Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."

– Ayn Rand

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated."

– Thomas Paine

"Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect."

– Jonathan Swift

1. Too few planners understand what special operators can do today

2. US AC-130J Ghostrider Destroys Chinese ‘Fishing Boat’ In Rare Military Drills Targeting Notorious Vessels

3. USSOCOM to deploy next-generation communications for sUAS in contested scenarios

4. The V-22 Osprey Is the U.S. Military's Problem Child Helicopter

5. The Pentagon is investigating whether special operators have committed war crimes, and if their commanders have even been checking

6. The dizzying pace of Ukrainian drone innovation

7. US command rites take on sharp tone over China’s ‘troubling actions’

8. China’s Chilling Cognitive Warfare Plans

9. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 5, 2024

10. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, May 5, 2024

11. How to Use and Misuse History in Cold War II With China

12. How TikTok Is Wiring Gen Z’s Money Brain

13. US about to build a whole lot more ATACMS

14. Foreign intelligence services are contracting out killings to gangs

15. In China, Ruled by Men, Women Quietly Find a Powerful Voice

1. Too few planners understand what special operators can do today

This is Global SOF Week. The press will be publishing all kinds of stories about SOF. Everyone is going to offer their expert opinions on SOF.

I had high hopes for this piece when I saw the title (and overall it is a very positive contribution). But they fed me a softball and I just cannot resist taking a big swing at it. While the authors wrote a good second paragraph connecting today's SOF to its historical roots in the OSS (without mentioning the OSS though they provide a hyperlink to the great Virginia Hall's biography) they fail to directly mention the two foundational roots of special operations: unconventional warfare and psychological warfare. In fact unconventional warfare is not mentioned until the concluding paragraph and then only parenthetically. And psychological warfare is not mentioned at all - psychological operations and military information support operations are and this illustrates the historical trend of watering down psychological warfare (as an aside I am pleased that the US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare and School are reprising the Psychological Warfare School for training modern psychological operators).

This excerpt just misses - it is close but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

While special operators are effective at direct action—like seizing, destroying, capturing, or recovering targets—other core competencies—such as information and psychological operations, foreign internal defense, and civil affairs operations—can shape regional environments in which China and Russia are active. I

They should have mentioned AND STRESSED UW as a core competency - actually THE core competency.

I do give them credit for trying to explain that special operations are more than direct action but they should have noted upfront that the essence of special 0perations is unconventional warfare and psychological warfare. Every other aspect of special operations grows from those roots. All four of the roles they outline for special operations in strategic competition are rooted in the skills, knowledge, education, and training for unconventional warfare and psychological warfare.

They could have provided this useful reminder from former DCIA and SECDEF Robert Gates:

"Unconventional Warfare (UW) ... remains uniquely Special Forces'. It is the soul of Special Forces: the willingness to accept its isolation and hardships defines the Special Forces soldier. Its training is both the keystone and standard of Special Forces Training: it has long been an article of faith, confirmed in over forty years of worldwide operations, that "If you can do the UW missions, you can do all others." The objective of UW and Special Forces' dedication to it is expressed in Special Forces' motto: De Oppresso Liber (to free the oppressed)."

Or they could have provided this from an OSS operator:

"Men, Special Forces is a mistress. Your wives will envy her because she will have your hearts. Your wives will be jealous of her because of the power to pull you away. This mistress will show you things never before seen and experience things never before felt. She will love you, but only a little, seducing you to want more, give more, die for her. She will take you away from the ones you love, and you will hate her for it, but leave her you never will, but if you must, you will miss her, for she has a part of you that will never be returned intact.

And in the end, she will leave you for a younger man."

– James R. Ward, Office of Strategic Services (OSS)

The second is just to lighten the mood of my critical comments.

Too few planners understand what special operators can do today

No less than in yesterday’s era of counter-terrorism, SOF are indispensable in today’s great power competition.

By CLEMENTINE G. STARLING and JAMES CARTWRIGHT

MAY 5, 2024 08:00 AM ET

COMMENTARY

SPECIAL OPERATIONS

PENTAGON

defenseone.com · by Clementine G. Starling

U.S. special operations forces have a unique role to play in today’s strategic competition with China and Russia, yet—outside a niche community—understanding of what SOF do is limited, outdated, and under-appreciated. It’s time that changed. For global security challenges that transcend traditional boundaries and cut across theaters and domains, Defense Department planners should look more often to special operations forces.

While most often associated with direct-action missions and counterterrorism, the modern special operator is far more than just a "trigger-puller." Hailing back to the roots of special operations in the Great War period, special operators are highly skilled at providing intelligence and executing missions below the threshold of conflict that complicate the goals of great power competitors. In World War II, for example, British and American special operators played an outsized role in organizing and training resistance forces in Nazi-occupied France to undermine the German occupation.

It behooves the national security community to update its understanding of the modern-day special operator and to use these highly trained and specialized forces to pursue U.S. goals against near-peer competitors.

Today, U.S. special operations forces have a diverse array of skills, including expertise in fields such as coding, space, and cyber operations. SOF are not only operators—deployed in kinetic, physical battlespaces—they are also, as importantly, enablers—conducting placement and access in spaces where they can collect information and intelligence and enable missions through AI and engineering support. They can operate across the spectrum of competition, executing and supporting U.S. diplomatic, informational, military, and economic efforts to combat adversary threats globally.

Four roles in strategic competition

This versatility and specialized expertise positions U.S. special operations forces as an indispensable player in strategic competition in at least four ways:

First, special operations forces can serve as the supporting arm of U.S. integrated deterrence, which seeks to integrate all tools of national power across domains, geography, and the spectrum of conflict. While special operators are effective at direct action—like seizing, destroying, capturing, or recovering targets—other core competencies—such as information and psychological operations, foreign internal defense, and civil affairs operations—can shape regional environments in which China and Russia are active. Indeed, SOF cross-functional teams are built to combine these capabilities, giving U.S. decisionmakers greater flexibility and options to respond to multi-pronged and multi-domain challenges. They may be of particular use in far-flung, and often less prioritized, parts of the globe, where they can help thwart Russian and Chinese information and irregular warfare.

Second, U.S. special operators are postured around the globe, where they maintain multi-generational relationships with international allies and partners that give them in-depth understandings of local dynamics and players. This can make them effective counters to China and Russia in places where traditional U.S. military or foreign service officers are less present, including Africa, Central Asia, and Latin America. For example, China’s growing influence in the United States’ backyard is concerning; it has invested in 10 space facilities in five Latin American countries, allowing it to expand its space program and surveil U.S. and others’ space assets as they pass over the Southern Hemisphere. U.S. special operations’ allied and partner relationships and its space-cyber-special operations “triad” could allow the United States to operate more strategically in Southern Command’s area of responsibility without unduly shifting Joint Force attention and resources from the Indo-Pacific and Europe.

Third, special operators have their fingers on the pulse of strategic competition. They maintain persistent, not merely episodic, engagement with allies and partners, which gives them a comprehensive understanding of host nations, threats to stability and security in multiple regions, and the second- and third-order effects of operations in local contexts. As such, they are well placed for “operational preparation of the environment,” supporting the broader U.S. military by improving situational awareness, understanding, and operational responsiveness. Special operators are trained to understand cultural dynamics, observe adversary behavior, and advance U.S. interests on the ground in places where the United States lacks even a diplomatic presence. Their presence is light and often covert, enabling them to observe and share intelligence in areas where others cannot operate. This gives U.S. decisionmakers greater flexibility and latitude in where and how they apply presence and achieve strategic effects against competitors. Special operators’ deep local relationships and understanding enable operational preparation of the battlespace, and ensure favorable outcomes even if diplomacy and deterrence fail.

Finally, special operations forces can support the U.S. military’s push toward joint multi-domain operations. Special operators are joint by nature; they work across the Joint Force, with interagency partners, and allies and partners. Other units and planners should draw on their expertise and capabilities during training, planning, and execution.

A good investment

U.S. defense spending can be expected to remain relatively flat even amid hot conflicts in Europe and the Middle East and heightened tensions with China. Ultimately, this will require the U.S. military to do more with less. While budget and recruitment challenges may pressure the military branches to deprioritize special operations billets, it would be a mistake to underinvest in SOF. To the contrary: at a time when the United States must prioritize its global security goals and be selective about where it chooses to be present and engage, the light and relatively affordable nature of special operations forces’ global presence provides great value for money. As Christopher Maier, assistant defense secretary for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2022: “representing less than 2 percent of the Defense budget, USSOF provide an outsized role in the national defense strategy.”

To fully harness U.S. special operations forces’ potential in strategic competition, a shift in mindset is required—not only within the special operator community, but also in the branches of the U.S. military, the Joint Force, and interagency.

As special operations forces recommend to decision-makers how best to harness their capabilities, they should emphasize not only their direct-action capabilities, but also the indirect SOF competencies—special reconnaissance, unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, civil affairs operations, military information support operations, and security force assistance—that can be used at different phases of competition and conflict. An enhanced supporting role for special operations forces in strategic competition requires the national security enterprise to embrace a new image of special operators—as valuable enablers not just operators, and as a force to employ to avoid escalation, rather than as the last-resort heavy-hitters when nothing else works.

Gen. James “Hoss” E. Cartwright, USMC (Ret.) served as eighth vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Atlantic Council, IP3 Security, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Ethics and Rule of Law. He is also a member of the Board of Governors for Wesley Theological Seminary.

Clementine G. Starling is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense program and a resident fellow for the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She recently wrote a report titled “Stealth, Speed, and Adaptability: The Role of Special Operations Forces in Strategic Competition.”

defenseone.com · by Clementine G. Starling

2. US AC-130J Ghostrider Destroys Chinese ‘Fishing Boat’ In Rare Military Drills Targeting Notorious Vessels

But was the air threat that must have been simulated from Chinese capabilities?

US AC-130J Ghostrider Destroys Chinese ‘Fishing Boat’ In Rare Military Drills Targeting Notorious Vessels

https://www.eurasiantimes.com/target-uss-ac-130j-ghostrider-destroys-notorious/?utm

By Parth Satam -

May 5, 2024

The US used its legendary AC-130J Ghostrider gunship in an exercise that involved firing its left-side guns on targets simulating China’s notorious fishing boats. This was during Exercise Balikatan 24 with the Philippine military.

The AC-130J, used by the US Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), is a unique plane with a 30-mm and a 105-mm cannon on its left (port-side) lower fuselage.

The plane circles overhead while providing direct fire support to ground troops. It can also carry air-to-ground weapons like the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb, GBU-69 Small Glide Munition, AGM-114 Hellfire missile, and AGM-176 Griffin missile.

The aircraft is a C-130 Hercules transport plane. The plane’s target of a small fishing boat, too, assumes significance since China’s use of large swarms of fishing vessels to assert its maritime rights has often vexed military experts.

This was a rare occasion when a military drill addressed the issue of fishing vessels.

A video released by the US military showed shots repeatedly striking the surface of the water and an explosion taking place. This suggests that the fire was coming from overhead and that a small sea-going vessel was being struck. While the boat itself was not seen, a structure that appeared to be a mast was seen sinking. The video concluded by showing the AC-130J flying overhead.

The US military statement described the Ghostrider, assigned to the 27th Special Operations Wing, engaging “a target vessel during a maritime littoral strike.” Other pictures released on social media showed the boat’s bridge.

A target vessel is engaged by a US Air Force AC-130J Ghostrider of the 27th Special Operations Wing during a maritime littoral strike during Balikatan 24 near Lubang, Philippines, April 30, 2024. (Source: Cpl. Nayomi Koepke/US Marine Corps)

China’s Dual-Use Fishing Boats

Experts have long observed how China’s fishing vessels are used as an extension of its politico-strategic goals when it aims to assert its maritime rights/claims without resorting to military means. Simply put, it is an extension of its ‘gray zone’ doctrine.

Open source literature says that the ‘maritime militia’ is essentially a sea border management and enforcement arm, asserting China’s oceanic rights and claims. It does have a secondary warfighting role, where it does not directly take part in hostilities but undertakes surveillance, reconnaissance, and logistical roles.

Based on papers published by the RAND Corporation’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and official US military forums, it does not appear that the boats may be armed with missiles or weapons. Experts, however, believe China might decide to arm them if necessary.

Shuxian Luo and Jonathan G. Panter tracked the evolution of China’s fishing fleet and its place in the overall military-strategic scheme of things in a study published on the US Army University Press website. In its 2000 defense white paper, China described the maritime militia as a “joint military-civilian land and sea border management system, headed by the military and with a sharing of responsibilities between the military and the civilian authorities.”

Since then, China has gradually transitioned from a relatively naval-intensive approach towards a “multiagent, division-of-labor method” in managing its maritime borders. Since 2005, China has preferred to employ the PLA Navy (PLAN) in background roles, relying instead on maritime law enforcement agencies and the maritime militia “as its frontline responses to contingencies”.

The fishing boats appear to have more military-logistical value than core combat utility. The Chinese describe them as “an armed mass organization composed of civilians retaining their regular jobs,” a component of China’s armed forces, and an “auxiliary and reserve force” of the PLA. The militia assists the PLA “by performing security and logistics functions in war.”

This can involve supplying frontline warships on the high seas with ammunition or rations and taking a load off other vessels in the PLAN fleet meant for the task. Whether PLAN and the militia exercised together for this purpose is not known. However, it still “receives training from both the PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy) and CCG (China Coast Guard (CCG),” despite being separate from them.

This is to “perform tasks including — but not limited to border patrol — surveillance and reconnaissance, maritime transportation, search and rescue, and auxiliary tasks in support of naval operations in wartime,” said the report.

Past Employment

An April 2020 article by defense analyst Derek J. Grossman for the RAND Corporation said the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) established “a de facto Chinese operating presence in disputed areas – in effect, changing the facts on the ground, or at sea” – to challenge the opposing party’s territorial claims.

These classic “gray zone” operations are designed to “win without fighting” by overwhelming the adversary with swarms of fishing vessels, usually bolstered from the rear with CCG and possibly PLAN warships. In January 1974, during the Paracel Islands dispute with South Vietnam, PAFMM forces demonstrated their contribution to the islands’ seizure campaigns.

“The presence of Chinese fishing vessels around the Paracels slowed South Vietnamese decision-making on using force against PAFMM and their response times to counter PLAN maneuvers. The additional time they were allowed Beijing to coordinate more effectively.

When two fishing trawlers delivered 500 PLA troops to the Western Paracels, it resulted in the immediate surrender of the South Vietnamese soldiers there,” said the article.

In 1978, they swarmed the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, which were disputed by Japan, ramping up their presence there in 2016. They were also involved in the PRC seizing Mischief Reef and Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines in 1995 and 2012, respectively.

Beijing also attempted to blockade Manila’s resupply to the Second Thomas Shoal in 2014, and since 2017, has harassed Filipino fishermen at Sandy Cay and nearby Thitu (Pagasa) Island.

How Will the AC-130 Help

The cheap mass-manufactured fishing vessels can pose an asymmetric threat to warships. Experts differ on whether the boats may be armed with direct offensive weapons like missiles or laying mines. They, however, agree that the boats have non-combat support roles like carrying surveillance, reconnaissance, Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) equipment, high-powered jam-resistant communication devices, and, in the future, employ drones, too.

This makes targeting all fishing vessels as hostiles impossible. A naval warship commander may not necessarily be able to determine what a boat might be up to, especially when it is not engaging in typically hostile maneuvers.

An AC-130, circling above with possibly other assets like a naval helicopter, can look at the boat’s movements from a higher altitude, allowing warships to anticipate some disruptions when fishing boats are spotted.

