Quotes of the Day:

"Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much." 

– Blaise Pascal

"I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else." 

– Winston Churchill

"The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty." 

– Eugene McCarthy

1.  The Lessons of Israeli Missile Defense

2. The U.S. Has Received a Rare Invitation From China. There Is Only One Right Answer.

3. House Speaker Mike Johnson pushes towards a vote on aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan

4. In a decisive moment like this, Israel has to reaffirm its strength by striking back - editorial

5. Review says Abbey Gate bombing wasn’t preventable

6. Victory and Failure in the Great American-Israeli Eastern Mediterranean Range Day MISSILEX of April 2024

7. Fake Footage of Iran’s Attack on Israel Is Going Viral

8. Federal criminal investigation opened into Key Bridge crash

9. Israel’s War Leaders Don’t Trust One Another

10. All the US assets that helped repel Iran’s attack on Israel

11. Army Could Face Resistance from Congress as It Eyes Cuts to Education Benefits

12. Out of INF, Army deploys Typhon weapon to the Philippines

13. SM-3 Ballistic Missile Interceptor Used for First Time in Combat, Officials Confirm

14. Opinion | What it means when the mercenaries appear

15. The epic fail of Biden’s doctrine vs. Iran — no consequences

16. A Test of Strength

17. Opinion | A quandary in Israel: How to retaliate — but not escalate?

18. China accused of running sleeper cells to sow discord

19. Japan's Ukraine aid creates new rift with Russia

20. Opinion | What the United States needs to do after Iran’s attack on Israel

21. A DHS Office of Foreign Influence and Interference—Break Down Barriers to Protect US Democracy and Public Safety

22. The Talks That Could Have Ended the War in Ukraine

23. Japan’s China Reckoning

24. Call in the Coast Guard: How Maritime Law Enforcement Can Combat China’s Gray-Zone Aggression

25. Houthi Attacks in the Red Sea: A New Twist on the Jeune École?

26. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, April 15, 2024

27. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 15, 2024

1. The Lessons of Israeli Missile Defense

Between Ukraine andGaza/Israel, and the Houthis, I think we are going to finally take air and missile defense seriously.

The Lessons of Israeli Missile Defense

Biden hails what he once opposed, but the aerial threat is escalating.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-missile-defense-u-s-joe-biden-iran-2231eb99?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

By The Editorial Board

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Updated April 15, 2024 6:22 pm ET

An anti-missile system operates after Iran launched drones and missiles towards Israel on April 14. PHOTO: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS

The performance of Israeli air defenses, combined with assistance from U.S. jets and interceptors, saved countless lives on the weekend. But Iran, Russia and other adversaries are learning from each engagement and probing for weaknesses to exploit. The U.S. needs to do more to deter and protect Americans from future assaults.

It’s no small irony that President Biden is hailing the success of missile and drone defenses over Israel. In the 1980s there was no more dedicated foe of missile defense than Sen. Joe Biden. Democrats have resisted or under-financed missile defenses for decades on grounds that they’re too expensive and too easily defeated by new technology.

Progressives oppose defenses because they think vulnerability somehow makes war less likely. On nuclear arms, the Union of Concerned Scientists and others prefer the doctrine of mutual-assured destruction to being able to shoot down enemy ICBMs.

Israel’s defenses proved how wrong this view is, displaying their practical and strategic value. If the more than 300 drones and ballistic and cruise missiles had reached their targets, Mr. Biden wouldn’t be able to say, as he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night, “take the win.” The mass casualties would have all but guaranteed a large-scale military escalation.

The weekend success of air defenses is a tribute to Israeli strategy and decades of investment in defense technology. U.S. assistance was also crucial—an example of alliance cooperation paying off in both directions. The U.S. helped to finance Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, which evolved into a co-production agreement that also covers gaps in U.S. missile defenses. The weekend exchange shows that Israel’s defense capability is far superior to Iran’s—at least for now.

But enemies never stand still, and the West’s adversaries are adapting their methods and technology to defeat aerial defenses. One threat is overwhelming defenses with sheer numbers. Israel stood up well against Saturday’s large attack, but it had U.S. and other help. It isn’t clear that Israel could have similar success if Hezbollah unleashed its missile arsenal from Lebanon and Syria while Iran attacked from the west and the Houthis from Yemen.

There is also the question of asymmetric cost. Drones are cheap to produce and easy to transport, but they can be expensive to shoot down. They can also arrive in swarms. That’s why a middling power like Iran specializes in drone production. Iran has been a crucial drone supplier to Russia, which deploys them to deadly effect in Ukraine. Azerbaijan’s drone swarms made the difference last year in its war with Armenia.

Kyiv has built its own drone production line and has bought Turkish drones. But the West will need to innovate to counter the problem of having to shoot down drones with interceptors that are a hundred times more expensive. The U.S. military is experimenting with promising technologies such as high-powered microwave weapons.

Iran’s attack also puts into focus, or at least it should, the shortfall in U.S. interceptor production. The U.S. stockpile is thin, and the Biden Administration had to ask Japan to transfer some of its Patriots so the U.S. could maintain enough for its defenses.

The Senate aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and the Pacific includes money to grow production of the most advanced Patriot interceptor to 650 a year from 550 now. But only 650? The U.S. could exhaust a year’s worth of production in mere weeks of intense fighting, and that figure is insufficient for the growing missile threats around the world.

The U.S. military needs to field new technology rapidly while also shifting closer to a wartime footing to produce more current munitions, including the Standard Missile that handles air defense on U.S. Navy destroyers. That means U.S. defense budgets will have to increase. Saturday night’s events are a lesson in why the U.S. never wants to be low on ammunition to defend itself.

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Review and Outlook: U.S. deterrence fails again, as Tehran shows it is willing to take more escalatory risks while Biden tries to restrain Israel. Images: AP/AFP via Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly

Copyright ©2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the April 16, 2024, print edition as 'The Lessons of Israeli Missile Defense'.

2.  The U.S. Has Received a Rare Invitation From China. There Is Only One Right Answer.

No one fears nuclear weapons more than the US.

Excerpts:

In truth, no one knows what China is planning. President Xi Jinping’s government, as with much of its domestic policy, releases vanishingly little information about its nuclear intentions, strategies or goals, and it has been equally unwilling to engage on arms control.

That is, until now.

In February, in a rare offer for nuclear diplomacy, China openly invited the United States and other nuclear powers to negotiate a treaty in which all sides would pledge never to use nuclear weapons first against one another. “The policy is highly stable, consistent and predictable,” said Sun Xiaobo, director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s department of arms control, in Geneva on Feb. 26. “It is, in itself, an important contribution to the international disarmament process.”

The invitation came as a surprise. While Beijing has long claimed moral superiority over other nuclear powers on this issue — China and India are the only nuclear-armed nations to declare a no-first-use policy — opening the possibility for talks in such a public way is something China hasn’t done in years.

OPINION

The U.S. Has Received a Rare Invitation From China. There Is Only One Right Answer.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/15/opinion/china-nuclear-weapons.html

April 15, 2024

Credit...James Lee Chiahan

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By W.J. Hennigan

Mr. Hennigan writes about national security issues for Times Opinion.

Want to stay updated on what’s happening in China and Russia? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.

In the middle of the last century, as the United States and Russia rapidly amassed thousands of nuclear weapons, China stayed out of the arms race, focusing its energy on growing its economy and broadening its regional influence.

Beijing did build hundreds of nuclear weapons during those years, but the nation’s leaders insisted their modest arsenal was merely for self-defense. Since China’s first nuclear weapons test, in 1964, the country has pledged loudly to never go first in a nuclear conflict — no matter what. That stance, coupled with a stated strategy of “minimum” deterrence, didn’t demand the level of American fear, loathing and attention that the Russian threat did.

Now there is increasing unease in Washington about China’s nuclear ambitions. The Pentagon says Beijing is on track to double the number of its nuclear warheads by the decade’s end, to 1,000 from 500 — a development that senior U.S. officials have publicly called “unprecedented” and “breathtaking.” China has drastically expanded its nuclear testing facility and continued work on three new missile fields in the country’s north, where more than 300 intercontinental ballistic missile silos have recently been constructed.

China’s transformation from a small nuclear power into an exponentially larger one is a historic shift, upending the delicate two-peer balance of the world’s nuclear weapons for the entirety of the atomic age. The Russian and American arsenals — their growth, reduction and containment — have defined this era; maintaining an uneasy peace between the two countries hinged on open communication channels, agreement on nuclear norms and diplomacy.

Little of that nuclear scaffolding exists with China. In Washington, how exactly to interpret Beijing’s sharp nuclear buildup is still a matter of debate. At best, American officials say, their Chinese counterparts are trying to catch up with the United States and Russia, which still each have roughly a 10-to-1 nuclear advantage over China with their stockpiles. At worst, they say, this is Beijing’s boldfaced attempt to deter the United States from defending Taiwan against a Chinese invasion, the most likely flashpoint for an armed conflict between the competing superpowers.

In truth, no one knows what China is planning. President Xi Jinping’s government, as with much of its domestic policy, releases vanishingly little information about its nuclear intentions, strategies or goals, and it has been equally unwilling to engage on arms control.

That is, until now.

In February, in a rare offer for nuclear diplomacy, China openly invited the United States and other nuclear powers to negotiate a treaty in which all sides would pledge never to use nuclear weapons first against one another. “The policy is highly stable, consistent and predictable,” said Sun Xiaobo, director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s department of arms control, in Geneva on Feb. 26. “It is, in itself, an important contribution to the international disarmament process.”

The invitation came as a surprise. While Beijing has long claimed moral superiority over other nuclear powers on this issue — China and India are the only nuclear-armed nations to declare a no-first-use policy — opening the possibility for talks in such a public way is something China hasn’t done in years.

It may seem like a no-brainer to take China up on the offer — wouldn’t it be better if everyone agreed not to be the first to use their nuclear weapons? — but it has been met with public silence from Washington. For American policymakers, committing to no-first-use is deeply divisive. The United States, the only nation to ever use nuclear weapons in conflict, when it dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945, has never ruled out being first to use them again, nor has it detailed the circumstances under which it would consider doing so. This approach of calculated ambiguity is intended to prevent adversaries from taking military action against the United States — and the more than 30 allies it is bound by treaties to defend — out of fear for what could come their way in response.

It’s also a personal issue for President Biden. He supported a no-first-use policy as vice president amid deliberations inside the Obama administration, and as a presidential candidate on the campaign trail he said the “sole purpose” of the U.S. nuclear arsenal should be aimed at deterring or retaliating against an adversary’s nuclear attack. But when it came time for his own administration to adopt a declaratory nuclear policy, he decided not to break with America’s longstanding nuclear dogma and retained the first-use option.

Mr. Biden’s about-face was a sign of the times, a result of both internal deliberations and consultations with allies in Europe and Asia. According to current and former administration officials, these nations’ leaders feared a U.S. policy reversal would undermine confidence in America’s commitment to come to their defense and would potentially embolden China, Russia and North Korea.

The uneasiness surrounding a potential change to America’s first-use policy almost certainly played a role in China’s unusually public invitation to negotiate. China may simply be trying to stoke anxieties among American allies and partners — and particularly Taiwan, South Korea and Japan — by floating a public offer outside of private diplomatic channels.

It’s not the first time it has gone down this road. During the Cold War, China made offers for a mutual no-first-use pledge at the United Nations in 1971 and 1982, and presented a draft treaty in 1994 to the other nuclear weapons states. Four years later, China tried to persuade President Bill Clinton to change American nuclear policy when he visited Beijing, but Mr. Clinton decided against it, choosing instead to share a pledge to stop targeting each other with their nuclear weapons.

Such overtures have all but halted under the leadership of Mr. Xi, who has pursued a far more aggressive foreign policy. He has overseen a sweeping modernization of China’s military, including developing and fielding new nuclear-capable missiles, submarines and bombers. Meanwhile, the stockpile of warheads steadily climbs.

The White House believes that China’s recent offer is a distraction from its broader unwillingness to engage diplomatically on the nuclear portfolio, including its own aggressive buildup. The Biden administration is wrestling with how it can deter both China and Russia without touching off a destabilizing three-way arms race. Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, publicly invited the two nations last summer to hold nuclear arms control deliberations without preconditions. Russia dismissed the offer outright, while China agreed to preliminary talks. At a follow-on meeting in November, the United States proposed possible measures to manage nuclear risks, such as an agreement to notify one another when their militaries test-launch ballistic missiles.

“The P.R.C. has yet to respond or show interest in engaging substantively on these proposals,” a National Security Council spokeswoman, using the abbreviation for the country’s formal name, the People’s Republic of China, said in a written response to questions about Beijing’s recent offer. “This P.R.C. behavior calls into question the aims behinds the P.R.C.’s call for discussions of a no-first-use treaty.”

Some argue the Biden administration should take Beijing’s offer at face value. “China genuinely believes that any serious nuclear arms control discussion needs to start with no-first-use,” said Tong Zhao, a nuclear expert focused on China at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “From Beijing’s view, that’s the most effective way to reduce the role of nuclear weapons.”

Even if it is a strategic gambit, engaging with China and other nuclear nations on first-use talks could be a crucial step in establishing critical guardrails for the new nuclear era. It would be a major breakthrough for Washington to get China to the table for arms control talks. It could also help jolt the stalled relations between the United States and Russia, which together control nearly 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads.

“U.S. administrations have not responded with great alacrity or interest to Chinese outreach on the question of no-first-use,” said Steve Andreasen, who served as Mr. Clinton’s director for defense policy and arms control on the National Security Council. “But as we look forward into … the increasing U.S. national interest in engaging China in all things nuclear, we’re going to have to cross the Rubicon on this issue.”

It’s true that it’s not an easy time for trust-building exercises; the current level of mistrust between Chinese and American military intentions is deep. Speaking to Congress in March, Gen. Anthony Cotton, commander of all U.S. nuclear forces, suggested that China’s rapid nuclear expansion indicated its no-first-use policy was no longer credible. The Pentagon wrote in an October report that, despite China’s rhetoric, Beijing might consider using nuclear weapons first anyway during a crisis if it came down to the survival of Mr. Xi’s regime, such as defeat in a war with Taiwan. It also remains unclear how exactly China would respond if its nuclear forces were hit during a conflict. Would that trigger Beijing’s nuclear use? “Unknown,” the Pentagon said in the report.

Talking through these points of contention may help Beijing and Washington understand and appreciate the factors that go into formulating the finer points of each other’s nuclear policy. The very process of dialogue and diplomacy can help the Chinese hear American concerns, and vice versa. Given the widening gulf of fear and suspicion between the two nations around Taiwan, there is no better moment for them to sit down and discuss what constitutes a credible no-first-use commitment.

It may be that an unequivocal no-first-use pledge ends up being impossible. The talks may not result in a deal anyone can agree upon, and even if a deal were to be reached, it would be impossible to verify, meaning it would be more symbolic than substantive. But that doesn’t mean Washington shouldn’t take up Beijing’s invitation. In the increasingly endangered world of nuclear diplomacy, discussions on one treaty can still set the table for another. New START, the only remaining major arms control agreement between the United States and Russia, was built on the foundation of the original START I, which was signed two decades earlier.

Under Mr. Xi, China appears to have left its policy of minimum deterrence behind. If the Biden administration is serious about arms control, it’s time to look for common ground with Beijing to build new agreements for a safer future.

This Times Opinion series is funded through philanthropic grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Outrider Foundation and the Prospect Hill Foundation. Funders have no control over the selection or focus of articles or the editing process and do not review articles before publication. The Times retains full editorial control.

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3. House Speaker Mike Johnson pushes towards a vote on aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan

Excerpts:

Johnson said those proposals would structure some of the funding for Kyiv as loans, allow the U.S. to seize frozen Russian central bank assets and place other sanctions on Iran.

The GOP meeting was filled with lawmakers at odds in their approach to the conflict with Russia: Republican defense hawks, including the top lawmakers on national security committees, are pitted against populist conservatives who are fiercely opposed to continued support for Kyiv’s fight.

As often happens, the meeting turned into a free-for-all of ideas as Republicans tried to put their own stamp on the package but rarely found any unity. Yet Johnson’s plan won over significant Republican support, said Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., as he left the meeting.

“I don’t like it,” he said. “But I’m clearly in the minority.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson pushes towards a vote on aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan

BY STEPHEN GROVES AND LISA MASCARO

Updated 12:01 AM EDT, April 16, 2024

AP · by STEPHEN GROVES · April 15, 2024

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday unveiled a complicated proposal for passing wartime aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. (AP produced by Javier Arciga)

LISA MASCARO

STEPHEN GROVES

Groves covers Congress for The Associated Press.

twittermailto

AP · by STEPHEN GROVES · April 15, 2024

4. In a decisive moment like this, Israel has to reaffirm its strength by striking back - editorial

It is counterintuitive to many but a failure to respond is more likely to cause escalation than a proper response in self defense. The loudly stated fears of escalation actually invites escalation. Adversaries will continue to press until they find a "red line" since they think they are able to operate low the red line that appears to be either non-existent or far off because of publicly stated fears of escalation. (Now I am not saying anyone should publicly state a specific redline, just execute a proper response to an attack in self defense without stating a red line. Actions speak louder than words. The action is the message. The action is the redline.)

Excerpts:

The risks of escalation are real. Iran’s sophisticated air defenses and the potential for retaliation highlight the gamble inherent in military strikes. Yet, the cost of inaction might be higher, given Iran’s continued aggression and the progress in its nuclear program. Israel’s past reluctance to escalate conflicts could shift, considering the current threats that extend beyond its borders to include significant global implications.

Israel’s response to the April 14 assault by Iran must be contextualized within a larger framework of strategic defense and geopolitical signaling. This reaction must be interpreted not merely as a response to an isolated provocation but as a cornerstone of a comprehensive strategy aimed at maintaining regional stability and actively deterring future acts of aggression from Tehran.

This strategy is about protecting national borders and upholding international norms and the laws of armed conflict, which underscore the legitimacy of a nation’s right to defend its sovereignty against external threats. As Iran continues to challenge regional security, Israel’s military and diplomatic maneuvers must be meticulously calibrated to reinforce its position without escalating conflicts unnecessarily.

In a decisive moment like this, Israel has to reaffirm its strength by striking back - editorial

Israel's past reluctance to escalate conflicts could shift, considering the current threats that extend beyond its borders to include significant global implications.

By JPOST EDITORIALAPRIL 16, 2024 05:57

Jerusalem Post

In the volatile tapestry of Middle Eastern politics, the dawn of April 14, 2024, marked yet another escalation in regional tensions. Hundreds of Iranian drones, cruise, and ballistic missiles targeted Israel, punctuating a period of rising hostilities. However, the resilience of Israel's air defense and its strategic alliances in the region not only thwarted this assault but also signaled the durability of the Israel-Sunni regional alliance, as written on Sunday by our Senior Diplomatic Correspondent, Herb Keinon.

The attack underlines a critical reality: the alliance between Israel and several Sunni Arab nations—forged not out of affinity but as a bulwark against Tehran's aggressive postures—remains intact. Countries like the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and, unofficially, Saudi Arabia view the threat from Iran as overshadowing other regional disagreements. This shared perspective on security issues, particularly Iran's nuclear ambitions and regional hegemony, underscores the necessity of a unified stance against common threats.

The recent aerial aggression by Iran serves as a stark reminder of what is at stake. Iran’s actions were not just an attempt to destabilize Israel but also was aimed at fracturing the burgeoning alliances Israel has cultivated with Sunni Arab states. This strategy reflects Tehran’s desire to isolate Israel while diverting global attention from its own military capabilities and nuclear aspirations.

Israel’s strategic response to such provocations needs to be as calculated as it is decisive. According to the Post’s Military Correspondent Yonah Jeremy Bob, the Israeli military’s potential use of advanced F-35 stealth fighters to penetrate deep into Iranian territory and target key nuclear sites is a testament to the high stakes involved. Such an operation would likely involve complex navigational challenges, possibly requiring flights over hostile or contested territories such as Syria, Iraq, or even the Persian Gulf.

However, the implications of any military action extend beyond immediate tactical successes. The regional dynamics are delicate. The Abraham Accords, which marked a significant realignment in Middle Eastern diplomacy, underscore the nuanced balance of maintaining newfound friendships while deterring traditional adversaries. The coordination seen in the wake of the attacks, involving not just Israel but also its regional partners, reflects a multi-national commitment to security that Iran’s provocations have ironically reinforced.

Anti-missile system fires interception missiles as drones and missiles fired from Iran, as it seen over the West Bank city of Hebron, on April 14, 2024. (credit: WISAM HASHLAMOUN/FLASH90)Moreover, Israel’s need to act extends beyond regional alliances. The domestic front is equally critical. The Israeli public’s expectation for security and the government’s responsibility to safeguard this cannot be overstated. The potential use of aerial assaults and missile strikes demonstrates a multi-layered approach to defense, integrating both offensive and defensive strategies.

While retaliation is costly, the cost of inaction is higher

The risks of escalation are real. Iran’s sophisticated air defenses and the potential for retaliation highlight the gamble inherent in military strikes. Yet, the cost of inaction might be higher, given Iran’s continued aggression and the progress in its nuclear program. Israel’s past reluctance to escalate conflicts could shift, considering the current threats that extend beyond its borders to include significant global implications.

Israel’s response to the April 14 assault by Iran must be contextualized within a larger framework of strategic defense and geopolitical signaling. This reaction must be interpreted not merely as a response to an isolated provocation but as a cornerstone of a comprehensive strategy aimed at maintaining regional stability and actively deterring future acts of aggression from Tehran.

This strategy is about protecting national borders and upholding international norms and the laws of armed conflict, which underscore the legitimacy of a nation’s right to defend its sovereignty against external threats. As Iran continues to challenge regional security, Israel’s military and diplomatic maneuvers must be meticulously calibrated to reinforce its position without escalating conflicts unnecessarily.

The events of April 14 should serve as a decisive moment for Israel to reaffirm its strategic imperatives and underscore its commitment to national and regional security. The necessary response from Israel should be robust and multi-dimensional, designed not only to neutralize the immediate threats posed by Iranian aggression but also to project an unambiguous message to both Iran and the international community. This message must articulate that Israel, along with its allies, is fully prepared and capable of confronting and overcoming any threats to its security and stability. Such a stance is vital for deterring future conflicts and reinforcing the integrity of emerging diplomatic relationships in the Middle East.

Jerusalem Post

5. Review says Abbey Gate bombing wasn’t preventable

Unfortunately this will not satisfy those who believe otherwise. And this will unlikely provide closure to those who lost loved ones.

Review says Abbey Gate bombing wasn’t preventable

militarytimes.com · by Lolita C. Baldor and Farnoush Amiri, The Associated Press · April 15, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — The suicide bombing at the Kabul airport that killed U.S. troops and Afghans in August 2021 was not preventable, and the “bald man in black” spotted by U.S. service members the morning of the attack was not the bomber, according to a new review by U.S. Central Command.

The findings. released Monday, refute assertions by some service members who believed they had a chance to take out the would-be bomber but did not get approval. And, for the first time, the U.S. military is confirming that the bomber was Abdul Rahman al-Logari, an Islamic State militant who had been in an Afghan prison but was released by the Taliban as the group took control of the country that summer.

The Abbey Gate bombing during the final chaotic days of the Afghanistan withdrawal killed 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans, and wounded scores more. It triggered widespread debate and congressional criticism, fueled by emotional testimony from a Marine injured in the blast, who said snipers believe they saw the possible bomber but couldn’t get approval to take him out.

Former Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews told the House Foreign Affairs Committee last March that Marines and others aiding in the evacuation were given descriptions of men believed to be plotting an attack. Vargas-Andrews, who was injured in the blast but not interviewed in the initial investigation, said he and others saw a man matching the description and might have been able to stop the attack, but requests to take action were denied.

In a detailed briefing to a small number of reporters, members of the team that did the review released photos of the bald man identified by military snipers as a potential threat and compared it with photos of al-Logari. The team members, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public, described facial recognition and other analysis they used that they said confirmed those were not the same man.

“For the past two years, some service members have claimed that they had the bomber in their sights and they could have prevented the attack. We now know that is not correct,” said a team member.

They said they also showed the photo of the bald man to service members during the latest interviews, and that the troops again confirmed that was the suspicious man they had targeted.

The review notes that the bald man was first seen around 7 a.m. and that troops lost sight of him by 10 a.m. The bombing was more than seven hours later, and the U.S. says al-Logari didn’t get to Abbey Gate until “very shortly” before the blast took place. They declined to be more specific about the timing, saying details are classified.

Family members of those killed in the blast received similar briefings over the past two weekends and some are still unconvinced.

“For me, personally, we are still not clear. I believe Tyler saw what Tyler saw and he knows what he saw. And it was not the guy that they were claiming was the man in black,” Jim McCollum, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, told The Associated Press.

He said the team went into “pretty good detail, not trying to discredit Tyler, but effectively saying he was wrong. However, that ended up being as clear as mud to us.”

And Mark Schmitz, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, questioned the photo itself.

“They kept saying this is who Tyler Vargas-Andrews was looking at and we were thinking to ourselves, ‘well, that’s interesting. Why is this a picture of a picture from a Canon camera?’” he said. “To me it felt like they were trying to find the guy in those cameras that may have come close to looking like somebody of interest that they can try to sell to us.”

The families, however, also said they were relieved to get more details about their loved ones’ deaths, saying the initial briefings were not as good.

Schmitz said that Army Gen. Eric Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, was part of the latest briefing and apologized for how the families were treated during the initial probe. This time around officials were able to share with Schmitz for the first time exactly where his son was when the bomb went off and that he was unconscious almost immediately, and therefore did not feel the impact of the shrapnel that went through his left torso, hitting a primary artery.

“That to me was, first and foremost, the best news I could have gotten,” Schmitz said. “That gave me a little bit of closure that my son didn’t suffer, which made me feel really good.”

Team members said they also are planning to speak with the troops who were interviewed this time, to share the results of the report.

They said the review also could not completely rule out claims that militants did a test run of the bombing several days earlier. But after reviewing photos and other intelligence, the team concluded it was unlikely that three men seen carrying a large bag — which troops deemed suspicious — were doing a trial run.

More broadly, the team said the review brought some new details to light, including more discussion about the possible bombing test run. But they said overall it confirmed the findings of U.S. Central Command’s initial investigation into the bombing: that it was not preventable and that reports of threats prior to the bombing were too vague.

As an example, the new review noted that threat reports talked about a possible bomber with groomed hair, wearing loose clothes, and carrying a black bag. That description, the review said, could have matched anyone in the enormous crowd desperately trying to get into the airport.

The team said they conducted 52 interviews for the review — adding up to a total of 190 when the previous investigation is included. Service members were asked about 64 questions, and the sessions lasted between one hour and seven hours long.

A number of those questioned weren’t included in the original investigation, many because they were severely wounded in the attack. The new review was ordered last September by Kurilla, largely due to criticism of the initial investigation and assertions that the deadly assault could have been stopped.

