Quotes of the Day:

"Irregular warfare is a complex and dynamic form of conflict that requires unconventional solutions."

– Jim Mattis

"Unconventional warfare is like a game of chess played in the dark; the pieces are there, but you can't see them. You have to rely on your instincts and intelligence to make the right moves." 

– John F. Kennedy

“The constitution of a country should not violate the constitutions of its citizens.”

– Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

1.  In the Arctic, American commandos game out a great-power war

2. Joint Vision Statement from the Leaders of Japan, the Philippines, and the United States | The White House

3.  Fact Sheet: Celebrating the Strength of the U.S.-Philippines Alliance | The White House

4. Readout of President Biden’s Meeting with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. | The White House

5. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 11, 2024

6. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, April 11, 2024

7. U.S. Sends a Top General to Israel Amid Fears of Iranian Strikes

8. Manchin Questions DoD Special Operations And Cyber Commanders On Modern Role Of U.S. Special Forces, Establishment Of East Coast Training Venue

9. U.S., Japan Military-to-Military Relationship Reaches 'New Heights'

10. Why Peace Games? Insights from East Asia

11. FBI director concerned lone wolf or small groups will draw 'twisted inspiration' from events in Middle East, Russia

12. Army Special Forces students are learning Ukrainian in new language course

13. Congressional panel recommends 15% pay increase for enlisted troops

14. Higher enlisted pay, full housing stipends included in new House plan

15. AUKUS allies float path for Japan to join tech sharing pact

16. House Speaker Mike Johnson is negotiating with White House to advance Ukraine aid

17. Ukraine war: How to check Russia's momentum

18. Operationalizing a Doctrine for U.S. Economic Statecraft

19. Biden says US support for Philippines, Japan defense 'ironclad' amid growing China provocations

20. Don’t Abandon Iraq

21. V-22 Ospreys will be critical to US operations in Haiti — here’s why

22. Global economy now has its own ‘Three-Body Problem’

23. China’s divided memory of the Cultural Revolution

24. The New Movie ‘Civil War’ Matters for Reasons Different Than You Think

25. Jung’s Five Pillars of a Good Life

1. In the Arctic, American commandos game out a great-power war

Photos, maps, and video at the link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/04/11/navy-seals-green-berets-arctic-russia-china/

Excerpts:

America’s Special Operations forces are in the midst of a major transformation. As the powerful militaries commanded by Russia and China compete with the United States for dominance in the resource-rich Arctic, the Pentagon has dramatically expanded its focus on what a war would look like here in one of the planet’s most treacherous settings — and how its most advanced units could be brought to bear on a direct threat to the U.S. homeland or to NATO allies who inhabit the coldest climes of Europe.

Special Operations troops are distinct from conventional military forces, tasked with the secretive, sensitive, dangerous assignments such as kill-capture missions, hostage rescues, and sabotage. This winter, The Washington Post was granted rare access to teams of SEALs, Green Berets, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and other elite personnel while they stress-tested the innumerable limitations imposed by Alaska’s vast, merciless wilderness, including in Kodiak, a wind-blasted outpost off the state’s southern coast, and in austere training areas outside the central city of Fairbanks.

...

The company commander explained that today, the 10th Special Forces Group — based in Colorado and focused on operating in Europe — is the Army’s clearinghouse for clandestine cold weather operations. But over the past two decades, much of its attention was centered elsewhere. Watching his soldiers learn from the Danes, he said, was encouraging.

“We’ve been focused on Centcom,” the commander said, referring to the U.S. military command overseeing operations in the Middle East. “We focused on Europe as well. But we’ve ignored much of the Arctic.”

Haters are going to hate (e.g., Hooker and Cancian). I do have to chuckle. Prior to 9-11 USSOCOM ensured there was the requisite SOF support to every number war plan. Sure that could have been a function of the philosophy that the only way to protect force structure was to be apportioned to a numbered war plan and so all the services tried to ensure they had the maximum number of forces apportioned. But having been a J5 planner in the 1990s I went to USSOCOM for many planning meetings. I saw that USSOCOM was serious about providing the right support to numer. war plans for the right reason. Supporting the joint force is not a new concept. BUt we were just a bunch of prima donnas.

Excerpts: 

“We got used to being the supported entity,” said Gallagher, the SEAL Group 2 commander. “Now as we look toward strategic competition, really our focus is … how we can provide support.”

Some observers are skeptical, though, that Special Operations is refreshing its philosophy across the board. Richard Hooker, a former National Security official in multiple presidential administrations and now with the Atlantic Council, said such changes would be reflected in new budget requirements and an organizational redesign, yet “we really haven’t seen much of that.”

Cancian, with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, sees it this way: “In the past, they tended to be sort of prima donnas. So the fact that Special Operations Command is up there is indicative of their effort to shift the organization more towards great power conflict.”

In the Arctic, American commandos game out a great-power war

The Post was granted a rare embed with Navy SEALs and Green Berets as the Pentagon, wary of a conflict with Russia or China, stress-tested its preparedness

By Alex Horton and Photos by Salwan Georges

April 11, 2024 at 12:06 p.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Alex Horton · April 11, 2024

ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT OVER KODIAK ISLAND, Alaska — To the uninitiated, this felt like madness. From an altitude of 8,000 feet, six Navy SEALs were about to parachute into Marmot Bay, where the water temperature was just barely above freezing.

Their inflatable boat went first, rumbling down the ramp of this MC-130 transport plane before snapping out the back. These stout, nondescript airframes were engineered specifically to enable the “low visibility” operations that are a hallmark of the U.S. military’s clandestine forces. As one of the SEALs roused from a nap, the plane leveled off.

Go time.

One by one, they approached the exit, turned their backs to the vivid blue-green vista below and out they went, hurtling toward an icy splashdown.

America’s Special Operations forces are in the midst of a major transformation. As the powerful militaries commanded by Russia and China compete with the United States for dominance in the resource-rich Arctic, the Pentagon has dramatically expanded its focus on what a war would look like here in one of the planet’s most treacherous settings — and how its most advanced units could be brought to bear on a direct threat to the U.S. homeland or to NATO allies who inhabit the coldest climes of Europe.

Special Operations troops are distinct from conventional military forces, tasked with the secretive, sensitive, dangerous assignments such as kill-capture missions, hostage rescues, and sabotage. This winter, The Washington Post was granted rare access to teams of SEALs, Green Berets, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and other elite personnel while they stress-tested the innumerable limitations imposed by Alaska’s vast, merciless wilderness, including in Kodiak, a wind-blasted outpost off the state’s southern coast, and in austere training areas outside the central city of Fairbanks.

The sobering takeaway, it was instantly clear, is that any conflict in the High North would be an unmitigated nightmare for those sent to fight it.

Capt. Bill Gallagher, who commands the SEAL unit involved in the exercise, characterized the Arctic as perhaps the most rugged and extreme place for any military to operate, saying even the most routine functions can be an existential threat.

The troops who landed in Marmot Bay wore dry suits under their uniforms to insulate them against the inevitable effects of submersion in 37-degree water. Without such gear, a person encountering similar conditions would be in a race against death.

Here, Gallagher said, “the environment can kill you quicker than any enemy.”

Threat assessment

The Arctic, warming four times faster than the rest of the world and opening to commercial and military activity like never before, is evolving rapidly and compelling the Pentagon to keep pace, officials say, creating the potential for competition and conflict among Washington, Moscow and Beijing.

The United States would probably be challenged by either one. Russia, bloodied but resurgent in Ukraine, has earned useful combat experience against a skilled foe, and is only growing its competency in areas like electronic warfare, said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The Pentagon, emerging from a more-limited form of combat in the Middle East, can only study and theorize what Moscow has learned from its large-scale war, Cancian said.

China, meanwhile, is outpacing the United States in technology like hypersonic missiles, the Pentagon has acknowledged. And the sheer size of its military poses an enormous concern, Cancian said. “The big Chinese advantage is in numbers,” he said. “Their fleet is large and getting larger.”

The twin challenge has forced the Defense Department to look inward at its own shortcomings, some of which are revealed in the Arctic.

For instance, many of the satellites that monitor activity north of the Arctic Circle have “blind spots,” limiting how well the U.S. government can track incoming threats, said Iris Ferguson, the Defense Department’s undersecretary for Arctic policy, an office established only two years ago. Coastal erosion and thawing permafrost, among the most visible signs of climate change, have wreaked havoc on U.S. radar sites and airfields.

The High North

Melting ice has made more of the Arctic easier to access, driving a surge in military competition throughout the region.

The High North

Melting ice has made more of the Arctic easier to access, driving a surge in military competition throughout the region.

The High North

Melting ice has made more of the Arctic easier to access, driving a surge in military competition throughout the region.

Sea-ice area

The High North

Melting ice has made more of the Arctic easier to access, driving a surge in military

Russia in recent years has turned the lights back on at Soviet-era military facilities throughout the region, refurbishing a constellation of bases that outnumber NATO’s collective presence there. Given Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea 10 years ago and its bid now to fully subjugate Ukraine, Moscow’s moves in the North have raised questions about its larger ambitions, Ferguson said.

“We worry at times about the potential offensive nature of some of their investments,” she added. “And really, their invasion of Ukraine has been a wake up call to the international community at large but certainly to our Arctic partners.”

In March, two Russian bombers flew through a strategic choke point between Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom. It marked a first since the Ukraine war began two years ago, undercutting assumptions held by some in the Pentagon that Moscow’s wartime commitments would weaken its presence in other parts of the world.

A substantial portion of the oil and gas interests that make Russia an energy powerhouse is located across the Arctic, flanked by nuclear-capable submarines ported on the White Sea. China, too, has asserted that its status as a “near-Arctic nation” grants Beijing a say in the region’s governance, as Asian nations also have a stake in the commodities transported across the Northern Sea Route.

The two powers’ deepening ties, on prominent display since the Ukraine invasion, also have manifested in the High North. Last summer, for instance, they sent a joint naval patrol past Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, startling some observers.

The West, too, has escalated its activity in the region. The approximately 400 U.S. and NATO commandos sent to Alaska as part of a larger annual exercise were the largest contingent of Special Operations troops ever to train in the Alaskan Arctic, officials said. Other U.S. troops trained simultaneously in Norway’s Arctic region as part of the military alliance’s largest exercise since the Cold War.

Meanwhile, as U.S. military planners game out the potential consequences of a feared Chinese assault on Taiwan, a key partner in the Pacific that President Biden has pledged to defend, there is growing concern about the threat of “spill over,” officials say.

Col. Matthew Tucker, who oversees the Special Operations forces with purview of North America, said that such a contingency could trigger the activation of homeland defense plans — including those that run through Alaska. “The likelihood that [a China-Taiwan war] remains isolated in the South China Sea,” he added, “is probably not something … we would bank on.”

Everything freezes

On a training range outside Fairbanks, the temperature is about 20 degrees. It felt almost balmy for the Green Berets who, at another point in the exercise, had endured a low of minus 40.

At such extremes, everything is pushed to its breaking point. Batteries get zapped of their charge. Moisture that accumulates inside a rifle can lock the weapon’s bolt, rendering it useless. Plastic easily shatters.

And everything freezes. That includes blood packs and IV solution, requiring military medics to rely on their body heat to protect precious liquids.

With any casualty incurred in this environment, hypothermia can set in within minutes. Significant blood loss compounds the challenge. If a medic has to provide a transfusion, they must account for the fact that doing so will further reduce their patient’s temperature.

Threats lurks everywhere, even underfoot. Some soldiers trained on navigating glaciers, where one wrong step can mean plunging into a deep icy fissure, necessitating a dangerous recovery.

“Everything is already harder when you’re in the mountains,” said one commander, “because the mountains are always trying to kill you.” Like others interviewed for this report, he spoke on the condition of anonymity under strict guidelines imposed by the military.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, where the Pentagon maintained a network of bases and could largely count on the safe passage of evacuation helicopters, there was an expectation that wounded personnel had a good chance to survive if they received medical care within 60 minutes. Soldiers dubbed it “the golden hour.”

But the Arctic’s sheer expanse, and the advanced targeting capabilities possessed by the Russian and Chinese militaries, have raised doubts about the feasibility of that here. “You had the golden hour back then,” a Special Forces medical sergeant said. “Now it’s like, do you have a golden day?”

A company commander with the Army’s 10th Special Forces Group explained that time, the most limiting factor in any mission, is even more important in conditions this difficult to endure.

“You have to get to your casualties faster, you have to treat them faster, you have to get to a warming tent faster,” the commander said. “Everything is expedited.”

To that end, a team of Green Berets spent one afternoon learning to drive their snowmobiles into an idling helicopter, simulating how to perform a swift load-up and departure. This is a crucial skill, and they quickly gleaned how difficult it can be.

The helicopter, a Special Operations variant of the Army’s dual-rotor Chinook, was augmented with a pad that grabs the snowmobile’s tracks and helps to pull it aboard, but the vehicle’s front skis would twist perpendicularly, causing them to snag the aircraft’s steel edges and bring all momentum to a halt.

When one soldier needed an extra shove from the helicopter’s crew, another wryly observed, “Not a real easy way to do it, huh?” At one point, a snowmobile track tore through the snow, flinging rocks everywhere and prompting a burst of laughter among those waiting for their turn.

Eventually, the process became more fluid. As a full moon emerged on the horizon, members of a Danish commando force, among the NATO personnel most specialized in the tundra, readied their night vision goggles. A soldier zoomed his snowmobile into the belly of the Chinook, followed by another. The helicopter lifted off and orbited the training area a final time.

The company commander explained that today, the 10th Special Forces Group — based in Colorado and focused on operating in Europe — is the Army’s clearinghouse for clandestine cold weather operations. But over the past two decades, much of its attention was centered elsewhere. Watching his soldiers learn from the Danes, he said, was encouraging.

“We’ve been focused on Centcom,” the commander said, referring to the U.S. military command overseeing operations in the Middle East. “We focused on Europe as well. But we’ve ignored much of the Arctic.”

A turning point

In the years after 9/11, the Pentagon turned its Special Operations forces into agile units that could execute America’s counterterrorism objectives largely void of the political risks that accompany major military deployments. This approach greatly expanded the numbers of personnel — from 38,000 in 2001 to 73,000 in 2020 — and empowered U.S. Special Operations Command in ways that unmoored it from the conventional military.

As national security officials grow more concerned about the prospect of a conflict with Russia or China, they’ve argued that, rather than being prepared to fight on its own through brushfire counterinsurgencies, reliant on other parts of the military to aid its missions, Special Operations needs to complement the larger force.

“We got used to being the supported entity,” said Gallagher, the SEAL Group 2 commander. “Now as we look toward strategic competition, really our focus is … how we can provide support.”

Some observers are skeptical, though, that Special Operations is refreshing its philosophy across the board. Richard Hooker, a former National Security official in multiple presidential administrations and now with the Atlantic Council, said such changes would be reflected in new budget requirements and an organizational redesign, yet “we really haven’t seen much of that.”

Cancian, with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, sees it this way: “In the past, they tended to be sort of prima donnas. So the fact that Special Operations Command is up there is indicative of their effort to shift the organization more towards great power conflict.”

Outside of Fairbanks, the potential at least was evident as Marine Corps reservists operating HIMARS rocket artillery vehicles simulated a targeting mission in the Hayes Mountain Range. Miles away, two Chinooks touched down, and off stepped a team of Green Berets and Danish commandos holding rifles and skis.

Planners called for the commandos to slip into the foothills, discreetly identify attack coordinates and radio them back to the Marines, who would fire off a volley of rockets, hop back in their vehicles and scoot off immediately — lest they become a target themselves.

The Marines fired 16 in all, each roaring across the training area before crashing into the ground and throwing up puffs of snow. The munitions lacked explosive charges, rendering them, as one Marine put it, concrete telephone poles juiced with rocket fuel. The standard rockets they had wanted to use were unavailable, he said, citing demand in Ukraine.

The Green Beret company commander was eager to see this part of the exercise play out. His team not only had to endure the elements, it had an essential support role to perform.

“That’s where our roots have always been,” he said. “And we’re trying to return back to that.”

About this story: Sea ice extent data via Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen. Map by Laris Karklis.

The Washington Post · by Alex Horton · April 11, 2024

2. Joint Vision Statement from the Leaders of Japan, the Philippines, and the United States | The White House

Again, a lot to parse. This is another mini-lateral that is connecting to the web of treaty alliances and mini-lateral. A web is stronger than a hub and spoke and stronger than a lattice network.

This is an interesting project that could be interpreted as logistics support to  military operations. For anyone who has made the trips between Manilla and Subic and Clark improving the transportation network will be very welcomed.

"FMCT Friends:" A UN group of 12 nations focused on negotiating a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty

Excerpt:

Announcing the Luzon Corridor

Our three nations are proud to partner on the first Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment corridor in the Indo-Pacific. Today we are launching the Luzon Economic Corridor, which will support connectivity between Subic Bay, Clark, Manila, and Batangas in the Philippines. Through this corridor, part of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment-IPEF Accelerator, Japan, the Philippines, and the United States commit to accelerating coordinated investments in high-impact infrastructure projects, including rail; ports modernization; clean energy and semiconductor supply chains and deployments; agribusiness; and civilian port upgrades at Subic Bay. Japan has long been supporting connectivity in this area, including rails and roads, through Japan International Cooperation Agency. We plan to work with multilateral organizations and the private sector to attract quality, transformative investments. Together we intend to hold a trilateral event promoting investment in the Luzon Corridor on the margins of the Indo-Pacific Business Forum in Manila in May—the premier U.S. commercial event in the region. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation also intends to open a regional office in the Philippines to facilitate further investments across the Philippines. The Luzon Corridor is a demonstration of our enhanced economic cooperation, focused on delivering tangible investments across multiple sectors. Japan, the Philippines, and the United States are also partnering to expand cooperation and investments in other areas of the Philippines.

Joint Vision Statement from the Leaders of Japan, the Philippines, and the United States | The White House

whitehouse.gov · by The White House · April 12, 2024

We, the leaders of Japan, the Philippines, and the United States, met today for the first Summit between our three countries. As three Indo-Pacific maritime democracies, our nations and the half-billion people we collectively represent are bound together by historical ties of friendship, robust and growing economic relations, and a proud and resolute commitment to our shared fundamental values of freedom, democracy, respect for human rights, and the rule of law. We gather today in Washington as equal partners and trusted friends, united by the vision we share of a free and open Indo-Pacific and international order based on international law—a vision we pledge to advance together for decades to come. We believe, fundamentally, that by working together, we can advance the security and prosperity of our own nations, the Indo-Pacific region, and the world.

Our historic Summit today is the culmination of decades of partnership and builds on the recent momentum of our governments’ trilateral efforts. In June 2023, our national security advisors met in Tokyo, and again virtually in December 2023, to establish a common framework for trilateral cooperation among our nations. In July and September 2023, our foreign ministers met to advance our shared agenda on economic security, development, humanitarian assistance, maritime security, and defense. In September 2023, Prime Minister Kishida, President Marcos, and Vice President Harris met to deepen our trilateral cooperation. Following today’s Summit, we intend to further expand trilateral engagements across our governments and to intensify our cooperative efforts across sectors.

Our three nations share a firm commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific that is connected, prosperous, secure, inclusive, and resilient. We welcome coordination and cooperation with a wide range of partners who share these goals. In that spirit, we affirm our unwavering support for ASEAN centrality and unity, and the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific. We underscore our support for Pacific Island countries and intend to transparently and effectively work in partnership with the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) to support the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent. Additionally, we welcome efforts to support a peaceful and stable, rules-based Indo-Pacific region, including from the Quad, AUKUS, and the U.S.-Japan-Republic of Korea trilateral framework.

Promoting Inclusive Economic Growth and Economic Resilience

Our three nations resolve to promote enduring, inclusive economic growth and resilience in our countries and the broader Indo-Pacific. We are pursuing economic projects that advance our shared objectives: promoting broad-based and sustainable economic growth, and investing in resilient, reliable, and diversified supply chains. We support the continued progress of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) to advance resilience, sustainability, inclusiveness, economic growth, fairness, and competitiveness for our economies and the broader region. President Marcos welcomes President Biden’s recent Presidential Trade and Investment Mission to the Philippines and the announcement of more than $1 billion in U.S. private sector investments that help promote the Philippines’ innovation economy, clean energy transition, and supply chain resilience, as well as the continued U.S. commitment to mobilizing private sector investment in the Philippines. President Marcos appreciates Japan’s contribution of Official Development Assistance and private sector investment in its 2022-2023 fiscal year, which exceeded the pledge of JPY 600 billion made in the 2023 Japan-Philippines Joint Statement. We welcome the first trilateral commerce and industry ministers’ meeting that took place earlier today to advance our shared agenda. Our three nations commit to facilitating the steady implementation of ongoing and future economic cooperation projects toward the Philippines’ attainment of upper middle income country status and beyond.

We express concern over and strongly oppose economic coercion, stress the importance of a rules-based economic order, and underscore the need for close coordination in dealing with economic coercion.

Announcing the Luzon Corridor

Our three nations are proud to partner on the first Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment corridor in the Indo-Pacific. Today we are launching the Luzon Economic Corridor, which will support connectivity between Subic Bay, Clark, Manila, and Batangas in the Philippines. Through this corridor, part of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment-IPEF Accelerator, Japan, the Philippines, and the United States commit to accelerating coordinated investments in high-impact infrastructure projects, including rail; ports modernization; clean energy and semiconductor supply chains and deployments; agribusiness; and civilian port upgrades at Subic Bay. Japan has long been supporting connectivity in this area, including rails and roads, through Japan International Cooperation Agency. We plan to work with multilateral organizations and the private sector to attract quality, transformative investments. Together we intend to hold a trilateral event promoting investment in the Luzon Corridor on the margins of the Indo-Pacific Business Forum in Manila in May—the premier U.S. commercial event in the region. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation also intends to open a regional office in the Philippines to facilitate further investments across the Philippines. The Luzon Corridor is a demonstration of our enhanced economic cooperation, focused on delivering tangible investments across multiple sectors. Japan, the Philippines, and the United States are also partnering to expand cooperation and investments in other areas of the Philippines.

Developing Critical and Emerging Technologies

We commit to harnessing the talents and ingenuity of our citizens to seize cutting-edge technological opportunities. The United States, subject to Congressional notification, and Japan, with support from Japanese industry, intend to provide at least $8 million for Open Radio Access Network (RAN) field trials and the Asia Open RAN Academy based in Manila, to enable future commercial deployment and an open, interoperable, secure, reliable, and trusted information communications technology ecosystem in the Philippines. This builds on prior U.S. and Japanese investment of over $9 million for these projects in the Philippines. The government of Japan is also seriously considering further investments for the potential commercial deployment of Open RAN technology in the Philippines, including from the Global South Future-Oriented Co-Creation Project. The United States and Japan welcome the Philippines’ plan to pilot Open RAN in its national broadband program and free Wi-Fi project. The United States and Japan commend the Philippines’ commitment to develop a national Open RAN policy framework, reaffirming the Philippines’ endorsement of open, interoperable, and trusted architectures. This year, our three countries look forward to holding the first trilateral Cyber and Digital Dialogue to explore additional cooperation opportunities.

We intend to pursue a new semiconductor workforce development initiative, through which students from the Philippines will receive world-class training at leading American and Japanese universities, to help secure our nations’ semiconductor supply chains. This initiative complements the expansion of semiconductor investments in the Philippines that would strengthen supply chain resiliency among our three nations. Furthermore, through the CHIPS and Science Act’s International Technology Security and Innovation Fund, the United States and the Philippines plan to coordinate our efforts to develop and expand the Philippine semiconductor workforce to strengthen the global supply chain.

Advancing Climate Partnership and Clean Energy Supply Chains

Recognizing the existential threat of the climate crisis, we affirm our commitment to take urgent action this decade to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with a 1.5 degrees Celsius warming limit and accelerate efforts to build clean energy economies, while noting different national circumstances.Our three nations seek to expand trilateral cooperation in the Philippines on the deployment of clean energy technologies, including renewable energy projects such as solar and wind, to support energy requirements in the Philippines and help ensure a just energy transition. We also welcome the first Nuclear Energy Summit in Brussels on March 21, where participants from more than 35 countries, including Japan, the Philippines, and the United States, recognized nuclear energy as an important component of a multifaceted and inclusive clean energy transition. Recognizing the Philippines’ request for further training and capacity building for scientists, engineers, and relevant personnel and policy-makers, our three nations seek to expand our partnership on safe and secure civil-nuclear capacity building. Under the Foundational Infrastructure for Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) program, the United States and Japan plan to co-host a nuclear energy study tour in Japan for nuclear experts and policy decision-makers from the Philippines and other FIRST partner countries. We also plan to deepen trilateral cooperation on civilian nuclear workforce development through a trilateral dialogue this year, to advance the Philippines’ civil nuclear energy program.

Japan, the Philippines, and the United States are working together to expand cooperation for the transition to clean energy and create high-standard, clean energy supply chain jobs across our three nations through the mutually beneficial development of resources in clear, transparent, and fair market competition with strong protections for labor rights and the environment. Japan, the Philippines, and the United States support critical minerals industries in all of our countries as a way to promote resilient and reliable global supply chains for critical minerals. We share the goal of producing and supplying battery materials and batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage systems for the global marketplace. The United States, under the International Visitor Leadership Program, plans to manage a clean energy supply chain training program for select participants from Japan and the Philippines. In addition, the United States and Japan look forward to the Philippines being a founding member of the Minerals Security Partnership Forum, which signifies an important step towards securing and diversifying our collective clean energy supply chains.

Partnering for Peace and Security

Today, President Biden reaffirms the ironclad U.S. alliance commitments to both Japan and the Philippines, which have helped safeguard peace and security in the Indo-Pacific for decades. We underscore our nations’ unwavering commitment to freedom of navigation and overflight, and the importance of respecting the sovereign rights of states within their exclusive economic zones consistent with international law, as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

We express our serious concerns about the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) dangerous and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea. We are also concerned by the militarization of reclaimed features and unlawful maritime claims in the South China Sea. We steadfastly oppose the dangerous and coercive use of Coast Guard and maritime militia vessels in the South China Sea, as well as efforts to disrupt other countries’ offshore resource exploitation. We reiterate serious concern over the PRC’s repeated obstruction of Philippine vessels’ exercise of high seas freedom of navigation and the disruption of supply lines to Second Thomas Shoal, which constitute dangerous and destabilizing conduct. The final and legally binding July 12, 2016 Arbitral Tribunal determined that this feature lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, and we call on the PRC to abide by the ruling.

