Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"How wonderful it is that nobody needs to wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." -

– Ann Frank

"Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it."

– Robert Heinlein

"We do not acquire humility. There is humility in us - only we humiliate ourselves before false gods."

– Simone Weil

1. There is only one war going on and it is global

2. Looking for a Fight

3. Cyberattacks Surge 325% in Philippines Amid South China Sea Standoff

4. Drone-and-Missile Warfare Tests Supply-Strapped Defense Systems

5. Emboldened Iran Makes Dangerous Gamble on Open Confrontation

6. Ukraine’s Chances of Pushing Russia Out Look Increasingly Grim

7. Iran's Attack on Israel: Four Important Lessons for Ukraine and World

8. The Liberator’s Dilemma: The Paradox of American Leadership

9. "Two Arrows Crossed" A History of U.S. Army Special Forces Branch Insignia

10. Israel’s near-perfect missile success had a special line of defense

11. Putin's Dangerous Delusions

12. Minxin Pei on China’s economy, surveillance state, repression of dissent, and more

13. Matthews: The new ‘Axil of Evil’ is bigger, better armed and power-hungry

14. The desperate alignment of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea

15. Philippines, US forces to train retaking island in joint drills

16. Meet the Marine aviator of the year ― an unmanned aerial vehicle pilot

17. Korean War hero Ralph Puckett to lie in honor at US Capitol

18. ‘Indefinite’ Defense Department IDs Inconvenience Air Travelers, May Be Dropped As Acceptable Identification

19. NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his public criticism

20. China’s Hands Are Tied Against Tangle of US Alliances

21. Under Biden, US Reimagines Asian Alliances As ‘Lattice’ Fence – Analysis

22. PacNet #22 – Wither the Hub and Spokes System?

23. Austin Talks With China Counterpart as Nations’ Ties Improve

24. Austin Meets Virtually With Chinese Defense Minister for First Time

25. The Costs of Comms: Adapting for the Communications-Restricted Battlefield

26. The Rising Ransomware Tide, Chinese Spy Cranes, and the Biden Executive Order on Maritime Cyber Security

27. China Is Battening Down for the Gathering Storm over Taiwan

1. There is only one war going on and it is global

This article is in line with what I have long thought about the axis of authoritarian/totalitarian/dictators (the revisionist, revolutionary, and rogue powers) in this graphic above. I am "pleased" to see Mr. Axe include north Korea as its contributions and participation is too often overlooked. too often overlooked.

There is only one war going on and it is global

Iran, North Korea and China are Russia’s arsenals of autocracy

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/15/world-war-west-allies-iran-russia-china-north-korea/?utm

DAVID AXE

16 April 2024 • 8:38am

Like it or not, Russia’s wider war in Ukraine is part of a world war. A world war pitting a quartet of authoritarian states against the world’s democracies. It’s Russia and Russia’s allies – China, Iran and North Korea – against Ukraine and its allies. These are most of the Western democracies and, in fits and starts, the United States. The problem is that only the autocracies are acting like the war is what it is: global.

Unless and until this changes, Ukraine will be at a disadvantage. If and when it does change, Russia could suffer a swift and lasting defeat. A defeat that might teach the other autocracies a lesson or two.

It might be comforting, to the distracted populaces of rich and free countries, to think of the war in Ukraine as a regional war. A small war. One pitting just two countries against each other.

That was never the case. Not since the first days of the war in early 2022, when an alliance of free countries swiftly came together to supply Ukraine with the intelligence, weapons and money it needed to defend and sustain itself as Russian regiments poured over the border and across the frontier in Russian-occupied Donbas.

And then Russia mobilized its own allies. First Iran, which supplied Russia with Russia’s first effective drone design, the explosive Shahed, starting in the fall of 2022. Each 400-pound drone hauls a 100-pound warhead as far as 1,500 miles – and does it cheaply, at just $50,000 a copy.

In first buying Shaheds, and then building them under license at a factory in Russian Tatarstan, the Russians gained an inexpensive deep-strike munition: something they didn’t have before.

In March alone, according to Ukrainian president Zelensky, the Russians launched 600 Shaheds at Ukraine.

“This campaign of terror affects numerous cities and villages throughout Ukraine,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies noted.

Next, late last year, North Korea stepped up to solve one of Russia’s most serious problems: a shortage of artillery shells. Russians batteries fired tens of thousands of shells a day in the early weeks of the war – a rate of fire that steadily decreased as the war dragged on and munitions stockpiles ran low.

By mid-2023, Ukrainian forces actually enjoyed a firepower advantage over Russian forces – and for one simple reason. “The West provided more artillery ammunition to Ukraine than Russia received from its partners,” according to Frontelligence Insight, a Ukrainian analysis group.

In January 2024, that changed. Moscow cut a deal with Pyongyang to swap Russian food for millions of North Korean shells. It didn’t help that, at the same time, Russia-aligned Republicans in the US Congress blocked further US aid to Ukraine, depriving the Ukrainians of hundreds of thousands of American shells.

“Russia is now getting more rounds than the West sends to Ukraine, thanks to continuous ammunition shipments from North Korea that went into full swing in the fall of 2023,” Frontelligence explained.

Meanwhile, China moved to rebuild Russia’s arms industry, which was suffering under foreign sanctions that deprived it of microelectronics and precision tooling. The kind of microelectronics that are necessary for producing drones and missiles – and the kind of tooling that’s necessary for producing fresh barrels for howitzers.

This week, officials with the administration of US president Joe Biden told the Associated Press that China was providing 90 percent of Russia’s microelectronics imports and 70 percent of its tooling imports. If, during World War II, the United States was the United Kingdom’s arsenal of democracy, today Iran, North Korea and China are Russia’s arsenals of autocracy.

Russia cannot win in Ukraine without allies from all over the world – no more than Ukraine can win without its own allies on several continents. Yes, the actual combat is in Ukraine and Russia, with Iran also engaged against Israel both by proxy and now directly. But the wider conflict is global.

Supreme Allied Commander Europe, US Army General Christopher Cavoli. Cavoli has called Russia a 'chronic threat' and warned that it will not be satisfied with invading Ukraine CREDIT: Virginia Mayo/AP

The stakes are global, too.

“Russia does not intend to stop with Ukraine,” US Army general Christopher Cavoli, the commander of US European Command and also Nato’s supreme allied commander in Europe, said this week. “Russia presents a chronic threat.”

Cavoli said he was also worried about Russia’s dependence on China, North Korea and Iran. “These countries are forming interlocking, strategic partnerships in an attempt to challenge the existing order,” Cavoli said. “This is profoundly inimical to US national interests.” And the interests of the whole free world.

The world’s most powerful autocracies are already treating the Ukraine war like a world war. They support Russia in order to assert the power of countries like Russia to attack, conquer and oppress when and where they choose. This idea is now spreading.

Will the world’s most powerful democracies respond with equal force – and support Ukraine in order to assert the right of countries like Ukraine to choose their own destinies, and live in peace?

The answer, for the leading democracy – the United States – is a qualified sort of. Republicans have been blocking aid to Ukraine since October, and defending their isolationism in part by arguing, wrongly, that the war in Ukraine is only about Ukraine. And that it’s none of America’s business.

That certainly isn’t the view being taken in Tehran, Pyongyang and Beijing.

2. Looking for a Fight

Photos at the link. A glimpse of the soldiers on the ground in the 2d International Legion.

Looking for a Fight

Our photographer spent four days at a remote Ukrainian trench outpost manned by soldiers who signed up from abroad.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/world/europe/ukraine-volunteer-soldier-photos.html

Photographs and Text by Tyler Hicks

Tyler Hicks went to a frontline position about a hundred meters from Russian trenches in eastern Ukraine for this report.

April 17, 2024
Updated 2:45 a.m. ET

The bullet-scarred pickups raced the sunrise along a rough dirt road wending through a dense pine forest. Multiple languages were spoken by the men inside them — Ukrainian, Brazilian, Colombian, Polish — but few words. It was not a moment for small talk.

They had come to fight Russians.

The trucks barely came to a halt to discharge their passengers before speeding off again. Armed drones might appear overhead at any moment, and so as the men continued on foot, they, too, did so with urgency.

The soldiers of the 2nd International Legion had arrived.

Image

The new soldiers arriving at the position around dawn for a rotation.

Image

After leaving their vehicles, the soldiers prepared to finish the journey on foot.

The path of the soldiers, among thousands of foreign fighters who signed up to help Ukraine after Russia invaded, told a story of war.

The Serebrianka Forest in eastern Ukrainian was badly scarred from months of fighting. Now, on this February morning, the bears, deer, foxes and birds that once lived here undisturbed were nowhere to be seen. Many of the trees and plants that sustained them had been toppled and burned by artillery, mortars and tank fire.

As the men walked, they saw bomb craters, some old, others so fresh that a green confetti of shredded leaves lay underfoot. They passed a makeshift cross, two sticks crudely bound together, marking where a Ukrainian soldier had stepped on a mine.

Then they were there: the snow-dusted trench line that would be home for their rotation.

Image

A Ukrainian soldier firing at Russians about 85 yards away.

Image

A view from the Ukrainian bunker.

The soldiers they had come to relieve were waiting for them, and quickly moved off. Within minutes of their arrival, the fresh fighters came under attack, fired on by Russians from a nearby tree line.

Led by their Ukrainian commander, Tsygan, the 2nd International Legion soldiers answered with a barrage of their own, and the incoming and outgoing small-arms fire made for a confused, staccato orchestra.

Thirty minutes later, the fight tapered off, and the soldiers lit up cigarettes. They were going to be on their own at this outpost, with the Russian infantry as close as a football field away.

Image

A soldier passing along a rocket-propelled grenade.

Image

The soldiers use an anti-drone system to jam frequencies.

In many respects, the position had a feeling of timelessness.

A network of dugouts and log-covered bunkers was linked together by a crude labyrinth of hand-dug trenches, some strung with camouflage netting. Ahead was nothing but Russian soldiers.

Snow, rain, wind and war crumble the trenches and bunkers that help keep soldiers alive in this war. In the lulls between fighting, the soldiers constantly fortify, repair and deepen them.

But for all the similarity to Europe’s trench warfare a century ago, much has changed.

One soldier raised not a Mauser to his shoulder but an anti-drone weapon that he aimed at the sky. It was silent, directing an invisible signal intended to disable enemy drones and send them crashing to the ground.

This type of weapon has become increasingly common on a battlefield where it is nearly impossible for either side to move without detection, with drone operators unceasingly surveying and directing bombing from a laptop as far as six miles away.

Image

Fortifying trenches is a never-ending task.

Image

A pause in the fighting.

There are many reasons a foreigner might enlist to fight a war that has nothing to do with him.

One, of course, is money. The open-ended contracts in Ukraine pay, on average, about $2,500 a month, a tempting sum for some of the men who came there from countries with few good economic opportunities for them.

But some fighters at the post in the woods for the 2nd International Legion, which was created at the direction of the Ukrainian president in the days after Russia invaded in February 2022, said they were looking for something more.

One soldier, a Pole who goes by the call sign Konrad 13, described the war as a calling, even a blessing. Back home, he said, he had a troubled upbringing. Then, at age 41, he felt as if he was at a dead end.

Yes, the pay is appealing, Konrad 13 said, but so was feeling a sense of purpose.

“When I came here, my life changed,” he said. “I started to grow here. It’s been an evolution, and I have felt my life returned to me. I’ve changed and become a different kind of person. This is my family now — my true family.”

Over the course of their rotation — the Ukrainian military forbids saying how long it lasts, and how many fighters are in the unit — the men were involved in repeated engagements with the Russians across the way. During the day, fighting flared up every three or four hours, generally lasting an hour. At night came the bombs.

At the end of their rotation, with a fresh group of soldiers arriving to relieve them, the soldiers prepared their packs for the journey out. But they had to hold off: A Russian drone had appeared overhead at the end edge of the last trench.

It was over an hour before Tsygan cleared his men to venture into the open space separating them from the trenches and a moment of peace.

Before it was time to return to the fight.

Image

Konrad 13, on the way to the position, passed by a marker for a soldier killed by a mine.

Tyler Hicks is a senior photographer for The Times. In 2014, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography for his coverage of the Westgate Mall massacre in Nairobi, Kenya. More about Tyler Hicks

3. Cyberattacks Surge 325% in Philippines Amid South China Sea Standoff

The cyber battlefield.

Cyberattacks Surge 325% in Philippines Amid South China Sea Standoff

The Philippines finds itself under an online siege as tensions escalate in the South China Sea (SCS) with China, claims cybersecurity firm Resecurity.

DEEBA AHMED

APRIL 17, 2024

3 MINUTE READ

The Philippines faces a surge in cyberattacks as tensions rise in the South China Sea. Hacktivists and misinformation campaigns target government websites, spread fake news, and disrupt critical infrastructure. Learn why the Philippines is a cyberwarfare hotspot and how the country can defend itself.

hackread.com · by byDeeba Ahmed · April 17, 2024

Resecurity reports a 325% increase in cyberattacks targeting the country in Q1 2024 compared to the same period last year. Cyberattacks involving hacktivist groups and foreign misinformation campaigns have nearly tripled with multiple attacks staged by unknown threat actors in Q2 2024, combining ideological motivations with nation-state-sponsored propaganda.

The Philippines, located near the South China Sea, is facing tensions due to China’s assertive actions and its role as a Major Non-NATO Ally (MNNA). The island nation’s maritime trade routes and proximity to Taiwan make it a potential staging ground for military operations in a larger conflict, prompting adversaries to disrupt the country’s infrastructure.

Resecurity found numerous hacktivist groups targeting the Philippines, including the pro-China Mustang Panda, DeathNote Hackers, and Exodus Security. In February, Exodus Security staged targeted DDoS attacks, leaking stolen data from various countries, including the Philippines, and announced partnerships with Cyber Operation Alliance, Robin Cyber Hood, Arab Anonymous, and Sylnet Gang-SG to broaden their activities.

In addition, local hacking groups, including Philippine Hacking University, Excommunicado, CyberMafia Philippines, Philippine Cyber Alliance, Bisaya Cyber Army, and LizardSquad Philippines, are also using hacking as a form of protest.

Recently, threat actor “KryptonZambie” claimed to have stolen over 152 gigabytes of Philippine citizen identity card data from unnamed sources whereas the Philippine Department of Science and Technology (DoST), was targeted by a cyberattack likely orchestrated by threat actors involved in a broader misinformation campaign.

It’s noteworthy that KryptonZambie was also responsible for the data breach of the widely-used CutOut.Pro AI Tool, leading to the exposure of personal details of over 20 million users on the infamous cybercrime and hacker forum Breach Forums.

The threat actor has recently claimed responsibility for data breaches at LeadSquared, an Indian software platform, and WeRize, India’s inaugural socially distributed full-stack financial services platform. Allegedly, the stolen data amounts to over 1.3 terabytes collectively.

The hacker behind #CutOutPro breach involving 20 million accounts now claims to have breached @LeadSquared, an Indian software platform, and @WeRize_Official, India's first socially distributed full-stack financial services platform. The leaked data is over 1.3TB collectively. pic.twitter.com/FT0hNpPP4D

— Hackread.com (@HackRead) April 15, 2024

These groups use hacktivist-related monikers to avoid attribution and create a perception of social conflict online. They also use tactics like website defacement, data breaches, and misinformation campaigns to disrupt essential services and embarrass the government. They may also hijack government or critical infrastructure websites, steal sensitive data, and create public distrust through social media and online forums.

Cyberattacks in the Philippines have significant implications beyond immediate disruption. They can erode public trust, escalating tensions between the country and China, and disrupt the economy by affecting critical infrastructure.

To counter these threats, the Philippines needs a multifaceted approach. This includes upgrading cybersecurity infrastructure, investing in threat intelligence, and fostering public-private partnerships.

Drone-and-Missile Warfare Tests Supply-Strapped Defense Systems

Iran’s attack on Israel highlights the growing demand for interceptors and the long wait to get them

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/drone-missile-attacks-threaten-weapons-supply-24356bf4?mod=hp_lead_pos2

By Alistair MacDonaldFollow

, Doug CameronFollow

and Heather SomervilleFollow

Updated April 17, 2024 12:01 am ET

The near-complete defeat of Iran’s drone-and-missile barrage against Israel on Saturday marked a success for air-defense systems, but was also a sobering reminder that weapons capable of intercepting these sorts of attacks are in short supply.

Countries around the world have moved to bolster their air defenses in recent years, spurred by Russia’s war on Ukraine, concerns about tensions in the Asia-Pacific region and renewed conflict in the Middle East. Yet the companies that produce air-defense systems are struggling to meet the surging demand, and countries ordering the technology are grappling with long waits and high costs.

After years of underinvestment, a global scramble for missiles has meant it now takes around two years or more to deliver some air-defense interceptors. A lack of some components, like rocket motors, contributes to that lag.

“I am concerned that we’ve taken a bit of a holiday and that we are playing some catch-up here,” John Hill, deputy assistant secretary for space and missile defense, told lawmakers last week.

An image taken from video posted on social media shows objects flying over Amman, Jordan, over the weekend after Iran launched drones and missiles at Israel. PHOTO: REUTERS

Air-defense systems—and the missiles they fire—typically take a long time to make and often cost far more than the targets they aim to shoot down, particularly in the case of drones. The potential for swarms of small autonomous drones pose further challenges to today’s equipment, and new technologies to address these evolving threats are still under development.

Iran’s attack on Israel over the weekend stood out for its sheer scale: more than 120 ballistic missiles, over 30 cruise missiles and approximately 170 drones. The Israelis intercepted most of the ballistic missiles using Arrow air–defense systems, senior U.S. officials said. Around four to six missiles were shot down by U.S. destroyers, and one was taken out by a U.S. Patriot air-defense battery.

U.S. fighters shot down most of the drones, though some were destroyed by British, French and Israeli aircraft.

The defeat of the Iranian barrage was possible because of Israel’s sophisticated, multilayered air-defense system and assistance provided by the U.S. and other Western and Arab partners. But Israel would likely struggle if it was faced with many waves of attacks, such as Ukraine has experienced in more than two years of its war with Russia, defense analysts say.

“Israel seemed to do pretty well, but the downside is that a large number of interceptors were expended in the process,” said Tom Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. think tank. “It’s certainly the case that strains on magazine inventory is going to be a problem, for everybody.”

Israeli defense systems' range and capabilities

RUSSIA

POLAND

BELARUS

UKRAINE

KAZAKHSTAN

ROMANIA

Cas.

Sea

Black Sea

BULGARIA

GEORGIA

TURKEY

GREECE

ITALY

Mediterranean Sea

AFGHAN.

IRAN

IRAQ

ISRAEL

LIBYA

EGYPT

SAUDI

ARABIA

Gulf of Oman

Red

Sea

Arabian Sea

SUDAN

YEMEN

INDIAN OCEAN

arrow

David’s Sling

Range: 186 miles; Mach 7.5 speed

Threat intercepted:

Surface-to-surface missiles

Iron Dome

Range: 43 miles

Threat intercepted:

Surface-to-surface rockets, UAVs

Arrow 3

Range: 1,491 miles

Threat intercepted:

Ballistic missiles

Arrow 2

Range: 43 miles; Mach 9 speed

Threat intercepted:

Missiles

Can intercept large-caliber rockets, short-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles; stationary battery covers

whole of Israel

Endo- and exo-atmospheric interception capabilities

Can handle longer-range and higher- altitude interceptions including exo-atmospheric; more precise; first operational use in Nov. 2023

Mobile batteries that must be moved around Israel

Note: Diagrams not to scale

Sources: Israel Ministry of Defense; Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Israel Air Force; Rafael Advanced Defense Systems; GlobalSecurity.org; Center for Strategic and International Studies

Camille Bressange, Tonia Cowan, Roque Ruiz/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Over the past couple of years Ukraine has largely relied on Western-provided equipment to intercept more than 2,000 ballistic, cruise and other types of missiles, as well as thousands of drones. However, Kyiv’s interception rates have been falling as it runs out of missiles.

This week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told PBS that Russia was able to destroy a major power plant recently because Kyiv’s military forces ran out of missiles to defend it. Russia fired 11 missiles, and Ukraine only had seven to counter them.

The West, though, doesn’t have large quantities of missiles and defense systems left to give Ukraine. There is already a long waiting list for Patriots, which are designed to take down ballistic missiles. For example, Switzerland ordered five Patriot batteries in 2022, but it will take six years before the first one arrives and another year before it is operational, the government said.

The systems also aren’t cheap: Each Patriot battery, which can be armed with 32 missiles, costs around $1 billion.

There is a long waiting list for missiles for the Patriot, which are designed to take down ballistic threats. PHOTO: ELOISA LOPEZ/REUTERS

The cost of Israel intercepting about half of the Iranian barrage this weekend was estimated at 2.1 billion Israeli shekels, or more than $550 million, according to Yehoshua Kalisky, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv-based think tank.

Western officials worry that costs will only rise, as they have to shoot down cheaper drones with million–dollar missiles, and that expense will increase if adversaries employ swarms of these unmanned aerial vehicles.

Russia is already employing that strategy, firing long-range drones at Ukrainian cities to waste sparse Ukrainian air-defense missiles. Ukrainian officers complain they lack equipment to contain the constant barrage of drones on the front line.

Pentagon officials have said they want the production of counterdrone defenses stepped up dramatically, a recognition that firing multimillion-dollar missiles to down something that costs just thousands of dollars is unsustainable.

“You can’t kill cheap drones if you don’t have cheap interceptors,” Chris Brose, chief strategy officer at Anduril Industries, told reporters at a recent gathering to unveil the company’s new autonomous interceptor, Roadrunner.

Debris from a Russian missile strike that was intercepted by Ukrainian forces littered the ground in a Kyiv park last month. PHOTO: VALENTYN OGIRENKO/REUTERS

Small drones, which have played a greater role in Ukraine, present unique challenges to traditional defense systems.

“It is harder to pick out the smaller ones than the bigger ones. You can see a camel from a distance but probably not a mouse,” said Aaditya Devarakonda, chief executive of Dedrone, a startup building technology to thwart drones by jamming their communication links. “The detectability is a big, big, big problem.”

U.S. forces have relied largely on its ship-based Aegis missile-defense system to protect their own vessels and commercial shipping in the Red Sea, as well as the Phalanx system, which uses machine guns to blast incoming drones.

An interceptor being test fired by the U.S. off Kauai, Hawaii, last October. PHOTO: MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY

There isn’t yet a good technical solution to counter a swarm of inexpensive, autonomous drones, military and industry officials say.

The U.S. and Israel are now testing microwave and laser counterdrone systems developed by private companies that offer the ability to keep firing for as long as they have power. That would, in theory, allow the system to help take down a swarm of drones without running out of ammunition.

Epirus, an American startup that specializes in high-powered microwave weapons, said it could have some of its systems fielded in the Middle East by the summer if the U.S. Army gives the go-ahead, and 10 by the end of the year. The Raytheon unit of

RTX, one of the largest American defense companies, has a U.S. military contract for high-power microwave counterdrone systems, with the first prototypes scheduled for delivery next year. These new systems haven’t been battle tested and are limited in range, but advocates of the technology say they offer the best defense against drone swarms.

“In future conflicts, counterdrone systems will likely require very energy-intensive, directed energy or laser-weapon systems to be able to do it,” said Thomas Hendrix, a venture capitalist with Decisive Point Group and a former officer in the U.S. Army Special Forces. “I haven’t seen that many viable solutions out there.”

Emboldened Iran Makes Dangerous Gamble on Open Confrontation

Tehran’s attack on Israel marked a strategic shift after giving up on accommodation with the U.S.

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-emboldened-israel-confrontation-dd7136b7?mod=hp_lead_pos1

By Jared MalsinFollow

and Benoit FauconFollow

Updated April 17, 2024 12:01 am ET

ISTANBUL—For two decades, Iran stayed in the shadows and relied on militias that it funded around the Middle East in its deadly fight with Israel. Its direct attack on Israel last weekend marked a strategic shift, and a major gamble.

Iran had long known it had a weaker conventional military compared with Israel and its top ally, the U.S. For most of its existence since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Tehran had few friends in foreign capitals to support a straight-on attack on a U.S. ally.

Iran’s massive drone and missile strike on Israel—which its military took full credit for and vowed to do again if Israel retaliated—came after years of building stronger diplomatic ties with American rivals such as Russia and China, mending fences with neighbors such as Saudi Arabia and building up its economy through illicit oil sales. It marked a dramatic illustration of Tehran’s shift away from accommodation with the West and toward open confrontation with the U.S. and its allies.

Now, Iran and Israel stand on the brink of an escalatory cycle of violence that poses extreme dangers for both sides. Israeli war cabinet members have said the country will strike back at a time and place of its choosing, with U.S. officials saying it is likely to come soon.

Ukraine’s Chances of Pushing Russia Out Look Increasingly Grim

Ukraine’s president says his forces can’t stop Russia from pushing forward unless the U.S. provides more military aid

https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraines-chances-of-pushing-russia-out-look-increasingly-grim-3bc2075a?mod=hp_lead_pos9

By James MarsonFollow

and Daniel MichaelsFollow

| Photographs by Serhii Korovayny for The Wall Street Journal

Updated April 17, 2024 12:03 am ET

KYIV, Ukraine—On the battlefronts of the east, threadbare Ukrainian forces are doggedly holding on against mounting Russian assaults that are expected to crescendo in the summer.

Thinned air defenses struggle to stop Russian 1.5-ton guided bombs from pulverizing buildings. Front lines are held by a patchwork of units that are short of their full complement of troops. Halting armored columns depends largely on small explosive drones, given meager supplies of artillery shells.