Upon visual confirmation of the fishing boats’ engagement in combat support activity, the AC-130 can open fire. If not, it can fire a warning shot around the waters to dissuade these boats from continuing their mission.

This is subject to irrefutable verification that the boats are in active combat roles. However, given how China is less likely to arm the PAFMM with lethal weapons to prevent all of them from being considered legitimate targets, it reduces the scope for the AC-130’s use.

The author can be reached at satamp@gmail.com
Follow EurAsian Times on Google News

Parth Satam

Parth Satam is a Mumbai-based journalist who has been covering India’s defense sector for more than a decade. He maintains a keen interest in defense, aerospace and foreign affairs and can be reached at satamp@gmail.com

3. USSOCOM to deploy next-generation communications for sUAS in contested scenarios

USSOCOM to deploy next-generation communications for sUAS in contested scenarios

https://www.shephardmedia.com/news/special-operations/ussocom-to-deploy-next-generation-communications-for-suas-in-contested-scenarios/?utm

4th May 2024 - 17:16 GMT | by Flavia Camargos Pereira in Tampa

RSS

Blackwave is designed to be a secure, digital link. (Photo: Performance Drone Works)

SOCOM will operate the PDW Blackwave system, which enables critical communications and the operation of small drones in highly congested environments.

The US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) will deploy the Blackwave next-generation UAS communications. Produced by Performance Drone Works (PDW), the solution is designed to be a secure, digital link that is resistant to intentional and unintentional interference.

The system enables critical communications and the operation of small UAS in highly contested and congested environments.

Speaking to Shephard, the PDW’s CEO and co-founder, Ryan Gury, explained that Blackwave is a radio 'built from scratch' to overcome EW threats and use 'as much of the radio spectrum as possible to deliver a solid signal' regardless of how much enemy EW is being served.

'We believe radios have to be developed in this fashion in order to be able to overcome and deliver your missions for future battlefields and conflicts,' Gury noted. 'It [Blackwave] will be serving in an environment that will be largely jammed across the spectrum.'

According to him, the system was submitted to several domestic tests against jamming systems similar to ones that would be found on the battlefield.

In February, the USSOCOM awarded the company a $6.9 million contract for the handover of the Blackwave. The company, though, could not disclose details on the delivery schedule of the solution.

The system and its capabilities will be showcased at the SOF Week 2024 exhibition in Tampa, Florida, from 6 to 9 May.

The company will also put on display its C100 multi-mission sUAS quadcopter, which is a portable and packable drone fitted with autonomous, AI-assisted software that can navigate, identify and execute missions.

C100 multi-mission sUAS quadcopter. (Photo: Performance Drone Works)

'It is a central hub to many different payloads and AI autonomy radios and allows a single soldier to deploy pretty much their own air support,' Gury highlighted. 'That can be the delivery of resupply, kinetic effects, ISR, signals intelligence, really anything a single soldier will need.'

As an option, PDW also offers a mechanical release device for munitions and resupply. Moreover, the C100 is equipped with autonomous frontal collision avoidance and visual position hold.

This quadcopter weighs 21.1 lbs (9.57 kg) and can carry a maximum payload mass of 10 lbs (4.5 kg) with its long endurance pack batteries.

In terms of range, it can reach over 6.2 miles (10 km), has a 22mph (35km/h) cruise speed and a max speed of 40 mph (64.4 km/h).

Additionally, the solution has a 61dB at 5m away acoustic signature, which is non-audible at 600 meters. Another feature is its night operations zero light emission mode, with IR LEDs and strobe lights.

PDW’s CTO, Dylan Hamm pointed out that the company’s systems are 'really focused on deploying multiple mission sets to protect service members through conducting missions like intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and rescue operations'.

'Our systems are being deployed all over the place,' Hamm claimed. 'We cannot really talk about the specifics of our customers but we are selling to customers and special forces in the United States.'

AUTHOR

Flavia Camargos Pereira

Flavia Camargos Pereira is a North America editor at Shephard Media. She joined the company …

4. The V-22 Osprey Is the U.S. Military's Problem Child Helicopter

Critical capability for the USMC and USSOCOM.

The V-22 Osprey Is the U.S. Military's Problem Child Helicopter

The National Interest · by Stavros Atlamazoglou · May 5, 2024

Summary: The V-22 Osprey, a unique tiltrotor aircraft of the U.S. military, combines the vertical takeoff and landing capabilities of a helicopter with the speed and range of a jet. It serves as a primary air assault platform for the U.S. Marine Corps and supports special operations globally.

-Capable of carrying 32 troops or 10,000 lbs of cargo, the V-22 Osprey has significant transport capabilities and is armed with defensive weapons like .50 caliber heavy machine guns and 7.62mm miniguns. Despite its operational success and over 600,000 flight hours since 2009, the Osprey has a troubled history, with 50 servicemembers lost in accidents.

-Plans are underway to replace it with the Bell V-280 Valor due to ongoing maintenance challenges, particularly with its engine nacelles.

The V-22 Osprey: A Revolutionary Aircraft with a Complex Legacy

The V-22 Osprey has a unique profile among the U.S. military’s roster of aircraft. A tiltrotor aircraft, the different versions of the Osprey can take off and land like a helicopter but fly like a jet.

This rare capability makes the V-22 ideal for carrying large numbers of troops on the battlefield. The Osprey is the U.S. Marine Corps’ main air assault platform, and it also serves with the Air Force Special Operations Command, supporting American special operators around the world.

The V-22 Osprey: A Unique Aircraft

The tiltrotor aircraft comes with a combat radius of approximately 500 nautical miles, or 575 miles.

It can operate up to 25,000 feet and reach maximum speeds of 280 knots, or about 320 miles per hour. In terms of capacity, the V-22 Osprey can carry 32 troops seated on the floor, 24 troops seated in seats, or 10,000 lbs of cargo.

This lift capacity is important – the Osprey can put almost an entire Army platoon on the ground when needed. In other missions, it can carry almost three Army Special Forces A-Teams, or about two Navy SEAL platoons.

Beyond its transport capabilities, the V-22 can definitely defend itself when needed. The aircraft packs several heavy and light machine guns, including M2 Browning .50 caliber heavy machine guns, GAU-17 7.62mm miniguns, and M240 7.62mm light machine guns. The GAU-17 is part of a self-defense system Bell Boeing installed on the belly of the aircraft that can take out threats when the aircraft lands and takes off—the two most vulnerable points of its missions.

The U.S. military has around 400 Ospreys in service with the Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force. These aircraft have clocked more than 600,000 operational hours since 2009.

A Unique Aircraft With a Troubled History

Although the unique aircraft brings important capabilities to the table, it has a troubled past.

Since the V-22 entered the production phase in the early 1990s, 50 servicemembers have been killed in a series of deadly accidents. Despite the military’s decades of experience operating the aircraft, accidents keep happening. In the past two years alone, 20 servicemembers have been killed in four accidents.

The Pentagon has had to ground the aircraft for several weeks or months following each mishap, adversely affecting operational capabilities and putting stress on the platforms that have to pick up the slack.

The V-22’s nacelle, an outer casing on the engine that enables the V-22 to take off and land like a helicopter, has been an area of constant trouble for Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps maintainers.

The Pentagon plans to replace the V-22 Osprey with the Bell V-280 Valor. But that aircraft is still some years out. Until then, the problematic Osprey will have to remain operational, with everyone hoping that its unfortunate streak of mishaps will stop.

About the Author:

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense journalist specializing in special operations and a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ). He holds a BA from the Johns Hopkins University and an MA from the Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His work has been featured in Business Insider, Sandboxx, and SOFREP.

The National Interest · by Stavros Atlamazoglou · May 5, 2024

5. The Pentagon is investigating whether special operators have committed war crimes, and if their commanders have even been checking

Interesting timing on this report.

But can tolerate war crimes or failing to report them. We learn this from the very beginning of our training and we face these dilemmas in Robin Sage.

Excerpts:

When it comes to the investigation, the view from below is mixed.

"I believe the military is getting political pressures from the top, forcing them to do something. War is a nasty place, and accidents do happen," John Black, a retired Green Beret, told Insider.

"However, the purposeful act of committing war crimes cannot be tolerated. Having been in [Army Special Forces] for more than 15 years ... I can say objectively that Army Special Forces are the most professional soldiers in the world and would never purposefully commit a crime," Black added.

Steve Balestrieri, a retired Special Forces warrant officer, also questioned the timing of the announcement.

"Was it because of the revelation of the Australian case?" Balestrieri told Insider. If so, "the powers that be may just want to be sure that US forces acted accordingly."

Accusations of alleged war crimes in the US special-operations community have been around for a while.

The Pentagon is investigating whether special operators have committed war crimes, and if their commanders have even been checking

Business Insider · by Stavros Atlamazoglou

Military & Defense

Stavros Atlamazoglou

2021-03-26T13:16:57Z

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US Army Rangers clear a room during a night operation with Afghan forces in Helmand province, August 14, 2012. US Army/Spc Justin Young

The Pentagon is probing US Central Command's and US Special Operations Command's handling of potential war crimes during US wars in the Middle East.
Special-operations forces have dealt with cases of misconduct and other scandals in recent years, but current and former members are wary of the extra scrutiny.

The Pentagon's Inspector General is investigating US Central Command's (CENTCOM) and US Special Operations Command's (SOCOM) handling of potential war-crimes cases within their operational jurisdiction or by their units.

CENTCOM is one of the more important unified combatant commands in the US military, as it is responsible for the Middle East and parts of Africa. SOCOM is responsible for developing, equipping, and employing most US special-operations units.

According to the Inspector General, the objective of the investigation is two-fold: First, to evaluate and determine the extent to which CENTCOM and SOCOM developed programs compliant with the Defense Department's Law of War requirements and aimed at preventing or reducing potential war crimes, and second, to determine whether CENTCOM and SOCOM properly investigated allegations of potential war crimes.

In addition to CENTCOM and SOCOM, Inspector General will be investigating US Forces-Afghanistan, Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve — which is name for the US-led coalition against ISIS — and Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

The investigation comes after an ethics review within US special-operations units and a major scandal in the Australian special-operations community, where an extensive investigation revealed several cases of war crimes by the Special Air Service Regiment — a unit equivalent to Delta Force and SEAL Team 6 — and the Commando Regiments.

War fatigue or war crimes?

US Marine Corps/Cpl. Kyle McNally

When it comes to the investigation, the view from below is mixed.

"I believe the military is getting political pressures from the top, forcing them to do something. War is a nasty place, and accidents do happen," John Black, a retired Green Beret, told Insider.

"However, the purposeful act of committing war crimes cannot be tolerated. Having been in [Army Special Forces] for more than 15 years ... I can say objectively that Army Special Forces are the most professional soldiers in the world and would never purposefully commit a crime," Black added.

Steve Balestrieri, a retired Special Forces warrant officer, also questioned the timing of the announcement.

"Was it because of the revelation of the Australian case?" Balestrieri told Insider. If so, "the powers that be may just want to be sure that US forces acted accordingly."

Accusations of alleged war crimes in the US special-operations community have been around for a while.

Matthew Golsteyn was accused of the illegal killing of a suspected Taliban bomb maker in Afghanistan in 2010, when Golsteyn was an Army Special Forces member. Golsteyn was one of several service members who were pardoned or granted clemency by President Donald Trump.

US Army/Specialist Daniel Love

Perhaps the most well-known of those cases is that of Chief Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL acquitted in 2019 of war-crimes charges in relation to the killing of a teenage ISIS fighter. Trump later restored Gallagher's rank.

To investigate or not to investigate?

US Navy/Chief MCS Jeremy L. Wood

The military has a poor record of investigating itself, and both SOCOM and CENTCOM have a history of questionable procedures.

"Senior leaders rush to judgment and don't ensure that investigators are first 'qualified' to conduct the investigation," Retired Marine Corps Maj. Fred Galvin told Insider.

Nor do those leaders ensure that the "investigator and investigation are completely fair and impartial [and] that the investigator does not have any contact with the command other than receiving clear initial guidance on what to investigate in order to prevent command influence," Galvin added.

In 2007, Galvin commanded MARSOC Fox Company, a Marine special-operations unit, that was falsely accused of killing civilians in Afghanistan.

Seven Marine Raiders with the unit were ostracized for years despite all available evidence indicating they acted within the laws of war.

US Army

Currently, troops deploying under SOCOM and CENTCOM feel like they face competing pressures, as they are supposed to conduct combat operations but suspect locals may want to use the US military justice against US troops.

"Anything questionable will result in at best a career-ending investigation or being incarcerated. Both have led to strategic victories for the enemy," Galvin added.

Members of the special-operations community are wary of the Pentagon investigation.

"I can't speak for any active-duty troops, but nobody likes outsiders poking into their business, because they're outsiders with no clue on what the job entails," Balestrieri said. "There will always be some who feel that there is a witch-hunt afoot, and we've seen those occur."

But the investigation, regardless of the outcome, seems unlikely to have a serious impact the commandos or their operations.

"There is an inherent risk when sending operators into harm's way. We as Americans must ensure that we have our soldiers' backs no matter what ... Operators aren't worried about investigations as a whole. No operator will be reluctant to pull the trigger. Hours and hours of drills and rehearsals make missions seamless," Black said.

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate.

Afghanistan

Business Insider · by Stavros Atlamazoglou

6. The dizzying pace of Ukrainian drone innovation

This article does outline quite a bit of amazing innovation.

Excerpts:

“It would be fair to say that Ukraine has done a great amount of work in the drone area by using the cheapest parts for drones to develop the most effective weapons,” said Alexander Chernyavskiy, the head of the Ukrainian charity fund Free in Spirit. “The U.S. creates the most advanced drones in the world… in Ukraine, we don't have [many] resources to buy such expensive drones.”

...

“Drones have totally changed this war,” he said. “Right now drones have the same role, the same significance as [the] artillery shell -- [which traditionally has been known as] the 'King of Battle.'”

...

Necessity is the mother of invention, and the cobbled-together FPV – or First Person View – drones are a response to Ukraine’s smaller pool of resources. Some of the commercially-produced Chinese-made drones can cost $4,500. But his versions are just $450.

And cost is one of the main advantages of drone production in the ongoing David-and-Goliath fighting taking place in eastern and southern Ukraine right now. For just $450, a drone can destroy or disable Russian vehicles that cost millions of dollars.

...

“The war is like a crucible. So it forces innovation, it forces rapid prototyping, deployment – the cycle is shortened,” he said. “Either we create solutions that basically enable us to fight more effectively against that adversary that's five times larger. Or we do nothing and, perhaps, see them developing [it].”

...

Drone operators have become the modern military’s snipers: operating in darkness, hiding in plain sight — and absolutely critical for military forces, both as a force multiplier for his own side, and a devastating blow to morale for his opponents.

Bogdan prefers underground locations like cellars or basements, especially those with more than one point of exit. They’re more easily defended, and can be used for a quick evacuation if he suspects his location has been compromised by Russians on the lookout for drone pilots.

“You feel like a rat,” Bogdan said, because you’re always being hunted. “Everybody is looking for you. They know it is extremely important to find and destroy guys who give [Ukrainian forces] a view from the sky… they’ve got very serious units that do this job.”

The dizzying pace of Ukrainian drone innovation

There’s nowhere in the world where weapons technology is developing faster – and raising new ethical and legal questions. For Ukrainian engineers, they need to constantly invent – or people die.

https://www.counteroffensive.news/p/the-dizzying-pace-of-ukrainian-drone

TIM MAK

MAY 05, 2024

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There’s no place in the world where drone innovation is happening faster than in Ukraine.