Members of the team said the Islamic State group put out the bomber’s name on social media, but U.S. intelligence was later able to independently confirm that report.

U.S. Central Command’s initial investigation concluded in November 2021 that given the worsening security situation at the airport’s Abbey Gate as Afghans became increasingly desperate to flee, " the attack was not preventable at the tactical level without degrading the mission to maximize the number of evacuees.”

Critics have slammed the Biden administration for the catastrophic evacuation, and they’ve complained that no one was held accountable for it. And while the U.S. was able to get more than 130,000 civilians out of the country during the panic after the Taliban took control of the government, there were horrifying images of desperate Afghans clinging to military aircraft as they lifted off.

6. Victory and Failure in the Great American-Israeli Eastern Mediterranean Range Day MISSILEX of April 2024

Some blunt criticism following the praise from CDR Salamander.

Excerpts:

All of the real fun information is in the SCIF, but there is enough open source for all to enjoy and be proud of.

Here are my Top-4 Quicklook observations. They’re linked together.

Iran’s goal was to swamp Israeli defenses via a multi-axis, multi-threat attack to generate mass casualties and have the Israeli government lose face. Their planning assumptions were flawed. They failed.

...

So, there’s our victory. Where is the failure?

Where does one start?

The Biden Administration inherited a Middle East spiraling towards peaceful co-existence. ISIS was hiding under a few isolated shadows under rocks. The Abraham Accords brought Arab nation by Arab nation to normal relations with Israel. Commerce flowed freely bringing goods safely to market at risk-free prices through the Arabian Gulf and Red Sea. There’s more, but that’s enough for a blog post.

...

Is anyone really shocked that American institutional and national weakness combined with billions of dollars to the Islamic Republic brought us to the events from October 7th to today?

Without accountability, there can be no learning. We have no accountability, so we have no learning. We remember everything but learn nothing. Our nation and her friends deserved a new national security team after the fall of Kabul and our negotiated surrender to the Taliban in 2021, but no - we got nothing but more chaos and conflict.

Pray for peace, because the world is full of dry underbrush and our firefighters are driving around the countryside throwing lit matches out of their windows.

Victory and Failure in the Great American-Israeli Eastern Mediterranean Range Day MISSILEX of April 2024

https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/victory-and-failure-in-the-great?utm=

we need praise and accountability

CDR SALAMANDER

APR 15, 2024

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First of all, BZ to the generations of AAW professionals who built the integrated kill chain that brought this exceptional evening of anti-air excellence. This isn’t exactly what you built it for, but close to it you glorious, geeky bastards;

All of the real fun information is in the SCIF, but there is enough open source for all to enjoy and be proud of.

Here are my Top-4 Quicklook observations. They’re linked together.

1. Iran’s goal was to swamp Israeli defenses via a multi-axis, multi-threat attack to generate mass casualties and have the Israeli government lose face. Their planning assumptions were flawed. They failed.
2. 
   
3. From Tehran to Beijing (and my nogg’n too), everyone needs to re-evaluate their assumptions about the battlefield effectiveness of their cruise and ballistic missiles when facing a 1st-tier nation whose defensive systems are unchallenged and properly capitalized. Conventional or nuclear, having 99% of your weapons not reaching their targets is not acceptable.
4. 
   
5. From WWII through the Cold War ending roughly with the success of Desert Storm, everyone knew that any strike from the air required a robust, diverse, and leading Electronic Warfare (EW) component. Hard kill and soft kill. Ships, aircraft, and airwings were thick with all sorts of active and passive EW including VAQ, Wild Weasel, and all the funky USAF Raven Mafia cadre’s toys. In the “Peace Dividend” era, most of them either atrophied into a rump capability relative to requirements or were “transformed” into non-existence. The diversion of resources to support imperial policing actions for the first two decades of this century only made the neglect worse. I’m not sure how many warnings we are going to be provided in this area. We will not be on the defensive or offensive against 3rd and 4th rate powers forever.
6. 
   
7. More. From the, again, superb demonstration of the real-world utility of multi-mission heavy fighters in the shape of the F-15E Strike Eagle, to the superb execution of mission by our layered defense built around our family of Standard Missiles, the last six months have shown us what needs more resources should this same need be called upon against a 1st-tier challenger west of the International Date Line. Think a few dozen ballistic and cruise missiles augmented by a few dozen low-tech attack drones are a challenge? Try moving the decimal point to the right and give it a mid-single digit multiplier. That is what the People’s Republic of China has waiting for us from Guam, west.

So, there’s our victory. Where is the failure?

Where does one start?

The Biden Administration inherited a Middle East spiraling towards peaceful co-existence. ISIS was hiding under a few isolated shadows under rocks. The Abraham Accords brought Arab nation by Arab nation to normal relations with Israel. Commerce flowed freely bringing goods safely to market at risk-free prices through the Arabian Gulf and Red Sea. There’s more, but that’s enough for a blog post.

Where are we now? Biden brought in Obama’s B-team with all their unfulfilled bag of bad ideas which in a few short years begat ISIS and Iranian proxies joining together in renewed strength in Syria and Iraq enough to attack US bases in Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. Afghanistan is not only home again to Al Qaeda, but ISIS-K grows under the misrule of that besotted nation by the superpower defeating Taliban. From Lebanon to Yemen, Israel is under attack after suffering the largest slaughter of Jews since WWII. Iran and her proxies are seizing and attacking merchant ships and Western warships from the Gulf of Oman through the Red Sea. From Qatar to Saudi Arabia, nations are looking to secure a “Plan-B” by improving ties to Iran, Russia, and China.

The team Biden brought into power again in 2021 sent billions of dollars to Iran, loosened sanctions, and otherwise bolstered the Islamic Republic based on a failed and discredited theory of international relations. As bankrupt as its “Mirror-Mirror” theory that brought us to invade Iraq in 2003, and yet - no accountability or change. Neither theory survived in the wild outside academia and think tanks…and yet the Biden team’s almost religious devotion to their own perceived intellect folded in with pigheadedness has prevented any self-reflection … at least yet.

Is anyone really shocked that American institutional and national weakness combined with billions of dollars to the Islamic Republic brought us to the events from October 7th to today?

Without accountability, there can be no learning. We have no accountability, so we have no learning. We remember everything but learn nothing. Our nation and her friends deserved a new national security team after the fall of Kabul and our negotiated surrender to the Taliban in 2021, but no - we got nothing but more chaos and conflict.

Pray for peace, because the world is full of dry underbrush and our firefighters are driving around the countryside throwing lit matches out of their windows.

7. Fake Footage of Iran’s Attack on Israel Is Going Viral

Fake Footage of Iran’s Attack on Israel Is Going Viral

Misleading posts including AI-generated videos, photos, and repurposed footage from other conflicts have been viewed millions of times.

Wired · by Vittoria Elliott · April 15, 2024

In the hours after Iran announced its drone and missile attack on Israel on April 13, fake and misleading posts went viral almost immediately on X. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a nonprofit think-tank, found a number of posts that claimed to reveal the strikes and their impact, but instead used AI-generated videos, photos, and repurposed footage from other conflicts that showed rockets launching into the night, explosions, and even President Joe Biden in military fatigues.

Just 34 of these misleading posts received over 37 million views, according to ISD. Many of the accounts posting the misinformation were also verified, meaning they have paid X $8 per month for the ‘blue tick’ and their content is amplified by the platform’s algorithm. ISD also found that several of the accounts claimed to be open source intelligence (OSINT) experts, which has, in recent years, become another way of giving legitimacy to their posts.

One X post claimed that “WW3 has officially started,” and included a video seeming to show rockets being shot into the night—except the video was actually from a YouTube video posted in 2021. Another post claimed to show the use of the Iron Dome, Israel's missile defense system, during the attack, but the video was actually from October 2023. Both these posts garnered hundreds of thousands of views in the hours after the strike was announced, and both originated from verified accounts. Iranian media also shared a video of the wildfires in Chile earlier this year, claiming it showed the aftermath of the attacks. This, too, began to circulate on X.

“The fact that so much mis- and disinformation is being spread by accounts looking for clout or financial benefit is giving cover to even more nefarious actors, including Iranian state media outlets who are passing off footage from the Chilean wildfires as damage from Iranian strikes on Israel to claim the operation as a military success,” says Isabelle Frances-Wright, director of technology and society at ISD. “The corrosion of the information landscape is undermining the ability of audiences to distinguish truth from falsehood on a terrible scale.”

X did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.

Though misinformation around conflict and crises has long found a home on social media, X is often also used for vital real-time information. But under Elon Musk’s leadership, the company cut back on content moderation and disinformation has thrived. In the days following the October 7 Hamas attack, X was flooded with disinformation, making it difficult for legitimate OSINT researchers to surface information. Under Musk, X has promoted a crowd-sourced community notes function as a way to combat misinformation on the platform to varying results. Some of the content identified by ISD has since received community notes, though only two posts had by the time the organization published its findings.

“During times of crisis it seems to be a repeating pattern on platforms such as X where premium accounts are inherently tainting the information ecosystem with half truths as well as falsehoods either through misidentified media, or blatantly false imagery suggesting that an event has been caused by a certain actor or state,” says Moustafa Ayad, ISD executive director for Asia, the Middle East and Africa. “This continues to happen and will continue to happen in the future, making it even more difficult to know what is real and what is not.”

And for those that are part of X’s subscription model and ad revenue sharing model, going viral could potentially mean making money.

Though it’s not clear that any of the users spreading fake or misleading information identified by ISD were monetizing their content, a separate report released by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) earlier this month found that between October 7 and February 7, ten influencers, including far-right influencer Jackson Hinkle, were able to grow their followings by posting antisemitic and Islmaphobic content about the conflict. Six of the accounts CCDH examined were part of X’s subscription program, and all ten were verified users. The high-profile influencers part of X’s ad revenue sharing program receive a cut of advertising revenue based on ”organic impressions of ads displayed in replies” to their content, according to the company.

Wired · by Vittoria Elliott · April 15, 2024

8. Federal criminal investigation opened into Key Bridge crash

Criminal negligence and not sabotage? 

Federal criminal investigation opened into Key Bridge crash

By Katie Mettler, Devlin Barrett, Danny Nguyen and Peter Hermann

Updated April 15, 2024 at 6:53 p.m. EDT|Published April 15, 2024 at 7:09 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Katie Mettler · April 15, 2024

The FBI has opened a criminal investigation focusing on the massive container ship that brought down the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore last month — a probe that will look at least in part at whether the crew left the port knowing the vessel had serious system problems, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

Authorities are reviewing the events leading up to the moment when the Dali, a 985-foot Singapore-flagged ship, lost power while leaving the Port of Baltimore and slammed into one of the bridge’s support pillars, said the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing probe.

Just after dawn Monday, dozens of law enforcement officials dressed in all black began arriving at the Dali — where the crew has remained since the crash — pulling up to the ship’s bow in numerous boats and climbing aboard using a ladder. The FBI later confirmed that agents were on board, and the Justice Department said authorities were conducting a “court-approved search.”

Baltimore bridge collapse

End of carousel

The news of the criminal investigation, which one official said is being handled by the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland, came the same day that multiple private law firms separately announced that they had been retained to represent the Baltimore mayor’s office and some of the men who were working construction on the bridge when it collapsed. The moves signal an escalating effort to seek accountability and determine what caused the crash that left six of the eight men dead, a question that both the independent National Transportation Safety Board and the Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation have been working to answer in separate inquiries since the collapse March 26.

Jennifer Gabris, an NTSB spokeswoman, said that the board’s investigation would continue and that a preliminary report was expected in early May.

The Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation will pause evidence collection, but it will still be able to analyze evidence it has already gathered to inform safety efforts such as new regulations or inspection campaigns, according to a Coast Guard official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigations.

An attorney representing Grace Ocean Private Ltd., which owns the Dali, and Synergy Marine Pte Ltd., the ship’s manager, did not respond to a request for comment.

President Biden and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) have both previously said that they intend to hold accountable any parties deemed potentially liable for the destruction of the bridge, but they have yet to announce any legal action. Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott said the city has hired DiCello Levitt and Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky Trial Lawyers to work with the city’s own legal team to take “decisive action” against the owner, charter, operator and manufacturer of the Dali and “any other potentially liable third parties.”

Erek L. Barron, the U.S. Attorney for Maryland, said his office does not comment on criminal investigations but asserted in a statement that “the public should know, whether it’s gun violence, civil rights abuse, financial fraud, or any other threat to public safety or property we will seek accountability for anyone who may be responsible.”

His office did not respond to questions about what issues the Dali may have experienced before its port departure and how the actions of the crew might be criminal.

Systems issues on vessels such as the Dali can become the basis for criminal charges if they are discovered by those responsible for the ship but not properly remedied before a ship departs, said Todd Lochner, an Annapolis-based admiralty attorney. Lochner said investigators could be trying to weight the legal standard of whether the Dali was “reasonably fit for the intended voyage” when it left the Port of Baltimore en route to Sri Lanka.

“You may not send a vessel to sea in a known unseaworthy condition,” Lochner said, though what exactly constitutes as “unseaworthy” in this case would probably be debated in court.

“There are all kinds of things that can lead to an unseaworthy condition,” he said.

On Capitol Hill last week, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said her investigators were focusing on the Dali’s electrical issues, adding that her team believes there may be a connection between the ship’s lights going out and the power loss to its engines in the moments before the crash.

Homendy said Hyundai, the South Korea-based company that manufactured the engine-room equipment used on the Dali, sent experts to the United States to download electrical data from the ship and look at its circuit breakers.

Attorneys from Stewart Miller Simmons Trial Attorneys and Kreindler & Kreindler said Monday they will be conducting their own independent investigation into the Key Bridge collapse on behalf of the victims they are representing: Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, José López and Julio Adrian Cervantes Suarez. Fuentes and López died after they fell into the Patapsco River when the bridge collapsed. Cervantes, who also fell into the frigid waters, is the only person to survive the fall.

The attorneys said they intend to fight the petition filed in federal court on April 1 by the Dali’s owner and manager, asking a judge to cap how much money responsible parties could be asked to pay in liabilities. One of the attorneys, Justin Miller, said their probe is intended to complement those conducted by the NTSB, the Coast Guard and the FBI. “The details that we need are not the details that they need,” he said.

L. Chris Stewart, another lawyer for the three victims, said that in past cases, the existence of a federal criminal investigation has proved “very effective” in the pursuit of civil accountability. “It leaves no stone unturned,” Stewart said.

The victims’ lawyers said they take issue with the Dali’s owner and operator seeking to limit their liability to about $43.6 million.

“Imagine telling that to grieving families,” Stewart said, “that while they are planning a funeral, the owner of the boat is in court trying to stop the city, state and victims from filing claims.”

In the three weeks since the Dali crashed into the Key Bridge, dive teams have been able to recover four of the six people who died in the collapse, including Maynor Suazo Sandoval, Dorlian Castillo Cabrera and Fuentes. A fourth person was recovered over the weekend, officials with Unified Command announced Monday, but he was not identified per the request of his family.

Authorities had previously identified the three other missing members of the construction crew as López and two other men, Miguel Luna and Carlos Hernandez, all of whom are presumed dead.

The recovery mission was paused after days of searching the Patapsco River’s cold and murky waters. Officials have said they are now focusing on clearing the river of debris and relocating the Dali to shore, but at still looking for those who died among the wreckage.

James Harkness, chief engineer for the Maryland Transportation Authority and a member of the Unified Command, said Monday the cleanup is proceeding on the timetable laid out in recent weeks.

He said officials plan to have a 35-foot deep temporary channel open in the coming weeks and clear the entire shipping channel by the end of May. Harkness said crews have removed 1,000 tons of debris from the river. He said 31 ships have used two small temporary channels to get into and out of the Port of Baltimore.

Justin Jouvenal and Ian Duncan contributed to this report.

The Washington Post · by Katie Mettler · April 15, 2024

9. Israel’s War Leaders Don’t Trust One Another

This Is certainly an effect Hamas and the Iranians are happy to observe.

Israel’s War Leaders Don’t Trust One Another

Long-simmering grudges and arguments over tactics have soured relations between Prime Minister Netanyahu, the defense minister and a former military chief

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-leaders-rivalry-iran-netanyahu-gallant-gantz-667aed13?mod=hp_lead_pos7

By Rory JonesFollow and Carrie Keller-Lynn

April 16, 2024 12:01 am ET

TEL AVIV—Six months into the conflict against Hamas, the Israeli public is deeply divided about how to win the war in the Gaza Strip. So, too, are the three top officials in the war cabinet meant to foster unity in that effort.

Long-simmering grudges and arguments over how best to fight Hamas have soured relations between Israel’s wartime decision makers—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the former head of the Israeli military, Benny Gantz. The three men are at odds over the biggest decisions they need to make: how to launch a decisive military push, free Israel’s hostages and govern the postwar strip. 

Now, they also must make one of the biggest decisions the country has ever faced: how to respond to Iran’s first-ever direct attack on Israeli territory. Their power struggle could affect whether the Gaza conflict spirals into a bigger regional fight with Iran that transforms the Middle East’s geopolitical order and shapes Israel’s relations with the U.S. for decades.

“The lack of trust between these three people is so clear and so significant,” said Giora Eiland, a former Israeli general and national security adviser. 

Netanyahu, the nation’s longest-serving premier, increasingly is trying to direct the Gaza war by himself, while Gallant and Gantz are widely seen to be trying to cut out Netanyahu from decisions. 

Gantz, the general who led Israel’s last major war against Hamas a decade ago, has previously expressed a desire to oust Netanyahu as prime minister. He called earlier this month for early elections in September after tens of thousands of people demonstrated against the prime minister’s handling of the war—a sign that Gantz’s base has grown frustrated with his role in a Netanyahu-led government. 

The three war cabinet members have met daily since Saturday’s attack by Iran, vowing a response but leaving vague the timing, scale and location. They face a challenge in designing a response that balances their goals of deterring Iran, avoiding a regional war and not alienating the U.S. and Arab states involved in repelling Iran’s strike. President Biden has urged the Israelis to use caution in any response and has ruled out American involvement in an Israeli strike on Iranian soil.

“The risk of miscalculation is quite high,” said Raz Zimmt, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies. “We are at the beginning of a very dangerous stage in the Iranian-Israeli conflict.”

An antimissile system in operation after Iran launched drones and missiles toward Israel, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel. PHOTO: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS

Gallant is considered the most hawkish of the three. At the start of the war, he advocated a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah, but he also is eager to align with the U.S.

Netanyahu has been keeping Gallant and Gantz in the dark about key decisions, according to current and former Israeli officials. In an effort to gain control over food and supplies going into Gaza, he has considered appointing an official on humanitarian aid who will report directly to his office and bypass the defense minister, said Israeli officials familiar with the matter.

“It’s very hard for the prime minister to make the army do what he wants if the minister of defense is not aligned with him,” said Amir Avivi, founder of the Israel Defense and Security Forum think tank. “This lack of alignment is making things for Netanyahu very, very hard.”

The three men have been rivals for years. Gantz has run against Netanyahu in five elections that political analysts have described as some of the country’s nastiest ever. Last year, Netanyahu tried to fire Gallant, who has told people close to him that the prime minister’s previous Gaza policies have been a failure. 

As for relations between Gantz and Gallant, they barely spoke to one another for more than a decade before joining the war cabinet together. 

Polls show that Gantz is Israel’s most popular leader. People close to him have been trying to persuade members of Netanyahu’s coalition and his own party to leave the government and force the prime minister from power, according to people familiar with the matter. That would leave Gantz as the most likely politician to replace Netanyahu. 

Gantz has tried and failed several times to oust Netanyahu, a savvy political operator known inside Israel as “the magician” for his ability to escape political trouble. Now Netanyahu is politically weakened by the war, setting up a test of whether Gantz, and potentially even Gallant, can finally end his decade and a half of political dominance. 

With cease-fire talks in Cairo earlier this month, Netanyahu also is under pressure from the far-right flank of his coalition, parts of which recently threatened to tear the government apart if an agreement is reached to end the war without taking out Hamas’s military. That right flank also is pressing for a dramatic response to Iran.

Israel’s handling of the war has come under greater scrutiny after Netanyahu acknowledged the military hit an aid convoy, killing seven humanitarian workers and drawing wide international condemnation.

United Nations staff members inspected a car destroyed by an Israeli airstrike on April 1 that killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen. PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Muslims marked the end of Ramadan on April 10 in the city of Rafah, the last Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip, where more than a million Palestinian are sheltering. PHOTO: ABED RAHIM KHATIB/ZUMA PRESS

On April 8, Netanyahu said he has set a date to push into the Gazan city of Rafah, the last Hamas stronghold where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering. He has faced opposition, though, from Gallant, who wants to figure out how to manage American expectations before proceeding, said people familiar with the disagreements. 

The U.S. has warned Israel against mounting a Rafah operation, and Gallant is concerned about damaging Israel’s relationship with Washington and losing American financial and military support, these people said. President Biden told Netanyahu on an April 4 call that future U.S. support would be conditioned on Israel’s treatment of Gaza’s civilians.

All three men have different ideas about postwar Gaza. The prime minister has said the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority in its current form should play no role, and is focused on the Israeli army working with local leaders. Palestinians say Netanyahu’s plan amounts to occupation, something he says he opposes.

The defense minister sees Palestinians connected to the Palestinian Authority’s leadership in the West Bank as the best option. He has told people in meetings that he would rather have chaos in Gaza than Israeli soldiers governing the enclave, said people close to Gallant.  

Last month, Netanyahu canceled a trip to Washington by his top aides to protest a U.S. decision not to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an unconditional cease-fire. Gallant still went ahead anyway with a visit that wasn’t coordinated with the prime minister. 

Gantz also flew to Washington last month over the prime minister’s objections. The Biden administration openly received Gantz while signaling frustration with Netanyahu. 

Gallant, center, leaving the State Department after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on March 25. PHOTO: JIM LO SCALZO/SHUTTERSTOCK

The three men also don’t agree about how to free the hostages held by Hamas. Gantz has called publicly for a deal to secure their release, saying their lives are at risk. Netanyahu and Gallant have emphasized that only military pressure along with negotiations will lead to their release. 

But Netanyahu controls Israel’s hostage negotiation team, led by Israel’s spy chief. While the prime minister has publicly talked of a deal, he has at times taken a hard line on the terms. Netanyahu has said critics who say he is blocking a deal are mistaken, and people close to him say his is being a tough negotiator.

U.S. efforts to broker a temporary truce were complicated last week by Israeli strikes that killed three sons of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh. 

Personal tension between Israel’s leadership goes back more than a decade. In 2010, Netanyahu’s government nominated Gallant, a 30-year veteran of the armed forces, to become leader of the military. After the nomination was announced, documents became public that alleged Gallant had orchestrated a smear campaign against other contenders for the job, including Gantz, according to a regulator’s later report on the matter. 

Gallant denied involvement, and police accused an ally of the military chief at the time of faking the document. Nevertheless, the scandal helped derail the nomination and end Gallant’s military career. 

Gantz got the job instead, becoming chief of the military between 2011 and 2015, a period during which he led two major operations against Hamas. He later used that credential to launch a political career, creating a new party that beginning in 2019 turned him into Netanyahu’s chief political rival.

Gantz became head of Israel’s army in 2011. At the ceremony, he was flanked by then Defense Minister Ehud Barak, left, and Prime Minister Netanyahu. PHOTO: GALI TIBBON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Gantz is Natanyahu’s chief political rival. An election billboard in 2021 for Gantz’s Blue and White party reads: ‘It’s Benny in the Knesset or Bibi forever.’ PHOTO: ODED BALILTY/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Three elections in a one-year span produced no clear win for either Gantz or Netanyahu. In 2020, the two agreed to join a coalition and to alternate the premiership to end a destabilizing political period. The experiment dissolved in acrimony within a year. 

Gantz accused Netanyahu of blocking him from the prime minister’s seat. Netanyahu said he couldn’t run a government working with Gantz. Gantz won far fewer seats in 2021 elections, reflecting voter anger with him for serving with Netanyahu. 

“Gantz walked out of there with not one but multiple knives in his back,” said Reuven Hazan, a political scientist at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

After a detour into the oil-and-gas industry following his military career, Gallant decided in 2014 to get into politics. Israel’s conflict that year with Hamas, overseen by Netanyahu and Gantz, then the military’s chief, had frustrated Gallant. He felt their limited war aims of destroying Hamas’s tunnel network but not routing the group altogether were shortsighted, people who know Gallant said.

After a few years in a smaller political party, Gallant joined Netanyahu’s Likud. Netanyahu named him defense minister in 2022, finally giving Gallant top command over Israel’s forces.

“He felt he had been screwed,” said Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington under Netanyahu, referring to Gallant’s failed 2010 nomination. “This was justice.”

In 2023, Netanyahu’s new government tried to enact large-scale changes to Israel’s judicial system, sparking months of protests, often led by military reservists. Believing there was a crisis brewing in the army that endangered national security, Gallant publicly urged Netanyahu to hold off. 

Netanyahu fired him, setting off strikes and civil unrest, before backing down and suspending the legislation. Two weeks later, Gallant was reinstated. 

The Israeli government’s attempt to enact large-scale changes to the nation’s judicial systems sparked months of protests last year, including one on Aug. 26 in Tel Aviv. The banner depicts Netanyahu and his wife, with Hebrew that reads: ‘Let the country burn.’ PHOTO: TSAFRIR ABAYOV/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Gantz, seated on left, spoke with Gallant, right, at the Knesset last July before a vote on a bill that would have limited some Supreme Court power. PHOTO: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS

The Oct. 7 attacks brought the three men together in the war cabinet. Gantz and Gallant set aside their differences to try to work professionally. During news conferences, they would hug and shake hands, and they appeared together in a tour in northern Gaza. 

But tensions heightened between the two men and Netanyahu. The prime minister, facing public criticism for Oct. 7, blamed the security failures on Israel’s defense and intelligence services. After Gantz criticized him, he apologized.

Netanyahu, under pressure from the White House, overruled Gallant on a pre-emptive strike against Hezbollah in Lebanon. 

Days later, the prime minister met with the former army chief whom Gallant partly blamed for derailing his 2010 nomination to run the military. The former chief is one of the few people in Israel that Gallant refuses to shake hands with, and the defense minister viewed the meeting as an attempt by Netanyahu to undermine him, according to a person close to Gallant. Netanyahu’s office described it as a routine meeting to strategize on the war. 

Gallant and Netanyahu began organizing separate news conferences, sometimes just minutes apart. 

Asked about one decision to make separate media statements, Netanyahu said he had suggested they meet the press together, but Gallant, he said, “decided what he decided.”

Cracks emerged in the war cabinet after an initial Israeli blitzkrieg against Hamas forces in Gaza slowed, and the humanitarian cost of the war grew.

Netanyahu fell out publicly with Biden, but Gallant talked regularly to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Gallant’s team joked that the defense minister, who was spending nights at military headquarters, couldn’t fall asleep without a bedtime story from Austin.  