“We are short of everything,” said one company commander operating around the embattled eastern city of Chasiv Yar.

The war in Ukraine is at a critical moment as it approaches a third summer. Russia’s greater size is weighing on its smaller neighbor, with waves of armored vehicles and soldiers grinding forward against exhausted Ukrainian units across a front line that arcs from the northeast to southeast.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy of outlasting Ukraine’s Western support is proving durable, and the coming months could turn the tide of the war decisively in Russia’s favor. Ukraine’s military is short on ammunition and battle-ready troops, as Congress has stalled on a supplemental aid package and Kyiv has dithered over calling up more men.

Russia’s advantages in manpower and equipment are becoming harder to defend against.

A Ukrainian soldier in Toretsk in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, near the front line with Russia.

Without infusions of fresh manpower and Western military equipment, Ukraine could face further losses of its land and best troops, dimming any hope of taking back the nearly 20% of its territory already occupied.

To be sure, Russia is gaining ground very slowly and suffering heavy losses in personnel and equipment. If Ukraine can cling on this year and replenish its forces, it could seek to counterattack against a drained enemy.

But with the future of U.S. aid uncertain, and European countries unable to significantly increase assistance quickly, Ukraine’s prospects for turning the tables on Russia are dimming.

“Without this aid, we’ll have no chance of winning,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told PBS in an interview aired Tuesday. Russian artillery can fire 10 shells for every one of Ukraine’s, he said. “Can we stand like this? No,” Zelensky said. “Whatever we do, with these numbers, they will push us back every day.”

In a sign of hope for Ukraine, the Czech Republic recently orchestrated acquisition of almost one million artillery shells, which are going straight to the front. Other such efforts are being organized. If Ukraine’s allies can restock its arsenals, Kyiv’s forces may be able to thwart further Russian advances.

The front line is barely moving thanks to Ukrainian bravery and ingenuity—and Russian tactical weaknesses.

Ukraine’s military has sought to shore up defenses through networks of trenches, bunkers and minefields.

“We are more efficient, more effective, more technological,” said a Ukrainian officer who commands an aerial-drone unit near the eastern city of Avdiivka, which fell to Russia in February. “They go home after any defeat, but we lose our land, our homes, our people.”

Still, “the situation on the battlefield remains serious,” said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg recently. “Ukraine needs more air defenses, more ammunition, and more aid.”

Ukraine repulsed Russia’s initial assault on its capital, Kyiv, in 2022 and retook lost territory in the northeast and south. But a Ukrainian counteroffensive last year gained almost no ground at the cost of thousands of motivated troops.

Now, Russia is pushing to advance on several fronts. After seizing Avdiivka, Russian troops began pushing into villages to its west, but didn’t achieve a breakthrough.

Ukrainian front line

Russian forces April 15

RUSSIA

Kharkiv

Kupyansk

RUSSIAN

OFFENSIVES

Lyman

UKRAINE

Chasiv Yar

Luhansk

Dnipro

Avdiivka

Robotyne

Mariupol

50 miles

Sea of Azov

50 km

Sources: Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project; staff reports

Andrew Barnett/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

A critical Russian target is the city of Chasiv Yar, located on heights to the west of Bakhmut, which Russia captured last year.

Taking Chasiv Yar, once home to just over 10,000 people, would open a path to attacking other cities, such as Kostyantynivka and Kramatorsk, in the eastern Donetsk region. The province is a key target for Putin, who has declared it annexed to Russia.

A Russian raid with armored vehicles reached the eastern flank of the city earlier this month, but was repelled. A canal on that edge of the city offers a natural barrier against vehicles, but soldiers say Russia is likely to send infantry to try to get a foothold in buildings.

Ukraine is adapting by conserving its supplies and repositioning forces to better protect them and their equipment. Defenders have an advantage against attackers, who must expose themselves in order to advance. Ukraine’s military has sought to shore up defenses through networks of trenches, bunkers and minefields, although soldiers say they are patchy.

“They’re already taking some tough decisions and adopting a much more considered defensive stance,” said retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander.

Ukraine is adapting by conserving its supplies and repositioning forces.

A Ukrainian soldier checks a tank in between missions in the Donetsk region of Ukraine.

European governments are exerting themselves to find ammunition and resources for Ukraine, most notably through the Czech initiative. Germany said Saturday that it would send an additional Patriot air-defense system to Ukraine.

“A positive is that the Europeans are beginning to step up,” said Breedlove.

But Russia’s advantages in manpower and equipment are becoming harder to defend against.

While Russia has suffered considerable battlefield losses in Ukraine—including more than 2,000 tanks and 315,000 soldiers wounded or dead—its traditional land forces have been degraded far more than its air force and navy, said U.S. Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s current supreme allied commander, in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee on April 10.

“Russia is reconstituting that force far faster than our initial estimates suggested,” he said, adding that its army is now 15% larger than it was when it launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago.

While larger in total troop numbers, Russia’s military lost many of its best troops in fighting over the past two years, analysts note.

Some Western military-intelligence officials believe that for now Russia is less focused on achieving immediate territorial gains than eroding Ukraine’s ability and will to fight. Russia’s increased drone and missile attacks aim to show its strength, degrade Kyiv’s resources and show Ukraine’s Western backers that supporting it is futile.

Severe recent damage to Ukrainian infrastructure, such as the destruction of the largest thermal-power plant in Kyiv on Thursday, suggests the country’s air-defense capabilities are dwindling, analysts say.

Zelensky told PBS that air-defense systems protecting the plant downed seven Russian missiles but ran out of interceptors, allowing four Russian missiles to hit and destroy it.

Russia is seeking to take advantage of Ukraine’s shortages on the battlefield, too.

Every day, Russian forces are dropping dozens of massive guided bombs on Chasiv Yar, launched from warplanes that usually operate just beyond the range of Ukrainian air-defense systems.

A critical Russian target is the city of Chasiv Yar. Taking it would open a path to attacking other cities in Ukraine.

Chasiv Yar, once home to just over 10,000 people, is in the eastern Donetsk region, which Putin has declared annexed to Russia.

Ukraine’s main weapon for stopping Russian armored vehicles is now the first-person-view, or FPV, drone.

The explosive craft is steered via remote control by a pilot using goggles transmitting a live-video feed from onboard.

Russia has started sending larger columns of up to 20 vehicles that Ukrainian drone teams struggle to stop as FPVs can only be deployed one at a time because they share radio frequency.

One soldier described a Russian tank that was advancing with a jammer attached and nets to block FPVs. It was eventually halted by an artillery shell.

Russia is showing little care for its men, Ukrainian soldiers say.

Armored vehicles sometimes advance with soldiers perched on top, forming a barrier with their bodies that has to be blasted away before the vehicle itself can be targeted. Ukrainians call the phenomenon “meat armor.”

Russia can afford to be more wasteful than Ukraine because it has a population more than three times the size and is adding about 30,000 new military personnel every month, according to Ukrainian officials. But poor training of troops and coordination of units limit their effectiveness.

Iran's Attack on Israel: Four Important Lessons for Ukraine and World

16.04.2024 15:15

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3853035-irans-attack-on-israel-four-important-lessons-for-ukraine-and-world.html?utm

Can the world prevent a global war, and can Ukraine effectively "close" its skies?

Of course, the consequences of Iran's attack are not as significant as they could have been. Virtually no damage was done to either Israel's military or civilian infrastructure. An almost absolute result: 99% of air targets (over 300 missiles and drones) were destroyed, and not even over Israel. We know what the secret is: Israel's three-tiered air defense system, as well as assistance from its allies-the United States, Britain, France, and Jordan-whose aircraft and permits helped repel the attack.

In any case, this could be considered an official declaration of war. But the leaders of the United States and Europe (as well as the countries of the region) are actively trying to dissuade Israel from retaliating against Iran. How convincing their arguments will be, and whether Tel Aviv will listen to them, remains to be seen. However, the first lessons of what happened are already clearly visible.

IMPORTANT LESSONS FOR UKRAINE AND THE WORLD

Lesson 1. Aviation has proven its high efficiency

In a commentary to Ukrinform, Israeli Defense Forces officer and military analyst Yigal Levin emphasized that aviation played an extremely important role, if not a key one, in countering the Iranian air threat. Kamikaze drones and cruise missiles are aerodynamic targets, meaning they can easily be shot down by fighter jets.

"It is very important for Ukraine to get American F-16s, French Mirage-200s... These are not just airplanes in the classical sense that can strike targets on the ground. This is a platform that can carry various weapons, such as air-to-air missiles. And it can shoot down SAMs, the same drones or Kalibr, X-55, X-101 cruise missiles, etc. Yes, the Ukrainian Air Force has the practice of shooting down Shaheds using fighter jets, such as MiG-29s. But you need to understand that, of course, the quality of this equipment, avionics, and quantity play a significant role. After all, it is one thing to have 20 outdated Soviet fighters in service, and quite another to have 50 F-16s or other modern Western aircraft," the military expert points out.

Therefore, the only lesson for Ukraine is that it needs to build up its fighter aviation, in particular to protect itself from such threats.

"Ukraine needs aviation as an additional means of air defense," emphasized Mr. Levin.

Valeriy Romanenko, an aviation expert, made a similar point. According to him, when it comes to cruise missiles, since ballistic missiles cannot be shot down from an airplane, a fighter jet is the most effective means of destruction. For him, a non-maneuverable object flying at a constant speed is just "candy."

"The cruising speed of a cruise missile is about 700-750 km, while the F-16 can accelerate to 1500 km. It's easy to aim, and it shoots expensive cruise missiles like a cannon, with cheap short-range air-to-air missiles, such as the American AIM-9 Sidewinder missile. Thus, a fighter jet is the most effective and cost-effective weapon against cruise missiles," Mr. Romanenko emphasized.

However, he continues, Ukraine needs not only aircraft. Israel's air defense forces are well prepared to repel air attacks - they are trained and have enough missiles to shoot down. Our capabilities are much lower due to the delay in military aid from the United States, as well as limited support from other partners. But there is a solution.

"We are asking for additional Patriots. This is good, but I want to remind you of the "hybrid" air defense systems that Ukraine and the United States have created as part of the FrankenSAM program, which will allow us to launch modern Western-caliber anti-aircraft missiles from modernized Soviet launchers. For example, one version of the "hybrid" air defense system combines Buk launchers and Sea Sparrow missiles, while the other one uses Soviet radars and AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles."

The aviation expert emphasizes that we have a lot of launchers left, but not enough missiles for them.

"After the number of cruise missiles and drones launched at us and shot down, there are almost no such missiles left. We can't ask anyone else for them either, because what potential partners had, they have already given them to us. So, we need to actively continue working on FrankenSAM. There are still a lot of AIM-9M Sidewinde, Sparrow, MIM-23 HAWK missiles in the West," said Valeriy Romanenko.

Finally, another important nuance for us is from Iran, whose drones have covered a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers to attack Israel.

"Of course, many of them were shot down on approach, but that's not the point. Ukraine needs to further develop its long-range drone program. We have had some successes, such as the Lutyi UAV, but this work needs to be scaled up... The first drones are designed to continue destroying defense enterprises, aircraft, etc. on the territory of the Russian Federation. The second ones are tactical drones for the frontline to destroy various equipment, as the Russians are doing today," the aviation expert emphasized.

Lesson #2. Israel is being helped because it has been helping itself for a long time and systematically

Political scientist Taras Zahorodnyi reminds us that Israel and its residents have been working hard since the 1950s to ensure that they will be in this situation in 2024: "We had to survive the card system, hard work in kibbutzim, because almost all free resources were spent on our own defense..."

As a result, as of 1973, a country the size of the Kyiv region and with a population of 3 million was already producing its own airplanes, tanks, and much more.

Israel has been working systematically to be useful to the US military-industrial complex. Now there is great interdependence there. Therefore, it is more profitable for the United States to support Israel, despite leftist sentiments.

"Israel is being helped because it helps itself. For a long time and systematically. And investments are made in Israel primarily because it can protect these investments. By the way, the first large investments went to Israel only after the war in 1973, after the Yom Kippur War, when it proved that it could guarantee them. "Therefore, only our own military-industrial complex, only our own weapons can provide such support from the allies," assures Mr. Zahorodnyi. "To do this, we need to cut unnecessary expenses, limit unnecessary imports so as not to export currency abroad (for example, importing luxury cars into the country, etc.), cut a lot of bureaucratic waste, tax the 'bankers' who do not want to finance the military-industrial complex, the 'barons' who only export raw materials abroad and do not develop industry. All the resources collected should be used to expand the state order for the private military-industrial complex. Then everyone will help us. Because the strong always get help."

Diplomat Vadym Triukhan insists on the same point: "Israel has shown the unthinkable for Ukraine by shooting down 99% of air targets. This is just fantastic. Of course, this did not happen without the support of our allies. But it was largely thanks to Israeli air defense systems of its own production. And this is an important lesson for us: we should take our own defense industry more seriously and constantly invest in it. We definitely have the scientific brains. And if we have sufficient funding...".

Lesson #3. We must learn from Israel about political communications and how to lobby for our own interests in the world

Political scientist Serhiy Taran was the first to mention the Israeli lobby in Western democracies, particularly in the United States.

"People in Ukraine often like to talk about this. But not everyone wants to understand that the policies toward their citizens abroad in Israel and Ukraine are radically different. For Israel, its citizens or entire communities that are outside the country during a constant war are potential lobbyists with whom it needs to work. In Ukraine, the opposition between those who are in the country and those who have left is becoming a fashionable but meaningless trend for the country's defense," the expert says.

Another lesson is the restrictions on political communications during the war. The US does not communicate with Ukraine the way the US communicates with Israel.

"Promoting your country's interests in the United States requires the constant presence in Washington of a variety of politicians and experts who communicate with American congressmen, directly reach out to the American media and the voters' clubs of individual members of parliament, so that their voters are not too lazy to call their MP and ask whether he or she voted for the bill your country needs. Such work is the norm for many countries experienced in relations with the United States."

Currently, Ukraine has problems with this. But our country should take this lesson into account. After all, Mr. Taran says, the recipes for effective cooperation with American politicians have long been known: "We just need to have the will not to be afraid to apply them. And then NATO aircraft will be closer to shooting down Russian Shaheds over Ukraine."

Lesson 4. Diplomacy has lost, sanctions are not working, the UN should be reformed

"The key lesson for the world is that diplomacy has lost again. Despite Joe Biden's calls, which are completely inappropriate, it is hardly possible to let such a strike go unanswered. Israel will respond. And then Iran will respond again. And so it will go on in a circle. The world has completed the postwar phase, the world has entered World War III. Therefore, everyone, including representatives of the Global South, must finally decide which side they are on: evil or good," Vadym Triukhan emphasizes.

Hence, another key lesson for the world, which has already been discussed many times, but the expert once again mentioned it: it is necessary to restart at least the UN Security Council, and at most the entire UN.

"From a tool for preventing wars, as it was originally conceived after the end of World War II, the UN has now turned into a completely dysfunctional platform for chatter and the exchange of some sarcastic statements," Mr. Triukhan emphasizes.

And this is one of the reasons why diplomacy does not really work.

"Diplomacy has no coercive tool. War, tanks, soldiers, total economic isolation of criminal countries - that's what really starts to matter," the expert added.

While the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and European leaders repeat like a mantra the dictum that war with Russia is unacceptable, delaying the introduction of truly comprehensive sanctions against Russia and Iran, the Kremlin is working tirelessly, non-stop, to implement several tasks

- to destroy the unity of the democratic world;

- to multiply the production of ammunition;

- formation of "friendly" political regimes around the world, including among the EU and NATO member states;

- changing public sentiment around the world in its favor.

"The world is now reaping the benefits of its short-sighted and cowardly policy towards aggressors. Sanctions do not work, and no real coercive tools have been applied. I hope that the next attack on Israel will be a lesson, pushing the West to take more decisive action against the "axis of evil" that Russia, Iran, Syria and North Korea have already constructed and from which China is already half a step away," the diplomat emphasized.

THE CONSEQUENCE: WHAT THE DIRECT IRANIAN-ISRAELI CONFLICT HAS SHOWN

According to political scientist Oleh Posternak, this situation has revealed one significant detail: in global geopolitics, there is a noticeable search for boundaries that would prevent the transformation of contradictions into a global war.

"Each side calculates the behavior of the other and conducts a controlled confrontation, when military activities are quite predictable and understandable. Therefore, this conflict is very similar to a controlled game, a "contractual match" in which the United States is making sure that it does not escalate into a global war, restraining Israel from a disproportionate response, and involving European and Arab allies.

"Iran, on the other hand, is acting cautiously, realizing that the West is actually "allowing" it to react in a certain way, but in such a way that the "red line" is not crossed and the population and military infrastructure of Israel are not directly harmed," the political scientist added.

However, the conflict differs from previous ones, in which Iran acted indirectly through proxy groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Yemeni Houthis. In this case, Iran directly fired on Israel, which accelerated the dismantling of the previous model of conflict "coexistence" of the warring forces in the Middle East and made it completely new.

"At the same time, the United States and its allies, out of tactical caution, are actually agreeing to a new geopolitical reality, which can be perceived by Iran, China, Russia and North Korea as another fact of the West's weakening on a global scale. This raises many questions about the vague prospect of easing tensions in the region, as Israel is actually a nuclear power and Iran is a few steps away from obtaining nuclear weapons," emphasizes Oleh Posternak.

POSITIVE CONCLUSIONS AND FORECASTS FOR UKRAINE

The situation with the shelling of Israel may not end badly - it may push the US House of Representatives to vote for the long-suffering aid package for Ukraine, as there is now room for compromise. After all, there used to be congressmen in the House who wanted to vote for the Ukraine package but had doubts about the Israel package, and vice versa, who were ready to vote for Israel but were still thinking about helping Ukraine. Now there is practically no such barrier. This is one, but not the only conclusion.

"It can be assumed that finally, overseas, the issue of making a decision on assistance to Israel and Ukraine will move forward. It is not for nothing that even on Sunday, which is not very typical for the Biden administration, relevant telephone conversations were held, in particular with Mike Johnson, after which there was cautious optimism that this issue would be resolved in the coming days. And according to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a consensus was allegedly reached on this issue," says Vadym Triukhan.

"Israel is a de jure major ally of the United States among non-NATO countries. Israel was one of the first countries to receive this status. Now about 18 countries have this status. However, Washington has never had such close, multifaceted, and trusting relations with anyone as it has with Tel Aviv. Therefore, I do not think that they will dare to pass a bill that would grant Israel a loan. Most likely, it will be a question of non-repayable aid. And from this perspective, the question of Ukraine arises: if the usual scheme is voted for Israel, it will be very difficult to explain to the public why our country is receiving aid on credit. So, in my opinion, there are greater chances that a non-repayable aid scheme will be voted for both Israel and Ukraine. And, accordingly, for Taiwan," the diplomat believes.

Although, there may still be options. And the reason for this is Trump.

"In fact, over the past six months, Trump has been demonstrating that there is no president in the White House, that he is the master of the situation. That is, whatever position he takes is implemented by Congress. That's what the Republican majority in the lower house means, and that's what the presence of a "golden share" in the form of a small group of Trumpist congressmen means. Therefore, it is worth preparing for this option: perhaps some part of the aid for Ukraine will be "repayable, such as macro-financial assistance," Vadym Triukhan points out.

In general... He is confident that this issue will be resolved in the coming days.

"No one in modern American history could become president if they did not support Israel. Therefore, Trump, who has driven the situation into a dead end, is now on the ropes, and he will have to make some painful decision for himself," the expert emphasized.

And this is Oleh Posternak: "In the United States, the warring parties will traditionally try to use the Iranian-Israeli conflict for the purposes of favorable electoral positioning. However, there is a high risk that the White House's behavior during the conflict will be perceived as a sign of weakness and a reduction in American influence. Therefore, in the context of such political turmoil, a joint aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan could be an adequate and acceptable response of US government institutions to the challenge to American influence. Although it should be understood that part of the Trumpist electorate is under isolationist illusions."

Therefore, the political scientist also believes that Trump will want to save face by explaining why the Republicans voted to help Ukraine: "If part of the Ukrainian aid is converted into a loan or reduced, it may look like a compromise for the Republicans and their voters, which is less favorable for Ukraine, but will be at least something in the face of risky delays and lost time."

Another important conclusion for Ukraine after the attack on Israel is that Iran will definitely not sell its ballistic missiles to Russia, at least for some time. And in general, Tehran's support for Moscow in the war against our country will decline, because it will have no time for that.

"Military-technical cooperation between Iran and Russia in the event of a protracted remote war could be significantly reduced. Iran will need a constant resource for terrorizing Israel. And the most popular and cheapest means of all are kamikaze drones. As the Shahed raid and the missile strike on the night of April 14 showed, the number of weapons used was insufficient to break through Israel's air defense, and therefore the potential for a strike, not to mention the tactics, must be different. Iran simply cannot avoid responding to Israeli strikes, and Israel to Iranian ones, and the Islamic Republic will focus its military-industrial complex on these needs. Of course, this will reduce or even minimize the supply of kamikaze drones to Russia, which, in turn, will reduce the intensity and scale of attacks on Ukraine," said Oleksandr Kovalenko, a military observer at the Information Resistance group.

However, there is a flip side to this...

"As for Iranian ballistic missiles, which, according to Western media, have not demonstrated their best performance, we should focus on Russia's ballistic missiles, which it is modernizing and improving. And Russia will also take into account the unsuccessful experience of Iranian missiles to further improve its weapons. Therefore, it is fundamentally and extremely important for Russia to cut off the import of Western components," Oleh Posternak summarized.

Myroslav Liskovych. Kyiv

8. The Liberator’s Dilemma: The Paradox of American Leadership

Be forwarewarned. There is some math in this essay.

But this is a serious essay for SOF and other practitioners and covers a lot of ground, e.g., irregular warfare, PME, the moral hazard of liberation, population centric military operations and a liberator's dilemma model (see the math).

Excerpts:

As the liberator’s dilemma exposes, classic counterinsurgency theory fails to account for certain variables that represent the agency of a partner-force population. Population-centric military operations of all types must recognize and minimize the liberator’s dilemma paradox and consider how to offer utilitarian value to the populations where the U.S. military and SOF professionals operate. Sadly, the impact on the population has been largely a case of failure in our recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. In observing and comparing urban Afghanistan populations in 2004 and 2011, lasting improvements to stability and quality of life were non-existent. The temporal effects in Afghanistan suggest that the population’s eventual support of the Taliban was less a victory for the Taliban than it was a strategic leadership failure of the military in general and the SOF profession more specifically. We must quickly realize our moral obligation to offer quality leadership to all of the actors within our networks, but most especially to the members of the population whom we often negatively impact.

For liberating operations of the future, as part of a strategy of integrated deterrence and strategic competition, the liberator’s dilemma exposes several important strategic considerations. First, we must begin population-centric military operations with a population-centric end state in mind. This requires consideration for the strategic benefit of limiting force structure ex-ante to a very small footprint in an upfront effort to minimize the inevitable adverse effects that will result from costs of occupation. Likewise, military planners must also dictate long-term objectives that consider the inevitable decline of the initial offering of freedom while considering the strategic effect that goods and services will have on how U.S. forces are perceived by a population over time.

Similarly, leading populations and their associated micro-level partner forces require that both senior military leaders and SOF professionals rigidly enforce stylistic relational leadership continuity across rotational units. The negative impact on the population of “20 one-year wars” versus “one 20-year war” must not continue. Furthermore, promoting effective leadership of an occupied indigenous population and their associated partner forces necessitate that the people perpetually remain the main effort. American forces at all levels must resist the temptation to become enemy-focused and recognize that enemy-centric behavior translated to increasing (not decreasing) the cost of foreign occupation. In doing so, we must also acknowledge that time does not favor the liberator. We must achieve our strategic goals in a manner that promotes sustainability while also reversing entropy as quickly as possible. When population support shifts, we must resist the urge to seek kinetic solutions or to launch personnel surges. These will yield tactical success attached to strategic setbacks. Instead, we must recognize shifts in popular support as reminders that we need to redouble our partner-force and population leadership efforts.

Lastly, we must never forget that liberating military operations come with a moral hazard when they result in greater harm to the population than the initial status quo. The United States cannot pursue a strategy of integrated deterrence rooted in strategic competition if our cure remains worse than the disease. We must never forget to look at the operation through the lens of the population. Effective and authentic partner-force leadership offers more pragmatic and utilitarian options for the liberated people we wish to help. If military and SOF leaders understand the key tenants of irregular warfare, the liberator’s dilemma should reinforce that irregular warfare is about “people, not platforms” and as such, require that the U.S. military build and sustain a “global capability and capacity” through “patient, persistent, and culturally savvy people who can build the long-term relationships essential to executing IW.” In the execution of irregular warfare, if we think we are doing the right thing and the population shifts sides, then we are no longer doing the right thing. Senior leaders and Joint SOF professionals must think like relational networked leaders and leave traditional military leadership solutions for appropriate conventional contexts. As arguably the strongest state actor in history, we must remember that our great power adversaries are always watching and learning. We cannot fail to lead and fall behind.

The Liberator’s Dilemma: The Paradox of American Leadership

interpopulum.org · by ByJoseph Long

As the special operations profession enters a new era of Special Operations Forces (SOF) involvement in geopolitical competition in the “gray zone” as part of a comprehensive U.S. strategy of integrated deterrence, the leadership skills developed by the broader profession of arms remain necessary but insufficient. For special operations, the complexity of the emerging security environment suggests there is increasing uncertainty on how the Joint SOF profession must exercise leadership in support of American interests that center on partner forces of both developed and developing nations, as well as the interests of micro-level populations and associated non-state, sub-state, and paramilitary actors. As SOF adapts to these requirements through joint and combined integration, or “the imperative of approaching complex, complicated, wicked, and compounded challenges through ‘whole of governments, whole of societies,’” SOF must recognize the reality that this environment necessitates a new framework for understanding military leadership.