The drone war has been an equalizer in the mismatched war of aggression by Russia. With fewer funds and fewer soldiers, Ukraine has needed to out-think and out-innovate the Russian military. And nowhere is that more evident than in drone technology, which has grown by leaps and bounds since the full-scale invasion just over two years ago.

“It would be fair to say that Ukraine has done a great amount of work in the drone area by using the cheapest parts for drones to develop the most effective weapons,” said Alexander Chernyavskiy, the head of the Ukrainian charity fund Free in Spirit. “The U.S. creates the most advanced drones in the world… in Ukraine, we don't have [many] resources to buy such expensive drones.”

Alexander Chernyavskiy (right) and his colleague Ivan Kazachuk (left) stand in the offices of their organization, Free in Spirit.

Since the full-scale war Ukrainian engineers and laypeople have been developing new inventions in the field of drone improvements, counter-drone technology, artificial technology, electronic warfare, and drone-based mine clearance.

Chernyavskiy’s charity began in 2022 to provide help to both civilians and the military. They quickly specialized the demand in drone development, and built a factory to “meet their soldiers’ needs”: flying drones, land drones, bombers, kamikaze, rescue, mining and demining.

“Drones have totally changed this war,” he said. “Right now drones have the same role, the same significance as [the] artillery shell -- [which traditionally has been known as] the 'King of Battle.'”

Startup drone manufacturers are pooling together frames from Poland, antennas from Canada, and flight controllers from Ukraine. Other components come in from China, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Whatever else they need, they make themselves with 3D-printers.

Here’s one thought experiment that Chernyavskiy outlines: he estimates that it would take 200 artillery shells to destroy a large building. And even with that massive amount of ordnance expended, there's no guarantee that the enemy force will be destroyed.

But with a drone, which before the war was essentially just a toy to take wedding movies, “you can find an enemy soldier, the place where he is situated, and take a better angle to attack him," he said.

A person involved in drone manufacturing in Ukraine, who asked not to be named for fear of being targeted, told us that newly-purchased foreign-made drones are arriving in-country, but are already outdated by the time they arrive due to the frantic pace of innovation on the battlefield.

The drone war has already gone through multiple phases.

Bayraktars, the Turkish-made drones, were purchased by Ukrainians at $5 million apiece at the beginning of the war, and were used to great effect in the defense of Kyiv. But within a couple months, Russians understood the need to cover their troop movements with air defense, and the large Bayraktars became easy targets.

A serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine holds FPV drones in his hands on May 2, 2024 in Lviv, Ukraine. Volunteers handed over 700 FPV drones to the military. (Photo by Stanislav Ivanov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

This was the first major drone adaptation by Russian forces. Now, the success of small FPV drones has now meant that Russians are trying to jam them.

"Right now we have a game with the enemy. We are making drones with communications that can go through the jamming barrier… you have to find new frequencies that don't cross with the jammer's frequencies,” Chernyavskiy said.

Ukraine is now using frequency-hopping modems to defeat Russian jammers trying to block Ukrainian pilots from being able to control their drones – a constant game of one-upmanship where both sides are desperately trying to outcompete with newer designs.

The pace of constant development is dizzying. But it is often paid for in the price of blood.

"We have a lot of talented people,” Chernyavskiy said. “Engineers understand that it's an existential threat so they focus their attention on drones, jammers -- instead of thinking about a ‘peaceful business direction.’”

Ukrainian innovators aren’t just motivated by deadlines, or the company’ stock price.

They’ve specialized in this field because if they don’t pioneer new technologies, people die.

In a series of three undisclosed bomb shelters, since converted to drone manufacturing assembly lines, Mykhailo – he asked for his surname to be omitted due to security reasons – produces thousands of drones per month.

Already, he has developed new tweaks to existing drones, renovating them to extend their range on the battlefield. While ordinary drones of this class have a range of five to seven kilometers, they’ve renovated them so they can fly up to 22 kilometers.

A Ukrainian soldier operates a drone during training for the 22nd Brigade in Donetsk Oblast, on May 3 2024. (Photo by Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Necessity is the mother of invention, and the cobbled-together FPV – or First Person View – drones are a response to Ukraine’s smaller pool of resources. Some of the commercially-produced Chinese-made drones can cost $4,500. But his versions are just $450.

And cost is one of the main advantages of drone production in the ongoing David-and-Goliath fighting taking place in eastern and southern Ukraine right now. For just $450, a drone can destroy or disable Russian vehicles that cost millions of dollars.

He doesn’t want to take me on-site, but he shows me a live video feed of the assembly process taking place. It’s a nondescript, office style layout – the way a mailroom might look. Each worker finishes his or her task, then moves it on to the next worker – a non-automated, handmade process.

Mykhailo stands for a photograph after an interview with The Counteroffensive in Kyiv.

Six days a week – they take Sunday off – his team of 36 employees can produce an average of 360 drones per day. But although they have a manufacturing capacity of 10,000 drones a month, they’re producing just 3,000.

The Ukrainian government doesn’t pre-pay for orders, leaving manufacturers to come up with the capital to produce their drones. Without more funds, they’re unable to make more than a few thousand a month. This lack of upfront money is a problem, Mykhailo said.

“Russians are also developing [drone technology] themselves. Maybe in half a year they will develop more in drones than we do,” he said. “That's why we need more money to invest in this.”

Ukraine is making drones with all sorts of novel technologies, like a self-guidance system that doesn’t require visual control of a pilot; thermal cameras to conduct surveillance and night; and even artificial intelligence that can recognize enemy tanks from afar.

The thought of giving autonomous drones the power to kill – making decisions without a human “in the loop” – may be a terrifying thought.

"It's less terrifying than the alternative, which is infantry fighting against armor without the appropriate long-range anti-tank systems; infantry fighting against an enemy that's five times larger,” said Francisco Serra-Martins, the CEO of Terminal Autonomy.

His company is focused on developing autonomous drones so that these systems can operate without pilots. Serra-Martins imagines a future where war is mostly machines killing other machines.

The website for Serra-Martins’ company, Terminal Autonomy.

The groundwork for this is being laid now in Ukraine: swarms of drones are being developed such that they can fly to a designated “kill box,” find and identify enemy tanks, then destroy them – all without any human pilot interaction.

One of the major advantages of this sort of drone technology is that it is immune from current forms of jamming. The Russian military will try to prevent communication between Ukrainian pilots and their drones – so to circumvent that, autonomous drones will operate without any communication with a pilot.

There are only a few dozen autonomous drone manufacturers in the world. Probably half of them are in Ukraine, Serra-Martins said, adding that Israel has a few, and America has some.

“The war is like a crucible. So it forces innovation, it forces rapid prototyping, deployment – the cycle is shortened,” he said. “Either we create solutions that basically enable us to fight more effectively against that adversary that's five times larger. Or we do nothing and, perhaps, see them developing [it].”

Serra-Martins said that taking out the human element will actually make friendly fire or civilian casualties far less common.

"When it's classifying something, there's a degree of confidence that is better than a human. A human who is eating rations for months without sleep, and getting hit by artillery is going to be less precise than a machine that doesn't have emotions, doesn't sleep and isn't exhausted," he said. “If anything, it becomes a safer alternative than using human operators.”

Of course, there are new legal and moral questions that arise from giving drones the power to kill. But the CEO of this company points out there is a cost to not developing the technology. And in any case, this push to innovate -- and defeat the invading enemy -- has pushed off those questions for now.

“For us to sit and pause and reflect on autonomous drones is counterproductive… we are facing an adversary that doesn't have rules. They don't ponder, ‘should we invade other countries?’ They don't reflect on, ‘should we rape and pillage cities?’” he said. "We've crossed the Rubicon. We can't sit and watch the Russians innovate in this sector."

A woman takes aim with a KVERTUS AD G-6+ anti-drone device during a presentation on March 19, 2024 in Ukraine. (Photo by Viktor Fridshon/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

Every day, both Russians and Ukrainians are quickly developing new technology in this space in ways that could change the nature of warfare forever.

Chernyavskiy, the head of a charity focused on drone technology development, relayed one recent mission that speaks to the complexity of Ukrainian drone operations in the current day.

The Ukrainian military conducted a joint mission with air and land drones. Land-based drones, which carry much more weight in explosive payload, worked in concert with air drones that used an antenna to boost the land drone’s signal – while also conducting surveillance ahead.

The mission was a success: they were able to pull off the operation without losing any soldiers’ lives.

After the paywall, we report out what a dangerous day out in the field means for a Ukrainian drone pilot. And: new reporting on N. Korean missiles — with U.S. components! — being used by Russians to kill Ukrainians.

NEWS OF THE DAY

Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

N KOREAN MISSILES USED TO KILL UKRAINIANS: Dozens of North Korean missiles have been fired by Russia into Ukraine, killing at least 24 people and injuring more than 70, the Ukrainian military claims.

Despite foreign sanctions on North Korea, a close review of the missiles show U.S. electronic parts -- one even had a U.S. computer chip made as recently as March 2023.

"I never thought I would see North Korean ballistic missiles being used to kill people on European soil," Joseph Byrne, a North Korea expert at RUSI, a defense think tank, told the BBC.

XI VISITS EUROPE, MACRON TO PRESS ON UKRAINE: French President Emmanuel Macron is set to urge Chinese President Xi Jinping to use China's influence over Russia to end the war in Ukraine. Previous efforts have yielded only symbolic results: after Macron's visits to Beijing last year, Xi called Zelenskyy for the first time.

The two will discuss “first and foremost the war in Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East” when they meet this week, Macron’s office said.

UKRAINE MARKS ORTHODOX EASTER: In his Easter message, President Zelenskyy called on Ukrainians to pray for soldiers fighting the Russian military. "Ukrainians kneel only in prayer," Zelenskiy said. "And never before invaders and occupiers."

The full-scale war has now been going on for more than 800 days.

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

Hey there – it’s Tim here, trying to describe for you what a typical drone pilot’s day is like.

The drone missions usually start in the dead of night, around 2 a.m.

By 4 a.m. it’s already too late to get moving.

Bogdan, who asked us to withhold his surname for safety reasons, is a Ukrainian drone pilot who has repeatedly deployed to combat in multiple locations along the frontlines.

“You need to wake up very early,” he said. “You have to be at your [piloting location] during a period of darkness, because it is a question of safety.”

A drone operator with the Ukrainian Army's 93rd Brigade launches a DJI Mavic 3 drone near the frontline with Russian troops on February 18, 2023 in Bakhmut, Ukraine. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Drone operators have become the modern military’s snipers: operating in darkness, hiding in plain sight — and absolutely critical for military forces, both as a force multiplier for his own side, and a devastating blow to morale for his opponents.

Bogdan prefers underground locations like cellars or basements, especially those with more than one point of exit. They’re more easily defended, and can be used for a quick evacuation if he suspects his location has been compromised by Russians on the lookout for drone pilots.

“You feel like a rat,” Bogdan said, because you’re always being hunted. “Everybody is looking for you. They know it is extremely important to find and destroy guys who give [Ukrainian forces] a view from the sky… they’ve got very serious units that do this job.”

The job is inherently dangerous: To fly drones, you need to be right near the frontlines, and if your position is found by enemy forces artillery can very seriously injure or kill you. Russian troops can track pilots down through electronic warfare, or if a pilot gets too complacent in choosing or arriving at their position.

Ukrainian drone pilots usually operate in a small team of around three people: one is a pilot, the second an assistant, and a third serves as a driver who provides security once they arrive at the hide site.

People pass decorative Easter eggs exhibited next to Assumption Cathedral of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra on the eve of the celebration of Easter in Kyiv. (Photo by Sergei Chuzavkov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The frontlines are far from Kyiv nowadays. It leads to a surreal and dizzying change of scenery for drones pilots once their missions are complete.

“The war is very localized,” he explained. “So you can be in the field, and half an hour later you can drink coffee in a cafe.”

But drinking coffee in a cafe can be a seriously guilty pleasure. Many troops feel shame for being away from the frontlines while their colleagues are in danger.

And a common reaction to soldiers returning to urban centers — and seeing civilians living life with a sense of normality — is a feeling of disgust. They simply can’t adjust and pretend that life will proceed as normal. It’s Bogdan’s recurring concern when he speaks to his civilian friends.

“The war is still here. Please don’t forget about this,” he said.

Today’s Cat of Peace is a feline I saw while I was taking a brief break outside Ukraine – it popped up on my table and tried to finish what was left of my salad!

Stay safe out there.

Best,

Tim

7. US command rites take on sharp tone over China’s ‘troubling actions’

Will ICAD be added to the many terms of art for the gray zone?

Excerpts:

‘Ready to fight’

“Some call it the gray zone. My friend, General Brawner from the Republic of the Philippines, has a phrase called Icad. He has renamed the gray zone, which sounds otherwise benign and dull, into Icad—which is illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” he said, referring to Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., who was also in attendance.

Gray zone, as defined by the US Army’s Special Operations Command, refers to “activities, actions or conflict between the space of peace and war” and, in this particular case, to China’s activities to flex its muscles short of a full-blown war.

Tensions persist between the Philippines and China over the West Philippine Sea—part of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone where China makes sweeping claims.

US command rites take on sharp tone over China’s ‘troubling actions’

globalnation.inquirer.net · by Frances Mangosing · May 5, 2024

Samuel Paparo —AFP

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii—US Navy Adm. Samuel Paparo on Friday took the reins of the American military command responsible for checking the rise of China, mincing no words in criticizing Beijing’s “troubling actions” and “rapid buildup of forces” in the Indo-Pacific region.

Paparo headed the US Pacific Fleet for three years before taking over the US Indo-Pacific Command (Indopacom), whose area of concern covers 36 nations including China. He succeeded Adm. John Aquilino who was retiring after more than 40 years of military service.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III presided over the change-of-command ceremony held at a pier overlooking the USS Missouri and USS Arizona Memorial, with the presidents of Micronesia and Palau among the hundreds of guests.

China seen behind new WPS island-building

The Inquirer was among the journalists at the event as part of a reporting tour hosted by the US Embassy in Manila.

“Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and expansionist claims in the Indo-Pacific region,” Paparo said in his speech.

‘Ready to fight’

“Some call it the gray zone. My friend, General Brawner from the Republic of the Philippines, has a phrase called Icad. He has renamed the gray zone, which sounds otherwise benign and dull, into Icad—which is illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” he said, referring to Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., who was also in attendance.

Gray zone, as defined by the US Army’s Special Operations Command, refers to “activities, actions or conflict between the space of peace and war” and, in this particular case, to China’s activities to flex its muscles short of a full-blown war.

Tensions persist between the Philippines and China over the West Philippine Sea—part of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone where China makes sweeping claims.

Last week, Chinese coast guard ships fired water cannons at two vessels of the Philippine Coast Guard and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources near Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal, or Bajo de Masinloc. A 2016 arbitral ruling voided China’s expansive claims, including over Panatag, but Beijing has refused to recognize the decision.

“Indopacom, together with our partners, is positioned to deny and defend against attempts to break the peace accorded by the international rules-based order,” Paparo said.

“We will be ready to fight any adversary that threatens the peace, security, stability and well-being of [our] nation and of our allies and partners,” he added.

‘Autocratic vision’

In his remarks, Austin said the PRC remains his department’s “pacing challenge,” even as North Korea, Russia and violent extremist groups also threaten security in the region.

“The PRC is the only country with both the will—and, increasingly, the capacity—to dominate the Indo-Pacific and to reshape the global order to suit its autocratic vision,” he said.

