Quotes of the Day:

"I want our nation to be the most beautiful in the world. By this I do not mean the most powerful nation. Because I have felt the pain of being invaded by another nation, I do not want my nation to invade others. It is sufficient that our wealth makes our lives abundant; it is sufficient that our strength is able to prevent foreign invasions. The only thing that I desire in infinite quantity is the power of a noble culture. This is because the power of culture both makes ourselves happy and gives happiness to others."

– Kim Gu (1876-1949)

“Sometimes there’s truth in old cliches. There can be no real peace without justice. And without resistance there will be no justice.” 

– Arundhati Roy

“When time and need require, we should resist with all our might, and prefer death to slavery and disgrace.” 

– Marcus Tullius Cicero

1. Opinion: My family lost the Civil War. Last year they finally gave up this symbol of power

2. How US special operators are training Ukrainians—and what they’re learning in return

3. Exclusive: UN experts say North Korea missile landed in Ukraine's Kharkiv

4. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 29, 2024

5. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, April 29, 2024

6. US military pier in Gaza to cost $320 million, Pentagon estimates

7. US determines 5 Israeli security units committed human rights violations before outbreak of Gaza war

8. Chinese water cannon damages ship in new South China Sea flare-up, Philippines says

9.  The wartime outrage in Israel that no one is talking about

10. Harnessing Insurgent and Narco-Criminal Drone Tactics for Special Operations

11. How Will AI Change Cyber Operations?

12. What Iran’s Drone Attack Portends for the Future of Warfare

13. Haiti: A Best-Case Scenario

14. Ukraine Situation Report: Frontline Defenses Deteriorating Under Russian Pressure

15. Xi Is on a Mission to Drive a Wedge Between US and Europe

16. Iran Says North Korean Delegation Visiting Tehran for Trade Expo

17. China watches as the U.S. fumbles around in central Pacific

18. Ranger legend Col. Ralph Puckett honored at U.S. Capitol

19. This new Marine Corps helicopter refueled from a Navy tanker while carrying a Navy fighter

20. Spy and Tell​ – The Promise and Peril of Disclosing Intelligence for Strategic Advantage

21. Don’t Bet on a British Revival

22. Why Xi created a new Information Support Force, and why now

23. What a Chinese academic’s takedown of Russia says about Beijing’s view of Moscow

24. Beyond China's Black Box

25. Beards, Satire, and Change?

1. Opinion: My family lost the Civil War. Last year they finally gave up this symbol of power

A powerful essay worth reflecting on.

Opinion: My family lost the Civil War. Last year they finally gave up this symbol of power | CNN

CNN · April 29, 2024

A change of command ceremony in June 2013, when the base now called Fort Novosel was still called Fort Rucker, in honor of the author's Confederate ancestor.

Sara E. Martin/US Army

Editor’s Note: K. Denise Rucker Krepp, a career Navy civilian employee, is a former Maritime Administration chief counsel who started her federal career as a Coast Guard officer. She subsequently served as a Transportation Security Administration lawyer and House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee senior counsel. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinion at CNN.

CNN —

K. Denise Rucker Krepp

Rucker Krepp Photo

My family’s Rucker surname is familiar in some military circles and among many who consider themselves aficionados of Confederate history. The Ruckers have a history of military service going back generations. They’ve also had deep roots in America’s shameful Confederate past. That includes my distant cousin, Col. Edmund Rucker.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy named a chapter in Alabama after Col. Rucker about 37 years ago. But an even bigger honor came back in 1942, when the US military named an Army base in Alabama after him. The base bore the name Fort Rucker until one year ago this month, when the military stripped it away.

To be clear, I’m not proud of my family’s legacy or its history in one of the darkest chapters of America’s past. I’m also not blind to the fact that I share the Rucker name with many Black Americans. Ruckers and their relatives owned plantations throughout the South, including in Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama.

There are even communities bearing the family name — “Ruckersville” — in Virginia and Georgia. It’s never far from my mind, when I meet a Black American bearing the Rucker name, that there’s a good chance we are connected, although not by marriage. We are, quite possibly, related by slavery.

A step toward justice and healing

Having a military base or other military asset named after an ancestor is a big deal. It turns out that getting that name removed is no small thing. But in the case of Confederates like Edmund Rucker having their names removed from bases it was a necessary step toward justice and healing.

The process of changing the name of Fort Rucker began in 2020 amid the protests that erupted as a result of the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent discussions about racism. Congress included a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 creating a commission tasked with recommending new names for, or removal of, military assets named after Confederates. Former President Donald Trump vetoed the legislation, but there was overwhelming bipartisan and bicameral support for the change, and Congress voted to override him.

Edmund Winchester Rucker, former officer in the Confederate States Army in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1920

George M. Cruikshank/Wikimedia Commons

The military services assigned liaisons to help the commission identify assets named for Confederates and I was asked to be the Navy liaison. I was thrilled to be able to take part in the process of removing my family’s name from the Army base in Alabama. And there are other Confederate descendants who supported renaming federal assets bearing the names of relatives who, instead of fighting to preserve the United States, fought to dissolve it.

Until then, I hadn’t spoken about my family lineage to my bosses at the US Navy. I hadn’t shared that I’m part of the same family for whom Fort Rucker was named. I hadn’t shared that my great, great, great grandfather Howell Cobb was president of the Provisional Confederate Congress and had sworn in Jefferson Davis as president of the Confederate States of America. Nor had I shared that Cobb had authorized construction of the ship that fired the first naval shot in the Civil War. I quickly told Navy leaders who I was, and they told me that I had a job to do. My next phone call was to the Army. They were providing administrative support to the Naming Commission. A Rucker was going to help them.

Prior to joining the Navy as a civilian, I’d served on active duty in the Coast Guard. My parents were both Army officers so my military service wasn’t unexpected, but the choice of service was. From time to time, my parents asked me why I hadn’t joined the Army, as they had. My answer was always the same — because I didn’t want to have to answer questions about my last name. Growing up as an Army brat, I was repeatedly asked if I had any connection to Fort Rucker. I didn’t want to have to answer the same questions as a military officer.

Once the renaming process was underway, however, that anonymity was over. The creation of the Naming Commission led me to examine anew how my family’s history, including the very Rucker name, had hurt others over centuries. I was especially mindful about the experience of Black American military personnel.

How, I wondered, did Black Army personnel feel about serving on a base named for a Confederate? How did it feel to be required to wear shirts emblazoned with the name of a man who supported slavery? And I’ve often asked myself how Black Americans felt about reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at a military base named for someone who fought against the Union and who was committed to their subjugation and enslavement.

Shortly before the fort’s name was changed, I published an essay expressing support for the change. I received a barrage of negative responses on social media accusing me of being “woke” — of turning my back, in their view, on my family. Turning my back on my family? The family that owned hundreds of slaves and committed treason? Others have said they were baffled by my failure to recognize the rare honor bestowed on my family in having a military base named after a relative. Not many families have federal installations named after them so, surely, I must be proud of the designation. Honor is more than a word, however. There was nothing honorable about taking up arms against this country.

Honor is more than a word

The renaming process went on for months. Every now and again during the commission’s tenure, my father Army Col. T.W. Rucker would ask about how things were going with the renaming. We talked about Col. Edmund Rucker and about General Henry Lewis Benning, another relation for whom an Army base, Fort Benning, was named in Georgia. Dad expressed pride and support for my participation in the process. My cousins and sisters shared the same message — keep going, Denise.

More than once, my father shared that in other countries men who commit treason were shot. That didn’t happen to my family members, however. Grandpa Cobb’s portrait was hung in the US Capitol until 2020, when it was taken down. My great, great grandfather Tinsley White Rucker served as a Confederate soldier and then later in life served as a member of the US Congress. Another relative, Lucius Q.C. Lamar, became the first former Confederate to join the US Senate in 1877. Then-President Grover Cleveland named Lamar to be Secretary of the Interior in 1885 and then Lamar became a justice on the Supreme Court in 1888. My family lost the war, but they never lost power.

UNITED STATES - CIRCA 1864: The Battle of Nashville, was a two-day battle in iin which the author's relative Col. E. W. Rucker took part. It was fought at Nashville, Tennessee on December 15 and December 16, 1864, and was one of the largest victories achieved by the Union Army in the war.

Buyenlarge/Getty Images

Of course, in my family’s many generations of military service, there were some who served honorably. My father and his brother served in Vietnam. My uncle was badly shot up, but came home alive. Over 58,200 Americans reportedly did not, and their names are forever etched on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I associate the memorial with my dad’s West Point reunions.

Each Washington, DC gathering included a wreath-laying ceremony honoring the classmates who were killed. Some of the family and loved ones of those who did not come home also attended the reunions. Each time was a poignant reminder to me how lucky I was to have my dad in my life — he was there for my college graduation and for my wedding.

Fort Novosel

I thought of those reunions when I learned about the selection of Army Chief Warrant Officer 4 Michael Joseph Novosel Sr., whose name came to replace that of my forebear at Fort Rucker. Novosel served in three wars — World War II, Korea and Vietnam. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for actions taken in Vietnam. He risked his life to save others.

Novosel flew 2,543 missions in Vietnam and helped evacuate more than 5,500 wounded personnel. Because of him, fathers, brothers, uncles, and sons came home. They lived to see major milestones in the lives of their family members. I can’t think of a better hero to replace the name of my cousin who betrayed this country.

The new Fort Novosel signage in April 2023.

Kelly Morris/US Army

Millions of American men and women are serving in our military or have already served. Many more will serve in the future. Each service member raises their hand to pledge allegiance to the United States. It is right and just that the federal bases and ships on which they serve are named not for traitors to our country, but instead honor American heroes like Novosel.

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I still get pushback sometimes over my decision to take part in the process to correct a historic wrong that honored the military service of a man who deserved to be reviled. I recently attended a history conference where I was chastised for supporting the Naming Commission. One attendee criticized the decision to remove honorable, historic Southern names from our monuments. I countered that the names weren’t honorable, and he disagreed. I then volunteered that I’m a Rucker and that I supported the change. That’s when he stopped talking.

I didn’t attend last year’s renaming ceremony of Fort Rucker to Fort Novosel in April of last year. I was thousands of miles away at the time, visiting family in Wales. I found a dry spot at Caernarfon Castle to watch the ceremony on my phone. Most folks associate the Welsh destination as the investiture site of the then-Prince of Wales. For me, it has come to symbolize something else — a new page in American history and the end of a chapter in my own family’s dark story.

CNN · April 29, 2024

2. How US special operators are training Ukrainians—and what they’re learning in return

A learning organization.

Think of how much more they would learn if they were in-country as advisors. (and they could also make greater contributions of the Urkainians)

How US special operators are training Ukrainians—and what they’re learning in return

The Ukrainian troops bring battlefield experience that is helping to reshape the U.S. Army’s own special operations.

BY SAM SKOVE

STAFF WRITER

APRIL 29, 2024 08:24 PM ET

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

U.S. Army Col. Lucas VanAntwerp was sitting with Ukrainian special-forces soldiers one night when bad news arrived: troops they knew back in Ukraine had died in a helicopter crash.

It wasn’t the day’s first news of casualties. Earlier, they had learned that a tank had ambushed and wiped out a special forces vehicle. Russian forces controlled the area, preventing even the recovery of the bodies.

“They kind of took their moments to mourn that loss,” said VanAntwerp, who leads the 10th Special Forces Group. “And then they were like, ‘All right, let's go out to eat’.”

VanAntwerp recalled being amazed by their composure. Such a loss would have colored his next few months, played out in personal recollections and speaking with the dead soldiers’ loved ones.

“This happens every day,” the Ukrainians told him. "That's the difference between your wars and ours. We’re losing thousands of people.” There was little to do but move on. Ukraine had lost tens of thousands of soldiers by August 2023.

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than two years ago, VanAntwerp and other Army special-forces soldiers have trained thousands of Ukrainian commandos in Poland and elsewhere. And U.S. troops have learned as well—not just about the Ukrainians’ special brand of resilience, but lessons from European battlefields that are now shaping Army special operations and modernization efforts.

In July 2021, VanAntwerp took command of the Army’s 10th Special Forces Group, which had been helping Ukraine remold its special operators into Western-style forces ever since Russia’s initial invasion in 2014.

VanAntwerp’s work in Ukraine began in the least auspicious way possible: destroying sensitive communications equipment as U.S. forces withdrew from Kyiv in January 2022. It was a case of geopolitical deja vu. VanAntwerp’s battalion was also the last to leave Afghanistan.

“I am experienced in leaving partners. It’s not something I ever want to do again,” he said.

Having withdrawn to Poland, his soldiers set up training operations for Ukrainian special operations forces. At first they received only a trickle amid the hectic first months of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Then it became a flood. Ukraine had about 2,000 special operators at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, but wanted about twice as many.

10th Group now trains hundreds of Ukrainians a month, VanAntwerp said. Some receive highly specialized training: learning to operate drones, to shoot them down, or to use other equipment. Other groups learn to attack targets selected by Ukrainian special forces.

“I've gone at two in the morning on boats, hitting fake targets, up rivers in different countries with 20 Ukrainians,” said VanAntwerp. “Three weeks later, they're doing real missions on rivers.”

Some of the Ukrainians they train are seasoned special operators, but many are freshly enlisted. One battalion commander had received his post after two predecessors were killed. Other than a few trusted officers, most of the soldiers in his unit were new and needed basic training.

“More often than not, it was more basic training, and it was more people that were just coming off the street,” VanAntwerp said.

Training results could vary based on the commanders’ skills, VanAntwerp said. The more-disciplined units had better training results, while those with less-qualified commanders had trouble. One unit was out every morning doing physical training on their own — and did well. Another unit that was put together at the last minute didn’t proceed as far.

“It really relied on the leader,” he said.

Training in many cases was collaborative, VanAntwerp said, with Ukrainian and U.S. soldiers learning from each other. Ukrainian soldiers frequently told his troops that American tactics wouldn’t work on the battlefields of Ukraine.

“It was 50/50: you teach us, we teach you,” he said.

VanAntwerp said sometimes the best thing the Americans were doing for their Ukrainian counterparts was simply giving them a safe area to practice certain types of operations, such as assaulting trenches.

“A lot of times, you're sitting there watching as they teach their guys,” he said.

Because the U.S. has no forces inside Ukraine, VanAntwerp said, 10th Group trainers often find themselves playing a frustrating game of telephone as they try to gauge the needs, numbers, and equipment of the Ukrainian units headed their way. Some arrive short of troops; some bring extra. One unit arrived with more mortars than expected, forcing the trainers to scramble to get enough rounds for practice.

“You almost always ended up with some of that confusion at the beginning of every course,” he said.

The calls don’t stop when the Ukrainians return home to fight, VanAntwerp said. The trained-up units get a phone–a-friend line back to 10th Group, allowing them to reach back for advice when, say, facing a tough objective.

They would ask “what would you do if you were us?” he said.

VanAntwerp, who returned to the United States in July, now directs the Force Modernization Center of Army Special Operations Command. Established in 2019, the center leads USASOC’s concept development, future warfare analysis and studies, science and technology, concepts and experimentation, requirements determination, and capabilities integration.

Among VanAntwerp’s top priorities are drones and counter-drone equipment, both key features of the war in Ukraine. He also cited more niche but increasingly discussed topics, such as battlefield deception: for example, simulating army formations to draw an enemy’s attention away from real units.

“We [have] to figure out how to do that at scale and coordinated,” he said.

VanAntwerp cautioned against taking Ukraine as a perfect model for future wars. He noted that Russia had not succeeded in shutting off the pipeline of Western weapons that flows to Ukraine. The U.S. might not be so lucky in a confrontation with China over Taiwan.

Among the chief lessons he’s taken from Ukraine, though, is the speed at which innovation must occur. Weapons used in Ukraine must make a big impact on the first day they’re used, he said. By day two, Russia will be working on a counter-measure.

U.S. defense officials have frequently said that Russia is able to find counter-measures to U.S. weapons, including precision-guided weapons.

“The thought of us having an asymmetric advantage because of the new piece of kit for like six months — it just won't happen,” he said.

VanAntwerp said he took two more lessons from Ukraine’s resilience in the face of heavy losses. First, that the U.S. public must understand that a future war could mean tens of thousands of American casualties. Second, military leaders must learn to handle the emotional fallout.

“That's one of those lessons learned: how do you move on, as a leader, from just losing a ton of people every day?” he said.

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

3. Exclusive: UN experts say North Korea missile landed in Ukraine's Kharkiv

Exclusive: UN experts say North Korea missile landed in Ukraine's Kharkiv

By Michelle Nichols

April 29, 20247:28 PM EDTUpdated 12 hours ago

https://www.reuters.com/world/un-experts-say-north-korea-missile-landed-ukraines-kharkiv-2024-04-29/?utm

That's according to a report from United Nations sanctions monitors to a Security Council committee and seen by Reuters on Monday.

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UNITED NATIONS, April 29 (Reuters) - The debris from a missile that landed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Jan. 2 was from a North Korean Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile, United Nations sanctions monitors told a Security Council committee in a report seen by Reuters on Monday.

In the 32-page report, the U.N. sanctions monitors concluded that "debris recovered from a missile that landed in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on 2 January 2024 derives from a DPRK Hwasong-11 series missile" and is in violation of the arms embargo on North Korea.

Formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions for its ballistic missile and nuclear programs since 2006, and those measures have been strengthened over the years.

Three sanctions monitors traveled to Ukraine earlier this month to inspect the debris and found no evidence that the missile was made by Russia. They "could not independently identify from where the missile was launched, nor by whom."

"Information on the trajectory provided by Ukrainian authorities indicates it was launched within the territory of the Russian Federation," they wrote in an April 25 report to the Security Council's North Korea sanctions committee.

"Such a location, if the missile was under control of Russian forces, would probably indicate procurement by nationals of the Russian Federation," they said, adding that this would be a violation of the arms embargo imposed on North Korea in 2006.

Item 1 of 2 Experts inspect a crater next to a building heavily damaged during a Russian missile attack, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in central Kharkiv, Ukraine January 2, 2024. REUTERS/Sofiia Gatilova/File Photo

[1/2]Experts inspect a crater next to a building heavily damaged during a Russian missile attack, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in central Kharkiv, Ukraine January 2, 2024. REUTERS/Sofiia Gatilova/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

The Russian and North Korean missions to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report by the sanctions monitors.

The U.S. and others have accused North Korea of transferring weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine, which it invaded in February 2022. Both Moscow and Pyongyang have denied the accusations, but vowed last year to deepen military relations.

At a U.N. Security Council meeting in February, the U.S. accused Russia of launching DPRK-supplied ballistic missiles against Ukraine on at least nine occasions.

The U.N. monitors said the Hwasong-11 series ballistic missiles were first publicly tested by Pyongyang in 2019.

Russia last month vetoed the annual renewal of the U.N. sanctions monitors - known as a panel of experts - that has for 15 years monitored enforcement of U.N. sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The mandate for the current panel of experts will expire on Tuesday.

Within days of the Jan. 2 attack, the Kharkiv region prosecutor's office showcased fragments of the missile to the media, saying it was different from Russian models and "this may be a missile which was supplied by North Korea."

Coming soon: Get the latest news and expert analysis about the state of the global economy with Reuters Econ World. Sign up here.

Reporting by Michelle Nichols at United Nations Editing by Don Durfee and Matthew Lewis

4. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 29, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-29-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Russian forces secured additional marginal tactical gains northwest and southwest of Avdiivka as of April 29, but have not made significant advances in the Avdiivka direction over the last 24 hours.
• Russian forces have the opportunity to choose among multiple tactical directions for future offensive drives near Avdiivka, but it remains unclear where they will focus their efforts in the near future.
• Investigations by both Ukrainian news agencies and Russian opposition outlets suggest that Russia is denying the legal guardians of forcibly deported and adopted Ukrainian children the ability to repatriate these children, further undermining the Kremlin’s claims that the deportation and adoption of Ukrainian children is a necessary humanitarian endeavor.
• NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated during an unexpected visit to Kyiv on April 29 that Ukraine’s Western allies must provide long-term, predictable military assistance to Ukraine and signal to the Kremlin that Russia cannot “wait out” Western support for Ukraine.
• The Kremlin is pursuing a hybrid campaign directly targeting NATO states, including using GPS jamming and sabotaging military logistics in NATO members’ territory.
• Telegram recently temporarily blocked chatbots meant to facilitate civilian reports on Russian military activity to official Ukrainian channels, including some channels run by Ukrainian security services.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Avdiivka and Donetsk City.
• Ukrainian officials continue to report that Russian authorities are coercing Ukrainians in occupied Ukraine to join the Russian military.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, APRIL 29, 2024

Apr 29, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 29, 2024

Christina Harward, Angelica Evans, Grace Mappes, Karolina Hird, and Frederick W. Kagan

April 29, 2024, 6:45pm ET

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

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

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

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 12:30pm ET on April 29. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the April 30 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Russian forces secured additional marginal tactical gains northwest and southwest of Avdiivka as of April 29, but have not made significant advances in the Avdiivka direction over the last 24 hours. Geolocated footage published on April 28 and 29 indicates that Russian forces advanced in western and northeastern Ocheretyne (northwest of Avdiivka), along the rail line to the northwestern outskirts of Ocheretyne, and in Netaylove (southwest of Avdiivka).[1] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces also advanced northwest of Ocheretyne towards Novooleksandrivka in an area 1.2 kilometers wide and 1.7 kilometers deep.[2] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced 400–450 meters west of the C051801 (Orlivka-Netaylove) highway between Netaylove and Umanske (west of Avdiivka).[3] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claimed Russian advances, however. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) officially stated that Russian forces seized Semenivka (west of Avdiivka) following Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi’s April 28 statement that Ukrainian forces withdrew from the settlement.[4] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces are conducting clearing operations in Berdychi (west of Avdiivka), and Ocheretyne, Novokalynove, and Keramik (both northwest of Avdiivka and east of Ocheretyne).[5] Fighting also continued northwest of Avdiivka near Kalynove, Arkhanhelske, Novobakhmutivka, Solovyove, Sokil, Novopokrovske, and Novoselivka Persha; and west of Avdiivka near Orlivka and Umanske.[6]

Russian forces have the opportunity to choose among multiple tactical directions for future offensive drives near Avdiivka, but it remains unclear where they will focus their efforts in the near future. Russian milbloggers speculated about which objectives Russian forces may pursue northwest of Avdiivka but offered no clear consensus. Several prominent milbloggers claimed that Russian forces are conducting offensive operations near Keramik to advance towards Arkhanhelske but are also trying to advance west from the Ocheretyne area towards Sokil and southwest towards the Novoprokovske-Novoselivka Persha line.[7] ISW continues to assess that the continued Russian stabilization of their salient northwest of Avdiivka presents the Russian command with a choice of either continuing to push west towards its reported operational objective in Pokrovsk or trying to drive northwards to conduct possible complementary offensive operations with the Russian effort around Chasiv Yar.[8]

Investigations by both Ukrainian news agencies and Russian opposition outlets suggest that Russia is denying the legal guardians of forcibly deported and adopted Ukrainian children the ability to repatriate these children, further undermining the Kremlin’s claims that the deportation and adoption of Ukrainian children is a necessary humanitarian endeavor. BBC Panorama and Russian opposition outlet Vazhnye Istorii published investigations in November 2023 that detailed how “A Just Russia” Party leader Sergey Mironov and his wife Inna Varlamova deported a ten-month girl and a two-year old boy from an orphanage in Kherson Oblast in fall 2022.[9] Mironov and Varlamova adopted the girl and changed her name, surname, and birthplace on her new Russian birth certificate, and the whereabouts of the boy remain unknown. Ukrainian outlet TSN posted an investigation on April 28, 2024, that further details the circumstances of Mironov’s adoption of the girl and includes footage of Mironov and his wife attending a baptism for the child.[10] TSN alleged that Mironov and Varlamova brought both the girl and the boy to Moscow Oblast, but that the boy was ill and that Mironov and Varlamova abandoned him, which is why his whereabouts remain unknown.[11] TSN also reported that the Ukrainian Ombudsman’s Office found that the girl, who is now nearly three years old, actually has a legal guardian and a younger sister living in Greece and noted that the girls’ guardian is asking for her return.[12] Russian opposition outlet TV Dozhd similarly reported on April 27 that a Russian woman adopted a deported six-year-old boy from occupied Donetsk Oblast and changed his name and surname, which made it harder for journalists and the boy’s family to find him.[13] TV Dozhd noted that the boy’s sixteen-year-old sister attempted to find him and gain custody through the Russian court system, which denied her right to guardianship.[14]

The practice of changing the names and birthplaces of deported Ukrainian children and adopting them into Russian families is likely intended to erase the paper-trail of the circumstances of their deportations and their true identities to make it more challenging for the Ukrainian government or their guardians to find or repatriate them. Russian authorities, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kremlin-appointed Commissioner on Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, frequently try to justify the deportation and adoption of Ukrainian children on humanitarian grounds and cloak what is ultimately part of a genocidal enterprise to destroy Ukrainian identity in the guise of rescuing orphaned Ukrainian children.[15] Reports that some of these children have legal guardians who are asking for their return undermines the Russian effort to claim that the deportation of Ukrainian children is a humanitarian necessity and highlights the fact that Russian authorities seem intent on covering their tracks to make deported children harder to find and return to Ukraine.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated during an unexpected visit to Kyiv on April 29 that Ukraine’s Western allies must provide long-term, predictable military assistance to Ukraine and signal to the Kremlin that Russia cannot “wait out” Western support for Ukraine.[16] Stoltenberg stated during a press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that serious delays in Western military support have resulted in serious battlefield consequences. Stoltenberg noted that Ukrainian forces have been “outgunned” and have downed fewer Russian missiles over the last several months due to materiel shortages and that Russian forces are currently advancing in several areas of the frontline due to manpower and material shortages. Stoltenberg stated that he expects Ukraine’s Western allies to soon announce additional unspecified military assistance commitments and stressed that NATO member states need to make “major,” multi-year financial commitments to support Ukraine and emphasize to Moscow that Russia cannot win by “wait[ing] out” Western support for Ukraine. Zelensky noted during the press conference that NATO and Ukraine continue to work towards further interoperability of their forces, and Stoltenberg expressed confidence in Ukraine’s eventual accession to NATO.[17]

The consistent provision of key Western systems to Ukraine will play a critical role in Russia’s prospects in 2024 and beyond, as well as in Ukraine’s ability to contest the theater-wide initiative, conduct future counteroffensive operations, and liberate Ukrainian territory from Russian occupation.[18] US and European failures to sustain the timely provision of critical systems to Ukraine will not only continue to constrain Ukraine’s ability to plan and wage offensive and defensive operations, but also signal weakness and hesitancy in Western support for Ukraine to the Kremlin. These signals in turn strengthen the Kremlin’s belief that it can “wait out” Western support for Ukraine and achieve its objectives of destroying Ukrainian statehood and subjugating the Ukrainian people after the West abandons Ukraine thereby encouraging Putin to persist in his aggression. Recent Kremlin information operations targeting the West have specifically emphasized the idea that Russia can and will outlast Western military assistance to Ukraine and Ukraine’s will and ability to defend itself.[19]

The Kremlin is pursuing a hybrid campaign directly targeting NATO states, including using GPS jamming and sabotaging military logistics in NATO members’ territory. Financial Times (FT) reported on April 29 that Baltic ministers are warning that Russia is behind recent cases of GPS jamming that have interfered with commercial navigation signals and forced two Finnair flights to turn back in the middle of flights from Helsinki to Tartu in the past week.[20] FT estimated that GPS jamming has affected “tens of thousands” of civilian flights in recent months. UK outlet the Sun also reported on April 23 that suspected Russian GPS jamming impacted over three thousand UK civilian flights over the Baltic region, and British officials also believe that Russia jammed the satellite signal of a Royal Air Force jet that was transporting British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps back to the UK from Poland in March.[21] Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsakhna told FT that Estonia considers recent GPS jamming instances “part of Russia’s hostile activities” and a “hybrid attack.”[22] FT noted that there are three suspected sources — Russian electronic warfare (EW) assets in Kaliningrad; another source in Russia causing GPS disturbances in Estonia and Finland; and a third source that is active farther north and impacting the northern parts of Norway and Finland.[23] An open-source intelligence account focusing on GPS jamming in the Baltic region assessed that the GPS jammer affecting the Estonian flights is in Russia roughly halfway between St. Petersburg and Narva, Estonia.[24] ISW has observed widespread GPS disruptions across Poland and the Baltics since late December 2023.[25]

Russian investigative outlet The Insider published a report on April 29 detailing how agents of the Russian General Staff’s Main Directorate (GRU) established a long-term presence in the Czech Republic and Greece to help agents of notorious GRU Unit 29155 — which previously conducted high-level assassination attempts with nerve agents and is reportedly responsible for nonlethal energy or acoustic attacks against US diplomatic, military, and intelligence personnel — conduct sabotage operations in European NATO states.[26] The Insider reported that two agents with Russian citizenship in particular helped GRU Unit 29155 facilitate attacks against ammunition depots in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, including destroying 150 tons of ammunition and killing two people in the Czech Republic in 2014, by providing intelligence about weapons shipments and a safehouse for GRU agents.[27] The Insider also implicated the two Russian agents in helping facilitate GRU Unit 29155’s first assassination attempt against the head of the Bulgarian arms company EMCO, Emilian Gebrev, who provided ammunition to Ukraine in 2014. The Insider reported that Unit 29155 also attempted to poison Gebrev in 2015 after the first assassination attempt failed but did not implicate the other Russian agents in facilitating the second attack.[28]

The Kremlin has been waging this hybrid campaign to destabilize NATO for the past decade through these various assassination attempts, logistics sabotage, and allegedly acoustic and energy attacks against government personnel.[29] The recent GPS jamming incidents indicate that the Kremlin likely intends to continue this campaign.