CONTACT Joseph Long, josephelong1@gmail.com The views expressed in this publication are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy, or position of the United States Government, Department of Defense, or United States Special Operations Command. © 2023 Arizona State University

Leader development and leadership education in the Joint SOF profession, and to an extent, the profession of arms, is at a historic inflection point. For the Joint SOF profession to produce the necessary leaders needed for the future, SOF must relook and reconsider the leadership education required for leading within the human domain in a world that requires military leaders to become much more than maneuver experts or masters of the interagency (JIIM-C) environment within complex ecosystems and networks. Instead, this inflection point requires operational leaders and senior commanders to lead through networks and lasting relationships within the most complex micro-level environments afforded by the human domain. Professional military education (PME) institutions that traditionally produce America’s great Generals and Admirals must openly challenge all previous assumptions.

Furthermore, the SOF profession must recognize the leadership challenges that have emerged in recent watershed events like 9/11 where SOF (at all levels) stake their survivability and operational success on their ability to offer inspiring leadership within a complex ecosystem rather than the traditional command of the elusive decisive conventional battle. Specifically, Joint SOF professionals must recognize the degree to which micro-level populations in developing countries and tribal societies contribute to America’s strategy of integrated deterrence. Even if America manages to achieve optimal leveraging of all elements of national power to successfully out-compete our great power adversaries through conventional deterrence, the risks to American interests in the “gray zone” remain pervasive. Outside of conventional military dominance, American military forces can defeat our great power adversaries directly and still suffer costly strategic setbacks in the extant strategic spaces between peace and large-scale combat operations (LSCO).

Thus, all military leaders involved in security competition as part of SOF’s support

to 21st century irregular warfare must recognize that modern leadership is about leading much more than joint military formations. Instead, modern SOF leaders must offer quality leadership at the micro-level decisive point where integrated competition remains largely unseen on the global stage. Joint SOF leaders at every echelon must leverage relational rather than transactional leadership styles as populations and their associated partner forces determine who wins or loses in strategic competition. In this space, the population chooses a winner based on utilitarian preferences, independent of the more powerful military’s ability to leverage physical force.

To understand the degree to which population-centric conflict requires a new

understanding of more than just leadership within the SOF profession, the “gray zone” challenges inherent to SOF environments are also shaping the traditional sense of military “officership” as well as “generalship” at the strategic level. As more than a strategic consideration for SOF, the “liberator’s dilemma” thought experiment underscores the degree to which military operations in the human domain increasingly rely on support from indigenous populations and associated micro-level partner forces. In short, the liberator’s dilemma provides a necessary pragmatic and ethical explanation for the realities that strong state actors face when engaging in third-party military operations designed to “liberate” an oppressed population from a hostile political regime. Specifically, the liberator’s dilemma serves both a rational choice for maximizing the effect of population-centric insurgency models under the “insurgent swims through the population like a fish swims through the sea” idea, as well as with responsible and pragmatic ethical consideration for the “liberated” population.

Using rational choice and ethical consideration models as a guide, the liberator’s

dilemma argument does more than expose critical flaws and ethical dilemmas that emerge during liberation operations. Instead, the liberator’s dilemma argument shines a meaningful light on the nature of U.S. military leadership in the era of integrated deterrence, arguing that relational, cross-cultural, and networked leadership theories have taken primacy over

“classic” leadership education traditionally rooted in transactional, “great man,” charismatic, and heroic styles of understanding how state actors and military leaders function in great power competition.

Gray Zones, Selectorates, and Insurgencies

Effective leadership in complex and “gray zone” environments is impossible without understanding the dynamic and elaborate political and social ecosystems that exist in “classic” population-centric insurgencies. Population-centric insurgency models emphasize that the will or agency of a local population is the primary actor capable of determining success in insurgency-based military operations marked by a strong state actor engaged in competition with a weak counter-state actor. For the strong state, the population is the critical link to overcoming the information disadvantage whereby the state cannot easily or accurately identify members of the insurgency. As such, the population becomes an essential ally capable of identifying rebels for surgical strike kinetic targeting.

For the weaker counter-state, the population is also critical for survival. Insurgents

rely on a supportive population, allowing them to overcome their relative size and power disadvantages compared to the state by providing concealment from state-sponsored security forces. Likewise, when the rebels are protected or hidden by the population, they can attack agents of the state from hidden safe-haven positions and erode the limited resources and support of the state to gain a long-term temporal advantage. In support of this hypothesis, insurgency scholars find that increasing access to operational safe havens empirically increases the length of insurgent conflicts, which erodes state power over time.

In understanding how regime leaders add to the micro-level political dynamic of

insurgency, Bueno de Mesquita & Smith argue that a government’s first priority, well ahead of caring for the people, is to stay in power. Therefore, regime leaders disperse resources to powerful political stakeholders and in-groups (or “selectorates”) using rational calculations balanced by the relative size of powerful actors whose support is required to stay in power, in comparison to the size of the regime’s core. In short, governing regimes maximize their likelihood of staying in power by dispersing the spoils of their power to as few people as necessary in order to retain the bulk of their power at the center. As such, closed regimes tend to have smaller selectorates, achieve results with smaller payoffs, and are incentivized to demonstrate more repressive behavior toward their citizens compared to more open and democratic regimes. In autocratic regimes, not only do dictators tend to behave badly toward their populations, autocrats rely on centralized state power and repressive security forces to protect themselves from being punished by the population. However, dictators sometimes become targets of more powerful open regimes (such as the U.S.) through liberating military operations publicly framed in the spirit of de oppresso liber, the motto of U.S. Army Special Forces.

Key to understanding regime preference for stability is the effect that regime type

has on regime survivability and stability. Specifically, Bremmer explains how the

relationship between regime openness and regime stability is often non-linear and

counterintuitive. By comparing recognized measures for regime openness, a measurable variable between low and high openness (dictatorship through democracy), with corresponding regime stability, the correlation between openness and stability is found to be curvilinear rather than a straight line. Although the most open governments tend to be the most stable, the most closed (autocratic) governments also tend to be highly stable. The effect produces a J-shaped curve that illuminates the problematic nature of replacing certain dictatorships with democracies. In this context, military operations aimed at democratizing weaker, closed regimes result in decreased stability for the population, while similar operations against more open regimes tend to enhance or increase stability.

Figure 1. Bremmer’s J-Curve

Figure 1 represents the strategic implications of the J curve on an indigenous

population. Democratizing a stable but closed regime at point A by moving it toward greater openness at point B is likely to be destabilizing. The corresponding shift in the Y-axis moves from a stability level at a to a lower stability level at b resulting in an overall, and undesired, reduction in stability. However, shifting a less autocratic regime at point B toward greater openness at point C results in the Y-axis shifting from a stability level of a to a higher stability level of c. This model reaffirms that prescriptive measures for regime overthrow for A-type states is not the same as for B-type states, suggesting that prescriptive measures for American political and military leaders in dealing with these cases is also not the same.

Theoretically, a more powerful and open regime can overthrow a weaker and more

closed regime in order to free its citizens from tyranny. In doing so, the population should remain highly cooperative in assisting the stronger actor in targeting bad actors within the closed regime, while the strong actor, in turn, potentially gains an ally and future trading partner. Unfortunately, the expectations of this model fail to account for the paradoxical and unintended consequences found when observing the liberator’s dilemma thought experiment. Thus, the liberator’s dilemma offers a more complete explanatory lens for understanding why popular support at the onset of liberation eventually leads to support for the incumbent and repressive regime.

When popular support switches sides, the liberating force risks becoming locked

into costly and protracted counterinsurgency operations that resemble costly and long-term occupation. Furthermore, scholars agree that protracted conflicts for militarily superior actors can be a strategic disadvantage when weaker actors defend against strong-state powers using an indirect military approach. In such cases, weak actors can deny stronger actors their military advantage in part by incentivizing stronger actors to risk harm to the indigenous population. This advantage is critical for success in population-centric insurgency models.

The Liberator’s Dilemma

The liberator’s dilemma serves as an informative guide for navigating the leadership challenges inherent to highly complex “gray zone” military operations by showcasing the agency and strategic power within indigenous populations. With micro-level popular support being the key to military success in any version of population-centric warfare, the kind of warfare inherent to strategic competition within a strategy of integrated deterrence, the ability to provide meaningful and effective leadership in this part of the human domain becomes essential. However, the American track record for succeeding at this leadership challenge is replete with strategic failure.

By reframing population-centric military operations as primarily leadership

challenges, modern military leaders and SOF professionals will recognize the need to develop new skills that can be leveraged against the paradox of the liberator’s dilemma so that U.S. forces can compete and win through better partnerships built on relational rather than transactional leadership styles. Although the liberator’s dilemma is resented as a stylized strategic choice model, the variables presented offer opportunities for military leaders to better understand and connect with micro-level partner forces in 21st century irregular warfare. The liberator’s dilemma argument shines a meaningful light on the nature of American leadership in the era of integrated deterrence, arguing that relational, cross-cultural, and networked leadership theories have taken primacy over “classic” leadership education rooted in transactional and “great man” theories in understanding how state actors and military leaders function in great power competition.

T=0

Figure 2. Population Support Decision tree at Time Period 0

The liberator’s dilemma assumes that a third-party intervention force of a strong

state military has achieved a successful initial invasion of a less powerful autocratic regime that challenges the strong state’s interests. The strong state “liberator” offers the population freedom from the repression of the stable but closed adversarial regime. As the stronger actor in the conflict, the liberator also assumes a moral obligation to assume responsibility for any destabilization of the population. However, large-scale stability operations often fall outside of the capabilities or resources available to most liberating powers. When a liberating force fails to provide sufficient stability to the indigenous population, the people are likely to suffer a fate worse than under the prior autocratic regime. Thus, liberating people from authoritarian regimes is a risky gambit fraught with the risk of moral hazard to the population’s welfare, ergo the liberator’s “dilemma.” Although the population might initially welcome the liberating force, competing incumbent groups from within the overthrown regime challenge the authority of the liberating force. The liberator’s dilemma underscores the logic that a stylized strategic choice model uncovers within the micro-level bargaining and rational choice problems found in figure 2.

The leadership challenge inherent to the liberator’s dilemma begins when a stronger, more open regime liberator (L) physically removes a weaker and more closed incumbent regime (I). At this point, the population (P) becomes the center of gravity for producing the expected outcomes of the conflict as predicted by insurgency theory. As figure 2 demonstrates, each side of the conflict offers varying utility for P. At the conclusion of the successful invasion (Time period 0), I can only offer the status quo (SQ), or a reduced version of the status quo, resulting from the tyrannical nature of the recently deposed dictatorial regime. Meanwhile, L offers freedom from oppression (Φ), by virtue of successful regime overthrow, combined with the introduction of goods and services (Γ) that L can now provide for the P. Since the invasion of L was successful over I, the model assumes that (Φ + Γ) reflects an improvement to the SQ, such that the utility of L is greater than the utility of I or (Φ + Γ) > (SQ), indicating that a rational P should initially prefer to support L over I.

However, classic insurgency models are static and fail to account for temporal

considerations and the expectation that a militarily defeated adversary will still compete against the liberator. Likewise, it also follows that “classic” models also fail to consider the impact that leadership, the ability of the liberator to gain and sustain popular support, has on the outcomes of insurgency-based operations. By considering the dynamics of competition within an insurgency-based campaign, military leaders can better anticipate and manage the physical and relational needs of the liberated population.

Figure 3. Population at Time 1

T=0 T=1

In scholarly competition literature, political interaction is considered less a discrete event than a series of repeated interactions between liberating and incumbent actors. In the case of competition between the Catholic and Protestant churches in Latin America, Trejo (2009) noted that the arrival of Protestant missionaries into traditionally Catholic areas in the 1960s-1980s had a negative effect on popular support for the incumbent Catholic Church. The value of goods and services provided by the newly introduced Protestant missionaries drew from traditional Catholic congregations. Not surprisingly, the Catholic church responded to this competition with increased investment in their own levels of goods and services. At this point, the population recalculated the relative utility offered by the Catholic and Protestant services and shifted support back to the incumbent Catholic Church. The theoretical implications for a would-be liberator are similar and the ability for the liberator to understand and positively influence the human domain becomes the key to successful leadership in a population-centric campaign.

At time period 1, I responds to external competition by increasing the utility of their offer to P. After losing to L at time 0 with an offer of SQ, I now also competes with L by offering their own (typically smaller) version of goods and services (γ) as part of their offer. Furthermore, I also benefits from its shared affinity (α) in linguistic and cultural alignment to P, for a total utility equal to γ + α. However, as the quality of I’s offer increases over time, the quality of L’s offer begins to decrease. The initial value of the freedom from the repressive regime (Φ) begins an inevitable decline represented by the discount variable (𝛿), such that [0 > 𝛿 > 1] with the value of 𝛿 eventually reaching 0. Therefore, as long as the conflict

continues, the value of Φ will also eventually reach 0.

Figure 4. Relative Utility over Time

Additionally, L offers the same Γ as in time 0 due to the incorrect assumption that P’s support has been secured, while L suffers an additional reduction in utility resulting from the cost of foreign occupation (C), for a total new value of (𝛿 Φ + Γ – C). At this point, P will switch sides and support I if the utility of I becomes greater than the utility of L or:

(γ + α) > (𝛿 Φ + Γ – C)

When this happens, the liberator’s dilemma exposes friction for the previously

dominant L. In contrast to L’s best intentions, P is now worse off at T=1 than it was at T=0, all due to the failure of the liberating force. The result of this dynamic is that the indigenous population remains skeptical of the liberating force, and the liberating force feels betrayed by the population, all while the stability of the population remains in decline. This sense of skepticism and betrayal thus becomes the entirety of the leadership frame required for the liberator to escape from the population trap.

Implications of the Model

The implications for the liberator’s dilemma at this point are critical to understanding the complex leadership challenges inherent to classic population-centric insurgency theory, where the population is key to success. In freeing people from a tyrannical dictator, L becomes the change agent that causes instability for the population. At this point, the subsequent reductions in stability indicate that the value of L’s original offer is decreasing. The value of freedom at time period 1 is reducing along with the relative value of Γ, given that I is now offering γ. Furthermore, the costs of occupation (C) are expected to increase over time, while the benefit of affinity (α) simultaneously increases. This means that L becomes responsible for making P paradoxically worse off than before the military intervention while simultaneously improving the quality of governance for I through competition. By exposing harm to the population, the liberator’s dilemma underscores a pragmatic and ethical problem for intervening regimes that must be accounted for when promoting global stability through American leadership through military intervention within a strategy of integrated deterrence.

To minimize the negative impact of the liberator’s dilemma on an indigenous

population, an intervening power should capitalize on the opportunity to increase its utility to the population at time 1. At this point, the population has shifted support from the liberator (L) to the incumbent (I) so that the incumbent is in a position to improve its offer and regain popular support. It is also critical that the liberator not only gain popular support but pursue operations that promote long-term sustainability and prevent negative impacts on popular support. To do this, the liberator must understand how time impacts utility in order to ensure that L > I remains true at time 2 and beyond. Figure 5 illustrates the variables affecting P’s choice. Setting the conditions for L > I means setting the conditions so that (𝛿*Φ + Γ* -C*) > (γ + α) remains true.

Figure 5. Popular Support at Time 2

T=0 T=1 T=2

Solving for the variables that the liberator is capable of controlling (𝛿*, Γ*, and C*),

the model suggests that the paradox of the liberator’s dilemma is less related to military strength than to the ability of the liberator to exercise relational leadership through building and sustaining meaningful connectedness with a distinct and complex indigenous population. Through the lens of the liberator’s dilemma, the liberator now recognizes the inevitable decline of freedom from oppression (Φ) after regime overthrow, especially given the tendency for the costs of occupation (C) to increase rather than decrease over time. To minimize this tendency, L must ensure that transactional interactions with the population are as low cost as possible while also not relying on the assumption that Φ is sufficient to promote cooperation. From a Maslovian perspective, once the population benefits from Φ, their needs mature as L assumes responsibility for the security of the population following the successful invasion. Therefore, value of security is lower at time 2 than it was at time 1, confirming that the value of Φ tends toward decline.

Secondly, the value of Γ must likewise increase in relation to the expected value of

I’s capability to provide γ. Just as businesses in free markets must always improve the value of their services to their customers, so too must liberating forces ensure that their military efforts remain focused on continuously increasing the welfare and stability of the population. If the liberating force is successful in the application of relational and cross-cultural leadership necessary for sustaining connectedness, the population will remain supportive. If not, the liberator will suffer the choice of a rational actor who picks the strategic choice with the greatest utility. Furthermore, the values of Γ vice γ suggest that the population’s behavior is the only useful measurement of success. A liberating force must counter the tendency to create convenient but irrelevant metrics.

Lastly, the liberator must understand the negative effect that an occupying power,

regardless of how seemingly benevolent, comes with increasing costs. The visual effect of seeing armed foreign fighters patrol through population centers and enforcing restrictive population control measures, such as roadblocks and checkpoints, comes with an eventual negative impact on a population. The combined effect of all three variables suggests that static models are bound to fail and that the incumbent will eventually gain support when the liberator fails to account for temporal changes.

Therefore, the liberator’s dilemma model not only underscores the dynamic political interaction between actors involved in insurgency operations, the rational choice nature of the model also illuminates multiple flawed assumptions and subsequent and common suboptimal behaviors that are absent from “classic” insurgency theory. By capturing the temporal and pragmatic nature of liberation operations, considerable leadership adjustments can help reduce the negative effects of this paradoxical dilemma. The application of carefully applied relational leadership through influence rather than military action becomes a force multiplier that allows the liberator to find success by escaping from the trap that befalls an unconnected indigenous population.

Implications for Military Leadership and the Joint SOF Profession

Again, the liberator’s dilemma reminds SOF leaders across the joint SOF profession that U.S. strategic interests and SOF’s role in integrated deterrence can be shaped by the effective use of irregular warfare. However, this realization must account for the function of the liberator’s dilemma that exposes a critical and paradoxical false assumption about population-centric warfare and about the leadership skills required of the Joint SOF profession and of senior military leaders. Furthermore, variables that represent military strength remain

conspicuously absent as the liberator’s dilemma reminds us that “gray zone” operations are foremost leadership problems that require innovative ways of understanding the human domain more than they are measures of military power. In the liberator’s dilemma, force does not equate to power, and recent U.S. military conflicts provide examples where military power without an effective leadership strategy oriented in the human domain leads to protracted conflict and eventual failure. The solution then is to look toward improving our leadership skills before exploring more innovative ways to inflict physical force.

More problematically, traditional professional military education reinforces

leadership models that evolved from a long history of military conquest where conquering military forces enjoy ownership over their historical narratives. However, the military operations most conducive to “gray zone” competition require that military leaders and SOF professionals understand newer and more relational theories on leadership. In irregular warfare, leaders from the tactical special operations team to strategic and political levels must understand how to build connectedness and sustain relationships across highly complex networks and ecosystems. Building and sustaining lasting connectedness in indigenous populations requires that SOF leaders learn to lead differently.

As the liberator’s dilemma exposes, classic counterinsurgency theory fails to

account for certain variables that represent the agency of a partner-force population. Population-centric military operations of all types must recognize and minimize the liberator’s dilemma paradox and consider how to offer utilitarian value to the populations where the U.S. military and SOF professionals operate. Sadly, the impact on the population has been largely a case of failure in our recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. In observing and comparing urban Afghanistan populations in 2004 and 2011, lasting improvements to stability and quality of life were non-existent. The temporal effects in Afghanistan suggest that the population’s eventual support of the Taliban was less a victory for the Taliban than it was a strategic leadership failure of the military in general and the SOF profession more specifically. We must quickly realize our moral obligation to offer quality leadership to all of the actors within our networks, but most especially to the members of the population whom we often negatively impact.

For liberating operations of the future, as part of a strategy of integrated deterrence and strategic competition, the liberator’s dilemma exposes several important strategic considerations. First, we must begin population-centric military operations with a population-centric end state in mind. This requires consideration for the strategic benefit of limiting force structure ex-ante to a very small footprint in an upfront effort to minimize the inevitable adverse effects that will result from costs of occupation. Likewise, military planners must also dictate long-term objectives that consider the inevitable decline of the initial offering of freedom while considering the strategic effect that goods and services will have on how U.S. forces are perceived by a population over time.

Similarly, leading populations and their associated micro-level partner forces require that both senior military leaders and SOF professionals rigidly enforce stylistic relational leadership continuity across rotational units. The negative impact on the population of “20 one-year wars” versus “one 20-year war” must not continue. Furthermore, promoting effective leadership of an occupied indigenous population and their associated partner forces necessitate that the people perpetually remain the main effort. American forces at all levels must resist the temptation to become enemy-focused and recognize that enemy-centric behavior translated to increasing (not decreasing) the cost of foreign occupation. In doing so, we must also acknowledge that time does not favor the liberator. We must achieve our strategic goals in a manner that promotes sustainability while also reversing entropy as quickly as possible. When population support shifts, we must resist the urge to seek kinetic solutions or to launch personnel surges. These will yield tactical success attached to strategic setbacks. Instead, we must recognize shifts in popular support as reminders that we need to redouble our partner-force and population leadership efforts.

Lastly, we must never forget that liberating military operations come with a moral

hazard when they result in greater harm to the population than the initial status quo. The United States cannot pursue a strategy of integrated deterrence rooted in strategic competition if our cure remains worse than the disease. We must never forget to look at the operation through the lens of the population. Effective and authentic partner-force leadership offers more pragmatic and utilitarian options for the liberated people we wish to help. If military and SOF leaders understand the key tenants of irregular warfare, the liberator’s dilemma should reinforce that irregular warfare is about “people, not platforms” and as such, require that the U.S. military build and sustain a “global capability and capacity” through “patient, persistent, and culturally savvy people who can build the long-term relationships essential to executing IW.” In the execution of irregular warfare, if we think we are doing the right thing and the population shifts sides, then we are no longer doing the right thing. Senior leaders and Joint SOF professionals must think like relational networked leaders and leave traditional military leadership solutions for appropriate conventional contexts. As arguably the strongest state actor in history, we must remember that our great power adversaries are always watching and learning. We cannot fail to lead and fall behind.

Endnotes

1 Isaiah Wilson, III and C Anthony Pfaff, “Making the Case for a Joint Special Operations Profession,” Joint Forces Quarterly 105 (Spring 2022): 45.

2 Wilson and Pfaff, “Making the Case for a Joint Special Operations Profession,” 52.

3 David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, (London: Frederick A. Praeger,1964); Robert Taber, The War of the Flea: Guerilla Warfare Theory and Practice (London: Granada Publishing Limited, 1965); Mao Tse-Tung, On Guerilla Warfare (Champaign, IL: First Illinois Paperback, 2000a).

4 Mao Tse-Tung, “On Guerilla Warfare.”

5 Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship (Union School Furnishing Company, 1908). http://ebooks.rahnuma.org/religion/Seerat_Taiba/On-Heroes-Worship-And-the-Heroic-in-History.pdf; Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (Univ of California Press, Vol 1); B. A. Spector, “Carlyle, Freud, and the Great Man Theory More Fully Considered,” Leadership 12 (2): 250–60, https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715015571392; Gordon A.Wyner, “The ‘Great Man’ Theory,” Marketing Management (January/February 2009): 6–8.

6 Navin A. Bapat, “The Internationalization of Terrorist Campaigns,” Conflict Management and Peace Science 24, no. 4 (2009): 265–80; Navin A. Bapat, “The Escalation of Terrorism: Microlevel Violence and Interstate Conflict,” International Interactions 40, no. 4 (2014): 568–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050629.2014.902818; Idean Salehyan, “Transnational Rebels: Neighboring States as Sanctuary for Rebel Groups,” World Politics 59, no. 2(2007): 217–42; Idean Salehyan, “No Shelter Here: Rebel Sanctuaries and International Conflict,” The Journal of Politics 70, no. 1 (2008b): 54–66; Idean Salehyan, “The Externalities of Civil Strife: Refugees as a Source of International Conflict,” American Journal of Political Science 52, no. 4 (2008b): 787–801; Idean Salehyan and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, “Refugees and the Spread of Civil War,” International Organization 60, no. 2 (2006): 335–66.

7 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, “Leader Survival, Revolutions, and the Nature of Government Finance,” American Journal of Political Science 54, no. 4 (2006): 936–50. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00463.x; Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior Is Almost Always Good Politics. New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2011).

8 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, “Leader Survival, Revolutions, and the Nature of Government Finance,” American Journal of Political Science 54, no. 4 (2006): 936–50. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00463.x; Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior Is Almost Always Good Politics. New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2011).

9 Ian Bremmer, The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006): 6.

10 Bremmer, The J Curve.

11 Bremmer, The J Curve.

12 Ivan Arreguin-Toft, “How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict,” International Security 26, no. 1 (2001): 93–128.; Andrew Mack, “Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars: The Politics of Asymmetric Conflict,” World Politics 27, no. 2 (1973): 175–200.

13 David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (London: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964); Robert Taber, The War of the Flea: Guerilla Warfare Theory and Practice (London: Granada Publishing Limited, 1965); Mao Tse-Tung. On Guerilla Warfare (Champaign, IL: First Illinois Paperback, 2000a).