Gallant, right, greeted U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Tel Aviv in March 2023. PHOTO: GIL COHEN-MAGEN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

In January, Gadi Eisenkot, a nonvoting member of the war cabinet who is a political ally of Gantz, publicly criticized Netanyahu’s approach to the war, suggesting that the prime minister’s talk of absolute victory was unrealistic. He called for elections to restore public trust in the government. 

Soon after, Netanyahu said Israel would achieve “total victory” over Hamas. That goal has proved elusive. 

Israel says it has destroyed most of Hamas’s military, killing thousands of its fighters, including senior operatives. To cripple Hamas’s military capability, the Israeli military says it still needs to attack what it says are four Hamas battalions in Rafah. Israel also hasn’t yet found and killed Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, who Israel says orchestrated the Oct. 7 attacks that sparked the war and killed 1,200 people. 

More than 33,000 Palestinians have died in the Gaza war, according to Gaza health authorities, whose numbers don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. That humanitarian cost has brought intense international pressure on Israel to agree to a deal to exchange hostages for a cease-fire. 

This month, Israel’s mass antigovernment protest movement flared anew. 

Even if Gantz chose to leave the government, at least five members of Netanyahu’s Likud party, or one of his coalition partners, would have to pull out, too, to collapse the prime minister’s 64-seat majority in the 120-seat parliament. 

That leaves Netanyahu with room to maneuver. 

“The most important thing for Netanyahu is his political survival,” said Ofer Shelah, a former lawmaker and military analyst with the Institute for National Security Studies. “The longer the current situation remains, the better his chances of remaining prime minister are.”

Anat Peled and Dov Lieber contributed to this article.

Write to Rory Jones at Rory.Jones@wsj.com

10. All the US assets that helped repel Iran’s attack on Israel

Excerpts:

An Israeli military spokesman said that 99% of the drones and missiles launched by Iran were intercepted.

Part of that success rate had to do with the U.S. forces who aided the Israelis in taking out the airborne threats.

From the Mediterranean Sea, the Navy destroyers Carney and Arleigh Burke shot down multiple ballistic missiles in the attack, according to a defense official and media reports.

Carney has become a workhorse of the Navy in recent months and has been crucial to shooting down missile and drone attacks over the Red Sea sent by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen since October.

The ship left the Middle Eastern waters of U.S. Central Command earlier this month and entered the Mediterranean. Officials at the time declined to say why it was on the move.

Meanwhile, White House officials confirmed that the Air Force’s 494th and 355th fighter squadrons also played a role in Israel’s defense, racking up dozens of aerial takedowns.

...

A Patriot missile defense battery based in Irbil, Iraq, also shot down Iranian weapons, officials told journalists.

This weekend’s attack came not only from Iranian territory, but also from proxies in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, officials said.

What comes next remains unclear.

All the US assets that helped repel Iran’s attack on Israel

militarytimes.com · by Geoff Ziezulewicz · April 15, 2024

A host of American military ships, jets and munitions played a vital role in repelling Iran’s attack on Israel over the weekend — an unprecedented barrage that involved hundreds of missiles and attack drones.

The Iranian attack on Saturday, less than two weeks after a suspected Israeli strike in Syria that killed two Iranian generals in an Iranian consular building, marked the first time Iran has launched a direct military assault on Israel, despite decades of enmity dating back to the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

An Israeli military spokesman said that 99% of the drones and missiles launched by Iran were intercepted.

Part of that success rate had to do with the U.S. forces who aided the Israelis in taking out the airborne threats.

From the Mediterranean Sea, the Navy destroyers Carney and Arleigh Burke shot down multiple ballistic missiles in the attack, according to a defense official and media reports.

Carney has become a workhorse of the Navy in recent months and has been crucial to shooting down missile and drone attacks over the Red Sea sent by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen since October.

RELATED

The salty sailors of the warship USS Carney have left the Middle East

Where the battle-tested Carney crew is heading next remains unclear, as officials declined to say if the warship is heading home.

The ship left the Middle Eastern waters of U.S. Central Command earlier this month and entered the Mediterranean. Officials at the time declined to say why it was on the move.

Meanwhile, White House officials confirmed that the Air Force’s 494th and 355th fighter squadrons also played a role in Israel’s defense, racking up dozens of aerial takedowns.

President Joe Biden reached out to the squadrons to personally express his thanks for “their extraordinary airmanship and skill that was displayed throughout this multi-hour engagement.”

A Patriot missile defense battery based in Irbil, Iraq, also shot down Iranian weapons, officials told journalists.

This weekend’s attack came not only from Iranian territory, but also from proxies in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, officials said.

What comes next remains unclear.

Iran had about 150 ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel from Iranian territory, and appears to have used up most of that current stockpile in its weekend attack, retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, the former head of U.S. Central Command, said Monday.

McKenzie discussed the attack in a panel discussion with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a Washington-based think tank and lobbying group.

McKenzie argued that Iran’s expenditure of those 150 long-range missiles, out of a total ballistic missile stockpile of about 3,000, showed that Iran’s barrage on Israel “was a maximum effort. It was an indiscriminate effort.”

The U.S. and its partners in the region are easily able to track when Iran brings its ballistic missiles out of storage and positions them on launch pads, he said.

A model of a missile is carried by Iranian demonstrators during an anti-Israeli gathering at the Felestin (Palestine) Square in Tehran, Iran, Monday, April 15, 2024. (Vahid Salemi/AP)

When Iran launches, deep space sensors detect that immediately, he said. Radars in the region then catch when any missiles break the radar plane, he said.

Especially given the distance involved, “it is hard for Iran to generate a bolt from the blue against Israel,” McKenzie said.

World leaders are urging Israel not to retaliate after Iran launched an attack involving hundreds of drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron told the BBC on Monday the U.K. does not support a retaliatory strike, while French President Emmanuel Macron said Paris will try to “convince Israel that we must not respond by escalating.”

About Geoff Ziezulewicz

Geoff is the editor of Navy Times, but he still loves writing stories. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He welcomes any and all kinds of tips at geoffz@militarytimes.com.

11. Army Could Face Resistance from Congress as It Eyes Cuts to Education Benefits

I hope congress does not "fix" this by forcing the Army to cut somewhere else to fund this program that is experiencing "catastrophic success."

Excerpt:

Army CA was introduced forcewide in 2020. The program gives soldiers $4,000 per year for civilian credentials, qualifications that are critical in certain fields and sometimes expire. On top of being a pseudo military-training tool, it's also intended for troops to set themselves up for civilian qualifications before they transition out of the service.

"We have not made any decisions about the Credentialing Assistance Program or Tuition Assistance Program," Wormuth told lawmakers Wednesday when asked about Military.com's reporting on the potential cuts.

Officials with direct knowledge of the situation explained to Military.com that part of the problem is a lack of regulation on how the benefit is used. Unlike the GI Bill, there are no significant rules over where the benefit could be used. However, there is no clear evidence of fraud or misuse, as has been the case with the GI Bill.

"The challenge we have is, we really, frankly, didn't put any guardrails around the program to help us scope it," Wormuth explained during testimony.

Army Could Face Resistance from Congress as It Eyes Cuts to Education Benefits

military.com · by Steve Beynon · April 15, 2024

The Army's consideration of cuts to two of its premier education benefits is the result of at least one of those program's runaway success and ballooning cost, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told lawmakers Wednesday.

Wormuth described the Army Credentialing Assistance Program as having "catastrophic success" due to its popularity when asked by Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, whose district includes the Fort Cavazos area, on whether cuts to key benefits could impact recruiting and retention.

But cutting education benefits, a key recruiting and retention tool for the military, could be an enormous hurdle for the service and a nightmare when it comes to optics, particularly in an election year.

"The military is having serious problems with recruiting. So, you're going to cut the benefits for those you want to recruit? It doesn't make any sense," Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., said on CNN Thursday.

"There will be very strong pushback, I am certain," Garamendi, a key Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, added.

The service is reviewing both the Army Credentialing Assistance Program, or CA, and the Tuition Assistance Program.

Army CA was introduced forcewide in 2020. The program gives soldiers $4,000 per year for civilian credentials, qualifications that are critical in certain fields and sometimes expire. On top of being a pseudo military-training tool, it's also intended for troops to set themselves up for civilian qualifications before they transition out of the service.

"We have not made any decisions about the Credentialing Assistance Program or Tuition Assistance Program," Wormuth told lawmakers Wednesday when asked about Military.com's reporting on the potential cuts.

Officials with direct knowledge of the situation explained to Military.com that part of the problem is a lack of regulation on how the benefit is used. Unlike the GI Bill, there are no significant rules over where the benefit could be used. However, there is no clear evidence of fraud or misuse, as has been the case with the GI Bill.

"The challenge we have is, we really, frankly, didn't put any guardrails around the program to help us scope it," Wormuth explained during testimony.

Military.com initially reported on the proposed cuts April 1.

Service planners are mulling limiting how often soldiers can use Army CA. Right now, it can be used in perpetuity.

The service is considering reducing Army CA to $1,000 per year, and $4,000 over the course of a career, sources familiar with the matter told Military.com. Most credentialing, such as in the cybersecurity field, coding and project management, cost much more. It is also weighing whether a qualification should be relevant to the soldier's job, which could severely limit opportunities in certain fields such as combat arms.

About 64,500 soldiers have used Army CA since it was introduced four years ago. But its popularity has skyrocketed, costing the service $8 million in 2022 and rising to $60.2 million last year.

It's unclear what specific changes the Army is mulling for tuition assistance, which is used by about 101,000 beneficiaries each year, averaging about $218 million in annual costs.

The plans do not affect the GI Bill, which is managed by the Department of Veterans Affairs. That benefit, which is designed for traditional college semesters, is difficult to use while on active duty.

"The military is the single largest educational system in the United States," Garamendi said. "Everybody that is in the military has the opportunity to learn a trade, not to just shoot a gun."

military.com · by Steve Beynon · April 15, 2024

12. Out of INF, Army deploys Typhon weapon to the Philippines

the 1st MDTF. Do we like that acronym? (Multi Domain Task Force). How do we pronounce it? Is it the "Mid - Tif?"

Out of INF, Army deploys Typhon weapon to the Philippines - Breaking Defense

“This is a significant step in our partnership with the Philippines, our oldest treaty ally in the region,” said Brig. Gen. Bernard Harrington, commanding general of the 1st MDTF.

breakingdefense.com · by Ashley Roque · April 15, 2024

In 2023, the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office’s Mid-Range Capability Project Office, in conjunction with Soldiers from 1st Multi-Domain Task Force, and the US Navy demonstrated the launch of a Tomahawk missile from the Army’s prototype Mid-Range Capability system. (US Army)

WASHINGTON — Soldiers with the US Army’s 1st Multi-Domain Task Force deployed to the Philippines with a new long-range weapon exceeding previously adhered to Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty constraints, the service announced today.

“This is a significant step in our partnership with the Philippines, our oldest treaty ally in the region,” Brig. Gen. Bernard Harrington, commanding general of the 1MDTF, said in a press release.

“This creates several new collaboration opportunities for our bilateral training and readiness, we look forward to growing together.”

Under the INF treaty, Washington agreed not to develop and field ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 kilometers and 5,500 kilometers. But in 2019, then-President Donald Trump announced that the US was exiting the agreement.

That decision opened the door for the Army to move out with the Mid-Range Capability launcher development, also known as Typhon. The land-based system is designed to launch Raytheon’s existing SM-6 missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles and hit targets between the Precision Strike Missile’s (PrSM’s) planned 500-kilometer range and the 2,776-kilometer reach of the future Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW).

US Army Pacific commander Gen. Charles Flynn told reporters last year the new launcher would be bound for the Indo-Pacific region, but didn’t disclose where or if the US had struck a deal with a foreign government to rest it on its soil.

But as part of Exercise Salaknib 2024, soldiers arrived in the Philippines with the new weapon.

“This landmark deployment marks a significant milestone for the new capability while enhancing interoperability, readiness, and defense capabilities in coordination with the armed forces of the Philippines,” the Army added.

13. SM-3 Ballistic Missile Interceptor Used for First Time in Combat, Officials Confirm

Excerpts:

First deployed in early 2004 on U.S. cruisers and destroyers, the SM-3s have been part of the U.S. ballistic missile defense network across the world. In 2011, the U.S. announced it would deploy four U.S. BMD destroyers in Rota as part of the European Phased Adaptive Approach to BMD along with missile defense sites based on the Aegis technology in Poland and Romania that also use SM-3s. The EPAA was specifically created during the Obama administration to protect Europe from Iranian ballistic missiles.

Burke is currently part of the U.S. destroyer contingent in Rota, and Carney had previously been stationed there as part of the mission. Likewise, BMD destroyers and cruisers patrol near Japan and South Korea as a hedge against potential North Korean ballistic missile attacks.

While variants of the missile have been in use for more than two decades and have undergone a wide range of tests, they have never been used in a real-world situation.

“Until you use it in combat, there are always questions,” Carlson told USNI News.

SM-3 Ballistic Missile Interceptor Used for First Time in Combat, Officials Confirm - USNI News

news.usni.org · by Sam LaGrone · April 15, 2024

On Nov. 16, U.S. Missile Defense Agency and Navy sailors aboard USS John Finn (DDG 113), an Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System-equipped destroyer, fired a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA guided missile that successfully intercepted and destroyed a mock Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) during a flight test demonstration in the broad ocean area northeast of Hawaii in November 2020. MDA photo.

For the first time in combat, guided-missile destroyers fired missiles developed to intercept ballistic missiles during the U.S. response to the Iranian attack on Israel, USNI News has learned.

USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) and USS Carney (DDG-64), in the Eastern Mediterranean, fired four to seven Standard Missile 3s to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles headed toward Israeli targets over the weekend, two defense officials confirmed to USNI News on Monday.

Carney and Arleigh Burke have versions of the Aegis combat system that were modified to track and target ballistic missiles. The SPY-1D radar on the destroyers cues the SM-3 to attack the ballistic missile. The SM-3 transports a kill vehicle outside the atmosphere to intercept a ballistic missile near the height of its path from its launch point before it reenters the atmosphere to hit its target.

Both the destroyers were placed off the coast of Israel as part of the defensive measures against a Iranian strike in retaliation for an Israeli attack on an Iranian embassy in Syria.

It’s unclear what missiles the Iranians fired toward Israel, but, according to missile analyst Chris Carlson, the fact the Navy used SM-3s points to the likelihood the Iranians used some of its medium-range ballistic missiles with a range of up to 1,800 miles.

First deployed in early 2004 on U.S. cruisers and destroyers, the SM-3s have been part of the U.S. ballistic missile defense network across the world. In 2011, the U.S. announced it would deploy four U.S. BMD destroyers in Rota as part of the European Phased Adaptive Approach to BMD along with missile defense sites based on the Aegis technology in Poland and Romania that also use SM-3s. The EPAA was specifically created during the Obama administration to protect Europe from Iranian ballistic missiles.

Burke is currently part of the U.S. destroyer contingent in Rota, and Carney had previously been stationed there as part of the mission. Likewise, BMD destroyers and cruisers patrol near Japan and South Korea as a hedge against potential North Korean ballistic missile attacks.

While variants of the missile have been in use for more than two decades and have undergone a wide range of tests, they have never been used in a real-world situation.

“Until you use it in combat, there are always questions,” Carlson told USNI News.

Related

news.usni.org · by Sam LaGrone · April 15, 2024

14. Opinion | What it means when the mercenaries appear

An essay on what some call the "indirect approach" though the focus is on mercenaries and "private armies." There are other elements to an indirect approach and working "through, with, and by." Working with indigenous forces does not always mena PMCs and "mercenaries."

I could not resist highligiung this excerpt though it is not the main point of the aressay.

Except:

After World War II, when the United States was called “to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle” against communism, as President John F. Kennedy put it in his inaugural address in 1961, the question of whose boots became foremost in the mind of U.S. military strategists. Each of the two superpowers had acquired an empire at the end of the war, and these empires needed to be garrisoned and defended against the other.

Kennedy framed the nature of that defense in a speech at West Point in 1962, in which he emphasized a new military challenge: “another type of warfare, new in its intensity, ancient in its origins — war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins, war by ambush instead of by combat; by infiltration instead of aggression, seeking victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him.” At the time Kennedy delivered this speech, he had already authorized a significant expansion of Special Operations forces within the U.S. military. In an official White House memorandum on guerrilla warfare in 1962, in which Kennedy would forever require members of the U.S. Army’s Special Forces to wear the green beret, he declared: “Pure military skill is not enough. A full spectrum of military, para-military, and civil action must be blended to produce success.” His commitment to unconventional warfare as a pillar of national defense was a strategic pivot as profound as those that took place in Britain and Rome.

This “other type of warfare” became a reality in Vietnam and a doctrine of American warfare into the next century. Strategic concepts such as “foreign internal defense” and “counterinsurgency strategy,” the latter first seen in the Philippines in the early 20th century and then further developed in Vietnam, appeared again in Iraq and Afghanistan. They rely on the U.S. military to train a partner force that eventually takes responsibility for the conduct of the war, requiring far fewer American “boots.”

This is the real point of the essay and it goes on to provide a historical summary from the Romans to the present:

Private armies have played a critical role in virtually all wars; the CIA-funded CTPT in Afghanistan and the Wagner Group in Ukraine are only the most recent examples. Broadly speaking, they serve two distinct purposes: They act as a force multiplier that expands the regular military’s capacity, and they create political deniability for both a domestic and an international audience. Private armies remain a tool used by democratic leaders and authoritarians alike. Mercenaries are as old as war itself.

In the game of empire, expansion fuels prosperity and war sustains expansion. Except war is a dirty business, one that citizens of most wealthy and prosperous nations would rather avoid. Yet someone has to fight these wars and, afterward, secure the peace. Whether it’s Pax Americana, Pax Britannica or Pax Romana, pax imperia isn’t really peace; it is the illusion of peace sustained by the effective outsourcing of war. This doesn’t impugn an imperial peace — I certainly would have preferred to live in Pax Romana as opposed to the medieval turbulence that followed — but, rather, shows how these periods of political and economic stability are sustained.

...

We should be extremely cautious of wars fought with this indirect approach, designed mainly to insulate a domestic constituency from the costs of war. Proxy wars have long been elements of strategy in great-power competition, but a war fought under our flag by mercenaries is different from a proxy war. A nation that requires private armies to sustain popular support for wars is likely fighting those wars for the wrong reasons. The “good wars” — wars that must be fought and are typically fought for the right reasons — seldom rely on private armies. Beware of the nation unwilling to do its own fighting.

Opinion | What it means when the mercenaries appear

By Elliot Ackerman

April 15, 2024 at 5:45 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Elliot Ackerman · April 15, 2024

Elliot Ackerman’s new novel is “2054,” written with retired Adm. James Stavridis. This piece is adapted from an essay in the spring 2024 issue of Liberties, a journal of culture and politics.

In the summer after the fall of Afghanistan, I received an invitation to speak at CIA headquarters. I used to work as a paramilitary officer at the agency, and a former colleague of mine attended the discussion. Afterward, we went back to his office to catch up over a drink. The two of us had once advised the CIA-backed Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams in Afghanistan. At their height, the CTPT forces numbered in the tens of thousands. During the fall of Kabul, they played an outsize role in bringing any semblance of order to the evacuation after the government and national army dissolved.

My friend reached behind his desk and pulled out two overhead surveillance photographs. When congressional leaders had asked about the CTPT’s performance vs. that of the Afghan National Army, the CIA had shown them these photographs. “That’s a photo of the last Afghan army flight out of Kandahar,” my friend explained about the image of panic and chaos. He then showed me the second image, taken a few hours later, also at Kandahar Airfield. In it, the C-17 transport plane is in the exact same position, except the soldiers loading into the back are in neat, disciplined rows. “This is a photo of the last CTPT flight out of Kandahar.”

The Afghan National Army, which had systemic issues with discipline and graft, was deeply dysfunctional, while the CTPT was as effective as many elite U.S. infantry units. Unlike the Afghan National Army, the CTPT reported not to the Afghan government but, rather, to the U.S. government through its CIA handlers. It was a private army.

The CTPT’s mission evolved from being a small counterterrorism force used to hunt down al-Qaeda to a counterinsurgency force used to capture and to kill the Taliban leadership, to, eventually, a border security force used to hold the country together, at least as long as it could.

Private armies have played a critical role in virtually all wars; the CIA-funded CTPT in Afghanistan and the Wagner Group in Ukraine are only the most recent examples. Broadly speaking, they serve two distinct purposes: They act as a force multiplier that expands the regular military’s capacity, and they create political deniability for both a domestic and an international audience. Private armies remain a tool used by democratic leaders and authoritarians alike. Mercenaries are as old as war itself.

In the game of empire, expansion fuels prosperity and war sustains expansion. Except war is a dirty business, one that citizens of most wealthy and prosperous nations would rather avoid. Yet someone has to fight these wars and, afterward, secure the peace. Whether it’s Pax Americana, Pax Britannica or Pax Romana, pax imperia isn’t really peace; it is the illusion of peace sustained by the effective outsourcing of war. This doesn’t impugn an imperial peace — I certainly would have preferred to live in Pax Romana as opposed to the medieval turbulence that followed — but, rather, shows how these periods of political and economic stability are sustained.

During the Roman Republic — before Pax Romana — conscription was conducted through a draft of male citizens, but this contract frayed and then tore apart under the burden of imperial expansion. In 49 B.C., one of Julius Caesar’s first decrees as dictator for life was the granting of Roman citizenship to those occupying the farthest reaches of the nascent empire. Changing the preconditions of citizenship altered the composition of the army, which had profound effects on Rome, the army being its most important institution. Service in the legions would increasingly fall to nonnative Romans who never saw Rome and never spoke Latin, and whose loyalty was often more to their native-Roman officers than to the abstraction of a Rome they barely knew.

This dissolution of Roman identity within the ranks proved fatal in the empire’s final years. The mercenaries who fueled its expansion became its undoing. This is not to say the outsourcing of military service away from Rome’s center was ineffective, even if it culminated in the dissolution of Rome itself. Indeed, few nations can boast a military that conquered and garrisoned an empire over a period of nearly 1,500 years. For this reason, it comes as no surprise that other empires appropriated many of the techniques Rome pioneered.

None more so than the British. Their empire connected their small island nation to a broader world, delivering it outsize wealth, influence and power. And the jewel in the crown of the British Empire was, of course, India. The imperial era was a period of significant reform and expansion for the British military, to include a rebalancing of the empire’s reliance on regular vs. private armies.

Like the Romans, the British increased their reliance on non-British soldiers as their empire expanded. Unlike the Romans, the British did not extend rights of citizenship to the diverse array of cadres that composed their forces; instead, they incorporated their imperial charges into the empire as subjects of the crown. The British East India Company fielded the largest of these private armies, which it paid for with company proceeds. Indian sepoys (a term, derived from Persian, for a native soldier serving under foreign orders) filled the ranks while native-British officers led them, but those officers held commissions inferior to those in the regular British army.

The mission of the East India Company’s army was, simply, to secure the interests of the company on the subcontinent. The governance of colonial India is a remarkable example not only of military privatization but also of the privatization of empire. Company rule extended until 1858, after those same sepoy regiments revolted in what became known as the Indian Mutiny.

The Indian Mutiny was the result of an accumulation of social and economic resentments, as opposed to a single cause. The fighting continued for a year, with garrisons of sepoys across the country killing British officers and their families. By the end of that year, the British had regrouped and, along with sepoys loyal to the East India Company, defeated the rebels. Still, the Indian Mutiny was a debacle for the empire. It caused British leaders to question the composition and quality of their military forces. Between 1868 and 1874, a series of reforms implemented by British Secretary of State for War Edward Cardwell would transform the British army from a force of gentleman-soldiers to a professional army with a robust reserve that could be mobilized in a time of war.

If the Indian Mutiny revealed the dangers of relying on private armies, it was the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, in which the precursors of the German Empire routed the Second French Empire, that proved the importance of having a military reserve that a nation could rapidly mobilize.

After the Napoleonic Wars, British soldiers served brutally long 20-year enlistments. Often, these soldiers would spend many of those years far from home in various colonies and, upon retirement, older and weakened by prolonged active service, they would be of little military use as reservists. This left Britain without a pool of soldiers to mobilize in wartime. The Cardwell Reforms shortened enlistments to as little as six years, allowing soldiers to return to civilian life but remain in the reserve at reduced pay. This new policy granted British leaders access to a large reserve army, should they need it.

Prior to the Cardwell Reforms, officers in the British army didn’t earn their commissions; they purchased them. Cumulatively, British families invested millions of pounds in the purchase of commissions. Those who could not afford them served as officers in colonial regiments, which held inferior standing within the army. By the time Cardwell began implementing his reforms, this had created a dysfunctional tiered system. The army was the opposite of a meritocracy. The resulting incompetence of the uniformed aristocrats, immortalized in Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” was disastrously proved on the battlefields of the Crimean War. The era of the gentleman-soldier in the British army was coming to an end, as was a reliance on private armies such as those deployed by the East India Company.

An empire, once acquired, must be maintained. It requires the control of territory, and this requires — to use the distinctly American term — boots on the ground. A question naturally follows: Whose boots? The reforms that Julius Caesar made to Rome’s legions, along with the ones that Cardwell made to the British army, were efforts to answer that question.

After World War II, when the United States was called “to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle” against communism, as President John F. Kennedy put it in his inaugural address in 1961, the question of whose boots became foremost in the mind of U.S. military strategists. Each of the two superpowers had acquired an empire at the end of the war, and these empires needed to be garrisoned and defended against the other.

Kennedy framed the nature of that defense in a speech at West Point in 1962, in which he emphasized a new military challenge: “another type of warfare, new in its intensity, ancient in its origins — war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins, war by ambush instead of by combat; by infiltration instead of aggression, seeking victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him.” At the time Kennedy delivered this speech, he had already authorized a significant expansion of Special Operations forces within the U.S. military. In an official White House memorandum on guerrilla warfare in 1962, in which Kennedy would forever require members of the U.S. Army’s Special Forces to wear the green beret, he declared: “Pure military skill is not enough. A full spectrum of military, para-military, and civil action must be blended to produce success.” His commitment to unconventional warfare as a pillar of national defense was a strategic pivot as profound as those that took place in Britain and Rome.

This “other type of warfare” became a reality in Vietnam and a doctrine of American warfare into the next century. Strategic concepts such as “foreign internal defense” and “counterinsurgency strategy,” the latter first seen in the Philippines in the early 20th century and then further developed in Vietnam, appeared again in Iraq and Afghanistan. They rely on the U.S. military to train a partner force that eventually takes responsibility for the conduct of the war, requiring far fewer American “boots.”

This was the strategy of “Vietnamization,” which sought to bolster the South Vietnamese military. In Iraq, this was the “surge” and the “Sunni Awakening,” in which U.S. forces doubled down on training the Iraqi military while co-opting Sunni militias once loyal to al-Qaeda. In Afghanistan, it was a second surge and reinvestment in the Afghan National Army. What these examples all have in common is an American method of warfare that shifts the burden to an indigenous force, allowing American troops to withdraw. It also shifts the conditions of victory, which is less defined by conditions on the battlefield. Victory today is defined — this is an extraordinary development — by outsourcing the prosecution of a war and bringing our troops home.

In Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, this strategy yielded mixed results. Vietnam and Afghanistan were wars that America unequivocally lost. With Iraq, it is difficult to argue that the United States won, but it is equally difficult to say we lost. The Iraqi government that was created after the U.S. invasion endures, and the security services that the United States helped train have successfully carried the burden of their own security, in recent years defeating the Islamic State with little aid from American boots. When President Biden announced the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, he emphasized that “our diplomacy does not hinge on having boots in harm’s way — U.S. boots on the ground. We have to change that thinking.”

The war in Ukraine began as a mercenary war. When Russia invaded Crimea in February 2014, the invading soldiers wore no Russian military insignia, causing many to refer to them as “little green men.” The explicit appearance of Russian soldiers would have cost Russian President Vladimir Putin more politically than he was willing to accept. In the eyes of the international community, as well as in the eyes of his citizens, there was value in deniability. Putin needed to launder his activities in Ukraine. Mercenary armies are very good at such laundering.

To lead this mercenary venture, Putin made an unlikely choice: Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a coarse former restaurateur known as “Putin’s Chef.” Backed by cadres of battle-tested field commanders, Prigozhin helped found the Wagner Group in 2014 and presided over its rapid expansion. Between 2014 and 2021, Wagner mercenaries delivered many thousands of Russian boots on the ground in places where no Russian boots should have been — Libya, Ukraine, Sudan, Mali, Venezuela, the Central African Republic and directly against American troops in Syria in February 2018. All this while the Kremlin denied Wagner’s involvement and, in some cases, its existence.

The Wagner Group was an effective military force that Putin could deploy anywhere in the world without political embarrassment. When Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Wagner Group contributed about 1,000 soldiers to the invasion, but it never assumed the lead. That job would fall to the regular Russian military, which hadn’t taken on an operation of this scope in more than a generation.

Only months into the war in Ukraine, however, the Russian military was in crisis. It was swiftly exposed as a mediocre and confused force, proving the dangers of might without competence. After sustaining heavy losses, Putin needed to replenish his ranks. But how could he sell the Russian people on a mobilization for a war that wasn’t even a war but, rather, “a special military operation”? There is no more dire threat to a political leader’s power than a failed war. So he enlarged his reliance on the Wagner Group, increasing its size and allowing its cadres to recruit in Russia’s prisons.

Like the Romans and the British, Putin would learn the dangers of vesting military power in private hands. Prigozhin began feuding with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and other senior commanders, characterizing them as incompetents. For his army of mercenaries, Prigozhin became a charismatic populist leader, airing their grievances against Russia’s military establishment. Prigozhin gave Russia a sorely needed military victory in the battle of Bakhmut, and no achievement vests a leader with political power more quickly than battlefield success. This is one of the great dangers of placing military power in the hands of private military leaders.

This was a lesson Putin learned early on the morning of June 24, 2023, when Prigozhin marched his Wagner Group soldiers off the battlefield and back into Russia.

Prigozhin’s mutiny (which might have turned into a coup) failed, with his cadres largely absorbed into the regular Russian army or banished to private wars in Africa, and with Prigozhin’s apparent assassination two months later. Yet the uprising serves as another example of the dangers that exist when a nation uses private armies. Sometimes the only thing more dangerous than a state’s monopoly of force is the lack of such a monopoly.

We should be extremely cautious of wars fought with this indirect approach, designed mainly to insulate a domestic constituency from the costs of war. Proxy wars have long been elements of strategy in great-power competition, but a war fought under our flag by mercenaries is different from a proxy war. A nation that requires private armies to sustain popular support for wars is likely fighting those wars for the wrong reasons. The “good wars” — wars that must be fought and are typically fought for the right reasons — seldom rely on private armies. Beware of the nation unwilling to do its own fighting.

The Washington Post · by Elliot Ackerman · April 15, 2024

15. The epic fail of Biden’s doctrine vs. Iran — no consequences

Excerpts:

The president should immediately freeze the $10 billion made available to Iran through his own sanctions waiver — money that’s accessible right now in bank accounts in Iraq, Oman and Europe.

He should order a crackdown on Chinese imports of Iranian crude, too. If he refuses, the Senate should finally vote on two House-passed bills that would force his hand on both matters.

On the multilateral stage, the White House should join with the United Kingdom, France and Germany in triggering the snapback of UN sanctions and press Britain, Canada and the European Union to finally designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. Canada should be pressured to lift its arms embargo on Israel, too.

Both the US and Israel must recognize Iran carried out its attack despite a week of warnings from both countries. That is not a “win” — that’s a national-security failure, which should compel an immediate change in strategy.

\

The epic fail of Biden’s doctrine vs. Iran — no consequences

By Richard Goldberg

Published April 14, 2024, 9:52 p.m. ET

New York Post · by Social Links for Richard Goldberg View Author Archive Get author RSS feed · April 15, 2024

President Biden needs to face reality: His policies of appeasing Iran while waging political warfare against Israel led Tehran to conclude it could launch a massive attack on Israel and face no consequences.

As Biden again tries to hold Israel back from defending itself while maintaining both United States and United Nations sanctions relief for Iran, he risks confirming the ayatollah’s calculation — and guaranteeing a more dangerous future for America and our democratic allies.

Iran’s weekend attack against Israel was not symbolic or performative — it was an unprecedented and unacceptable act of war.

There’s no other way to characterize the launch of 120 ballistic missiles, alongside 30 cruise missiles and 170 suicide drones, against a country the size of New Jersey — especially when the attack was committed by the state sponsor of terrorism already waging a multifront proxy war against that country.

Two questions now loom largest: Why did this happen and what is to be done?

Over the past six months, Washington has pressured Jerusalem not to escalate against Iran’s terror proxy in southern Lebanon, despite the daily launch of missiles, rockets and drones that has forced towns across northern Israel to evacuate.

Hezbollah’s war on Israel has been normalized due to the lack of severe consequences imposed on the group and its sponsor.

The same can be said for the near-daily missile and drone attacks on the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, where the US won’t even put the group on an official terror list let alone impose true military costs on its leaders.

All the while, the White House has been showering Tehran with access to cash in hopes of incentivizing better behavior — a policy more commonly known as appeasement.

America today does not enforce its oil sanctions on Iran, allowing Iranian crude to freely flow to China and other Asian destinations.

Just last month, Biden renewed a sanctions waiver giving Iran access to upwards of $10 billion to be used as budget support.

Biden’s desperation for a renewed nuclear deal was never clearer than in October, just days after the Hamas massacre, when he allowed the UN’s missile embargo on Iran to expire rather than work with European allies to trigger the “snapback” of UN sanctions — a mechanism to restore all multilateral restrictions on Iran without a Russian or Chinese veto.

Oct. 7 accountability

Iran has faced no consequences from the US for Oct. 7, despite years of funding, training and arming Hamas.

Nor has Iran faced consequences for directing missile attacks against Israel from Lebanon, missile attacks against the US Navy from Yemen and missile and drone attacks on both Israel and US forces from Iraq and Syria — even after the murder of three American soldiers.

see also

Biden should draw red lines for Hamas — not Israel

Instead, the president’s public wrath in recent weeks has been aimed at Israel: pressuring Israel to halt its campaign to destroy Hamas in Gaza, threatening a cutoff of US support, doing nothing to stop Canada from halting arms sales and emboldening Democrats in Congress to call for conditioning American aid.

It’s quite logical for the mullahs to examine the record and conclude a strategic-level strike on Israel would end in two results: zero consequences for Tehran and pressure on Israel not to respond. As of this moment, they are being proven right.

Israel, however, has no choice but to respond forcefully to this attack — imposing costs high enough on Tehran to turn the ayatollah’s calculation into a miscalculation.

Normalizing ballistic and cruise missile strikes from Iranian territory — whether they succeed in breaking through Israeli missile defenses or not — will establish a new and outrageously high baseline for future escalation. It may also inform the regime’s calculus on whether and when to pursue a nuclear breakout, doubting there is any level of misbehavior that could break Western appeasement policies.

Stop Tehran cash flow

The president reportedly wants Israel to hold off on a military retaliation so he can pursue diplomatic options instead.

But if those options exclude economic and political costs for the regime, Biden will simply be putting lipstick on a policy of accommodation.

The president should immediately freeze the $10 billion made available to Iran through his own sanctions waiver — money that’s accessible right now in bank accounts in Iraq, Oman and Europe.

He should order a crackdown on Chinese imports of Iranian crude, too. If he refuses, the Senate should finally vote on two House-passed bills that would force his hand on both matters.

On the multilateral stage, the White House should join with the United Kingdom, France and Germany in triggering the snapback of UN sanctions and press Britain, Canada and the European Union to finally designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. Canada should be pressured to lift its arms embargo on Israel, too.

Both the US and Israel must recognize Iran carried out its attack despite a week of warnings from both countries. That is not a “win” — that’s a national-security failure, which should compel an immediate change in strategy.

New York Post · by Social Links for Richard Goldberg View Author Archive Get author RSS feed · April 15, 2024

16. A Test of Strength

Excerpts:

Every item in the ledger of Iran’s offenses against peace should be carefully preserved for future repayment: the missile attacks on Red Sea shipping by Iran’s proxies in Yemen; the Hezbollah missiles against Israel’s north; and the Iranian role in the Hamas massacre of October 7. But the repayment can wait until the right time and then be settled in the right way.

Iran put on a big show for the world. Like the sword-waving warrior in the first Indiana Jones movie, Iran made a spectacle of its weapons. Indiana Jones did not perform an equal show. He simply shot the swordsman. In the same way, Israel does not need to meet like with like. It needs only to inflict an appropriate cost that Iran will feel. The less fuss, the better. Maintaining Israel’s network of regional and international partnerships matters as much for Israel’s security as a conspicuous retaliation.

The action that most urgently needs to follow this Iranian attack is not action in the Middle East. It is action in Washington. The drones fired at Israel are the same drones terrorizing Ukraine: an Iranian design originally exported to Russia, now manufactured in Russia. Ukraine’s self-defense against Russian aggression has been sabotaged by Trump-loyal Republicans in Congress.

In 2022, Congress approved four aid packages to Ukraine totaling about $75 billion. Republicans took control of the House in January 2023. Since then, Congress has refused any further aid to Ukraine. President Joe Biden asked for a fifth package in August 2023. No action. Biden asked again in October 2023. Again, nothing. Over the winter, Ukrainian forces ran short of ammunition and other military supplies. Ukraine’s successes in 2023 are fading in 2024 because congressional Republicans are blockading Ukraine into defeat.

A Test of Strength

Biden stands with America’s allies. Trump doesn’t.

By David Frum

The Atlantic · by David Frum · April 14, 2024

Israel stopped an Iranian drone and missile barrage last night, with help from the United States Navy, Britain’s Royal Air Force, and Israel’s Arab allies.

Israel’s Arab allies is a strange phrase to write in the midst of the war in Gaza, but it’s important to understand. The Jordanian air force shot down many of the Iranian drones, Reuters reported—meaning Arabs flew and fought to protect Israel. The Economist speculated that Saudi Arabia may have provided surveillance and refueling assistance to the Jordanian planes. Alliances are a powerful asset. They also come with a price, which is that allies’ views need to be consulted. Those allies, especially the United States, are saying: Pause here. That’s advice Israel may not like but would be wise to ponder.

Early in April, Israel scored a big win against Iran. It struck the Iranian consulate in Damascus and killed important figures in the Iranian terror system. Iran acknowledged the death of two top commanders and five other senior officers.

Last night, Iran struck back with a lot of noise and commotion but impressively little result.

Iran attacked Israel directly from its own national territory—a risky escalation from Iran’s past practice of striking by proxy. That escalation should not get a pass because Israeli defensive technology and the solidarity of the international community together outgunned the Iranian missiles. Iran struck Israel to maim and kill and terrorize. Those malign intentions mostly failed, but not because Iran was merciful or restrained—only because of the limits of Iranian power. Israel has an open account with Iran. But that account does not need to be settled immediately.

Every item in the ledger of Iran’s offenses against peace should be carefully preserved for future repayment: the missile attacks on Red Sea shipping by Iran’s proxies in Yemen; the Hezbollah missiles against Israel’s north; and the Iranian role in the Hamas massacre of October 7. But the repayment can wait until the right time and then be settled in the right way.

Iran put on a big show for the world. Like the sword-waving warrior in the first Indiana Jones movie, Iran made a spectacle of its weapons. Indiana Jones did not perform an equal show. He simply shot the swordsman. In the same way, Israel does not need to meet like with like. It needs only to inflict an appropriate cost that Iran will feel. The less fuss, the better. Maintaining Israel’s network of regional and international partnerships matters as much for Israel’s security as a conspicuous retaliation.

The action that most urgently needs to follow this Iranian attack is not action in the Middle East. It is action in Washington. The drones fired at Israel are the same drones terrorizing Ukraine: an Iranian design originally exported to Russia, now manufactured in Russia. Ukraine’s self-defense against Russian aggression has been sabotaged by Trump-loyal Republicans in Congress.

In 2022, Congress approved four aid packages to Ukraine totaling about $75 billion. Republicans took control of the House in January 2023. Since then, Congress has refused any further aid to Ukraine. President Joe Biden asked for a fifth package in August 2023. No action. Biden asked again in October 2023. Again, nothing. Over the winter, Ukrainian forces ran short of ammunition and other military supplies. Ukraine’s successes in 2023 are fading in 2024 because congressional Republicans are blockading Ukraine into defeat.

Anti-Ukraine Republicans offer many excuses for their refusal to assist a friendly democracy under attack. One by one, each of those excuses has been discredited. Aiding Ukraine did not provoke nuclear war with Russia. The European allies are not freeloading—in fact they have provided more than twice as much as the United States. Aid to Ukraine does not distract the United States from commitments in Asia: This past week, the prime minister of Japan addressed a joint session of Congress to insist that the defense of Asia begins in Ukraine, saying, “Ukraine of today may be East Asia of tomorrow.”

When each story collapses, Trump Republicans replace it with a fourth or sixth or eighth. The rationalizations shift and twist. The anti-Ukraine animus remains fixed.

Pretty obviously, some deeper motive is at work.

Iran’s attack on Israel has, at least temporarily, complicated the political calculus for Republicans in Congress. Republicans want to sound strong, to criticize President Biden as weak. But when Trump Republicans thwarted aid to Ukraine, they also stalled Biden’s request to help Israel bear the immense costs of its self-defensive war after the Hamas terror attack. Last night’s defense will be expensive: Hundreds of interceptors must now be replaced; fighter-jet operations burned fuel and weapons.

Because of Donald Trump, Republicans are now the party of foreign-policy weakness, passivity, and surrender—and not only to Russia. Trump accepted an invitation from the billionaire donor Jeff Yass, who holds a large stake in ByteDance, and then flip-flopped on TikTok, one of the firms in which Yass holds an interest. The Republican refusal to aid Ukraine has also denied Israel money to replenish its Iron Dome defenses. Biden’s October 2023 request included funds to add 100 new anti-missile launchers to reinforce or replace the existing 30 to 40. Israel is still waiting for that assistance. Ukraine is waiting—and bleeding. The border is waiting, too, because Trump Republicans first demanded a border deal as the price of Ukraine aid—then rejected the toughest deal in a generation because they feared that Biden might get credit for it.

After months of nonaction, House Republicans have now proposed to schedule next week a vote on aid to Israel—separate from the requests for Ukraine aid and border security that President Biden combined in his October 2023 request. A vote on only the Israel portion of Biden’s defense program does too little of the job of defending America’s allies and honoring America’s promises.

So far, the Biden administration has not made much of an issue of Republican weakness. Biden’s superpower is his ability to work with unlikely people. His administration continues to hope that Speaker Mike Johnson will someday allow a vote on Ukraine aid.

After the Iran attack, now is the time for Biden to make Trump’s foreign-policy weakness painful and personal to Trump’s party. Say: “Trump’s not even for ‘America Second,’ never mind ‘America First.’”

In June 1994, President Bill Clinton traveled to Normandy to commemorate the 50th anniversary of D-Day. Imagining a more triumphant ceremony would be hard. Leaders of the former Allies attended to honor the day. Yet the president also paid tribute to former adversaries, and above all to the newly reunified Germany. “Liberated by our victory,” he said, the former Axis states now ranked with “the staunchest defenders of freedom.” Clinton offered words of praise, too, for a long-estranged ally: Russia, the president said, had been “reborn in freedom.”

Three decades after Clinton’s 1994 speech, a dictatorship is again waging a war of atrocity in Europe. And although a long queue of Republicans will be eager to travel to Normandy for the 80th anniversary of D-Day, their voting record is on the other side of the great issues at stake, then and now.

On social media, on cable news, in speeches to security conferences, Republicans are pretending that they still live in the bygone world in which they were the party of Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and John McCain. When it comes time to schedule and cast votes, however, they reveal the new reality in which they are the party of thugs, dictators, and aggressors from Tehran to Beijing to Moscow to Palm Beach.

Ukraine is one casualty. Israel could be the next. President Biden should make it clear, make it hurt, and make it change.

The Atlantic · by David Frum · April 14, 2024

17. Opinion | A quandary in Israel: How to retaliate — but not escalate?

You respond decisively in self defense to prevent further attacks or escalation. Our fear of escalation is what will drive escalation.

Opinion | A quandary in Israel: How to retaliate — but not escalate?

The Washington Post · by David Ignatius · April 16, 2024

Israeli officials have concluded that to deter Iran, they should retaliate for this weekend’s massive missile barrage, according to knowledgeable sources. But as the Israelis study lists of potential targets, they are looking for ways to deliver this hard-nosed message without escalating the crisis.

“The story is not over,” said a senior Israeli source. “Iran took this massive action to create new rules” by bombarding Israel directly as payback for its April 1 strike on Iranian operatives in Damascus, Syria. “If we do nothing, it will strengthen this line of thinking in Iran,” the senior Israeli said, stressing: “We do not seek to escalate this. We want to contain it. But we cannot let it pass.”

Israeli officials were bolstered by what a senior Biden administration official described as their “spectacular” success in shooting down more than 300 Iranian munitions over the weekend, with help from their partners. And they’re gratified by the newfound international support they received in this crisis. But “strong defense is not enough,” the senior Israeli source insisted.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has argued to Americans that to survive in the Middle East, Israel needs very strong deterrence — and that defense isn’t necessarily enough to deter Iran. Gallant, who has emerged as an increasingly important voice in the “war cabinet,” has been in frequent contact with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other top U.S. officials.

For the Biden administration, Israel’s determination to take another step up the ladder will probably be a disappointment. Officials had hoped that neutering Iran’s missile attack would be a sufficient show of strength and that a period of de-escalation in the broader Gaza conflict might follow. “Slow things down, think through things,” President Biden advised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the defeat of Iran’s attack.

But like other American appeals to de-escalate, this one appears to have been rejected by Israeli leaders. They see their adversaries as having crossed previous “red lines” in their willingness to slaughter Israelis — in Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack and then in Iran’s weekend bombardment, which U.S. and Israeli officials believe was intended to cause significant damage and loss of life.

Israeli officials also reject Iran’s pretext for the attack — that in striking Quds Force commanders in Damascus, it hit a diplomatic facility that was, in effect, part of Iran’s sovereign territory. Israelis contend that the facility they struck, though it might have had an Iranian flag outside, hadn’t officially been designated a diplomatic compound.

Iranian arguments about the sanctity of diplomatic facilities are also unconvincing from a regime that condoned, and celebrates to this day, the 1979 seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran — and has allowed more recent attacks on British and other diplomatic facilities there.

As Israeli officials weigh their response to Iran’s missile attack, they are confronting the perennial dilemma of deterrence: How can a country demonstrate its willingness to use force — and dominate the cycle of escalation — without creating precisely the crisis it seeks to avert? Israel’s tough-minded approach to this question has deterred some conflicts, but it has arguably created some others.

For generations, Israeli leaders have insisted that their unyielding position is essential for survival in a brutal and unforgiving Middle East. You can question, as some U.S. officials do, whether this logic has truly been successful for Israel. But the mood Monday night was a reminder that whatever outsiders might think is best, Israel will make its own decisions about security.

The Washington Post · by David Ignatius · April 16, 2024

18.  China accused of running sleeper cells to sow discord

In the Philippines.

No surprise.

Political Warfare/

Unrestricted Warfare.

China accused of running sleeper cells to sow discord

Beijing dismissed the claims saying as ‘nothing but a fabrication’

Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor

Monday April 15 2024, 12.01am BST, The Times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/china-accused-of-running-sleeper-cells-to-sow-discord-b2rmkrn02?utm

President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, President Biden of the United States, and Fumio Kishida, the prime minister of Japan, led a three-way meeting in which they denounced China’s “aggressive” behaviour KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS

The Philippines ­announced an ­investigation into claims that Beijing has been operating covert “sleeper cells” in its territory and recruiting its own ­soldiers.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines said it was investigating online ­advertising for “part-time military ­consultants” from an organisation whose servers are in China. The advertisement, on Facebook and since removed, invited applicants with at least a year of experience working within the armed forces or government departments to write weekly reports on military subjects of topical interest.

Beijing dismissed the claims as malicious speculation. “The so-called sleeper cells of China in the Philippines are nothing but fabrication,” the Chinese embassy in Manila said in a statement last week. “Those are merely malicious speculation and groundless accusations against China with the purpose of inciting Sinophobic sentiments in the Philippines.”

“We are considering this as a national security concern,” Colonel Francel Margareth Padilla, the AFP spokeswoman, said. “Any attack in the cyber domain can be, of course, monetary or data-driven so what they want is to get internal data from the armed forces.”

Ferdinand Marcos, the Philippine president, held a three-way meeting with President Biden and Fumio Kishida, the Japanese prime minister, in which they denounced “dangerous and aggressive behaviour” by China, which claims most of the South China Sea.

“I think the trilateral agreement is extremely important,” Marcos said of the meeting. “It is going to change the dynamic that we see in the region”.

• With Trump and China looming, how much does the US trust Japan?

Monitoring organisations reported over the weekend that the Chinese coastguard had blocked a Philippine ­government survey vessel 35 ­nautical miles off Manila’s main island.

Philippine and ­Chinese vessels have had repeated ­confrontations close to Second Thomas Shoal, a tiny piece of territory on which Manila has grounded an old naval ship as a base for a detachment of its marines. Boats carrying supplies to them have been intercepted by Chinese coastguard vessels.

Speaking after his meeting with ­Marcos, Biden said that the treaty that obliges the US to defend the Philippines was “ironclad”.

19. Japan's Ukraine aid creates new rift with Russia

 Will Japan step up to be a more full partner in the Arsenal of Democracy providing more than financial support but actual weapons as well. WIll South Korea provide lethal aid to Ukraine as well?

If Japan really wanted to pressure Russia, it could open a northern front and take back the disputed Kuril islands. (note sarcasm)

Japan's Ukraine aid creates new rift with Russia – DW – 04/15/2024

Roman Goncharenko

04/15/2024April 15, 2024

Japan has become one of Ukraine's most important allies, providing billions in aid. How will this affect relations with Russia?

DW · by In focusIranIsrael-Hamas warUkraine

When Europe talks about aid for Ukraine, it looks to itself and the United States. But for months, politicians in Washington have been unable to agree on a new multibillion aid package for Kyiv.

As a result, other countries have increased their share of support. Among them is Japan, which, according to Ukraine's Finance Ministry, has quietly become one of Kyiv's most important financial backers, leading the way in the first months of 2024.

Aid, not weapons

At a conference in Japan in February, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the aid provided and pledged would total $12 billion (€11.2 billion). According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Japan was in sixth place for international aid to Ukraine in January, providing more than €7 billion.

This aid from Japan is helping to keep the Ukrainian economy afloat. The National Bank estimates the country's gross domestic product has shrunk by a third since the Russian invasion began in February 2022. While Tokyo cannot supply Kyiv with lethal weapons for historical reasons and national legal restrictions, it can send food, medicine, generators, cars, bulletproof vests and demining equipment.

Missile workaround?

But Ukraine needs weapons, and Japan might be able to help despite its constitutionally enshrined pacifism. The Japanese press has reported there could be a delivery to the US of missiles manufactured in Japan for American Patriot anti-aircraft systems so that Washington could pass them on to Ukraine.

In response, Russian Foreign Ministry representatives said the appearance of Japanese missiles in Ukraine would have "consequences" for Moscow's relations with Tokyo.

Japan may find roundabout ways to supply Ukraine with weaponsImage: Kyodo/IMAGO

Atsuko Higashino, a professor studying the conflict in Ukraine at the University of Tsukuba, is in favor of such a delivery, as the missiles are "not a weapon to kill, but to protect the Ukrainian people." She does not believe that such a delivery can be expected "in the near future," however, because Japan has a "serious deficit" when it comes to defense systems.

James Brown, a professor and expert in Russia-Japan relations at Temple University in Tokyo, believes the deliveries of Patriot missiles to the US are already "largely agreed." He added that the delays are due to regulations, explaining that it's very important to Japan that its missiles aren't delivered directly to Ukraine.

'Radical change' in relations with Russia

But how has Japan become one of Ukraine's most important partners? "When Japan assists Ukraine, when it pushes back against Russian aggression, it’s really thinking about trying to uphold an international system that prevents changes of the status quo by force," said Brown.

He added that Japan aims to "deter China from attempting something similar with respect to Taiwan." Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida discussed this with US President Joe Biden at last week's tripartite summit on the Indo-Pacific in Washington.

Japan's attitude toward Ukraine and Russia has "radically changed," said political analyst Higashino. While Japan "accepted the illegal annexation of Crimea" and "Russian propaganda" in 2014, she said everything was different after the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This is due, among other things, to "the clear violation of the UN Charter" and the Russian army's "brutality" in Bucha near Kyiv.

Bucha: 'There was a feeling something horrible would happen'

Exceptions for fossil fuels

A change at the top of the government played a role in this shift. "Under previous leadership, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan pursued very much a rapprochement with Russia. With a real aim to try and develop relations of partnership to resolve the country’s territorial dispute, to sign a peace treaty," said Brown.

"But after 2022, the Japanese government recognized that those efforts are not really going to work, and instead, their priority has become not to create a partnership with Russia but rather to try and ensure that Russian aggression against Ukraine fails."

In contrast to Abe, Prime Minister Kishida has undertaken "very far-reaching sanctions against Russia," said Higashino. "That was simply unthinkable before."

In 2019, Japan's former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe aimed to improve relations with Russian President Vladimir PutinImage: Reuters/Sputnik/Kremlin/M. Klimentyev

Still, Japan has not completely cut off relations with Russia. There are exceptions for some areas of the economy, particularly in the energy sector. Japanese car companies have withdrawn from the lucrative Russian market, but Japan is still involved in the Gazprom-led Sakhalin 2 oil and gas project, although other Western companies are no longer participating. The project supplies Japan with liquefied natural gas (LNG). With virtually no fossil fuels of its own, Japan sources around 9% of its gas from Russia.