We express our serious concerns regarding the situation in the East China Sea, and reiterate our strong opposition to any attempts by the PRC to unilaterally change the status quo by force or coercion in the East China Sea, including through actions that seek to undermine Japan’s longstanding and peaceful administration of the Senkaku Islands.

We affirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as an indispensable element of global security and prosperity, recognize that there is no change in our basic positions on Taiwan, and call for a peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues.

We welcome recent cooperation among our three nations in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific and commit to deepening that cooperation. The U.S. and Japan continue to support Philippine Coast Guard capacity building, including through Japan’s recent provision of twelve Coast Guard vessels and plans to provide five additional vessels to the Philippines. Following the first-ever joint exercise between our coast guards in 2023, the United States looks forward to welcoming Philippine and Japan Coast Guard members onto a U.S. Coast Guard vessel during a patrol in the Indo-Pacific this year. Within the next year, our coast guards also plan to conduct an at-sea trilateral exercise and other maritime activities in the Indo-Pacific to improve interoperability and advance maritime security and safety. We announce the establishment of a trilateral maritime dialogue to enhance coordination and collective responses to promote maritime cooperation. We are concerned about illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. We support the ability of Filipino and Japanese fisherfolk to pursue their traditional livelihoods. To build regional capacity and address threats posed by transnational crime, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, and other maritime challenges, Japan, the Philippines, and the United States plan to expand our efforts to provide maritime law enforcement training and support to partner countries in the region.

Our three nations pledge to strengthen our extensive coordination to promote maritime domain awareness and deepen cooperation on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. We emphasize our commitment to advancing multilateral maritime domain awareness cooperation through such venues as the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA). We intend to identify and implement opportunities for combined training with Southeast Asian regional partners. We are also launching a Japan-Philippines-U.S. humanitarian assistance and disaster response exercise, which could be integrated into trilateral or multilateral activities, including Balikatan 2025, to ensure our countries are ready and able to work together seamlessly and expeditiously in response to any crisis or contingency. We resolve to advance trilateral defense cooperation, including through combined naval training and exercises between our three countries and additional partners, such as the recently concluded Maritime Cooperative Activity between Japan, the Philippines, the United States, and Australia, and by coordinating U.S. and Japanese support for Philippine defense modernization priorities. We plan to conduct a maritime training activity around Japan in 2025. Japan also continues to contribute through its new “Official Security Assistance” cooperation framework. The U.S. and the Philippines welcome Japan’s revision of the Three Principles on the Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology and its Implementation Guidelines, which bolsters cooperation through joint development and production to enhance our deterrence capabilities in the region. The U.S. and Japan also welcome the growing defense cooperation between Australia and the Philippines and between the Philippines and the Republic of Korea.

Our three nations affirm our commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and strongly condemn the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) escalatory threats and unprecedented number of ballistic missile launches, including multiple intercontinental ballistic missile launches, which pose a grave threat to peace and security. We emphasize the importance of addressing the human rights and humanitarian concerns of the international community, including the immediate resolution of the abductions issue. We strongly urge the DPRK to comply with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, and refrain from continued development, testing, and transfer of ballistic missiles to any country, including Russia, which has used these missiles against Ukraine. We assert that these DPRK actions have severe security implications for the Indo-Pacific and European regions. As we continue to affirm our commitment to international law, including the United Nations Charter, we reiterate our unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. To that end, we recall the United Nations General Assembly resolutions stating that no territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal. Russia’s threats of nuclear weapon use in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are unacceptable, and we state unequivocally that any use of a nuclear weapon by Russia in Ukraine would be completely unjustifiable.

We reaffirm our joint pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons, with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as its cornerstone, and call on nuclear weapon states to promote stability and transparency, and engage in substantive dialogue on reducing nuclear risks. As founding members of the “FMCT Friends,” we also call for the immediate commencement of long-overdue negotiations on a treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.

We are committed to championing gender equality and the rights of women and girls in all their diversity. In this regard, we commit to strengthening the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda. We highlight the leading role of women in preventing violent conflict, delivering relief and recovery efforts and pledge to advance the full, equal and meaningful participation of women in peace and political processes. We welcome the Philippines hosting an International Conference on Women, Peace, and Security in October this year, to review global implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 ahead of its 25th Anniversary in 2025.

Finally, we underscore the importance of strong democratic institutions, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, gender equality, and human dignity. We represent proud, resilient democracies, mindful of our respective challenges but determined to overcome them, and we remain committed to safeguarding the human rights, media freedom, and labor rights of our people. These democratic values form the very foundation of our bilateral relationships and this trilateral partnership. These ideals have helped us build and sustain the mutual trust between us as leaders and between our people. United by these shared values, we commit to continuing our work together to address the consequential issues of our time, and to build a better future for future generations across our nations, the Indo-Pacific, and the world.

A new trilateral chapter between our three nations begins today.

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whitehouse.gov · by The White House · April 12, 2024

3. Fact Sheet: Celebrating the Strength of the U.S.-Philippines Alliance | The White House

Fact Sheet: Celebrating the Strength of the U.S.-Philippines Alliance | The White House

whitehouse.gov · by The White House · April 11, 2024

Today, President Joseph R. Biden welcomed President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. of the Philippines back to the White House. The two Presidents marked the unprecedented strength of the Alliance between the United States and the Philippines and underscored the historic achievements in bilateral relations since they last met at the White House in May 2023. President Biden and President Marcos intend to continue the momentous investments into the special friendship between our two nations.

PROMOTING INCLUSIVE ECONOMIC GROWTH

The United States and the Philippines are working together to promote inclusive economic growth in both our countries, including through the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) launched in 2022. The two leaders celebrate significant achievements in our economic partnership:

• Investing in High-Quality Infrastructure: Today, Japan, the Philippines, and the United States announced the first Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI) corridor in the Indo-Pacific—the Luzon Economic Corridor—which will support connectivity between Subic Bay, Clark, Manila, and Batangas in the Philippines. Through this corridor, part of the PGI-IPEF Investment Accelerator, Japan, the Philippines, and the United States commit to accelerating coordinated investments in high-impact infrastructure projects, including rail; ports modernization; clean energy and semiconductor supply chains and deployments; agribusiness; and civilian port upgrades at Subic Bay.
• Over the last year, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) announced new activities that will leverage over $500 million from the public and private sector to develop high-quality infrastructure in the Philippines. These activities support renewable energy, smart grids, vessel traffic management system upgrades, customs and supply chain modernization, healthcare solutions, and aviation infrastructure. To further these and future efforts, USTDA opened a new office at the U.S. Embassy in Manila in early 2024.
• The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is committed to mobilizing private sector investment in the Philippines, especially in priority sectors like infrastructure, critical minerals, and renewable energy. DFC is proud to announce a new $20 million loan to promote affordable housing throughout the country, bringing DFC’s total commitments in the Philippines to $80 million. DFC also intends to open a regional office in the Philippines to facilitate further investment across the country.
• Presidential Trade and Investment Mission: Following through on the commitment made when the two leaders met in May 2023, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Raimondo led a Presidential Trade and Investment Mission (PTIM) to Manila in March 2024. The delegation of 22 U.S. companies and organizations highlighted more than $1 billion in combined investments that promote the Philippines’ innovation economy, clean energy transition, and supply chain resilience.
• Indo-Pacific Business Forum: The United States and the Philippines will co-host the Indo-Pacific Business Forum (IPBF) in Manila on May 21, 2024. The IPBF is the U.S. government’s premier business event in the Indo-Pacific region and will include over 500 senior business executives and government officials from across the region, supporting infrastructure in the region’s emerging economies and highlighting the economic ties that have contributed to prosperity and interconnectedness in the Indo-Pacific.
• Semiconductors Cooperation: In November 2023, the United States began a new partnership with the Philippines to explore opportunities to grow and diversify the global semiconductor ecosystem under the International Technology Security and Innovation (ITSI) Fund, created by the CHIPS Act of 2022. The United States has since partnered with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the Philippines’ existing semiconductor ecosystem, as well as with Arizona State University to bolster workforce capacity and create a pipeline of new talent for the semiconductor sector in the Philippines.
• Critical Minerals: USTDA is supporting a grant to Eramen Minerals Inc. to develop an ore-to-nickel and cobalt processing plant for the production of critical minerals that are key elements in the supply chain for batteries and energy storage systems. The State Department, under its Energy and Mineral Governance Program, provides technical assistance on nickel sector policy considerations, copper commercialization, fiscal regime development, and environmental and data management of the Philippine critical minerals sector. In addition, $5 million in USAID programming is helping to improve the Philippine business environment and governance standards to facilitate investments in minerals processing and other downstream industries.
• Support from U.S. Industry: Private sector investment is a key element to promote economic development and growth in the Philippines. Our two countries are enhancing economic and commercial ties and welcome recent private sector investments in the Philippines to include:
• Meta’s announcement of its investment in the Pacific Light Cable Network international submarine cable system intends to support the Philippine government’s new National Fiber Backbone Phase 1. This project would connect the United States with locations on the Philippine island of Luzon, the most populous island and home to Manila. The National Fiber Backbone Phase 1 is estimated to be launched on April 19, 2024 and is planned to be one of the longest direct cable systems in the world, strengthening the digital connection between the United States and the Philippines.
• United Parcel Service (UPS), a PTIM participant, announced in March that it had agreed with the Luzon International Premiere Airport Development Corporation to expand its operations at Clark International Airport in the Philippines. The move is expected to strengthen UPS’ portfolio of integrated express, supply chain, and healthcare logistics services, enhancing time in transit and improving service reliability. Construction of the new Clark hub is expected to begin in February 2025, and it is expected to be operational in late 2026.
• GreenFire Energy, Inc., a geothermal energy systems developer and PTIM participant, is implementing a letter of intent signed in February 2024 to supply Philippine steel company SteelAsia with geothermal power from GreenFire’s projects in the Philippines.
• Astranis, which builds telecommunications satellites, plans to launch a communications satellite in summer 2024. The company’s Philippines-based partner, Orbits Corp, plans to use the satellite to bring digital connectivity to rural and remote sites across the Philippines. Astranis is building, testing, and readying the satellite—named Agila, for the Philippine national bird—for its summer launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

INVESTING IN CLEAN ENERGY AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

The United States and the Philippines recognize the need to deepen technology cooperation, advance the clean energy transition, address and mitigate the effects of the climate crisis, and meet the emerging opportunities of the 21st century. The two leaders welcome recent milestones in advancing our clean energy and technology partnership:

• Supporting Secure and Reliable Networks: The United States, subject to Congressional notification, and Japan, with support from Japanese industry, intend to provide at least $8 million for Open Radio Access Network (RAN) field trials and the Asia Open RAN Academy based in Manila, to enable future commercial deployment and an open, interoperable, secure, reliable, and trusted information communications technology ecosystem in the Philippines. This builds on prior U.S. and Japanese investment of over $9 million for these projects in the Philippines.
• Civil-Nuclear Cooperation: In November 2023, our two countries signed a “123” civil-nuclear cooperation agreement, which, once in force, will facilitate U.S.-Philippine civil-nuclear energy cooperation and support climate and clean energy transition goals while securing the Philippine’s energy future. In addition, to support the Philippines civil nuclear sector, the Philippine Department of Energy intends to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Philippine-American Educational Foundation to promote capacity building and workforce development through scholarships and academic exchanges through the Fulbright Program. Under the Foundational Infrastructure for Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) program, the United States and Japan plan to co-host a nuclear energy study tour in Japan for nuclear experts and policy decision-makers from the Philippines and other FIRST partner countries.
• Increasing Renewable Energy Capacity: As part of the Philippines’ efforts to address its energy needs, USAID and the Philippines have partnered and launched the Green Energy Auction Program (GEAP). The first and second round of auctions held under GEAP resulted in 5,300 megawatts of renewable energy projects that will be developed between 2024 to 2026, increasing the Philippines’ renewable energy capacity by 65 percent. USAID and the U.S. Department of Energy are also working with the Philippines to develop the next phase of competitive renewable energy zones by supporting transmission planning to unlock the Philippines’ tremendous offshore wind potential. In addition, USTDA supported renewable energy activities across the Philippines, including two grants for the Philippines Energy Development Corporation to develop geothermal energy, a grant to Aboitiz Renewables focused on offshore wind power, a grant to the Rural Electrification Finance Corporation for utility-scale solar power plants with energy storage systems, and funding for an upcoming trade mission to the United States focused on advanced grid technologies.
• Cyber-Digital Cooperation: The Philippines joined the International Counter Ransomware Initiative (CRI), the largest cyber partnership in the world, in April 2024. The CRI builds collective resilience and helps design policy approaches to combat ransomware. The United States and the Philippines plan to hold their first bilateral Cyber-Digital Dialogue in July 2024 in Washington. This dialogue focuses on helping strengthen the Philippines’ resilience against cyber intrusions from state-backed and criminal organizations and advance an open, interoperable, secure, reliable, and trusted information communications technology ecosystem in the Philippines. Supporting this work, USTDA is providing a grant to NOW Telecom Company, Inc., for a feasibility study to help develop a secure nationwide 5G network in the Philippines utilizing equipment from trusted vendors. Also, USAID has established eight community digital networks to expand internet access to remote locations in the Philippines, bringing 1,470 households online for the first time.
• U.S.-Philippines Space Dialogue: The United States and the Philippines plan to hold our first bilateral space dialogue in May 2024 to advance cooperation on using space-based technology for disaster management, mapping of resources, pollution monitoring, the use of space for maritime domain awareness, and other areas.

EXPANDING DEFENSE AND SECURITY COOPERATION

U.S.-Philippine defense and security ties serve as the cornerstone of our alliance. As the United States and the Philippines work to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific region, the two leaders herald advancements in our cooperation:

• EDCA Sites Advancing Mutual Security and Local Investments: Since signing the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) in 2014, the Department of Defense has allocated $109 million toward infrastructure projects at EDCA sites, including more than $59 million for airfield improvement at Basa Air Base, which will increase interoperability with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and enable Basa to serve as a logistics hub for humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and other crisis response. The President’s Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2025 includes an additional $128 million for infrastructure projects. USAID will launch a new initiative in the next year to preposition humanitarian relief commodities at an EDCA site for Philippine civilian disaster response authorities to help provide urgent assistance to the Filipino people if needed in times of crisis. Prepositioning of commodities, combined with strengthened Philippines’ humanitarian assistance and disaster response capacity, including for EDCA-hosting communities, will contribute to greater crisis resilience and more effective crisis response. In partnership with DoD, USAID will also increase civilian-military disaster response trainings to enhance fluency with response systems between Philippine and U.S. civilian and military agencies and international humanitarian organizations. In addition, USAID has several ongoing projects in and around communities hosting EDCA sites, as it does throughout the Philippines, in the areas of health, education, economic growth, and environment.
• Bolstering Maritime Cooperative Activities: Over the past year, the United States and the Philippines increased their cooperation in the South China Sea to historic levels, including a complex multilateral maritime cooperative activity between Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and the United States. Additionally, U.S. and Philippine forces conducted their first-ever combined intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance mission over the South China Sea. Our joint efforts demonstrate resolve, strengthen bilateral security ties, and expand multilateral cooperation and training among likeminded partners.
• Implementing Trilateral Coast Guard Exercises: The Philippine Coast Guard hosted coordinated port visits by USCG Cutter Stratton and Japan Coast Guard vessel Akitsushima in Manila in June 2023. Following the port visit and underway preparations, the visiting ships joined Philippine Coast Guard vessels for the first-ever trilateral at-sea coast guard exercise. As part of this first-ever exercise, our three countries held interoperability drills in communications and search and rescue activities. In the coming year, the United States looks forward to welcoming Philippine and Japan Coast Guard members onto a U.S. Coast Guard vessel during a patrol in the Indo-Pacific and our coast guards also plan to conduct an at-sea trilateral exercise and other maritime activities in the Indo-Pacific to improve interoperability and advance maritime security and safety.
• Enhancing Coast Guard Cooperation and Training: The U.S. Department of State, Department of Defense, and Coast Guard inaugurated a technical training center for the Philippine Coast Guard Fleet in September 2023. The center has hosted approximately 200 students for various vessel-related training courses since its opening and builds Philippine capacity and capabilities in operating and maintaining its rapidly expanding inventory of vessels deployed throughout the country and in the South China Sea.

INVESTING IN PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE TIES

Our two countries benefit from unique, shared bonds of friendship and community, to include the millions of Filipino-Americans who enrich communities across the United States and serve as the bedrock of our relationship. The two leaders are proud of recent achievements in our people-to-people ties:

• Investing in the Next Generation of Philippines Leaders: State Department educational and cultural exchange programs provide learning and networking opportunities to emerging Filipino leaders. The Philippines’ Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Network (YSEALI PH) has grown to over 31,000 members, spanning a broad range of Philippine geographic regions and professional areas. This includes increasing numbers of YSEALI affiliated local government leaders, with 80 YSEALI alumni currently serving in local governments nationwide. The YSEALI Academic Fellowship will have 38 participants from the Philippines in 2024, and the Southeast Asia Youth Leadership Program (SEAYLP) will include six participants from the Philippines. Our 9,000 exchange alumni include high-level Philippine leaders, including Vice President Sara Duterte, two sitting senators, and leaders of numerous prominent Philippine institutions from academic institutions to startups.
• Higher-Education Partnerships: USAID launched UPSKILL, a five-year activity in February 2024, intended to strengthen higher education institutions in the Philippines, and make them key drivers of growth by improving their innovation, workforce development, and community extension work. UPSKILL creates partnerships between Philippine universities and U.S. universities such as Arizona State University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• Friends, Partners, Allies Reporting Tour: The United States plans to host an exchange program of ten Filipino journalists for a reporting tour in May 2024. The delegation will visit Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Honolulu to deepen their knowledge of people-to-people ties, economic partnerships, and security cooperation.
• Fulbright-Philippine Space Agency Scholarship Program: In support of the Fulbright Philippines program, the Philippine Space Agency provided funding for scholarship and training programs in the fields of space science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in addition to related fields such as space law and policy, business, economics, international relations and diplomacy, and communications. These initial resources are intended to support approximately eight students and scholars to pursue study and research in these fields at educational institutions in the United States.

ADVANCING RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND LABOR RIGHTS

The United States and the Philippines are committed to our shared values of freedom, democracy, and respect for human rights, labor rights, and the rule of law. These values form the foundation of our bilateral relationship.

• U.S.-Philippines Democracy Dialogue: Following through on our commitment from 2023, the United States and the Philippines intend to convene a bilateral Democracy Dialogue in 2024. The Dialogue provides a platform for the United States and the Philippines to institutionalize discussions on human rights and democracy issues, as well as identify initiatives that can be pursued jointly to complement national efforts on the promotion and protection of human rights.
• U.S.-Philippines Labor Working Group: Under the U.S.-Philippines Trade and Investment Framework Agreement, the United States and the Philippines created a Labor Working Group to accelerate implementation of internationally recognized labor rights and facilitate dialogue among the Philippine and U.S. governments and labor unions. The Labor Working Group had its first meeting in December 2023 and plans to hold its next meeting in Manila in May 2024.
• U.S. Support for the BARMM Peace Process: In March 2024, the U.S. Department of State and the Government of the Philippines launched the Peace Accords Matrix Mindanao program which emphasizes the importance of respecting human rights and seeks to protect the rights of those living in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) by fully implementing the 2014 Peace Agreement. Implemented by the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies with the Joint Normalization Committee and the Presidential Advisor on Peace Reconciliation and Unity, the Peace Accords Matrix program will train civil society to monitor and accelerate implementation of the Peace Agreement before the first-ever elections for the BARMM Parliament and the “Exit Agreement,” both scheduled for 2025.

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whitehouse.gov · by The White House · April 11, 2024

4. Readout of President Biden’s Meeting with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. | The White House

Readout of President Biden’s Meeting with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. | The White House

whitehouse.gov · by The White House · April 11, 2024

President Biden met today at the White House with President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. of the Philippines. The two Presidents welcomed the unprecedented momentum in U.S.-Philippines relations and reviewed new initiatives to enhance economic and energy security; bolster maritime cooperation; invest in critical infrastructure; reinforce their shared commitment to promote democracy, human rights, and labor rights; and deepen people-to-people ties.

President Biden and President Marcos underscored their commitment to international law in the South China Sea. President Biden reinforced the ironclad U.S. alliance commitment to the Philippines under the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty, which extends to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft—to include those of its Coast Guard— in the Pacific, including anywhere in the South China Sea.

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whitehouse.gov · by The White House · April 11, 2024

5. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 11, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-11-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Russian forces conducted another large-scale series of missile and drone strikes against Ukraine on the night of April 10 to 11 that caused notable and likely long-term damage to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
• Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated that Ukraine needs more Patriot air defense batteries to protect both Ukraine’s population centers and frontline areas.
• The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada adopted a new mobilization law on April 11, a significant step in addressing Ukraine’s manpower challenges amid growing manpower constraints in Ukrainian units defending on the frontline.
• US European Command (EUCOM) Commander and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) General Christopher Cavoli reported that EUCOM and NATO are strengthening their ability to respond to the “chronic threat” that Russia poses to global stability and European security in hopes of deterring future Russian aggression against NATO.
• Ukraine and Latvia signed a bilateral security agreement on April 11 providing for long-term Latvian assistance and security commitments to Ukraine.
• Russian authorities conducted a counterterrorism operation and reportedly killed two suspected terrorists in the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria on April 11.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Kreminna, in the direction of Chasiv Yar west of Bakhmut, and in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on April 11.
• Russian exiled opposition outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe reported on April 11 that Russian courts have commuted sentences in over half of all criminal cases against Russian veterans and active-duty servicemen due to military service in Ukraine.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 11, 2024

Apr 11, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 11, 2024

Christina Harward, Nicole Wolkov, Angelica Evans, Riley Bailey, and Frederick W. Kagan

April 11, 2024, 6:25pm ET

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

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

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

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 12:45pm ET on April 11. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the April 12 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Russian forces conducted another large-scale series of missile and drone strikes against Ukraine on the night of April 10 to 11 that caused notable and likely long-term damage to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russian forces launched 82 air targets at Ukraine on the night of April 10 to 11, including 20 Kh-101/555 cruise missiles from Saratov Oblast; six Kinzhal aeroballistic missiles from Tambov Oblast; 12 S-300 anti-aircraft missiles from Belgorod Oblast; four Kh-59 cruise missiles from occupied Zaporizhia Oblast; and 40 Shahed-136/131 drones from Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Krasnodar Krai and occupied Cape Chauda, Crimea.[1] Ukrainian forces reportedly shot down 57 air targets, including 16 Kh-101/555 missiles, two Kh-59 missiles, and 39 Shahed drones.[2] Ukrainian state electricity transmission operator Ukrenergo stated that this strike series was the third large-scale Russian strike on Ukrainian electricity generation in 2024, likely referring to the March 22 and 28 strikes that damaged Ukrainian thermal and hydroelectric power plants (TPPs/HPPs).[3] Ukrainian energy company Centrenergo reported that an unspecified Russian strike destroyed the Trypilska TPP in Kyiv Oblast — the largest supplier of electricity to Kyiv, Cherkasy, and Zhytomyr oblasts.[4] Ukrainian Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration Head Oleh Synehubov stated that Russian forces conducted at least 10 strikes on critical infrastructure in Kharkiv City and Oblast.[5] Lviv Oblast Military Administration Head Maksym Kozytskyi reported that Russian forces struck a gas distribution facility and electric substation in Lviv Oblast with drones and unspecified missiles.[6] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that Russian forces damaged an energy facility in Zaporizhia Oblast with unspecified missiles, that debris from a downed drone caused a fire at an energy facility in Odesa Oblast, and that Russian forces targeted Odesa City with a Kh-31 anti-radar missile, but that the missile malfunctioned over the Black Sea.[7] Ukrainian officials also reported that an unspecified number of Russian ballistic missiles struck Mykolaiv City and that Russian guided glide bombs struck a power plant in Sumy City during the day of April 11.[8] The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on April 11 that Russian strikes, not including the April 10–11 strike series, have disrupted 80 percent of the generation capacity of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, which supplies about 20 percent of Ukraine’s power.[9] The WSJ reported that DTEK’s chief executive, Maksym Timchenko, stated that DTEK spent $110 million repairing damage during the war’s first year and that it will cost more than twice that much to fix the most recent destruction caused by Russian strikes.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated that Ukraine needs more Patriot air defense batteries to protect both Ukraine’s population centers and frontline areas. The Washington Post reported on April 10 that Kuleba is currently focusing on obtaining seven Patriot batteries from other countries as quickly as possible to defend Ukraine’s largest cities.[10] Kuleba reportedly stated that Ukraine would place at least one of these batteries closer to the frontline. Kuleba recently emphasized that Ukraine especially needs Patriot systems to defend against Russian ballistic missiles, such as Kinzhal missiles, as Ukraine’s Soviet-era air defense systems are unable to intercept these missiles.[11] Russian strikes have forced Ukraine to make difficult decisions between providing air defense coverage to large population centers in the rear and active areas on the frontline, and Russia appears to be exploiting Ukraine’s degraded air defense umbrella in an attempt to collapse Ukraine’s energy grid and constrain Ukraine’s defense industrial capacity while Russian ground forces take advantage of their ability to use air strikes on Ukrainian frontline positions to make slow but steady gains.[12] ISW continues to assess that sparse and inconsistent air defense coverage along the front has likely facilitated Russia’s intensification of guided and unguided glide bomb strikes, which Russian forces used to tactical effect in their seizure of Avdiivka in mid-February 2024 and which Russian forces appear to be using again during their current offensive operations near Chasiv Yar.[13]

