: Tamu, Kalay, Haimual, Camp Victoria, and Thantlang. Kalay was the farthest from the border with India while Tamu was the nearest.

I reached the border town of Zokhawthar in Mizoram on January 11. Here is an account of some of the unforgettable incidents during my three-week journey in Myanmar.

The Ukraine Effect—Trucks Smuggling Wheat Flour From India

A truck heading to Kalay from the bank of Tiau river in Myanmar’s Chin State. Photo by Rajeev Bhattacharyya.

The first incident that shook me happened less than half an hour after we began our journey from Zokhawthar in Mizoram on motorbikes. The road to Kalay was dusty and potholed, with just a few stretches of concrete. A truck came at us from the opposite direction; it was traveling at normal speed but was dangerously close. It could have hit us, with fatal consequences. The person driving my motorbike, a young functionary of a People’s Defense Force (PDF), was able to veer away from the truck in the nick of time to avert a collision.

I knew the trucks, which were coming from the banks of the Tiau river, were carrying smuggled items from India to Myanmar. But what my companion told me later about the consignment in the truck came as a surprise. “Most of these trucks are carrying wheat flour to China. The conflict in Ukraine has created a great wheat shortage in China and hence, the smuggling of the item from India,” he said. “These trucks will offload the consignments somewhere near Kalay from where they will be transported to another destination in different vehicles.”

His claims were later confirmed by a government official in Mizoram, who pointed out that wheat flour is sourced from different places, including Silchar in southern Assam.

Flour is a new item in the long list of commodities that are illicitly traded between India and Myanmar. What’s traded along the 1,020-mile-long border varies. While medicines, clothes, and food are commonly traded along the entire stretch, narcotics such as heroin and Yaba, as well as betel nuts are ferried through multiple routes in Manipur and Mizoram. Exotic animals from Southeast Asia have begun to figure in the list in the past three years.

The Humming Sound of Planes At Night

The shelter at the camp of Chin Rifles at Kalay in Myanmar’s Sagaing Region where the author stayed. Photo by Rajeev Bhattacharyya.

I crossed the border to Kalay in the company of five resistance fighters. We were on three motorbikes. It was supposed to have been a journey of eight hours but turned out to be three hours longer because of the bumpy and meandering hill roads. We also had to stop at some places to ensure that the road was free of the military’s presence. We did not see the military anywhere en route, except a small military establishment spotted on Kennedy Peak about 10 miles after crossing Tedim.

We reached our destination, a camp of the Chin Rifles deep in the jungles in north Kalay, at 10 p.m. After dinner, I dozed off within minutes on a bed of timber and bamboo. At 2 a.m., I suddenly woke up. The sound of airplanes high in the sky startled me as I did not expect them to be flying here. Was it a junta fighter aircraft on a mission to bomb the rebel camps? This was possible as the junta has its network of informers that provide it with location details of rebel camps in this region.

I leapt out of bed and rushed out of the shelter I was staying in to stare at the sky for a few minutes. All that was visible were stars in a clear winter night and a falling star as well, which I assumed to be a satellite for a moment. The humming sound died away, only to be heard again after an hour. I was anxious and could not sleep again.

The next morning, I met a senior functionary of the Chin Rifles. I recounted the events of the night. He calmed my nerves by telling me that the route of some transnational flights passed over Kalay. I heaved a sigh of tremendous relief.

COVID-19 Saves Many Families

The “COVID-19” cigarette that is locally manufactured in Kalay. Photo by Rajeev Bhattacharyya.

It was clear that the humanitarian crisis was worsening in Kalay as it was in other parts of Myanmar. Roads and markets were almost deserted by noon. Little agricultural activity is happening. Only once did I see four people, including a woman, gathering vegetables from an agricultural field in Letpanchaung. Prices of many essential commodities are soaring, compelling families to slash their monthly budgets and reduce their consumption of food.

One day I noticed something unusual at the residence of a resistance fighter near Kalaymyo city. An elderly person was smoking a local hand-made cigarette. It was emitting an extremely pungent smell. I wished to get a taste of the cigarette and asked him for one. The name of the cigarette was “COVID -19.” My curiosity deepened further. The urge to take a few drags got the better of me. I did. And then I blacked out after a minute or so. I sat down and snuffed out the cigarette.

But why the name COVID-19? I asked the elderly person. “The story goes back two years when this region was severely hit by the pandemic,” he said. “This cigarette is preferred over other brands by a large number of smokers in and around the city. Not a single person in this area, who smoked this cigarette was afflicted by COVID-19,” he claimed.

Apparently, when the pandemic receded, the manufacturer of the cigarette decided to name it COVID-19, which is meant “to convey the message that the virus was burned by this cigarette,” said a man accompanying the elderly person. He added that he knew at least three families, including the manufacturer and distributor, who were doing well economically from the sales of the cigarette amid the economic downturn and inflation in the country.

Videographing a Military Camp

A video grab of a military establishment in Kalay that the author crossed on his way to a local manufacturing unit. By Rajeev Bhattacharyya.

Among the challenges I faced at Kalay was to gain access to local weapons manufacturing units. Rebel functionaries of two units agreed to show me how guns are produced on the condition that I would not disclose their location. The first was in a village around 25 miles from the place where I stayed in north Kalay. But the route to the unit ran along a medium-sized military establishment that we would have to cross. There was no alternate track to reach the village.

“Sir, are you willing to visit the unit? There is no check post on the road anywhere near the military center. Rarely do the soldiers check vehicles on that route. And if they do, we will be able to know from a distance and we can turn back,” a PDF functionary tasked to take me to the weapons manufacturing unit told me. But there was a hitch. “There is a danger that they might shoot at fleeing motorbikes,” he said, adding that this had happened on some occasions in the past.

I replied in the affirmative, since getting access to other units was difficult. The PDF functionary suggested that I should appear “very normal” and look straight at the road ahead while crossing the military unit. He asked me to remove the full-face woolen cap I had been wearing since arriving in Myanmar. Instead, he suggested I wear the type of face mask commonly worn during the pandemic.

On January 21, around half-an-hour after we had set off on our journey, the military center came into view on the left side of the road. It was a spacious establishment, full of greenery and medium-sized barracks, but I could not see a single soldier there. When I asked my biker companion, he replied, “There are two of them amid the sandbags on the side of the gate which you will notice and there are more that remain camouflaged inside.” I could see a rifle barrel, perhaps a light machine gun (LMG), placed on top of sandbags but saw no military personnel. We crossed the center safely at break-neck speed.

After completing the assignment at the weapons manufacturing unit, I asked the PDF functionary if it would be possible to click a photograph of the military establishment from my cell phone.

“The best would be a video. When I give the green signal, press the video button on the cell phone, which must be kept at the level of the waist in a casual manner,” he suggested. I did and managed to capture a short video of the establishment.

The Church in Thantlang

The church in Thantlang in Myanmar’s Chin State, which was bombed several times by the military. Photo by Rajeev Bhattacharyya.

Thantlang is a ghost town in ruins in Myanmar’s Chin State. I was relieved when Dr. Sui Khar, vice chairman of the Chin National Front (CNF), permitted me to visit the town but on the condition that I should not stay there for more than an hour. A team of three CNF functionaries headed by a middle-rung officer of the Chin National Army (CNA), the armed wing of CNF, was assigned the task of taking me to visit the abandoned town, an internally displaced persons camp, and the camp of another rebel group, the Chinland Defense Force (CDF) Thantlang.

After I had taken photographs and videos in Thantlang, a commander of the CNA instructed me to sit at a safe spot near a church totally destroyed by bombings. Before doing that, I decided to climb the stairs of the church that led to the terrace facing the road and the eastern flank of the town that had a hillock where the military had its camp. It was about 300 meters from the church. My objective was to click a few photographs from a higher elevation that would provide a broader view of the town.

When I reached the terrace, a CNA functionary yelled at the top of his voice, “Sir, please come down immediately. There are snipers in the military establishment with their rifles pointed at the church.” He told me that one of his colleagues had a narrow escape three months ago. I sat down instantly and descended the stairs at a furious pace to avoid getting shot at.

I had a similar experience when I entered a school near the church. When I reached the gate, a functionary roared at the top of his voice forbidding me to step inside. The rebel squad believed that the military personnel had planted landmines in the school premises before being compelled to retreat to the camp in the hillock. At two places, bamboo spikes were erected by the military to halt the rebels’ progress in occupying more areas in the town.

Tamu – Where Danger Lurks at Every Corner

The view of Tamu from the Indian side in Moreh is deceptive. It is a wide expanse of land with a couple of beautiful pagodas, conveying an impression of peace and prosperity in the region. However, visiting Tamu to understand the resistance movement turned out to be the toughest among all the places that I visited. Skirmishes and bombings have been frequent here and only about 10–15 percent of this border district was under the control of resistance groups as of March this year.

There are eight PDFs active in Tamu with their members belonging to the Bamar, Chin, Kuki, and Gorkha communities. Senior functionaries of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) are also present in the region to supervise the operations and coordinate with other groups in Sagaing Region. Full control over Tamu is vital for the junta as the border town is linked to major towns and cities in Sagaing Region and Mandalay. In addition, Tamu is a source of extra income for the military personnel since it is a hub of smuggling activities.

My plans to visit the PDF camps here were cancelled twice, once in mid-November of last year and again early in March this year, when the military used helicopter gunships to attack resistance camps, killing at least three functionaries. The camps were relocated frequently to avoid further attacks by the military. Finally, on March 24, I was called to a place not very far from the border, where parliamentarian Thang Sei and some resistance fighters agreed to be interviewed with their photographs, which was accomplished successfully.

My request for an overnight stay was rejected by the PDF functionaries as they were apprehensive over the situation in Tamu. There is a threat in the area not only from the military but also from the junta-aligned local militias known as the Pyu Saw Htee. Landmines had been planted along some routes between Moreh and Tamu. A week later, after I had returned to Imphal, there was an encounter reportedly between the PDF and Pyu Saw Htee at a spot near to where I was given the interviews.

Every covert assignment in a conflict zone throws up surprises, unpredictable situations and unexpected results. The Spring Revolution in Myanmar is multilayered, nuanced, and complex with every region displaying its own characteristics. The information gathered in 21 days offered ample food for thought and the scope to draw conclusions on the situations in Chin State and Sagaing Region.

It is difficult to predict when or how the war would end. But what appears certain is the new path that the Myanmar people have embarked upon. Myanmar will never be the same again.

Authors

Contributing Author

Rajeev Bhattacharyya

Rajeev Bhattacharyya is a senior journalist in Assam in India’s northeast.

View Profile

thediplomat.com · by Rajeev Bhattacharyya

6. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 27, 2023

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-27-2023

Key Takeaways:

A cyclone in the Black Sea and southern Ukraine caused infrastructure damage in many areas of coastal southern Russia and occupied Ukraine and is impacting the tempo of military operations along the frontline in Ukraine, but has notably not stopped military activity entirely.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and several Russian milbloggers stated that Russia must maintain active operations in Ukraine and expressed worry over the prospect of further Western military support to Ukraine.
Some milbloggers additionally expressed increased discontent with the perceived lack of articulated Russian war aims and stated Russia must clarify its war aims before discussing any pause or end to the war.
Ukrainian National Defense and Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov stated that the Kremlin has activated a network of sleeper agents in Ukraine in the past few months to destabilize Ukrainian society.
Russia’s attempt to artificially create a migrant crisis at the Finnish border appears to be failing due to Finnish authorities’ swift response.
The Kremlin appears to be shifting responsibility for potential future austerity measures onto Russian occupation heads and the heads of four select Russian republics.
Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, near Avdiivka, in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and did not make confirmed advances.
Deputy Commander of the Russian Navy Lieutenant General Viktor Astapov confirmed on November 27 that the Russian navy is reorganizing naval infantry brigades into divisions in order to increase their combat capabilities.
Likely Ukrainian partisans continue to target Russian occupation elements throughout occupied Ukraine.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 27, 2023

Nov 27, 2023 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 27, 2023

Karolina Hird, Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, Nicole Wolkov, George Barros, and Mason Clark

November 27, 2023, 6:00pm 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 12:30pm ET on November 27. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the November 28 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

A cyclone in the Black Sea and southern Ukraine caused infrastructure damage in many areas of coastal southern Russia and occupied Ukraine and is impacting the tempo of military operations along the frontline in Ukraine, but has notably not stopped military activity entirely. Russian sources posted images and footage of the impact of the cyclone on civilian and transportation infrastructure in coastal areas of Krasnodar Krai, including near Sochi, Anapa, Gelendzhik, Novorossiysk, and Taupse.[1] Ukrainian and Russian sources also noted that coastal areas of occupied Crimea, occupied Kherson Oblast, and much of Odesa Oblast were heavily impacted by heavy snow and high winds, leaving large swaths of the population without electricity.[2] The Ukrainian Navy and Ukraine's Southern Operational Command notably reported that dangerous weather in the Black Sea forced Russia to return all of its naval vessels and missile carriers to their base points.[3] A prominent Russian milblogger warned that the threat of mines in the Black Sea will increase for both military and civilian vessels in the coming days because the storm has broken boom nets and dispersed minefields, causing mines to drift throughout the northwestern Black Sea.[4] Several sources also reported that the storm damaged rail lines in coastal areas, which may have logistical ramifications for Russian forces in occupied Crimea and southern Ukraine.[5]

Despite the challenging weather conditions, both Russian and Ukrainian forces are continuing ground attacks throughout Ukraine, albeit at a slightly slower pace due to snow and resulting poor visibility. Russian milbloggers noted that heavy snow and winds have reduced visibility and complicated aerial reconnaissance and artillery correction in the Kherson direction, but noted that Ukrainian forces have taken advantage of low visibility conditions to consolidate positions on the east (left) bank of the Dnipro River.[6] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Colonel Oleksandr Shtupun reported that Russian forces in the Tavriisk direction (ranging from Avdiivka all the way through western Zaporizhia Oblast) have reduced artillery use by one and a half times and drone use six times due to the weather but emphasized that Russian forces continue to heavily use aviation in the Avdiivka direction.[7] Challenging winter conditions will force both sides to rely more heavily on infantry-led ground attacks in the absence of aerial reconnaissance and artillery correction capabilities.[8]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and several Russian milbloggers stated that Russia must maintain active operations in Ukraine and expressed worry over the prospect of further Western military support to Ukraine, though some milbloggers additionally expressed increased discontent with the perceived lack of articulated Russian war aims and stated Russia must clarify its war aims before discussing any pause or end to the war. Lavrov 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.[9] Several Russian milbloggers similarly claimed that any "truce" or pause in the war will only benefit Ukraine and allow Ukrainian forces to rest, refit, and relaunch offensive operations.[10] One prominent critical milblogger claimed that a pause in the war will allow Ukraine to conduct a "Minsk-3," alluding to the previous Minsk agreements that temporarily paused large-scale combat operations in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and 2015 but ultimately allowed Russia to prepare for the full-scale invasion in 2022.[11] The critical milblogger also observed that any discussions regarding pauses or negotiations in the war will be particularly harmful to Russia because Russia has failed to clearly define war aims or conditions necessary for a Russian victory.[12] The milblogger noted that the lack of a clear definition for victory has caused internal destabilization within Russia.[13] Other Russian milbloggers noted that Ukraine still controls several territories that Russia has claimed to have (illegally) annexed, arguing that Russia should not see any negotiations until or unless Russia can capture the rest of the four occupied oblasts (Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia oblasts), as well as Odesa and Mykolaiv oblasts.[14]

Renewed discussion of hypothetical negotiations underlined Russia’s lack of clearly articulated war aims and are causing significant anxiety in the pro-war Russian information space. Some milbloggers claimed that Russia cannot even consider the possibility of pausing the war until they have fully captured the four occupied Ukrainian oblasts, while other milbloggers advocated for more maximalist aims such as the capture of Odesa and Mykolaiv oblasts, in which Russia currently has no presence (with the exception of a small Russian presence on the Mykolaiv Oblast side of the Kinburn Peninsula).[15] The apparent lack of consensus as to what exactly would constitute a Russian victory is compounding anxieties over the perceived pace of the war in the Russian information space —an anxiety that is increasingly reflected in the highest levels of the Russian government. ISW has previously reported that select voices in the Russian information space, namely deceased Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin, advocated for freezing the lines in Ukraine to afford Russian troops the ability to rest and reconstitute, but Lavrov's statement against any sort of pause in Ukraine is an explicit rejection of this argument, as well as a tacit acceptance of a protracted war in Ukraine.[16] Clear Russian concern about Ukraine's ability to rearm and relaunch offensives in the case of the pause highlights Russia’s concern over continued NATO and Western support for Ukraine. Russia is rapidly replacing losses and belatedly moving its economy to a war footing, and ISW continues to assess that the Kremlin would leverage any pause or ceasefire to prepare for renewed aggression against Ukraine.[17] Ukraine's partners have the capability to sustain and accelerate aid to Ukraine and enable Ukraine to restore maneuver to the battlefield.[18]

Ukrainian National Defense and Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov stated that the Kremlin has activated a network of sleeper agents in Ukraine in the past few months to destabilize Ukrainian society. Danilov stated in an interview with the Times published on November 27 that these sleeper agents are embedded in public institutions and threaten Ukrainian security agencies, including the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU).[19] Danilov stated that these sleeper agents aim to undermine Ukrainian unity by causing fractures between Ukrainian political and military leadership, as well as between Ukrainian civilians and the government. Danilov warned that these sleeper agents are specifically exploiting alleged tensions between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Commander-in-Chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi and are additionally targeting female relatives of Ukrainian soldiers to foment anti-government sentiments as part of these efforts to fracture Ukrainian society.

Russia’s attempt to artificially create a migrant crisis at the Finnish border appears to be failing due to Finnish authorities’ swift response. Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo stated on November 27 that the Finnish government will close the last border crossing with Russia “if necessary” and reported that the Finnish government is ready to take unspecified additional measures in response to Russia’s artificially generated migrant crisis.[20] Finland previously closed three checkpoints on the Finnish-Russian border on November 23, leaving only its northernmost border crossing open.[21] Several other Finnish government officials also signaled their support for closing the entire border with Russia.[22] A Russian insider source claimed that Russian Presidential Administration First Deputy Head Sergei Kiriyenko instructed Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) Head Vladimir Kolokoltsev to gather migrants from the Middle East, Africa, and other regions to send them to the Finnish border.[23] The insider source complained that Finnish border authorities stopped most migrants from crossing into Finland and that Russian authorities must now settle the migrants in Russia.[24]

The Kremlin appears to be shifting responsibility for potential future austerity measures onto Russian occupation heads and the heads of four select Russian republics. Russian state news outlet Kommersant reported on November 27 that the Russian Ministry of Finance’s 2024 subsidy provision agreements will directly assign budget deficit responsibilities to the heads of the republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Tuva and the heads of the four Russian occupation administrations in Ukraine.[25] The Russian Ministry of Finance reportedly plans to add additional obligations to the subsidy agreements with the four Russian republics and the four occupation administrations in order to reduce gaps between regional income and expenses and will withdraw federal subsidies if these regional and occupation administrations fail to lower budget deficits.[26] These additional obligations will ask republic and occupation heads to sign promises levels of targeted spending of federal money on social programs; increase the efficiency of their respective budgetary institutions; refuse to expand the number of state employees; and not increase state salaries above the inflation level.[27] The additional obligations will also reportedly require that the heads of these administrations increase state revenue collection and agree with the Ministry of Finance’s 2025 draft budget.[28] The heads of the republic and occupation administrations reportedly have until December 18, 2023, to sign the 2024 subsidy provision agreements with the new obligations or refuse subsidies for the upcoming year.[29] These obligations appear to amount to an austerity package as increases to state revenue collection will likely require tax hikes, while targeted spending for social programs may portend cuts to existing regional and occupation programs.

The Russian Ministry of Finance reportedly selected the occupation administrations and the four republics because of their high ratio of federal subsidies to regional income.[30] The Russian government has heavily subsidized regions in the North Caucasus since the Chechen wars and has almost completely subsidized occupied territories in Ukraine following their illegal annexation into Russia.[31] Federal subsidies reportedly accounted for 54 percent of the Republic of Tuva’s budget revenue in 2020, making it the most subsidized Russian federal subject, followed by the republics of Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia.[32] Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov stated on September 11 that Russia has a plan to reduce its overall budget deficit in the coming years amid continued significant spending on the war in Ukraine.[33] The potential austerity measures in the most subsidized Russian federal subjects and the almost entirely subsidized occupation administrations may represent the beginning of a wider set of measures to cut budget deficits while maintaining defense spending. The Kremlin may have instructed the Russian Ministry of Finance to shift responsibility for the measures directly onto the republic and occupation administrations to prevent the Kremlin from bearing the expected discontent for austerity. The Kremlin may have also chosen the occupied territories and four non-ethnic Russian republics to contain social discontent in non-ethnic Russian areas and existing areas of concern ahead of the 2024 Russian presidential elections.

