Quotes of the Day:

"All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzes — all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the earth into a graveyard, into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance. Then we become the grave diggers."

~Rod Serling, from “Death’s Head Revisited” (1961)

"This is greed: desire to speak all, and listen to none."

– Democritus

"Don't worry about siding for or against the majority. Worry about taking up any of their irrational beliefs."

– Marcus Aurelius

1. In China’s Backyard, America Has Become a Humbler Superpower

2. How an Iranian-Backed Militia Ties Down U.S. Naval Forces in the Red Sea

3. A New Chinese Megaport in South America Is Rattling the U.S.

4. Biden, Zelensky to sign 10-year U.S.-Ukraine security deal at G-7 summit

5. US intelligence assesses Houthis in Yemen in talks to provide weapons to al-Shabaab in Somalia, officials say

6. Opinion - The Most Courageous Thing That Joe Biden Can Do

7. Morning Glory: What does “Hellscape” mean?

8. Osprey fleet won’t return to full flight operations until 2025

9. Junior enlisted would see only a small pay boost under Senate plan

10. Three Troubling Takeaways on U.S.-China Relations from the Shangri La Dialogue

11. More Russians died in ten-month battle for Bakhmut than in ten-year Afghan war

12. How the United States Can Effectively Pivot to Asia

13. What are Russian warships doing in the Caribbean

14. China-Russia-Iran-North Korea axis heightens the risk of WWIII

15. Kharkiv’s burned books.

16. China and Russia Are Beating the US in Africa By James Stavridis

17. The dangers of Taiwan’s ‘strategic ambiguity’

18. Achieving digital integration across allies: Lessons learned from Project Convergence

19. Combatting Russian Lawfare with a Cognitive Shield

20. Sleepwalking Toward War

21. China’s Do-Nothing Strategy in the Middle East

22. Congressman accuses Army of political attacks over combat badge

1. In China’s Backyard, America Has Become a Humbler Superpower

A comprehensive assessment that should be discussed.

Excerpts:

But are the countries linking arms with the United States making a long-term bet on America over China? Or are they recognizing their own rising strength and behaving like pragmatists, getting what they can from a fitful superpower where an increasing number of voters want the country to stay out of world affairs?

In interviews with more than 100 current and former officials from the United States and countries across the Indo-Pacific over the past year, many said that the next century was likely to be less dominated by America than the last. No matter who wins the next election or the one after that, they said, the nation responsible for today’s world order has been weakened by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the destabilizing effects of China’s rise on domestic manufacturing and America’s own internal divisions.

The world is changing, too, with more nations strong enough to shape events. And as the United States shares sensitive technology and prioritizes teamwork, many believe they are witnessing both a global reshuffling and an evolution in American power.

For now, they argue, the United States is adapting to a more multipolar world. It is learning to cooperate in ways that many Washington politicians, fixated on American supremacy, do not discuss — with an admission of greater need and more humility.

In China’s Backyard, America Has Become a Humbler Superpower - The New York Times

nytimes.com · by Damien Cave · June 13, 2024

analysis

The United States no longer towers over the Asia-Pacific, dictating terms to its allies. Instead, it’s offering to be a teammate and share responsibilities.

Listen to this article · 15:27 min Learn more

American soldiers in the Philippines in April, taking part in a joint exercise with the country’s military.

By Damien Cave

Damien Cave spent more than a year interviewing current and former officials from the U.S. and a dozen other countries for this article.

June 13, 2024, 12:01 a.m. ET

Far from Ukraine and Gaza, as the Group of 7 wealthy democracies gathers in Italy to discuss a range of old, entrenched challenges, the nature of American power is being transformed across the region that Washington sees as crucial for the century to come: the Asia-Pacific.

Here, America no longer presents itself as the confident guarantor of security, a trust-us-we’ve-got-this superpower. The terrain is too vast, China’s rise too great a threat. So the United States has been offering to be something else — an eager teammate for military modernization and tech development.

“In the past, our experts would talk about a hub-and-spokes model for Indo-Pacific security,” Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said this month at a global defense conference in Singapore. “Today we’re seeing something quite different.”

In this new era, many countries are doing more, on their own and with U.S. help. For the first time, the United States is building nuclear-propelled submarines with Australia; involving South Korea in nuclear weapons planning; producing fighter jet engines with India; sharing maritime surveillance duties with small Pacific islands; and working with Japan on adding an offensive strike capability.

Behind the scenes, U.S. officials are also testing new secure communications systems with their partners. They’re signing deals to co-produce artillery with allies and to secure blood supplies from hospitals around the region in case of a conflict. They are also training with many more nations in more expansive ways.

These collaborations highlight how the region sees China. Many countries fear Beijing’s growing military strength and belligerence — its threats against the democratic island of Taiwan, its claim to most of the South China Sea and its land grab at the border with India. They are also less sure about China as an economic partner, with the slowing pace of its post-Covid economy and tilt away from pro-growth, pro-entrepreneur policies under Xi Jinping.

A sailor on a Philippine Coast Guard vessel being chased by Chinese ships in the South China Sea in November. Credit…Jes Aznar for The New York Times

But are the countries linking arms with the United States making a long-term bet on America over China? Or are they recognizing their own rising strength and behaving like pragmatists, getting what they can from a fitful superpower where an increasing number of voters want the country to stay out of world affairs?

In interviews with more than 100 current and former officials from the United States and countries across the Indo-Pacific over the past year, many said that the next century was likely to be less dominated by America than the last. No matter who wins the next election or the one after that, they said, the nation responsible for today’s world order has been weakened by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the destabilizing effects of China’s rise on domestic manufacturing and America’s own internal divisions.

The world is changing, too, with more nations strong enough to shape events. And as the United States shares sensitive technology and prioritizes teamwork, many believe they are witnessing both a global reshuffling and an evolution in American power.

For now, they argue, the United States is adapting to a more multipolar world. It is learning to cooperate in ways that many Washington politicians, fixated on American supremacy, do not discuss — with an admission of greater need and more humility.

America Diminished

The United States does not tower over the world like it used to.

Since World War II, the U.S. share of the global economy has been cut in half. That is mostly because of Asia’s steady economic rise. China alone produces around 35 percent of the world’s manufactured goods, three times the share of the United States. Japan, India and South Korea have also joined the top seven in terms of output, giving Asia more industrial heft than any other part of the world.

America’s military superiority has been better maintained, but China, with a smaller budget and sharper focus on the Indo-Pacific, now has a larger navy by number of ships, a likely lead in hypersonic weapons and many more factories to expand military production if needed.

American democracy is also not what it once was, as measured merely by the declining number of bills that presidents have signed into law. The Republican Party has repeatedly held up budgets, drawing the president back from trips overseas, in addition to delaying aid for partners like Ukraine and Taiwan. Recent polls show that most Republicans want the United States to take a less active role in solving the world’s problems.

Yet both parties have struggled with how to tackle and talk about Asia’s shifting power dynamics and America’s limits.

“It goes back several administrations,” said James L. Jones, a retired Marine Corps general who served as national security adviser under President Barack Obama. “We’ve had a fairly long period of time where the United States has sent conflicting messages.”

A China-financed railway project in Malaysia. China has stronger economic relationships with most countries in the region than the United States has.Credit…Lauren DeCicca for The New York Times

The Obama administration promised a “pivot to Asia” that seemed to never come. The Trump administration’s foreign policy — with its mix of anti-China diatribes and abandonment of a major trans-Pacific free-trade deal — was seen by some countries as a sign of U.S. insecurity about the challenge from Beijing.

China had already become an economic colossus, the most important trade partner for most nations in the Indo-Pacific, and a major investor.

Countries across the region have also spent the past few decades producing millions of new middle-class consumers and expanding sophisticated industrial production, fueling a surge of regional trade that made the U.S. market less important while allowing more Asian nations to build tighter bonds.

Both confidence and anxiety have emerged from these broader trends. Military budgets across Asia have soared in recent years, and the demand for American defense technology has never been higher.

Yet many countries in the region now see themselves as players in an emerging multipolar order. “We are the main characters in our collective story,” President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. of the Philippines said during a keynote speech at the conference in Singapore. And as a result, they have turned to the United States less as a protector than a provider of goods (weapons), services (training) and investment (in new technology and equipment maintenance).

Japan has made the sharpest turn. From easing tensions with South Korea to pulling back from decades of pacifism with plans to sharply increase its military budget, to signing troop movement agreements with Australia and other countries, Tokyo has made clear that it now seeks a leading role in protecting regional stability. But even as Washington welcomes the move, Tokyo’s actions grow in part from a critical assessment of the United States.

Japanese pilots during a military exercise in Guam last year.Credit…Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

During a joint exercise with the American Air Force in Guam last year, Japanese commanders said they were expecting to become more active because Japan’s neighbors wanted Japan to do more, implying broad recognition that America’s future role was uncertain.

“The United States is no more what it used to be 20 years ago, 30 years ago,” said a senior Japanese intelligence official, who spoke on a condition of anonymity to avoid offending his American counterparts. “That’s the fact of the matter.”

“No matter who the next president is,” he added, “the role of the United States will be relatively diminished.”

America Adjusting

American officials are aware of the world’s doubts. When told that some counterparts in Asia saw humility in the American response, a handful of Washington officials winced, as if lemon juice had been squeezed into their eyes. It sounded too much like weakness.

But some Pentagon leaders have been open about seeking what analysts describe as “co-everything” with partners — co-development, co-production, co-sustainment. And while U.S. officials have talked for decades about alliances in Asia, their tone and actions over the past few years point to a subtle shift, toward a more decentralized approach to security and greater candor about their concerns.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken delivered a speech in September that called for greater humility in foreign policy to face “challenges that no one country can address alone.”

Gen. David H. Berger, the Marine Corps’ top general until he retired last year, launched a sweeping plan in 2019 to counter China’s strengths by redistributing American forces in Asia, shifting to smaller units that are now more mobile, with access to bases in many countries.

In Singapore, a senior defense official said the formula involves more capable nations, investing in themselves, in partnerships across the region, and in working with the United States, which now accepts that it need not be at the center of every relationship.

Hints of that humbler America can be seen in large, multinational military exercises, where other countries are playing bigger roles, and in smaller projects,such as a Pacific Fusion Center that opened last year in the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. A data hub for maritime analysis of threats ranging from illegal fishing to Chinese encroachment, it had been conceived as a purely U.S. operation until local partners demanded a role and American officials backed down and brought them in.

President Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a strategic defense and technology agreement during Mr. Modi’s state visit to Washington last year.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

India offers a more layered portrait of America’s evolution, pointing to sustained U.S. interest in long-term, comprehensive plans for working closely with an increasingly confident New Delhi — even if that means quieting down concerns about its democratic backsliding.

In interviews, some Indian officials said that a turning point arrived when the Americans pulled out troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, leaving behind scenes of stunning chaos that suggested more input from the region would have been useful.

“The U.S. did very little consultation in the run-up to withdrawal, and started doing much more after that,” one senior Indian diplomat said.

In meetings at the United States Embassy in India’s capital, against a backdrop of congressional hearings on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, American officials softened and talked more about shared shades of gray in their democracies. Diplomats from both countries said concerns about the Indian government’s promotion of Hindu nationalism or suppression of dissent were sanded down to: “We have a lot of commonalities — extremism, hate speech, disinformation. How are you dealing with it?”

Along with a change in how American officials talked about their own country came a broadening of how they saw India: not just as a huge market, with the world’s largest population, but also a multiplier for innovation.

Researchers at a semiconductor fabrication lab in Bangalore, India.

India graduates more than 1.4 million engineers each year, on par with China. At a time when the United States has become worried about Chinese advances in electric vehicles, missiles, quantum computing and other technologies, India could offer a pool of talent to help keep up.

It all came together in a strategic defense and technology-focused agreement unveiled during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to Washington in 2023.

New Delhi was most excited about the co-production of fighter jet engines, which it had been seeking for years. But the White House emphasized in its own announcement that with shared investment in everything from nuclear energy to microchips, “no corner of human enterprise is untouched” by a partnership that spans “the seas to the stars.”

Pushed by other countries, the United States may finally be learning that a humbler approach can yield powerful results, said Ryan Crocker, a retired diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait and Lebanon.

“A certain degree of humility does not mean weakness,” he said. “We can’t do it all, we shouldn’t do it all. We have these relations and alliances, let’s figure out who does what.”

The Risks of American Actions

In conversations about America with defense leaders from the Philippines, Japan, India, Australia and other countries, there is often a hint of happy customers reviewing a bazaar.

The United States under President Biden has been selling and giving out quite a lot. Tomahawk missiles for Japan. Coast Guard boats for Vietnam. Improved runways for the strategically located island nation of Palau. Training for seemingly everyone in Asia who asks.

Is there danger in all that generosity?

Some analysts fear that America’s effort to spread its wares across a more fragmented world adds to the sensitive touch points for brinkmanship with China, raising the risk of a misunderstanding that could become a conflict.

“Washington’s pursuit of an increasingly complex lattice of security ties is a dangerous game,” wrote Mike M. Mochizuki and Michael D. Swaine, two defense researchers in Washington, in a recent essay for The New York Times.

Clearly, Beijing is not happy about the growth of U.S. partnerships.

At the Singapore conference in early June, China’s defense minister, Dong Jun, railed against what he described as “exclusive military alliances” that he said “cannot make our region safer.”

But if one risk of America’s collective approach involves doing too much, possibly sparking a confrontation, another could involve the U.S. failing to lock in enough from its partners.

Taiwanese soldiers during a military exercise last year. Credit…Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

There is a lot of ambiguity in the coalitions that increasingly define American power in Asia. How would the region respond if the Philippines stumbled toward a violent clash in the South China Sea? Or in a war over Taiwan — a center of the global chip business that China sees as its own lost territory — would the countries co-developing military equipment with the United States, or welcoming longer runways, actually spring into action?

It is also not clear how Washington itself would respond to Chinese aggression. And that uncertainty, according to many, is what countries are desperate to understand as they pull America closer.

“In the over 40 years I’ve known the United States, I’ve seen you go through troughs of being overly self-critical and waves of hubris,” said Bilahari Kausikan, one of Singapore’s most experienced diplomats. “One should not make the mistake of believing either is a permanent condition.”

The challenge for Asia and the world, he added, is that America is increasingly dysfunctional and “still indispensable”: No other country does as much to protect the order that other nations and economies need.

What’s changed is that a growing number of U.S. officials now acknowledge that more assistance is needed, from more than just familiar allies. In a time of disorienting challenges — Gaza, Ukraine, China, North Korea, pandemics, climate change, artificial intelligence, nuclear weapons — their jobs now involve convincing others that humility can be as American as confidence and that it’s built into a strategy that will last, no matter who is president.

When Adm. John Aquilino, in his final days as the head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, was asked what his typical day looked like during an event in Australia in April, he didn’t mention aircraft carriers, just allies.

“I spend a lot of time either on the phone, on email or on an airplane out to visit my partners,” he said.

Many of his counterparts in the region, he added, have each other’s numbers on speed dial.

is an international correspondent for The Times, covering the Indo-Pacific region. He is based in Sydney, Australia. 

See more on: U.S. Politics

nytimes.com · by Damien Cave · June 13, 2024

2. How an Iranian-Backed Militia Ties Down U.S. Naval Forces in the Red Sea

Is our Navy too small? (I think I hear a chorus of "yes")

 We can criticize this mission, perhaps with good reason, but one positive effect is the demonstration of our missile defense capabilities. Had we not had these forces in the region the 300 missile/drone on attack on Israel might have turned out very differently.

How an Iranian-Backed Militia Ties Down U.S. Naval Forces in the Red Sea

Yemen’s Houthis have launched hundreds of attacks, and American military officials see no end in sight

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/how-an-iranian-backed-militia-ties-down-u-s-naval-forces-in-the-red-sea-3821056c?mod=hp_lead_pos8

By Gordon LuboldFollow

June 12, 2024 11:00 pm ET

ABOARD THE USS LABOON—It was just after 9 p.m. when radar operators aboard this U.S. Navy destroyer in the Red Sea spotted a tiny arrow on their screens: a missile hurtling toward them at five times the speed of sound.

The crew of the warship with 300 sailors aboard had just seconds to shoot it down. As the projectile closed in, the Laboon launched an interceptor from silos beneath its deck, destroying the incoming missile in flight.

The Jan. 9 attack was one of the largest maritime battles the U.S. has faced since World War II. Houthi rebels in Yemen that day launched 18 drones and cruise missiles along with the ballistic missile at the Laboon and three other American destroyers, a U.S. aircraft carrier and a British warship in an attack that unfolded over a dozen hours. 

The Laboon, a U.S. Navy destroyer, in 2015. PHOTO: JEFFREY RICHARDSON/U.S. NAVY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Iran-backed Houthi rebels have lobbed missiles, drones and other weapons at commercial vessels and warships nearly every day. Although most of the weapons have been shot down, at least 77 cargo ships have been hit, and one British-owned ship carrying 20,000 tons of fertilizer aboard was sunk.

Though largely ineffective, the Houthi attacks have been able to disrupt shipping and keep the U.S. and its allies tied down, frustrating the Navy’s decades-old mission of keeping open the region’s critical sea lanes.

The attacks are the direct result of fateful geography. To travel through the Red Sea and reach the Suez Canal, one of the world’s most heavily traveled shipping routes, cargo ships must pass through the Bab al-Mandab strait skirting the coast of Yemen, within range of the Houthis’ arsenal of missiles and drones. 

Attacks in the Red Sea

Confirmed Houthi attacks

(Nov. 19, 2023-June 9, 2024)

SAUDI ARABIA

Red Sea

OMAN

YEMEN

ERITREA

Sana’a

HOUTHI-CONTROLLED

TERRITORY

(AS OF NOV. 27, 2023)

Gulf of Aden

ETHIOPIA

DJI.

Djibouti

200 miles

Sources: Acaps; The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Carl Churchill and Emma Brown/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

No warships are known to have been hit in the more than 80 attempted attacks, but there have been some close calls, underscoring the perils for the U.S. and allies that have sent ships to the area the longer the conflict continues.

The Biden administration has limited its military response to the Houthi attacks, hoping to avoid being drawn into a wider Middle East conflict. But that has meant the flotilla of U.S. and allied warships has spent weeks and even months patrolling the Red Sea on alert—and the attacks have kept coming.

“We haven’t taken a hit, but strategically, we haven’t restored the flow of goods,” said Gene Moran, a retired Navy captain who commanded the Laboon more than 20 years ago.

More than 20,000 commercial ships pass through the Red Sea in a typical year, including 150 huge tankers and containerships, but the ship traffic through the strait has dropped steeply since the attacks began.

Newly recruited Houthi fighters during a January ceremony marking the end of their training. PHOTO: OSAMAH YAHYA/ZUMA PRESS

Portraits of Houthi fighters killed in the war in Yemen. PHOTO: YAHYA ARHAB/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Since the attacks began in November, in a Houthi show of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, containership traffic through the strait fell by 67% and tanker traffic has dropped by about 50%, according to Windward, a maritime-intelligence company.

The Houthis have focused attention on Israeli-owned vessels or those headed for the port of Eilat in southern Israel, which has seen its ship traffic drop steeply. Many shipping companies have rerouted ships around the southern tip of Africa.

On Wednesday, a Greek ship was hit by an unmanned waterborne drone and began taking on water. 

Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, said in congressional testimony last month that the U.S.-led effort has been insufficient to deter the militant group’s targeting of ships and that the threat will “remain active for some time.”

The aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Red Sea on Wednesday. PHOTO: BERNAT ARMANGUE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Aircraft launching from the Dwight D. Eisenhower. Video: U.S. Central Command

Earlier this year, the Laboon was patrolling in calm waters under a clear sky north of the Bab al-Mandab. On the bridge, radar monitors showed cargo ships making their way north, none of them under attack. That morning, four one-way attack drones targeted a different U.S. warship, the first such attack after a three-day lull.

During the Jan. 9 attack, the Laboon crew first saw two cruise missiles heading toward the ship and shot them down. The cruise missiles lumbered along at subsonic speeds, allowing relatively ample time to respond. Then came the ballistic missile. 

“These things are telephone pole-sized, you get three minutes of flight time, you detect it for 45 seconds, you get like 10 seconds to determine whether you’re going to shoot at it or not,” said Capt. David Wroe of U.S. carrier strike group in the Red Sea.

