Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Societies are composed of individuals and are good only insofar as they help individuals to realize their potentialities and lead a happy and creative life."

– Aldous Huxley

"Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by winding our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

– Albert Einstein

“The president is a nationalist, which is not at all the same thing as a patriot. A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best. A nationalist, 'although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge,' wrote Orwell, tends to be 'uninterested in what happens in the real world.' Nationalism is relativist, since the only truth is the resentment we feel when we contemplate others. As the novelist Danilo Kiš put it, nationalism 'has no universal values, aesthetic or ethical.' A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means asking us to be our best selves. A patriot must be concerned with the real world, which is the only place where his country can be loved and sustained. A patriot has universal values, standards by which he judges his nation, always wishing it well—and wishing that it would do better.”

― Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

1. Meet The Female Tank Crew Who Saved Kibbutz from Terrorist

2. Soaring attacks on US forces and others in the Middle East demand firm response to send a message, former top commander says

3. Political Warfare Toolbox: China

4. Granderson: Have colleges lost their way? Yes, but don't blame 'wokeness'

5. Pentagon announces new international mission to counter attacks on commercial vessels in Red Sea

6. How online scam warlords have made China start to lose patience with Myanmar’s junta

7. Member of Elite Hamas Unit That Led Oct. 7 Terror Attack Found Hiding Inside Gaza School

8. Tunnel warfare expert on what she sees in newly-discovered tunnel in Gaza

9. US Envoys Work for New Hostage Release Deal, Scale-Down of Israel-Hamas War, But Say No Timet:ble

10. US Army faces 'TikTok mutiny' as Gen Z recruits whine about low pay, 'sh***y' food and FITNESS TESTS while on bases in uniform

11. The changing face of America’s favorite sport

12. Military experts blame Biden's DEI push as US military enters 2024 with smallest fighting force in 80 years

13. Rethinking the Military’s Promotional Content Strategy to Address the Recruitment Crisis

14. US Indo-Pacific commander ‘concerned’ about China-Russia military ties

15. 5 Indo-Pacific stories: China's neighbors clasp hands while AUKUS tumbles along

16. Why it matters that a US Marine officer just earned the Royal Marines beret

17. NATO and Donald Trump

18. What Has Hamas Accomplished?

19. Who Gets to Tell China’s Story?

20. Netanyahu’s Unsustainable Oslo Ambivalence

21. Why October 7 May Mark a Turning Point for Universities

22. Strategic Outpost Brings You Santa’s 2023 National Security Gift List - War on the Rocks

1. Meet The Female Tank Crew Who Saved Kibbutz from Terrorist

I recommend taking 14 minutes to watch this video and see the exploits of this all female tank platoon. Listen closely to their comments. Not everything they say is perfect or on message (could be the translation) but they are authentic. These women are soldiers. They are impressive and should be an inspiration to many.

I would like to see a case study of this operation and a re-enactment along the lines of 73 Easting (HR McMaster in ODS). I would think the novel use of tanks (based on the descriptions in the video) could provide some useful lessons.

Meet The Female Tank Crew Who Saved Kibbutz from Terrorist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlyO6uNZCYY

173,749 views Premiered Nov 26, 2023

Watch the interview from Chanel 12 Israel News channel on how these young girls defend the Kibbutz from terrorist attack.

2. Soaring attacks on US forces and others in the Middle East demand firm response to send a message, former top commander says

General Votel weighs in. Since he was the man in that area his words matter unlike the rest of us pundits and pontificators.

Soaring attacks on US forces and others in the Middle East demand firm response to send a message, former top commander says

Business Insider · by Jake Epstein

Military & Defense

Jake Epstein

2023-12-18T21:35:39Z

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US Army Soldiers, assigned to 37th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, fire an M119 Howitzer during a live-fire exercise at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, May 11, 2023.US Army photo by Spc. Timothy VanDusen

US forces in the Middle East are continuously coming under attack by Iran-backed militia groups.
Most attacks in Iraq and Syria go unanswered, and the US military not yet hit the Houthis at all.
A former top US commander says a more aggressive response may be needed to send a message.

Iran-backed groups are launching attacks across the Middle East at an alarming rate, regularly targeting US forces and commercial ships with attack drones, rockets, and missiles in response to Israel's ongoing war against Hamas.

These relentless attacks have compelled the Pentagon to carry out a small number of retaliatory strikes against some of Iranian proxies, while also raising questions over whether additional defensive actions should be taken as the Biden administration considers its options. One former top US commander who oversaw military operations in the Middle East told Business Insider that a more aggressive response might be needed to send a clear message against the region's malign actors.

"It does not appear to me that the actions we've taken so far have really caused them to change their behavior," said Gen. Joseph Votel, who served as the commander of US Central Command, or CENTCOM.

US Army Soldiers, assigned to 37th Infantry Brigade Combat Team Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, conduct a live-fire exercise at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, June 1, 2023.US Army photo by Spc. Timothy VanDusen

The US has around 3,500 troops based in Iraq and Syria, where they carry out counterterrorism missions alongside local partner forces with the ultimate goal of defeating the Islamic State. For years, Iran-backed groups have attacked American service members in those two countries as part of Tehran's longstanding goal of expelling Washington's presence from the region. Between January 2021 and April 2023, for example, there were 83 strikes alone.

But since mid-October, as the Israel-Hamas war heated up, this number has skyrocketed; the past two months have seen at least 101 attacks against American forces in Iraq and Syria carried out by Iran-backed groups, a US defense official told Business Insider on Monday. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank tracking these attacks, pegs the figure slightly higher.

Though many attacks go unanswered, the US military has retaliated on a few occasions, carrying out "self-defense strikes" in Iraq and Syria with fighter jets, combat drones, and gunships. These have targeted weapons storage facilities, training facilities, and drone-launching sites used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Tehran-backed militias.

Drone footage of a US airstrike on an IRGC facility in Syria on Nov. 12, 2023.Screengrab via US military video

These limited retaliatory actions, however, have not deterred the attackers. Votel, who oversaw the fight against ISIS during his time at the helm of CENTCOM between March 2016 and March 2019, said the US needs to stop the aggressive behavior of Iran-backed perpetrators and "remove uncertainty" from the situation before casualties mount. Already, one civilian contractor has died from a cardiac incident while dozens of service members have been injured.

"They have to be held accountable and we have to go after them, I think, more aggressively than we have," he said.

Votel, now a distinguished senior fellow on national security at the Middle East Institute, also raised concerns that the attacks against US forces risk seriously interfering with the fight against ISIS, as some of the resources needed to carry out counterterrorism missions are now being redirected to protecting the American footprint in Iraq and Syria.

These resources include the use of aerial assets like drones and gunships, and also the general focus of service members. It's an unnecessary distraction.

A UH-60 Black Hawk with 7th General Support Aviation Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment, 11th Combat Aviation Brigade (CAB) flies during a mission in the US Central Command area of operations, June 6, 2022.US Army photo by Maj. Karl R. Cain II

It's a dilemma facing commanders who are supposed to be tackling defeat-ISIS missions but are now dealing with another consistent threat that they can't ignore, Votel said. Convincing malign actors that it's more costly than beneficial to attack the US means diverting critical and finite resources toward a response — which contributes to the problem. But the former commander argues a tough response is needed just the same.

A majority of the Pentagon's counterterrorism missions, however, are done in partnership with local groups like the Syrian Democratic Forces or Iraqi Security Forces. And it's clear that these are continuing despite the attacks on US forces; November alone saw 40 operations, which is a figure that's consistent with past months, according to US military data.

"Even in the midst of complex challenges within the region, CENTCOM remains steadfast to the region and the enduring defeat of ISIS," Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, the current commander of CENTCOM, said in a statement earlier this month.

Sending a message

While the US has taken some retaliatory measures in response to the attacks in Iraq and Syria, the same cannot be said in Yemen, where Houthi rebels have stepped up attacks on international shipping in response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Over the past two months the Iran-backed group has lobbed missiles and drones at, hijacked, and threatened commercial vessels transiting key waterways off the coast of Yemen.

American, French, and British warships on patrol in the area have shot down dozens of one-way attack drones launched by the Houthis, as well as some missiles, but some threats have made it through to their targets.

These multi-pronged attacks — some of which have caused damage to commercial vessels — have forced multiple companies to pause shipping through the Red Sea and led the US to discuss increasing a military footprint in the area. The regular attacks have also raised questions about the possibility of a more kinetic response and led the Biden administration to consider strikes on Yemen directly, reports say.

US Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Carney in the Suez Canal on Oct. 18, 2023.US Navy/MCS2 Aaron Lau

"The fact that the threat has gotten to this point — to freight companies routing around Africa instead of transiting the Suez Canal via the Red Sea — shows a failure in the US effort to establish effective deterrence against Iran and its proxies in the Middle East and to protect freedom of navigation," said Katherine Zimmerman, a counterterrorism expert and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

"Today's problems were predictable and possibly preventable," she said in remarks emailed to Business Insider. "The unanswered question that remains now is not just how to defend against such attacks but how to stop them."

Striking the Houthis in Yemen would not be unprecedented. The US did this in 2016, for example, after an attack on an American warship in nearby waters. But the region is teetering on the brink of wider conflict, which is one reason why experts say the US has shown caution and restraint in its response to Iran-backed aggressions.

US Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Carney defeats a combination of Houthi missiles and drones in the Red Sea on October 19, 2023.US Navy/MCS2 Aaron Lau

Votel said the Houthis are a distinctive entity in these circumstances in that they're trying to play a big part in Iran's so-called "axis of resistance," which is the band of proxy groups across the Middle East that opposes Israel and the US. This reality is also precisely what makes them dangerous, he said, and why their frequent provocations warrant a firm response.

The Houthis' missiles and attack drones aren't much of a challenge for the powerful and well-armed US Navy warships on patrol, and there have been no direct hits. But a lucky shot is always a possibility, and the rebels still pose a major threat to commercial shipping, which has wide-reaching impacts on the global economy and has caused alarm.

"Our ships that are operating down there are doing really darn good work in terms of protecting themselves and, to an extent, protecting others there," Votel said. "But we can't just always be in an absorb attack and defeat attack kind of world."

"We will, at some point, have to go after these capabilities, whether they're radar sites or shore-based missile sites or whatever it is that they're doing," he added, noting that the US will need to "go after them and destroy them, and send a very, very clear message that this can't happen."

Business Insider · by Jake Epstein

3. Political Warfare Toolbox: China

This podcast might be of interest as might the description of political, irregular, and nontraditional warfare. I transcribed his opening remarks with the descriptions below. (Thanks to MS Word and the dictation capability).

Political Warfare Toolbox: China

December 18, 2023

Philip Wasielewski

Host

Seth Jones

https://www.fpri.org/multimedia/2023/12/political-warfare-toolbox-china/?utm

Podcast series exploring the national security implications of intelligence activities regular warfare and political warfare joined Philip Wasielewski, director of FPRI center for the study of intelligence and nontraditional warfare as he discusses the past present and future of these activities with intelligence military and political practitioners to discover what is new at the intersection between the craft of intelligence and the military and political arts new episodes are available each month on apple podcasts Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello and welcome to Overheard. My name is Phil Wasielewski and I am the director of FPRI Center for the study of intelligence and non-traditional warfare. Today we're going to be speaking about Chinese political warfare operations against the United States with our guest Seth Jones. Before I introduce Seth I would like to set the stage for our discussion by talking about what we mean by political warfare. Our FPRI center combines two types of warfare, irregular and political under one term non-traditional warfare because we see these activities not as separate but as two sides of the same coin. Irregular warfare we define as a form of warfare by state or non state groups in which one side fights another to achieve political goals via indirect methods such as insurgency, subversion, and terrorism and the methods used by the other side to defeat that effort. What then is political warfare? For the United States government it was first defined by the original cold warrior George Kennan when in 1946 he advised that the United states should fight the Soviet threat via and I quote “the employment of all the means and a nations command short of war to achieve its national objectives” unquote. He specifically mentioned later on the application of overt means such as political alliances in NATO, economic measures of the Marshall Plan, and information operations such as the Voice of America as well as covert methods such as the clandestine support of friendly foreign elements who also oppose communism and support to underground resistance movements in hostile states. To Kennan, political warfare was the logical extension of Clausewitz’ doctrine that war is a continuation of policy by other means but in this case during peacetime. The FPRI center for the study of intelligence and nontraditional warfare has kept his instincts at heart as it defines political warfare as “the overt or covert employment of elements of national power including cyber, economic, financial, informational, paramilitary, and political tools short of declared war against the hostile state or non-state actor to achieve political goals or to protect the United States and allies and partners from the employment of similar methods by a hostile state or non-state actor. Therefore, both the irregular warfare and political warfare are ways to undermine an opponent without having to resort to open conventional warfare or when one side does not have the strength to wage conventional warfare well. The United States and the Soviet Union waged political warfare against each other for decades during the Cold War. Today some would say that there's a new Cold War with China but that only Beijing is engaged in fighting against the United states with political warfare tools. This podcast might be of interest as might the description of political, irregular, and nontraditional warfare. I transcribed his opening remarks with the descriptions below. (Thanks to MS Word and the dictation capability).

4. Granderson: Have colleges lost their way? Yes, but don't blame 'wokeness'

I received the comments below from a friend in response to the article I sent out from Vox yesterday on the universities. I think these very strong comments might provide a different perspective than the Vox article and the one below.

RE: What elite universities — and their critics — get wrong about campus antisemitism

That piece had to be the silliest tripe I have seen in years!

There is no justification for SELECTED racism on any college campus. As for who has been anti-Semitic - for years - is the author blind? Anti-Semitism has existed on the left since the late 1980s. It has been on college campuses for nearly as long but not so open and out in the open. Much of this is led by professors - who hide behind their students when this comes up. The author talks about proper context? Let's talk context. "From the River to the Sea" was coined by Palestinian terrorists who used (and use) that term to mean Palestinians will control everything "from the river to the sea." This means the elimination of the state of Israel and the Jews who live there. Those on the liberal left know this and are now trying to back-up, to "re-assess" what it "really" means. It is a racist call for the elimination of Jews. Anyone who disagrees is either completely ignorant or looking to cloak their racism, or, in the case of Hamas and other groups, their terrorism.

It is not okay to call for the murder of Jews. It is not okay to attack Jews. It is not okay to call for the freedom and prosperity of one group and for the destruction or downgrading of another. If this is free speech then why is the KKK not allowed to march on these campuses, or the Nazi party? Because its the same thing - racist "free speech."

Speaking of that, how is chasing anyone off of your campus or completely disrupting their lectures who DOES NOT AGREE WITH YOU "free speech?" Because that is what is happening with these students (and many professors) who want the "freedom" to spout their tripe, no matter how racist or insane it is, yet drown out all other voices if they don't stand with the majority of liberals on our college campuses?

The big concern in this article and by these people seems to be ensuring we use the right pronoun, not freedom and non-racism toward all. They have now split us up (at least in the minds of the students and faculty and administrators who think they are doing nothing wrong, and in the eyes of the half-wit who wrote this article) into "oppressors" and "oppressed."

This is not 12^th century England. It is not that simple, and in our society, all groups are supposed to be free and treated equally. I guess that means nothing to the person who wrote this head scratching article telling us that it's really a conservative plot to make universities "look bad."

Granderson: Have colleges lost their way? Yes, but don't blame 'wokeness'

Los Angeles Times · by LZ Granderson · December 18, 2023

Believe it or not, one recent divisive week in Washington did manage to produce a cause on which 303 members of the House could agree: condemning the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, MIT and Harvard.

In between impeachment talk and the battle for Ukraine funding, the House passed a resolution calling out antisemitism on college campuses as well as the testimony from the university presidents who participated in a congressional hearing earlier this month.

One of them, Liz Magill, has already resigned as president of the University of Pennsylvania. Harvard’s Claudine Gay and MIT’s Sally Kornbluth have both received support from their schools and appear safe for the moment. The three found themselves in hot water for not explicitly saying that calls for genocide of Jews would violate campus codes of conduct.

Opinion Columnist

LZ Granderson

LZ Granderson writes about culture, politics, sports and navigating life in America.

Pentagon announces new international mission to counter attacks on commercial vessels in Red Sea

BY TARA COPP AND LOLITA C. BALDOR

Updated 5:27 AM EST, December 19, 2023

AP · December 18, 2023

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — The U.S. and a host of other nations are creating a new force to protect ships transiting the Red Sea that have come under attack by drones and ballistic missiles fired from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced early Tuesday in Bahrain.

The seriousness of the attacks, several of which have damaged the vessels, has led multiple shipping companies to order their ships to hold in place and not enter the Bab el-Mandeb Strait until the security situation can be addressed.

The U.S. military’s Central Command reported two more of the attacks on commercial vessels Monday. A strike by attack drone and ballistic missile hit a tanker off Yemen, at roughly the same time a cargo ship reported an explosive detonating in the water near them, the military said.

“This is an international challenge that demands collective action,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in statement released just after midnight in Bahrain. “Therefore today I am announcing the establishment of Operation Prosperity Guardian, an important new multinational security initiative.”

The United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain will join the U.S. in the new mission, Austin announced. Some of the countries will conduct joint patrols while others provide intelligence support in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Several other countries have also agreed to be involved in the operation but prefer not to be publicly named, a defense official said on the condition of anonymity to discuss additional details of the new mission that have not been publicly announced.

The mission will be coordinated by the already existing Combined Task Force 153, which was set up in April 2022 to improve maritime security in the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb and the Gulf of Aden. There have been 39 member nations in CTF 153, but officials were working to determine which of them would participate in this latest effort.

Separately, the United States has also called on the United Nations Security Council to take action against the attacks.

In a letter to council members obtained Monday by The Associated Press, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Houthi attacks targeting commercial vessels legally transiting the international waterways continue to threaten “navigational rights and freedoms, international maritime security, and international commerce.”

The 15 council members discussed the Houthi threat behind closed doors Monday but took no immediate action.

Two U.S. warships — the USS Carney and the USS Mason, Navy destroyers — have been moving through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait daily to help deter and respond to attacks from the Houthis.

The move to set up the expanded operation came after three commercial vessels were struck by missiles fired by Iranian-back Houthis in Yemen on Dec. 3. Those attacks were part of an escalating campaign of violence that also included armed and other drones launched in the direction of U.S. warships.

To date the U.S. has not struck back at the Iranian-back Houthis operating in Yemen or targeted any of the militants’ weapons or other sites. On Monday Austin did not answer a question as to why the Pentagon had not conducted a counterstrike.

—-

Baldor reported from Washington. Edith M. Lederer contributed from the United Nations and Ellen Knickmeyer from Washington.

AP · December 18, 2023

6. How online scam warlords have made China start to lose patience with Myanmar’s junta

The nexus of crime, insurgency and resistance, cyber activities, and strategic competition.

How online scam warlords have made China start to lose patience with Myanmar’s junta | CNN

CNN · by Nectar Gan · December 19, 2023

Alleged cyber scam kingpins Ming Zhenzhen and Ming Guoping were handed into the custody of Chinese police on November 16, 2023 after being arrested in Myanmar following a lightning offense by a coalition of rebel militias.

Chinese Ministry of Public Security/Weibo

CNN —

In the end it was the thriving online scam centers that finally forced China to lose patience with Myanmar’s brutal military rulers.