The Kremlin may risk undermining Russian integration efforts in occupied territories and prompt discontent in federal subjects if it pursues significant austerity measures. Large-scale federal spending on infrastructure and social programs, as well as preferential tax codes and benefits, have been a central component of the Russian effort to establish economic and social control over occupied territories in Ukraine, and potential austerity measures may complicate these efforts. Concerns about domestic discontent in the North Caucasus have recently intensified alongside heightened ethnoreligious tensions in Russia, and economic strains may make this discontent more pronounced.[34]

Key Takeaways:

A cyclone in the Black Sea and southern Ukraine caused infrastructure damage in many areas of coastal southern Russia and occupied Ukraine and is impacting the tempo of military operations along the frontline in Ukraine, but has notably not stopped military activity entirely.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and several Russian milbloggers stated that Russia must maintain active operations in Ukraine and expressed worry over the prospect of further Western military support to Ukraine.
Some milbloggers additionally expressed increased discontent with the perceived lack of articulated Russian war aims and stated Russia must clarify its war aims before discussing any pause or end to the war.
Ukrainian National Defense and Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov stated that the Kremlin has activated a network of sleeper agents in Ukraine in the past few months to destabilize Ukrainian society.
Russia’s attempt to artificially create a migrant crisis at the Finnish border appears to be failing due to Finnish authorities’ swift response.
The Kremlin appears to be shifting responsibility for potential future austerity measures onto Russian occupation heads and the heads of four select Russian republics.
Russian forces conducted offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, near Avdiivka, in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and did not make confirmed advances.
Deputy Commander of the Russian Navy Lieutenant General Viktor Astapov confirmed on November 27 that the Russian navy is reorganizing naval infantry brigades into divisions in order to increase their combat capabilities.
Likely Ukrainian partisans continue to target Russian occupation elements throughout 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 offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on November 27 but did not make any confirmed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported unsuccessful Russian assaults near Petropavlivka (7km northeast of Kupyansk), Synkivka (8km northeast of Kupyansk), Novoselivske (15km northwest of Svatove), Terny (17km west of Kreminna), Yampolivka (17km west of Kreminna), Torske (15km southwest of Kreminna), and in the Serebryanske forest area (just southwest of Kreminna).[35] Ukrainian Ground Forces Commander Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi noted that Russian forces are using "Storm," "Storm-Z," and "Storm-V" assault units comprised of former convicts and former Wagner Group fighters in assaults on Ukrainian positions along the Kupyansk-Kreminna line.[36] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces captured new unspecified positions near Synkivka, and other milbloggers reported heavy fighting in the Synkivka area.[37] Russian sources also claimed that there are ongoing meeting engagements in the Serebryanske forest area, particularly near Dibrova (7km southwest of Kreminna).[38]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted limited and unsuccessful counterattacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on November 27. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked in the Kupyansk area near Synkivka and Ivanivka (20km southeast of Kupyansk), and in the Kreminna direction near Dibrova.[39] A Russian media aggregator claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Synkivka and that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian reconnaissance-in-force efforts in the Serebryanske forest area on November 26.[40]

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

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued ground attacks south of Bakhmut on November 27, although Ukrainian forces did not make any confirmed or claimed advances.[41]

Russian forces continued localized offensives operations near Bakhmut on November 27 but did not make any confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled more than 26 Russian assaults near Bohdanivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut), Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut), Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut), and Andriivka (13km southwest of Bakhmut).[42] Ukrainian Ground Forces Commander Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi stated that Russian forces continued attempts to dislodge Ukrainian forces from positions in Klishchiivka and intensified their use of strike drones in the Bakhmut direction.[43] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces achieved unspecified tactical successes northwest of Klishchiivka and northwest of Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut).[44] The milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces continue to control dominant tactical heights near Klishchiivka and that the outskirts of the settlement are a contested ”gray zone.”[45] A Russian news aggregator claimed that Russian forces established a foothold near the railway east of Andriivka on November 26, although ISW has not observed visual confirmation of this claim.[46] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) posted footage purporting to show elements of the Russian 98th Airborne (VDV) Division capturing a Ukrainian stronghold in the Bakhmut direction.[47]

The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian assaults northwest of Horlivka near Pivdenne and Shumy (both 11km northwest of Horlivka) on November 27.[48]

Russian forces conducted ground attacks northwest of Horlivka on November 27 but did not make any confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled assaults east of Pivdenne.[49] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces are attempting to advance near Mayorske (10km northwest of Horlivka) and that battles are ongoing in the area.[50]

Russian forces continued offensive operations near Avdiivka on November 27 but did not make any confirmed advances. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled more than 30 Russian assaults east of Novobakhmutivka (13km northwest of Avdiivka); northeast of Berdychi (7km northwest of Avdiivka); south of Novokalynove (12km north of Avdiivka) and Tonenke (7km west of Avdiivka); and near Stepove (3km north of Avdiivka), Avdiivka, Sieverne (6km west of Avdiivka), and Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka).[51] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Colonel Oleksandr Shtupun stated that Russian forces continued ground attacks in groups of 10 to 20 personnel each.[52] Shtupun stated that Russian forces are attacking in six directions in the Avdiivka area, and that heavy fighting is ongoing near the Avdiivka Coke Plant in northeastern Avdiivka and the industrial zone southeast of Avdiivka.[53] Russian sources reiterated claims that Russian forces captured all of the industrial zone southeast of Avdiivka and reached Avdiivka’s southeastern outskirts.[54] A Russian news aggregator claimed that elements of the ”Veterany” Assault Brigade (of the MoD-affiliated "Redut" private military company [PMC]) were primarily responsible for the claimed Russian capture of the industrial zone.[55] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces made unspecified advances near Kruta Balka (5km east of Avdiivka) and the Avdiivka Coke Plant, although ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claims.[56] Shtupun stated that poor weather conditions in the Avdiivka area heavily reduced Russian artillery fire and drone use, but that Russian aviation is still active in the area.[57]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces successfully counterattacked near Avdiivka on November 27. A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces counterattacked Russian positions near Stepove and were partially successful.[58] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully counterattacked near the industrial zone southeast of Avdiivka.[59]

Russian forces continued offensive operations west and southwest of Donetsk City on November 27 but did not make any confirmed gains. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled more than nine Russian assaults near Marinka (immediately southwest of Donetsk City) and Novomykhailivka (11km southwest of Donetsk City).[60]

Ukrainian forces did not conduct any confirmed or claimed counterattacks west or southwest of Donetsk City on November 27.

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

Ukrainian forces did not conduct any confirmed or claimed ground attacks in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on November 27.

Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area and reportedly advanced on November 27. Russian milbloggers claimed that elements of the Russian 394th Motorized Rifle Regiment (127th Motorized Rifle Division, 5th Combined Arms Army, Eastern Military District) counterattacked and managed to push Ukrainian forces to the western outskirts of Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka) and advanced near the Hrusheva Gully (15km southwest of Velyka Novosilka).[61] ISW is unable to confirm this claim, however. Another Russian source claimed that inclement weather has slowed offensive operations near Staromayorske and that the front line has not changed.[62]

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast on November 27 and recently marginally advanced. Geolocated footage published on November 26 shows that Ukrainian forces made marginal advances south of Robotyne.[63] Russian sources claimed on November 27 that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian ground attacks near Robotyne, Novoprokopivka (2km south of Robotyne), and Verbove (10km east of Robotyne).[64]

Russian forces reportedly advanced during counterattacks in western Zaporizhia Oblast on November 27. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces counterattacked and seized multiple fortified Ukrainian positions near Verbove and that Russian forces continued offensive operations near Robotyne.[65] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian ground attacks near Robotyne and west of Verbove.[66]

Ukrainian and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials indicated that Russian forces are firing artillery and rockets from positions at or near the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). The IAEA reported on November 26 reported that the IAEA contingent at the ZNPP heard a “distinctive sound” of an MLRS launching “several rockets that appeared to have been fired from close to the plant” but that the IAEA personnel could not see the projectiles due to clouds in the area.[67] Ukrainian nuclear energy operator Energoatom amplified the IAEA’s report on November 27 and reported that Russian forces are using the ZNPP as a firing position.[68] ISW has repeatedly reported on Russia’s continued militarization of the ZNPP, including imagery and footage from summer 2022 confirming that Russian forces deployed military equipment to ZNPP grounds.[69]

Russian forces reportedly advanced in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast amid continued Ukrainian offensive operations on the east bank on November 27. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces counterattacked in Krynky (30km northeast of Kherson Oblast and 2km from the Dnipro River) with air and artillery support and recaptured some unspecified positions, although ISW has observed no visual confirmation of this claim.[70] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked in and around Krynky and near Poyma (12km east of Kherson City and 4km from the Dnipro River) and Pishchanivka (13km east of Kherson City and 3km from the Dnipro River).[71] The milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces took advantage of poor weather conditions to rotate personnel and consolidate defensive positions.[72]

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

Deputy Commander of the Russian Navy Lieutenant General Viktor Astapov confirmed on November 27 that the Russian Navy is reorganizing naval infantry brigades into divisions in order to increase their combat capabilities.[73] Astapov also told Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) newspaper Red Star that the Russian naval infantry units will undergo additional training to operate drones and that the Russian Navy has created specialized drone operation units.[74] This reorganization likely supports the larger long-term force restructuring as announced by Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu in January 2023.[75]

Russian relatives of mobilized personnel published a manifesto and petition on November 27 calling for the return of their mobilized relatives and an end to “indefinite” mobilization.[76] The manifesto states that the Russian government betrayed mobilized personnel and is now exterminating them.[77] The manifesto also calls Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that 2024 is the “Year of the Family” “ironic” because wives must live without their husbands and children must live without their fathers.[78] The manifesto further criticizes Russian authorities for releasing convicts after they served in the Russian military because they reoffend after returning to Russia.[79] The petition calls for the establishment of a one-year term limit for mobilized personnel’s military service.[80] Relatives of mobilized personnel have continually called for the release of their relatives from military service and for better treatment of mobilized servicemen in the Russian military.[81] A Russian opposition outlet recently reported on November 22 that the Kremlin instructed Russian regional authorities to prevent relatives of mobilized personnel from protesting by paying them off.[82]

Turkey has reportedly increased its export of dual-use goods to Russia in 2023. The Financial Times (FT) reported on November 27 that Turkey has increased its exports of 45 “high-priority” civilian materials that Russia’s military utilizes, including microchips, communications equipment, and equipment parts such as telescopic sights.[83] FT reported that Turkey exported $154 million worth of high-priority goods in the first nine months of 2023, three times more than over the same period in 2022.[84] FT noted an increase in Turkish exports of high-priority dual-use goods to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan in 2023 and suggested that these countries may be facilitating sanctions evasion for Russian imports.[85] An unspecified European official told FT that Turkey and the United Arab Emirates often serve as intermediaries for exports to Russia.[86]

A Finnish company has reportedly continued to export sanctioned goods to Russia since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Finnish outlet Yle reported on November 26 that a Finnish company has reportedly exported millions of euros worth of truck parts to Russia.[87] Yle, citing Finnish customs data, also reported that about a dozen trucks from this company appeared in Russia and noted an uptick in the company’s exports of trucks to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.[88]

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

The Russian defense industrial base (DIB) reportedly continues to use imported electronics and microchips in some Russian drone and missile systems. Representative of the Ukrainian General Staff’s Center for Research of Captured and Advanced Weapons and Military Equipment, Captain Andriy Rudyk, stated that the Ukrainian research found imported electronics components in downed Russian Orlan-10 and Eleron-3SV reconnaissance drones.[89] Rudyk also stated that Ukrainian specialists found that earlier Kh-101 cruise missiles used high-quality imported microchips, while newer Kh-101s were equipped with older microchips.[90] Rudyk stated that Russian DIB likely uses simpler technology in newer missile designs in order to offset the effects of sanctions and increase production.[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)

Likely Ukrainian partisans continue to target Russian occupation elements throughout occupied Ukraine. Ukrainian Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov stated on November 27 that local residents in Melitopol reported that Ukrainian partisans exchanged small arms fire with Chechen forces near occupied Myrne, Zaporizhia Oblast over the weekend of November 25-26.[92] Fedorov reported that Ukrainian partisans also blew up a car belonging to Chechen forces.[93] Russian state media additionally reported on November 27 that unspecified actors (likely Ukrainian partisans) attempted to assassinate Kharkiv Oblast occupation deputy head Alexander Slisarenko, who is now recovering in the hospital.[94]

Qatar continues efforts to mediate the return of deported Ukrainian children from Russian back to Ukraine. In an interview with CBS on November 26, Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sheik Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, stated that Qatar hopes to mediate the repatriation of another group of Ukrainian children before the holidays.[95] Qatar previously facilitated the return of four Ukrainian children to Ukraine, as well as the return of Bohdan Yermokhin, a deported Ukrainian teenager who Russian authorities tried to forcibly conscript.[96]

Russian occupation administrations are struggling to deal with the impacts of inclement weather conditions throughout occupied Ukraine. Ukrainian Kherson Oblast Regional Council First Deputy Yuriy Sobolevskyi noted on November 27 that the Russian occupation administration of east (left) bank Kherson Oblast is facing serious issues with critical infrastructure and logistics due to a cyclone covering southern Ukraine.[97] Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) Head Denis Pushilin stated that a significant number of residents of occupied Donetsk Oblast do not have electricity due to the storm, and Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Head Artem Lysohor reported mobile communications outages in occupied Luhansk Oblast.[98] Russian sources claimed that over 500,000 people in occupied Crimea are currently without electricity due to stormy weather.[99]

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

The Russian government continues efforts to discredit Western media platforms. Russian outlet Interfax reported on November 27 that a Russian court arrested Meta Spokesperson Andy Stone in absentia for “promoting terrorist activities.”[100] Russia designated Meta as an extremist organization in March 2022 and banned its Facebook and Instagram services in Russia.[101]

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)

Belarusian Minister of Defense Viktor Khrenin stated on November 27 that S-400 air defense systems entered service within the Union State’s combined Russian-Belarusian air defense framework in an unspecified area of Belarus.[102] These S-400 systems are likely in service with a Belarusian air defense unit, as opposed to a Russian air defense unit deployed in Belarus.[103] ISW reported that Russia deployed at least a battery of S-400 air defense systems to Belarus on May 28, 2023.[104]

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.

7. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, November 27, 2023

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-november-27-2023

Key Takeaways:

1. Hamas and Israel completed the fourth swap of Hamas-held hostages for Israeli-held prisoners in accordance with their humanitarian pause agreement. Israel and Hamas agreed to extend the pause in fighting an additional two days to last until November 30.

2. Israel said that Hamas violated the terms of the humanitarian pause on November 25 by releasing a child without their parent in the prisoner swap.

3. Israel identified the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya as a location that Hamas uses for military activity prior to Israeli forces clearing the hospital, which contradicts claims that Israel raided the hospital without a stated reason.

4. Al Araby reported that Hamas is preparing to resume fighting with Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.

5. Human Rights Watch reported that a rocket misfire likely caused the explosion at al Ahli Hospital in the Gaza Strip on October 17.

6. Palestinian fighters attacked Israeli forces seven times in the West Bank.

7. Lebanese Hezbollah (LH) and other Iranian-backed militias did not conduct any attacks into northern Israel.

8. The Houthi movement launched two ballistic missiles targeting the Israeli-owned MV Central Park tanker after the US Navy destroyer USS Mason disrupted an attempt to hijack the tanker in the Gulf of Aden.

IRAN UPDATE, NOVEMBER 27, 2023

Nov 27, 2023 - ISW Press

Iran Update, November 27, 2023

Andie Parry, Ashka Jhaveri, Kathryn Tyson, Peter Mills, Brian Carter, Amin Soltani, and Nicholas Carl

Information Cutoff: 2:00 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:

2. Israel said that Hamas violated the terms of the humanitarian pause on November 25 by releasing a child without their parent in the prisoner swap.

4. Al Araby reported that Hamas is preparing to resume fighting with Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.

5. Human Rights Watch reported that a rocket misfire likely caused the explosion at al Ahli Hospital in the Gaza Strip on October 17.

6. Palestinian fighters attacked Israeli forces seven times in the West Bank.

7. Lebanese Hezbollah (LH) and other Iranian-backed militias did not conduct any attacks into northern Israel.

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.

Hamas and Israel completed the fourth swap of Hamas-held hostages for Israeli-held prisoners on November 27 in accordance with their humanitarian pause agreement.[1] Hamas released 11 Israeli hostages.[2] Israel is set to release three women and 30 others, including minors, in exchange.[3] Palestinian media sources, including Hamas-affiliated outlets, reported that Israel released some of the prisoners at the time of writing.[4] The parties had delayed the exchange briefly, as Israel and Hamas disagreed on which hostages Hamas would release.[5] Hamas had sent a list of hostages to be released to Israel on November 26 that Israel renegotiated on November 27, causing the delay.[6]

Israel and Hamas agreed to extend the pause in fighting an additional two days to last until November 30. Hamas announced that it would extend the pause by two days under the same terms as those of the original agreement, implying that Israel and Hamas would continue to exchange hostages/prisoners, humanitarian aid would continue entering the Gaza Strip, and Israel would continue to refrain from flying aircraft over the strip.[7] The Qatari Foreign Affairs Ministry similarly said that Israel and Hamas agreed to extend the pause by another two days.[8] A senior adviser to the Israeli prime minister acknowledged that the extension would occur once Hamas released the fourth round of hostages on November 27, which happened later in the day as reported above.[9] Israel has not made an official statement on the pause extension at the time of writing, however.[10] The White House confirmed the agreement to extend the pause.[11] The US National Security Council spokesperson said that Hamas agreed to release another 20 women and children over the next two days.[12] Senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) official Daoud Shehab acknowledged on November 27 before the two-day extension announcement that PIJ was “evaluating” the possible extension.[13] This statement suggests that PIJ leadership intends to continue observing the pause in fighting.

Hamas, Qatar, and the United States expressed a desire to extend the pause even further. Hamas Political Bureau member Khalil al Hayya stated that Hamas was able to find enough females and youth held hostage to extend the truce for two additional days but hoped to extend it for a longer period.[14] Hayya also said that Hamas seeks to enter a new deal that releases hostages other than women and children.[15] Senior PIJ official Daoud Shehab indicated that the release of Israeli soldiers would have an unspecified price, however.[16] The Qatari Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson similarly stated that Qatar hopes the pause will lead to a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.[17] US President Joe Biden lastly stated that he is working to extend the pause beyond the additional two days.[18] Israel has remained adamant that it will continue fighting to eradicate Hamas after the pause.[19]

Israel said that Hamas violated the terms of the humanitarian pause on November 25 by releasing a child without their parent in the prisoner swap. Two Israeli officials told CNN that there was a dispute on November 25 after Hamas released Hila Rotem—one of the child hostages—without her mother.[20] Hamas was holding Hila Rotem and her mother Raaya Rotem but claimed that it could not find the mother prior to the hostage release.[21] Hila Rotem said her mother was with her the entire time they were captive, and that Hamas separated them two days before the hostage release.[22]

The United Nations confirmed on November 27 that clean water and medical aid reached the northern Gaza Strip.[23] Hamas Political Bureau member Khalil al Hayya said in an interview with al Jazeera on November 26 that the United Nations is not doing the work required to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip.[24] Hamas leadership previously criticized the humanitarian aid flow to the northern Gaza Strip on November 24.[25] The Hamas-run Health Ministry and Qatar confirmed on November 26 that humanitarian aid is reaching the northern Gaza Strip.[26] Israel said on November 26 that Hamas established a checkpoint on the Salah al Din road to prevent aid from reaching northern Gaza Strip residents.[27] The Hamas, Qatari, and Israeli statements regarding the humanitarian aid flow to the northern Gaza Strip are consistent with the hypothesis that Hamas is redirecting aid before it gets there.

Israel identified the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya as a location that Hamas uses for military activity prior to Israeli forces clearing the hospital, which contradicts claims that Israel raided the hospital without a stated reason. A Palestinian journalist stated on November 27 that Israel did not claim that the Indonesian Hospital was a Hamas militant base before raiding it.[28] Israel published a video on November 6 explaining how the Indonesian Hospital was built above Hamas tunnels, however.[29] The hospital is furthermore directly adjacent to a Hamas tunnel entrance, according to a 2014 map published by the Wall Street Journal.[30] Israel has repeatedly claimed that Hamas uses hospitals for military activity. The IDF published a report on November 21 describing how its forces operating in the northern Gaza Strip uncovered weapons and access routes to underground infrastructure in and around hospitals.[31] The report includes a map of Hamas infrastructure in hospitals, including the Indonesian Hospital.[32] Palestinian journalists and local media reported that Israeli forces cleared the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya on November 23.[33]

Al Araby reported that Hamas is preparing to resume fighting with Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.[34] The report said that Hamas is studying the movement of Israeli deployments on the ground and planning to use fresh units that it has not yet committed to combat.[35] Unspecified experts told al Araby that Hamas’ uncommitted forces constitute more than 75 percent of Hamas’ forces.[36] Israel estimates that it has killed between 1,000 and 2,000 Hamas fighters out of its military force of 40,000.[37]

Human Rights Watch reported that a rocket misfire likely caused the explosion at al Ahli Hospital in the Gaza Strip on October 17.[38] A munition hit a paved area inside the hospital compound, killing hundreds. The Human Rights Watch said that “the sound preceding the explosion, the fireball that accompanied it, the size of the resulting crater, the type of splatter adjoining it, and the type and pattern of fragmentation visible around the crater are all consistent with the impact of a rocket.”[39] The evidence makes the possibility of an Israeli-dropped bomb on the hospital highly unlikely, according to the report.[40] Israeli officials claimed that PIJ militants conducted a rocket attack that failed and hit the active hospital at the time.[41] Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah (LH), and the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine condemned the Human Rights Watch report.[42]

Israel said Elon Musk has preliminarily agreed not to activate the Starlink satellite system in the Gaza Strip unless Israel permits him to do so.[43] The Israeli Communications Minister said that the understanding is vital in Israel’s fight against Hamas.[44] Elon Musk traveled to Israel and met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on November 27.[45]

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.

CTP-ISW did not record verifiable reports of kinetic activity inside the Gaza Strip or reports of attacks from the Gaza Strip into Israel on November 27.

West Bank

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

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

Palestinian fighters attacked Israeli forces seven times in the West Bank on November 27. Palestinian fighters engaged Israeli forces in an hours-long clash and detonated an IED targeting Israeli forces in Jaba village near Jenin.[46] Palestinian fighters also engaged Israeli forces with small arms fire and IEDs in four refugee camps near Hebron, Jericho, and Nablus.[47] The IDF said on November 27 that it conducted overnight raids and arrested 20 individuals throughout the West Bank, including 15 Hamas fighters.[48] The IDF also claimed to have seized "five illegal vehicles” during the raids.[49] The IDF did not specify why the vehicles were illegal.