“The People’s Republic of China continues to engage in increasingly coercive behavior. And we can see that across the Taiwan Strait, in the East and South China Seas, among the Pacific Island countries, along the Line of Actual Control with India, and more,” Austin said, adding that Indopacom “has risen to meet the moment, together with [its] allies and partners.”

He also cited the ongoing “Balikatan” in the Philippines, the largest annual military exercises between Filipino and American forces.

Austin described Paparo as “exactly the right leader for this moment and this mission,” adding that Indopacom’s mission is “at the heart of American security in the 21st century.”

‘Top Gun’

Like his predecessor, Paparo is a naval aviator and graduate of the Navy Fighter Weapons School, also known as “Top Gun”—a term now made famous by a Tom Cruise blockbuster movie.

Paparo has flown over 6,000 hours in the F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle and F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets, and over 1,000 carrier landings.

He also used to head the US 5th Fleet and Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain.

Austin thanked Aquilino for his leadership during “a decisive time for our defense strategy,” citing among his accomplishments the deepening partnerships across the region, the stationing of the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment in Japan, expanding access to four new sites in the Philippines under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, and the distribution of 130 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the Indo-Pacific.

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“It will be the first time I’ve slept in three years but I’ll sleep soundly knowing that Pappy is at the controls … and that the warfighters of this theater will continue the mission,” Aquilino said in his farewell speech, calling Paparo by his nickname.

globalnation.inquirer.net · by Frances Mangosing · May 5, 2024

8. China’s Chilling Cognitive Warfare Plans

This is a most important conclusion:

The societies most vulnerable to cognitive warfare are those that are free and open. China’s plans to deploy cognitive warfare techniques not only in times of war, but also in peacetime. Democracies must remain vigilant against attempts to promote social division and destabilize politics, developing systems and technologies to counter any such attacks.

This is why we must understand unrestricted warfare and the three warfares of psychological warfare, legal warfare, and media or public opinion warfare.

China’s Chilling Cognitive Warfare Plans

thediplomat.com

Asia Defense

War is entering a new, and very frightening, domain.

By IIDA Masafumi

May 05, 2024

Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS

Recent years have seen lively discussions about cognitive warfare, centering on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). According to an October 5, 2022 piece in the PLA Daily, cognitive warfare is conflict in the cognitive domain formed from human consciousness and thoughts, which is believed to shape reality in a way favorable to China by influencing human judgment, changing ideas, and influencing the human mind through selective processing and propagation of information. In other words, the aim is to gain an advantage in war by influencing the perceptions of civilians, military personnel, and political leaders, who are targeted through various means such as dissemination of disinformation and cyber-attacks, causing social confusion, reduced motivation to fight, military demoralization, and – among political leaders – reduced judgment.

Cognitive warfare, such as propaganda using radio broadcasts and deception through the dissemination of disinformation, is hardly a recent phenomenon, but the PLA’s focus on it follows developments in technology that greatly enhance its effectiveness. The first development was the global expansion of the Internet and the rapid spread of social media. The latter in particular has made it possible to instantly distribute large volumes of tampered or biased information among a very large number of targets, creating the infrastructure for effective cognitive warfare. The second development was the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence. Using AI, it is now possible to create extremely elaborate fake videos known as deepfakes. Improving AI translation capabilities could also overcome language barriers and increase the effectiveness of cognitive warfare against countries that use other languages. There is a growing expectation in the PLA that these technologies make it possible to win an edge with cognitive warfare, perhaps even avoiding physical combat, where property and human damage is unavoidable, to “win without fighting.”

Technical limitations still make it unlikely that a war can be won through operations in the cognitive domain alone. But by combining operations in the cognitive, physical, and information domains, China aims to secure ascendancy in peacetime and victory in wartime. Already, it is simultaneously conducting operations in these three domains against Taiwan. For example, when Taiwan was in the midst of its presidential and legislative elections, China spread fake images on social media purporting to show the candidate for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) involved in a scandal. It also indirectly supported the opposing Kuomintang (KMT), which advocates easing tensions with China, by conducting military exercises in the sea and airspace around Taiwan and flying military balloons over the island. Meanwhile, there were attempts to influence the election in the information domain, such as hacking routers and posting false information on social media.

Chinese operations in the cognitive domain as well as in the physical and information domains may be seen more broadly as cognitive warfare aimed at changing election outcomes in a way that favors China by influencing the perceptions of Taiwanese voters. It is difficult to assess the extent to which China’s cognitive warfare against Taiwan has been effective. In the recent presidential election, DPP’s William Lai won with more than 40 percent of the vote, while the Kuomintang (KMT) won 52 seats in the Legislative Yuan election, slightly ahead of the DPP at 51 seats. Of course, there are many factors that influence election outcomes, but it does seem apparent that China’s cognitive warfare did not have a decisive impact on this occasion.

Nonetheless, China is likely to continue its efforts. Further technological advances could dramatically increase the effectiveness of cognitive warfare. As demonstrated by Sora, developed by OpenAI, generative AI technologies are evolving at a rapid pace, and in the not-too-distant future it will be possible to easily create sophisticated fake videos that for the average person will be indistinguishable from the real thing. Meanwhile, brain machine interface (BMI) technology, which connects the human cerebrum to devices, is also developing rapidly, and in China, patients with limb paralysis have been able to use BMI technology to move on-screen cursors and pneumatic gloves. Continued developments in BMI technology may make it possible to influence the cerebrum of a target person from an external device and control their thoughts. China is focusing on developing generative AI and BMI technologies, and will continue to work toward its ultimate goal of “winning without fighting” by improving its ability to control human cognition.

The societies most vulnerable to cognitive warfare are those that are free and open. China’s plans to deploy cognitive warfare techniques not only in times of war, but also in peacetime. Democracies must remain vigilant against attempts to promote social division and destabilize politics, developing systems and technologies to counter any such attacks.

IIDA Masafumi is Director of the Security Studies Department, National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS)

Authors

Guest Author

IIDA Masafumi

IIDA Masafumi is Director of the Security Studies Department, National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS)

thediplomat.com

9. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 5, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-5-2024

Key Takeaways:

The Russian military reportedly redeployed a battalion of the 76th Airborne (VDV) Division to Kursk Oblast as part of a larger ongoing Russian effort to gather an operationally significant force for a possible future Russian offensive operation against northeastern Ukraine and Kharkiv City.
The Russian military is reportedly preparing and forming the Northern Grouping of Forces from elements of the Leningrad Military District (LMD) to primarily operate in the Belgorod-Kharkiv operational direction.
US officials continue to signal their support for new Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in 2025, although ISW continues to assess that Ukraine should contest the theater-wide initiative as soon as possible because ceding the theater-wide initiative to Russia for the entirety of 2024 will present Russia with several benefits.
European intelligence agencies reportedly warned their governments that Russia is planning to conduct “violent acts of sabotage” across Europe as part of a “more aggressive and concerted effort” against the West.
The Kremlin-controlled Russian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate (ROC MP) seized on the Orthodox Easter holiday on May 5 to further its efforts to garner domestic support for the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.
Russian forces recently advanced near Kupyansk and Robotyne.
Bureaucratic issues continue to constrain frontline Russian units’ ability to conduct strikes on Ukrainian targets.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MAY 5, 2024

May 5, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 5, 2024

Angelica Evans, Christina Harward, Nicole Wolkov, Kateryna Stepanenko, and George Barros

May 5, 2024, 6:50pm ET

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

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

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

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 1pm ET on May 5. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the May 6 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

The Russian military reportedly redeployed a battalion of the 76th Airborne (VDV) Division to Kursk Oblast as part of a larger ongoing Russian effort to gather an operationally significant force for a possible future Russian offensive operation against northeastern Ukraine and Kharkiv City. Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets stated on May 5 that the Russian military has gathered roughly 50,000 personnel in Belgorod, Kursk, and Bryansk oblasts as part of its Northern Grouping of Forces.[1] Mashovets stated that the Russian military has concentrated over 31,000 troops in Belgorod Oblast; over 10,000 troops in Kursk Oblast; and over 8,000 troops in Bryansk Oblast.[2] Mashovets noted that an unspecified VDV battalion is part of the Russian grouping in Kursk Oblast, and a Russian milblogger, who has an avowed bias against the VDV and “Dnepr” Grouping of Forces Commander Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky, claimed on May 5 that the Russian 104th VDV Regiment’s (76th VDV Division) 3rd VDV battalion is currently in Kursk Oblast.[3] Elements of the 104th Regiment were previously operating in Zaporizhia Oblast as of February and March 2024, suggesting that elements of the 104th Regiment recently redeployed from southern Ukraine to Russia’s border with northeastern Ukraine.[4] ISW recently observed unconfirmed reports that the Russian military is redeploying elements of the 76th and 7th VDV divisions from Zaporizhia Oblast to various new directions, including eastern Ukraine, but has not observed visual confirmation that elements of the 104th VDV Regiment are operating in Kursk Oblast.[5][6]

The Russian military is reportedly preparing and forming the Northern Grouping of Forces from elements of the Leningrad Military District (LMD) to primarily operate in the Belgorod-Kharkiv operational direction. Mashovets noted that Russian forces are continuing to transfer newly formed military units of the Russian 44th Army Corps [AC] (LMD) to the Northern Grouping of Forces. Mashovets stated that the Russian military transferred manpower and equipment of the Russian 30th Motorized Rifle Regiment (72nd Motorized Rifle Division, 44th AC, LMD) and the 128th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade to the Northern Grouping of Forces as of May 3.[7] Mashovets stated that the Russian military is pretending to unload troops and equipment redeploying to the Northern Grouping of Forces at railway stations in isolated areas of Kursk Oblast, only to then have Russian forces march to their deployment points in Belgorod Oblast. Mashovets noted that elements of the 30th Motorized Rifle Regiment first redeployed to the Kursk Railway Station but then deployed further to Belgorod Oblast, to possibly head to staging areas near Kharkiv Oblast. Mashovets also observed that Russian forces recently intensified air, drone, and missile strikes against northeastern Ukrainian border regions such as Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv oblasts. Mashovets echoed ISW’s assessment that the Russian Northern Grouping of Forces would likely be unable to conduct a successful offensive operation to seize Kharkiv City and suggested that elements of the Russian 11th AC, 44th AC, and 6th CAA (all LMD) may attempt to conduct limited offensive actions or cross border raids into Kharkiv and Sumy oblasts in the future.[8] Ukrainian officials have increasingly warned about the threat of a possible future Russian offensive operation to seize Kharkiv City.[9] ISW continues to assess that the Russian military lacks the forces necessary to seize the city but that Russian offensive operations against Kharkiv or Sumy cities would draw and fix Ukrainian forces from other, more critical parts of the frontline.[10]

US officials continue to signal their support for new Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in 2025, although ISW continues to assess that Ukraine should contest the theater-wide initiative as soon as possible because ceding the theater-wide initiative to Russia for the entirety of 2024 will present Russia with several benefits. The Financial Times (FT) reported on May 5 that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated that Ukraine will look to conduct a counteroffensive operation to recapture Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory in 2025 after using US military assistance to blunt further Russian advances in 2024.[11] Sullivan stated that he expects Russian forces to continue making marginal advances for an unspecified time and noted that US military assistance will not “instantly flip the switch” on the battlefield situation in Ukraine. Sullivan stated that US military assistance will empower Ukrainian forces to “hold the line” and withstand Russian assaults throughout the rest of 2024. ISW continues to assess that it will likely take several additional weeks for Western weapons and ammunition to arrive to frontline Ukrainian units and begin to have tangible battlefield impacts and that the arrival of US military aid to Ukraine will likely allow Ukrainian forces to stabilize the frontline and seize the initiative.[12]

FT reported in January 2024 that US officials advocated for Ukraine to conduct a more “conservative” “active defense” in 2024 and prepare for a counteroffensive in 2025.[13] ISW has previously argued at length that a Ukrainian “active defense” into 2025 would cede the theater-wide initiative to Russian forces for over a year, allowing the Russian command to shape preferable conditions by determining the timing, location, and intensity, of Russian attacks, and in by doing so control the resources that Ukrainian forces expend over this protracted period.[14] A Russian milblogger positively responded to FT‘s May 5 report and stated that Russian forces can simply conduct glide bomb air strikes against Ukrainian positions for the remainder of 2024 if Ukrainian forces are not going to launch a counteroffensive operation that pressures Russian forces this year.[15] Tactically significant Russian advances northwest of Avdiivka and the potential threat of a Russian offensive operation against Kharkiv Oblast are directly linked to Russian forces’ ability to indiscriminately conduct glide bomb strikes along the frontline, constrained and degraded Ukrainian defensive operations, and Russia’s control over the theater-wide initiative. Ukrainian forces will of course have to receive and integrate US military assistance to frontline units, stabilize the frontline, defend against the predicted summer Russian offensive effort, prevent operationally significant Russian advances, and address their ongoing manpower challenges before they will be able to contest the theater-wide initiative and conduct a counteroffensive operation later in 2024 or 2025.[16] Ukraine’s ability to liberate its territory and conduct counteroffensive operations rests on a number of unmade decisions in the West, Russia, and Ukraine and any external efforts to impose a timeline on Ukrainian counteroffensive operations ignore the reality of the battlefield situation.