The impoverished Southeast Asian nation has long been a trouble spot on China’s southwestern border. For decades Beijing’s leaders have played a careful game of backing Myanmar’s military regimes – lending them much-needed economic, military and diplomatic support, including at the United Nations – whilst also maintaining close ties to powerful rebel militias along its borders.

But Beijing’s frustration has been building with Naypyidaw’s generals who seized power in 2021, overthrowing a democratically elected government that Beijing had built close relations with, and resurrecting the kind of isolated junta rule that Myanmar’s people had spent decades living under.

The deeply unpopular regime has since been busy fighting a vicious civil war, struggling to govern growing swathes of its territory or deliver on Beijing’s economic and strategic interests there, including an ambitious infrastructure corridor aimed at connecting China’s landlocked southwest with the Indian Ocean.

In recent months, that displeasure has reached new heights as the junta dragged its feet on a pressing security priority for Beijing: shutting down the infamous online scam centers that have proliferated along its border with Myanmar.

The country’s mountainous borderlands have long been a haven for gambling, drugs and the trafficking of both humans and wildlife. But since the Covid-19 pandemic, online scam operations – many run by Chinese organized crime bosses – have flourished.

In heavily guarded compounds controlled by local warlords, tens of thousands of people, mainly Chinese, have been trapped and forced by criminal gangs to defraud strangers with sophisticated schemes over the internet.

Beijing has pressed Myanmar’s military government to rein in the scam operations with little success.

Things started to change in late October, when an alliance of ethnic rebel groups launched a major offensive – dubbed Operation 1027 – against the junta.

As the ethnic militias captured towns and military posts in the northern Shan state, numerous scam compounds near the Chinese border were liberated. Thousands of trafficked victims have been sent back to China, along with suspected ringleaders, according to Chinese authorities and the triumphant militias.

Powerful warlord families, backed by the junta and once deemed untouchable by the law, are now in the custody of Chinese police.

“China has been leveraging Operation 1027 in order to maximize pressure on the military regime to compel it to begin a crackdown on cross-border crime that targets Chinese nationals,” said Jason Tower, Myanmar country director of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).

Last week, Beijing said it helped the junta broker a temporary ceasefire with the rebels, after arranging for the two sides to meet in China for peace talks.

But Beijing’s assistance has carried a heavy price tag – the downfall of the remaining crime families the junta had relied on to rule the border region.

Myanmar rebels claim new video shows military soldiers surrendering

02:29 - Source: CNN

‘Tacit support’

China’s growing frustration with the junta over its failure to tackle the scam industry was not lost on the ethnic rebels as they planned their attack for October 27.

In announcing the offensive, the armed ethnic groups – collectively called the Three Brotherhood Alliance – cited the need to take out the massive scam operations as a major justification.

The alliance pledged to not only overthrow the military dictatorship, but also “eradicate telecom fraud, scam dens and their patrons nationwide, including in areas along the China-Myanmar border” – a message experts say was clearly intended for Beijing.

China began publicly pushing the junta to crack down on cross-border crime targeting Chinese nationals in May, when then Foreign Minister Qin Gang visited Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw and raised the issue with army chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.

“For that to fall on deaf ears for several months, and for the criminal activity to continue, I think it ultimately played a role in China giving some tacit support to Operation 1027,” said Tower, the expert at USIP.

For much of this year, Chinese officials have urged the ethnic armed groups to restrain from escalating the conflict and to sit down for negotiations with the military – which led to a few meetings between the two sides, according to Tower.

“This seems to have changed pretty dramatically after October. China’s frustration (with the junta) is ultimately what led to it lifting that pressure. And once that pressure was lifted, something like Operation 1027 became possible,” he said.

One key hub for the scam syndicates was Kokang, a region home to many ethnic Han Chinese and controlled by the Myanmar military through the Kokang Border Guard Force. The militia was established by junta chief Min Aung Hlaing to rule Kokang after he led a military operation in 2009 to oust the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA).

The MNDAA, a predominantly ethnic Chinese armed group, is now a key player in the Three Brotherhood Alliance taking back territory in the region.

Alleged cyber scam suspects are handed over to Chinese police by Myanmar authorities on November 18, 2023.

Chinese Ministry of Public Security/Weibo

‘Last straw’

Experts say a particularly brutal incident in Kokang’s capital Laukkaing, a glistening casino city bordering China’s Yunnan province that has descended in recent years into a lawless hub for internet fraud, was another major test of Beijing’s patience.

According to local media reports in Myanmar and Thailand, in the small hours of October 20, multiple Chinese citizens were shot and killed by guards during an attempted escape from a scam center in Laukkaing.

Those reports soon began circulating on Chinese social media.

Four undercover Chinese police officers were rumored to be among the victims – a claim that was shared online by Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of state-run tabloid Global Times.

According to Chinese state media, the compound, Crouching Tiger Villa, was run by Ming Xuechang, a former Kokang official and head of a powerful family whose members hold prominent positions in the local government and junta militia.

“I think that was kind of the last straw that led to China more or less greenlighting this operation,” Tower said.

Four days after the launch of Operation 1027, China’s Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong arrived in Naypyidaw. In a meeting with Min Aung Hlaing, the Chinese police chief said law enforcement agencies in both countries would strengthen cooperation to crack down on cyber scams and online gambling.

Then in mid-November, Chinese police issued arrest warrants for Ming and his three relatives, including his son, who is a leader in the Kokang Border Guard Force. They were accused of running scam hubs that target Chinese citizens and openly using armed forces to protect their operations.

Days later, the three relatives were handed over the border and taken into Chinese custody, while Ming reportedly took his own life before he could be arrested, according to China’s state broadcaster CCTV.

As of late November, authorities in Myanmar had handed over 31,000 suspects to China since authorities from both countries launched a crackdown on online scams in September, according to China’s Ministry of Public Security. The vast majority of those suspects were handed back after Operation 1027.

Richard Horsey, senior adviser on Myanmar for the International Crisis Group, said the crackdown on scam centers had in the short term assumed a higher priority than peace on the border for China.

“China has calculated that it is worth a short-term period of instability and conflict on the border in order to shut down the scam centers,” he said. “But I don’t think China wants this conflict to continue longer than necessary…(or) to spread wider than necessary.”

Members of the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) -- one the the members of the Three Brotherhood Alliance -- prepare their weapons amid clashes with the military in Namhsan Township, northern Shan State on December 13, 2023.

Stringer/AFP/Getty Images

Peace talks

In public, China has repeatedly called for de-escalation of the conflict in Myanmar. Announcing the temporary ceasefire on Thursday, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry said Beijing had been making “relentless efforts to promote talks to end the fighting” since it broke out in October.

But experts say in practice, Beijing had taken a largely hands-off approach until earlier this month.

China’s sudden involvement in peace talks may reflect Beijing’s calculation shifting again, experts say. The rebel offensive in Shan was hugely successful – and other insurgent groups launched their own attacks elsewhere across Myanmar, spreading the junta’s already stretched forces even thinner.

“Chinese authorities likely did not expect that the operation would result in the complete disruption of the lucrative China-Myanmar border trade, nor did they expect that it would ripple across the entire country, causing the Myanmar military to lose hundreds of posts and suffer unprecedented battlefield losses,” said Tower.

Beijing is increasingly concerned that the prolonged disruption to border trade would deal a serious blow to the already struggling economy in southwest China, especially the border province of Yunnan; the ongoing conflict could also undermine China’s energy security, as many of its southwestern provinces rely on the China-Myanmar pipeline for access to oil and gas, according to Tower.

In this photo taken on March 9, 2023 members of ethnic rebel group Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) patrol near Namhsan Township in Myanmar's northern Shan State. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Stringer/AFP/Getty Images

Opponents vow ‘beginning of the end’ for Myanmar’s junta as resistance launches nationwide offensive

Those concerns have likely played a role in China’s decision to help the junta broker the peace talks with the Three Brotherhood Alliance. But Beijing’s help came at a heavy price.

On December 10, the day before the military government revealed it held talks with the rebels with the help of China, the Chinese police issued a fresh batch of arrest warrants for 10 alleged “ringleaders” of Kokang’s online scams syndicates accused of fraud, murder and trafficking.

The 10 hail from powerful families in Kokang, including leaders in the Border Guard Force that controls what remains of one of the junta’s most important border zones with China.

The most prominent figure among them is Bai Suocheng, who defected from the MNDAA and partnered with Min Aung Hlaing to establish Myanmar army control over the region back in 2009.

Experts say China is effectively using the warrants to force the junta to quietly exit Kokang and hand the territory back to the MNDAA.

“These warrants put the Myanmar army in an extremely difficult position. As the Myanmar army cannot control Kokang without its Border Guard Force leaders, handing them over to the Chinese side amounts to surrendering Kokang over to the MNDAA and its allies,” Tower said.

Horsey at the International Crisis Group said the ceasefire could be the final act in MNDAA’s dramatic takeover of Kokang.

“The Myanmar military is now constrained from launching any counterattack, but able to safely withdraw its forces,” he said. “But there are many moving parts and whether this will result in a bloodless MNDAA takeover of Laukkaing remains to be seen.”

Meanwhile the ceasefire already looks shaky.

On Wednesday, the Three Brotherhood Alliance reaffirmed its commitment to defeat the military dictatorship. It made no mention of peace talks or a ceasefire.

And fighting has continued in Shan state. The Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), an ethnic rebel group under the Three Brotherhood Alliance, told AFP news agency it captured the trading hub of Namhsan on Friday, a day after Beijing announced the temporary ceasefire.

CNN · by Nectar Gan · December 19, 2023

7. Member of Elite Hamas Unit That Led Oct. 7 Terror Attack Found Hiding Inside Gaza School

Why has there not been more reporting on Hamas surrenders (especially leaders)? I thought these were tough guy fanatics who were willing to fight to the death? Or are they only willing to fight to the death of civilians.

Excerpts:

“Hamas terrorists have two options: Be killed or surrender unconditionally. There is no third option,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said at the time.

At least dozens of Hamas fighters have surrendered to Israeli forces, as the IDF turned swept through northern Gaza and set its sights on the strip's southern territory earlier this month.

Last week, the Israeli army released footage of what it says are more than 70 Hamas fighters surrendering with their weapons to IDF and Shin Bet forces at the Amal Adwan Hospital in Gaza.

Member of Elite Hamas Unit That Led Oct. 7 Terror Attack Found Hiding Inside Gaza School

Several other terrorists were either killed or captured for questioning during the raid by Israeli forces

Published 12/18/23 02:27 PM ET|Updated 15 hr ago

Christopher Gavin

themessenger.com · December 18, 2023

A member of Hamas' commando force that led the terror group's Oct. 7 raid in southern Israel was found by Israeli soldiers as he hid inside a Gaza school late last week, the Israeli military said Monday.

The fighter, who is apart of Hamas' "Nukhba" forces, was captured by the Israel Defense Forces' 401st Brigade during a raid Friday in the Alma'atsam in Allah school in Gaza City's Rimal neighborhood, according to IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.

Several other terrorists were either killed or captured, the Jerusalem Post reported. Those taken into custody were transferred to IDF's Intelligence Division for questioning.

Israel has vowed to track down and kill all of the terrorists responsible for the Oct. 7 massacre that left some 1,200 people dead and another 240 hostage.

The Israeli military captured a members of the Nukhba force, an elite group of Hamas fighters who led the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.IDF Spokesman/X

Soon after the attacks in October, the Shin Bet, Israel's intelligence agency, formed a specialist unit to go after members of Hamas' Nukhba squad.

“Hamas terrorists have two options: Be killed or surrender unconditionally. There is no third option,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said at the time.

At least dozens of Hamas fighters have surrendered to Israeli forces, as the IDF turned swept through northern Gaza and set its sights on the strip's southern territory earlier this month.

Last week, the Israeli army released footage of what it says are more than 70 Hamas fighters surrendering with their weapons to IDF and Shin Bet forces at the Amal Adwan Hospital in Gaza.

themessenger.com · December 18, 2023

8. Tunnel warfare expert on what she sees in newly-discovered tunnel in Gaza

This short video has the tunnel expert comparing the Hamas tunnels to the tunnels north Korea built under the DMZ in Korea. This is the first reporting by a major news outlet (that I have come across) that discusses Hamas tunnels in the north Korean context.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2023/12/19/gaza-tunnel-warfare-expert-sot-ebof-vpx.cnn

Tunnel warfare expert on what she sees in newly-discovered tunnel in Gaza

Erin Burnett Out Front

Tunnel warfare expert Daphné Richemond-Barak tells CNN's Erin Burnett what she sees in the tunnel the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) say is "the biggest Hamas tunnel" found in Gaza so far.

01:31 - Source: CNN

9. US Envoys Work for New Hostage Release Deal, Scale-Down of Israel-Hamas War, But Say No Timetable

US Envoys Work for New Hostage Release Deal, Scale-Down of Israel-Hamas War, But Say No Timetable

Pressure is growing as France, the UK and Germany — some of Israel’s closest allies — joined global calls for a cease-fire

themessenger.com · December 19, 2023

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The head of the CIA jetted to Europe for talks with Israeli and Qatari officials Monday, sounding out the potential for a deal on a new cease-fire and the release of hostages in Gaza, as the U.S. defense secretary spoke to Israeli military leaders about scaling back major combat operations against Hamas.

Still, there was no sign that a shift in the war was imminent after more than two months of devastating bombardment and fighting. Fierce battles raged in northern Gaza, where residents said rescue workers were searching for the dead and the living under buildings flattened by Israeli strikes.

Pressure is growing as France, the U.K. and Germany — some of Israel’s closest allies — joined global calls for a cease-fire over the weekend. Israeli protesters have demanded the government relaunch talks with Hamas on releasing more hostages after three were mistakenly killed by Israeli troops while waving a white flag.

U.S. officials have repeatedly expressed concern about the large number of civilian deaths in Gaza. But after talks with Israeli officials Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, “This is Israel’s operation. I’m not here to dictate timelines or terms.” The U.S. has vetoed calls for a cease-fire at the U.N. and has rushed munitions to Israel.

The U.N Security Council delayed a vote to Tuesday on an Arab-sponsored resolution calling for a halt to hostilities to allow unhindered access to humanitarian aid. Diplomats said negotiations were taking place to get the U.S. to abstain or vote “yes” on the resolution.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that Israel will keep fighting until it ends Hamas rule in Gaza, crushes its formidable military capabilities and frees hostages still held in Gaza since the deadly Oct. 7 attack inside Israel that ignited the war. Militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted 240 others in the attack.

The war has killed more than 19,000 Palestinians and demolished much of the north into a moonscape. Some 1.9 million Palestinians — nearly 85% of Gaza's population — have fled their homes, with most packing into U.N.-run shelters and tent camps in the southern part of the besieged territory.

HOSTAGE TALKS

In an apparent sign that talks on a hostage deal were growing more serious, CIA Director William Burns met in Warsaw with the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency and the prime minister of Qatar, a U.S. official said.

It was the first known meeting of the three since the end of a weeklong cease-fire in late November, during which some 100 hostages — including a number of foreign nationals — were freed in exchange for the release of around 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the talks were not “at a point where another deal is imminent.”

Aiming to increase public pressure on the Israeli government, Hamas released a video showing three elderly Israeli hostages, sitting in white T-shirts and pleading for Israel to bring their immediate release.

The comments were likely made under duress, but the video signaled Hamas wants to move on to discussions of releasing sick and elderly men in captivity. Israel has said it wants around 19 women and two children freed first. Hamas says the women include soldiers, for whom it is expected to demand a higher price in terms of prisoner releases.

Hamas and other militants are still holding an estimated 129 captives. Hamas has said no more hostages will be released until the war ends.

SCALING DOWN THE WAR

Austin, who arrived in Israel with Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. CQ Brown, said he and Israeli officials exchanged “thoughts on how to transition from high intensity operations” in Gaza and how to increase the flow of humanitarian aid.

American officials have called for targeted operations aimed at killing Hamas leaders, destroying tunnels and rescuing hostages. U.S. President Joe Biden warned last week that Israel is losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing.”

Speaking alongside Austin, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said only that “the war will take time.”

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the Israeli chief of staff met with Austin and Brown and presented “plans for the continuation of the battle in the coming stages.”

European countries appear to be losing patience. "Far too many civilians have been killed in Gaza," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell posted on X.

Under U.S. pressure, Israel provided more precise evacuation instructions earlier this month as troops moved into the southern city of Khan Younis. Still, casualties have continued to mount and Palestinians say nowhere in Gaza is safe as Israel carries out strikes in all parts of the territory.

Israel reopened its main cargo crossing with Gaza to allow more aid in — also after a U.S. request. But the amount is less than half of prewar imports, even as needs have soared and fighting hinders delivery in many areas. Israel blocked entry off all goods into Gaza soon after the war started and weeks later began allowing a small amount of aid in through Egypt.

Palestinians flee the Israeli ground offensive in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, Dec. 18, 2023.AP Photo/Mohammed Dahman

MORE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION

At least 110 people were killed in Israeli strikes Sunday on residential buildings in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, Munir al-Boursh, a senior Health Ministry official, told Al Jazeera television.

Fierce fighting continued Monday in Jabaliya and the Gaza City districts of Zaytoun and Shijaiyah, where tens of thousands of Palestinians remain trapped, crowded in homes or schools.

In Jabaliya, first responders and residents searched the rubble of many collapsed buildings. “They use their hands and shovels,” said Amal Radwan, who is staying at a U.N. shelter there. “We need bulldozers and above all the bombing to stop.”

More than 19,400 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Health Ministry, which has said that most are women and minors and that thousands more are buried under rubble. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.

Israel’s military says 127 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza ground offensive. It says it has killed thousands of militants, without providing evidence.

Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas, saying it uses them as human shields. But the military rarely comments on individual strikes.

REGIONAL TENSIONS

In Bahrain early Tuesday, Austin said that the U.S. and other nations have created a new force to protect commercial ships passing through the Red Sea from attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels. The Houthis say their attacks aim to end Israel's offensive in Gaza, and their campaign has prompted a growing list of companies to halt operations in the major trade route.

“This is an international challenge that demands collective action,” Austin said in a statement.

Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have traded fire along the border nearly every day since the war began. And in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, over 300 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, including four overnight during an Israeli military raid in the Faraa refugee camp, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

This has been the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005. Most have been killed during military raids, which often ignite gunbattles, or during violent demonstrations.

themessenger.com · December 19, 2023

10. US Army faces 'TikTok mutiny' as Gen Z recruits whine about low pay, 'sh***y' food and FITNESS TESTS while on bases in uniform

Wow.

But is there a way to exploit these positively? This can only be countered organically by other soldiers.

Any deliberate campaign to counter this or a blanket ban of troops on TikTok will only reinforce the negative messages.

US Army faces 'TikTok mutiny' as Gen Z recruits whine about low pay, 'sh***y' food and FITNESS TESTS while on bases in uniform

Brazen posts represent audacious challenge to top brass amid recruitment crisis
One of the posts by military influencer Anthony Laster slams Army life
Says he spent whole day watching TikToks while supposedly fighting the Taliban

By ALICE WRIGHT FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED:

09:51 EST, 17 December 2023

|

UPDATED:

10:47 EST, 17 December 2023

Daily Mail · by Alice Wright For Dailymail.Com · December 17, 2023

The US Army is facing a TikTok mutiny as Gen Z recruits are taking to social media to whine about low pay, 'sh***y' food and fitness tests.