Kyiv returns the favor

As a gesture of support for Tokyo, the Ukrainian parliament passed a decree in October 2022 that sided with Tokyo in the Russian-Japanese dispute over the Kuril Islands. It recognizes that the "Northern Territories," as the islands are called in Japan, "continue to be occupied by the Russian Federation.

A similar decree was also signed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

This article was originally written in Russian.

DW · by In focusIranIsrael-Hamas warUkraine

20. Opinion | What the United States needs to do after Iran’s attack on Israel

Does de-escalation and a call for ceasefire equal appeasement and indicate success for the adversary belligerents (Hamas and Iran)? 

Excerpts:

De-escalation and eventual peacemaking should also be the order of the day in the Middle East. Over the weekend, Iran’s attack was repulsed in the skies not only by the air defenses and warplanes of the Jewish state but also vital help from the United States, Jordan, France and Britain. This alliance’s quick work was a welcome demonstration of resolve and an illustration, in the geopolitical context, of what economists call “revealed preference”: when forced to choose between Israel on one side, and Iran’s theocracy on the other, the West and at least one key Arab state did not hesitate to pick the former. President Biden is wise to urge Israel to avoid a tit-for-tat escalation with Iran, and the wider war that could bring. As long as it maintains its international relationships, Israel has shown that it can act in its own defense and fend off Iranian attacks.

...

The first step would be a six-week truce that Israel and Hamas have been negotiating on and off for weeks, including release of hostages held by Hamas. After this weekend, Hamas’s leaders, who have been holding out, should understand that no Iranian or Iranian-backed offensive will rescue them — in part because the United States, despite its recent quarrels with the Netanyahu government, remains committed to Israel’s security.

Both conflicts still appear far from resolution. As it did over Israel’s skies last weekend, the United States can leverage its unique capabilities to stave off the worst.

Opinion | What the United States needs to do after Iran’s attack on Israel

The Washington Post · by Editorial Board · April 15, 2024

The spectacle of Iranian missiles and drones heading for Israel, only to be almost entirely intercepted, has inspired astonishment at the first-ever direct attack on Israel from Iran and at the highly effective shield deployed by Israel and its allies, including the United States. But relief at the outcome should not distract from efforts to pass a long-stalled military aid bill for Ukraine, which is defending itself against similar missile attacks, and to resolve the grinding war in Gaza.

In Congress, the two conflicts have been intertwined for months, because a Senate bill, the only aid package to pass at least one chamber — and with a chance of clearing both — would fund the defense of Ukraine and Israel. Linking the two made sense after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, as the United States sought to aid two democracies in peril. It also helped build political support for the bill, as it joined pro-Ukraine and pro-Israel lawmakers.

Since the aid bill passed the Senate six months ago, the situation has grown more complex. Concern about Israel’s Gaza operations has risen on the left and opposition to funding Ukraine on the right. After the weekend’s Iran attacks, voting for the aid package could become more palatable to both sides. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) should bring it to the floor quickly.

Not only politics counsel haste. Over the House’s six months of pointless delay, by Republicans and at the urging of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Ukraine’s situation has become desperate. The country needs air defenses, ammunition and warplanes, from a coalition of countries like the one that intercepted Iran’s weekend fusillade aimed at Israel. Though neither money nor arms can solve Ukraine’s military manpower problems, the country has moved to call up more troops, at the risk that its limited cohort of young Ukrainians will die on the battlefield.

Further delay would help Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has redirected Russia’s economy toward war production and can throw waves of infantry at Ukraine’s thin front lines. Backing Ukraine now will show Mr. Putin that he cannot count on a Trump presidency to undercut Western support for Ukraine, as he obviously does.

No matter Mr. Trump’s intentions, a hefty infusion of U.S. aid would see Ukraine through crucial months of fighting, time European countries could use to step up their support. French President Emmanuel Macron has spoken more forcefully in recent weeks about the threat Russia poses to European security and the imperative of supporting Ukraine’s fight. And, however the war ends, providing assistance now would put Ukraine in a favorable position for negotiations later — a position that will protect its aspirations to build its democracy and orient toward Western Europe and the United States.

De-escalation and eventual peacemaking should also be the order of the day in the Middle East. Over the weekend, Iran’s attack was repulsed in the skies not only by the air defenses and warplanes of the Jewish state but also vital help from the United States, Jordan, France and Britain. This alliance’s quick work was a welcome demonstration of resolve and an illustration, in the geopolitical context, of what economists call “revealed preference”: when forced to choose between Israel on one side, and Iran’s theocracy on the other, the West and at least one key Arab state did not hesitate to pick the former. President Biden is wise to urge Israel to avoid a tit-for-tat escalation with Iran, and the wider war that could bring. As long as it maintains its international relationships, Israel has shown that it can act in its own defense and fend off Iranian attacks.

To keep those relationships, and to end the intolerable suffering of civilian men, women and children, Israel’s priority should be the swiftest possible conclusion to the war in Gaza. That requires ensuring immediate humanitarian relief reaches desperate Palestinians. It means developing a credible endgame for the military operation that respects civilian lives, and a new political dispensation in Gaza that both sidelines Hamas and provides Gazans some measure of hope for their future. After the weekend’s moment of regional anti-Iran cooperation, Israel and the United States might find it easier to persuade Arab countries to help rebuild Gaza.

The first step would be a six-week truce that Israel and Hamas have been negotiating on and off for weeks, including release of hostages held by Hamas. After this weekend, Hamas’s leaders, who have been holding out, should understand that no Iranian or Iranian-backed offensive will rescue them — in part because the United States, despite its recent quarrels with the Netanyahu government, remains committed to Israel’s security.

Both conflicts still appear far from resolution. As it did over Israel’s skies last weekend, the United States can leverage its unique capabilities to stave off the worst.

The Post’s View | About the Editorial Board

Editorials represent the views of The Post as an institution, as determined through discussion among members of the Editorial Board, based in the Opinions section and separate from the newsroom.

Members of the Editorial Board: Opinion Editor David Shipley, Deputy Opinion Editor Charles Lane and Deputy Opinion Editor Stephen Stromberg, as well as writers Mary Duenwald, Shadi Hamid, David E. Hoffman, James Hohmann, Heather Long, Mili Mitra, Eduardo Porter, Keith B. Richburg and Molly Roberts.

The Washington Post · by Editorial Board · April 15, 2024

21. A DHS Office of Foreign Influence and Interference—Break Down Barriers to Protect US Democracy and Public Safety

One of the best opening lines I have read in an essay lately:

The Internet drained the oceans protecting the US homeland and brought foreign threats to America’s borders in ways previously unimaginable.

I had a discussion with some students last evening about information and influence. Sometimes I wonder if we are trying too hard to exploit information and conduct counter influence operations in response to overt and covert influence operations conducted by our adversaries.

Conclusion:

No US district, county, or local community is immune to specific foreign-related disinformation campaigns that could affect public safety and lead to violence. As stated in the I&A’s Homeland Threat Assessment 2024, some domestic violent extremists may seek to disrupt the upcoming electoral processes. Meanwhile, Russia, China, and Iran will likely conduct overt and covert influence campaigns to shape favorable US policy outcomes and undermine US stability. Therefore, more than ever, establishing a new DHS office tasked with providing foreign-related information with public safety implications to the LEAs is imperative.

A DHS Office of Foreign Influence and Interference—Break Down Barriers to Protect US Democracy and Public Safety - Irregular Warfare Initiative

irregularwarfare.org · by Bruno Brkic · April 16, 2024

The Internet drained the oceans protecting the US homeland and brought foreign threats to America’s borders in ways previously unimaginable. Foreign actors have taken advantage of this new technology to engage in ever more effective and corrosive propaganda campaigns designed to create and exacerbate extremism and division in the United States. Local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies (LEAs) need to receive proper support to do their job and defend the US from these foreign and extremist threats. Yet, currently, LEAs struggle to get the relevant and timely intelligence they need.

This situation arises from three main factors. Firstly, concerns about privacy infringement are paramount. Secondly, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) faces challenges in effectively fulfilling its duty as the sole member of the Intelligence Community (IC) mandated by law to provide intelligence to LEAs and relay it back to the IC. Lastly, there is a noticeable absence of foreign-related intelligence inputs, a common issue LEAs encounter. An Office of Foreign Influence and Interference (OFI2) within the DHS would help solve these problems by providing foreign-related information with public safety implications to the relevant local, state, and federal partners while protecting U.S. citizens’ civil liberties.

Currently, the Foreign Influence and Interference Branch (FIIB) of I&A’s Cyber Mission Center organizes and creates analytical products about disinformation. FIIB shares intelligence reports through intelligence briefs and reference aids on foreign adversaries without directly countering disinformation. FIIB cooperated with the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which helped I&A with its election integrity efforts in 2016 by reviewing I&A’s disinformation-related intelligence products and determining that they did not violate US citizens’ civil liberties. Furthermore, the FIIB worked with the Department of State’s Global Engagement Center on countering disinformation when appropriate, overseen by the Foreign Malign Influence Center established under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on September 23, 2022. Consequently, FIIB understands the sensitivities of disseminating disinformation-related intelligence products without infringing on US citizens’ civil rights and liberties.

However, the FIIB has been unable to deliver relevant and timely intelligence to the LEAs on foreign-related disinformation campaigns designed to create and exacerbate extremism and division in the United States, as I&A has not disseminated its products promptly. On September 4, 2020, I&A finalized a product titled “Malign Foreign Influence Actors Denigrating Health of US Presidential Candidates,” including an assessment that “Russian malign influence actors” were spreading unsubstantiated allegations relating to the health of then-candidate Joseph R. Biden Jr. to reduce voters’ confidence in him as a candidate. I&A completed its dissemination on October 15, 2020, some seven months after initiating the product’s creation in March. In other words, I&A did not disseminate the product until less than a month before the election and approximately three months after its original scheduled dissemination date.

Furthermore, a declassified National Intelligence Council report revealed that Russian President Putin authorized and influenced operations “aimed at denigrating President Biden and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US.“ Consequently, some US citizens likely became victims of the influence operation—or used it to achieve their political goals—and stormed Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, to overturn President Trump’s defeat.

To avoid a similar situation in upcoming elections, the FIIB should be transformed into an Office of Foreign Influence and Interference (OFI2) to deliver timely and actionable intelligence reports on foreign influence and interference in protecting US liberal democracy and public safety. This way, OFI2 would not depend on I&A’s approval and dissemination timeline. Furthermore, it would extend the IC expertise on foreign influence and interference vertically from ODNI’s Foreign Malign Influence Center for relevant local, state, and federal partners to understand how these activities deteriorate public safety, leading to violence.

How OFI2 Would Advance LEAs Counter-Extremism Readiness

The January 6, 2021, Capitol attack intelligence policy failure best demonstrates why LEAs need to understand the importance of foreign-related disinformation campaigns in deteriorating public safety leading to violence. First, Capitol Police daily intelligence reports from January 4, 5, and 6 assessed the probability of acts of civil disobedience as “remote” to “improbable.” Second, the US Government Accountability Office report on the January 6, 2021, Capitol Attack revealed that the present intelligence policy came short of securing complete information processing and sharing with the Capitol Police about the threats they were facing that day from actors such as the Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and Boogaloo Bois, who likely even traveled abroad to meet like-minded individuals, as the unclassified ODNI assessment “Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021” infers.

The former situation might not have occurred had the Capitol Police consumed foreign-related intelligence on disinformation campaigns such as the one run by Russian President Putin’s associates and understood how this activity could deteriorate public safety and lead to violence. The latter situation occurred because the I&A – as the only member of the IC statutorily tasked with delivering intelligence to local, state, and federal partners, as well as developing intelligence from these partners for DHS and the IC – did not produce and share any intelligence report before the attack. Indeed, at 8:15 am on January 6, I&A’s Counterterrorism Mission Center (CTMC) briefed I&A leadership and the DHS Deputy Secretary on the indicators that the January 6, 2021 events might turn violent. However, I&A did not disseminate the product to the Capitol Police. For this reason, LEAs need better support from DHS to protect the homeland from domestic violent extremists (DVEs).

The January 6 Capitol Attack showed that LEAs should start receiving foreign-related information with public safety implications from a DHS component such as the OFI2. Consequently, this approach would reduce domestic insurgents’ threat to US liberal democracy under an ongoing disinformation campaign. Furthermore, OFI2 would be better positioned to deliver timely and actionable intelligence reports on foreign influence and interference leading to acts of violence against its local, state, and federal partners.

The Fusion Center Concept is Glitching and Needs Support

What exists now is the DHS fusion center concept that emerged in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Fusion centers are hubs that facilitate collaboration and coordination among the LEAs, analyze information from multiple sources to produce actionable intelligence, and operate within legal frameworks that protect individual privacy and civil liberties. I&A is the primary federal entity responsible for supporting the LEAs via fusion centers by providing them with relevant and timely intelligence. Consequently, the I&A coordinates closely with fusion centers to ensure a two-way flow of information and bridges the gap between the US IC and the LEAs by creating a more comprehensive understanding of the threat landscape.

However, the fusion center concept is often seen as ineffective in assisting counterterrorism efforts, lacking effective oversight, with broad collection and sharing of data that led to civil liberties abuses. Furthermore, fusion centers lack federal government oversight as they are under state and local jurisdiction. They also face criticism that in looking for illegal activity, fusion centers have sometimes targeted people who were engaged in lawful constitutionally protected activities. Another challenge encountered with fusion centers pertains to the source of information input into the intelligence reports, as many contributors from local to state levels introduce complexities. The involvement of numerous players raises concerns as even a small number of contributors questioning the final intelligence product quality can lead to a “crying wolf” effect, undermining the credibility and reliability of the reports.

A solution might be to have OFI2 finetune fusion centers’ intelligence reports based on its expertise on specific foreign-related disinformation campaigns that could affect public safety and lead to violence. This way, fusion centers might better distinguish non-violent US citizens exercising their civil rights to gather and speak freely from those willing to deteriorate public safety as DVEs. Moreover, as an independent DHS organizational unit, OFI2 would be under the federal government’s oversight and more considerable scrutiny for potentially breaching constitutionally guaranteed civil and human rights. Finally, OFI2 could help fusion centers produce relevant and timely intelligence to detect, prevent, investigate, and respond to criminal and terrorist activities.

The Disinformation-DVE-Public Safety Nexus

No US district, county, or local community is immune to specific foreign-related disinformation campaigns that could affect public safety and lead to violence. As stated in the I&A’s Homeland Threat Assessment 2024, some domestic violent extremists may seek to disrupt the upcoming electoral processes. Meanwhile, Russia, China, and Iran will likely conduct overt and covert influence campaigns to shape favorable US policy outcomes and undermine US stability. Therefore, more than ever, establishing a new DHS office tasked with providing foreign-related information with public safety implications to the LEAs is imperative.

Bruno Brkic is a Ph.D. student in the International Crime and Justice Program at Florida International University with over ten years of experience in law enforcement, supporting domestic and international investigations against organized crime and terrorism. He holds a B.A. in Criminal Justice and an M.A. in Cyber Intelligence. His research interests include homeland security, cybersecurity, intelligence-led policing, human rights, counterterrorism, and counterinsurgency. Additionally, Bruno has five years of experience in cyber threat intelligence, mainly conducting threat analysis and risk assessment.

Main Image: A fox named “Luna” at the Westcountry Wildlife Photography Centre, United Kingdom, November 2, 2019 (Charlie Marshall, Flickr, Creative Commons 2.0)

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The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official position of the Irregular Warfare Initiative, Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, the Modern War Institute at West Point, or the United States Government.

22. The Talks That Could Have Ended the War in Ukraine

Excerpts:

On April 11, 2024, Lukashenko, the early middleman of the Russian-Ukrainian peace talks, called for a return to the draft treaty from spring 2022. “It’s a reasonable position,” he said in a conversation with Putin in the Kremlin. “It was an acceptable position for Ukraine, too. They agreed to this position.”

Putin chimed in. “They agreed, of course,” he said.

In reality, however, the Russians and the Ukrainians never arrived at a final compromise text. But they went further in that direction than has been previously understood, reaching an overarching framework for a possible agreement.

After the past two years of carnage, all of this may be so much water under the bridge. But it is a reminder that Putin and Zelensky were willing to consider extraordinary compromises to end the war. So if and when Kyiv and Moscow return to the negotiating table, they’ll find it littered with ideas that could yet prove useful in building a durable peace.

The Talks That Could Have Ended the War in Ukraine

A Hidden History of Diplomacy That Came Up Short—but Holds Lessons for Future Negotiations

By Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko

April 16, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko · April 16, 2024

In the early hours of February 24, 2022, the Russian air force struck targets across Ukraine. At the same time, Moscow’s infantry and armor poured into the country from the north, east, and south. In the days that followed, the Russians attempted to encircle Kyiv.

These were the first days and weeks of an invasion that could well have resulted in Ukraine’s defeat and subjugation by Russia. In retrospect, it seems almost miraculous that it did not.

What happened on the battlefield is relatively well understood. What is less understood is the simultaneous intensive diplomacy involving Moscow, Kyiv, and a host of other actors, which could have resulted in a settlement just weeks after the war began.

By the end of March 2022, a series of in-person meetings in Belarus and Turkey and virtual engagements over video conference had produced the so-called Istanbul Communiqué, which described a framework for a settlement. Ukrainian and Russian negotiators then began working on the text of a treaty, making substantial progress toward an agreement. But in May, the talks broke off. The war raged on and has since cost tens of thousands of lives on both sides.

What happened? How close were the parties to ending the war? And why did they never finalize a deal?

To shed light on this often overlooked but critical episode in the war, we have examined draft agreements exchanged between the two sides, some details of which have not been reported previously. We have also conducted interviews with several participants in the talks as well as with officials serving at the time in key Western governments, to whom we have granted anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters. And we have reviewed numerous contemporaneous and more recent interviews with and statements by Ukrainian and Russian officials who were serving at the time of the talks. Most of these are available on YouTube but are not in English and thus not widely known in the West. Finally, we scrutinized the timeline of events from the start of the invasion through the end of May, when talks broke down. When we put all these pieces together, what we found is surprising—and could have significant implications for future diplomatic efforts to end the war.

In the midst of Moscow’s unprecedented aggression, the Russians and the Ukrainians almost finalized an agreement.

Some observers and officials (including, most prominently, Russian President Vladimir Putin) have claimed that there was a deal on the table that would have ended the war but that the Ukrainians walked away from it due to a combination of pressure from their Western patrons and Kyiv’s own hubristic assumptions about Russian military weakness. Others have dismissed the significance of the talks entirely, claiming that the parties were merely going through the motions and buying time for battlefield realignments or that the draft agreements were unserious.

Although those interpretations contain kernels of truth, they obscure more than they illuminate. There was no single smoking gun; this story defies simple explanations. Further, such monocausal accounts elide completely a fact that, in retrospect, seems extraordinary: in the midst of Moscow's unprecedented aggression, the Russians and the Ukrainians almost finalized an agreement that would have ended the war and provided Ukraine with multilateral security guarantees, paving the way to its permanent neutrality and, down the road, its membership in the EU.

A final agreement proved elusive, however, for a number of reasons. Kyiv’s Western partners were reluctant to be drawn into a negotiation with Russia, particularly one that would have created new commitments for them to ensure Ukraine’s security. The public mood in Ukraine hardened with the discovery of Russian atrocities at Irpin and Bucha. And, with the failure of Russia’s encirclement of Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky became more confident that, with sufficient Western support, he could win the war on the battlefield. Finally, although the parties’ attempt to resolve long-standing disputes over the security architecture offered the prospect of a lasting resolution to the war and enduring regional stability, they aimed too high, too soon. They tried to deliver an overarching settlement even as a basic ceasefire proved out of reach.

Today, when the prospects for negotiations appear dim and relations between the parties are nearly nonexistent, the history of the spring 2022 talks might seem like a distraction with little insight directly applicable to present circumstances. But Putin and Zelensky surprised everyone with their mutual willingness to consider far-reaching concessions to end the war. They might well surprise everyone again in the future.

ASSURANCE OR GUARANTEE?

What did the Russians want to accomplish by invading Ukraine? On February 24, 2022, Putin gave a speech in which he justified the invasion by mentioning the vague goal of “denazification” of the country. The most reasonable interpretation of “denazification” was that Putin sought to topple the government in Kyiv, possibly killing or capturing Zelensky in the process.

Yet days after the invasion began, Moscow began probing to find grounds for a compromise. A war Putin expected to be a cakewalk was already proving anything but, and this early openness to talking suggests he appears to have already abandoned the idea of outright regime change. Zelensky, as he had before the war, voiced an immediate interest in a personal meeting with Putin. Though he refused to talk directly with Zelensky, Putin did appoint a negotiating team. Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko played the part of mediator.

The talks began on February 28 at one of Lukashenko’s spacious countryside residences near the village of Liaskavichy, about 30 miles from the Ukraine-Belarus border. The Ukrainian delegation was headed by Davyd Arakhamia, the parliamentary leader of Zelensky’s political party, and included Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, and other senior officials. The Russian delegation was led by Vladimir Medinsky, a senior adviser to the Russian president who had earlier served as culture minister. It also included deputy ministers of defense and foreign affairs, among others.

At the first meeting, the Russians presented a set of harsh conditions, effectively demanding Ukraine’s capitulation. This was a nonstarter. But as Moscow’s position on the battlefield continued to deteriorate, its positions at the negotiating table became less demanding. So on March 3 and March 7, the parties held a second and third round of talks, this time in Kamyanyuki, Belarus, just across the border from Poland. The Ukrainian delegation presented demands of their own: an immediate cease-fire and the establishment of humanitarian corridors that would allow civilians to safely leave the war zone. It was during the third round of talks that the Russians and the Ukrainians appear to have examined drafts for the first time. According to Medinsky, these were Russian drafts, which Medinsky’s delegation brought from Moscow and which probably reflected Moscow’s insistence on Ukraine’s neutral status.

At this point, in-person meetings broke up for nearly three weeks, though the delegations continued to meet via Zoom. In those exchanges, the Ukrainians began to focus on the issue that would become central to their vision of the endgame for the war: security guarantees that would oblige other states to come to Ukraine’s defense if Russia attacked again in the future. It is not entirely clear when Kyiv first raised this issue in conversations with the Russians or Western countries. But on March 10, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, then in Antalya, Turkey, for a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, spoke of a “systematic, sustainable solution” for Ukraine, adding that the Ukrainians were “ready to discuss” guarantees it hoped to receive from NATO member states and Russia.

Podolyak and Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey Vasyl Bodnar after a meeting with the Russians, Istanbul, March 2022

Kemal Aslan / Reuters

What Kuleba seemed to have in mind was a multilateral security guarantee, an arrangement whereby competing powers commit to the security of a third state, usually on the condition that it will remain unaligned with any of the guarantors. Such agreements had mostly fallen out of favor after the Cold War. Whereas alliances such as NATO intend to maintain collective defense against a common enemy, multilateral security guarantees are designed to prevent conflict among the guarantors over the alignment of the guaranteed state, and by extension to ensure that state’s security.

Ukraine had a bitter experience with a less ironclad version of this sort of agreement: a multilateral security assurance, as opposed to a guarantee. In 1994, it signed on to the so-called Budapest Memorandum, joining the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as a nonnuclear weapons state and agreeing to give up what was then the world’s third-largest arsenal. In return, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States promised that they would not attack Ukraine. Yet contrary to a widespread misconception, in the event of aggression against Ukraine, the agreement required the signatories only to call a UN Security Council meeting, not to come to the country’s defense.

Russia’s full-scale invasion—and the cold reality that Ukraine was fighting an existential war on its own—drove Kyiv to find a way to both end the aggression and ensure it never happened again. On March 14, just as the two delegations were meeting via Zoom, Zelensky posted a message on his Telegram channel calling for “normal, effective security guarantees” that would not be “like the Budapest ones.” In an interview with Ukrainian journalists two days later, his adviser Podolyak explained that what Kyiv sought were “absolute security guarantees” that would require that “the signatories . . . do not stand aside in the event of an attack on Ukraine, as is the case now. Instead, they [would] take an active part in defending Ukraine in a conflict.”

Ukraine’s demand not to be left to fend for itself again is completely understandable. Kyiv wanted (and still wants) to have a more reliable mechanism than Russia’s goodwill for its future security. But getting a guarantee would be difficult. Naftali Bennett was the Israeli prime minister at the time the talks were happening and was actively mediating between the two sides. In an interview with journalist Hanoch Daum posted online in February 2023, he recalled that he attempted to dissuade Zelensky from getting stuck on the question of security guarantees. “There is this joke about a guy trying to sell the Brooklyn Bridge to a passerby,” Bennett explained. “I said: ‘America will give you guarantees? It will commit that in several years if Russia violates something, it will send soldiers? After leaving Afghanistan and all that?’ I said: ‘Volodymyr, it won’t happen.’”

To put a finer point on it: if the United States and its allies were unwilling to provide Ukraine such guarantees (for example, in the form of NATO membership) before the war, why would they do so after Russia had so vividly demonstrated its willingness to attack Ukraine? The Ukrainian negotiators developed an answer to this question, but in the end, it didn’t persuade their risk-averse Western colleagues. Kyiv’s position was that, as the emerging guarantees concept implied, Russia would be a guarantor, too, which would mean Moscow essentially agreed that the other guarantors would be obliged to intervene if it attacked again. In other words, if Moscow accepted that any future aggression against Ukraine would mean a war between Russia and the United States, it would be no more inclined to attack Ukraine again than it would be to attack a NATO ally.

A BREAKTHROUGH

Throughout March, heavy fighting continued on all fronts. The Russians attempted to take Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Sumy but failed spectacularly, though all three cities sustained heavy damage. By mid-March, the Russian army’s thrust toward Kyiv had stalled, and it was taking heavy casualties. The two delegations kept up talks over videoconference but returned to meeting in person on March 29, this time in Istanbul, Turkey.

There, they appeared to have achieved a breakthrough. After the meeting, the sides announced they had agreed to a joint communiqué. The terms were broadly described during the two sides’ press statements in Istanbul. But we have obtained a copy of the full text of the draft communiqué, titled “Key Provisions of the Treaty on Ukraine’s Security Guarantees.” According to participants we interviewed, the Ukrainians had largely drafted the communiqué and the Russians provisionally accepted the idea of using it as the framework for a treaty.

The treaty envisioned in the communiqué would proclaim Ukraine as a permanently neutral, nonnuclear state. Ukraine would renounce any intention to join military alliances or allow foreign military bases or troops on its soil. The communiqué listed as possible guarantors the permanent members of the UN Security Council (including Russia) along with Canada, Germany, Israel, Italy, Poland, and Turkey.

The communiqué also said that if Ukraine came under attack and requested assistance, all guarantor states would be obliged, following consultations with Ukraine and among themselves, to provide assistance to Ukraine to restore its security. Remarkably, these obligations were spelled out with much greater precision than NATO’s Article 5: imposing a no-fly zone, supplying weapons, or directly intervening with the guarantor state’s own military force.