The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada adopted a new mobilization law on April 11, a significant step in addressing Ukraine’s manpower challenges amid growing manpower constraints in Ukrainian units defending on the frontline.[14] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that the new mobilization law will come into force after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signs the law in May.[15] Ukrainian Joint Forces and “Khortytsia” Group of Forces Commander Lieutenant General Yuriy Sodol addressed the Verkhovna Rada ahead of the vote and reiterated that one of Ukraine’s main problems is its manpower challenges.[16] Sodol stated that some Ukrainian units are severely undermanned and suggested that some Ukrainian detachments are undermanned to the point that the detachment can currently only defend roughly 20 of the 100 meters a detachment at full end strength is typically able to defend. Sodol suggested that the Ukrainian military is currently deploying three partially manned brigades to cover the same area that one fully manned brigade can typically defend, forcing Ukraine to allocate additional units to defensive actions that could otherwise be resting in rear areas or preparing for future counteroffensive actions. ISW continues to assess that Ukraine’s ability to defend against Russian offensive operations and eventually challenge the theater-wide initiative depends heavily on the provision of US military assistance and the continuation of non-US military support as well as on Ukraine’s efforts to restore and reconstitute existing units and create new units.[17]

US European Command (EUCOM) Commander and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) General Christopher Cavoli reported that EUCOM and NATO are strengthening their ability to respond to the “chronic threat” that Russia poses to global stability and European security in hopes of deterring future Russian aggression against NATO. Cavoli stated during a briefing to the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee on April 10 that Russia poses a “chronic threat” to the world and warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin does not intend to limit or stop his aggression at the borders of Ukraine.[18] Cavoli reported that EUCOM is responding to the Russian threat by enhancing its deterrence posture across Europe, including strengthening EUCOM’s eastern flank with rotational force deployments, expanding EUCOM’s pre-positioned stocks, and modernizing EUCOM’s infrastructure to enable a rapid reception of reinforcing forces. Cavoli stated that EUCOM and NATO are exercising extensively to demonstrate their ability to defend against and deter future Russian aggression against NATO. Cavoli noted that China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are forming “interlocking, strategic partnerships” that are antithetical to US national security interests and aim to challenge the existing global security framework. Kremlin officials, particularly Putin, are increasingly contextualizing the war in Ukraine as part of a long-term geopolitical confrontation between Russia and the West in order to justify Russia’s long-term war effort in Ukraine and future Russian aggression against other European countries.[19]

Ukraine and Latvia signed a bilateral security agreement on April 11 providing for long-term Latvian assistance and security commitments to Ukraine.[20] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that the agreement will provide annual aid to Ukraine valued at 0.25 percent of Latvia’s GDP from 2024 through 2026 and confirms Latvia’s 10-year commitment to aid Ukraine in reconstruction, the protection of critical infrastructure, de-mining, unmanned technology, and cyber security.[21] Latvia will also provide about 112 million euros (about $120 million) worth of military aid to Ukraine in 2024.[22]

Russian authorities conducted a counterterrorism operation and reportedly killed two suspected terrorists in the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria on April 11. The Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAK) stated that Russian authorities declared a counterterrorism regime in Nalchik and Chereksky Raion, Kabardino-Balkaria and killed two militants who were reportedly planning sabotage and terrorist attacks in Kabardino-Balkaria.[23] The NAK also conducted a counterterrorism operation and reportedly detained three militants in the Republic of Dagestan on March 31.[24] Russian security forces are likely intensifying counterterrorism operations in Russia — particularly in the North Caucasus, which has seen Islamic State-Caucasus Province (Wilayat al Qawqaz) and other jihadist activity over the years — due to heighted fears of terrorism in Russia following the March 22 Crocus City Hall attack. Continued Russian counterterrorism operations in the North Caucasus and intensified measures targeting Central Asian migrants in Russia are further evidence that Russian authorities actually assess that threats emanate from Russia’s Central Asian and Muslim communities instead of Ukraine despite Russian efforts to baselessly tie Ukraine to the Crocus City Hall attack.[25] ISW remains confident that Islamic State (IS) conducted the Crocus City Hall attack and has yet to observe independent reporting or evidence to suggest that an actor other than IS was responsible for or aided the attack.[26]

Key Takeaways:

• Russian forces conducted another large-scale series of missile and drone strikes against Ukraine on the night of April 10 to 11 that caused notable and likely long-term damage to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
• Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated that Ukraine needs more Patriot air defense batteries to protect both Ukraine’s population centers and frontline areas.
• The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada adopted a new mobilization law on April 11, a significant step in addressing Ukraine’s manpower challenges amid growing manpower constraints in Ukrainian units defending on the frontline.
• US European Command (EUCOM) Commander and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) General Christopher Cavoli reported that EUCOM and NATO are strengthening their ability to respond to the “chronic threat” that Russia poses to global stability and European security in hopes of deterring future Russian aggression against NATO.
• Ukraine and Latvia signed a bilateral security agreement on April 11 providing for long-term Latvian assistance and security commitments to Ukraine.
• Russian authorities conducted a counterterrorism operation and reportedly killed two suspected terrorists in the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria on April 11.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Kreminna, in the direction of Chasiv Yar west of Bakhmut, and in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on April 11.
• Russian exiled opposition outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe reported on April 11 that Russian courts have commuted sentences in over half of all criminal cases against Russian veterans and active-duty servicemen due to military service in Ukraine.

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

• Russian Main Effort — Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 — Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 — Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Supporting Effort — Southern Axis
• Russian Air, Missile, and Drone Campaign
• Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Russian Technological Adaptations
• Activities in Russian-occupied areas
• Ukrainian Defense Industrial Base Efforts
• Russian Information Operations and Narratives
• Significant Activity in Belarus

Russian Main Effort — Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Kreminna amid continued positional engagements in the area on April 11. Geolocated footage published on April 10 indicates that Russian forces marginally advanced east of Terny (west of Kreminna).[27] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Terny but did not conduct any assaults in the Kupyansk direction.[28] Elements of the Russian 123rd Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Luhansk People’s Republic [LNR] Army Corps) are reportedly operating near Bilohorivka.[29]

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

Note: ISW will be orientating activity in the immediate Bakhmut area around Chasiv Yar for the foreseeable future as ISW assesses that the seizure of Chasiv Yar is the current Russian operational objective in the area.

Positional engagements continued northeast of Bakhmut on April 11, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline. Positional engagements continued east of Siversk near Verkhnokamyanske, southeast of Siversk near Vyimka, and south of Siversk near Rozdolivka.[30] Elements of the Russian 106th Airborne (VDV) Division reportedly continue operating in the Soledar-Siversk direction, and elements of the 123rd Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Luhansk People’s Republic [LNR] Army Corps [AC]) reportedly continue operating in the Siversk direction.[31]

Russian forces recently made a confirmed advance in the direction of Chasiv Yar, amid continued positional engagements on April 11. Geolocated footage published on April 10 that ISW has previously reported on further indicates that Russian forces advanced west of Ivanivske (east of Chasiv Yar) along the T0504 (Bakhmut-Chasiv Yar) highway.[32] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces, including elements of the 98th VDV Division, continued to attack near the Kanal Microraion (easternmost Chasiv Yar) and near Bohdanivka (northeast of Chasiv Yar).[33] Positional engagements continued near Chasiv Yar, Ivanivske, and Klishchiivka.[34]

Positional engagements continued west of Avdiivka on April 11, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline. Rusisan milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced 2.5 kilometers in depth between Yasnobrodivka and Umanske (both west of Avdiivka), reached the southeastern outskirts of Umanske, and control almost half of Semenivka (west of Avdiivka), although ISW has not observed visual evidence of these claims.[35] Positional engagements continued northeast of Avdiivka near Novokalynove, Keramik, Novobakhmutivka, and Berdychi; west of Avdiivka near Umanske and Semenivka; and southwest of Avdiivka near Pervomaiske and Netaylove.[36] Elements of the Russian 9th Motorized Rifle Brigade (1st Donetsk People's Republic [DNR] AC) reportedly continue operating near Pervomaiske.[37]

Russian forces reportedly advanced southwest of Donetsk City on April 11, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced within Novomykhailivka (southwest of Donetsk City), but ISW has not observed visual confirmation of this claim.[38] Positional engagements continued west of Donetsk City near Pobieda, Krasnohorivka, and Heorhiivka and southwest of Donetsk City near Novomykhailivka.[39] Elements of the Russian 238th Artillery Brigade (9th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Southern Military District [SMD]) and 5th Motorized Rifle Brigade (1st DNR AC) reportedly continue operating near Krasnohorivka.[40]

Russian forces recently marginally advanced in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area amid continued positional fighting in the area on April 11. Geolocated footage published on April 9 indicates that Russian forces recently marginally advanced south of Urozhaine (south of Velyka Novosilka).[41] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled several Russian attacks near Staromayorske (south of Velyka Novosilka).[42]

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

Russian forces recently advanced in western Zaporizhia Oblast amid continued positional fighting in the area on April 11. Geolocated footage published on Apil 9 indicates that Russian forces recently marginally advanced within western Robotyne.[43] Positional fighting continued near Robotyne and northwest of Verbove (east of Robotyne).[44] Elements of the Russian 76th Airborne (VDV) Division are operating near Ocheretuvate (southeast of Robotyne).[45]

Russian forces recently advanced near the limited Ukrainian bridgehead in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast and on islands in the Dnipro River. Geolocated footage published on April 11 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced within Krynky.[46] Geolocated footage published on April 11 indicates that Russian forces recently began operating on the southern part of Velykiy Potemkin island (north of Hola Prystan).[47] Positional fighting continued in east bank Kherson Oblast, including near Krynky, on April 11.[48] Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Colonel Nataliya Humenyuk stated that Ukrainian forces typically wound or kill roughly 60 percent of the personnel in Russian assault groups that attack Ukrainian positions in east bank Kherson Oblast.[49]

Russian sources claimed on April 11 that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups that attempted to land in east bank Kherson Oblast and on a drilling platform in the Black Sea. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Operations Center claimed that unspecified Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group that attempted to land on the Tendrivska Spit (west of Skadovsk and on the Black Sea).[50] The FSB also claimed that FSB officers prevented a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group from landing on a drilling rig in the Shtormove gas field area in the Black Sea.[51]

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

See topline text.

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

Russian exiled opposition outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe reported on April 11 that Russian courts have commuted sentences in over half of all criminal cases against Russian veterans and active-duty servicemen due to military service in Ukraine.[52] Novaya Gazeta Europe reported that Russian authorities have brought criminal charges against at least 2,605 Russian veterans and active-duty servicemen since the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Criminal charges against Russian servicemen are roughly split evenly between violations of civil laws and military laws, and the majority of Russian military criminal charges are for leaving a military unit without permission and desertion. Novaya Gazeta Europe noted that Russian courts commuted sentences against Russian veterans and servicemen in roughly 57 percent of all criminal cases because of a defendant's military service. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on March 23 releasing individuals from criminal liability if they are called up for mobilization or sign a military service contract.[53]

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

Russian milbloggers amplified footage on April 10 of Russian authorities testing the new “Courier” unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) at an unspecified test site in Russia.[54] The milbloggers claimed that a version of the drone equipped with AGS-17 grenade launcher systems has already undergone combat testing in the Avdiivka direction and claimed that the UGV can been equipped with a variety of other weapons, including anti-tank and electronic warfare (EW) systems. The “Courier” may be the same unspecified UGV that ISW observed operating in southeastern Berdychi (northwest of Avdiivka) and in the Bakhmut direction on March 29 and 30.[55]

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

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

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

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

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

The Kremlin is reportedly spending millions of dollars funding new domestic propaganda channels and narratives. The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) stated on April 11 that the Kremlin spent 58 billion rubles (about $621 million) to create propaganda in 2023.[56] The GUR stated that Russia used private organizations not formally related to the Russian government to create “patriotic content,” such as blogs, films, television series, and video games. The GUR stated that the organizations pledged to create positive public opinion about Russian President Vladimir Putin, justify Russia’s war in Ukraine, and influence Russian military personnel by glorifying their participation in the war.

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

Belarusian state news outlet Belta reported on April 11 that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on the evening of April 11 to discuss regional and international bilateral cooperation.[57]

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

6. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, April 11, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-april-11-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Iran: Iran appears to be exploiting the uncertainty surrounding its reported “imminent” attack against Israel to stoke psychological terror in Israel.
• Gaza Strip: Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant clarified that Israel’s war aim in the Gaza Strip is to prevent Hamas from conducting another October 7-style attack into Israel again.
• West Bank: Israeli forces engaged Palestinian fighters in Tulkarm in the West Bank.
• Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: Lebanese Hezbollah has conducted at least three attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel.
• Iraq: Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al Sudani wrote an article for Foreign Affairs reiterating his intention to end the US-led international coalition’s presence in Iraq and transition to a “comprehensive” bilateral relationship with the United States.
• Yemen: US CENTCOM confirmed that it intercepted three Houthi drones over the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea.

IRAN UPDATE, APRIL 11, 2024

Apr 11, 2024 - ISW Press

Iran Update, April 11, 2024

Alexandra Braverman, Ashka Jhaveri, Kathryn Tyson, Peter Mills, Annika Ganzeveld, Amin Soltani, and Nicholas Carl

Information Cutoff: 2:00 pm ET

The Iran Update provides insights into Iranian and Iranian-sponsored activities abroad that undermine regional stability and threaten US forces and interests. It also covers events and trends that affect the stability and decision-making of the Iranian regime. The Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) provides these updates regularly based on regional events. Click here to see CTP and ISW’s interactive map of Israeli ground operations. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.

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

We do not report in detail on war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We utterly condemn violations of the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

Iran appears to be exploiting the uncertainty surrounding its reported “imminent” attack against Israel to stoke psychological terror in Israel. Western media reported on April 10 that Iran could launch drone and missile strikes into Israel imminently in retaliation for the IDF recently killing several senior IRGC officers in Damascus.[1] Iranian state media posted on X (Twitter) later on April 10 that the Iranian defense minister announced the closure of the airspace around Tehran for a military exercise.[2] Iranian regime-affiliated channels then began circulating posts suggesting that an Iranian attack into Israel would soon occur.[3] The coincidence of these posts led to extensive public speculation that Iran would launch an attack into Israel while the airspace around Tehran was closed. Iranian state media shortly thereafter retracted the claims of Iranian airspace being closed and denied that the Iranian defense minister made any related announcement.[4] The publication and retraction of these reports is bizarre, especially given that the Iranian defense minister should have no role in the maintenance of Iranian airspace. Iranian military and political officials have boasted in recent days that the impending nature of their attack is itself damaging to Israel, suggesting that the media reports may have been part of a sophisticated information operation.[5] Stoking terror in Israel is consistent with CTP-ISW’s previous observation that Iranian leaders want the Israel-Hamas war to catalyze migration away from Israel and thereby erode the long-term viability of the Jewish state.[6]

The present nature of the information space makes it difficult to forecast when precisely Iran might launch a retaliatory strike into Israel if at all. Western estimations of when Iran will conduct an attack have varied and could be subject to change. The likelihood that Iran is spreading disinformation surrounding its strike exacerbates the issue further.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant clarified on April 10 that Israel’s war aim in the Gaza Strip is to prevent Hamas from conducting another October 7-style attack into Israel.[7] Gallant said that preventing another October 7-style attack is what Israeli leaders mean when saying that they seek to destroy Hamas as a military organization. Gallant added that the IDF has already destroyed four of Hamas’ five brigades and that Israeli forces are currently contending with “hotspots” of militia activity across the Gaza Strip.[8] The remaining brigade that Israeli leaders say they have not yet destroyed is in Rafah.

Israeli operations have likely degraded Hamas in the Gaza Strip severely, rendering Hamas unable to restore its military wing to pre-October 7 levels in the short term. Gallant described Hamas’ military force as comparable to an “organized commando division” prior to the war. Israel has since then destroyed a large quantity of Hamas’ military infrastructure and weapons as well as killed thousands of fighters in the Gaza Strip thus far. Hamas fighters are currently operating as small squad- and platoon-sized cells instead of the well-organized structure they had prior to the war. Hamas will thus require extensive resources and time to rebuild its military force.

Hamas remains determined to reconstitute itself militarily and reassert its authority in the Gaza Strip, however. Hamas is already trying to coopt and undermine possible alternatives to its rule, which is evident by the reported Hamas attack targeting the head of a local clan in March 2024.[9] Hamas is also attempting to facilitate trade and rehabilitate local police in the northern Gaza Strip, which are parts of Hamas’ larger effort to restore control over the civilian population.[10] Gallant acknowledged that Israel must empower a local alternative to Hamas in a post-war scenario.[11]

Key Takeaways:

• Iran: Iran appears to be exploiting the uncertainty surrounding its reported “imminent” attack against Israel to stoke psychological terror in Israel.
• Gaza Strip: Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant clarified that Israel’s war aim in the Gaza Strip is to prevent Hamas from conducting another October 7-style attack into Israel again.
• West Bank: Israeli forces engaged Palestinian fighters in Tulkarm in the West Bank.
• Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: Lebanese Hezbollah has conducted at least three attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel.
• Iraq: Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al Sudani wrote an article for Foreign Affairs reiterating his intention to end the US-led international coalition’s presence in Iraq and transition to a “comprehensive” bilateral relationship with the United States.
• Yemen: US CENTCOM confirmed that it intercepted three Houthi drones over the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea.

Gaza Strip

Axis of Resistance objectives:

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

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on April 11 that it had conducted a raid in Shujaiya in the northern Gaza Strip in recent days.[12] The IDF Northern Brigade (Gaza Division) has conducted “targeted activities” in the area recently, including killing Palestinian fighters and destroying military infrastructure, such as a Hamas training base

Palestinian militias conducted several attacks targeting Israeli forces in the northern Gaza Strip on April 11. The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, which is the self-proclaimed military wing of Fatah, mortared Israeli vehicles south of Gaza City.[13] Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) separately said that it conducted a sniper attack targeting an Israeli soldier in al Taqa, east of Gaza City.[14]

The IDF announced on April 11 that it conducted an operation targeting Hamas outside Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip. The IDF Nahal Brigade and 401st Brigade led the operation around Nuseirat.[15] The IDF Air Force coordinated with the 215th Artillery Brigade (162nd Division) and directed airstrikes targeting dozens of Palestinian fighters and military infrastructure before Israeli ground forces entered the area.[16] The Nahal Brigade identified a fighter emerging from a tunnel, and the IDF Air Force conducted an airstrike targeting the fighter as they approached Israeli forces.[17] The IDF Navy separately conducted several strikes targeting Palestinian fighters along the central Gaza Strip coast.[18]

The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command (PFLP-GC) conducted a combined mortar attack targeting Israeli forces north of Nuseirat refugee camp on April 11.[19] PFLP-GC is a Palestinian faction based primarily in Syria.[20] The faction receives support from Iran and has cooperated with other elements of the Axis of Resistance.[21] This event marks the second known instance of the PFLP-GC attacking the IDF in the Gaza Strip since the Israel-Hamas war began.[22]

The IDF and Shin Bet killed a Hamas fighter who was responsible for financing Hamas military activities in Rafah, on April 11.[23] The IDF said that the fighter transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hamas in December 2023 for its operations in Rafah.[24]

Israeli media reported on April 11 that an IDF Southern Command colonel approved the airstrike that killed three sons of Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh in the northern Gaza Strip on April 10.[25] Israeli media reported that senior Israeli officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, were not aware of the strike before it occurred.[26] Israeli media reported that the IDF targeted Haniyeh’s sons over their involvement in holding Israeli hostages.[27] The reports are consistent with the IDF reporting on April 10 that Haniyeh’s sons were Hamas fighters.[28] Unspecified Israeli officials told Israeli media that IDF leaders believed that Israel is not close to a ceasefire deal with Hamas and that the strike would not affect hostage negotiations.[29]

The IDF said on April 11 that Israel is increasing the delivery of aid into the Gaza Strip, particularly to the northern part.[30] Israeli Defense Minister Gallant said that these efforts are part of the next Israeli phase of humanitarian efforts and include opening new crossings into the Gaza Strip, boosting aid deliveries from Jordan, establishing a joint command to coordinate military operations and aid efforts, and other projects, such as the establishment of a temporary floating pier.[31] IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that Israel approved the construction of another border crossing into the northern Gaza Strip and the opening of the Port of Ashdod to enable more aid flow.[32] Hagari's comments are consistent with an Israeli Army Radio report on April 10 that Israel would construct a new crossing instead of opening the Erez crossing.[33] Hagari also said that the IDF is establishing field hospitals and other kinds of infrastructure as well as providing food, water, and shelter in the central Gaza Stirp.[34] The IDF said on March 13 that it plans to move civilians from Rafah to “humanitarian enclaves” in the central Gaza Strip before any Israeli clearing operation into Rafah.[35] Israel expects the number of trucks entering the Gaza Strip to increase gradually from 350 to 500 per day.[36] The UN Security Council said in a statement on April 11 that it acknowledged the Israeli efforts to facilitate more aid into the Gaza Strip “but stressed that more should be done to bring the required relief given the scale of needs in Gaza.”[37]

Israeli military officials met with several international aid organizations on April 10 to discuss the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.[38] The IDF Southern Command Commander Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman and Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT)—a department within the Israeli Defense Ministry—Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alyan met with representatives from UN agencies, the Red Cross, and USAID, among others.[39] Israeli officials presented their upcoming plans for increasing the pace of aid transfers into the strip. Israeli Army Radio noted that the meeting followed the Israeli strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers on April 1.[40] Some aid organizations have suspended operations in the Gaza Strip following the WCK attack, citing concerns of a lack of protection for civilians.[41] The IDF spokesperson said on April 11 that the IDF is implementing lessons learned from WCK attack.[42]

Unspecified Palestinian fighters conducted an indirect fire attack from the central Gaza Strip into Israel on April 11.[43] Israeli Army Radio reported that four munitions fell short inside the Gaza Strip. No Palestinian militia has claimed responsibility for the attack at the time of this writing.

West Bank

Axis of Resistance objectives:

• Establish the West Bank as a viable front against Israel

Israeli forces engaged Palestinian fighters in Tulkarm in the West Bank on April 11.[44] The IDF reported on April 11 that Israeli forces arrested six wanted individuals across the West Bank.[45] The IDF seized small arms during these operations. Israeli forces separately arrested an individual in Hebron on suspicion of them planning to conduct a stabbing attack.[46]

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

Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights

Axis of Resistance objectives:

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

Lebanese Hezbollah has conducted at least three attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel since CTP-ISW's last data cutoff on April 10.[47]

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

Iran and Axis of Resistance

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al Sudani wrote an article for Foreign Affairs on April 11 reiterating his intention to end the US-led international coalition’s presence in Iraq and transition to a “comprehensive” bilateral relationship with the United States.[48] Sudani likely published the article as part of his preparations for his official visit to Washington, DC, on April 15. Sudani said that US and Iraqi military officials agreed to end the US-led international coalition’s presence in Iraq “in a gradual and orderly manner on an agreed timeline,” although he did not provide details on this timeline.[49] Sudani argued that the US-Iraqi relationship should extend beyond military and security cooperation to include economic, energy, and technological cooperation.[50] US and Iraqi officials began talks about the status of the US-led international coalition in late January 2024.[51] The latest round of talks occurred on April 8 under the chairmanship of US CENTCOM Commander Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla and Iraqi Armed Forces General Staff Chief Gen. Abdel Emir Rashid Yarallah.[52]

US CENTCOM confirmed that it intercepted three Houthi drones over the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea on April 10. The Houthis claimed on April 10 that they conducted several attacks targeting commercial and military vessels in the Gulf of Aden.[53]

US CENTCOM preemptively struck eight Houthi drones in Houthi-controlled Yemen on April 10.[54] CENTCOM assessed that the drones presented an imminent danger to commercial and military vessels in the region. Houthi-affiliated media separately claimed that the United States conducted airstrikes near Hudaydah on April 10.[55]

US Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla traveled to Israel on April 11 to coordinate preparations for a possible Iranian and/or Iranian-backed attack into Israel. Kurilla met with senior Israeli military officials, including IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari.[56] Iranian officials have repeatedly threatened that they will retaliate for Israel killing several senior IRGC officers in Damascus on April 1.[57]

7. U.S. Sends a Top General to Israel Amid Fears of Iranian Strikes

U.S. Sends a Top General to Israel Amid Fears of Iranian Strikes

The visit of Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, the U.S. military commander in the Middle East, came as diplomats sought to avert a wider war.

• https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/world/middleeast/israel-iran-hamas-strikes.html

Smoke billowing during Israeli bombardment in Gaza City on Thursday.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Cassandra Vinograd and Eric Schmitt

April 11, 2024

Updated 5:07 p.m. ET

Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.

The United States dispatched its top military commander for the Middle East to Israel on Thursday, after President Biden stated that, despite recent friction, American support for Israel “is ironclad” in the event of an attack by Iran.

Iran’s leaders have repeatedly vowed to punish Israel for an April 1 strike in Syria that killed several senior Iranian commanders. Israel has put its military on alert, and Mr. Biden said on Wednesday that Iran was threatening a “significant” attack.

Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, the American commander, will coordinate with Israel on what is widely expected to be imminent retaliatory action by Iran and will also discuss the war against Hamas in Gaza and humanitarian aid operations there, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel acknowledged on Thursday that Israel was facing “challenging times,” noting that “in the midst of the war in Gaza” his country was “also prepared for scenarios involving challenges in other sectors.”

“We have determined a simple rule: Whoever harms us, we will harm them,” he said while visiting an air base, using language that has been used in recent days to refer to threats from Iran and its proxies, including Hamas.

Image

Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, wearing a beret, during a visit to Israel in January last year, with Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, to his right.Credit...Abir Sultan/EPA, via Shutterstock

Active fighting in Gaza has ebbed to its lowest point since November. Israel withdrew troops from southern Gaza over the weekend but said the military would stay in other parts of the territory to preserve its “freedom of action and its ability to conduct precise intelligence-based operations.”

Sign up for the Israel-Hamas War Briefing.  The latest news about the conflict. Get it sent to your inbox.

Mr. Netanyahu has said that a date has been set for a ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than a million displaced Palestinians have sought shelter — an operation U.S. officials have warned would be catastrophic for civilians. Some analysts have suggested that his threats are bluster or attempts at gaining leverage in cease-fire negotiations.

The Biden administration has urged Mr. Netanyahu to shelve the invasion plans and focus on “alternative approaches that would target the key elements of Hamas.”