The brazen posts - by uniformed troops on US bases - represent an audacious challenge to top brass amid a recruitment crisis. The Army fell short of its target by 25 percent last year.

One of the posts by military influencer Anthony Laster slams Army life for having 'No Privacy, The Pay Sucks, Sh***y Food, Disrespectful Leadership, NO SLEEP!' and has been viewed more than 600,000 times.

Laster, from Chicago, has more than a million followers on TikTok and made the public comments in uniform while on mission in the desert. In another post he claimed he spent his whole day watching TikToks while supposedly fighting the Taliban.

It gives a woeful impression of America's fighting forces to potential recruits, which is likely to cause further animosity toward TikTok from critics. Politicians from both sides have concerns about the platform's links with China and accuse it of pushing subversive anti-US propaganda.

Anthony Laster (pictured) slams Army life for having 'No Privacy, The Pay Sucks, Sh***y Food, Disrespectful Leadership, NO SLEEP!'

Dana Estrella (pictured) makes content to advise those considering signing up to think again

The Army expects to end up about 15,000 short of its target of 65,000 recruits for 2023.

Similarly, the Navy expects to fall short by 10,000 personnel and the Air Force is projected to miss its goal by 10 percent.

The traditional allure of military recruitment is failing to register with Gen Z.

Last year only 9 percent of young people ages 16-21 said they would consider military service, according to Pentagon data, sliding 13 percent from before the pandemic.

The military has faced criticism for using 'woke' advertising campaigns focused on diversity, equity and inclusion as well as drag shows for troops, to appeal to Gen Z.

The Army is in the middle of a five-year plan to become a 'model example of diversity, equality and inclusion', with the blessing of the White House.

However, with focus elsewhere it is in the grips of a fitness crisis.

Around 23 percent of soldiers registered as obese in 2021, according to a recent study of data from the Military Health System Data Repository.

Not only are recruits not fit enough to join, their fitness is also declining once they're in the ranks leaving officials scrambling to install weight loss and exercise regimens.

Now disgruntled rank and file officers have found an outlet on TikTok to advise those considering signing up to think again, according to videos viewed by DailyMail.com.

Among the major criticisms, the young soldiers complain about having to remain below a certain weight, harsh treatment from their superiors and having to perform menial tasks instead of engaging enemies on the battlefield.

One young recruit, Shemar Williams, in uniform and appearing to be on base, looks into the camera and tells his 34,000 followers his 'top five reasons not to join the military'.

Echoing Laster's grievances, Williams bemoans that 'we do not get paid enough to perform the mission that is tasked to us,' lack of autonomy and sacrifices in family life.

According to federal data, more than 20,000 active-duty troops are on food stamps to make ends meet.

Discontent is bubbling over from young rank and file officers who have found an outlet on TikTok

Young recruit Gammage filmed herself in her uniform with a clearly identifiable name badge

Gammages' grievances include being blamed for injuries incurred while serving in the military

Sergeant Barber (pictured) has posted videos of himself in uniform on what appears to be a military base

More worryingly for recruitment, Williams also adds to his list complaints about things the military attempts to sell to potential recruits as perks, notably 'schooling'.

'Now I know you think 'woah that is a benefit', Williams explains, 'but there are requirements you have to meet first to get to that schooling. So if you're thinking of joining because of schooling, just go to school.'

Sergeant Barber, 25, filming himself in his uniform admits that he has already been 'counseled because of a TikTok video' nonetheless tells his 68,000 followers 'before you head to the recruiting office, watch this video… If you don't like your freedom being suppressed a little, not really, then I wouldn't join the military.'

As well as cautioning against fantasies of getting rich in the army, Barber also says life in the military is 'mopping those floors 99 percent of the time' rather than war combat.

'Even if you deploy you probably won't see combat today in this world so if that's your mindset. Don't join!'

Female recruits have also contributed to the anti-military advice offered on TikTok.

One young recruit, Shemar Williams, in uniform and appearing to be on base, tells his 34,000 followers his 'top five reasons not to join the military'

@shemarwill

5 reasons to not join the military #fyp #fy #money #military #viral #virginia #navy #gonavy #parents #ticktock

♬ original sound - Shemar Williams

One young recruit who could only be identified as Gammage from the name on her uniform, tells those considering a life in the military: 'Don't join the Army until you're mentally prepared to be told you're going over/under weight, treated like you're not a good soldier if you can't run 2 miles in 18 mins or less - oh and you can't get injured either cause then it's your fault'.

Health is a barrier to recruitment as well as an issue once recruits are enrolled.

More than half (56 percent) of American 18 to 25-year-olds are overweight or obese, according to Johns Hopkins researchers, meaning they can't enlist.

Fitness within the army is also at crisis point, with generals terming it a threat to national security.

Injury and healthcare are also a concern for a young recruit who identified himself as Treull.

He advises against joining the Army because 'this is very physically demanding, the army don't give a f**k if you f***ed up you better see the PT [personal trainer].'

Treull also complains that commanding officers are 'on a power trip and you can't do nothing'.

Concluding: 'In the military you're their b***h, if they want to do something to you you're going to do it.'

Treull (pictured) complains that commanding officers are 'on a power trip'

A defense official told DailyMail.com: 'DOD Components are required to review and approve non-official mobile applications for use on government-issued devices.

'The DoD never authorized the use of TikTok, and several organizations have already banned its download onto its mobile devices. Users are required to sign a user agreement when the device is issued.

'The agreement informs them of the proper device use requirements and their responsibilities for the appropriate use and download of unmanaged applications. Additionally, all DoD personnel are required to take the Annual Cyber Awareness Challenge which has modules specific to mobile devices, social media, and geolocation capabilities.

Adding: 'DoD Mobile Application policy requires DOD Components to review and prohibit the use of applications that pose potential risk. DoD is currently updating its mobile application security policy to establish a process for prohibiting the installation of any application that DoD believes is inappropriate to be downloaded to a government device as well.

'In accordance with Division R, Section 102 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, U.S. Cyber Command acting through Joint Force Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Network, directed all combatant commands, military services, defense agencies, and DoD field activities to remove TikTok from all government-funded equipment and prohibit users from downloading or accessing the application on government-funded equipment.'

Daily Mail · by Alice Wright For Dailymail.Com · December 17, 2023

11. The changing face of America’s favorite sport

As someone who played football from about age 6 through college this pains me to read.

Football was one of the most positive influences on my life (if not the most - and wrestling is a close second or equal to football) - there is a direct connection between the values I learned on the high school football field (and especially the practice field) and my desire to serve in the military (and especially my desire to serve in Special Forces).

I wonder if there is correlation between the decline of young people playing tackle football and our recruiting issues?

The changing face of America’s favorite sport

How race, politics, culture and money are shaping which kids abandon tackle football -- and which keep risking its toll.

The Washington Post · by Dave Sheinin · December 18, 2023

For decades, few things have united America as consistently and completely as football — the autumnal obsession of small-town Friday nights, the ritualistic centerpiece of college-town Saturdays, the communal Sunday religion of a staggering percentage of the populace. In American culture, the game stands virtually alone in the way its appeal cuts across demographic lines.

But when it comes to actually playing tackle football — and risking the physical toll of a sport linked to brain damage — there are wide divisions marked by politics, economics and race, an examination by The Washington Post found. And as the sport grapples with the steep overall decline in participation among young people, some of those divisions appear to be getting wider, The Post found, with football’s risks continuing to be borne by boys in places that tend to be poorer and more conservative — a revelation with disturbing implications for the future of the sport.

The Divided States of Football

A series examining the decline of tackle football — and how geography, race, politics and income are shaping the future of America’s favorite sport.

How California’s falling football participation plays out on the field

As tackle football falters, even Texas’s participation is shrinking

How economics divide tackle football in Ohio

In Mississippi, tackle football still reigns

How tackle football’s decline is changing the sport’s demographics

1/6

End of carousel

To examine the way the demographics of football are changing, The Post analyzed decades of high school and college sports participation data and state-by-state demographic trends. The Post also conducted a nationwide survey, asking the same questions as a 2012 survey about attitudes toward kids’ participation in the sport, and interviewed dozens of young people, parents, coaches, administrators and experts across the country.

While participation is falling almost everywhere, The Post found, boys in the most conservative, poorest states continue to play high school tackle football at higher rates than those in wealthier and more politically liberal areas. The politicization of the concussion crisis is forging deeper divisions between those who support youth football and those who don’t. And while precise data about football’s racial makeup is hard to come by, the demographics appear to be gradually shifting. Among kids and teens, White and Black males are playing tackle football at declining rates, while Hispanic boys increasingly take up the sport. In college, the proportion of White players is declining, and that of Black players rising, at faster rates than national demographic changes.

High-schoolers in states that voted for former president Donald Trump in 2020 played football last year at a rate roughly 1.5 times as high as those in states that went for President Biden, The Post found — a significant divide that also existed a decade ago. But poll results revealed that liberals are increasingly more likely to discourage children from playing football, while conservatives are just about as likely to recommend the sport now as in 2012.

“There seems to be a very disturbing possibility,” said Andrew M. Lindner, associate professor of sociology at Skidmore College who has studied the demographics of football participation, “that who your dad voted for [in the presidential election] could influence your risk for a very serious [football-related] ailment or injury.”

Coaches run through drills to warm up their players before Abilene High School’s homecoming game against Amarillo Tascosa on Sept. 29 in Abilene, Tex. (Shelby Tauber for The Washington Post)

The NFL, which is among the most influential cultural institutions in the United States, has long viewed the slow decline in high school participation rates — beginning in 2006 and accelerating amid the avalanche of negative storylines in the 2010s regarding traumatic brain injuries — as an existential threat. The league has targeted it with a series of responses, most notably an embrace of flag football as an alternate pathway, geared toward coaxing families back into the game.

“Where we were fighting the negative health and safety narratives seven, eight years ago, we were saying, ‘Okay, well, let’s evolve,’ ” said Roman Oben, an offensive tackle for 12 seasons in the NFL, who now serves as the league’s vice president for football development. “... It’s okay to admit that we had to evolve.”

The league’s efforts have helped: More kids ages 6 to 12 now play flag football than tackle, and flag participation has remained stable. But the introduction of a safer alternative also has sown divisions, with flag football more frequently being adopted in wealthier communities, according to interviews with football organizers and experts around the country. It is a dynamic the NFL and USA Football have tried to address by focusing efforts to expand access to flag in underserved areas.

Nationally, football remains the most popular boys’ high school sport in the country by a wide margin. And in September, just as this season was kicking off, an annual survey by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) brought a welcomed bit of news for football: Participation across American high schools in 2022 had rebounded from its drop amid the pandemic, growing by about 5 percent since 2021 and roughly matching the participation rate of 2018, the most recent year the NFHS collected data before the pandemic. Several other popular boys’ sports — including soccer, baseball, basketball and outdoor track and field — saw slight drops in participation rate from 2018-19 to 2022-23.

But viewed from a wider lens, high school football is in steep, steady decline. Participation has fallen 17 percent since 2006, when more than 1.1 million boys played the sport, a larger decline than any of the other top 10 most popular boys’ sports. Data in the sprawling and unregulated youth sports industry is less reliable, but regular participation in tackle football among kids ages 6 to 12 fell 13 percent from 2019 to 2022, according to annual survey data from the Sports and Fitness Industry Association (SFIA).

The Post analyzed high school football participation since 2013, around the start of the concussion crisis. It fell in nearly every state.

Only two states showed notable increases — Mississippi, up 20 percent, and Alabama, up 18 percent.

In another three states — New Hampshire, Louisiana and Ohio — participation is roughly where it was a decade ago. In every other state, it’s dropped.

Even Texas, often considered the heart of American high school football, has had a 12 percent decline in participation since 2013.

Despite the drop, Texas still has the fourth-highest football participation rate compared with its public high school enrollment, behind only Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.

Among these states where football continues to thrive, the common threads are geography, politics and socioeconomics. The South has held onto the game more than any other region.

Twenty-three states in 2022 had high school football participation that exceeded the nation’s overall rate.

Nineteen of those states went for Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

And all but two had median household incomes that were lower than the nation’s mark as a whole, according to the American Community Survey.

So instead of asking how many kids are playing, the bigger question for the sport in 2023, and in the future, is who is playing.

“Kids who are disadvantaged will say, ‘I’ll deal with that [CTE] issue if and when it ever comes,’ ” said Harry Carson, a Hall of Fame linebacker for the New York Giants who later became one of the most vocal critics of the NFL’s response to brain injuries. “Kids are thinking, ‘If I can get that big contract, my family will be set for generations, so I’m willing to assume the risk.’ … They see the bling, the cars, the contracts being handed out. There’s no way you can compete against that. These kids are coming from next to nothing.”

In much of Mississippi, which has the highest poverty rate and highest rate of high school tackle football participation in the country, the risk-reward calculus remains tilted heavily in favor of playing. According to the NFL, the state has the fourth-most players in the league this season on a per capita basis, behind Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama.

“We go hard because, I mean, a lot of us come from nothing,” said Jermar McCarter, middle linebacker for Starkville (Miss.) High. “We don’t like to see our parents struggling.”

Asked about the injury factor, McCarter’s teammate, quarterback Trey Petty said, “At a young age, we don’t really care about injuries. If injuries come about, it come about. We worry about it when it come. But in the moment, we don’t worry about playing football. We’re having fun.”

That sentiment — football is still a worthwhile endeavor, despite its risks — continues to prevail with a majority of Americans.

In separate polls conducted in 2012 and this year, The Post asked respondents whether they would recommend children play youth or high school football (without specifying tackle or flag). Overall, the numbers barely budged, with those encouraging it falling from 67 percent in 2012 to 64 percent this year.

But the divide between specific demographic groups changed far more dramatically. This year, for example, 75 percent of Americans who identified as conservatives said they would recommend football to kids, but a much smaller 44 percent of liberals did. That gap represented a striking change from the 2012 poll, when the margin was only 70 percent to 63 percent. The gap between White conservatives (72 percent) and White liberals (36 percent) in 2023 was even wider, much larger than a 67 percent-57 percent gap in 2012.

The demographics of football, in fact, reveal just as much about America as they do about the current state and the future of its national obsession.

An all-American crisis

Football’s brain injury crisis was not a single event. It arrived through a slow buildup of horrific news, about concussions and the brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which kept the story in the national consciousness.

Among the more consequential developments: the 2012 suicide of former star linebacker Junior Seau; the admission by then-President Barack Obama in 2013 that, if he had sons, he would be hesitant to let them play football; and especially the Christmas Day 2015 release of the blockbuster movie, “Concussion.” Even in places where scientific evidence didn’t move the needle, the sight of Will Smith on the big screen, portraying the scientist widely credited with discovering CTE in the brains of deceased NFL players, certainly did.

“It was the movie,” said Jay Williams, vice president of the Abilene (Tex.) Cowboys youth football program. “Literally the year after that movie came out, our numbers fell in half, easily. Even today, you talk to parents … and they all say, ‘I don’t know if I want my son to play.’ ”

At various times, there was worry both inside and outside the sport about whether football could survive a crisis that stemmed from its very essence: the constant hitting and tackling taking place on every play. And those worries were even more acute at the grass-roots levels, where the athletes were children whose brains were still developing.

C.K. McClatchy High School (Ca.) football players warm up before the start of a game against powerhouse Grant. (Nick Otto/The Washington Post)

Yard markers on the field at a high school game. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)

A Northwest High School (Md.) player wears a $100 bill back plate during practice. (Julia Nikhinson for The Washington Post)

“Existential threat is a good way to phrase it, to the extent that people at the beginning [of the concussion crisis] were beginning to wonder, ‘Is this game too dangerous to play?’ ” said Ralph Greene, the former head of Nike’s football division during the 2010s, who worked closely with the NFL and its broadcast networks on marketing and business strategies.

There are other reasons for the decline in football participation, including some that have been blamed for contributing to declines in other activities: the trend toward kids specializing earlier in one sport; digital distractions that keep more kids on their devices at the expense of sports participation; and the explosion in the number of after-school activities, including other sports, available to young people.

But when it came to football, those universal pressures were exacerbated by the growing recognition that the game’s very nature could cause brain damage. It is a reality the sport has gone to great lengths to try to remedy, and in some cases paper over. All 50 states now have laws regarding concussion protocols and rules limiting full-contact practices, and every rule change and technological advance seems designed to reduce violent collisions and their impacts.

“We started teaching and learning how to tackle differently,” said Steve Warren, legendary ex-head coach at Abilene (Tex.) High School and former president of the Texas High School Coaches Association. “The rules about using your helmet as a weapon started changing. And technology started changing the way they made and tested helmets. It all started changing. I don’t know another sport that has put as much time and money into keeping players safe as football has.”

For fans, and even many players, the physicality of the sport is its biggest draw.

“I love everything about football,” says Wayshawn Parker, a senior running back at Sacramento’s Grant Union High. “I love the contact. It relieves my anger.”

Still, the evidence of a link between football and brain trauma only gets stronger. Earlier this year, researchers at Boston University said CTE had been found in the brains of 345 of the 376 (92 percent) former NFL players they studied. And despite rule changes and safety measures, the NFL in 2022 reported an 18 percent rise in concussions, year over year.

“All these safety advances are offset by the fact the athletes are bigger, stronger and faster,” said Chris Nowinski, a neuroscientist and former football player at Harvard who is now CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation. “When people point to fewer deaths and fewer catastrophic injuries, what they fail to note is that medicine is dramatically better than it used to be. It’s not that football is safer — it’s that medicine is better.”

A sign denotes the 20-yard line during Sherwood High School’s game against Damascus High School in Damascus, Md., on Oct. 6. (Julia Nikhinson for The Washington Post)

Chaminade Julienne Catholic High School football players huddle for a pregame speech before a game in Dayton, Ohio, on Sept. 28. (Megan Jelinger for The Washington Post)

Northwest Coach Bucky Clipper watches practice Oct. 4. (Julia Nikhinson for The Washington Post)

The dwindling number of young football players has been a consistent storyline over the past decade-plus, but the deeper demographic trends paint a fuller picture of what has occurred within the sport, and where it might be heading.

Just 7.5 percent of White boys ages 6 to 17 played tackle football last year, the lowest rate since at least 2014, according to data from USA Football, the sport’s governing body, which is funded in part by the NFL. It’s a trend that has prompted headlines about “White flight” from football.

In fact, though Black males still play at higher rates (11 percent), their participation rates have fallen in recent years, too. Meanwhile, another historically marginalized group appears to be filling the vacuum: Participation by Hispanic boys nearly matched that of White males last year.

The numbers make sense, according to former Minnesota Vikings head coach Leslie Frazier, because in marginalized communities, football, despite the serious health risks, still represents a “way out” of poverty.

“It’s such a motivator for Black kids, [and] that overrides the injury factor,” said Frazier, who is from Mississippi, the nation’s most impoverished state and one of two where participation has risen significantly. “But if you’re [better off], you’re going to be more reluctant to let your kid play, if there are other ways they can make it in life besides football.”

Football’s long-standing racial gap appears to be growing at the college level. From 2011 to 2022, the percentage of White football players across all three divisions fell from 55 to 44 percent — a decline similar to that of several other popular men’s sports but one that outpaced demographic trends in the United States. During that stretch, while the national percentage of the Black population remained flat, Black representation in college football rose from 36 to 40 percent, the largest increase among men’s sports. The share of football players who identified as two or more races also tripled, from 2 to 6 percent.