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 conduct any attacks into northern Israel on November 27. The IDF did not conduct any airstrikes into Lebanon or Syria on November 27.

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

The Houthi movement launched two ballistic missiles targeting the Israeli-owned MV Central Park tanker on November 27 after the US Navy destroyer USS Mason disrupted an attempt to hijack the tanker in the Gulf of Aden. The USS Mason responded to a distress call from the Central Park on November 26 as unspecified hijackers boarded the tanker.[50] The Mason apprehended five hijackers.[51] US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on November 27 that “two ballistic missiles were fired” from Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen targeting the USS Mason.[52] The US Defense Department later amended this statement, assessing that it was ”more likely” that the Houthis targeted the Central Park than the Mason.[53] Senior Houthi official Mohammed al Bukhaiti implied the Houthis’ responsibility for the missile launch, claiming that the missiles targeting the Mason either "made impact [with the ship] or were intercepted,” because the missiles’ capabilities mean that a margin of error of ten miles is impossible.[54] The missiles landed ten nautical miles from the Mason in the Gulf of Aden.[55] The Houthis previously fired on a US Navy vessel in 2016, when Houthi fighters fired two ballistic missiles targeting the USS Mason.[56]

It remains uncertain who was responsible for the hijacking of the MV Central Park in the Gulf of Aden on November 26. Pentagon Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said that the attempted hijacking of the Central Park “appeared” to have been carried out by Somali pirates and not the Houthis, though he added that the US military is “continuing to assess” the identity of the hijackers.[57] An unspecified senior US official told Fox News that the US Navy “pursued [the hijackers] towards Yemen” after the hijackers attempted to escape from the Central Park.[58] Senior Houthi official Mohammed al Bukhaiti claimed that the US Navy “fabricated” the rescue of the Central Park, despite implying Houthi responsibility for the ballistic missile launches.[59] Bukhaiti reiterated that the Houthis will only target ships belonging to Israel.[60] It remains possible that Somalis attacked the Central Park, given the presence of smuggling routes between Somalia and Yemen in the Gulf of Aden.[61] A retreat toward Yemen by Somali pirates would be consistent with Somali pirates familiar with smuggling routes and networks in Yemen.

Senior Iranian military officials presided over the annual Artesh Navy Day ceremony in Bandar-e Anzali on November 27.[62] The Artesh is Iran’s conventional military. The Iranian Armed Forces General Staff chief and the Artesh Navy commander reiterated Iran’s steadfast commitment to maintaining maritime security in the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea.

The Iranian foreign affairs minister discussed the Israel-Hamas war with his Indian counterpart in Tehran on November 27.[63] The two officials emphasized the need for continued provision of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

Iranian officials are continuing attempts to pressure Israel into extending the pause in fighting by warning that Israel’s failure to extend it will precipitate an escalation of the war. An Iranian Expediency Discernment Council member and former IRGC commander warned of “harsh revenge” if Israel continues operations in the Gaza Strip.[64] The Iranian defense minister added that the United States and Israel will pay “a much heavier price” if Israeli operations resume.[65] The Iranian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson emphasized Iran’s desire for a “lasting ceasefire” during his regular press briefing.[66] These statements are consistent with prior Iranian talking points surrounding the pause in fighting, as CTP-ISW previously reported.[67]

8. US military to fly aid to Gazans as WH warns of next phase of war

US military to fly aid to Gazans as WH warns of next phase of war

The assistance is “nowhere near enough” to meet the need, administration acknowledges.

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

The United States military will fly three separate aid flights to North Sinai, Egypt, to get critical supplies into Gaza—including food, medical supplies, and winter gear—senior administration officials told reporters on Monday, as more than a million displaced people in Gaza face rapidly worsening conditions.

The UN prioritized winter clothing and other gear, “given that the rainy season has started in Gaza,” one official told reporters. The aid package also includes “specific food items, in particular, for children that are ready to use, as well as additional medical supplies, which are in urgent need and Gaza, as everyone knows.”

The aid will be distributed by United Nations entities in Gaza.

The announcement comes after Qatar announced an additional two-day pause in fighting, as well as an agreement from Hamas to release additional hostages. Those pauses will allow the rapid transfer of aid into Gaza.

Amidst ongoing protests and political fallout, White House officials have modified their tone on the conflict. Rather than repeating talking points about Israel’s right to self defense, officials on Monday emphasized what they described as the United States’ constructive humanitarian role in the conflict.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Monday that just that day, “200 trucks were dispatched to the Rafah [border] crossing, and 137 trucks of supplies were offloaded by the United Nations reception point in Gaza, making it the biggest humanitarian convoy received since the seventh of October. This brings the total number of trucks of aid and assistance, including fuel to over 2000 since the 21st of October.”

But humanitarian observers have warned that water shortages could cause the already high death toll to spike. The official warned that more fuel delivery is needed to continue to run desalination equipment, sewage pumps, and other vital pieces of infrastructure and prevent deadly disease outbreaks.

The official told reporters: “We understand that what is getting in is nowhere near enough for normal life in Gaza. And we will continue to push for additional steps, including the restoration of the flow of commercial goods and additional basic services.”

Kirby noted that even these brief pauses provide Hamas an opportunity to regroup, potentially delaying the conclusion of the conflict. “Any pause in the fighting could benefit your enemy in terms of time to refit, to rest your fighters, to rearm them, re-equip them. You know, a pause in the fighting can be seen as a benefit, but again, I want to stress, this was always part of the calculus.”

Once the temporary ceasefire expires, Israel has said it will broaden its military operation to southern portions of the Gaza strip.

The White House official warned Monday that if Israel uses the same aggressive tactics it used to go after Hamas targets there as it did to pursue the group in Gaza City and the northern portions of the strip, the death toll will also climb.

“You cannot have the sort of scale of displacement that took place in the north replicated in the south. It will be beyond disruptive. It will be beyond the capacity of any humanitarian support network—however reinforced, however robust—to be able to cope with,” the official said.

As this is happening, Iran-backed militias elsewhere in the Middle East continue to attack U.S. forces with rockets—albeit to little effect. The Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike group has entered the Persian Gulf, having departed from Norfolk in October. It joins the Ford carrier group and other elements from 6th Fleet already in the region.

Early Monday morning, the USS Mason—part of the Eisenhower strike group—took part in an effort to thwart the attempted hijacking of an Israeli tanker ship called the Central Park, resulting in the arrest of five men who attempted to board the tanker. Shortly after, the Mason was targeted “with two missiles that were fired from Houthi controlled areas of Yemen. The initial assessments for the attack on the MV Central Park indicate that the perpetrators claim to be Somali. However, the investigation is ongoing,” U.S. Central Command told Defense One in a statement.

The missiles fell far clear of the Mason; no injuries or damage were reported.

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

9. In race to make artillery shells, US, EU see different results

Will we ever be able to build an "iron mountain" again? We will be the leader in the Arsenal of Democracy?

In race to make artillery shells, US, EU see different results

DOD’s early success may founder on Congressional inaction, while Europe’s private firms await orders.

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

One year into efforts to boost production of artillery rounds for Ukraine, the United States and Europe are seeing radically different results.

The U.S. has increased its output of 155mm shells far faster than it originally forecasted, and plans to increase it further—if Congress can pass a budget for the nearly two-month-old fiscal year. Europe has moved more slowly than it intended to, hampered by the consensus-focused nature of NATO and the EU.

And in a twist that belies Europe’s reputation for state-owned businesses, its dilemma is set by market conditions, while U.S. progress is made possible by state-control of ammo manufacturing.

It’s a “a bit of a chicken-and-egg question,” said Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur during a recent visit to Washington, D.C. Industry officials, Pevkur said, say, “‘Please give us contracts and then we can produce’ and then we say that, you know, ‘There is a clear demand. Just start to increase your production’.”

On the U.S. side, production doubled within a year of launching a crash production program, largely because the Army owns the facilities that make the shells.

“The U.S. Army has a pretty direct lever to increase the production of staple munitions like 155mm artillery shells,” said Rafael Loss, a European defense expert on the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Army produced around 14,000 155mm rounds a month in government-owned, contractor-operated munitions plants. In December 2022, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said the Army was looking to increase production to 20,000 rounds per month by the spring and 40,000 rounds per month by 2025.

Last March, Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo upped the target slightly, announcing plans to produce 24,000 rounds a month by year’s end.

The Army hit the target early, then exceeded it, producing 28,000 shells in October. At least some of those shells went right out the door to Ukraine, Army acquisition secretary Doug Bush told reporters in a media roundtable in November. He declined to say just how many.

Bush said the service now aims to boost its monthly production to 36,000 by March, 60,000 by September, 70,000 to 80,000 in early 2025, and 100,000 by the end of calendar 2025 — two and half times more than Wormuth’s year-old goal.

As part of this push, the Army has added shifts, bought robots, and expanded its ammunition plants, Bush said.

The Army’s investment has also been inexpensive relative to other Army programs, where $3 million can be considered a cheap price for certain advanced weapons, like hypersonic missiles.

The Army funded its original planned increase from 14,000 to 24,000 shells with $1.45 billion. In November, it announced a further $1.5 billion.

In November, Bush said the Army was counting on Congress to approve $3.1 billion for the effort in a 2024 supplemental-funding bill.

Congress, which has not yet agreed to fund the government past January, may not consider the bill until a longer funding resolution is passed. House Republicans, meanwhile, have become more and more leery of funding Ukraine,

Without that money, the Army will not meet its goal of producing 100,000 155mm rounds by the end of 2025, Bush said.

In Europe

The countries of the European Union began with a head start, producing about 230,000 155mm shells a year—about one-third more than the U.S. The EU also has a better recent record for approving annual spending plans.

By February 2023, European production was at 300,000 rounds annually, according to Estonian defense officials. By November, capacity had risen again, though assessments differ. European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton suggested that Europe could now make some 400,000 rounds annually. Estonia’s Pevkur, speaking at a November media roundtable, put the figure between 600,000 and 700,000—and said it would reach one million rounds in 2024.

In March, the EU announced it would spend 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) to send one million 155mm shells to Ukraine within a year. The money is split between paying countries to send stockpiled shells to Ukraine and acquiring new shells from EU members and Norway under a joint procurement scheme.

But the EU will not meet its goal this year, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius confirmed recently. In September, Estonian defense official Kusti Salm said the plan would likely be fulfilled by mid-2024.

And in the long term, Pevkur said, even more shells will be required—to backfill stocks, support NATO regional plans, and keep Ukraine in the fight.

“My estimation is that we have to produce in the next ten years around 3 million rounds in a year,” the Estonian minister said.

NATO

NATO, whose own procurement agency is also pursuing the acquisition of more 155mm rounds, is finding that prices have quadrupled.

In October, NATO’s senior military officer, Adm. Rob Bauer, said that the price for one 155mm shell had risen from 2,000 euros ($2,171) at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion to 8,000 euros ($8,489.60).

For comparison, the U.S. currently pays $3,000 for its most modern shells, according to an Army spokesperson. That price includes the charge, fuze, and shell body.

Unlike the U.S., European 155mm production is primarily in the hands of the commercial market. That means that European countries can incentivize production increases through purchases, but cannot order factories to invest in automation, double shifts, or build new plants, as the U.S. has.

“There really isn’t any government that can command industry to produce more, they have to place orders through contracts,” said CFR’s Loss.

European munitions firms, meanwhile, have few opportunities to raise money from private hands, thanks to regulations on banks and arms makers, Loss said. They therefore have trouble increasing production merely on the expectation of higher orders.

Some individual countries have ordered more munitions. Germany and the Netherlands budgeted billions more in military aid for Ukraine this week. Still, overall defense spending across Europe remains sluggish.

Nor are European countries likely willing to cede the control and band together to create one supranational organization for munitions production said Nick Witney, who served as the first chief executive of the EU’s European Defence Agency.

Countries will argue that “It’s an issue of democratic accountability over how national defense budgets are spent,” Witney said. “A lot of the time, it’s really an issue of protectionism, vested interest, and inertia.”

“We are pushing a lot” for European nations to increase their defense budgets, Pevkur said. “The biggest challenge and the biggest obstacle is very simple — you need new money.”

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

10. Tip of the Spear - USSOCOM, October 2023 | SOF News

Tip of the Spear - USSOCOM, October 2023 | SOF News

sof.news · by DVIDS · November 28, 2023

United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has posted its October 2023 issue of Tip of the Spear. This publication features a number of interesting and informative articles about U.S. special operations forces that are deployed around the world. Topics are listed below:

Providing medical support in East Africa
SOCKOR and ROKSWC train together
SOCNORTH deploys SOF to Arctic during Operation Polar Dagger
Army CA and SEALs host medical civic action program in Philippines
NSW interoperates with USS John P. Murtha in Bering Sea
NAVSCIATTS assist in establishing Philippines Maritime Training Center
USAF gunship trains in Chile
The Cognitive Raider of MARSOC
Exercise Raven trains up MARSOC units
MARSOC conducts jungle training
USSOCOM Warrior Care Program – Care Coalition
DoD’s Warrior Games Challenge – Invictus Games
Foreign intelligence threats to SOF and CI
USASOC study on measures to optimize female soldiers

Tip of the Spear, United State Special Operations Command, October 2023, posted on DVIDS, PDF, 40 pages. https://www.dvidshub.net/publication/issues/68407

Photo: U.S. Marines with 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, Marine Forces Reserve, conduct a direct action raid under the supervision and training of Marine Raiders with Marine Forces Special Operations Command during Exercise Raven, a unit readiness exercise, May 25, 2023. Exercise Raven is a training exercise held to evaluate all aspects of a Marine Special Operations Company prior to a special operations deployment. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Henry Rodriguez)

sof.news · by DVIDS · November 28, 2023

11. The Masterminds (House China Committee)

Who would have thought a House committee could wield such influence?

Excerpts:

There is a small group of voices who view that very bipartisanship with wariness—worried that the same Washington groupthink that led to major foreign-policy disasters such as the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan could push the United States to stumble into an open conflict with China.

“This also should not be a committee about winning a ‘new Cold War’ as the Chair-Designate of the Committee has previously stated,” 23 progressive Democratic lawmakers wrote back in January in an open letter explaining their opposition to the committee’s creation. “America can and must work towards our economic and strategic competitiveness goals without ‘a new Cold War.’”

Some—but not all—U.S. allies have echoed similar concerns. “The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction,” French President Emmanuel Macron said while heading back from a visit to China in April.

Advocates of the hawkish consensus in Washington say they have a compelling counterargument to naysayers, which effectively boils down to this: China started it. They point to how Xi has consolidated authoritarian control, orchestrated what the United States considers to be a genocide against ethnic Uyghurs in Western China, greatly expanded military spending, ramped up pressure on Taiwan in a way that has fueled fears of a Chinese military invasion of the island to reconquer it in the future, and taken a more assertive and muscular approach to foreign affairs with so-called wolf warrior diplomacy. (Indeed, even among the relatively feel-good vibes at Biden and Xi’s meeting in San Francisco, Xi doubled down on plans for a Chinese “reunification” with Taiwan. Xi said he preferred to do so peacefully but nonetheless laid out conditions where China would use force, a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity about the meeting, told reporters.)

And the House China Committee is focused on how to counter Beijing through that framing. “We may call this a ‘strategic competition,’ but this is not a polite tennis match,” Gallagher said during the committee’s first hearing in February. “This is an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century—and the most fundamental freedoms are at stake.”

During our interview, Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi repeatedly riffed off each other, offering a glimpse into how the committee could generate new legislation.

The Masterminds

Washington wants to get tough on China, and the leaders of the House China Committee are in the driver’s seat.

NOVEMBER 27, 2023, 6:00 AM

By Robbie Gramer, a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy.

Foreign Policy · by Robbie Gramer · November 27, 2023

On an overcast day in late October, I headed up to Capitol Hill to report on what might be the last pocket of functioning governance in Congress: the House of Representatives’ China Committee.

Reps. Mike Gallagher, a Republican, and Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat, are the chair and ranking member of what is basically the hottest ticket in Washington. The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, which is its full name, was the brainchild of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and is focused exclusively on how to map out a new era of U.S. competition with China. It’s a task almost everyone in Washington is on board with, which has made at least some U.S. allies and partners around the world very uneasy, fearful of being dragged into a Cold War 2.0.

Some American experts and officials bristle at the new Cold War moniker; others begrudgingly accept it. But whatever you call it, the new era of U.S. competition with China represents the most significant strategic shift in American foreign policy in decades. Congress wants to carve out its role in the action, and on that front Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi are in the driver’s seat.

I met the two lawmakers in the Krishnamoorthi’s office in the Rayburn House Office Building. Krishnamoorthi’s office is adorned with paraphernalia, including flags and local snacks from his home district in the Chicago suburbs, the Illinois 8th. Gallagher is a fellow Midwesterner and represents Wisconsin’s 8th district.

The meeting, which lasted about 40 minutes, came after former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted from his job following a campaign by a small faction from his own party. The one part of the federal government that the GOP controls was turned into a rudderless ship at a time of major national security crises and questions about how the U.S. Congress would dole out funds to address them. Finally, on Oct. 25, Republicans elected Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson to be new House speaker. The questions on national security funding—for Ukraine’s war against Russia, for Israel’s war in Gaza, for Taiwan, and for U.S. southern border security—have yet to be resolved a month later.

By contrast, things have been humming along for the House China Committee in a relatively drama-free fashion. As Gallagher put it, “We may be the only thing that’s still functioning, actually, in Congress.”

Reps. Mike Gallagher (seated in a large chair behind a table with his name on it and wearing a suit and tie), and Raja Krishnamoorthi (standing and wearing a suit and tie and holding papers). Krishnamoorthi leans down to confer with Gallagher.

Reps. Mike Gallagher and Raja Krishnamoorthi during a meeting of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party in the Rayburn Building in WAshington on May 24.Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

Since the committee was first formed in January—it was one of the first votes of the current Congressional session—Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi have held numerous high-profile hearings, issued a slew of reports, toured the country, and sent a flurry of letters to private companies and top Biden administration officials for their work. “I think I’m starting to lose track of our letters,” Krishnamoorthi said.

“Too much bipartisanship,” Gallagher quipped.

“Too much bipartisanship … where’s Jim Jordan when we need him?” Krishnamoorthi shot back. (Jordan, an Ohio congressman and Trump-aligned Republican firebrand, lost a vote to become House speaker after McCarthy’s departure, and then another, and then another, before admitting defeat and backing out of the race.)

The House China Committee has no lawmaking authority, but it can conduct investigations and lengthy research projects, issue subpoenas, issue policy recommendations, and seed all of its work into other House committees with authority over major budget and legislative issues, such as the House Armed Services Committee, Ways and Means Committee, or Finance Committee.

In short, this is the beating heart of Congress’s policy agenda on China, giving Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi outsized voices on what most in Washington consider the new, defining U.S. foreign-policy challenge. What the committee sets its sights on next is a good indication of where U.S. policy will go.

So far, that has included an investigation into how fashion companies are profiting from forced labor in China; subpoenaing a Chinese-owned lab in California; facilitating technocratic legislation to ease tax barriers for U.S. companies looking to do business in Taiwan; issuing a report on boosting U.S. military support for Taiwan; and holding high-profile hearings, which got prime-time TV treatment, on how the United States should compete with China and “selectively decouple” its economy from China’s in the name of national security. The committee even did a mini war game, organized by a Washington-based think tank, simulating a Chinese invasion of Taiwan to game out a U.S. response.

The committee’s work coincided with a major summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco earlier this month, where the two leaders vowed to dial back tensions in U.S.-China relations. Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi, of course, did joint media hits on the summit—both lambasting U.S. companies for feting Xi with a private (and pricey) gala dinner and lauding the administration for restarting military-to-military channels of communication with the Chinese armed forces.

There are three broad factors that make the House China Committee a bastion of bipartisanship and productivity. The first is the scale of the threat from China, at least in the sense of how 95 percent of Washington sees it—something most Republicans and Democrats, if not the rest of the world, agree on.

The second is the fact that both Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi are from politically safe districts and are genuine policy wonks, as described by themselves as well as numerous other U.S. lawmakers, Congressional aides, and officials interviewed for this story. Both are seasoned members of the House Intelligence Committee. (Gallagher, a Marine Corps veteran, also earned his PhD in international relations from Georgetown).

Without uphill reelection battles, both say the House China Committee is a top priority in their jobs. “I devote my most productive hours such as they exist to this,” Gallagher said. “I don’t have to worry about the political side of things per se. So, it frees up time to focus on policy.”

Krishnamoorthi agreed, saying he spends a lot of time on the committee’s work. “I don’t have a life,” he said.

The third factor is that the two congressmen actually seem to get along. (To borrow a phrase from conservative Cold Warrior icon Ronald Reagan, I trusted but verified by also confirming this with multiple other lawmakers and Congressional aides).

There is a small group of voices who view that very bipartisanship with wariness—worried that the same Washington groupthink that led to major foreign-policy disasters such as the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan could push the United States to stumble into an open conflict with China.

“This also should not be a committee about winning a ‘new Cold War’ as the Chair-Designate of the Committee has previously stated,” 23 progressive Democratic lawmakers wrote back in January in an open letter explaining their opposition to the committee’s creation. “America can and must work towards our economic and strategic competitiveness goals without ‘a new Cold War.’”

Some—but not all—U.S. allies have echoed similar concerns. “The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction,” French President Emmanuel Macron said while heading back from a visit to China in April.