A view of commercial shipping off the coast of Djibouti. PHOTO: LUKE DRAY/GETTY IMAGES

The Laboon uses several weapons systems to defend against the Houthi attacks, including its “vertical launching system,” which fires interceptor missiles from silos beneath the bow and stern called the “checkerboard.” When fired, the missiles burst from beneath the deck with a loud swoosh, heading for the target.

“We did our damndest to make sure we were ready for a ballistic missile, but we weren’t really expecting it,” said Cmdr. Eric Blomberg, the Laboon’s commanding officer. 

In addition to shooting down incoming missiles and drones, the U.S. and other countries have carried out several waves of airstrikes against launchers, radar installations and other facilities used by the Houthis in its attacks.

The longer the Houthi attacks continue, the more likely it is that a U.S. warship could be hit, said Frank McKenzie, a retired Marine general. “There’s always a chance that something happens and one of our ships could be struck, and that chance only increases the longer we allow the situation to continue,” he added.

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Iran-backed groups form a land bridge across the Middle East and connect in an alliance that Tehran calls the ‘Axis of Resistance.’ Here’s what to know about the alliance that includes Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. Photo illustration: Eve Hartley

The Navy says it has spent about $1 billion on munitions used in defending the Red Sea, conducting more than 450 strikes and intercepting more than 200 drones and missiles since November when the attacks began.

U.S. officials worry that the conflict is simply not sustainable for the U.S. defense industrial base, already strained by the demands for weaponry from Ukraine and Israel. 

“Their supply of weapons from Iran is cheap and highly sustainable, but ours is expensive, our supply chains are crunched, and our logistics tails are long,” said Emily Harding of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “We are playing whack-a-mole, and they are playing a long game.”

Write to Gordon Lubold at gordon.lubold@wsj.com

3. A New Chinese Megaport in South America Is Rattling the U.S.

A New Chinese Megaport in South America Is Rattling the U.S.

The Peru project could speed trade with Asia and plant Beijing’s flag in Washington’s neighborhood

https://www.wsj.com/world/chancay-peru-port-china-south-america-trade-ffc75d32?mod=latest_headlines

By Ryan DubéFollow

 and James T. AreddyFollow

 | Photographs by Angela Ponce for The Wall Street Journal

Updated June 13, 2024 12:25 am ET

CHANCAY, Peru—In this serene town on South America’s Pacific coast, China is building a megaport that could challenge U.S. influence in a resource-rich region that Washington has long considered its backyard. 

The Chancay deep-water port, rising here among pelicans and fishermen in small wooden boats, is important enough to Beijing that Chinese leader Xi Jinping is expected to inaugurate it at the end of the year in his first trip to the continent since the pandemic.

Majority-owned by the giant China Ocean Shipping group, known as Cosco, Chancay promises to speed trade between Asia and South America, eventually benefiting customers as far away as Brazil with shorter sailing times across the Pacific for everything from blueberries to copper. 

As nations around the world shudder at a new flood of cheap Chinese manufactured goods, the port could open new markets for its electric vehicles and other exports. China is already the top trade partner for most of South America.

Major Latin American ports on the Pacific Ocean

2022 throughput,

in thousands of TEUs*

U.S.

Long Beach, Calif.

5,000

3,000

Lázaro

Cárdenas

1,000

MEXICO

Balboa and Rodman,

Panama

Manzanillo

CURRENT ROUTES

Buenaventura,

Colombia

Approximately

35 days

PACIFIC OCEAN

Guayaquil,

Ecuador

BRAZIL

PERU

China-controlled Chancay will have an initial 1.5 million TEU capacity

BOLIVIA

Callao

Chancay

Valparaíso

Megaport Chancay as of March

URUGUAY

San Antonio

ARGENTINA

CHILE

*Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit, an industry standard measure of a shipping container

Sources: United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (2022 throughput); staff reports (Chancay throughput); Maxar Technologies (satellite image)

Emma Brown/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The U.S. worries that China’s control over what could become South America’s first true global commercial hub will allow Beijing to further strengthen its grip over the region’s resources, deepen its influence among America’s closest neighbors and eventually plant its military nearby. 

“This will further make it easier for the Chinese to extract all of these resources from the region, so that should be concerning,” Army Gen. Laura Richardson, who heads the U.S. Southern Command, said last month at a Florida International University security conference.

Former American officials say the project highlights a diplomatic void that the U.S. has left in Latin America as it has concentrated resources elsewhere, most recently in Ukraine and the Middle East.

“This changes the game,” said Eric Farnsworth, a former high-ranking State Department diplomat who now leads the Washington office of the Council of the Americas think tank. “It really platforms China in a major new way in South America as the gateway to global markets. It is not just a commercial issue at that point, it is a strategic issue.”

Located 50 miles north of Peru’s capital, Lima, the $3.5 billion port—funded by Chinese bank loans—will be the first on South America’s Pacific coast able to receive megaships because of its nearly 60 feet of depth, though other ports in the region have large container-handling capacity. That will allow companies to send cargo on those vessels directly between Peru and China rather than on smaller ships that must go first to Mexico or California. 

Cosco says Chancay is purely intended to boost commerce. 

A mile-long Chinese-built tunnel for cargo trucks will link the port with roadways that avoid the city center.

“This is a commercial project to promote development,” said Gonzalo Rios, Cosco’s deputy general manager in Peru. “There is nothing to hide here.”

Soon after the port was agreed to in 2019, Chinese state media gushed with predictions of Peru’s future as a hub in Chinese-South American trade and suggestions it could help Beijing with other priorities, such as a submarine cable link. 

“Peru could be the anchor for such a corridor not only because of its geographical location, but also because of its relations with China,” said an English-language commentary published in China Daily.

Peru has brushed aside U.S. concerns. Congress in Peru, a country of 33 million that is far from any potential global conflicts, has to approve the arrival of foreign military, not a port operator. 

Peru’s Foreign Minister Javier González-Olaechea said that if the U.S. is concerned about China’s growing presence in Peru, then it should step up its own investments, adding that “everyone is welcome” to invest.

“The United States is present almost everywhere in the world with a lot of initiatives, but not so much in Latin America,” González-Olaechea said in an interview. “It’s like a very important friend who spends little time with us.” 

China’s president is expected to inaugurate the Chancay port late this year.

Chancay is an echo of a Cosco port in Greece in 2016 that gave China a foothold in southern Europe. Today, Chinese companies control or operate terminals at roughly 100 foreign seaports. According to AidData, a research lab at the Virginia university William & Mary, they have financed almost $30 billion of work in at least 46 countries between 2000 and 2021.

Port investments have provided China diplomatic leverage with investment-hungry nations. Chinese navy ships have called at over a third of the ports its companies own or operate around the world.

But the ports haven’t emerged as stealth Chinese military bases, instead playing host to ceremonial naval port calls. And the commercial cost-benefit analysis of China’s port building push won’t be known for some time, since it will take years to establish trading hubs in new markets. More immediate concerns about its ports, from debt loads in Mozambique to signs of environmental damage in Kenya, are already in evidence, along with signs in Europe that the local interests are secondary to China’s​.

The U.S. has discussed concerns with Peruvian officials about China’s control over vital infrastructure, including Chancay, said a former U.S. official and ex-Peruvian official with knowledge of the talks. What worries Washington is the interplay between China’s commercial companies and the government—specifically the military. Ports, and the equipment in them, can have both commercial and military uses. 

Ship Shape

Chinese companies control or operate terminals at roughly 100 foreign seaports.

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

PACIFIC OCEAN

VANUATU

BRAZIL

Chancay

SAMOA

RUSSIA

CHINA

PACIFIC

OCEAN

INDIAN

OCEAN

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

Note: Chancay is set to open in late 2024. All other data as of 2021.

Source: AidData

Emma Brown/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

China’s domestic law requires its companies to consider national defense needs in their operations, which could mean providing preferential access to military vessels at port terminals, sharing potentially valuable information and otherwise supporting defense and mobilization, said Isaac Kardon, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 

“The Americans have been somewhat asleep,” said John Youle, a prominent businessman in Peru and former U.S. diplomat. “Suddenly they’ve woken up.”

That shift could be on display in mid-November when Xi is expected to be in Peru for an Asia-Pacific summit. Whether or not President Biden attends the summit—scheduled shortly after November’s election—the Chinese leader is likely to steal the show with a project designed to strengthen Beijing’s influence in the Western Hemisphere.

The port has put Peru squarely in the middle of the rivalry between the two superpowers in South America. 

Brazil, Latin America’s biggest economy, wants to develop semiconductors with China after rebuffing U.S. requests to exclude Huawei Technologies from 5G networks. Chinese companies are building a metro in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá. Honduras cut ties with Taiwan, hoping to receive a flood of Chinese investments. And in Argentina, China is buying up lithium mines, an essential component in EVs. 

Peru has welcomed Chinese investments in everything from ports to copper mining and electricity, which will give China firms control over virtually all of Lima’s power distribution. 

“Peru is further increasing its economic dependency on China and making itself vulnerable to potential Chinese economic coercion,” said Leland Lazarus, an expert on China-Latin America relations at Florida International University.

Port investments have provided China diplomatic leverage with investment-hungry nations.

The Chancay port will be the first on South America’s Pacific coast able to receive megaships because of its nearly 60 feet of depth.

Peru is ranked fifth among the most China-influenced nations in the world, according to an indicator produced by two organizations critical of Beijing, Doublethink Lab and China in the World Network. Chinese-made vehicles are ubiquitous in the country. In the capital’s leafy Miraflores neighborhood, not far from a park named after John F. Kennedy, local authorities inaugurated a so-called China Park overlooking the Pacific, with a pergola and lion statues brought from China to celebrate the deepening ties. 

At the port, where there are signs in Spanish and Chinese, a mile-long tunnel will give cargo trucks access without going through the town. Automated cranes and driverless vehicles will move cargo onto some of the world’s biggest shipping vessels, ships as long as the Empire State Building is high.

The construction of Chancay brought so much noise and shaking to a once sleepy fishing community that locals blamed it for cracks in the walls of their homes, the collapse of a road and the decline of the area’s fisheries. Cosco says it has repaired homes and the road and worked to mitigate the impact on fishermen.

“Fishing isn’t what it was before,” said Hugo Pasache, a Chancay fisherman. “In a year, I’ll sell everything and do something else.”

Daniel Bustamante expects the port will open new Asian markets for the blueberries and avocados he grows on Peru’s coast and that he now mostly ships to Europe and the U.S. The current shipping routes between Peru and China—about 35 days—take too long for most perishable foods to reach markets. Chancay will help cut that time by a third, reducing business costs.