14 Ivan Arreguin-Toft, “How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict,” International Security 26, no. 1 (2001): 93–128; David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, (London: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964). Andrew Mack, “Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars: The Politics of Asymmetric Conflict,” World Politics 27, no. 2(1973): 175–200; Robert Taber, The War of the Flea: Guerilla Warfare Theory and Practice (London: Granada Publishing Limited, 1965); Mao Tse-Tung. On Guerilla Warfare (Champaign, IL: First Illinois Paperback, 2000a).

15 Guillermo Trejo, “Religious Competition and Ethnic Mobilization in Latin America: Why the Catholic Church Promotes Indigenous Movements in Mexico,” American Political Science Review103, no. 3 (2009): 323–42.

16 Trejo, “Religious Competition 323–42.

17 Trejo, “Religious Competition 323–42.

18 David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (London: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964); Robert Taber, The War of the Flea: Guerilla Warfare Theory and Practice (London: Granada Publishing Limited, 1965); Mao Tse-Tung. On Guerilla Warfare (Champaign, IL: First Illinois Paperback, 2000a).

19 Abraham H. Maslow, “A Theory of Human Motivation,” Psychological Review 50 (1943): 370–96.

20 Keith Grint, “A History of Leadership,” in The SAGE Handbook of Leadership, edited by Alan Bryman, David Collinson, Keith Grint, Brad Jackson, and Mary Uhl-Bien, 3–28 (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2011).

21 Joint Operating Concept, 2007.

interpopulum.org · by ByJoseph Long

9. "Two Arrows Crossed" A History of U.S. Army Special Forces Branch Insignia

Some interesting history is also included beyond the story of the crossed arrows.

"Two Arrows Crossed" A History of U.S. Army Special Forces Branch Insignia

By Bob Seals

https://militaryhistoryonline.com/Modern/SpecialForcesInsignia?mc_cid=4f145b4945&mc_eid=70bf478f36

Abstract: In April 1987, the U.S. Army established Special Forces (SF) as a branch. Crossed arrows were the new SF branch insignia, reauthorizing the wear of a unique Army uniform item originally worn during the closing days of the American frontier. The reestablishment honored the Indian Scouts, the irregulars who first wore the arrows in 1890, and ended almost one hundred years of repeated requests to use the insignia.

Original 1890 U.S. Scout insignia, authors collection.

On June 19 1987, Department of the Army General Orders Number 35, Army Special Forces (SF) Branch, was issued. By order of General John A. Wickham, Jr., the thirtieth Army Chief of Staff, SF was “established as a basic branch of the Army effective 9 April 1987.” The insignia for the newest branch in the Army was “Two crossed arrows 3/4 inch in height and 1 3/8 inches.”[1] Originally worn in 1890 by U.S. Indian Scouts, the arrows are now on the uniforms, regimental insignia, and coat of arms for all Active Duty and National Guard SF soldiers.[2]

This Army history is generally known. What is not commonly known is the story of the visionary First Lieutenant who designed the insignia, his tragic death, and the events that led to reintroduction of the arrows. This article surveys the history of Army crossed arrows including their initial use, wear, and numerous unsuccessful SF attempts to wear the arrows again before 1987. Over time, this advocacy led to the 1st SF Regiment “tribe” of Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF) wearing the insignia first worn as the Indian Wars came to an end.[3]

Please note that the term “Indian” as used in this article is in keeping with the naming conventions used when the Scouts wore crossed arrows. The author’s belief is that the use of the insignia by SF, like the arrow shaped Shoulder Sleeve Insignia (SSI), honors and celebrates the warrior legacy of our Native Americans. Sixteen Medals of Honor were awarded to Scouts from 1869 to 1890 for “gallant conduct,” “invaluable service,” and “intrepidity in action” in recognition of their valor.[4]

Introduction and First Use

The use of Native American “Guides to the West” can be traced back to the earliest days of the U.S. Army. However, it was not until the closing days of the American frontier that a serious proposal was made to turn such irregulars into “an Indian regiment” of trained and uniformed mounted scouts in small troops. In 1889, Army department commanders in the west were granted authority to organize such scout troops for “experimental service.”[5] Perhaps the most determined champion of the concept was First Lieutenant Edward L. Casey, of the 22nd Infantry Regiment. Casey was a visionary 1873 graduate of U.S. Military Academy, and highly regarded frontier veteran with scout service under Colonel Nelson A. Miles in 1876-77.[6]

Lieutenant Casey, Commandant of Cheyenne Scouts

According to Casey, who commanded a small Indian Scout detachment at Fort Keogh, Montana, in the Department of the Dakotas, his men were quite capable of more organized soldiering. As such, they should be properly armed, fed, trained, paid, quartered, and uniformed.[7] “Big Red Nose,” as Casey was known to his men, traveled to Washington, D.C. on a leave of absence in March 1890 to press the Army for authorization to raise his scouts to a 100-man demonstration troop for “inspection during the coming summer encampment.”

Casey’s concept, approved by the Army’s Commanding General John M. Schofield during the lobbying visit, was a “modified form” of an earlier proposal with significant modifications. His scouts were to be issued a “uniform…the same as that of white soldiers, but with distinctive facings and modifications.” One of the modifications, worn on the fatigue hat, was to be “two arrows crossed…made of metal, 3 inches in length, the letters U.S.S. in the upper intersection.” The crossed arrows were also to appear on scout guidons and the spiked Pattern 1881 Dress Helmets.[8] In November of 1875 the Army had transitioned from the European inspired hunting horn as infantry insignia to “two gold-embroidered rifles without bayonets, barrels upward,” so the crossed arrow design was a logical design adaptation.[9]

Cloth 2nd Infantry patch from interwar period.

Recruiting went slow over the summer, but Casey worked his scouts hard. His troop had horse mounted and unmounted drills in the morning followed by afternoon “fatigue duties.” These included gardening and building log cabins before a brutal winter. Within months his troop was celebrated by artist Frederick Remington as a “perfectly uniformed and organized troop” after a Montana visit. Unfortunately, this perfection was short lived as Lieutenant Casey was tragically killed on January 7, 1891 at White River, South Dakota while attempting to parlay a truce in the aftermath of the Ghost Dance tragedy at Wounded Knee. “One of the most brilliant and beloved officers of the service” was gone, but the Indian Scouts and their crossed arrows continued.[10]

As the frontier closed and the Army slowly modernized in the twentieth century, Scout arrows changed also. The traditional blue uniform was gradually replaced by olive drab, and by 1907 crossed arrows were temporarily gone as the Army removed all metal insignia on campaign hats. Scout collar insignia now consisted of the block letters USS for U.S. Scouts. However, three years later the crossed arrows returned on the enlisted uniform collar disk insignia. Scout numbers dwindled, and by 1922, only twenty-three remained on Army rolls. Assigned to the uninspiring sounding Detached Enlisted Men’s List, they were again authorized arrows on their collar disks, and were mainly used as a casual “labor force” during the interwar period. Wear of the crossed arrow insignia was seemingly casual also, and scouts wore a variety of issued collar insignia. A small Apache detachment continued at Fort Huachuca, Arizona until 1943 and the last Scout retired five years later.[11]

A second Army unit, unrelated to the Indian Scouts, also wore crossed arrows after the First World War. In March 1924, the Second Infantry Regiment received permission to wear two crossed red arrows, described as “an ancient Infantry weapon” on a blue field. Worn on “the right cuff of the service coat” the arrows commemorated the Seminole and California Indian campaigns of the previous century. Headquartered at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, the regiment also wore a Distinctive Unit Insignia (DUI) or unit crest. The regiment had the unique honor of “two different distinctive insignia” until March 1936 when War Department authorization to wear the two-inch arrows on the coat was withdrawn.[12]

U.S. entry into World War II set in motion a series of events leading to the third use of crossed arrows by a combined American-Canadian Army unit, the First Special Service Force (FSSF). The FSSF was “a commando force, trained in winter mountain warfare, to conduct raids against strategic targets in Nazi-occupied Europe.” Activated at Fort William Henry Harrison, Montana, on 9 July 1942, the FSSF was given a scant six months to “prepare for combat.”[13] This unique unit was commanded by U.S. Army Coast Artillery Colonel Robert T. Frederick. One of his officers “suggested naming subordinate units after Indian tribes” and calling Soldiers “Braves.” These were not adopted but later in July a memorandum to the War Department requested that the unit “be authorized to wear the former insignia of the Indian Scouts” since “the entire motif of this force has been set up along Indian lines.”[14] Led by COL Frederick, who was awarded two Distinguished Service Crosses and eight Purple Hearts during the war, the Force earned six campaign streamers and the nickname “The Devil’s Brigade” at Anzio for their aggressive night patrols. Disbanded on 6 January 1945 near Menton, France, the wear of crossed arrows during the war was over. However, the FSSF legacy continued as some veterans soldiered on and migrated into SF Groups in the early 1950s.[15]

The Communist North Korean invasion of South Korea in June 1950 set in motion a series of events leading to the fourth request to wear the crossed arrows. The invasion and subsequent American intervention in Korea demonstrated the Army’s unpreparedness for combat. This unpreparedness included an inability to conduct unconventional warfare (UW). The need for that capability added urgency to Army planning efforts and led to the creation of SF units. The first SF Group, the 10th SF Group, was activated at Fort Bragg, North Carolina (NC) on 11 June 1952. The group was commanded by a World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS) veteran of Europe and the Pacific, COL Aaron Bank.[16]

Bank pursued several “distinctive” uniform initiatives through the higher headquarters Psychological Warfare Center at Bragg to help build an identity for the new unit. These uniform proposals included an “official unit patch” or SSI, and crossed arrows as branch insignia, as worn by the FSSF. Four months after activation a 20 October 1952 request was submitted for wear of crossed arrows by the singular SF Group in the Army. Supported by the Center’s commander COL Carl H. Karlstad, Army Field Forces Command disapproved the request. Bank later described himself as “perturbed” over his failures to gain approval for the uniform items.[17]

With the adoption of the Combat Arms Regiment System (CARS) in 1957, the Army three years later assigned the three SF Groups to the newly created 1st SF Regiment for lineage and honors. Approved in July 1960, the Regiment inherited the FSSF lineage and honors. The Regimental Coat of Arms and Distinctive Unit Insignia (DUI) incorporated crossed arrows and a V-42 knife used by the Force. Not forgotten, SF had visible reminders of the Force. A new President, and Army study of “Special Warfare” brought the use of crossed arrows as branch insignia up again.

The fifth request to wear the crossed arrows began as with the new 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. In 1961, the President’s new “flexible response” National Security Strategy to a wide spectrum of conflict, including Communist supported “wars of national liberation” resulted in increased Department of Defense interest regarding “special warfare.” The U.S. Army “took the President’s vision seriously” and one result was the Continental Army Command (CONARC) directed Special Warfare Board held at Fort Bragg in January of 1962. Chaired by the XVIII Airborne Corps Commander Lieutenant General (LTG) Hamilton L. Howze, the board made wide ranging recommendations on special warfare related equipment, training, and personnel matters.[18]

One recommendation from the 229-page board report was concerning “Branch Insignia.” Once again, crossed arrows were proposed as the SF branch insignia for personnel assigned to the growing number of SF groups. Championed by the creative Special Warfare Center commander Brigadier General (BG) William P. Yarborough, the request had been originally submitted in November of 1961, in the wake of President Kennedy’s memorable visit to Fort Bragg. CONARC rejected the board’s recommendation, along with BG Yarborough’s proposed issued “Bowie knife” for SF. After retirement, Yarborough, who designed the parachute badge in World War II, reflected that “little things like this were looked upon with disdain because our Army has always rejected the intangible things.”[19] Disdain or not, evidence suggests that locally made unauthorized branch insignia crossed arrows were worn by SF in 1964-1965.[20]

As Army involvement in the Vietnam War headed towards an end in 1972, an “Interim Change” to uniform regulations set in motion the sixth request to wear crossed arrows. A 2 May message authorized “officers, warrant officers, and enlisted pers” while assigned to armored cavalry regiments or separate cavalry troops to wear the “crossed sabre insignia in lieu of branch insignia” on an optional basis. Seeing an opening with this “precedence,” COL W.C. Norman, Commander of the Security Assistance Force (SAF) for Latin American, 3rd Battalion, 7th SF Group, requested “Crossed Arrow” insignia as worn by the FSSF in August of 1973. Only “SF qualified personnel would wear the insignia” and only while either in or “enroute” to an SF unit. As before, this request was “received and denied” since, according to the Department of the Army, SF units already had “adequate identification,” by this point.[22]

SF was in a fight for survival. Post-Vietnam cutbacks brought the Regiment down to 5th, 7th, and 10th SF Groups with plans to eliminate the 7th SFG. With more important concerns than branch insignia, it took a new decade, President, the Operation EAGLE CLAW tragedy in Iran, and threats from terrorism and insurgencies for a “renewed emphasis on special operations in the 1980s.” This emphasis and revitalization helped make the seventh request for wear of the crossed arrows a successful one. With the inauguration of the 40th President, Ronald W. Reagan, in January of 1981, increased support now existed for the military in general and confronting threats abroad. Some threats were close to home such as troubling Communist insurgent movements in Central and South America.[23]

With a congress and an administration anxious to avoid “another Vietnam,” Army SF again assumed the Foreign Internal Defense (FID) mission. Mainly conducted by 7th SF Group, such missions in our hemisphere helped to “revitalize SF that had almost been eliminated after Vietnam” and increasingly led to greater Army recognition during the 1980s. On 8 June 1983, a “Special Operations career field” was approved by the Army for implementation the following year. Part of the implementation was the reintroduction of crossed arrows collar insignia for enlisted SF soldiers, after yet another request, this time from the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center (USAJFKSWCS) at Fort Bragg. SF Officers continued to wear their basic branch insignia, such as infantry or armor, and were not authorized to wear the arrows.[24] After an interval of almost four decades, crossed arrows had returned in the Army.

The decade of rebuilding continued. In 1984, the 1st SF Group, oriented upon Asia, was reactivated at Fort Lewis, Washington, and on the island of Okinawa, Japan. A strange personnel management limbo existed for several years. Not yet recognized as a branch, SF was a “specialty code” or later a “functional area” for officers, seemingly only on temporary assignments and not as committed as their long serving NCOs. Later, in September 1986, a USAJFKSWCS request by its commanding general, BG James A. Guest, attempted to resolve the issue citing the “traditional ties” to the FSSF, and the fact that the “crossed arrows insignia” was already “authorized on SF unit guidons.”[25]

By 1986, the Army was studying SF becoming a separate branch, similar to the creation of an Aviation Branch in April of 1983. Strangely enough, the crossed arrows insignia issue for wear by officers was resolved before branch creation. In January of 1987, arrows were approved for officers “affiliated to the 1st Special Forces” but those “not physically assigned to a SF or Special Operations unit” could not wear the insignia.[26] Three months later 9 April 1987 Army SF was established as “the Army’s 16th career branch” with “the crossed arrows [representing] the new branch.” Additional requests that month from BG Guest eventually resolved the officer assignment wear issue and set in motion Jungle Green as the authorized SF Branch Color, similar in shade to the beret.[27] Guest later commented that “the crossed arrows were associated with SF for a long time due to the Indian Scouts,” and were in keeping with the branch concept of “soldiers working with indigenous forces.” Finally, the newest Army branch proudly wore insignia first used by the Scouts in 1890.

This article has surveyed the history of crossed arrows as U.S. Army insignia from “Casey’s Scouts,” to the First Special Service Force, and the various SF attempts to wear the arrows again, before final approval as Branch Insignia in 1987. The exception to this sought-after consistency were the SF Warrant Officers, who wore the Warrant Officer branch insignia as did all warrants in the Army. On the 86th anniversary of the Army Warrant Officer corps on 9 July 2004, all Army warrants replaced their “Eagle Rising” branch insignia for their respective branch of service insignia. At long last, all SF soldiers, be they enlisted or officers, finally shared a common insignia made famous by their celebrated predecessors. It had been quite an effort, seemingly confirming Arthur E. Du Bois, the Chief of Heraldic Section of the War Department, who wrote that “the truth that human beings respond more forcefully and happily to beauty, poetry, and romance, all of which insignia convey, than to cold fact.”[29]

* * *

Show Notes

* * *

Written by Bob Seals.

About the author:

Bob Seals is a retired Army Special Forces officer currently working at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School on Fort Bragg. He lives on a small horse farm with his wife, a retired Army Veterinary Corps officer. He was fortunate to have served with several Son Tay Raiders during his career.

* Views expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent those of MilitaryHistoryOnline.com.

10. Israel’s near-perfect missile success had a special line of defense

Here is a case where we can all say "Go Navy" (beat Iran). (but I think the Air Force and Army Patriots had roles as well).

Israel’s near-perfect missile success had a special line of defense

US Navy played a major role in Israel's defense and that serves as a warning to other adversaries

By Rebecca Grant Fox News

Published April 16, 2024 8:00am EDT

foxnews.com · by Rebecca Grant Fox News

Video

House lawmakers weigh aid to Israel after Iran launches drone attack

Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., joined 'Fox & Friends First' to discuss how the U.S. can help Israel after the attack from Iran and why the White House is facing scrutiny for leaking call details with Netanyahu.

Diplomacy and deterrence failed, but on Saturday night the U.S. military stepped in to help protect Israel against the unprecedented attack from Iran. Credit a near-perfect missile defense, beginning with U.S. planes and warships, for bringing down 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles.

As Iran geared up, the Biden White House once again tried to stop military action by revealing that Iran’s military preparations were being watched. It didn’t work against Iran (or with with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine in 2022.)

The "Don’t" warning is now defunct. Biden’s foreign policy team has to wake up to the reality that right now, their language of deterrence is broken.

WHAT IS ISRAEL'S FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE, THE IRON DOME?

Fortunately, the men and women of the U.S. military deployed to the Middle East had Israel’s back. Years of work on technology and training came together with a lot of tactical lessons learned from operations in the Red Sea since last fall. Young military officers and enlisted personnel from the U.S., Great Britain, France and Jordan just carried out a massive save.

The US Navy was ready to come to the aid of our ally Israel when Iran let loose a massive air attack. (U.S. Navy )

Note for China and Xi Jinping: every component of this missile defense from destroyers to fighters to Arrow, Patriot and Iron Dome can be positioned to protect Taiwan, the Philippines or any other U.S. ally. Just saying.

Here’s how it worked Saturday night.

First, intelligence from both Israel and the U.S. picked up early indications that Iran was marshalling drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missile launchers. This was the crucial item: satellites, aerial reconnaissance, cyber sleuths, electronic signals specialists and good old human spies watched for "indications and warning" as Iran’s military and militias got the weapons and crews ready.

I’m telling you, our intelligence pros were probably watching the Iranians finish their tea and get in the trucks to prep the drones. The Pentagon also had time to reposition destroyers in the Eastern Mediterranean and send in an additional U.S. Air Force fighter squadron, according to John Kirby at the White House.

Video

On Saturday night, the U.S. and Israel picked up the launches immediately. Iran was so brazen, they could hardly have missed it. In fact, U.S. forces killed seven drones and one ballistic missile at their launch pads in Yemen. That’s ideal.

Next, as hundreds of missiles and drones were in the air, U.S. and Israeli radars developed tracks of the inbounds and began assigning ships and aircraft to target them. Those slim, haze gray U.S. Navy destroyers off Israel and in the Red Sea are missile defense experts.

The DDG-51s carry the AN/SPY-1 radar. (Look for its flat octagonal antenna array on the mast.) As Iran’s missiles and drones headed for Israel, the Navy AN/SPY-1 radars start displaying and linking a picture of what’s in the air and where the attack was heading. It’s like watching an outfielder catch a baseball pop-fly.

Iran’s obvious preparation and big launches gave defenders ample time. An hour is a long time in missile defense. It’s part art, part science, but efficient missile warning allowed a big chunk of the drones and missiles to be intercepted in flight.

The US Navy was part of Israel's anti-missile shield against Iran. FILE: In a previous attack, the Navy stopped Iran from taking over two tankers in Gulf of Oman. (U.S. Naval Forces Central Command Public Affairs)

Airborne fighter planes pointed their highly sensitive, long-range radars to pick up Iran’s salvos. U.S. Navy F/A-18s from the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower, most likely U.S. F-35s based in the region, Jordan’s F-16 fighters, and the Israeli air force swung into action. Controllers passed missile and drone track locations which then appeared on cockpit radars.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

Iran’s slow, noisy drones are easy prey once they’ve been spotted. The American tally was 80 drones and six ballistic missiles, according to U.S. Central Command. Jordan shot down a number of drones in sovereign Jordanian airspace. Saudi Arabia won’t want to talk about it, but it’s likely the Crown Prince gave permission to use Saudi airspace as needed in the heat of battle.

Cruise missiles can be a bit tougher than drones, especially if they maneuver. However, the warplanes and missile defense up Saturday night were more than a match for Iran’s cruise missiles. Remember an Israeli F-35 Adir fighter (made in the USA) tracked and shot down a Houthi cruise missile inbound for Israel back in October.

Iran’s obvious preparation and big launches gave defenders ample time. An hour is a long time in missile defense. It’s part art, part science, but efficient missile warning allowed a big chunk of the drones and missiles to be intercepted in flight.

Given all the Iranian drones shot down over the Red Sea and Ukraine, the Pentagon has highly current data on the flight characteristics and target signatures of Iran-made weaponry and has shared these tactical updates with Israel. Knowing how the drones and missiles appear on radar was a big help Saturday night.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Finally, Israelis live under the best multi-layered missile defense in the world. The exo-atmospheric Arrow system hit nearly all the incoming ballistic missiles in the middle course of their flight path, destroying most of the warheads in space before re-entry. For anything else that got through, Patriot and Iron Dome. We're ready for terminal defense.

All this was greatly helped by Central Command and Gen. Michael "Erik" Kurilla, United States Army, who met with Israeli officials last week and also organized the team to help Israel on Saturday night. U.S. Central Command knocks out Houthi missiles from Yemen and air drops relief supplies in Gaza almost every day. We should be thankful America’s men and women serving throughout the Middle East stepped in to protect an ally when the White House warnings failed.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM REBECCA GRANT

Dr. Rebecca Grant is vice president of the Lexington Institute.

foxnews.com · by Rebecca Grant Fox News

11. Putin's Dangerous Delusions

Excerpts:

As British journalist Con Couglin has pointed out, “The longer the war continues in Ukraine, the more Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be losing touch with reality.” High level nuclear threats are common in Putin’s Russia, particularly in relation to Putin’s war against Ukraine. Putin’s paranoia and isolation from reality take on a much greater significance in the context of Russia’s invasion of its neighbor, its nuclear superiority, its low nuclear use threshold, and its nuclear threats. Putin’s world view is very dangerous because it is divorced from reality and is backed by the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Nuclear escalation is built into Putin’s nuclear doctrine. Everything that happens in any future nuclear crisis will be viewed in Moscow through the prism of Putin’s world of political and historical fantasy.

According to the United Kingdom’s Defense Ministry, Putin’s war against Ukraine has cost Russia 350,000 casualties. Unless it threatens his hold on power, Putin could care less. His main objective is expanding Russia’s borders and enhancing Russia’s power on the global stage. Indeed, in 2023, Putin attacked the early 20th century Bolsheviks because of their withdrawal for World War I on the grounds that, “Intrigues, bickering and politicking behind the back of the army and the people turned out to be the greatest catastrophe, the destruction of the army and the state, loss of huge territories, resulting in a tragedy and a civil war.” Attacking the Communist legacy is not common in Moscow. Lenin is still in his mausoleum in Red Square. It reflects how important territorial control and expansion is to Vladimir Putin. Putin’s concern appears to be that Russia’s withdrawal from World War I lost Russia the gain of Istanbul.[3]

According to General Christopher Cavoli, the head of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, “In sum, Russia is on track to command the largest military on the continent and a defense industrial complex capable of generating substantial amounts of ammunition and materiel in support of large scale combat operations…Regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, Russia will be larger, more lethal, and angrier with the West than when it invaded. Diplomatically, Russia has used the past two years to attempt to alter the global security architecture by creating relationships that challenge the existing order.”

Putin's Dangerous Delusions

By Mark B. Schneider

April 17, 2024

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/04/17/putins_dangerous_delusions_1025528.html?mc_cid=4f145b4945&mc_eid=70bf478f36

Putin Blames the West for Crocus City Hall Concert Terrorist Attack and Other Dangerous Delusions

French President Emmanuel Macron characterized statements made by Russian President Vladimir Putin in a telephone conversation with him as “ridiculous” and “indeed baroque and threatening, which is nothing new.” Putin suggested that the French secret services had been involved in the ISIS terrorist attack in Moscow. This was an apparently a coordinated effort because Russian Defense Minister General of the Army Sergei Shoigu reportedly said the same thing to French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu. Moreover, the Russian suggestion of French involvement was made after President Putin had finally admitted that the Crocus City Hall concert terrorist attack had been made by “radical Islamists.”

President Macron was correct that such remarks by Putin were “nothing new.” Putin’s suggestion that Western nations were behind terrorist attacks in Russia goes back at least to the deadly 2004 Beslan terrorist attack, committed by Chechens, against whom Putin was waging a devastating war. Putin declared, “Some want to wrest from us as fat a morsel as possible and others are helping them. They are helping them in the belief that Russia, as one of the biggest nuclear powers, still represents a threat to someone. Therefore, this threat has to be eliminated. And terrorism is, of course, only a tool for achieving these goals.” In 2005, Putin critic Masha Lipman pointed out that Putin’s propaganda portrays Russia as “…an isolated country targeted by unnamed—but most likely Western—enemies seeking to destroy it.” Since then, Russian propaganda and Putin’s threats have become much more explicit and extreme.