President Biden has become increasingly critical of Mr. Netanyahu’s conduct of the war in Gaza, even threatening to condition U.S. assistance on Israel’s doing more to protect civilians. But he emphasized on Wednesday that American support for Israel in the face of danger from Iran and its allied militias, like Hezbollah, was unconditional.

“As I told Prime Minister Netanyahu, our commitment to Israel’s security against these threats from Iran and its proxies is ironclad,” he said at a news conference.

Conflict in Israel and Gaza, in Photos

A surprise attack by Hamas put Israel and the group that controlled Gaza at war. Here are images from the assault and what has followed.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken also “made clear that the U.S. will stand with Israel against any threats by Iran and its proxies” when he spoke by phone on Wednesday with Israel’s defense minister, the State Department said.

In Israel, General Kurilla had carried out a situational assessment and reviewed “regional security challenges” with the Israeli military’s chief of staff, said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israeli military.

“We are highly alert and ready to face various scenarios,” Admiral Hagari said in a televised news briefing, adding that any strike from Iranian territory would be a clear regional escalation.

Israel-Hamas War: Live Updates

Updated April 11, 2024, 4:45 p.m. ET5 hours ago5 hours ago

• Here’s what to know about the hunger crisis in Gaza.
• UNICEF says one of its vehicles was hit by fire.
• Gen. Michael Kurilla is in Israel to help coordinate on military strategy.

As Iran and Israel have traded fresh threats in recent days, diplomats have been trying to reduce tensions and avert a wider regional war.

The foreign minister of Germany, Annalena Baerbock, spoke to her Iranian counterpart “about the tense situation” in the Middle East on Thursday, according to her office.

“Avoiding further regional escalation must be in everyone’s interest,” her office said in a statement. “We urge all actors in the region to act responsibly and exercise maximum restraint.”

The diplomatic efforts came as the Israeli military on Thursday announced that it had carried out a new operation that killed at least one member of Hamas in Gaza.

The Israeli military said Thursday that its forces had carried out a “precise, intelligence-based operation” in central Gaza overnight with fighter jets and ground troops to “eliminate terrorist operatives and strike terrorist infrastructure.”

“The goal of the operation, of course, is to destroy Hamas’s ability to rehabilitate itself in the area,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the spokesman for the Israeli military, said in a briefing Thursday evening. “We continue fighting in Gaza and are preparing for future operations.”

Image

Mourning a victim of an Israeli strike in Rafah in the Gaza Strip on Thursday.Credit...Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

On Wednesday, an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza killed three sons of Ismail Haniyeh, who leads the political wing of Hamas from exile. Hamas-affiliated media reported that three of Mr. Haniyeh’s grandchildren also were killed in the attack.

The Israeli military said the three sons — Amir, Mohammad and Hazem — were active in Hamas’s military operations, Amir as a cell commander and his brothers as lower-level operatives. One of the brothers was also involved in holding hostages in Gaza, the Israeli military said, without specifying which one. The military did not provide further details, and its claims could not be verified.

The military’s emphasis on the precision of the attack announced on Thursday followed accusations that Israeli bombing has been indiscriminate, causing avoidable civilian casualties, and amid rising criticism over impending famine in Gaza.

It also came as international negotiators worked to broker a cease-fire in Gaza and to secure the release of the hostages held in the enclave, in return for the release of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Those talks have stalled over disagreements about the details, with a senior Hamas official saying Wednesday that the group did not have 40 living hostages who met the criteria for an exchange under a proposal being discussed.

While Mr. Haniyeh is one of Hamas’s most senior officials, analysts said that his sons were not likely as integral to the group’s operations as the Israeli military has suggested.

“His son’s names are not usually floated around when you talk about seniority in Hamas, whether it’s the political or military wing,” said Tahani Mustafa, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, a think tank.

Bilal Saab, an associate fellow in the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, said the strike on the sons might have been intended to placate a domestic audience in Israel or to give the Israelis leverage in the talks.

“It’s a political win for Israel more than anything else,” Mr. Saab said of the killings.

Mr. Haniyeh said Wednesday that Israel was “delusional if it thinks that by killing my children, we will change our positions” in negotiations.

Image

The car in which three sons of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh were reportedly killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Wednesday.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A correction was made on April 11, 2024: An earlier version of a photo caption with this article misspelled the surname of the Israeli defense minister. He is Yoav Gallant, not Galant.

When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more

Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times, focusing on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism issues overseas, topics he has reported on for more than three decades. More about Eric Schmitt

A version of this article appears in print on April 12, 2024, Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Sends a Top General to Israel Amid Fears of Iranian Strikes. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

8. Manchin Questions DoD Special Operations And Cyber Commanders On Modern Role Of U.S. Special Forces, Establishment Of East Coast Training Venue

I am not sure why the Senator did not come right out and say it. He would like more training at Camp Dawson in West Virginia.  

I am glad he is trying to bust the myth of SOF only does CT.

Excerpt:

“Some believe our Special Forces only perform a counterterrorism role. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Senator Manchin said in part. “Our Special Forces were created out of the need to fight using unconventional tactics that we all call irregular warfare. While the counterterrorism fight is still ongoing, countering our adversaries like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and non-state actors is the bread and butter of irregular warfare concepts…Can you expand on the needs of our Special Forces and how we can support them to be able to compete on the highest level in the world?”

Manchin Questions DoD Special Operations And Cyber Commanders On Modern Role Of U.S. Special Forces, Establishment Of East Coast Training Venue | U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia

manchin.senate.gov

April 10, 2024

Manchin Questions DoD Special Operations And Cyber Commanders On Modern Role Of U.S. Special Forces, Establishment Of East Coast Training Venue

Washington, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), questioned U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Special Operations and Cyber Commanders on the modern role of the U.S. Special Operations Command (Special Forces) and the importance of establishing an East Coast training venue for their initiatives.

On the modern role of U.S. Special Forces:

“Some believe our Special Forces only perform a counterterrorism role. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Senator Manchin said in part. “Our Special Forces were created out of the need to fight using unconventional tactics that we all call irregular warfare. While the counterterrorism fight is still ongoing, countering our adversaries like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and non-state actors is the bread and butter of irregular warfare concepts…Can you expand on the needs of our Special Forces and how we can support them to be able to compete on the highest level in the world?”

On the importance of establishing an East Coast training venue:

“We’ve spoken multiple times about the need for an East Coast training venue for Special Forces instead of the units spending half of their training budgets on transporting themselves to the West Coast to other training venues where they have to jump through hoops for approval on basic training needs to meet their readiness goals. Do you believe an East Coast training venue capable of hosting readiness events would be beneficial and cost effective to current and future Special Forces?” Senator Manchin questioned. “States like West Virginia are made up of National Guard forces. They're very strong and very diligent, and they are committed to adding value to readiness operations and so many more of your needs, so I hope that you will look towards that.”

The witnesses were Christopher P. Maier, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict; General Bryan P. Fenton, Commander, United States Special Operations Command; and General Timothy D. Haugh, Commander, United States Cyber Command/Director, National Security Agency/Chief, Central Security Service.

A video of Senator Manchin’s questioning of the witnesses can be found here:

manchin.senate.gov

9. U.S., Japan Military-to-Military Relationship Reaches 'New Heights'

Many of us have had great military to military relationships with the Philippines for many years. It is great to see this level of cooperation.

U.S., Japan Military-to-Military Relationship Reaches 'New Heights'

defense.gov

April 11, 2024 |DOD News |×

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Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III met at the White House with President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan yesterday to participate in discussions related to strengthening the U.S. and Japan relationship.

"Our defense and security ties with Japan form the core of our alliances and are the cornerstone of regional peace and security in the Indo-Pacific," Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said during a briefing today at the Pentagon.

Press Briefing

Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder conducts a press briefing at the Pentagon, April 11, 2024.

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"Recognizing that the alliance has reached new heights, we plan to further bolster our defense and security cooperation to allow for greater coordination and integration, he said."

As part of the effort to enhance U.S. and Japan security cooperation, both nations agreed to, for instance, an upgrading of alliance command and control. Doing so would enable better integration of operations and capabilities, plus allow for greater interoperability as well as planning between U.S. and Japanese forces in peacetime and during contingencies.

Also discussed were efforts at bolstering regional networked security. Both countries will cooperate on a networked air defense architecture, incorporating future capabilities with Australia. That includes looking at enhanced cooperation in missile defense information sharing.

The U.S. and Japan also agreed to a deepening of defense industry cooperation, where both nations plan to leverage respective industrial bases to establish an alliance defense production capacity to meet the demand for critical capabilities over the long term.

Ryder said there were dozens of deliverables that came out of the discussions but did not have a specific timeline to share. But he did say that the Defense Department stands ready to do what's asked of it to help the U.S. strengthen the partnership with its long-time ally in the Pacific.

"We are working hard across all levels of the department to deliver on the agreements made by our national leaders and of course doing so in very close concert with our Japanese allies," he said.

Spotlight: Focus on Indo-Pacific Spotlight: Focus on Indo-Pacific: https://www.defense.gov/Spotlights/Focus-on-Indo-Pacific/

28:27

defense.gov

10. Why Peace Games? Insights from East Asia

I participated in the north Korea peace game in 2021. It was quite comprehensive taking place over many days virtually with participants in Korea and the US. I believe I was the token former uniformed military participant. :-). But it was very well done.

I would like to see USIP partner with MOU for a unification peace game.

Excerpts:

Few competent militaries would finalize plans and strategies for war let alone attempt real-world execution without testing them first in tabletop exercises. It is only prudent for governments to take a similar tack when formulating policies and strategies for peace. If war games constitute an essential arrow in a warrior’s quiver, peace games should also be considered an essential instrument in a peacemakers’ toolkit.

Why Peace Games? Insights from East Asia

Peace games are not just an academic exercise — they are vital simulations for exploring ways to both prevent a war and strengthen interstate amity.

Thursday, April 11, 2024 / BY: Andrew Scobell, Ph.D.; Frank Aum

usip.org

What are peace games? They should not be confused with war games, which are simulations of military operations between two or more sides that seek to examine and improve warfighting concepts across different scenarios. In short, they focus on the conduct of war. Peace games, however, are simulations of primarily diplomatic engagement (but also using military and economic tools) that seek to explore and improve statecraft to advance peace and reduce the risks of conflict. Just as war games are valuable for militaries to explore how conflicts might play out under different scenarios and to test the efficacy of operational plans, peace games are valuable for studying how adversarial relations can be improved and to test the efficacy of diplomatic strategies.

Peace games are not propelled by flights of fantasy nor are they driven by wishful thinking. They are serious simulations grounded in real-world problems and focused on the difficult challenge of seeking alternatives to hostilities and wars as well as grappling with how to address seemingly intractable and heated disputes via peaceful means.

Together, the authors of this article possess decades of policy and analytic experience in the U.S. national security community. All of us view simulations as a valuable tool to explore major global security challenges and glean fresh insights into how to address them. We both specialize in the strategic landscape of East Asia and each of us have wrestled over the course of our careers with the daunting real-world security challenges posed by China and North Korea. Moreover, we are veterans of numerous war games involving these two states. In sum, we do not approach simulations as an academic endeavor or intellectual avocation.

Different Flavors of Peace Games

There are different gradations of peace games. Just like war games, they can vary in length, scope and complexity. The authors have conducted multi-day, multi-move peace games with numerous players in multiple rooms on different teams and involving complex scenarios. We have also designed and run half-day simulations with a dozen-plus participants in a single room as one group intensely grapples with multiple dimensions of a simple but perilous scenario.

There are also different types of peace games. One type run by USIP focuses on how weary warring parties within a single strife-torn country or community can come together to build peace. Yet, these authors have focused on a different category of peace game: those involving elevated tensions between two or more countries. These fall into two variants: Just as peace can be defined as the absence of violence (“negative peace”) or the presence of cooperation and constructive relations (“positive peace”), USIP peace games seek to prevent a war and/or contemplate how to strengthen diplomacy and engagement. Peace games we have convened involving China have tended to concentrate on the former while peace games involving North Korea have focused on the latter.

Left of Bang: China

China is currently not in a state of outright war with any other country, yet there continue to be multiple confrontations and ongoing tensions in the Indo-Pacific. Unsurprisingly, this has led to considerable speculation in multiple countries — including the United States — about the specter of imminent war with China. Relations between China and a good number of countries have worsened in recent years and there have been confrontations, skirmishes and/or clashes between the armed forces of China and those of other parties, including India, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, as well as the United States.

Currently, relations between China and the United States are especially fraught and most analysts assess the bilateral relationship to be at its lowest point in many decades. Indeed, in recent years confrontations and standoffs between the armed forces of the United States and China have occurred on an alarmingly routine basis. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, during a two-year period from late 2021 and late 2023, there have been 180 documented instances of dangerous “air intercepts” involving People’s Liberation Army and U.S. military aircraft in the Indo-Pacific — more than occurred over the previous 10 years. While the most likely location of a U.S-China conflict is in the Taiwan Strait, what is noteworthy is that these confrontations have also occurred in the South China Sea and elsewhere.

The outbreak of military conflict between China and another country is a frightening, but increasingly plausible, prospect. Moreover, once a conflict begins, the potential for escalation is significant in terms of intensity of conflict, size of combatant forces and elevation to nuclear war as well as expansion of geographic scope and number of countries involved. For example, a war between China and Japan or China and the Philippines would almost certainly draw in the United States — since Washington is a treaty ally of Tokyo and Manila — and conceivably become a brutal, intense and extended conflict waged across vast swathes of the Western Pacific and beyond.

The irony of this looming specter of war is that no country intentionally seeks war. And yet, this fact does not guarantee that war will be averted. Indeed, the most plausible scenario for military conflict between China and another country is that hostilities break out inadvertently, unintentionally escalating from accidental collision and loss of life into full-blown cataclysmic war.

It has never been more urgent for all countries to give far greater attention to what the Pentagon calls “phase zero.” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underscores that war remains a real possibility and the world ignores the prospect of conflict at its peril. Serious games allow us to examine notional but frighteningly plausible crisis scenarios that could lead to war and explore how military conflict might be averted. Two takeaways from multiple USIP-sponsored, China-focused simulations in recent years are worthy of note.

First, these games highlight the propensity of both China and the United States swiftly to assume malevolent intentions behind any proposal or action of the other. While these are only games, they are serious ones with carefully constructed scenarios designed with real-world features. Furthermore, the players are experienced practitioners or seasoned subject matter experts from the United States and other countries. If this degree of deep suspicion and distrust arises in games involving experienced and knowledgeable players, then the issue is almost certainly going to be more acute under real-world conditions involving less seasoned practitioners. Indeed, research suggests this type of misperception is quite common in international relations.

A second takeaway from USIP simulations is that while China tends to pay close attention to strategic messaging, the United States and most other countries do not. In multiple games, China took time to formulate and articulate a coherent public narrative whereas the United States focused on the details of a particular scenario and specifics of how best to respond. This is not necessarily to suggest that China’s narrative automatically resonates; rather, it is to suggest that the Chinese narrative exists without a public counter-narrative.

As the United States scrambles to formulate a multipronged response tailored to a specific scenario, Beijing’s overarching narrative stands alone. Private warnings and quiet assurances are important but without Washington publicly and consistently articulating a clear message of deterrence to China and one of reassurance to allies, rumors can flourish, and seeds of doubt can grow. While clear U.S. public messaging does not guarantee war can be averted, it does offer allies and adversaries alike clarity on where the United States stands and provides less room for misunderstanding and uncertainty. These peace game experiences are consistent with real-world practices: where strategic communication is concerned, China appears to be “running rings around” the United States.

Right of Conflict: North Korea

Although Korean War hostilities ended in June 1953 with an armistice agreement, no peace agreement was ever concluded. The two principal combatants — South and North Korea — remain in a state of suspended animation armed to the teeth, confronting each other along a 160 mile-long Demilitarized Zone that dissects the peninsula. Moreover, the unresolved conflict enmeshes two major off-peninsula powers — the United States and China. Any re-ignition of the Korean War will immediately involve the United States because Washington maintains a robust mutual defense treaty with Seoul and over 28,000 U.S. forces continue to be stationed in South Korea. China, meanwhile, is also committed to support North Korea under the terms of a 1961 treaty.

Under such tense real-world circumstances, exploring a pathway to peace on the peninsula is essential. Yet, the repressive nature of the Pyongyang regime, its unwillingness to abandon its sizeable arsenal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and its siege mentality make it difficult for many in Seoul or Washington to conceive of a negotiated settlement. Similarly, North Korea’s concerns about “hostile” alliance policies, such as large-scale military exercises, U.S. strategic asset deployments, multilateral and unilateral sanctions, trade embargoes, human rights criticisms, and insinuations of regime change, have reinforced its commitment to keeping its nuclear deterrent and its wariness of U.S. outreach.

To help overcome both sides’ narrow focus on deterrence and risk aversion and explore diplomatic risk-taking that pushes progressively toward a negotiated settlement, USIP, in collaboration with the Quincy Institute and the Sejong Institute, conducted a virtual peace game exercise in October 2021 that simulated diplomatic negotiations aimed at making tangible progress toward improving relations on the peninsula. The simulation reframed the assumptions of traditional war games, which tend to focus on deterring conflict, managing instability, or winning a war, and instead employed new assumptions that emphasize the goals of improving mutual relations, achieving tangible security benefits, reducing tensions and reaching a final and comprehensive peace settlement. The exercise revealed some interesting findings. The U.S. and North Korean teams acted as the principal actors in the exercise, determining whether negotiations remained static or moved forward, while South Korea and China played a lesser role. But these teams perceived potential losses in negotiations more acutely than potential gains, which resulted in diplomatic inertia. Also, both teams appeared open to negotiations as long as the other side took the first conciliatory step, but presidential leadership was required to overcome inaction. In addition, the U.S.-China rivalry fueled a zero-sum mentality that hindered opportunities for progress and heightened misunderstandings between the U.S. and South Korean teams.

These observations suggest potential policy recommendations for the countries involved. Advancing peace and denuclearization will require significant presidential leadership and intervention from all parties to build support for a final agreement. In addition, all parties should start with smaller, more reversible measures, mitigate the risk of failure and highlight potential gains. The United States should consider employing unilateral confidence-building measures to jump-start negotiations as long as they do not undermine its own security interests. Lastly, to achieve progress, all parties should separate issues pertaining to the Korean Peninsula from U.S.-China competition.

Conclusion

Few competent militaries would finalize plans and strategies for war let alone attempt real-world execution without testing them first in tabletop exercises. It is only prudent for governments to take a similar tack when formulating policies and strategies for peace. If war games constitute an essential arrow in a warrior’s quiver, peace games should also be considered an essential instrument in a peacemakers’ toolkit.

usip.org

11. FBI director concerned lone wolf or small groups will draw 'twisted inspiration' from events in Middle East, Russia

FBI director concerned lone wolf or small groups will draw 'twisted inspiration' from events in Middle East, Russia

The director warned of a similar threat earlier in the week.

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/fbi-director-concerned-lone-wolf-small-groups-draw/story?id=109109335&utm

ByLuke BarrApril 11, 2024, 6:15 PM ET

• 3 min read

FBI Director Wray says he fears domestic terror attackChristopher Wray told the House Appropriations Committee Thursday there has been a heightened level of threats toward the U.S.Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Congress on Thursday about potential bad actors carrying out attacks on U.S. soil due to events overseas.

"Our most immediate concern has been that individuals or small groups will draw twisted inspiration from the events in the Middle East to carry out attacks here at home," Wray told the House Appropriations Committee. "But now increasingly concerning is the potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, akin to the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russia Concert Hall a couple weeks ago."

In his testimony, Wray urged Congress to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which lays the groundwork for the government to be able to collect the communications of non-Americans overseas on U.S.-based platforms without the use of a warrant.

FBI Director Christopher Wray testifying during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the "Annual Worldwide Threats Assessment" in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Mar. 11, 2024.

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

MORE: Foreign terrorists targeting US 'increasingly concerning': FBI director

The effort was torpedoed in the House by former President Donald Trump and his allies on Wednesday after Trump urged GOP members to "Kill FISA" in a post on his Truth Social platform.

Hard-line Republicans in the House, are opposed to reauthorizing FISA without an amendment that would require the intelligence community to obtain an additional warrant to access the data of Americans.

Some civil liberties groups, including the ACLU, have also pushed for similar reforms, with the ACLU saying Section 702 allows the government to engage in "mass, warrantless surveillance of Americans' and foreigners' phone calls, text messages, emails, and other electronic communications."

MORE: Former top general warns of 'inevitable' threats to US from Islamic State in wake of Moscow attack

The bill voted on in Congress on Wednesday didn't include the warrant amendment.

Wray testified Thursday to discuss the FBI's budget, which is facing a $500 million decrease.

House Republicans said they've made cuts to the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies' budget and the FBI director is hoping Congress funds the agency through 2025.

12. Army Special Forces students are learning Ukrainian in new language course

​I wonder how many 10th SFG personnel have been recommending this since 2014 (or even well before). But Russian was considered sufficient since many (most?) people in Ukraine speak Russian.

It is the TSOCs who have to drive requirements. But we must anticipate the future requirements.

Excerpt:

The new language courses are based on the operational needs and plans of the various theater special operations commands. The class size was selected to evaluate the effectiveness of the course structure “to make sure it works.” The students will take their culminating oral proficiency interview (OPI) test sometime next week between April 15-22.

Army Special Forces students are learning Ukrainian in new language course

The new language courses are based on the operational needs and plans of the various theater special operations commands.

BY JOSHUA SKOVLUND | PUBLISHED APR 10, 2024 5:34 PM EDT

taskandpurpose.com · by Joshua Skovlund · April 10, 2024

The U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (SWCS) is currently testing a Ukrainian language and culture course, which concludes on April 29. The course is one of 14 languages offered by the Language, Regional Education, and Culture Program (LREC), the final phase of the Army’s Special Forces training pipeline.

The commanding general of SWCS, Brig. Gen. Guillaume Beaurpere said the Ukrainian language was not previously taught to Special Forces candidates. But, due to the demands of the modern battlefield, it’s an essential skill set for the U.S. Military to work with its Ukrainian partners.

“I just sat down and talked to one of our students the other day who’s going through it. Surprisingly, he’s assimilating pretty well. He said it was a little bit harder than he imagined,” Beaurpere said. “But I think it’s given him that rudimentary skill, where he’s going to probably within the next year have to deploy to the [European Theater of Operations] and very likely work with Ukrainian partners.”

During testimony to the House Committee on Appropriations today, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George confirmed as much, saying the U.S. Military has trained over 17,000 Ukrainian soldiers in Germany.

Beaurpere said the timeframe from U.S. Special Operations Command’s request to the development and launch of the program took approximately six months, noting the condensed timeline speaks to the agility of their language program. Graduates of the Ukrainian language course will have a rating of at least 1+ on the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale, which means they can speak at an “Elementary Proficiency, Plus” level of fluency.

“We teach it in a very conversational way. It’s intended to build cultural expertise and relationships,” Beaurpere said. “That’s not taught anywhere else in the department right now.”

Lt. Col. Benjamin Bringhurst, LREC director at SWCS, said the pilot group has six soldiers; five students have no experience with the language, and one is a more advanced student because of their fluency in Russian.

“We’re just finishing up our pilot course with Ukrainian and looking to expand the program as we move forward — to meet the operational needs that are obvious now,” Bringhurst said. “We’re also adding Japanese and European Portuguese, as distinguished from the South American version.”

The new language courses are based on the operational needs and plans of the various theater special operations commands. The class size was selected to evaluate the effectiveness of the course structure “to make sure it works.” The students will take their culminating oral proficiency interview (OPI) test sometime next week between April 15-22.

“We simply know there’s a demand, right? So, now that we have a viable curriculum — well, we test in a couple of weeks, and we’ll know then if it’s viable — we will push that out to [Special Operations Command Europe] and to the proponents,” Bringhurst said. “So those who run the throughput for Special Forces, civil affairs, and PSYOP training, we’ll ask them, ‘Hey, how many of these speakers do you actually need now to fill your operational requirements?’”

They will not know the average class size until they hear back from the units. But, Bringhurst said it’s difficult to advise a partner force if you don’t speak their language or understand their culture. Understanding that allows military personnel to establish relationships through a strong foundation of rapport.

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However, the more tactical use of the language will be taught to service members when they arrive at their units, where they will receive more focused education on the use of the language and culture.

An example is the Ukrainian posters all over Lviv, recommending locals to challenge a suspected Russian spy to say the Ukrainian word, “паляниця,” pronounced as ‘palyanytsia.’ Because of the way people learn their language in their respective countries, the Ukrainians believe a Russian speaker can’t say the word for bread without their native language giving them away.

One of the many posters that were plastered throughout Lviv, Ukraine, on March 14, 2022. (Photo courtesy of Joshua Skovlund)

The students must learn the language from native speakers to avoid those mistakes. Alyona, a Russian and Ukrainian adjunct professor at SWCS, and Julia and Myla, both Ukrainian Language and Culture program adjunct professors, created the Ukrainian language course.

“[Their] students have a unique opportunity to really understand from two of their teachers who directly fled the violence [in Ukraine] and went through incredible things to be here to do this for them,” said Kevin Morgan, LREC’s deputy director at SWCS. “So I have to imagine it’s extremely meaningful for them.”

Julia and Myla escaped the war-torn areas of Ukraine before arriving in the U.S. in March 2022. They finished their master’s degrees at the University of Montana and, shortly after, dove headfirst into helping Alyona create an effective and efficient course for SWCS.

“So, all the essential skills they need are to communicate efficiently in the target region. And every single lesson contains authentic materials. We use a student-centered approach. […],” Alyona said. “There’s not a single university, school, or book that would fit our program, so we literally had to create everything in them.”

Ukrainian is a class three language and is considered one of the more challenging to learn. To add to the stress of creating a class three language course in a short timeframe, LREC’s deputy director at SWCS said the three professors had to adjust and adapt the curriculum as the pilot program progressed.

“They’ve basically been building it in flight while they’re piloting this first course, and it’s been amazing,” Morgan said. “We expect great things going forward. We’re actually communicating to other units that we’re able to put 12 more students through in the next cycle.”