“This will be a window into Asia,” said Bustamante. “Our expectation is to be able to grow a lot in that market.”

'Fishing isn’t what it was before,' says Hugo Pasache, a Chancay fisherman. Another resident points to cracks she says are due to port construction.

Particularly tantalizing for China is getting Brazil to use the port. Since China overtook the U.S. to become Brazil’s biggest trading partner in 2009, one major obstacle remains: Brazil faces the wrong ocean.

Shipping exports to China, which now buys some two-thirds of Brazil’s iron ore and soybeans, involves either going east via the Atlantic or north to access the Pacific via the Panama Canal.

With Chancay, Brazilian exporters as far away as the jungle city of Manaus could cut their shipping time to China by half, says Omar Narrea, an economist at Peru’s University of the Pacific. 

But reaching a port on the other side of the Amazon rainforest and Andean mountains remains a major challenge. Peru has one highway in its far south connecting to Brazil and says new highways and railways connecting to Chancay are on the drawing board.

“This is the kind of project where everyone wins,” Brazilian Transport Minister Renan Filho said. “But some parts are extremely complex.”

Peru has welcomed Chinese investments in everything from ports to copper mining and electricity.

Samantha Pearson in São Paulo contributed to this article.

Write to Ryan Dubé at ryan.dube@wsj.com and James T. Areddy at James.Areddy@wsj.com

Appeared in the June 13, 2024, print edition as 'Chinese Megaport Poses U.S. Challenge'.

4. Biden, Zelensky to sign 10-year U.S.-Ukraine security deal at G-7 summit

Excerpts:

“We want to demonstrate that the U.S. supports the people of Ukraine, that we stand with them, and that we’ll continue to help address their security needs not just tomorrow but out into the future,” Sullivan told reporters on Air Force One as the president flew to a Group of Seven leaders summit in Italy’s southern Puglia region.

Washington will strengthen Ukraine’s “credible defense and deterrence capability,” Sullivan said. “If [Russian President] Vladimir Putin thinks that he can outlast the coalition supporting Ukraine, he’s wrong.”

Biden, Zelensky to sign 10-year U.S.-Ukraine security deal at G-7 summit

The agreement — which Trump could undo if reelected — commits Washington to give Kyiv long-term support. Unlike NATO, it doesn’t require a U.S. military response if Ukraine is attacked.

By Ellen Nakashima and Michael Birnbaum

June 13, 2024 at 12:54 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Ellen Nakashima · June 13, 2024

President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky plan Thursday to sign a 10-year security agreement that will commit Washington to supply Kyiv with a wide range of military assistance, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said, in a bid to bolster Ukraine’s fight with Russia.

The deal aims to commit future U.S. administrations to support Ukraine, even if former president Donald Trump wins November’s election, officials said. It will be a framework for a long-term effort by the United States to help develop Ukraine’s armed forces, which have innovated on drone warfare and other cutting-edge techniques in the fight against Russia, but are also desperately outgunned and in need of modern weapons.

Officials said that they hoped the agreement would transcend political divisions within the United States, but acknowledged that Trump or any future president could withdraw from the legally binding executive agreement, because it is not a treaty and will not be ratified by Congress. Nor does it make any new commitments about Ukraine’s prospects for joining the NATO defense alliance, which remain distant.

“We want to demonstrate that the U.S. supports the people of Ukraine, that we stand with them, and that we’ll continue to help address their security needs not just tomorrow but out into the future,” Sullivan told reporters on Air Force One as the president flew to a Group of Seven leaders summit in Italy’s southern Puglia region.

Washington will strengthen Ukraine’s “credible defense and deterrence capability,” Sullivan said. “If [Russian President] Vladimir Putin thinks that he can outlast the coalition supporting Ukraine, he’s wrong.”

With Trump leading Biden in many election polls, the future of the agreement remains unclear. Trump has at times expressed skepticism of Ukraine’s continued fight, saying at one point that he would end the war between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours, and he has pushed for Europe to take on more of the burden of supporting Kyiv. But he also eventually signaled his assent to congressional passage of aid for Ukraine this spring.

The agreement comes after months of negotiations that started in August last year, the month after a NATO summit where the Biden administration was among the most reluctant to offer Ukraine a speedy path to alliance membership. Officials instead proposed a series of bilateral security agreements as a way of creating a different form of organized, binding long-term support for Kyiv.

Not long after negotiations started, though, the billions of dollars of short-term military aid that the United States sends Ukraine got tangled in Congress, with skeptical House Republicans delaying approval of new funding until April — a seven-month period that put on hold discussions about the 10-year deal. U.S. officials felt it made little sense to talk about long-term commitments to Ukraine when they could not muster support for the immediate fight.

Biden on Thursday will join 15 other countries that have signed bilateral agreements with Ukraine, including Britain, France, Germany and Italy. An additional 16 countries have committed eventually to making similar agreements. Officials expect the nations will coordinate how they carry out their assistance pledges, potentially starting at a summit of NATO leaders in Washington next month, although not every country that has signed a deal with Kyiv is a member of that alliance.

The pact does not commit Washington to supply troops to defend Ukraine if it is attacked, unlike NATO’s all-for-one, one-for-all mutual defense promises, an administration official said, speaking like others on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details of the agreement before they have been made public. There is also not a dollar figure attached to the support Washington will supply Ukraine.

But it commits the United States to hold high-level consultations with Kyiv within 24 hours if Ukraine is attacked again in the future, and it promises that the U.S. president will work with Congress to implement the security agreements, the official said.

The United States will also continue to train Ukraine’s military, deepen cooperation on defense industry production and share more intelligence than currently. And it will try to help build Ukraine’s long-term deterrent power across different domains — including air, sea and cyber — people familiar with the agreement said.

“It’s about moving the planning cycle from only fighting the current war to thinking in a much broader perspective about deterrence and defense,” said Eric Ciaramella, a former White House official who is now a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“This is not the end of the story,” he said. “There will be ways to make these agreements stronger over time, including coordination with the allies.’’

The Washington Post · by Ellen Nakashima · June 13, 2024

5. US intelligence assesses Houthis in Yemen in talks to provide weapons to al-Shabaab in Somalia, officials say

US intelligence assesses Houthis in Yemen in talks to provide weapons to al-Shabaab in Somalia, officials say | CNN Politics

CNN · by Katie Bo Lillis, Kylie Atwood, Natasha Bertrand · June 11, 2024

In this December 2023 photo, people trained by the Houthis hold up their guns and Palestinian flags while chanting slogans during an armed popular parade held in Al-Sabeen Square in Sana'a, Yemen.

Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images/File

CNN —

US intelligence has learned of discussions between Houthis in Yemen to provide weapons to the Somali militant group al-Shabaab, in what three American officials described to CNN as a worrying development that threatens to further destabilize an already violent region.

Officials are now searching for evidence that Houthi weapons have been delivered to Somalia, and are trying to work out whether Iran, which provides some military and financial support to the Houthis, is involved in the agreement.

The US has been warning countries in the region about this possible cooperation in recent weeks, according to a senior administration official, and African countries have also begun to proactively bring it up with the US to raise their concerns and get more information.

“This is a pretty active area of conversation that we’re having with countries on both sides of the Red Sea,” this person said. “And it’s being viewed with a considerable seriousness.”

It’s not a natural alliance for the two groups, which are divided by sectarianismand are not known to have had a relationship in the past. The Houthis are Zaydi Shiites, and al-Shabaab traditionally has been deeply ideologically opposed to Shiism. But they are separated by only a single body of water — the strategically significant Gulf of Aden — and they both count the United States as a top enemy.

The intelligence raises the alarming possibility that a marriage of convenience could make things worse both in Somalia and in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, where the Houthis have launched regular attacks on commercial shipping and US military assets since the war in Gaza began.

A potential deal could offer a new stream of financing for the Houthis, at a time when US officials say there are signs that the group’s primary patron, Iran, has some concerns about the group’s attack strategy. “Being able to sell some weapons would bring them much needed income,” the senior administration official said.

For al-Shabaab, it could provide access to a new source of weapons — including potentially drones — that are far more sophisticated than their current arsenal and could offer the group the ability to strike US targets.

There has been some routine smuggling of both small arms and commercial material between different groups in Yemen and Somalia for years. But a weapons agreement between al-Shabaab and the Houthis would be something new, according to US officials.

“It would be the clearest sign that two organizations that are, ideologically, diametrically opposed to one another — that they prioritized something they have in common, which is hostility towards [the United States],” said Christopher Anzalone, a professor at the Marine Corps University’s Middle East Studies department. “It would be very significant because it shows there is a level of pragmatism in both organizations.”

Any form of military cooperation between the Houthis and al-Shabaab could also undermine an informal, and fragile, ceasefire between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia that has held since 2022, the senior administration official said. And it would “definitely” go against the spirit of a proposed UN roadmap for a more lasting peace, the official said.

“We still have a strong interest in supporting the roadmap process in Yemen,” the official added, “but this sort of trafficking between the Houthis” and al-Shabaab “would certainly complicate and undermine that effort.”

Officials say at this point, they aren’t sure what kinds of weapons the Houthis might provide to al-Shabaab. Right now, the Somali group generally only has access to rockets, mortars and homemade IEDs that it has used in its fight against the Somali government — deadly, but relatively smaller arms. The Houthis, by comparison, have weaponized drones, including underwater drones. They also have short-range ballistic missiles. There is a sense that the deal would cover “bigger kit” than just rockets and mortars, said one US official, but beyond that, the intelligence is murky.

No matter what the Houthis provide, there’s likely limited opportunity for al-Shabaab to fire directly at US assets in the region. Even if the Houthis were to provide them with some of the smaller missiles the group has used to target US MQ-9 drones, Anzalone said, al-Shabaab would likely have to fire them from the north of the country. Pockets of that region of the country are controlled by an increasingly powerful branch of ISIS. Al-Shabaab is often fighting to contest territory there, and as a result, has a much more limited presence and freedom to maneuver.

“They would love to do that,” Anzalone said, referring to striking directly at US assets. Al-Shabaab views the internationally recognized government of Somalia as a puppet of the United States. But, he said, “I think they would find it hard to do. This is where the intra-jihadist fighting between Shabaab and ISIS is the heaviest.”