Advocates of the hawkish consensus in Washington say they have a compelling counterargument to naysayers, which effectively boils down to this: China started it. They point to how Xi has consolidated authoritarian control, orchestrated what the United States considers to be a genocide against ethnic Uyghurs in Western China, greatly expanded military spending, ramped up pressure on Taiwan in a way that has fueled fears of a Chinese military invasion of the island to reconquer it in the future, and taken a more assertive and muscular approach to foreign affairs with so-called wolf warrior diplomacy. (Indeed, even among the relatively feel-good vibes at Biden and Xi’s meeting in San Francisco, Xi doubled down on plans for a Chinese “reunification” with Taiwan. Xi said he preferred to do so peacefully but nonetheless laid out conditions where China would use force, a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity about the meeting, told reporters.)

And the House China Committee is focused on how to counter Beijing through that framing. “We may call this a ‘strategic competition,’ but this is not a polite tennis match,” Gallagher said during the committee’s first hearing in February. “This is an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century—and the most fundamental freedoms are at stake.”

During our interview, Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi repeatedly riffed off each other, offering a glimpse into how the committee could generate new legislation.

Joe Biden and Xi Jinping smile and shake hands near a car

Biden and Xi Try the Personal Touch

Does face-to-face diplomacy ever change anything?

U.S. President Joe Biden is seen in profile as he greets Chinese President Xi Jinping with a handshake. Xi, a 70-year-old man in a dark blue suit, smiles as he takes the hand of Biden, an 80-year-old man who also wears a dark blue suit.

Taiwan’s Room to Maneuver Shrinks as Biden and Xi Meet

As the latest crisis in the straits wraps up, Taipei is on the back foot.

Chinese President Xi Jinping attends an event on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. A U.S. flag hangs in the background.

This Isn’t a Honeymoon Phase for the U.S. and China

After last week’s Xi-Biden meeting, the world’s two chief powers have merely agreed to a cessation of hostilities.

Here’s one example. Krishnamoorthi casually brought up an issue he wanted to tackle: streamlining the various (and sometimes discordant) sanctions lists the U.S. government maintains—from specially designated nationals (SDN) lists to entities named on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act—into a master list. There may be some foreign companies involved in nefarious activities named on one sanctions list but not another, or companies not named in the Treasury Department’s SDN list but named in the Commerce Department’s Denied Persons List. In short, it can be really confusing for businesses that don’t have massive compliance departments to keep up and make sure they’re staying on the right side of U.S. sanctions policy.

“I was going to propose, as part of our legislation, that we try to harmonize these lists,” Krishnamoorthi said. Gallagher nodded, agreeing: “I’m totally on board with that conception. … I think if you’re playing the game of ‘keep adding names to different lists,’ it’s a losing game. It’s like endless Whac-A-Mole.”

Meanwhile, the oversight and investigations side of the committee has fired some shots across the bow at massive U.S. investment firms involved in China, a signal that the U.S. government will investigate and could hold accountable U.S. companies that bankroll China’s advancements in artificial intelligence and dual-use technology that could benefit its military, as well as Beijing’s overall quest for technological supremacy.

In October, the committee sent a letter to Silicon Valley’s premiere venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital, enquiring about just that. Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi maintain that businesses across different industries are yearning for stability in how the United States regulates business with China.

“If you’ve received one of our letters, you’re not thrilled,” Gallagher said. “I know that they’re not. But like, if you’re a major asset manager on Wall Street or a big [venture capital firm] like Sequoia, I actually think it’s better if Congress arrives at a legislative solution. Because at least that will provide more certainty than if we’re just going to ping pong back and forth between different executive orders. Right?”

Krishnamoorthi chimed in: “What we heard over and over again on Wall Street is, ‘Okay. Just tell us what you want to do, and we will then abide by those rules. We’re in the business of making money, but we don’t want to violate laws.’” He added a caveat: “Now, the part of me that is cynical is, like, they tell me and Mike that; and then they go to somebody else and they’re like, ‘Don’t let that become law. Don’t let that piece of legislation that Gallagher wants become the law.’ And so, they’re trying to play it on both sides.”

Gallagher hopes for the best. “I’ve been told that there are some people on Wall Street that have changed their behavior just because of the issues we’ve raised,” he said. “I can’t prove it, but … that’s the story I tell myself before I go to bed at night.”

Gallagher leaves during a break as the House Republicans hold a caucus meeting at the Longworth House Office Building in Washington on Oct. 13. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Krishnamoorthi walks down the House steps from the Capitol on May 14, 2021. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

In addition to their flurry of work in Washington, Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi have also taken the House China Committee show on the road, from Wall Street to Middle America. The themes of the trips have been pretty straightforward; pretty much every press release has had “China” and “threat” somewhere in the title. With manufacturers in Wisconsin, they discussed how China poses threats to American manufacturing with unfair trade practices and theft of intellectual property. With farmers in Iowa, they discussed China’s threat to farmers with the theft of agricultural technologies. And in New York City, during meetings with Wall Street executives, they talked about China’s “threat to U.S. financial stability.”

One trip that’s not yet on their agenda? Going to China.

Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi said Chinese officials have approached the committee to inquire about a potential trip for the lawmakers. But the timing and conditions for the trip have to be right. “I don’t want us to go and just be used as a photo prop by the [Chinese Communist Party] and then nothing else,” Krishnamoorthi said. “We’re not able to have substantive conversations.

“I get it, I mean, it’s really important that we have that dialogue,” he said. “[But] it has to be in the right circumstances.” Also, the committee doesn’t want to go to China before it sees and understands the results of Taiwan’s upcoming elections, scheduled for January 2024, Krishnamoorthi noted.

Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi are, however, keenly interested in an official committee visit to India. (The day I met them, they were actually supposed to be in India with McCarthy as House speaker, but the trip got scrapped when McCarthy got kicked out of the job.) “I still desperately want to go to India,” Gallagher said. Many U.S. policymakers and lawmakers view U.S. ties with India as a strategic priority to balance against China, in spite of the nonaligned strains embedded in India’s foreign policy DNA.

All the while, they say they have to contend with the fact that they are (probably) being spied on by China. “I work based off that assumption,” Gallagher said. “Given that most of what we do is unclassified, there’s no perfect defense against it.”

Recently, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, as well as other State Department officials, were targeted by Chinese state hackers, as the Wall Street Journal reported in July. That was the latest in a series of public revelations about the scale of Chinese state-backed hacking campaigns targeting the U.S. national security establishment.

Krishnamoorthi said he and Gallagher had both received briefings on the matter, but he declined to give more specifics. “We made sure our [committee] members are aware, and we know we’re being monitored,” he said.

Other priorities for the House China Committee include beefing up U.S. defense ties with Taiwan, something Gallagher in particular has been outspoken on. Though the United States, like most other countries around the world, adheres to the “One China” policy and only formally recognizes Beijing, it has sought to strengthen informal ties and direct military cooperation with Taiwan. China, meanwhile, has made reconquering Taiwan (whether through military force or other means) a top strategic priority, setting up a major geopolitical showdown between the two global superpowers over the small self-governed island democracy.

In May, the committee issued a report with 10 policy recommendations for “preserving peace and stability” in the Taiwan Strait, from boosting the number of U.S. long-range missiles and unmanned vehicles in the Indo-Pacific to expediting U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan. Seven of the 10 proposals outlined in the report have been worked into this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, Gallagher noted. The act, which is the House’s major defense policy bill, is expected to be passed before the end of the year.

The committee is also looking at legislating outbound investments—screening U.S. investments overseas into industries pertaining to national security—and closing a loophole in U.S. trade law that enables shipments of goods into the United States to avoid U.S. customs screenings if they value under $800. (It is this loophole, the committee alleges, that allows fashion companies involved in China to continue relying on forced labor as they ship shoes and clothing to the United States.)

“At the end of the day, it’s just an academic exercise if our committee comes out with report recommendations that don’t make it into law,” Krishnamoorthi said.

Meanwhile, “I think we’ve converted some skeptics,” Gallagher said of the committee. “But we’ve still got a lot of work to do.”

Foreign Policy · by Robbie Gramer · November 27, 2023

12. Freed Israeli hostage describes deteriorating conditions while being held by Hamas

And the Hamas terrorists could end the situation right now by releasing all the hostages.

Freed Israeli hostage describes deteriorating conditions while being held by Hamas

BY TIA GOLDENBERG

Updated 5:59 AM EST, November 28, 2023

AP · November 28, 2023

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — An Israeli hostage freed by Hamas said in an interview that she was initially fed well in captivity until conditions worsened and people became hungry. She was kept in a “suffocating” room and slept on plastic chairs with a sheet for nearly 50 days.

In one of the first interviews with a freed hostage, 78-year-old Ruti Munder told Israel’s Channel 13 television that she spent the entirety of her time with her daughter, Keren, and grandson, Ohad Munder-Zichri, who celebrated his ninth birthday in captivity. Her account, broadcast Monday, adds to the trickle of information about the experience of captives held in Gaza.

Munder was snatched Oct. 7 from her home in Nir Oz, a kibbutz in southern Israel. Her husband, Avraham, also 78, was taken hostage too and remains in Gaza. Her son was killed in the attack.

Initially, they ate “chicken with rice, all sorts of canned food and cheese,” Munder told Channel 13, in an audio interview. “We were OK.”

They were given tea in the morning and evening, and the children were given sweets. But the menu changed when “the economic situation was not good, and people were hungry.”

Israel has maintained a tight siege on Gaza since the war erupted, leading to shortages of food, fuel and other basic items.

Ruth Munder, a released Israeli hostage, walks with an Israeli soldier shortly after her arrival in Israel on Friday, Nov. 24, 2023. A four-day cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war began in Gaza on Friday with an exchange of hostages and prisoners. (IDF via AP)

Munder, who was freed Friday, returned in good physical condition, like most other captives. But one of the released hostages, an 84-year-old woman, has been hospitalized in life-threatening condition after not receiving proper care in captivity, doctors said. Another freed captive needed surgery.

Freed hostages have mostly kept out of the public eye since their return. Any details about their ordeal have come through relatives, who have not revealed much.

Munder, confirming accounts from relatives of other freed captives, said they slept on plastic chairs. She said she covered herself with a sheet but that not all captives had one.

Boys who were there would stay up late chatting, while some of the girls would cry, she said. Some boys slept on the floor.

She said she would wake up late to help pass the time. The room where she was held was “suffocating,” and the captives were prevented from opening the blinds, but she managed to crack open a window.

“It was very difficult,” she said.

Munder’s account emerged as Israel and Hamas agreed to extend their truce. The two sides have been exchanging Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners under a cease-fire deal that has paused the fighting. The deal also includes an increase in aid to Gaza.

Israel declared war after the Islamic militant group’s cross-border attack Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 240 others taken hostage. An Israeli offensive has left over 13,000 Palestinians dead, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run territory.

Munder said that on Oct. 7, she was put on a vehicle with her family and driven into Gaza. A militant draped over them a blanket her grandson had carried from home, which she said was meant to prevent them from seeing the militants around them. While in captivity, she learned from a Hamas militant who listened to the radio that her son was killed, according to the Channel 13 report.

Still, she said, she held out that hope she would be freed.

“I was optimistic. I understood that if we came here, then we would be released. I understood that if we were alive — they killed whoever they wanted to in Nir Oz.”

Two Israeli TV stations, Channels 12 and 13, reported that Hamas’ top leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, visited the hostages in a tunnel and assured them they would not be harmed.

“You are safest here. Nothing will happen to you,” he was quoted as saying in the identical reports, which did not reveal the source of the account.

This round of releases has seen mostly women and children freed. They have been undergoing physical and psychological tests at Israeli hospitals before returning home.

Mirit Regev, whose 21-year-old daughter, Maya, was freed Sunday, told Israeli public broadcaster Kan that the family has been counseled to “return the power to her” in their interactions by always asking her for permission before things occur, such as leaving the room. Regev’s 18-year-old son, Itai, is still being held by Hamas.

Itai Pessach, director of the Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital at Sheba Medical Center, where many of the released children have been treated, said he felt some optimism because the hostages were physically recovering. But he said medical staff had heard “very difficult and complex stories from their time in Hamas captivity,” without elaborating.

“We understand that despite the fact that they might seem physically improving, there’s a very, very long way to go before they are healed,” he said.

In a separate interview, the aunt of a 25-year-old Israeli-Russian hostage who was released Sunday from Gaza said her nephew fled his captors and hid within Gaza for a few days before being recaptured.

“He said he was taken by terrorists, and they brought him into a building. But the building was destroyed (by Israeli bombing), and he was able to flee,” Yelena Magid, the aunt of Roni Krivoi, told Kan radio on Monday. “He was trying to get to the border, but I think because he didn’t have the resources to know where he was and which direction to flee, he had some trouble.”

He told her in a phone conversation he was able to hide himself for around four days before Palestinians in Gaza discovered him, she added.

“One thing that gave us hope from the start is that he’s a boy who’s always smiling, and he can figure things out in any situation,” Magid said.

Israeli media aired video Monday of Ori Megidish, an Israeli soldier who was taken captive, then freed by the military late last month. She said she was happy and doing well and wished all the captives would return home.

“I’m glad to have my life back,” she said.

___

AP journalist Melanie Lidman contributed to this report.

AP · November 28, 2023

13. Tensions are bubbling up at thirsty Arizona alfalfa farms as foreign firms exploit unregulated water

I imagine this has global implications.

Excerpt:

“Water shortages have driven companies to go where the water is,” said Robert Glennon, a water policy and law expert and professor emeritus at the University of Arizona.

Tensions are bubbling up at thirsty Arizona alfalfa farms as foreign firms exploit unregulated water

BY ANITA SNOW AND THOMAS MACHOWICZ

Updated 2:06 AM EST, November 28, 2023

AP · November 28, 2023

WENDEN, Ariz. (AP) — A blanket of bright green alfalfa spreads across western Arizona’s McMullen Valley, ringed by rolling mountains and warmed by the hot desert sun.

Matthew Hancock’s family has used groundwater to grow forage crops here for more than six decades. They’re long accustomed to caprices of Mother Nature that can spoil an entire alfalfa cutting with a downpour or generate an especially big yield with a string of blistering days.

But concerns about future water supplies from the valley’s ancient aquifers, which hold groundwater supplies, are bubbling up in Wenden, a town of around 700 people where the Hancock family farms.

Some neighbors complain their backyard wells have dried up since the Emirati agribusiness Al Dahra began farming alfalfa here on about 3,000 acres (1,214 hectares) several years ago.

Bales of hay are stored under shelters at Al Dahra Farms, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in the McMullen Valley in Wenden, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)

It is unknown how much water the Al Dahra operation uses, but Hancock estimates it needs 15,000 to 16,000 acre feet a year based on what his own alfalfa farm needs. He says he gets all the water he needs by drilling down hundreds of feet. An acre-foot of water is roughly enough to serve two to three U.S. households annually.

Hancock said he and neighbors with larger farms worry more that in the future state officials could take control of the groundwater they now use for agriculture and transfer it to Phoenix and other urban areas amid the worst Western drought in centuries.

“I worry about the local community farming in Arizona,” Hancock said, standing outside an open-sided barn stacked with hay bales.

Farmer Matthew Hancock poses for a picture while sitting on bales of alfalfa hay at his farm Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in the McMullen Valley in Wenden, Ariz. Hancock is concerned that state officials could be eyeing groundwater from the McMullen Valley for Phoenix’s future needs amid shortages in Colorado River water. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Concerns about the Earth’s groundwater supplies are front of mind in the lead-up to COP28, the annual United Nations climate summit opening this week in the Emirati city of Dubai. Gulf countries like the UAE are especially vulnerable to global warming, with high temperatures, arid climates, water scarcity and rising sea levels.

“Water shortages have driven companies to go where the water is,” said Robert Glennon, a water policy and law expert and professor emeritus at the University of Arizona.

Experts say tensions are inevitable as companies in climate-challenged countries like the United Arab Emirates increasingly look to faraway places like Arizona for the water and land to grow forage for livestock and commodities such as wheat for domestic use and export.

“As the impacts of climate change increase, we expect to see more droughts,” said Karim Elgendy, a climate change and sustainability specialist at Chatham House think tank in London. “This means more countries would look for alternative locations for food production.”

Without groundwater pumping regulations, rural Arizona is especially attractive, said Elgendy, who focuses on the Middle East and North Africa. International corporations have also turned to Ethiopia and other parts of Africa to develop enormous farming operations criticized as “land grabbing.”

La Paz County Supervisor Holly Irwin speaks with The Associated Press, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in Wenden, Ariz. Irwin welcomes a recent crackdown by Arizona officials on unfettered groundwater pumping long allowed in rural areas, noting local concerns about dried up wells and subsidence that’s created ground fissures and flooding during heavy rains. (AP Photo/John Locher)

La Paz County Supervisor Holly Irwin welcomes a recent crackdown by Arizona officials on unfettered groundwater pumping long allowed in rural areas, noting local concerns about dried up wells and subsidence that’s created ground fissures and flooding during heavy rains.

“You’re starting to see the effects of lack of regulation,” she said. “Number one, we don’t know how much water we have in these aquifers, and we don’t know how much is being pumped out.”

Irwin laments that foreign firms are “mining our natural resource to grow crops such as alfalfa ... and they’re shipping it overseas back to their country where they’ve depleted their water source.”

Gary Saiter, chairman of the board and general manager of the Wenden Domestic Water Improvement District, walks by a water tank at the district’s well Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in Wenden, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Water operator Robert Tipton checks flow rates of a well at the Wenden Domestic Water Improvement District's offices Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in Wenden, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Water operator Robert Tipton walks by well equipment as he checks flow rates at the Wenden Domestic Water Improvement District's offices Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in Wenden, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Gary Saiter, board chairman and general manager of the Wenden Domestic Water Improvement District, said utility records showed the surface-to-water depth at its headquarters was a little over 100 feet (30 meters) in the 1950s, but it’s now now about 540 feet (160 meters).

Saiter said that over those years, food crops like cantaloupe have been replaced with forage like alfalfa, which is water intensive.

“I believe that the legislature in the state needs to step up and actually put some control, start measuring the water that the farms use,” Saiter said.

Gov. Katie Hobbs in October yanked the state’s land lease on another La Paz County alfalfa farm, one operated by Fondomonte Arizona, a subsidiary of Saudi dairy giant Almarai Co. The Democrat said the state would not renew three other Fondomonte leases next year, saying the company violated some lease terms.

Fondomonte denied that, and said it will appeal the decision to terminate its 640-acre (259-hectare) lease in Butler Valley. Arizona has less control over Al Dahra, which farms on land leased from a private North Carolina-based corporation.

Glennon, the Arizona water policy expert, said he worked with a consulting group that advised Saudi Arabia more than a decade ago to import hay and other crops rather than drain its aquifers. He said Arizona also must protect its groundwater.

“I do think we need sensible regulation,” said Glennon. “I don’t want farms to go out of business, but I don’t want them to drain the aquifers, either.”

Seeking crops for domestic use and export, Al Dahra farms wheat and barley in Romania, operates a flour mill in Bulgaria, and owns milking cows in Serbia. It runs a rice mill in Pakistan and grows grapes in Namibia and citrus in Egypt. It serves markets worldwide.

Water drips from a faucet as water operator Robert Tipton checks equipment for a well at the Wenden Domestic Water Improvement District’s offices Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in Wenden, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)

The company is controlled by the state-owned firm ADQ, an Abu Dhabi-based investment and holding company. Its chairman is the country’s powerful, behind-the-scenes national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a brother of ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The company did not respond to numerous emails and voicemails sent to its UAE offices and its subsidiary Al Dahra ACX in the U.S. seeking comment about its Arizona operation.

But on its website, Al Dahra acknowledges the challenges of climate change, noting “the continuing decrease in cultivable land and diminishing water resources available for farming.” The firm says it considers water and food security at ”the core of its strategy” and uses drip irrigation to optimize water use.

Foreign and out-of-state U.S. farms are not banned from farming in Arizona, nor from selling their goods worldwide. U.S. farmers commonly export hay and other forage crops to countries including Saudi Arabia and China.

Farmer Matthew Hancock closes a gate at his farm Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in the McMullen Valley in Wenden, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)

In Arizona’s Cochise County that relies on groundwater, residents worry that the mega-dairy operated there by Riverview LLP of Minnesota could deplete their water supplies. The company did not respond to a request for comment about its water use.

“The problem is not who is doing it, but that we are allowing it to be done,” said Kathleen Ferris, a senior research fellow at the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. “We need to pass laws giving more control over groundwater uses in these unregulated areas.”

A former director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, Ferris helped draw up the state’s 1980 Groundwater Management Act that protects aquifers in urban areas like Phoenix but not in rural agricultural areas.

Many people mistakenly believe groundwater is a personal property right, Ferris said, noting that the Arizona Supreme Court has ruled there’s only a property right to water once it has been pumped.

A truck hauling hay drives near Al Dahra Farms, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in the McMullen Valley in Wenden, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)

In Arizona, rural resistance to limits on pumping remains strong and efforts to create rules have gone nowhere in the Legislature. The Arizona Farm Bureau has pushed back at narratives that portray foreign agribusiness firms like Al Dahra as groundwater pirates.

The state is “the wild West” when it comes to groundwater, said Kathryn Sorensen, research director at the Kyl Center. “Whoever has the biggest well and pumps the most groundwater wins.”

“Arizona is blessed to have a very large and productive groundwater,” she added. “But just like an oil field, if you pump it out at a significant rate, then you deplete the water and it’s gone.”

___

Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

AP · November 28, 2023

14. Ukraine’s new enemy: war fatigue in the West

Exhaustion. And we are not even doing the fighting. Go figure.