Students who graduate from the course walk away with 680 academic hours of instruction. They are in class Monday through Friday for six hours and have about two hours of homework that reinforces each day’s lessons.

The students are taught about and participate in the culture they study. They make traditional Ukrainian dishes to share with each other and learn about Ukrainian customs. Morgan said it’s a vital part of their plan to train their Ukrainian partners and thanked the professors for their hard work.

“It’s not just six soldiers that you’re training. You’re potentially providing knowledge to the Ukrainian military that could touch thousands of soldiers and really increase the defensive capabilities of Ukraine,” Morgan said. “Most importantly, it’s a partnership that’s probably going to go on for many, many years — and you’re directly contributing to that partnership.”

The latest on Task & Purpose

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• Marine battalion commander fired for “loss of trust and confidence”

taskandpurpose.com · by Joshua Skovlund · April 10, 2024

13. Congressional panel recommends 15% pay increase for enlisted troops

I had not heard this previously.

This is "win-win" .... for Congress. This panel will look very good making this recommendation but it is unlikely to pass both the House and Senate. So Congressmen can claim they are trying to take care of the troops but they will never have to put their money where their mouth is because it will be Congress that will block this as too expensive. (personnel costs are among the highest in DOD). They might even put the services on the spot and say what programs will you sacrifice to pay these higher personnel costs. The Services would likely push back citing readiness and developing the future weapons requirements. So it will make the Services look bad while Congress tries to look good. I guess I have turned into a full blooded cynic.

I think our troops deserve this (and this will have a long term impact on retirement because this would be base pay and would thus affect the level of retirement income.). Would this help recruiting and retention? Perhaps. But I think compensation is only one driving force in recruiting and retention. 

Congressional panel recommends 15% pay increase for enlisted troops

The report focused on military family experiences with barracks, wages, food insecurity, health care, childcare and spouse employment.

BY PATTY NIEBERG | PUBLISHED APR 11, 2024 6:16 PM EDT

taskandpurpose.com · by Patty Nieberg · April 11, 2024

More private barracks and a 15% jump in enlisted pay are among the key steps the military should take if it wants to improve quality of life for service retention, a bipartisan report by a House Armed Services panel released Thursday found. Childcare and job opportunities for spouses were also high on the panel’s priority list.

“It is clear that we must address these issues if we are to sustain the All-Volunteer Force,” according to the report by the Quality of Life panel. The report was put together after months of hearings, briefings, roundtables, oversight visits, and interviews. The panel’s recommendations are aimed at inclusion in the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act.

“You think about these global challenges that we are facing. We think about our military branches, we think about conflict but really it comes down to people,” Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) said at a press conference for the report’s unveiling. “It’s not just the women and men who make the incredible sacrifice and commitment, it’s their entire family.”

The report follows a series of bombshells on quality of life issues that military members face. In 2023, a Government Accountability Office report found junior enlisted service members were forced to live in barracks with unsafe and unsanitary living conditions such as broken locks, mold problems and rat infestations. And Wednesday, Military.com released an investigative report on abuse, denial and a lack of accountability in military childcare facilities.

PAY AND ALLOWANCES

The panel found that servicemember salaries overall did not keep up with the rate of inflation. Since 2020 and through 2024 (with the 5.2% pay raise in 2024), basic pay is projected to increase by 16.4% while inflation is projected for a 19.% increase, according to the report.

The panel recommended a 15% increase to basic pay for junior enlisted troops (E-1s to E-4s) and an increase in military compensation benchmarks for enlisted and officers from the current 70th percentile to the 80th and 75th percentiles “comparable” to civilian compensations.

With more pay, the panel hopes it can address another issue plaguing troops, especially E-4 to E-6s in the Army and Navy: food insecurity. A 2023 RAND report found that 25% of U.S. troops are food insecure, according to the panel. The rates were also higher among troops who lived on post which they linked it to inability to access DFACs around atypical work schedules and not having a car to travel off base.

To combat these issues, installations and military services are expanding outposts like food trucks, 24-hour self-service kiosks, mass transit options to DFACs for troops in barracks. A pilot at Fort Liberty in fiscal 2026 will allow troops to use meal cards across the installation, including at the commissary, restaurants, and dining facilities. However, troop reports from the veteran-created Hots&Cots app have noted completely barren kiosks at dining facilities at Hunter Army AirField in Savannah, Georgia and Fort Carson, Colorado.

The report also included troops’ frustration with the calculation and frequency of adjustments for Cost of Living Allowances for those stationed abroad. For example, military families in Germany “struggled to make ends meet” due to “massive hikes in their utility bills caused by the conflict in Ukraine as their Pentagon-provided [COLA] continued to decrease,” the report said. Similar issues were reported in Hawaii with high costs for gas and groceries.

BAH and Private Barracks

The Panel recommended a reversal to the 5% reduction in BAH and ensure it covers 100% of the calculated rate for the military housing area. The skyrocketing costs of living have left troops living in some of the most expensive parts of the country like troops assigned to Edwards Air Base who are moving into RVs on base because they can’t afford options in California.

To counter these problems, Congress is pushing ahead with private options for barracks because the service’s can’t handle the oversite, despite long-standing criticisms over private contractors running on base family housing, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska), head of the congressional panel told Task & Purpose after the press conference.

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“They can’t do a good job on their own, that’s what I’m hearing just to be brutally honest,” Bacon said. “We’re probably going to go see more of a trend to privatized barracks like we did the housing.”

The Army and Navy are considering additional privatized barracks projects. Air Force officials said they have requested a consultation with officials over a privatized barracks proposal. The Marine Corps is conducting a feasibility study for privatized unaccompanied housing at two locations, the report said.

After the scathing report, Elizabeth Field, director of the GAO’s Defense Capabilities and Management office told Congress in September that privatization is “not a silver bullet“ and said it won’t matter where funds go, “ if you don’t pay attention.”

Bacon said there will be a boatload of money put into barracks sustainment this fiscal year and the following one. Housing representatives for the services told Congress in September that they were currently funding sustainment at around 80% but with the latest budget requests, that is changing.

The Army, for example, specifically requested $680 million for barracks sustainment in its fiscal year 2025 budget request with officials noting it was the first year they planned to fund sustainment at 100%.

“I was trying to be nice up there but this really pissed us off. We were being told this is what we need for barracks, we were paying it,” Bacon said. “Then you find out after 10 years they’re asking for 80% of what they needed. I get it, they were trying to put money into weapons but we should have known that we were not putting up what was actually required.”

Access to care

The panel also found issues with troops’ access to care, especially behavioral health resources. The panel directed the Defense Health Agency to evaluate current access standards, services offered at military treatment facilities and the role of telemedicine and technology in delivering health care. Along with reviewing the role of remote care, the panel recommended direct access to telemedicine appointments without a referral.

The Panel also recommended the military services survey medical providers in critical wartime specialties and specialties with shortages like mental health to determine “why military providers choose to remain in service or separate.”

Spouses and childcare

For military spouses, the panel recommended the authorization of two programs which give spouses paid fellowships and employment opportunities. They also recommended a cooperative agreement with state governments on interstate licensure compacts to transfer occupation credentials.

Currently the DOD-sponsored child care program serves approximately 200,000 children, and employs over 23,000 workers, costing an average of $1 billion annually. Despite this, wait times for Child Development Centers can reach up to six or seven months but some service members “may never gain access to fee assistance.”

Over the last few years, 17 new CDC’s have been authorized and given funding for construction but many projects are not yet complete. The panel also found vacancies for more than 4,300 CDC worker positions.

Due to the aforementioned challenges, the report focused on access and availability of options. The panel recommends implementing competitive pay rates for CDC workers at military installations, reports on potential partnerships and programs with the base’s surrounding communities and an assessment of an initiative to recruit students and recent graduates at local colleges and universities.

The report also noted that satisfaction rates overall for military child care is “high and it is generally considered high quality” despite the Military.com investigation from this week which found service branch rules generally prioritize protecting the institution and have limited accountability safeguards when it comes to cases of abuse involving children at the centers.

The latest on Task & Purpose

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• ‘Black Hawk Down’ Ranger veteran awarded Silver Star
• The Air Force’s new $60 million Special Warfare center honors a fallen pararescueman
• Former Air National Guardsman may have defected to Russia
• Marine battalion commander fired for “loss of trust and confidence”

taskandpurpose.com · by Patty Nieberg · April 11, 2024

14. Higher enlisted pay, full housing stipends included in new House plan

More on the pay increase. The Task & PUrpose headline editor had a better clickbait headline that certainly caught my eye. The 15% increase is buried in this article:

Higher enlisted pay, full housing stipends included in new House plan

militarytimes.com · by Leo Shane III · April 11, 2024

Troops would see larger monthly housing stipends, more child care and health care access and targeted pay boosts for junior enlisted personnel under a sweeping military quality-of-life improvement plan unveiled by lawmakers on Thursday.

The 31-point plan — the culmination of more than a year of work by a special panel of House Armed Services Committee members — could provide significant financial relief to struggling military families if enacted. But putting it in place will likely cost tens of billions of dollars in coming years, complicating its passage.

Still, committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., vowed to pass the reforms this year during a news conference outlining the plan.

“We intend to take all of these recommendations and put them into the National Defense Authorization Act,” he said. “We intend to get that across the finish line with these recommendations. So we are going to do what is in the report.”

Committee leaders presented the plan as a much-needed blueprint to improve support and lower stress for the most vulnerable service members and their spouses. According to a RAND study released last year, as many as 1 in 4 troops suffers from some level of food insecurity, either because of poor pay or other service complications.

RELATED

Lawmakers press for junior enlisted pay boost as soon as possible

Military pay proposals pending in Congress might face difficulty becoming law because of the budget complications involved.

The recommendations with the most direct impact on troops’ family finances would be the targeted pay boosts and housing stipend increases.

Under the panel’s recommendations, all troops ranked E-4 and below would see a 15% pay boost.

“This will restore real value to basic pay, given the increase in civilian earnings for those with high school diplomas and those with some college,” the lawmakers wrote.

Military members receive regular pay increases annually, but lawmakers on the panel said that those pay hikes have not kept up with inflation in recent years. That has been especially painful for the youngest enlisted troops, some of whom earn less than $25,000 a year in base pay.

The targeted increases would bring most of those individuals’ pay to more than $31,000 annually — roughly the equivalent of a $15-an-hour wage in the civilian workforce.

Similarly, increasing troops’ housing allowance would provide more immediate financial flexibility.

Since 2016, the Defense Department has provided a stipend worth 95% of regional housing costs to eligible troops and families, with the exact amounts dependent on rank, ZIP code and whether an individual has dependents. The panel report recommends boosting that to 100%, a move that could provide several thousand dollars annually to some families.

Advocates have long pushed for the move, arguing that the current policy hurts troops by shortchanging them on housing expenses. But defense officials have said that move alone would cost the department more than $1 billion annually, money that will need to be taken from other readiness or modernization accounts in a constrained budget environment.

Other panel recommendations include better pay and benefits for Defense Department child care workers, to help recruit and retain more staffers; expanding eligibility for the military’s Basic Allowance for Subsistence stipend; amending hiring authorities to bring in more medical administrative staff; and improving military spouse career programs.

“The all-volunteer force is the foundation of America’s military strength,” said Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., chairman of the quality-of-life panel. “For that reason, military quality of life is a central national security issue.”

Panel members said the moves all come in response to “recurring concerns” from military members and outside advocates. The report was signed by seven Republicans and six Democrats, and supported by leadership from both parties.

Outside advocates hailed the plan as a significant step forward in efforts to better the lives of military families.

“For our military and for our all-volunteer force to thrive, we need families to also thrive,” said Shannon Razsadin, president of the Military Family Advisory Network. “This report really makes clear the steps we need to take, and we are grateful for that. We feel heard.”

The House Armed Services Committee is expected to craft its annual defense authorization bill over the next six weeks. The legislation has passed for more than 60 consecutive years and is considered the most likely vehicle for whichever report recommendations committee leaders opt to advance this year.

Senate leaders have expressed support for some of the ideas in the report but have not committed to any specific plans on military pay or quality-of-life changes.

Military Times reporter Karen Jowers contributed to this report.

About Leo Shane III

Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.

15. AUKUS allies float path for Japan to join tech sharing pact

AUKUS allies float path for Japan to join tech sharing pact

Defense News · by Bryant Harris · April 11, 2024

The U.S. is inviting Japan to be a potential partner on part of the trilateral AUKUS pact that aims to deepen top-secret technology sharing and joint development on advanced defense capabilities.

The White House on Wednesday, during Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s state visit at the White House, floated Japan’s entry into the second pillar of the pact in a joint statement. While the first pillar would see the U.S. and Britain help Australia develop its own nuclear-powered submarine fleet, the second aims to jumpstart cooperation on emerging defense technologies.

During a joint address to Congress on Thursday, Kishida highlighted U.S.-Japanese cooperation on some of the key technologies the agreement seeks to enhance.

“Just yesterday, President [Joe] Biden and I demonstrated our commitment to leading the world on the development of the next generation of emerging technologies, such as AI, quantum, semiconductors, biotechnology and clean energy,” he told U.S. lawmakers.

Biden and Kishida announced a slew of new defense cooperation agreements between their two countries in a joint statement Wednesday. And while the statement opens up a door for Japan to join AUKUS Pillar II, Kishida did not formally commit to joining.

“For Japan, to have a direct cooperation with AUKUS, nothing has been decided at this moment,” Kishida said at a press conference with Biden at the White House.

Australian Minister for Defense Industry Patrick Conroy and British Vice Adm. Martin Connell, the U.K. Royal Navy Second Sea Lord, both spoke favorably about Japan possibly joining the agreement during the Sea Air Space defense conference in Washington on Monday.

Vice Adm. Rob Gaucher, who command U.S. submarine forces in the Atlantic, said during the conference “we already share a ton of technology with Japan and they’re a great partner in the Pacific,” pointing to Tokyo’s unmanned capabilities.

‘Getting the basics of AUKUS right’

AUKUS is still in its nascent stages, and the three participating countries are seeking consensus on overhauling their export control regimes, which critics say inhibit the information and technology sharing crucial to deepening collaboration among their respective defense industries.

“The Biden administration has to get the basics of AUKUS right before it expands the pact to other partners,” Sen. James Risch, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in statement Wednesday, noting the State Department still needs to submit a certification to give Australia and Britain broad exemptions to U.S. export control laws.

“Without this certification, cooperation on advanced technologies under AUKUS — the very types of military capabilities needed to counter China — will remain stymied by regulations and bureaucracy,” he added. “Rather than take credit for things it has not yet done, the Biden administration should certify our two closest allies and deliver tangible defense capabilities now. Adding more partners delays capabilities and fails to deter China.”

The fiscal 2024 defense policy bill, which Congress passed in December, would give Australia and Britain a carveout in Washington’s International Traffic in Arms Regulation, or ITAR. Canada is currently the only country to enjoy a blanket ITAR exemption.

But to receive this, the State Department must certify Canberra and London have passed comparable export control laws of their own so U.S. technology does not fall into the hands of adversaries like China.

Australia’s parliament is considering legislation to enhance its export control laws, but some Australian defense firms fear stricter regulations will inhibit their ability to do business with non-AUKUS countries, like Japan.

For his part, Kishida did not directly mention AUKUS in his address to Congress, which largely centered on urging lawmakers to continue supporting Ukraine and playing a leading role in the Indo-Pacific.

“As we meet here today, I detect an undercurrent of self-doubt among some Americans about what your role in the world should be,” said Kishida. “As I often say, Ukraine of today may be East Asia of tomorrow.”

About Bryant Harris

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

16. House Speaker Mike Johnson is negotiating with White House to advance Ukraine aid

Based on other reporting I think he has to negotiate with Trump as well.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is negotiating with White House to advance Ukraine aid

BY STEPHEN GROVES

Updated 12:33 AM EDT, April 12, 2024

AP · April 12, 2024

Politics

STEPHEN GROVES

Groves covers Congress for The Associated Press.

twitter

17. Ukraine war: How to check Russia's momentum

Excerpts:

Ukraine’s maturing strategic strike complex - the combination of intelligence, military planning, and aerial and maritime drones to strike Russian targets at long range - is making significant progress in the Black Sea as well as against Russian airfields and oil refineries. This capacity, which is improving in its reach and effectiveness, will be a key part of future Ukrainian operations. The development of this strike complex has been an extraordinary achievement in the past two years.

Ukraine’s defence industry has also seen rapid development in the past two years. After being allowed to wither as the Soviet Union dissolved, there is a new focus on indigenous military research and production. Between 2022 and 2023, the value of military materiel produced in Ukraine tripled. This then doubled in the past year. Artillery production tripled in the past year, and Ukraine now produces hundreds of thousands of small drones as well as thousands of large drones with increasing range and larger warheads.

In a recent interview with Ukrainian media, President Zelenskyy said his nation would find it very difficult to get through 2024 without more help from foreign supporters. This is a challenging diagnosis for those who have supported Ukraine with military, financial, humanitarian and diplomatic aid. With their expanding defence industry, strategic strike capability and changes to personnel mobilisation and allocation, Ukraine has a firm foundation to reconstitute for future offensives. But realising this potential will need a change in strategy and a greater degree of support and risk-taking from Western nations.

Ukraine war: How to check Russia's momentum | Lowy Institute

MICK RYAN

Russia now has the means to subjugate Ukraine. This calls

for a change in how Kyiv – and the West – fights this war.

lowyinstitute.org · by Mick Ryan

To the dismay of many in Ukraine and beyond, Russia has proven more resilient and adaptive than its performance in the early days of the war indicated. I recently returned from my latest visit to Ukraine, where I spoke with government and military officials as well as think tanks and journalists. The most important insight from my visit was confirmation that Russia now has the strategic momentum in the war.

There is a compelling and urgent need for NATO to change from a “defend Ukraine” policy to one of “defeat Russia in Ukraine”.

Russia has recovered psychologically from the shock of its early failures. The Russian president and his government now possess a renewed sense of optimism about the trajectory of Russian operations. The Russian military in the past two years has undertaken a transformation in its warfighting capability, something that it should have completed, but did not, in the preceding decade of reform. Russia’s defence industry has significantly increased the output of military materiel while also exploiting Cold War stockpiles and regenerating moth-balled factories.

Russia began the war with maximal objectives but without the military capacity to achieve them. Now, it appears capable of generating the human, materiel and informational resources to subjugate Ukraine in a way it was not capable of when it began its large-scale invasion in February 2022.

Both sides have demonstrated an ability to learn and adapt. Ukraine has arguably shown a superior capacity to undertake tactical or bottom-up adaptation. This has seen it generate an advantage in areas such as drones. Russia has proven superior in strategic adaptation, particularly in areas such as the mobilisation of people and expansion of its industrial output.

Russia is now a more dangerous adversary than it was two years ago. This calls for change in how the war is fought.

The first area where Ukraine and its supporters must change is war strategy. Until now, the West has adopted a strategic posture focused on defending Ukraine. This ensured the survival of Ukraine until now, but the revived and more dangerous threat of Russia means “defending Ukraine” is now a strategy for defeat.

The Russian president and his government now possess a renewed sense of optimism.

There is a compelling and urgent need for NATO to change from a “defend Ukraine” policy to one of “defeat Russia in Ukraine”. At the same time, Ukraine needs to develop and share with its supporters its theory of victory. One official in Kyiv told me there is no clear vision of how Ukraine will win. A new Ukrainian theory of victory must be a foundational element of any revised Western strategy.

The resources necessary for such a strategy will mean higher defence budgets, increased orders from defence industry, and significantly increased aid to Ukraine. However, given the threats made by Russian officials against Finland, Sweden, the Baltics and other European nations, the cost of not resourcing a “defeat Russia in Ukraine” strategy may be an order of magnitude greater in the long run, should Russia defeat Ukraine.

Another area where rapid change is necessary is strategic communications. While confronting Russian misinformation activities is the responsibility of all democracies, Ukraine’s strategic messaging must evolve. Ukrainian influence campaigns in the first 18 months of the war were exemplars of the art of strategic communications. But, the convergence of a failed counter-offensive, a recent civil-military crisis, the shift in attention to Gaza, and the political debate over mobilisation has resulted in significantly less focus on Ukraine by global media and Western publics.

Ukraine needs to discover a new voice that explains the importance of its defence, why Western support is vital, and that Russian narratives about inevitable victory are wrong.

The situation is grim. The challenge of a vastly improved Russia has been magnified by shortfalls in foreign military aid, especially from the United States but also countries such as Australia. There are, however, aspects of the war that offer a foundation for an evolved Ukrainian strategy and influence campaign.

Ukraine’s maturing strategic strike complex - the combination of intelligence, military planning, and aerial and maritime drones to strike Russian targets at long range - is making significant progress in the Black Sea as well as against Russian airfields and oil refineries. This capacity, which is improving in its reach and effectiveness, will be a key part of future Ukrainian operations. The development of this strike complex has been an extraordinary achievement in the past two years.

Ukraine’s defence industry has also seen rapid development in the past two years. After being allowed to wither as the Soviet Union dissolved, there is a new focus on indigenous military research and production. Between 2022 and 2023, the value of military materiel produced in Ukraine tripled. This then doubled in the past year. Artillery production tripled in the past year, and Ukraine now produces hundreds of thousands of small drones as well as thousands of large drones with increasing range and larger warheads.

In a recent interview with Ukrainian media, President Zelenskyy said his nation would find it very difficult to get through 2024 without more help from foreign supporters. This is a challenging diagnosis for those who have supported Ukraine with military, financial, humanitarian and diplomatic aid. With their expanding defence industry, strategic strike capability and changes to personnel mobilisation and allocation, Ukraine has a firm foundation to reconstitute for future offensives. But realising this potential will need a change in strategy and a greater degree of support and risk-taking from Western nations.

lowyinstitute.org · by Mick Ryan

​18. Operationalizing a Doctrine for U.S. Economic Statecraft

Economic statecraft is a key element of a comprehensive political warfare strategy.

Conclusion:

A combined economic statecraft doctrine with adequate resources will prepare the national security bureaucracy for current and emerging threats. America has unrivaled economic tools at its disposal. It should be able to wield them forcefully and nimbly in pursuit of its foreign policy objectives.

Operationalizing a Doctrine for U.S. Economic Statecraft - War on the Rocks

ALEX ZERDEN AND LELAND SMITH

warontherocks.com · by Alex Zerden · April 12, 2024

The opening salvos of the U.S. response to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine came from an unlikely place. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded for ammunition, Commerce and Treasury Department officials rapidly deployed extensive and novel economic weapons against Russia. In Washington, these measures represent the elements of economic statecraft, an important but largely undefined concept. Since at least 2011, senior government officials have used the concept of economic statecraft to explain the tools of U.S. economic power for foreign policy and national security purposes. These include economic sanctions, inbound and outbound investment review, export controls, economic diplomacy, and direct and indirect financial assistance. Expanded use of tariffs and export controls under the Trump administration demonstrated the toolkit available to policymakers that created a nascent bipartisan consensus during the Biden administration.

Major changes occurred under Biden as well. The administration prioritized U.S. industrial policy and other forms of domestic investments to complement mostly extraterritorial, national security-focused actions. Policy pronouncements like National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s April 2023 Brookings Institution speech on renewing American economic leadership provided an important high-level framing for international economic policy. More recently before returning to the Biden administration, Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh articulated a “positive vision” of economic statecraft that lays down “principles, rules, and a code of conduct” to anchor elements of what may become an administration doctrine.

However, more work is required to implement these concepts and focus on economic tools deployed for national security (as opposed to economic) purposes. U.S. agencies currently lack the resources, staffing, and organizational design to accomplish this mandate. For fiscal year 2024, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence requested $244 million and the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security requested $222 million. Despite the greater emphasis placed on strategic competition and technological advancement in recent National Security Strategies and National Defense Strategies, these two agencies’ requests were less than 0.06 percent of the Department of Defense’s request of $842 billion. For the cost of about six V-22 Osprey aircraft (that the department grounded last year) or less than the cost of Strategic Command’s recently announced cost overrun, the relevant Treasury and Commerce offices could double in size.

Right now, Washington expects too much from its civilian economic statecraft workforce without sufficiently resourcing them. They receive a fraction of the Department of Defense’s appropriations yet the Treasury, Commerce, and State Departments are expected to perform as co-equal departments. With more resources, economic statecraft practitioners can import Department of Defense best practices around doctrine, planning, joint force structure, and training, but these first require more resources.

We propose a permanent architectural change for economic statecraft. The shift in national security priorities should be durable and bipartisan. To achieve this goal, policymakers should pursue the following three lines of effort. First, identify who should coordinate across agencies, monitor the threat environment, and inform National Security Council objectives with respect to economic statecraft, with a special focus on the tools available across the Treasury and Commerce departments. Second, allocate the resources necessary to define, refine, and communicate a doctrine covering the circumstances for their use, particularly those involving sanctions, export controls, and investment review, as well as a positive economic incentives toolkit. And third, establish the workforce, processes, and metrics to manage the tools’ integrated use and evaluate their efficacy.

Become a Member

Congressional Resources for Economic Statecraft

To sustain an economic statecraft doctrine capability, Congress should authorize and appropriate additional resources for the executive branch. Chronic staffing shortages, expanded but unfunded mandates like increased reporting and staffing requirements, and uncompetitive compensation for high-skilled bureaucrats typify the challenges facing the departments and agencies tasked with executing elements of U.S. economic power. For example, two years after passage of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN, the U.S. financial intelligence unit) reported that they had not established key international liaison positions. Unlike their counterparts at other civil regulatory agencies, the Treasury Department’s FinCEN and Office of Foreign Assets Control enforcement offices do not have lawyer billets. Yet policymakers increasingly rely on civilian agencies like the Commerce and Treasury Departments to act as co-equal components for national security and foreign policy decision-making and execution.

Substantially increasing budget and billets for critical national security positions involving economic statecraft will deliver several direct benefits. More personnel will provide the bandwidth to address issues involving doctrine and contingency planning. These functions could include strategic (medium- and long-term) planning functions, net assessment capabilities for bespoke research and expert assessments, and training. Congressional funding for direct hiring authorities to bring in private sector expertise would enhance responses to exigent circumstances and technological advances.