The US has about 480 US troops in Somalia, according to a US official. The US has continued to carry out counterterrorism strikes against both al-Shabaab and ISIS targets in Somalia throughout the Biden administration.

One major question for US intelligence officials is the degree of involvement Iran might have in the arrangement. There is no direct evidence yet, officials said, but the US is still looking. It fits the pattern of broader Iranian efforts to widen the front against the US and the west by directly or indirectly providing arms to proxy groups.

“That’s something we definitely have our eyes on,” the senior administration official said.

But the Houthis are also one of the most independent-minded of the different Iran-aligned groups and are the one over which Tehran exercises arguably the least amount of control. Iran broadly has sought to tightly manage any potential escalation arising from the war in Gaza, calibrating its response to extract costs from the US and Israel without allowing it to spiral into direct conflict.

And so some US officials are skeptical Iran is involved.

“Don’t think Iran is actually part of this,” said one military official. “Houthis be a’ Houthi-ing on their own.”

CNN · by Katie Bo Lillis, Kylie Atwood, Natasha Bertrand · June 11, 2024

6. Opinion - The Most Courageous Thing That Joe Biden Can Do

I do not offer this from a partisan perspective. It is not quite the LBJ parallel but conservative Bret Stephans writing in the liberal NY Times uses foreign policy and national security (and the struggle against authoritarianism) as rationale for his recommendation. That is slightly ironic because foreign affairs generally do not directly influence elections.

Opinion - The Most Courageous Thing That Joe Biden Can Do - The New York Times

nytimes.com · by Bret Stephens · June 11, 2024

Bret Stephens

June 11, 2024

Credit…Sam Hodgson for The New York Times

By Bret Stephens

Opinion Columnist

In 1977, Ronald Reagan shared his thoughts on the Cold War with his aide Richard Allen. “My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic,” the future president said. “It is this: We win, and they lose. What do you think of that?”

This year, Joe Biden cast the purpose of his presidency as a struggle against authoritarianism, at home and abroad. What’s his theory of victory?

He doesn’t appear to have one. His style of governance is to manage threats, not defeat them. He has sought to provide Ukraine with sufficient weaponry not to lose to Vladimir Putin. But even before congressional Republicans forced a spending hiatus, he was reluctant to give Ukraine the types or numbers of weapons it needed to evict Russian forces from its territory. He believes Israel has a right to protect itself. But his previous insistence that Hamas has to be defeated has given way to a U.S.-backed cease-fire resolution that effectively ensures Hamas’s survival.

He has vowed that Iran will never get nuclear weapons. But in the face of Iran’s refusal to give international inspectors access to its nuclear facilities, the United States worked to soften a diplomatic censure. He has promised to defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion. But projected U.S. military spending, when adjusted for inflation, is essentially flat, and U.S. naval power isn’t keeping pace with China’s growth.

What about the threat at home? Biden is sleepwalking to defeat against a felonious adversary who three years ago incited violence to overturn an election. He has the lowest approval rating of his time in office: 37.6 percent, according to a polling average. Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush were in similar territory at similar points in their one-term presidencies.

Joe Biden desperately needs some wins — real, not cosmetic, ones. Who in his administration is thinking about how to get him some?

The Gaza cease-fire isn’t it, at least not in itself. It merely punts a problem that needs to be solved: Hamas’s continued grip over the territory. It begins with a six-week pause in the fighting that might lead to the release of some Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. But it risks falling apart because no Israeli government will retreat from all of Gaza while Hamas retains power, and Hamas won’t release all the hostages or meet the deal’s other terms while Israeli forces remain in the territory.

That means the cease-fire could fall apart closer to the election, when Biden will least want another Middle East crisis. What could rescue it is a deal with Saudi Arabia — the kingdom’s recognition of Israel plus an Arab security force in Gaza in exchange for a U.S. defense guarantee and ambiguous Israeli promises of an eventual Palestinian state.

Will it work after the administration has done so much to insult and antagonize dislikable leaders in Jerusalem and Riyadh? Or will those leaders bide their time to deliver the prize to Donald Trump? That’s a question — and a lesson — for the future.

Ukraine could be another win for Biden, an easier one. It’s good that Washington finally supplied the Ukrainians with longer-range ATACM missiles that allowed them to hold a wider range of Russian targets at risk. What took so long? Why does Ukraine always need to come to the verge of defeat before the president finally relents and gives it the weapons it needs?

Ukraine still doesn’t have F-16s, a year after they were promised. Why not add U.S.-made cruise missiles to the mix, to make the F-16s that much more potent? Or better, open a U.S. air corridor to Kyiv in the spirit of Harry Truman’s Berlin airlift? It would signal American determination to come to the defense of embattled allies without fear of their despotic foes. The more Biden does to “Trump-proof” U.S. support for Ukraine against the risk of losing in November, the more secure his legacy will be.

But the biggest win Biden will need will be domestic.

It won’t be his executive order all but banning asylum for migrants: That only confirmed that he had failed to use every option at his disposal to tackle the crisis. It won’t be low unemployment: No magic wand will erase 2022’s inflation or today’s high interest rates. It won’t be Trump’s legal travails, which seem to have galvanized his supporters at least as much as it has delighted his opponents.

And it won’t be finding a way to offload Kamala Harris from the ticket, easing the apprehension many voters have about a feeble president being succeeded by his unpopular and unconvincing vice president. Pushing out the first Black female vice president would alienate a lot of Democratic voters.

It all leaves the president with one option that can be a win for America and, ultimately, his place in history. He can still choose not to run, to cede the field to a Democrat who can win — paging Josh Shapiro or Gretchen Whitmer — and do the hard and brave things it will take to secure security and peace for the free world.

There’s still time, if only just. It would be a courageous, honorable and transformative legacy.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Bret Stephens is an Opinion columnist for The Times, writing about foreign policy, domestic politics and cultural issues. Facebook

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nytimes.com · by Bret Stephens · June 11, 2024

7. Morning Glory: What does “Hellscape” mean?

Narrative. Story telling. This is important and we need to do better at it. Some useful recommendations for consideration from Mr. Hewitt. Less think tanks, more thrillers.

Excerpts:

Suggestion: Pick up Jack Carr’s new thriller “Red Sky Mourning” to get a glimpse of what the future of warfare is. As Admiral James Stavridis (USN, Ret.) and James Ackerman did in their pair of thrillers “2034” and “2054,” Carr uses the thriller genre to convey through fiction what is the reality of superpower competition and possible conflict with China is today. As John le Carré and Tom Clancy did for reading Americans, thriller writers like these are now trying to do vis-a-vis China’s ambitions and its leadership and its Communist Party spy network. 

Most Americans don’t read think tank reports. More do read columns like Rogin’s. The threat and the stuff needed to deter it is in the public domain. I get this public domain stuff flagged for me because of friends and family in Congress, the military and tech. 

“I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities,” Paparo told Rogin. “So that I can make [PLAN’s] lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything.” 

I book Carr, Stavridis, Ackerman, Daniel Silva, Brad Thor, C.J. Box and other thriller writers not because they are friends though some are, but because “shock and awe” is a risk for us as well as our enemies and they write about these risks in accessible and entertaining ways.  

The more that senior military figures like Paparo and figures in the intelligence and tech communities join the thriller writers in spelling out the scenarios for the public through responsible outlets and the more Congress throws the spotlight on our most powerful enemies, the better off every American is.  

More from the senior brass, please. And soon. 

Morning Glory: What does “Hellscape” mean?

And how does the United States military develop one?

  By Hugh Hewitt Fox News

Published June 13, 2024 5:00am EDT

foxnews.com

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“Hellscape” is a dramatic word. 

It is the description of what awaits the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) of the People’s Republic of China if it is ordered to invade Taiwan by Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. 

We know this because Admiral Samuel Paparo, USN, is the big boss of the Pentagon’s “Pacific Command,” and Paparo told us this through The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin: “Hellscape” is the description of the mission for the American military and its allies if China attempts to invade Taiwan.  

LANDMARK BILL TARGETS HIDDEN FOREIGN FUNDS IN SCHOOLS AS OFFICIALS WARN OF CCP INFLUENCE

Among Pacific Command’s many missions is to deter China from doing just that. Given the CCP’s massive investment in ship and submarine building and its repeated rehearsal of that invasion and its past cyber-attacks on our military, Paparo and everyone under his command has their work cut out for them: How to create a “Hellscape?” 

Taiwan would get swarmed by any Chinese attack. The US Navy has plans to stop that. FILE: Taiwanese navy launches a US-made Standard missile from a frigate during the annual Han Kuang Drill, on the sea near the Suao navy harbor in Yilan county on July 26, 2022. (SAM YEH/AFP via Getty Images)

“I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities,” Paparo told Rogin. “So that I can make [PLAN’s] lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything.”  ”Classified capabilities” means we can’t know the details or even the outline of the details. But Paparo did add “I can’t tell you what’s in” the plan to stop the Chinese military.  ”But,” he added, “it’s real and it’s deliverable.” 

On Wednesday’s program I suggested to Florida Republican Congressman Michael Waltz, who sits on the House Armed Services, Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committee, that he and his colleagues invite Alex Karp of Palantir, Palmer Luckey of Anduril, Brett Granberg of Vannevar and Joe Lonsdale of Epirus, etc., to testify to one of his committees on how to rapidly move to the acquisition and deployment of the sort of “hellscape” weaponry that can empower our military to deter China from deciding about a move on Taiwan like Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasions of Ukraine under both President Barack Obama and again under President Joe Biden. 

Video

Deterrence failed in both those cases. Why would we think China is deterred when Putin wasn’t and China has a military significantly more powerful than Russia’s? 

Perhaps because the 90 miles or more of rough water separating China from Taiwan is just too difficult a leap to make? Perhaps because Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is going to get blown up the moment the PLA starts crossing the red line? (“TSMC” is a Taiwan-based company that leads the world in the production of the semiconductors we need for our daily lives.) 

Perhaps because Xi suspects there are people on his Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party looking for a “Khrushchev moment.” (Nikita Khrushchev was toppled as head of the Soviet Communist Party in 1964 by his “colleagues” on the USSR’s Politburo. It happens in totalitarian states.) If Xi decides to fly too close to the sun, will his colleagues act against him before he risks WWIII? 