Ukraine’s new enemy: war fatigue in the West

Congress holds up military aid as unsupportive populists make gains in Europe

Nov 27th 2023 | KYIV AND WASHINGTON, DC

The Economist

FOR MORE than 600 days of full-scale war, America has been Ukraine’s greatest saviour as it marshalled arms, money and more to help repel Russia’s invasion. Now America has become one of Ukraine’s greatest worries. Its aid for Ukraine is fast running out, and dysfunction in Congress is blocking new assistance. Nobody is sure when—or whether—it will be restored.

The effect is being felt at the front as America tries to stretch its dwindling funds. “In the spring the flow of military supplies was a broad river. In the summer it was a stream. Now it is a few drops of tears,” says one informed Ukrainian source. Ukraine faces a bleak winter amid great uncertainty: its counter-offensive has failed to break through Russian lines; its enemy is increasing its arms production; and its vital ally is paralysed by political turmoil and distracted by Israel’s war in Gaza.

Read more of our recent coverage of the Ukraine war

Lloyd Austin, America’s defence secretary, visited Kyiv on November 20th to reassure Ukraine that the United States will support Ukraine “both now and into the future”. Yet Mr Austin knows that the power of the purse belongs to Congress; and the balance of power in Congress is held by an isolationist wing of the Republican party, especially in the House of Representatives, where one of their sympathisers now serves as the speaker. Twice since September Congress has passed a “continuing resolution” to avoid a shutdown of the federal government; and twice it excluded new aid for Ukraine.

The Senate is trying to unlock the assistance in December, before a shutdown looms again in January. President Joe Biden has requested a supplemental budget of $106bn, of which $61bn is for Ukraine, and the rest for Israel and other national-security priorities. Republicans are tying aid for Ukraine to tougher measures to curb migration across America’s border with Mexico. Those involved say the sides are still far apart.

The longer the delay, the more parties become consumed by election fever. If there is no deal before Christmas, some in Congress worry, a fresh allocation of aid may be delayed until after the elections in November 2024; and if Donald Trump is elected president it may be ended entirely. “Time is not our friend,” says one gloomy pro-Ukraine senator.

In public, at least, Ukrainian leaders dismiss the notion that America could cut them off. “I don’t believe it will happen,” said Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, saying he found “strong bipartisan support” during a visit to Washington this month.

Since Russia’s invasion America has provided about $75bn in overall aid to Ukraine, and European countries collectively have delivered more than $100bn, according to American calculations. But crucially America still provides the larger share of military aid, with its contribution worth some $44bn. The Pentagon says it has about $5bn left in “presidential drawdown authority” (PDA) to supply Ukraine with weapons from its own arsenal, and just over $1bn in funds to replenish it. Given the depletion of military stocks across the West—and the crisis in the Middle East and a potential one over Taiwan—America’s brass may be reluctant to give away more than they are allowed to buy back.

PDA packages for Ukraine have shrunk, from an average of more than $1bn a month (and a peak of more than $5bn in January) to $350m in October and only $250m so far this month. A separate pot known as Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), worth more than $18bn, has all but run out. This was used mostly for longer-term supplies from American companies. Weapons in the USAI pipeline will continue to arrive, even without a new aid package. A small amount of USAI money, about $25m a month, is also rolled over under continuing resolutions.

Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign-policy chief, has called on European countries to take up the slack from America if necessary. Indeed, they have issued a flurry of new promises recently. Germany said it planned to double its support for Ukraine next year to $8.5bn, and would also deliver more air-defence systems. The Netherlands, Finland and Lithuania all announced new packages of military help. But clouds loom. A constitutional-court ruling in Germany looks likely to hamper plans to boost aid. The hard right Freedom Party of Geert Wilders, which won the largest number of seats in the recent Dutch election, opposes sending weapons, raising questions about whether the Netherlands can still lead the coalition to supply F-16 jets to Ukraine. Slovakia’s new government has already halted military aid. Ukrainians worry that without American leadership, Europeans may quickly lose heart.

In what has often been an artillery war, Ukraine is already suffering from “shell-hunger”, says Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an American think-tank. He reckons that Ukraine was firing 220,000-240,000 larger calibre shells (152mm and 155mm) per month during the summer, but the rate of fire is dwindling and will fall to 80,000-90,000 shells a month. Even these numbers are more than America and European countries are currently producing—roughly 28,000 and 25,000 a month respectively. Western production is rising, with targets to triple output, but that will take a year or more, and some of the output will be used to replenish Western stocks and supply others. Russia outpaces Western shell production and has been helped by a surge of rounds from North Korea.

Ukraine is trying to boost its own defence industry, robust in Soviet times but badly neglected since, not least to make NATO-standard 155mm shells. “No matter how much we grow local production, we would be hugely dependent on Western partnerships,” admits a senior official in Kyiv.

If American support diminishes, Ukraine will be unable to mount another large counter-offensive, says Mr Kofman. It can try to make even greater use of drones. But ultimately it will have to dig in. “Ukraine should learn from what worked for Russia,” he says. “The stronger your defences, the fewer shells and troops you need to hold the line.”

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s leader, has boasted that without Western support Ukraine would be crushed within a week. But rather than a sudden collapse, says Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute, a British think-tank, defeat is likely to be “slow and painful”. Not so, according to Mr Yermak: “We made our choice. We will be fighting for victory. But of course, this victory will be more quick and we will save more lives if the help will continue.”■

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The Economist

15. Attacks on US troops in Middle East have diminished, Pentagon says

But this means they are still occurring. Are they reduced because of our response? It will be hard to know because correlation does not necessarily mean causation as they say.

Attacks on US troops in Middle East have diminished, Pentagon says

militarytimes.com · by Meghann Myers

The barrage of attacks on U.S. troops deployed in Iraq and Syria has subsided in recent days, a Pentagon spokesman told reporters on Monday.

After enduring dozens of attacks since mid-October, bases housing U.S. troops haven’t taken fire or spotted a drone bearing down since Nov. 23, Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder confirmed.

The Pentagon’s last count totaled 73 attacks, Ryder said. Those resulted in more than 60 injuries, including several dozen traumatic brain injuries, but all troops returned to duty soon after.

The U.S. military in response executed three strikes in Syria against facilities used by Iran-backed militias to house weapons and equipment, the latest of which was carried out Nov. 13.

There have also been instances of air assets in the area immediately striking back against rocket or drone attacks, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters on Tuesday.

US fires back after ballistic missile attack on Iraq base

The number of attacks on U.S. troops in the Middle East has risen to 66.

By Meghann Myers

One of these incidents has been publicly confirmed by the Pentagon, when an AC-130 gunship hit a vehicle after its occupants launched a rocket at al Asad airbase in Iraq.

Pentagon officials have said that counter strikes have degraded the militias’ ability to continue striking U.S. troops without creating wider conflict in the Middle East.

Thousands of troops have also been repositioned to the region, including the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

Two carrier strike groups, an amphibious ready group with an embarked Marine Expeditionary Unit, several Air Force fighter squadrons, Army air defense units and 300 support troops have all been positioned to deter bad actors from attacking Israel as it prosecutes its war on Hamas, as well as to prevent or respond to any attacks on U.S. troops in the region.

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.

16. Intercepted calls from the front lines in Ukraine show a growing number of Russian soldiers want out

Question: Is anyone figuring out a way to help these Russians get out? Can Ukraine create conditions for mass desertion?

Intercepted calls from the front lines in Ukraine show a growing number of Russian soldiers want out

BY ERIKA KINETZ

Updated 1:04 AM EST, November 26, 2023

AP · November 26, 2023

In audio intercepts from the front lines in Ukraine, Russian soldiers speak in shorthand of 200s to mean dead, 300s to mean wounded. The urge to flee has become common enough that they also talk of 500s — people who refuse to fight.

As the war grinds into its second winter, a growing number of Russian soldiers want out, as suggested in secret recordings obtained by The Associated Press of Russian soldiers calling home from the battlefields of the Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions in Ukraine.

The calls offer a rare glimpse of the war as it looked through Russian eyes — a point of view that seldom makes its way into Western media, largely because Russia has made it a crime to speak honestly about the conflict in Ukraine. They also show clearly how the war has progressed, from the professional soldiers who initially powered Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion to men from all walks of life compelled to serve in grueling conditions.

“There’s no f------ ‘dying the death of the brave’ here,” one soldier told his brother from the front in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. “You just die like a f------ earthworm.”

The prospect of another wave of mobilization lingers, even as Moscow has been trying to lure people into signing contracts with the military. Russia’s annual autumn conscription draft kicked off in October, pulling in some 130,000 fresh young men. Though Moscow says conscripts won’t be sent to Ukraine, after a year of service they automatically become reservists — prime candidates for mobilization.

An unknown soldier speaks to his brother about the war.

The AP verified the identities of people in the calls by speaking with relatives and soldiers — some of whom are still at war in Ukraine — and researching open-source material linked to the phone numbers used by the soldiers.

The conversations, picked up in January 2023 — some from near the longest and deadliest fight in Bakhmut — have been edited for length and clarity. Names have been omitted to protect the soldiers and their relatives.

The voices in these calls are of men who didn’t or couldn’t flee mobilization. Some had no money, no education and no options. Others believed in patriotic duty. One worked in a meat processing plant, cutting bone. Another worked at a law firm. A third, who worked as a roofer and later at a supermarket company, had a string of debts and had defaulted on his utilities payments, records show.

It is hard to say how representative these calls are of sentiment in Russia’s armed forces, but their desperation is matched by a spike in legal cases against soldiers in Russia who refuse to fight.

What’s happening in Ukraine is “simply genocide,” the soldier in Kharkiv told his brother. “If this s--- doesn’t stop, then soon we’ll be leading the Ukrainians to the Kremlin ourselves,” he said.

“This is just a huge testing ground, where the whole world is testing their weapons, f--- it, and sizing up their d----,” he went on. “That’s all.”

But there are other voices, too, of men who remain committed to the fight.

“As long as we are needed here, we will carry out our task,” a soldier named Artyom told AP from eastern Ukraine at the end of May, where he’d been stationed for eight months without break. “Just stop asking me these stupid questions.”

The Kremlin and Russian Ministry of Defense did not respond to requests for comment.

(AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin)

SOLDIER: ‘BONES, TEARS — ALL THE SAME, THEY ARE THE SAME AS WE ARE’

When he finally got to go home, it came at a terrible price: his brother’s life.

Nicknamed “Crazy Professor” because of his disheveled hair, he was swept up in the first days of Russia’s September 2022 draft. The soldier said he was assured that he wouldn’t see combat and would get to go home every six months.

Neither turned out to be true.

After a few weeks of training, the Professor was sent to the front line near Bakhmut as a mortarman. He wanted out almost immediately. He was ill-equipped, at least compared to the well-camouflaged Wagner soldiers wandering around.

“They have night vision and automatic rifles with cool silencers. I have an automatic rifle from 1986 or hell knows what year,” he told his brother in a January phone call.

It was his job to aim, but the Russian army’s coordinates were so sloppy that soldiers ended up killing each other.

The Professor said his commander instructed them not to kill civilians, but who was a civilian and who was a combatant? Even a kid could carry a grenade, he told his brother. Where did the mortars he fired land? Had he killed children?

The worst was when he was out with young guys in his unit. There was just a strip of woods between them and the Ukrainians.

“I imagined that there, on the other side, there could be young people just like us. And they have their whole lives ahead of them,” he told AP in June. “Bones, tears — all the same, they are the same as we are.”

The Professor told himself he didn’t really have a choice: Either fire the mortar or face criminal charges and end up in a pit or a prison.

“If you don’t like something, if you refuse to do something, you’re considered a refusenik,” he told AP. “That is, you’re a ‘500’ right away. … So we had to follow orders. Whether we wanted to or not.”

The Professor never thought he’d be a refusenik one day too.

___

The Professor: The worst thing is that there might even be children there, you know.

Brother: And what can you do. … You have your orders. … It seems to me that if it had been voluntary, you wouldn’t have gone.

The Professor: You know, I’m glad about that. Plus, we did such a good job that they gave us a car. The downside is, you know, how many lives were ruined for the sake of a car?

Brother: Not of your own free will.

The Professor: I’m already so tired.

Brother: I believe it. Time to come home. I wish you could come home. Not so that you could home but so that all of this could be over already.

___

In the spring, as the Professor’s brothers drove down a road outside their hometown in Russia, a car made a U-turn into the side of their vehicle, sending it spinning as a semi bore down on them.

One brother was killed. Another survived but now cannot walk, family members told AP.

Desperate to go home to bury his brother, the Professor said he got approval from his commander for a 10-day leave. Military police in Russian-controlled territory in Luhansk let him through, he said, and he paid for his own taxi ride home. Once he got back to Russia, however, he was told he didn’t have the right paperwork.

Not long after the funeral, the Professor got a message from his commanding officer: “What is happening there? Are you going to come back or stay there?”

“I’ll collect the documents, and then we’ll decide everything,” he wrote back.

Two hours later, around midnight, his commander responded: “I’m reporting you as AWOL, unauthorized abandonment of the unit. It was nice fighting together.”

Now he faces up to 10 years in prison.

He hired a lawyer. Months into a 10-day leave, he can’t even apply for an extension to legalize his stay and help his family because he doesn’t have the right documents. He said his brother can move around on his arms and mostly get into his wheelchair by himself, but can’t function independently.

People from the military came to his home, he said. Terrified they’d arrest him if he went outside, he passed documents attesting to the dire state of his family’s health to them through the window.

His lawyer told him to look on the bright side. “You are the only, well, how do I put this … at least, you’re the only healthy person here.”

His mother is at the end of her endurance.

“I write everywhere, I call everywhere, too. Because he was told that he has to return to his unit,” his mother told AP. “But how can he leave his brother? I have no one.”

Now, the Professor has visions of dead people. They stare back at him. He can almost hear them walking nearby. Sometimes he bolts awake at night, sweating, or dives under the covers at the sound of a whistle.

He wants his old life back, that sweet time he had with his wife and baby. He has picked up some roofing work at construction sites, and his neighbor proposed a new side job: digging graves.

(AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin)

ARTYOM: ‘EVERYBODY’S F------ MAD, F------ GLOOMY AS HELL’

Artyom left behind a string of debts in Russia. Things got even worse in Ukraine, where it was so cold he couldn’t wash his underwear and his lighter kept freezing.

“It’s not like I’m having any f------ fun here, day in day out. It’s been f------ four months already,” he told his wife in January. “Everybody’s f------ mad, f------ gloomy as hell.”

It was New Year’s Day, and the Russians were getting bombarded by Ukrainians and not even firing back, he said.

“Yesterday we were f------ bombarded, for f---’s sake, we didn’t even get a single shell out, not a single f------ shell,” he told his wife.

The war seemed senseless to him. Why wasn’t Putin satisfied with Crimea? What business did they have trying to take Kharkiv and Kyiv? Why was everyone lying about how great things were at the front?

No one was saying the one thing he wanted to hear: that he could go home.

Artyom talks with his wife.

___

Artyom: Yesterday we were listening to the radio and someone f------ said, “the situation with mobilized soldiers is f------ wonderful.” I don’t know who the f------ idiot is who said that. “Only five thousand people died.”

Wife: Mhm. Of course.

Artyom: F------ s---heads. I think half of them are probably gone at this point.

Wife: Right.

Artyom: Five thousand people my ass.

___

Artyom doesn’t have much sympathy for draft dodgers and deserters, though he can see the wisdom in making a run for it.

“That’s what you have to do, given the chance,” he told his wife. “This is not the best f------ place to be … But then they’re gonna say you’re a f------ freak who ran away. I don’t f------ need that.”

He told her he’ll stay put and follow orders. “If God wills it so that you’re gonna f------ die, you’re gonna f------ die, can’t do much about it.”

The AP reached Artyom by phone at the end of May. He was still in eastern Ukraine, where he’d been serving for eight months without break.

Artyom said he’d been “a little worn out mentally” when he was speaking with his wife. He said he loved his family before the war and loved them even more now. He regrets he didn’t spend more time with them.

“I have to save the guys who are with me in the trenches — and myself,” he said. “That’s what I want to do. And to put down the Ukrainians faster and go home.”

(AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin)

ROMAN: ‘I ALREADY FEEL MORE PITY SHOOTING A BIRD THAN A PERSON’

After two months on the front lines north of Bakhmut, Roman had some advice for his friend and former colleague back in Russia: Avoid this war any way you can.

“I’m telling you honestly, if there’s even a slight chance, get exempted from service. But if the summons comes for mobilization, f--- it to hell. Join Wagner or the contract soldiers, or wherever you can. God forbid the mobilized. The mobilized are the lowest.”

Roman explained that professional contract soldiers are taken care of: They get to go on leave, launder their clothes and bathe. They don’t have to struggle for food and water.

Meanwhile, mobilized soldiers like him are shoved in trenches with men from all walks of life, some of whom don’t even know how to hold guns. They never get to leave, and their commanders — “weak wusses,” he says — aren’t much help. He’s had to buy night vision goggles with his own money. There’s not enough to eat and no clean drinking water. Soldiers are licking at snowflakes and scooping up rainwater to drink. He said he lost 30 kilos (over 60 pounds). The diarrhea hasn’t helped.

“It came to the point that there were puddles, it had rained, and the guys scooped up all the puddles and drank,” Roman told his friend. “Snow fell, f------ s---, and the snow didn’t even reach the ground, the guys caught it and ate it.”

When he arrived in Ukraine in November 2022, Roman was part of a unit of 100 men. By early January, about a third were gone.

Roman said he’s been lucky twice. Once he got food poisoning and stayed back while a group of scouts went out. They never came back. Another time, he was carrying water and tripped and fell just as a shell landed, killing others nearby.

Surrounded by a horseshoe of Ukrainian troops, Roman said it was like being on the tip of a toilet seat, in constant fear that their supply lines, thin as they were, would get cut off.

Roman had to scoop a man’s guts back into his body — an act that didn’t save the guy’s life. Another time, he went out to defecate in a field, and tanks started firing around him. He just kept squatting till he was done. After two months of living like this, so scared you’ll shoot at the softest sound in the dark, even the strongest minds started to fray.

“We survive because we are on edge all the time,” he said. “Even guys from our own side don’t come close, especially at night. When we are on duty, we warn everyone that we will shoot at anything that rustles.”

Roman said his cousin was killed by a shell that took out a dozen soldiers. His family managed to get his body — or at least half of his body — back to Russia, but the other 11 soldiers lay unclaimed in Ukraine.

It wasn’t just the killing that did people in, it was the sense that they’d been forgotten.

___

Roman: Our group is made up of guys who are sufficiently strong, morally, and guys like that. It was the first wave. Guys came together who are sufficiently patriotic, roughly speaking, who knew what it was to fight. After two months, they start to lose it. For many of them, their psyche was broken.

Friend: Yeah, I understand, all of the killing of course.

Roman: Yes, the killing is everywhere. A f------ lot of corpses. Some were stabbed with a knife, but that’s not the point. Psyches are not broken because of this. These are people who are professionals, it’s our national army, these professionals come to our position. ‘F---, it’s f----- up here.’ They turn around and leave. That is, they are replaced, they have rotation, they are given leave, their clothes are washed and ironed, they wash in the bathhouse, they have no problem with food, they have no problem with water. It’s not like this for us. It once came to the point that there were puddles, it had rained, and the guys scooped up all the puddles and drank.

___

The “depressing, horrible” panic that attacked him at the beginning of his tour has subsided. The calls home help.

One night, Roman got pulled into a special mission. They snuck into a Ukrainian dugout, knives drawn, hacked up a bunch of men and captured a Ukrainian officer for questioning. Death was everywhere, on both sides of the front.

“F---, I already feel more pity shooting a bird than a person,” Roman told his friend.

Contacted by the AP, both men declined to comment.

ANDREI: ‘THE MOBILIZED ARE NOT CONSIDERED HUMANS’

After four months in Ukraine, Andrei concluded that his life meant nothing to Moscow.

Called up for military service from a small town in Russia’s far east, he soon found himself in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk province, on the southern approach to Bakhmut.

Andrei’s unit was taking heavy losses, and no one was even shooting back at the Ukrainians, he said. People were dying from friendly fire. Mobilized men like him were being forced to sign contracts.

“The mobilized are not considered humans,” he told his mother. “No one gives a damn about us. They think that for 200,000 (rubles) we should die here.”

Mutiny was in the air.

(AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin)

___

Andrei: Our boys are dying for nothing. It’s nonsense, I tell you. This is not a war at all. When I come back, I’ll tell you what’s going on here. It’s all bull----. I’m telling you, our boys are dying, going 300, and no one even shoots back. It’s all nonsense. Our artillery is hammering our own dugouts, not theirs. What is that?

Mother: What for?

Andrei: They, like, miss the mark. … Here, if they don’t get you, your own will.

Mother: (Inaudible)

Andrei: I’m telling you, you just start going nuts here, like everything pisses you off. Because you can’t do s--- about it. Nobody gives a s---. It’s a half year and that’s it. F--- them. If they don’t relieve us, if they don’t pull us out, the whole company will just walk away. They can’t put a crowd of 100 people on trial.

Mother: They have no right to keep you longer.

Andrei: No one gives a damn here. We were told the other day that they forgot about us a little bit here. But they didn’t just forget about us — they f----- us.

___

Mobilized soldiers like him are treated worst of all, he told his mom. They’re not allowed to leave — even if they get injured — because commanders fear they’ll never come back.

___

Andrei: Well, our guys are getting killed in droves.

Mother: Judging by what I —

Andrei: I’m telling you. In droves from our side. If a contract soldier is wounded, he’s sent home. If a mobilized soldier is wounded, they treat him, patch him up a bit, and tell him to go the f--- back, why the hell are you dodging? All in all, if you get sick here, you will not be sent home. They won’t give a damn, and you’ll die in this pit where you live in. You can’t get sick here at all.

Mother: Better not get sick. (Inaudible)

Andrei: This is how s--- works here. As long as you are useful, they like know who you are. And when you become useless, then nobody needs you. They forget about you.