Congress could also develop authorities to create a reserve corps of economic statecraft experts, including former government officials, to train and prepare for limited or extended mobilization as various crises develop. Over the past two years, the Afghanistan withdrawal, the expanded Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the Hamas attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 taxed the U.S. economic statecraft bureaucracy’s ability to manage crisis issues like economic sanctions and countering the financing of terrorism. Being able to surge economic statecraft expert resources in Washington, deploy personnel to forward locations, and/or place experts within military or intelligence bureaucracies could dramatically improve government capabilities on technical matters like sanctions and export controls. Implementers would need to mitigate bureaucratic concerns about establishing a new, potentially cumbersome personnel function given the challenges described about limited resources. One possible approach could be to modify the military’s reserve “drill weekend” model to integrate these reserve experts into non-crisis workflows such as the net assessment functions while allowing them to receive and provide periodic briefings across the economic statecraft bureaucracy, participate in ongoing exercises, and maintain active security clearances.

Congress could consider adapting some of the critical, if often overlooked provisions of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. This part of the act created mechanisms to implement the “joint” concept for better integrating elements of the military into a unified fighting force. The act included a requirement for military officers to serve on a joint duty assignment to another military branch, also called a detail or secondment in the civilian context, as a requirement for promotion. Fostering similar joint requirements across the civilian workforce would improve understanding across the economic security bureaucracies, create new formal and informal information channels, and benchmark standard practices and capabilities.

One area for Congress to prioritize would be to create and fund a Treasury Foreign Financial Service, thereby formalizing and adequately resourcing the Treasury Department’s existing Financial Attaché program. The program remains limited to about a dozen officers serving in U.S. embassies in a mix of advanced and problematic economies around the world. This change would dramatically improve the reach of U.S. economic statecraft globally with relatively little cost (potentially just tens of millions of dollars) and human capital (a fraction of the State Department’s 9,156 Foreign Service employees). Bringing the Treasury Department’s financial diplomats up to the same standards and organizational structure as the Foreign Service (State Department), Foreign Commercial Service (Commerce Department), and even the Foreign Agricultural Service (Agriculture Department) would improve the Treasury Department’s ability to implement economic statecraft goals overseas involving the department’s key national security responsibilities. Important Treasury functions include economic sanctions administered by its Office of Foreign Assets Control, combating illicit finance such as terrorism financing, money laundering, proliferation finance, and supporting inbound and outbound investment review processes.

Creating an Economic Statecraft Doctrine with the Executive Branch

What’s needed to create and maintain an economic statecraft doctrine? No central resource for techniques, procedures, standards, and lessons learned presently exists for economic statecraft. Congress and the Biden administration can do much more to institutionalize economic statecraft efforts across the executive branch. Sullivan’s 2023 Brookings Institution speech on U.S. economic leadership addressed both incentives and coercive activities but focused heavily on investment and trade. The speech did not mention economic sanctions and only mentioned export controls once. While China will be the central focus of any strategic engagement on economic statecraft, national security and foreign policy crises over the past several years demonstrate that the relevant agencies ought to have a wide range of tools and capabilities to address unexpected global events, as well the need to better develop positive economic statecraft incentives rather than just disincentives. This is equally true for an industrialized Russia as it is for economically ancillary and isolated places like Afghanistan and Gaza.

With adequate resources, executive agencies can begin to build doctrinal texts and training to codify best practices and incorporate each of these considerations within the context of an interagency approach to economic statecraft. Before returning to government, Singh outlined the principles, contents, and method for operationalizing such a doctrine in a recent article that builds on 2023 Senate testimony discussed in more detail below. Such doctrine would enable agencies like Treasury and Commerce to ensure consistency and scale operations that employ key principles to take action in support of the National Security Strategy across economic and intelligence domains. Rather than saddling a small group of people with designing policy guidance, strategic objectives, and tactics, well-resourced and staffed agencies with an informed doctrinal framework will be better positioned to safeguard the U.S. strength and stability.

Critics opposed to articulating an economic statecraft doctrine may argue that publicly communicating a strategy would unnecessarily restrict U.S. policy options while telegraphing capabilities to adversaries. However, adversaries already dedicate significant resources to scrutinizing policymakers’ objectives and seeking to evade economic sanctions and export controls. An economic statecraft doctrine would improve intra-agency and interagency communication, planning, and coordination capabilities, as well as engagement with the private sector, allies, and partners. Further, the increased transparency could incentivize adversaries to alter their behavior earlier in the process before the U.S. government takes concrete actions. Such efforts could both reassure allies and place adversaries on notice.

Baselining Analytical Capabilities and Establishing Infrastructure

Along with developing doctrine, policymakers should expand, and in some places create, the “analytical infrastructure” to measure and assess economic statecraft initiatives. One key element of Singh’s congressional testimony addressed the need to “create an analytical infrastructure that incorporates economic statecraft.” The Treasury Department’s launch of a sanctions analysis unit represents the first of hopefully other offices with such a direct and holistic responsibility. As highlighted by a 2022 Center for Strategic and International Studies report, sufficiently resourcing a similar analytic function in the Bureau of Industry and Security for export controls would also support economic statecraft goals and work in tandem with a fully capable Commerce Department intelligence community function.

More ambitiously, Congress should expand the Department of Commerce’s intelligence function. A formalized and adequately resourced intelligence function in the department would augment existing intelligence capabilities to address the priorities of technological competition, export controls, and investment security. More analytical infrastructure would also enable the types of products envisioned in an economic statecraft doctrine that includes “stress test[ing] and warg[aming] the tools of economic statecraft” and “build[ing] surveillance practices that inform the design of economic statecraft.” At the very least, the Commerce Department should have greater tasking authority for collection by other intelligence community members.

To baseline capabilities, the executive branch should conduct coordinated reviews of specific economic statecraft tools across agencies. Policymakers can look to the 2021 Treasury sanctions policy review as a model for a deliberative process to evaluate specific economic statecraft tools and develop forward-looking guidance. However, this review was limited to Treasury Department sanctions authorities. The executive branch should have an integrated vision to include other Treasury Department capabilities such as inbound and outbound investment review, and the role of multilateral development banks. The Commerce Department can evaluate export control authorities, while the State Department, International Development Finance Corporation, and the U.S. Agency for International Development can look at economic tools under their authorities. Federal regulators such as the Federal Reserve System, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission should assess their role as elements of U.S. economic statecraft. While respecting their independence, Congress can consider amending their mandates to account for foreign policy and national security.

Forward-looking analytical and planning capabilities would enhance the economic statecraft function. Congress should provide the Treasury Department resources to build out net assessment and policy planning functions for medium-term planning and to expand upon Commerce Department capabilities for policy planning. The Defense Department established its net assessment office in 1973, allowing it to contribute decades worth of experience to accelerate the development of civilian economic agency counterparts. Similarly, the State Department’s Office of Policy Planning has an even longer pedigree going back to George Kennan’s creation of the office in 1947. Such a team (or teams) with net assessment and policy planning functions would conduct studies across economic sectors and adversaries’ financial markets to identify coverage gaps, threat patterns, risks, and opportunities.

An economic net assessment capability would draw on existing tools in the private sector and national security apparatus. Conducting medium and long term macroeconomic, financial market, commodity market, and supply chain risk analyses would identify potential shocks and vulnerabilities for which the U.S. government could prepare. Blockades to limit commodity exports or imports like cotton in the U.S. Civil War, coal in world war one, and, more recently, grain in Ukraine have played a major strategic role in each conflict. Weakness in financial markets can leave countries unable to meet defense and critical budgetary needs, and disrupt the lives of everyday citizens. Anticipating potential risks years in advance under a cohesive framework would enable swifter coordinated action and resilience.

These actions should also consider the increasing role of technology, which introduces further risks to the financial markets that can cause panic and exacerbate geopolitical tensions. A recent RAND study found a litany of technology-related risks to the U.S. financial system including attacks on AI-based financial models, selling off bond positions, and the use of technology to engineer behavior or financial decision-making. These changes may occur in a slow insidious manner rather than as a shock, which will be more difficult to address. In March 2024, the Treasury Department also released a report on AI-specific cybersecurity and fraud risks that could inform further medium- and long-term planning. An economic net assessment tool would consider the wide range of potential threats over time and across technologies to better arm policymakers.

Developing a Positive Economic Toolkit

To fully realize an economic statecraft doctrine, policymakers should also integrate a framework around positive economic tools that incentivize desired economic behaviors to achieve foreign policy outcomes. Before rejoining the Biden administration, Singh also recognized the need for more positive economic tools to “balance the pain caused by sanctions with a holistic approach to statecraft that causes mutual economic gain (infrastructure finance, supply chain partnerships, technology alliances, debt relief, revitalizing the World Bank).” Sullivan also discussed some of these positive tools in his April 2023 speech. Outside experts, including at the Atlantic Council, have begun to make the case for “positive economic statecraft.” By coordinating capital mobilization for infrastructure investment alongside the deployment of novel financial tools like debt-for-nature swaps to reduce sovereign debt burdens, economic statecraft can enhance economic growth for American partners as well.

A combined economic statecraft doctrine with adequate resources will prepare the national security bureaucracy for current and emerging threats. America has unrivaled economic tools at its disposal. It should be able to wield them forcefully and nimbly in pursuit of its foreign policy objectives.

Become a Member

Alex Zerden is the founder of Capitol Peak, a risk-advisory firm, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, and a senior advisor to WestExec Advisors. Previously, he worked in the U.S. Treasury Department, including as a Financial Attaché, the White House National Economic Council, and Congress.

Leland Smith is an international financial markets lawyer and policy advisor who recently returned from the private sector to the U.S. Treasury Department in International Affairs. Previously he worked in the office of a Commodity Futures Trading Commission commissioner, on the trading floor of a major energy company, and served in the U.S. Army as a platoon leader and executive officer conducting ground operations in Iraq. Views expressed are his own and not those of the Treasury.

Image: Mark Orders-Woempner

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Alex Zerden · April 12, 2024

19.  Biden says US support for Philippines, Japan defense 'ironclad' amid growing China provocations

Biden says US support for Philippines, Japan defense 'ironclad' amid growing China provocations

AP · by AAMER MADHANI · April 11, 2024

President Joe Biden says the U.S. defense commitment is “ironclad” as he gathers Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House in the midst of growing concern over provocative Chinese military action.

AAMER MADHANI

Aamer Madhani is a White House reporter.

twittermailto

ZEKE MILLER

Zeke is AP’s chief White House correspondent

twittermailto

AP · by AAMER MADHANI · April 11, 2024

20. Don’t Abandon Iraq

Conclusion:

The issue of the American troop presence in Iraq has become a test of wills between Iraqi political actors who want to see Baghdad clearly aligned with Tehran and those who want to secure Iraq’s independence by balancing ties with Tehran and Washington. What is at stake in this debate is much bigger than a few thousand non-combat soldiers. It is in the interests of both Iraq and the United States to negotiate a long-term agreement that resolves the troop question and sets up the next phase of U.S.-Iraqi relations. Most important, such an agreement would help bring much-needed stability, putting a spotlight on the need for Iraq’s political leaders to address the country’s domestic challenges. As Washington prepares for the U.S. elections later this year and deals with the fallout of the war in Gaza, Iran will be looking for ways to undermine the United States in the region. Going through with an exit from Iraq would be a political win for Tehran—and a strategic loss for Iraq, as it risks getting pulled further into the Iranian orbit.

Don’t Abandon Iraq

The Case for a Continued U.S. Military Presence

By Mina Al-Oraibi

April 12, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Mina Al-Oraibi · April 12, 2024

Most Iraqi prime ministers serving in the past two decades have at some point asked the U.S. military to leave their country. Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari made the first public call for a U.S. withdrawal in 2005, followed by Nouri al-Maliki in 2008, Adel Abdul-Mahdi in 2020, and Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, the current incumbent, in December 2023. For much of this period, these requests have originated with the Iranian-backed Islamist militia groups operating in Iraq, which have pushed the country’s political leaders to demand a drawdown of U.S. forces.

Bilateral negotiations over the past 15 years or so have dramatically reduced the U.S. military presence in Iraq since its peak in 2007, when 170,000 U.S. troops were stationed there as part of a “surge” to fight al Qaeda and support the Iraqi armed forces, which were still in the process of rebuilding after the United States dismantled the country’s police force and army in 2003. President Barack Obama withdrew all U.S. troops by late 2011, only to send 3,000 back to fight the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) less than three years later. Today, the United States has an estimated 2,500 soldiers in Iraq. The threat that al Qaeda and ISIS pose in Iraq has significantly diminished, and major acts of violence are rare—which explains the pared-down U.S. troop presence.

Now, Sudani is seeking to end the U.S. military mission in Iraq altogether. The prime minister faces pressure from his partners in government, a bloc known as the Coordination Framework, which is composed of Islamist Shiite parties closely aligned with Iran. He is also looking to bolster his own position. Although Sudani should have authority over all the armed entities in Iraq as the country’s commander in chief, in practice, militia groups operate either autonomously or through the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella organization that is legally recognized as part of Iraq’s security apparatus but coordinates directly with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). When Sudani meets with President Joe Biden in Washington on April 15, he will make a case for the United States to remove all American troops, but he is unlikely to put forward a plan to deal with the militias in the aftermath. Doing so would require strengthening Iraq’s institutions, as militia groups and the politicians who support them take advantage of weak state structures. There is little political will right now for such reform, however, given that some members of the governing coalition also hold positions in the PMF.

The danger of escalation from armed groups is real. In recent months, several militias, including the U.S.-sanctioned Kataib Hezbollah, have become more active, striking Iraqi army bases, American personnel, and a U.S. base in Jordan. One group even claimed to have launched a missile that reached the Israeli city of Eilat, which would have required traversing Jordanian or Syrian airspace. Iran, as the patron backing these militias, stands to gain from the tumult spreading across the Middle East—and a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would give Tehran more opportunities to increase its influence.

If the U.S. military presence ends, U.S. political disengagement is likely to follow. The progress the Iraqi armed forces have made since 2014, when they failed to stop ISIS from sweeping through a third of the country, could be lost if U.S. support disappears—U.S. troops help with professional development and make it easier for the Iraqi military to stay out of politics. Baghdad has been striking a delicate balance as it tries to preserve ties with Iran but resist falling under Tehran’s dictates. Without the United States acting as a counterweight, that balance would be almost impossible to maintain.

Washington must now use its leverage in Baghdad to maintain a noncombat military presence, similar to the forces it maintains in Germany, Japan, the Philippines, and elsewhere. A long-term bilateral agreement for a U.S. troop presence would be a clear show of support for Iraq’s armed forces and a signal that Iraq is not beholden to Iran but an autonomous participant in a wider security architecture. With U.S. and international support, Iraq can move forward along the path to becoming a cornerstone of stability in the region.

ROOM FOR NEGOTIATION

The U.S. presence in Iraq is under the spotlight at a precarious time for the Middle East. The war in the Gaza Strip has created opportunities for outside actors seeking to benefit from the destruction—including Iran. Iranian proxies are more active than ever before, and Iran would like nothing more than for the United States to reduce its presence in the region and leave Iraq entirely. Iran’s gravitational pull for militant groups is growing stronger as Tehran doubles down on its rhetoric about confronting Israel—and its main backer, the United States—amid the devastating war in Gaza that followed Hamas’s attack on October 7. So far, Iran has gone to great lengths to avoid direct conflicts with Israel and the United States, relying on its proxies to hit U.S. and Israeli targets in Iraq, Syria, and the Red Sea. But after Israel’s strike on Iran’s embassy in Damascus on April 1, an attack that killed several senior members of the IRGC, that restraint may loosen. Seeing the U.S. troops stationed in Iraq sent home would hand Tehran a political win at this sensitive time—and give Iran greater freedom to act in Iraq as it calculates its next moves.

The United States does not have many friends in the Iraqi leadership today, a result of its diplomatic disengagement through the years. Yet this does not mean that Iraqi politicians uniformly want U.S. forces out of the country; Kurdish leaders in particular have historically had close ties to the United States and prefer that U.S. forces remain. Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, a seasoned politician from the Kurdistan region, has expressed his wish for a continued relationship with Washington to address the lingering ISIS threat. And a report in Politico in January quoted “senior advisers” in Iraq’s government who claimed that behind the scenes, officials in Baghdad—including Sudani himself—prefer a continued American presence in the country. (Sudani was quick to deny the report.) Even within the PMF, some political actors that have close ties to Iran are also looking to avoid complete subservience.

The Iraqi government still seeks military ties to the West.

The Iraqi government’s policies are also somewhat contradictory. The current efforts to end the U.S. military presence are part of a wider push to limit international influence in the country: the government is also enforcing the use of the Iraqi dinar for financial transactions instead of the U.S. dollar and curtailing the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), which has helped oversee elections and encouraged dialogue among rival political parties. Camps built for Iraqis displaced by violence and managed by the International Organization for Migration and other foreign entities are also due to be closed this summer, even though not all residents have secured permanent homes.

Yet the Iraqi government still seeks military ties to the West. NATO’s mission in Iraq, which helps train and advise Iraqi troops, is not on the chopping block, as Baghdad negotiates a U.S. withdrawal. Sudani met with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg earlier this year to reaffirm that he wishes the alliance to stay. Iraq’s leaders clearly want to retain Western military expertise and training, and Washington can use that desire as leverage to ensure that a professional, NATO-supported force will remain in place.

For Iraq to be planning for a post-conflict future is itself a positive development. Baghdad has framed its recent policies as closing the chapter of war and occupation, a step forward that no Iraqi would argue against. But the political maneuvering that brought about this change could destabilize Iraq in the long run, as the seeming victory of the factions that wish to reduce the United States’ influence has meant that there is no similar effort to reduce Iran’s. The calls for the United States to withdraw from Iraq are coming from the same Iranian-allied militias whose leaders openly admit that they take guidance from the IRGC. Ultimately, these groups pose a greater challenge to Iraq’s sovereignty than the foreign troops whose objectives and functions are clearly defined and limited, set in coordination with the Iraqi government, and understood by the Iraqi public.

REASON TO STAY

Previous U.S. administrations have made various efforts to accommodate Iraqi demands to renegotiate the U.S. military presence in Iraq. In Baghdad, memories are still vivid of Washington’s about-face when President Barack Obama came to office pledging to withdraw from Iraq only to send U.S. forces back three years later as ISIS gained ground. In 2020, when the Iraqi government again asked that U.S. troops depart, the Trump administration publicly dismissed the request. The Biden administration, by contrast, has opted to work toward withdrawal, although U.S. officials remain hopeful that a bilateral agreement could allow some troops to remain in Iraq as part of an advisory mission.

By accepting the basic idea of a U.S. withdrawal, however, policymakers in Washington are ignoring the present-day security challenges in Iraq. For more than two decades, Iraq has been a cornerstone of U.S. Middle East policy, and U.S. military activities have focused mostly on the terror threat from al Qaeda and later from ISIS. Although those groups still pose threats, their reach has greatly diminished. But in the meantime, other dangers have emerged in the form of rogue militia groups, most of which have been nurtured by Tehran.

The United States is not without leverage in Iraq.

With the United States embroiled in military action not just in Iraq but also in Syria, Yemen, and the Red Sea, American leaders may be tempted to reduce what commitments they can. But they cannot avoid dealing with the threat of Iranian-backed forces in Iraq. In January, Iranian proxies based in Iraq carried out an attack in Jordan that killed three U.S. soldiers. And in the past few months, these militia groups have been threatening to cross through Jordan to take their fight to Israel. Although it now seems unlikely that they would act on these threats, they might perceive more room to maneuver if the United States were to withdraw entirely from Iraq (and from Syria, where 900 U.S. troops are stationed). All told, Iranian-backed militia forces, be they in Iraq or elsewhere, pose a great risk to long-term regional security. Their very presence undermines a state’s monopoly over the use of force, taking the power to decide matters of war and peace out of the hands of recognized governments.

U.S. officials who do support a continued military presence in Iraq are unsure of how to realize that goal. The head of the Iraqi government has publicly called for the U.S. mission to end, and American soldiers cannot stay against Iraqi wishes. To find a solution that is workable for both sides, Washington has to maximize the value proposition of its presence in Iraq and emphasize the cost of its departure. The United States should offer assets such as increased military training and equipment and emphasize to Iraq’s leaders that a withdrawal would limit the country’s access to advanced weapon systems and other benefits that come with being a security partner of the world’s primary superpower.

The United States is not without leverage; Iraq still relies heavily on U.S. political and military support to strengthen its armed forces and work with partners in the region. Sudani’s visit to Washington and his audience at the White House next week was something he and his team had sought for more than a year, an indication of the value a relationship with the United States still holds in Baghdad—as it does in many capitals around the world. The U.S. military cannot expect to maintain as large a military presence in Iraq as it has had in Germany and Japan for the past eight decades. But neither can the Biden administration afford to oversee a chaotic withdrawal from Iraq that would be smaller in scale than the withdrawal from Afghanistan but would serve as yet another sign of the United States’ waning influence.

A TEST OF WILLS

There is a key contradiction at the heart of Iraqi politics: the calls for greater Iraqi sovereignty, which translate in practice to ejecting U.S. troops, are stoked by groups who themselves undercut the authority of the Iraqi state by taking orders from Tehran. The United States dealt the initial blow with the 2003 war and occupation, and the damage to Iraqi sovereignty has allowed militias and other nonstate actors to proliferate in the years since. These groups are linked to corrupt networks that weaken the country’s financial, health care, and education systems, and they deploy both patronage and military tactics to fight for clout. Armed militias are embedding themselves within Iraq’s economic and political structures, while nonmilitant parties and independent politicians struggle to limit their influence.

The only viable long-term solution is to rebuild Iraq’s state institutions, weeding out the corruption and nepotism that are undercutting the Iraqi state and energizing the militias groups largely beholden to Tehran. Achieving this will require political parties and politicians who are committed to public service—and who can stand up to foreign governments that meddle in Iraqi affairs, particularly Iran. This remains an unlikely prospect as long as Iranian proxies receive uninterrupted money flows from corruption and extortion and as long as those who seek to reduce the influence of these groups face intimidation in the form of smear campaigns, death threats, and even assassination—a danger that was highlighted by the killing of the Iraqi analyst Hisham al-Hashimi in July 2020, after he publicly criticized Kataib Hezbollah. Reduced American and international engagement would make political change more difficult by removing opportunities for Washington to push the Iraqi government to rein in the militia groups. Even a limited U.S. presence gives Iraq’s leaders leverage to resist pressure from militant factions and make independent decisions.

The issue of the American troop presence in Iraq has become a test of wills between Iraqi political actors who want to see Baghdad clearly aligned with Tehran and those who want to secure Iraq’s independence by balancing ties with Tehran and Washington. What is at stake in this debate is much bigger than a few thousand non-combat soldiers. It is in the interests of both Iraq and the United States to negotiate a long-term agreement that resolves the troop question and sets up the next phase of U.S.-Iraqi relations. Most important, such an agreement would help bring much-needed stability, putting a spotlight on the need for Iraq’s political leaders to address the country’s domestic challenges. As Washington prepares for the U.S. elections later this year and deals with the fallout of the war in Gaza, Iran will be looking for ways to undermine the United States in the region. Going through with an exit from Iraq would be a political win for Tehran—and a strategic loss for Iraq, as it risks getting pulled further into the Iranian orbit.

• MINA AL-ORAIBI is Editor in Chief of The National.

Foreign Affairs · by Mina Al-Oraibi · April 12, 2024

21. V-22 Ospreys will be critical to US operations in Haiti — here’s why

V-22 Ospreys will be critical to US operations in Haiti — here’s why

militarytimes.com · by Col. Anthony Krockel · April 11, 2024

Recent turmoil in Haiti reminds me of just how critical the V-22 Osprey’s capability was in 2010 ― and again in 2016, when I helped respond to a crisis situation in Haiti.

In 2010, a massive earthquake struck Haiti. Soon after, Ospreys were called upon to assist with disaster relief.

As Capt. Matthew “Leash” Dwyer told it, those Ospreys often were the first on the scene for many locations that had not received any relief such as water and food. While there, they also had to medevac injured civilians.

In 2016, after Hurricane Matthew wreaked havoc on the west side of Haiti, the country requested U.S. assistance. Soon afterward, I deployed as the commanding officer of the “Blue Knights,” an Osprey squadron attached to the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit. Ospreys on that mission fulfilled critical logistics roles.

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In 2010, after an earthquake struck Haiti, fleet antiterrorism security team Marines were sent to assist the Marine guards at the embassy there.

Many supplies were being sent from the amphibious ship Iwo Jima. Ospreys were able to move supplies from the ship directly to locations on the ground in Haiti, side-stepping the congestion in Port-au-Prince and more efficiently delivering assistance.

Now, as ever, the importance of the Osprey’s readiness to respond to crisis cannot be understated.

For several years, V-22 Ospreys have become the indispensable go-to capability for rapid crisis response.

The versatility of the Osprey’s tiltrotor enables the aircraft to take off, hover and land vertically like a helicopter, yet travel significant distances as a result of operating at airplane speeds. This allows the Osprey to cover a significant range in response to diverse missions such as the insertion of Marines, the exfiltration of embassy personnel, the delivery of humanitarian relief or medical evacuation.

The Osprey’s track record makes it a critical element to any potential mission in Haiti.

More relief missions, faster

Another devastating earthquake struck Haiti in 2021. Then, five Marine Corps MV-22 Ospreys deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. From there, they were able to provide relief to some of the most remote, mountainous terrain in Haiti.

Because of the unique tiltrotor design of the Osprey, crews could refuel from ships offshore without being limited to runways or improved surfaces. This allowed Ospreys to deliver precious supplies to remote, unimproved landing zones.

The Osprey’s extended range and high cruising speed meant it could complete a greater number of deliveries per day than supporting helicopters, “proving it to be the workhorse of the relief effort,” according to one Marine officer.

During the two-week mission, Ospreys covered more than 5,300 nautical miles, according to an article published by the Navy, ferried 320 humanitarian staff and delivered upward of 234,100 pounds of essential food, water, shelter and medication to address the needs of the beleaguered Haitian people.

Evacuating embassies; rescuing hostages

The Osprey also has been instrumental when embassies have needed evacuation.

As 2013 was ending, South Sudan was on the brink of civil war. Soon the call came to evacuate Americans from the country.