China’s President Xi Jinping might be taking a big risk by attacking neighboring Taiwan. Political opponents could move against him. FILE: gives a speech during the welcome banquet for leaders attending the Belt and Road Forum at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on April 26, 2019. (NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP via Getty Images)

We don’t know, but using a hearing with CEOs of our some of our most advanced tech companies is one way to educate Congress and by extension the public of what we need when it comes to weapons systems and when we need them without giving away the details of what we already have.  

Suggestion: Pick up Jack Carr’s new thriller “Red Sky Mourning” to get a glimpse of what the future of warfare is. As Admiral James Stavridis (USN, Ret.) and James Ackerman did in their pair of thrillers “2034” and “2054,” Carr uses the thriller genre to convey through fiction what is the reality of superpower competition and possible conflict with China is today. As John le Carré and Tom Clancy did for reading Americans, thriller writers like these are now trying to do vis-a-vis China’s ambitions and its leadership and its Communist Party spy network. 

Most Americans don’t read think tank reports. More do read columns like Rogin’s. The threat and the stuff needed to deter it is in the public domain. I get this public domain stuff flagged for me because of friends and family in Congress, the military and tech. 

“I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities,” Paparo told Rogin. “So that I can make [PLAN’s] lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything.” 

I book Carr, Stavridis, Ackerman, Daniel Silva, Brad Thor, C.J. Box and other thriller writers not because they are friends though some are, but because “shock and awe” is a risk for us as well as our enemies and they write about these risks in accessible and entertaining ways.  

The more that senior military figures like Paparo and figures in the intelligence and tech communities join the thriller writers in spelling out the scenarios for the public through responsible outlets and the more Congress throws the spotlight on our most powerful enemies, the better off every American is. 

More from the senior brass, please. And soon. 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM HUGH HEWITT

Hugh Hewitt is host of “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” heard weekday mornings 6am to 9am ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh wakes up America on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Brett Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.

foxnews.com

8. Osprey fleet won’t return to full flight operations until 2025

Osprey fleet won’t return to full flight operations until 2025

militarytimes.com · by Courtney Mabeus-Brown

The U.S. military doesn’t expect its fleet of more than 400 V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft to fully resume normal flight operations until at least the middle of 2025, a Navy admiral in charge of the joint program told a House Oversight subcommittee Wednesday.

Naval Air Systems Command boss Vice Adm. Carl Chebi, whose office oversees Ospreys in use across the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, said a review that is probing whether the enterprise has adequate manning, training and equipment, will last another six to nine months.

RELATED

Congress still waiting on Osprey crash, safety documents from Pentagon

Lawmakers haven’t received more details on Osprey proprotor gearboxes, a component that was a factor in the 2023 crash off Japan that killed eight airmen.

By Tara Copp, AP

“As we have findings from the comprehensive review, I will take the necessary actions to ensure continued safe flight operations,” Chebi told the panel of lawmakers.

The command allowed the Osprey to begin returning to the air — with flight restrictions in place — in early March, three months after the fleet was grounded in early December following an Air Force CV-22 crash off the coast of Japan that killed all eight airmen on board.

Ospreys can be flown like an airplane and take off and land like a helicopter, making them useful for aircraft carrier landings as well as for special operators entering austere environments.

The Marine Corps operates hundreds of the aircraft, while the Air Force and Navy own around 50 and 30, respectively. Marine Ospreys are starting to reenter the fray; 10 aircraft from Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 268 headed to Hawaii in May in preparation for a training exercise in Australia, while the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit is using them in Sweden as part of Exercise Baltic Operations.

The Navy’s CMV-22 fleet remains sidelined from performing its carrier support mission at sea, service officials said Wednesday. Despite getting the green light to resume regular missions, the services are barred from flying more than 30 minutes from an airfield where they could land in case of an emergency, according to Military.com.

RELATED

Families balance grief with Osprey pilots’ love for the aircraft

On Wednesday, a House subcommittee will hold a hearing on the Osprey’s safety record as families grapple with the deaths of loved ones aboard the V-22.

By Tara Copp, AP

Osprey crews at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico, have begun rebuilding their skills in anticipation of returning to normal ops, and other squadrons are getting close to flying again, Air Force Special Operations Command spokesperson Lt. Col. Rebecca Heyse told Air Force Times.

An investigation into the Air Force’s Nov. 29 CV-22 crash is nearing completion, with briefings for families expected in the coming weeks. The military has said that accident was the result of a material failure that hadn’t been seen before on the Osprey.

Ospreys have suffered a string of fatal crashes since the U.S. military introduced them into special operations more than two decades ago, including four mishaps that have killed 20 service members since March 2022. The military grounded the Ospreys in 2022 and again in 2023, after a series of “hard clutch engagements” that occurred when the input quill assembly, which attaches the Osprey’s engine to its proprotor gear box, wore out earlier than expected.

On Wednesday, Chebi and Gary Kurtz, program executive officer for anti-submarine, assault and special mission programs including the Osprey, told lawmakers that a redesigned clutch is expected to begin testing soon.

“We anticipate that we will have a new clutch fielding in the mid-2025 timeframe,” Kurtz said.

RELATED

Families of Marines killed in 2022 Osprey crash sue manufacturers

Families of four of the five Marines killed when their Osprey crashed in California allege the manufacturers failed to address known mechanical failures.

By Tara Copp, AP

Faced by Gold Star families who held photos of loved ones during Wednesday’s hearing, lawmakers questioned the aircraft’s mishap and readiness rates, the latter of which have struggled in recent years due to woes like corrosion issues and a lack of available parts.

For example, the Air Force CV-22 fleet’s mission-capable rate, or the percentage of time that the aircraft can perform at least one of its core missions, hovered around 50% between fiscal years 2020 and 2022, according to data provided to Air Force Times.

Members of the House Oversight Committee also pushed for more transparency, saying the military wasn’t sharing enough about the findings on its recent crashes.

Some on Capitol Hill are running out of patience.

Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Democrat from Massachusetts, called for the entire fleet to be grounded while the military works works out a fix for the clutch.

“If another Osprey goes down, we’re done,” Lynch said. “This program’s done.”

About Courtney Mabeus-Brown

Courtney Mabeus-Brown is the senior reporter at Air Force Times. She is an award-winning journalist who previously covered the military for Navy Times and The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., where she first set foot on an aircraft carrier. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy and more.

9. Junior enlisted would see only a small pay boost under Senate plan

Senate throws cold water on the House proposal.  The House likely knew this would happen but now they can say they were the ones tryng to help junior servicemembers and their families and they did not have to break the budget.

Junior enlisted would see only a small pay boost under Senate plan

militarytimes.com · by Leo Shane III

Senate lawmakers on Wednesday unveiled plans for a small pay boost for junior enlisted troops next year, staking out a middle ground between House plans for a sizable salary hike for young servicemembers and White House opposition to any targeted military pay increase.

As part of an initial draft of the Senate Armed Services Committee annual defense authorization bill, panel members announced plans for a 4.5% pay raise for all servicemembers in 2025 (in line with White House plans) and an extra 1% boost for troops ranked E-3 and below.

The extra money is designed to recognize the financial strain facing some young military families and the low base pay junior troops receive. Currently, some young enlisted service members can make as little as $24,000 in basic pay, although that total does not include other compensation such as housing allowances and free health care.

“I’d like to see even more for our active-duty military, but right now we have to stay under budget caps,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. and chairwoman of the committee’s personnel panel. “We squeezed as many dollars from every place else in the Defense Department budget that we could to get this.”

RELATED

Junior enlisted pay bump to cost as much as two new aircraft carriers

A plan to boost young troops’ pay by an extra 15% next year will cost more than $24 billion over the next five years, officials said.

By Leo Shane III

For troops ranked E-2 with less than two years of service, the pay boosts will bring their annual base salary to almost $29,000, about $1,500 more than this year. That’s about $280 more than the White House’s plan for those servicemembers.

But it’s far short of House lawmakers’ plan for a major rewrite of the military basic pay tables next year.

Under that plan — being considered on the House floor this week — troops ranked E-4 and below would see pay raises up to 19.5%, bringing nearly every servicemembers’ annual salary above $30,000 a year. All troops regardless of rank would see a 4.5% pay raise under the plan.

Servicemembers ranked E-3 with two years of service would see their annual salary jump about $4,500 in 2025 under the plan. E-5s with less than 10 years service would see smaller increases too, to ensure their pay stays above lower-ranked troops.

Those targeted pay raises would cost more than $24 billion over the next five years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

On Tuesday, White House officials announced the president “strongly opposes” the idea, saying the plan “would lead to pay compression in some parts of the enlisted military basic pay table” and should be delayed until a full review of military compensation rules is completed next year.

That statement drew a sharp rebuke from House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala.

“President Biden believes providing the men and women who serve in our armed forces with adequate compensation is too costly. This is offensive and wrong,” he said in a statement. “Too many military families are relying on food banks, SNAP, and WIC in order to put food on the table. Republicans and Democrats on our committee agreed this is unacceptable.”

The Senate plan unveiled Wednesday may indicate support in both chambers of Congress for a compromise path, one less ambitious than the House pay table revisions but still providing more cash-in-hand to junior enlisted troops.

The House authorization bill draft also includes more money for military housing stipends and other quality of life improvements left out of the Senate plan. Senators could still add in some of those provisions later this week, when the armed services committee finishes its bill markup, or when the legislation heads to the chamber floor.

Lawmakers are expected to spend most of the summer negotiating a compromise between the two measures, with an eye towards passing a final bill sometime this fall.

The authorization bill has passed out of Congress for more than 60 consecutive years, making the budget policy measure one of the few areas of bipartisan agreement despite ever-present partisan tension on Capitol Hill.

About Leo Shane III

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

10. Three Troubling Takeaways on U.S.-China Relations from the Shangri La Dialogue

Three Troubling Takeaways on U.S.-China Relations from the Shangri La Dialogue

usip.org

Wednesday, June 12, 2024

/ READ TIME: 8 minutes

BY: Andrew Scobell, Ph.D.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The U.S. and China tend to talk past each other making it very difficult to make meaningful progress in dialogues.
• Dissimilar national security systems are creating a counterpart conundrum.
• Both have fundamentally different understandings of the role of third countries in managing tensions.