Telegram recently temporarily blocked chatbots meant to facilitate civilian reports on Russian military activity to official Ukrainian channels, including some channels run by Ukrainian security services. Telegram blocked the bots of Ukraine’s Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR), Security Service (SBU), and Ministry of Digital Development as well as chatbots associated with the Ukrainian channel Crimean Wind and the Freedom of Russia Legion on August 27 and 28.[30] Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security reported on April 29 that Telegram had restored a number of channels’ chatbots, including those belonging to the GUR and SBU.[31] Reuters reported that a Telegram spokesperson stated that Telegram had “temporarily disabled” the bots due to a “false positive” but had since reinstated them.[32] Telegram chatbots allow Telegram users to submit comments or questions to the administrators of certain Telegram channels, and Ukrainian authorities have used these chatbots to allow Ukrainians to submit questions or tips about Russia’s war effort directly to the appropriate Ukrainian agencies.[33] Telegram founder Pavel Durov stated on April 24 that Telegram bans accounts and bots that collect information for military intelligence purposes and that Apple had sent Telegram requests to make unspecified changes to the platform for Telegram users using Ukrainian SIM cards.[34] Russian milbloggers initially expressed enthusiasm after reports emerged about Telegram banning the Ukrainian bots, and some later criticized Telegram for reversing the decision.[35] The Kremlin has previously pressured Telegram to censor certain content, including after the March 22 Crocus City Hall attack, but the Kremlin’s possible role in the recent bot bans is unclear at this time.[36]

Key Takeaways:

• Russian forces secured additional marginal tactical gains northwest and southwest of Avdiivka as of April 29, but have not made significant advances in the Avdiivka direction over the last 24 hours.
• Russian forces have the opportunity to choose among multiple tactical directions for future offensive drives near Avdiivka, but it remains unclear where they will focus their efforts in the near future.
• Investigations by both Ukrainian news agencies and Russian opposition outlets suggest that Russia is denying the legal guardians of forcibly deported and adopted Ukrainian children the ability to repatriate these children, further undermining the Kremlin’s claims that the deportation and adoption of Ukrainian children is a necessary humanitarian endeavor.
• NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated during an unexpected visit to Kyiv on April 29 that Ukraine’s Western allies must provide long-term, predictable military assistance to Ukraine and signal to the Kremlin that Russia cannot “wait out” Western support for Ukraine.
• The Kremlin is pursuing a hybrid campaign directly targeting NATO states, including using GPS jamming and sabotaging military logistics in NATO members’ territory.
• Telegram recently temporarily blocked chatbots meant to facilitate civilian reports on Russian military activity to official Ukrainian channels, including some channels run by Ukrainian security services.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Avdiivka and Donetsk City.
• Ukrainian officials continue to report that Russian authorities are coercing Ukrainians in occupied Ukraine to join the Russian military.

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

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

Satellite imagery taken on April 27 shows that Russia is building an airfield that will likely be used for military purposes in Belgorod Oblast about 75 kilometers from the Ukrainian border area.[37] The imagery shows the construction of an 1,800-meter-long runway and surrounding infrastructure about nine kilometers west of Alekseevka, Belgorod Oblast, between July 2023 and April 2024. Radio Liberty’s Russian service noted that the length of the runway suggests that Russian forces intend to operate Il-76 military transport aircraft from the new airbase.[38]

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line on April 29, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline. Ukrainian and Russian sources reported continued fighting northwest of Svatove near Berestove and Stelmakhivka; southwest of Svatove near Tverdohlibove, Kopanky, Novoserhiivka, Makiivka, and Nevske; west of Kreminna near Terny and south of Zarichne; southwest of Kreminna in the Serebryanske forest area; and south of Kreminna near Bilohorivka.[39] Russian milbloggers continued to disagree over the status of Kyslivka (northwest of Svatove), which some Russian sources claimed that Russian forces have seized in recent days, and one milblogger noted that Russian forces have only raised a flag in southern Kyslivka and do not yet control the northern part of the settlement.[40] A prominent Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Russian forces continued offensive operations towards Makiivka and gained a foothold on the eastern outskirts of the settlement, although ISW has not yet observed visual confirmation of Russian forces operating on the outskirts of Makiivka.[41] Ukrainian Kharkiv Oblast Head Oleh Synehubov reported on April 29 that Russian forces have resumed offensive operations in the Kupyansk and Lyman directions and stated that the Russian command is planning to accumulate forces along the Kharkiv-Belgorod Oblast border, but that it is too early to forecast if and when Russian forces may open a new front in this area.[42] A Russian milblogger claimed that elements of Russia’s Western and Northern Grouping of Forces are intensifying combat activity, including air and artillery strikes, in the Kharkiv City direction.[43] Ukrainian officials have continuously warned that Russian forces may launch an offensive operation against Kharkiv City in summer 2024, although ISW assesses that Russian forces currently lack the forces necessary to seize Ukraine’s second largest city.[44]

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

Positional engagements continued in the Siversk direction northeast of Bakhmut on April 29, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Positional engagements continued east of Siversk near Verkhnokamyanske; southeast of Siversk near Vyimka; and south of Siversk near Rozdolivka.[45] Elements of the Russian 2nd Artillery Brigade and the “GORB” detachment (both of the 2nd Luhansk People’s Republic Army Corps [LNR AC]) are reportedly operating near Spirne (southeast of Siversk).[46]

Fighting continued near Chasiv Yar on April 29, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Geolocated footage published on April 28 shows that Ukrainian forces recently repelled a roughly reinforced platoon-sized Russian mechanized assault north of Klishchiivka (southeast of Chasiv Yar).[47] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces are using “turtle” armored vehicles – armored vehicles with metal sheets welded on their sides to protect against drone strikes – in combat operations near Chasiv Yar after having recently used similar vehicle protection systems fitted on tanks west of Donetsk City near Krasnohorivka.[48] Fighting continued north of Chasiv Yar near Hryhorivka; near the Novyi Microraion (eastern Chasiv Yar); east of Chasiv Yar near Ivanivske; southeast of Chasiv Yar near Klishchiivka and Andriivka; and south of Chasiv Yar near Pivdenne and Niu York.[49] The deputy commander of a Ukrainian unit operating near Chasiv Yar stated that Ukrainian and Russian forces each control about 50 percent of Ivanivske and that Ukrainian and Russian forces are conducting attacks in the settlement in alternating waves.[50] The deputy commander stated that Russian forces are interested in taking Ivanivske, which is located in a geographical lowland, to advance to Chasiv Yar.

See topline text for updates on the situation in the Avdiivka direction.

Russian forces recently made confirmed advances west of Donetsk City amid continued fighting west and southwest of Donetsk City on April 29. Geolocated footage published on April 29 indicates that Russian forces advanced east of Krasnohorivka (west of Donetsk City).[51] Additional geolocated footage published on April 29 of a roughly reinforced platoon-sized Russian mechanized assault indicates that Russian forces advanced within Krasnohorivka, and Russian milbloggers claimed that protective metal sheets on the Russian “turtle” tanks in the assault successfully protected against Ukrainian drone strikes.[52] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces also advanced near Novomykhailivka (southwest of Donetsk City), but ISW has not observed visual confirmation of this claim.[53] Fighting continued west of Donetsk City near Heorhiivka and Krasnohorivka and southwest of Donetsk City near Novomykhailivka.[54]

Positional engagements continued in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on April 29, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Positional engagements continued northeast of Vuhledar near Vodyane; southeast of Velyka Novosilka near Novodarivka; and south of Velyka Novosilka near Urozhaine and Staromayorske.[55] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced near Mykilske (southeast of Vuhledar), up to 200 meters near Urozhaine, and up to 700 meters near Staromayorske, but ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claims. Elements of the Russian 36th Motorized Rifle Brigade (29th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Eastern Military District [EMD]) and the 14th Spetsnaz Brigade (subordinate to the Russian General Staff’s Main Intelligence Directorate) are reportedly operating near Vuhledar.[56] Elements of the Russian 40th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet, EMD) are reportedly operating near Shevchenko (southeast of Velyka Novosilka), and elements of the 11th Air Force and Air Defense Army (Russian Aerospace Forces and EMD) are reportedly operating near Urozhaine.[57]

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

Positional fighting continued in western Zaporizhia Oblast near Robotyne and Verbove (east of Robotyne) on April 29, but there were no changes to the frontline.[58] Elements of the Russian 108th Airborne (VDV) Regiment (7th VDV Division), 291st Guards Artillery Brigade (58th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Southern Military District [SMD]), and 42nd Motorized Rifle Division (58th CAA) are reportedly operating near Robotyne. [59]

Positional fighting continued in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast near Krynky on April 29, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline.[60] Elements of the Russian 810th Naval Infantry Brigade (Black Sea Fleet [BSF]) are reportedly fighting in Krynky.[61]

Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Captain Third Rank Dmytro Pletenchuk stated on April 29 that Russian authorities have stopped transporting fuel across the Kerch Strait railway bridge for the past month due to the threat of a Ukrainian strike igniting the fuel as it crossed the bridge, possibly destroying the bridge.[62] Pletenchuk emphasized that the Kerch Strait Bridge - likely referring to both the road and railway bridges - do not provide essential Russian military logistics. Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) Head Vasyl Malyuk stated in March 2024 that Russian forces have stopped using the Kerch Strait railway bridge for military and logistics transport.[63]

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

Russian forces conducted limited missile and guided glide bomb strikes against Kharkiv City and areas of southern Ukraine on April 29. Ukrainian outlet Suspilne reported that there were two explosions in Kharkiv City following Russian guided glide bomb and anti-aircraft missile strikes on the Kyivskyi raion in northern Kharkiv City.[64] Russian forces also launched unspecified missiles at Zaporizhzhia City and Odesa City, damaging civilian and residential infrastructure in Odesa City.[65]

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

Ukrainian officials continue to report that Russian authorities are coercing Ukrainians in occupied Ukraine to join the Russian military. The Office of the Ukrainian Presidential Representation in Crimea reported that authorities have recorded the burial of at least 784 Russian soldiers likely within the past week presumably in occupied Crimea and stated that at least 593 of these soldiers were Ukrainian citizens.[66] The Office of the Ukrainian Presidential Representation in Crimea also reported that Ukrainian forces have recently taken 42 Russian servicemen as prisoners-of-war (POWs) who are from Crimea, most of whom are likely Ukrainian citizens.[67] The representative’s office reported that Russian authorities are also attempting to recruit doctors and other medical staff in civilian hospitals to sign contracts with the Russian military.[68] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Russian occupation authorities in southern Ukraine are forming conscription commissions to increase recruitment rates in occupied Ukraine for Russia’s spring conscription cycle in April-July 2024.[69] Ukrainian Mariupol Mayoral Advisor Petro Andryushchenko posted images on April 29 of the Russian military conducting a recruitment drive in Freedom Square in occupied Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast.[70]

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) continues to award Russian military units for their service in Ukraine. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu awarded the Russian 11th Engineering Brigade (Southern Military District [SMD]) for building fortifications in the Lysychansk, Soledar-Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Zaporizhia and Kakhovka directions; the 50th Railway Brigade (5th Territorial Command, Russian Railway Forces) for strengthening Russian border defenses in Bryansk Oblast and operating the Baikal-Amur Railway; the 90th Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade (49th Combined Arms Army [CAA], SMD) for operating in southern Ukraine; and the 56th Airborne (VDV) Regiment (7th VDV Division) for operations near Robotyne.[71] Such state awards are likely meant in part to incentivize military recruitment by advertising benefits accrued to awarded servicemembers.

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

Nothing significant to report.

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

Ukraine continues efforts to expand its domestic defense industry and increase joint production with its Western allies to support the war effort. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on April 25 that Ukrainian defense industrial companies are producing unspecified weapons and equipment at a higher rate than the Ukrainian government can fund and that Ukrainian officials are working to encourage foreign investment to fund additional projects.[72] Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov announced on April 23 that Ukraine issued domestically produced armored vehicles to a Ukrainian unit.[73] Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Yuriy Dzhygyr stated that roughly half of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense's (MoD) contracts for weapons and military equipment are with Ukrainian manufacturers.[74] Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated on April 26 that Ukraine and Latvia have agreed to increase joint drone production.[75]

Ukraine's Western allies continue to promise and provide additional military assistance to Ukraine. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal met with Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Richard Marles on April 27 and announced that Australia will transfer 50 million AUD ($32.8 million) in ground-to-air MANPADS munitions, over 30 million AUD ($19.69 million) to Ukraine’s drone coalition, and roughly 20 million AUD ($13,1 million) for other military needs.[76] Australia will also transfer an unspecified number of air-to-ground munitions to Ukraine. Canadian Defense Minister William Blair announced on April 26 that Canada will provide three million CAD (roughly $2.2 million) for domestic drone production in Ukraine, an additional 13 million CAD ($9.5 million) to the Czech ammunition initiative for Ukraine, and an additional 100 Skyranger drones to Ukraine.[77] The Spanish MoD stated that it will deliver an unspecified number of 155mm and 120mm artillery shells and air defense missiles to Ukraine in the coming months and will also deliver small arms, logistics vehicles, armored infantry fighting vehicles, anti-tank weapons, and artillery systems in the next two months.[78] The Danish MoD announced on April 25 that the Danish parliament and Cabinet of Ministers agreed to increase Denmark’s military assistance to Ukraine by 4.4 billion Danish kroner ($632.27 million) in 2024.[79] The Lithuanian MoD reported on April 23 that Lithuania recently provided an unspecified number of M577 armored personnel carriers to Ukraine.[80] Lithuanian Defense Minister Laurynas Kasčiūnas stated that Lithuania is also considering providing Ukraine with unspecified radar systems in the near future.[81] European Union (EU) High Commissioner Josep Borrell announced that the Czech ammunition initiative should begin deliveries of artillery shells to Ukraine at the end of May or beginning of June.[82]

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, Defense Minister Ludivine Dedonder, and the Belgian Council of Ministers stated on April 26 that Belgium will send the first F-16 aircraft to Ukraine sometime in 2024 and will do everything possible to deliver them before the end of the year.[83] Belgian officials added that Belgium will also allocate an additional 200 million euros ($214.3 million) to the German-led defense aid coalition and will provide additional air defense missiles to Ukraine.[84]

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

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

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

Ukrainian Khortytsia Group of Forces Spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nazer Voloshyn stated on April 29 that the Kremlin is conducting an information operation aimed at creating panic and fear among Ukrainians about the possibility of a future Russian offensive operation against Sumy Oblast.[85] Voloshyn stated that Ukrainian forces are monitoring the Russian force grouping across the Russian-Ukrainian border near Sumy Oblast and that the current Russian grouping in the area poses no threat to Ukraine. Sumy Oblast Military Administration Head Volodymyr Artyuk warned on March 12 about the same Russian information operation and reported that Ukrainian forces have not observed any Russian strike groups forming along the Russian-Ukrainian border.[86]

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

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko signed Belarus’ annual decree on the conscription of reserve officers into the Belarusian armed forces and border service on April 29.[87] The decree provides for the planned annual conscription of male citizens of Belarus under the age of 27 who have completed reserve officer training and are enrolled in the Belarusian reserves.[88]

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

5. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, April 29, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-april-29-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Political Negotiations: Hamas is considering an Egyptian-proposed ceasefire deal that would have Hamas release 20 to 33 Israeli hostages alive. Western outlets reported the proposal involves new Israeli concessions. Hamas has not changed its maximalist position in the negotiations since December 2023.
• Iran: Delegations from Russia, North Korea, and several African countries, among others, have traveled to Tehran for an international trade exhibition. The exhibition is part of the Iranian effort to undermine Western sanctions by increasing Iranian exports and economic cooperation with other countries. Iran remains particularly focused on selling military equipment.
• Gaza Strip: The World Central Kitchen announced the resumption of its humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip. The IDF separately announced the expansion of its humanitarian zone in the southern Gaza Strip.
• Iraq: Some Iraqi parliamentarians have backed a motion to designate the US ambassador to Iraq as a persona non grata. The parliamentarians are responding to the ambassador condemning a newly passed law that criminalizes homosexuality in Iraq.
• Syria: The Syrian regime reportedly deployed forces to Suwayda Province, as anti-regime activity has continued mounting there. Anti-regime protests have fluctuated across the province since August 2023.

IRAN UPDATE, APRIL 29, 2024

Apr 29, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Iran Update, April 29, 2024

Andie Parry, Annika Ganzeveld, Alexandra Braverman, Kathryn Tyson, Kelly Campa, Talia Tayoun, and Nicholas Carl

Information Cutoff: 2:00 pm ET

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

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

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

Hamas is considering a new Egyptian ceasefire proposal that would require Hamas to release 20 to 33 living Israeli hostages.[1] Egyptian officials reportedly sent Hamas the proposal on April 26 after Egyptian intelligence officials met with the IDF chief of staff and Shin Bet head in Egypt and Israel.[2] Hamas acknowledged that it received the proposal on April 27 and framed it as a “response” to Hamas’ maximalist demands, which have not changed since December 2023. Hamas sent Israel a reiteration of its unchanging, maximalist demands on April 13 after the previous round of negotiations.[3] A Hamas delegation reportedly arrived in Cairo on April 29 to discuss the latest Egyptian proposal. An Israeli delegation is expected to travel to Cairo to continue talks on April 30.[4]

Unspecified Israeli officials stated that the proposal contains several Israeli concessions. This proposal includes an Israeli willingness to discuss a “full return of displaced Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza” and the withdrawal of the IDF from the Netzarim corridor that bisects the Gaza Strip.[5] The corridor is the only area in the Gaza Strip where Israeli forces are currently deployed.[6] Axios reported that the first phase of the proposal involves a ceasefire lasting one day for each hostage that Hamas releases.[7] The Israel war cabinet reportedly allowed negotiators to lower the number of hostages demanded after Hamas claimed that it does not have 40 living hostages that are elderly, female, or injured.[8] An unspecified Israeli official said that the war cabinet changed its position due to assessments “that some of the 40 hostages whose release Israel was demanding have died in Hamas captivity.”[9] The proposal also includes provisions for the potential release of “thousands” of Palestinian prisoners, according to British Foreign Secretary David Cameron.[10] The proposal also reportedly contains a second phase that prescribes a “period of sustained calm,” although what exactly that calm would entail is unclear.[11] An anonymous Hamas official told Agence France-Presse that Hamas has “no material problems with the current deal proposal” on April 28.[12]

International mediators have expressed hope that Hamas will accept the proposal. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described Israel as being “extraordinarily generous” in the proposal and called for Hamas to “make the right decision” and “quickly” on April 29.[13] Egyptian Foreign Affairs Minister Sameh Shoukry said on April 29 that Egypt is “hopeful” about the new truce proposal.[14]

Palestinian militias threatened to target “foreign forces” deployed into or on the coast of the Gaza Strip. The secular leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Popular Resistance Committees—both Palestinian groups fighting alongside Hamas in the war—explicitly threatened UK forces in their statements on April 27 and 28, respectively.[15] The BBC reported on April 27 that UK troops may deploy to the Gaza Strip to assist with humanitarian aid distribution.[16] The PFLP statement called for humanitarian aid to be brought into the Gaza Strip through “official crossings” and “under Palestinian management and supervision.”[17] These statements follow Hamas Political Bureau Deputy Chairman Khalil al Hayya’s interview on April 25 during which he implied that Hamas would attack any non-Palestinian presence around the Gaza Strip “at sea or on land.”[18] At least one US Navy vessel is stationed off the coast of the Gaza Strip at the time of this writing.[19]

Iran is hosting an international trade exhibition between April 27 and May 1 as part of its effort to undermine Western sanctions by increasing Iranian exports and economic cooperation with other countries. Delegations from at least 26 countries, including Burkina Faso, North Korea, Russia, and Zimbabwe, attended the exhibition.[20] The exhibition has showcased Iranian agricultural, electrical, medical, and petrochemical products.[21] Iranian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani emphasized on April 29 that the Iranian Industry, Mining, and Trade Ministry invited North Korea to participate in the exhibition.[22] A North Korean economic and political delegation traveled to Tehran on April 23, marking the first North Korean visit to Iran since 2019.[23] Kanani dismissed allegations that the North Korean delegation is visiting Iran to expand military cooperation with Tehran, describing these allegations as “biased speculation” and “baseless.”[24] Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber separately called for expanding economic ties and conducting trade in local currencies during meetings with the vice president of Zimbabwe and the prime minister of Burkina Faso on the sidelines of the exhibition on April 27.[25] Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi previously traveled to Zimbabwe in July 2023 and signed 12 cooperation agreements, including an energy agreement, with Zimbabwean officials.[26]

Iran appears especially focused on possible arms deals with regional and extra-regional actors. Iranian Defense and Armed Forces Logistics Minister Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Gharaei Ashtiani discussed military cooperation in separate meetings with his Indian and Kazakh counterparts on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Astana on April 26 and 27.[27] Ashtiani separately expressed readiness to increase cooperation with Zimbabwe while meeting Zimbabwean Vice President Constantino Chiwenga in Tehran on April 29.[28] Ashtiani, in his role as defense minister, is primarily responsible for managing arms procurement and sales and the Iranian defense industrial base. Iranian leaders have intensified their efforts in recent years to export military assets in order to generate revenue for the ill-fairing Iranian economy and increasing Iranian influence abroad.

Key Takeaways:

• Political Negotiations: Hamas is considering an Egyptian-proposed ceasefire deal that would have Hamas release 20 to 33 Israeli hostages alive. Western outlets reported the proposal involves new Israeli concessions. Hamas has not changed its maximalist position in the negotiations since December 2023.
• Iran: Delegations from Russia, North Korea, and several African countries, among others, have traveled to Tehran for an international trade exhibition. The exhibition is part of the Iranian effort to undermine Western sanctions by increasing Iranian exports and economic cooperation with other countries. Iran remains particularly focused on selling military equipment.
• Gaza Strip: The World Central Kitchen announced the resumption of its humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip. The IDF separately announced the expansion of its humanitarian zone in the southern Gaza Strip.
• Iraq: Some Iraqi parliamentarians have backed a motion to designate the US ambassador to Iraq as a persona non grata. The parliamentarians are responding to the ambassador condemning a newly passed law that criminalizes homosexuality in Iraq.
• Syria: The Syrian regime reportedly deployed forces to Suwayda Province, as anti-regime activity has continued mounting there. Anti-regime protests have fluctuated across the province since August 2023.

Gaza Strip

Axis of Resistance objectives:

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

Local Palestinian sources reported that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Air Force continued to conduct strikes across the Gaza Strip on April 29. Palestinian sources reported that the IDF Air Force struck targets in Rafah and the central Gaza Strip.[29] The IDF has not published a summary of its activities in the Gaza Strip on April 29 at the time of this writing.

Palestinian militias have continued to target Israeli forces near the Netzarim corridor since CTP-ISW's last information cutoff on April 28. The IDF 2nd and 679th brigades are deployed to the Netzarim corridor to secure it, facilitate the transfer of humanitarian aid, and conduct targeted raids into the northern and central Gaza Strip.[30] Hamas claimed to “lure” Israeli armor from the Netzarim corridor into an area in Mughraqa where its fighters had set improvised explosive devices and unexploded rockets dropped from Israeli aircraft.[31] A Palestinian journalist claimed that two soldiers from the IDF 99th Division were killed in the Hamas attack.[32] The IDF confirmed the deaths of two soldiers in the Gaza Strip on April 28 but did not specify how they died.[33] Five Palestinian militias separately targeted Israeli positions near the Netzarim corridor with indirect fire.[34]

The IDF announced an expansion of the humanitarian zone in the southern Gaza Strip on April 28.[35] The new area extends from the former zone in al Mawasi eastward to the Salah ad Din road and northward into Deir al Balah.[36] The IDF conducted clearing operations in parts of the humanitarian zone around Khan Younis in early 2024 but has not fully cleared western Deir al Balah.[37]

The World Central Kitchen announced on April 28 the resumption of its humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip.[38] World Central Kitchen stated that a Palestinian team would begin to deliver food throughout the Gaza Strip on April 29.[39] The aid organization paused operations in the Gaza Strip after IDF drone strikes killed seven World Central Kitchen workers on April 1.[40]

Hamas External Political Bureau Deputy Head Musa Abu Marzouk stated that Hamas leadership would move to Jordan if forced from Qatar during an interview with Iranian state-run, Arabic-language network al Alam on April 28.[41] Marzouk stated that “if the leadership of Hamas moves, which Hamas has not said it will do, it will move to Jordan.”[42] Marzouk added that many Hamas leaders are Jordanian citizens or carry Jordanian passports and that the Jordanian government supports Palestinian resistance against Israel.

Palestinian fighters conducted four indirect fire attacks from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel on April 29. Unspecified Palestinian fighters fired two long-range rockets from the Gaza Strip targeting Ashdod.[43]  Israeli media reported that the rockets landed off the coast of Ashdod.[44] This attack is the first targeting Ashdod since March 25.[45] Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired rockets targeting two Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip.[46] Three Palestinian militias also claimed a combined rocket attack targeting an IDF site north of the Gaza Strip.[47]

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

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

West Bank

Axis of Resistance objectives:

• Establish the West Bank as a viable front against Israel

Israeli forces have engaged Palestinian fighters in at least one location since CTP-ISW's last information cutoff on April 28.[48] The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades fired small arms targeting Israeli forces in Jaba, south of Jenin, on April 29.[49]

Israeli police arrested five Israeli settlers in the West Bank on April 28 for “inciting disturbances” following the killing of an Israeli boy on April 12.[50] Israeli authorities charged the five individuals with shooting two Palestinians and setting fire to Palestinian property in the West Bank.[51] Israeli media reported that Israeli settlers committed acts of violence on April 13 in at least eight Palestinian towns in the northern West Bank after the IDF found the body of the missing boy.[52] Israeli media reported that Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant approved the arrests.[53]

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

Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights

Axis of Resistance objectives:

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

Iranian-backed militias, including Lebanese Hezbollah, have conducted at least six attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel since CTP-ISW's last data cutoff on April 28.[54] The al Qassem Brigades, which is the militant wing of Hamas, fired around 20 rockets targeting the IDF 769th Eastern Brigade in Kiryat Shmona on April 29.[55] The IDF said that it intercepted most of the rockets and that the rest fell in open areas.[56]

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

Iran and Axis of Resistance

Sixty-one Iraqi parliamentarians called for designating US Ambassador to Iraq Alina Romanowski a persona not grata on April 28 after she condemned a new Iraqi law that criminalizes homosexuality.[57] The Iraqi parliament passed on April 27 the “Anti-Prostitution and Homosexuality Law” that enables Iraqi authorities to imprison individuals in same-sex relationships for up to 15 years.[58] The leader of Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Asaib Ahl al Haq, Qais al Khazali, and other Iranian-backed Iraqi actors praised the law, claiming that it protects the Iraqi “value structure and cultural identity.”[59] Iranian-backed Iraqi parliamentarians accused Romanowski of “interfering in Iraqi internal affairs” after she condemned the law.[60] Former Parliament Speaker Mohammad al Halbousi previously blocked an extraordinary parliamentary session to expel Romanowski before the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court dismissed him in November 2023.[61] It is unclear whether current Parliament Speaker Mohsen al Mandalawi, who is close to the Shia Coordination Framework, would similarly block parliamentary efforts to expel Romanowski. Mandalawi praised the “Anti-Prostitution and Homosexuality Law,” claiming that it will prevent “moral decadence” in Iraq.[62]

An unspecified gunman shot and killed prominent social media personality Ghufran Mahdi Sawadi in Baghdad on April 29. Sawadi frequently posted dancing and singing videos on Instagram and TikTok.[63] An Iraqi court previously sentenced Sawadi to six months in prison in 2023 for promoting “indecent public behavior” on social media.[64] The Iraqi Interior Ministry is conducting an investigation into Sawadi’s death.[65]

The Iraqi Azm Alliance spokesperson claimed on April 29 that Sunni parties have agreed to support Salem al Issawi as Iraqi parliament speaker.[66] Salem al Issawi is a member of the Sovereignty Alliance, a political party headed by United States-sanctioned and Iran-linked businessman Khamis al Khanjar.[67] Issawi won the second highest number of votes in the first round of the parliament speaker elections in January 2024.[68] The Azm Alliance spokesperson further claimed that former Parliament Speaker Mohammad al Halbousi’s National Progress Party does not have a parliament speaker candidate after its preferred candidate, Shaalan al Karim, withdrew from the speaker elections on April 18.[69] CTP-ISW previously assessed that the Shia Coordination Framework—a loose coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi political parties—was maneuvering to prevent Karim from becoming parliament speaker.[70]

Local Syrian media reported that the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) deployed forces from Damascus to Suwayda Province between April 25 and 29 in response to mounting anti-Syrian regime tensions there.[71] SAA reinforcements first deployed to Suwayda Province after local opposition groups detained several SAA officials on April 25.[72] The opposition groups demanded the release of a local student held in custody since February 2024 on charges connected to his alleged participation in anti-regime protests in Suwayda.[73] Anti-regime protests have fluctuated around Suwayda since August 2023.[74] A large convoy of over 50 SAA military vehicles, tanks, and buses entered Suwayda Province via the Damascus-Suwayda road and arrived at Khalkhala Military Airport in Hazm, Suwayda, on April 28, according to local sources.[75] Syrian authorities released the local student, and Suwayda opposition groups released the SAA officers the same day.[76] Syrian social media users posted videos on April 29 of further SAA reinforcements arriving in Suwayda Province.[77] CTP-ISW cannot verify the local reporting.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Organization (UKMTO) reported an explosion causing minor damage to the container ship Cyclades 54 nautical miles northwest of Mukha, Yemen, on April 29.[78] UK maritime security firm Ambrey reported that the Houthis fired three missiles targeting a Malta-flagged vessel traveling from Djibouti to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, due to its trade association with Israel.[79]

US Central Command (CENTCOM) intercepted five Houthi drones over the Red Sea on April 28.[80] CENTCOM said that the drones presented an imminent threat to US, coalition, and merchant vessels in the region.[81] The Italian Defense Ministry separately said on April 29 that one of its naval vessels intercepted a Houthi drone targeting a commercial vessel near the Bab al Mandeb Strait.[82]

Houthis

IRGC-affiliated media claimed on April 28 the IRGC has developed a new one-way attack drone which is “very similar” to the Russian Lancet drone.[83] IRGC-affiliated media noted that the drone has structural similarities to the Russian ZALA Lancet drone. The Russian Air Force uses commonly Lancets as to conduct attacks in Ukraine.[84] Iran often exaggerates its military capabilities, so it is unclear to what extent Iran has anything seriously resembling a Lancet. The timing of IRGC-affiliated media publishing this information is especially noteworthy given that it coincides with the Iranian defense minister, Mohammad Reza Gharaei Ashtiani, discussing possible arms deals with regional and extra-regional actors.

6. US military pier in Gaza to cost $320 million, Pentagon estimates

US military pier in Gaza to cost $320 million, Pentagon estimates

militarytimes.com · by Jon Gambrell · April 29, 2024

JERUSALEM — A U.S. Navy ship and several Army vessels involved in an American-led effort to bring more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip are offshore of the enclave and building out a floating platform for the operation, which the Pentagon said Monday will cost at least $320 million.

Sabrina Singh, Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters the cost is a rough estimate for the project and includes the transportation of the equipment and pier sections from the U.S. to the Gaza coast, as well as the construction and aid delivery operations.

Satellite photos analyzed Monday by The Associated Press show the USNS Roy P. Benavidez about 5 miles from the port on shore, where the base of operations for the project is being built by the Israeli military. The USAV General Frank S. Besson Jr., an Army logistics vessel, and several other Army boats are with the Benavidez and working on the construction of what the military calls the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, system.

A satellite image from Sunday by Planet Labs PBC showed pieces of the floating pier in the Mediterranean Sea alongside the Benavidez. Measurements of the vessel match known features of the Benavidez, a Bob Hope-class vehicle cargo ship operated by the Military Sealift Command.