Perhaps nothing illustrates the way wealth changes perspectives on kids playing football than the sheer number of NFL players, some of whom came from impoverished backgrounds, who have said publicly they would disallow their sons from playing the sport.

Former NFL cornerback Domonique Foxworth, now a commentator on radio, television and online, described the sense of empowerment he feels as a Black man in being able to keep his 10-year-old son out of the same game that improved his family’s economic status. Foxworth’s son plays flag football in suburban Maryland but has been told he can’t play tackle until high school.

“It means everything to have some level of choice and flexibility and opportunity,” said Foxworth, 40. “It’s why you played in the first place. It’s how I justify whatever fears I have about the future health of my brain. It sounds like a sacrifice any parent would make.”

The recent decline of White college football players — and the rise of Black players — has been most pronounced at the Division III level, where athletes don’t get athletic scholarships, and their path to the NFL is nearly nonexistent. This suggests to some academics that some smaller schools may be using the sport, with its typically large rosters, to help diversify their student bodies — a particular focus of many schools over the past decade, often achieved through generous financial aid packages.

White players have represented the majority of athletes in Division III football for as long as the NCAA’s demographics reports have existed. But that number is shrinking. From 2011 to 2022, the proportion of White players fell by 8 percentage points in Division I but by 14 in Division III. Meanwhile, the proportion of Black players rose by just 1 percentage point in Division I but by 6 in Division III.

Taken together, the data suggest football is increasingly the domain of historically oppressed minority groups, raising uncomfortable questions about the nature of America’s universal football fandom. The juxtaposition of falling participation rates and the NFL’s still-massive television ratings suggests many people who don’t want their kids risking brain injuries to play the sport are still tuning in to watch other people’s kids do the same.

“As long as the incentives are the way they are, I think we’ll see disproportionately White and affluent families leaving [tackle football] over time,” said Kathleen Bachynski, assistant professor of public health at Muhlenberg College and author of “No Game for Boys to Play: The History of Youth Football and the Origins of a Public Health Crisis.”

And if that happens, she said, “it leaves [the sport] in a pretty troubling realm. It raises profound and, I would say, troubling questions about what risks we think are acceptable to whom.”

Planting a flag

In October, the International Olympic Committee made its usual quadrennial splash when it announced which new events would be featured in the 2028 Summer Games, which will take place in Los Angeles. But hiding in the ritual addition of sports, which this time included squash and cricket, was a signal to the country of football’s strategy: Flag football is going global.

“The NFL eventually came to understand this shift from tackle to flag that parents were driving at an early age was actually a boon to the game,” said Tom Farrey, executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Sports and Society program, which studies sports participation. “... The barriers for entry are so much lower. It costs less to play. You don’t need 11 players to play. Girls can play. Families can play.”

The NFL, which reported revenue of more than $18 billion in 2022, has not only embraced flag football but has attempted to co-opt it through its own nationwide league, NFL Flag, which now bills itself as the largest flag football organization in the United States. Last year, the league named star quarterbacks Dak Prescott and Russell Wilson as “Global Flag Ambassadors,” calling the sport “the cornerstone of the NFL’s domestic and international participation and development strategies.” This year’s Pro Bowl was a flag game.

Members of the Conquer SoCal flag football team, representing the Los Angeles Chargers, cover their hearts during the national anthem before the 17U girls championship game at the NFL Flag All 32 Summer Invitational in Washington, D.C., on July 30. (Pete Kiehart for The Washington Post)

Jasnea Hall of the Graham Sports Academy team, representing the Jacksonville Jaguars, takes part in a huddle at the All 32 Summer Invitational on July 30. (Pete Kiehart for The Washington Post)

A player from the TAP team, representing the Cincinnati Bengals, unsuccessfully attempts to pull the flag of a player from the High Intensity team, representing the Chargers, at the All 32 Summer Invitational on July 30. (Pete Kiehart for The Washington Post)

Members of the ELITE team, representing the Arizona Cardinals, celebrate after winning the 14U boys’ championship game at the All 32 Summer Invitational on July 30. (Pete Kiehart for The Washington Post)

Members of the Staten Island Giants team, representing the New York Giants, cheer before winning the 17U girls’ championship game at the All 32 Summer Invitational on July 30. (Pete Kiehart for The Washington Post)

“We have a major doubling-down on the messaging” behind flag football, said the NFL’s Oben. If the momentum behind flag carries through the 2028 Olympics, he said, it will “bring more kids [into the game] who are more likely to keep playing football in their own way.”

The results have been stunning: Flag football surpassed the tackle version in youth participation in 2017. Last year, just over 1 million children ages 6 to 12 played flag football regularly, compared with around 725,000 for tackle football, according to the SFIA. Eight states have sanctioned girls’ flag football as an interscholastic sport at the high school level, and as many as 20 more are considering similar steps, according to the NFL.

“The future of football,” top NFL executives have declared publicly several times in recent months, “is flag.”

Oben, the NFL VP, said the boom in flag football is at least partly the result of NFL and collegiate offenses becoming more wide-open and passing-focused. “The game is more about space and speed. It’s more about middle-schoolers … understanding complex route combinations,” he said. “Flag is more positioned now to be congruent and aligned with the way football is going.”

But within the NFL’s shift toward flag is a tacit acknowledgment: Because CTE is a cumulative, “dose-response” disease — its effects related to how many hits to the head one absorbs over time — the later someone starts playing tackle football, the better. A 2018 BU study of 211 ex-football players diagnosed with CTE after their deaths found that those who had started in tackle football before 12 suffered an earlier onset of cognitive, behavioral and mood symptoms by an average of 13 years. For each year younger a player started, symptoms came an average of 2 ½ years earlier.

A loose flag in Abilene, Tex., on Oct. 7. (Shelby Tauber for The Washington Post)

A player from the THT team, representing the New York Jets, reaches for the flag of a player from the ELITE team, representing the Cardinals, during the 14U boys’ championship game on July 30. (Pete Kiehart for The Washington Post)

Girls teams from California play a game during the NFL's Flag All 32 Summer Invitational at The Fields at RFK Campus on July 30, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Pete Kiehart for The Washington Post)

Much of the focus of the scientific community, as well as advocates inside and outside the sport, has been on delaying the age of entry into tackle football until age 14 or later.

“If you started playing tackle football at five years old, you’ve likely already incurred brain damage before you get to college,” said Chris Borland, a former San Francisco 49ers linebacker who famously walked away from the sport in 2015 to protect his brain. “That’s not a framing that I see often. … If we can wait, we reduce the number of blows to the head that young people incur. And it doesn’t really change the [quality of the] game.”

But access to flag football is far from universal. Youth football is a sprawling, decentralized industry, and flag’s ascent has come as city and nonprofit sports leagues have increasingly lost market share to for-profit ventures. So while flag football is inherently cheaper than tackle, leagues are often clustered in wealthier urban neighborhoods and suburban towns.

When the Aspen Institute surveyed children in grades 3 through 12 in Oakland, Calif., it found that White children played flag football at a significantly higher rate than they played tackle, while the opposite was true for Black children. Other cities have seen similar dichotomies, The Post found, with the difference often coming down to access.

“The places where kids are transitioning to flag are the places where flag is available,” Nowinski said. “Flag just isn’t available in poorer, Blacker places. And if it was, people would probably transition.”

Oben, the NFL executive, said the primary obstacle in urban areas is the lack of available field space — a problem shared by many outdoor youth sports leagues. In Dayton, Ohio, for example, the league funded the construction of a football field where the city now operates an NFL Flag program that this season served around 120 kids, mostly from the inner city.

“Most cities have the same issues with scheduling,” he said. “You have to drive out a little bit to find fields in certain places. The people in suburban places have an advantage because there are more fields.”

For now, flag and tackle coexist within the same youth-sports ecosphere, though their diverging trajectories — flag growing rapidly in some places, tackle declining — suggest a reckoning is coming.

That’s what happened with the Carrollton Boosters, in a historic Uptown neighborhood in New Orleans. Following a rapid decline in its tackle football participation, the league started a flag program in 2014 that immediately outdrew its tackle program. The two existed side by side for that one year, but by 2015 the tackle program was disbanded.

“Our first year of flag was our last year of tackle,” said Justin Lemaire, the league’s president. “I don’t think there’s any question in my mind that the information coming out about CTE and the effects of tackle football on the players’ brains contributed to that.”

‘It’s going to die’

There are places in America almost impossible to imagine without grassroots-level football. To sit in the jam-packed stands at a pee-wee jamboree in Starkville, Miss.; to stand on the sidelines at a matchup of powerhouse high schools in Sacramento or suburban Dayton; or to drive through West Texas on a Friday night where every town is closed for business by kickoff time is to understand football’s grip on those places.

“Here in Texas, it’s faith, family and football,” said Brian Morgan, CEO of the Texas Youth Football Association. “And not necessarily in that order.”

But there are also places in America where it is almost impossible to imagine the sport making a major comeback. In the Northeast, where participation in general is already low, states such as Maine and Vermont have had significant drops over the past decade. In 2013, Delaware’s rate of football participation exceeded the national mark but has since fallen 30 percent.

“Going to a high school football game and seeing 70, 80, 90 kids on the sidelines? I’m just not sure those days are going to come back around here,” said Jim Schwantz, an NFL linebacker for parts of seven seasons in the 1990s, and now the mayor of Palatine, Ill., in the Chicago suburbs. Illinois saw a decline of 13 percent in high school participation in the past decade, emblematic of almost the entire Midwest.

Manassas Park High School running backs participate in a drill during practice in Manassas Park, Va., on Oct. 25. (Scott Taetsch for The Washington Post)

Dunbar High School football players run drills before a game at Welcome Stadium in Dayton, Ohio, on Oct. 6. (Megan Jelinger for The Washington Post)

Manassas Park players run drills during practice Oct. 25. (Scott Taetsch for The Washington Post)

Northwest players carry a pop-up dummy during practice Oct. 4. (Julia Nikhinson for The Washington Post)

In the same way the American political and cultural spheres have become fractured by tribalism — creating competing visions of America that have little or no use for the other — so, too, has the football landscape been divided into places where kids still mostly play tackle and places where they mostly don’t.

Within that divide are some of the hallmarks of the larger political divide in America: competing definitions of patriotism, distrust in the media, the fetishization of military symbolism, the trust and distrust of science.

“In a world where a sizable percentage of the population wants to imprison Anthony Fauci, it’s probably not a stretch that they would continue to [let their kids play] football,” said Keith Strudler, director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State, who has studied Americans’ attitudes toward football, speaking of the immunologist who was part of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.

As Morgan, of the Texas Youth Football Association, put it: “If the movement is going to be to eliminate tackle football for kids under the age of 14, there’s going to have to be a lot better science behind it.”

It isn’t only CTE that is driving the divide. In a 2021 research paper titled “America’s Most Divided Sport: Polarization and Inequality in Attitudes about Youth Football,” Skidmore’s Lindner and Daniel N. Hawkins of the University of Nebraska-Omaha found that the NFL’s associations with military symbolism and overt patriotism also sow divisions. Those associations, they asserted, made football, alone among American sports, operate as a sort of “civil religion.”

“People who would encourage children to play football see it not as a child safety debate; instead, they experience tackle football as intertwined with their vision of America,” the paper read. “In short, kids playing football is about more than just football in a way that is not necessarily true of other sports.”

Viewed with a wider lens, though, the debate over youth football may already be over. Within the NFL’s embrace of flag football as an alternative gateway into the sport, many experts and advocates see the beginning of the end of tackle football for kids.

“I think the NFL’s behavior [in embracing flag] is very clear, in that they know which way this is going,” said Nowinski of the Concussion Legacy Foundation. “That’s why you’re seeing flag football becoming a high school sport. … It’s why [you saw] the push to get it into the Olympics. They’re trying to make the transition as slow and controlled as possible.”

Abilene Bucs youth football helmets during the team’s homecoming game weekend in October in Abilene, Tex. (Shelby Tauber for The Washington Post)

Youth football, Nowinski believes, is doomed to die off, with the timing dependent on the NFL’s willingness to get behind a ban. If that happens, he said, “it dies very quickly.” And if not? “It’s going to die very slowly — but it’s still going to die. The [scientific] evidence is too strong.”

The future health of the sport, then, could hinge in large part on converting adolescent flag players into teenaged tackle players. Oben said the first major studies on those trends are in the works — “I’m looking forward to seeing them,” he said — but he pushed back on the notion that youth tackle football will die out.

“One doesn’t cannibalize the other,” he said. “The educated and informed parent is going to make the best decision for their kid, and both sports will grow. … Youth tackle football is still being played across the country on Saturday and Sunday wherever they can find field-space and time.”

Some have questioned whether the NFL can ever completely reject youth tackle football, because of the implicit message it would send.

“Banning tackle football for kids until high school becomes the warning label on the cigarettes,” documentary filmmaker Sean Pamphilon said during an Aspen Institute panel. “It will impact the way we see the game once we truly are honest about the way it impacts human beings of any age.”

A Northwest football player drinks water following practice Oct. 4. (Julia Nikhinson for The Washington Post)

Legislation could hasten the process. Lawmakers in at least six liberal-leaning states — California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York — have introduced bills in recent years that would ban tackle football for children younger than 12. But so far, the legislation has met strong opposition from the youth football industry and its backers, and none has passed.

The industry, in other words, won’t go quietly. In a 2018 speech at the annual conference of USA Football, the NFL-funded organization that serves as the sport’s national governing body, David Baker, the now-retired president of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, summed up the football-as-America argument: “If we lose football, we lose a lot in America,” he said. And if that happens, Baker said, “I don’t know if America can survive.”

But even as football flexes its resilience and eternal appeal, the demographic shifts within the sport also appear entrenched and likely to continue. Fifty years ago, when boxing was at the height of its popularity, it might have seemed unfathomable the sport would become almost irrelevant nationally — reduced, in part due to its inherent risk of brain injury, to a pursuit confined almost entirely to marginalized communities.

“I don’t see how it’s different than any other industry, to be honest,” Foxworth said. “The dangerous jobs are going to go to the most desperate people. This country is like that. It’s sad but true.”

Albert Samaha, Michael Lee, Scott Clement and Emily Guskin contributed to this story.

About this story

Methodology

To measure tackle football participation rates, The Post collected data from the National Federation of State High School Associations’ annual reports. The NFHS doesn’t require state associations – which include public and, depending on the state, some private schools – to follow a specific process for collecting this data, and states have varying approaches to account for schools that do not submit their roster sizes. In the Post’s analysis, only boys who participated in 11-player football are included.

The NFHS values for Washington, D.C. in 2021 and 2022 were corrected to reflect more accurate numbers provided by a D.C. association spokesman. Alabama improved its process for collecting data “in 2013 or 14,” a spokesman said, so when analyzing change in participation over the past decade, The Post used Alabama’s 2014 mark, rather than 2013, as the beginning value.

In general, years refer to the fall of an academic year, so football participation in the 2022-23 school year is described as 2022.

Most participation rates are adjusted based on public high school enrollment, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The values for 2022 are projections. When The Post analyzed trends that began before 2010, numbers were adjusted based on the U.S. population, according to intercensal estimates from the U.S. Census.

Information about state-level socioeconomic trends is from the one-year American Community Survey. Election results are from Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. States that split their electoral votes were categorized based on the candidate who had a larger share of the overall vote.

The NCAA releases demographic data that is self-reported by athletes and coaches, following federal guidelines for collecting and reporting race and ethnicity information. The NCAA places international athletes in their own category, so they are not counted in the totals for each race.

The Washington Post poll measuring whether Americans would recommend or discourage children from playing football was conducted by telephone April 28-May 3, 2023, among a random national sample of 1,006 adults, with 75 percent reached on cell phones and 25 percent on landlines and have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Results were compared with a Washington Post poll with a similar methodology conducted in Aug. 2012.

Credits

Editing by Joe Tone and Meghan Hoyer. Copy editing by Ryan Romano. Graphics by Artur Galocha. Photo editing by Toni L. Sandys. Design by Andrew Braford. Design editing by Virginia Singarayar. Projects editing by KC Schaper.

The Washington Post · by Dave Sheinin · December 18, 2023

12. Military experts blame Biden's DEI push as US military enters 2024 with smallest fighting force in 80 years

Just becasue we have served in the military does not necessarily make us military experts.

Military experts blame Biden's DEI push as US military enters 2024 with smallest fighting force in 80 years

foxnews.com · by Bailee Hill Fox News

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US military has become 'cannon fodder' in the Middle East, expert warns

Retired Navy SEAL Mike Sarraille joined 'Fox & Friends First' to discuss how the U.S. has responded to Iranian-backed attacks in the Middle East as the military struggles to recruit service members.

Military experts sounded the alarm about the Biden administration's "woke" policies within the Department of Defense as the U.S. military is poised to be the smallest in 80 years, all while facing emerging global threats.

The number of active duty service members has declined by 64,000 within the last three years, bringing the total number of troops down to 1,284,500, according to the Defense Authorization Bill. This means the U.S. military will field the smallest force since before World War II.

Retired Navy SEAL Mike Sarraille accused the White House of treating U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East like "cannon fodder," arguing the Biden administration's leadership has heavily impacted the recruitment crisis.

AS RECRUITMENT FLOUNDERS, THIS SMALL CHANGE TO GI BILL WOULD MAKE KIDS 'FLOCK TO THE MILITARY,' TEEN SAYS

Presiden Biden, right, shakes hands with Mark Milley, outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during an armed forces farewell tribute at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Virginia, in September. (Nathan Howard/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

"The few in the military have always carried the burden for the many, but the alarming decrease in numbers not only poses a threat to our national security and defense strategy, but it also raises a question: can we confront the emerging global threats? This is not a recruitment issue. This is a leadership problem," Sarraille told Carley Shimkus on "Fox & Friends First."

"Talent begets talent, and quite frankly, why would this younger generation want to go work for an administration that uses their troops as cannon fodder in the Middle East like we're seeing?"

"The administration, instead of creating a lethal force in raising our technology capabilities, has decided to implement woke progressive policies like renaming bases and funding or providing additional funding for DEI programs," he continued.

U.S. military recruiters fell short of their goals by 41,000 service members in fiscal year 2023, according to Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Ashish S. Vazirani.

Army veteran and counterterrorism expert Mike Glover, who leads a special operations prep course in Utah, said he has seen the number of sign-ups for his course dwindle as the military branches struggle to recruit new service members. He argued the crisis has stemmed from low morale, which has ultimately been impacted by a progressive policy push within the DOD.

THE ARMY GAVE THIS OFFICER A FALSE CRIMINAL RECORD, STUNTING HIS CAREER. NOW HE’S GETTING BACKPAY

"Part of it is national pride," Glover told "Fox & Friends" on Monday. "We had a lot of national pride. We had purpose. I know my generation in the military after 9/11 had significant purpose, but a lot of men and women in the military don't have a lot of purpose. And that's what we're missing across the board, I think, as a nation, especially in the military, so it's not surprising morale is at an all-time low."

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, speaks during a briefing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley at the Pentagon in Washington, Wednesday, March 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

The Army's recruitment has fallen by 8.3% since 2020, while the Marines have declined by 4.8%, the Air Force by 4.1% and the Navy by 2.7%, according to the Senate Committee on Armed Services.