European intelligence agencies reportedly warned their governments that Russia is planning to conduct “violent acts of sabotage” across Europe as part of a “more aggressive and concerted effort” against the West. The Financial Times (FT) reported on May 5, citing unspecified European intelligence officials, that Russia has been actively preparing “covert bombings, arson attacks, and damage to infrastructure” in Europe using its own forces and proxies.[17] German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) Thomas Haldenwang stated that the BfV assesses that there is a “significantly increased” risk of Russian state-controlled acts of sabotage on European territory. An unspecified senior European government official stated that NATO-member security services' information sharing indicated coordinated Russian sabotage efforts “at scale.” NATO recently reported that it is “deeply concerned” about intensifying Russian hybrid operations on NATO member territory and that these operations constitute a threat to the alliance's security.[18] FT reported that German authorities recently arrested two individuals on charges of allegedly planning to attack German military and logistics sites for Russia and that the United Kingdom (UK) accused two individuals of working for Russia after they were charged with setting fire to a warehouse containing aid for Ukraine.[19] ISW also observed recent reports that the Kremlin is pursuing hybrid operations against NATO member states using GPS jamming and sabotage on military logistics.[20] Russian milbloggers have widely celebrated incidents of sabotage in Western countries, most recently celebrating the factory fire at German arms company Diehl in Berlin, Germany, even though German officials have not speculated on the causes of the fire.[21]

The Kremlin-controlled Russian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate (ROC MP) seized on the Orthodox Easter holiday on May 5 to further its efforts to garner domestic support for the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine. ROC MP Head Patriarch Kirill delivered an Easter message in which he stated that Russia is going through “difficult” and “fateful” trials and labeled Russian lands as “sacred.”[22] Patriarch Kirill called on people to pray for Russian authorities and the Russian military and expressed hope that God would bring about an end to the “internecine” war in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who attended the service, thanked Patriarch Kirill for his “fruitful collaboration” during the “current difficult period.”[23] Putin claimed that the ROC MP and “other Christian denominations” are preserving Russian heritage and societal values.[24] Russian independent outlet Mozhem Obyasnit (We Can Explain) reported that Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD)-run television network Zvezda broadcasted the service and deleted any comments from viewers with calls for peace.[25] Russian authorities have systematically repressed religious freedom in Russia as a matter of state policy and have persecuted certain Christian denominations within Russia.[26] Russian authorities are also systematically persecuting the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), Protestants, Roman Catholics, and other non-ROC faiths in occupied Ukraine.[27] The ROC MP has consistently supported the war in Ukraine, and the ROC MP leadership has reportedly defrocked several clergy members who refused to promote Kremlin-introduced prayers supporting Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.[28] The ROC MP has also recently cast Russia’s war in Ukraine as an existential “holy war” and approved an ideological policy document tying several Kremlin ideological narratives together in an apparent effort to form a wider nationalist ideology around the war in Ukraine and Russia’s expansionist future.[29]

Kremlin officials also used the Orthodox Easter holiday to spread narratives that the West indirectly threatens Russian Orthodoxy in post-Soviet states, particularly in the Baltics, likely as part of ongoing Kremlin efforts to set information conditions to justify future Russian aggression abroad. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ambassador-at-Large Gennady Askaldovich published an article in the Kremlin outlet Izvestiya on May 5 in which he alleged that the US and its allies use religion as a foreign policy tool to influence other states.[30] Askaldovich claimed that some churches with “American patrons” politicize religion and falsely accused the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople of allegedly splitting Orthodoxy in Ukraine and trying to displace the ROC from Eastern Europe and former Soviet states. The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople granted autocephaly (independence) to the OCU from the Kremlin-controlled Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP) in 2019.[31] Askaldovich accused the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople of trying to take over small Orthodox autocephalous churches, including churches in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Key Takeaways:

The Russian military reportedly redeployed a battalion of the 76th Airborne (VDV) Division to Kursk Oblast as part of a larger ongoing Russian effort to gather an operationally significant force for a possible future Russian offensive operation against northeastern Ukraine and Kharkiv City.
The Russian military is reportedly preparing and forming the Northern Grouping of Forces from elements of the Leningrad Military District (LMD) to primarily operate in the Belgorod-Kharkiv operational direction.
US officials continue to signal their support for new Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in 2025, although ISW continues to assess that Ukraine should contest the theater-wide initiative as soon as possible because ceding the theater-wide initiative to Russia for the entirety of 2024 will present Russia with several benefits.
European intelligence agencies reportedly warned their governments that Russia is planning to conduct “violent acts of sabotage” across Europe as part of a “more aggressive and concerted effort” against the West.
The Kremlin-controlled Russian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate (ROC MP) seized on the Orthodox Easter holiday on May 5 to further its efforts to garner domestic support for the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.
Russian forces recently advanced near Kupyansk and Robotyne.
Bureaucratic issues continue to constrain frontline Russian units’ ability to conduct strikes on Ukrainian targets.

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 Air, Missile, and Drone Campaign
Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
Russian Technological Adaptations
Activities in Russian-occupied areas
Ukrainian Defense Industrial Base Efforts
Russian Information Operations and Narratives
Significant Activity in Belarus

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 recently seized Kotlyarivka (southeast of Kupyansk) no later than May 4 and made other confirmed advances along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna amid continued Russian attacks in the area on May 5. Geolocated footage published on May 4 indicates that Russian forces advanced in western Kotlyarivka (southeast of Kupyansk) and south of Novoselivske (northwest of Svatove).[32] Russian milbloggers continued to credit elements of the Russian 272nd Motorized Rifle Brigade (47th Tank Division, 1st Guards Tank Army, Moscow Military District) for seizing all of Kotlyarivka.[33] Russian forces conducted attacks northeast of Kupyansk near Synkivka; southeast of Kupyansk near Pishchane and Kyslivka; northwest of Svatove near Berestove and Stelmakhivka; northwest of Kreminna near Novosadove; west of Kreminna near Torske and Terny; southwest of Kreminna near Serebyranske forest area; and south of Kreminna near Hryhorivka and Bilohorivka.[34]

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

Russian forces continued to attack in the Siversk direction (northeast of Bakhmut) on May 5 but reportedly did not advance. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked east of Siversk near Verkhnokamyanske; southeast of Siversk near Vyimka and Spirne; and southwest of Siversk near Rozdolivka.[35]

Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Chasiv Yar direction on May 5 but did not make confirmed territorial gains. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian Airborne (VDV) Forces advanced in the direction of the dacha area north of the Kanal Microraion (easternmost Chasiv Yar) and drove Ukrainian forces to the southern outskirts of the microraion, although ISW had not observed visual evidence confirming this claim.[36] The milblogger added that Ukrainian forces counterattacked on the northern and western administrative boundaries of Bohdanivka (northeast of Chasiv Yar) and that Russian forces are continuing to consolidate their positions in the Stupky-Holubovski 2 nature reserve (south of the Kanal Microraion).[37] Russian and Ukrainian forces also continued to fight near Chasiv Yar, specifically near the Kanal Microraion and the Novyi Microraion (southeastern Chasiv Yar); east of Chasiv Yar near Ivanivske; and southeast of Chasiv Yar near Klishchiivka and Andriivka.[38] Social media sources amplified footage of a destroyed bridge over the Siversky-Donets Donbas Canal purportedly near the Kanal Microraion, but it is unclear whether Ukrainian or Russian forces destroyed the bridge.[39] Some Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces destroyed the bridge after Ukrainian forces attempted to rebuild it following a previous Russian strike on an unspecified date.[40] Ukrainian Khortytsia Group of Forces Spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nazar Voloshyn stated that Russian forces have concentrated 20,000 to 25,000 personnel in the Chasiv Yar direction.[41] Drone operators of the Russian 58th Separate Spetsnaz Battalion (1st Donetsk People’s Republic [DNR] Army Corps [AC]) are reportedly supporting Russian assaults near Chasiv Yar.[42]

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced on May 5 that Russian forces seized Ocheretyne (northwest of Avdiivka).[43] Ukrainian National Guard Captain Volodymyr Cherniak stated that Russian brigades bypassed new Ukrainian defenses in Ocheretyne and were able to form a small salient because Ukrainian forces lacked engineering personnel to construct defensive positions quickly in response to Russian advances.[44] Cherniak stated that Russian forces are advancing slowly but noted that even gradual Russian advances are difficult to defend against because costly Russian “meat assaults” are “simple, bloody, inhuman, and effective.” Russian forces continued offensive operations northeast of Ocheretyne near Arkhanhelske; east of Ocheretyne near Novokalynove; northwest of Ocheretyne near Novooleksandrivka; south of Ocheretyne near Berdychi and Semenivka; and southwest of Ocheretyne near Novopokrovske, Sokil, and Solovyove.[45] Elements of the Russian “Lavina” Battalion of the 132nd Motorized Rifle Brigade (1st DNR AC) reportedly continue to operate in the Arkhanhelske area after seizing Arkhanhelske no later than May 4.[46]

Russian forces also continued offensive operations west and southwest of Avdiivka on May 5, but did not make any confirmed advances. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces made tactical advances in Netaylove (southwest of Avdiivka) and advanced 300 meters in the settlement.[47] Russian forces launched ground attacks west of Avdiivka near Umanske and Yasnobrodivka and southwest of Avdiivka near Nataylove.[48] Geolocated footage published on May 4 indicates that Ukrainian forces may have regained positions in Nevelske (southwest of Avdiivka) on an unspecified date.[49] Elements of the Russian 15th Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Combined Arms Army [CAA], Central Military District [CMD]) are reportedly operating in the Avdiivka direction.[50]

Russian forces continued offensive operations west and southwest of Donetsk City on May 5 but did not make any confirmed advances. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces made marginal gains east of Krasnohorivka (west of Donetsk City) and in eastern Paraskoviivka (southwest of Donetsk City).[51] Russian forces also attacked west of Donetsk City near Novomykhailivka and Heorhiivka and southwest of Donetsk City near Kostyantynivka and Vodyane.[52] Elements of the Russian 39th Motorized Rifle Brigade (68th AC, Eastern Military District [EMD]) are reportedly operating near Novomykhailivka.[53]

Russian forces reportedly advanced in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, but there were no confirmed changes to this area of the frontline on May 5. A Russian milblogger claimed on May 4 that Russian forces advanced up to 500 meters near Novomayorske (southeast of Velyka Novosilka), although ISW has not observed visual evidence of this claim.[54] Positional engagements continued south of Velyka Novosilka near Staromayorske and Urozhaine and southwest of Velyka Novosilka near Novopil and Novodarivka.[55] Elements of the Russian 305th Artillery Brigade (5th CAA, EMD) are reportedly operating near Staromayorske, and elements of the 43rd Spetsnaz Company reportedly continue operating near Vuhledar.[56]

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

Russian forces recently advanced in Robotyne amid continued positional engagements in western Zaporizhia Oblast on May 5. Geolocated footage published on May 4 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced in southern Robotyne.[57] Positional engagements continued near Robotyne and Verbove (east of Robotyne).[58] Elements of the Russian 70th Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Southern Military District [SMD]) are using motorcycles in assaults near Robotyne.[59] Elements of the Russian 56th and 108th airborne (VDV) regiments (both part of the 7th VDV Division) are reportedly operating near Robotyne.[60]

Ukrainian forces recently expanded their positions in the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast amid continued positional engagements in the area on May 5. Geolocated footage published on May 4 indicates that Ukrainian forces expanded their positions in Krynky.[61] Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Captain Third Rank Dmytro Pletenchuk stated that Russian forces conducted several unsuccessful assaults near Nestryha Island in the Dnipro River Delta.[62] Drone operators of the Russian “Margelov” Volunteer Battalion reportedly continue operating in Kherson Oblast.[63]

Russian Air, Missile, and Drone Campaign (Russian Objective: Target Ukrainian military and civilian infrastructure in the rear and on the frontline)

Russian forces conducted a series of limited drone and missile strikes against Ukraine on the night of May 4 to 5. Ukrainian Air Force Commander Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk stated that Russian forces launched 24 Shahed-136/131 drones from Kursk Oblast and occupied Cape Chauda, Crimea and that Ukrainian forces destroyed 23 Shaheds over Kharkiv, Kherson, and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts.[64] Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration Head Serhii Lysak reported that falling drone debris damaged infrastructure facilities in Dnipro City.[65] Ukrainian officials reported that Russian drone strikes against Kharkiv City damaged civilian infrastructure and wounded several civilians.[66] Ukraine‘s Southern Operational Command clarified that Russian forces likely used Iskander-K missiles in the May 4 strike against Odesa Oblast.[67]

Russian forces also conducted strikes against Ukraine during the day on May 5. Poltava Oblast Military Administration Head Filip Pronin stated that an unspecified Russian missile strike damaged a grain elevator in Poltava Hromada.[68] The Ukrainian State Emergency Service reported that Russian forces conducted guided glide bomb strikes against Kharkiv City injuring civilians and damaging civilian infrastructure.[69] Mykolaivka City Deputy Military Administration Head Volodymyr Proskunin reported that Russian forces struck the Slovyansk Thermal Power Plant (TPP) in Donetsk Oblast with four multiple rocket launch system (MLRS) rockets with cluster munitions and one high-explosive rocket.[70]

Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko stated on May 5 that recent waves of large-scale Russian strikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure have caused over one billion dollars' worth of damage.[71] Halushchenko stated that Russian strikes have mainly targeted TPPs, hydroelectric power plants (HPPs), and electricity transmission systems. Halushchenko noted that the Ukrainian energy system is stable but called the situation “complicated.”

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

Bureaucratic issues continue to constrain frontline Russian units’ ability to conduct strikes on Ukrainian targets. A Russian milblogger, who previously served as a “Storm Z” instructor, amplified a report from an employee of Russia’s Federal Security Service’s (FSB) Military Counterintelligence Department on May 5 claiming that Russian field operatives are providing strike coordinates directly to company commanders to circumvent poor communication between higher-level commanders and lengthy approval processes to conduct strikes.[72] The employee stated that many drone operators also relay target coordinates to the Counterintelligence Department in an attempt to create pressure at the senior policy level of the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) to direct commanders to expedite approving fire missions. The milblogger claimed that he recently learned that a Russian unit missed an opportunity to strike several Ukrainian grenade launchers because they had to wait for their commander to double-check the coordinates and approve the strike. The milblogger stated that this report is further confirmation that there are ongoing communication and bureaucratic issues in the Russian military.

Exiled Russian opposition outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe reported on May 3 that the Russian MoD is preparing to expand the Russian military’s main cemetery into a nearby forest in Moscow Oblast because the cemetery is running out of space.[73] Novaya Gazeta Europe reported that residents at unhappy that the cemetery's expansion will result in the destruction of a nearby forest and noted that one woman stated that the Russian MoD should cremate the bodies of serviceman to save space.

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

Nothing significant to report.

Ukrainian Defense Industrial Efforts (Ukrainian objective: Develop its defense industrial base to become more self-sufficient in cooperation with US, European, and international partners)

ISW is not publishing coverage of Ukrainian defense industrial efforts today.

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)

ISW is not publishing coverage of Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine today.

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

Kremlin officials continue to invoke narratives about the need to protect Russian “compatriots” in the Baltic states as part of efforts to set information conditions justifying possible future Russian aggression. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are persecuting Russian “compatriots” and that the closure of Russian consular offices in the Baltic states have left Russian citizens and compatriots unprotected against alleged police brutality.[74] Zakharova threatened that Russia will continue to exert diplomatic pressure and will respond to the Baltic states’ “hostile” actions with asymmetric measures, primarily in the economic and transit spheres.

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)

Nothing significant to report.

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

10. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, May 5, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-may-5-2024

Key Takeaways:

Gaza Strip: A Hamas rocket attack forced the IDF to pause operations at a key aid inspection site in southern Israel.
Ceasefire Negotiations: The Israeli defense minister said that Israel does not believe Hamas will agree to a ceasefire. Hamas highlighted its maximalist ceasefire demands in two official statements on May 5.
West Bank: Israeli forces engaged Palestinian fighters in at least one location in the West Bank on May 4 after CTP-ISW's last data cut off.
Lebanon: Iranian-backed fighters, including Lebanese Hezbollah, have conducted at least 11 attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel since CTP-ISW's last data cutoff on May 4.

IRAN UPDATE, MAY 5, 2024

May 5, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Iran Update, May 5, 2024

Andie Parry, Johanna Moore, Annika Ganzeveld and Brian Carter

Information Cutoff: 2:00 pm ET

The Iran Update provides insights into Iranian and Iranian-sponsored activities abroad that undermine regional stability and threaten US forces and interests. It also covers events and trends that affect the stability and decision-making of the Iranian regime. The Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) provides these updates regularly based on regional events. 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. Click here to subscribe to the Iran Update.

CTP-ISW defines the “Axis of Resistance” as the unconventional alliance that Iran has cultivated in the Middle East since the Islamic Republic came to power in 1979. This transnational coalition is comprised of state, semi-state, and non-state actors that cooperate with one another to secure their collective interests. Tehran considers itself to be both part of the alliance and its leader. Iran furnishes these groups with varying levels of financial, military, and political support in exchange for some degree of influence or control over their actions. Some are traditional proxies that are highly responsive to Iranian direction, while others are partners over which Iran exerts more limited influence. Members of the Axis of Resistance are united by their grand strategic objectives, which include eroding and eventually expelling American influence from the Middle East, destroying the Israeli state, or both. Pursuing these objectives and supporting the Axis of Resistance to those ends have become cornerstones of Iranian regional strategy.

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.

ISW-CTP will publish abbreviated updates on May 4 and 5, 2024. Detailed coverage will resume on Monday, May 6, 2024.