A U.S. military official confirmed late last week that the Benavidez had begun construction and that it was far enough off shore to ensure troops building the platform would be safe. Singh said Monday that next will come the construction of the causeway, which will then be anchored to the beach.

RELATED

British troops may be tasked with delivering Gaza aid, BBC report says

The report comes after a U.S. military official said there'd be no American “boots on the ground” and another nation would deliver aid from offshore pier.

U.S. and Israeli officials have said they hope to have the floating pier in place, the causeway attached to the shore and operations underway by early May. The cost of the operation was first reported by Reuters.

Under the plan by the U.S. military, aid will be loaded onto commercial ships in Cyprus to sail to the floating platform now under construction off Gaza. The pallets will be loaded onto trucks, which will be loaded onto smaller ships that will travel to a metal, floating two-lane causeway. The 1,800-foot causeway will be attached to the shore by the Israeli Defense Forces.

The U.S. military official said an American Army engineering unit has teamed with an IDF engineering unit in recent weeks to practice the installation of the causeway, training on an Israeli beach just up the coast.

The new port sits just southwest of Gaza City, a bit north of a road bisecting Gaza that the Israeli military built during the current fighting against Hamas. The area was the territory’s most populous before the Israeli ground offensive rolled through and pushed more than 1 million people south toward the city of Rafah on the Egyptian border.

Now Israeli military positions sit on either side of the port, which initially had been built, as part of an effort led by World Central Kitchen, out of the rubble of buildings leveled by Israel. That effort halted after an Israeli airstrike killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers on April 1 as they traveled in clearly marked vehicles on a delivery mission authorized by Israel. The organization says it is resuming its work in Gaza.

Aid has been slow to get into Gaza, with long backups of trucks awaiting Israeli inspections. The U.S. and other nations also have used air drops to send food into Gaza. The U.S. military official said deliveries on the sea route initially will total about 90 trucks a day and could quickly increase to about 150 trucks daily.

Aid organizations have said several hundred such trucks are needed to enter Gaza every day.

In the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage, Israel cut off or heavily restricted food, water, medicine, electricity and other aid from entering the Gaza Strip. Under pressure from the U.S. and others, Israel says the situation is improving, though United Nations agencies have said much more aid needs to enter.

RELATED

US-led Gaza humanitarian aid pier comes under fire, UN officials say

The attack marks a shaky start to the construction of the pier, a project that the U.S. is spearheading to surge humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Gaza, slightly more than twice the size of the city of Washington and home to 2.3 million people, has found itself on the precipice of famine. More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the fighting began, local health authorities say.

On Sunday, Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the amount of aid going into Gaza would continue to scale up.

“This temporary pier will provide a ship-to-shore distribution system that will further increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” he said in a statement.

But high-ranking Hamas political official Khalil al-Hayya told the AP that the group would consider Israeli forces — or forces from any other country — stationed by the pier to guard it as “an occupying force and aggression,” and that the militant group would resist it.

On Wednesday, a mortar attack targeted the port site, though no one was hurt.

Associated Press reporters Tara Copp and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.

7. US determines 5 Israeli security units committed human rights violations before outbreak of Gaza war

US determines 5 Israeli security units committed human rights violations before outbreak of Gaza war | CNN Politics

CNN · by Jennifer Hansler · April 29, 2024

In this 2014 photo, Israeli soldiers of the Ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda battalion take part in their annual unit training in the Israeli annexed Golan Heights, near the Syrian border.

Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images/File

CNN —

The US State Department has determined that five Israeli security units committed gross violations of human rights prior to the outbreak of the war with Hamas in Gaza, but is still deciding whether to restrict military assistance to one of the units under US law.

The other four “have effectively remediated these violations,” State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said Monday, without detailing those remediation actions.

The US is still deciding whether to restrict the military assistance to the remaining unit – reported to be the ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda battalion. That battalion was implicated in the January 2022 death of an elderly Palestinian American man.

“We continue to be in consultations and engagements with the Government of Israel. They have submitted additional information as it pertains to that unit, and we’re continuing to have those conversations,” Patel said.

“All of these were incidents much before October 7, and none took place in Gaza,” Patel noted.

According to a source familiar, the Israelis told the US in recent weeks about previously undisclosed actions they’ve taken and the US is reviewing those actions to see whether they are sufficient enough to hold off restricting aid.

In an undated letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said three of the five units are part of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and two are “civilian authority units,” and said the abuses took place in the West Bank.

The Biden administration has come under criticism for appearing to bend to pressure by the Israeli government to hold off on any punitive measures against the unit. Top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, expressed sharp criticism to the reports of impending action by the US.

“At a time when our soldiers are fighting the monsters of terror, the intention to impose a sanction on a unit in the IDF is the height of absurdity and a moral low,” Netanyahu posted on X last week.

“The government headed by me will act by all means against these moves,” he added.

Patel on Monday pushed back on the idea that Israel was “being offered unique treatment” by being granted more time to present information to hold off potential punishment.

“There is nothing that I have outlined here that is inconsistent with the Leahy process,” he said.

Under the Leahy Law, the US cannot provide assistance to foreign security units that are credibly implicated in human rights abuses, but there is an exception “permitting resumption of assistance to a unit if the Secretary of State determines and reports to Congress that the government of the country is taking effective steps to bring the responsible members of the security forces unit to justice.”

Notably, for one of the IDF units, Blinken “determined there has not been effective remediation to date,” he wrote in the letter to Johnson.

“This unit has been acknowledged by the Israeli government to have engaged in conduct inconsistent with IDF rules and, as a result, was transferred from the West Bank to the Golan Heights in 2022,” Blinken wrote, without naming the unit.

The Netzah Yehuda battalion was transferred from the West Bank to the Golan Heights in 2022. The commander of the unit was reprimanded in late January 2022 after the death of the 78-year-old Palestinian American, Omar Assad, who died of a heart attack after being detained, bound and gagged, according to the IDF. No soldiers faced criminal charges related to Assad’s death.

In the letter, Blinken said, “the Israeli government has presented new information regarding the status of the unit and we will engage on identifying a path to effective remediation for this unit.”

Patel would not provide details about when the additional information was presented to the US. According to a source familiar, the Israelis told the US in recent weeks about previously undisclosed actions they’ve taken and the US is reviewing those actions to see whether they are sufficient enough to hold off restricting aid.

Patel also did not give specifics about the remediation process.

“The standard of remediation is that these respective countries take effective steps to hold the accountable party to justice. And that is different on a country-by-country basis,” he said at a press briefing.

This story has been updated with additional details.

CNN · by Jennifer Hansler · April 29, 2024

8. Chinese water cannon damages ship in new South China Sea flare-up, Philippines says

“The West Philippine Sea, not Taiwan, is the real flashpoint for an armed conflict,”

 – Ambassador Jose Manuel Romualdez February 28, 2024

Chinese water cannon damages ship in new South China Sea flare-up, Philippines says | CNN

CNN · by Kathleen Magramo, Brad Lendon · April 30, 2024

A screengrab taken from video provided by the Philippine Coast Guard shows China’s coast guard using water cannons against Philippine vessels near the Scarborough Shoal on Tuesday, April 30.

Handout/Philippine Coast Guard

CNN —

China’s coast guard fired water cannons that damaged a Philippine vessel on Tuesday, marking the latest flare-up of violence between the two countries in the disputed South China Sea, Philippine authorities said.

The Philippine Coast Guard said the incident occurred as one of its ships and a fisheries agency vessel carried out a “legitimate patrol” near Scarborough Shoal, a Chinese-controlled rocky outcrop 130 miles (200 kilometers) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon and inside Manila’s exclusive economic zone.

Video supplied by the Philippine Coast Guard showed two larger Chinese vessels firing water cannons from opposite sides of the Philippine ship.

“The Philippine vessels encountered dangerous maneuvers and obstruction from four China Coast Guard vessels and six Chinese Maritime Militia vessels,” Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson Commodore Jay Tarriela said in the statement.

The Philippine Coast Guard ship suffered “damage to the railing and canopy,” according to its statement. No injuries were reported.

In a post on social platform Weibo Tuesday, the China Coast Guard said it had expelled the Philippine vessels for “intruding” into the waters, “in accordance with the law.”

Beijing asserts ownership over almost all of the South China Sea in defiance of an international court ruling. Over the past two decades, China has occupied a number of obscure reefs and atolls far from its shoreline across the South China Sea, building up military installations, including runways and ports.

Rebecca Wright/CNN

Related article What it’s like on board an outnumbered Philippine ship facing down China’s push to dominate the South China Sea

Scarborough Shoal, which China calls Huangyan Island and is also known as Bajo de Masinloc, is a small but strategic reef and fertile fishing ground.

There are no structures on the shoal, but China has maintained a continuous coast guard presence around it since 2012, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.

The Philippines also said Tuesday that China had reinstalled a 380-meter (1,247-feet) floating barrier that “covers the entire entrance of the shoal, effectively restricting access to the area.”

Scarborough Shoal is one of several disputed islands and reefs in the South China Sea, which have long been a flashpoint of territorial disputes between the two nations.

In March, Chinese coast guard ships fired water cannons against a Philippine vessel on a resupply mission to a contingent of Filipino marines on another contested South China Sea feature, Second Thomas Shoal, causing “heavy damages.”

CNN witnesses high-stakes confrontation at sea between China and Philippines

03:42 - Source: CNN

That shoal sits about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the coast of the Philippine island of Palawan. In the 1990s the Philippines grounded an aging World War II-era transport ship called the BRP Sierra Madre on the shoal, to help enforce its claim to the area. The ship is now mostly a rusted wreckage and is staffed by marines stationed on rotation.

Following that incident, the China Coast Guard said on Weibo it had taken “control measures in accordance with the law” against the Philippine vessels, which it said had “illegally entered the waters adjacent to Ren’ai Reef,” as Beijing calls Second Thomas Shoal.

Earlier in March, Chinese water cannon hit a Philippine resupply boat as it headed to Second Thomas Shoal, shattering windows and injuring four Filipino sailors.

Beijing and Manila’s South China Sea disputes have heated up since the 2022 election of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who has taken a stronger line against China than his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte.

The clashes have also raised fears they could lead to a wider conflict, as Manila maintains a mutual defense treaty with the United States, which Washington says covers Philippine vessels in the disputed waterway.

CNN · by Kathleen Magramo, Brad Lendon · April 30, 2024

9.  The wartime outrage in Israel that no one is talking about

Truly horrific.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/29/hamas-gaza-rapes-israel-sheryl-sandberg/?utm

Opinion 

 The wartime outrage in Israel that no one is talking about

By Ruth Marcus

Associate editor|

Follow author

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April 29, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

Photos of hostages at the site of the Nova festival, where people were killed and kidnapped during the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas gunmen, in Reim, southern Israel. (Hannah McKay/Reuters)

Trust me, you do not want to watch Sheryl Sandberg’s documentary, “Screams Before Silence,” about sexual violence committed by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 and beyond.

Trust me, you should.

You should watch it and speak out, about how rape and gender violence were deployed as weapons of war. About breasts cut from bodies. About nails driven into a woman’s vagina.

About the piercing screams of women being assaulted — and the appalling silence of prominent individuals and organizations, including women and women’s groups, that would ordinarily rush to condemn such atrocities but whose reaction has for some reason been muted when it comes to gender violence deployed against Israeli women.

None of this is to diminish the terrible damage inflicted on the civilian population in Gaza, the loss of life, the trauma, the hunger approaching famine proportions. But the violence described in Sandberg’s documentary, directed by Israeli filmmaker Anat Stalinsky, occupies a different plane of calculated cruelty — indeed, of evil.

The world that assails Israel for its conduct of the war in Gaza should be speaking out about Hamas’s concerted assault on women. The terrorist group can deny this all it wants, but any repudiations are belied by the facts: The sexual violence was not isolated but repeated and methodical, from bloody venue to bloody venue.

Hamas’s denials are contradicted by the findings of a United Nations report last month that found “reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7 October attacks in multiple locations across Gaza periphery, including rape and gang rape, in at least three locations.”

It continued, in the anodyne language of investigators: “Across the various locations of the 7 October attacks, the mission team found that several fully naked or partially naked bodies from the waist down were recovered — mostly women — with hands tied and shot multiple times, often in the head. Although circumstantial, such a pattern of undressing and restraining of victims may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence.”

Likewise, the U.N. report found, with respect to the hostages, “clear and convincing information that some have been subjected to various forms of conflict-related sexual violence including rape and sexualized torture and sexualized cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and … reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may be ongoing.”

Where is the outrage? Where is the condemnation?

“I think politics are blinding us,” Sandberg, the former chief operating officer of Facebook, told me in a Zoom call. “I think people have become so polarized and so bought into their frameworks that they’re not able to see information that doesn’t align with those frameworks.”

Sandberg paused, then added, “I think there’s some antisemitism happening as part of this.”

Sandberg calls the documentary “the most important work of my life.” You can find it on YouTube, all 57 harrowing minutes. You will see: hostage Naama Levy, 19 at the time of her abduction from the Nahal Oz military base, her gray sweatpants with an enormous apparent bloodstain around the crotch, hands bound behind her back, as she is dragged, screaming, off the back of a vehicle.

You will hear:

— Tali Binner, who hid in a trailer at the Nova music festival for seven hours as she heard the extended screams, then the silence, which gave rise to the film’s title. “When I heard someone scream and then silence, I knew that it’s probably someone gets shot,” Binner said. “But when you hear this chaos for 20 minutes … you understand something else much worse is happening right over there.”

— Raz Cohen, another survivor of the music festival, on watching a pickup truck arrive at the site. “Some terrorists got out and grabbed a girl there,” he recalled. “There was kind of a semicircle around her, and one of them raped her. I remember that her pants were halfway on, and he was behind her … and when I looked again she was already dead, and he was still at it. He was still raping her after he had slaughtered her.”

— Rami Davidian, a first responder. “I saw girls tied up with their hands behind them to every tree here. … Their legs were spread. … Someone stripped them. Someone raped them. They inserted all kinds of things into their intimate organs, like wooden boards, iron rods. … I had to close their legs and cover their bodies so no one else would see what I saw.”

You will hear, for the first time on video, Amit Soussana, held hostage for 55 days after being kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, describe how her captor sexually abused her. “He started touching me, and I resisted, and then he dragged me to the bedroom, and then he forced me to commit a sexual act on him. And I remember, the entire time, I was thinking: ‘Amit, okay, you knew it’s going to happen. It’s really happening.’ I said to myself: ‘Okay, you can handle this. You just want to survive.’”

Soussana wasn’t alone. “Your body is simply open to everyone,” said another freed hostage, Agam Goldstein-Almog, 17 when she was abducted from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where her father and older sister were murdered. “They can wake you up in the middle of the night and rape you, and the whole time, a gun is pointed at your head.” Of the female captives, half were sexually and physically abused, Goldstein-Almog estimated. “And they’re still there, still living with their rapists.”

But you won’t see or hear the worst of it, partly because we will never know the full extent. Unlike in many situations of sexual violence during wartime, most of the victims were murdered; they cannot describe what they endured. For reasons of religious practice (it is Jewish custom to bury bodies quickly) and responders being too overwhelmed by the extent of the carnage, forensic evidence is lacking.

And the filmmakers deemed some of the most searing evidence too gruesome and too intrusive to be shown. “It’s actually worse than you are able to show,” Sandberg said, her eyes filling with tears. “Much worse.”

The silence is deafening. The burden is on us to break it.

Opinion by Ruth Marcus

Ruth Marcus is an associate editor and columnist for The Post. Twitter

10. Harnessing Insurgent and Narco-Criminal Drone Tactics for Special Operations

Excepts:

Conclusion

USSOCOM and AFSOC should not underestimate the expanding role of drone capabilities, increasingly employed by violent non-state actors, criminals, and state adversaries. The deadly realities of the Russo-Ukrainian War, as well as what the cartels are doing along the United States’ southern border, reinforce this. The traditional model of deploying a single or a few Reaper drones for targeting strikes is rapidly becoming economically and strategically outdated. Instead, US SOF should focus on scaling up both the quality and quantity of consumer and hybrid drones. Describing these systems as merely disruptive would be an understatement; their impact is revolutionary, driven by these drones’ mass deployment and sophisticated networking.

Criminals and violent non-state actors have quickly recognized and exploited the potential of these systems, often using basic technology in innovative ways and prioritizing outcomes over procedural adherence. SOF can adopt a similar approach by leveraging the narco-trafficking model for rapid-cost effective prototyping – a strategy already aligned with SOF’s acquisition philosophy. As major global powers continue incorporating commercial technologies into their militaries, the United States must also explore, experiment with, and develop capabilities to deploy, manage, and sustain these unconventional technologies. Given the benefits of drone technology, SOF appears ideally positioned to capitalize on the creativity and ingenuity initiated by insurgents and criminals.

Harnessing Insurgent and Narco-Criminal Drone Tactics for Special Operations - Irregular Warfare Initiative

irregularwarfare.org · by Robert J. Bunker · April 30, 2024

Editor’s note: This article is part of Project Air Power, which explores and advocates for the totality of air, aviation, and space power in irregular, hybrid, and gray-zone environments. We invite you to contribute to the discussion, explore the difficult questions, and help influence the future of air and space power. Please contact us if you would like to propose an article, podcast, or event.

The US Army recently took the bold initial step to fund and field commercial drones in infantry units, something many experts have been urging for some time. In a sense, the Ukraine warfighting experience has finally shifted the Army’s perspective on the combat effectiveness of low-cost, advanced commercial drones compared to expensive aircraft and military-grade drones. This shift has led to soldiers being encouraged to freely experiment and innovate in addressing the challenges of modern warfare.

This is precisely what violent non-state actors and criminals have been doing for years. Taking a needed step back, this piece explores the benefits behind commercial drone exploitation, similar to the US Marine Corps’ study of how to capitalize on the logistical merits of drug-running narco subs. The latter entails experimenting with prototype logistics supply drones, whose low profile and wake make them rather stealthy for operating in sea lanes contested by great power naval forces.

Such “fighting fire with fire” approaches can readily be applied to insurgent and organized crime groups using air power based on relatively cheap consumer drones. Media attention related to these systems has increasingly been in the news—initially in fits and starts—over the last decade. Their pronounced use, first by the Islamic State as a surrogate air force and later by other terrorist groups, has steadily increased along with their ongoing fielding by Mexican cartels, initially to smuggle narcotics and later as weapon systems. Consumer drones carrying improvised explosive devices (IEDs), including modified RPG warheads, are now daily social media fare in the Russia-Ukraine War, with tens of thousands of these systems being deployed on the battlefield.

Non-state belligerents and criminals have been particularly creative with these platforms. They have utilized both rotary and fixed-wing drones in conflict. In addition to consumer models, they have fielded do-it-yourself kits, built-from-scratch drones, as well as hybrid systems merging commercial and military-grade components. The emergence of attempts to develop terrorist jet engine drones instead of electric motors has also taken place, along with the use of 3D computer printers to fabricate parts and bespoke drones. Kamikaze drones were an initial mainstay of criminal, terrorist, and insurgent “air forces,” which later transitioned to include aerial bombardment capabilities typically progressing from dropping a single bomblet to multiple small bombs on multiple targets. Production began in smaller numbers of artisanal devices and later swelled through more institutionalized (factory-like) processes.

The Marines and Army are increasingly using tactical drones, and some observers suggest the Air Force do the same. However, another group could dramatically benefit from this capacity: special operations forces (SOF). Given SOF’s entrepreneurial ethos and decentralized approach to operations, they are ideally suited to adopt commercial drone strategies from armed non-state actors. What follows is a short list of some of the capabilities these systems can offer US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and US Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) in the form of new technologies and operational concepts.

Close Air Support (CAS)

Historically, gaining a close air support capability has been expensive and has significant logistical, maintenance, and training requirements. SOF can now field its own drone air force at a fraction of the cost of a traditional one. As a result, forces can readily exploit the direct attack and aerial bombardment capabilities of relatively inexpensive and commercially available drones in coordination with their ground teams and local allied forces. This would allow for an organic capability that can immediately respond to changing battlefield threats and pop-up targets of opportunity. Further, once acquired, these capabilities naturally lead to extending and broadening their use to achieve local air superiority.

Several insurgent and criminal forces have rudimentarily used drones for aerial attacks, yet few have significantly advanced their tactics. With its recent assault on Israel, Hamas might be an exception. Achieving greater impact would likely involve more semi-autonomous, AI-based systems, shifting to humans “on-the-loop” (vs. in-the-loop) command and control for quicker decision-making. Further borrowing a page from terrorist tactics directed at commercial airliners, these early AI mesh networks could coordinate drones to disrupt enemy aircraft by targeting engines or rotors. For example, SOF teams facing hostile gunships might deploy a drone swarm to target the enemy’s engines or tail rotors, causing damage through direct collision with the airframe or entangling wires or nets in the rotor systems.

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)

Reusable drones used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) present a lower risk of being targeted and destroyed. Notably, non-state actors in some conflicts have leveraged commercial drones to achieve superior tactical and operational ISR capabilities compared to state adversaries. Both the Islamic State and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel developed specialized drone units ahead of the Iraqi and Mexican militaries they were (and are) fighting. Multiple cartels and even some vigilante groups are now using drones for reconnaissance, ambushes, and real-time surveillance during assaults.

While SOF teams and some larger units already access diverse ISR tools, adopting commercially available drones hardened for datalink security would extend this capability down to the lowest operational elements. Furthermore, hybrid drones offer plausible deniability in sensitive environments and can operate on unconventional frequencies like cell phone bands, reducing detectability. Over the long term, military-grade drones will, given their cost points, be unable to fulfill the growing ISR needs of SOF teams on increasingly contested battlefields. No choice will exist but to deploy cheaper systems that will be good enough to meet mission requirements.

Winning the Narrative Fight

Criminal, terrorist, and insurgent groups have long recognized the propaganda and psychological advantages of using imagery to influence opinions and behavior. Consumer drones and modern cameras now enable them to create videos and photographs from previously inaccessible vantage points and across nearly all light levels. Some of the earliest adopters were US anarchists engaging in questionable, and occasionally illegal, street activities and protesters who had live-streaming broadcast capability as early as 2011. The Islamic State was acutely aware of the value of drone imagery for its propaganda value, which bolstered perceptions of the group asserting national sovereignty in the airspace above their claimed caliphate. This group also pioneered combat imagery filmed by drones flying over Syrian bases, suicide attacks, and aerial bombardment of Iraqi soldiers and materiel—visuals that are now commonplace in the Ukraine conflict. Even the Mexican cartels have employed drone imagery to promote their battlefield successes and humanitarian activities. During the COVID pandemic, one cartel filmed aid distribution in a village under its control with overhead drone videos set to folk music.

SOF could also utilize drone videography for both offensive and defensive narrative production. They can highlight the success of their activities and provide forensic evidence of the operational ground truth to set the record straight. This will become increasingly vital as Russian, Chinese, and other state-based disinformation agencies refine their use of advanced deep fake AI technologies. Imagine, for example, that China attempted to create a fictitious international incident over a contested atoll in the South China Sea with an allied government. A counter narrative forensically validated via drone imagery would help shut down such propaganda gambits.

Just-In-Time Logistics

Criminals and cartels use small drones to smuggle items like cigarettes, cell phones, and narcotics into prisons and across borders, setting a precedent for logistical exploitation. This method can transport nearly any small item on demand – ammunition, medical supplies, batteries, or food and water. Such tactics align with Amazon’s ongoing tests for home delivery services. Similarly, drones could resupply SOF teams from forward operating bases, riverine craft, or even transport aircraft, providing essential items stealthily and efficiently during missions. This approach would immediately remove human personnel from harm’s way for basic resupply tasks and free them up for more important tip-of-the-spear actions. Conversely, drones can expedite the secure extraction of high-value assets or individuals to controlled areas. Although the technology for transporting people via aerial drone is still developing, it has been making slow progress since 2016.

Shaping the Operational Environment

Drones can be used to shape the operational environment. Non-state groups seem to have taken a lesson from what the major powers achieved using medium altitude endurance drones against al Qaeda and Islamic State and applied them to small, commercially available systems. Insurgent groups and criminals have adopted tactics and operations to avoid the sensors of MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers. In a reversal of roles, cartels and terrorists now use small drones to influence military operations and intimidate civilian populations. Just the presence of an unrecognized drone causes changes in behavior. Soldiers and civilians have no way of knowing if the drone is friend or foe and, therefore, must treat each instance as a potential risk to the mission or a risk to the force.

USSOCOM and AFSOC have the resources, expertise, and potential to take these technologies and operational concepts much further in scale and scope than non-state groups. SOF has been lacking the freedom and will to do so, much of which can be attributed to past bureaucratic inertia. In addition to the preplanned shaping capability, drones can also provide impromptu support functions as dynamic operations unfold, such as dropping anti-vehicular mines to help channel opposing forces, providing pop-up barriers like minefields to protect SOF raids, or laying acoustic and other sensory devices for flank security or early warning.

Suicide Fighters

First-person view (FPV) drones can exploit a fast and nimble platform with deadly tactical capabilities. Videos of French racing drones competing in forested areas, reminiscent of miniaturized Star Wars pod racers, debuted a decade ago. These drones inspired an early concept of virtual martyrdom – explosive-laden, one-way drones that functioned as unmanned kamikazes. There were speculations that Islamic State developed inghima drones equipped with small arms, such as pistols or other light weaponry, that could later detonate their onboard explosives after expending their ammunition. Although this has yet to materialize, it seems inevitable that either a non-state group or a state will soon refine this tactic, potentially deploying it in either a remote hunter-killer role or integrating it directly into combat units to provide armed overwatch.

FPV drones could also function as a unique form of suicide fighter, one that first launches its weapons at the intended target and then detonates among them. While this scenario once belonged to the realm of science fiction, advances in artificial intelligence have simplified the integration of facial recognition technology, enabling these systems to operate autonomously. However, the identification of friend or foe, as well as the implementation of non-combatant protection protocols, still require further development.

Conclusion

USSOCOM and AFSOC should not underestimate the expanding role of drone capabilities, increasingly employed by violent non-state actors, criminals, and state adversaries. The deadly realities of the Russo-Ukrainian War, as well as what the cartels are doing along the United States’ southern border, reinforce this. The traditional model of deploying a single or a few Reaper drones for targeting strikes is rapidly becoming economically and strategically outdated. Instead, US SOF should focus on scaling up both the quality and quantity of consumer and hybrid drones. Describing these systems as merely disruptive would be an understatement; their impact is revolutionary, driven by these drones’ mass deployment and sophisticated networking.

Criminals and violent non-state actors have quickly recognized and exploited the potential of these systems, often using basic technology in innovative ways and prioritizing outcomes over procedural adherence. SOF can adopt a similar approach by leveraging the narco-trafficking model for rapid-cost effective prototyping – a strategy already aligned with SOF’s acquisition philosophy. As major global powers continue incorporating commercial technologies into their militaries, the United States must also explore, experiment with, and develop capabilities to deploy, manage, and sustain these unconventional technologies. Given the benefits of drone technology, SOF appears ideally positioned to capitalize on the creativity and ingenuity initiated by insurgents and criminals.

Dr. Robert J. Bunker is currently a senior fellow with Small Wars Journal-El Centro, an instructor with the Safe Communities Institute at the Sol Price School of Public Policy of the University of Southern California, and a managing partner at C/O Futures, LLC. Dr. Bunker is an expert on Mexican cartel, insurgent, and terrorist weaponized drone use and has written extensively on future war and conflict. He has over 700 publications and has been involved in the writing and/or editing of fifty books and reports, including Terrorist and Insurgent Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Use, Potentials, and Military Implications.

Main image: A quad copter drone flying over the road with a car in the background (Photo by Matthew Henry from Freerange Stock)

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

If you value reading the Irregular Warfare Initiative, please consider supporting our work. And for the best gear, check out the IWI store for mugs, coasters, apparel, and other items.

 - Irregular Warfare Initiative

irregularwarfare.org · by Robert J. Bunker · April 30, 2024

Editor’s note: This article is part of Project Air Power, which explores and advocates for the totality of air, aviation, and space power in irregular, hybrid, and gray-zone environments. We invite you to contribute to the discussion, explore the difficult questions, and help influence the future of air and space power. Please contact us if you would like to propose an article, podcast, or event.

The US Army recently took the bold initial step to fund and field commercial drones in infantry units, something many experts have been urging for some time. In a sense, the Ukraine warfighting experience has finally shifted the Army’s perspective on the combat effectiveness of low-cost, advanced commercial drones compared to expensive aircraft and military-grade drones. This shift has led to soldiers being encouraged to freely experiment and innovate in addressing the challenges of modern warfare.

This is precisely what violent non-state actors and criminals have been doing for years. Taking a needed step back, this piece explores the benefits behind commercial drone exploitation, similar to the US Marine Corps’ study of how to capitalize on the logistical merits of drug-running narco subs. The latter entails experimenting with prototype logistics supply drones, whose low profile and wake make them rather stealthy for operating in sea lanes contested by great power naval forces.

Such “fighting fire with fire” approaches can readily be applied to insurgent and organized crime groups using air power based on relatively cheap consumer drones. Media attention related to these systems has increasingly been in the news—initially in fits and starts—over the last decade. Their pronounced use, first by the Islamic State as a surrogate air force and later by other terrorist groups, has steadily increased along with their ongoing fielding by Mexican cartels, initially to smuggle narcotics and later as weapon systems. Consumer drones carrying improvised explosive devices (IEDs), including modified RPG warheads, are now daily social media fare in the Russia-Ukraine War, with tens of thousands of these systems being deployed on the battlefield.

Non-state belligerents and criminals have been particularly creative with these platforms. They have utilized both rotary and fixed-wing drones in conflict. In addition to consumer models, they have fielded do-it-yourself kits, built-from-scratch drones, as well as hybrid systems merging commercial and military-grade components. The emergence of attempts to develop terrorist jet engine drones instead of electric motors has also taken place, along with the use of 3D computer printers to fabricate parts and bespoke drones. Kamikaze drones were an initial mainstay of criminal, terrorist, and insurgent “air forces,” which later transitioned to include aerial bombardment capabilities typically progressing from dropping a single bomblet to multiple small bombs on multiple targets. Production began in smaller numbers of artisanal devices and later swelled through more institutionalized (factory-like) processes.

The Marines and Army are increasingly using tactical drones, and some observers suggest the Air Force do the same. However, another group could dramatically benefit from this capacity: special operations forces (SOF). Given SOF’s entrepreneurial ethos and decentralized approach to operations, they are ideally suited to adopt commercial drone strategies from armed non-state actors. What follows is a short list of some of the capabilities these systems can offer US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and US Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) in the form of new technologies and operational concepts.