___

He said the only reason he’s still alive is luck and regrets finding himself at war. “This is my only mistake in life,” he said. “I will not fall into the same trap twice.”

“God gives you one chance,” his mother responded. “God willing, you’ll come home.”

In September, Andrei’s mother told AP her son was home, keeping himself busy with his family and collecting pine cones from the taiga.

She said she was born in Ukraine and her mother still lives there. She said it pains her that Ukraine is now filled with “traitors and fascists.”

“I hate your current rulers,” she said. “Are you blind or stupid? Or can’t you see that there are no normal people? Or do you want your children to turn into monkeys, like in America? What is this? I don’t recognize my homeland, where I was born and went to school.”

___

AP reporters Lynn Berry in Washington and Alla Konstantinova in Vilnius, Lithuania, contributed to this report. Students from the Russian translation and interpretation program at Middlebury Institute of International Studies also contributed to this report.

___

More AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

AP · November 26, 2023

17. Army releases first doctrinal publication focused on information

It will be interesting to see a comparison between this doctrine and the Joint Doctrine- Joint Operations in the Information Environment.

Excerpt:

Nestled within the Army’s new operating concept of multi-domain operations — which envisions continuous synchronization of capabilities across all five domains of battle including land, air, sea, space and cyberspace — ADP 3-13 describes a combined arms approach to creating and exploiting information objectives.

“Despite friendly advances in information technology and networks, threats (adversaries and enemies) can degrade joint force information advantages held in the past. Within degraded environments, Army leaders at all echelons must have the ability to develop understanding, make decisions, communicate, and act decisively. To achieve this, Army forces fight for, defend, and fight with information as part of a continuous struggle to gain and exploit advantages above and below the threshold of armed conflict,” the document states.

This covers a lot of ground. I don't think we grasp the complexity and importance of all these tasks. No longer can you turn to your information officer and say do some of that information stuff.

But I will always question the huge difference between 1,2 and 5 and 3 and 4 below. Are we still just binning anything information related into one category? My belief is that inform and influence should be separate stand alone activities.

ADP 3-13 sets forth five information-related activities:

“Enable,” with the goal of enhancing military activity and command and control
“Protect,” with the aim of denying enemy efforts at exploiting friendly forces and working to secure and preserve U.S. and partner data, information and networks

“Inform,” with the intent of providing perceptions of military operations and activities among various audiences to include the Army, domestic audiences and international audiences for the purpose of maintaining trust and confidence
“Influence,” with the objective of affecting the thinking and activities of adversaries
“Attack,” as a way of hindering adversaries’ ability to use data, information, communications or other systems through offensive action within the electromagnetic spectrum, space and cyberspace

Will this be helpful?

The Army has sought to avoid the term “information warfare,” preferring to use the phrase “information advantage.” The service had been charting down a path of information warfare since the 2018-2019 time period, but bureaucratic bottlenecks and competing desires led the Army to adopt “information advantage” as part of its doctrinal lexicon.

Army releases first doctrinal publication focused on information

defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · November 27, 2023

The Army unveiled its first doctrinal publication focused solely on the information dimension of military action.

The highly anticipated document, released publicly on Monday, was many years in the works. It aims to provide a framework for creating and exploiting information advantages during operations as well as at home station, according to officials.

The U.S. military as a whole has begun a shift, recognizing the importance information plays not only in conflict but in everyday life. Adversaries have sought to exploit the information realm on a daily basis — within the so-called gray zone, below the threshold of armed conflict — as a means of undermining U.S. and allied interests without having to confront them in direct military conflict.

Army Doctrinal Publication 3-13, Information “represents an evolution in how Army forces think about the military uses of data and information, emphasizing that everything Army forces do, to include the information and images it creates, generates effects that contribute to or hinder achieving objectives,” Lt. Gen. Milford Beagle, commander of the Combined Arms Center, wrote in the foreword. “As such, creating and exploiting information advantages is the business of all commanders, leaders, and Soldiers.”

Nestled within the Army’s new operating concept of multi-domain operations — which envisions continuous synchronization of capabilities across all five domains of battle including land, air, sea, space and cyberspace — ADP 3-13 describes a combined arms approach to creating and exploiting information objectives.

“Despite friendly advances in information technology and networks, threats (adversaries and enemies) can degrade joint force information advantages held in the past. Within degraded environments, Army leaders at all echelons must have the ability to develop understanding, make decisions, communicate, and act decisively. To achieve this, Army forces fight for, defend, and fight with information as part of a continuous struggle to gain and exploit advantages above and below the threshold of armed conflict,” the document states.

ADP 3-13 sets forth five information-related activities:

“Enable,” with the goal of enhancing military activity and command and control
“Protect,” with the aim of denying enemy efforts at exploiting friendly forces and working to secure and preserve U.S. and partner data, information and networks

“Inform,” with the intent of providing perceptions of military operations and activities among various audiences to include the Army, domestic audiences and international audiences for the purpose of maintaining trust and confidence
“Influence,” with the objective of affecting the thinking and activities of adversaries
“Attack,” as a way of hindering adversaries’ ability to use data, information, communications or other systems through offensive action within the electromagnetic spectrum, space and cyberspace

The Army has sought to avoid the term “information warfare,” preferring to use the phrase “information advantage.” The service had been charting down a path of information warfare since the 2018-2019 time period, but bureaucratic bottlenecks and competing desires led the Army to adopt “information advantage” as part of its doctrinal lexicon.

Since those discussions, the Army has continued to evolve and further separate itself from the information warfare nomenclature, despite using it to describe adversary activity in its field manual for operations as well as the new doctrine.

Additionally, the Army has distanced itself from other Defense Department components, being the only service not to adopt information as a joint warfighting function. Army officials view information as one dimension of a singular operating environment.

Last year, the Joint Staff published a revision to its information doctrine, Joint Publication 3-04, Information in Joint Operations. Following suit, the Marine Corps revised its approach and doctrine on information to be more in line with joint doctrine and lexicon. The Air Force also published an information warfare strategy and implementation plan last year, opting to place five functional areas under the IW umbrella.

Although the Army has a unique approach, its new document includes a chapter focused on integration with joint and multinational partners.

In This Story

defensescoop.com · by Mark Pomerleau · November 27, 2023

18. Delay in China’s Annual Fall Party Plenum Meeting: A Sign of Deepening Institutional Erosion?

Excerpt:

But even if the delay is merely a tactical one—pushing a core national Party meeting off to a more convenient political date for Xi months or years in the future, it is an ominous sign for the overall trajectory of Chinese politics. As deadening and turgid as they may be, China’s regular Party Congresses and plenums are artifacts of an era in which Party political power in China has been exercised in a somewhat more regularized manner. If even their scheduling is steadily coming undone under Xi’s pivot back towards one-man rule, China’s politics could be poised to become far less predictable.

Delay in China’s Annual Fall Party Plenum Meeting: A Sign of Deepening Institutional Erosion?

Failure to designate a date for an important upcoming Chinese Communist Party event suggests China's reform-era political institutions and practices may be eroding yet further under Xi Jinping’s increasingly personalized rule.

Blog Post by Carl Minzner

November 27, 2023 2:42 pm (EST)

cfr.org · by Thomas J. Bollyky

China’s Politburo concluded its monthly meeting on Monday with no mention of a date for the third plenum of the 20th Central Committee. Failure to designate a date for this key Party event suggests China’s reform-era political institutions and practices may be eroding yet further under Xi Jinping’s increasingly personalized rule.

Since the 1990s, Party Congresses (held every five years) and plenums (held annually) have followed in utterly predictable fashion, with Party leaders trooping into Beijing to pledge fealty to top leaders, listen to their speeches, pose for photos, and receive and review central Party documents setting out core policies. Such practices marked a partial institutionalization of one-Party rule in China’s reform era, particularly in comparison with the chaotic decades of Maoist rule, in which such events were held intermittently, if at all (over a decade passed between the 8th Party Congress in the late 1950s and the 9th in 1969).

Indeed, with only one exception, the Chinese Communist Party has held a plenum meeting of its Central Committee every autumn since the 1990s. The sole recent exception occurred in 2018, when the third plenum of the 19th Central Committee was advanced to February of that year—rather than the fall—as part of the process of amending the PRC constitution to eliminate term limits and pave the way for Xi to serve on as China’s state president for a third term (in addition to his far more important roles as general Party secretary and head of the military).

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It remains at least technically conceivable that Party authorities could somehow manage to hold a plenum meeting in December, although the usual advance notice required for such sessions would seem to rule such a possibility out. And even if Beijing manages to pull that off, it would mark only the first time since 1990 that a plenum session has been scheduled so late in the year.

It is unclear why Party authorities have delayed the scheduling of the third plenum. As one analyst has noted, third plenums often set out national development and reform agendas, and given that China’s current economic picture looks bleak, and Xi may be seeking to align any plenum focused on economic policy with the 15th five-year plan, set to be rolled out in 2025.

But even if the delay is merely a tactical one—pushing a core national Party meeting off to a more convenient political date for Xi months or years in the future, it is an ominous sign for the overall trajectory of Chinese politics. As deadening and turgid as they may be, China’s regular Party Congresses and plenums are artifacts of an era in which Party political power in China has been exercised in a somewhat more regularized manner. If even their scheduling is steadily coming undone under Xi’s pivot back towards one-man rule, China’s politics could be poised to become far less predictable.

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cfr.org · by Thomas J. Bollyky

19. What to watch as Congress negotiates final defense policy bill

What to watch as Congress negotiates final defense policy bill

Defense News · by Bryant Harris · November 27, 2023

WASHINGTON ― Congress will begin formal negotiations on a compromise defense policy bill this week, with final votes likely to occur before the holidays.

The annual bill is usually a bipartisan product, but conference committee talks over the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act may be trickier than usual this year. House Republicans added numerous partisan provisions from the right-wing Freedom Caucus to their version of the bill. The Senate version contains several of its own amendments that enjoy bipartisan – though not always unanimous – support.

The House passed 219-210 its $874 billion defense policy bill largely along party lines in July after Democrats defected when Republicans added the Freedom Caucus amendments. Later in July, the Senate passed 86-11 its $886 billion defense policy bill without the socially conservative provisions.

Both bills nonetheless have significant areas of overlap, some of which have generated opposition from the White House. These provisions include the procurement of an amphibious transport dock ship and language institutionalizing the sea-launched cruise missile nuclear program. Less controversial items in both bills include a provision to deepen counter-fentanyl cooperation with the Mexican military and require the Pentagon to coordinate with Taiwan on cybersecurity.

The conference committee must still sort through the differing provisions from each chamber as it hammers out a compromise bill that can pass both the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-held Senate.

Here are some of the key differences lawmakers will need to resolve to make that happen.

Freedom Caucus amendments: In order to secure Freedom Caucus support to pass the House bill, Republicans voted to add several of their amendments. These amendments would overturn the Pentagon’s abortion leave policy, restrict medical care for transgender troops, eliminate military diversity initiatives and block the Defense Department from implementing President Joe Biden’s seven climate change executive orders.

Democrats cited their opposition to these measures as part of their reason for joining Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., in his ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. While removing these amendments would restore Democratic support for what is usually bipartisan legislation, it remains to be seen whether House Republicans would allow a vote on such a compromise bill.

Ukraine Inspector General: A House provision added by Gaetz would establish an independent inspector general to oversee Ukraine aid. The White House opposes creating this position, and the Biden administration is almost out of money to continue arming Kyiv. The defense bill aside, it’s also unclear whether Congress will pass Biden’s separate $61 billion Ukraine aid request for FY24.

AUKUS: The Senate bill includes two provisions from Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., needed to implement AUKUS, the trilateral submarine-sharing pact with Australia and Britain. One authorization would allow the U.S. to begin training Australian private sector personnel to use nuclear-powered submarines while the other provision would allow the State Department to loosen export controls for Canberra and London.

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, blocked two other key AUKUS authorizations from the bill: one that would allow the transfer of Virginia-class submarines to Australia and another that would allow the Biden administration to accept Australia’s $3 billion contribution in the U.S. submarine-industrial base.

Wicker has demanded more money for the submarine-industrial base before lifting his two AUKUS holds. While Wicker has spoken positively of Biden’s $3.4 billion request to expand submarine-industrial base capacity as part of a broader defense supplemental spending package, it remains to be seen whether he’ll allow the final two AUKUS authorizations in the final defense policy bill.

A rendering of the SSN-AUKUS. (Business Wire)

NATO: Senators adopted 65-28 an amendment from Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., that would require Senate approval if a president tries to withdraw the U.S. from NATO. Former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary, threatened to withdraw from NATO in 2018 if U.S. allies did not meet their commitments to spending 2% of GDP on defense.

Buy America: Senators unanimously agreed to an amendment from Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., mandating that 100% of components for all Navy ships be manufactured in the U.S. by 2033. Baldwin’s amendment would allow the defense secretary to wave those requirements under certain circumstances.

Chief Management Officer: A provision from Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., would revive the Pentagon’s short-lived chief management officer, a position tasked with reforming defense business practices that ranked No. 3 in the Defense Department until Congress abolished it three years ago. The White House opposes reviving the office.

Cost assessment office: House Republicans included a provision in their bill that would abolish the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation Office and move its duties elsewhere, citing the office’s role in the Defense Department’s decision to pause amphibious ship purchases. The Senate bill would not abolish this office.

Space Command headquarters: Both bills include a now-dated provision intended to force the Pentagon to make a decision on a final location for the Space Command headquarters. The Biden administration announced in August that it wished to place the headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado, revoking a previous decision to locate it in Huntsville, Alabama. The Republican House Armed Services chairman, Mike Rogers, is from Alabama. It remains to be seen if the final bill will include updated stipulations on the final location for Space Command after a years-long dispute.

About Bryant Harris

Bryant Harris is the Congress reporter for Defense News. He has covered U.S. foreign policy, national security, international affairs and politics in Washington since 2014. He has also written for Foreign Policy, Al-Monitor, Al Jazeera English and IPS News.

20. Air Samurai: Is Naval Aviation Overtraining Pilots in the Age of Automation?

I never thought I would read an argument for less training.

Conclusion:

The Navy and Marine Corps are right to perform their due diligence and ensure the dramatic departure from historical training guidelines is not ill-informed. However, they cannot afford to waste time crediting parochial or nostalgic arguments when it comes time to eliminate instances of overtraining. The services should seize opportunities for streamlining pilot training and stop training on unnecessary or redundant skills. Relying on automation to cut training requirements, like carrier qualifications, is one of the best opportunities. If the services cannot, the United States risks continued pilot shortages in peacetime or a crisis in wartime.

Air Samurai: Is Naval Aviation Overtraining Pilots in the Age of Automation? - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Trevor Phillips Levine · November 28, 2023

Despite having the best naval aviators and aircraft at the beginning of World War II, Japanese planners failed to prepare to replace combat losses, and it cost them dearly. By 1942, Japanese naval aviation was in decline because “the navy had simply produced too few fliers.” The U.S. military bested superb Japanese pilots by flooding the skies quickly with good enough pilots. The Japanese navy never recovered from the loss of over 100 trained naval aviators during the Battle of Midway, followed by the decimation of its remaining aviation competency at the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

Today, the U.S. military produces too few pilots, eroding experience in deployed squadrons. It risks a similar path as Japan in the event of hostilities. A chronic shortage of pilots will plague the U.S. military for years. One reason is that outmoded training systems and syllabi needlessly prolong flight training and exacerbate acute shortages.

Automation, like the U.S. Navy’s Precision Landing Mode, is assuming more complex flight tasks in modern cockpits with failsafe redundancy. This raises questions about whether the U.S. military is overtraining its pilots and if the reliance on obsolete training aircraft, like the T-45C Goshawk, is hobbling the introduction of better training. Forcing flight students to perform legacy manual attritional tasks that can be automated provides questionable benefits, prolongs training, consumes precious resources, and can force unnecessary attrition.

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The military should examine which skills automation can safely and reliably replace in cockpits today and remove those elements from pilot training curriculums. Also, military training aircraft should possess the right level of automation to prepare student pilots for their combat aircraft. Modern training must not solely serve the operation of legacy equipment and test future pilots on skills they are longer required to master.

Strained Training Resources

The lessons from the Japanese experience during World War II are salient for today’s U.S. military. The time required to train jet pilots has steadily increased across the services. The ongoing pilot shortage is a strategic risk for the military because it lacks enough experienced pilots for its operational units. Part of the problem is that new pilots are taking longer to train and are entering the fleet slower than the departures of experienced ones. This creates what a RAND study called the “aging rate deficit,” when inexperienced pilots become the dominant composition of a squadron and drive up the unit’s overall required flying hours for its younger pilots to become “experienced.” Experienced pilots require fewer hours to maintain proficiency, allowing more flight hours to develop inexperienced aircrews.

Recognizing the need to train faster to ameliorate pilot shortages, the U.S. Navy implemented some initiatives to decrease training time, including hiring contract instructor pilots and pulling experienced pilots from other places within the naval aviation enterprise. Much to the chagrin of undermanned fleet replacement squadrons and weapon schools, their pilots were pulled to augment training commands. Another initiative included syllabus revisions, which removed some events and phases, reducing flight hours and events for student pilots. But other, more resource-intensive legacy syllabi remained.

The Navy’s training command carrier qualification syllabus consists of 23 events, including five in the simulator, and accounts for over 17 hours in the aircraft. Additionally, students require a minimum of 250 practice carrier landings at an airfield before actual carrier qualification, accrued over months of flight training. It is common for students to be below the practice landings requirement, requiring additional flights above the allocated syllabus to close the deficit. The carrier qualification syllabus strains the resources of an aging and dwindling advanced jet trainer fleet and represents a significant time commitment for flight students and instructors. For example, a carrier qualification phase usually starts a few weeks prior, with participating students focusing solely on those events.

The training commands typically fly 20 jets to either coast to support a carrier qualification evolution. Transiting to training locations incurs significant costs in flight hours and sorties above syllabus requirements. Nearly 120 flight sorties are spent just to ferry aircraft to the carrier training location, hours that consume airframe life and could be spent on other training. These aircraft and their instructor pilots can represent up to a third of the fleet available for training, requiring homefield production slowdowns during carrier qualification. Moreover, syllabus execution depends on an aircraft carrier’s schedule and availability, subject to maintenance delays that can cancel the resource-intensive training evolution and hamper operational availability. Reducing or cutting the requirements in the carrier qualification syllabus goes a long way toward streamlining and shortening the training pipeline, especially as the dependability of scheduled training evolutions with carriers declines amidst other operational priorities.

Fighter Jet Automation

Most Western combat jets are fly-by-wire, or advanced derivative, fly-by-control full authority augmentation systems. This means that a pilot’s control inputs are electronically encoded, interpreted by flight control software, and then transmitted to the aircraft’s control surfaces — no longer are the pilot’s inputs directly linked to control surfaces. Fly-by-control aircraft allow maneuverability that is otherwise unattainable by making aerodynamically unstable aircraft controllable for human pilots. Computerized flight controls automatically compensate for instability, giving the pilot the appearance of a stable aircraft and translating relatively simple pilot inputs into complex adjustments to the aircraft’s control surfaces. When the pilot makes a flight control command through the control stick, the flight control computers analyze the demand signal, compare it against the aircraft’s current flight parameters, and provide a compensated flight control input.

A joke exists among aviators that a pilot in modern combat aircraft does not fly the aircraft but “only gets a vote in the control of the aircraft” — that is, most of the flying is done by the aircraft itself. This harmonized system gives unprecedented maneuverability and benign intuitive control while making the aircraft easier to fly, allowing pilots to devote attention to mission-related tasks beyond flying. The technology is proliferating in military and civilian aviation. For example, Garmin’s Safe Return Autoland system in Cirrus business jets can select an airport, communicate with air traffic control, and land the aircraft while avoiding terrain with the push of a button.

Even some of the original fly-by-control combat jets, like the F-16, were updated with automated failsafe modes, some with the ability to take direct control from the pilot to prevent a catastrophe. Today, U.S. Air Force F-16s carry the automatic ground collision avoidance system that recovers the aircraft from imminent impact with terrain if the pilot fails to do so themselves. The technology is credited with saving nine lives, including at least one in combat, and the Navy is working to install the system into the F/A-18 Super Hornet. Additionally, allied nations possess aircraft that utilize auto-recovery systems, like the Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale. In the Rafale, a spatially disoriented pilot can press a button that automatically recovers the aircraft into a stable, wings-level climb from nose low or high attitudes.

Critics of a heavier reliance on automation for critical phases of flight, like landings, might question redundancy: “What if automated carrier landing software fails and the pilot doesn’t know how to land manually?” These concerns are unfounded. Flight control automation possesses multiple redundancies, and fly-by-wire jets rely on software and electronics for all aspects of their flight. There is no option to resort to a truly manual flight mode. The failure of control automation would be a failure of the flight control computer itself. This is an uncontrollable situation that forces pilot ejection.

Training for What?

“Parallelophobia” is anxiety or fear of parallel parking and affects 49 percent of U.S. drivers. For drivers, parallel parking is one of the most difficult skills to master. Failure rates are high for states requiring parallel parking on driving tests. But what if automation can reliably park the car for you? There are numerous cars on the road today capable of hands-free parallel parking. The technology is becoming prevalent enough to be cited as a reason for removing the parallel park requirement for states that still feature it on their driving tests.