The Istanbul Communiqué called for the two sides to seek to peacefully resolve their dispute over Crimea during the next 15 years.

Although Ukraine would be permanently neutral under the proposed framework, Kyiv’s path to EU membership would be left open, and the guarantor states (including Russia) would explicitly “confirm their intention to facilitate Ukraine’s membership in the European Union.” This was nothing short of extraordinary: in 2013, Putin had put intense pressure on Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to back out of a mere association agreement with the EU. Now, Russia was agreeing to “facilitate” Ukraine’s full accession to the EU.

Although Ukraine’s interest in obtaining these security guarantees is clear, it is not obvious why Russia would agree to any of this. Just weeks earlier, Putin had attempted to seize Ukraine’s capital, oust its government, and impose a puppet regime. It seems far-fetched that he suddenly decided to accept that Ukraine—which was now more hostile to Russia than ever, thanks to Putin’s own actions—would become a member of the EU and have its independence and security guaranteed by the United States (among others). And yet the communiqué suggests that was precisely what Putin was willing to accept.

We can only conjecture as to why. Putin’s blitzkrieg had failed; that was clear by early March. Perhaps he was now willing to cut his losses if he got his longest-standing demand: that Ukraine renounce its NATO aspirations and never host NATO forces on its territory. If he could not control the entire country, at least he could ensure his most basic security interests, stem the hemorrhaging of Russia’s economy, and restore the country’s international reputation.

The communiqué also includes another provision that is stunning, in retrospect: it calls for the two sides to seek to peacefully resolve their dispute over Crimea during the next ten to 15 years. Since Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014, Moscow has never agreed to discuss its status, claiming that it was a region of Russia no different than any other. By offering to negotiate over its status, the Kremlin had tacitly admitted that was not the case.

FIGHTING AND TALKING

In remarks he made on March 29, immediately after the conclusion of the talks, Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation, sounded decidedly upbeat, explaining that the discussions of the treaty on Ukraine’s neutrality were entering the practical phase and that—allowing for all the complexities presented by the treaty having many potential guarantors—it was possible that Putin and Zelensky would sign it at a summit in the foreseeable future.

The next day, he told reporters that “yesterday, the Ukrainian side, for the first time fixed in a written form its readiness to carry out a series of most important conditions for the building of future normal and good-neighborly relations with Russia.” He continued: “They handed to us the principles of a potential future settlement, fixed in writing.”

Meanwhile, Russia had abandoned its efforts to take Kyiv and was pulling back its forces from the entire northern front. Alexander Fomin, Russia’s deputy minister of defense, had announced the decision in Istanbul on March 29, calling it an effort “to build mutual trust.” In fact, the withdrawal was a forced retreat. The Russians had overestimated their capabilities and underestimated the Ukrainian resistance and were now spinning their failure as a gracious diplomatic measure to facilitate peace talks.

Even after reports from Bucha made headlines in April 2022, the two sides continued to work around the clock on a treaty.

The withdrawal had far-reaching consequences. It stiffened Zelensky’s resolve, removing an immediate threat to his government, and demonstrated that Putin’s vaunted military machine could be pushed back, if not defeated, on the battlefield. It also enabled large-scale Western military assistance to Ukraine by freeing up the lines of communication leading to Kyiv. Finally, the retreat set the stage for the gruesome discovery of atrocities that Russian forces had committed in the Kyiv suburbs of Bucha and Irpin, where they had raped, mutilated, and murdered civilians.

Reports from Bucha began to make headlines in early April. On April 4, Zelensky visited the town. The next day, he spoke to the UN Security Council via video and accused Russia of perpetrating war crimes in Bucha, comparing Russian forces to the Islamic State terrorist group (also known as ISIS). Zelensky called for the UN Security Council to expel Russia, a permanent member.

Remarkably, however, the two sides continued to work around the clock on a treaty that Putin and Zelensky were supposed to sign during a summit to be held in the not-too-distant future.

The sides were actively exchanging drafts with each other and, it appears, beginning to share them with other parties. (In his February 2023 interview, Bennett reported seeing 17 or 18 working drafts of the agreement; Lukashenko also reported seeing at least one.) We have closely scrutinized two of these drafts, one that is dated April 12 and another dated April 15, which participants in the talks told us was the last one exchanged between the parties. They are broadly similar but contain important differences—and both show that the communiqué had not resolved some key issues.

Excerpt of a draft Russian-Ukrainian treaty dated April 15, 2022

First, whereas the communiqué and the April 12 draft made clear that guarantor states would decide independently whether to come to Kyiv’s aid in the event of an attack on Ukraine, in the April 15 draft, the Russians attempted to subvert this crucial article by insisting that such action would occur only “on the basis of a decision agreed to by all guarantor states”—giving the likely invader, Russia, a veto. According to a notation on the text, the Ukrainians rejected that amendment, insisting on the original formula, under which all the guarantors had an individual obligation to act and would not have to reach consensus before doing so.

Excerpt of a draft Russian-Ukrainian treaty dated April 15, 2022. Red text in italics represents Russian positions not accepted by the Ukrainian side; red text in bold represents Ukrainian positions not accepted by the Russian side.

Second, the drafts contain several articles that were added to the treaty at Russia’s insistence but were not part of the communiqué and related to matters that Ukraine refused to discuss. These require Ukraine to ban “fascism, Nazism, neo-Nazism, and aggressive nationalism”—and, to that end, to repeal six Ukrainian laws (fully or in part) that dealt, broadly, with contentious aspects of Soviet-era history, in particular the role of Ukrainian nationalists during World War II.

It is easy to see why Ukraine would resist letting Russia determine its policies on historical memory, particularly in the context of a treaty on security guarantees. And the Russians knew these provisions would make it more difficult for the Ukrainians to accept the rest of the treaty. They might, therefore, be seen as poison pills.

It is also possible, however, that the provisions were intended to allow Putin to save face. For example, by forcing Ukraine to repeal statutes that condemned the Soviet past and cast the Ukrainian nationalists who fought the Red Army during World War II as freedom fighters, the Kremlin could argue that it had achieved its stated goal of “denazification,” even though the original meaning of that phrase may well have been the replacement of Zelensky’s government.

In the end, it remains unclear whether these provisions would have been a deal-breaker. The lead Ukrainian negotiator, Arakhamia, later downplayed their importance. As he put it in a November 2023 interview on a Ukrainian television news program, Russia had “hoped until the last moment that they [could] squeeze us to sign such an agreement, that we [would] adopt neutrality. This was the biggest thing for them. They were ready to finish the war if we, like Finland [during the Cold War], adopted neutrality and undertook not to join NATO.”

The talks had deliberately skirted the question of borders and territory.

The size and the structure of the Ukrainian military was also the subject of intense negotiation. As of April 15, the two sides remained quite far apart on the matter. The Ukrainians wanted a peacetime army of 250,000 people; the Russians insisted on a maximum of 85,000, considerably smaller than the standing army Ukraine had before the invasion in 2022. The Ukrainians wanted 800 tanks; the Russians would allow only 342. The difference between the range of missiles was even starker: 280 kilometers, or about 174 miles, (the Ukrainian position) and a mere 40 kilometers, or about 25 miles, (the Russian position).

The talks had deliberately skirted the question of borders and territory. Evidently, the idea was for Putin and Zelensky to decide on those issues at the planned summit. It is easy to imagine that Putin would have insisted on holding all of the territory that his forces had already occupied. The question is whether Zelensky could have been convinced to agree to this land grab.

Despite these substantial disagreements, the April 15 draft suggests that the treaty would be signed within two weeks. Granted, that date might have shifted, but it shows that the two teams planned to move fast. “We were very close in mid-April 2022 to finalizing the war with a peace settlement,” one of the Ukrainian negotiators, Oleksandr Chalyi, recounted at a public appearance in December 2023. “[A] week after Putin started his aggression, he concluded he had made a huge mistake and tried to do everything possible to conclude an agreement with Ukraine.”

WHAT HAPPENED?

So why did the talks break off? Putin has claimed that Western powers intervened and spiked the deal because they were more interested in weakening Russia than in ending the war. He alleged that Boris Johnson, who was then the British prime minister, had delivered the message to the Ukrainians, on behalf of “the Anglo-Saxon world,” that they must “fight Russia until victory is achieved and Russia suffers a strategic defeat.”

The Western response to these negotiations, while a far cry from Putin’s caricature, was certainly lukewarm. Washington and its allies were deeply skeptical about the prospects for the diplomatic track emerging from Istanbul; after all, the communiqué sidestepped the question of territory and borders, and the parties remained far apart on other crucial issues. It did not seem to them like a negotiation that was going to succeed.

Moreover, a former U.S. official who worked on Ukraine policy at the time told us that the Ukrainians did not consult with Washington until after the communiqué was issued, even though the treaty it described would have created new legal commitments for the United States—including an obligation to go to war with Russia if it invaded Ukraine again. That stipulation alone would have made the treaty a nonstarter for Washington. So instead of embracing the Istanbul communiqué and the subsequent diplomatic process, the West ramped up military aid to Kyiv and increased the pressure on Russia, including through an ever-tightening sanctions regime.

The United Kingdom took the lead. Already on March 30, Johnson seemed disinclined toward diplomacy, stating that instead “we should continue to intensify sanctions with a rolling program until every single one of [Putin’s] troops is out of Ukraine.” On April 9, Johnson turned up in Kyiv —the first foreign leader to visit after the Russian withdrawal from the capital. He reportedly told Zelensky that he thought that “any deal with Putin was going to be pretty sordid.” Any deal, he recalled saying, “would be some victory for him: if you give him anything, he’ll just keep it, bank it, and then prepare for his next assault.” In the 2023 interview, Arakhamia ruffled some feathers by seeming to hold Johnson responsible for the outcome. “When we returned from Istanbul,” he said, “Boris Johnson came to Kyiv and said that we won’t sign anything at all with [the Russians]—and let’s just keep fighting.”

Since then, Putin has repeatedly used Arakhamia’s remarks to blame the West for the collapse of the talks and demonstrate Ukraine’s subordination to its supporters. Notwithstanding Putin’s manipulative spin, Arakhamia was pointing to a real problem: the communiqué described a multilateral framework that would require Western willingness to engage diplomatically with Russia and consider a genuine security guarantee for Ukraine. Neither was a priority for the United States and its allies at the time.

Putin and Zelensky were willing to consider extraordinary compromises to end the war.

In their public remarks, the Americans were never quite so dismissive of diplomacy as Johnson had been. But they did not appear to consider it central to their response to Russia’s invasion. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin visited Kyiv two weeks after Johnson, mostly to coordinate greater military support. As Blinken put it at a press conference afterward, “The strategy that we’ve put in place—massive support for Ukraine, massive pressure against Russia, solidarity with more than 30 countries engaged in these efforts—is having real results.”

Still, the claim that the West forced Ukraine to back out of the talks with Russia is baseless. It suggests that Kyiv had no say in the matter. True, the West’s offers of support must have strengthened Zelensky’s resolve, and the lack of Western enthusiasm does seem to have dampened his interest in diplomacy. Ultimately, however, in his discussions with Western leaders, Zelensky did not prioritize the pursuit of diplomacy with Russia to end the war. Neither the United States nor its allies perceived a strong demand from him for them to engage on the diplomatic track. At the time, given the outpouring of public sympathy in the West, such a push could well have affected Western policy.

Zelensky was also unquestionably outraged by the Russian atrocities at Bucha and Irpin, and he probably understood that what he began to refer to as Russia’s “genocide” in Ukraine would make diplomacy with Moscow even more politically fraught. Still, the behind-the-scenes work on the draft treaty continued and even intensified in the days and weeks after the discovery of Russia’s war crimes, suggesting that the atrocities at Bucha and Irpin were a secondary factor in Kyiv’s decision-making.

The Ukrainians’ newfound confidence that they could win the war also clearly played a role. The Russian retreat from Kyiv and other major cities in the northeast and the prospect of more weapons from the West (with roads into Kyiv now under Ukrainian control) changed the military balance. Optimism about possible gains on the battlefield often reduces a belligerent’s interest in making compromises at the negotiating table.

Indeed, by late April, Ukraine had hardened its position, demanding a Russian withdrawal from the Donbas as a precondition to any treaty. As Oleksii Danilov, the chair of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, put it on May 2: “A treaty with Russia is impossible—only capitulation can be accepted.”

Russian and Ukrainian negotiators meeting in Istanbul, March 2022

Ukrainian Presidential Press Service / Reuters

And then there is the Russian side of the story, which is difficult to assess. Was the whole negotiation a well-orchestrated charade, or was Moscow seriously interested in a settlement? Did Putin get cold feet when he understood that the West would not sign on to the accords or that the Ukrainian position had hardened?

Even if Russia and Ukraine had overcome their disagreements, the framework they negotiated in Istanbul would have required buy-in from the United States and its allies. And those Western powers would have needed to take a political risk by engaging in negotiations with Russia and Ukraine and to put their credibility on the line by guaranteeing Ukraine’s security. At the time, and in the intervening two years, the willingness either to undertake high-stakes diplomacy or to truly commit to come to Ukraine’s defense in the future has been notably absent in Washington and European capitals.

A final reason the talks failed is that the negotiators put the cart of a postwar security order before the horse of ending the war. The two sides skipped over essential matters of conflict management and mitigation (the creation of humanitarian corridors, a cease-fire, troop withdrawals) and instead tried to craft something like a long-term peace treaty that would resolve security disputes that had been the source of geopolitical tensions for decades. It was an admirably ambitious effort—but it proved too ambitious.

To be fair, Russia, Ukraine, and the West had tried it the other way around—and also failed miserably. The Minsk agreements signed in 2014 and 2015 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of the Donbas covered minutiae such as the date and time of the cessation of hostilities and which weapons system should be withdrawn by what distance. Both sides’ core security concerns were addressed indirectly, if at all.

This history suggests that future talks should move forward on parallel tracks, with the practicalities of ending the war being addressed on one track while broader issues are covered in another.

KEEP IT IN MIND

On April 11, 2024, Lukashenko, the early middleman of the Russian-Ukrainian peace talks, called for a return to the draft treaty from spring 2022. “It’s a reasonable position,” he said in a conversation with Putin in the Kremlin. “It was an acceptable position for Ukraine, too. They agreed to this position.”

Putin chimed in. “They agreed, of course,” he said.

In reality, however, the Russians and the Ukrainians never arrived at a final compromise text. But they went further in that direction than has been previously understood, reaching an overarching framework for a possible agreement.

After the past two years of carnage, all of this may be so much water under the bridge. But it is a reminder that Putin and Zelensky were willing to consider extraordinary compromises to end the war. So if and when Kyiv and Moscow return to the negotiating table, they’ll find it littered with ideas that could yet prove useful in building a durable peace.

• SAMUEL CHARAP is Distinguished Chair in Russia and Eurasia Policy and a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation.
• SERGEY RADCHENKO is Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Europe.

Foreign Affairs · by Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko · April 16, 2024

23. Japan’s China Reckoning

Beware of China's political and unrestricted warfare and subversion.

Excerpts:

As the nation gradually opens its doors to immigration, it runs certain risks by virtue of its terrible proximity to China. The number of clandestine Chinese Communist Party “cells” in Japan has likely increased in recent years, especially in the research labs of colleges and private corporations. Officials will have to strike a careful balance: guarding against infiltration by bad actors while also respecting the rights of ordinary Chinese migrants, who make up a quarter of all registered foreigners in Japan.

There is some concern in the Japanese business community that a more assertive foreign policy toward China can backfire. Toyota, Honda, Uniqlo, and many other Japanese companies have significant stakes in China. There are more Uniqlo shops in China than in any other country, including Japan, and Honda produces more cars in China than anywhere else. Even the executives of the nation’s leading defense contractors, such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, are cautious about upsetting Chinese-Japanese relations, fearing that their business activities in China could face severe repercussions.

And yet policies aimed at bolstering Japan’s defense capabilities and expanding its alliance networks are now broadly popular, as indicated by a series of polls. Times have changed since Abe put the country on the path to collective self-defense alongside the United States and other partners. Today, Kishida faces strikingly few dissenters. The nation is apprehensive about the rise of China, but it has managed to remain calm, reassured by strengthened ties with its democratic allies.

Japan’s China Reckoning

Why Tokyo Must Strengthen Its Ties to Democratic Allies

By Tomohiko Taniguchi

April 16, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Tomohiko Taniguchi · April 16, 2024

In May 2008, relations between Beijing and Tokyo reached a high point. That month, Chinese President Hu Jintao travelled to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda—the first official visit by a Chinese leader to Japan in a decade. Historical rivals since the 1890s, the two countries still had many unresolved differences, such as their opposing territorial claims over islands in the East China Sea. But Fukuda regarded the fostering of friendly relations with Beijing as a core national interest; a year earlier, China had surpassed the United States as Japan’s top trading partner. During the state visit, Fukuda and Hu issued a joint statement, describing their nations as “partners engaged in cooperation, not as threats to each other.”

The rapprochement was not to last. In the years since that hopeful summit, bilateral trade has continued to increase, but it has been overshadowed by escalating tensions. Not long after the ink dried on the 2008 joint statement, Beijing dispatched vessels to patrol the waters around the Senkaku Islands (known in China as the Diaoyu Islands). To this day, Chinese ships continue to encroach into Japanese territorial waters, blatantly disregarding warnings issued by the Japanese Coast Guard. The last few years have also seen a significant increase in instances of the Japanese air force scrambling to intercept Chinese aircraft nearing Japanese airspace. Between April and December of last year, there were 392 such instances, or about three every two days.

By the end of 2008, Japan had recognized the dangers posed by an assertive China, well before Washington came around to the same realization. Today, the challenge Japan faces in reducing its dependence on China is formidable. In 2023, China accounted for 20 per cent of Japan’s total trade. There is no readily available substitute for China’s critical role in the Japanese economy. Japan faces an acute dilemma: how to work with a country that is both an indispensable trading partner and a critical national security threat just 205 miles away.

Japan’s conundrum is a classic case of “the tyranny of proximity.” This tyranny demands that Japan avoid abrupt, provocative moves that might startle China. But it must also undertake careful, long-term work to strengthen its own economy, military, and alliances. If it pulls off this balancing act, it can achieve the twin goals of deterring Chinese aggression and avoiding war.

ABE’S BALANCING ACT

Tokyo cannot hold back Beijing on its own. Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in whose administration I served as his primary foreign policy speechwriter, pursued two types of balancing strategies toward China: internal balancing, which focuses on enhancing one’s own economic and military capabilities, and external balancing, which involves forging alliances with other nations. Abe invested in Japan’s alliance with the United States and bolstered military cooperation with Australia and India, leading to the formation of the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), or what Abe called a “democratic security diamond” in Asia.

He knew that building rapport with other leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump, was essential to the Quad’s success. It was a testament to Abe’s efforts on this front that after Abe’s assassination, in 2022, Prime Minster Narendra Modi of India and four acting or former premiers of Australia laid flowers at his state funeral.

Abe also recognized that deterring China would require his country to abandon its defense-only, no-first-strike policy that it developed in the aftermath of World War II. In 2015, he faced down a swell of public opposition and overturned the policy. Today, Japan’s armed forces provide round-the-clock reinforcement to U.S. military aircraft, ships, and personnel in the region. Outside of Asia, Tokyo has contributed more than $12 billion to Ukraine’s defense. In January, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, speaking from a bomb shelter in Kyiv, pledged to allocate another $37 million to a NATO fund for Ukraine; the money will go toward the purchase of drone detection systems.

Finally, to fortify Japan’s domestic economy, Abe worked with Australia to realize the 2018 Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the successor to the unratified Trans-Pacific Partnership. Observing the success of the agreement, the European Union was motivated to strike a similar deal with Japan, which led to the 2019 EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, the largest such deal in history among democracies. Last year, the United Kingdom signed on to the agreement, as well.

Just as Abe did, Japan’s current leadership must do the work of internal and external balancing. Tokyo should continue to consolidate its alliances with maritime democracies sharing similar values—the United States, Australia, India, and the United Kingdom—while striving to bolster its economic strength.

THE TYRANNY OF PROXIMITY

Addressing the tyranny of proximity will require long-term investments in several key areas. First, Japan will need to strengthen its alliance with the United States and other major allies. It is crucial for Japan’s national interest to maintain U.S. involvement in the Indo-Pacific—and expanding that involvement would be even better. Japan must persistently offer incentives to sustain U.S. engagement in the Indo-Pacific. Since the late 1970s, Tokyo has willingly covered the cost of hosting U.S. troops on Japanese soil, even as public opposition to this has occasionally surfaced. This policy must continue if Japan is to remain home to the United States’ single largest concentration of forward-deployed forces—more than 53,000 active-duty troops.

Tokyo is already moving in the right direction. In early April, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited Washington. He and U.S. President Joe Biden issued a joint statement announcing that Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom will soon begin conducting regular large-scale military exercises.

They also announced that they will soon integrate the command structures of the U.S. and Japanese militaries. Next year, all three branches of Japan’s armed forces—ground, maritime, and air—plan to establish a permanent joint headquarters for the first time. Biden and Kishida have indicated that the U.S. military will build a corresponding command attached to Japan’s. This centralization will make it easier for U.S. forces to coordinate with their Japanese counterparts.

Ultimately, however, the success of this endeavor depends less on what Tokyo does than on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. Whether Kishida could strike the right chord with Trump as effectively as Abe did remains an open question. Abe was the first foreign leader to meet Trump after the 2016 election, presenting him with a golden golf club in a penthouse at Trump Tower. At the then president-elect’s request, Abe went alone. In the event of a second Trump presidency, few in Japan anticipate Kishida forming a personal bond as strong as Abe’s had been.

Tokyo is sending a strong message to Beijing: there will be costs to any actions that undermine Japan’s national interest.

There is also a need to escalate military cooperation and joint exercises among the other Quad nations. Japan, Italy, and the United Kingdom are collaborating on the development of a sixth-generation fighter jet, further solidifying Japan’s political ties with like-minded countries. Last year, London and Tokyo struck an agreement, the Hiroshima Accord, which stipulates that the United Kingdom will soon deploy aircraft carrier strike groups to Japan on a regular basis for joint exercises.

The AUKUS security partnership, which includes Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, will soon expand to include Japan as a technological partner. This expansion will enhance capabilities in cyber, AI, quantum technologies, and undersea operations, among others, transforming the group into JAUKUS. Although the group has not yet extended a formal invitation to Tokyo, Japan’s military alliances with other Western countries have never been stronger. By moving ever closer to its allies, Tokyo is sending a strong message to Beijing: there will be costs to any actions that undermine Japan’s national interest.

Of course, Japan must bolster its own defense capabilities, too. In 2022, Tokyo pledged to double its defense spending to the NATO standard of two percent of GDP by 2027, at which point the country’s defense budget will be the third largest in the world, behind only those of the United States and China. Part of that effort involves enhancing military hardware. Japan is in the process of acquiring nearly 150 F-35 fifth-generation fighter jets from the United States. In November, the U.S. State Department approved the sale of up to 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles to Japan, a deal valued at $2.35 billion. This move is aimed squarely at enhancing Japan’s deterrence capabilities, enhancing its military’s ability to target major Chinese inland bases.

Finally, Japan must focus on revitalizing its economy, a foundational step for achieving the first two objectives. This requires enhancing productivity, which in turn calls for more collaborations with like-minded advanced economies, notably that of the United States. Progress on this front is already well underway. As Biden noted during last week’s summit, “Japan is the top foreign investor in the United States and we, the United States, are the top foreign investor in Japan.”

TROUBLE AHEAD

None of this will be easy. Seventy-seven percent of Japan’s federal budget is earmarked for social welfare spending, particularly for elderly care, paying back government bond obligations, and subsidies to local municipalities. Doubling defense spending is possible but may come at the expense of other national priorities.

The state will also have to convince the nation’s educational institutions to overcome their outdated ethos of pacifism; most top research universities still prohibit their engineers and scientists from collaborating with the armed forces. Trade policy will also need to change: only in 2014 did the policy shift from banning arms exports to encouraging them, with limited success thus far. The country’s defense industries, which historically have catered only to Japan’s forces, will take time to achieve economies of scale.

As the nation gradually opens its doors to immigration, it runs certain risks by virtue of its terrible proximity to China. The number of clandestine Chinese Communist Party “cells” in Japan has likely increased in recent years, especially in the research labs of colleges and private corporations. Officials will have to strike a careful balance: guarding against infiltration by bad actors while also respecting the rights of ordinary Chinese migrants, who make up a quarter of all registered foreigners in Japan.

There is some concern in the Japanese business community that a more assertive foreign policy toward China can backfire. Toyota, Honda, Uniqlo, and many other Japanese companies have significant stakes in China. There are more Uniqlo shops in China than in any other country, including Japan, and Honda produces more cars in China than anywhere else. Even the executives of the nation’s leading defense contractors, such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, are cautious about upsetting Chinese-Japanese relations, fearing that their business activities in China could face severe repercussions.

And yet policies aimed at bolstering Japan’s defense capabilities and expanding its alliance networks are now broadly popular, as indicated by a series of polls. Times have changed since Abe put the country on the path to collective self-defense alongside the United States and other partners. Today, Kishida faces strikingly few dissenters. The nation is apprehensive about the rise of China, but it has managed to remain calm, reassured by strengthened ties with its democratic allies.

• TOMOHIKO TANIGUCHI is Special Adviser at the Fujitsu Future Studies Center. From 2014 to 2020, he served as a Special Adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Foreign Affairs · by Tomohiko Taniguchi · April 16, 2024

24. Call in the Coast Guard: How Maritime Law Enforcement Can Combat China’s Gray-Zone Aggression

Excerpts:

Conclusion

By not providing consistent leadership to priority issues, and by allowing China to assert hegemony, the United States is losing its strategic influence in the Indo-Pacific. The United States should follow through with existing strategies on the Indo-Pacific and go one step further by implementing a Combined Maritime Forces. This would bring together coast guards and law enforcement authorities to establish a baseline of acceptable conduct, with transgressions resulting in clear consequences.

Establishing a Combined Maritime Forces focused on law enforcement as a soft power approach would provide a cohesive structure, improved partnerships, and a clear way to push back against Chinese gray-zone tactics and overt aggression. A Combined Maritime Forces could address priority issues in the region, including maritime domain awareness, capacity building, and countering illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing. Congress has already authorizedthe expansion of efforts in this realm “as part of the mission of the Combined Maritime Forces.” Congress should build on existing language to authorize and appropriate funds for the establishment of a new Combined Maritime Forces that focuses on law enforcement as the key enabler toward a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Call in the Coast Guard: How Maritime Law Enforcement Can Combat China’s Gray-Zone Aggression - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Eric Cooper · April 16, 2024

Earlier this year, China’s Coast Guard forced a Filipino fishing boat captain and crew away from Scarborough Shoal, which the United Nations International Tribunal has established as the territory of the Philippines, demanding that they dump their catch. Indeed, China’s Coast Guard continues to use aggression and force to coerce and intimidate other nations — even in those other nations’ territorial waters. China’s Coast Guard also routinely forces collisions with Filipino fishing and supply vessels, and harasses other vessels in the South China Sea. China views these gray-zone tactics as a natural extension of national power, and its flagrant violation of international law will likely continue unless Indo-Pacific stakeholders begin to impose consequences for such actions.