Close Air Support (CAS)

Historically, gaining a close air support capability has been expensive and has significant logistical, maintenance, and training requirements. SOF can now field its own drone air force at a fraction of the cost of a traditional one. As a result, forces can readily exploit the direct attack and aerial bombardment capabilities of relatively inexpensive and commercially available drones in coordination with their ground teams and local allied forces. This would allow for an organic capability that can immediately respond to changing battlefield threats and pop-up targets of opportunity. Further, once acquired, these capabilities naturally lead to extending and broadening their use to achieve local air superiority.

Several insurgent and criminal forces have rudimentarily used drones for aerial attacks, yet few have significantly advanced their tactics. With its recent assault on Israel, Hamas might be an exception. Achieving greater impact would likely involve more semi-autonomous, AI-based systems, shifting to humans “on-the-loop” (vs. in-the-loop) command and control for quicker decision-making. Further borrowing a page from terrorist tactics directed at commercial airliners, these early AI mesh networks could coordinate drones to disrupt enemy aircraft by targeting engines or rotors. For example, SOF teams facing hostile gunships might deploy a drone swarm to target the enemy’s engines or tail rotors, causing damage through direct collision with the airframe or entangling wires or nets in the rotor systems.

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)

Reusable drones used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) present a lower risk of being targeted and destroyed. Notably, non-state actors in some conflicts have leveraged commercial drones to achieve superior tactical and operational ISR capabilities compared to state adversaries. Both the Islamic State and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel developed specialized drone units ahead of the Iraqi and Mexican militaries they were (and are) fighting. Multiple cartels and even some vigilante groups are now using drones for reconnaissance, ambushes, and real-time surveillance during assaults.

While SOF teams and some larger units already access diverse ISR tools, adopting commercially available drones hardened for datalink security would extend this capability down to the lowest operational elements. Furthermore, hybrid drones offer plausible deniability in sensitive environments and can operate on unconventional frequencies like cell phone bands, reducing detectability. Over the long term, military-grade drones will, given their cost points, be unable to fulfill the growing ISR needs of SOF teams on increasingly contested battlefields. No choice will exist but to deploy cheaper systems that will be good enough to meet mission requirements.

Winning the Narrative Fight

Criminal, terrorist, and insurgent groups have long recognized the propaganda and psychological advantages of using imagery to influence opinions and behavior. Consumer drones and modern cameras now enable them to create videos and photographs from previously inaccessible vantage points and across nearly all light levels. Some of the earliest adopters were US anarchists engaging in questionable, and occasionally illegal, street activities and protesters who had live-streaming broadcast capability as early as 2011. The Islamic State was acutely aware of the value of drone imagery for its propaganda value, which bolstered perceptions of the group asserting national sovereignty in the airspace above their claimed caliphate. This group also pioneered combat imagery filmed by drones flying over Syrian bases, suicide attacks, and aerial bombardment of Iraqi soldiers and materiel—visuals that are now commonplace in the Ukraine conflict. Even the Mexican cartels have employed drone imagery to promote their battlefield successes and humanitarian activities. During the COVID pandemic, one cartel filmed aid distribution in a village under its control with overhead drone videos set to folk music.

SOF could also utilize drone videography for both offensive and defensive narrative production. They can highlight the success of their activities and provide forensic evidence of the operational ground truth to set the record straight. This will become increasingly vital as Russian, Chinese, and other state-based disinformation agencies refine their use of advanced deep fake AI technologies. Imagine, for example, that China attempted to create a fictitious international incident over a contested atoll in the South China Sea with an allied government. A counter narrative forensically validated via drone imagery would help shut down such propaganda gambits.

Just-In-Time Logistics

Criminals and cartels use small drones to smuggle items like cigarettes, cell phones, and narcotics into prisons and across borders, setting a precedent for logistical exploitation. This method can transport nearly any small item on demand – ammunition, medical supplies, batteries, or food and water. Such tactics align with Amazon’s ongoing tests for home delivery services. Similarly, drones could resupply SOF teams from forward operating bases, riverine craft, or even transport aircraft, providing essential items stealthily and efficiently during missions. This approach would immediately remove human personnel from harm’s way for basic resupply tasks and free them up for more important tip-of-the-spear actions. Conversely, drones can expedite the secure extraction of high-value assets or individuals to controlled areas. Although the technology for transporting people via aerial drone is still developing, it has been making slow progress since 2016.

Shaping the Operational Environment

Drones can be used to shape the operational environment. Non-state groups seem to have taken a lesson from what the major powers achieved using medium altitude endurance drones against al Qaeda and Islamic State and applied them to small, commercially available systems. Insurgent groups and criminals have adopted tactics and operations to avoid the sensors of MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers. In a reversal of roles, cartels and terrorists now use small drones to influence military operations and intimidate civilian populations. Just the presence of an unrecognized drone causes changes in behavior. Soldiers and civilians have no way of knowing if the drone is friend or foe and, therefore, must treat each instance as a potential risk to the mission or a risk to the force.

USSOCOM and AFSOC have the resources, expertise, and potential to take these technologies and operational concepts much further in scale and scope than non-state groups. SOF has been lacking the freedom and will to do so, much of which can be attributed to past bureaucratic inertia. In addition to the preplanned shaping capability, drones can also provide impromptu support functions as dynamic operations unfold, such as dropping anti-vehicular mines to help channel opposing forces, providing pop-up barriers like minefields to protect SOF raids, or laying acoustic and other sensory devices for flank security or early warning.

Suicide Fighters

First-person view (FPV) drones can exploit a fast and nimble platform with deadly tactical capabilities. Videos of French racing drones competing in forested areas, reminiscent of miniaturized Star Wars pod racers, debuted a decade ago. These drones inspired an early concept of virtual martyrdom – explosive-laden, one-way drones that functioned as unmanned kamikazes. There were speculations that Islamic State developed inghima drones equipped with small arms, such as pistols or other light weaponry, that could later detonate their onboard explosives after expending their ammunition. Although this has yet to materialize, it seems inevitable that either a non-state group or a state will soon refine this tactic, potentially deploying it in either a remote hunter-killer role or integrating it directly into combat units to provide armed overwatch.

FPV drones could also function as a unique form of suicide fighter, one that first launches its weapons at the intended target and then detonates among them. While this scenario once belonged to the realm of science fiction, advances in artificial intelligence have simplified the integration of facial recognition technology, enabling these systems to operate autonomously. However, the identification of friend or foe, as well as the implementation of non-combatant protection protocols, still require further development.

Conclusion

USSOCOM and AFSOC should not underestimate the expanding role of drone capabilities, increasingly employed by violent non-state actors, criminals, and state adversaries. The deadly realities of the Russo-Ukrainian War, as well as what the cartels are doing along the United States’ southern border, reinforce this. The traditional model of deploying a single or a few Reaper drones for targeting strikes is rapidly becoming economically and strategically outdated. Instead, US SOF should focus on scaling up both the quality and quantity of consumer and hybrid drones. Describing these systems as merely disruptive would be an understatement; their impact is revolutionary, driven by these drones’ mass deployment and sophisticated networking.

Criminals and violent non-state actors have quickly recognized and exploited the potential of these systems, often using basic technology in innovative ways and prioritizing outcomes over procedural adherence. SOF can adopt a similar approach by leveraging the narco-trafficking model for rapid-cost effective prototyping – a strategy already aligned with SOF’s acquisition philosophy. As major global powers continue incorporating commercial technologies into their militaries, the United States must also explore, experiment with, and develop capabilities to deploy, manage, and sustain these unconventional technologies. Given the benefits of drone technology, SOF appears ideally positioned to capitalize on the creativity and ingenuity initiated by insurgents and criminals.

Dr. Robert J. Bunker is currently a senior fellow with Small Wars Journal-El Centro, an instructor with the Safe Communities Institute at the Sol Price School of Public Policy of the University of Southern California, and a managing partner at C/O Futures, LLC. Dr. Bunker is an expert on Mexican cartel, insurgent, and terrorist weaponized drone use and has written extensively on future war and conflict. He has over 700 publications and has been involved in the writing and/or editing of fifty books and reports, including Terrorist and Insurgent Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Use, Potentials, and Military Implications.

Main image: A quad copter drone flying over the road with a car in the background (Photo by Matthew Henry from Freerange Stock)

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

If you value reading the Irregular Warfare Initiative, please consider supporting our work. And for the best gear, check out the IWI store for mugs, coasters, apparel, and other items.

11. How Will AI Change Cyber Operations?

Excerpts:

As cyber security and AI become more intertwined, U.S. national cyber strategy needs to examine what the government can do to leverage AI to gain competitive advantage in cyberspace while also addressing new cyber risks to AI systems. Unfortunately, major cyber strategy documents in 2023 were not written in time to properly interrogate these issues. While the more recent White House AI Executive Order is welcome progress, all of the initiatives related to cyber security proposed in the order, along with existing efforts such as the AI Cyber Challenge and U.S. Cyber Command’s new AI Security Center, should be part of a broader and updated national-level cyber strategy that provides the connective tissue among ends, ways, and means in the age of AI.

The first step in doing this is to escape from the “will AI favor cyber offense or the defense” dichotomy. Many technological breakthroughs enabled by AI can potentially benefit both the offense and the defense, depending on a variety of external factors. For example, while AI can scale up vulnerability discovery, it is more likely to benefit the defense if they are found during the production process and therefore can be fixed with minimal effort before deployment. If vulnerabilities are found in already-deployed products with a lot of dependencies that slow down patch adoption, the time lag benefits the offense. In another example, AI can generate functional code, but in some cases this could be used to generate either malicious code or benign, but insecure code, while in other cases this ability could be used to automatically repair code. The extent to which the latter capability matures over the former depends on how policymakers incentivize the private sector and the research community.

What is thus more important is to focus on the mediating factors and incentives that drive actors to develop, use, and apply AI in ways that favor U.S. strategic interests, rather than to conduct an overall net assessment of the technology’s impact on cyber operations or the cyber domain writ large. Doing so will also allow U.S. policymakers to prioritize focus on the most impactful and likely set of AI-enabled cyber threats, and how to best leverage AI-enabled capabilities to decrease the attack surface and respond more effectively to cyber threats.

How Will AI Change Cyber Operations? - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Jenny Jun · April 30, 2024

The U.S. government somehow seems to be both optimistic and pessimistic about the impact of AI on cyber operations. On one hand, officials say AI will give the edge to cyber defense. For example, last year Army Cyber Command’s chief technology officer said, “Right now, the old adage is the advantage goes to the attacker. Today, I think with AI and machine learning, it starts to shift that paradigm to giving an advantage back over to the defender. It’s going to make it much harder for the offensive side.” On the other hand, the White House’s AI Executive Order is studded with cautionary language on AI’s potential to enable powerful offensive cyber operations. How can this be?

The rapid pace of recent advancements in AI is likely to significantly change the landscape of cyber operations, creating both opportunities as well as risks for cybersecurity. At the very least, both attackers and defenders are already discovering new AI-enabled tools, techniques, and procedures to enhance each of their campaigns. We can also expect the attack surface itself to change because AI-assisted coding will sometimes produce insecure code. AI systems and applications developed on top of them will also become subject to cyber attack. All of these changes complicate the calculus.

In navigating the impact of AI on cyber security, the question has been too often framed as an “offense versus defense balance” determination through the lens of international politics, but in reality the answer is much more complex. Indeed, some argue that the premise of trying to apply offense versus defense balance theory to the cyber domain is a fraught exercise in the first place. Instead, AI will most likely change the distribution of what targets in cyberspace are exploitable. Rather than coming up with a laundry list of where AI could enhance tasks, the focus should instead be on tasks where actors are likely to apply AI.

The exercise is also a policy problem as much as it is a technical problem. Many AI-enhanced techniques are a “double-edged sword” that can aid both the offense and the defense, depending on a variety of geopolitical and economic incentives that affect how individuals, companies, and governments incorporate AI and the preexisting constraints they face. The impact of AI on cyber is mediated through such variables, altering the distribution of cyber threats and offering larger marginal benefits to some actors. For policymakers and practitioners, the focus should be on identifying especially vulnerable targets in specific situations, rather than trying to conduct a net assessment as to whether AI favors the cyber offense or defense writ large. This would help policymakers better incorporate the implications of AI into the next U.S. national cyber strategy.

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The U.S. government is exploring how AI can be used to augment its cyber capabilities, how AI can be used to bolster cyber defenses, and how to best secure increasingly capable AI systems. To be fair, AI has been used in cyber defense for years in areas such as anomaly detection. But more recent developments in generative AI, especially large language models, have elicited new high-level policy attention on the linkages between cyber and AI. The next few years will be an important period in how the U.S. government frames the role of AI in cyber operations.

As an illustrative example, consider the role of AI in vulnerability discovery. This features in the White House AI Executive Order as a task for the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security to pilot, and is also likely to be an important element of the current Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s AI Cyber Challenge. One of the ways to discover vulnerabilities in code is through fuzzing, a technique that passes random or mutated inputs to a program to find any unexpected behavior such as buffer overflows. Fuzzing has been used for years by security researchers and threat actors to discover vulnerabilities. One of the challenges, however, was that fuzzing was not very scalable. Key aspects of the fuzzing process have often been manual and don’t explore the entire code base.

However, the recent increase in performance of large language models has the potential to partially mitigate this problem. By using large language models to generate valid inputs at scale, the time and resources needed to fuzz a project could be dramatically reduced, and perhaps even automated. Entire code repositories, rather than select portions, could be fuzzed easily. Other ongoing research uses large language models to create fuzzers that support multiple programming languages at the same time, further increasing code coverage. With more research, large language models have the potential to scale up fuzzing techniques and make the discovery of certain types of vulnerabilities more comprehensive.

Whether this potential leap in vulnerability discovery ultimately benefits cyber offense or defense depends on how fast the discovered vulnerabilities could be exploited versus patched. And that largely depends on preexisting factors beyond of improvements in AI. In this sense, trying to answer the question of whether some AI-enabled breakthrough benefits cyber offense or defense is reductive, as the answer is much more situational.

For instance, countries have different national-level regulations for stockpiling versus disclosing discovered vulnerabilities, such as China’s Cybersecurity Threat and Vulnerability Information Sharing Platform versus America’s Vulnerabilities Equities Process. The degree to which discovered vulnerabilities will be kept close to the chest for exploitation by the government, versus disclosure to the public for patching, will vary based on factors such as a state’s concern for national security, international norms, and relationship with the private sector, leading to divergent domestic laws and regulations. This means that an overall increased rate of vulnerability discoveries may offensively benefit some state-sponsored threat actors more than others.

Software developers and security engineers can also use fuzzing at scale to discover more vulnerabilities that can then be remediated. But the degree to which remediation of such discovered vulnerabilities will occur efficiently and at scale will also vary. For instance, incorporating fuzzing, among other vulnerability testing means, as a standard practice before a product is deployed may increase the chance that vulnerabilities are discovered and patched early on by the developer. However, for vulnerabilities discovered later in the process in already deployed products with complex dependencies, patching may take months — if not years — for certain enterprises. So while AI-assisted fuzzing may contribute to secure-by-design principles in the long run as new products are deployed, in the short run attackers may be able to take advantage of the fact that some vulnerabilities are now easier to discover yet cannot be readily remediated — mostly because of organizational constraints and inertia. The degree to which defenders can thus harness the benefits of AI-enabled vulnerability discovery and patching also depends on how policymakers can influence private firms’ economic incentives to design and deploy software with security in mind rather than incentives to be first to market.

The question of how AI will transform cyber security is thus a policy problem as much as it is a technical problem. If the U.S. government assesses that the rate at which other threat actors will stockpile vulnerabilities will increase due to new AI-enabled techniques, should it respond by increasing its stockpile of vulnerabilities, or should it try to reveal more of those vulnerabilities to the public and remediate them? How should the U.S. government signal its intent, either in private or in public, to such threat actors and third-party states and private sector stakeholders? How do private sector incentives, such as the desire to be first to market at the expense of security, affect whether we will be in a world where the rate of vulnerability discovery outpaces that of remediation or vice versa, and what can policy do to shape those incentives? Answers to these policy questions require deliberation in the highest levels of policymaking and interagency coordination.

Because technological breakthroughs interact with economic and political incentives and constraints, it is far from clear as to whether scenarios such as scaling up vulnerability discovery through AI will help cyber offense or defense. Most likely, it will change the distribution of what types of targets are now more or less exploitable. This is because AI augmentation benefits certain techniques such as fuzzing, or discovers some types of vulnerabilities but not others. Furthermore, some organizations are better positioned to remediate discovered vulnerabilities fast and early on, and some types of threat groups — focused on specific missions and therefore target certain sectors — are more opportunistic than others. Whether all of that comes out to a net win for the cyber offense or defense overall is perhaps a less important question than getting at the underlying conditions that can shape this changing distribution.

The Marginal Effect and Threats

The other important question to focus on is to consider where the marginal effects of AI are greatest in augmenting various phases of a cyber operation. For instance, the U.K. National Cyber Security Centre’s assessment of the near-term impacts of AI on cyber threats highlights AI’s impact on attack processes such as initial access, lateral movement, and exfiltration with a scale ranging from no uplift to significant uplift. Thinking about AI’s impact on cyber in terms of their likely marginal effects helps to prioritize policy attention on specific threats and avoid doomsday scenarios and over-speculation.

Take the illustrative example of the role of generative AI on the market for cyber crime. One of the near-term threats in leveraging generative AI — whether by generating text, voice, or images — is to use such content for social engineering and spearphishing in the initial access phase of a cyber operation. For instance, one industry report revealed that phishing emails have increased by 1,265 percent since the release of ChatGPT. However, the marginal increase in benefit from having such generative AI tools available as opposed to before will not be consistent across threat actors and situations.

One way to measure the success of a phishing email is to measure its “click-through rate,” or whether the victim successfully clicked on a malicious link or not. Emerging studies show that while the click-through rate of AI-generated phishing emails are still slightly lower than those handwritten by trained social engineers, it takes significantly less time — five minutes as opposed to 16 hours in an IBM study — to use a large language model to produce a phishing email. This dynamic shows what I call a “quality versus efficiency tradeoff.” In the future, the click-through rate of AI-generated phishing may increase even more if they can be customized to an organization’s normal communication patterns and/or integrated into chatbot-like agents capable of iterated conversations at scale. But even now, some threat actors would be more than happy to scale up their phishing operations using such tools at the expense of a slightly lower click-through rate.

The type of threat actors that are likely to disproportionately benefit from making this tradeoff are opportunistic cyber criminals who try to cast the widest net in a “spray and pray” operation to maximize profit using a particular exploit that may or may not be patched soon. To such threat actors, the marginal benefit of scaling up initial access is great, while the downside of fewer victims falling for the email is minimal. On the other hand, those who have relatively little to gain from indiscriminate initial access — such as state-sponsored threat groups with specific missions on a limited target set and place a higher premium on staying covert — may not benefit as much from leveraging such tools. They may not even rely on phishing emails for initial access, or already have sophisticated in-house social engineers and may only leverage generative AI for auxiliary functions such as fixing grammar, etc.

This trend suggests that particular threat actors — for instance, ransomware gangs — may be able to compromise more victims than before by scaling up their phishing operations, meaning defense may need to focus on blocking subsequent stages of attack such as privilege escalation and lateral movement. It also suggests that the burden for discerning a phishing email from a normal email should no longer rest on individuals, and that investment into measures such as email authentication protocols and other methods of providing red flags on suspicious emails at scale would be necessary.

On the other hand, there may be situations where the marginal benefit of relying on AI for certain phases of an offensive operation may be small. Yes, large language models can be used to write malicious code, but hackers already routinely leverage off-the-shelf tools, purchase as-a-service subscriptions, share exploits on forums, and automate tasks without reliance on AI. Instead, the marginal negative effects of more people using large language models to write benign code in regular software development settings could be even bigger, as they often generate insecure code and pose cyber security risks to the software supply chain with commonly exploitable bugs. Here, AI’s ability to generate functional code is not necessarily directly enhancing offensive techniques, but opening more doors for attackers relying on existing techniques by changing the attack surface of the ecosystem.

Incorporating AI into U.S. Cyber Strategy

As cyber security and AI become more intertwined, U.S. national cyber strategy needs to examine what the government can do to leverage AI to gain competitive advantage in cyberspace while also addressing new cyber risks to AI systems. Unfortunately, major cyber strategy documents in 2023 were not written in time to properly interrogate these issues. While the more recent White House AI Executive Order is welcome progress, all of the initiatives related to cyber security proposed in the order, along with existing efforts such as the AI Cyber Challenge and U.S. Cyber Command’s new AI Security Center, should be part of a broader and updated national-level cyber strategy that provides the connective tissue among ends, ways, and means in the age of AI.

The first step in doing this is to escape from the “will AI favor cyber offense or the defense” dichotomy. Many technological breakthroughs enabled by AI can potentially benefit both the offense and the defense, depending on a variety of external factors. For example, while AI can scale up vulnerability discovery, it is more likely to benefit the defense if they are found during the production process and therefore can be fixed with minimal effort before deployment. If vulnerabilities are found in already-deployed products with a lot of dependencies that slow down patch adoption, the time lag benefits the offense. In another example, AI can generate functional code, but in some cases this could be used to generate either malicious code or benign, but insecure code, while in other cases this ability could be used to automatically repair code. The extent to which the latter capability matures over the former depends on how policymakers incentivize the private sector and the research community.

What is thus more important is to focus on the mediating factors and incentives that drive actors to develop, use, and apply AI in ways that favor U.S. strategic interests, rather than to conduct an overall net assessment of the technology’s impact on cyber operations or the cyber domain writ large. Doing so will also allow U.S. policymakers to prioritize focus on the most impactful and likely set of AI-enabled cyber threats, and how to best leverage AI-enabled capabilities to decrease the attack surface and respond more effectively to cyber threats.

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Jenny Jun is a research fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, where she works on the CyberAI Project. She is also a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Jenny Jun · April 30, 2024

12. What Iran’s Drone Attack Portends for the Future of Warfare

Excerpts:

The Lessons of Iran’s Attack for Modern Warfare

In sum, despite the meager military impact of Iran’s strike, it may yet serve Iran’s broader political goals. But much depends on whether Israel is willing to avoid taking additional actions that might cause the conflict to escalate into a wider regional war. The impact on Iran’s reputation is also contingent on how the international community perceives Iran’s initial attack and response––or lack thereof––to Israel’s counterattack. While the unprecedented nature of the original Iranian attack on Israeli territory could bolster the country’s reputation for resolve, Iran’s transparent attempts at escalation management could undermine it. The fecklessness of Iran’s attack could also end up harming its reputation for military effectiveness and thus undercut the credibility of its future threats.

In any case, the most interesting aspect of the attack may be what it portends for the future of warfare. The alleged offensive advantage current-generation drones provide over the defense is overrated, but a new era where drones can operate autonomously in coordinated large-scale swarms is coming. To keep pace, defenders will need to continue to innovate cost-effective counter-drone technologies, including the possibility of using drones directly to destroy other drones. Sporadic drone-on-drone “dogfights” have already occurred in the Russia-Ukraine War and may offer a preview of the next generation of remote warfare.

Despite the military deficiencies of contemporary drones, their political utility will continue to be a defining element of modern warfare and statecraft well into the future. As Jacquelyn Schneider said, “These systems exist not because they are invincible, but instead because they decrease political risk for decision makers.” By reducing the financial and human costs of conflict, increasing public support for the use of force, and lessening the chances of escalation, drones are having a transformational effect on international politics.

What Iran’s Drone Attack Portends for the Future of Warfare - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Joshua A. Schwartz · April 30, 2024

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Iran’s attack against Israel on April 14 was historic—it marked the first time that Iran has directly struck Israeli territory from its own soil despite decades of tensions and shadow conflict. Iran utilized around 170 drones in the operation, making it one of the largest drone attacks in history—possibly the largest. As such, the attack epitomizes the increasing reliance on remote, uninhabited systems in modern warfare.

Aerial drones and other types of uninhabited vehicles are undoubtedly key to the future of conflict, but Iran’s attack demonstrates that the current generation of these systems have crucial weaknesses that limit their effectiveness on the battlefield against sophisticated adversaries. In particular, drones are highly susceptible to air defense and thus often do not reach their intended targets. However, Iran’s large-scale use of drones against Israel also illustrates how the military deficiencies of these systems can be leveraged to achieve two higher-order, strategic political goals—limiting escalation and maintaining a strong reputation for resolve.

Defense Is Stronger Than You Might Think

The only thing more striking than the large quantity of drones Iran used in its attack against Israel was the number of those drones that were shot down by Israel and other countries. According to Israeli estimates, over 99 percent of all Iranian weapons used in the attack were intercepted before reaching their targets—including all 170 drones. In part, this reflects the sophistication of Israel’s air defense capabilities and the abilities of the many other countries that helped Israel destroy these drones. But it also highlights something broader—the generally high susceptibility of drones to air defense compared to more traditional inhabited aircraft.

There are at least three reasons uninhabited aircraft are typically easier to shoot down than their inhabited counterparts. First, current-generation drones tend to fly much slower. For example, Iran’s Shahed-136 drones, which were used in the attack against Israel, can only fly a maximum speed of around 115 miles per hour. By contrast, Iran’s inventory of MiG-29 inhabited aircraft, which it acquired decades ago in the early 1990s, have maximum speeds closer to 1,500 miles per hour. The slow speed of uninhabited aircraft has helped enable Ukraine to shoot down Russian drones (many provided by Iran) with even unsophisticated air defense tools like machine guns.

Second, today’s drones tend to have only limited countermeasures they can deploy to protect themselves against air defense systems. For instance, they typically do not carry chaff or flares, which can be used to confuse air defense missiles. Compared to inhabited aircraft, military-grade drones (such as the Shahed or the Turkish-built Bayraktar TB-2 drone used by Ukraine) usually have quite limited maneuverability. This weakness, which does not apply to small quadcopters, makes it harder for drones to evade air defense missiles by executing sudden rolls and turns.

Third, the signals that enable communication between a pilot and a drone can be jammed. This is one crucial defense tool Russia and Ukraine have been using to down each other’s drones. It is also a tactic Israel deployed to disrupt the Iranian attack.

Of course, the cat-and-mouse game between drones and air defense will spur future innovations that could make uninhabited aerial vehicles less suspectable to being shot down. For example, drones can be designed to fly at faster speeds, carry more sophisticated countermeasures to air defense systems, and operate autonomously if communication links with pilots are severed. Furthermore, even existing systems do have at least one potential advantage over the defense: shooting down cheap drones that cost just tens of thousands of dollars with expensive air defense assets that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars or more can bleed the financial resources of a country over time. Israel’s defense likely cost more than Iran’s offensive.

Nevertheless, the high vulnerability of most current-era drones to air defense can help explain why all of the Iranian drones were shot down and failed to reach their intended targets. It also explains why the attrition rates of Ukrainian and Russian drones are similarly high, with Ukraine losing as many as ten thousand drones per month. As one Ukrainian air force pilot said, relatively high-end and expensive Turkish TB-2 drones “were very useful and important in the very first days [of the war] . . . but now that [the Russians have] built up good air defenses, they’re almost useless.”

While many types of drones—especially cheaper, attritable systems—are indeed extremely useful on the battlefield, arguments that drones provide a significant advantage to the offense over the defense are at least somewhat overstated. Countries should thus not consider drones as a panacea, especially when operating against adversaries with relatively advanced air defense systems.

Turning a Weakness Into a Strength

Iran’s attack was not particularly successful from a military or operational perspective in that it failed to hit and inflict significant damage on almost all of its targets. However, it may have been successful from a political perspective in that it helped enable Iran to achieve two of its strategic goals: limiting escalation and maintaining a high reputation for resolve.

Since the devastating Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, it has been clear that Iran has little interest in igniting a wider war in the Middle East. On October 29, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian publicly said, “We don’t want this war to spread out.” In private, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reportedly ordered his military subordinates to adopt a policy of “strategic patience” to avoid escalation. Iran’s deeds also match its words (at least to some extent). For example, Iran has reportedly urged its chief proxy, Hezbollah, to exercise restraint and refrain from launching significant attacks against Israeli territory. Attempting to limit escalation is rational given that Israel is more capable militarily than Iran. A wider war would also risk the United States’ direct involvement in military operations against the Islamic Republic, which is surely a dynamic the supreme leader wishes to avoid.

The use of drones and other remote weapons, such as missiles, helps Iran achieve its goal of limiting escalation with Israel and the United States. Precisely because the Iranian drones failed to hit their mark and cause significant destruction, Israel and the United States were under less pressure to respond forcefully in ways that might raise the risk of a wider war.

In accordance with the logic, President Joe Biden urged Israel not retaliate and told Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, “You got a win. Take the win.” Israel chose not to fully take Biden’s advice and instead did retaliate against Iran by conducting its own strike against an air defense system near the Iranian city of Isfahan. However, the attack was small, was limited in nature, and appears to have caused little major damage. In fact, Israel had initially planned on a more significant counterattack against Iran, but ultimately settled on a smaller-scale retaliation due to foreign pressure and the ineffectiveness of Iran’s attack. Israel also has incentives to avoid major escalation given that a wider conflict would put it in the precarious position of having to fight a three-front war––against Hamas in Gaza, Iran to the east, and Iran’s proxy Hezbollah to the north in Lebanon.

Iran’s reaction to the Israeli counterattack has been muted, indicating that a de-escalation of the immediate crisis is probable. Iran’s use of drones and other remote systems in the initial attack against Israel is one reason why the Iranian regime was under less pressure to respond forcefully to Israeli retaliation, which could have led to an escalation spiral of attacks and counterattacks. As demonstrated in experimental wargames conducted by MIT professor Erik Lin-Greenberg that presented variable scenarios to individuals with military experience, the shooting down of a drone is less likely to lead to escalation because it does not put at risk a human life. Iran learned this lesson firsthand following its destruction of an expensive American reconnaissance drone in 2019. While President Donald Trump nearly authorized a direct retaliatory attack against Iran, he ultimately changed his mind and noted such a strike is “not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone” and “we didn’t have a man or woman in the drone. It would have made a big, big difference.” Therefore, the Iranian leadership could reasonably foresee that the inevitable destruction of Iran’s military aircraft by Israel would be relatively less likely to enrage the Iranian public and put political pressure on the government to strongly retaliate against Israel for the loss of Iranian life.

For all of these reasons and others, research shows that drones are relatively low on the escalation ladder compared to ground attacks or strikes from inhabited aircraft. The use of drones, along with the Iranian government’s declaration following the strike that “the matter [with Israel] can be deemed concluded,” helps serve Iran’s broader strategic goal of limiting escalation, even if the attack was ineffective from a military perspective.