The Israeli defense minister said that Israel does not believe Hamas will agree to a ceasefire. The Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told Israeli forces in the central Gaza Strip on May 5 that he anticipates “a powerful operation in Rafah in the near future" because Israel has “identified signs that Hamas does not intend” to agree to a ceasefire.[1] Gallant made the comment during a visit to the Netzarim Corridor.[2] The IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi visited the central Gaza Strip on May 3 to tour IDF positions and discuss IDF operations with IDF Southern Command commander Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman and 99th Division commander Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram.[3] Halevi told the IDF 2nd Infantry Brigade and 679th Armored Brigades that "we have many more tasks ahead of us."[4]

Hamas highlighted its maximalist ceasefire demands in two official statements on May 5.[5] A Hamas negotiating delegation left Cairo to consult with Hamas leadership about the ceasefire talks on May 5.[6] An unspecified official with knowledge of the negotiations told Israeli media on May 5 that talks are “near collapse” after the Hamas delegation left Cairo.[7] Hamas did acknowledge that the talks are continuing. Hamas said that it delivered its response to Egyptian and Qatari mediators and held “in-depth and serious discussions” about the response.[8] Hamas’ May 5 statement reiterated the group’s maximalist and unchanged negotiating position, which maintains that any ceasefire needs to “completely” end the war, accomplish a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, return displaced Palestinians to the northern Gaza Strip, intensify aid and reconstruction, and complete a hostage-for-prisoner swap.[9] Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh said on May 5 that Hamas is interested in reaching a “comprehensive interconnected agreement” but questioned the function of an agreement “if a ceasefire is not its first outcome.”[10]

Hamas fighters targeted Israeli forces near Kerem Shalom with indirect fire from Rafah on May 5.[11] Hamas fired at least 10 short range 114mm rockets and mortars.[12] A Hamas military wing source told Palestinian media that the attack targeted an IDF “operational headquarters responsible for coordinating artillery attacks on Rafah.“[13] Local Israeli government officials said that the rockets struck an open area near a military position and caused injuries.[14] An Israeli Army Radio correspondent said that the attack injured at least 10 people.[15] The IDF said that Hamas fired the rockets from a site about 350 meters from civilian shelters. The IDF Air Force struck the launch site shortly after the attack.[16] The IDF closed the Kerem Shalom crossing and inspection point in response to the rocket attack.[17] The Kerem Shalom crossing functions as the main entry point of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. It remains unclear how long the IDF will keep the crossing closed.

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

Key Takeaways:

Gaza Strip: A Hamas rocket attack forced the IDF to pause operations at a key aid inspection site in southern Israel.
Ceasefire Negotiations: The Israeli defense minister said that Israel does not believe Hamas will agree to a ceasefire. Hamas highlighted its maximalist ceasefire demands in two official statements on May 5.
West Bank: Israeli forces engaged Palestinian fighters in at least one location in the West Bank on May 4 after CTP-ISW's last data cut off.
Lebanon: Iranian-backed fighters, including Lebanese Hezbollah, have conducted at least 11 attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel since CTP-ISW's last data cutoff on May 4.

Gaza Strip

Axis of Resistance objectives:

Erode the will of the Israeli political establishment and public to sustain clearing operations in the Gaza Strip
Reestablish Hamas as the governing authority in the Gaza Strip

Three Palestinian militias conducted at least five attacks targeting Israeli forces near the Netzarim corridor on May 5. Most Palestinian militias targeted Israeli personnel with indirect fire.[18] A Hamas sniper targeted Israeli personnel north of the Netzarim Corridor, however.[19] Israeli forces have established forward operating bases along the Netzarim Corridor to facilitate future raids into the northern and central Gaza Strip.[20] Palestinian militias have claimed almost daily indirect fire attacks targeting Israeli forces near the Netzarim corridor since April 18.[21]

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed several Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) commanders in strikes across the Gaza Strip on May 4 and 5. The IDF Air Force killed a PIJ commander in Rafah on May 4 who commanded a PIJ special operations forces unit on October 7. The commander was responsible for preparing a strategy for PIJ fighters in the southern Gaza Strip.[22] The IDF said that the PIJ commander had “personally led several incursion attempts into Israeli territory.”[23] The IDF Air Force coordinated with ground forces to conduct airstrikes killing three Hamas Nukhba force fighters on May 5.[24] The IDF also killed the Hamas Bureij Battalion combat support unit commander in the central Gaza Strip on May 5.[25] The IDF Air Force also killed a Hamas deputy company commander in Jabalia and two other Hamas fighters.[26] The IDF said that some of the killed Palestinian fighters killed participated in the October 7 attacks.[27]

Israeli forces struck Palestinian fighters and militia infrastructure across the Gaza Strip on May 5. The IDF 143rd Division fired artillery at a Hamas rocket launch position that contained launchers that Palestinian fighters had prepared to fire into southern Israel.[28] The IDF Air Force targeted several Palestinian fighters, including two fighters near a rocket launch site and a sniper who posed a threat to Israeli forces. [29]

The IDF 2nd Infantry Brigade and 679th Armored Brigade have continued to operate in the central Gaza Strip.[30] The brigades killed Palestinian fighters and destroyed militias infrastructure on May 5.[31]

West Bank

Axis of Resistance objectives:

Establish the West Bank as a viable front against Israel

Israeli forces engaged Palestinian fighters in at least one location in the West Bank on May 4 after CTP-ISW's last data cut off.[32] Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades fighters targeted Israeli forces in Nablus with “machine gun” fire and improvised explosive devices (IED).[33]

The IDF released additional details on Israeli forces’ raid in Deir al Ghusoun on April 3. The IDF reported that the Palestinian fighters were part of a Hamas cell in Tulkarm that had carried out numerous shooting, bombings, and car bomb attacks.[34] Israeli forces killed three Hamas fighters and one PIJ fighter during the operation.[35] Three of the four fighters had previously been imprisoned for “military” and “Hamas activities.”[36] Israeli forces arrested a fifth fighter.[37]

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

Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights

Axis of Resistance objectives:

Deter Israel from conducting a ground operation into Lebanon
Prepare for an expanded and protracted conflict with Israel in the near term
Expel the United States from Syria

Iranian-backed fighters, including Lebanese Hezbollah, have conducted at least 11 attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel since CTP-ISW's last data cutoff on May 4.[38] Lebanese Hezbollah fired approximately 60 rockets from southern Lebanon targeting Kiryat Shmona in two rocket attacks on May 5.[39] The IDF reported that approximately 40 rockets were fired in one salvo according to an Israeli war correspondent.[40] Israeli Army Radio reported that the attack damaged multiple buildings in Kiryat Shmona.[41] Hezbollah also fired “dozens” of Katyusha rockets targeting Israeli forces and artillery located at al Zaoura, Golan Heights.[42] Hezbollah said these rocket attacks were retaliation for an Israeli strike in Mays al Jabal. Hezbollah said that the Israeli strike in Mays al Jabal killed and wounded civilians.[43]

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

Iran and Axis of Resistance

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq—a coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—claimed that it conducted a long-range missile attack targeting the Haifa Port on May 4.[44] The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed that it used “Arqab” cruise missiles in the attack. Israeli officials and media have not commented on the attack at the time of this writing. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq recently claimed two "Arqab" cruise missile attacks targeting Israel on May 2.[45] The group also claimed two "Arqab" cruise missile attacks targeting Israel in January 2024.[46]

Saraya al Ashtar—an Iranian-backed Bahraini militia—claimed on May 4 that it conducted a drone attack targeting an unspecified “vital target” in Eilat, Israel, on May 2.[47] It is unclear whether Saraya al Ashtar launched its attack from within Bahrain. This attack marks the second time Saraya al Ashtar has claimed an attack targeting Israel since the Israel-Hamas war began. Saraya al Ashtar claimed on May 2 that it conducted a drone attack targeting Eilat on April 27.[48] Saraya al Ashtar’s first attack specifically targeted the Israeli transportation company Trucknet Enterprise, suggesting that the attack was part of the Iranian-led campaign to impose an unofficial blockade on Israel.[49]

11. How to Use and Misuse History in Cold War II With China

We must all strive to be good students of history - and "applied historians."

Excerpts:

My six takeaways for would-be applied historians are these:

Be emotionally disengaged from the protagonists. Just because a prime minister is talking to you doesn’t mean you should become invested in his success.
Understand the protagonists’ Weltanschauungen (world views). There are no substitutes for ground truth and the horse’s mouth.
Cast the net as widely as you can for possible analogies. Do not fall back on the overused 1930s every time you see a demagogue you don’t like the look of.
Formulate your hypothesis so that there can be some empirical verification. You can’t learn from history without doing at least some number-crunching.
Solve simultaneously for macroeconomics, markets, politics and geopolitics. Many errors stem from siloed thinking.
Finally, develop “an intuitive understanding of how things do not happen,” to quote another great English historian of the mid-20th century, Lewis Namier. Many wrong predictions are of events that, when you think carefully about them, have vanishingly small probabilities.

How to Use and Misuse History in Cold War II With China

Eight examples — from the triumphs of populism to failures of economics — show how analyzing past experience can improve your forecasting and decision-making.

May 5, 2024 at 12:00 AM EDT

By Niall Ferguson

Niall Ferguson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the author, most recently, of “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-05-05/in-us-china-cold-war-misusing-history-can-lead-to-disaster-and-conflict?sref=hhjZtX76&utm

“Men learn from history only how to make new mistakes.” That line by the great English historian A.J.P. Taylor once very much depressed me. In 1981, I applied to study modern history at Oxford precisely to learn lessons from the past. It was rather crushing to be advised by a scholar whom I idolized that this was a futile enterprise.

Taylor was only half right. Yes, most of those policymakers who purport to be learning from history are doing so in such a slapdash way that they are almost guaranteed to make new mistakes. A good illustration of this was the jumble of terrible historical analogies bandied about between the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the invasion of Iraq. Nevertheless, by applying historical knowledge rigorously to contemporary problems, we can do better. The devil is in the details of how exactly one goes about this.

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Looking back over more than a dozen years of trying to learn from history for a living, I offer the following eight lessons. Disclaimer: While I use more than the usual number of first-person pronouns below, it’s hard to avoid when trying to assess how effective my use of history has been. I’m as interested in what I got wrong as what I got right.

Lesson 1: We have passed from the “foothills” to the “mountain passes” of Cold War II.

At Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum in Beijing in November 2019, I asked Henry Kissinger the question: “Are we in a new Cold War, this time with China?” His reply is justly famous: “We are in the foothills of a cold war.” The following year, he raised that to “mountain passes” of a cold war. In an interview we did in late 2022, he went even further, telling me that the second cold war would be even more dangerous than the first.

For me, this was vindication. After all, who was better qualified to recognize a cold war than Henry Kissinger, who had spent eight years orchestrating the US policy of détente with the Soviet Union? And who was less likely to overstate the deterioration of US-China relations? After all, one of his greatest historic achievements had been to begin the process of establishing diplomatic communications between Washington and the People’s Republic.

Today, the idea of Cold War II is fast becoming conventional wisdom. David Sanger of the New York Times has a new book out with the title New Cold Wars. The first part of Dmitri Alperovitch’s World on the Brink is “Cold War II, a New Era.” How did the lessons of history bring me so early to this party?

Insight came in a series of stages. The first was to understand the true nature of President Xi Jinping’s regime, and to see that his strategy for reasserting the dominance of the Chinese Communist Party over an increasingly unruly society would include the first overt assertion of Chinese economic and military power since the time of Mao. This was a sea change from Deng Xiaoping’s “hide your strength and bide your time.”

Stage 2 was to see in 2018 that President Donald Trump’s initial trade war against China was evolving into a tech war — and more. I vividly remember a world map highlighting which countries were buying Huawei’s 5G hardware and which had banned it precisely because it was so obviously a cold war map of two blocs, with a third group of non-aligned countries. Another epiphany was realizing with amazement that in 2018 China spent more money on imported semiconductors than on imported oil.

The escalation to full cold war was exemplified by Vice President Mike Pence’s remarkable speech to the Hudson Institute that October:

Beijing is employing a whole-of-government approach, using political, economic, and military tools, as well as propaganda, to advance its influence. … Chinese security agencies have masterminded the wholesale theft of American technology — including cutting-edge military blueprints. … China wants nothing less than to push the United States of America from the Western Pacific and attempt to prevent us from coming to the aid of our allies. But they will fail.

Stage 3 was the insight that this reaction against China was to be bipartisan — the exception that proved the rule of partisan polarization on every other issue.

This cold war, like the last one, is partly ideological, not least because Xi made it so by explicitly hailing a Marxist-Leninist “struggle for a new era” against corrupt Western notions such as the rule of law. Like the last cold war, the current one is also partly technological but extending beyond nuclear missiles and satellites to include hypersonic missiles, drone swarms, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

It is economic, too, with two profoundly different economic systems competing over not only semiconductors but also solar cells, batteries and electric vehicles. The US floods the world in dollars; China floods the world in hardware.

And, like Cold War I, Cold War II is a classically geopolitical contest over particular territories and seas, notably Taiwan and the South China Sea, as well as the vast regions China sought to tie to Beijing with its One Belt One Road and “safe cities” surveillance initiatives.

Lesson 2: Politics > economics.

One reason that some were slow to discern the drift to a new cold war was that it seemed economically irrational from the point of view of a “Washington consensus” that for years had prioritized free trade, global capital flows and open borders, not to forget the wishful thought that greater economic integration between the US and China would magically lead to political liberalization in the latter.

The tendency to elevate economics above politics often leads pundits into error. An early example of this was the widespread belief that the European Monetary Union (EMU) would fall apart in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008-09, especially when it became apparent that the Greeks had been egregiously understating their public-sector deficit. I was emotionally attracted to the breakup of the euro area, as I had been against the idea of monetary union in the 1990s. Part of me wanted the euro to blow up just for me to be right. But that wasn’t the right call.

However sub-optimal EMU might be as a currency area, it still made political sense for both the Germans and the countries on the periphery because the former got a weaker exchange rate than they would otherwise have had, and the latter got lower interest rates. If the Germans went back to the mark, their country would become Switzerland; if the Greeks went back to the drachma, they would become Argentina. Voters would not enjoy these outcomes.

Thus, when the German Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schaüble declared, “The euro zone can survive a Greek exit,” it seemed clear he was either bluffing or holding an erroneous view that he would soon have to abandon.

Conversely, I understood from an early stage that economic interdependence between the US and China would not prevent a drift toward cold war. If anything, it was asymmetric interdependence that led to Cold War II. China’s share of the total US trade deficit peaked at 48% in 2015. It wasn’t hard to understand why sentiment toward China began to sour during President Barack Obama’s second term. The economic payoffs of “Chimerica” were too asymmetrically in China’s favor as manufacturing jobs were sucked from the US heartland to Shenzhen and Chongqing. Predictably, the percentage of Americans who had an unfavorable view of China rose from 35% in 2002 to 52% in 2013 to 82% in 2022.

Lesson 3: Populism is potent.

However, what many of us missed in 2016 was that the populist backlash would shatter the liberal or centrist political establishments, first in Britain, then in the US, as well as in countries as different as Brazil and India. As a committed Remainer, I was decidedly wrong on Brexit (though I course-corrected thereafter and called Trump’s victory in November).

Why the bad call on Brexit, when there was ample historical reason to think the English would choose a costly divorce over slow absorption into a continental federation? The answer, looking back, is that I became too personally engaged, actively campaigning for Remain, and lost the dispassionate spirit that is a prerequisite for learning from history. I was right that the economic costs of Brexit would exceed the benefits but wrong to think that this would be decisive in the minds of English voters. The mistake was to underestimate the appeal of unserious arguments such as, “Brexit will work because we’ll get a great free-trade deal with the US.” This was patently delusional, but populism is partly the politics of delusion.