In 2012, Putin attacked the United States for supposedly wanting to dominate the world, stating that, “They wish to control everything…. I have the impression that the United States needs no allies. It needs vassals.”[1] In 2017, President Putin declared that the United States “…claimed they were ready for cooperation in fighting terrorism, but in reality they were using those terrorists to destabilize Russia’s domestic situation.” He said that NATO was “…provoking us, trying to drag us into a confrontation.” (Emphasis in the original.) He also declared that NATO nations “…have sped up the process of deploying conventional and strategic weapons beyond the member states’ borders.” According to Putin, “NATO and the USA wanted a complete victory over the Soviet Union. They wanted to sit on the throne in Europe alone.” One hundred percent of Putin’s claims were untrue.

President Putin’s ridiculous 2024 claims about Russia fighting “neo-Naziism” in Ukraine are not new. In 2023, Nikolai Patrushev, the long-term Secretary of the Russian Security Council and a possible Putin successor, echoed this assertion, claiming that Ukraine was using “Neo-Nazi” groups in Russia to attack it. In 2015, then-Kremlin Chief of Staff Colonel General Sergei Ivanov claimed that “…in some countries in Eastern Europe particularly, but also Greece, Germany, Britain as well, to some extent, there is a growing neo-Nazi movement.” In 2014, Putin characterized Ukrainian defense against the Russian invasion of Eastern Ukraine as the work of “neo-Nazis…waging a real campaign of terror against civilians.” In the Kremlin’s view, any opposition to the Putin dictatorship or Russian imperialism is “neo-Nazi.”

In 2022, Patrushev said that the United States intended to “weaken, divide and destroy” Russia and was trying to weaken Russia in order to gain access to its mineral resources. He added that “the disintegration of the Russian Federation is not ruled out” by the United States. In 2016 Patrushev stated, “The U.S. leadership has set the target of a global domination for itself. Therefore, they don’t need [a] strong Russia. Just the opposite, they need to weaken our country at the most.”[2] In 2015, he claimed that the United States was trying to achieve the “disintegration” of Russia in order to get access to Russian national resources. In 2005, the official newspaper of the Russian Defense Ministry declared that the West was engaged in a covert struggle for Russian forces and territory and that because Russian has strategic nuclear forces, “With political will we will have something with which to respond at the critical moment in History.”

Putin’s confrontation with the West developed over a prolonged period of time. In 2012, Russian journalist Yulia Latynina wrote, “It appears that Putin is on a dangerous course. He is gradually sliding down into the category of other rogue leaders, such as former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, former Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi and Assad.” In 2014, noted historian Walter Laqueur observed that, “For some considerable time the element of fantasy in Russian political discourse has been strong (and growing stronger), not only at the popular level but in official statements.” In 2015, Vladislav Inozemtsev, Director of the Moscow-based Center for Post-Industrial Studies wrote that, “Russian propaganda is incredibly inane and officials’ lie shamelessly and flagrantly.”

In 2015, noted Russian journalist Alexander Golts observed that, “Putin continues to profess a very primitive version of Realpolitik.” He also noted that, “if Moscow cannot offer anything constructive to the international dialogue, it must create new problems in order to remain relevant.”

In 2022, former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev observed, “When the country [Russia] decided to choose the path of confrontation with the West…for this policy to receive public support, the state needed to launch propaganda efforts. This propaganda began to use old Soviet ideas about NATO aggression, about a West that wants to enslave Russia and obtain access to its resources.” Mr. Bondarev also noted that, “It is not uncommon in Russia to think European countries are unable to decide on their own, that the European Union always does as [US President] Joe Biden says.” Putin often refers to European nations as U.S. “satellites.” In 2023, Putin declared, “The United States and its satellites have taken a steady course towards hegemony in military affairs, politics, the economy, culture and even morals and values.” In 2024, Putin said that “Ukraine is obviously a satellite state of the US.” He also claimed the continuation of the Ukraine war after March 2022 was the result of “…the United States and its satellites in Europe.” In Putin’s 2024 address to the Federal Assembly he declared that, “The United States and its satellites have, in fact, dismantled the European security system which has created risks for everyone.”

The Putin regime has long regarded itself as at war with the United States, which Putin hates.

Putin’s world view embraces the legitimacy of Rusisan imperial domination and mirror images Russian objectives upon NATO. This is most blatantly evident in his defense of his war against Ukraine. In March 2024, Deputy chief of the Russian National Security Council (and former President) Dmitri Medvedev displayed a map of postwar Russia in which “…the vast majority of Ukraine’s territory [is] gobbled up by Russia.” Russian imperialism is quite popular in Russia.

In the timeframe of the Putin-Macron discussion, Putin’s nuclear threats had become particularly extreme. In President Putin’s February 2024 address to the Russian Federal Assembly, he said, “[Western nations] must realise that we also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory. All this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilization.” In March 2024, Putin declared that “…Russia’s nuclear forces are in full readiness ‘from the military-technical viewpoint, we’re prepared’,” and that the Russia’s nuclear Triad was “more modern than any other triad.” In his election victory speech, President Putin stated that Russia and NATO would could be “one step away from a full-scale World War III.”

A former member of Putin’s elite security team, Gleb Karakulov, has described him as isolated, paranoid, and afraid, and noted that, “All the information he receives is only from people close to him. That is, he lives in a kind of information vacuum.” Karakulov said Putin does not use a cell phone or the internet and when he travels views only Russian state television. Russian state television is a product of Putinism. According to Alexander Golts, it has long argued that the “…West is constantly threatening peace-loving Russia.” Today, it is rabidly supportive of Putin’s imperial agenda and frequently urges a Russian nuclear attack on NATO and the United States. In April 2024, a commentator on Russian state television declared, “We want to change the future of Europe. You’ve f***** up the present, you gentlemen Europeans…. You’ve chosen these morons to lead you. But we are trying to change your future, which [currently] means 200-250 million dead or maimed Europeans. That’s the price of nuclear war.” On Russian state television, the consequences of a nuclear war to Russia are virtually ignored.

As British journalist Con Couglin has pointed out, “The longer the war continues in Ukraine, the more Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be losing touch with reality.” High level nuclear threats are common in Putin’s Russia, particularly in relation to Putin’s war against Ukraine. Putin’s paranoia and isolation from reality take on a much greater significance in the context of Russia’s invasion of its neighbor, its nuclear superiority, its low nuclear use threshold, and its nuclear threats. Putin’s world view is very dangerous because it is divorced from reality and is backed by the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Nuclear escalation is built into Putin’s nuclear doctrine. Everything that happens in any future nuclear crisis will be viewed in Moscow through the prism of Putin’s world of political and historical fantasy.

According to the United Kingdom’s Defense Ministry, Putin’s war against Ukraine has cost Russia 350,000 casualties. Unless it threatens his hold on power, Putin could care less. His main objective is expanding Russia’s borders and enhancing Russia’s power on the global stage. Indeed, in 2023, Putin attacked the early 20^th century Bolsheviks because of their withdrawal for World War I on the grounds that, “Intrigues, bickering and politicking behind the back of the army and the people turned out to be the greatest catastrophe, the destruction of the army and the state, loss of huge territories, resulting in a tragedy and a civil war.” Attacking the Communist legacy is not common in Moscow. Lenin is still in his mausoleum in Red Square. It reflects how important territorial control and expansion is to Vladimir Putin. Putin’s concern appears to be that Russia’s withdrawal from World War I lost Russia the gain of Istanbul.[3]

According to General Christopher Cavoli, the head of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, “In sum, Russia is on track to command the largest military on the continent and a defense industrial complex capable of generating substantial amounts of ammunition and materiel in support of large scale combat operations…Regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, Russia will be larger, more lethal, and angrier with the West than when it invaded. Diplomatically, Russia has used the past two years to attempt to alter the global security architecture by creating relationships that challenge the existing order.”

Dr. Mark B. Schneider is a Senior Analyst with the National Institute for Public Policy. Before his retirement from the Department of Defense Senior Executive Service, Dr. Schneider served as Principal Director for Forces Policy, Principal Director for Strategic Defense, Space and Verification Policy, Director for Strategic Arms Control Policy and Representative of the Secretary of Defense to the Nuclear Arms Control Implementation Commission. He also served in the senior Foreign Service as a Member of the State Department Policy Planning Staff.

Notes:

[1] “Putin accuses the US of wish to dominate the world, TASS, January 25, 2012. No longer posted on the TASS web page.

[2] “Patrushev: U.S. wishes to make Russia as weak as possible, force its disintegration in order to gain access to resources,” Interfax, January 26, 2016, available at https://interfax.com/.

[3] Simon Sebag Montefiore, “Putin's imperial adventure,” International New York Times, October 10, 2015, available at https://dialog.proquest.com/professional/professionalnewsstand/docview/1720504009/fulltext/18E477CC2573483E21C/46?accountid=155509&accountid=155509&site=professionalnewsstand&t:ac=18E477CC2573483E21C/3&t:cp=maintain/resultcitationblocksbrief&t:zoneid=transactionalZone_e59607cbe40b39.

12. Minxin Pei on China’s economy, surveillance state, repression of dissent, and more

Minxin Pei on China’s economy, surveillance state, repression of dissent, and more

Minxin Pei

Says More…

https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/an-interview-with-minxin-pei-about-the-sentinel-state-china-economy-surveillance-repression-2024-04?utm=&barrier=accesspaylog

Apr 16, 2024

This week in Say More, PS talks with Minxin Pei, Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College, a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and the author of The Sentinel State: Surveillance and the Survival of Dictatorship in China.

Project Syndicate: In early 2023, you observed that China’s leaders had “fallen back in love with economic growth.” Over a year later, China’s leaders are still pledging to reinvigorate flagging economic performance. How can the government make good on that promise, and will it be enough to silence a growing cohort of skeptics?

Minxin Pei: The Chinese government can still do quite a lot to revive the economy, but that does not mean that it will.

For example, China’s government could give ordinary people vouchers redeemable for daily necessities, thereby stimulating household consumption and offsetting, at least partly, the effects of an imploding real-estate bubble. Similarly, reining in its “anti-espionage” campaign – including by releasing the private entrepreneurs that have been wrongfully imprisoned – could help to lure back foreign investors that are now afraid to engage with China.

These measures, both substantive and symbolic, would go a long way toward bolstering China’s growth prospects. But China’s government is unwilling to pursue them. It prefers, instead, to offer empty talk alongside small, incremental monetary stimulus. That is why the economy is still struggling – and will continue to do so.

PS: By hyping growth, China’s leaders hoped to reassure private investors and mollify “popular frustration” with “draconian zero-COVID restrictions” followed by “the botched exit from the policy.” How does the Chinese public view their leaders’ performance on the economy, and does President Xi Jinping’s handling of geopolitical issues – including his “saber-rattling” over Taiwan – strengthen or undermine public satisfaction?

MP: Because the Chinese government does not allow independent public-opinion polling – it does not publish any opinion polls at all, independent or otherwise – it is very difficult to know what ordinary Chinese people think of Xi or his performance.

On domestic policy issues, such as Xi’s handling of the economy, we can infer the public’s likely impression based on official economic statistics. And based on factors like deflation, high youth unemployment, and falling housing prices, it is safe to assume that Xi’s image as a capable steward of the economy has been dented.

On geopolitics, however, it is harder to make even educated guesses. The Chinese government tightly controls the flow of information about the outside world, and most Chinese do not have as good a sense about geopolitics as they do about the domestic economy.

PS: The rapid economic growth of the past four decades has undoubtedly bolstered the Communist Party of China’s position. But in your new book, The Sentinel State: Surveillance and the Survival of Dictatorship in China, you argue that the “key to the survival of the world’s most powerful one-party dictatorship” has been its vast security apparatus, which relies on “low-tech, labor-intensive approaches.” What are some examples of how these approaches are deployed against ordinary citizens?

MP: One example is the classification of ordinary people as “key individuals.” People on this list are subject to surveillance by the police, local authorities, and informants. Around sensitive dates, such as the annual plenary sessions of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, local authorities check on these individuals regularly. The police also recruit ordinary people, such as sanitation workers and shop owners, to keep an eye on important public venues, from train stations to public squares. On university campuses, students are recruited as informants, who then report on their classmates and professors.

BY THE WAY . . .

PS: In your book, you distinguish between “preventive repression” – the bread and butter of the Chinese surveillance state – and “reactive techniques,” like state violence. How does preventive repression work, and how does the social-credit system advance it?

MP: Preventive repression is both harder to detect and more effective than reactive repression. Through surveillance, the security apparatus gains insights into the plans and intentions of those it considers potential threats, enabling it to intervene quietly, before any organized action takes place. And the knowledge that one’s activities are being watched can of course be enough to deter acts of resistance.

In my book, I call the social-credit system the “latest major innovation in China’s ecosystem of preventive repression.” The idea is to use huge amounts of data to determine a “credit score” for every Chinese citizen, based on evidence of what the state considers prosocial and antisocial behavior.

Though the system is not yet mature enough for the Chinese government to integrate it fully into the apparatus of preventive repression, in the future big data and artificial intelligence could be used to assess an individual’s political leanings and to map their social networks comprehensively (surveillance of social media already allows the Chinese government to do this to some extent.) This would enable the government to profile threats more accurately and monitor them more closely.

PS: You mention AI. How could embracing it change China’s approach to surveillance? Should we expect a wave of layoffs by the security agencies?

MP: Unfortunately, the official sources I have seen were published before recent AI breakthroughs enabled the technology’s broad application, so I have not come across many references to the use of AI. But I think AI has the potential to make the surveillance system more efficient by processing huge amounts of data more quickly and accurately. Its impact on the size of security agencies is likely to be small, because formal security agencies in China do not employ a large number of officers doing the kind of work AI can do. Instead, most of them engage in tasks that AI is unlikely to take on any time soon, like recruiting and handling informants or conducting raids and intimidating targets.

PS: You write that “much of the information needed in order to understand the large-scale organization and operations of [China’s] surveillance state is not publicly available.” How did you overcome this challenge?

MP: China is a huge country. There are nearly 3,000 county-level jurisdictions and about 300 city-level administrative units. Keeping secrets in such a vast system is not easy. Most government agencies and local authorities publish annual reports, called yearbooks. Police used to publish “gazettes,” or accounts of their past work. While these publications are vetted to prevent leaks of sensitive or classified information, the vetting process is imperfect, and enough information slips through the cracks to allow researchers like me to piece together the puzzle.

MINXIN PEI

Minxin Pei, Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College, is a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

13. Matthews: The new ‘Axil of Evil’ is bigger, better armed and power-hungry

A lot of people are getting on the "Axis bus." Axis of evil, axis of authoritarians, axis of totalitarianism, axis of dictators.

Excerpts:

The U.S. and other democracies must figure out how to contain Axis aggression and expansions. Building up military strength would help, and some of the NATO countries and Japan are trying to do just that. President Joe Biden not so much.

The West also needs to keep up oil and natural gas production, which give our allies and other countries a reliable source of fossil fuels, so they don’t have to turn to Russia or Iran. Higher quantities also push down prices, making it harder for Russia and Iran to use oil sales to fund their belligerence.

Most important, we need a president who can recognize the growing threat from the new Axis of Evil and be prepared to respond with a better strategy, better foreign relations and a bigger and better-prepared military.

Matthews: The new ‘Axil of Evil’ is bigger, better armed and power-hungry

BY MERRILL MATTHEWS, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 04/16/24 10:30 AM ET

https://thehill.com/opinion/4596350-matthews-the-new-axil-of-evil-is-bigger-better-armed-and-power-hungry/

The world has changed since President George W. Bush, in his 2002 State of the Union address, first called Iran, Iraq and North Korea the “Axil of Evil.” Today, there’s a different, four-country Axis of Evil: Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. The old Axis was a problem, but it was small and weak. The new Axis is much bigger, much better armed, more dangerous and … power-hungry.

Let’s start with “bigger.” Geographically, Russia is the largest country in the world, with 11 percent of world landmass. China is the third largest, with 6.3 percent. Toss in Iran’s 1.1 percent and miniscule North Korea’s 0.1 percent, and the new Axis possesses nearly one-fifth of the world’s land.

Look at a map to see just how much of central and eastern Asia they possess. And they are contiguous or near each other, which facilitates their working and trading together. Plus, there’s the Axis’s stooge states in the Western Hemisphere: Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Extensive land holdings often come with significant natural resources. Venezuela has nearly 20 percent of the world’s proved oil reserves, Iran 13.3 percent and Russia 5.1 percent — giving those three countries nearly 40 percent of proved oil reserves.

Of the top 10 countries with the most valuable natural resources, Russia is first, Iran is fifth, followed by sixth-place China and Venezuela is tenth.

What about their economies? China has 17.5 percent of world GDP, second only to the United States. Russia has 1.8 percent and Iran only 0.3 percent. While the Axis’s economies are smaller than the U.S. and our allies, dictatorships have much more control over their economies and can drain resources without having to answer to the voters. In short, they can funnel a disproportionate amount of money into the military and political mischief with few or no domestic repercussions.

And then there’s “better armed.” China has the largest army and navy in the world. Iran is producing drones it sells to Russia and distributes to its proxy militias. And North Korea has been selling munitions to Russia, giving the tiny, impoverished dictatorship more hard cash than it’s had for years. And it spends much of that money creating rockets and firing them close to Japan. Three of the four countries have nuclear weapons, and Iran may be close — if it doesn’t already have them.

But perhaps the biggest difference in the 2024 Axis of Evil is that at least three of the four countries are in expansionist mode. They want much more land and power. And they are coordinating their efforts to benefit each country’s goals. It’s a very dangerous development.

It’s also something of an unholy alliance. North Korea and China are officially atheistic and communist. Iran is a theocratic state operating under its view of Islamic law. And Russia used to be atheistic and communist under the USSR, but now Russian President Vladimir Putin claims to be a Christian, and his invasion of Ukraine is sanctioned by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. The countries have no shared culture, ideology or vision. It’s an alliance of convenience to grab more land and power.

Russia began its expansion with Ukraine, first by taking the Crimea in 2014 and invading the heartland in 2022. Russia already has a stooge running Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko. Tiny Moldova fears it may be next on the repatriating block. And nearly all the formerly USSR countries are concerned that Russia has its greedy eye on them.

China is also expanding, making claims to the South China Sea, building islands in the ocean and stocking them with military assets, demanding the repatriation of Taiwan, and challenging the Philippines.

Iran may be more interested in theological than military expansion. It’s not trying to expand its territory so much as its religion: Islam. But it’s no less expansionist in that regard.

And all these challenges are coming at the same time.

The U.S. and other democracies must figure out how to contain Axis aggression and expansions. Building up military strength would help, and some of the NATO countries and Japan are trying to do just that. President Joe Biden not so much.

The West also needs to keep up oil and natural gas production, which give our allies and other countries a reliable source of fossil fuels, so they don’t have to turn to Russia or Iran. Higher quantities also push down prices, making it harder for Russia and Iran to use oil sales to fund their belligerence.

Most important, we need a president who can recognize the growing threat from the new Axis of Evil and be prepared to respond with a better strategy, better foreign relations and a bigger and better-prepared military.

Merrill Matthews is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas, Texas. Follow him on X@MerrillMatthews.

14. The desperate alignment of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea

Seems like many media outlets are synchronizing their message sagainst the axis of evil, dictators, totalitarianism, authoritarians. I might consider this an active information and influence activities effort by someone who wants the world to get this message.

But if this is driven naturally and organically based on world events and journalists and authors and analysts are coming to these conclusions independently that would be a good thing and perhaps a lesson that we should not try so hard with information operations!

The desperate alignment of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/17/alignment-russia-china-iran-north-korea/

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April 17, 2024 at 12:00 a.m. EDT

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Ukrainian air defense intercepts a Shahed drone midair in a Russia aerial attack on Kyiv on May 30. (Evgeniy Maloletka/AP)

CORRECTION

A previous version of this article incorrectly said that Vladimir Putin traveled to North Korea to meet Kim Jong Un. Kim went to Russia for the meeting. The article has been corrected.

It is increasingly common in Washington to view the various conflicts around the world as part of one big narrative. That is hardly without reason. As The Washington Post reported this week, U.S. officials say Iran has bolstered its defenses against a potential retaliatory strike by Israel with the purchase of Russian weapons, part of a strategic alliance forged by Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the extensive use of Iranian-manufactured drones there.

Moscow hasn’t just been looking to Tehran for a mutually beneficial relationship. Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with North Korea’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong Un, to cement a deal that gave Russian troops much-needed ammunition and other war materials in exchange for more advanced technology coveted by Pyongyang.

But the most significant partner by far in this convergence is China, which provided a trade lifeline for Russia amid Western sanctions. U.S. officials told the Associated Press last week that much of this support goes beyond regular business, however, with China surging exports of technology that Russia can use to produce missiles, tanks and planes — making up for both battlefield losses and export controls by the United States and its allies.

Iran, Russia, North Korea and China are part of a far broader group of nations and movements — among their ranks include the relatively small but influential groups like Hamas and the Houthis — that seem to be opposed to the West. Some Western officials, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), have repeatedly suggested these countries mark a new “axis of evil” — a reference to a phrase infamously used by President George W. Bush at the start of the war on terror.

The man who coined that phrase apparently sees this new alliance as even broader. “The world faces a global alignment of dictators, thugs and aggressors, from Tehran to Moscow to Beijing to Palm Beach,” David Frum, the former White House speechwriter, said on X this week after Iran’s failed attack on Israel — the last item on his list, a reference to Florida man and former president Donald Trump.

It’s flawed to view this as simply an “axis of evil 2.0,” however. That’s partly because the original idea was a stretch at best. Two of the three countries in the original “axis,” Iran and Iraq, were helmed by diametrically opposed ideologies at that point — the former led by a Shiite theocracy, the other a Pan-Arab nationalism led by Sunnis — who had not long before fought a bloody, brutal war. The final nation, the totalitarian socialist state North Korea, was literally and figuratively half a world away.

The new alignment is similarly misaligned. Russia’s state capitalist society may ally itself with domestic religious forces like the powerful Russian Orthodox Church, but it has little overlap with the Islamic doctrine espoused by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or its sectarian Shiite allies. While China and North Korea both espouse socialist forms of government, the official rhetoric and practical implementation of these ideologies in the two nations is significantly different. Even in recent history, they have found themselves at points of tension.

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This means that unlike the Cold War, where ideology at least nominally bound the Communist bloc against the West, what we have now is better understood as a “marriage of convenience” between a number of disparate nations.

That doesn’t mean it will end in divorce, however. What’s driving these agreements is not just convenience, but also desperation. Sanctions and export controls have pushed Russia — which once enjoyed booming trade with Europe and the United States despite tensions — to turn to China, even if the trade relationship is clearly unfavorable. While none of the nations can stand up to America’s military might, they all have individual strengths that the others hope to learn from.

To put it another way: If Putin wants to keep fighting his war in Ukraine and survive punishing economic isolation from the Western-led global economic order, he has little option but to turn east to China. If China views the future of the global order as a great power battle between itself and the United States, it needs all of the help it can muster — and Russia’s rich natural resources and some of its military technology will be of big aid here.

Desperation can drive dangerous situations. Two of the four in this alignment are undeniably powerful nations, while the two smaller nations — Iran and North Korea — have considerable capabilities of their own, most notably including Tehran’s network of aligned movements in the Middle East.

Three of the four are nuclear-armed; Iran is not far off. As permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, China and Russia both played constructive roles in setting norms before, including on arms control measures for both Iran and North Korea. Without them, those efforts are foundering.

At the same time, the West faces its own misalignment. The United States is painfully divided internally on Russia for domestic political reasons, while Trump — seeking a return to office next year — has repeatedly suggested he seeks to pull out of the NATO military alliance. The former president and some of his supporters favor a brokered end to the war in Ukraine that would break the Russia-China alliance, though analysts say this would do little to dent a relationship cemented by mutual interests.

“Any hopes of peeling them away from each other are nothing more than wishful thinking,” Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, wrote recently.

U.S. allies in Europe, for obvious historical reasons, have long taken the threat of Russia seriously but have only recently begun to align with China hawks in Washington. But even these hawks are divided among themselves about how hard to fight the threat of a rising China. “If Beijing judges we are pursuing total victory over it, what is the downside to going all the way in its fight with us?” Elbridge Colby, a former Defense Department official, wrote on X this weekend, responding to a Foreign Affairs article by former Trump White House official Matt Pottinger and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) that called for a “long term victory” over China.

The United States was able to rally an impressive alliance that included traditional allies like Britain as well as Gulf states to help defend Israel from Iranian assault this weekend. But the war in Gaza not only continues to create a toxic divide within these allies, but also breeds animosity among the Global South that both sides would seek to court.

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Adam Taylor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Originally from London, he studied at the University of Manchester and Columbia University. Twitter

15. Philippines, US forces to train retaking island in joint drills

A lot of training opportunities in the Philippines with some 7000 islands.

But I guess this training assumes initial success by the enemy in taking the islands in the first palace.

Philippines, US forces to train retaking island in joint drills

https://www.reuters.com/world/philippines-us-forces-train-retaking-island-joint-military-drills-2024-04-17/?utm

By Mikhail Flores

April 17, 20244:29 AM EDTUpdated 4 hours ago

MANILA, April 17 (Reuters) - Philippine and U.S. forces will simulate retaking enemy-occupied islands during joint military drills starting next week in areas facing Taiwan and the South China Sea as Manila shifts its focus to external defence.