Glover suggested re-focusing the military's effort on the mission, and away from DEI initiatives, could ultimately bolster the fighting force and help each branch recover from their years-long recruitment struggles.

"I think the number one thing I would do is focus on the mission," Glover said. "The mission is protecting our country. I think these woke politics and this ideology that has embedded itself in our military is bad for service. Like the unique thing about the Army that I grew up in was you could be all you could be, and then it was an Army of one as a motto."

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"Now we're focused on focusing on individuals when it should be the team effort," he continued. "I think the esprit de corps lies in combat arms and special operations. I think we need to focus on that first, because a lot of men and women are being asked to sacrifice everything, and if they feel like they're not fighting for anything, that's a problem."

Video

Bailee Hill is an associate editor with Fox News Digital. Story ideas can be sent to bailee.hill@fox.com

foxnews.com · by Bailee Hill Fox News

13. Rethinking the Military’s Promotional Content Strategy to Address the Recruitment Crisis

Graphic at the link: https://mwi.westpoint.edu/rethinking-the-militarys-promotional-content-strategy-to-address-the-recruitment-crisis/?mc_cid=b966e9ce3a&mc_eid=70bf478f36

I would have the 4th Psychological Operations Group contribute content. Those young soldiers can connect with their civilian peers.

Rethinking the Military’s Promotional Content Strategy to Address the Recruitment Crisis - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Jonathan Li, Max Xie · December 16, 2023

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Editor’s note: Earlier this year, we announced an essay contest, organized in association with the US Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), focused on addressing the US military’s recruiting crisis. After receiving an unprecedented number of submissions, the essays were narrowed down to a small group of finalists, from which leaders at TRADOC selected the top three.

This essay, from Cadet Jonathan Li and Second Lieutenant Max Xie, was chosen as the contest’s overall winner.

Different people will point to different root causes of the Army’s recruitment issues. Some will say that the increasingly lucrative civilian job market draws talent away from the military. Others will say that patriotism in America is on the decline. Another opinion may blame incidents of poor living conditions and dining facilities. Still others will argue that unadaptable leadership is driving the younger generation away from joining. The potential causes are obvious, but the solution is difficult to pinpoint. Although there is no easy way to tackle any of these issues in a swift manner, one aspect of today’s recruitment environment remains very clear: social media continues to greatly influence public opinion and has become one of the premier ways for organizations to interact with the general public.

Why does social media matter? Simply put, the military recruitment problem is not something that the public is currently concerned about. The ongoing presidential campaign gives us a glimpse of the issues that are on the forefront of American minds. The issues discussed by presidential hopefuls include tax policy, the war in Ukraine, abortion rights, and education. Anyone hoping to see any mention of military recruitment woes would be disappointed. The lack of public concern for recruitment issues is hampering the military’s efforts to address the root causes mentioned earlier. Increased monetary incentives and improved logistical efficiencies require the support of Congress and government leaders.

Without a significant public push, change will always be difficult to implement. In order to combat the lack of public awareness, the Army should fine-tune the way it interacts through social media. Increased positive public interaction will lead to increased recruitment in the future. The key to doing so is a set of actionable initiatives and a better strategy to more effectively reach the Army’s target audience.

A Digital Media Content Strategy

The Army offers a useful case study on how we can utilize existing resources to revamp digital content. To better connect with audiences, the service needs a digital promotion strategy that drives organic growth in viewers and reach and fosters a more interconnected and collaborative environment between organizations within the Army and even across the joint force. We recommend the following:

Steer away from self-promoting marketing content and focus on content that can contribute to the public interest.
Leverage resources from existing partnerships (e.g., the Modern War Institute, Fort Moore’s Goizueta MBA Fellowship).

The main goal of this content strategy will be to have the military directly and positively influence the American community.

Problems with the Current Approach

Videos are the most engaging form of social media content; however, the general public is conscious of advertisement tactics and responds negatively to content that is overtly self-promotional. This negative response is often evidenced by the large amounts of comments on such content that further influence the opinions of new viewers. As an example, we can look no further than the comments on the Army’s own “Be All You Can Be” video posted on YouTube. A quick glance at the top comments of the video will show anyone that viewers are not only hyper-aware of advertisement, but also highly critical of obvious advertisement attempts.

We conducted a review of the 115 videos posted since May 19, 2022 on the GoArmy YouTube channel and found all to fall in the realm of self-promotion. We further conducted a review of the 165 videos posted since June 15, 2022 on the official US Army YouTube channel and found that only eight videos are not easily identifiable self-promotion attempts: “The Darby 40 Mile Trek,” “The Battle of Bunker Hill,” the three videos in a Medal of Honor recipient series, the two parts of the “Stories of Hope” series, and “D-Day: Through the eyes of an Airborne Paratrooper.” These eight videos are unique in that they educate and provide value to the general public. Ultimately, we see an over-expression of self-promotional content that contributes little value to broader communities. Furthermore, despite having 1.29 million subscribers, the Army YouTube channel struggles with reach as most of its videos are viewed by fewer than ten thousand users.

In the following sections, we will suggest content ideas to improve the reach of—and response to—the Army’s promotional content.

70-20-10 Marketing

Given the impact on receptiveness to ads caused by the increased awareness of consumers and negative connotations associated with self-promotion, an effective marketing strategy must address this. We recommend leaning into the 70-20-10 concept of social media marketing:

70 percent of the content is focused on adding value to the communities that form the content’s audience (news updates, tips and tutorials, general entertainment).
20 percent of the content promotes or collaborates with other organizations.
Only 10 percent of the content is self-promotional.

The company Nike does a particularly good job of this. Nike rarely runs ads solely promoting its own products or discounts but instead approaches marketing from a storytelling aspect, choosing to highlight stories within sports—such as Serena Williams’s upbringing or, in a particularly good example from a 1997 ad, all of the failures Michael Jordan endured on his way to becoming one of the most recognizable athletes in the world. Through these ad campaigns, Nike was able to bring awareness to its brand without directly promoting the company’s products.

Application to the Army

Among the most important questions, then, is how the US Army can develop content to fill the 70 percent bucket that contributes to a wide community. The Army’s ranks are filled with stories to tell. Rather than framing these stories from a recruitment standpoint, we can use these stories to provide greater value to the American community by using them to educate people. Studies have shown that people are more comfortable with things that feel more familiar. Most civilians do not have a clear perception of what being a servicemember entails, so why not transparently educate them on what the Army is like? Here are potential ideas:

A video series in which soldiers within the signal branch explain their day-to-day jobs and provide guidance to viewers on how to obtain certifications in industry, teach in-depth concepts, and discuss IT careers (similar to content produced by Khan Academy).
Brief teasers on techniques taught at Airborne or Air Assault School.
A masterclass from Army Mountain Warfare School instructors on how to tie and use various knots and various wilderness survival skills that would appeal to the rock-climbing and mountaineering communities.
More videos like “The Battle of Bunker Hill,” presenting further context in a visually engaging animated format. This could also extend to the Medal of Honor recipient series, enabling viewers to clearly visualize the actions of our nation’s heroes. The Army would be effectively appealing to those interested in history and will be a contributing voice in the robust YouTube history-focused community.
Increasing the content of the Army University Press YouTube channel but also promoting sections that may appeal to history enthusiasts. For example, an animated story of the Warsaw Uprising may appeal to a broader audience.
Existing resources within the Army can be leveraged through this promotion strategy as well. Individuals who are interested in the strategic side of the military may be interested in hearing more about Modern War Institute research, commentary articles, and podcasts. While some of that content will naturally appeal to narrow audiences, more digestible and shorter content forms (similar to NPR’s Planet Money podcast) could be created to give mass audiences exposure to strategic military thought.
A big incentive for joining the military is the academic benefits that come along with doing so. We can use our social channels to highlight stories and present tangible advice from individuals that have transitioned out of the Army to get undergraduate or master’s degrees. The overall goal of this initiative would be to humanize the Army and portray our servicemembers in the same light as civilians to show our audience that our Army embraces the military-to-civilian transition and provides veterans with the necessary tools to do so successfully.

While the Army’s recruitment issues stem from many problems, a strong push to fix these problems cannot be accomplished without an increased awareness among the general public. Without the support of the public and government leaders, positive change will always take a long time to implement. Improving the Army’s promotional strategy will be the first step for it to connect and positively communicate with the public.

As of now, nearly all Army content on the internet is evidently self-promotional. Through content ideas suggested above (though not at all limited to them), we believe that successful implementation of our recommended plan—where 70 percent of future Army content will add value to communities—will, over time, result in increased recruitment as the Army becomes increasingly viewed as a value-adding, selfless member of the internet.

Jonathan Li is a current cadet in the University of Michigan Army ROTC program. He is a third-year major in mathematics concentrating in financial engineering.

Max Xie is an officer in the United States Army Reserve and a graduate of the University of Michigan.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image credit: Sgt. Tara Fajardo Arteaga, US Army National Guard

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Jonathan Li, Max Xie · December 16, 2023

14. US Indo-Pacific commander ‘concerned’ about China-Russia military ties

Anyone think the INDOPACOM commander and staff might have too much on their plate with Northeast Asia?

US Indo-Pacific commander ‘concerned’ about China-Russia military ties

militarytimes.com · by Mari Yamaguchi, The Associated Press · December 18, 2023

TOKYO — The head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said Monday he is “very concerned” about increased joint military actions by China and Russia in the region.

Adm. John C. Aquilino spoke in Tokyo as another regional concern, North Korea, conducted its latest intercontinental ballistic missile test, underscoring the advancement of its capabilities.

Aquilino is meeting with Japanese defense officials ahead of a joint exercise, Keen Edge 24, early next year.

He urged China to stop escalating maritime confrontations with its neighbors, and said its increasing military activity with Russia is a serious concern during Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

“I view it as far beyond the marriage of convenience at this point in time” he said. “If you tied DPRK (North Korea) into that, the Russia-DPRK cooperation, and the fact that the only partner of the DPRK prior to that was (China), that’s just a bad neighborhood and bad group to be in,” Aquilino said.

North Korea has been pushing to expand cooperation with Russia and China. There have been concerns that the North has supplied missiles and other ammunition to Russia to support its war in Ukraine, in exchange for obtaining Russian missile technology.

Chinese and Russian bombers had a joint flight last week over the East China Sea to the waters between Japan and the Korean Peninsula, causing Japanese fighter jets to scramble against them, according to Japan’s Defense Ministry.

Japan has territorial disputes with China over the Japanese-controlled East China Sea islands which Beijing also claims. It considers China a threat to national security and is in the process of a rapid military buildup.

Japan is particularly concerned about China’s increased joint activity with Russia’s military around the Japanese coast.

China has growing tensions with other neighbors.

Standoffs between China and the Philippines over a number of disputed offshore areas in the South China Sea have escalated this year. The United States has warned China that it is obligated to defend the Philippines, its treaty ally, if Filipino forces come under attack. China has warned the U.S. to stay away from what it calls a purely Asian dispute.

China also activated sonar in waters where an Australian ship had divers working.

But China’s flight and maritime close encounters with U.S. warplanes and ships have stopped since U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping agreed in November to stabilize their relationship and re-establish military communication.

But Aquilino’s requested talks with his Chinese counterpart have been pending for three years, and he is waiting for China to respond to his renewed request.

“No reply yet,” he said, other than the Chinese embassy saying they have to work out the technology to set up the call.

15. 5 Indo-Pacific stories: China's neighbors clasp hands while AUKUS tumbles along

5 Indo-Pacific stories: China's neighbors clasp hands while AUKUS tumbles along - Breaking Defense

The biggest strategic shift in the Indo-Pacific was clearly the combination of China's economy faltering at the same time as turmoil roiled the top echelons of the Chinese Communist Party and its government.

By COLIN CLARK

on December 18, 2023 at 3:35 PM

breakingdefense.com · by Colin Clark · December 18, 2023

The Philippine coast guard vessel BRP Malabrigo is being shadowed by a Chinese coast guard ship at Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Beijing claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, including the Spratly Islands, ignoring an international ruling that the assertion has no legal basis. (Photo by Ted ALJIBE / AFP)

SYDNEY — Two big events dominated the year in this region far from the American homeland: the stumbling of the Chinese economic and military juggernaut; and China’s neighbors deciding to cooperate much more closely on military matters because of China’s aggressive and often dangerous actions.

The AUKUS announcement that Australia would buy at least three American Virginia-class nuclear-powered subs and build a fleet of its own with a common design shared with the United Kingdom was the starkest manifestation of the depth of strategic commitment by an American ally in the face of Chinese aggression.

But other Chinese neighbors made striking commitments either with the United States, with each other or all three. Japan’s rise from a purely defensive military to one designed to project power to deter China, in part by doubling its defense budget, was the most remarkable.

Close behind it was the choice by South Korea and Japan to overlook decades of enmity and not only share highly-classified missile defense targeting data and other intelligence with each other and the United States, but to also reshape their strategies to treat the Chinese threat to Taiwan as a potential threat to their own interests. The Philippines also shifted course under its new president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., to take a much tougher stance against China. Australia committed to regular support for Philippine Freedom of Navigation and related operations, and the HMAS Toowomba, whose diver was injured by Chinese sonar, not only sailed the Taiwan Strait but also deployed on Nov. 25 with a Royal Australian Air Force P-8 for the first cooperative operation with two Philippine ships.

[This article is one of many in a series in which Breaking Defense reporters look back on the most significant (and entertaining) news stories of 2023 and look forward to what 2024 may hold.]

INDOPACOM map of the Pacific. (INDOPACOM)

But the biggest strategic shift was clearly the combination of China’s economy faltering at the same time as turmoil roiled the top echelons of the Chinese Communist Party and its government, with the foreign and defense ministers being unceremoniously and mysteriously sacked, while senior members of the Peoples Liberation Army were removed from their positions.

It remains unclear exactly why two top government and CCP officials were summarily removed from office, but they were, along with at least three high-ranking commanders in the PLA. Such disquiet at the highest ranks of the national security establishment has not been seen for many years. It’s intriguing to speculate that China moved to reopen military-to military communications with the United States to help calm speculation about the shakeup.

When Japan participated in Australia’s biggest exercise, Talisman Sabre, the Japanese Defense Force not only demonstrated the first live fires in Australia of a Japan Ground Self-Defense Force Type 12 Surface-to-Ship and Type 3 Chu-SAM Surface-to-Air missiles, they also gathered and shared targeting data with US and Australian forces in the demonstrations.

Australia’s Labor government talked big about spending some $368 billion AUD on buying, maintaining and operating nuclear-powered attack submarines as it faces, the “most challenging strategic circumstances since the Second World War” in the words of Defense Industry Minister Pat Conroy. The Lucky Country then proceeded, according to the most credible analysis, to cut its overall defense budget by $1.5 billion AUD for the next two years.

The United States, which had largely ignored the Pacific Islands since the end of the Cold War, realized it had made a grave strategic error after Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare and China signed the agreement. It sparked a rush to build embassies on many of the tiny island states, with the Solomons targeted first. US President Joe Biden invited the leaders of the Pacific Island states to dinner at the White House and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin paid the first visit by an American defense secretary to Papua New Guinea, where the US-Papua New Guinea Defense Cooperation Agreement was discussed.

As if a Chinese ship using sonar to injure an Australian diver, a Chinese ship rushing a US destroyer in the Taiwan Strait, a PLAAF fighter spewing chaff in front of an Australian P-8 and a fighter coming within 10 feet of a B-52 bomber, banging Philippine vessels and swarming around them wasn’t enough, China published a new “Standard Map” in September claiming new territory or reclaiming territory to which it has no legitimate claim. The new map sparked sharp reactions from India, Nepal, Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan. Being a hegemon can be hard.

breakingdefense.com · by Colin Clark · December 18, 2023

16. Why it matters that a US Marine officer just earned the Royal Marines beret

Some interesting comments here from Mr. Rogan. All respect should go to Captain Brown but I think Mr. Rogan takes some liberties here.

"Where the U.S. Marines provides heavy combined arms amphibious maneuver forces..." But didn't the Marines give up their tanks? How heavy can they be?

"Supporting the U.S. Marines's military-leading efforts to reshape for the China fight..." There might be a little more to a fight with China than can be led by Marines.

Why it matters that a US Marine officer just earned the Royal Marines beret

by Tom Rogan, National Security Writer & Online Editor December 18, 2023 04:23 PM

Washington Examiner · December 18, 2023

Completing the arduous 13-week Royal Marines Commando selection course, U.S. Marine Capt. Joseph Brown has earned both the top student award and the Commando Medal. The top student is selected by the training cadre, and the medal awardee is selected by their classmates as exemplifying the Royal Marines Commando values.

While Brown retains his oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution and thus won't actually become a serving Royal Marine, his performance does him great credit. The Royal Marines are renowned as an exceptionally well-trained force. Approaching 50% of recruits do not complete the commando course. Far smaller than the 180,000-strong U.S. Marines, the Royal Marines have a total strength of around 6,000 personnel. Brown's example is just one element of the cooperation between these two marine service branches. Where the U.S. Marines provides heavy combined arms amphibious maneuver forces, the Royal Marines center on providing light infantry amphibious raiding forces. The Royal Marines's mission is to seize beachheads, attack maritime infrastructure, and provide a highly mobile advance force. This underlines the Royal Marines's focus on infantry movement over difficult terrain. The respective mission sets for a U.S. Marine officer and a Royal Marine officer are thus similar but different in important ways.

And while there were occasional disputes over strategy and tactics between the two marine outfits during the Afghanistan War, they retain a close relationship. They are bonded by their central focus on aggressive, highly mobile offensive operations. Regularly training together, the Royal Marines have been introducing the U.S. Marines to their infamous ice-breaking drills, for example. Alongside excellent arctic warfare forces from Finland and Norway, these two marine outfits complement a potent NATO ground force deterrence against Russia.

Of course, the United States is increasingly focused on the rising likelihood of war with China. While the U.K. government prioritizes trade ties with Beijing, the U.K. military and intelligence establishments are working closely with the U.S. to plan for China-related contingencies. Supporting the U.S. Marines's military-leading efforts to reshape for the China fight, the Royal Marines are involved in reconnaissance and amphibious assault planning for the Pacific.

We should hope that war with China or Russia does not come. But if war does arrive, the training, cooperation, and aggression of the Royal Marines and the U.S. Marines may play a significant role in any victory.

Washington Examiner · December 18, 2023

17. NATO and Donald Trump

The Senate giving an indication of the potential outcome of the 2024 election. I wonder if the troop floors for Korea in the past NDAAs are still in effect? Are they law?

NATO and Donald Trump

Congress tries to take out an insurance policy against a President’s unilateral U.S. withdrawal.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-congress-donald-trump-europe-defense-cba30bcd?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

By The Editorial Board

Dec. 18, 2023 6:37 pm ET

Former President Donald Trump PHOTO: REBA SALDANHA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

U.S. alliances are more important than ever in an increasingly dangerous world, so it’s notable that Congress is taking out an insurance policy against a President who might decide to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on his own authority. Now, who might that President be?

In the annual defense policy bill that passed last week, Congress included a provision requiring a U.S. President to consult Congress before withdrawing from NATO. The bipartisan measure, sponsored by Sens. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) and Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), would require assent from two-thirds of the Senate or an act of Congress. The enforcement mechanism is withholding funds for such a withdrawal.