Lesson 4: A pandemic of a highly contagious respiratory virus is a big deal, even if most of the fatalities are seniors.

That wasn’t obvious to many people in January 2020, but that was because very few people had studied the 1918-19 Spanish influenza pandemic, just over a century before, and no living person could remember it. My early warning is here. Sometimes learning from history involves nothing harder than knowing the basics about low-frequency, high-impact disasters such as plagues.

Lesson 5: Tariffs, plus talk of decoupling, plus fiscal excess, is likely to be inflationary.

Which Federal Reserve chair does Jerome Powell more closely resemble — Paul Volcker or his predecessor, Arthur Burns? Volcker triumphed over the inflation that Burns had allowed to surge in the 1970s. Powell would like to be remembered as a second Volcker but remains in danger of being remembered as Burns 2.0.

That there would be an inflation problem in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic was not difficult to foresee. Fiscal stimulus ought to have been curtailed after efficacious vaccines were rapidly discovered and deployed. Instead, the Biden administration poured kerosene on the barbecue with a third stimulus package, while the Fed looked the other way. It is astonishing how few economists agreed with former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers when, in February 2021, he correctly predicted an inflation breakout. This was elementary macroeconomics.

It has been much more difficult to predict the consequences of the interest rate increases since the Fed woke up to its responsibilities in 2022. I was one of those who argued that the impact of higher real rates on leveraged players would ultimately be not only disinflationary but also recessionary. To date, that recession has not materialized, arguably because fiscal policy has remained expansionary and because higher rates have not translated into tighter financial conditions.

Lesson 6: In a cold war, you should expect multiple proxy wars.

With the expert help of my former student and colleague Chris Miller, I saw the Russian invasion of Ukraine coming when that was very far from consensus in early 2022. Readers of this column were provided with two valuable analogies to help think about the war. While the median pundit whipsawed from “Putin will topple Zelenskiy in days” to “Heroic Ukraine will win in no time,” in March 2022 I (along with my Bloomberg Opinion colleague James Stavridis) pointed to the 1939-40 Winter War, in which Finland started strongly only to be ground down by the sheer scale of the Soviet Red Army. The other parallel was the 1950-53 Korean War — the first hot war of Cold War I — which opened with a year of huge maneuvers only to degenerate into grinding attrition in years two and three.

The implication of the former analogy is that, without sustained Western aid, Ukraine is doomed to defeat. The implication of the latter is that there will be an armistice in 2025, which will leave Russia still controlling Donbas and much of its “land bridge” to Crimea. But an armistice is no peace, and Ukraine’s eastern border will become like South Korea’s northern one: a nasty, dangerous place.

Lesson 7: If Cold War II is here, proxy wars are continuing, and the economy might yet slow, then you probably shouldn’t underestimate Trump’s chances in 2024.

I’ll leave the political commentary to others, but the latest swing state polling speaks for itself.

Lesson 8: Don’t bet against US technological leadership.

I can’t believe I ever thought that China would win the artificial intelligence race with the US, but I did, along with many people with greater expertise, and that was just stupid. I underestimated the extent to which reliance on foreign suppliers for the most sophisticated semiconductors was China’s Achilles’ heel, just as the Soviets could compete on nukes but not semis — a key point in Miller’s outstanding book Chip War.

To sum up these lessons from history about learning lessons from history, let me make clear that there will never be a science of highly predictive “psychohistory” of the sort imagined by Isaac Asimov in Foundation. The best we can do is somewhat fuzzy pattern recognition, taking advantage of our access to two forms of data unavailable to large language models: non-digitized archival sources and non-public oral testimony (also known as “humint”).

My six takeaways for would-be applied historians are these:

Be emotionally disengaged from the protagonists. Just because a prime minister is talking to you doesn’t mean you should become invested in his success.
Understand the protagonists’ Weltanschauungen (world views). There are no substitutes for ground truth and the horse’s mouth.
Cast the net as widely as you can for possible analogies. Do not fall back on the overused 1930s every time you see a demagogue you don’t like the look of.
Formulate your hypothesis so that there can be some empirical verification. You can’t learn from history without doing at least some number-crunching.
Solve simultaneously for macroeconomics, markets, politics and geopolitics. Many errors stem from siloed thinking.
Finally, develop “an intuitive understanding of how things do not happen,” to quote another great English historian of the mid-20th century, Lewis Namier. Many wrong predictions are of events that, when you think carefully about them, have vanishingly small probabilities.

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A cheap reproduction of Titian’s Allegory of Prudence (1550-65) hangs in the study in Montana where I worked during the Plague Year of 2020. It depicts six faces: those of three men and, below them, three beasts. The figures above represent the three ages of man: a grizzled elder looks to the left, a black-bearded man in his prime gazes at the viewer, and a callow youth looks to the right. The animals that correspond to the three ages are a wolf, a lion and a dog. Just discernible on the dark background is an inscription in Latin: “EX PRÆTERITO PRÆSENS PRVDENTER AGIT NI FVTVRA ACTIONĒ DETVRPET”— “Learning from Yesterday, Today acts prudently lest by his action he spoil Tomorrow.”

Quite so.

Ferguson is also the founder of Greenmantle, an advisory firm; FourWinds Research; Hunting Tower, a venture capital partnership; and the filmmaker Chimerica Media.

More From Niall Ferguson at Bloomberg Opinion:

The Second Cold War Is Escalating Faster Than the First
From Deepfakes to Arms Races, AI Politics Is Here
If You Think World War III Is Unimaginable, Read This

Want more Bloomberg Opinion? Terminal readers head to OPIN . Or you can subscribe to our daily newsletter.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

12. How TikTok Is Wiring Gen Z’s Money Brain

How TikTok Is Wiring Gen Z’s Money Brain

Endless videos about the economy and consumerism are giving 20-somethings a case of ‘money dysmorphia’

https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/how-tiktok-is-wiring-gen-zs-money-brain-fc43ba6c?mod=hp_lead_pos9

By Julie JargonFollow

and Ann-Marie AlcántaraFollow

| Photographs by William DeShazer for The Wall Street Journal

May 4, 2024 9:00 pm ET

Americans under 30 get much of their news on TikTok. They hear about money there, too, and that’s shaping the way they save, spend and view their financial prospects, young adults and economists say.

Caitlyn Sprinkle, 27 years old, describes her TikTok feed as a mix of economic gloom and consumerism gone wild. There are Dave Ramsey TikToks that warn of the evils of debt, followed by influencers showing off their shopping hauls of skin-care products and handbags.

Sprinkle, a financial analyst at an asset-management firm in Nashville, Tenn., uses a budgeting app and has been cooking at home lately to save money—and to be able to afford the things she feels she has to buy, like Lululemon leggings. “Between TikTok and having your friends around you, you’re pressured to buy the things because you want to fit in,” she says. “That’s always been the case, but with TikTok it’s more prominent.”

Sprinkle saves money by eating at home but finds it hard to resist buying some items that trend on TikTok.

Rallying stocks, rising wages and a tight labor market suggest the economy is stronger than it has been in years. The youngest, lowest-earning professionals don’t feel that way—partly because a large share are carrying consumer debt, and partly because of what they’re seeing on TikTok.

Even as the platform faces a potential ban in the U.S., it remains a massive cultural force that shapes young adults’ decisions and views. More than half of all U.S. adults ages 18 to 34 use it, according to Pew Research Center, while about a third of those 29 and under say they regularly get news on TikTok, up from less than 10% in 2020.

So, what happens when your main source of news tells you that no one in your generation will be able to buy a house, food prices are spinning out of control and credit-card debt is unavoidable—but also that $2,500 Louis Vuitton bags and $70 moisturizers are, as many videos say, “a must”?

Interviews with finance experts and more than a dozen young adults suggest that the result is confusion, with a side of gloom. Under-30s are taking on debt as they embrace an old idea: If the outlook is bad, why not enjoy life now?

Their own money behavior

TikTok is creating a disconnect between how well off young adults actually are and how they think they’re doing, according to economists and 20-somethings themselves. That disconnect has given rise to a term financial advisers use to describe young adults’ distorted view of their financial well-being: “money dysmorphia.”

Evelyn Hidalgo, 29, makes her living as a full-time content creator after being laid off from a social-strategist job about a year ago. While she posts about being a mom on a budget, her TikTok feed often shows her trendy items she wishes she had, or a life that seems impossibly far from her own, such as owning a large, beautiful home.

“It doesn’t feel like the norm is your normal,” says Hidalgo, who lives in Nashville with her husband and 20-month-old son. As she looks at the economy on TikTok and other social media, her feed feels “split in half,” between those living an enviable life and those who are struggling.

Sprinkle walks to the gym so she doesn’t have to pay for parking. PHOTO: WILLIAM DESHAZER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Gen Z’s mixed economic feelings could have an effect on the outcome of the elections this fall, but the greater impact could be on their long-term financial health, economists say. Feeling financially uncertain can lead to poor choices, such as credit-card debt that eats into retirement funds and necessities such as food and housing, says Jacob Channel, senior economist at LendingTree, an online lending marketplace.

Over the past two years, members of Gen Z—those born between 1997 and 2012—effectively doubled their nonmortgage debt, taking on roughly an additional $11,000 on average, according to LendingTree.

Still, younger American adults—those born in the 1990s—saw their median wealth more than quadruple to more than $40,000 between 2019 and 2022, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. That has outpaced the growth rates for previous generations at a similar age, says Lowell Ricketts, a data scientist there.

While many markers of adulthood such as homeownership feel out of reach, young adults are reaping the benefits from the current economic climate, says Monique Morrissey, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit economic-research and policy organization.

“Gen Z and younger millennials are experiencing tailwinds and may not realize that they’re benefiting from a tight labor market that has led to an unusually rapid increase in real wages for younger and lower-wage workers,” she says.

Adding to the confusion is the economy itself. After a string of data showed strength in the labor market, growth is beginning to slow. U.S. employers added a seasonally adjusted 175,000 jobs in April, less than March and below the 240,000 economists anticipated, and unemployment rose to 3.9%, according to the Labor Department.

Keeping up with the Joneses

Many TikTok users say their feeds have become a loop of get-ready-with-me posts, ads, influencer partnerships and videos that encourage them to buy stuff from TikTok’s virtual shop. Some 91% of Gen Zers say they have purchased something they saw on social media, according to a survey from Citizens Pay, a buy-now-pay-later service from Citizens.

BreAunna Rodriguez says TikTok has influenced economic decisions large and small, including career choices and buying behavior. PHOTO: ALEX GONZALEZ

BreAunna Rodriguez, a 23-year-old mom of two in Houston, likes to buy TikTok-popular baby clothes and other small things for herself, including eyelash extensions, coconut-oil mouthwash and a pumice stone that influencers said reduces stretch marks.

“It’s hard not to buy things if they say it’s good for me,” she says.

TikTok has influenced bigger decisions, too, she says. Her For You page is filled with young entrepreneurs who snub the idea of a 9-to-5 job. This inspired her to quit her job as an assistant property manager in late 2022 and take a remote, commission-based job for an internet-and-cable company.

“You see a 19-year-old trader on TikTok who only has to work two hours a day, and I was like, ‘How do I do that?’”

Rodriguez says she makes more money now, contributes to a 401(k), pays off her credit card bills each month and puts her annual tax refund into a savings account to help with expenses throughout the year. Her biggest monthly expense is the $2,000 she pays for daycare for her two kids.

The constant videos of consumption—whether it’s a Stanley cup, a Jellycat plush or makeup—are hard to resist. TikTok last year created its own e-commerce engine, TikTok Shop, to compete with online retailers.

Sprinkle has splurged on some TikTok-trendy items, including Lululemon apparel, a Stanley tumbler, a Louis Vuitton bag and beauty products.

About six months ago, Sprinkle bought a Stanley tumbler. “I held out as long as I could,” she says, adding that she had bought several other water bottles that were trending on TikTok.

“There’s an internal pressure among my age range to constantly have these experiences and share them,” says Evan Naar, a 28-year-old lawyer in New York who posts TikToks about Broadway shows he’s seen and a Taylor Swift concert he attended.

Naar, who has several thousand dollars in student debt, says at some point he wants to save more money and buy a house. “A lot of my paycheck goes toward living expenses, travel and Broadway shows,” he says.

Evan Naar says his generation feels pressured to share their travel and entertainment experiences on TikTok.

EVAN NAAR (2)

OK, doomer

Encountering post after post about the downsides of the economy contributes to “doomerism”—an overwhelming feeling of despair. This has made some young adults thrifty.

“I’m not going to spend my last dollar to keep up with the Joneses,” says Tanayah Thomas, a 23-year-old clothing designer and licensed financial adviser in Staten Island, N.Y. “We have to prepare for what’s to come.”

She’s currently living with her mom to save money.

Tommy Chanthavong moved back in with his parents due in part to worries about the economy. PHOTO: UNAVSA 18 MEDIA

Tommy Chanthavong, a 27-year-old in Houston who manages social-media accounts for small, local businesses, also moved back home. He says it’s hard to parse the information shown on TikTok: One minute he sees videos saying the U.S. is on the brink of a recession and the next he sees that inflation is easing.

In The Wall Street Journal’s latest quarterly survey of business and academic economists, respondents lowered the chances of a recession within the next year to 29% from 39% in January—the lowest probability since April 2022.

Sprinkle, who shares an apartment with a roommate, says she’d love to own a house one day, but it feels like a distant dream.

“You have to have a level of happiness, and being able to do the things you want and buy the things you want is part of it,” she says. “Do I save all of my money for the future? No. I try to live more in the moment.”

—For more WSJ Technology analysis, reviews, advice and headlines, sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Write to Ann-Marie Alcántara at ann-marie.alcantara@wsj.com and Julie Jargon at Julie.Jargon@wsj.com

13. US about to build a whole lot more ATACMS

As we very well should. We cannot have too many ATACMS.

US about to build a whole lot more ATACMS

Newsweek · by Ellie Cook · May 5, 2024

BySecurity & Defense Reporter

The United States will soon have "a lot" of Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to refill its stockpiles, allowing Washington, D.C., to provide Ukraine with key long-range capabilities without compromising U.S. arsenals, according to the U.S. Army's acquisition boss.

A "significant number" of ATACMS missiles were ordered several years ago and are "now hitting at just the right time to be able to support how we're supporting Ukraine without taking a hit to readiness," Doug Bush, the assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, said in remarks reported by Politico on Thursday. "There are a lot of ATACMS coming off that [production] line."

The Pentagon had said it was concerned about depleting U.S. stocks of the ground-launched missiles that Kyiv has said it desperately needs to fend off Russian attacks as Moscow gains territory in eastern Ukraine and slowly advances in the east. Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Newsweek has reached out to the Pentagon via email for additional information.

U.S. Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) are seen firing a missile into the East Sea on July 29, 2017, in South Korea. The United States will have "a lot" of ATACMS to refill its stockpiles,... U.S. Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) are seen firing a missile into the East Sea on July 29, 2017, in South Korea. The United States will have "a lot" of ATACMS to refill its stockpiles, allowing Washington, D.C., to provide Ukraine with key long-range capabilities without compromising U.S. arsenals, according to the U.S. Army's acquisition boss. South Korean Defense Ministry via Getty Images

Ukraine debuted its ATACMS in October 2023 using a cluster variant of the missiles to strike two Russian military bases in Ukraine and damage a slew of helicopters.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said last month that President Joe Biden had secretly authorized a "significant number of ATACMS missiles" to Ukraine in February.