Despite renewed emphasis by the Biden, Trump, and Obama administrations, America’s commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific has struggled under Chinese pressure — including both gray-zone operations in East Asian waters and China’s Belt and Road Initiative more broadly. Moreover, U.S. influence in the Indo-Pacific has waned, as evidenced by the fact that nations such as Kiribati, the Solomon Islands, and Nauru have recently switched their diplomatic recognition from U.S.-friendly Taiwan to China.

Still, all is not lost for the United States in the Indo-Pacific. Both Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia recently signed agreements that will allow the U.S. Coast Guard to enforce maritime law on behalf of those countries without having a representative of those countries onboard U.S. vessels. The United States should build on this momentum, developing a coordinated international approach to the region that will establish a combined force of coast guards and maritime law enforcement agencies, with a persistent focus from this force on fortifying international norms.

Become a Member

Ongoing Enforcement

Combined Maritime Forces are not a new concept. Today, the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy routinely participate in international maritime coalitions on critical issues. The United States leads the Bahrain-based Combined Maritime Forces,comprising “a multinational maritime partnership, which exists to uphold the rules-based international order by countering illicit non-state actors on the high seas and promoting security, stability, and prosperity.” A significant advantage of the Combined Maritime Forces concept is that the level of involvement is voluntary and scalable for each nation. Some nations may only be able to provide a single member to serve as a liaison officer, while others may be able to conduct training or provide ships and aircraft to support operations. Despite the differing levels of contribution, building these partnerships is a critical milestone in establishing the rules-based order.

There is currently no equivalent to a Combined Maritime Forces operating in the Indo-Pacific. There is, however, a long-running Combined Force Maritime Component Commander course taught annually by the Naval War College’s College of Maritime Operational Warfare at U.S. Pacific Fleet in Honolulu. While students are primarily navy admirals from across the Indo-Pacific, U.S. Coast Guard admirals participate as well. As part of its core curriculum, the College of Maritime Operational Warfare also regularly holds equivalent regional courses at the epicenter of the current active Combined Maritime Forces — U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (Bahrain) — as well as at Allied Joint Force Command Naples (Italy). This Combined Force Maritime Component Commander “network-in-being” offers a powerful concept and community upon which to build Combined Maritime Forces-type efforts in the Indo-Pacific.

There are, moreover, several ongoing law enforcement initiatives in the region, including the Ocean Maritime Security Initiative, the Southeast Asia Maritime Law Enforcement Initiative, and the Southeast Asia Cooperation and Training exercise. But all of these are conducted individually, without a common architecture or a unifying, centralized organization. These military educational offerings, independent initiatives, and unilateral efforts, while valuable, can be improved upon by being operationalized concertedly under the umbrella of a dedicated Combined Maritime Forces structure. This would connect what are currently disparate entities by aligning them to work toward comprehensive objectives, as well as incorporating more partner nations into the fold.

Combined Maritime Forces in Action

The Indo-Pacific maritime domain has become an ungoverned — and sometimes even a purposefully misgoverned — region. The development of a Combined Maritime Forces, consisting of coast guards and law enforcement authorities, would build that much-needed structure to consistently address critical issues in the Indo-Pacific. A cohesive structure — built by and through like-minded nations that govern under a rules-based approach — would allow for a more efficient exchange of information, and a more effective distribution of resources to address both current and future challenges. The Combined Maritime Forces organization based out of Bahrain has, for example, built cohesion and shown effectiveness in the Middle East, and nearly eliminated piracy off the Horn of Africa. This precedent provides the rationale that a similar structure in the Indo-Pacific would build strong partnerships to combat gray-zone tactics.

The creation of a Combined Maritime Forces in the Indo-Pacific has a high potential for a negative response from China, due to the perception of increased militarization in the region. Therefore, any Combined Maritime Forces should comprise dedicated maritime law enforcement partners, not naval defense forces. Most maritime agencies in the region operate similarly to the U.S. Coast Guard and are focused more on sovereignty and coastal protection than on global force projection. Thus, it makes sense to concentrate on maritime law enforcement and not military competition. The U.S. Coast Guard is a more palatable, non-escalatory partner here, and it brings its law enforcement capabilities — along with a mix of other authorities and expertise, including environmental protection — and can easily operate alongside foreign militaries, coast guards, and maritime police.

One of the focus areas for a Combined Maritime Forces and part of the Palau and Federated States of Micronesia agreements, is combatting illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing. The top locations for illegal fishing are in the western, central, and South Pacific. Dwindling fish stocks in the Indo-Pacific are a global problem, and the actions to counter overfishing by single nations, performing alone, are simply not enough. The development of a Combined Maritime Forces will create the beginnings of a unified approach to address the illicit fishing problem and the depletion of fish stocks.

Moreover, the development of a Combined Maritime Forces will do more than just build a coalition of nations to target the problem. As highlighted in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s strategy:

[A]ddressing Illegal, Unregulated, and Unreported Fishing is not just about fish: [I]t is a multi-faceted problem that covers other core policy concerns, including human rights, food security, and maritime security.

A cohesive and coordinated maritime force in the region could also serve to quickly transition to search and rescue service, environmental pollution response, or a natural disaster relief response force. Moreover, such a force creates the foundation for establishing a robust law enforcement presence to respond to violations of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and enforce international norms.

Conclusion

By not providing consistent leadership to priority issues, and by allowing China to assert hegemony, the United States is losing its strategic influence in the Indo-Pacific. The United States should follow through with existing strategies on the Indo-Pacific and go one step further by implementing a Combined Maritime Forces. This would bring together coast guards and law enforcement authorities to establish a baseline of acceptable conduct, with transgressions resulting in clear consequences.

Establishing a Combined Maritime Forces focused on law enforcement as a soft power approach would provide a cohesive structure, improved partnerships, and a clear way to push back against Chinese gray-zone tactics and overt aggression. A Combined Maritime Forces could address priority issues in the region, including maritime domain awareness, capacity building, and countering illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing. Congress has already authorizedthe expansion of efforts in this realm “as part of the mission of the Combined Maritime Forces.” Congress should build on existing language to authorize and appropriate funds for the establishment of a new Combined Maritime Forces that focuses on law enforcement as the key enabler toward a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Become a Member

Eric “Coop” Cooper is a senior policy researcher at RAND and a retired senior Coast Guard officer.

Image: Kevin Steinberg

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Eric Cooper · April 16, 2024

25. Houthi Attacks in the Red Sea: A New Twist on the Jeune École?

Excerpts:

Houthi Attacks in the Red Sea: A New Twist on the Jeune École? - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Kevin McCranie · April 16, 2024

Recently, a journalist questioned Vice Adm. Brad Cooper of U.S. Central command about naval operations in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, “When was the last time that the U.S. Navy operated at this pace for a couple months?” The admiral’s response was telling: “I think you’d have to go back to World War II where you have ships who are engaged in combat. When I say engaged in combat, where they’re getting shot at, we’re getting shot at, and we’re shooting back.” Cooper described the engagements that have occurred since late 2023 with Houthi drones and missiles targeting shipping. The employment of these weapons continues to become more sophisticated with reports indicating that the Houthi launched at least 28 drones on one day in early March alone.

To better understand the conflict between the Houthis and the naval powers protecting shipping in the region, it is important to revisit competing ideas about naval strategy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. One side emphasized traditional fleets and naval power while the other including a group originating in France known as the Jeune École (young school) posited an alternative approach to naval warfare. It relied on small flotilla craft armed with torpedoes to put traditional fleets at risk and expose their commercial shipping to relentless attack. Today, the United States and its naval partners possess the traditional fleet, while it could be argued that the Houthis are reimagining the Jeune École for the 21st century.

Become a Member

Approaches to Naval Strategy

At the dawn of the 20th century, much had changed since the last great war with a significant naval element had ended with the defeat of Napoleon. New technologies had transformed warfare at sea, but just how was a topic of endless debate. Following the publication of The Influence of Sea Power upon History in 1890, Alfred T. Mahan had become the most widely recognized commentator on naval affairs. A decade and a half later, Mahan asserted, “Naval History bears witness to two continuous streams of belief; one in the superior efficacy of big ships, the other in the possibility of reaching some cheap means of offence, which will supersede the necessity of large vessels.” Specifically, he lamented:

No disappointment kills this expectation; experience is powerless against it, and is equally powerless to repress the theory, continually recurring, that some class of small vessel, with peculiarly redoubtable qualities, will be found to combine resistlessness with cheapness, and so put an end to the supremacy, never heretofore shaken, of the great ship of the order of battle … the control of the sea will pass to the destroyer.

Mahan described a palpable tension between those who claimed that history no longer provided an effective guide for understanding the contemporary maritime environment, and those who believed that history, if used judiciously, could offer insight into contemporary conditions. Mahan fell into the latter group. Most notable Anglophone writers of the period tended to agree, including Julian Corbett.

Mahan and Corbett argued for the continued relevance of a balanced fleet. In time of war, the fleet’s mission was to secure “command of the sea,” defined by Corbett as “establishing ourselves in such a position that we can control the maritime communications of all parties concerned.” This required the use of the navy to defeat or blockade rival fleets and then use brute force to regulate commercial and military activities at sea.

Enter the Jeune École

The Jeune École hailed from France in the last decades of the 19th century. Its members included individuals from the navy, government, and the press. Among the latter, Gabriel Charmes played a powerful role in propagandizing its ideas. Auguste Gougeard, a retired naval officer, became one of the first advocates to reach a powerful governmental position when he was appointed minister of marine for a few months in 1881 and 1882. The central figure, however, was Théophile Aube. He attained the rank of admiral and eventually served as minister of marine.

Together, adherents of the Jeune École recognized Germany as France’s primary enemy. Because of the immediacy of this contiguous land threat, the French army received the priority. In contrast, the French navy would never obtain enough funding to symmetrically challenge Britain’s Royal Navy for command of the sea — instead, advocates of the Jeune École developed a strategy to confront Britain on the cheap. Unlike Mahan and his supporters who looked to the relevance of history, they claimed that new, relatively inexpensive technologies had revolutionized naval warfare to the point where history no longer provided a guide. Promoting small inexpensive flotilla craft, Aube explained, “A squadron, being more or less a collection of ironclads, is no longer the guarantee of naval power.” Gougeard added, “It is, and always will be, quite ridiculous to risk 12 to 15 millions, or even more, against 200,000 or 300,000 francs, and six hundred men against twelve.” The risk to warships costing millions and crewed by hundreds would need to be balanced against the aggressive use of much smaller vessels costing a fraction of that amount and crewed by a handful. Advocates of the Jeune École thought that they could drive the British fleet from the French coast.

Preventing the Royal Navy from blockading French ports would allow French commerce raiders to escape into the oceans where they could inflict catastrophic shocks on British commercial shipping by sinking vessels along with their passengers and crews. Given the importance of trade for the British economy, members of the Jeune École thought the economic effects on Britain would be decisive. According to Charmes, “Economical rivalry will be hotter than military competition.” He speculated that “the premium on insurance against losses at sea would become so high that navigation would be impossible.”

Obtaining effects from new weapons technologies lay at the heart of the Jeune École argument. For them, the marriage of small flotilla craft with the torpedo would be pivotal if not decisive because this would result in a cost-effective means that could put the largest, most costly warships at risk. Even those who questioned the ideas of the Jeune École admitted that the torpedo boat was a gamechanger. Corbett described how these small, torpedo-armed flotilla craft had obtained “battle power.” He claimed, “It is a feature of naval warfare that is entirely new. For all practical purposes it was unknown until the full development of the mobile torpedo.”

Philip H. Colomb, a retired British naval officer and an important commentator on naval power in the late 19th century, explained that the Jeune École “may be entirely wrong in their speculations, and entirely right in their practical advice, which has really little to do with their speculations.” Colomb agreed with the Jeune École that the French battle fleet stood no chance against the Royal Navy, and he also recognized the vulnerability of British commerce. However, Colomb thought the Jeune École’s technologically driven method for destabilizing Britain’s commercial position would be less effective than its adherents believed.

In hindsight, the Jeune École’s strategy was premature at best. They had identified several of the dominant naval power’s critical vulnerabilities, but the technologies of the 1880s proved incapable of exploiting them for decisive effect. Much later, the development of the submarine and what it accomplished in the world wars breathed new life into the Jeune École. In both of the world wars, Germany, as the weaker naval power, had employed the submarine in combination with the torpedo to obtain effects closer to those postulated by the Jeune École, but in both world wars, the dominant naval powers proved resilient. Conversely, the most effective submarine campaign in the world wars was executed by the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, but by the time this campaign obtained its greatest effects, the U.S. Navy was becoming the dominant naval power, and submarines served as only one of several instruments to put Japanese shipping at risk.

Contemporary Relevance

The last great naval war ended in 1945 with the defeat of Imperial Japan. In the following decades, technological changes have transformed the international maritime environment, but what these changes mean for naval warfare remains unclear.

A bit of clarity is however possible by studying present day occurrences in the Red Sea. The Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, are a Shia militant group in Yemen. The group controls large areas of western Yemen. Since late 2023, the Houthis have employed various types of relatively inexpensive weapons technologies including air and sea drones as well as cruise and ballistic missiles to attack both warships and commercial shipping around the southern entrance to the Red Sea. It could be argued that the Houthis are putting a modern spin on the methods of the Jeune École.

At the time the Jeune École wrote, the world had become increasingly reliant on maritime commerce for the goods society needed to survive. Its exponents sought to turn this dependence on global shipping into a risk. Disrupting the sea lines of communication continues to have the potential to create outsized effects. One only needs to consider the cost resulting from a large container ship called the Ever Given blocking the Suez Canal in 2021. Though the container ship’s situation resulted from an accident, the Houthis are creating similar stress on global supply chains. This is being accomplished by the Houthis putting maritime shipping at risk through the employment of drone and missile technologies. The Jeune École did not expect to sink large numbers of merchant ships — rather, their object was the disruption of commerce and the increased costs of transport. Similar effects appear to be resulting from Houthi actions.

Turning to Houthi attacks on warships, the Jeune École identified the delta in cost between warships and ship-killing weapons. Since then, warships have become even more expensive and technologies to attack them have proliferated. On the surface, the Jeune École’s technological argument appears to be playing out, albeit with various types of missile and drones rather than torpedoes and flotilla craft.

However, defensive technologies also continue to advance which is something that the Jeune École failed to fully appreciate. This is an ever-recurring theme. One side, often the attacker, employs a new weapon with effect, and the defender harnesses other technologies to defeat it. Events in the Red Sea over the last few months point to the effectiveness of defensive technologies. Though defensive weapons have generally proven effective against the Houthi’s offensive weapons, the cost of using such weapons may in the long run prove prohibitive. Protecting ships with defensive missiles appears to be more expensive than the offensive missiles and drones used by the Houthis. This is a result of the defense addressing a more difficult problem set. Targeting large ships moving at slow speeds is easier than targeting fast-moving missiles. The defenders are, however, seeking new solutions with guns and even directed energy weapons. Much remains to be seen how the risks of using such alternative defensive means balance with their effectiveness.

Currently, engagements in the Red Sea have approximated a stalemate. The naval powers have proven effective at stopping the vast majority of Houthi attacks, albeit by expending costly defensive weapons. Yet, the attacks continue and the commercial costs increase. Historical cases involving the protection of commerce including examples from the Age of Sail and the world wars indicate that this type of stalemate generally breaks in the direction of the stronger naval power as long as it is willing and able over the long term to pay the costs of the defense.

We cannot, however, rely on the easy answer that the past always provides a guide in the present. It is important to consider whether the cost to commercial carriers and the latest technological advances work together to favor a Jeune École-type argument or if navies can sustain their presence and continue to effectively exercise command of the sea.

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Kevin D. McCranie is the Philip A. Crowl Professor of Comparative Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College. He is the author of Mahan, Corbett, and the Foundations of Naval Strategic Thought. The positions expressed in this article are the author’s alone and do not represent those of the Naval War College, the U.S. Navy, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Kevin McCranie · April 16, 2024

26. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, April 15, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-april-15-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Iran: Israeli officials have emphasized the need to respond to the Iranian drone and missile attack but have not specified how or when they will do so.
• Western and Israeli officials have maintained that the Iranian drone and missile attack into Israel was meant to impose a severe cost on Israel.
• Three unnamed US officials stated that roughly 50 percent of the ballistic missiles that Iran fired at Israel either failed to launch or crashed before reaching their target.
• Gaza Strip: Hamas demanded several new concessions from Israel in its counteroffer to the US-proposed ceasefire agreement.
• West Bank: Israeli settlers conducted a shooting attack and killed two Palestinians in Aqraba, which is near Nablus.
• Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: Lebanese Hezbollah has conducted at least six attacks around the Israel-Lebanon border.
• Iraq: Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al Sudani traveled to Washington, DC, to discuss bilateral US-Iraqi relations.
• Yemen: US CENTCOM stated that the Houthis launched an anti-ship ballistic missile toward the Gulf of Aden but did not damage any vessels.

IRAN UPDATE, APRIL 15, 2024

Apr 15, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Iran Update, April 15, 2024

Andie Parry, Alexandra Braverman, Kathryn Tyson, Kitaneh Fitzpatrick, Peter Mills, and Nicholas Carl

Information Cutoff: 2:00pm 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.

Israeli officials have emphasized the need to respond to the Iranian drone and missile attack but have not specified how or when they will do so.[1] An unnamed US official told Axios that Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a phone call on April 15 that Israel has “no choice” but to respond to the Iranian attack.[2] Gallant stated that Israel will not allow ballistic missiles to be launched against its territory without a response. An unnamed Israeli official told NBC News that Israel’s response may be “imminent” following an Israeli war cabinet meeting on April 15. The official added that any Israeli response will be coordinated with the United States.[3]

Western and Israeli officials have maintained that the Iranian drone and missile attack into Israel on April 13 was meant to impose a severe cost on Israel—rather than the attack being symbolic and meant to fail.[4] US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby stated on April 15 that Iran sought to cause “extensive damage inside Israel” but failed due to US, Israeli, and partner efforts to intercept the Iranian projectiles.[5] Kirby’s remarks are consistent with other unnamed senior Biden administration officials telling Western media that Iran intended for the attack to cause “significant damage” and be “highly destructive.”[6] Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi similarly emphasized that Iran intended to harm the “strategic capabilities” of Israel but was unsuccessful during a statement at IDF Nevatim airbase on April 15.[7]

These statements from Western and Israeli officials are consistent with CTP-ISW's assessment that the Iranian drone and missile attack was meant to penetrate Israeli air defenses and enable missile impacts inside Israel, thus causing greater damage than the attack actually did. The attack was designed to succeed—not to fail. The strike package was modeled on those that Russia has used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect.[8]

Three unnamed US officials told the Wall Street Journal on April 14 that roughly 50 percent of the ballistic missiles that Iran fired at Israel either failed to launch or crashed before reaching their target.[9] US officials stated that Iran launched between 115 and 130 ballistic missiles at Israel in its attack.

Key Takeaways:

• Iran: Israeli officials have emphasized the need to respond to the Iranian drone and missile attack but have not specified how or when they will do so.
• Western and Israeli officials have maintained that the Iranian drone and missile attack into Israel was meant to impose a severe cost on Israel.
• Three unnamed US officials stated that roughly 50 percent of the ballistic missiles that Iran fired at Israel either failed to launch or crashed before reaching their target.
• Gaza Strip: Hamas demanded several new concessions from Israel in its counteroffer to the US-proposed ceasefire agreement.
• West Bank: Israeli settlers conducted a shooting attack and killed two Palestinians in Aqraba, which is near Nablus.
• Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: Lebanese Hezbollah has conducted at least six attacks around the Israel-Lebanon border.
• Iraq: Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al Sudani traveled to Washington, DC, to discuss bilateral US-Iraqi relations.
• Yemen: US CENTCOM stated that the Houthis launched an anti-ship ballistic missile toward the Gulf of Aden but did not damage any vessels.

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 IDF Nahal Brigade continued to conduct clearing operations at the seam of the northern and central Gaza Strip on April 15 to secure Israeli-built highway Route 749 and other nearby Israeli military sites.[10] The IDF has dubbed this zone the Netzarim corridor. The Nahal Brigade killed 15 Palestinian fighters around the corridor over the past day.[11]

The IDF activated two reserve brigades on April 14 for combat operations in the Gaza Strip.[12] An Israeli Army Radio journalist reported on April 15 that the IDF 2nd Carmeli Brigade and 679th Armored Brigade will deploy to secure the Netzarim corridor and the temporary US-built pier in the central Gaza Strip.[13] The two brigades will replace elements of the 162nd Division in the Gaza Strip, enabling the division to conduct raids in other parts of the Gaza Strip.[14]

Israeli forces continued to conduct raids around Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on April 15.[15] Elements of the IDF 162nd Division, including the Nahal and 401st brigades, are operating in the area to kill Palestinian fighters and destroy military infrastructure.[16] The IDF Nahal Brigade destroyed buildings and military infrastructure used by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in the central Gaza Strip. The brigade also directed airstrikes targeting Palestinian fighters and seized weapons. PIJ mortared an IDF headquarters near the University of Palestine, north of Wadi Gaza, on April 14.[17]

Three Palestinian militias targeted Israeli forces in eastern Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on April 15. Israeli forces continue to operate there, along the Israel-Gaza Strip border, to clear a one-kilometer buffer zone. The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, which is the self-proclaimed military wing of Fatah, reported that its fighters mortared Israeli armor east of Jabalia cemetery.[18] PIJ and the Palestinian Mujahedeen movement posted videos of their fighters targeting Israeli forces with heavy mounted machine guns in eastern Jabalia on April 15.[19] CTP-ISW cannot verify when the groups recorded the footage.

The IDF Arabic-language spokesperson reiterated on April 15 that Palestinians cannot return to the northern Gaza Strip, calling the area “a dangerous combat zone.”[20] The IDF asked Gazans to remain in humanitarian zones and shelters in the southern Gaza Strip.[21] The statement marks the spokesperson’s second such appeal in two days, indicating that migration to the north remains a problem for the IDF.[22]Hamas has made the return of Gazans to the north a consistent demand in the ceasefire negotiations.[23]

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant held a meeting on April 15 to identify "necessary civilian operations" to accomplish before an IDF clearing operation into Rafah. The minister focused on the need to evacuate civilians from Rafah and increase food and medical supply transfers into the Gaza Strip.[24] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on April 8 that he had set a date for the clearing operation into Rafah.[25]

Hamas demanded several new concessions from Israel in its counteroffer to the US-proposed ceasefire agreement, according to one Israeli official.[26] Hamas rejected the US-proposed ceasefire and hostage-for-prisoner exchange deal on April 13 hours before the Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel.[27] The Israeli source claimed that Hamas sought to release only 20 Israeli hostages for a six-week ceasefire—half of the hostages reportedly proposed by the United States.[28] Hamas also reportedly asked for a higher ratio of hostage-for-prisoners and for more life-sentenced Palestinian prisoners to be released.[29] A recent Western report indicated that the US-proposal had a ratio of one Israel hostage for 17.5 Palestinian prisoners [30] White House spokesperson John Kirby said on April 15 that the United States believes that its proposal is still possible and that he is unaware of another proposal.”[31]

Palestinian fighters did not conduct any indirect fire attacks from the Gaza Strip into Israel on April 15.

West Bank

Axis of Resistance objectives:

• Establish the West Bank as a viable front against Israel

Israeli forces engaged Palestinian fighters in Nablus on April 14 and 15.[32] The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades fired small arms and detonated IEDs targeting Israeli forces there.[33]

Israeli settlers conducted a shooting attack and killed two Palestinians in Aqraba, which is near Nablus, on April 15, according to Israeli media.[34] The IDF said that the attack followed a violent confrontation between a Jewish shepherd and Palestinian in the area.[35] The IDF said that Israeli forces responded to the scene and tried to diffuse the conflict after the shooting.[36] The IDF and Israeli police are investigating the incident.[37] Israeli media has reported an uptick in settler attacks in the West Bank following the murder of an Israeli boy near the Malachi Hashalom settlement on April 12.[38]

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 six attacks around the Israel-Lebanon border since CTP-ISW's last data cutoff on April 14.[39] The IDF said that an explosion injured four IDF soldiers in the “border area” of northern Israel on April 15.[40] Hezbollah said that it detonated “explosive devices” targeting IDF members in Tal Ismail, Lebanon, as they crossed the border into Lebanon.[41]

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

Iran and Axis of Resistance

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al Sudani met with US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington, D.C., on April 15 to discuss bilateral US–Iraqi relations.[42] Sudani stated during his meeting with Biden that he aimed to discuss a “360-degree strategic partnership” and transition from a “military security-based relationship to a comprehensive economic, political, environmental, educational, and security partnership according to the Strategic Framework Agreement”.[43] CTP–ISW has previously assessed that Sudani is attempting to retain some US force presence in Iraq, but this policy places Sudani at odds with Iranian-backed groups which demand a full US withdrawal from Iraq.[44]

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq—a coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—threatened on April 12 to renew its attack campaign targeting US forces in Iraq if there is a bilateral agreement between the United States and Iraq that permits US forces to remain.[45]

Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah congratulated Iran for its recent drone and missile attack on Israel and framed the attack as a success for penetrating Israeli air defense systems.[46] Western media reported that four out of the 100+ ballistic missiles launched by Iran penetrated Israeli air defenses and hit an IDF airbase in southern Israel.[47] Israeli media reported that the airbase suffered minimal damage.[48] Kataib Hezbollah also said that “the shame would haunt the rulers of Jordan” for supporting the US and Israeli effort to intercept Iranian projectiles.[49]

The IDF announced the interception of two drones approaching Israel. The IDF Navy intercepted a drone approaching near Eilat from the Red Sea on April 14.[50] The IDF separately reported on April 15 that it intercepted a drone approaching Israeli territory “from the east.”[51] Neither Iran nor an Iranian-backed group have claimed either attack at the time of this writing.

US CENTCOM stated that the Houthis launched an anti-ship ballistic missile toward the Gulf of Aden on April 13 but did not damage any vessels.[52] US CENTCOM destroyed four Houthi drones in Taiz Governorate on April 14 following the Houthi anti-ship ballistic missile attack.[53]

Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian held phone calls with several of his foreign counterparts on April 14 and 15. Abdollahian spoke with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom, among others. Abdollahian claimed that the recent Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel was “legitimate self-defense” under Article 51 on the UN charter.[54] Abdollahian reiterated that, if Israel responds, the next Iranian attack would be “immediate, stronger, and more extensive.“[55] The foreign ministers of Egypt, Germany, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom separately emphasized the need for regional de-escalation in their phone calls with Abdollahian.