The annual "Balikatan" or "shoulder-to-shoulder" drills, which will run from April 22 to May 10, will involve 16,700 soldiers who will train in maritime security, air and missile defence, dynamic missile strikes, cyber defence, and information operations.

It will be the first time the maritime exercises are carried out beyond Philippine territorial waters," said Michael Logico, a Philippine army colonel overseeing the exercises.

Aimed at improving interoperability between the two militaries, the drills come against the backdrop of China's recent aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, flashpoints for Chinese and U.S. tensions.

In response to the planned drills, China's foreign ministry warned that the Philippines should be "sober enough to realise" that bringing in extra-territorial countries to show off their force in the South China Sea and provoke confrontation will only aggravate tensions and undermine regional stability.

"Attempts to bring in external forces to safeguard its so-called security will only lead to greater insecurity for itself," ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a regular news conference, urging both countries to stop provocation.

Logico said U.S. troops and their Manila counterparts will simulate retaking islands occupied by hostile forces in the northernmost islands of the country, close to Taiwan and in the western Palawan province facing the South China Sea.

A small French contingent will join this year's drills for the first time since the annual exercise began in 1991, deploying a frigate that will sail jointly with Philippines and US naval vessels in Manila's exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea.

Around 14 nations will join as observers, including Japan, India and countries in ASEAN and the European Union, Logico said.

Like last year, next week's exercise will attempt to sink a mock enemy warship in the northern city of Laoag in Ilocos province.

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Reporting by Mikhail Flores; Additional reporting by Andrew Hayley in Beijing; Editing by Michael Perry

16. Meet the Marine aviator of the year ― an unmanned aerial vehicle pilot

UAV pilots gain respect. BZ to the Marines for selecting him. And this article provides more information about Marine plans for UAVs.

Meet the Marine aviator of the year ― an unmanned aerial vehicle pilot

marinecorpstimes.com · by Irene Loewenson · April 17, 2024

On March 14, Marine Maj. Shane Gentry’s phone started lighting up with text messages from friends and colleagues saying, “Congratulations.”

The texts left Gentry scratching his head. Congratulations for what?

Then someone sent him a link to the Marine administrative message that announced him as the Marine Corps Aviation Association’s aviator of the year.

The award came as a surprise to Gentry, 33, who flies the unmanned MQ-9A aircraft. But he said it made him proud to represent a squadron from the Marine Corps’ unmanned aviation community.

“We’re growing in preponderance,” he said, noting that Marines working in unmanned aviation notched other awards from the association this year. “We’re growing in impact.”

Gentry is the first unmanned aerial vehicle pilot to receive the prestigious aviator of the year award since 2016 at the very least, according to the previous announcements available online. Named for Lt. Col. Alfred Cunningham, the Corps’ first aviator, the award is the highest honor specifically for Marine aviators, according to a Marine news release about Gentry’s award.

Already a seasoned pilot of other unmanned aerial vehicles, Gentry used his real-world experience flying the MQ-9A alongside an Air National Guard unit to get the other aviators in the Hawaii-based Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 3 up to speed on the new aircraft.

“His talent for imparting his impressive knowledge upon the next generation of pilots is unmatched,” Lt. Col. Nicholas Law, the squadron’s commanding officer, said in a statement to Marine Corps Times.

Gentry grew up in Stafford, Virginia, in a family with a legacy of Marine service. Both his father and grandfather had been in the Marine Corps, and he found himself drawn to the excitement and challenge of the service since elementary school, he said.

Gentry received his commission in 2014. After being in a class on unmanned systems as a newly minted officer at The Basic School, he put that field as his No. 1 choice on his job wishlist. He got it.

Gentry started out flying the RQ-7 Shadow and then moved on to the RQ-21A Blackjack.

In July 2021, Gentry began training on the MQ-9A, the large unmanned aerial vehicle that, according to the 2022 Marine aviation plan, the Corps plans to use primarily for surveillance and reconnaissance. The aircraft can lurk in the air for up to 27 hours at a time, according to the Naval Air Systems Command.

The aircraft is fairly new to the Marine Corps, which first leased two of them in 2018 and acquired the pair in 2021, with plans to acquire 16 more.

The newness of the platform means the Marines who operate it often have to puzzle through the problems it poses themselves. That can be frustrating, but it also means young Marines have leeway to take initiative and innovate, according to Gentry.

“There’s really no textbook on how we’re going to do it,” Gentry said.

An MQ-9A with Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 3 launches on Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, June 21, 2023. (Cpl. Christian Tofteroo/Marine Corps).

From January 2023 to June 2023, while Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 3 was receiving its first two of the MQ-9A aircraft, Gentry and three other Marines from the squadron were in Nashville, embedded with the Tennessee Air National Guard.

The Air Force reached initial operating capability with the MQ-9, which it calls the Reaper, in 2007.

Unlike the Air Force’s Reapers, the Marine Corps’ MQ-9A aircraft are not loaded with ordnance for carrying out strikes, Gentry said. The Corps is placing more emphasis on the aircraft’s ability to take in many kinds of data and share that information across large distances, according to Gentry.

While working alongside airmen in Tennessee, Gentry remotely supported “real-world combat operations,” completing 80 sorties and racking up more than 400 hours with the MQ-9A, he said. He discussed those efforts in very general terms to Marine Corps Times, but he noted that he engaged in missions against both larger adversaries and emerging regional threats.

When he returned to Hawaii, Gentry said, he helped squadron leadership develop its practices and training regimens for the MQ-9A. And he instructed Marines himself on aspects of flying the aircraft.

“As one of the most experienced instructors in our ready room, Maj. Gentry has made an outsized contribution to the proficiency of our aircrew,” Law, the squadron’s commanding officer, said.

Yet it wasn’t just Gentry’s mastery of the MQ-9A that made him stand out at Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 3, Law said. There’s also the fact that he volunteered to stand duty on both Christmas and New Year’s.

“I’m a single officer, so I don’t mind taking holiday duties,” Gentry said.

Plus, he said, the squadron’s hangar, which sits right on Hawaii’s Kaneohe Bay, is a peaceful place from which to watch the fireworks.

Gentry now is the current operations officer at Marine Aircraft Group 24, of which Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 3 is a part.

He ultimately plans to give the trophy he will receive for the award to that squadron, he said. But first, he will let his parents have it for a bit.

Gentry said his dad, who had heard of the Alfred A. Cunningham Award during his own time in the Corps, was deeply proud — but also surprised — to learn that his son was the recipient.

“He pulled up the MARADMIN himself,” Gentry said.

About Irene Loewenson

Irene Loewenson is a staff reporter for Marine Corps Times. She joined Military Times as an editorial fellow in August 2022. She is a graduate of Williams College, where she was the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper.

17. Korean War hero Ralph Puckett to lie in honor at US Capitol

It is great to see him honored this way.

Korean War hero Ralph Puckett to lie in honor at US Capitol

militarytimes.com · by Leo Shane III · April 16, 2024

Korean War hero Ralph Puckett Jr. will lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol later this month in recognition of his valor and the sacrifice of all troops who served in the conflict, House and Senate leaders announced on Tuesday.

In a statement, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said that Puckett, a retired Army colonel, will be given the rare honor on April 29.

“The extraordinary valor of Col. Ralph Puckett, Jr. represents the best of the 1.7 million Americans who left home to fight for freedom in the Korean War,” they said in a joint statement. “He demonstrated tireless sacrifice for our country and his fellow rangers and is an exceptional model for service members and civilians alike.”

Puckett, 97, was the last living Medal of Honor recipient from the Korean War. He received the honor in 2021, more than 70 years after his heroism overseas. He died earlier this month.

The last surviving Medal of Honor recipient of the Korean War has died

Ralph Puckett Jr., the last living National Medal of Honor recipient from the Korean War, died in his sleep on Monday.

At that time, he was a young lieutenant in 1950 who led 51 Army Rangers and nine Korean soldiers across frozen rice paddies to seize a key hill overlooking the Ch’ongch’on River. Army officials said Puckett repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire over nearly a day of fighting, first to commandeer a tank to provide cover for his men, then several more times to draw fire away from the positions they were trying to defend.

Puckett was wounded several times by shrapnel and small arms fire. At one point, he ordered his men to leave him behind and retreat to a safer area. They managed to evacuate him before American artillery fire destroyed their overrun positions on the hill.

In addition to the military’s highest honor, Puckett earned a Distinguished Service Cross for actions during the Vietnam War and two Silver Stars. He served for 22 years.

Only six other Americans have laid in honor in the Capitol Rotunda. The last was Hershel “Woody” Williams, the last surviving World War II Medal of Honor recipient, after his death in summer 2022. Thirty-four others have lain in state there.

Capitol officials have not yet announced any plans for public visitation for the event.

About Leo Shane III

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

18. ‘Indefinite’ Defense Department IDs Inconvenience Air Travelers, May Be Dropped As Acceptable Identification

I can't believe our bureaucracy. I did not bother to pay the extra cost for Virginia driver's license because I thought my retired military ID would be sufficient (though most of my travel is overseas so there is no issue since a passport is required). But you would think this issue could be solved with a software fix or simply a procedure/process fix. If you get an expired reading on a military ID card that has an INDEF date the TSA officer should be informed that this is acceptable (assuming TSA does not want to implement a software fix).

There is some irony that the ID of a retired service member who has served their country until retirement would have their ID deemed unacceptable for the TSA. Actually this makes the TSA look foolish and petty.

‘Indefinite’ Defense Department IDs Inconvenience Air Travelers, May Be Dropped As Acceptable Identification

military.com · by Patricia Kime · April 16, 2024

Military retirees and some spouses or dependents whose next-generation Department of Defense identification cards have an "INDEF" expiration date continue to face problems using their IDs to traverse Transportation Security Administration checkpoints at U.S. airports.

And a potential solution under consideration at TSA -- that the agency drops the IDs, known as USIDs, as acceptable forms of identification when stricter travel requirements are implemented next year -- is sure to irritate those who like using their military IDs instead of a state driver's license or passport for travel.

Nearly a dozen military retirees have contacted Military.com in the past two years with concerns that their ID cards marked INDEF, meaning they have an indefinite expiration date, don't work with TSA screening technology in airports across the country.

Former service members have run into the issue at Chicago O'Hare International, Seattle-Tacoma International, Orlando International, Tampa International, San Diego International and elsewhere.

According to TSA press secretary R. Carter Langston, the problem centers around USIDs that lack an expiration date. The "INDEF" designation cannot be read by the TSA's Credential Authentication Technology. When the CAT unit does not detect an expiration date, the CAT screen will display an "EXPIRED" alert, according to Langston.

The TSA officer is supposed to ask for another acceptable form of ID that can be read by the CAT unit, Langston said. If the passenger does not have another acceptable form of ID, the officer "will conduct manual inspection of the DoD ID presented as these IDs are currently acceptable forms of ID," Langston said in a statement.

The issue is largely a matter of inconvenience, since many people travel with a driver's license, passport or other form of identification.

But for DoD ID card holders, it could become a major problem beginning May 7, 2025, when all travelers and visitors to the U.S. will be required to have a passport, a state-verified REAL ID or another form of identification designated as acceptable by TSA.

Since the REAL ID Act of 2005 was passed, Defense Department IDs holders have been told their IDs are compliant and acceptable in lieu of a REAL ID and many have not bothered to get a REAL ID compatible state identification card.

They may need to or begin traveling with a passport, because given the ongoing issues, TSA is considering dropping DoD IDs from their list of accepted identification before the REAL ID requirement goes into effect, according to a source with knowledge of ongoing discussions between TSA and the Defense Department.

The Defense Department did not respond to a request for comment on the proposal, and Langston said he would not "confirm or deny discussions that are pre-decisional in nature."

But the proposal does not sit well among some former service members who spent decades serving their country and take pride in carrying a military ID.

"You can get on any military base in the country, but you can't get on an airplane with a military ID card? I don't agree with that at all," said a military retiree based in Washington state who requested that his name not be used to protect how he learned of the proposal.

The source added that the decision is not final and discussions were ongoing.

The Defense Department updated the new IDs, known as USID, for active-duty family members, military retirees and their dependents, reservists and Medal of Honor recipients in 2020, the first upgrade to the cards since 1993.

The USID cards look similar to Common Access Cards, which are issued to active-duty personnel, but they don't have a built-in chip. They were created to have durable lamination, full-color photos and enhanced security features to make them less able to counterfeit or misuse.

When the USIDs were introduced, TSA's scanning system was unable to read their barcodes. That issue largely was fixed in 2022 with a software update, and DoD ID cards work for most individuals whose cards have an expiration date.

But the problem continues for IDs with the "INDEF" date. And retirees aren't happy about it.

"It's been my assumption all along [that I could fly with a DoD ID card]," said the Washington-based retired officer. "I had an old ID until just a couple of months ago, and it worked just fine."

military.com · by Patricia Kime · April 16, 2024

19. NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his public criticism

Of course the NPR haters are going to hate. NPR dug itself deeper into a hole by suspending him on what can only be described as petty "charges." However, I commend NPR for publishing this article and for candidly discussing the issues concerning itself. I still listen to NPR every day. Despite the criticisms I still find its news reporting very good and It is not hard to see past the bias with a little critical thinking. I remain a long time contributor to our local NPR station, WAMU. In the end this exposure and criticism will make NPR stronger (if it does not kill it).

NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his public criticism

NPR · by David Folkenflik · April 16, 2024

NPR suspended Senior Editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he wrote an essay accusing the network of losing the public's trust and appeared on a podcast to explain his argument. Uri Berliner

NPR has formally punished Uri Berliner, the senior editor who publicly argued a week ago that the network had "lost America's trust" by approaching news stories with a rigidly progressive mindset.

Berliner's five-day suspension without pay, which began last Friday, has not been previously reported.

Yet the public radio network is grappling in other ways with the fallout from Berliner's essay for the online news site The Free Press. It angered many of his colleagues, led NPR leaders to announce monthly internal reviews of the network's coverage, and gave fresh ammunition to conservative and partisan Republican critics of NPR, including former President Donald Trump.

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo is among those now targeting NPR's new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the network. Among others, those posts include a 2020 tweet that called Trump racist and another that appeared to minimize rioting during social justice protests that year. Maher took the job at NPR last month – her first at a news organization.

In a statement Monday about the messages she had posted, Maher praised the integrity of NPR's journalists and underscored the independence of their reporting.

"In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen," she said. "What matters is NPR's work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public. NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests."

The network noted that "the CEO is not involved in editorial decisions."

In an interview with me later on Monday, Berliner said the social media posts demonstrated Maher was all but incapable of being the person best poised to direct the organization.

"We're looking for a leader right now who's going to be unifying and bring more people into the tent and have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America is all about," Berliner said. "And this seems to be the opposite of that."

Conservative critics of NPR are now targeting its new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the public radio network last month. Stephen Voss/Stephen Voss

He said that he tried repeatedly to make his concerns over NPR's coverage known to news leaders and to Maher's predecessor as chief executive before publishing his essay.

Berliner has singled out coverage of several issues dominating the 2020s for criticism, including trans rights, the Israel-Hamas war and COVID. Berliner says he sees the same problems at other news organizations, but argues NPR, as a mission-driven institution, has a greater obligation to fairness.

"I love NPR and feel it's a national trust," Berliner says. "We have great journalists here. If they shed their opinions and did the great journalism they're capable of, this would be a much more interesting and fulfilling organization for our listeners."

A "final warning"

The circumstances surrounding the interview were singular.

Berliner provided me with a copy of the formal rebuke to review. NPR did not confirm or comment upon his suspension for this article.

In presenting Berliner's suspension Thursday afternoon, the organization told the editor he had failed to secure its approval for outside work for other news outlets, as is required of NPR journalists. It called the letter a "final warning," saying Berliner would be fired if he violated NPR's policy again. Berliner is a dues-paying member of NPR's newsroom union but says he is not appealing the punishment.

The Free Press is a site that has become a haven for journalists who believe that mainstream media outlets have become too liberal. In addition to his essay, Berliner appeared in an episode of its podcast Honestly with Bari Weiss.

In the rebuke, NPR did not cite Berliner's appearance on Chris Cuomo's NewsNation program last Tuesday night, for which NPR gave him the green light. (NPR's chief communications officer told Berliner to focus on his own experience and not share proprietary information.) The NPR letter also did not cite his remarks to the New York Times, which ran its article mid-afternoon Thursday, shortly before the reprimand was sent. Berliner says he did not seek approval before talking with the Times.

Berliner says he did not get permission from NPR to speak with me for this story but that he was not worried about the consequences: "Talking to an NPR journalist and being fired for that would be extraordinary, I think."

Berliner is a member of NPR's business desk, as am I, and he has helped to edit many of my stories. He had no involvement in the preparation of this article and did not see it before it was posted publicly.

In rebuking Berliner, NPR said he had also publicly released proprietary information about audience demographics, which it considers confidential. He said those figures "were essentially marketing material. If they had been really good, they probably would have distributed them and sent them out to the world."

Feelings of anger and betrayal inside the newsroom

His essay and subsequent public remarks stirred deep anger and dismay within NPR. Colleagues contend Berliner cherry-picked examples to fit his arguments and challenge the accuracy of his accounts. They also note he did not seek comment from the journalists involved in the work he cited.

Morning Edition host Michel Martin told me some colleagues at the network share Berliner's concerns that coverage is frequently presented through an ideological or idealistic prism that can alienate listeners.

"The way to address that is through training and mentorship," says Martin, herself a veteran of nearly two decades at the network who has also reported for The Wall Street Journal and ABC News. "It's not by blowing the place up, by trashing your colleagues, in full view of people who don't really care about it anyway."

Several NPR journalists told me they are no longer willing to work with Berliner as they no longer have confidence that he will keep private their internal musings about stories as they work through coverage.

"Newsrooms run on trust," NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben tweeted last week, without mentioning Berliner by name. "If you violate everyone's trust by going to another outlet and sh---ing on your colleagues (while doing a bad job journalistically, for that matter), I don't know how you do your job now."

Berliner rejected that critique, saying nothing in his essay or subsequent remarks betrayed private observations or arguments about coverage.

Other newsrooms are also grappling with questions over news judgment and confidentiality. On Monday, New York Times Executive Editor Joseph Kahn announced to his staff that the newspaper's inquiry into who leaked internal dissent over a planned episode of its podcast The Daily to another news outlet proved inconclusive. The episode was to focus on a December report on the use of sexual assault as part of the Hamas attack on Israel in October. Audio staffers aired doubts over how well the reporting stood up to scrutiny.

"We work together with trust and collegiality everyday on everything we produce, and I have every expectation that this incident will prove to be a singular exception to an important rule," Kahn wrote to Times staffers.

At NPR, some of Berliner's colleagues have weighed in online against his claim that the network has focused on diversifying its workforce without a concomitant commitment to diversity of viewpoint. Recently retired chief executive John Lansing has referred to this pursuit of diversity within NPR's workforce as its "North Star," a moral imperative and chief business strategy.

In his essay, Berliner tagged the strategy as a failure, citing the drop in NPR's broadcast audiences and its struggle to attract more Black and Latino listeners in particular.

"During most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed. We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding," Berliner writes. "In recent years, however, that has changed."

Berliner writes, "For NPR, which purports to consider all things, it's devastating both for its journalism and its business model."

NPR Investigative reporter Chiara Eisner wrote in a comment for this story: "Minorities do not all think the same and do not report the same. Good reporters and editors should know that by now. It's embarrassing to me as a reporter at NPR that a senior editor here missed that point in 2024."

Some colleagues drafted a letter to Maher and NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, seeking greater clarity on NPR's standards for its coverage and the behavior of its journalists - clearly pointed at Berliner.

A plan for "healthy discussion"

On Friday, CEO Maher stood up for the network's mission and the journalism, taking issue with Berliner's critique, though never mentioning him by name. Among her chief issues: she said Berliner's essay offered "a criticism of our people on the basis of who we are."

Berliner took great exception to that, saying she had denigrated him. He said that he supported diversifying NPR's workforce to look more like the U.S. population at large. She did not address that in a subsequent private exchange he shared with me for this story. (An NPR spokesperson declined further comment.)

Late Monday afternoon, Chapin announced to the newsroom that Executive Editor Eva Rodriguez would lead monthly meetings to review coverage.

"Among the questions we'll ask of ourselves each month: Did we capture the diversity of this country - racial, ethnic, religious, economic, political geographic, etc – in all of its complexity and in a way that helped listeners and readers recognize themselves and their communities?" Chapin wrote in the memo. "Did we offer coverage that helped them understand – even if just a bit better — those neighbors with whom they share little in common?"

Berliner said he welcomed the announcement but would withhold judgment until those meetings played out.

In a text for this story, Chapin said such sessions had been discussed since Lansing unified the news and programming divisions under her acting leadership last year.

"Now seemed [the] time to deliver if we were going to do it," Chapin said. "Healthy discussion is something we need more of."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

NPR · by David Folkenflik · April 16, 2024

20. China’s Hands Are Tied Against Tangle of US Alliances

I do not like the characterization as a" latticework." A lattice is weak. I think a web is a better description since it is so much stronger. It is stronger than the old Hub an dSpoke description. We should be characterizing our alliance and partnerships as a web=, even a silk web. Since China claims silk we should appropriate the and use the silk web metaphor to describe our alliances that are stronger than anything China can use to counter it.

China’s Hands Are Tied Against Tangle of US Alliances

Beijing has few good ways to fight back against the multitude of new security partnerships the US is forging in the region.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-04-16/china-can-t-fight-back-against-new-us-alliances-in-asia?sref=hhjZtX76

April 16, 2024 at 3:00 PM EDT

By Minxin Pei

Minxin Pei is professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and author of "The Sentinel State: Surveillance and the Survival of Dictatorship in China."

With last week’s trilateral summit between the leaders of the US, Japan, and the Philippines, China faces an ever-tightening cordon of alliances around its periphery. Chinese officials rail against this US-led network as an unwelcome and destabilizing case of “bloc politics.” In reality, there’s not much else they can do.

Developing a “latticework” of partnerships around the Indo-Pacific — through arrangements such as the US-Japan-Philippines relationship, a similar trilateral with Japan and South Korea; the AUKUS alliance with Australia and the UK; and the Quad grouping with Japan, India, and Australia — is a central pillar of US President Joe Biden’s strategy for containing China. Interlocking defense ties between all those nations greatly strengthen the US ability to deter Chinese aggression, especially toward Taiwan, and increase America’s chances of victory if a conflict does break out.

In many ways, Beijing has only itself to blame for Biden’s success. In the last decade, its in-your-face approach to Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines has thoroughly alienated nations that might otherwise have stayed on the sidelines of the Sino-American rivalry.

China now finds itself boxed in. Its options for countering the US strategy are all unappealing and, more importantly, unlikely to succeed.

One obvious temptation would be to retaliate. China could more aggressively confront Japanese vessels patrolling near contested islands known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, or it could block the Philippines from supplying its marines on a rusting warship beached on Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef which both countries claim. China could also seek to exert economic pressure on offending countries, erecting new import barriers or choking off exports of critical minerals.

Such actions, however, would likely hurt China more than its intended targets. The Sino-Japanese economic relationship, already strained by rising bilateral tensions, could deteriorate faster and further. After declaring an “ironclad” security commitment to the Philippines, Biden might order US naval vessels into the waters around the Second Thomas Shoal, forcing Chinese President Xi Jinping to decide whether he is prepared to escalate.

Alternatively, Xi could try to make nice with China’s neighbors, scaling back naval confrontations (Chinese coast guard ships have entered waters around the contested Japanese islands every day since mid-December last year) and seeking to offer economic carrots instead of sticks. China’s ailing economy has fewer of those in its arsenal than before, though, and even a tactical withdrawal now could lead to a loss of face. Worse, it would probably come too late: The security worries that have led countries such as Japan and the Philippines into the arms of the US are by now deeply ingrained.

Other moves all carry high risks. Providing North Korea more support to keep Japan and South Korea off-balance could instead lead them to deepen their partnership. Moreover, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would likely pocket the favor but keep his distance from Xi, who is not exactly a fan of the unpredictable young dictator. Having just boosted his own ties with Kim, too, Russian President Vladimir Putin may fear China is trying to undercut his influence.

Trying to distract the US by supporting its adversaries in the Middle East could backfire, too. Economically, a wider war in the region could hurt China just as much as the US if trade and oil shipments are disrupted. Providing Iran with weapons would fray Chinese ties with its other regional partners such as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

The US would almost certainly retaliate, either by imposing more economic sanctions on China or by granting more military and diplomatic support to Taiwan. And, unless the US gets sucked into another land war in the Middle East — a quagmire Biden obviously wants to avoid — bipartisan pressure to stay focused on China will not lessen.

This leaves Beijing only one sensible option: to play for time. Rather than trying to break the new bonds the Biden administration has forged, China would be wiser to see whether internal tensions weaken them naturally.

Fully realizing the potential of these partnerships will require sacrifices on all sides — from increased defense spending and tighter cyber-security from Japan to greater willingness from the Pentagon to share technology and intelligence with its new partners — which are far from guaranteed. Potential changes of administration in Seoul, Manila, and Washington could quickly erode support for deeper ties. A second Donald Trump administration might well be more interested in bullying allies than wooing them.

China has created many of its own problems in the region. Its best bet now may be to hope the US does the same.

Under Biden, US Reimagines Asian Alliances As ‘Lattice’ Fence – Analysis

eurasiareview.com · April 16, 2024

By William Gallo

For decades, U.S. policy in Asia has relied on what was informally known as the “hub and spokes” system of bilateral alliances. But lately, U.S. officials have used another analogy to describe their vision for the region: a lattice fence.