Reuters reported on Saturday that a U.S. official said Washington had quietly sent longer-range versions of ATACMS to Ukraine, which were used to strike Russian-controlled Crimea in mid-April. It was reported in mid-February that the U.S. favored sending longer-range ATACMS to Kyiv to enable strikes on the Russian-held Crimean peninsula. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine back in 2014.

They were part of a $300 million aid package announced in mid-March and they have already arrived in Ukraine for use within the country's borders, Sullivan said. "We've already sent some, we will send more now that we have additional authority and money," he added.

The U.S. did not publicly announce the delivery of ATACMS because of a Ukrainian request for "operational security," U.S. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said during a press briefing last month.

"Until recently, as we've said on many occasions, we were unable to provide these ATACMS because of readiness concerns," Sullivan told the media on April 24.

The Biden administration had been working "behind the scenes" to alleviate these concerns, Sullivan told reporters, adding: "We now have a significant number of ATACMS coming off the production line and entering U.S. stocks."

ATACMS give Kyiv's troops the firepower to strike high-value Russian assets far behind the frontlines. They beef up Ukraine's long-range capabilities, alongside other long-range weapons like the British Storm Shadow and French SCALP air-launched cruise missiles.

About the writer

Ellie Cook

Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense reporter based in London, U.K. Her work focuses largely on the Russia-Ukraine war, the U.S. military, weapons systems and emerging technology. She joined Newsweek in January 2023, having previously worked as a reporter at the Daily Express, and is a graduate of International Journalism at City, University of London.

Languages: English, Spanish.

You can reach Ellie via email at e.cook@newsweek.com.

Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense re

Newsweek · by Ellie Cook · May 5, 2024

14. Foreign intelligence services are contracting out killings to gangs

Foreign intelligence services are contracting out killings to gangs | Globalnews.ca

By Stewart Bell, Jeff Semple & Andrew Russell Global News

Published May 4, 2024

6 min read

globalnews.ca

The arrests of three suspected hitmen accused of killing a B.C. Sikh leader highlight an emerging security problem: foreign intelligence services are contracting their dirty work to the criminal underworld.

Governments are increasingly accused of trying to silence and kill opponents outside their borders, and they are relying more and more on crime groups to do so, officials and experts told Global News.

“Some states leverage criminal organizations to advance their objectives,” said Eric Balsam, a Canadian Security Intelligence Service spokesperson.

“The use of criminal elements can permit plausible deniability and generate resources to advance threat activities.”

Iran’s intelligence service was recently accused of hiring Canadian Hell’s Angels to kill dissidents in the United States. Indian intelligence, meanwhile, allegedly employed a drug trafficker to kill a U.S. Sikh activist.

In the latest alleged case, announced by the RCMP on Friday, three Indian nationals arrested in Edmonton were accused of gunning down Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C. on June 18, 2023.

2:26 Hardeep Singh Nijjar killing: RCMP make arrests in B.C. Sikh leader murder case

Karanpreet Singh, 28, Kamalpreet Singh, 22, and Karan Brar, 22, have been charged with murder and conspiracy in Nijjar’s killing, according to charges filed in B.C. court.

Karanpreet Singh, left, Kamalpreet Singh, middle, and Karan Brar, right, have been charged with killing Hardeep Singh Nijjar. RCMP

A source familiar with the matter told Global News the killing was a murder-for-hire and was believed to be tied to India’s Bishnoi crime group, which has been implicated in drugs, extortion and killings.

Its leader, Lawrence Bishnoi, has been imprisoned in India since 2014 but continues to operate from behind bars, said Shinder Purewal, a political science professor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

“Many people probably haven’t heard this name, but in India he’s like an idol,” Purewal said.

Willing to do anything for money, Bishnoi has an estimated 700 gunmen, including in Canada, where the gang is “very active,” he said.

“They are mercenaries.”

The World Sikh Organization said Bishnoi had recently appeared in the Indian press “declaring himself an Indian nationalist.”

2:09 Is the government of India behind a global campaign against Sikh separatism?

He has also vowed to oppose Khalistan, the independent home in India’s Punjab state sought by some Sikh activists including Nijjar, the group said in a statement.

The Bishnoi gang had been implicated in extortion in six Canadian cities, according to the statement, which said the arrests “raise disturbing questions about the nexus between the government of India and criminal gangs.”

The alleged hitmen entered Canada over the past five years and were suspected of involvement in the world of drug trafficking and violence, according to the source, who spoke on condition of not being named.

Superintendent Mandeep Mooker, right, Assistant Commissioner David Teboul, centre, at news conference on Hardeep Singh Nijjar homicide, iMay 3, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns.

At a news conference, the RCMP said the arrests were the initial results of a series of investigations that are still underway and were examining the suspected involvement of the Indian government.

India had long branded Nijjar a terrorist and asked for his arrest, accusing him of leading the Khalistan Tiger Force armed group. Nijjar denied it and the source said no credible evidence was ever provided.

Canadian investigators believe the slaying may have been an escalation of the Indian government’s campaign against Sikh separatists like Nijjar, and that its Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) foreign intelligence agency was behind it.

India has denied involvement.

Contracting out jobs to hired guns allows foreign governments to insulate themselves from their lawbreaking and attribute it instead to everyday crime, according to security experts.

“There’s a layer of plausible deniability,” said Colin P. Clarke, director of policy and research at The Soufan Group, a U.S.-based intelligence and security consulting group.

But the strategy also has drawbacks. Reckless and unscrupulous by nature, members of crime groups may prove careless and inept, allowing police to link them back to a foreign regime.

“They’re not going to operate with the same finesse an intelligence service would have,” said Clarke, who co-authored a paper last October on India and the Nijjar killing.

Moninder Singh, left, Brabjot Singh, centre, and Gurmeet Singh, at a news conference on Hardeep Singh Nijjar homicide, May 3, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns.

Following Nijjar’s murder, the U.S. announced it had disrupted a similar plot to kill one of his associates, Gurpatwant Pannun, the New York-based lawyer for the group Sikhs for Justice.

According to a U.S. indictment in the case, an Indian intelligence official hired an alleged drug trafficker, Nikhil Gupta, for the job, offering money and the dismissal of charges he faced.

But the FBI infiltrated the plot, and Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic on June 30. In exchanges intercepted by the FBI, Gupta and his co-conspirators also discussed Nijjar.

Payment allegedly changing hands for killing of U.S. Sikh activist Gurpatwant Pannun. U.S. Department of Justice

By allegedly having others do its work, India’s RAW intelligence service put itself at risk of being exposed by informants and undercover operators, said Dan Stanton.

“RAW is basically having to engage with people they wouldn’t normally engage,” the former Canadian Security Intelligence Service official said. “They needed to reach out to some unsavory characters.”

Stanton said RAW was not known as a particularly skilled intelligence agency. “From what I’ve seen … operational security isn’t something they’re very good at. You need to make sure these things are secure and discreet. And that’s where they’re not that great.”

“We’re seeing this with the Iranians as well. They’re hiring people connected to organized crime, private investigators — even the Russians, to a certain extent.”

Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has used gangs to target regime opponents in Europe and North America, including dissidents, activists and journalists.

“The regime increasingly relies on organized criminal groups in furtherance of these plots in an attempt to obscure links to the government of Iran and maintain plausible deniability,” the U.S. Treasury alleged in January.

Working at the direction of Iran, the so-called Zindashti Network allegedly recruited a Canadian outlaw biker gang member, Damion Patrick John Ryan, to kill two dissidents in Maryland.

An Iran-based associate of the network gave Ryan the location and photos of the pair, and coordinated the US$350,000 payment, according to the U.S. allegations.

4:46 Hardeep Singh Nijjar: How arrests will impact Canada-India tensions

Ryan allegedly recruited another Canadian Hell’s Angels affiliate, Adam Richard Pearson, to carry out the murders. Both Ryan and Pearson were arrested for unrelated crimes before the killing occurred.

The head of the network, Iranian drug trafficker Naji Ibrahim Sharifi-Zindashti, operates at the behest of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and has targeted other dissidents, according to the U.S. Treasury.

In 2020, Zindashti members abducted a leader of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz, Habib Chaab, and smuggled him to Iran where he was tortured. The MOIS sponsored the operation, the U.S. said.

The Zindashti network was also involved in the assassinations in Istanbul of regime critics Mas’ud Vardanjani in 2019 and British-Iranian Saeed Karimian, who owned GEM TV, in 2017.

Intelligence summaries tabled at Canada’s foreign interference commission alleged that Indian officials have increasingly relied on “proxies” in Canada to conduct activities.

The tactic “obfuscates any explicit link” between the Indian government and its foreign interference activities, according to the intelligence summaries.

“Proxies liaise and work with Indian intelligence officials in India and Canada, taking both explicit and implicit direction from them.”

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca

globalnews.ca

15. In China, Ruled by Men, Women Quietly Find a Powerful Voice

In China, Ruled by Men, Women Quietly Find a Powerful Voice

The New York Times · by Alexandra Stevenson · May 6, 2024

Women in Shanghai gather in bars, salons and bookstores to reclaim their identities as the country’s leader calls for China to adopt a “childbearing culture.”

Du Wen at Her, the bar she started last year, in Shanghai. “I think everyone living in this city seems to have reached this stage that they want to explore more about the power of women,” she said. Credit...Qilai Shen for The New York Times

Reporting from Shanghai

May 6, 2024, 12:01 a.m. ET

In bars tucked away in alleys and at salons and bookstores around Shanghai, women are debating their place in a country where men make the laws.

Some wore wedding gowns to take public vows of commitment to themselves. Others gathered to watch films made by women about women. The bookish flocked to female bookshops to read titles like “The Woman Destroyed” and “Living a Feminist Life.”

Women in Shanghai, and some of China’s other biggest cities, are negotiating the fragile terms of public expression at a politically precarious moment. China’s ruling Communist Party has identified feminism as a threat to its authority. Female rights activists have been jailed. Concerns about harassment and violence against women are ignored or outright silenced.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has diminished the role of women at work and in public office. There are no female members of Mr. Xi’s inner circle or the Politburo, the executive policymaking body. He has invoked more traditional roles for women, as caretakers and mothers, in planning a new “childbearing culture” to address a shrinking population.

But groups of women around China are quietly reclaiming their own identities. Many are from a generation that grew up with more freedom than their mothers. Women in Shanghai, profoundly shaken by a two-month Covid lockdown in 2022, are being driven by a need to build community.

“I think everyone living in this city seems to have reached this stage that they want to explore more about the power of women,” said Du Wen, the founder of Her, a bar that hosts salon discussions.

Her is a self-described feminist bar in Shanghai where women gather to talk about their place in society.Credit...Qilai Shen for The New York Times

Frustrated by the increasingly narrow understanding of women by the public, Nong He, a film and theater student, held a screening of three documentaries about women by female Chinese directors.

“I think we should have a broader space for women to create,” Ms. He said. “We hope to organize such an event to let people know what our life is like, what the life of other women is like, and with that understanding, we can connect and provide some help to each other.”

At quietly advertised events, women question misogynistic tropes in Chinese culture. “Why are lonely ghosts always female?” one woman recently asked, referring to Chinese literature’s depiction of homeless women after death. They share tips for beginners to feminism. Start with history, said Tang Shuang, the owner of Paper Moon, which sells books by female authors. “This is like the basement of the structure.”

There are few reliable statistics about gender violence and sexual harassment in China, but incidents of violence against women have occurred with greater frequency, according to researchers and social workers. Stories have circulated widely online of women being physically maimed or brutally murdered for trying to leave their husbands, or savagely beaten for resisting unwanted attention from men. The discovery of a woman who was chained inside a doorless shack in the eastern province of Jiangsu became one of the most debated topics online in years.

With each case, the reactions have been highly divisive. Many people denounced the attackers and called out sexism in society. Many others blamed the victims.

The way these discussions polarize society unnerved Ms. Tang, an entrepreneur and former deputy editor of Vogue China. Events in her own life unsettled her, too. As female friends shared feelings of shame and worthlessness for not getting married, Ms. Tang searched for a framework to articulate what she was feeling.

Tang Shuang at her bookstore, Paper Moon, in Shanghai. Credit...Qilai Shen for The New York Times

“Then I found out, you know, even myself, I don’t have very clear thoughts about these things,” she said. “People are eager to talk, but they don’t know what they are talking about.” Ms. Tang decided to open Paper Moon, a store for intellectually curious readers like herself.

The bookstore is divided into an academic section that features feminist history and social studies, as well as literature and poetry. There is an area for biographies. “You need to have some real stories to encourage women,” Ms. Tang said.

Anxiety about attracting the wrong kind of attention is always present.

When Ms. Tang opened her store, she placed a sign in the door describing it as a feminist bookstore that welcomed all genders, as well as pets. “But my friend warned me to take it out because, you know, I could cause trouble by using the word feminism.”

Wang Xia, the owner of Xin Chao Bookstore, has chosen to stay away from the “F” word altogether. Instead she described her bookstore as “woman-themed.” When she opened it in 2020, the store was a sprawling space with nooks to foster private conversations and six study rooms named after famous female authors like Simone de Beauvoir.

Xin Chao Bookstore served more than 50,000 people through events, workshops and online lectures, Ms. Wang said. It had more than 20,000 books about art, literature and self-improvement — books about women and books for women. The store became so prominent that state-owned media wrote about it and the Shanghai government posted the article on its website.

Wang Xia, left, and her Xin Chao Bookstore space in the Shanghai Book City in Shanghai.Credit...Qilai Shen for The New York Times

Still, Ms. Wang was careful to steer clear of making a political statement. “My ambition is not to develop feminism,” she said.

For Ms. Du, the Her founder, empowering women is at the heart of her motivation. She was jolted into action by the isolation of the pandemic: Shanghai ordered its residents to stay in their apartments under lockdown for two months, and her world narrowed to the walls of her apartment.

For years she dreamed of opening a place where she could elevate the voices of women, and now it seemed more urgent than ever. After the lockdown, she opened Her, a place where women could strike friendships and debate the social expectations that society had placed on them.

On International Women’s Day in March, Her held an event it called Marry Me, in which women took vows to themselves. The bar has also hosted a salon where women acted out the roles of mothers and daughters. Many younger women described a reluctance to be treated the way their mothers were treated and said they did not know how to talk to them, Ms. Du said.

The authorities have met with Ms. Du and indicated that as long as the events at Her didn’t become too popular, there was a place for it in Shanghai, she said.

But in China, there is always the possibility that officials will crack down. “They never tell you clearly what is forbidden,” Ms. Tang of Paper Moon said.

The female bookstore, Paper Moon, in Shanghai.Credit...Qilai Shen for The New York Times

Ms. Wang recently moved Xin Chao Bookstore into Shanghai Book City, a famous store with large atriums and long columns of bookcases. A four-volume collection of Mr. Xi’s writings are prominently displayed in several languages.

Book City is huge. The space for Xin Chao Bookstore is not, Ms. Wang said, with several shelves inside and around a small room that may eventually hold about only 3,000 books.

“It’s a small cell of the city, a cultural cell,” Ms. Wang said.

Still, it stands out in China.

“Not every city has a woman’s bookstore,” she said. “There are many cities that do not have such cultural soil.”

Li You contributed to research.

Alexandra Stevenson is the Shanghai bureau chief for The Times, reporting on China’s economy and society. More about Alexandra Stevenson

The New York Times · by Alexandra Stevenson · May 6, 2024

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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