Traditionally, one of the most complex tasks naval pilots accomplished was carrier landings. It serves as the par excellence for naval aviators and is a gatekeeping attritional element from naval aviation’s inception. The F-35 and F/A-18 now feature highly automated flight control systems that eliminate the need for many of the corrections pilots make during a carrier approach, known as precision landing mode. The recent software revisions to precision landing mode make the system redundant and will still operate with multiple hydraulic failures or single engine failures. Since the system’s introduction, pilot carrier landing performance dramatically improved. During one of the author’s carrier deployments in 2022 with Carrier Air Wing Two, he observed remarkable performance improvements among new pilots, with many placing on par with experienced pilots who had already flown hundreds of carrier landings. This was unprecedented. If new pilots using precision landing mode are just as good or better at carrier landings than experienced pilots without it, it raises the question: Does the Navy still need to perform carrier qualification in the training commands before students reach the fleet replacement squadrons? Or can qualification in operational squadrons equipped with precision landing mode meet that requirement?

The Navy is examining the feasibility of removing carrier qualification from the training commands altogether. Discussions began in early 2020. However, senior leadership is reluctant to follow through on this common-sense way to shorten training time. Officially, data is still being compiled after the Navy opted to undertake an incremental step by sending 50 percent of its fledgling tactical aircraft pilots to the aircraft carrier and the other half to qualify once at the fleet replacement squadron. Initial results are promising, with landing signal officers noting little difference in the carrier approach grades between pilots previously qualified at the training command and ones who received their initial qualification at the fleet replacement squadrons. Even if the Navy nixes carrier qualification in the training commands, it plans to retain it for E-2 Hawkeye pipeline, representing another unnecessary legacy holdover. Despite the E-2 not being fly-by-wire, the handling characteristics between it and the carrier trainers are markedly different. Also, new E-2 pilots go to the carrier with a supervising instructor. Such reasons were cited as further proof to remove carrier training in the advanced training pipelines altogether.

The Navy’s current advanced jet trainer, the T-45C, lacks many of the automated features of modern fighter jets. The T-45C is not a fly-by-wire aircraft and lacks an autopilot, emergency recovery, or any pilot relief mode. Its flight performance and capabilities pale compared to modern fighters or newer advanced trainers like Boeing’s T-7A Redhawk, Lockheed’s T-50, or Textron‘s M-346N. Each is capable of near sonic speeds, fly-by-wire digital flight controls, respectable thrust-to-weight, and high angle-of-attack maneuvering. The T-45C is a plane that needs to be manually flown in every sense of the word and requires a good portion of the early training syllabus to learn proper handling. One author recalls many early events spent teaching proper trim techniques, a function performed automatically in more advanced aircraft. Also, the numerous control inputs required to land a T-45C aboard an aircraft carrier safely do not translate into the corrections a pilot must make in their fleet aircraft. What benefit is provided by forcing future pilots to constantly trim or “hand-fly” a more difficult analog aircraft when their computerized combat aircraft are designed to be easy to fly, and the correctional inputs are not reinforcing across the platforms?

Modern combat aircraft are designed to be easy to fly so their pilots can manage complex combat systems and tactics. Already, advanced warfighting concepts envision pilots controlling autonomous wingmen within highly automated cockpits, acting more as quarterbacks directing plays than tangling in close-quarter dogfight furballs of the past. But the T-45C lacks systems that can even simulate combat systems that new pilots will eventually interface with, aspects that prospective trainers being marketed to the military possess.

Enemies of Change and Avoiding the Same Mistakes

Unfortunately, a culture of resistance to change pervades throughout the Navy, as it does across the defense bureaucracy. It affects every aspect, including its personnel management bureau, despite the mounting evidence that change is necessary in the age of algorithms. Whether it is Luddism or nostalgia, not all within the Navy’s ranks are on board with curtailing or revising training syllabi. Interviews with instructors within the training commands highlighted instances in their careers where superiors stood against revisions, especially ones that removed carrier training, even when the evidence pointed to only marginal benefits in maintaining current syllabi. This foot-dragging is perhaps the reason behind the Navy’s greatest impediment to faster training times, its continued use of the T-45C Goshawk. The T-45C suffered numerous maintenance-related ‘black swan’ events and contracted maintenance struggles to maintain enough flyable aircraft. Event cancellations for unavailable aircraft are common with full flight schedules.

A key concern for picking a replacement aircraft is the inability of any prospective trainer to handle the rigors of shore-based carrier landing practice or touch-and-go on an aircraft carrier flight deck. Aircraft need to be specially designed and built to handle the stress of real and simulated carrier landings. But if already implemented flight control software has dramatically improved pilots’ carrier landing performance, are practice landing requirements necessary or an obsolete holdover? Each day the Navy delays its decision to pick a new training platform, the worse the deterioration of the T-45C fleet.

Opportunities to Train Faster

In 1944, Japan had aircraft but not the competent pilots to fly them effectively, and resorted to the kamikaze. Is the Navy more interested in training pilots to be a handful of superb aviators like Imperial Japan, or operators of intuitive weapon systems? The Navy recognizes it has a problem with pilot training and is looking for solutions, but so far they are too slow and too few. Operational units face chronic shortages of trained pilots, and pilots in training face long wait times and bottlenecked pipelines. Across aviation, automation is poised to assume more piloting functions in aircraft, including functions previously believed to be too complex, like dogfighting. Heron Systems, now part of Shield AI, developed a dogfighting algorithm that beat a human fighter pilot five to zero in a competition and is now actively flying as part of Hivemind. As algorithms become more capable and assume more tasks within aircraft, like unusual attitude recoveries in the Rafale, Autoland systems in the Cirrus business jet, or dogfighting in a future platform, opportunities will present themselves for shortening training programs and syllabi. The establishment of new unmanned training programs in the Navy and Marine Corps offers a unique opportunity to assess training requirements for curtailment, especially as algorithms continue to take more of the “flying” from human pilots. Across aviation, lowering the cognitive burden of flying an aircraft allows pilots, whether in the aircraft or remote, to focus more on their payload and assigned mission.

The Navy and Marine Corps are right to perform their due diligence and ensure the dramatic departure from historical training guidelines is not ill-informed. However, they cannot afford to waste time crediting parochial or nostalgic arguments when it comes time to eliminate instances of overtraining. The services should seize opportunities for streamlining pilot training and stop training on unnecessary or redundant skills. Relying on automation to cut training requirements, like carrier qualifications, is one of the best opportunities. If the services cannot, the United States risks continued pilot shortages in peacetime or a crisis in wartime.

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Commander Trevor “Mrs.” Phillips-Levine is a U.S. naval aviator and a special operations joint terminal attack controller instructor. He currently serves as the Joint Close Air Support division officer at the Naval Aviation Warfighting Development Center where he follows unmanned systems employment and tactics. CDR Phillips-Levine is a Nonproliferation Education Center Space and Nuclear Public Policy Fellow, and is pursuing a Master’s in Systems Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School.

Walker D. Mills is a Marine Corps infantry officer currently in training to fly the MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle. He has written numerous articles for publications like War on the Rocks, USNI Proceedings, and the Marine Corps Gazette.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Trevor Phillips Levine · November 28, 2023

21. A Stalemate Strategy for Ukraine

Excerpts:

Russia’s long-term containment can only redound to Ukraine’s benefit, though it may seem a less grandiose goal than a resounding battlefield victory. Ukraine’s leaders are acutely aware of domestic tensions in Western countries and of the military challenges Kyiv faces. To encourage continued Western support, Kyiv should base its case for Western investment in Ukraine on the containment of Russia, emphasizing that ultimately prevailing over Russia is as much in the West’s interest as it is in Ukraine’s.

The Russian military is bogged down in Ukraine, and as a result, Moscow’s regional influence in Central Asia and the South Caucasus has diminished. (Had Russia taken Kyiv, the opposite would now be the case.) But at present, Russia is only imperfectly, and perhaps temporarily, contained in Ukraine and beyond. For years to come, containment will have to be supported with more European and sustained U.S. military aid; the West must also maintain its sanctions on Russia and better enforce their implementation. Aid to Ukraine is not philanthropy. For Europe, the success or failure of containing Russia will shape the whole continent’s security. For the United States, the success or failure of containing Russia in Europe will define the future of the international order it leads.

Containing Russia should be conceptualized—and celebrated—as a steady continuum of action that started before February 2022 and came into its own with the Ukrainian defense of Kyiv and battlefield advances in the fall of 2022. Containment, by definition, can deliver only a partial victory, and for this reason, ups and downs in public sentiment in countries allied with Ukraine are to be expected. These ups and downs make it all the more worthwhile for Western leaders, who are sensitive to surges of optimism and disappointment, to adopt containment as their unchanging compass. Doing so will help both Ukraine’s war efforts and morale in Ukraine’s allies. Sticking to a consistent, realistic strategy amid the ebbs and flows of sentiment in a major war is its own source of self-confidence.

A Stalemate Strategy for Ukraine

How the West Can Help Kyiv Endure a Long War

By Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage

November 28, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage · November 28, 2023

On November 1, Ukraine’s top general, Valery Zaluzhny, changed the debate about his country’s war with Russia with a statement. “Just like in the first World War,” he said in an interview with The Economist, the Ukrainian and Russian militaries “have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.” Unless a massive leap in military technology gives one side a decisive advantage, “there will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.” These words prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to issue a rebuttal. The war “is not a stalemate, I emphasize this,” Zelensky argued. A deputy head of the office of the president noted that the comments stirred “panic” among Ukraine’s Western allies.

Such fear is understandable at a moment when the U.S. Congress, by far Ukraine’s largest source of aid, is deciding whether to sustain its military support. Before Ukraine launched its counteroffensive in June 2023, Washington evinced optimism that the Ukrainian military could swiftly achieve major military successes and secure Kyiv a stronger negotiating position to force concessions from Moscow. This has not happened. Not much territory has changed hands, and high hopes have yielded to a dispiriting narrative of impasse. A divided Congress likely has no “mountain of steel,” as U.S. officials have called the materiel they gave to Ukraine in early 2023, to provide for a renewed counteroffensive in 2024, and European countries are falling short in the assistance they have promised. In purely military terms, Ukraine’s path to victory is unclear.

But Ukraine and its allies must face, not fear, the war’s current reality. They should accept and prepare for a multiyear war and for the long-term containment of Russia instead of hoping for either a quick Ukrainian triumph or, absent that, an imminent negotiated solution. An overwhelming victory is not guaranteed by either Ukrainian valor or Russian folly. And any hope that negotiations right now could benefit Ukraine is naive: Russia is not becoming more malleable or more amenable to compromise. In fact, the Kremlin’s aspirations to reshape the whole international order through violent conflict may be more ambitious now than they were a year ago.

Russia continues marshaling resources for its devastating war. And Russians’ support for Putin’s invasion has not collapsed: not when Ukraine’s Western allies imposed sanctions on the Russian economy, not when some Russians protested mobilization, and not when the mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin staged his curious rebellion in June 2023.

But the war is not lost for Ukraine. Far from it. Enamored of Kyiv’s early successes and high morale, Ukraine’s supporters became accustomed to stunning Ukrainian triumphs. Yet this David-versus-Goliath framing of the war now generates too much pessimism when Ukrainian forces struggle or come to a deadlock with Russian troops. Even a stalemate, as frustrating as it seems, represents a huge accomplishment. Before February 2022, the idea that Ukraine could achieve military parity with Russia would have seemed fanciful. With the West’s help, however, Ukraine has deterred its much more powerful neighbor. Over a year into the war, Russia has been unable to take Kyiv or any major Ukrainian city besides Mariupol. Despite its vast economic and military resources, Russia has not been truly on the offensive since the early summer of 2022.

To make progress now, Western and Ukrainian leaders need to rally around achievable strategic goals. The most pressing is the containment of Russian forces—not only to protect all that Ukraine has already accomplished but also to render Russia’s presence on Ukrainian territory as insecure as possible. Russian positions must be continuously pressured in a forward-leaning approach. This will not be doable without U.S. military support, justified not by the claim that victory is around the corner but by the argument that containing Russia is a core European and U.S. interest. Containment is a policy that is already succeeding in Ukraine. Failure would be giving up on it.

SWERVING FORTUNES

During the war’s first six months, Ukraine was chronically underestimated. Then, in September and October 2022, Ukrainian forces punched through Russian lines around Kharkiv and expelled Russian forces from Kherson. Western allies came to see these battlefield triumphs as setting a precedent. Ahead of last June’s counteroffensive, which was planned over the course of months, many in the West believed that the Ukrainian military’s innovativeness, determination, talent for strategy, and flexible command structures would confer the same advantages they did in 2022. By the summer of 2023, the war had already become grueling and devastating, and the hope was that Ukraine could fairly quickly change the momentum for good.

The West’s optimism about the counteroffensive also stemmed from the scale and quality of its military assistance to Ukraine. Over the course of the spring of 2023, the United States and European countries sent Kyiv some of their best weaponry: advanced tanks, rockets, and missiles, although their pace was initially slow, and they withheld certain systems such as F-16 fighter jets and long-range ATACMS missiles. In Foreign Affairs in June 2023, Gideon Rose argued that “Western military support and Ukraine’s remarkable ability to transform it into battlefield success” could carry Ukraine to victory and restore its pre-2014 borders.

The Russian military, meanwhile, appeared to suffer from poor coordination, poor motivation, and a general sense of purposelessness. With the counteroffensive, Kyiv planned to cut through Russia’s land bridge to Crimea and destroy Russian morale. Just two weeks after the counteroffensive began with assaults in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts and drone strikes inside Russia, Moscow’s accelerating misfortunes culminated in Prigozhin’s mutiny. For weeks, Putin’s grip on power seemed more fragile than it had ever been.

Even if the West fulfills its commitments to help Kyiv, the war may not swing decisively in Ukraine’s favor.

Just a few months later, however, the situation looks less propitious for Ukraine. Putin has stabilized his government and his military command structure. As of late 2023, constraints on resources and manpower are more evident on the Ukrainian side than on the Russian one. The long preparation time required to ready the counteroffensive allowed Russia to build defenses, particularly mine belts, which nullified many of Ukraine’s advantages in sophisticated weaponry. To regain momentum, Ukraine has asked the West for ammunition, electronic warfare and mine-breaching technology, longer-range missiles, and more planes. But as Ukraine’s needs grew, the United States fractured politically. A small band of Republican legislators are now using their leverage over moderate Republicans to try to halt funding for Ukraine. Mike Johnson, the new Speaker of the House, has voted repeatedly against Ukraine support packages but recently spoke more favorably about backing Kyiv. It is impossible to know, however, if he has the intent or the ability to ensure a useful level of assistance.

Ukraine’s stocks of ammunition and weaponry are already running short. A diminution of or end to U.S. military support would have an immediate effect on Ukraine’s battlefield performance, especially its air defenses. Those air defenses rely on interceptors, a component the United States can provide. If the U.S. government becomes less willing to fund Ukraine’s military efforts, no other country can fill the vacuum. European countries lack the ammunition stockpiles and the military production capacity. In March 2023, the EU pledged to send a million rounds of ammunition to Ukraine by March 2024, but they are at risk of falling short. As of late November 2023, less than a third of the promised supplies had been delivered.

Even if the United States and Europe fulfill all their commitments to help Kyiv militarily, the war may not swing decisively in Ukraine’s favor. The United States has approved the delivery of coveted F-16s in 2024, but they may be less helpful when they eventually arrive. According to Zaluzhny, Russia has improved its air defenses and will maintain “superiority in weapons, equipment, missiles, and ammunition for a considerable time.” As the war enters its second winter, Russia has been stockpiling missiles to attack the Ukrainian electrical grid and thus undermine Ukraine’s morale and economy.

NO INTERVIEWS WITH A VAMPIRE

Extensive media coverage drove political support for Ukraine’s war effort in the United States and elsewhere. That coverage has faded from newspapers’ front pages as another war rages between Hamas and Israel. The worry that the Israel-Hamas war would widen now seems less probable, and a more limited war would save the U.S. government from having to make a stark choice between helping Ukraine and intervening in a hot war in the Middle East. But Russia has already benefited considerably from the chaos unleashed on October 7.

Russian diplomats and media platforms fuel the accusation that Washington applies principles of international conduct unevenly and has a double standard about civilian casualties when it comes to Ukraine and Gaza. This accusation is now echoing across many countries in the global South. Moscow would be delighted if skepticism about Western policy in the Middle East turns into skepticism about Western policy in Ukraine.

Despite the stalemate on the battlefield, negotiations are not the right way out of the current impasse. The Kremlin would happily negotiate Ukraine’s near-unconditional surrender. But given that Ukraine has not advanced on the battlefield for over a year, negotiations held now risk, at best, recapitulating the diplomacy behind the ineffective Minsk agreements, which ended the Donbas war of 2014–2015 without constraining Russia’s will to control Ukraine. The agreements left Russia too free to build up military assets on Ukrainian territory, paving the way for a much more aggressive invasion eight years later.

Putin has no obvious reasons to make good-faith concessions to Zelensky. Russia’s economy has, thus far, weathered the war. In fact, the Kremlin has been increasing military spending and digging in for a long haul. Russia retains the option of ordering additional mobilizations. Prone to hubris, Putin likely envisions his erstwhile “special military operation” as a years-long war in which Russia will have the fortitude to prevail. As long as he retains that attitude, then negotiation offers no escape from the labyrinth of this terrible war.

CONTAIN AND COMBINE

Ukraine and the West are in a difficult strategic predicament. However, not everything is gloomy, and both Kyiv and the West should guard against defeatism. Victories in war can come unexpectedly, and going forward, the countries supporting Ukraine will have to strike a balance between self-confidence and sobriety. Sobriety requires honesty: neither a battlefield victory for Ukraine nor negotiations in which Kyiv starts from a strong position are near at hand. Self-confidence requires the patient and steady pursuit of containment, never letting up on pressure applied on the Russian presence in Ukraine.

Militarily, the West should conceive of the war not just as stopping Russian territorial advances and defending Ukrainian citizens but as keeping Russia off balance. Ukraine’s improved ability to strike at Russian naval assets offers a pivotal opening. Long a prized trophy for Putin, Crimea is no longer an attractive place for Russians to live or vacation. Ukraine has put it within range of missile strikes, and Russia must think twice before anchoring ships or submarines there or making Crimea a logistics hub. By degrading the Russian navy, Ukraine has already restored some blockaded shipping lanes in the Black Sea.

The right strategy in Ukraine is a patient and steady pursuit of containment.

The more Ukraine can target Russian naval assets and put Crimea at risk, the more it can make the war seem purposeless to the Kremlin and the Russian population. But containment requires Western policymakers and publics to accept the need for a long and demanding war in Ukraine. Implying that victory might be just around the corner will only create the dangerous impression that Ukraine is underperforming and that for some inexplicable reason it cannot triumph in an easily winnable war.

During the U.S. presidential campaign season, the accusation that U.S. support for Ukraine is just another one of Washington’s “forever wars” could sting, precisely because it would resonate with familiar examples going back to the Vietnam War—which ended for the United States after Congress decided to stop funding it. The crucial difference, of course, is that the United States had troops on the ground in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and all those wars were vastly more expensive than the war in Ukraine. In Kyiv, the United States has a more receptive, more independent, and more democratic partner than it ever did in Saigon, Kabul, or Baghdad.

Victory will not be defined only on the battlefield. Strategically, Western countries should ramp up their efforts to integrate Ukraine into their institutions. The conflict between Ukraine and Russia began in 2013, when Ukraine’s government yielded to Russian pressure to withdraw from a trade agreement with the EU, prompting the Maidan revolution, which swept a new, more pro-Western government to power in Kyiv. Since then, Ukraine has received EU candidate status, drawing closer to Europe through legal and political agreements and through the bonds of sentiment. This is already a victory for Europe and Ukraine. Policymakers must deepen Ukraine’s ties to the West by connecting it to Europe, even if full EU and NATO membership likely cannot occur until the war ends.

A NEW NARRATIVE

Russia’s long-term containment can only redound to Ukraine’s benefit, though it may seem a less grandiose goal than a resounding battlefield victory. Ukraine’s leaders are acutely aware of domestic tensions in Western countries and of the military challenges Kyiv faces. To encourage continued Western support, Kyiv should base its case for Western investment in Ukraine on the containment of Russia, emphasizing that ultimately prevailing over Russia is as much in the West’s interest as it is in Ukraine’s.

The Russian military is bogged down in Ukraine, and as a result, Moscow’s regional influence in Central Asia and the South Caucasus has diminished. (Had Russia taken Kyiv, the opposite would now be the case.) But at present, Russia is only imperfectly, and perhaps temporarily, contained in Ukraine and beyond. For years to come, containment will have to be supported with more European and sustained U.S. military aid; the West must also maintain its sanctions on Russia and better enforce their implementation. Aid to Ukraine is not philanthropy. For Europe, the success or failure of containing Russia will shape the whole continent’s security. For the United States, the success or failure of containing Russia in Europe will define the future of the international order it leads.

Containing Russia should be conceptualized—and celebrated—as a steady continuum of action that started before February 2022 and came into its own with the Ukrainian defense of Kyiv and battlefield advances in the fall of 2022. Containment, by definition, can deliver only a partial victory, and for this reason, ups and downs in public sentiment in countries allied with Ukraine are to be expected. These ups and downs make it all the more worthwhile for Western leaders, who are sensitive to surges of optimism and disappointment, to adopt containment as their unchanging compass. Doing so will help both Ukraine’s war efforts and morale in Ukraine’s allies. Sticking to a consistent, realistic strategy amid the ebbs and flows of sentiment in a major war is its own source of self-confidence.

LIANA FIX is a Fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations.
MICHAEL KIMMAGE is Professor of History at the Catholic University of America and a Nonresident Senior Associate in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. From 2014 to 2016, he served on the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio.

Foreign Affairs · by Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage · November 28, 2023

22. Erasing Tibet

I just cannot fathom the depth of evil of the CCP.