On Dec. 18, 2013, two C-130s and several Air Force CV-22s departed Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti to help evacuate remaining embassy staff. Then, three days after that successful mission, three Ospreys were tasked to evacuate Americans 1,000 miles away in rebel-held territory.

But on the first landing attempt, the aircraft came under intense gunfire. While several service members were wounded in the incident, the rugged Ospreys were able to escape and make it all the way to Entebbe in Uganda, despite being severely shot up.

In 2020, in another long-distance rescue mission, four CV-22 Ospreys were instrumental in a mission to rescue an American hostage in Nigeria.

The Ospreys flew 2,000 miles from Rota, Spain, to a location in Nigeria where they deployed Navy SEALs.

This successful operation was the longest-distance nighttime hostage rescue in the history of the Department of Defense, the Air Force said.

Today’s crisis

We don’t know precisely what to expect in the next days, weeks and months in Haiti, but we need to be prepared. Marines have had a long history in Haiti, and in recent decades have been instrumental in everything from stability operations to relief and recovery.

Within the past month, the Marine Corps has sent a fleet anti-terrorism security team (FAST) special response unit to Haiti to supplement security, allow nonemergency personnel to depart and relieve Marines at the U.S. Embassy in the Haitian capital.

But we may need more than the FAST Marines. We may need a Marine air-ground task force, with Ospreys, to address the wide range of contingencies in Haiti, like we did in 2010, 2016 and 2021.

Regardless of the nature of the mission, the Ospreys will be instrumental. Their past performance ― in Haiti and elsewhere around the globe ― has proven their versatile capability and suitability for any eventuality.

Col. Anthony Krockel is the commodore of Training Air Wing FIVE. In 2016, he served as the commanding officer of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 365 and was the officer in charge of Joint Task Force–Forward Command Element in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti.

22. Global economy now has its own ‘Three-Body Problem’

I listened to an interesting report on NPR's On Point about this Netflix show and Mao's Cultural Revolution. I am going to have to watch this streaming show.

Global economy now has its own ‘Three-Body Problem’ - Asia Times

As the US, China and Japan tend to their wounds, investors can only hope their policymakers get things right

asiatimes.com · by Willam Pesek · April 11, 2024

TOKYO — Analysts at Fitch Ratings have been a busy bunch in recent months warning of debt landmines in the two biggest economies.

First, there was the rating company’s decision to downgrade the US last August, revoking Washington’s coveted AAA status. Now its move to lower its outlook on China’s credit standing is making fresh headlines.

The same day Fitch warned about Beijing’s “more uncertain economic prospects amid a transition away from property-reliant growth to what the government views as a more sustainable growth model,” the Japanese yen fell past 152 to the dollar, the lowest in 34 years. The yen’s trajectory is upending market dynamics everywhere.

Call it the global economy’s “Three-Body Problem.” The reference here is Netflix’s runaway hit alien invasion series. And as 2024 unfolds, it’s hard not to worry that the international financial system has a three-troubled-economy dilemma on its hands.

The upshot is that the months ahead could be far more chaotic for global markets than virtually anyone thought as the year began.

Arguably, China’s challenges have gotten the highest viewing ratings as its property crisis festers and deflationary pressure spooks investors. The US$7 trillion stock rout from a 2021 peak until January has simmered down. But fears that growth in Asia’s biggest economy will disappoint are influencing decisions in trading pits everywhere.

Fitch’s announcement follows a similar one in December by Moody’s Investors Service to downgrade the outlook on China’s credit rating to negative from stable. At the time, Moody’s highlighted risks related to “structurally and persistently lower medium-term economic growth” and to the ongoing turmoil in the property sector.

Now, Fitch says its move “reflects increasing risks to China’s public finance outlook as the country contends with more uncertain economic prospects amid a transition away from property-reliant growth to what the government views as a more sustainable growth model.”

China’s growth model is in a state of flux as President Xi Jinping’s team works to recalibrate engines. Xi’s push to generate “new quality productive forces” meant to shift engines from smokestacks to services and innovation is a work in progress.

“China’s determination to move up the technology value chain and to indigenize advanced technology production is not new and is driven by both economic and geo-political considerations,” says economist Diana Choyleva of Enodo Economics. “The latter are arguably the more salient.”

Choyleva notes that “if China can establish a dominant role in advanced technologies, especially in terms of international standard-setting, that will confer both economic and geo-political advantage as the world becomes increasingly dependent on Chinese technology systems.”

The worry, Fitch suggests, is that the property crisis — and other cracks in the underlying financial system — will see China reverting to old-school fiscal pump-priming policies that explode Beijing’s national balance sheet.

Given the lack of transparency concerning China’s debt troubles, global investors aren’t quite sure where all the financial bodies are buried now – and never mind one year out. The $9 trillion mountain of local government financing vehicles alone poses huge risks.

This spotlights the dilemma China faces between curbing fiscal excesses and keeping growth as close to 5% as possible.

“In our view, long-term consolidation efforts might need to take a back seat to short-term stabilization concerns, and the debt outlook could look worse before it looks better,” says Lynn Song, ING Bank’s chief economist for Greater China. “Failing to restore growth and confidence would weaken the GDP side of the debt to GDP equation and could have an equally harmful impact on long-term debt sustainability.”

The US could be an even bigger global growth spoiler this year. Case in point is the news this week that US consumer prices accelerated in March to a 3.5% annual rate, up from 3.2% in February. It marked the hottest inflation gain in the last six months.

At the very least, a US Federal Reserve rate cut is off the table for the foreseeable future. “You can kiss a June interest rate cut goodbye,” says Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at advisory Bankrate.

Bad news on inflation is colliding with a national debt topping US$34 trillion and extreme political squabbling in Washington. Republicans controlling the House of Representatives still haven’t passed a budget since the last one expired last September. Threats abound that another government shutdown is coming.

Lawmakers such as Marjorie Taylor Greene have turned the US House of Representatives chaotic. Photo: BBC

In November, Moody’s cited “continued political polarization” when it downgraded Washington’s credit outlook. A very significant moment, considering Moody’s is the only major credit company to rate US debt AAA.

“Continued political polarization within US Congress,” Moody’s says, “raises the risk that successive governments will not be able to reach consensus on a fiscal plan to slow the decline in debt affordability.”

Such clashes could become even more extreme should Donald Trump return to the US presidency following the November 5 election. In his 2017-2021 stint in the White House, Trump launched a trade war versus China, bullied the Fed into cutting rates and hinted at defaulting on US debt. Then he inspired an insurrection to attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Economists worry Trump 2.0 would be even more off the rails. Already, he’s promising to slap 60% tariffs on all Chinese goods on top of those he imposed during the Trump 1.0 era. And pledging to revoke “most favored nation” trade status.

“The most frequently asked questions among local investors [in China] include implications for China should Donald Trump become the next US president,” says Maggie Wei, economist at Goldman Sachs Group.

Not that current US President Joe Biden has gone easy on China. Along with keeping Trump’s tariffs in place, Biden curtailed China’s access to semiconductors and other vital technologies. He limited the ability of multinational companies to invest in Xi’s economy. As such, Xi might not be happy with either election outcome.

“Whoever wins the 2024 presidential election, whether that’s Biden or Trump, I don’t think there’ll be a difference in the way the US approaches China — whether it’s US investment, technology transfer or trade,” David Firestein, president of the George H. W. Bush Foundation for US-China Relations, tells Bloomberg.

Firestein adds that “the political climate in the United States in terms of China is going to be very similar to what it has been over these last eight or nine years, irrespective of whether Biden or Trump wins. When Biden came in, he essentially not only embraced Trump’s policies, but indeed largely doubled down on them.”

Add in the risk of a policy mistake by the Fed. Even before this week’s bad inflation news, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell signaled he’s in no hurry to cut rates with the US unemployment rate anchored below 4%.

US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Image: Xinhua

Last month, Powell said: “We are prepared to maintain the current target range for the federal funds rate for longer if appropriate.” Now, it could be much longer.

“Three months of surprisingly strong services inflation are difficult to explain away and suggest that demand strength could be sustaining elevated US inflation, which limits the Fed’s ability to ease policy,” says Ronald Temple, chief market strategist at Lazard.

Economist Kathy Bostjancic at Nationwide Mutual adds that recent data “will undermine Fed officials’ confidence that inflation is on a sustainable course back to 2% and likely delays rate cuts to September at the earliest and could push off rate reductions to next year.”

There’s growing concern, though, that extending the “higher for longer” era for US yields could backfire. That’s particularly the case considering that most US inflation is about supply constraints post-Covid 19, not runaway demand that the Fed can control.

Some worry that delaying Fed rate cuts increases the risks of stress in credit markets. That could increase the odds of Silicon Valley Bank-like blowups amongst medium-sized banks and strains in the commercial property sector.

“In early 2008 Ben Bernanke’s Federal Reserve downplayed at great cost the downside risks to the economy coming from the subprime loan crisis,” says Desmond Lachman, economist at the American Enterprise Institute.

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Today, Lachman adds, “Powell’s Fed seems to be making a similar mistake by downplaying the downside risks to the economy from the commercial real estate crisis and the bursting of the Chinese housing and credit market bubble. We have to hope that the Fed changes course soon to spare us from an unnecessary hard economic landing.”

The Fed’s reluctance to ease could complicate life for Asian central banks. For the Bank of Japan, Fed uncertainty will delay Governor Kazuo Ueda’s next tightening move. That has the yen tumbling this week as far as 153.24, a level last seen in June 1990. Adding to the drama for Tokyo: some economists including former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers think the Fed’s next move will be to tighten, not ease.

The yen’s slide is putting People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng in a tough spot. It’s likely to keep the yuan under intensifying downward pressure. This could limit the PBOC’s ability to cut rates should Chinese demand weaken even further in the months ahead.

A weaker Chinese exchange rate could be a threat on numerous levels. It might make it harder for giant property developers to make payments on offshore debt, exacerbating China Evergrande Group-like default risks. It might squander progress Xi’s government has made internationalizing the currency. It might provoke Washington in the leadup to a contentious US election that’s already a minefield for Beijing.

And yet, markets are on edge over the prospect of Beijing perhaps deciding to engage in a race to the bottom with the yen. That’s particularly so as China struggles to boost domestic demand as deflation festers.

“We think China’s low inflation is a symptom of its growth model built on a high rate of investment,” says economist Zichun Huang at Capital Economics. “As reducing dependence on investment is still far off, we expect inflation to remain subdued relative to pre-pandemic norms in the long run.”

As these three economic bodies – the US, China and Japan – tend to their wounds, all global investors can do is hope their respective policymakers get things right. A problem, indeed.

Follow this writer on X @WilliamPesek.

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asiatimes.com · by Willam Pesek · April 11, 2024

23. China’s divided memory of the Cultural Revolution

This is a very interesting episode about the Netflix show, "3 Body Problem" and Mao's Cultural Revolution with fascinating insights. I of course defer to my Chinese friends to judge the veracity. But I think it's worth listening to (at the link) or reading the transcript below.

China’s divided memory of the Cultural Revolution

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2024/04/09/china-divided-memory-of-the-cultural-revolution

47:34

Resume

April 09, 2024

• Jonathan ChangMeghna Chakrabarti

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution (Chinese: _____), was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976. (Pictures from History / Contributor via Getty Images)

"3 Body Problem," a Netflix adaptation of the popular Chinese sci-fi novel by the same name, is causing controversy in China for its depiction of the Cultural Revolution.

How do the Chinese people see this crucial period of their history?

Today, On Point: China’s divided memory of the Cultural Revolution.

Guest

Yangyang Cheng, fellow and research scholar at Yale Law School's Paul Tsai China Center. Frequent columnist on Chinese politics and U.S.-China relations.

Madeleine Dong, professor in the history department and the chair of the China Studies program at the University of Washington.

Also Featured

Zehao Zhou, researcher at York College of Pennsylvania, whose interests include East Asian history and the Cultural Revolution.

Transcript

Part I

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: The new Netflix series ‘3 Body Problem’ is an adaptation of the popular Chinese science fiction novel by Liu Cixin. Episode one begins in 1966 Beijing at Tsinghua University.

WBUR is a nonprofit news organization. Our coverage relies on your financial support. If you value articles like the one you're reading right now, give today.

(SHOUTING)

“Root out the bugs,” the crowd shouts. “Sweep away all monsters and demons.”

The scene takes place during China’s Cultural Revolution. A group of Red Guards in uniform dragged a man onto the stage. He's a physicist. He’s wearing worn out clothes and a dunce cap that names his “crimes.”

(CHINESE)

“In your physics course, did you teach the theory of relativity?” the guard asks.

When the physicist responds yes, because relativity is one of the fundamental theories of physics, another guard calls him a liar. Saying quote, “Einstein went to the American Imperialists and helped them build the atomic bomb.”

Then, the red guard bring his wife, whom they call a “genuine physicist.”

(CROWD SHOUTS)

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“With the help of the revolutionary youth, it has become clear to me,” she says. “I want to stand on the side of the people.”

Even as one of the guards strikes her husband, the wife continues to denounce her husband for teaching the Big Bang Theory. After the interrogations, the guards continue to beat the physicist. Eveneutally, he falls down and dies. The crowd goes quiet. And in that crowd – the physicist’s daughter, Ye Wenjie, who watches her father’s death in heartbreak and horror.

That opening scene of ‘3 Body Problem’ may be one of the most viewed depictions of China’s Cultural Revolution outside of China in recent years. And it’s caused quite a controversy inside China … with many viewers calling it a western attempt to smear Chinese history.

For Zehao Zhou, those scenes aren’t so farfetched. Zhou was just 11 years old, when the Cultural Revolution began in 1966.

ZEHAO ZHOU: Waves of red guards repeatedly stormed my neighborhood of Shanghai over a period of weeks, terrorizing the innocent, ransacking homes, and parading their victims through the streets for the purpose of public humiliation. And I heard screaming and cries for help. And they ran out all around me, and nearly every household in my neighborhood was subject to that abuse.

CHAKRABARTI: Zhou says that the “struggle session” depicted in that opening scene was commonplace in his young life. And he saw many in his own neighborhood … though they carried some differences from the show’s depictions.

ZHOU: In the opening scene, where the physicist seemed to be keeping arguing back, he was retorting, and that to me was not common. You know, most people would be silent, because the more you talk back, the more beating you would invite. The other thing that I found very interesting was the wife denouncing the husband. To a small extent, there were a few individuals that would denounce the spouse to protect themselves or to protect the children.

But more often than not, the denunciation came from the heart. They really believed that their loved ones were guilty of the crime charge. I watched a grandson denouncing his grandfather. He was a mega banker grandfather. Hiding notebooks about family history of his notes, against the regime, but he decided to come out and to denounce his grandfather in public.

CHAKRABARTI: Today, Zhou is a researcher in East Asian History and the Cultural Revolution at York College of Pennsylvania. It’s been more than a half century since the Cultural Revolution began; Zhou says that decade of pain continues to affect his country.

ZHOU: The government had enforced a collective amnesia. I ran into many people who were the victims of Cultural Revolution, but they didn't know what was going on. They would still admire Chairman Mao. They would still admire Zhou Enlai. And they would think that they mistakenly believed that somehow Mao's era was cleaner, was better, was less corrupt. This country is still dealing with the Cultural Revolution legacy, one day at a time.

CHAKRABARTI: So, today, here's what we're going to do. We're not going to talk specifically or in depth about Netflix’s sci-fi depiction in “Three Body Problem." We're actually going to use it as a way to ask, what are the ways in which the Chinese people themselves see the legacy of the Cultural Revolution? How do they understand this critical period of modern history?

Joining us now is Yangyang Cheng. She’s a fellow and research scholar at Yale Law School's Paul Tsai China Center. She’s joined us several times on the show. And as evidence of how remarkable On Point’s guests are, Yangyang. I also have to tell people that you also have a PhD in physics, and worked for years at the Large Hadron Collider, and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, so she might be able to comment a bit on the physics depictions in 3 Body Problem, as well! Welcome back to On Point.

YANGYANG CHENG: Thank you so much for having me.

CHAKRABARTI: So first of all, can you walk us through exactly some of the reactions that have been coming out of China, the controversial reactions to the Netflix series?

CHENG: Absolutely. And I feel that I should preface this by saying that Chinese social media is a controlled space, so it's not a perfect reflection of Chinese public opinion. However, it does reflect certain fractions of it, and the control is not just direct censorship, but also in terms of what kinds of messages are being amplified.

And so I'll put it probably in broadly three categories. The first, as you also mentioned, are these kinds of nationalistic critique of how the Netflix depiction of the Cultural Revolution was the West's deliberate attempt to smear China, to show the worst part about Chinese history and the Chinese people to a broader global audience, to fit into these Western imperialist fantasies about China.

The second type of reaction is actually more moderate and it's actually an affirmation of these kinds of depictions. One can critique how the Cultural Revolution was actually being depicted. That the fact that is actually being shown on screen at all is something positive, that is an affirmation of this memory and it's a way for it to not to be forgotten.

And I think both of these two types of reactions is a reflection of how little space there is, not just on Chinese media and in Chinese cinema and TV. But also, in the public discourse in general, to talk about the Cultural Revolution increasingly these days. And the third type of reaction, which I think is more nuanced, is to place that into a broader context of the Netflix series, that the original sci fi novel is a Chinese story, but the Netflix depiction, it has brought most of the setting to the UK, became a Western story.

However, the heroes in a way became Western, but the villains, the most horrific aspects of the depiction that made one of the main characters, Ye Wenjie, lose hope in humanity had remained faithful to the original novel being of the Cultural Revolution. So I think the main point here is that it's not so much whether or not the Cultural Revolution is remembered.

The topic is not entirely taboo in China, even though it's becoming increasingly sensitive, but it's about how it is being remembered, whether it being seen as something exceptional and exclusive to China and perfectly contained to that past into that decade. Or if there are common lessons about humanity, about governance and about power that still applies today.

CHAKRABARTI: And so that's exactly what I want to talk about in much more detail in the show. And I'm very grateful, by the way, that you pointed out that, yes, this story is a Chinese story in terms of the novels. They originate from China's best-selling sci fi novelists. They've been read around the world.

There have been, I think, Chinese based film depictions of the novel as well, which we'll talk about in a minute. But the conversion of that very Chinese story that pulls then Western characters in the Netflix version as sort of the heroes is a point that I can imagine wouldn't go over just that in China.

But Yangyang, do you mind if I ask you, because if I remember correctly, I think in a previous show that you were on with us, you said that your mother was a young girl during the Cultural Revolution?

CHENG: Yes.

CHAKRABARTI: Do you mind if I ask if how she remembers it, if that's ever been a point of discussion between the two of you at all?

CHENG: That is such a great question. So my parents are a bit younger than Mr. Zhou that we just heard from. And so they were too young to participate, and they were just old enough to witness some of it and remember some of it. And so actually, I was thinking about it, coming on this show. When did I first became aware of the Cultural Revolution?

And I feel it's like for us almost as long as I could remember. And then I think my earliest inkling about it was sometime in the mid-nineties when I was still a very young child, and I was going to visit my grandparents and it was in the summer. We didn't have air conditioning at home. So my grandfather was wearing a tank top and I saw there were deep markings on his shoulders.

So I asked my grandfather, Where did those markings came from? And of course, my grandfather was an economics professor. He was an intellectual. So he shouldn't have these kinds of markings of physical labor. And my grandfather just said very lightheartedly to a child, was like, labor, everyone had to labor.

And I think later, my mother gave me a little bit of more context of what that era was, and how intellectuals were all sent down to the rural regions, to the countryside to labor. And how people suspected and reported on each other, calling each other counterrevolutionaries and people were being struggled against.

And so I think for my mother, her main takeaway from that decade in her youth was how politics is dangerous. And so politics and death were the two biggest taboos, was probably one of the first lessons about life that my mother taught me.

And then her take away from also her father's experience was for someone of my grandfather's educational level, a lot of his classmates fared much worse, the ones who are more politically outspoken or active, but because my grandfather was someone who just taught and studied and he actually went through that decade relatively okay in a comparative sense, and that was a very important lesson from my mother, in terms of how one preserves oneself in this kind of society, and that was the lesson she wanted to instill in me, and I guess I was like a more disobedient child.

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Part II

CHAKRABARTI: Joining us now is Madeleine Dong. She's the chair of China Studies at the University of Washington. Professor Dong, welcome to On Point.

MADELEINE DONG: Thank you. My pleasure.

CHAKRABARTI: First of all, I think we would love to collectively learn more about the facts around the Cultural Revolution.

Just prior to 1966 or so, what was the revolt purportedly against? What was the revolution about? The Cultural Revolution.

DONG: Counterintuitively, interestingly, the Cultural Revolution, we might think it was the CCP trying to control the people. But in fact, in many ways, it was the Mao against the CCP establishment. Because after any revolution, when the world was turned upside down, there would be a moment when things would settle and things would, after revolution, would always settle into a new pattern.

So for a revolution of the nature and scale of the Chinese revolution, then what kind of system would it establish? And so Mao saw that the situation in China in the 1960s, after the Great Leap Forward, that huge disaster that ended in a famine, when certain leaders in the party, Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi in particular, tried their best to reestablish, they restored the economy.

And Mao saw that as dangerous, because they were leading the country into some kind of minor form of capitalism. So and Mao hated the idea of bureaucracy, but for any modern nation state or modern state, as much as we find it problematic, some form of governance would exist. So it became this kind of ideological disagreement of what should happen in this country.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay and remind us just briefly, the Great Leap Forward, what was that?

DONG: The Great Leap Forward started in the 1950s after China completed its first five-year plan, in which it collaborated with the Soviet Union to quickly industrialize China. And it focused on heavy industry and tried to quickly catch up with the level of development of the U.S. and Britain.

So interestingly, communism or Chinese communism and socialism, it was, in fact, a form of developmentalism. It's a socialist development, socialist modernization, but they tried to do it differently in the socialist way and do it quickly. But when they did it, so tried to do it so quickly, through a strictly controlled administrative system, the party control, and over done, overdid the whole economic system, within a really quick time.

Collectivization in agriculture, it ended up in a huge disaster of famine that killed millions, of tens of millions of people.

CHAKRABARTI: And I'm also reminded that we're talking about China also emerging from all that it experienced in the second World War as well, right? Prior to the Great Leap Forward.

So the further back we look in history, the more complex things get, which is actually why we're having this conversation. Yangyang, can you just chime in here? Because when Professor Dong talks about that part of this was Mao's criticism of how leaders like Deng Xiaoping were managing China.

That's actually interesting to me. I had no idea. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that?

CHENG: So I think one way to think about this is a lot of times when the Cultural Revolution in the collective memory now is becoming represented by these abstract symbols like the Red Guards, or it's being seen as some kind of a mass revolt.

But behind this mass revolt, there is an elite power struggle that's happening at the highest levels of the Chinese government. And so some of that is reflected in what Professor Dong just mentioned. That Mao Zedong was trying to insight the masses, partly it was out of ideological reasons that he was a revolutionary and believed in certain ways that China should be governed.

And on the other hand, it was out of, also out of practical reasons as a way to solidify and confirm his personal power. So he needed this kind of cult of personality.

CHAKRABARTI: Professor Dong, then, so the depiction that we saw in the Netflix series, and I think the one that's most often, if there's any familiarity with the Cultural Revolution in the Western mind, it has to do with this subjugation of the intellectual elite in China.

So can you explain a little bit more about how would you actually describe what the Cultural Revolution was in terms of who was targeted, who were part of the Red Guard, etc.

DONG: So to pick up what we were talking about. So Mao had the idea of a permanent revolution in order to keep a society never from settling into any comfortable sense of new hierarchy or status symbols.

The only way to do it is to have a permanent revolution, and you do it once every few years. And so that was the argument that started, with which they started the Cultural Revolution. But of course, there were hidden intentions. The elite of politics that Yangyang was talking about, there were power struggles among the elites, party elites, but it was not explained to the people clearly.

So the Cultural Revolution is to us today, it's this weird thing that it was started by one person. It was about the elite politics, but then it was also massive. So these two things don't always go together in world mass movements and politics. So how did that happen? So basically, I mentioned that it was Mao against the party establishment and the administration, national administration. So in order to, for Mao to start this movement, he had to have his own forces, his own army. And so he directly, he tried to directly reach to the mass level. And the Red Guards were part of his army. The Red Guards.

CHAKRABARTI: They were young. Right?

DONG: They were young. They were teenagers. Many of them were actually middle school students. But what we need to keep in mind is that they were not your every middle school or high school student. The Red Guards started in the very top elite middle schools and high schools in Beijing. Those were the schools where the top leaders' children went.

So they were sensitive, and they knew the national politics from their parents.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So a constant revolution, that is so interesting. And then just to be clear, was the revolution in terms of Mao's vision to, as you said, constantly shake up how the nation was led?

DONG: It's constantly try to keep the country, how the country was led, on the right track. And the right track is, he talked, Mao talked about three big differences, the differences between mental and manual labor. The differences between the countryside and the cities, and the difference between industry and agriculture. And in his view, that when you erase these differences, the differences in these three areas, we reached, we would reach a more ideal society.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So that explains the labor. We'll come back to that. Yangyang, so I think Professor Dong has really described this with clarity that makes me have my mind wander back to the United States. A little bit or a lot. In terms of this idea of looking at the entrenched intellectual elite as a source of unfairness, inequity, and wanting to, as she said, erase the differences between mental and manual labor, between city and countryside, et cetera.

Do you see echoes far outside of China when it comes to that way of thinking? That is a difficult question, but it is a very pertinent one, right? And I think one of the ways, one of the misunderstandings about the Cultural Revolution is that it's often being depicted as anti-science, but it was not so much anti-science as it was pursuing a very specific type of, very specific type of science. That when scientific development is driven by very specific ideologies, and the ones that the deviate from it are being struggled against.

And so that is partly tied to what you just mentioned. And Professor Dong mentioned. That scientific development was driven by this egalitarian vision. It's mass proletarian science. As I said, science as a tool of revolution. And if I might turn back to what we saw in the earlier scene of the Netflix depiction, where general relativity, right?