Congress’s concern here is clearly Mr. Trump. He has long disliked U.S. forward military deployments in places like South Korea, and he has railed against NATO in particular. “By some accounts,” he tweeted in 2018, “the U.S. is paying for 90% of NATO, with many countries nowhere close” to spending 2% of their economy on defense. The tweet ended with a signature “NO!”

Mr. Trump is right that the Europeans have allowed their defenses to atrophy to the point of embarrassment, though the picture is improving. Some 11 of 31 members meet the alliance goal of spending 2% of GDP on defense, up from three in 2014, according to data the alliance released over the summer.

In any case, American defense spending isn’t charity. A stable Europe is a core U.S. strategic interest, a lesson Americans learned twice in the 20th century at tremendous cost. The risks of abandoning NATO have compounded since Mr. Trump left office, with Russia’s Vladimir Putin launching a land war on the European continent.

But a bent toward isolationism is one of Mr. Trump’s core impulses. Former national security adviser John Bolton recounts in his memoirs that Mr. Trump unloaded on NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg that “NATO was egregious, complaining that Spain (he had just met the King) spent only 0.9% of its GDP on defense.” Mr. Bolton and others talked Mr. Trump out of trying to pull back from the alliance, only for him to ask again “why we didn’t just withdraw from NATO entirely.”

Mr. Trump’s rhetoric often exceeds his grasp, and he failed to follow through on many of his unilateral threats. But who knows what Mr. Trump might attempt as part of his promise to settle the war in Ukraine in “24 hours.”

The problem with Congress’s NATO provision is that it probably couldn’t stop a determined President. The Constitution grants broad powers to the Commander in Chief on foreign policy, and the precedents include George W. Bush’s withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and Jimmy Carter’s renegotiation of control over the Panama Canal. Congress could employ the power of the purse in an attempt to stop implementation of a withdrawal, but that couldn’t stop the actual decision.

The NATO provision is nonetheless useful in showing Europe that U.S. support for the alliances is strong and bipartisan. And for showing any isolationist President, whether a populist of the right or left, that the political price for withdrawal would be high.

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Journal Editorial Report: Trump and Smith lock horns in a major legal battle. Images: AP/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly

Appeared in the December 19, 2023, print edition as 'NATO and Donald Trump'.

18. What Has Hamas Accomplished?

Excerpts:

Whatever Hamas’s gains, they come at a huge cost. Both Hamas’s leadership and its military apparatus are likely to be degraded by the Israeli military campaign: Israel claims it has killed dozens of commanders and over 7,000 Hamas fighters. Moreover, Israel is likely to continue an assassination campaign against Hamas leaders for years or even decades to come.

Ordinary people in Gaza, of course, will pay the highest price. Many of the around 19,000 dead are children, and the devastation of the Gaza Strip and the displacement of much of its population will create an enduring crisis even if a cease-fire happens soon. Gazans will need to rebuild, with at best limited world assistance for doing so.

This pain, in turn, may inflict the highest price for Hamas: the loss of support among ordinary Palestinians. As the suffering of war fades while the loss and destruction endure, Palestinians may see Hamas as a dangerous organization rather than a heroic one. For that to be true, however, there need to be credible options for negotiations and other peaceful ways for Palestinians to achieve statehood and other goals. Only this will truly discredit violent resistance as the best option for Palestinians.

What Has Hamas Accomplished?

Since Oct. 7, Hamas has made tangible gains—but they’ve come at an extremely high price.

By Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and Delaney Duff, a master’s student in the security studies program at Georgetown University.

Foreign Policy · by Daniel Byman, Delaney Duff · December 27, 2023

December 18, 2023, 3:02 PM

On Oct. 7, Hamas militants surprised Israel and slaughtered 1,200 people while taking more than 200 as prisoners. It was an impressive tactical success for the group. But as Israeli forces steadily increase their hold on Gaza, leaving much of it in ruins and killing around 19,000 Palestinians, what can Hamas claim it has achieved?

It is helpful to think about what Hamas has accomplished, and where it has failed, by examining three different dimensions: Hamas’s struggle against Israel, the intra-Palestinian arena, and the group’s international position.

Successes Against Israel

Hamas’s terrorist attack brought pain to Israel and shattered its sense of security—both Hamas goals. The attack exposed the Israeli government’s ingrained belief that Hamas lacked both the intention and capabilities to launch a full-scale assault on Israeli soil. This assumption, despite evidence to the contrary, left Israel unprepared for Hamas’s devastating incursion. The resulting intelligence failure and the sheer brutality of the attack, with its mutilations and rape, which was reportedly more successful than Hamas planners anticipated, will leave deep psychological scars on Israeli citizens and force Israel to reevaluate its approach to security moving forward.

Until Oct. 7, and with the exception of sporadic rockets fired into Israel from Gaza that Israel’s missile defenses largely handled, Israelis could largely ignore Hamas and the Palestinians in general. When the occasional crisis flared up, as happened every few years, both sides eventually agreed to go to some version of the status quo ante. From Hamas’s point of view, however, the status quo was slowly suffocating the Palestinian cause, with Israel triumphing on the ground. Each year, settlements expanded in the West Bank, while Gaza at best stagnated, with little hope for its people. Now Israelis must reckon with the unfinished conflict with the Palestinians rather than ignore it.

Israel’s response could also strengthen Hamas. Hamas forced the Palestinian cause back to the forefront of world news, and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza—with its enormous cost to Gaza’s civilians—keeps it there. Israel’s ground offensive plays into Hamas’s narrative of Israeli aggression, alienates Israel from its neighbors, and exacerbates regional tensions. In the longer term, the conflict fosters a new generation of Gazans with grievances against Israel, which could bolster support for Hamas in the future.

Successes Within the Palestinian Community

Hamas has restored its so-called resistance credentials among the Palestinian people. After Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, it found itself confronted with the day-to-day demands of governing Gaza. This often required avoiding conflict with Israel to ensure that the country’s already considerable economic pressure on Gaza did not increase and that Israel did not conduct destructive military strikes on Gaza. This, in turn, led Hamas to limit its own attacks and at times stay out of the fighting when Israel struck the more radical Palestinian Islamic Jihad. As a result, Hamas found itself in the position of being Israel’s police officer rather than its most-feared enemy, angering its military wing and leading to criticism from militant circles that the group was slowly abandoning armed struggle.

The devastatingly effective Hamas attacks increased support for resistance in general and restored Hamas’s credentials in particular. Although we do not yet have robust polling from the post-Oct. 7 period, limited polling of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank as well as anecdotal reporting indicate strong support for the Oct. 7 attacks and suggest that the Israeli response in both Gaza and the West Bank has infuriated many Palestinians who are not otherwise Hamas supporters. Israel is also releasing Palestinian prisoners, who are greeted as heroes in the West Bank, in exchange for Israelis whom Hamas captured on Oct. 7—a clear victory for Hamas, which can argue that its attacks, not negotiations by the rival Palestinian Authority (PA), are what led to the prisoners’ freedom.

All this comes at the expense of the PA and Palestinians who favor peace. By not fighting, and even cracking down on anti-Israel demonstrations, the PA looks cowardly relative to Hamas. The Israeli response that Hamas provoked also discredits those who say that Israel can be a partner for peace.

International Successes

For years, the Palestinian-Israeli dispute seemed to be on the world’s back burner. The United States focused on China and on Russian aggression in Ukraine, while Arab governments were content to largely ignore the issue despite the occasional lip service. Now the Palestinian issue is front and center.

Israel’s retaliation to Hamas’s attack furthers Iranian narratives painting Israel as an occupying power brutally repressing Palestinians. The continued conflict and subsequent humanitarian crisis in Gaza undermine Israel’s image in the region and bolster support for those, like Iran, who oppose it. Although Iran denies direct involvement in the attack, the success of the operation may embolden Iran to invest even more heavily in its “axis of resistance,” a regional network of militant groups aiming to destabilize Israel and its allies.

The attack also temporarily halted U.S.-backed normalization talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia. If Riyadh recognized Israel, it would lay the foundations for other Arab nations to do the same. This would leave Hamas increasingly isolated and with few partners to champion the Palestinian cause. Following the attack, however, Saudi leaders distanced themselves from Israel and issued statements supporting Palestinians. These actions were largely to appease the country’s overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian population after months of negotiations with Israel, rather than a pro-Palestinian turn in Saudi policy. However, they suggest that the political cost to Riyadh of normalization with Israel, always high, is now far higher.

Beyond the Middle East, the war has generated considerable support for the Palestinian cause. Pro-Palestinian demonstrations have occurred throughout Europe. With few exceptions, the global south has embraced the Palestinian narrative, portraying the war as one of a powerful country attacking a defenseless population and lamenting what many see as the West’s hypocrisy in defending Ukraine while ignoring the rights of the Palestinians.

Hamas can even claim a few wins in the United States. Although most Republicans and U.S. President Joe Biden have embraced Israel, the broader Democratic Party is divided, with younger Democrats in particular critical of Israel. Although none support Hamas, some Democratic lawmakers have called for a cease-fire, restrictions on U.S. military aid, and other steps that go against Israeli policies.

The Price of Success

Whatever Hamas’s gains, they come at a huge cost. Both Hamas’s leadership and its military apparatus are likely to be degraded by the Israeli military campaign: Israel claims it has killed dozens of commanders and over 7,000 Hamas fighters. Moreover, Israel is likely to continue an assassination campaign against Hamas leaders for years or even decades to come.

Ordinary people in Gaza, of course, will pay the highest price. Many of the around 19,000 dead are children, and the devastation of the Gaza Strip and the displacement of much of its population will create an enduring crisis even if a cease-fire happens soon. Gazans will need to rebuild, with at best limited world assistance for doing so.

This pain, in turn, may inflict the highest price for Hamas: the loss of support among ordinary Palestinians. As the suffering of war fades while the loss and destruction endure, Palestinians may see Hamas as a dangerous organization rather than a heroic one. For that to be true, however, there need to be credible options for negotiations and other peaceful ways for Palestinians to achieve statehood and other goals. Only this will truly discredit violent resistance as the best option for Palestinians.

Foreign Policy · by Daniel Byman, Delaney Duff · December 27, 2023

19. Who Gets to Tell China’s Story?

A form of resistance.

George Orwell: ""Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.""

Excerpts:

The impact of these underground historians can be measured in two ways. One is the government’s commitment to stamping them out. People often imagine that authoritarian leaders have endless political capital. In fact, they have to choose their battles. Xi’s decision to make the control of history one of his top priorities shows that he feels that it is important. In speeches, he has explicitly spoken out against trends in the 1980s Soviet Union, when its leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, allowed criticism of the party’s history as part of his policy of glasnost, or openness. Xi has said that by allowing criticism of the Soviet Union’s history, Gorbachev actions led to the country’s ideological hollowing out. This, in Xi’s analysis, is the key reason why the Soviet Union collapsed—and why the CCP must stamp out unofficial historians.

The recent white paper protests show that these undercurrents can have political repercussions, creating arguably the biggest challenge to the party since the 1989 Tiananmen protests. It was in this period that writers such as Jiang became extremely popular on Chinese social media. Earlier in her career she had written a long essay on the magazine Spark and other pieces examining popular unrest in central and Eastern Europe in the Cold War era. Her works in 2022 and 2023 drawing on these experiences were banned by censors but were posted and reposted hundreds of time.

As China faces difficult issues on many fronts—slow growth, demographic problems, and a tense foreign policy environment—events such as the white paper protests may be less outliers than harbingers of a new, more volatile time. But they also suggest that ordinary Chinese citizens may increasingly be ready to question the official narratives about their country’s past and develop new understandings of the forces that are shaping the country’s present and its future.

Who Gets to Tell China’s Story?

The Underground Chinese Historians Challenging the CCP’s Misuse of History

By Ian Johnson

December 19, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Ian Johnson · December 19, 2023

In early 1990, one of China’s most famous dissidents sat holed up with his wife and son in the U.S. embassy in Beijing, watching their country convulse in violence. In June of the previous year, authorities had crushed student-led protests centered in Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds and sending many more into exile. Fang Lizhi had escaped to the embassy and was waiting for a deal that would allow him to leave.

In the depths of his despair, Fang wrote “The Chinese Amnesia,” an essay that explained why tragedies kept befalling China. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), he contended, controlled history so thoroughly that the vast majority of people remained unaware of its endless cycles of violence. The result was that people knew only what they personally experienced, making them susceptible to the party’s indoctrination campaigns: “In this manner, about once each decade, the true face of history is thoroughly erased from the memory of Chinese society,” Fang observed. “This is the objective of the Chinese Communist policy of ‘Forgetting History.’”

For many people who analyze China today, Fang’s way of seeing China has become dominant. They argue that the party’s control of history is even more powerful than ever because it is now backed by an even more powerful, technocratic state led by a leader fully committed to whitewashing the past. Meanwhile, a vast surveillance state keeps an eye on anyone with alternative views of the past or the present. China’s amnesia seems complete.

And yet this view is wrong. Fang accurately described China as it was in the early 1990s. But starting a few years later, this pattern of historical erasure began to break down. The key reason is the rise of a movement of citizen historians who are successfully challenging the party’s control of history. Underpinning their efforts are two basic digital technologies that we often take for granted: PDFs and digital cameras. Because they are so ubiquitous in modern life, they are easily overlooked, and yet they have fundamentally changed how historical memory is preserved and spread in authoritarian states such as China. They allow people to revive banned or out-of-print books and create new publications without the need for printing presses or photocopy machines. They also free filmmakers from the bulky and expensive equipment that once only television or movie studios could afford. The result has been a two-decade flood of books, magazines, and films that were made on laptops and shared over long distances by email, file transfers, and memory sticks.

These tools have proved to be the modern-day weapons of the weak, allowing for the rise of a group of people who confront the government on its most important source of legitimacy: its mythlike telling of history. In the party’s fabled account of the past, the CCP took power in the mid-twentieth century to save China and continues to run the country because of its largely unblemished record. In promoting this narrative, the party has huge advantages, including a monopoly on television, film, publishing, and school curricula. And yet this has not prevented citizen historians from continuing to defy the state even today, during the rule of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has made the control of history one of his signature policies.

Events such as last year’s “white paper” protests against the Covid lockdowns and a slowing economy show how large groups of Chinese people can see through the government’s self-serving accounts of the past. Government propagandists can flood the media with their version of reality or slow down unwanted information. This sophisticated form of censorship means that most people still agree with the government’s version of events. Yet enough people now have access to alternative interpretations to prompt widespread and persistent questioning of the government. The party’s increasingly draconian efforts to control history prove the potency of this insurgency, which Xi sees as a life-and-death struggle that the party must win at all costs.

TOTAL RECALL

Since the Mao era, the CCP has used myths to explain the recent past. The worst disaster in the history of the People’s Republic was the Great Famine of 1959 to 1961, which killed up to 45 million people, or about 20 times the number who died during the Cultural Revolution. Officially, however, what is called the “Three Difficult Years” is reckoned to have killed only a few million people and only because of natural disasters and the pullout of Soviet advisers. The party, in other words, is blameless. And yet this distorted view of history is dismissed by almost any important historian at home or abroad, not to mention the people who lived through it. They know that the famine was due to Mao’s delusional economic policies, which forced farmers to pursue fanciful agricultural and industrial strategies that destroyed years of harvests.

Until recently, however, this discrepancy wasn’t a significant problem for the party because it created only pockets of disconnect—some people might know the party’s version to be untrue, but most people would be aware only of the party’s account. But China’s unofficial historians have made the party’s version of events untenable on a host of key turning points over the nearly 75 years of CCP rule. These include massacres in the 1940s and 1950s against the gentry that had once run rural life (which the party calls the campaign against “landlords”), the Great Famine, the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen massacre, and, most recently, the COVID-19 lockdowns.

One touchstone of this counterhistory movement is a 1960 student magazine called Spark. It was founded by students who had been caught up in a 1950s campaign against China’s educated class and exiled to western China. There they saw the effects of the Great Famine firsthand: cannibalism, mass starvation, and officials too terrified of Mao to report the truth. They founded the magazine in hopes of arousing opposition to one-party rule, publishing articles against despotism, the lack of free expression, and the powerlessness of China’s farmers.

Digital technologies have fundamentally changed how historical memory is preserved and spread.

Soon after Spark was launched, however, the authorities closed it down and confiscated all copies of the magazine. Forty-three people were arrested; three were executed and the rest sent to labor camps. After Mao died in 1976 and relative moderates took power, the party made partial amends for the excesses of that era. Some people were permitted to look into their personnel files, or dang’an, a dossier that the state keeps on each person, containing everything from high school grades to police records. One of the students involved in the magazine, Tan Chanxue, was able to look at her files in the 1980s and saw that—in good bureaucratic form—the authorities had dutifully kept copies of everything used to convict her. That included copies of the magazine, the confessions of all the students, and even the love letters that she had written to her boyfriend, who had been a driving force behind the magazine and who was executed in 1970.

Tan made photos of all the material, but for years it remained in her apartment. Then came the 1990s, when friends used the photos to make PDFs. That re-created Spark in a digital format and allowed people to learn about the students’ prescient critique of one-party rule. It also allowed people to share the hundreds of pages of police documentation of the students, inspiring independent Chinese filmmakers, journalists, and public thinkers to make movies, write books, and comment on the students and their magazine. Memories that had once been personal became collective memories—not for all Chinese but for a significant number of people, many of whom were highly educated and influential.

Over the past two decades, this rediscovery of the past and creation of new historical knowledge has been repeated numerous times. Hundreds of books now dispute the party’s past and are widely available online, while videographers make ambitious documentary films and oral histories to preserve voices that once would have been lost.

LEARNING TO SPEAK

One way to understand China’s shifting relationship to historical memory is to examine one of the greatest Chinese writers of the past half century, the novelist Wang Xiaobo.

Wang was strongly influenced by his wife, Li Yinhe, who is known as one of China’s leading experts on sexuality. She has researched and written about China’s gay and lesbian movement and in recent years has stood up for transgender and bisexual citizens. The two met in 1979 and married the next year. In 1984, the couple went to the University of Pittsburgh, where Li earned a doctorate and Wang a master’s degree. When they returned to China in 1988, Li eventually took a position at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Wang taught history and sociology at Renmin and Peking Universities.

At the time of the 1989 student movement, Wang was silent about the protests. He had been scarred by the Cultural Revolution and was unsure about the amorphous movement. Who was leading it? What were its goals? Like many of his generation, he was wary of large, sometimes chaotic movements. Staying silent became the theme of Wang’s most famous essay, “The Silent Majority.” Wang described how the Mao era had silenced people by the ubiquity of the great leader: his thoughts, his ideas, and his words rained down day and night. That had left a scar, which for Wang meant, “I could not trust those who belonged to the societies of speech.” The struggle to find a voice became a personal quest for Wang and an allegory for China as a whole.

This is what drew Wang to study gay communities in China. Disadvantaged groups were silent. They had been deprived of a voice. Society sometimes even denied their existence. Then Wang had an epiphany: much of Chinese society was voiceless—not only people with a different sexual orientation but students, farmers, migrants, miners, people living in historic urban districts about to be torn down, and so on. These weren’t just members of a few special interest groups but represented a huge swath of Chinese society. “These people keep silent for any number of reasons,” he wrote. “Some because they lack the ability or the opportunity to speak, others because they are hiding something, and still others because they feel, for whatever reason, a certain distaste for the world of speech.” He added, “as one of them, I have a duty to speak of what I have seen and heard.”