Excerpts:

States must condemn the colonial boarding school system by issuing strong statements, especially at seemingly mundane but strategically critical opportunities such as the upcoming UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review of China. They should be echoing this with statements from their foreign ministries, and punishing Chinese officials with travel restrictions and slapping sanctions on the architects of these insidious policies, as Secretary Blinken did in August. Finally, states should coordinate with one another to strengthen their collective response to China’s campaign to eliminate Tibetan identity and culture. In particular, the United States, Canada, and Australia—all with a history of weaponizing education to eradicate indigenous cultures—have a special responsibility to condemn the twenty-first-century version of this colonial practice. Their recent reckoning with their own inglorious pasts gives them the unique credibility to warn China not to make the same mistake. If diplomatic interventions, multilateral pressure, and targeted sanctions come together at the right time, the residential schooling policy in Tibet might yet be checked and reversed.

Erasing Tibet

Chinese Boarding Schools and the Indoctrination of a Generation

By Tenzin Dorjee and Gyal Lo

November 28, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Tenzin Dorjee and Gyal Lo · November 28, 2023

China’s brutal treatment of Uyghur Muslims in the western region of Xinjiang has won tremendous international attention in recent years, with human rights groups decrying the systematic detention in internment camps of a million people, as well as the Chinese state’s attempts to suppress Uyghur culture and the practice of Islam. But the plight of another oppressed ethnic group has flown largely under the radar. In Tibet, the Chinese state has also embarked on a campaign to quash the identity of a distinct people. Its chief weapon in Tibet is not dystopian camps but something seemingly more quotidian: residential schools.

Nearly a million Tibetan children live in state-run residential schools on the Tibetan plateau. Chinese authorities subject these children to a highly politicized curriculum designed to strip them of their mother tongue, sever their ties to their religion and culture, and methodically replace their Tibetan identity with a Chinese one. Children as young as four have been separated from their parents and enrolled in boarding kindergartens under a recruitment strategy based largely on coercion.

This alarming development has prompted a series of congressional hearings and formal inquiries in the United States, Canada, and the United Nations. “We are very disturbed that in recent years the residential school system for Tibetan children appears to act as a mandatory large-scale program intended to assimilate Tibetans into majority Han culture, contrary to international human rights standards,” a group of UN experts declared earlier this year. In August, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced visa sanctions against Chinese officials responsible for this program.

The West should be particularly concerned by China’s imposition of these schools on Tibetan youth. After all, the residential schools resemble the church-run boarding schools in which authorities thrust indigenous children in Australia and North America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In recent years, researchers and survivors have brought to light the horrific scale of abuses and trauma associated with these schools, which sought to separate children from their indigenous cultures and families. Australian and Canadian leaders have issued formal apologies to indigenous communities that still suffer from the legacy of forced enrollment in the residential schools. Chinese diplomats routinely excoriate the West for its colonial-era crimes against indigenous peoples. But now Beijing plans to do to Tibetans precisely what white settler regimes did to indigenous peoples.

THE THREAT OF DIFFERENCE

Writing in the 1990s, a chorus of influential Chinese intellectuals blamed the Soviet Union’s disintegration on Moscow’s failure to Russify the cultural and linguistic identities of its autonomous republics. They insisted that China should draw an important lesson from the fragmentation of the multilingual and multicultural Soviet Union, warning that special accommodation for minority nationalities impeded China’s nation-building project. These ideas gained currency with the rise of Xi Jinping in 2012. Under Xi, China has taken a darker and more uncompromising view of the cultural diversity within its borders. Authorities have taken aim not just at those espousing separatist ideologies but also at the separate identities of Tibetans and Uyghurs, the two major ethnic groups with the strongest historical and legal claims to national self-determination. Beijing has rarely let dissent go unpunished, but now it is even criminalizing difference.

In Xinjiang—the western region home to several Turkic-language-speaking, Muslim minority groups—this vision of a homogeneous China has had devastating consequences. Authorities have detained at least a million Uyghur Muslims in what are in effect concentration camps, and Chinese officials have subjected Uyghur communities to intensive surveillance and prevented Uyghurs from practicing their Muslim faith. Beijing has sought to justify this campaign by raising the specter of Uyghur terrorism in the wake of the U.S.-led global war on terror. But that narrative is an awkward fit for Tibet. After all, the Dalai Lama is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and the Tibetan nationalist movement is openly committed to nonviolence. So Beijing has relied on subtler and seemingly less brutal tools of repression to achieve its goals.

Chief among these methods is the suppression of the Tibetan language. Among all features of Tibetan identity, language is what most unites the diverse Tibetan communities of the plateau. Language sets Tibetans apart from Han Chinese even more sharply than does religion or the distinct geography of their Himalayan homeland. China has tamed Tibet’s forbidding terrain with a network of roads, tunnels, and railways. It has co-opted Buddhism by infiltrating its institutions, supplementing blunt repression with the finer instruments of state subsidies and surveillance. By contrast, the Tibetan language, which has nothing in common with Mandarin, remains doggedly unconquerable; unlike other aspects of Tibetan life, it has not been tamed, co-opted, or Sinicized. This is precisely why, in the eyes of Xi and the hawkish advocates of what has come to be known as China’s “second-generation ethnic policy,” the Tibetan language must be eradicated.

EDUCATION AS A WEAPON

To achieve that goal, Beijing has sought to corral Tibetan pupils in state-run residential schools. Political indoctrination and cultural marginalization have always been inseparable from modern education in Tibet since the region’s conquest by China in the 1950s. Until recently, however, schools in Tibet were mostly local day schools, and students returned home each evening; whatever they were taught in school was moderated by what they learned at home. But since Xi came to power, the government has shuttered most of these local schools and consolidated them into newly constructed boarding establishments located far from villages and towns. Unlike the schools of the past, the residential institutions enable the state to fully wrest control of the students’ attention and environment. This gives the Chinese Communist Party unprecedented power to shape the worldview and mold the identity of the youngest generation of Tibetans.

The most comprehensive study on the residential school system to date comes from a 2021 report by the Tibet Action Institute, a human rights advocacy group. Its researchers used Chinese government statistical yearbooks, firsthand testimonials from Tibet, and Chinese language academic publications to estimate that some 800,000 Tibetan students aged six to 18 are currently in the boarding system—roughly three out of every four students in Tibet. This staggering statistic does not include the more than 100,000 Tibetan children aged four to six who are believed to be in boarding kindergartens. The report also documents many cases of the state coercing parents into enrolling their children, puncturing Beijing’s claim that all enrollment is voluntary. Chinese authorities impose punitive measures, including fines, denial of welfare subsidies, even arrest and imprisonment, to force parents to enroll their children in the schools.

In all boarding primary schools and preschools across the Tibetan plateau, Mandarin has been imposed in the last decade as the sole vehicle for interaction both in and outside the classroom. A Tibetan preteen who attended a boarding middle school outside of Lhasa, and who now lives abroad, described to us an average school day for a fifth grader. From 6:30 AM to 9:45 PM, students endured a grueling schedule, with more time devoted to “patriotic education” and Chinese language than to math and science. Breaks were few, brief, and highly regimented. Before she boarded, around the age of ten, Tibetan was indisputably her first language; less than a year after enrolling in the school, Mandarin had displaced Tibetan, which she now fumbled as if it were a foreign tongue.

Until about a decade ago, Tibetans had more pathways for pursuing a culturally grounded education—some attended monastery day schools or private schools, while others sneaked off to India to study at the educational institutions overseen by the Dalai Lama. But all those options have disappeared thanks to China’s closure of local and private Tibetan schools from 2012 onward and the tightening of the borders around Tibet between 2006 and 2009.

UPROOTING LANGUAGE

Earlier this year, when the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights conducted its review of the third periodic report on China, Chinese officials defended the mandatory boarding policy by claiming there were no schooling alternatives in rural Tibet, conveniently forgetting that they themselves had destroyed the alternatives. Although the boarding system exists in other parts of rural China, the rate of boarding is astronomically higher for Tibetan students (78 percent) than for Chinese students in the rest of the country (22 percent). This is not accidental. In 2015, the Chinese government explicitly called on officials to “strengthen boarding school construction” in minority regions so as to ensure that “children of all ethnic minorities will live in a school, study in a school, and grow up in a school.”

Chinese officials defended the use of Mandarin as the medium of instruction by claiming that the Tibetan language lacks the vocabulary for teaching science and mathematics. This claim is not only false but hypocritical. It is normal for a language to lack the requisite technical vocabulary when encountering new subjects; such obstacles are easily surmounted through the creation or loaning of new words. In fact, Mandarin itself used thousands of loanwords from Japanese and English when new disciplines such as sociology and natural science entered China’s curricula a mere century ago. More pertinently, subjects such as math, chemistry, biology, and geography were taught in the Tibetan language until around 2010, when “model one” bilingualism, which privileged Tibetan as a medium of instruction, began to be replaced by “model two” bilingualism, which used Mandarin as the medium.

China has shuttered most local Tibetan schools and pushed students into new boarding ones.

The loss of Tibetan has real consequences for communities and families. As children grow up not in their homes but in the alienating space of school dorms, the foundational structures of Tibetan life weaken. Researchers are already seeing the early but unmistakable results of this wholesale linguistic displacement and cultural erasure. Preadolescent Tibetans are fast losing their ability to converse in Tibetan, which leaves them disoriented during their lives’ foremost developmental stage. A friend who recently visited Tibet reported that among all the kids younger than ten that he met during his trip, none spoke in Tibetan.

One of us, Gyal Lo, who worked as an educational sociologist in Tibet for two decades, visited roughly 50 residential preschools between 2015 and 2020 and witnessed this unfolding tragedy in real time. A growing number of Tibetan children are struggling to forge meaningful relationships with their parents. When home during school breaks, children often avoid interactions with parents and other family members. Among themselves, they speak only Mandarin. Residential schools have placed barriers not only between pupils and Tibetan culture but also between the pupils and their own families.

But that is in large part the goal of such schools. Much like their counterparts in North America and Australia decades ago—when authorities ripped indigenous children from their families and communities and confined them in boarding schools—these institutions in Tibet are designed to stem the transmission of culture and language from one generation to the next. In many traditional societies, grandparents play a seminal role in shaping children’s psychosocial development and worldview. By expunging the children’s mother tongue, the residential schools render them unable to communicate, let alone converse, with their grandparents. This systematic estrangement of children from their parents and grandparents will lead to psychological and developmental damage, not to mention the collective trauma of a culture collapsing.

AN ADMISSION OF DEFEAT

What is happening in Tibet is not just a violation of international law but also a betrayal of the promises that the Chinese government made to Tibet. In 1951, when the People’s Republic of China signed the 17-Point Agreement with the Tibetan government in Lhasa, Beijing pledged to respect Tibetan autonomy in the domains of faith, culture, and language. In 1984, Beijing recommitted itself to these principles of linguistic and cultural autonomy when it decreed the Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy, which stipulated that schools and other “educational organizations recruiting mostly ethnic minority students should, whenever possible, use textbooks in their own languages and use these languages as the media of instruction.”

These promises were made at a time when Chinese leaders were confident that Tibetans would eventually accept the ideological superiority of communism and submit to the soft power of Han civilization. Once Tibetans had tasted the fruits of modernization and economic development, Beijing assumed, they would abandon their Buddhist value system, shed their traditional identity, and voluntarily embrace the Communist Party and the “motherland.” But this theory of voluntary assimilation has been frustrated by real events—including the 2008 uprising in Tibet, when Tibetans took to the streets to rebel against Chinese rule, and the subsequent wave of self-immolations in protest—as Tibetans insisted on holding on to their spiritual inheritance and traditional identity.

Western countries have a responsibility to condemn China’s modern version of a colonial practice.

In a sense, China’s shift under Xi to a more coercive policy of seeking to eliminate Tibetan culture and language is an admission of defeat. Beijing’s weaponization of schools and kindergartens to convert Tibetan children into Chinese subjects is a tacit acknowledgement of its failure to win Tibetan hearts and minds through the persuasive power of growth and development. This failure is the ultimate reason why the institution of colonial residential schooling, consigned to history in the rest of the world, has now appeared in Tibet.

In recent months, Beijing has gone into overdrive trying to whitewash the residential schools. The Global Times and China Daily, both government mouthpieces, have published story after story trying to justify the schools, using glitzy images to portray them as different from the historical residential schools in North America. This is a clear sign of Beijing’s sense of vulnerability and its growing anxiety over the issue receiving greater attention, not least at a time when China’s international stature and domestic legitimacy have diminished following its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, its aggressive foreign policy, and the recent struggles of the Chinese economy. Beijing may be susceptible to international pressure, and the time to act is now.

States must condemn the colonial boarding school system by issuing strong statements, especially at seemingly mundane but strategically critical opportunities such as the upcoming UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review of China. They should be echoing this with statements from their foreign ministries, and punishing Chinese officials with travel restrictions and slapping sanctions on the architects of these insidious policies, as Secretary Blinken did in August. Finally, states should coordinate with one another to strengthen their collective response to China’s campaign to eliminate Tibetan identity and culture. In particular, the United States, Canada, and Australia—all with a history of weaponizing education to eradicate indigenous cultures—have a special responsibility to condemn the twenty-first-century version of this colonial practice. Their recent reckoning with their own inglorious pasts gives them the unique credibility to warn China not to make the same mistake. If diplomatic interventions, multilateral pressure, and targeted sanctions come together at the right time, the residential schooling policy in Tibet might yet be checked and reversed.

TENZIN DORJEE is Senior Researcher and Strategist at Tibet Action Institute and a doctoral candidate in Columbia University’s Political Science Department.
GYAL LO is a former Professor at the Yunnan Normal University Institute for Studies in Education and the author of Social Structuration in Tibetan Society: Education, Society, and Spirituality.
MORE BY TENZIN DORJEE MORE BY GYAL LO

Foreign Affairs · by Tenzin Dorjee and Gyal Lo · November 28, 2023

23. Marine Infantry veteran says enlisted shouldn't become officers — mayhem ensues

I thought for sure this had to be the Duffleblog. Surely this had to be satire. Just what we need - add to the perception of eliteness of the officer corps.

Marine Infantry veteran says enlisted shouldn't become officers — mayhem ensues

Veterans on social media widely rejected the idea

BY JEFF SCHOGOL | PUBLISHED NOV 27, 2023 7:30 PM EST

taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol · November 27, 2023

Marine veteran Ivan Snook set social media aflame on Sunday after posting that the U.S. military should stop allowing enlisted service members to become officers.

“Mustangs erode the esteem, legitimacy and distinct culture of the officer corps like merchants marrying into the aristocracy,” Snook posted on X. “Nevertheless, we are intent on lowering the standards and reducing military service to being ‘just a job’ asap.”

“Mustang” is slang for a U.S. military officer who commissioned after serving as an enlisted service member.

Judging from the reaction that Snook received when he posted his theory about mustangs on X, it’s fair to say that many other veterans — including longtime enlisted, officers and mustangs who have been both — disagree with him.

One retired Marine colonel posted that mustangs are respected within the Marine Corps because they’ve already proven themselves. Others posted that they served with great officers who were prior enlisted service members. And one user wrote that he would rather serve under a mustang or warrant officer than a military service academy graduate.

“I’m prior enlisted & I enjoyed eroding the esteem, legitimacy and distinct culture of the officer corps,” former A-10 pilot Dale Stark posted on X. In fact, that was my favorite part!”

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The character of the officer-enlisted divide is an ancient topic in military circles, and includes some who believe the split shouldn’t exist at all, as one writer argued in Task & Purpose a decade ago. Yet there remains a yawning chasm between officers and enlisted troops, as evidenced by a Navy lieutenant who was disciplined after complaining that being billeted with enlisted sailors, whom he described as “deviants” and “perverts.”

Speaking to Task & Purpose on Monday, Snook said that he has known excellent mustangs, but he still believes that commissioning enlisted as officers hurts the military as a whole.

A former Marine infantry rifleman, Snook said he believes that military officers need to be a distinct class, similar to how civilian judges hold a distinguished position within the justice system. Commissioning enlisted service members takes away from the officers’ aura, he argued.

“It is like what happens when you’re a lance corporal,” Snook said, who left the Marine Corps as a corporal. “You’ve been with your other buddies, who are lance corporals. You still snap to parade rest when you’re talking to just another corporal. But when your buddy picks up [corporal], all of a sudden, the role – the image of the corporal – is somehow rendered ordinary. It’s very much more humanized. It’s lost a lot of its symbolic power and authority.”

Snook said that he was not surprised that his argument was so widely rebuked, but he was taken aback by the level of vitriol with which people responded on social media.

“I can’t imagine being at a party or some other public gathering discussing my graduate school research analyzing small unit group psychology, veteran suicide and the causes of war atrocities with Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory and Axel Honneth’s recognition theory, and then having a friend of a friend with no background in philosophy say to me in front of everybody: ‘Wow, that’s f—ing stupid. You’re a real dumbass,’”

Snook told Task & Purpose. “I don’t mean that he wouldn’t say so because I would beat him up but because it’s just so tacky.”

Snook also said that he understands why he received so much push back because mustangs are considered sacred cows within the military, especially among enlisted service members.

“The enlisted’s reverence for the mustang is irrelevant to his actual talents as an officer, but rather it is more of – well it’s fundamentally narcissistic, in that the enlisted soldier sees in the mustang himself. He sees a hero from his same background that’s on the inside and proving that if only he himself was put in a position of legal authority to challenge these officers that he’d be running the show so much better.”

However, there are advantages to allowing enlisted service members to become officers, said Katherine Kuzminski, director of the military, veterans, and society program at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, D.C.

“There is the ability to take someone who’s proven themselves on the enlisted side and capitalize on their experience, add to their education, and add to what they can bring to the force,” Kuzminski told Task & Purpose on Monday.

The commissioning process also shows enlisted service members that they have a pathway to advance within the military, Kuzminski said.

Kuzminski said that Snook’s argument represents “perhaps a very old-world view” about which troops can serve officers, and which can’t.

“We do things differently in the United States of America,” she said.

In fact, some of the U.S. military’s best leaders have been mustangs, including Medal of Honor recipient Audie Murphy; Marine legend Chesty Puller, who was awarded five Navy Crosses; and Chuck Yeager, the man who broke the sound barrier.

When asked if the fact that mustangs have proven to be superlative leaders undermines his argument, Snook said no.

“It has little to do with the individual,” Snook said. “It’s about unit morale.”

Snook, who holds a master’s degree from Columbia University in New York on European history, politics, and society, said most of his analysis of military leadership has been based on Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, particularly his theory on group psychology and the analysis of the ego.

Snook noted that Freud also treated World War I veterans suffering from what was then referred to as “shell shock.”

He believes that Freud would likely be opposed to the idea of commissioning enlisted service members because he would feel it is necessary to maintain a strict distinction between officers and enlisted service members for good order and discipline, especially in wartime.

“The simplest reason why is that authentic subordinance to the group via the leader requires that the leader be so highly idealized in the group imaginary,” Snook said. “After analyzing WWI shellshock victims, Freud described the effect of a good leader as ‘hypnosis.’ When an enlisted is elevated into the realm of the idealized leader, the effect of hypnosis is reversed. Instead of the enlisted seeing an idealized leader whose ideal qualities should be introjected into the ego, the enlisted sees himself in the enlisted-turned-officer as a means to overthrow the other leaders whose orders are now seen as oppressive instead of protective.”

Snook’s research into this issue has radically changed his understanding of social conflict from the time he was an enlisted service member himself.

“A few years ago, I probably – almost certainly – would not have even agreed with myself,” Snook said. “I would have been one of the guys anonymously s—ting on me on Twitter.”

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taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol · November 27, 2023

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

Company Name | Website

How Hamas built a force to attack Israel on 7 October

'A sign of unity'

Telling the world

Hiding in plain sight

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The element of surprise

Israel investigates an elusive, horrific enemy: Rape as a weapon of war​

Extend the Cease-Fire in Gaza—but Don’t Stop There

Regional Diplomacy and an Overhaul of U.S. Policy Could Produce Lasting Peace

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About the Author

Unforgettable Episodes From a 21-Day Covert Assignment in Myanmar

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 27, 2023

IRAN UPDATE, NOVEMBER 27, 2023

US military to fly aid to Gazans as WH warns of next phase of war

The assistance is “nowhere near enough” to meet the need, administration acknowledges.

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DOD’s early success may founder on Congressional inaction, while Europe’s private firms await orders.

Tip of the Spear - USSOCOM, October 2023 | SOF News

The Masterminds

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Freed Israeli hostage describes deteriorating conditions while being held by Hamas

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Tensions are bubbling up at thirsty Arizona alfalfa farms as foreign firms exploit unregulated water

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Ukraine’s new enemy: war fatigue in the West

Congress holds up military aid as unsupportive populists make gains in Europe

Attacks on US troops in Middle East have diminished, Pentagon says

Intercepted calls from the front lines in Ukraine show a growing number of Russian soldiers want out

SOLDIER: ‘BONES, TEARS — ALL THE SAME, THEY ARE THE SAME AS WE ARE’

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ARTYOM: ‘EVERYBODY’S F------ MAD, F------ GLOOMY AS HELL’

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ROMAN: ‘I ALREADY FEEL MORE PITY SHOOTING A BIRD THAN A PERSON’

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ANDREI: ‘THE MOBILIZED ARE NOT CONSIDERED HUMANS’

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Army releases first doctrinal publication focused on information

Delay in China’s Annual Fall Party Plenum Meeting: A Sign of Deepening Institutional Erosion?

Asia Unbound

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By Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage

SWERVING FORTUNES

NO INTERVIEWS WITH A VAMPIRE

CONTAIN AND COMBINE

A NEW NARRATIVE

Erasing Tibet

Chinese Boarding Schools and the Indoctrination of a Generation

By Tenzin Dorjee and Gyal Lo

THE THREAT OF DIFFERENCE

EDUCATION AS A WEAPON

UPROOTING LANGUAGE

AN ADMISSION OF DEFEAT

Israel investigates an elusive, horrific enemy: Rape as a weapon of war