The recently concluded 2024 Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore provided another useful opportunity for senior U.S. and Chinese national security officials to engage in face-to-face bilateral discussions and interact with officials and experts from other states. While these engagements have value in theory, they highlight three persistent problems in the practice of U.S.-China relations. First, the United States and China tend to talk past each other. Second, the United States and China have dissimilar systems, which makes identifying and engaging with appropriate counterpart officials very difficult. Third, the United States and China possess fundamentally different understandings about the role of third countries in managing confrontation and mitigating conflict.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin meets with People’s Republic of China Minister of Defense Adm. Dong Jun in Singapore, May 31, 2024. (Chad J. McNeeley/U.S. Department of Defense)

The Dismal Art of Talking Past Each Other

While U.S.-China dialogues on security matters are almost always better than the alternative, discussions as performative art can have little if any value. At best, they can permit the two sides to clarify each other’s policies and stances. The problem is that dialogues can produce holding patterns while giving the illusion of progress or fuel false expectations. More worrisome is the potential for exacerbating existing mutual suspicions and distrust if one side concludes that the other is negotiating in bad faith. Given the current abysmal state of U.S.-China relations, one side drawing conclusions about what is driving these bad faith actions could engender an even more toxic environment.

While U.S.-China dialogues on security matters are almost always better than the alternative, discussions as performative art can have little if any value.

While this year’s Shangri La Dialogue saw U.S. and Chinese defense chiefs meeting in-person for the first time since 2022, Austin and Dong’s meeting held a familiar pattern of high-level officials talking past each other. Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun in a speech warned that “anyone who dares to separate Taiwan from China will only end up in self-destruction” and blamed an array of actors for fomenting instability and elevating the threat of conflict in the Taiwan Strait and elsewhere in China’s extended neighborhood. China itself remains a blameless victim — at least in its own telling. Dong reiterated long-standing Beijing talking points about China “never provoking incidents or easily resorting to the use of force” to resolve its “border and maritime disputes.”

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin meanwhile did not stray far from the usual U.S. talking points about “respect for sovereignty and international law” as well as “freedom of the seas and skies.” Austin spoke of “openness, transparency, and accountability.” He reiterated U.S. preferences for “the peaceful resolution of disputes through dialogue” over resolution via “coercion or conflict.”

The Perennial Problem of Appropriate Counterpart National Security Officials

Austin and Dong were the highest-level U.S. and Chinese officials in Singapore. On the surface these two leaders appear to be appropriate counterparts: each hold a similar title that suggests that he is the most senior official from their respective military establishments. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

While in the United States, the secretary of defense is the most senior civilian official in the Pentagon, in China the minister of defense is a largely ceremonial position always occupied by uniformed general officer — Dong is an admiral in the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Navy. China’s minister of defense might best be characterized as the PLA’s “chief foreign liaison officer.” The incumbent typically derives his power and authority from concurrently occupying a seat on the Central Military Commission. However, Dong is an unusual defense minister in that he is not a member of the CMC. He was selected in a somewhat haphazard fashion in late 2023 to fill the vacancy created by the mid-2023 purge of the last minister (who did occupy a seat on the CMC).

The dialogue between Secretary Austin and Minister Dong was a serious mismatch. The two are clearly nowhere close to being counterpart defense officials.

The dialogue between Secretary Austin and Minister Dong was a serious mismatch. The two are clearly nowhere close to being counterpart defense officials. While the former is President Joe Biden’s most senior military advisor located at the apex of the Pentagon chain-of-command, the latter is not even comparable to a U.S. service chief. His exclusion from the CMC signals that Dong is certainly not roughly equivalent to a member of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (the former organ has been compared to the latter). Dong almost certainly does not have the ear or confidence of China’s commander-in-chief and chair of the CMC, Xi Jinping, in the same way that Austin has close and routine contact to Biden.

Dramatically Different Understandings of Third Countries

The United States and China possess fundamentally different understandings about the role of third countries in managing confrontation and mitigating conflict in the Western Pacific and beyond. China views the U.S. alliance network as threatening and directed against China. Beijing tends to see even countries that are not formal U.S. allies as likely falling under the strong influence or direct sway of the United States, presuming that U.S. allies are essentially controlled and dominated from Washington.

This means that Beijing perceives countries like the Philippines as mere puppets of the United States. Hence, when Manila has expressed outrage at dangerous Chinese provocations against Philippine vessels in its exclusive economic zone, Beijing assumes all this rhetoric is orchestrated by Washington rather than seeing this as a genuine manifestation of indignant Filipino nationalism in reaction to Chinese bullying. In his public address at the Shangri La Dialogue, Dong insisted that the Philippines was being “emboldened by outside powers.” China’s defense minister continued, “We will not allow any country or any force to create conflict and chaos in our region.” Although Dong did not identify either the Philippines (“a certain country”) or United States (“hegemonism”) by name, there was no doubt about the countries he was criticizing.

Washington, by contrast, tends to presume that all foreign capitals proceed and act as autonomous if not independent players. From a U.S. perspective, all states, even U.S. allies, make decisions about defense policy based upon their own perceived national interests. These can be consistent with U.S. national interests and strategic preferences or not.

In short, when it comes to U.S. allies and partners, Beijing gives short shrift to their agency or autonomy.

Implications Amid Strained Relations

The implications of these troublesome takeaways are significant. First, the number and frequency of ongoing security dialogues — whether bilateral or multilateral, whether track 1, track 2, or track 1.5 — should not be used as a reliable barometer of U.S.-China relations. Moreover, one should be wary of analyzing the substance and tenor of these dialogues to discern positive trends in bilateral relations. Dialogues can proceed for many years without tangible outcomes or achievements. Talking about tough issues is not unimportant but one should not equate one or both sides blowing off steam with the building of meaningful trust or the formulation and implementation of concrete policy solutions.

Second, identifying and regularly pairing genuine counterpart national security officials and organizations presents a tremendous ongoing challenge. Certainly, China’s minister of defense is not the counterpart of the U.S. secretary of defense. A closer equivalent is one of the uniformed vice chairs of the CMC. The United States should insist at a minimum that its secretary of defense have high-level policy meetings with a vice chair of the CMC if the incumbent PRC minister of defense does not have a seat on the CMC. This counterpart conundrum is exacerbated by the reality that China’s Ministry of National Defense is a shell entity created almost entirely to interface with the military establishments of other states. The PLA’s “actual command power” is concentrated in the CMC.

China’s overarching assumption that the United States exerts a high degree of influence over and control of its allies in the Western Pacific means Beijing tends to belittle countries like the Philippines.

Third, China’s overarching assumption that the United States exerts a high degree of influence over and control of its allies in the Western Pacific means Beijing tends to belittle countries like the Philippines. Concretely, Beijing tends to assume that Manila can be swiftly coerced through the application of force or easily enticed by attractive offers of economic incentives. China tends to direct its strategic messaging squarely at the United States. Overestimating the degree of influence and control that Washington exerts over allies like Manila, leads Beijing to maintain elevated threat perceptions of the United States and further perpetuate its presumption that the United continues to be vigorously engaged in “containing China.” Confirmation bias makes it exceedingly difficult to break this cognitive loop of China’s circular logic.

PHOTO: Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin meets with People’s Republic of China Minister of Defense Adm. Dong Jun in Singapore, May 31, 2024. (Chad J. McNeeley/U.S. Department of Defense)

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s).

PUBLICATION TYPE: Analysis

About the Author

Andrew Scobell, Ph.D.

Distinguished Fellow, China

usip.org

11. More Russians died in ten-month battle for Bakhmut than in ten-year Afghan war

That is quite a statistic/comparison.

The "recruit" pool:

“By signing 50,000 secret pardons, Putin has created not only 20,000 mostly nameless graves in Wagner cemeteries around Russia, but also 20,000 physically disabled and 10,000 mentally disabled and dangerous criminals that are now roaming the streets,” said Leonid Volkov, an aide to the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison in February.

The Russian military has continued to recruit tens of thousands of convicts, to the point that several Russian prison colonies have shut down owing to a lack of inmates. Last year the finance ministry proposed closing 57 prisons to avoid “unnecessary expenses”. Ukraine has also been recruiting prisoners, though not to the same extent.

More Russians died in ten-month battle for Bakhmut than in ten-year Afghan war

Newly obtained documents show that 20,000 Wagner mercenaries were killed in the campaign to take the Ukrainian city, making it Russia’s deadliest battle since the Second World War

Alec Luhn

Tuesday June 11 2024, 2.30pm BST, The Times

thetimes.com

Almost 20,000 fighters from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group were killed in the intense battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut last year, more men than the Soviet Union lost in the decade-long invasion of Afghanistan.

Up to 213 mercenaries were killed each day, according to documents obtained by the BBC Russian Service and Mediazona, an independent Russian media outlet. Wagner lost more than 19,500 men in the ten-month campaign to take the city, most of whom were recruited from prisons. That makes the “Bakhmut meat grinder” Russia’s bloodiest battle since the Second World War.

Bakhmut had minor strategic value but took on totemic importance for both sides as troops fought from building to building, and near-constant shelling reduced the city to rubble.

Bakhmut took on totemic importance for both sides as near-constant shelling reduced the city to rubble

WOLFGANG SCHWAN/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES

Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner’s late head and a former chef and caterer for Vladimir Putin, came to national prominence with videos criticising the Russian military leadership for not giving his men enough ammunition during the battle. He finally declared victory in May 2023, holding up the flags of Russia and the mercenary group amid the charred ruins.

The next month Prigozhin led a brief coup attempt against Moscow. He was killed when his plane exploded over the Tver region in August, in what many believe was an assassination ordered by Putin.

Last year Prigozhin said in an interview about 20,000 of his men had been killed in Bakhmut, although he said only half were convicts. At least 5,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in Bakhmut, according to open-source data gathered by the UA Losses, a Ukrainian initiative to track war deaths.

The high body count in Bakhmut, while shocking, is unlikely to casue a backlash. Russian political figures haven’t commented, and state media ignored the news. Wagner paid nearly a billion pounds in compensation to relatives of those killed in the battle, the documents show, effectively buying their silence.

The Wagner Group recruited at least 48,000 prisoners to fight in Ukraine

AP

Some 17,000 of the dead were recruited from Russian prisons. Speaking with inmates in a jail yard in a 2022 video, Prigozhin offered them freedom for fighting for six months in Ukraine, regardless of their crimes. Deserters would be shot, he said.

Wagner recruited at least 48,000 prisoners to fight in Ukraine, two thirds of whom were from maximum security penal colonies.

These numbers help explain “how the Kremlin could sustain such a bloody operation, and why Prigozhin was so angry … at the political leadership”, said Mark Galeotti, a Russia military expert.