Iran’s attack might also further another strategic political goal––maintaining a strong reputation for resolve. Many leaders strive to foster a reputation for strength for themselves and their countries by using military force, believing (even if mistakenly) that doing so can help deter foreign aggression. Following the Israeli military strike in Syria that killed two high-level Iranian military commanders, Iranian leadership may have believed doing nothing would harm Iran’s image and be perceived as backing down. While impotent militarily, Iran’s attack may have helped achieve this goal by demonstrating its willingness to “do something.” As Iran expert Nicole Grajewski said, Iran’s attack appears to have been “more concerned about symbolism than military destruction.”

The Lessons of Iran’s Attack for Modern Warfare

In sum, despite the meager military impact of Iran’s strike, it may yet serve Iran’s broader political goals. But much depends on whether Israel is willing to avoid taking additional actions that might cause the conflict to escalate into a wider regional war. The impact on Iran’s reputation is also contingent on how the international community perceives Iran’s initial attack and response––or lack thereof––to Israel’s counterattack. While the unprecedented nature of the original Iranian attack on Israeli territory could bolster the country’s reputation for resolve, Iran’s transparent attempts at escalation management could undermine it. The fecklessness of Iran’s attack could also end up harming its reputation for military effectiveness and thus undercut the credibility of its future threats.

In any case, the most interesting aspect of the attack may be what it portends for the future of warfare. The alleged offensive advantage current-generation drones provide over the defense is overrated, but a new era where drones can operate autonomously in coordinated large-scale swarms is coming. To keep pace, defenders will need to continue to innovate cost-effective counter-drone technologies, including the possibility of using drones directly to destroy other drones. Sporadic drone-on-drone “dogfights” have already occurred in the Russia-Ukraine War and may offer a preview of the next generation of remote warfare.

Despite the military deficiencies of contemporary drones, their political utility will continue to be a defining element of modern warfare and statecraft well into the future. As Jacquelyn Schneider said, “These systems exist not because they are invincible, but instead because they decrease political risk for decision makers.” By reducing the financial and human costs of conflict, increasing public support for the use of force, and lessening the chances of escalation, drones are having a transformational effect on international politics.

Joshua A. Schwartz is an assistant professor of international relations and emerging technology at the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology. He has previously published articles on drones in Foreign Affairs, the Washington Post, and peer-reviewed journals like International Studies Quarterly. You learn more about his work on X or on his website.

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

Image credit: Hossein Shahbodaghi

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Joshua A. Schwartz · April 30, 2024

13. Haiti: A Best-Case Scenario

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Conclusion

The United States should play a more active role in bringing peace to Haiti — failing to do so could mean the spread of violence and opens the door for Russian involvement in the conflict. By providing planning support, training deploying troops, and mobilizing the Coast Guard to secure the country’s main port, the United States and its allies can begin to address Haiti’s humanitarian crisis. Doing so will enable the United States to help put a foundation in place, ultimately, to build a lasting peace. Stabilizing Haiti will be a lengthy and resource-intensive process, but for now the best thing the United States can do is help curb the dire humanitarian situation and help intervening troops to effectively degrade the gangs.

Haiti: A Best-Case Scenario - War on the Rocks

HALEIGH BARTOS, JOHN CHIN, AND TYLER ASHNER

warontherocks.com · by Haleigh Bartos · April 30, 2024

In the first two months of 2024, a Haitian was murdered, injured, or kidnapped in gang-related violence every 40 minutes. In March, gangs staged an armed uprising to oust acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry, whose unelected government has tried to rule Haiti since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021. Moïse’s murder created a power vacuum, allowing gangs to grow and seize control of most of Port-au-Prince. The top U.N. expert on human rights in Haiti recently called the situation there “apocalyptic,” akin to “Somalia in the worst of times.”

Without international support, Haiti risks state failure. Following Henry’s resignation and swearing in of a new transitional presidential council on April 25, help may soon be on its way in the form of a multinational security support mission. Kenya has offered to lead the mission with 1,000 police officers, and at least six more countries(the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin, Chad, and Jamaica) are offering a total of up to 3,000 personnel, with Benin committing the largest contingent of 2,000 troops. However, though the United States and Canada have pledged $300 million and $80.5 million, respectively, to finance it, this mission will likely be unable to bring peace to the island nation. These force numbers are insufficient, and the soldiers who will be sent are not prepared to face the urban combat challenges they will encounter.

The United States should take a more active role in bringing an end to the conflict in Haiti to avoid spillover effects throughout the region. Even without mobilizing more forces, in the short term, the United States can provide three types of assistance for the mission to achieve its political and humanitarian goals: more strategic planning and logistics support, accelerated and broader types of training, and use of the U.S. Coast Guard for port security. In the medium term, more economic aid and investment in political reform are needed for any hope of putting Haiti on a path toward democracy and development.

The Biden administration has no plans to send U.S. troops to Haiti. But given its geographic proximity, the United States deprioritizes Haiti at its peril. Continuing instability in Haiti gives Russia an opportunity to increase its influence, ensures that Haitian migrants will continue fleeing to the United States, and undercuts efforts to promote “democratic competition” in the hemisphere.

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Gang Violence Makes Democracy in Haiti Impossible

Haiti has long suffered from democratic and security deficits. Autocratic regimes from the personalist dictatorship of François and Jean-Claude Duvalier (1957–86) to military juntas have ruled Haiti for most of the post–World War II period, with only four fleeting periods of democracy. Hegemonic shocks — the end of World War II and the Cold War — facilitated democratic openings in 1946 and 1990, only to be rolled back by military coups in May 1950 and September 1991, the latter ousting the populist Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Only a U.S.-ledmilitary intervention (aptly codenamed Operation Uphold Democracy) restored Aristide to power in 1994. Haiti’s third period of democracy ended in a power grab by Aristide protégé René Préval in 1999. Haiti’s last dalliance with democracy only emerged after the United Nations sent a mission to restore peace after an armed insurgency led by ex-police chief Guy Phillippe, who ousted Aristide (for a second time) in 2004.

Natural disasters have also obstructed Haiti’s path to democratic stability. Preval’s second presidency ended with the 2010 earthquake, which killed over 200,000 Haitians, damaged Haiti’s electoral institutions, and delayed the 2010 election. Additional international peacekeepers supported reconstruction and facilitated presidential elections in 2011 and 2016 (after 2015 elections were annulled), the latter won by Jovenel Moïse. A smaller U.N. mission took over from 2017 until October 2019, marking the end of 15 years of U.N. peacekeeping operations in the country.

The political and security situation soon deteriorated. Without a new election law, Moïse refused to hold parliamentary elections scheduled for October 2019 and began to rule by decree after parliament’s term expired in early 2020. Haiti’s democratic backsliding accelerated in 2021, engendering mass protests and political violence. That February, a constitutional crisis erupted. Opposition demanded that Moïse step down, claiming that his five-year term was over. Moïse refused, claiming that because an interim government occupied the first year of his term (in 2016), his term did not end until February 2022. Moïse thwarted an alleged coup plot but was assassinated that July.

Ariel Henry, named prime minister right before Moïse’s murder, emerged as the leader but lacked democratic credentials. In September 2021, Henry postponed elections for the first time and dismissed the electoral council, even though the constitution requires new elections within 120 days of a presidential vacancy (i.e., by November 2021). Haiti has not held elections since 2016 and remains without a president. Since January 2023, when the terms ended for Haiti’s last remaining senators, Haiti has had no elected officials.

As Haiti’s democracy declined, so did law and order. In 2022, the powerful G9 gang alliance (established in 2020) briefly shut down Haiti’s main oil terminal. That summer, courthouses in Port-au-Prince and Croix-des-Bouqet were attacked by gangs; they never reopened. In October 2022, Henry requested international intervention to help Haitian police counter the rising gang violence. The situation in Haiti is now one of the ten worst armed conflicts in the world.

Only Haiti, Gaza, and Sudan saw worsening and “extreme” levels of conflict in the second half of 2023. In the first two months of 2024, gang violence increased 40 percent. According to the U.N., nearly 5,000 Haitians died in gang violence in 2023, and over ten percent of Haiti’s police force abandoned their posts. Thousands of homes and businesses have been looted or destroyed since January 2023. By January 2024, 314,000 Haitians were internally displaced, and the threat of famine is growing, with 1.4 million Haitians facing emergency levels of hunger. Violence has forced schools to close (blocking education for 300,000 students), hospitals to be evacuated, and basic infrastructure to shut down, leading to shortages in necessities such as clean water and fuel for generators. As a result of the diminished clean water supply, cholera has swept through the country after no reported cases between 2019 and 2022.

The U.N. Security Council endorsed a multinational security support mission last October. U.S. logistics challenges and legal challenges in Kenya initially delayed the deployment. According to the U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, the United States needed time to set up a trust fund and a camp in Haiti for the mission and to vet and train Kenyan forces. Meanwhile, in January, Kenya’s high court ruled that the mission in Haiti was unconstitutionalwithout proper authorizations. In a bid to satisfy that requirement, the United States brokered weeks of Kenyan-Haitian negotiations. Ariel Henry departed for Kenya on Feb. 29 to sign reciprocal agreements with Kenyan President William Ruto.

In Henry’s absence, gangs and rogue forces such as the Brigade for the Security of Protected Areas allied to force Henry to resign in what former rebel leader Guy Philippe called a revolution. In early March, gangs attacked the airport, blocking Henry’s return from Kenya; they also released thousands of inmates from prison. Feared gang leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier threatened a “civil war that will lead to genocide” if Henry did not resign. On March 11, Henry agreed. This threw Kenya’s deployment in limbo, awaiting installation of an interim government.

After weeks of Caribbean Community–brokered talks involving Haitian political parties, the private sector, and civil society, Haitian leaders finalized a deal to form a nine-member transitional presidential council with a mandate to organize new presidential elections by Feb. 7, 2026. The council was announced on April 12 and sworn in on April 25, which may clear a path for the mission once it selects a new interim prime minister to replace Henry. Though he said he was open to peace talks, Chérizier vowed to resist foreign peacekeepers.

Urban Combat Challenges in Port-au-Prince

No multinational security force can succeed without regaining control of Port-au-Prince, an urban theater with a complex physical terrain, a population of some three million, and a population density exceeding that of America’s densest major city, New York City. Rooting out and disrupting gang networks that control four-fifths of the capital will require a manpower-intensive and time-consuming joint urban operation. Yet Haiti’s national police force is overstretched, with fewer than 10,000 officers on duty to patrol the country of over 11 million, a fraction of the 25,000 the U.N. estimates are needed.

Urban theaters — involving complex physical terrain, a large and dense population, and manmade infrastructure — are among the most difficult operating environments. This is especially true of Haiti’s capital, where gangs now control some 80 percent of the territory. Prior stabilization missions in Haiti faced only modest gang threats, but today, the largest of Haiti’s 200-odd gangs are “well-structured, well-armed, and operationally competent.” The number of gangs actively contributing to violence doubled between 2021 and 2023, with nearly 100 gangs active in Port-au-Prince in 2022. There are no reliable estimates of the total number of active gang members in Haiti, but the largest gangs such as 400 Mawozo reportedly have well over 1,000 members; some even have had waiting lists to join.

Haitian gangs, as embedded combatants, will have a tactical advantage over Kenyan-led forces. Buildings and structures that inhibit intelligence and surveillance may enable gangs to hide from, evade, or attack security forces. Given that many of the mission’s forces will not be fluent in French or Creole, it may also be very difficult for Kenyan-led forces to understand Haiti’s social and cultural dynamics, let alone penetrate human networks. Understanding local populations allows opportunities to shape the landscape for mission success — and reduces civilian and military casualties. In Haiti, gangs have had years to dig in and will pose significant threats to any interventional force. Regaining control of the capital will require an enormous joint urban operation — minimizing civilian casualties in practice means limiting military force — something that takes highly skilled, trained, and experienced military professionals to implement. But it is also dependent on having the right number of soldiers.

Successful stabilization operations often deploy a minimum of 2.8 soldiers per 1,000 residents (though the best rule of thumb is debated, as force ratio requirements vary with many factors). A RAND review of U.N.-led nation-building operations from 1945 through the early 2000s found that the smallest successful operations still involved 4,500 to 5,000 troops. In 1994, the U.S.-led Multinational Force that restored Aristide to power in Haiti deployed 21,000 troops. There was minimal resistance to or violence during the U.S.-led intervention during the 1994–96 period. A peak force of 12,000 U.N. peacekeepers post-2004 struggled to maintain order for 13 years.

Consider a more recent example. A 10-to-1 civilian-to-operator ratio over several months was necessary to dislodge an entrenched armed opposition in one of the largest urban combat operations in modern history. In the second Battle for Mosul (2016–17), over 100,000 coalition troops deployed to dislodge 3,000 to 12,000 ISIL fightersin a city with a civilian population probably close to one million; about 500 U.S. troops provided logistics support from nearby Qayyarah Airfield West. Additional international coalition elements also provided logistics, air support, intelligence, and guidance.

In Haiti, urban combat resistance will be fiercest in two of Haiti’s eleven departments: the West department (which contains Port-au-Prince) and the Artibonite department. These departments accounted for 84 percent and 9 percent, respectively, of all victims of killings and injuries in 2023. In the Port-au-Prince metro area, gangs are embedded in a population of around three million people within 61.2 square miles. Gangs may control territories with more than 3.5 million people. Haiti would need a counterinsurgent force of, at a bare minimum, 10,000 in the capital alone.

While a 4,000-strong security support force is not sufficient to completely dislodge gangs currently in control of Port-au-Prince, it might be a large enough contingent with support from the remnants of the Haitian military and the domestic police to create a safe zone for the government and a stabilization force to operate and dislodge armed gangs from the major port (and airport) obstructing critical aid from reaching the people that need it.

How Else Can the United States Help?

Without major increases in troop commitments, there are three ways the United States can support a future security support mission. The U.S. government can provide more strategic planning and logistics support, accelerate the timeline and broaden the types of training offered to deploying personnel, and mobilize the U.S. Coast Guard to support port security enabling humanitarian efforts.

Provide Planning Support

U.S. military planners are highly experienced in urban operations and strategic planning with the resources to advise a multinational force. This support would help outline plans with feasible mission objectives and end goals (given limited forces). Regional experts and joint strategic planners in the Joint Chiefs of Staff directorate and at U.S. Southern Command responsible for strategic plans and policy can assemble and lead a task force with support from the intelligence and operations directorates to work closely with Kenyan leadership charged with establishing priorities and plan the initial phases of the operation.

Ultimately, Haiti will need to establish a sustainable community violence reduction and disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration process for gang members. This three-phase process will be lengthy and complicated. According to one practitioner, there is “no ‘cookie cutter’ approach to community violence reduction in Haiti because gang members’ motivations and relationship with communities differs across neighborhoods.” U.S. advisors can help ensure that initial phases of the intervention are in line with long-term objectives related to this process.

Accelerate and Expand Training to Deploying Personnel

The U.S. government should train the Kenyan-led forces deploying, with an emphasis on human rights and security force protection. Forces preparing for deployment could receive such training from U.S. Southern Command–affiliated training facilities, as well as through federal law enforcement training centers. Human rights training is a priority for U.S. Southern Command. Ensuring that deploying personnel are trained to respect human rights is critical to long-term stability and acceptance of the force in Haiti, as well as to reducing civilian casualties.

The United States previously trained the Kenyan police following the 2013 al-Shabaab attack on the Westgate mall, focusing on the capability to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks. Benin’s forces have little combat experience from their participation in the Multinational Joint Task Force in Lake Chad and would benefit from increased force protection training.

Training might also focus on developing tactical skills with small unmanned aerial vehicles for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Some gangs have already “acquired drones to identify kidnap victims and surveil their territory.” Tactical drone skills would help to regain control of roads and major ground lines of communication.

Mobilize the Coast Guard

While the U.S. Navy is engaged in the Red and South China seas and the Pentagon is focused on the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, the U.S. Coast Guard, a highly capable and often overlooked service, can contribute to this mission. The Coast Guard, a long-time partner in U.S.-Haitian government cooperation, maintains a permanent staff presence at the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince with a liaison officer directly representing Coast Guard District 7 and is well positioned to advise on building a humanitarian corridor.

The Coast Guard provided support to Haiti immediately following the magnitude 7.0 earthquake in 2010. A special command and control task force deployed to Port-au-Prince Bay to direct multiple Coast Guard cutters and aircraft to rapidly deliver humanitarian supplies and medical aid. The Coast Guard also oversaw waterway and port security in Port-au-Prince Bay necessitated by post-earthquake mass migration. When Haiti was again rocked by a magnitude 7.2 earthquake in August 2021, the Coast Guard quickly supplied similar aid.

Today, the Coast Guard can help secure the port of Port-au-Prince, which is necessary for a successful humanitarian intervention in Haiti. Last month, a U.N. aid container was looted at Haiti’s port. The 5 Second gang (of the G-Pep gang alliance) also has some maritime capabilities and has engaged in piracy. The Coast Guard has multiple units — including deployable specialized forces — that are trained in port security operations. These teams are equipped to disrupt gang piracy and have strong defensive capabilities. Whether through direct interdiction or indirect support, the Coast Guard is a U.S. agency well equipped to support the security mission in Haiti.

Conclusion

The United States should play a more active role in bringing peace to Haiti — failing to do so could mean the spread of violence and opens the door for Russian involvement in the conflict. By providing planning support, training deploying troops, and mobilizing the Coast Guard to secure the country’s main port, the United States and its allies can begin to address Haiti’s humanitarian crisis. Doing so will enable the United States to help put a foundation in place, ultimately, to build a lasting peace. Stabilizing Haiti will be a lengthy and resource-intensive process, but for now the best thing the United States can do is help curb the dire humanitarian situation and help intervening troops to effectively degrade the gangs.

Become a Member

Haleigh Bartos is an associate professor of the practice in the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology at Carnegie Mellon University. She has fifteen years of experience working to support policy and analyzing national security issues. She teaches courses on policy writing and national security at Carnegie Mellon University, including Writing for Political Science and Policy, Terrorism in Sub-Saharan Africa, and In the News: Analysis of Current National Security Priorities.

John Chin is an assistant teaching professor of political science in the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology. He is the lead author of the Historical Dictionary of Modern Coups D’état (2022), which was named one of the “Best Historical Materials” published in 2022–23 by the American Library Association.

Tyler Ashner is a graduate of the United States Coast Guard Academy and served as an officer in the Coast Guard, including participation in Operation Unified Response as a crew member of the USCGC DALLAS. He is currently a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business.

These views are those of the authors only and do not represent the position of the United States Government, Department of Defense, or the United States Coast Guard.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Haleigh Bartos · April 30, 2024

14. Ukraine Situation Report: Frontline Defenses Deteriorating Under Russian Pressure

Ukraine Situation Report: Frontline Defenses Deteriorating Under Russian Pressure

Ukraine is falling back in areas as Russia’s onslaught intensified, with tired troops in need of more ammo, which they hope arrives soon.

BY

HOWARD ALTMAN, THOMAS NEWDICK

|

PUBLISHED APR 29, 2024 7:25 PM EDT

twz.com · by Howard Altman, Thomas Newdick · April 29, 2024

As his military waits for the delivery of desperately needed military aid, the conditions on the front lines continue to “worsen,” Ukraine’s top military commander said in a blunt assessment.

Severe ammunition shortages are giving Russians the upper hand, Col-Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, said Sunday on social media. That’s a deficit the U.S. tried to address last week with a $1 billion aid package that included artillery rounds, munitions for U.S. donated M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS and air defense systems. It's part of a $61 billion aid package for Ukraine signed into law last week by President Joe Biden.

“The enemy is trying to take advantage of its advantage in air, missiles and the amount of artillery ammunition,” Syrskyi said.

Russian troops “have captured or entered around a half-dozen villages on Ukraine’s eastern front over the past week,” The New York Times reported.

“The most difficult situation is in the Pokrovsky and Kurakhiv directions,” of western Donetsk Oblast,” Syrskyi said. That’s “where fierce battles continue.”

Those towns are about 25 miles northwest and southwest, respectively, from the fortress city of Avdiivka, which Russia captured back in February.

After capturing Avdiivka, Russian troops are advancing west toward Prokovsk in Donetsk Oblast. (Google Earth image)

“The enemy deployed up to four brigades in these directions, is trying to develop an offensive west of Avdiivka and Maryinka, making its way to Pokrovsk and Kurakhovo. Units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine, preserving the lives and health of our defenders, moved to new frontiers west of Berdychi.”

The Institute for the Study of War's assessment dovetailed with Syrskyi's.

The ongoing “Russian stabilization of their salient northwest of Avdiivka presents the Russian command with a choice of continuing to push west towards its reported operational objective in Pokrovsk or trying to drive northwards to conduct possible complementary offensive operations with the Russian effort around Chasiv Yar,” the Institute for the Study of War reported.

Ukraine is facing increasing Russian pressure across the frontlines.

“Trying to seize the strategic initiative and break through the front line, the enemy concentrated the main efforts in several directions, creating a significant advantage in forces and means,” Syrskyi said.

Russia “actively attacks along the entire front line, in some directions - has tactical successes,” Syrskyi posited. Making matters worse, there is “a dynamic change in the situation, individual positions change ‘from hand to hand’ several times during the day, which gives rise to an ambiguous understanding of the situation.”

A Ukrainian soldier fires an artillery in the direction of Siversk, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine on April 01, 2024. (Photo by Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Russia is also eyeing a potential attack on Kharkiv, which Ukraine recaptured in September 2022.

"We are monitoring the increase in the number and regrouping of the enemy's troops in the Kharkiv direction," the general stated. "In the most threatening directions, our troops have been reinforced by artillery and tank units."

Russia is also bombarding that city from the air, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pointed out Monday.

The situation is tense as well, in Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts, including where Ukraine launched its furtive offense last summer creating the Verbove-Robotyne salient. The Russians, he added, “still hope to knock out our troops from Krynyki, the small settlement across the Dnipro River in Russian-occupied Kherson Oblast where Ukraine has established a small presence.

The U.S. followed up that $1 billion aid package last week with another one valued at $6 billion, the largest so far. That included additional munitions for Patriot air defense systems and National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), equipment to integrate Western air defense launchers, missiles, and radars with Ukraine’s air defense systems (the so-called FrankenSAM); loitering munitions and more artillery ammunition among many other items. However, unlike the previous package those will be provided through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which means they have to be purchased over the next few years.

More National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) munitions are on the way to Ukraine. Raytheon/Kongsberg Defense Raytheon/Kongsberg Defense

Given the increasing Russian pressure, how much that equipment will help Ukraine by the time it arrives remains to be seen.

Before diving into more developments from the conflict in Ukraine, The War Zone readers can review our previous coverage here.

The Latest

Russia published video of a captured M1A1 Abrams main battle tank, the latest in a growing series of donated armor taken by Moscow. Of the 31 Abrams donated by the U.S., Ukraine has lost at least four, according to the Oryx open source tracking group. That figure could be higher because Oryx only tabulates equipment for which it has visual confirmation. It is also unclear whether this tank was one of the two previously damaged and abandoned Abrams.

Russia also recently captured an M1150 Assault Breacher Vehicle, an Abrams variant.

The Russians say they have captured this U.S. donated M1150 armor breaching vehicle (ABV). Via Twitter

Russia put a number of its captured armor vehicles on display in Moscow today.

Russia, however, tried to make at least one of the captured armor vehicles look worse than it was, reportedly breaking the cannon and stabilizer drive of a donated Leopard 2A6 main battle tank.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, it is not all doom and gloom for Ukraine.

"The Defense Forces of Ukraine managed to improve their tactical position in the area of ​​Synkivka (Kupyansk direction) and Serebryansk Forestry (Lymansk direction)," Syrskyi stated.

"In the direction of Kherson, our units managed to advance in the area of ​​Veletenskyi and establish control over the island of Nestryga," he added.

This is a tactical victory and will make it more complicated for Russian forces to advance towards Ukrainian positions, Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesperson for the Southern Defense Forces, told Hromadske Radio on April 29.

Beyond capturing that island in Kherson Oblast, Ukraine has reportedly continued striking targets in Crimea with Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) short-range ballistic missiles.

"Ukraine launched a number of attacks on Russian targets, including the air defense system at Cape Tarkhankut," Radio Svaboda reported on its Telegram channel. Russian milbloggers "believe that a strike on the Crimean Bridge will soon follow - and the other side does not argue with them."

Cape Tarkhankut, on the western-most portion of Crimea, was attacked again according to Ukrainian and Russian sources. (Google Earth image).

As we have previously reported the bridge, Vladimir Putin's prized $4 billion span linking Russia with the Crimean peninsula it seized in 2014, has been struck twice already. The first time was in October 2022 and then again July 2023, but never by long-range missiles.

The Kremlin-connected Rybar Telegram channel confirmed the attacks, though the extent of the damage is unclear.

"The Ukrainian Armed Forces also launched ATACMS missiles with a cluster warhead on the Crimean Peninsula," Rybar reported. "The air defense position area located on Cape Tarkhankut also came under fire."

In our previous coverage, we talked about why the frequently attacked cape is an ideal location for Russian air defenses:

“Cape Tarkhankut is the westernmost part of the Crimean peninsula, jutting out into the Black Sea. Olenivka is about 90 miles south of the front lines in Kherson Oblast and about 115 miles southeast of Odesa. It is clearly a highly logical and strategic location for a long-range air defense battery. Taking out this battery would potentially open a hole in Russia's air defense overlay of the peninsula and the northwestern Black Sea. This could go a long way to ensuring the survivability of standoff strike weapons, like Storm Shadow and SCALP-EG, and other attacks, such as those by long-range kamikaze drones.”

One Russian expert recently confirmed those concerns.

“If we have holes in our radar lines into which 50 drones can fly over and over again and reach the target, then this is a very alarming sign," Russian military expert Vladislav Shurygin said, according to Radio Svaboda. "In fact, this is a rehearsal for a big attack on Crimea. And the rehearsal is successful!”

Telegram channels also "reported a powerful explosion in Dzhankoi and the surrounding district in occupied Crimea on the night of 27-28 April," according to Ukrainian Pravda.

Dzhankoi Air Base, home to multiple helicopters, tactical jets, and high-end ground-based air defense systems, came under Ukrainian attack earlier this month. You can read our previous reporting on the attack and the damage it inflicted here.

Last week, we wrote about how Ukraine has already received long-range ATACMS variants able to hit targets up to 186 miles (300 kilometers). Previous versions of the weapon sent to Ukraine were earlier types capable of significantly less range, of around 103 miles.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last week indicated that there will likely be no restrictions on where Ukraine can use these weapons.

"So it's up to them on how and when to use it, and our hopes are that they'll create some pretty good effects with that and other things," he told reporters when asked if the U.S. would still be concerned if Ukraine fired ATACMS inside Russia.

A top U.K official estimates that nearly half a million Russian troops have been killed or wounded since the all-out invasion was launched in February 2022.

“We estimate that approximately 450,000 Russian military personnel have been killed or wounded, and tens of thousands more have already deserted since the start of the conflict," said Leo Docherty, Minister of State, Minister for the Armed Forces, according to the U.K. Defence Journal. "The number of personnel killed serving in Russian private military companies (PMCs) is not clear."

Docherty was responding to a question about Russian losses from John Healey MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Defense.

Italy has apparently joined the United Kingdom and France in delivering Storm Shadow series air-launched cruise missiles to Ukraine. The news was broken by the U.K. Secretary of State for Defense Grant Shapps, who was speaking during a visit to the MBDA production facility for the weapons in the United Kingdom.

“It’s the U.K., France, and Italy positioning those weapons for use, particularly in Crimea. These weapons are making a very significant difference,” Shapps said, according to a report in the Times of London.

The United Kingdom was the first nation to supply the Storm Shadow to Ukraine, which has integrated it with its Soviet-era Su-24 Fencer strike aircraft, to significant effect. Subsequently, France transferred examples of its SCALP EG, a weapon that’s almost identical to the Storm Shadow and is also launched by Ukrainian Su-24s.

Italy had not previously been identified as a source of the weapons. The Italian Air Force uses the Storm Shadow on its Tornado strike aircraft, but these are in the process of withdrawal in favor of the F-35.

In contrast to France and the United Kingdom, Italy has generally taken a low-key approach when it comes to announcing any arms transfers to Ukraine. However, as of last month, official figures put the total value of Italy’s military transfers to Ukraine at 417 million Euros — equivalent to around $447 million.

A Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian port city of Odesa resulted in at least three killed and 20 injured, Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov said on his Telegram channel Monday.

The attack struck the palace of students of the Odessa Law Academy, which is also known as “Harry Potter’s Castle,” according to the Kremlin-linked Rybar Telegram channel.

The city has been a frequent target of Russian attacks, including one last month while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis were visiting. A Russian Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile reported landed 200 meters from where the two presidents met, killing five.

There are reports that the attack was carried out by an Iskander with cluster munitions.

Russia is attempting to add a new twist to its deadly arsenal of First Person View (FPV) drones. In the video below, you can see Russian troops testing out an FPV drone with a TM-62 anti-tank mine.

Satellite imagery shows damage to a military airfield in Kushchevskaya, Russia, about 125 miles from the front lines. It was attacked by Ukrainian drones, along with two oil refineries in Ilyinsky and Slavyansky of Russia’s Krasnodar Krai Oblast overnight on 27 April, the Ukrainian Ukrainska Pravda news outlet reported, citing sources from the SBU. The Kushchyovskaya military airfield is home to Russia’s 195th Training Air Base, formerly the 797th Training Aviation Regiment. It hosts a variety of aircraft, including Su-27, MiG-29, and L-39. The Russians train both their own pilots and foreign pilots there. For example, Iranian pilots were trained at this airfield on Yak-130 aircraft, Euromaidan Press reported.

Russian pilots were also trained to use UPMK winged glide bomb kits with FAB-1500 and larger bombs, aviation expert Andriy Romanenko told Euromaidan Press. "This airfield served as a combat training point for pilots to launch strikes with glide bombs, which explains the warehouse with guided bombs there," according to the publication. Given the presence of those munitions, it is also likely that the base is used as a home for aircraft carrying out combat missions.

“The strike on this depot shows that many of the universal planning and correction modules that the Russians use to drop guided aerial bombs on Ukrainian ground forces have been destroyed. The [Ukrainian] soldiers on the front line will feel better for some time after the destruction of this ammunition depot, as they will be hit less often,” Romanenko said.

The imagery, from Planet Labs, shows the view on March 19 and again on April 28, indicating the airfield was damaged in several locations, and a Flanker-variant aircraft may have been hit. Video that later emerged from the airfield also showed damage to Russian glide bomb kits. These weapons have become a big problem for Ukrainian forces prompting notable shifts in that country's air defense tactics.

The Russian Defense Ministry released new video a Russian Aerospace Forces Su-34 Fullback aircraft releasing FAB-500 M-62 bombs equipped with UMPK, or Unifitsirovannyi Modul Planirovaniya i Korrektsii, meaning unified gliding and correction module. These standoff weapons allow Russian aircraft to launch indirect attacks on targets that would otherwise expose them to unacceptable risk from Ukraine’s ever-evolving anti-aircraft defenses. You can see an image from that video below.