The Iranian Law Enforcement Command (LEC) resumed enforcing mandatory veiling throughout Tehran on April 13. LEC Tehran Provincial Unit Commander Brig. Gen. Abbas Ali Mohammadian announced that his forces would begin penalizing unveiled women on April 13.[56] Iranian social media users have correspondingly reported a sharp uptick in morality and veiling enforcement throughout Tehran City since then.[57] This enforcement involves arrests, fines, and verbal warnings.[58] Some users have reported similar enforcement activity in other cities, such as Karaj, Mashhad, and Yazd.[59] The Iranian regime reduced the number of morality patrols following the killing of Mahsa Amini in September 2022, although it did not entirely stop policing unveiled women in the months following her death.[60] Iranian social media users additionally noted an increased security presence in some Tehran universities in recent days, with some female dormitories reportedly requiring facial recognition technology for entry.[61] The full resumption of enforcing modesty standards in Tehran follows Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s call for mandatory veiling on April 3.[62]

Resumed veiling enforcement could exacerbate already existing anti-regime sentiments in Iran, especially amid deteriorating economic conditions and the ongoing escalation with Israel. One reformist-affiliated Iranian outlet wrote that the LEC risked submerging the country into a “state of crisis” following the recent Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel and compared the increased security presence in Tehran to an “invasion.”[63]

The Iranian rial separately reached a record low of 670,500 to one US dollar on April 12.[64]

27. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 15, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-15-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian officials continue to warn that US security assistance is vital to Ukrainian forces’ ability to defend against current and future Russian offensive operations forecasted to begin in late spring and summer.
• A senior Estonian military official described intensified Russian offensive frontline operations and deep rear area strike campaigns as intended to degrade both Ukraine’s will to fight and Western unity.
• Russian forces continue to adapt their drone tactics along the frontline as part of an offense-defense arms race to mitigate Ukrainian technological adaptions to offset Russian materiel advantages along the frontline.
• Russian officials doubled down on efforts to amplify Iran’s “justification” for the April 13 large-scale Iranian strikes against Israel that falsely equates them with an April 1 Israeli strike targeting Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials in Damascus.
• A Russian insider source claimed that Russian officials are preparing to redeploy some former Wagner Group elements serving in Africa Corps to Belgorod Oblast.
• Crimean occupation administration head Sergei Aksyonov passed a decree restricting migrant labor in occupied Crimea, undermining the Kremlin’s effort to mitigate labor shortages.
• Russian state media seized on Georgian protests against a proposed law similar to Russia’s “foreign agent” law, likely as part of Kremlin efforts to amplify political discord in Georgia.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Siversk (northeast of Bakhmut), Avdiivka, and west of Donetsk City on April 15.
• Russian prosecution rates of men who had fled compulsory military service have reportedly increased since fall 2022.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 15, 2024

Apr 15, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 15, 2024

Christina Harward, Grace Mappes, Nicole Wolkov, Kateryna Stepanenko, and George Barros

April 15, 2024, 8pm 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 1:15pm ET on April 15. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the April 16 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Ukrainian officials continue to warn that US security assistance is vital to Ukrainian forces’ ability to defend against current and future Russian offensive operations forecasted to begin in late spring and summer. Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Head Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov stated that Ukrainian forces are preparing to repel a future Russian major offensive expected in late May or the beginning of June but noted that this will be “catastrophically difficult” without Western military assistance.[1] Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov stated on April 14 that the current situation in eastern Ukraine is “tense” and that Russian forces are focusing their efforts west of Bakhmut in the Chasiv Yar direction.[2] Umerov stated that Ukrainian forces are successfully using modern technology against Russia’s larger quantities of personnel. The spokesperson for the Ukrainian Khortysia Group of Forces, Lieutenant Colonel Nazar Voloshyn, stated on April 15 that Ukrainian forces in the Bakhmut and Avdiivka directions can only use one to five artillery shells for every 10 artillery shells that Russian forces fire, but that Ukrainian artillery is more precise than Russian artillery.[3] Ukrainian forces’ ability to repel recently intensified Russian offensive operations in eastern Ukraine has degraded due to materiel shortages and will likely continue to degrade in the near future should delays in US security assistance continue.[4] ISW continues to assess that Russian forces are currently capitalizing on Ukrainian materiel shortages resulting from the lack of US security assistance to make marginal tactical advances but that future Russian assaults may be able to achieve more significant and threatening gains, particularly west of Bakhmut, should the US continue to withhold assistance to Ukraine.[5]

A senior Estonian military official described intensified Russian offensive frontline operations and deep rear area strike campaigns as intended to degrade both Ukraine’s will to fight and Western unity. Chief of the Estonian General Staff Major General Enno Mots stated in an interview published on April 14 that Russian forces’ attempts to exploit vulnerabilities on the frontline across the theater — which Mots described as “amoeba tactics” — and Russia’s escalation of deep rear strikes are attritional tactics ultimately aimed at exploiting the Ukrainian military’s current materiel shortages, which is consistent with ISW’s recent observations about Ukrainian air defense, artillery, and manpower shortages.[6] Mots noted that Ukraine needs significant resources for repelling Russian aggression and reconstruction, and that fragmenting Western unity creates a dilemma that interrupts the “smooth” timely and consistent flow of supplies to Ukraine, ultimately backfiring and reducing support for Ukraine.[7] Mots’ interview underscores several salient observations, including: that US failures to provide timely and consistent military aid to Ukraine (which only the US can provide at scale) has negative ripple effective on Ukraine‘s international partners globally; that materiel shortages are forcing Ukraine to husband materiel and prioritize areas of the front at the expense of others; and that persistent Russian information operations are aimed at convincing Western policymakers that Russia can and will outlast Western military assistance to Ukraine.[8] Mots emphasized that Russia does not care about manpower or materiel losses. Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksandr Lytvynenko similarly stressed that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “addicted” to the idea conquering Ukraine and will not give up his aims of completely seizing Ukraine and destroying the Ukrainian state.[9] Lytvynenko emphasized the importance of not conceding territory to Putin and ensuring meaningful Western security guarantees for Ukraine to deter future aggression.[10]

Russian forces continue to adapt their drone tactics along the frontline as part of an offense-defense arms race to mitigate Ukrainian technological adaptions designed to offset Russian materiel advantages along the frontline. Ukrainian drone operators told the Washington Post in an article published on April 14 that the number of drones that both Russian and Ukrainian forces use has made the battlefield “almost transparent,” but that Russian forces have significantly increased electronic warfare (EW) jamming since fall 2023.[11] The Ukrainian drone operators stated that it can be difficult to distinguish between Ukrainian and Russian drones because about 100 Russian and Ukrainian reconnaissance and attack drones can operate simultaneously within a 10-kilometer radius. The Ukrainian drone operators also reported that Russian forces understand how valuable Ukrainian drone operators are and specifically target them with guided glide bomb and multiple rocket launch system (MLRS) strikes. A Ukrainian drone instructor and brigade commander stated on April 15 that the Russian defense industrial base (DIB) is rapidly developing drones that operate at a wide range of frequences to make it more difficult for Ukrainian EW systems to down them, and observed that both sides are increasingly using first-person view (FPV) drones that were not as prominent a year ago.[12] The instructor reported that his brigade detects 70 to 90 FPV drones per day but cannot down all of them, and that Russian forces sometimes equip drones with munitions that can detonate after Ukrainian forces down them. ISW has observed an increase in Russian reconnaissance and FPV drone usage along the frontline and Russian complaints about the lack of sufficient EW, especially in southern Ukraine, in fall 2023.[13]

Russian officials doubled down on efforts to amplify Iran’s “justification” for the April 13 large-scale Iranian strikes against Israel that falsely equates them with an April 1 Israeli strike targeting Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials in Damascus. Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) Vasily Nebenzya claimed at an April 14 UN Security Council (UNSC) meeting that Iran conducted the April 13 strikes in response to the UNSC’s inaction following Israel’s April 1 strike against IRGC officials. Nebeznya also claimed that Israel constantly bombs Syria.[14] Nebenzya called on Israel to “abandon its military actions in the Middle East” and reiterated Russian calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.[15] Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed that Russia opposes escalation and supports a political and diplomatic resolution of conflicts in the Middle East.[16] The Russian government will likely continue to amplify information operations designed to justify Iran’s April 13 strikes against Israel to the international community.

A Russian insider source claimed that Russian officials are preparing to redeploy some former Wagner Group elements serving in Africa Corps to Belgorod Oblast. The insider source claimed on April 15 that the Kremlin believes that Russian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GRU) Lieutenant General Andrei Averyanov failed to meet the Kremlin’s deadlines to develop the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD)-controlled Africa Corps.[17] The insider source claimed that Russian authorities are preparing to redeploy unspecified detachments of the Africa Corps from Africa to Belgorod Oblast. The insider source implied that the Wagner Group’s ongoing efforts to recruit personnel for its activities in Africa are actually meant to recruit personnel to deploy to Belgorod Oblast. Russian Africa Corps soldiers deployed to Niger on April 12, and it is unclear if the insider source is claiming that the Africa Corps will cease operations in Africa completely or if only some Africa Corps detachments will redeploy to the Ukrainian-Russian border area.[18] Averyanov previously participated in the Russian delegation that met with officials in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali and appeared to be heavily involved in the Russian government’s efforts to subsume the Wagner Group.[19] Averyanov is notably the commander of GRU unit 29155, who is responsible for the 2018 assassination attempt against Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom and whom a joint investigation by 60 Minutes, Der Spiegel, and the Insider has recently implicated in non-lethal directed energy or acoustic weapons attacks against US government personnel within the US and internationally.[20]

Crimean occupation administration head Sergei Aksyonov passed a decree restricting migrant labor in occupied Crimea, undermining the Kremlin’s effort to mitigate labor shortages. The decree banned businesses from hiring migrants for 35 different types of jobs, including transportation, agriculture and food production, natural resource supplies, public utilities, trade (except trade in motor vehicles and motorcycles), culture, and education.[21] The decree notably does not ban migrants from construction work, which indicates that Crimean occupation officials may be able to legally employ migrants to build fortifications, logistics routes, or other infrastructure in support of Russia’s war effort.[22] Aksyonov stated that the uncontrolled presence of labor migrants in occupied Crimea and in Russia is “unacceptable” and that Crimean occupation law enforcement identified more than 500 individuals who had violated Russian migration laws.[23] Russian authorities have notably imported migrants from Russia to occupied Ukraine as part of efforts to repopulate and rebuild in occupied areas, as ISW has previously reported.[24] Some Russian milbloggers welcomed these restrictions and noted that Russian officials should enforce more measures to control migrant labor and enforce stricter visa and citizenship requirements.[25] Aksyonov’s decree and milblogger suggestions, however, contradict the Kremlin’s recent attempts to balance opposing efforts to set social expectations for a protracted Russian war effort and to assuage Russian society’s concerns about the economic consequences of the war and labor migration.[26] Putin implied on April 4 that Russia needs to continue importing foreign laborers given that Russia will experience a high demand for human capital and face labor shortages in the coming years.[27] ISW assessed on April 4 that Putin appeared to be telling Russia’s xenophobic ultra-nationalist community that Russia must continue to rely on migration, while Aksyonov’s decree appears to be directly appealing to this ultra-nationalist community while disregarding Putin’s messaging.

Russian state media seized on Georgian protests against a proposed law similar to Russia’s “foreign agent” law, likely as part of Kremlin efforts to amplify political discord in Georgia. Kremlin newswire TASS reported extensively on Georgian parliamentary debates on April 15 about a proposed law that would require non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that receive more than 20 percent of their budget from foreign sources to register as “an organization pursuing the interests of a foreign power” - a label that notably replaces the term “foreign agent” that Russia uses and was featured in previous versions of the proposed law.[28] The Georgian parliament passed the first reading of the bill in 2023, then withdrew it from further consideration following widespread public protests opposing the bill.[29] TASS particularly focused on the protests in Tbilisi against the proposed law and repeatedly emphasized that Western diplomats in Georgia, such as the EU mission and US embassy in Georgia, opposed the bill.[30] Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitri Peskov responded on April 4 to the reintroduction of the bill in the Georgian Parliament and called claims that this is a “Russian project” absurd.[31] Peskov claimed that such laws are a “global practice” and that “no sovereign states wants interference from other countries in domestic politics.” Russian media similarly largely highlighted public protests and societal discord during the 2023 protests in opposition to the first version of the foreign agent law.[32] Russia has routinely attempted to portray Ukraine’s and other post-Soviet countries’ politics as chaotic in an attempt to destabilize target states and make them easier for Russia to influence or outright attack.[33]

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian officials continue to warn that US security assistance is vital to Ukrainian forces’ ability to defend against current and future Russian offensive operations forecasted to begin in late spring and summer.
• A senior Estonian military official described intensified Russian offensive frontline operations and deep rear area strike campaigns as intended to degrade both Ukraine’s will to fight and Western unity.
• Russian forces continue to adapt their drone tactics along the frontline as part of an offense-defense arms race to mitigate Ukrainian technological adaptions to offset Russian materiel advantages along the frontline.
• Russian officials doubled down on efforts to amplify Iran’s “justification” for the April 13 large-scale Iranian strikes against Israel that falsely equates them with an April 1 Israeli strike targeting Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials in Damascus.
• A Russian insider source claimed that Russian officials are preparing to redeploy some former Wagner Group elements serving in Africa Corps to Belgorod Oblast.
• Crimean occupation administration head Sergei Aksyonov passed a decree restricting migrant labor in occupied Crimea, undermining the Kremlin’s effort to mitigate labor shortages.
• Russian state media seized on Georgian protests against a proposed law similar to Russia’s “foreign agent” law, likely as part of Kremlin efforts to amplify political discord in Georgia.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Siversk (northeast of Bakhmut), Avdiivka, and west of Donetsk City on April 15.
• Russian prosecution rates of men who had fled compulsory military service have reportedly increased since fall 2022.

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)

The Ukrainian State Border Guard Service reported on April 15 that Ukrainian border guards repelled a Russian sabotage and reconnaissance group that attempted to cross the international border in an unspecified area in Sumy Oblast on April 14.[34]

Positional engagements continued near Kreminna on April 15, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline. Positional engagements continued west of Kreminna near Terny and south of Kreminna near Bilohorivka.[35] Elements of the Russian 7th Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Luhansk People’s Republic [LNR] Army Corps [AC]) reportedly continue operating near Bilohorivka.[36]

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

Russian forces recently made confirmed advances northeast of Bakhmut near Siversk. Geolocated footage published on April 9 indicates that elements of the Russian 123rd Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Luhansk People’s Republic [LNR] Army Corps [AC]) advanced northwest of Vesele (northeast of Bakhmut and south of Siversk).[37] Positional engagements continued near Spirne (northeast of Bakhmut and east of Siversk) and Vesele.[38] Elements of the Russian “Irbis” detachment (Russian Volunteer Corps) are reportedly operating near Soledar (northeast of Bakhmut and south of Siversk), and elements of the Russian 106th Airborne (VDV) Division are reportedly operating in the Siversk direction.[39]

Russian sources claimed that Russian forces advanced near Chasiv Yar on April 15, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced in the Kanal microraion in easternmost Chasiv Yar, and one Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced 300 meters on the eastern outskirts of Chasiv Yar.[40] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced on the northeastern outskirts of Chasiv Yar in the dacha area.[41] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces advanced near the Stupky-Holubivski 2 nature reserve (south of the Kanal microraion).[42] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces also advanced near Bohdanivka (northeast of Chasiv Yar), Kalynivka (north of Chasiv Yar) and Ivanivske (southeast of Chasiv Yar).[43] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claimed advances, however. Positional engagements continued in southeastern Chasiv Yar near the Novyi microraion; in the Kanal microraion; southeast of Chasiv Yar near Ivanivske, Andriivka, Klishchiivka, and Kurdymivka; and south of Chasiv Yar near Niu York.[44] Spokesperson for the Ukrainian Khortysia Group of Forces Lieutenant Colonel Nazar Voloshyn reported that Russian forces are trying to seize Chasiv Yar by advancing on the flanks near Bohdanivka and Ivanivske and that Russian forces are dropping 20 to 30 guided glide bombs in the area per day.[45] Elements of the Russian 200th Motorized Rifle Brigade (Leningrad Military District) are reportedly operating near Kalynivka; elements of the Russian 98th VDV Division are reportedly operating near the Kanal microraion; elements of the Chechen Akhmat Spetsnaz forces and the 4th Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd LNR AC) are reportedly operating near Klishchiivka; and elements of the Sever-V Brigade (Russian Volunteer Corps) and 58th Spetsnaz Battalion (1st Donetsk People’s Republic [DNR] AC) are reportedly operating near Chasiv Yar.[46]

Russian forces recently advanced near Avdiivka. Geolocated footage published on April 15 indicates that Russian forces advanced in central Semenivka (west of Avdiivka), and Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced in the area.[47] Additional geolocated footage published on April 14 indicates that Russian forces advanced southeast of Novobakhmutivka (northwest of Avdiivka), and a Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces are approaching the outskirts of Ocheretyne (northwest of Avdiivka and north of Novobakhmutivka).[48] Russian milbloggers also claimed that Russian forces simultaneously advanced to the eastern part of the Zorya community garden (east of Novobakhmutivka and southeast of Ocheretyne) and reached the outskirts of Novobakhmutivka, and that Russian forces also advanced south of Novobakhmutivka.[49] Russian milbloggers also claimed that Russian forces advanced south of Umanske (west of Avdiivka) and north of Berdychi (northwest of Avdiivka).[50] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these Russian claims. Positional engagements continued northwest of Avdiivka near Novokalynove and Novobakhmutivka; west of Avdiivka near Umanske, Berdychi, and Semenivka; and southwest of Avdiivka near Pervomaiske and Netaylove.[51]

Ukrainian and Russian forces recently made confirmed advances west and southwest of Donetsk City. Geolocated footage published on April 14 indicates that Ukrainian forces regained positions in southwestern Novomykhailivka (southwest of Donetsk City).[52] Additional geolocated footage published on April 14 and 15 indicates that Russian forces advanced southeast of Krasnohorivka (west of Donetsk City) and in northwestern Pobieda (southwest of Donetsk City), respectively.[53] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced north of Novomykhailivka and in the settlement itself.[54] Positional engagements continued west of Donetsk City near Krasnohorivka and southwest of Donetsk City near Pobieda and Novomykhailivka.[55] Elements of the Russian 238th Artillery Brigade (8th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Southern Military District [SMD]) and 5th Motorized Rifle Brigade (1st DNR AC) are reportedly operating near Krasnohorivka.[56] Elements of the 103rd Motorized Rifle Regiment (150th Motorized Rifle Division, 8th CAA, SMD) are reportedly operating near Heorhiivka (west of Donetsk City).[57]

Positional engagements continued in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on April 15, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline. A Russian milblogger vaguely claimed that elements of the Russian 37th Motorized Rifle Brigade (36th CAA, Eastern Military District [EMD]) and 114th Motorized Rifle Regiment (127th Motorized Rifle Division, 5th CAA, EMD) advanced in the Velyka Novosilka area, although ISW has not observed visual evidence of this claim.[58] Positional engagements continued south of Velyka Novosilka near Urozhaine and Staromayorske and southwest of Velyka Novosilka near Pryyutne.[59] Elements of the Russian 11th Air Force and Air Defense Army (Russian Aerospace Forces [VKS] and EMD) reportedly continued conducting FAB glide bomb strikes in the Velyka Novosilka area.[60]

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

Positional fighting continued in western Zaporizhia Oblast on April 15, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline. Positional fighting continued in southern Robotyne, northwest of Verbove (east of Robotyne), and southwest of Bilohirya (northeast of Robotyne).[61] Elements of the Russian 71st Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Southern Military District [SMD]) continue fighting near Robotyne.[62]

Ukrainian forces conducted strikes against occupied Berdyansk, Zaporizhia Oblast and Crimea on April 15. Ukrainian Mariupol Mayoral Advisor Petro Andryushchenko reported that Ukrainian forces struck a Russian military base at the Pivdenhydromash manufacturing plant in Berdyansk.[63] Russian authorities claimed that Russian air defenses intercepted two Ukrainian Storm Shadow missiles, but some Russian sources claimed that the missiles hit unspecified targets.[64] Ukrainian outlet Suspilne and BBC Russian Service cited sources in Ukrainian security services as confirming a Ukrainian strike on a Russian command post with unspecified high-ranking Russian officials in occupied Crimea.[65]

Positional fighting continued in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast near Krynky on April 15.[66]

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

Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported on April 15 that Russian forces struck Kirovohrad Oblast with unspecified missiles.[67] Ukraine’s National police reported that Russian forces struck central Slovyansk, Donetsk Oblast with a “Grom-E1” missile a hybrid missile based on a Russian Kh-38 air-to-surface missile with a maximum range of 120 kilometers.[68] Russian forces previously used Grom-E1 missiles to strike Myrnohrad, Donetsk Oblast on March 13 and Kupyansk and Borova, Kharkiv Oblast on April 13.[69]

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

Russian prosecution rates of men who had fled compulsory military service have reportedly increased since fall 2022. Independent Russian outlet Mediazona reported that Russian officials sentence 34 men every day for avoiding compulsory military service.[70] Mediazona reported that Russian officials examined 700 cases of Russian men avoiding military service in March 2024 alone, reportedly marking the highest rate of military service evasion. Mediazona calculated that Russian courts considered 7,300 cases concerning Russian servicemen who went absent without leave since the Kremlin’s announcement of partial mobilization in September 2022.

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

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on April 14 that the Russian defense industrial base (DIB) companies continue to evade international sanctions to procure foreign components for Russian missiles and drones. Zelensky reported that that the Russian DIB continues to import electronics and chips used in Russian missiles and Shahed drones through foreign companies that transit the components through countries neighboring Russia.[71] BBC News Russian Service similarly reported on April 15 that sanctioned Russian military shipyards continue to source European-made components through Croatian and Italian companies.[72] BBC News Russian Service identified that a Croatian company, which supplies deck equipment for civilian vessels and military ships, continued to supply the Russian Severnya Verf shipyard in St. Petersburg and Zelenodolsk plant in the Republic of Tatarstan despite long-standing Western sanctions against these shipyards.[73] BBC News Russian Service added that Russia also acquires ship cranes and other parts from an Italian company via intermediary companies.

A Russian milblogger claimed that the Russian military began to deliver BMR-3MA Vepr mine clearing vehicles to Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.[74] The milblogger claimed that the Vepr mine clearing vehicles are equipped with the newest TMT-S mine clearing trawls, which will help Russian forces clear minefields and advance at a faster pace.

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

The Ukrainian defense industrial base (DIB) developed new drones and launched new projects aimed at accelerating new weapon production rates. Spokesperson of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) Artem Dekhtiatenko announced that the Ukrainian DIB recently upgraded “Sea Baby” naval drones to carry almost a ton of explosives to hit targets at a range of about 1,000km.[75] Dekhtiatenko added that these drones will allow Ukraine to strike Russian naval targets almost anywhere in the Black Sea. Ukrainian Deputy Commander-in-Chief Colonel Andriy Lebedenko announced that Ukrainian forces and Ministry of Strategic Industries are launching the “Iron Range” initiative within a month to support Ukrainian DIB manufacturers and shortened the production time for new weapons.[76] Lebedenko stated that it was more challenging for manufacturers to test weapons and access training grounds for weapons testing prior to the “Iron Range” initiative and added that Ukrainian officials will use this initiative to support the development of robotic systems, drones, and electronic warfare (EW) systems. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister for Digital Transformation, Kateryna Chernohorenko, announced that the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (MoD) concluded a memorandum on the development of the Ukrainian “UA DroneID” technology with the Ministry of Digital Transformation, Aerorozvidka (a Ukrainian non-government organization focused on drone technology), and data security software company CossackLabs.[77] Chernohorenko stated that UA DroneID technology will help Ukrainian forces to integrate and deconflict command and control for drones, including with NATO partners, minimize friendly fire, preserve Ukrainian drones, and analyze drone usage.

Participating countries in the Ukrainian Drone Coalition pledged on April 14 and 15 to allocate additional funds and transfer drones to Ukraine. The Ukrainian MoD announced that Lithuania will allocate three million euros ($3.2 million) to produce first-person view (FPV) drones for Ukraine and that the Netherlands confirmed its intent to contract a batch of Heidrun RQ-35 reconnaissance drones for 200 million euros ($212.5 million) in cooperation with Denmark and Germany.[78] The Ukrainian MoD added that Germany will also transfer VECTOR 211 reconnaissance drones to Ukraine, and Ukraine’s Army of Drones initiative announced that Canada will transfer 450 SkyRanger drones to Ukraine in summer 2024 through the Drone Coalition framework.[79]

Ukraine’s European partners continue to pledge and provide additional military and humanitarian support to Ukraine. The Netherlands announced on April 15 the allocation of an additional 4.4 billion euros (nearly $4.7 billion) for Ukrainian military and humanitarian needs from 2024 to 2026.[80] The Lithuanian MoD announced on April 11 that Lithuania delivered a new aid package to Ukraine including anti-drone systems, generators, and cots.[81] Lithuanian Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite stated on April 14 that Lithuania is currently ready to provide 400,000 euros ($425,056) in part to help rehabilitate Ukrainian servicemen.[82] Montenegro’s MoD announced on April 12 that Montenegro will join the European Union (EU) mission to train Ukrainian forces.[83] The UK government announced on April 10 that British aerospace, defense, and information security company BAE Systems agreed to maintain and repair Ukrainian L119 howitzers.[84] Ukrainian and UK officials also signed a cooperation agreement for the procurement of defense materials on April 10.[85]

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 area today.

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

Russian officials and pro-Kremlin sources continue doubling down on their information operation aimed at falsely portraying military assistance to Ukraine and NATO defensive measures as escalatory to deter further military assistance to Ukraine and push the West to negotiate with Russia. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov claimed that the US must “radically” change its policies towards Russia and return to negotiations about “strategic stability” but that current US behavior makes it so that prospects of such measures are “very gloomy.”[86] Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko reiterated the Kremlin’s boilerplate rhetoric falsely framing Finland‘s and Sweden’s NATO accession as escalatory and a situation to which Russia must respond.[87] Russian milbloggers also framed NATO assistance to Ukraine as escalatory and claimed that Russia is unable to agree to any peace plan in which Ukraine is not “loyal” to Russia.[88]

The Ukrainian Center for Disinformation published a list of more than 60 X (formerly Twitter) accounts that spread pro-Russian propaganda on April 15, including accounts of Kremlin officials, Russian state media, and other propaganda accounts.[89]

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)

Russia and Belarus are strengthening partnership in aircraft production and will likely strengthen their ability to jointly produce combat aircraft for Russia to use in Ukraine. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced during a meeting with Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko on April 15 that he and Golovchenko signed an agreement on joint Russian-Belarusian production of Osvey light multipurpose aircraft.[90] Mishustin stated that Russia and Belarus are working to deepen cooperation in aircraft production through the Union State framework.

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.

28.

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