It may sound like only a metaphorical tweak, but officials in the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden say it could have big implications, as they try to create a durable plan to respond to China’s growing power.

Under the old framework, the United States, the global military superpower, acted as the hub and its Asian allies, such as Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines, served as spokes.

Spokes are not linked to each other. But that dynamic is changing, as several major U.S. allies and partners coalesce around what they have come to call a “free and open Indo-Pacific.”

What U.S. officials envision is not a multilateral treaty alliance like NATO. Analysts have long said such a security framework is impossible in Asia, given competing interests and deep historical animosities, even among U.S. allies.

Instead, the goal is to help create an expanding number of mutually reinforcing links between like-minded countries, which together form a barrier – or in other words, a lattice.

Trilateral summit

The lattice strategy was on display last week, when Biden hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for their countries’ first ever trilateral summit.

The meeting had important symbolic value. A joint statement expressed “serious concerns” about China’s behavior in the East and South China Seas, where China is trying to push its territorial claims over those of Japan and the Philippines.

The United States and Japan also pledged further assistance for the Philippines’ military modernization efforts and vowed to continue expanding joint military drills in the region, which have involved a growing number of partners in recent years.

At a separate meeting between Biden and Kishida, the United States and Japan announced dozens of bilateral deals related to defense cooperation, including plans to allow U.S. and Japanese forces to work more closely during a potential conflict.

According to a U.S. administration official who spoke to reporters during a background briefing, the meetings are evidence that Biden’s Asia plan is working.

“(Biden’s) theory of case was that if the United States reinvested in its alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific … those allies and partners would step up alongside in ways that made us much better equipped to accomplish our objectives,” the U.S. official said.

Nowhere is this theory better proven, the official added, than in the U.S. alliance with Japan, where Kishida “has stepped up and stepped out into the world more than anyone really could have imagined.”

Japan a key player

As Japan loosens its self-imposed pacifist restraints, the country has become a major player in regional security. Japan has dramatically increased defense spending, moved to acquire missiles that can hit other countries, and enacted legal changes allowing it to more easily export weapons.

Japan is now heavily involved in many U.S.-led forums, including the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, an informal coalition that also includes Australia and India, and the Group of Seven advanced economies, which has increasingly focused on China.

Last week, Britain, the United States, and Australia announced they are considering cooperation with Japan through their AUKUS security pact. NATO, the European military alliance, has also expanded cooperation with Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.

“Today’s Japan is no longer the timid and inward-looking nation that counted on its embrace of pacifism and on American muscle to insulate it from external threats,” said Daniel Russel, a vice president at the Asia Society and a former top Asia official at the State Department.

One of the most crucial regional developments is the improvement of Japan-South Korea relations, which have long been strained because of issues related to Japan’s colonial occupation of Korea. Under South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, the two countries now regularly participate in military drills with the United States. Last year, the three countries unveiled a new system for sharing North Korean missile warning data in real-time.

But will it work?

Few observers deny that big changes are occurring, as countries respond to a more powerful China. But the strategic shift toward the United States is far from unanimous.

“Most governments in the region are hedging, recognizing the reality that China is a permanent and central feature of (the) Asian political economy,” said Van Jackson, who teaches at New Zealand’s Victoria University of Wellington.

According to a survey released this month by the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Southeast Asian perceptions of the United States have worsened over the past year.

The State of Southeast Asia survey asks the same questions every year to a group of experts and government officials.

More than half, 51%, of Southeast Asian respondents said they would side with China over the United States if they were forced to choose. It is the first time that the survey has shown a preference for China.

One of the key complaints, according to the poll, is skepticism about U.S. economic engagement. Following then-President Donald Trump’s 2017 withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, many in Asia have questioned whether the United States is as committed as it once was to free trade.

Biden officials dispute that notion, touting the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework or IPEF, as a counterweight to China’s economic clout. But IPEF differs from traditional free trade deals in that it does not provide greater market access or reduce tariffs — areas no longer seen as safe in a U.S. domestic political context. Regardless, Trump has vowed to kill IPEF if he defeats Biden in November’s presidential election.

In the opinion of Philip Turner, a former New Zealand diplomat, IPEF appears to have largely failed.

“Many Asian countries and regional players like Australia and New Zealand have pointed out that the U.S. failure to commit economically to the region undercuts its claims to regional leadership,” said Turner, who most recently served as New Zealand’s ambassador to South Korea.

While there are increasing regional worries about China’s rise and behavior, few if any Asian countries support efforts to contain China’s growth, Turner added.

“They would prefer the U.S. climb down from its high horse of economic coercion against China and find ways of getting on with each other short of conflict,” he said.

eurasiareview.com · April 16, 2024

22. PacNet #22 – Wither the Hub and Spokes System?

A silk web is stronger than a hub and spoke.

Let's borrow from Lenin: “When it comes time to hang the capitalists, they will vie with each other for the rope contract.”

And Let's appropriate from China the metaphor of the silk web that will be so strong that China cannot break it.

PacNet #22 – Wither the Hub and Spokes System?

John Hemmings

Senior Associate Director at Pacific Forum

pacforum.org · April 12, 2024

This week’s US-Japan alliance bilateral summit between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Kishida Fumio not only launched more than 70 deliverables that spanned the interagency, across the defense, across space, education, and technology, it also launched a new trilateral with the Philippines (at the summit level, at least), adding one more minilateral partnership to a lexicon that now includes AUKUS (Australia-UK-US), the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue (US-Japan-Australia), the US-Japan-UK naval trilateral, and the US-Japan-South Korea trilateral and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (“Quad”). The prospect of Japan’s inclusion in Pilar 2 of AUKUS even raises the possibility that a second “quad” may soon be on the cards.

While the US-Japan-Philippines trilateral is particularly welcome at a time when Chinese ships are trying to execute a critical boa-constrictor strategy on Manila’s Second Thomas Shoal—the addition of a new grouping to an already-rich group of minilaterals raises a question on the future of the region’s security architecture. The current approach is to layer minilaterals across the traditional “hub-and-spokes” San Francisco System, incrementally adding partners, capabilities, and areas of cooperation. Despite the burgeoning success of this approach, there are at least three long term issues that should be a factor of discussion among the three leaders this week. First, this new trilateral is going to add to the burdens of the diplomats and defense officials of the United States and Japan, who are already heavily committed in other groupings. Yes, the ministries can manage—for now—but how sustainable is this rinse-and-repeat approach. Arguably, we are at the working limit of how many trilaterals we can sustain with the workforce, time, and resources that we have.

Second, the threat profile in the region has changed considerably since these minilaterals were first established in the post-Cold War era. The first trilateral, the US-Japan-ROK trilateral was established in 1994 to deal with the North Korean nuclear crisis (with the convening power of the Pacific Forum as it was then, no less). We now have a China with regional and global ambitions—which has steadily built up the military power projection to enable it to secure those ambitions. The development an overall battle force of 350 ships, alongside a modernization drive in technology and doctrine, has been complemented by military islands across the South China sea, which bolster a strategy of attempting to secure sovereignty over a major global shipping lane—the South China Sea—by the threat of coercive force. It threatens the sovereignty of Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines—and this is all before we get to the very real threat it poses to the democracy of Taiwan. Its attitude towards regional security has been criticize the traditional alliance system and sow disinformation and propaganda against the minilaterals as they’ve emerged.

Third, it must be accepted that while minilateral arrangements enhance multilateral security, they do not provide collective security, as they lack formal and informal defense expectations and guarantees. While the US is often a critical node, acting as ally to two other partners in the minilateral, the credible deterrent factor of the minilaterals is not enhanced by the same force of a multilateral alliance. Yes, there are long-term effects that can enhance deterrence—such as co-development of critical defense technologies, or the enhancement of joint war fighting—but these are slow in the making and occur below the hood, as it were. So for all their bells and whistles, minilaterals do not pack the punch of a single multilateral alliance that has a credible article V. As the US, Japan, Australia, and the Philippines plan their first joint naval exercises in the South China Sea in defense of “the rule of law that is the foundation for a peaceful and stable Indo-Pacific region,” ship operators must plan around that reality.

There is some contradiction in the fact that it is widely agreed by most regional countries that regional security has deteriorated markedly with 82.6% of Southeast Asians alleging that ASEAN is ineffective in dealing with today’s challenges. In this setting, there is some historical resonance behind the meeting of Biden, Kishida, and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. After all, these three countries were instrumental in a nascent attempt to establish a Pacific Pact in 1949-1950, which began with a proposal by then-Philippine President Elpidio Quirino, which was promoted around the region by John Foster Dulles, but ultimately found little favor with Japan’s post-war Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru. By February 1950, the idea was dead and with the unremarkable exception of SEATO, multilateralism has been dead in the region.

However, NATO’s historic success in preserving peace on the European continent has meant various smaller approaches towards multilateral security in the Indo-Pacific have blossomed instead, particularly after the end of the Cold War. Following the previously mentioned US-Japan-ROK trilateral of 1994, the model has been tried with increased success by alliance managers across the region. In 2002, a second trilateral between the US, Australia, and Japan was started with Canberra taking the lead—a move that produced the TSD and the Security and Defense Cooperation Forum (SDCF) shortly thereafter. The development of the Core Group in 2005—initially to deal with the Indian Ocean Tsunami—evolved into the current quadrilateral, which brought India into the tent of growing minilaterals. The development of AUKUS in 2021 seemed to overshadow all of these “federated capability” groups in terms of strategic intent, in terms of headlines, and in terms of long-term resourcing. While it is self-evident that these groups do “work,” the three reasons indicate that they might be necessary but not sufficient for maintaining peace and security in the region.

In defense of the current approach, it has clearly allowed Washington and Tokyo to build networked security arrangements in an incremental fashion, overcoming the political hostility and bureaucratic inertia that continues to dog discussions of any collective defense arrangements in the region. It is a testament to China’s superb propaganda machinery that the states most at risk to its territorial predations are the most vocally hostile any “NATO-in-Asia” solution. In that sense, the minilaterals provide a stop-gap solution, a work-around that allow the militaries of those most concerned nations to institutionalize working relations, greater interoperability, and integrated capabilities. The addition of Philippines goes some way to showing others, a potential solution to their common problem.

Despite all of this, those concerned with the possibility of the Chinese use of force to change borders—maritime or otherwise—must begin to open their minds to collective defense arrangements. We may be running out of time to construct a viable and sustainable mechanism for real deterrence in the region. And in all of this, while the United States has remained the primary architect of the San Francisco System, it is also clear that others—Australia, South Korea, the Philippines, and Japan—need to think about what type of collective arrangement would suit their needs in the world over coming decades. In some ways, Japan has been a key enabler for the changes that have occurred thus far. In his remarks to both Houses of Congress, Prime Minister Kishida stated, “our partnership goes beyond the bilateral…from these various endeavors emerges a multilayered regional framework where our alliance serves as a force multiplier.” Japanese security experts might start putting forward conceptions of collective security to their allies in a way that gets the ball rolling.

The future of the region might depend on it.

John Hemmings ([email protected]) is Senior Associate Director at the Pacific Forum and a Professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies.

PacNet commentaries and responses represent the views of the respective authors. Alternative viewpoints are always welcomed and encouraged.

Photo: President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida walk on the colonnade as they make their way to a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House on April 10 in Washington, DC.

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

If you want to see more insightful analysis and impactful events in the Indo-Pacific, support us by donating. Your contribution fuels our mission for a secure and cooperative future: Donate Here

pacforum.org · April 12, 2024

23. Austin Talks With China Counterpart as Nations’ Ties Improve

Are ties really improvising? Who determines that? What does China think?

Austin Talks With China Counterpart as Nations’ Ties Improve

First call since Dong Jun was named China’s defense minister
Discussions part of efforts by US and China to stabilize ties

By Peter Martin

April 16, 2024 at 10:01 AM EDT

Updated on April 16, 2024 at 9:18 PM EDT

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-16/austin-talks-with-chinese-counterpart-as-us-china-thaw-continues?sref=hhjZtX76

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with his Chinese counterpart as the two countries continue a push to stabilize ties.

Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun discussed freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, “provocations” by North Korea and Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to a statement from the Pentagon.

Dong said the two nations’ militaries should cooperate and avoid confrontation in Beijing’s readout released Wednesday. He reiterated the Taiwan issue’s importance to China, which sees the self-ruled democracy as its territory, and called the South China Sea situation “generally stable.”

Lloyd AustinPhotographer: Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg

The call on Tuesday was the first time the two have spoken since Dong was appointed in December. It was also the first substantive engagement between Austin and a Chinese defense minister since November 2022.

The talks are part of a broader push to resume contacts up and down the military chain of command that were severed as tensions spiked over Taiwan and territorial disputes in the South China Sea in recent years. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed in a November meeting to resume military contacts.

This month, representatives of the People’s Liberation Army, the US Indo-Pacific Command and the US Pacific Fleet met in Honolulu to discuss what the two sides call military interactions of concern. In December, General Charles Brown, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs, spoke with his Chinese counterpart Liu Zhenli.

Also, China and the Philippines have been engaging in a series of increasingly tense naval encounters around a shoal in the South China Sea. Earlier this week, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said his nation will invoke its defense treaty with the US if a Filipino soldier dies from a foreign attack.

Beijing’s diplomats say Washington is using Manila to raise tensions in the disputed body of water.

Talks between Austin and his counterparts also had been complicated by longstanding US sanctions on Dong’s predecessor Li Shangfu that China said were an obstacle to talks. Li was ousted as defense minister in October after serving just seven months in the role. Dong is China’s first defense minister with a naval background.

— With assistance from Josh Xiao

(Updates with Chinese statement in third paragraph.)

Follow all new stories by Peter Martin

24. Austin Meets Virtually With Chinese Defense Minister for First Time

Will virtual meetings ever have deep fakes? Or will one side of the video be talking to a bot?

Austin Meets Virtually With Chinese Defense Minister for First Time

defense.gov · by Matthew Olay

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III held his first engagement with Adm. Dong Jun, defense minister of China, today via video teleconference at the Pentagon.

The two leaders covered an assortment of topics during their discussion, including defense relations between the U.S. and China, as well as both regional and global security issues.

Spotlight: Focus on Indo-Pacific

"[Austin] … underscored the importance of respect for high seas freedom of navigation guaranteed under international law — especially in the South China Sea — and reiterated that the United States will continue to fly, sail and operate safely and responsibly, wherever international law allows," Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said during a briefing.

From the Lectern

Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder conducts a news briefing at the Pentagon, April 16, 2024.

Download: Full Size (993.28 KB)

Photo By: Chad J. McNeeley, DOD

VIRIN: 240416-D-TT977-1339

The secretary reiterated that the U.S. remains committed to its One China Policy, which is guided by the Three Joint Communiques, the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances.

Austin also discussed Russia's unprovoked invasion and subsequent war in Ukraine, as well as concerns about recent provocations from North Korea, Ryder said.

Spotlight: Support for Ukraine

The discussion, wherein Austin stressed the importance of keeping military-to-military communication lines between the U.S. and China open, followed a series of other U.S.-China talks dating back to December of last year.

Aerial View

An aerial view of the Pentagon, May 15, 2023.

Download: Full Size (3.8 MB)

Photo By: Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Alexander Kubitza, DOD

VIRIN: 230515-D-PM193-1868X

On Dec. 21, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, Jr., met virtually with his Chinese military counterpart, People's Liberation Army Gen. Liu Zhenli. In January, senior U.S. and Chinese defense officials gathered for two days at the Pentagon to discuss defense relations between the two countries. And earlier this month U.S. and Chinese officials met for working-level talks aimed at ensuring professional and safe interactions between the two countries' air and naval forces.

"The department will continue to engage in active discussions with PRC [People's Republic of China] counterparts about future engagements between defense and military officials at multiple levels, as agreed by President Biden and PRC President Xi Jinping in November 2023," Ryder said.

24:38

defense.gov · by Matthew Olay

25. The Costs of Comms: Adapting for the Communications-Restricted Battlefield

During the Cold War I recall trying to train in a degraded comms environment. It was hard. but it was also harder to get commanders/leaders to allow training with degraded comms for very long.

Excerpts:

One of the most trying times during that exercise was when we were unable to communicate with a particular detachment for nearly seventy-two hours—the time at which we knew that, if we did not receive an update, we would immediately activate a detachment in reserve to take over the mission. When the detachment’s members finally made contact, they were exactly where they were supposed to be, and our tactical objectives were still on track. Had we not planned for this and were we not able to remain true to our plan, we may have unnecessarily changed our plan, retasking other units to cover for the missing team. Not only would that have come at the cost of those missions, but also placed both our headquarters and theirs in danger while communicating the change. Although it was uncomfortable, we came out of the exercise better trained to handle the challenges we ultimately faced on our deployment a few months later.

The art of command is founded on sound judgment and reason. It is up to commanders to understand their operating environments, identify their current priorities, and decide how best to lead their organizations. The framework above simply provides a starting point for commanders to assess their situations and execute prioritized communications at any given moment. By delegating ownership and disaggregating their forces throughout their areas of operations, commanders can diffuse some of the anticipated costs. With practice, it’s possible to do this to such an extent that our adversaries can no longer identify and effectively target these critical command-and-control nodes, thereby increasing our operational effectiveness and survivability.a

The Costs of Comms: Adapting for the Communications-Restricted Battlefield - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Tom Gaines, Dave Lucas · April 17, 2024

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For decades, the cost of communicating for the Army has been almost entirely measured in dollars. How much money would the service require to purchase, operate, and maintain its information systems? How much bandwidth could a unit afford to connect its headquarters? Technological advances and the buildup of global communications infrastructure have driven these costs down over the last twenty years to the point where the difference between operating from the United States and a tent in a faraway desert is negligible, and information flows freely between headquarters around the world.

As the Army looks to transform the force to meet the near-peer threats of the future, it is apparent there are other critical costs associated with wartime communications. First, we are recognizing the risk that communication poses to the force. In Ukraine, we saw the devastating effects of electronic warfare targeting combined with precision fires. In response, we began experimenting with how to task organize our formations and disperse them across the battlefield, reducing our physical and electronic signatures while improving survivability. Although these efforts help reduce a unit’s exposure, the risk increases every time data is transmitted between those dispersed formations. Current analysis of Russian targeting cycles estimates the time between detection and delivery can be as little as three minutes. The operational costs of communicating now includes relocating out of harm’s way before a successful counterattack can be employed.

In addition to accounting for operational costs each time they communicate, commanders must consider the opportunity costs of the information they are sending. Because of the high availability and throughput of our current network infrastructure, units have enjoyed the luxury of not worrying about bandwidth use. In fully operational command posts, every staff section can simultaneously send robust PowerPoint documents to hundreds of recipients, engage in multiple video teleconferences, and pore through massive databases without a second thought. Users may complain about the network being slow compared to their internet at home, but they can still accomplish their missions without fear of a kinetic response. Yet, the bandwidth accessibility we have long taken for granted is changing.

Despite how robust our networks are when fully operational, our expectations for the next fight are drastically different due to the anticipated contest over the information domain. Our infrastructure, satellites, and regional hubs will be priority targets that adversaries will attack to deny, degrade, interrupt, and limit our ability to communicate and operate. The parts of our network that we successfully defend will quickly become bogged down as every unit attempts to transmit via increasingly crowded pathways. Connectivity will become an increasingly finite resource, and communications will incur higher opportunity costs. Every outgoing message will come at the cost of one that cannot be sent, because there will simply not be enough capacity to transmit every message.

How, then, do commanders accept the rising costs of communication and still accomplish their missions? The obvious solution is to train and prepare their units for the expected near-peer fight, not the fight they want, to master mission command through the use of commander’s intent and clear mission-type orders, to empower subordinate leaders to act with disciplined initiative, and to send them into the fight with doctrine and standard operating procedures that don’t rely on the continuous communication we have grown accustomed to. While mission command is not new to the Army, it hasn’t been employed to the extent that battlefield conditions will require; we must relearn it before the future fight becomes the current fight.

Inevitably, operational requirements will necessitate that commanders issue updated orders, and to do this they will have to communicate. But given the expected reduction in transmission capabilities and enemy response, every transmission will come at a premium. Commanders will have to prioritize their communication to address critical issues, and it’s important that they have thought through their prioritization ahead of time. One way to approach this prioritization is by framing it around the war, the warfighter, and the warfighting function. This sounds both logical and simple in theory; in practice, and in a complex and dynamic operational setting, prioritizing communications to limit transmissions is as challenging as it is crucial. That’s why a framework is necessary.

First, commanders should never lose focus on the war—their missions. What orders do they need to issue to drive their organizations and accomplish a given mission at a given time? Is there something going on with the main effort? Do they need to check a supporting effort? This begins with the tactical objective—the immediate goal the unit has set out to achieve. Commanders must look past tactical objectives, however, and see how they fit into the larger picture. In combat, nothing happens in isolation. Commanders must constantly assess the progress of their tactical objectives and how that progress affects their higher headquarters’ missions, and then communicate any adjustments needed to meet those objectives.

Next, commanders must recognize that war is an inherently human endeavor and prioritize communicating based on the warfighters around them—their higher-level commanders, subordinates, and peers. How do these individuals operate? What do they need to be at their most effective for the tasks they have been given? Some are likely to only need to be told the mission, intent, and end state to succeed. Some will need additional guidance to ensure they remain on the right track. Understanding how your higher-level commander thinks or the information the commander on your flank needs to make the most effective decisions is equally critical. These needs are often based on a combination of experience and individual personalities, and commanders need to know their fellow warfighters and adjust their communication priorities accordingly.

Finally, commanders must integrate every aspect of their organizations’ warfighting functions. While maneuver, fires, and intelligence are likely to dominate commanders’ attention, they cannot afford to focus on these exclusively. It doesn’t matter how brilliantly a company of tanks has maneuvered against the enemy if the tanks run out of fuel because sustainment requirements were not communicated. It is a commander’s role to identify which information is the most critical, balancing command-and-control operations, support, and sustainment in a way that prioritizes and mitigates key points of friction before they become a problem.

Crucially, for a unit to have confidence in this framework, it must be trained. Before deploying to the US Central Command area of operations, 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) culminated our predeployment training with a validation exercise. To find out how a contested communications environment would impact operations, we incorporated known capabilities of our adversaries. Throughout the exercise, the opposing force, utilizing those capabilities, detected many of our communications; at times they responded with one-way attack drones and targeted jamming. Since we anticipated the enemy’s capabilities, the Special Forces detachments, companies, and battalion headquarters designed a plan that did not rely on constant communications.

We redesigned how we planned, prepared, and executed our operations. When we did broadcast, we relied on clear intent and simple orders to coordinate our tactical mission, including enough flexibility in our plans to account for anticipated drift. We focused on building trusted relationships during our predeployment cycle and disciplined ourselves to communicating only what was absolutely essential to command and control the organization and maintain synchronization. Finally, we took advantage of our practiced doctrine and standard operating procedures to establish set logistics packages and increase self-sufficiency, limiting the amount of transmission time spent on sustainment. In short, we had to get comfortable talking less and trusting more.

One of the most trying times during that exercise was when we were unable to communicate with a particular detachment for nearly seventy-two hours—the time at which we knew that, if we did not receive an update, we would immediately activate a detachment in reserve to take over the mission. When the detachment’s members finally made contact, they were exactly where they were supposed to be, and our tactical objectives were still on track. Had we not planned for this and were we not able to remain true to our plan, we may have unnecessarily changed our plan, retasking other units to cover for the missing team. Not only would that have come at the cost of those missions, but also placed both our headquarters and theirs in danger while communicating the change. Although it was uncomfortable, we came out of the exercise better trained to handle the challenges we ultimately faced on our deployment a few months later.

The art of command is founded on sound judgment and reason. It is up to commanders to understand their operating environments, identify their current priorities, and decide how best to lead their organizations. The framework above simply provides a starting point for commanders to assess their situations and execute prioritized communications at any given moment. By delegating ownership and disaggregating their forces throughout their areas of operations, commanders can diffuse some of the anticipated costs. With practice, it’s possible to do this to such an extent that our adversaries can no longer identify and effectively target these critical command-and-control nodes, thereby increasing our operational effectiveness and survivability.

Lieutenant Colonel Tom Gaines is the ACoS G6 for 1st Special Forces Command. His writing on human creativity, decision-making, and technology can be found in Harvard Business Review and at West Point’s Modern War Institute.

Lieutenant Colonel Dave Lucas is the Battalion Commander of 4th Battalion, 1st Special Warfare Training Group. He previously commanded 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group and a special operations task force.

Image credit: Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Keeler, US Army

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Tom Gaines, Dave Lucas · April 17, 2024

26. The Rising Ransomware Tide, Chinese Spy Cranes, and the Biden Executive Order on Maritime Cyber Security

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Finally, it is a truism that information sharing is a foundational requirement in cyber security. And yet the growth and development of such a community for the maritime transportation system remains nascent compared to other information sharing and analysis centers and organizations.

For the last several years a stalwart crew of volunteers (to include the authors of this piece) calling themselves “MarSec@ICSVillage” have come together at DefCon (one of the largest and oldest hacking conferences in the world) to bang the drum and grow this community of interest. We unabashedly will continue to do so to keep growing the talent and providing solutions to those who will listen. We do so at no profit to ourselves — we are a committed community who loves the challenge.

Thus, if federal grant funding or private sector support should go anywhere, it should be to incentivize the kinds of grassroots sharing and networking that these communities create. The Maritime Transportation System Information Sharing and Analysis Center and countless volunteer communities of interest punch well above their weight in finding solutions and setting best practices. This is because by their very nature they have blended representation of both federal and industry stakeholders. Information sharing associations are a low cost and yet underfunded way to share best practices, discuss risk reduction strategies, and ultimately develop a collaborative muscle designed to flex when incidents occur.