Planet Labs satellite imagery also emerged showing the results of the April 24 Ukrainian drone strike on the Rosneft oil depot in Razdorovo, Smolensk Oblast, about 180 miles from the Ukrainian border.

Comparisons of images taken before and after the attack show about a half-dozen oil storage tanks heavily damaged. According to the Kyiv Post, that attack and another on a fuel storage facility in Yartsevo, Smolensk Oblast, resulted in "the destruction of 26,000 cubic meters of Russian fuel." The War Zone could not independently verify that claim.

With so many strikes on its oil infrastructure, Russia is turning to so-called cope cages on its oil storage tanks, similar to those used by both sides to protect vehicles and by the Russians to protect one of its submarines.

An image emerged on social media of a Russian Sukhoi Su-24M front-line bomber equipped with two RBK-500 SPBE-D 500-kilogram class cluster bombs. As we reported previously, "the SPBE-D contains 15 'smart' anti-tank submunitions that are capable of searching for and zeroing in on their targets using built-in sensors. The weapon is similar in many respects to the U.S. Air Force's Sensor Fuzed Weapon (SFW). Russian forces have also observed employing other wing kit-equipped versions of the RBK-500 in Ukraine in recent months."

Given numerous Russian cruise missile attacks on its territory, Ukraine's Air Force has used air-to-air missiles (AAMs) to shoot down those threats. It isn't clear if this is a SAM or an AAM running down a Russian cruise missile, but it's an extremely rare capture nonetheless.

A Ukrainian Air Force spokesman claims Russia used one of its Su-57 Felon new-generation fighters in a missile attack on Kryvyi Rih, according to Ukrainian Pravda. That's Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's home town.

"The missile the Russians launched was a Kh-59 or Kh-69," cruise missile, Illia Yevlash, Head of Public Relations of Ukraine’s Air Force, said on national television, adding that "these missiles are difficult to tell apart in the air due to their similar tactical and technical qualities. Only when they are in the hands of experts can they be accurately classified and evaluated."

You can read more about the Kh-69, which first appeared on the battlefield in February, in our deep dive here.

The Russians are taking great caution in how they use the Felon, Yevlash said.

"The Russians have already employed the Su-57 aircraft, but they are attempting to keep it at a safe distance since they are aware that it could be targeted by our air defence. This is a really pricey ‘rattle’ that they are protecting. It’s a unique and expensive toy for them."

Reports about the combat deployment of Russia’s most advanced fighter jet began to emerge around January 2023.

A recent leak of documents hacked from the email box of a senior manager of Russia's Alabuga Special Economic Zone allegedly reveal that Kaspersky Lab has been helping Russia develop its spy drones. According to InformNapalm, "managers of the Kaspersky Lab neural network development team created the on-board AI system for the Russian Albatross drones."

InformNapalm, which describes itself as "volunteer intelligence community," reported that it obtained the document from "hackers of the Cyber Resistance team."

Kaspersky Lab is a Russian company specializing in the development of software and antivirus applications. Earlier this month, CNN reported that "the Biden administration is preparing to take the unusual step of issuing an order that would prevent US companies and citizens from using software made by" Kaspersky Lab "because of national security concerns."

"US government agencies are already banned from using Kaspersky Lab software but action to prevent private companies from using the software would be unprecedented," the outlet reported.

Iran has released video of an cruciform-wing drone that bears a resemblance the Russian Lancet loitering munition — a type of ‘kamikaze’ drone with an integral warhead that can loiter in a target area, before attacking its chosen target by flying into it and detonating.

As we have noted in the past, there has been increasing military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran, which has provided drones, the underpinning technology for the Shahed-136 family of those systems, and other capabilities. The Russian government has reportedly paid for those drones, at least in part, in gold. The regime in Tehran has also been working to acquire advanced Russian weapon systems, including Su-35 Flanker-E fighters, as part of exchanges in kind. Russia providing technologies for its own weapons to Iran in exchange for similar cooperation is very possible, although it isn't clear if this is the case with the increasingly more capable Lancet.

A video camera attached to the nose of a Ukrainian Mi-24 Hind attack helicopter shows it speeding just feet over a highway.

And finally, Ukraine has become a testbed for counter-drone technology. Even cats are getting into the action, as you can see in this video below.

That's it for now.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

twz.com · by Howard Altman, Thomas Newdick · April 29, 2024

15. Xi Is on a Mission to Drive a Wedge Between US and Europe

Unrestricted Warfare, Political Warfare. Three Warfares.

Xi Is on a Mission to Drive a Wedge Between US and Europe

• Chinese leader to visit France, Serbia, Hungary seeking allies
• EU has grown tougher on China and closer to the US recently
• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-29/china-president-xi-to-visit-france-serbia-hungary-in-eu-charm-offensive?srnd=politics-vp&sref=hhjZtX76

By Bloomberg News

April 29, 2024 at 2:31 PM EDT

Updated on April 30, 2024 at 2:20 AM EDT

Chinese President Xi Jinping is heading to the European Union for the first time in five years with a clear message: Beijing offers much more of an economic opportunity for the bloc than the US wants to admit.

The Chinese leader will begin his five-day trip to France, Serbia and Hungary on May 5, according to the Foreign Ministry in Beijing. Those nations are seeking investment from China, despite a litany of EU probes into Beijing’s industrial policy and the warnings from officials in Washington about the risks.

President Emmanuel Macron aims to deepen his personal connection with Xi during the two-day visit to France, as he appeals to the Chinese leader to urge Vladimir Putin to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to people familiar with the plans who asked not to be identified discussing the approach from Paris. Macron also aims to entice Chinese spending into France’s EV battery sector, they said.

That charm offensive will include hosting Xi for dinner at the Elysee Palace in Paris, where the menu may feature French cognac, according to the people — a liquor subject to a Beijing anti-dumping probe. Macron will then invite his Chinese counterpart to a corner of the Pyrenees mountains where the French president used to visit his grandmother as a child, the people added​.

“France’s Emmanuel Macron offers Xi the opportunity to negotiate with a leading EU power that’s proved willing to carve a more independent path,” said Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore. This trip “is an effort to try to pull at parts of Europe that Xi feels might be more sympathetic to his position.”

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Macron’s diplomatic adviser on Saturday that he hopes Paris can push the EU to pursue a pragmatic policy toward Beijing. Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will also hold a trilateral meeting with Xi during his visit, her chief spokesman wrote on social media platform X.

Xi’s trip comes as the EU is steadily forging a more unified voice with Washington in opposing China’s capacity for cheap exports and perceived national security risks. After years of serving as a buffer between the world’s superpowers, distrust in Brussels is growing: Germany last week arrested four alleged Chinese spies, the latest in a spate of such cases, while EU diplomats are reportedly mulling more curbs on Chinese companies for their support of Russia’s war machine.

“I think it’s part of an attempt to persuade the Europeans that there are better options, that better relations are possible,” Duncan Freeman, a lecturer on China-Europe relations at the Brussels Management School in Belgium, said ahead of Xi’s trip. “We’re not yet in the last chance saloon, but I think even the Chinese would agree the relationship is far from ideal.”

• Read More on China-EU Ties:Xi to Visit Serbia Near Anniversary of 1999 Embassy Bombing
• Espionage Arrests Expose Dark Side of China-Europe Competition
• China’s Putin Ties Risk Relations With EU, Top Diplomat Says
• Xi Rebuffs Scholz Pressure to Rein In Chinese Manufacturing

Xi’s visit to Europe comes weeks after US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Communist Party leaders in Beijing that Chinese overcapacity was a problem for the world — a message echoed days later by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Exemplifying how both blocs are coalescing around a joined-up China policy, they are pursuing a strategy of “derisking,” or removing Beijing from sensitive sectors.

Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin have united in challenging the US-led world order, which Beijing says is trying to contain its development. The Chinese leader’s stop in Belgrade, which is not an EU member state, will come in the week of the 25th anniversary of the US bombing of China’s embassy in the Serbian capital, an event that brought Russia and China closer over shared anti-American sentiment.

During the Europe trip, Putin will also be inaugurated nto a fifth term that Xi has congratulated him over, spotlighting a pro-Russia policy that’s increased tensions between Beijing and Brussels.

Xi is visiting nations “where selling the dislike for the US-led global security architecture is easier,” said Una Aleksandra Berzina-Cerenkova, director of the China Studies Centre at Riga Stradins University. Scooping up endorsements in friendly nations will help Beijing send the message that “Europe is on China’s side, no matter what Brussels says,” she added.

Europe's Trade Gap With China Has Shrunk Since 2022

But it's still bigger than it was last time Xi visited the bloc

Source: Eurostat

When Xi last visited Western Europe in 2019, the economies of China and the euro area — measured in dollars — were roughly the same size. Today, China’s is almost 15% bigger, with that gap forecast to double before the end of this decade. While the bloc’s trade deficit with China has been narrowing, it still remains bigger than it was back then.

That trade imbalance has triggered alarm in Brussels, which has launched a probe into Beijing’s subsidies for its booming EV brands. Investigations have also targeted medical devices and clean-tech industries such as bids on a Romanian solar park. Such action is creating friction before official probe findings are announced, with one Chinese company abandoning a €610 million ($650 million) Bulgarian railway tender.

Hungary is potentially a major strategic asset for Beijing in slowing that momentum as it has the power to dilute or even block EU policy. In December, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was the sole holdout on an EU aid package for Ukraine, delaying critical supplies for about six weeks.

Orban’s ability to stymie trade restrictions is more limited, as measures only require a qualified majority of nations to be put into force. Still, Hungary was among a group of countries that initially opposed an EU plan to blacklist some Chinese firms for supplying technology used in Russian weapons.

China's Exports Surged During the Pandemic

And Europe's exports didn't keep up, leading to more unbalanced trade

Source: China's General Administration of Customs

Hungary also shows the rewards possible for loyalty to Beijing. Xi and Orban are set to announce during his visit that Chinese automaker Great Wall Motor Ltd. will open a plant in Hungary, Radio Free Europe reported.

China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. has already committed to building a $7.6 billion facility there in partnership with Mercedes-Benz AG, heralded as Hungary’s biggest ever foreign direct investment that will create about 9,000 jobs.

Hungary is considering using Chinese loans, subcontractors and technology to build a new railway, according to Ivana Karaskova, a research fellow at the Prague-based think tank, Association for International Affairs. “This Hungarian high-speed railway would serve as a showcase for China to secure additional infrastructure projects within the European Union.”

Firms from the world’s No. 2 economy are investing abroad at their fastest pace in eight years as they open more factories overseas, a move that could soften trade tensions. Automaker BYD Co. last year announced plans to build a factory in Hungary, while Chery Automobile Co. signed a deal in April to take over an old Nissan Motor Co factory in Spain to produce EVs.

“China needs to give a clearer message to the European public that it is still a reliable partner,” said Cui Hongjian, a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University and a former diplomat. That boils down to one thing, he added: “Providing more favorable policies to European countries and companies.”

— With assistance from Rebecca Choong Wilkins, Ania Nussbaum, Colum Murphy, Siuming Ho, Alberto Nardelli, James Mayger, and Ben Holland

(Updates with comments on Chinese investment in Hungary’s railway infrastructure in 20th paragraph.)

16. Iran Says North Korean Delegation Visiting Tehran for Trade Expo

A long time relationship that too many overlook or are only recognizing for the first time.

Iran Says North Korean Delegation Visiting Tehran for Trade Expo

• Official confirms visitors from Pyongyang attended trade event
• Spokesman said visit also involves bilateral trade talks
• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-29/iran-says-north-korean-delegation-visiting-tehran-for-trade-expo?srnd=middle-east-politics&sref=hhjZtX76

By Golnar Motevalli

April 29, 2024 at 5:51 AM EDT

An official delegation from North Korea is in Tehran to attend a trade show and have trade talks with the government and private sector, a spokesman said.

Nasser Kanaani, spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dismissed as “biased and baseless speculation” reports that the visit had a military dimension and said it involved talks on developing bilateral trade.

Read more: North Korea, Iran Hold Talks as Concern Grows Over Military Ties

​17. China watches as the U.S. fumbles around in central Pacific

An interesting map/graphic at the link: https://sundayguardianlive.com/investigation/china-watches-as-the-u-s-fumbles-around-in-central-pacific

China watches as the U.S. fumbles around in central Pacific - The Sunday Guardian Live

sundayguardianlive.com · by CLEO PASKAL · April 27, 2024

WASHINGTON, DC: The COFAs are what ensures that the U.S. can deploy unmolested across the vast Central Pacific and reach its treaty allies and bases in Japan, South Korea, Philippines and elsewhere. This, in turn, is essential for a free and open Indo-Pacific, with implications reaching all the way to India and beyond.

It wasn’t intended to be embarrassing. It was probably intended—by the people who announced it—to be a sort of celebration. Unpacking what happened next gives a peek into why nothing can be taken for granted in this era of heightened strategic “competition”, how healthy country-to-country relations require constant and real communications, and that the actual problems may not be where you are looking.

BACKGROUND: THE MOST IMPORTANT DEFENCE AGREEMENTS YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF

Three independent countries in the central Pacific—Palau, Republic of Marshall Islands (RMI) and Federated States of Micronesia (FSM)—cover a highly strategic contiguous maritime zone running from west of Hawaii to the Philippines.

The United States, through separate agreements with each of the three—known as the Compacts of Free Association (COFA)—are granted defence and security rights and responsibilities over this zone, that is about the size of the continental United States. The U.S. is also granted strategic denial, meaning it can deny military access to others.

The COFAs are what ensures that the U.S. can deploy unmolested across the vast Central Pacific and reach its treaty allies and bases in Japan, South Korea, Philippines and elsewhere. This, in turn, is essential for a free and open Indo-Pacific, with implications reaching all the way to India and beyond.

Given the strategic importance of the COFAs, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has dedicated vast funds, efforts and intelligence to try to disrupt them. Should Beijing succeed, it would make it substantially more difficult for the U.S. to easily deploy west of Hawaii, and leave the U.S. territories of Guam and Northern Marianas exposed. This area was controlled by Japan in World War II, and China has learned lessons from the last Pacific War.

That was why the Washington strategic community breathed a sigh of relief when key components of the COFAs were recently renewed for twenty years. Sure, implementation might be tricky, they thought, but basically, we are done. On to other things.

As if to make the point, a major U.S. think-tank announced that on May 9th its Australia Chair would be hosting “A Conversation with the Presidents of Palau, the Marshall Islands, and Micronesia on U.S. Engagement in the Pacific” with a keynote by the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State.

And then it was postponed.

WHAT HAPPENED?

The COFAs are complex agreements, made up of many parts and with sometimes substantial variations for each of the three countries. And there are subsequent agreements supporting the main legislation.

In the case of two of the countries, Palau and RMI, there are agreements on services that are yet to be concluded. These include disaster response and postal services—two issues critically important to the people of those countries, and so to their leaders.

The U.S. Presidential Envoy for Compact Negotiations has moved on, with his job seemingly done. Resolution of the remaining pieces has been confused. While there are still major pieces of the COFAs that most involved know need to be resolved—such as funding for U.S. military veteran health care in the COFA states—it is possible those organizing what they thought was a celebratory event didn’t even realize the negotiations weren’t complete.

The leaders of Palau and RMI knew, though, and are likely keen for everything to be resolved before backslapping ensues.

Another less than ideal aspect was that the event was being hosted by the think-tank’s Australia Chair in D.C. This has nothing to do with the excellent work being done there, it is just that, given the importance of the relationships between the U.S. and the COFA states, it shouldn’t appear to be mediated via another country. Apart from everything else, by hosting U.S. bases and troops (including a just announced $409 million Air Force project in Yap) the people of the COFA countries are putting themselves in harm’s way for U.S. security. And they know it.

It is hard to imagine being under the Australia Chair would have been the choice of a President of a COFA state (it is worth noting China has at least half-a-dozen research institutions dedicated solely to the Pacific Islands, including a China-Pacific Islands Countries Climate Action Cooperation Center).

There was no reason the event couldn’t have been held under the think-tank’s America, Defence or even Asia Programs. The citizens of COFA states can live, work and study freely in the U.S.—and the links are, as President Reagan put it at the time it was established—familial. They are also critical for defence, and for Asia. Meanwhile, Australia plays a minimal role in the COFA states, especially compared to other non-directly involved countries such as Japan.

Hopefully, the remaining negotiations will be successfully concluded soon, go to Congress, then be enacted. And perhaps the postponed events can be revived in a new form. But, even then, no one should get comfortable sitting on their laurels.

Apart from what will be a very tricky implementation period, it is worth looking at the dog that didn’t bark. Just as the three COFA states aren’t like any other Pacific Island countries, the three COFA states themselves are very different.

THE DOG THAT DIDN’T BARK

Note that Palau and RMI are still negotiating, but FSM concluded its negotiations. A U.S. strategist might fairly think all is fine with FSM, and the issues are with Palau and RMI.

Perhaps not. Palau and RMI recognize Taiwan and FSM recognizes China. Indeed, Wesley Simina, the President of FSM was in China April 5 to 12, where he met General Secretary Xi and came back loaded with goodies and echoing PRC talking points.

In the FSM, China is also embedding in the aspect politicians care most about—staying in power. In the past few days, Simina was in Fono Island, in his home state of Chuuk. He announced that, thanks to China, they would be repairing a dock and building a gym on the island. Chuuk has governor elections in March 2025 that are likely to be key for selecting the next President in 2027—a position Simina would likely want to retain.

Looking at the details of its COFAs, it is possible Palau and RMI are negotiating harder—and so look like more “trouble”—because they want it to work in the long run.

Meanwhile, some in the FSM might be trying to be in a position to be able to walk away from the COFA at, or even before, the next renewal. For some of them, this might not even be because they are “pro-China” but just because they don’t want to be beholden (in their view) to a country that doesn’t take them seriously.

Simina was given the red-carpet treatment in China and, two weeks later, was going to be lumped in with two other countries at an Australia Chair event at a think-tank in DC with no guarantee of a White House visit. There are also rumours of a Simina visit to India. If that happens, it will be interesting to see how seriously FSM is taken by Delhi.

Hopefully, the delay will give those in D.C. time to rethink what sort events they want to hold with COFA partners. In the end, the postponed event is a useful reminder that these critical relationships, like many others (as India knows well), are never “sorted”. They need time, attention to detail, intelligence, adaptability, and understanding of very different operating realities. Those who learn from that have no need to be embarrassed. Those who don’t shouldn’t be surprised about what happens next.

Cleo Paskal is Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies and columnist with The Sunday Guardian.

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sundayguardianlive.com · by CLEO PASKAL · April 27, 2024

18. Ranger legend Col. Ralph Puckett honored at U.S. Capitol

Not reported in this article is that Senator Ernst offered her excellent and heartfelt remarks for COL Puckett at a ceremony at the Korean War memorial yesterday hosted by the Medal of Honor Society, the Korean War Memorial Foundation, and the Korean Defense Veterans Association. I have never been in the presence of so many Medal of Honor recipients than I saw at the Korean War Memorial ceremony.

Ranger legend Col. Ralph Puckett honored at U.S. Capitol

Sen. Joni Ernst met Puckett when she was an Army Reserve Lieutenant. "You would think he was a librarian. He was so quiet and so humble," she said.

BY PATTY NIEBERG | PUBLISHED APR 29, 2024 6:55 PM EDT

taskandpurpose.com · by Patty Nieberg · April 29, 2024

Sen. Joni Ernst is one of the lead lawmakers crafting legislation that directly impacts American service members and veterans, but she found herself choking up Monday remembering how her own military service had been shaped by the mentorship and friendship with Col. Ralph Puckett.

“You would think he was a librarian. He was so quiet and so humble and he was such a good man,” Ernst told Task & Purpose Monday, as her voice occasionally caught with emotion. For decades, Ernst said, Puckett was a mentor and example to generations around the 75th Ranger Regiment, she said, including herself as a young lieutenant in the Army Reserve.

“Even into his seventies and eighties, he was still going out into the field with the rangers just to make sure their spirits were high and to ensure that they were doing okay,” she said. “Not many people continue to serve like that well beyond their time.”

On Monday, Puckett became just the second Medal of Honor recipient to lie in honor, meaning his remains were accorded a public audience in the rotunda of Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. so that lawmakers and the public could pay personal respects. Ernst was among the Senators who arranged for the honor.

Puckett, 97, is among the most revered figures in the history of the Army Ranger community. He was awarded the Medal of Honor in the Korean War and the Distinguished Service Cross in Vietnam. Both awards came for courageous leadership of units facing annihilation by an overwhelmingly larger enemy force — the 8th Army Ranger Company in Korea, a unit of the 101st Airborne Divisionin Vietnam. Puckett passed away April 8 at his home in Columbus, Georgia.

On Monday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also paid his respects to Puckett’s casket in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C.

“Col. Puckett was emblematic of the 1.7 million Americans who bravely served in the Korean War and an inspiration to those who served after him, defending peace on the Korean peninsula for the last 71 years,” a spokesperson for the Pentagon said in a statement.

Ernst said her relationship with Puckett went back more than 30 years. She first met Puckett and his family when she was living in Columbus, Georgia at then-Fort Benning, now Fort Moore, as a Ranger spouse. There, she saw the retired Colonel interact and mentor various soldiers in the Ranger regiment and students at Ranger school.

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When Ernst deployed to Iraq, she said Puckett always took the time to send her emails to check in and ask how things were doing. Ernst served in the Army Reserves as a logistics officer for over 23 years and retired as a Lt. Col. In 2003, she served as a company commander in Kuwait and led 150 Iowa Army Guardsmen during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Senator Joni Ernst at the April 29 Lying in Honor ceremony for Col. Ralph Puckett, Jr. at the U.S. Capitol.

Ernst recalled a memory during a trip to Fort Moore several years back when she was introducing Puckett to her national security adviser. They had a meeting that lasted several hours and then the group made their way back to the parking lot with Puckett walking a few steps ahead.

“Every soldier in that parking lot, they all just stopped and they watched Ralph walk across the parking lot. I mean, they were just in awe. It was like they were dumb struck. It was like some famous Hollywood actor was walking across the parking lot,” she said. “You could tell the admiration and respect from complete strangers as this elderly man just simply walked to his car. It just struck me then how well loved this man was by his community.”

The defense of Hill 205

Puckett is one of the most revered figures in Army Ranger lore. In Korea, he led the defense of a position dubbed Hill 205 against a force of Chinese soldiers several times larger than his 51-man Ranger unit during the Korean War. The Rangers faced six waves of assault. Puckett led the defense, assigning Rangers to soft spots in the lines, running ammunition between positions and encouraging his soldiers. On the final wave, two mortars landed in Puckett’s foxhole. Knowing the position was lost, he ordered his men to leave him and evacuate. Instead, they dragged him down the hill as they retreated. In May 2021, his DSC for Hill 205 was upgraded to the Medal of Honor after years of lobbying from the Ranger community.

A second award at Duc Pho

Over a decade later, he commanded 101st Airborne Division paratroopers in a similar defensive stand in Vietnam. In August 1967, then-Lt. Col. Puckett was a battalion commander near Duc Pho. The citation for his second Distinguished Service cross reads that facing a large Viet Cong force,“Puckett landed in the battle zone to coordinate defenses and to assess the battlefield situation. Disregarding his own safety, he moved across a heavily mined area to the point of the most ferocious fighting to direct and inspire his men against the hostile force.” To avoid artillery fire, Puckett scattered his leader ranks, and led from a foxhole. As he’d done in Korea, he bounced between positions, bringing ammunition and encouragement.

“When rescue helicopters came in,” the citation reads, “he repeatedly refused extraction for himself and directed that the casualties be evacuated. With bullets striking all around him, he remained in the open to rally his fatigued men through the long night by sharing every phase of the battle with them.”

After retiring in 1971, Puckett remained a Ranger icon.. The top officer in every Ranger School class receives an award named him, which Puckett would present well into his 90s. His name is also used for an annual leadership award for junior officers within the Ranger Regiment. He was also named the first honorary colonel of the 75th Ranger Regiment in 1996 — a ceremonial post in which he regularly spoke to new Rangers and represented the regiment in public.

Lying in honor

Lying in honor is a memorial service occasionally bestowed by Congress on highly distinguished Americans. It is akin to “lying in state,” though that status is reserved for former Presidents and distinguished politicians, such as former Sen. John McCain.

Puckett was the last living Medal of Honor recipient from the Korean War. The precedent of a final-living Medal of Honor recipient lying in honor was set in 2022 when lawmakers honored the last living World War II Medal of Honor recipient, Cpl. Hershel Woodrow “Woody” Williams, Ernst told Task & Purpose. Other notable figures who have had the honor of lying in honor include Rosa Parks and U.S. Capitol police officers killed during

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taskandpurpose.com · by Patty Nieberg · April 29, 2024

19. This new Marine Corps helicopter refueled from a Navy tanker while carrying a Navy fighter

Wow. BZ to the crews of these aircraft.

See the photo at the link: https://taskandpurpose.com/news/photo-refuel-slingload/?utm

This new Marine Corps helicopter refueled from a Navy tanker while carrying a Navy fighter

For two services supposedly focused on boats and ground ops, there sure is some great flying going on in this photo.

BY MATT WHITE | PUBLISHED APR 28, 2024 9:46 AM EDT

taskandpurpose.com · by Matt White · April 28, 2024

A remarkable photo released by the Navy last week captures some stunning flying by a Marine Corps test pilot and aircrew, coaxing their CH-53K King Stallion through two of the most difficult helicopter flying skills at the same time.

The photo, snapped by photographer Kyra Helwick, captures the moment a a CH-53K — the latest, most powerful version of the Marine Corps’ workhorse cargo mover — hooks up for air-to-air refueling with the extended hose of a Navy KC-130T tanker aircraft, as it flies with the airframe of a Navy F-35 fighter slung beneath it.

Both of the flying skills on display — air-to-air refueling and carrying a slingload — demand uniquely tricky flying skills.

The maximum speed most helicopters can fly with a sling load is just over 100 mph (the top speed for the CH-53k is 200 mph even without a fighter jet dangling beneath it). But a hulking, fixed-wing C-130 cannot stay in the sky if it flies slower than, well, just over 100 mph.

In other words, the crews of both aircraft are pushing their airplanes to the edge of the flying envelopes to make this picture work.

The flight was from Naval Air Station Patuxent River to an airfield in New Jersey. Nearly every part of the remarkable picture tells a tale.

Three Unique Airplanes

The CH-53k is the latest, largest and most powerful version of the CH-53, which was the Marine’ Corps’ primary airlift platform for more than half a century. Marines flew on CH-53s in Vietnam, Desert Storm and throughout the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, the helicopter from those eras are retired or nearing retirement, and the remaining ones have been pushed harder than ever in recent months during the grounding of the MV-22 Osprey fleet.. A CH-53E crashed and killed 5 Marines in February.

The first K-models were delivered in 2022, with modern avionics and larger engines that the Navy says allows the helicopter to lift up to 36,000 in payload — enough to carry two upper-armor Humvees or a Light Armored Vehicle.

The King in the picture is assigned to Marine Test and Evaluation Squadron 1, which is based at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, The unit tests and evaluates helicopters and other flying equipment for use in the fleet.

The KC-130T belongs to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Two Zero, or V-20, a flight test squadron at Patuxent River, the Navy’s hub for flight testing of new, unique and experimental aircraft.

What makes the tanker in the picture relatively unique is that the Navy flies very few C-130s in its active fleet, and none as tankers. Helicopter-refueling tankers are generally the domain of the Air Force special ops and search and rescue forces or the Marines.

In fact, the plane in the picture — serial number 163310 — spent most of it’s flying life in those services. It was originally purchased by the Air Force as a tanker in 1986, according to databases maintained online by aviation enthusiasts. But the plane spent most of its active duty life in the Marines before ending up with the Navy in 2016.

The F-35 has is its own story. The yellow and blue lightning flashes on the tails identify it as CF-01, the first F-35 delivered to the Navy in 2010. The plane spent its entire flying career at Patuxent River. However, its been retired to be a non-flying test model, missing its engine and parts of wings, and belongs to the Prototype, Manufacturing and Test (PMT) Department of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division Lakehurst. In fact, the photo taken last week isn’t even the first time that CF-01 has hitched a ride beneath a CH-53K.

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taskandpurpose.com · by Matt White · April 28, 2024

20. Spy and Tell​ – The Promise and Peril of Disclosing Intelligence for Strategic Advantage

Excerpts:

Although bureaucratic rules are rarely the best solution to real-world problems, there is one that would help here. The director of national intelligence should issue an intelligence community directive (the intelligence community’s equivalent of an executive order) stipulating that a disclosure can be made only after she has signed a memorandum that addresses all the guardrails. This requirement would not only instill discipline but also create a record of important decisions. The office of the director of national intelligence could then develop an internal dataset—trackable over time and available to her successors—to assess the short- and long-term effects of disclosures.

BRAVE NEW WORLD

The conundrum of strategic downgrades is but one of many challenges facing the U.S. intelligence community. The list is long: how to recruit spies in a world of ubiquitous technical surveillance, how to collect signals intelligence in a world of decentralized telecommunications and computing, how to sift through mountains of data in a world of open-source information, and how to hire and retain the best and the brightest in a world of declining trust in government. And all these difficulties are set against the backdrop of great-power competition, with China, Russia, and other authoritarian countries working every day to threaten the United States’ democracy, prosperity, and security.

Officials outside intelligence agencies, for their part, generally do not approach disclosures with the same caution as the people serving inside them. Policymakers’ natural confidence and enviable optimism about the efficacy of their own actions may invite them to focus on the upsides of disclosures while ignoring or rationalizing away the dangers. Their desire to maximize the policy utility of secret intelligence may lead them to resist efforts to add new restraints to the disclosure process.

Given all these pressures, it would be tempting for policymakers and intelligence practitioners alike to throw up their hands and decide to manage strategic declassification in an ad hoc way. But that would be a mistake. The point of no return has been passed, and intelligence is being released faster than norms can be created. If the process for disclosures is not handled with utmost care, the United States could diminish the unparalleled advantage in statecraft and national security it derives from a crucial pillar of American power: the U.S. intelligence community.