In fact, Wang had been shocked by the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and had questioned his own failure to support the protesters. But he came to believe that the protesters, as noble as they might have been, had represented an older way of doing things that he could no longer support. They saw themselves as classic intellectuals who wanted to influence the state and were angry that they had been ignored. Wang saw society differently. He believed its core problem was that it was fractured into groups that were too weak to oppose the overwhelming power of the one-party state. This was why China was silent. Finally, he realized that he had to write about these groups and not become another privileged intellectual.

FROM THE GROUND UP

Wang became a prominent public intellectual who wrote prolifically for the Chinese media. Although he died just five years later, in 1997, of a heart attack at age 44, he influenced a generation of people. One is the feminist scholar and underground filmmaker Ai Xiaoming, whose films explore disadvantaged groups in Chinese society, such as farmers, rape victims, and labor camp inmates. Others, such as the writers Yan Lianke and Liao Yiwu, also began describing the most vulnerable members of society, such as prison inmates and victims of the Mao era. One of China’s greatest filmmakers, Jia Zhangke, often mentions Wang as the writer who inspired him to tell individual stories rather than the collective narratives favored by the state.

Wang himself was influenced by many thinkers. As a youngster growing up in Mao’s China, he secretly read the works of Bertrand Russell and internalized his idea of personal liberty. In Pittsburgh, he also read Michel Foucault and his description of power relations between individuals and the state. Besides influencing Wang’s thinking, Foucault is also useful in explaining Wang’s own role in Chinese society. Foucault describes how many intellectuals have moved from pontificating on classic universal themes—freedom, morality, existence—to specific areas in which they possess specialized knowledge. Using this expertise, they can intervene effectively in public debates, often on behalf of vulnerable groups, such as the poor, immigrants, or sufferers from HIV/AIDS.

In the West, this began in the mid-twentieth century, but in China, it was possible only with the digital revolution. In the decade after Wang’s death, citizen historians flourished, thanks not only to PDFs and cheap digital cameras but also—for a few years—to a relatively unfettered Internet. That allowed blogs, bulletin boards, and social media to thrive, giving many of these unofficial voices a platform.

Wang Xiaobo and Li Yinhe, Beijing, 1996

Mark Leong

The rise of Xi Jinping was part of a backlash against that era of openness. He cracked down on wayward party members, nongovernmental organizations, and discussions of public policy. But one of his overriding interests has been the control of history. In 2013, Xi banned criticism of the Mao era. In 2016, he purged the leading counterhistory magazine, China Through the Ages—even though his father, Xi Zhongxun, a high-ranking official himself, had strongly supported it. And in 2021, the Chinese government rewrote the guidelines on how history should be portrayed, further concealing key events such as the Cultural Revolution.

And yet even amid this growing effort to control the past, the work of citizen historians continues apace. While some of the most prominent of them, such as the filmmakers Ai and Hu Jie, have been harassed, others continue to work. The most influential underground history magazine, Remembrance, has published continuously as a PDF since 2008; it recently published its 245th issue.

Not coincidentally, among these “grassroots intellectuals” it is easier to find female voices, such as Ai, the poet Lin Zhao, and the writer Jiang Xue, and minority voices, such as the imprisoned Uyghur intellectual Ilham Tohti and the Tibetan poet Tsering Woeser. Voices such as theirs were often excluded from the mainstream circles that came from the male-dominated Confucian tradition of ethnic Chinese intellectuals or the macho world of big-name Chinese fiction writers. In his essay describing his personal journey, Wang described another difference with the world of traditional public thinkers. Citizen intellectuals and historians weren’t part of the Confucian tradition, with its often patronizing concern for the country or the people, but were motivated to act for personal reasons. “The one I wish to elevate the most is myself,” he writes. “This is contemptible; it is also selfish; it is also true.”

Wang shares this motivation with other grassroots thinkers. The journalist-turned-historian Yang Jisheng watched his foster father die of starvation during the Great Famine and decided that his life’s work would be documenting that terrible upheaval. The video blogger Tiger Temple worked as a child forced laborer on a railway in the 1960s and later decided to document that history. Ai saw women being oppressed. Jiang learned about her grandfather’s death by starvation and began to research the famine. More recently, many suffered because of the government’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic and began to document their experiences. This response can be seen as narrow or parochial, but as Wang recognized, it is also how societies change: by people trying to understand and describe their own lives.

Chinese citizens may increasingly question the official narratives about their country’s past.

The impact of these underground historians can be measured in two ways. One is the government’s commitment to stamping them out. People often imagine that authoritarian leaders have endless political capital. In fact, they have to choose their battles. Xi’s decision to make the control of history one of his top priorities shows that he feels that it is important. In speeches, he has explicitly spoken out against trends in the 1980s Soviet Union, when its leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, allowed criticism of the party’s history as part of his policy of glasnost, or openness. Xi has said that by allowing criticism of the Soviet Union’s history, Gorbachev actions led to the country’s ideological hollowing out. This, in Xi’s analysis, is the key reason why the Soviet Union collapsed—and why the CCP must stamp out unofficial historians.

The recent white paper protests show that these undercurrents can have political repercussions, creating arguably the biggest challenge to the party since the 1989 Tiananmen protests. It was in this period that writers such as Jiang became extremely popular on Chinese social media. Earlier in her career she had written a long essay on the magazine Spark and other pieces examining popular unrest in central and Eastern Europe in the Cold War era. Her works in 2022 and 2023 drawing on these experiences were banned by censors but were posted and reposted hundreds of time.

As China faces difficult issues on many fronts—slow growth, demographic problems, and a tense foreign policy environment—events such as the white paper protests may be less outliers than harbingers of a new, more volatile time. But they also suggest that ordinary Chinese citizens may increasingly be ready to question the official narratives about their country’s past and develop new understandings of the forces that are shaping the country’s present and its future.

IAN JOHNSON is Stephen A. Schwarzman Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future (Oxford University Press, 2023), from which this essay is adapted.

Foreign Affairs · by Ian Johnson · December 19, 2023

20. Netanyahu’s Unsustainable Oslo Ambivalence

Excerpts:

As my colleague Michael Koplow explained, Netanyahu is delusional if he thinks Israel will get any help from its neighbors in cleaning up the mess in Gaza without empowering the Palestinian Authority — returning in good faith to the original premise of Oslo.

In the coming weeks and months, the far right may actually issue an ultimatum to make Netanyahu choose between preserving the government he now leads and adhering to bare-minimum Biden administration requests to keep the Palestinian Authority afloat. There’s a real possibility he could choose the former, which could seriously endanger thePalestinian Authority’s viability and result in a significant escalation in the West Bank. It would also kill any prospects for the Palestinian Authority’s return to Gaza. Unable to mobilize any meaningful regional or international investment in a Gaza day-after plan that doesn’t provide a credible political horizon for Palestinians, Israel would be left with the choice of leaving Gaza prematurely or occupying it indefinitely. Both scenarios would create conditions incredibly ripe for a re-empowered Hamas — as a regime or a popular insurgency — essentially rendering Israel’s war for naught. Netanyahu’s quest to stay in power comes at the expense of articulating a credible vision for Gaza’s future. Hamas and the territorially maximalist Israeli far right are the ones who ultimately stand to gain.

This issue is of utmost concern for the Biden administration, which is doubtlessly counting on eventual new leadership in Israel more amenable to its post-war priorities but needs to keep the situation as stable as possible in the meantime. As much as Netanyahu can’t afford to alienate the far right, a country at war can’t afford to alienate its most important ally. Biden’s best hope is that his pressure wins out over Israel’s radical right.

Netanyahu’s Unsustainable Oslo Ambivalence - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Alex Lederman · December 19, 2023

“The number of people killed on Oct. 7 and after the Oslo Accords are the same,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly proclaimed in a closed-door meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last week. This tone-deaf statement garnered widespread criticism in Israel. Nonetheless, it is part of an effort by Netanyahu to affirm his hawkish bona fides and salvage his political future at a time when an overwhelming number of Israelis hold him responsible for the failures that led to Oct. 7.

Netanyahu is resorting to a familiar political strategy of portraying himself as a reliable opponent of the Oslo paradigm, or the idea that Israel’s security can be served by ceding territory and responsibility to the Palestinians. It is also, by extension, a criticism of Oslo’s flagship innovation, the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank and was designed to serve as the vehicle for eventually establishing a sovereign Palestinian state. This political debate is especially relevant now as Israel is working to destroy Hamas in Gaza without a clear plan for what should replace it.

Netanyahu has repeatedly gone on the record opposing the Palestinian Authority returning to Gaza, contrary to President Joe Biden’s stated priorities. He has publicly rebuked the Palestinian Authority as a terror-supporting enemy fundamentally unfit to rule Gaza. In a bid to shore up support among backbenchers in his Likud party, he reportedly proclaimed that he alone holds the ability to prevent a Palestinian state. Netanyahu’s pitch, essentially, is that Palestinian self-rule created Israel’s current predicament, and he is the only one who can prevent Israel from returning to that path.

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Yet this hardline messaging reflects more how Netanyahu wants to be perceived domestically rather than his actual politics. Netanyahu’s relationship with the Oslo paradigm and the Palestinian Authority is far more ambivalent and nuanced than is politically expedient for him to express. This is not to say that Netanyahu isn’t genuinely opposed to Palestinian statehood: He is, and the divergence between his and Biden’s desired outcomes is real.

But Netanyahu knows as well as anyone that a functioning Palestinian Authority is an Israeli interest. His record over his decades in power is not one of decisively rejecting the Oslo framework due to an ideological to Jewish sovereignty throughout the historic land of Israel, including the West Bank. Instead, he has sought to enable Oslo’s gradual deterioration, while keeping it on life support to advance his political interests. The problem arises from Netanyahu’s adherence to a playbook whose viability has long expired, and it soon may hasten both the demise of the Palestinian Authority and his own political career. Crucially, the end result could be an internationally isolated Israel indefinitely occupying a destitute and understandably resentful 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza upon the war’s conclusion.

A Familiar Pattern

The pattern of how Netanyahu approaches the Palestinian issue has been largely consistent over the course of his 30 years as a prominent figure in Israeli politics. As leader of the opposition in the mid-1990s, when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was leading the country through the landmark Oslo talks with the Palestinians, Netanyahu capitalized on and echoed the outrage of many right-wing Israelis who saw Rabin as not just politically misguided, but as a traitor to Zionism itself for his willingness to hand over land. But following Rabin’s murder, when Netanyahu ascended to the premiership for the first time in 1996, the young Likud leader slowed, but did not reverse, the progress toward expanding Palestinian self-rule. He ultimately signed the Hebron Protocol in 1997, which handed 80 percent of the flashpoint West Bank city to the Palestinian Authority. He also signed the Wye River Memorandum in 1998, which advanced the implementation of previous Oslo agreements. He coupled this tepid progress, however, with renewed settlement construction in the West Bank, undermining Palestinians’ trust in Israel’s intentions and the political horizon for a final-status agreement that would create an actual Palestinian state.

Since his return to the premiership in 2009, Netanyahu has accepted and understood the benefits of Israel outsourcing much of its previous responsibilities in the West Bank and most of its responsibilities in Gaza. He took for granted that the Palestinian Authority would be there to collect the trash in Ramallah, run the hospitals in Bethlehem, and bust terror cells in Nablus — and stay out of the way when the Israel Defense Forces did decide to conduct security operations. He paid lip service to former Secretary of State John Kerry’s ill-fated peace talks and, on rare occasions, mouthed empty statements about supporting a vaguely defined two-state framework. All the while, he undermined the Palestinian Authority’s ability to actually deliver on the promise of statehood by maintaining Hamas governance in Gaza, bolstering settlement construction deep in the West Bank, proclaiming his intention to annex parts of the West Bank, and allying himself with far-right religious radicals. In his messaging, he helped to normalize the widespread view that the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian national movement inherently run counter to Israel’s national interests. In doing so, he laid the groundwork for the situation that has endured to the present day: a shaky Palestinian autonomy buckling under the weight of enduring Israeli occupation.

The Influence of the Far Right

This past year, even as Netanyahu allowed his far-right partners to advance their annexationist agenda at an unprecedented pace, he allowed surrogates like National Security Advisor Tzahi Hanegbi to quietly advance minimal measures to keep the Palestinian Authority financially and operationally functional and prevent a complete security deterioration in the West Bank, including through de-escalation summits at Aqaba and Sharm el-Sheikh in February and March. Similarly, just this week, Netanyahu convened the security cabinet with the intention of approving the transfer of withheld tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority and allowing permit-holding West Bank Palestinians to resume work in Israel. Both of these measures are important steps to alleviate a deepening crisis facing the West Bank Palestinian economy. Netanyahu ultimately put off the vote because he did not have the support of a majority of ministers. Netanyahu entertains and advances these types of efforts to maintain Palestinian self-rule partially due to American entreaties, but also because he knows that preventing a full-scale meltdown in the West Bank requires a somewhat functional Palestinian Authority.

More than anything else, however, Netanyahu is motivated by self-preservation. This effort has been driving his staunch anti-Palestinian Authority rhetoric in the weeks following the Oct. 7 attacks. Well aware of his cratering popularity, his priority is to shore up his coalition and delay new elections, which in all likelihood he would lose. His far-right partners — the parties of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir — see the Palestinian Authority as just as much of an enemy as Hamas and would gladly light the West Bank on fire to facilitate its collapse and destroy any possibility of Palestinian statehood. For Netanyahu, preventing a coalition crisis is worth publicly arguing with Israel’s most important ally by firmly rejecting the possibility of the Palestinian Authority returning to Gaza.

Yet Netanyahu is running out the clock on this Janus-faced approach. Since Oct. 7, he has hemorrhaged support on the moderate right over his perceived mismanagement of Israel’s security and unwillingness to take responsibility. At the same time, the far right is well aware that Netanyahu does not ascribe to their worldview. Radical elements within the government are already going out of their way to distinguish themselves from Netanyahu and ramp up pressure from the right. Even minimal steps to strengthen the Palestinian Authority that Netanyahu is inclined to advance under U.S. pressure, like the aforementioned tax revenue issue, could ultimately be too much for the radical Israeli right — Ben Gvir and Smotrich — to swallow. The Palestinian Authority, meanwhile, is running on borrowed time and facing a serious domestic legitimacy crisis, both due to its own corrupt and ineffective governance and as a result of Israel treating it more as a vassal than a partner.

As my colleague Michael Koplow explained, Netanyahu is delusional if he thinks Israel will get any help from its neighbors in cleaning up the mess in Gaza without empowering the Palestinian Authority — returning in good faith to the original premise of Oslo.

In the coming weeks and months, the far right may actually issue an ultimatum to make Netanyahu choose between preserving the government he now leads and adhering to bare-minimum Biden administration requests to keep the Palestinian Authority afloat. There’s a real possibility he could choose the former, which could seriously endanger thePalestinian Authority’s viability and result in a significant escalation in the West Bank. It would also kill any prospects for the Palestinian Authority’s return to Gaza. Unable to mobilize any meaningful regional or international investment in a Gaza day-after plan that doesn’t provide a credible political horizon for Palestinians, Israel would be left with the choice of leaving Gaza prematurely or occupying it indefinitely. Both scenarios would create conditions incredibly ripe for a re-empowered Hamas — as a regime or a popular insurgency — essentially rendering Israel’s war for naught. Netanyahu’s quest to stay in power comes at the expense of articulating a credible vision for Gaza’s future. Hamas and the territorially maximalist Israeli far right are the ones who ultimately stand to gain.

This issue is of utmost concern for the Biden administration, which is doubtlessly counting on eventual new leadership in Israel more amenable to its post-war priorities but needs to keep the situation as stable as possible in the meantime. As much as Netanyahu can’t afford to alienate the far right, a country at war can’t afford to alienate its most important ally. Biden’s best hope is that his pressure wins out over Israel’s radical right.

Become a Member

Alex Lederman is Israel Policy Forum’s Senior Policy and Communications Associate. His analysis has been featured in CNN, Time, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Israel Policy Exchange, and other outlets. He is a graduate of Yale University.

Image: Wikimedia

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Alex Lederman · December 19, 2023

21. Why October 7 May Mark a Turning Point for Universities

JUST ASKING QUESTIONS DEC. 18, 2023

Why October 7 May Mark a Turning Point for Universities

By Benjamin Hart, staff editor at Intelligencer who joined New York in 2017

New York Magazine · by Benjamin Hart · December 18, 2023

Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

In recent years, the Harvard psychology professor and academic celebrity Steven Pinker has become perhaps as closely associated with the culture wars as he is with his well-regarded work on language or human violence. In 2020, hundreds of academics signed a critical letter, which aimed to remove Pinker from a list of “distinguished fellows” at the Linguistic Society of America over a series of his tweets they deemed objectionable, an effort that prompted hand-wringing in the press, and which ultimately went nowhere. That campaign didn’t come totally out of the blue; Pinker tends not to shy away from tussles online or off, and the New York Times, in reporting on the contretemps, noted that he “likes to publicly entertain ideas outside the academic mainstream, including the question of innate differences between the sexes and among different ethnic and racial groups.” Given Pinker’s estrangement from leftward campus trends, it came as little surprise that he emerged as a fierce critic of Harvard’s messy response to the October 7 Hamas attack. In a recent Boston Globe essay, Pinker accuses the university of fostering a damaged intellectual culture and lays out a plan to save the school with a renewed focus on academic freedom. I spoke with him about whether his point of view is gaining steam, free-speech double standards, and America’s obsession with the Ivy League.

In your recent Globe essay, you wrote that “A university does not need a foreign policy and it does not need to issue pronouncements on the controversies and events of the day.” Do you think Claudine Gay should have said anything at all after October 7, or was remaining silent in that moment the way to go?

In the context of Harvard not having a policy that prohibits such statements and in the context of fulsome statements in response to events over the past few years, I think it would’ve been inappropriate not to say something. But better still if Harvard had a policy on the books going forward that the president of the university and the office of the Administration don’t comment.

I think adopting that policy in response to this particular event would itself make a statement, and so it would’ve been unwise. But once things have died down and the policy is not seen as a response to one statement or another, but rather just wisdom going forward, I do think that Harvard should adopt what is often called a Kalven policy, after the policy the University of Chicago adopted in 1967.

After October 7, some students made inflammatory statements that could be construed as pro-Hamas. Let’s say the school does put in place something close to the Kalven policy, which calls for strict institutional neutrality. Then another October 7–esque tragedy happens, and students again say objectionable stuff. Should the university comment about their comments?

I think the university does have a right, even an obligation, to comment on issues that affect its own operation or its own reputation. And so in the wake of a widespread public reaction that this is what Harvard believes, with headlines like “Harvard’s Disgrace” and “Horrible Harvard” — I have a collection of headlines from that time — I think the university has a legitimate interest in saying, “Our students can say what they want, but this is not the official position of Harvard University.” In that particular scenario, the university is implicated and does have an interest in issuing a clarification.

So the school would say “this is not our position,” without making clear what their position was, because they wouldn’t have one.