The maritime transportation system, like all critical infrastructure, is vulnerable. Long-term fixes are important, but Washington should do more right now.

The Rising Ransomware Tide, Chinese Spy Cranes, and the Biden Executive Order on Maritime Cyber Security - War on the Rocks

NINA KOLLARS, BLAKE BENSON, AND AUSTIN REID

warontherocks.com · by Nina Kollars · April 17, 2024

In July of 2023, Japan’s largest port, Nagoya, fell victim to a lockbit ransomware attack, causing operations to grind to a halt and Toyota to suspend its import-export packaging lines. This was just one of many recent incidents within the larger marine transportation system and showcases how fragile the sector is to these attack profiles.

On Feb. 21, the Biden administration released an executive order designed to meet the long-term challenges needed to improve the cyber security of the nation’s ports, ships, maritime industrial supply chain, and the data systems that operate throughout them. Although it is a positive step for an often-ignored portion of the U.S. critical infrastructure, it is not enough and it isn’t fast enough. Addressing cyber security threats to the maritime sector requires more than standards and long-term industrial base investments. In addition to the current order, other steps the administration should take include giving the U.S. Coast Guard more funds for effective incident response, creating a single reporting resource for maritime cyber attacks, and investing in existing information-sharing organizations.

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Cyber Vulnerabilities in Ports and Ships

It is no secret that ports and maritime shipping are among the hottest new targets for cyber attacks. The maritime transportation system is very lucrative for criminal ransomware. According to a report by CyberOwl, attacks are up 350 percent over 2022, and the average ransom pricing out at just over $3.2 million. Worse still are the continuing revelations regarding VoltTyphoon, the Chinese state-sponsored group that has infiltrated U.S. and allied critical infrastructure. Ship operating data systems, navigation systems, and even the technologies that operate the port themselves are shot through with cyber security vulnerabilities. Into these gaps, malicious actors, including both criminal and state adversaries, continue to operate with very little resistance.

Amidst the public and congressional anxiety the Biden administration’s new executive order provides two fundamental adjustments. First, it fixes an arcane gap in the Coast Guard’s law enforcement authorities. Second, it sets out $20 billion to revive the nation’s industrial production of container cranes — the physical machines that lift containers onto and off of ships. Ship-to-shore cranes are not, as they might appear, just dumb pieces of metal and cable — they’re computerized. And as with all computers and sensors, the opportunity to spy and disrupt from the comfort of offices in Beijing is the stuff of National Security Council nightmares. The investment in the industrial base is an attempt to ensure that the United States won’t be reliant purely upon Chinese cranes built by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company.

Coast Guard Authorities

Biden’s executive order is a good first step — it’s just not enough, and not fast enough, a fact that we suspect is already known to its authors. The executive order does, however, manage to fix a gap in Coast Guard authorities. The U.S. Coast Guard is a unique organization with very “unique capabilities.” When analysts say “unique” authorities, what they are actually referring to is the scope and enhancement of two longstanding sets of maritime security authorities.

The Espionage Act of 1917 gives the Coast Guard authority over ships in U.S. waters to protect against acts of sedition as cargo such as munitions were loaded and unloaded under the watchful eye of the Captain of the Port. The Magnuson Act of 1950, thereafter, expanded the authority to include the authority to board and control ships in U.S. territorial waters. Both of those acts were written long before the existence of the internet or concern for cyber security. With the expansion and adoption of the internet, the Coast Guard — like all other law enforcement entities — has seen its cyber security responsibilities grow considerably. In adjusting Coast Guard authorities to include cyber incidents, the executive order is a small change with big impact.

The Coast Guard now has authority to deal directly with cyber incidents or potential cyber threats lurking in the maritime transportation system. It is the agency best positioned to do so in an industry in which commercial companies are only expected to protect their own systems. Other federal agencies and federally funded research and development centers that have studied cyber security risk in the maritime transportation system, including other components of the Department of Homeland Security, have concluded that the Coast Guard has the best congressionally defined sandbox for cyber security support to maritime transportation system stakeholders. This executive order solidifies that but, more importantly, it gives the Coast Guard the platform to own the arena. If well resourced, they will be well positioned to be accountable for — and not just responsible for — elevating the cyber security posture of U.S. maritime interests.

But here’s the problem: authority without capacity is not authority. While the executive order gives the Coast Guard the authority to control vessels that are deemed to be a cyber threat, it is fundamentally unclear how that is supposed to happen with an already overworked force, and steep competition for competent workers who will stay and grow with the organization.

This is particularly true for Coast Guard’s cyber forces. Simply granting authority doesn’t magically make companies open the door to enforcement. The Coast Guard’s Cyber Protection Teams, unlike their Department of Defense counterparts, rely cooperatively on industry to invite them to collaborate on industry-owned infrastructure. The Coast Guard has neither the capacity nor the desire to try to bully its way in. Moreover, in instituting mandatory reporting by industry, the executive order assumes that small and medium-sized stakeholders and vessel operators understand how to report a cyber incident and have the means to recognize they are facing an incident. This is a risky assumption since industry compliance varies widely. This will be a complex hurdle for the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard has made significant progress in equipping and bolstering its limited force of qualified cyber operators and has made phenomenal strides under the current leadership to identify capabilities that can be repurposed, created, or retrained to adapt to new cyber security requirements. Thus far, however, sufficient funding appears not to be forthcoming. The Coast Guard has not received supplemental funding for these or any other additional responsibilitiesdespite its requests. Instead, the Coast Guard has had to begin a realignment designed to deal with its 10 percent manpower shortages by putting several of its ships into layup. Not enough bodies means fewer ships for enforcement.

Without a clear path to increased funding and some innovative adjustments to recruitment and retention, the executive order requirement simply adds to the Coast Guard’s burden. The result is that the women and men responsible for continuing to attempt to duct tape together the security of the maritime transportation system are desperate for a rebalance of priorities. The estimated $5.4 trillion worth of goods that travel through the maritime transportation system and feed the U.S. economy are expected to be secured by a law enforcement workforce that is funded at less than one quarter of 1 percent of that amount. Enforcement, let alone cyber security, cannot be done — or at least not well and not for long.

Industrial Base Investments: From Legacy to Autonomy

It is also useful that the executive order calls for long-term investments to secure port infrastructure. However, narrowly scoped industrial base investments to solve the “crane” problem will not solve the cyber security issues endemic to the maritime transportation system. Consider the enormity of the cyber security problem. Currently, the maritime transportation system is reliant on legacy systems, protocols, hardware, and processes that have been layered on top of each other over the course of decades. For a shipping container to get from its origin to a warehouse in the central United States, and to its final destination, it will be reliant on multiple and often incompatible computer systems. Creating an electronic manifest and a stow plan at the port of origin, clearing customs and inspection prior to arriving in the United States, and the booking and stowing of a container prior to loading all involve separate systems that are barely compatible. Even the cargo management system and navigation systems aboard ocean-going vessels are managed differently. Each activity relies on a separate data system run by an independent company within the global supply chain to move it along to the next step. These networks and processes are often a blending of traditional business information technology systems with operational technology machinery.

Those systems aside, the global ship Automatic Identification System — a key aid to navigation — has been proven to be vulnerable to spoofing and disruption by security researchers and adversaries alike. And finally, nearly every part of the maritime transportation system is moving toward integration with autonomous and automated operations reliant on complex control systems developed (and fielded) through a diverse and global ecosystem of manufacturers and facilities including Europe, the United States, Australia, and China. The complexity of this global quilt of companies and supply chains is reflected in nearly every port complex in the United States, intertwined throughout the American domestic maritime transportation system. Even seemingly U.S.-operated companies are multinational. A handful of the largest U.S.-flagged shipping companies are actually U.S. subsidiaries of larger foreign-owned shipping giants.

This means that the focus on Chinese manufactured cranes such as those built by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company represents just one piece of the globalized — and vulnerable — U.S. critical infrastructure. Maritime cyber security analysts also note that it is only a matter of time before automated container and rail terminal operations, and eventually uncrewed or partially crewed autonomous vessels, become a target for both private and state-sponsored hacking. And the NotPetya attack on Ukrainian systems, and more recently the Viasat hack, demonstrated amply that the maritime transportation system is interdependent with many of the other critical infrastructures — rail, energy, water, etc. Because these information systems are interdependent, cyber-initiated events can cause operational impacts in other critical infrastructure sectors.

Right of Boom Investments

If the threat is now, then that is when Washington should invest in address it. One first focus area should be elevating the capacity to respond immediately after an attack has occurred — right of boom rather than left of it. Additional short-term investments that can boost response capability can at least put a band-aid on critical vulnerabilities while we wait for long-term solutions to come online.

Ultimately, it is a gamble whether growing domestic production capacity for infrastructure like cranes will fundamentally reduce America’s cyber security vulnerability. Not only do industrial base solutions take years to become effective, but simply onshoring a supply chain does not make it immune to cyber attacks. Consider that the operational technology cyber security industry emphasizes both threat and vulnerability — part of this is by inherent design of the system’s priorities. They are designed with reliability in mind, first and foremost, above all else — and as a result, they are likely flawed right out of the box from a system security perspective.

Furthermore, critical infrastructures like the maritime domain are “low cyber security maturity” environments. In a low maturity environment, the fastest and most efficient results come from improving the mean time to recovery — after an attack has occurred. Thus, the right first step is to address the lowest-hanging fruit and invest in incident response and associated recovery activities.

We accept and applaud that the Coast Guard’s supplemental “Notice of Proposed Rule Making” is focused on cataloging risks and implementing base standards. It is certainly part of the equation. But the cyber security maturity of the maritime transportation system is deeply uneven already, and as a result it will be a long time until prevention capabilities are possible uniformly across it.

We recommend the U.S. government place an immediate emphasis on the low-hanging fruit for the majority of port stakeholders by adding additional funding to efforts under way. The Coast Guard’s Cyber Protection Teams have a unique opportunity, if resourced appropriately, to work in cooperation with industry to test incident response plans in jointly developed tabletop exercises, or even to perform their own operational cyber activities to identify weaknesses.

Second, simply building out the capacity to help maritime transportation system stakeholders report attacks is also likely to yield fast returns. This may sound strangely simple but ports have historically not had a very clear identification or “single pane of glass” through which to learn about and relay cyber security incidents. The Coast Guard has the mechanisms to provide operational incident response support, but it is unclear how the various federal players in the space will integrate with them. The passing of the Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act may remediate some of these pain-points, but the ambiguity remains unresolved. Just exactly who industry stakeholders will dial on their worst day can be a luck of the draw. Some may call their InfraGard hotline, some may call a technology provider like Dragos, and some might call their respective federal safety administration (like the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration). Reporting does very little to generate an effective coordinated response if it cannot be triaged effectively. This executive order has the potential to galvanize the efforts of many agencies into a single operational arm. But again, the Coast Guard would need to be resourced accordingly to make that happen.

Certainly, over time, industry will inevitably take the lead — but the path will be painful. The challenge with an industry-led approach for port facilities and assets afloat is the industries themselves. There is no one-size risk reduction effort that would fit the diversity of needs of everyone represented. Freight forwarders, ports, cruise lines, cargo shipping — all of these stakeholders require a patchwork of different solutions.

Finally, it is a truism that information sharing is a foundational requirement in cyber security. And yet the growth and development of such a community for the maritime transportation system remains nascent compared to other information sharing and analysis centers and organizations.

For the last several years a stalwart crew of volunteers (to include the authors of this piece) calling themselves “MarSec@ICSVillage” have come together at DefCon (one of the largest and oldest hacking conferences in the world) to bang the drum and grow this community of interest. We unabashedly will continue to do so to keep growing the talent and providing solutions to those who will listen. We do so at no profit to ourselves — we are a committed community who loves the challenge.

Thus, if federal grant funding or private sector support should go anywhere, it should be to incentivize the kinds of grassroots sharing and networking that these communities create. The Maritime Transportation System Information Sharing and Analysis Center and countless volunteer communities of interest punch well above their weight in finding solutions and setting best practices. This is because by their very nature they have blended representation of both federal and industry stakeholders. Information sharing associations are a low cost and yet underfunded way to share best practices, discuss risk reduction strategies, and ultimately develop a collaborative muscle designed to flex when incidents occur.

The maritime transportation system, like all critical infrastructure, is vulnerable. Long-term fixes are important, but Washington should do more right now.

Become a Member

Nina Kollars is the executive director of MarSec at ICS Village, a community of maritime cyber security thinkers. Additionally, she is an associate professor at the Cyber and Innovation Policy Institute at the U.S. Naval War College.

Blake Benson leads the industrial control systems-focused cyber security practice at ABS Consulting.

Austin Reid is a senior consultant at ABS Consulting specializing in securing maritime operational technology. He is also a hacker, security researcher, and the director of the hands-on experiments and competitions with maritime equipment for Defcon’s MarSec at ICS Village.

Image: U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Nina Kollars · April 17, 2024

27. China Is Battening Down for the Gathering Storm over Taiwan

Excerpts:

A storm from Beijing is heading to Taiwan. Although hopes were high that the Russo-Ukrainian War might deter Xi from folly over Taiwan, nothing in his behavior, speech, or actions so far suggests he is learning anything other than how to better prepare to subjugate Taiwan. Xi’s internal views and decisions matter more than Beijing’s outward-facing guile that is threaded through the latest rounds of leader, business, or military talks. Washington ought to engage for many reasons, but the wise should see these so-called “stabilization” measures as Beijing likely does: devices to buy time and regain a sense of normalcy while hiding Xi’s true designs.

Xi’s worsening domestic economic troubles in coming years may only increase his temptation to take extreme action, especially as the true limits of Chinese coercion become apparent. U.S., allied, and partner political unity in defending Taiwan’s democracy and maintaining the current political status quo, coupled with substantial material strength forward where it matters, when it matters, remains the best hope for deterring Xi and confounding his expansionist agenda. The effectiveness of deterrence will probably swing on the extent to which Washington and allies field more capabilities that can make real the Indo-Pacific Command’s “hellscape” plan to wreak havoc on hostile forces threatening Taiwan. Deep magazines of long-range fires and more forces forward — especially many small, mobile, lethal, persistent, and uncrewed types — will not increase the chance of war, as some mistakenly fear. Rather, they would dissuade a would-be aggressor from a strategic blunder of epic proportions. In facing the rising danger of a country that seems only to respect muscular opponents, not being fully prepared for war will be the surest invitation to naked aggression across the strait.

China Is Battening Down for the Gathering Storm over Taiwan - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Mike Studeman · April 17, 2024

Chinese war drums beat on as pundits hotly debate if or when Beijing will try to seize Taiwan by force. There is no apparent countdown to D-day for initiating a blockade or invasion, but major strategic indicators clearly show that General Secretary Xi Jinping is still preparing his country for a showdown. Developments under way suggest Taiwan will face an existential crisis in single-digit years, most likely in the back half of the 2020s or front half of the 2030s.

Despite the manifesting peril, China’s recent economic setbacks and faux conciliations suggest to some, including President Joseph Biden, that the danger is passing and China will end up too preoccupied with domestic challenges to focus on a fight and risk global ostracism, leading to further economic calamity. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Xi is militarizing Chinese society and steeling his country for a potential high-intensity war. China’s trajectory signals deepening danger and a hardening of Xi’s intent to execute an act of aggression similar to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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The simple fact is that peace in the Indo-Pacific and even the wider world will be held hostage to one man with totalitarian control, messianic ambition, strategic impatience, and implacable resolve. Xi has made unification with Taiwan the signature issue of his tenure. He now calls it the essence of national rejuvenation. For years, his domestic speeches have been grooming officials, the military, and the public for a “great struggle” and “major test” that will require extraordinary sacrifice. At every turn, he dares them to fight and be good at fighting. At a meeting with Biden in late 2023, Xi stated, “Look, peace is … all well and good, but at some point we need to move towards resolution.”

Xi’s most critical choices reflect a march to war. Leadership changes at the 20th Party Congress in late 2022, for example, turned the Politburo into a body more akin to a war cabinet. Fifteen of its 24 members now have Taiwan-related experience. Included in this cadre is the most recent former eastern theater commander — the general responsible for executing a Taiwan fight — who was leapfrogged to the Politburo without being a prior member of the Central Committee.

As disturbing, the war machine of the People’s Liberation Army continues to modernize at a sprint in every area. China’s hyper-militarization represents the greatest build-up of arms since the end of the Cold War. In 2020, Xi accelerated significant military milestones from 2035 to 2027 because he wanted China’s military to modernize faster and give him Taiwan options earlier. The People’s Liberation Army has since built vast underground complexes, a modernized and proliferated space layer, thick aircraft and air defenses, and the world’s largest navy. China also created a Strategic Support Force, which integrates space, electronic warfare, and cyber capabilities. And it boasts the most active and sophisticated ballistic missile force in the world.

China is concurrently building up its nuclear triad at a gallop. China aims to neutralize any possible American nuclear advantage in a crisis in order to devolve a fight to conventional forces where China thinks it might have the edge. The former commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Adm. Charles Richard, repeatedly called China’s nuclear force advances “breathtaking,” “explosive,” and a “strategic breakout.” Their nuclear missile, warhead expansion, launch-on-warning, silo construction, and orbital bombardment developments are all part of Xi’s broader push through the 2020s to get ready for a potential major power confrontation.

On top of this, Xi has been deploying more military forces nearer to Taiwan to reduce Taipei’s warning time, practice in anticipated wartime areas, demonstrate supposed Chinese military superiority, and slowly exhaust and demoralize the Taiwan military. In U.S. parlance, these acts are akin to warm-start efforts at “softening the battlespace” for follow-on action. Employing a boiling frog tactic, China aims to condition Taiwan to an ever-increasing number of forces surrounding the island. Additional patrol patterns east of Taiwan are a form of psychological warfare attempting to highlight China’s power to cut off resupply lifelines. Meanwhile, the Chinese military has also been intensifying the scope and scale of exercises practicing simulated assaults on Taiwan, which last many months on China’s eastern coast each year.

At the strategic level, China dropped “peaceful reunification” as its longstanding official approach to resolving the Taiwan issue. Xi has passed new laws allowing the nationalization of foreign assets in wartime and stronger measures for nationwide civilian mobilization, including more societal drills, to improve support of the People’s Liberation Army in wartime. Efforts to boost food and energy security are well under way, and China is building overland pipelines and coal-fired plants with renewed fervor in anticipation of limiting the impact of expected foreign maritime interdiction of oil and gas during any conflict. China has been building its strategic petroleum reserves for years in above- and below-ground facilities well beyond nominal nation-state peacetime buffers. At the same time, Beijing has deepened its alliances to secure flows from global energy providers, notably Russia, Gulf Cooperation Council states, Iran, Iraq, Angola, Brazil, and others.

Xi’s absolute prioritization of security over the economy is perhaps the most telling of all war preparation indicators. In the last 18 months alone, Xi has undertaken massive efforts to insulate the Chinese economy from potential external vulnerabilities, stressing self-reliance at the expense of growth. This strategic shift is not just related to trade wars, perceived supply chain vulnerabilities, or de-risking dynamics. Xi seems to have studied the sanctions playbook the West used against Russia over Ukraine and subsequently initiated long-lead protective measures to batten down the hatches of China’s economy to resist similar pressure. In contrast to the milquetoast pushback from the other leading powers after China put Hong Kong under its boot, Xi likely knows attempting to assimilate Taiwan would lead to much fiercer global resistance and harsher whole-of-society repercussions that would likely last years. And he intends to ready China to endure them.

In addition to the extraordinary measures Xi has already undertaken to protect Chinese supply chains, cyber security, and critical infrastructure, China may be quietly reducing exposure of its foreign exchange reserves. Steady declinesin Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds since 2018 (from $1.2 trillion to less than $800 billion) roughly parallel year-on-year increases held by Belgium and Luxembourg, suggesting China may be shifting the financial custodianship of its American bonds. If true, this would presumably serve as a layer of protection against Washington directly capturing China’s reserves in wartime. It remains unclear if China’s shift to U.S. agency bonds (held by government-sponsored enterprises instead of the U.S. Treasury) may also be a protective measure. These moves would make sense considering Xi’s order to Chinese banks in May 2022 to reevaluate risk and insulate against possible “severe U.S. sanctions.” Guidance like this might also explain other curiosities such as why China, as the world’s largest producer of gold, has been buying gold on global markets for 16 straight months. Economists who tend to attribute these financial moves solely to diversification, de-dollarization, or increasing the yuan’s value may be missing the forest for the trees. These measures would also help shock-proof China from cyclopedic sanctions stemming from a Taiwan conflict.

All strategic war preparation indicators are brightly lit, but the most telling is Xi’s willingness to breach the Chinese Communist Party’s covenant with the Chinese people established 45 years ago to allow China the freedom to get rich. Xi has deliberately switched the party’s mandate from enabling China’s economic vitality and building up comprehensive national power in a stable ecosystem to the securitization of everything and tightening down in anticipation of “reunifying the motherland” and preparing to recover Taiwan at the expense of that power. Xi’s charm offensive with the White House and attempts to curry favor with U.S. corporate leaders reflect less a re-prioritization of economic imperatives to the top billing than an experiential insight that many profit-myopic Americans can still be played to China’s advantage and induced into business-as-usual complacency during Xi’s crucial combat preparation years. China would classically call this approach wielding “a hidden knife behind a smile” and ultimately “killing with a borrowed sword.”

Xi’s elevation of geopolitics and security over China’s economic well-being might make sense in an era of strategic competition where paranoias about encirclement and containment abound. But the choices he is making today leading to domestic wealth destruction portend his willingness to countenance even greater wealth destruction on a global scale. Although estimates suggest a war over Taiwan would wreck China’s economy, cost 10 percent of global gross domestic product, and devastate worldwide supply networks for years to come, Xi may not care overly much given the inescapable backsliding of his economy even in the absence of any war. In the coming years, he may conclude he has everything to gain and nothing to lose by waiting any longer.

In fact, a strong case could be made that Xi might need a nationalistic “wag the dog” issue to restore the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. A rechanneling of public passions could prove essential as criticisms surge over a self-induced economic downturn created by greater state interference in private industry, dulled investor confidence, demographic graying stemming from the party’s one-child policy, after-effects of harsh pandemic lockdown policies and “long COVID” impacts, youth unemployment, a high debt-to-gross domestic product ratio, poor domestic consumption rates, and de-risking by enlightened foreign companies that see both greater geopolitical and financial risk in China’s future.

Even in a so-called “war of choice,” where Beijing can carefully select when to move against Taiwan free of any domestic pressures, Xi’s age (70) matters. He only has ten reliable years of vitality to conduct a major operation and then lead China through the inevitable multi-year recovery from anticipated international retribution. Based on how Xi appears to be interweaving his legacy with assimilating Taiwan, it seems unlikely he would leave it up to a successor to absorb the forever glory of overseeing a long-sought unification and subsequently re-stabilizing China’s place in the world, a feat that could put Xi on par with Mao Zedong.

Following traditional Chinese decision-making that emphasizes advancing when the propensity of factors flows favorably in one’s direction, Xi will likely be inclined to wait opportunistically before making a major decision on Taiwan. He is more likely to make a big move when the People’s Liberation Army is deemed more ready and when domestic and international dynamics unfold in a way that is more conducive to success. Given the stakes for his leadership mandate of China, his power, his reputation, his legacy, and probably his very life, Xi knows he must do more to load the iron dice before he rolls them on a Taiwan crapshoot. International views of Chinese power may weigh heavily on Xi’s decision-making calculus. He may be tempted to act before China is seen as beyond the apex of its power, so that he can still overleverage coopted nations to remain compliant in the face of Chinese aggression.

A storm from Beijing is heading to Taiwan. Although hopes were high that the Russo-Ukrainian War might deter Xi from folly over Taiwan, nothing in his behavior, speech, or actions so far suggests he is learning anything other than how to better prepare to subjugate Taiwan. Xi’s internal views and decisions matter more than Beijing’s outward-facing guile that is threaded through the latest rounds of leader, business, or military talks. Washington ought to engage for many reasons, but the wise should see these so-called “stabilization” measures as Beijing likely does: devices to buy time and regain a sense of normalcy while hiding Xi’s true designs.

Xi’s worsening domestic economic troubles in coming years may only increase his temptation to take extreme action, especially as the true limits of Chinese coercion become apparent. U.S., allied, and partner political unity in defending Taiwan’s democracy and maintaining the current political status quo, coupled with substantial material strength forward where it matters, when it matters, remains the best hope for deterring Xi and confounding his expansionist agenda. The effectiveness of deterrence will probably swing on the extent to which Washington and allies field more capabilities that can make real the Indo-Pacific Command’s “hellscape” plan to wreak havoc on hostile forces threatening Taiwan. Deep magazines of long-range fires and more forces forward — especially many small, mobile, lethal, persistent, and uncrewed types — will not increase the chance of war, as some mistakenly fear. Rather, they would dissuade a would-be aggressor from a strategic blunder of epic proportions. In facing the rising danger of a country that seems only to respect muscular opponents, not being fully prepared for war will be the surest invitation to naked aggression across the strait.

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Mike Studeman was the former commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence and director for intelligence (J2) of the Indo-Pacific Command. He is a member of the National Bureau of Asian Research advisory board and is MITRE’s first national security fellow.

Image: Sgt. Amber Smith

warontherocks.com · by Mike Studeman · April 17, 2024

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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