Spy and Tell

The Promise and Peril of Disclosing Intelligence for Strategic Advantage

By David V. Gioe and Michael J. Morell

May/June 2024

Published on April 23, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by David V. Gioe and Michael J. Morell · April 23, 2023

On October 25, 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, confronted his Soviet counterpart, Valerian Zorin, in the chamber of the Security Council. Live on television, Stevenson grilled Zorin about whether the Soviet Union had deployed nuclear-capable missiles to Cuba. “Yes or no?” Stevenson demanded. As Zorin waffled, Stevenson went in for the kill: “I am prepared to wait for an answer until hell freezes over if that’s your decision. And I’m also prepared to present the evidence in this room.” Stevenson then revealed poster-sized photographs taken by a high-altitude U-2 spy plane, images that showed Soviet missile bases in Cuba and directly contradicted Moscow’s denials. Stevenson’s revelations marked a turning point in the crisis, providing undeniable evidentiary support to the Kennedy administration’s allegations, shifting global opinion, and pressuring the Soviets to de-escalate by isolating them diplomatically. It was the first time the U.S. government had declassified top-secret intelligence to publicly refute another country’s claims.

Nearly 60 years later, Moscow looked poised to flex its muscle again, this time by amassing nearly 175,000 troops on the Russian border with Ukraine. Echoing the Kennedy administration’s approach, the Biden administration responded by publicly disclosing intelligence, both to warn allies (and Ukraine) of the coming invasion and to preemptively rebut Russian President Vladimir Putin’s planned pretexts for it. In early December 2021, administration officials started sharing the intelligence community’s growing concern with the media, holding a briefing that was accompanied by satellite imagery showing Russian forces staging on Ukraine’s borders. In mid-January 2022, John Kirby, then the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters that Russia was preparing a “false-flag operation” in eastern Ukraine, hoping to fabricate a massacre to justify an invasion. Later that month, U.S. officials revealed that the Russian military had moved blood supplies to the border of Ukraine, suggesting that war was imminent. And on February 18, President Joe Biden said he was “convinced” that Russia’s invasion would begin in the “coming days”—as it did.

The Biden administration’s disclosures didn’t persuade Putin to shelve his war plans, but they did fortify Western resolve after the invasion. Advance warning of Russia’s plans enabled many U.S. allies, particularly NATO members, to quickly offer military aid packages to Ukraine and harmonize their economic sanctions against Russia. The revelations about the contrived provocations that Putin was scheming helped turn public opinion in the West against Russia by denying him a pretext for the invasion. Inside the Biden administration, the disclosure strategy was seen as a resounding success.

In the six decades after the Kennedy administration’s novel move at the UN, successive White Houses adopted the tactic from time to time. But their disclosures were “one and done” affairs. What is new now is that the Biden team has disclosed information multiple times on a single issue over an extended period. What’s more, because the Ukraine-related revelations seemed to work so well, the administration is now applying the tool to other issues, most notably China. It has even come up with terms for the practice, with officials speaking of “strategic downgrades” and “strategic declassification.” What used to be a break-glass option is now routine.

But as strategic downgrades become more common, policymakers and intelligence practitioners need to develop guardrails to protect against their pitfalls. Without proper precautions, a disclosure might compromise the source of the declassified information or, if the revelation turns out to be wrong, harm the intelligence community’s reputation and undermine the goal the disclosure was meant to achieve. The biggest risk, however, is that using intelligence as a policy tool increases the chances that it will also be used as a political weapon. Were that to happen, the intelligence community could lose its most precious asset: its reputation for objectivity.

A NOT-SO-SECRET HISTORY

Although high-level officials have long leaked classified intelligence to the media, strategic disclosures are something different. They aim to use intelligence to further a specific administration goal rather than advance a particular bureaucratic player’s individual interest. Accordingly, disclosures are known in advance by a group of senior officials, including those with declassification authority, and are usually coordinated with relevant stakeholders, including the agency that collected the intelligence. They can enter the public domain directly—for example, through an on-the-record press conference, a televised speech or interview, or an intelligence product posted on a government website. Or they can take a more circuitous route, such as through a background briefing to journalists, who can use the information but agree not to name the official providing it. Strategic downgrades may or may not go through a formal declassification process, but unlike unauthorized leaks, they are legal, because officials with declassification authority have been involved in the decision-making.

Since the Cuban missile crisis, administrations have resorted to strategic declassification for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, the goal is to preemptively justify a policy. That was the purpose of the memorable, but ultimately incorrect, speech that Secretary of State Colin Powell gave to the UN Security Council in February 2003. Flanked by George Tenet, the director of the CIA, Powell played a tape of an intercepted conversation between Iraqi military officers conspiring to mislead weapons inspectors, showed satellite imagery of alleged weapons sites, and displayed drawings of supposed biological weapons labs. President Barack Obama made a similar move in 2013, after the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad fired rockets filled with sarin gas at a Damascus suburb and killed more than a thousand civilians. As the White House contemplated airstrikes, it released a summary of the intelligence community’s “high-confidence assessment” that the Syrian government had carried out the attack. In the end, the administration decided not to respond militarily, but had it done so, the declassified intelligence would have been foundational to the case for action by contradicting Syria’s repeated denials of responsibility.

At other times, disclosures are made to retroactively justify a policy. Such was the case in 1983, when Soviet pilots shot down a South Korean commercial airliner that had strayed into Soviet airspace. U.S. President Ronald Reagan declassified signals intelligence to show Soviet culpability and justify his confrontational posture toward Moscow. At the Security Council, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Jeane Kirkpatrick, played a tape of Soviet pilots’ intercepted radio conversations with their commander as they homed in on the plane. Three years later, the administration repeated the strategy with Libya. After ordering airstrikes against the regime of Muammar al-Qaddafi for having orchestrated a terrorist attack that killed U.S. troops at a discotheque in West Berlin, Reagan, in a speech from the Oval Office, summarized diplomatic cables intercepted by the National Security Agency that proved Libyan responsibility for the attack.

Stevenson presenting U-2 photographs at the UN Security Council, New York City, October 1962

Bettmann / Getty

Sometimes, policymakers disclose intelligence to undermine or pressure their adversaries. In 1984, the Reagan administration released declassified sketches based on classified satellite photography showing that the Soviets were constructing a radar station in Siberia, an outpost the administration claimed violated the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The goal was to strengthen the United States’ position in arms control talks and demonstrate that the U.S. government was closely monitoring Soviet military developments. (Years later, the Soviets dismantled the facility.) More recently, in 2009, Obama held a press conference with his British and French counterparts and announced that the Iranians had built a covert uranium enrichment site. As an administration official explained to reporters in an accompanying background briefing, the conclusion was based on “very sensitive intelligence information.” The disclosure worked: it generated international pressure on the Iranians, compelling them to bring the site under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

At other times, the U.S. government has used official disclosures to deal with unauthorized ones. In 2007, the George W. Bush administration worried that an intelligence estimate about Iran’s nuclear program would leak. The estimate concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program four years earlier, and the White House feared that the revelation of that specific conclusion would undermine its argument that Iran still posed a threat. So it released an unclassified version of the paper’s key judgments to make clear that the country was continuing to work on both uranium enrichment and dual-use weapons technologies. The Obama administration resorted to the same strategy in 2013. When the National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked highly classified documents about the U.S. government’s global surveillance programs, the administration responded with its own disclosures. It released an overview of the programs to counter media stories that characterized them as being more pervasive and less subject to legal scrutiny than they actually were. The NSA’s director, Keith Alexander, even made an unprecedented appearance on 60 Minutes to share several previously classified pieces of information (such as the fact that the NSA was targeting the communications of fewer than 60 “U.S. persons” worldwide).

Other disclosures are motivated by an administration’s desire to protect its reputation. In 2004, a member of the 9/11 Commission questioned National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice about a seemingly damning item that appeared in the President’s Daily Brief on August 6, 2001: “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US.” Just two days later, the Bush administration released the top-secret memo with minimal redactions to show that the document contained no specific warning of, or any actionable information about, a near-term attack. Likewise, in 2016, when the Obama administration wanted to counter criticism about civilian casualties caused by U.S. drone strikes, it released the intelligence community’s own count, which was much lower than the number calculated by critics.

Finally, U.S. policymakers have at times released intelligence to pressure Congress. In December 2023, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was set to expire. The provision allows the U.S. government to access the communications of foreigners outside the United States who have been targeted for intelligence purposes and whose communications pass through the United States. To encourage Congress to reauthorize Section 702, the administration declassified information showing its value. Officials revealed that the provision had proved crucial to tracking fentanyl smuggling across the Mexican border and identifying the hacker behind the 2021 ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline. The administration even disclosed that in 2022, 59 percent of the pieces in Biden’s President’s Daily Briefs contained information collected under the authorities of Section 702. But the disclosures don’t appear to have worked: although the program was temporarily reauthorized, as of this writing, in March, permanent reauthorization remains stalled in Congress.

WEAPON OF CHOICE

The Biden administration’s disclosures about Russia’s war in Ukraine did not stop when the shooting started. In fact, they only gained pace. A month after the invasion, Biden revealed that Russia was considering using chemical and biological weapons in the conflict. By the end of 2023, with domestic enthusiasm for continued support for Ukraine flagging and Congress at an impasse over aid, it yet again resorted to strategic declassification. To demonstrate Ukraine’s success in the war and the effectiveness of U.S. military aid, it released the U.S. intelligence community’s estimate that Russia had suffered an astonishing 315,000 casualties since the invasion.

The Biden administration is now using strategic downgrades against China, too. In August 2022, on the eve of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan, Kirby, by then a National Security Council spokesperson, shared details from a declassified assessment of actions Beijing could take to register its displeasure, such as launching missiles into the Taiwan Strait. The goal: to preemptively remove the sting from any Chinese provocations. In February 2023, after a Chinese high-altitude balloon floated across U.S. airspace, the administration declassified details about it, in part to justify to the public its intense focus on competition with China and in part to signal to Beijing the U.S. intelligence community’s impressive technical capabilities. The Pentagon released a close-up photo of the balloon taken by a U-2 pilot, and officials explained to reporters that the U.S. government could track the object and had determined that it was loitering above sensitive military sites.

Snowden speaking to a conference from Moscow, September 2015

Andrew Kelly / Reuters

Later that month, the administration sought to warn Beijing that it was monitoring possible Chinese support for Russia’s war in Ukraine. CIA Director William Burns, undoubtedly with the approval of other senior officials, revealed in a televised interview that Beijing was considering offering Moscow lethal aid, adding, “We don’t see evidence of actual shipments of lethal equipment.” Burns clearly wanted to brush back the Chinese before they crossed a line they couldn’t uncross.

In the first few months of the war in Gaza, the Biden administration used intelligence disclosures to give Israel breathing space from mounting pressure about the destructiveness of its military campaign. Shortly after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, countered accusations that an Israeli bomb had struck a hospital in Gaza City, announcing that “overhead imagery, intercepts, and open-source information” suggested that the real culprit was an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza. In November, the White House again came to Israel’s defense, with Kirby sharing a declassified intelligence assessment saying that Hamas was using hospitals as command-and-control nodes, weapons depots, and hideaways for Israeli hostages.

Strategic disclosures are set to become a durable feature of the U.S. foreign policy landscape. The Biden administration’s strategic downgrades have created an expectation on the part of the public, the media, and allies that there will be more to come, and it is unlikely that Biden or any of his successors will abandon the tool. The genie is out of the bottle.

THE COSTS OF CANDOR

But is any of this a good idea? Most policymakers seem to think so. For one thing, they have argued, disclosures have delivered results. Writing in these pages earlier this year, Burns argued that the Ukraine disclosures put Putin “in the uncomfortable and unaccustomed position of being on the back foot” and “bolstered both Ukraine and the coalition supporting it.” And it is reasonable to conclude that administration officials give at least partial credit to Burns’s disclosure about Beijing’s consideration of lethal aid to Russia for convincing Chinese leader Xi Jinping to not cross the line.

The second argument made by proponents of disclosures is that any transparency on the part of the secret state is good. Although Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s 2023 National Intelligence Strategy says nothing about strategic downgrades—a missed opportunity—it does endorse increased openness. Haines has elaborated on the idea, saying, “With the increasing importance of national security in our everyday lives, the more we can help to inform the public debate around such issues, the better.” This push for transparency is driven in part by the deluge of publicly available open-source intelligence, which invites doubts about the value of the intelligence community in a world where Bellingcat and other investigative groups seem to know as much as governments. (By the same token, however, open-source intelligence frees agencies to say more about what they know while jeopardizing less.) The push is also motivated by the public’s growing desire for government accountability in the wake of the intelligence failures behind the U.S. invasion of Iraq, revelations about the NSA’s industrial-scale information-collection capabilities, and Trump’s claims that the intelligence community and the rest of the “deep state” undermined his presidency. Disclosures, the argument runs, can rebuild public trust in the U.S. intelligence community, in part by demonstrating its value.

The most common criticism of disclosures is that they jeopardize intelligence sources and methods. If officials in a targeted regime know what the U.S. government knows about them, they can sometimes work backward to discover the source of that information—whether it be a tapped phone line, a cyber-exploit, or a member of the inner circle. They might shut down that channel, feed disinformation into it, or, in the case of human intelligence, arrest or harm the source. Some disclosures have undoubtedly led to a subsequent loss of intelligence. The Kennedy administration’s sharing of U-2 photographs of Cuba accomplished its intended statecraft goal but also revealed to the world for the first time just how sophisticated U.S. aerial surveillance was. Afterward, U.S. adversaries learned to better camouflage sensitive sites and improved their high-altitude air defense systems.

Authorized disclosures could result in more unauthorized ones.

But the intelligence community is acutely aware of these risks and works to mitigate them. Administrations have tended to declassify broad analytic judgments that carry little risk to sources and methods, leaving out the sensitive intelligence nuggets that could allow the source to be identified. The intelligence community, for its part, is not shy about standing firm and refusing a policy request for a particular disclosure when the risks are just too high. One of us, Morell, was involved in declassifying information for Powell’s presentation to the UN Security Council; concerned about sources and methods, the CIA denied some of Powell’s (and the White House’s) requests for declassification.

Less well understood are the subtler risks to sources and methods. One is that human sources will get skittish about divulging information, no matter what their handlers promise in terms of security or reward. Many CIA case officers—including one of us, Gioe—have had the experience of listening to their assets express grave concern about the growing volume of intelligence that has gone public, whether through an illegal mass leak or an authorized disclosure, and ask if the information they provide might go public, too. Some assets have even walked away in the aftermath of prominent leaks or disclosures. And it is impossible to calculate how many would-be assets have changed their mind as a result of them.

Another risk to sources and methods is that authorized disclosures could result in more unauthorized ones by raising questions about just how appropriate it was to classify something in the first place. It can be perfectly reasonable to conclude that the national security benefits of a given disclosure outweigh the risks. Still, the nuances of such judgment calls could be glossed over by leakers, who may see coordinated and authorized disclosures as justification or cover for their own reckless revelations. Snowden, for instance, complained in his autobiography, “It is rare for even a day to go by in which some ‘unnamed’ or ‘anonymous’ senior government official does not leak, by way of a hint or tip to a journalist, some classified item that advances their own agenda or the efforts of their agency or party.” In other words, if government officials can release intelligence when it suits them, why can’t anyone else?

A separate risk is that some of the information released turns out to be wrong, damaging the reputation of the intelligence community. Although intelligence agencies were right about Russia’s intention to invade Ukraine—even getting the timing right—such high accuracy is not the norm. (Indeed, they were wrong to predict that the Ukrainians wouldn’t last long in battle, a judgment that the White House almost certainly never wished would go public but ended up leaking anyway.) Despite an annual budget of around $100 billion, the U.S. intelligence community does not have a crystal ball and cannot supply evidence fit for a courtroom.

For one thing, intelligence on almost any issue is by nature imperfect and fragmentary; adversaries go to great lengths to protect the information the United States is after and, in some cases, are actively deceiving Washington. For another thing, intelligence is dynamic. During the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, for instance, the intelligence community was continually revising its assessments of the Afghan government’s ability to resist the Taliban. Critics claimed that the chaotic exit was partly the result of intelligence agencies’ failure to predict the Taliban’s swift victory. That may be true, but the situation was changing by the hour, and it is inherently hard to predict if or when an unstable system will collapse. Intelligence failures happen for any number of reasons, legitimate and otherwise, but when they do occur, the reputation of the intelligence community gets dented. In a world of routine strategic downgrades, it should expect some dents.

Burns in the U.S. Capitol, September 2023

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

The greatest risk with disclosures is the politicization of intelligence. In its most benign form, politicization takes the form of releasing accurate but incomplete information. Since the point of disclosures is to advance an administration’s policy, it is only natural that officials will select the intelligence that does so and keep classified any intelligence to the contrary. (When the Biden administration released an estimate of Russian casualties in Ukraine, it notably remained mum on the Ukrainians’ own high losses.) This preference is acceptable when trying to influence a foreign adversary, but not when the audience is the American people. Informing citizens is a laudable, apolitical act; trying to shape their views by cherry-picking intelligence is not. In the lead-up to the Iraq war, Tenet fielded competing requests from members of Congress to declassify only those portions of intelligence assessments that buttressed a particular argument. One camp, for example, wanted to release a judgment that Saddam was unlikely to initiate a terrorist attack against the United States, whereas another wanted to release one that Saddam was likely to use weapons of mass destruction if he felt cornered. Tenet did the right thing by declassifying both judgments.

In the more egregious form of politicization, policymakers actively misrepresent the intelligence they disclose or stake a position beyond what it can support. This has happened too frequently to dismiss it as a minimal risk. In 1964, for example, President Lyndon Johnson used a confrontation between U.S. and North Vietnamese naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin to push Congress to grant him more power in prosecuting the Vietnam War. Although there had been just one incident, in a speech to the American people, Johnson claimed that there were two—deliberately going well beyond what ambiguous intelligence reports had suggested. In the Bush administration, several senior officials, intent on making a stronger case for invading Iraq, publicly stated that Saddam’s regime had an ongoing relationship with al Qaeda—the exact opposite of what the CIA had concluded.

Amid these cautionary tales, one historical example offers a model for disclosure: the Bush administration’s 2008 revelations about a Syrian nuclear reactor, apparently built with North Korean help, that an Israeli airstrike had leveled a year before. The disclosure was intended to strengthen efforts to persuade the North Koreans to provide a full accounting of their nuclear weapons activity and efforts to end Iran’s uranium enrichment activities. In a declassified briefing to reporters, CIA Director Michael Hayden outlined the intelligence surrounding the discovery, making it clear what the intelligence community knew and didn’t know, as well as how confident it was about its judgments. He said that analysts had “high confidence” that the building destroyed by Israel was indeed a nuclear reactor, “medium confidence” that North Koreans had assisted in building it, and only “low confidence” that it was part of a Syrian nuclear weapons program. The last caveat was the kind that policymakers typically want to strip out, but Hayden wisely put it in. His specificity in connecting each judgment to a corresponding confidence level made it harder for anyone to politicize the information.

USE WITH CAUTION

The risks from strategic downgrades are real and, given their accelerating use, growing. The decision to disclose intelligence is a policy call, and in making it, officials have to strike a delicate balance, supporting a given policy goal while protecting sources and methods and maintaining analytical integrity. As Jon Finer, Biden’s deputy national security adviser, has observed, strategic downgrades “must be wielded carefully within strict parameters and oversight.” So what should those guardrails be?

First, any disclosure should pose little threat to intelligence sources or methods—a finding that must reflect the consensus of the intelligence community. The decision to disclose should be made by the director of national intelligence and only after a full consideration of the risks to sources and methods. Disclosures that do reveal sources are usually a judgment call, but a tie shouldn’t go to the policy runner. One rule of thumb is to release analytical judgments but not the underlying raw intelligence on which they are based. This is what the Obama administration did with the intelligence community’s report about Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. This approach represents a sort of halfway house for disclosure, but of course it will not satisfy those skeptics who understandably wish to see the underlying evidence before believing the intelligence community’s conclusions. Nevertheless, for many, even all the information would not be enough, and in any case, the imperative must be to protect sources and methods.

Second, judgments released publicly should have a high likelihood of being correct. If they turn out to be wrong, the intelligence community’s reputation will suffer and the effectiveness of future disclosures will be undermined, since there would be a historical basis to doubt them. One remedy would be to release only high-confidence judgments. In 2023, Burns signaled that he had done just that when he said he was “confident” that Chinese leaders were considering providing Russia with lethal aid, a word choice that suggested analysts believed there was a high likelihood their judgment was correct. Another option would be to follow Hayden’s example and disclose intelligence of various levels of confidence but make clear which conclusions enjoy which level.

Disclosures have a mixed record and are probably less successful than officials believe.

Third, in a world of disinformation and spin, the release of intelligence must represent the truth or, more precisely, what the intelligence community assesses to be true. Although it may be tempting to embed disinformation in a disclosure, that line should never be crossed. Nor should officials attempt to spin the intelligence in any way to create a misleading impression. And crucial caveats should always be included, since withholding them creates the illusion of certainty.

Fourth, a disclosure should have to pass a common-sense test: that there be a reasonable chance it will have the intended effect. Disclosures have a mixed record and are probably less successful than officials believe. One requirement for success is that a strategic downgrade be connected to an overarching strategy involving the rest of the U.S. government; if it isn’t, its chances of working are markedly reduced. The Biden administration’s disclosures about the impending invasion of Ukraine, for instance, had some positive effect, but they could not compensate for years of poor policies, such as the failure to impose tough sanctions or give Kyiv enough military aid after Putin seized Crimea.

Although bureaucratic rules are rarely the best solution to real-world problems, there is one that would help here. The director of national intelligence should issue an intelligence community directive (the intelligence community’s equivalent of an executive order) stipulating that a disclosure can be made only after she has signed a memorandum that addresses all the guardrails. This requirement would not only instill discipline but also create a record of important decisions. The office of the director of national intelligence could then develop an internal dataset—trackable over time and available to her successors—to assess the short- and long-term effects of disclosures.

BRAVE NEW WORLD

The conundrum of strategic downgrades is but one of many challenges facing the U.S. intelligence community. The list is long: how to recruit spies in a world of ubiquitous technical surveillance, how to collect signals intelligence in a world of decentralized telecommunications and computing, how to sift through mountains of data in a world of open-source information, and how to hire and retain the best and the brightest in a world of declining trust in government. And all these difficulties are set against the backdrop of great-power competition, with China, Russia, and other authoritarian countries working every day to threaten the United States’ democracy, prosperity, and security.

Officials outside intelligence agencies, for their part, generally do not approach disclosures with the same caution as the people serving inside them. Policymakers’ natural confidence and enviable optimism about the efficacy of their own actions may invite them to focus on the upsides of disclosures while ignoring or rationalizing away the dangers. Their desire to maximize the policy utility of secret intelligence may lead them to resist efforts to add new restraints to the disclosure process.

Given all these pressures, it would be tempting for policymakers and intelligence practitioners alike to throw up their hands and decide to manage strategic declassification in an ad hoc way. But that would be a mistake. The point of no return has been passed, and intelligence is being released faster than norms can be created. If the process for disclosures is not handled with utmost care, the United States could diminish the unparalleled advantage in statecraft and national security it derives from a crucial pillar of American power: the U.S. intelligence community.

• DAVID V. GIOE is a British Academy Global Professor of Intelligence and International Security at King’s College London and a former CIA analyst and operations officer.
• MICHAEL J. MORELL is Senior Counselor at Beacon Global Strategies and a former Acting Director and Deputy Director of the CIA.

Foreign Affairs · by David V. Gioe and Michael J. Morell · April 23, 2023

21. Don’t Bet on a British Revival

Excerpts:

Despite its commanding lead in the polls, Labour has been fearful that proactive spending plans would undermine its ability to commit to balanced budgets and worried about being seen to betray the Brexit vote. Either it has been browbeaten or gaslighted by the Tories into a pro-austerity default mode, or it genuinely sees an electoral danger in promoting pro-investment policies. Although such a prudent stance might make electoral sense in an overheating economy, that is not the world the United Kingdom currently inhabits.

According to the polling organization Ipsos, 40 percent of the British electorate thinks that Labour has the best policies for working people, compared with 15 percent who believe the Conservatives do. Fourteen years of austerity have already broken Britain. Doing more damage in the name of fiscal rectitude will derail Labour’s positive agenda and, with it, possibly the party itself. The British economy is in dire straits, and voters expect Labour to fix it. Continuing the Tory medicine, with a spoonful of sugar, will only spur voters to turn their backs on Labour in the next election. On the issue of Brexit, 56 percent of British citizens now think it was wrong to leave the EU, while 33 percent think it was right. Forging closer ties with the bloc is long overdue. Meanwhile, the EU must realize that Labour’s success is in its own economic and security interests. A grand bargain gaining London’s defense clout in return for granting more generous access to its single-market could inaugurate a strategic partnership in which both sides are better off and more secure.

Don’t Bet on a British Revival

How the Labour Party Might Win the Election—but Still Lose the Economy

By Matthias Matthijs and Mark Blyth

April 30, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Ideas and Economic Crises in Britain from Attlee to Blair (1945–2005) · April 30, 2024

The United Kingdom is likely to hold a general election in the fall, and the outlook appears dire for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Conservative Party. In December 2019, the Conservatives were reelected with an 80-seat majority in the House of Commons on the strength of campaign promises to “get Brexit done” and “level up” those parts of the country that had not broadly shared in the benefits of economic growth and investment. However, the illegal Downing Street parties during COVID-19 lockdowns, former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s fiscal meltdowns, and the creeping costs of Brexit have demolished what had seemed an unassailable lead. Since he became prime minister in October 2022, Sunak’s Tories have trailed the Labour Party in opinion polls by an average of 20 points.

When the election comes, the Labour opposition leader, Keir Starmer, is expected to cruise to an easy victory. Tory fatigue is widespread, which is perhaps unsurprising after 14 years of often chaotic Conservative rule in which five prime ministers—David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Truss, and Sunak—have served in quick succession. In Scotland, Labour’s prospects have been enhanced by the Scottish Nationalist Party’s fall from grace, caused in large part by its mishandling of transgender and free speech issues. Meanwhile, in England, the Conservatives are bleeding votes on their right flank to the Reform Party, the successor to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. All three factors have put the wind in Labour’s sails.

But what will ultimately put Labour in power is the dismal condition of the British economy. Voters reasonably blame the Tories, who have been in power for the last decade and a half, for this economic decline. Labour has yet to offer a credible economic plan, however. Unless Starmer is willing to commit to a more radical economic agenda, a Labour victory at the next election will just mean more trouble for the country—and could spell ruin for the party.

THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE IS ILL AGAIN

Britain’s economic picture is bleak. As the Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf recently observed, the United Kingdom’s real per capita gross domestic product at the end of 2023 was 28 percent below what it would have been if the average growth trend between 1955 and 2008 had been maintained. Over 14 years of Conservative governance, the country has been a growth laggard, consistently performing in the bottom third of economies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Ironically, one of the main factors behind the growth that the United Kingdom has experienced since 2019 is a high level of immigration. The country saw an increase in net migration from 184,000 in 2019 to 745,000 in 2022, about twice the number who arrived in France and Italy. Although many perceive Johnson and Sunak as hostile to immigrants, the reality is that immigration from countries outside the EU has increased substantially since Brexit. One driver has been a rise in international students who are charged much higher tuition fees and thereby make up for the shortfall in universities’ public funding. Another has been the hiring of non-EU skilled health and care workers to address a chronic labor shortage in the country’s National Health Service (NHS) after many eastern and southern Europeans went back home.

The chief factor underlying the United Kingdom’s economic malaise is a complete collapse in productivity growth, caused by a dearth of both public and private investment. The collapse in public investment since 2010 was driven, first, by the 2008 global financial crisis, which was a shock to a British growth model that remains highly dependent upon financial and related services, and second, by biting austerity measures. Under Cameron and May, the government slashed public spending as a percentage of GDP from 46 percent in 2010 to 39 percent in 2019. Because certain areas of spending were protected, principally pensions and the NHS, the cuts fell heavily on local government services, infrastructure, the justice system, education, and transportation. The result has been a sharp decline in local consumption, and growth that is highly regionalized. Private investment has lagged because of the corporate sector’s reluctance to invest in an economy with such limited growth prospects, as well as the overall makeup of the British economy, with large numbers of smaller firms concentrated in services. This lack of private investment was compounded by the economic uncertainty that came with the Brexit referendum and its aftermath, as international investors began to think twice about investing in a country that was about to leave the European single market.

This economic situation poses a challenge for Labour. The party last won a general election in 2005—although its landslide victory in 1997, which ended 18 years of Conservative rule, is the kind of win that the party appears on track to replicate. In 1997, however, the leader of the Labour opposition, Tony Blair, and the shadow chancellor of the exchequer, Gordon Brown, inherited a strong economy with low levels of public debt and a benign international system. But that will not be Starmer’s inheritance. Instead, the fiscal challenge that Labour will face is daunting, with the world economy fractured and its outlook marred by geopolitical conflict. The task is clear: to reverse the downward trend in public investment and work with EU officials in Brussels to forge a long-term economic and strategic partnership that can spur private investment. Brexit may still be the official policy of both parties, but starved of growth, the United Kingdom needs better access to the EU’s single market. Although Starmer and his shadow chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves, are unlikely to make things worse, their current plans are much too timid to make a real difference, given the scale of the problems the country is facing.

HEADS BELOW THE PARAPET

In a major speech to a London business audience in March, Reeves set out Labour’s future economic policy, focusing on her idea of “securonomics”—a kind of homeopathic Bidenomics without the fiscal largess and the continent-wide scale. Reeves’s basic ambition is to make work more secure and more remunerative for ordinary Britons. Given the collapse in wage growth in the United Kingdom over the past 15 years—according to Torsten Bell, the economist who heads the Resolution Foundation think tank, British workers would be some $13,000 a year better off “if real pay growth had continued to follow its pre-recession trend”—this is a laudable goal. Although regulation might be able to do something about employment insecurity, getting wages up means getting productivity up, and that means a large rise in investment. It is not clear where Reeves thinks that investment will come from.

In her speech, Reeves promised to maintain a stable macroeconomic framework featuring budget-balancing fiscal rules for day-to-day expenditures that will reduce the ratio of debt to GDP. This is very much in line with Sunak’s policies. Reeves also pledged to preserve the current corporate tax rate of 25 percent, which is low by international standards. She further declared that she would tackle the country’s chronic underinvestment through a close partnership with the private sector and argued for thorough reforms of the public sector. Labour will take on the overly rigid planning system governing the United Kingdom’s land use and public infrastructure, Reeves said, and work to decentralize the government. Although some of this is new and different from what the Conservatives have been offering, particularly in terms of planning and decentralization, some of it is very similar.

It is therefore unclear whether a Labour victory will lead to an increase in investment. For if new investment must come from domestic saving or international borrowing, the United Kingdom is constrained on both sides. Saving implies yet more austerity, and borrowing suggests yet more indebtedness. Prioritizing stability may sound good, but in a depressed economy it only means further stagnation. The country’s experience with letting the private sector run infrastructure has largely been a failure, as seen in the billions spent by the government on bailouts of water utilities after their privatization and on buybacks and dividends by the firms themselves. The idea of selling off more bits of the state to boost investment simply lacks credibility. Reforms in the planning process can help, for example, by addressing the country’s acute housing shortage, but the government will still need to invest in building up the actual housing stock.