That’s right. They could have said, “we have several hundred student groups at Harvard, and these do not speak for the majority of them.” That would have certainly been legitimate.

Do you think this whole situation marks a turning point in the way Harvard and other institutions react to events? I noticed that in the statement from the school’s board supporting Claudine Gay, they admonished her for not coming out after October 7 more forcefully and said that the university’s initial statement should have been “an immediate, direct, unequivocal condemnation.” That doesn’t sound like they’re thinking of adopting a policy of neutrality going forward.

Maybe or maybe not. Because I think they were right in the context of the past history of issuing fulsome statements. I think there isn’t an option of remaining silent in the absence of a stated policy, because the silence then says something. Silence in conjunction with a policy is following the policy; silence without a policy is making an indirect comment. And so technically, what they said probably was defensible given the context of that day. Not to overrely on the now-loaded word “context,” but sometimes it is relevant.

In terms of it being a turning point, I would not be surprised if Harvard did adopt a Kalven policy, simply because having to comment is a huge headache for Harvard. Inevitably, as I mentioned in the op-ed, there’ll be some people who think it’s not strong enough, too strong, too late, too early. They should just not be in that business.

I was thinking about the Penn president Liz Magill, the only one of the three university leaders to be ousted after their disastrous congressional testimony a couple weeks ago. She had been under the gun well before October 7, in part because she okayed the university hosting a pro-Palestinian literature festival that had included some speakers who had voiced antisemitic sentiments in the past. In your vision of an ideal university, how should a president handle an event like that?

Well, as I understand, that event wasn’t even sponsored by faculty.

But it was affiliated with the university in some way.

In some way. So there’s a question of who is sponsoring these events. What’s the chain of command and who takes responsibility? I think there should be more answerability there. But it seems to me that unless there is a clear violation of speech in a First Amendment sense, or it crosses the line into intimidation or violence by some standard of a reasonable person, or just makes things uncomfortable for large numbers of students — I don’t think the university should weigh in and denounce it.

I think they should make sure there are channels for faculty and students to denounce them if they are so inclined. Assuming the event had some business being there in the first place, I think the university should commit itself to free speech. But there’s another question, and this involves a much longer-term and more systemic problem. Why are universities so surprisingly congenial to Hamas in the first place? Why should that be the speech that we’re hearing so much of, or radical, hard-left positions in general?

That relates to another issue of how entire academic programs have been monopolized by a rather extreme ideology of dividing the world into oppressors and victims, defined racially and sexually. The university can’t and shouldn’t prohibit that, but when you have multiple entire departments and curricula dominated by an extreme, Western-hating ideology, you have to ask, “How did the academic culture get to this point?” So that’s another issue, separate from whether a university should restrict speech.

Universities may be hotbeds for some of these ideas, but there’s definitely some hypocrisy going on from the other side on this. Some of the supposedly most ardent free-speech supporters have come down against anti-Israel students. There’s a certain double standard.

If critics are saying these are factually incorrect or ethically monstrous statements, that is not a restriction on speech. If you say something, you open yourself up to being criticized for it, so you don’t have any rights to be un-rebutted.

There’s been more dramatic action, like banning student groups, canceling showings of movies, and things like that.

Speaking as one of the co-presidents of the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, we would certainly come out against banning a student group.

For people who are genuine free-speech absolutists, there’s always going to be these edge cases, where somebody says something they really don’t like.

That’s a danger. And I think in general, the circle should be drawn as wide as possible, with the obvious First Amendment limitations of extortion, intimidation, and so on. Another line that I think should not be crossed is the use of force, as opposed to words. You are fair game to be attacked — verbally. And this issue did come up at Harvard, where I was a co-signatory of a letter denouncing the joint Palestinian student council letter. I co-signed it cognizant of the fact that this is not a restriction on speech. This is the ideal that you match abhorrent speech with more speech. There is a completely bogus sense that if you attack these poor students, you’re restricting their free-speech rights, but that’s dead wrong.

Jeff Flier, former dean of the medical school, and I wrote an op-ed in the Harvard Crimson in response to what we think was a completely illegitimate claim that this letter constrained the free speech of the Palestinian students. No, it doesn’t constrain their speech. If you say something, other people can say what’s wrong with it, but what you can’t do is punish them for it or prevent it from being expressed in the first place.

To go back to the viewpoint diversity problem you highlighted — it’s true that academics at elite universities lean heavily to the left. One problem is that if you want a real reflection of the United States among faculty, that would mean hiring a lot of Donald Trump supporters, and people who think the election was stolen, and so on. Should Harvard and other places like it be hiring those kinds of people? Because that’s where the diversity question goes off the rails for me a bit.

No, I don’t think it should match the proportion of opinion in the population, because there must be quality control on top of diversity. It can’t just be that any kook or crank opinion gets represented. But ones that meet standards of argumentation, evidence, intellectual quality — I don’t think it would be terrible. These are some of my least favorite people, but, say, the people at the Claremont Institute.

There’s an intellectual movement.

It sounds like an oxymoron — intellectual Trumpism. But it probably wouldn’t be terrible if one of those was on campus, although when I think of diversity, that would be as extreme as you’d go. But there are an awful lot of conservatives who are not MAGA conservatives.

There’s going to have to be some balance and nuance and judgment when it comes to the edge cases, but we’re just nowhere near there, especially for the various departments of ethnic studies, where it’s just completely dominated by an extreme view. I’m not minimizing your concern — I think it’s the real one and it’s a challenge — but I wouldn’t mind this if it would bring us away from the extreme that we find ourselves in now.

Do you find that a lot of people around you share your viewpoints but don’t speak out as publicly as you do about it?

Yes, and a number of them have been expressing themselves in our online email chains and LISTSERVS. And it also varies a lot by the school and the faculty, so there are an awful lot of people in the med school, for example, who are irate at the takeover of the campus by leftism.

The hard sciences — not into the settler colonialism thing?

There’s data on that. As you go from engineering through hard sciences to some of the social sciences and humanities, there’s a massive gradient, not just conservative to liberal, but beyond that to intersectional social justice leftism.

Do you feel like the momentum is shifting away from those trends in any way?

Good question. There hasn’t been a lot of public sentiment on this. Jeff Flier has published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and there are a handful of others, but not that many. There’s an awful lot going around in these LISTSERVS, but I went public.

You’re no stranger to a little bit of controversy.

I guess not. Beneath the surface, there’s a lot of bubbling discontent with the status quo. Also, I’m on another LISTSERVS called Harvard Against Terrorism, which was seeded by that open letter in response to the joint Palestinians letter. There’s a fair number of faculty there who want Claudine Gay to be asked to resign right now. And as you know, I don’t think that’s the way to go, but there is that sentiment unexpressed publicly.

This may be a little weird to ask considering I’m talking to you in the first place, but do you think that people are focusing too much on Harvard and other Ivy League schools? The fate of Claudine Gay and the other presidents was the top story in the New York Times for three days in a row or something. These schools are used as stand-ins for American education, but of course they represent a tiny slice of college students. Most people go to community colleges or state colleges or just places that never get written about. Why are we talking so much about this? How much does it actually matter?

A legitimate question. And there is the phenomenon that once it gets talked about, that means it’s more discussion-worthy because everyone is talking about it. A lot of people do care too much about what happens in Harvard, but it is a convenient symbol, obviously not a random sample — but a lot of this stuff is much worse at much more obscure universities, and at state schools.

I get the sense that at a lot of places, there may be less of a focus on activist politics and more just, “We’re going to party. We want to get decent grades and get a job.”

Right. Tailgates and Bluto Blutarsky from Animal House and everything. No, I think many other universities are worse. Even at Canadian universities, it’s pretty bad. I just read about a case where a university announced that indigenous ways of knowing are an alternative to modern science and that actually a lot of astronomical discoveries had been made by the local First Nations people. And then a professor raised her hand and said, “Well, how did they manage to do that without telescopes?” And she was fired. [Ed note: In late 2021, Frances Widdowson was fired from her position as a tenured professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, and she later alleged that her questioning of indigenous science “was one of the reasons for my firing.”] I think it’s a university that you and I haven’t heard of. And at the liberal arts colleges, I think it is worse, certainly the elite liberal arts colleges.

This strain of leftism on college campuses has been written about widely over the past decade, especially the past few years. And there’s a school of thought that college kids have always been like this, and universities have always been like this to some extent, and they’re just getting more attention now. Certain incidents are getting blown up into national stories, whereas they used to be ignored.

What you’re saying is true, and in fact, this goes back more than ten years, I would say it goes back 50 years.

There was definitely a wave of this in the 1990s, and then there seemed to be an interim between then and more recent trends.

You’re right, and before that, in the ’60s and ’70s, the country was obsessed with college campuses because that’s when there were takeovers of buildings; there were bombings. I think it’s not just cyclical or recency bias. I think there really has been a change, partly because as your former colleague Andrew Sullivan put it, we all live on campus now. It used to be — “Who cares? These are fraternity high jinks, and the students will enter the real world and they’ll be very quickly shaped out of it.” The opposite happened. A whole generational cohort has transformed newspapers, publishing houses, not least New York Magazine, into the campus image.

No comment.

None solicited. It really is worse by some measures at Harvard. I cited a Crimson survey — the percentage of conservative faculty in arts and sciences is 3 percent. It wasn’t that low in the past. And FIRE, the Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression, has indicated that the number of incidents of censorship and firing in the last few years are the worst ever, worse than in the McCarthy era. So I think it objectively has gotten worse. [Ed note: A recent FIRE study found that a higher percentage of faculty in all fields reported self-censoring in 2022 than did a survey of social scientists in 1955.]

Do you have hope that your vision laid out for Harvard and for higher education generally has some energy behind it now after all this, and that maybe people are more willing to listen to than they were before?

I think so, yes. Whether it will actually turn the aircraft carrier around is less clear. But things are being said now that just wouldn’t have been voiced six months ago, partly under pressure from incredulous alumni, donors, and the population as a whole. I have a collection of aghast headlines and editorial cartoons singling out Harvard.

Editorial cartoons still hold weight.

Well, I think it does indicate that people are fed up and the fact that professors themselves are starting to speak out more. Things are happening so fast. There’s a proposed new charter for the University of Pennsylvania — I don’t know if you’ve seen that?

I haven’t.

I was just asked to sign it. A number of faculty, not just at Penn, are calling to the university to rededicate itself to the academic freedom, to meritocratic admissions and hiring. And of course there was a real change, not coming from the university, but in the Supreme Court decision last June, with Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. So that’s legal muscle, but it may reverberate because it could be that the next lawsuit is on hiring, not just admissions. So some of this might come from outside the university, because the population as a whole tends to be losing patience.

And presumably some students feel the same way.

Absolutely, yes. And that’s a vital part of the story, that there are students who feel intimidated but have strong opinions. Some of them have formed groups, but I know just from talking to students that there are a number who wonder if they’re crazy or if everyone else is crazy.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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New York Magazine · by Benjamin Hart · December 18, 2023

22. Strategic Outpost Brings You Santa’s 2023 National Security Gift List - War on the Rocks

Strategic Outpost Brings You Santa’s 2023 National Security Gift List - War on the Rocks

DAVID BARNO AND NORA BENSAHEL

warontherocks.com · by David Barno · December 19, 2023

Greetings from the North Pole! Santa here, once again giving you a sneak peek into my holiday gift list for some of the movers and shakers in the U.S. national security world. When I started working on my list this season, I discovered that nearly all of my favorite four-stars from the past few years have now left the building. I hope they’re enjoying their retirement, as their successors toil endlessly on all the problems of today’s world.

The elves have been putting in lots of overtime to help me figure out the best gifts for so many new people this year, but they’ve done a great job! So, here’s what I’ve got in store to help these grand poohbahs unplug just a bit and celebrate the holidays in style!

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Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. After almost three years on the job, Santa is amazed that this guy just keeps on going and going — and that nothing seems to stick to him! Rudolph suggested giving him some Teflon spray, but he doesn’t seem to need it! What he might need, though, is an extra dose of energy to get through year four. Thankfully, the North Pole G4 still has a few extra cases of what we delivered to servicemembers in Iraq and Afghanistan for years: Monster energy drinks! Just slam one or two down before that next meeting in the Sit Room to keep you going!

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Poor Jake. Every month seems to give you a new major crisis, from Ukraine to Gaza to … well, who knows what is coming next? Between your globe-trotting to arm-twist allies to your late nights in the West Wing, Santa is really starting to worry about your health and the looks of your skinny frame! So Santa is prescribing a a week of mandatory vacation in the teepees at Shenandoah National Park, far away from any SCIFs and way out of cell phone range

Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Yeah, you’re a fine diplomat. But I’ve just stumbled upon some secret intelligence that your true talent in life is playing the electric guitar! But you gotta loosen up, man — what would your idol Eric Clapton think about you jamming while wearing a fully buttoned-up suit?!? So we’re going to set you up with the folks who created the spectacular outfits that Beyoncé wore during the Renaissance tour this summer. As you travel the world for your new Global Music Diplomacy Tour Initiative, you’ll have the perfect look for any occasion — polka dots and pearls when you want to have some fun, rhinestones for those formal events, and that bee outfit just for the hell of it.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown. Welcome to another incredibly thankless military job! By my count, your fun meter should already be nearly pegged out — you’ve already suffered through more than three years of E-Ring craziness as the Air Force chief, and now you’re looking at nearly four more as chairman! Glad I’m not you! But one cool thing you get to do is publish a Chairman’s Reading List for the joint force. Santa was surprised to recently find that the list hasn’t actually been updated since 2012, so you’ll definitely look smarter than Dunford and Milley! Santa will be dropping two books down your chimney this year: a copy of Smile for No Good Reason, for you and your fellow joint chiefs to pass around during your next Tank session; and, with Santa wincing about what your world might look like in January 2025, a copy of You Can Be Happy No Matter What.

Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Randy George. Sure, Army beat Navy this year, but now it’s time to get back to the only real game that counts: recruiting! You know it’s bad when one of the best Duffel Blog stories of the year involved a kid dressed up for Halloween as an Army recruiter and missing his candy target by 20 percent! I’m thinking that this problem must have something to do with persuading young folks about the virtues of crawling under barbed wire in the mud and sleeping on the ground in the rain, no? The elves are busily working the printing presses so that you can give each of your recruiters copies of two books: How to Suffer Outside: A Beginner’s Guide to Hiking and Backpacking, and How to Do Things You Hate: Self-Discipline to Suffer Less, Embrace the Suck, and Achieve Anything.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti. Okay, I get that you’re new on the job. But one of your top priorities should be firing whomever thought it would be smart to make Navy’s game-day uniforms a tribute to the “Silent Service.” Yes, submariners are cool. But honestly, most Americans now think that the only people actually in the Navy are a handful of fighter pilots from Top Gun: Maverick and about a million really low-ego Navy SEALs. No wonder you’re having recruiting problems too — you gotta tell people about ships! After all, you’re the only service with pretty much guaranteed workspace air conditioning! So Santa will also be giving you gifts for your recruiters: a combat task force model kit, and a spiffy updated version of the classic game Battleship.

Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Eric Smith. General, Santa sends only his best wishes to you to complete your speedy recovery and get back to your E-Ring office soon. You have given more than anyone could ask to your Marines, and all of us at the North Pole are hoping that your holiday season will be filled with family, fun, and time for lots of rest. To help you through your physical therapy, we’ll be dropping off a personalized Marine PT uniform and a Marine drill sergeant teddy bear to help you along.

The “Chowder II” Marine Retired Generals. Santa tries not pick on old guys, because after all, I have a white beard too! But this crew deserves an exception. Just when did the 248-year tradition of standing behind the commandant and his decisions get blown up? I should have given this to you guys years ago, but better late than never. You’ll each receive a copy of STFU: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World. You’ll also get a case of Santa’s favorite bourbon barrel–aged triple Belgian stout, also aptly named STFU — an appropriate brew for all of you aging critics of the current and former commandants’ plans to transform the Marines for warfare in this century.

Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. David Allvin and Chief of the National Guard Bureau Army Gen. Dan Hokanson. This Santa two-fer is going to help you guys plug all the security holes in the Air National Guard that you both own. Who would have thought that a junior airman 1st class at an obscure National Guard base in Massachusetts could have shared some of the nation’s most sensitive intelligence with an online gamers chat on Discord? Your security training surely needs an upgrade, but we know money is tight, since the cost of those F-35s just keeps going up! I have the perfect solution: train all of your security professionals on how to detect spies who lie using the Clue Liar’s Editionboard game, alongside a special Air Force version of Google’s Liar Sound button! Even that has to be better than what you’ve been using until now.

U.S. Northern Command Commander Gen. Glen VanHerck. Santa thought he was reading the Duffel Blog when he spotted the story of the clandestine daytime bar called the “John Wayne Saloon” inside NORAD headquarters. Seriously?? This is personal for me, since I rely on you to defend my airspace every Christmas Eve! When I fly over your headquarters this year, you’ll be getting a copy of Alcoholism in the Workplace: A Handbook for Supervisors, alongside copies of these recommended books on sobriety to distribute to your subordinates.

U.S. Central Command Commander Gen. Eric Kurilla. Last year, Santa worried that you had so little to do that you were training to be a submarine skipper. But the Middle East is back, baby! Israel battling Hamas, Houthi rebels launching missiles at U.S. ships, Iranian militias rocketing the U.S. embassy, and American troops in Iraq — you have a full plate, and once again a full AOR. To cheer up your demoralized forces who had all started learning Mandarin, Santa is trying to convince a world-famous football girlfriend to go on a USO tour of your battlespace. I can’t say who it is yet, since confidential negotiations are ongoing, but let’s just say you might consider calling it “Eras 2: The Combat Tour”!

U.S. Strategic Command Commander Gen. Anthony Cotton. I know you and your staff didn’t get out much this past summer, what with opening a new center on electromagnetic threats, planning a conference on deterrence, and, you know, saving the planet from nuclear Armageddon. So you will all be spending Christmas Day at a movie theater in downtown Omaha, where Santa has arranged a special Barbenheimer double feature! Oppie’s up first, which you can totally justify as professional development. Then refill your popcorn buckets and get ready to party at the Mojo Dojo Casa House, at least until Barbie singlehandedly dismantles the patriarchy. You’ll feel the Kenergy in no time!

Sen. Tommy “Coach” Tuberville. You get nothing but a lump of coal from me. But those troublemakers named Barno and Bensahel wrote a holiday poem about you (with a little help from Theodor Geisel) that is truly a gift to everyone in uniform who suffered during your inexcusable hold on military promotions. Read it here.

So there you have it! The elves and I hope that we made you smile as we poked a bit of gentle fun at many of the big names in the natsec community. We hope that all of them, and all of you, find a way to celebrate this holiday season in style, be close to those you love, and cherish all of our many blessings. From all of us here at the North Pole (and your loyal Strategic Outpost columnists), best wishes for the holidays and a bright and happy New Year!

Yours from the wintry Arctic North,

Santa

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Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, U.S. Army (ret.), and Dr. Nora Bensahel are Professors of the Practice at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and are also contributing editors at War on the Rocks, where their column appears periodically. Sign up for Barno and Bensahel’s Strategic Outpost newsletter to track their articles as well as their public events.

Image: Gunnery Sgt. Evan Ahlin

Special Series, Strategic Outpost

warontherocks.com · by David Barno · December 19, 2023

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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