Einstein's theory of relativity was being specifically mentioned as struggled against, and that was actually indeed a particular episode in the Cultural Revolution that I found very illuminating. And where there were these elite scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences who are forced to come together and struggle against Einstein's theory of relativity, including in the late 1960s, when there were border conflicts between China and the Soviet Union. And one of the ideas, the evidence against the theory of relativity was that, Oh, if the Soviet Union shot at us and we shot back, if time is relative, how can we determine who's fired the first shot?

Of course, Einstein was wrong. So it was a certain way to see how science is being seen in this very specific ideological lens, but it was not anti-science per se, but it was more that there was a certain bit fervent belief in the power of a certain type of science that it cannot just bring about mass worldwide proletarian revolution. But can also be used as a tool to struggle against nature, to overpower it.

And there was a certain element of techno utopianism to it as well. And these are lessons that are still highly relevant today when we think about what is the power of science, what is the power of technology, and what is the purpose of development that Professor Dong also mentioned.

CHAKRABARTI: Professor Dong, I see you have some reactions to that.

Go ahead.

DONG: It's a complex issue. I totally agree with Yangyang about the role ideology played in the understanding and practice of science. For example, scientific experimentations were sent down to the level of the workers and the farmers, and some types of local knowledge was emphasized.

For example, using insects to control worms. These kind of experiments, on the other hand, the Cultural Revolution, if it was not 100% anti science, it was in some ways. Just by the little examples that we have shared here, there was a tendency of it being anti-scientific spirit, because the scientific spirit is, or the principle is about that you have to be objective, that when you do experimentation, it really has to be about experimentation, is not about ideology.

And with the techno utopianism together with that, it came with this idea of in Chinese, what they called Ren Ding Shen Tian, the human will win over nature, which was the spirit that guided the earlier, Guilin forward that ended up in a famine. And so out of the Cultural Revolution state encouragement of that type of scientific practices came something like the mass science.

So that did exist, but it existed at the same time in contradiction with an understanding and practice of modern science and the scientific spirit and principle.

CHAKRABARTI: Interesting. Tell me if this is a stretch too far, but when you talked about the emphasis on the human will overcoming nature, this concept of will being so powerful.

It reminds me of some of the language that came out of Nazi Germany.

DONG: That is a really interesting connection you are talking about, bringing up. Because much of it actually came from the confidence that the Chinese gained through the discourse or representation of their war year experience. That look, we defeated the Japanese in spite of the fact that we know how complicated that history was, and we defeated the nationalists.

They were more powerful and bigger than we were. And then we defeated the Americans, the world's strongest army in the Korean War. And so if we could accomplish these under the leadership of the CCP and Mao, what can't we accomplish? And so Mao actually said economic development, how can it be more difficult than winning wars?

And so this idea of the human will defeat nature. Of course, there were older stories. For example, what is called the foolish old man moved the mountain, which was a text written by Mao, and it was used in school textbooks. And so these old traditional stories were given new meanings and used to elaborate this spirit of the human will.

And of course, that brings us back to this issue of science during the Cultural Revolution. Together with Einstein, Darwin, we cannot talk about evolution either. Darwin has been totally misunderstood, but because revolution existed to defeat evolution, because everyone evolves, every culture, every society moves.

We are all in evolution. And it's at the same speed. And by carrying out a revolution, you're defeating that pace. And you're trying to get ahead.

CHAKRABARTI: Of evolution.

DONG: Exactly. How else do you, the British, the Americans, they're leading already. You're moving forward. They're also moving forward. How do you catch up with them within 10 years, 15 years, and you're going to beat them and become the leader in the world?

You do revolution.

Part III

CHAKRABARTI: Yangyang, I should have asked this before. And I'm sorry that I didn't, but we've mentioned struggle sessions several times in this conversation.

I think it's worth talking about them in a little bit more detail so that we all understand what it is exactly we mean when we say struggle session. So first of all, what was your thought on the depiction of the struggle session that we opened the show with, that opens the whole Netflix series?

CHENG: Actually, so for myself and actually a lot of the reactions on social media as well, the reason it received so much reaction and even objections to it from nationalist Chinese commentators is because how realistic it looked in the scenery. Of course, like Mr. Zhou also mentioned, right? There are very realistic elements.

One, probably a little bit more dramatic effect was how much that professor talked back at the Red Guards. And so that was, but of course it is somewhat for theoretical effects. In fact, some of these struggle sessions did happen in extremely public ways. So it was not just about the physical violence that was important, but also the theater as a way to manifest power.

But some of these also may not necessarily happen out in the open. But may happen in like school auditoriums or in office spaces or these kinds of like playgrounds, or more enclosed spaces. Where it may not focus so much on physical violence alone, but in terms of people were asked to criticize each other and self-criticize.

And so struggle sessions also manifest in different layers.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So Professor Dong, then what exactly were the struggle sessions all about? The thing that stood out to me other than the death of the physicist in that scene, was the dunce cap. What was the intent of making people humiliate themselves and even renounce their intellectual livelihoods?

DONG: You're really observant to notice. The dance cap, of course, it didn't start from China. So you might wonder, where does that come from? So interestingly, it actually came to China through religion through the, I think, Catholic Church, if I'm not mistaken. Of course, the original idea of the dance cap was not for such a struggle sessions.

It supposedly, I could be wrong, but I actually read about this, that it was put on the head of learning pupils so that they could have a shortcut to knowledge and enlightenment. It would help them to learn and focus, supposedly, I think that might be psychologically the effect. But the dunce cap actually had been used in a mass parade of property owners as early as the 1920s, say during the Northern Expectation, this collaboration between the nationalists and the communists to reunite China.

And so it had been used throughout Chinese history, since the beginning of the 20th century, or maybe even the early 20th century, I'd say. But then the struggle sessions. This is really important. Yangyang is totally right that for the theatrical effects. So it raises big questions, of even for us, in any country, any society today, what, why do we need this kind of theatrical effects for political actions?

It creates emotions, right? It drives up the emotions. And when you are one of the hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of people in the street, in the plaza, you lose that kind of ability to think rationally and critically or under the pressure. You just have to go along, because do you want to be that person on the stage?

So the theatrical effect is really important. And if we look at the political history in modern China, it's in the middle, in the center, very center of every political movement. So if we think about it, it's a political tool.

CHAKRABARTI: Yes.

DONG: And every country uses it, but maybe the Cultural Revolution took it to the extreme.

CHAKRABARTI: And it was a political tool to achieve what? To erase that, the difference between the mental and manual labor?

DONG: It's not for that. It's for, to create a clear line of the people and the enemy. To draw the line, and to, for the effect of you in the audience, figure out, do you want to stand on the right side, quote-unquote, right side.

Of the people, or do you want to end up as an enemy? So this tool had been used in all political movements after 1949, the land reform. And the three antis, the five antis, the counter suppressing the counter. So basically, every single movement was, so it's used to draw the line. And mobilize the masses.

The interesting thing about the CCP is that it actually did not want to have a huge enemy.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah.

DONG: Although it was huge. But drawing the line is important because by doing that, you mobilize the people to join your effort to defeat the enemy.

CHAKRABARTI: That's so interesting. Okay. So Yangyang, with that in mind, why do you think especially, we're talking about a 10 year, roughly 10-year period overall when we'd say cultural revolution, right?

And the part we've been focusing on is the first couple of years, with I say the most visible eruption of what the cultural revolution was all about. But why do you think it seems so popular that what Mao was trying to say and do did capture the imagination of so many Chinese people, especially young people, as far as I understand.

CHENG: I think you're really getting to one of the most central questions here. And I don't think this is a neatly contained, this can be answered in a neatly contained way, right? I think a simple way to say this. One of the main reasons is that he gave a lot of people a purpose.

He made life a lot simpler, because the world is a dangerous place with a lot of complex things. And a lot of complex negotiations. But if the world can be distilled into simply about class struggle, us versus other. About a constant revolution and one's purpose is to be a soldier.

It is actually a very easy way. It gives one easy passage through the complexities of life, especially for the youth. It gives them a sense of not just of duty, but a sense of elevation that they are serving some greater purpose. And that is a very empowering thing.

And so in certain elements, some people who were young during the cultural revolution, they still, or even like among the Red Guards or later the sent down youth, they recognize that was a period of extreme hardship.

But there was also an element of nostalgia when they sometimes, when they talk about that era, because that era, there was purpose, there was ideology, but now it seems like there is a certain adriftness, people are more individualized, life is atomized, and that collectivism is a very powerful tool.

And so I think it is very important to keep in mind how people can be incited and can be led onto different paths, and these are lessons are still extremely relevant today.

CHAKRABARTI: Wow. Most definitely. And Professor Dong, I know you probably want to pick up on that. And I also then want to just talk briefly about the fact that in 1981 there were, I think there was a report in China that came to some kind of interesting conclusion, calling the cultural revolution 10 years of chaos.

DONG: Yeah, it's actually worse than chaos. The word used was actually, I think it would translate more accurately into English as calamity, 10 years of calamity. And I think many people believed that indeed was the case. To answer your question, how did it come to such massive level? And I think if we look at the different age groups, and if we look at people in different status of professions and class status as it was designated by the government.

Maybe we can have some way to look at this. If we look at the early groups of Red Guards who went into the streets to smash things, who beat up the professors, the teachers who killed their school principals. Those were very young people. And that's one thing about modern China and the modern Chinese revolutions, is that the groups involved in those got younger and younger.

We might think of Chinese society as one that respected wisdom, old age, filial piety of the older people, but Modern China reversed that. So by the time of the Cultural Revolution, my generation, I was an elementary school student growing, I grew up during the Cultural Revolution.

And so the elementary school students became a important target for the education. Why is it? If we look at the Red Guards in the early Cultural Revolution, how old were they? They were exactly the first generation of Chinese. ... They were born in the new China and grew up under the red flag.

They were 16, 17, 15-year-olds. And so the education they received emphasized the distinction, the uncompromisable distinction between the enemies and the people. And to the enemies, you treat them with absolutely harshness, and you treat your comrades the opposite way that you sacrifice yourself for them.

So that kind of distinction. So one thing, if we look at the cultural revolution, of course, it involved faction, warfares.

CHAKRABARTI: Right?

DONG: But the two sides would be using exactly the same slogans and ideology. So that is a very puzzling thing, and it's very revealing. And later, after the first stage, the workers, urban people were involved in organizing Red Guards.

And there, there were practical interests involved in China's efforts of quick industrialization. Rural people were brought into the cities as workers, but they didn't enjoy the same pay and same status, same benefits for retirements and welfare. And so you do the same work, but you're paid differently. So there were dissatisfactions there.

And then, the endless and countless political movements since 1949 for every political movement, you will have to redraw the line between enemy and the people. Who wants to be an enemy in that case, right? Under these situations, because it means basically life is over. Your family's life is over. And so there were a lot of resentments at the local level.

And so people used this moment of the Cultural Revolution, which was not a total anarchy, but there were this chaotic moment to settle old scores. And so did everybody believe in the movement? No. Did everybody have to go along with it? Yes. Some scholars used the game theory to explain why such a chaos.

Every individual sort of believed that I have some rationality. I can make some choices to decide, to say whether I would join the Red Guard or not. So if you look at the individual, it's as if individuals made their own decisions and choices. But then on the other hand, if you look at the whole thing, it was a big chaos.

CHAKRBARTI: Yeah. So actually, in the future now I want to apply game theory to understanding political chaos in the United States. Yeah.

DONG: It's the difference between, in theory, everyone in China should be equal. But in reality, there were differences. And so that kind of resentment, that also is also relevant across the world.

CHAKRABARTI: Absolutely. So we unfortunately only have less than two minutes left, but there are two important questions I want to ask. And that means that short answers, and forgive me. But Yangyang, I recently watched a conversation that the author of 3 Body Problem had with the British Library, and he had said originally in the first novel in the series, he wanted to set the whole thing in 1960s China.

But then he spoke to younger people born in the '80s and '90s and they said they didn't really have that much interest. They were, he, in his words, they weren't as nostalgic about that period of Chinese history as he was. So he decided to push that story into the background. How does that help us understand, really, what do younger Chinese people now think of this important part of their history?

CHENG: I think this is why this is so important to not just see the Cultural Revolution as something that was just contained in the past. And to see something that is still constantly living within us. We are living in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, with the afterlives are still haunting us.

One of the examples, if we look at what happened during the COVID-19 lockdowns with these kinds of mass mobilizations, with the usage of loudspeakers, there were a lot of elements about sound and visuals and political actions that are very reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, including these workers in hazmat suits are being called the white guards.

And so I think that's important for the younger generation in China today to understand that the cultural revolution was not something that just happened in the past, but it's something that is constantly still shaping the present and influencing the future.

24. The New Movie ‘Civil War’ Matters for Reasons Different Than You Think

I have not seen this yet. I have not decided whether I will go to the theater to see it or wait for it to come out on streaming services.

Will this be a self fulfilling prophecy or could this help to inoculate and positively influence the population to prevent an outcome like the movie?

OPINION

GUEST ESSAY

The New Movie ‘Civil War’ Matters for Reasons Different Than You Think

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/opinion/civil-war-movie.html?utm

April 11, 2024

Credit...Illustration by Rebecca Chew/The New York Times

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By Stephen Marche

Mr. Marche is the author of “The Next Civil War.”

“Not one man in America wanted the Civil War, or expected or intended it,” Henry Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, declared at the beginning of the 20th century. What may seem inevitable to us in hindsight — the horrifying consequences of a country in political turmoil, given to violence and rived by slavery — came as a shock to many of the people living through it. Even those who anticipated it hardly seemed prepared for its violent magnitude. In this respect at least, the current division that afflicts the United States seems different from the Civil War. If there ever is a second civil war, it won’t be for lack of imagining it.

The most prominent example arrives this week in the form of an action blockbuster titled “Civil War.” The film, written and directed by Alex Garland, presents a scenario in which the government is at war with breakaway states and the president has been, in the eyes of part of the country, delegitimized. Some critics have denounced the project, arguing that releasing the film in this particular election year is downright dangerous. They assume that even just talking about a future national conflict could make it a reality, and that the film risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is wrong.

Not only does this criticism vastly overrate the power of the written word or the moving image, but it looks past the real forces sending the United States toward ever-deeper division: inequality; a hyperpartisan duopoly; and an antiquated and increasingly dysfunctional Constitution. Mere stories are not powerful enough to change those realities. But these stories can wake us up to the threats we are facing. The greatest political danger in America isn’t fascism, and it isn’t wokeness. It’s inertia. America needs a warning.

The reason for a surge in anxiety over a civil war is obvious. The Republican National Committee, now under the control of the presumptive nominee, has asked job candidates if they believe the 2020 election was stolen — an obvious litmus test. Extremism has migrated into mainstream politics, and certain fanciful fictions have migrated with it. In 1997, a group of Texas separatists were largely considered terrorist thugs and their movement, if it deserved that title, fizzled out after a weeklong standoff with the police. Just a few months ago, Texas took the federal government to court over control of the border. Armed militias have camped out along the border. That’s not a movie trailer. That’s happening.

But politicians, pundits and many voters seem not to be taking the risk of violence seriously enough. There is an ingrained assumption, resulting from the country’s recent history of global dominance coupled with a kind of organic national optimism, that in the United States everything ultimately works out. While right-wing journalists and fiction writers have been predicting a violent end to the Republic for generations — one of the foundational documents of neo-Nazism and white supremacy is “The Turner Diaries” from 1978, a novel that imagines an American revolution that leads to a race war — their writings seem more like wish fulfillment than like warnings.

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When I attended prepper conventions as research for my book, I found their visions of a collapsed American Republic suspiciously attractive: It’s a world where everybody grows his own food, gathers with family by candlelight, defends his property against various unpredictable threats and relies on his wits. Their preferred scenario resembled, more than anything, a sort of postapocalyptic “Little House on the Prairie.”

We’ve seen more recent attempts to grapple with the possibility of domestic conflict in the form of sober-minded political analysis. Now the vision of a civil war has come to movie screens. We’re no longer just contemplating a political collapse, we’re seeing its consequences unfold in IMAX.

“Civil War” doesn’t dwell on the causes of the schism. Its central characters are journalists and the plot dramatizes the reality of the conflict they’re covering: the fear, violence and instability that a civil war would inflict on the lives of everyday Americans.

That’s a good thing. Early on when I was promoting my book, I remember an interviewer asking me whether a civil war wouldn’t be that terrible an option; whether it would help clear the air. The naïveté was shocking and, to me, sickening. America lost roughly 2 percent of its population in the Civil War. Contemplating the horrors of a civil war — whether as a thought experiment or in a theatrical blockbuster — helps counteract a reflexive sense of American exceptionalism. It can happen here. In fact, it already has.

One of the first people to predict the collapse of the Republic was none other than George Washington. “I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations,” he warned in his Farewell Address. “This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature.” This founder of the country devoted much of one of his most important addresses, at the apex of his popularity, to warning about the exact situation the United States today finds itself in: a hyper-partisanship that puts party over country and risks political collapse. Washington knew what civil war looked like.

For those Americans of the 1850s who couldn’t imagine a protracted, bloody civil war, the reason is simple enough: They couldn’t bear to. They refused to see the future they were part of building. The future came anyway.

The Americans of 2024 can easily imagine a civil war. The populace faces a different question and a different crisis: Can we forestall the future we have foreseen? No matter the likelihood of that future, the first step in its prevention is imagining how it might come to pass, and agreeing that it would be a catastrophe.

More on the possibility of a second Civil War

Opinion | Sarah Vowell

What’s With All the Fluff About a New Civil War, Anyway?

Aug. 28, 2022

Opinion | Michelle Goldberg

Are We Really Facing a Second Civil War?

Jan. 6, 2022

Opinion | Jamelle Bouie

Why We Are Not Facing the Prospect of a Second Civil War

Feb. 15, 2022

Stephen Marche is the author of “The Next Civil War.”

Source photographs by Yasuhide Fumoto, Richard Nowitz and stilllifephotographer, via Getty Images.

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25. Jung’s Five Pillars of a Good Life

​And now to end on a somewhat lighter and hopefully more practical note after a day of depressing news.

Jung’s Five Pillars of a Good Life

The great Swiss psychoanalyst left us a surprisingly practical guide to being happier.

By Arthur C. Brooks

The Atlantic · by Arthur C. Brooks · April 11, 2024

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In the world of popular psychology, the work of one giant figure is hard to avoid: Carl Jung, the onetime associate of Sigmund Freud who died more than 60 years ago. If you think you have a complex about something, the Swiss psychiatrist invented that term. Are you an extrovert or an introvert? Those are his coinages, too. Persona, archetype, synchronicity: Jung, Jung, Jung.

When it comes to happiness, though, Jung can seem a bit of a downer. “‘Happiness,’” he wrote, “is such a remarkable reality that there is nobody who does not long for it.” So far, so good. But he does not leave it there: “And yet there is not a single objective criterion which would prove beyond all doubt that this condition necessarily exists.”

Carl G. Jung: God, the devil, and the human soul

Clearly, this observation should not discourage any serious student of happiness. On the contrary, Jung is stating the manifest truth that we cannot lay hold of any blissful end state of pure happiness, because every human life is bound to involve negative emotions, which in fact arose to alert us to threats and keep us safe. Rather, the objective should be progress—or, in the words of Oprah Winfrey, my co-author on our recent book, Build the Life You Want, “happierness.”

If Jung was a happiness skeptic in some sense, however, he was by no means a denialist. In 1960, as he neared the end of his long life, Jung shared his own strategy for realizing that goal of progress. Refined with the aid of modern social science, Jung’s precepts might be just what you’re looking for in your life.

Jung believed that making progress toward happiness was built on five pillars.

1. Good physical and mental health

Jung believed that getting happier required soundness of mind and body. His thesis is supported by plenty of research. For example, the longest-running study of happiness—the Harvard Study of Adult Development—has shown that four of the biggest predictors of a senior citizen’s well-being are not smoking excessively, drinking alcohol moderately if at all, maintaining a healthy body weight, and exercising. Even more important for well-being is good mental health. Indeed, one study from 2013 showed that poor mental health among Britons, Germans, and Australians predicted nearly two to roughly six times as much misery as poor physical health did.

This raises what might seem like a nitpick with Jung’s contention: Good health practices seem not to raise happiness, but rather to lower unhappiness. Today, many emotion researchers have uncovered evidence of a phenomenon that Jung did not conceive of: Negative and positive emotions appear to be separable phenomena and not opposites; well-being requires a focus on each. Furthermore, researchers have identified how activities such as physical exercise can interrupt the cycle of negative emotion during moments of heightened stress, by helping moderate cortisol-hormone levels. I have found in my own work that this helps explain why people with naturally low levels of negative emotion tend to struggle with staying on a regular exercise regimen: They may feel less benefit to their well-being from going to the gym than people naturally higher in negative feelings do.

Arthur C. Brooks: Why so many people are unhappy in retirement

2. Good personal and intimate relations, such as those of marriage, family, and friendships

The intertwined notions that close relationships are at the heart of well-being and that cultivating them will reliably increase happiness are unambiguously true. Indeed, of the four best life investments for increasing personal satisfaction, two involve family and friendships (the others are in faith or philosophy, and meaningful work; more on these in a moment). And as for marriage, an institution that has taken a beating over recent decades, more and more evidence is piling up from scholars that being wed makes the majority of people happier than they otherwise would be, as the University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox has argued. This research seemed so conclusive to Wilcox that he titled his recent book, simply, Get Married. Jung himself was married to his wife, Emma, for 52 years, until her death at the age of 73.

The Harvard Study of Adult Development comes to one conclusion more definitively than any other. In the words of my Harvard colleague Robert Waldinger, who has directed the project for nearly two decades, and his co-author, Marc Schulz, “Good relationships keep us healthier and happier. Period.” Waldinger’s predecessor running the study, George Vaillant, was just as unequivocal about the evidence: “Happiness is love. Full stop.”

3. Seeing beauty in art and in nature

Jung believed that happiness required one to cultivate an appreciation for beautiful things and experiences. Although this might sound intuitively obvious, the actuality is more complicated.

Long before I focused my scholarly life on happiness, I was dedicated to art and beauty. My earliest memories are of painting with my artist mother; I learned to read music before written language; I made my living as a classical musician from ages 19 to 31. News flash: Artists are generally not the world’s most blissfully satisfied people. In a 1992 study from Britain, researchers found that performing artists reported depression at higher rates than the control group. At some point, I will write a book not on the art of happiness but on the very troublesome happiness of art.

Among nonartists, however, the issue is somewhat simpler and in line with Jung’s thinking. First, a big difference exists between beauty in nature and beauty in art. Specifically, engagement with nature’s beauty is known, across different cultures, to enhance well-being. Second, with aesthetic experience, happiness depends on the artistic mood. For example, experiments have shown that if you listen to happy music on your own, it makes you feel happier; if you listen to sad music while alone, it makes you feel sadder.

Kelly Conaboy: What your favorite personality test says about you

4. A reasonable standard of living and satisfactory work

As with physical and mental health, employment and income seem tied more to eliminating unhappiness than to raising happiness. For one thing, scholars have long shown that unemployment is a reliable source of misery: Depressive symptoms typically rise when people, both men and women, are unemployed. This cannot be explained simply by the lack of material and social resources that typically accompanies joblessness; rather, work itself helps protect mental health.

But if we can upgrade “satisfactory work” in Jung’s list to “meaningful work,” then positive gains in happiness do come into play. The two elements that make work meaningful for most people are earned success (a sense of accomplishing something valuable) and service to others. These can be achieved in almost any job.

The relationship between money and happiness is a hotly contested topic; older studies show that well-being tops out at relatively low income levels, but more recent studies show that such contentment continues to rise for much higher incomes. My own assessment of the evidence is that money alone cannot buy happiness, nor can spending money to acquire possessions make one happy; but having the money to pay for experiences with loved ones, to free up time to spend on meaningful activities, and to support good causes does enhance happiness.

5. A philosophical or religious outlook that fosters resilience

Jung argued that a good life requires a way of understanding why things happen the way they do, being able to zoom out from the tedious quotidian travails of life, and put events—including inevitable suffering—into perspective. The son of a pastor, Jung was deeply Christian in his worldview, as his own words published many years ago in The Atlantic make clear: “For it is not that ‘God’ is a myth, but that myth is the revelation of a divine life in man.” He did not insist that his spiritual path was the only one—“I do not imagine that in my reflections,” he wrote, “I have uttered a final truth”—and allowed that even a nonreligious, purely philosophical attitude could do. But everyone, he thought, should have some sense of transcendent belief or higher purpose.

Research clearly backs up Jung’s contention. Religious belief has been noted as strongly predictive of finding meaning in life, and spirituality is positively correlated with better mental health; both faith and spiritual practice seem protective against depression. Secular philosophies can provide this benefit as well. Recent papers on Stoicism, for example, have demonstrated that this ancient way of thinking and acting can yield well-being benefits. Many books have been written on the subject, including the psychotherapist Donald Robertson’s Stoicism and the Art of Happiness.

Arthur C. Brooks: What the second-happiest people get right

Taken together, Jung’s ideas about happiness and his five pillars of well-being stand up solidly to modern research findings. I propose this practical seven-point summary:

1. Do not fall prey to seeking pure happiness. Instead, seek lifelong progress toward happierness.

2. Manage as best you can the main sources of misery in your life by attending to your physical and mental health, maintaining employment, and ensuring an adequate income.

3. If you’re earning enough to take care of your principal needs, remember that happiness at work comes not from chasing higher income but from pursuing a sense of accomplishment and service to others.

4. Cultivate deep relationships through marriage, family, and real friendships. Remember that happiness is love.

5. If you have discretionary income left over, use it to invest in your relationships with family and friends.

6. Spend time in nature, surround yourself with beauty that uplifts you, and consume the art and music that nourish your spirit.

7. Find a path of transcendence—one that explains the big picture in life and helps you comprehend suffering and the purpose of your existence.

Beyond the scientific research that supports this strategy, we also have the evidence of its effectiveness in the example of Jung’s life. He made his list to mark his 85th birthday, which was to be the last one he celebrated. By all accounts, he made progress toward happiness over his life, had a long and devoted marriage, died surrounded by the people he loved, and was satisfied that he had used his abilities in a meaningful way that served others. In this world, that sounds pretty good to me.

The Atlantic · by Arthur C. Brooks · April 11, 2024

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com