There is a practical reason for Labour’s timidity. Starmer and Reeves have no doubt made the decision to allow the Conservatives to tear themselves to pieces as they resist the temptation to make bold promises that the country’s right-wing tabloid press could attack them for. They may also have made a decision to say as little as possible to maximize their room for maneuver when in office on the logic that if they do not rule out a policy, they can do it later. Although that may make strategic sense on one level, it hollows out any notion of democracy as being more than a cynical game. Regardless of strategic intent, if a Labour government ends up offering nothing more than Tory austerity with a human face, the party cannot expect to serve more than one term in office. If Labour is not seen as trying to make a real difference in the lives of ordinary Britons after a brutal decade and a half, it will rightly be turned out for being all strategy and no substance. The cost may be another long period on the opposition benches and internecine infighting over this lost opportunity.

IDEAS OF INTEREST

Although the United Kingdom’s economic situation is grim, there is much more that Labour can promise to do. First, it could massively increase its fiscal space by telling the country’s central bank, the Bank of England, to stop paying interest on the commercial bank reserves that it holds to influence short-term interest rates. With the United Kingdom’s high interest rates, banks prefer to hold onto money and not invest in the real economy. As a consequence, they are expected to make around $286 billion in interest by 2033 by simply parking reserves at the central bank. If one of the government’s major policy goals is to increase investment, this money could be better spent. Labour recently decided to shelve green investment plans that would cost around $35 billion a year, judging that they were too expensive. Yet that figure is far less than what the Bank of England is handing out as free money to the banks for simply showing up. This is nothing less than a fiscal embarrassment. Ending this practice would instantly reduce long-term debt projections and smooth the path for new investment at lower rates. The Bank of England’s routine monetary policy operations should not hurt national investment. Across the English Channel, the European Central Bank stopped paying interest on minimum reserves held by commercial banks at the beginning of September 2023. Its new rate is zero percent.

Second, Labour should pursue growth in productivity by encouraging greater labor mobility and the development of job skills. One way to do this is to invest in housing. The United Kingdom effectively stopped building affordable housing at scale in the 1980s, and it now needs to build 4.3 million homes to keep up with population growth and overall demand. This shortfall has created an affordability crisis centered around London, where almost one-third of GDP is generated, further impeding growth. Labour should therefore commit not only to building housing but also to owning the housing stock. By creating assets that produce income and holding them on the state’s balance sheet, income will be generated over time that reduces overall debt as assets and liabilities are matched. Alternatively, Labour can leverage this future revenue to invest in training the skilled high-wage workers the country needs to build housing and decarbonize the economy, such as plumbers, electricians, and heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning engineers.

Third, Labour should change the way the state’s accounting treats such long-term investments, by taking them out of current spending and matching assets and liabilities by building assets. This is not accounting chicanery; it is good business practice in the private sector. Such assets could be held in an independent Citizens’ Wealth Fund that takes advantage of countercyclical dynamics in the cost of capital to make investments when bond prices rise and yields fall. Rather than playing it safe, there is much that Labour can do to break out of its self-imposed fiscal straitjacket. Politicians are put in charge to rule, not to enforce fiscal rules that hurt investment in the real economy.

BRUSSELS A LA CARTE

Labour must also recalibrate its relationship with the European Union. Although Starmer is worried about being accused of betraying Brexit—as was shown once again in his recent rejection of the EU’s “youth mobility scheme,” which would enable young Britons to work in other countries and vice versa—he must change course and begin to repair ties with Brussels. It makes no sense to perpetuate the Tories’ hostile relationship with the EU, the United Kingdom’s most important trading partner, while the United States and China are turning mercantilist and Russia is waging war on Europe’s borders. Although Labour has decided to stick to its Brexit red lines for now—which rule out pursuing open borders for EU citizens or seeking membership in the single market or customs union—the party can afford to be bolder. Starmer can start by seeking small agreements to help facilitate trade, make it easier for British companies to provide services in the EU, and enhance mobility for workers with critical skills. If the United Kingdom is going to turn around its economy, it will need the size and scale of the EU’s single market.

The challenge will be getting the EU to sign on to such agreements. But perhaps this will be less difficult than many imagine. As the war in Ukraine rages on, Brussels is finally getting serious about providing for its own security and defense. To do so in a credible manner, it will need London’s help. Not only does the United Kingdom have nuclear weapons and a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, it is also the only European military power other than France with a global reach and footprint—though it is much diminished from its heyday. The EU and its institutions have no military capacity of their own but can play a useful role in coordinating procurement and organizing an industrial defense strategy that would better pool resources and coordinate national weapons production. The United Kingdom will need to offer the EU something that goes well beyond a series of small agreements to make its exit less painful.

There is an opportunity for a political grand bargain here. The United Kingdom could agree to play a leading role in developing and coordinating Europe’s security, and the EU could offer the United Kingdom a relationship close to single-market membership that reduces nontariff barriers to trade to the bare minimum and makes doing business much easier than it is now, while stopping short of complete freedom of movement. Although purists in Brussels may protest that such a bargain amounts to letting the United Kingdom cherry-pick which EU benefits it receives, a longstanding complaint, it is worth pointing out that the situation in Europe has fundamentally changed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. From the perspective of eastern Europe and the Baltic countries especially, the EU needs the United Kingdom’s military heft if it wants to make significant and timely progress towards a more stable and secure continent.

NO TIME TO BE NERVOUS

Despite its commanding lead in the polls, Labour has been fearful that proactive spending plans would undermine its ability to commit to balanced budgets and worried about being seen to betray the Brexit vote. Either it has been browbeaten or gaslighted by the Tories into a pro-austerity default mode, or it genuinely sees an electoral danger in promoting pro-investment policies. Although such a prudent stance might make electoral sense in an overheating economy, that is not the world the United Kingdom currently inhabits.

According to the polling organization Ipsos, 40 percent of the British electorate thinks that Labour has the best policies for working people, compared with 15 percent who believe the Conservatives do. Fourteen years of austerity have already broken Britain. Doing more damage in the name of fiscal rectitude will derail Labour’s positive agenda and, with it, possibly the party itself. The British economy is in dire straits, and voters expect Labour to fix it. Continuing the Tory medicine, with a spoonful of sugar, will only spur voters to turn their backs on Labour in the next election. On the issue of Brexit, 56 percent of British citizens now think it was wrong to leave the EU, while 33 percent think it was right. Forging closer ties with the bloc is long overdue. Meanwhile, the EU must realize that Labour’s success is in its own economic and security interests. A grand bargain gaining London’s defense clout in return for granting more generous access to its single-market could inaugurate a strategic partnership in which both sides are better off and more secure.

• MATTHIAS MATTHIJS is Dean Acheson Associate Professor of International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, Senior Fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the author of Ideas and Economic Crises in Britain From Attlee to Blair (1945–2005).
• MARK BLYTH is William R. Rhodes ’57 Professor of International Economics at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University and a co-author of Angrynomics.

Foreign Affairs · by Ideas and Economic Crises in Britain from Attlee to Blair (1945–2005) · April 30, 2024

22. Why Xi created a new Information Support Force, and why now

Excerpts:

In many ways, the SSF was emblematic of the larger PLA view of future conflicts. Having not fought a war since 1979, the PLA is forced to rely on observations of other nations’ wars (especially those of the United States) to understand the impact of evolving technologies and international trends. Having concluded that the key to fighting and winning future “informationized local wars” rests upon establishing “information dominance (zhi xinxi quan),” the SSF appeared to be the PLA’s “information warfare force.” By bringing together electronic warfare, network warfare, and space warfare forces under a single umbrella, the goal was to leverage each such force’s capabilities and generate synergies that would help the PLA successfully gather and exploit information more rapidly and accurately than an adversary.

The disbanding of the PLASSF raises questions about what has happened, and where the PLA is going.

...

What does seem clear at this point is that the PLA recognizes that its reforms and modernization efforts are an ongoing effort, which will require further adjustments. In this regard, the PLA seems to be demonstrating that it is a learning organization, willing to take risks and innovate.

At the same time, the imperative for the PLA to be fully modernized by 2027 is now even more challenging. The PLA describes “fully modernized” as being fully mechanized, fully informationized, and fully intelligence-ized. How the establishment of this new ISF relates to the requirements of being fully informationized and fully intelligence-ized is unclear, but under that timeline, there are only 30 months left for this new Support Force to make itself felt.

Why Xi created a new Information Support Force, and why now - Breaking Defense

"What does seem clear at this point is that the PLA recognizes that its reforms and modernization efforts are an ongoing effort, which will require further adjustments," author Dean Cheng writes.

breakingdefense.com · by Dean Cheng · April 29, 2024

Soldiers of a PLA Honor Guard stand at attention in front of a poster of President Xi Jinping, near Tiananmen Square in Beijing, during the COVID outbreak in 2020. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

The decision by the Chinese military to transform its Strategic Support Force and launch a new military organization in its wake caught many observers by surprise. In this new analysis, longtime Chinese military expert Dean Cheng lays out what might be behind the change.

On April 19, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) held a rare press conference to announce a major change: the disbanding of the PLA Strategic Support Force (SSF), and its replacement with a new entity, the Information Support Force, or ISF. (xinxi zhiyuan budui).

The SSF, which had drawn together China’s electronic warfare, network warfare (including cyber operations), and space warfare forces, had only been established in 2015, as part of the most fundamental overhaul of the PLA since its founding in 1927. It had marked the creation of a service for which there was no counterpart in any other military, a cross-discipline, multi-domain information warfare force.

The 2015 reforms affected almost every part of the PLA. The Central Military Commission (CMC) which manages the overall PLA, was thoroughly reorganized. The peacetime operational command structure of seven military regions was scrapped in favor of five theater commands or “war zones,” which would also be the wartime command structure. And several new services were created, including the SSF, as well as the elevation of China’s nuclear forces from the “super-branch” Second Artillery Corps to the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF). All of these measures were intended to reorient the PLA to an approach of “The CMC governs the overall. The services train and equip forces. The theaters direct operations.”

In many ways, the SSF was emblematic of the larger PLA view of future conflicts. Having not fought a war since 1979, the PLA is forced to rely on observations of other nations’ wars (especially those of the United States) to understand the impact of evolving technologies and international trends. Having concluded that the key to fighting and winning future “informationized local wars” rests upon establishing “information dominance (zhi xinxi quan),” the SSF appeared to be the PLA’s “information warfare force.” By bringing together electronic warfare, network warfare, and space warfare forces under a single umbrella, the goal was to leverage each such force’s capabilities and generate synergies that would help the PLA successfully gather and exploit information more rapidly and accurately than an adversary.

The disbanding of the PLASSF raises questions about what has happened, and where the PLA is going.

What We Know (A Little) And What We Don’t Know (A Lot)

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee and the Central Military Commission (CMC), were said to be the forces behind the SSF’s disbanding. Such attributions typically indicate high-level political decisions, which the elimination of a recently established marquee force would entail in the byzantine world of Chinese politics.

The newly-formed ISF will report directly to the Central Military Commission, suggesting that it is a strategic resource. Chinese President Xi Jinping personally presented the ISF with a military banner during its standup, demonstrating his personal role in its establishment. Xi went on to give some remarks about the importance of this new force for future PLA operations, again signaling the high-level support accorded it.

Heading this force is Lt. Gen. Bi Yi. Intriguingly, he had been the deputy head of the SSF. Also announced was the political commissar for the new ISF, Li Wei. He had previously been political commissar for the SSF. These appointments would suggest that the ISF is simply the next evolution of the SSF, and perhaps politically and bureaucratically comparable.

But where the SSF had control over China’s aerospace and network warfare forces, those are now their own forces. At a rare special news conference announcing the move, PLA spokesperson Wu Qian detailed the establishment of a separate Military Aerospace Force (junshi hangtian budui) and Network Space Force (wangluo kongjian budui), all of which would also report directly to the CMC. These three new support forces would join the Joint Logistic Support Force as “branches” (bingzhong) alongside the four services (junzhong ) of the PLA Ground Forces, PLA Navy, PLA Air Force, and PLA Rocket Force.

What is unclear is the division of labor between the Information Support Force and the Network Space Force. The latter appears to be responsible for cyber and network operations, but how does one separate that from “information support?” The limited Chinese discussions thus far do not indicate which of these new forces would be responsible for electronic warfare, if any, but an essential task on future “informationized” battlefields will be “integrated network and electronic warfare.”

Is that a responsibility of the new ISF?

Moreover, no public announcement was made at the news conference on who would head these two new Support Forces, either, further obscuring their relationship with the new ISF. As new “branches” or “arms,” reporting directly to the CMC, it is also unclear how they would be resourced.

The SSF was, at least nominally, comparable to the services; its commander would therefore be on a rough par with the other services in the struggle for additional financial and human resources. Will each of the new Support Forces now have to struggle on their own for resources? Given the expense associated with space systems (including satellites, space surveillance systems, and counter-space capabilities), this could be very difficult.

Implications

As is typical of the opaque Chinese military system, no real explanation has been forthcoming on why the SSF was disbanded. It, too, had received its banner from Xi upon its founding on December 31, 2015, and it, too, had been described as a key part of helping the PLA prepare for future “informationized local wars.”

Speculation on motive has included the possibility of corruption at the highest levels, with a number of observers noting that the PLASSF commander, Ju Gensheng, not having been seen for some weeks. Others have posited that the PLASSF may have always been a transitory organization, intended to get disparate elements of the PLA (those involved with electronic warfare, space operations, and network and cyber activities) to learn to cooperate. Still others have suggested that the problem may have been a failure to get those same elements to in fact work together.

What does seem clear at this point is that the PLA recognizes that its reforms and modernization efforts are an ongoing effort, which will require further adjustments. In this regard, the PLA seems to be demonstrating that it is a learning organization, willing to take risks and innovate.

At the same time, the imperative for the PLA to be fully modernized by 2027 is now even more challenging. The PLA describes “fully modernized” as being fully mechanized, fully informationized, and fully intelligence-ized. How the establishment of this new ISF relates to the requirements of being fully informationized and fully intelligence-ized is unclear, but under that timeline, there are only 30 months left for this new Support Force to make itself felt.

Dean Cheng is a senior advisor on China at the United States Institute of Peace.

breakingdefense.com · by Dean Cheng · April 29, 2024

23. What a Chinese academic’s takedown of Russia says about Beijing’s view of Moscow

Excerpts:

The PRC has also been one of several nations assisting Russia with shortages of nitrocellulose, the key ingredient in gunpowder production. At almost every juncture the PRC has enabled Russia’s defense sector to pump up new production.

Consequently, wrote Alexander Gabuev in Foreign Affairs, “China and Russia are more firmly aligned now than at any time since the 1950s” with the union of the two facilitating continued production of Russian weapon systems.

But Beijing receives more than just money from its defense trade with Russia, said Gabuev, a senior scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. “Russia also has some advanced military technologies that China still needs, despite the overall superior sophistication of Chinese defence manufacturing.”

These systems “include S-500 surface-to-air missiles, engines for modern fighter jets, tools for nuclear deterrence such as early-warning systems, stealthier submarines, and technologies for underwater warfare. Despite an exodus of talent following the invasion of Ukraine, Russia still has some brainpower, particularly in information technology, that China is interested in tapping.”

This puts the PRC into a precarious position. Stick with supporting Russia long enough in this war and some of the proverbial keys to the kingdom of military technology Beijing has been trying to get its hands on for more than a decade will be theirs for the picking.

However, maintaining a closer defense industrial partnership also puts Xi and the CCP at more than just the risk of being sanctioned by Washington. They could also suffer the humiliation of being the senior partner in an — albeit informal — wartime union with Russia that will end in the latter’s defeat.

It is a delicate balancing act that will become increasingly difficult to sustain as Ukraine acquires more advanced western weaponry and Russia in turn demands increasingly more from its Chinese partner to compensate.

What a Chinese academic’s takedown of Russia says about Beijing’s view of Moscow - Breaking Defense

China watchers are asking whether Feng’s article is a step in the evolution of differences in Chinese and Russian positions — or is it an overt signal of internal Chinese Communist Party debate over Beijing’s policy of supporting Putin’s war in Ukraine?

breakingdefense.com · by Reuben Johnson · April 29, 2024

This pool photograph distributed by Russian state owned agency Sputnik shows Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping shaking hands during a meeting in Beijing on October 18, 2023. (Photo by SERGEI GUNEYEV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. — In an April 11 Economist article, a Peking University senior researcher predicted that Russia will ultimately suffer complete defeat in its war with Ukraine. Calling Russia’s failure “inevitable,” he projected Moscow’s forces “will be forced to withdraw from all occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea.”

In many ways, the comments from Professor Feng Yujun are anodyne, in line with what researchers from any NATO nation’s think tank might come up with. But the sourcing has raised eyebrows among China watchers, as Peking University’s School of International Studies has historically served as an unofficial channel bridging the gap between official public policy and the unspoken opinions of those in the background who seek to change that present-day policy.

Breaking Defense spoke to five current and former NATO nation diplomats and intelligence officers, including former defense attaches, who were all assigned to their embassies in Beijing at one point during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s rule and are familiar with the university, on how they interpreted Feng’s article appearing in a high-profile international publication.

China watchers are asking whether Feng’s article is a step in the evolution of differences in Chinese and Russian positions — or is it an overt signal of internal Chinese Communist Party (CCP) debate over Beijing’s policy of supporting Putin’s war in Ukraine?

One intelligence official previously posted to Beijing told Breaking Defense of Feng’s article — published in a Western-facing, English-language publication no less — that it is very “un-Chinese to release something like this. It would have to be sanctioned at the highest level, which makes me think — could it be a rogue group, a fake or a bit of a ploy to shape things with Russia?”

“Terminology is everything in a CCP regime,” stated one of several NATO-nation intelligence officers who spoke to Breaking Defense. “Certain phrases, ‘labels’ and code words are used to telegraph a larger set of positions and policy objectives by using language based on historical precedents. When said phraseology is employed, it means there is a larger agenda at work we can only see a part of — all we can do is offer informed speculation based on our experience.”

The final question, they all say, is how powerful are the factions within the CCP that are unnerved about the course of the war with Ukraine and are advocating a more cost-benefit balanced relationship between the CCP and the Kremlin. Sowing doubts about Russia’s chances of victory are their best chance of prevailing in any internal Party debate over their future course with Putin’s regime.

No one expects China to abandon Russia anytime soon. But even a wavering of commitment or small drawback of Beijing’s dedication to Moscow could be beneficial to Kyiv and its supporters, at a time when the winter is thawing and combat operations are expected to begin in earnest.

Messaging Is Subtle, But Important

There have been subtle signs that Beijing isn’t thrilled with Moscow’s current planning. As Feng wrote in his article, there have been alterations in the Party’s state-controlled press statements describing the nature of the PRC-Russia axis.

An example is how the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine created before-and-after descriptions by the PRC of its ties with Russia. When Putin visited Beijing (prior to the invasion) for the opening of the 2022 Winter Olympics, he and Xi signed a pact in which the two pledged a “no limits” partnership.

But today’s official statements, points out Feng, now instead highlight more traditional ideals of “non-alignment, non-confrontation and non-targeting of third parties.” For all of the increasing belligerence inherent in the PRC’s stance towards the West and general — and the US in particular — there remains an adherence by Xi to a productive and non-confrontational stance vis-a-vis the US. The conclusion is he will not opt for a complete breakdown in dialogue with Washington as the cost of supporting Putin to the hilt.

In this vein, Feng references the recent visit to Beijing by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, one which he describes as being more of a “diplomatic effort by Russia to show it is not alone than a genuine love-in” between the two nations.

One of the main points of divergence for the two nations, the former officials told Breaking Defense, is that the PRC is increasingly unenthusiastic about this Russian nuclear saber-rattling, with its official spokespersons emphasizing restraint over gamesmanship.

In early March, PRC Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning obliquely criticized Putin threatening his Russian nuclear forces are “in a state of full readiness.” Speaking to the Beijing press corps, she stated “China believes that all nuclear weapon states need to embrace the idea of common security and uphold global strategic balance and stability.”

Notably, in his Economist piece, Feng downplayed Russia’s nuclear threats. Moscow’s nuclear arsenal “is no guarantee of success,” writes Feng. “Didn’t a nuclear-armed America [ultimately] withdraw from Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan” without ever using its atomic arsenal when conventional force failed, he reminds the reader.

The Impossible Disconnect

Under these circumstances the overtly rational approach for the PRC, concluded more than one of the intelligence officers Breaking Defense spoke to, would be for Beijing to discreetly distance itself from Moscow. If not, Xi risks being dragged into a direct conflict with the West that he is trying his best to avoid.

As Feng points out, the war has highlighted that “China and Russia are very different countries” with increasingly differing objectives in their foreign affairs. Hence the lack of any discussion about the two nations signing a formal alliance with one another.

“Russia is seeking to subvert the existing international and regional order by means of war,” he writes. “Whereas China wants to resolve disputes peacefully” and without exacerbating the already awkward conflict between the world’s largest communist dictatorship and the democratic West. All of which dictates Xi downgrading to something less than a “no limits” partnership.

But a main cause for Russia’s eventual defeat that Feng makes in his assessment is also a central obstacle to Beijing disconnecting from Moscow. Due partly to the considerable sums of money to be made, the PRC is becoming, as US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken stated at the April 2024 G-7 summit on the Isle of Capri, “the primary contributor” of needed inputs to Russia’s defense industrial base.

The Russian defense industrial sector was particularly hard hit during the 1990s and early 2000s when many second- and third-tier suppliers simply disappeared. By the time of the Ukraine invasion, the loss of these suppliers had made Moscow heavily dependent on imported western-made components — particularly electronic systems — for production of its major weapon systems.

China's enablement of Russia's defence industry is stark: https://t.co/L6TSaThx1i

— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) April 29, 2024

This created a significant vulnerability to the sanctions subsequently imposed on Russia by the White House and Brussels that were primarily intended to cut off the importation of these components, as well as a wide range of other technologies from ball bearings to electrical transformers.

Singled out for particular attention were high-priority dual-use items such as integrated circuits and radio frequency transceiver modules with “extensive commercial applications but have also been found in Russian missiles and drones on the battlefield in Ukraine.” At their core these sanctions were designed to reverse Moscow’s ability to maintain defense production lines, and to impair the ability “to compete in a high-tech 21st-century economy,” read the US Administration’s announcement at their enactment.

At least the situation should have made Moscow vulnerable. But in 2022, as these sanctions blocked purchases of thousands of manufacturing components used in Russian weapons production, the PRC stepped into the breach.

Beijing becoming Moscow’s quartermaster has become a source of increasing concern for Washington. As Blinken declared on April 19 at the post G-7 summit press conference, “we see China sharing machine tools, semiconductors, other dual use items that have helped Russia rebuild the defense industrial base.

“China can’t have it both ways,” he continued. “It can’t afford that. You want to have positive, friendly relations with countries in Europe, and at the same time, you are fueling the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War.”

But the dependency of Russian defense sector on the PRC is now almost complete, according to US intelligence community assessments. On April 12, and on condition of anonymity, senior US administration officials spoke to numerous press outlets, stating that even by 2023 some 90 percent of the microelectronics used in Russian missile, tank and aircraft production came from the PRC. The same officials revealed that 70 percent of Russia’s approximately $900 million in machine tool imports in the fourth quarter of 2023 were also sourced from Beijing.

The PRC has also been one of several nations assisting Russia with shortages of nitrocellulose, the key ingredient in gunpowder production. At almost every juncture the PRC has enabled Russia’s defense sector to pump up new production.

Consequently, wrote Alexander Gabuev in Foreign Affairs, “China and Russia are more firmly aligned now than at any time since the 1950s” with the union of the two facilitating continued production of Russian weapon systems.

But Beijing receives more than just money from its defense trade with Russia, said Gabuev, a senior scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. “Russia also has some advanced military technologies that China still needs, despite the overall superior sophistication of Chinese defence manufacturing.”

These systems “include S-500 surface-to-air missiles, engines for modern fighter jets, tools for nuclear deterrence such as early-warning systems, stealthier submarines, and technologies for underwater warfare. Despite an exodus of talent following the invasion of Ukraine, Russia still has some brainpower, particularly in information technology, that China is interested in tapping.”

This puts the PRC into a precarious position. Stick with supporting Russia long enough in this war and some of the proverbial keys to the kingdom of military technology Beijing has been trying to get its hands on for more than a decade will be theirs for the picking.

However, maintaining a closer defense industrial partnership also puts Xi and the CCP at more than just the risk of being sanctioned by Washington. They could also suffer the humiliation of being the senior partner in an — albeit informal — wartime union with Russia that will end in the latter’s defeat.

It is a delicate balancing act that will become increasingly difficult to sustain as Ukraine acquires more advanced western weaponry and Russia in turn demands increasingly more from its Chinese partner to compensate.

breakingdefense.com · by Reuben Johnson · April 29, 2024

24. Beyond China's Black Box

Download the 27 page report here. https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/files.cnas.org/documents/BeyondChinasBlackBox_2024_Final.pdf

I just received this so I have not read it yet. But it looks promising.

APRIL 30, 2024

Beyond China's Black Box

Five Trends Shaping Beijing’s Foreign and Security Policy Decision-Making Under Xi Jinping

https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/beyond-chinas-black-box?utm_medium=email&utm_

By: Jacob Stokes

   Print Download PDF

Executive Summary

China’s foreign and security policymaking apparatus is often described as a metaphorical black box about which analysts know little. That is true to an extent, but at the same time, it is possible to develop a better understanding of the people, institutions, processes, and pressures that go into making China’s policies toward the world during Xi’s “new era,” that is, his time as the country’s top leader. This report pursues that objective by identifying five major trends mostly internal to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) party-state system that shape its foreign and security policymaking. In addition, the paper describes the effects that each trend generates, from bureaucratic incentives to behavioral patterns.

The first trend is personalization of the system around Xi. It reduces the influence of various interest groups and therefore the need to bargain with and among them, raises the prospect of groupthink among the loyalists Xi has surrounded himself with, and potentially increases the importance of achieving certain goals for China on Xi’s watch. In addition, Xi’s centrality creates a major management bottleneck that could hamper the system during even brief absences.

The second trend is empowering the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the state. That trend has made more officials into policy-implementers rather than policymakers, even on issues below the level of strategy. It has also increased central demands for ideological activities, such as Xi Jinping Thought study sessions. At the same time, while the leadership wants to improve coordination and might be making some progress, it stops short of actions that could allow government organs to coordinate horizontally if doing so might plausibly jeopardize the center’s control.

The third trend is domestic policy headwinds and the search for alternative forms of political legitimacy for the CCP. This creates two contradictory pressures: China’s reaching out and trying to improve ties with the world, and its turn to an assertive and at times even aggressive form of nationalism to counteract stalling economic growth. It also dents the power and influence China gained through its rapid rise and its role as a massive market driving global economic growth.

The fourth trend is further elevation of regime security over other concerns. This trend negatively affects Beijing’s ties with foreign countries by worsening the experience of foreigners visiting and living in China, exporting repressive political ideas and techniques to the world, and complicating how China’s foreign and security bureaucracy interacts with its counterparts.

The fifth and final trend is diplomatic and military assertiveness and seeking an active global leadership role, which feeds a self-reinforcing cycle of growing tensions, requires PRC diplomats to shoehorn any activities into Xi’s marquee frameworks, and leads Beijing to build out structures of an alternative international order.

Examining these trends helps illuminate the macro pressures shaping China’s foreign and security policy decision-making. Still, aspects of how the party-state makes decisions about its foreign and security policies—“known unknowns” —remain particularly opaque. These include information flows to senior leaders, the dynamic among Xi and his top advisors, and the structure and frequency of important meetings. More knowledge in those areas might shed light on larger questions related to whether there are informal constraints on Xi’s power and how Xi is thinking about eventual transfer of power.

To better understand and respond to the intricacies of China’s foreign and security policy decision-making, the United States and like-minded partners should:

• Recognize that Xi’s personal style and preferences are now the dominant factor shaping China’s foreign and security policies—but how that reality manifests will continue to evolve.
• Track how trends shaping China’s foreign and security policy decision-making might affect the country’s various bureaucratic institutions differently.
• Anticipate uncoordinated PRC actions, such as the 2023 spy balloon incident, as well as policies characterized by drift followed by rapid shifts because they reflect structural features of the system.
• Prepare for deepening policy contradictions alongside continued assertive nationalism from Beijing.
• Prioritize direct diplomatic interactions with Xi.
• Formally compare assessments of the PRC system with allies and partners.
• Develop contingency plans for different leadership succession scenarios.

25. Beards, Satire, and Change?

Beards, Satire, and Change?

https://www.hardingproject.com/p/beards-satire-and-change?utm=

ROBERT ROSE

APR 30, 2024

A month ago, April Fools provided me an opportunity to try my hand at satire.

Part of the reason that I wrote “Clipping Convergence: The Army Overlooks the Beard Domain at Its Peril” was for a new writing experience. Satire poses a challenge, because as an author, you must keep your purpose opaque to take advantage of humor, ridicule, and exaggeration, and not make the argument too earnest. However, you cannot make the article so hard to interpret that your audience actually thinks that you are proposing beards to win wars.

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Satire assumes an intelligent audience that can see through that opacity to the deeper argument that the piece is making. Although, since Johnathan Swift wrote a proposal to alleviate hunger in Ireland by eating babies, some of the humor of satire comes from the satisfaction of recognizing the joke and making fun of those that believe a satirical piece is recommending eating babies or defeating our enemies through glorious beards.

Another reasons I attempted satire was to reach a larger audience. I was proud of my previous article, “Returning Context to Our Doctrine,” but that dry title would only attract the true doctrine nerd. On the other hand, an article on how beards produce victory would attract a wider audience out of pure curiosity to hear the ridiculousness of the proposal. The people that read it will hopefully share it for its humor, which is why South Park’s “Margaritaville” explained the Great Recession to a larger audience (2.77 million on its first broadcast) than any economics book on it.

Good satire is more than humor though: it seeks change. W. H. Auden said “comedy is good tempered and pessimistic” because it believes that things cannot be improved, while “satire is angry and optimistic” because it believes the things being ridiculed can be improved. Since the satirists of the 1700s like Swift, Alexander Pope, and Voltaire, authors have turned to satire to speak truth to power and show that even the most sanctified ideas are not off limits. Good satire points to a way out of the absurd situation that it ridicules, moving us beyond the cynicism found in many of today’s online memes.

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I hope that my article exposed the limits of Multidomain Operation’s over-emphasis on capabilities and showed that the Army must factor in the non-easily measured elements of war: the will to fight, initiative, and theories of victory.

Although…maybe those elements can be measured by taking a ruler to your beard.

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A guest post by

Robert Rose

Operations Officer for 3rd Squadron, 4th Security Force Assistance Brigade

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