Wagner’s Bakhmut losses also show that as many as 30,000 convicts went free in Russia after serving in Ukraine. Russia has suffered a wave of crime as fighters return from the front. In April a convicted murderer who fought for Wagner was sentenced to 17 years in prison for slitting the throat of a friend’s mother and stabbing a neighbour after he returned.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner’s former leader, came to prominence with videos criticising Russia for not giving his men enough ammunition

AFP

“By signing 50,000 secret pardons, Putin has created not only 20,000 mostly nameless graves in Wagner cemeteries around Russia, but also 20,000 physically disabled and 10,000 mentally disabled and dangerous criminals that are now roaming the streets,” said Leonid Volkov, an aide to the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison in February.

The Russian military has continued to recruit tens of thousands of convicts, to the point that several Russian prison colonies have shut down owing to a lack of inmates. Last year the finance ministry proposed closing 57 prisons to avoid “unnecessary expenses”. Ukraine has also been recruiting prisoners, though not to the same extent.

thetimes.com

12. How the United States Can Effectively Pivot to Asia

Perhaps counterintuitively by not overly pivoting. What if we have been trying too hard?

But our withdrawal from TPP is still one of the biggest strategic mistakes of the 21st Century.

Excerpts:

Is U.S. retrenchment on trade policy an obstacle to binding the region closer to Washington?

Yes. It was the collapse of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, after all, that hollowed out the initial Pivot to Asia. Along with economic benefits for Americans, the TPP was meant to send a broad signal of sustained U.S. leadership and presence in Asia. Immediately following Washington’s withdrawal from the agreement, Beijing sought to fill the gap and assume the mantle of global economic leadership, including through its own regional trade agreement. And over time, each country in the Indo-Pacific has become more dependent on trade with China and more vulnerable to Beijing’s geoeconomic coercion.

The United States should join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the deal which replaced TPP, and continue to de-risk economic ties with China. Joining CPTPP would increase U.S. access to lucrative Asian markets and give the United States the ability to shape rules in the region and beyond. Washington’s entry would also reassure regional partners that the United States remains committed to the Indo-Pacific. Given bipartisan skepticism of regional trade agreements, more politically palatable steps toward reentry, such as pursuing a bilateral or regional digital trade deal, could be critical first steps.

How the United States Can Effectively Pivot to Asia

After the rise of Chinese power during the 2010s and failed U.S. policies in the Indo-Pacific, the United States should renew the Pivot to Asia and place the region at the center of its grand strategy.*

Expert Brief by Robert D. Blackwill and Richard Fontaine

June 11, 2024 2:48 pm (EST)

cfr.org · by Robert D. Blackwill

What challenges does China pose that require a U.S. shift to a vigorous Asia-centric strategy?

Throughout the 2010s and the under current leadership of Chinese President Xi Jinping, China has worked successfully to fundamentally alter the balance of power in Asia and beyond at the expense of the United States. The country significantly increased its military strength, applied economic coercion on countries that challenged Beijing’s objectives, and sought to undermine American vital national interests. Today, China is coupling its power and will to upend regional order in Asia and international order more broadly.

U.S.-China competition crosses multiple regions and domains, but rivalry and tension are most acute in the Indo-Pacific. China aims to replace the United States as the most important and influential nation in the Indo-Pacific, and to dominate that region. Chinese military power is most concentrated there and becomes attenuated with distance from the Western Pacific. The country’s maritime claims, border disputes, and threats of force focus on Asia. Its economic gravity is greatest there, and countries in the Indo-Pacific are particularly vulnerable to Beijing’s interference in their domestic politics.

A significant increase in U.S. national security’s time, attention, and resources devoted to Asia is required to address the deteriorating regional balance. While remaining engaged in other regions and protecting its interests across Europe and the Middle East, Washington should embark upon a renewed pivot to Asia. Our book, Lost Decade: The Pivot to Asia and the Rise of Chinese Power, describes how such an effort, which has bedeviled multiple U.S. administrations, could be done.

What should the elements of a renewed Pivot to Asia be?

Multiple elements are required, but a few are key.

The United States should increase its defense budget to ensure that more resources are available for every region. Washington currently spends barely 3 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defense, approaching the lowest level by that measure since the 1990s post-Cold War peace dividend. Maintaining support for Ukraine is critical, but stronger European allies should allow the redeployment of U.S. air and naval assets to Asia. The United States can do the same in the Middle East, surging only for significant operations such as the Israel-Hamas conflict. In both these regions, steadfast American performance, much more than the number of troops and weapons on the ground, will secure U.S. influence.

Washington should revive its Asian economic agenda by joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which would increase U.S. access to regional markets, and vice versa. As a first step, the United States should pursue bilateral digital trade deals with Japan, South Korea, and Singapore or, better yet, aim for a regional digital accord. Washington should also allocate a greater share of foreign aid and development assistance to the Indo-Pacific, which currently receives only a meager percentage. Of $95 billion allocated in the 2024 supplemental security funding bill, for instance, less than 9 percent was set aside for Asia-Pacific security.

The United States has bolstered its regional alliances and currently leads coalitions to deal with China’s trade violations, intellectual property theft, covert interference in other countries’ domestic politics, and human rights abuses, but it should more robustly contest Beijing’s autocratic world view. The United States should stand for freedom, sovereignty, independence, and a stable world order based on liberal values and the rule of law.

Would shifting U.S. military resources to the Indo-Pacific degrade Washington’s capabilities to protect interests in Europe and the Middle East amid the wars in both regions?

The United States is and should remain a global power, and a renewed pivot to Asia should account for the resources devoted to other regions.

In Europe, the ongoing degradation of Russian military power in the war in Ukraine—and the revelation that Moscow’s military is significantly less powerful than originally thought—is combining with European steps to increase defense budgets, acquire new capabilities, and enhance military production lines. This provides a historic opportunity to pivot U.S. air and naval forces from Europe to new locations in the Indo-Pacific. Washington should continue to support European allies in areas where they suffer shortfalls: strategic lift, surveillance, and reconnaissance; munitions; and missile defense.

For more than a decade in the Middle East, Washington fed the perception of U.S. withdrawal without obtaining a significant resource dividend. This amounted to the worst of all worlds: deep and costly engagement in the region while fanning the fears of abandonment. Washington should invert this equation by diminishing its military presence in the region while bolstering its commitment to act. U.S. troop levels, air bases, maritime deployments, and more should decline in the Middle East, surging only if and when necessary for significant military operations.

In fact, the October 7 crisis reaffirmed a central argument of Lost Decade. When confronted with the conflict, the Joe Biden administration surged two aircraft carrier battle groups, attack and support aircraft, guided missile cruisers, destroyers, a Marine expeditionary unit, a nuclear submarine, air defense systems, and combat aircraft from outside the area to the Middle East. The secretary of state commenced regional shuttle diplomacy, President Biden visited Israel, and Congress appropriated billions of dollars in assistance. None of these moves turned principally on the preexisting U.S. military footprint in the region, and Hamas’s attack appears to have had nothing to do with the degree of U.S. presence. As Israel deals with Hamas and the Gaza Strip stabilizes over time, the United States should continue to shift selected military resources to Asia, even while continuing intense diplomatic engagement in the Middle East.

Is U.S. retrenchment on trade policy an obstacle to binding the region closer to Washington?

Yes. It was the collapse of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, after all, that hollowed out the initial Pivot to Asia. Along with economic benefits for Americans, the TPP was meant to send a broad signal of sustained U.S. leadership and presence in Asia. Immediately following Washington’s withdrawal from the agreement, Beijing sought to fill the gap and assume the mantle of global economic leadership, including through its own regional trade agreement. And over time, each country in the Indo-Pacific has become more dependent on trade with China and more vulnerable to Beijing’s geoeconomic coercion.

The United States should join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the deal which replaced TPP, and continue to de-risk economic ties with China. Joining CPTPP would increase U.S. access to lucrative Asian markets and give the United States the ability to shape rules in the region and beyond. Washington’s entry would also reassure regional partners that the United States remains committed to the Indo-Pacific. Given bipartisan skepticism of regional trade agreements, more politically palatable steps toward reentry, such as pursuing a bilateral or regional digital trade deal, could be critical first steps.

*Editor’s note: This article is based on the new book by Robert D. Blackwill, Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy, and Richard Fontaine, CEO of the Center for a New American Security, Lost Decade: The Pivot to Asia and the Rise of Chinese Power

cfr.org · by Robert D. Blackwill

13. What are Russian warships doing in the Caribbean

Concerning the the new Cuba-South Korea relationship:

I worry about political warfare. Is Cuba really breaking from the axis of aggressors/dictators? Yesterday warships entered Havana harbor in Cuba, to include a nuclear powered submarine. Cuban and Russian relations seem as strong as ever and north Korean and Russian relations are at an all time high. What if the Cuban-South Korean rapprochement is part of a larger political warfare strategy being orchestrated by Russia and north Korea with Cuban support? What if Cuban relations with South Korea will be exploited over time to receive South Korean exports, particularly of high tech and dual use goods, that could then be transhipped to north Korea. 

On the geostrategic Baduk (or Chinese Go) board it appears that South Korea has captured a north Korean stone. But does this "diplomatic terrority" really benefit South Korea in the long run? Only time will tell.

What are Russian warships doing in the Caribbean?

The frigate Admiral Gorshkov and the nuclear-powered submarine Kazan arrived in Havana Wednesday fresh from exercises in the North Atlantic Ocean.

By Samantha Schmidt, Dan Lamothe and Mary Ilyushina

June 12, 2024 at 9:19 p.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Samantha Schmidt · June 13, 2024

U.S. forces are keeping close watch on a flotilla of Russian warships that reached Cuba on Wednesday in an apparent show of force by President Vladimir Putin flexing his missiles in the Western Hemisphere.

The port call in Havana, Moscow’s longtime ally, comes less than two weeks after the Biden administration said it would allow Ukraine to use U.S.-provided weaponry against some military targets inside Russia.

The four Russian vessels arrived in Havana Harbor fresh from military exercises in the North Atlantic Ocean, Russia’s Defense Ministry said. They’re due to stay through Monday.

The ships aren’t carrying nuclear weapons, the Cuban and Russian foreign ministries have said, “so their stop in our country does not represent a threat to the region,” Havana said last week.

Here’s what you need to know.

Russia practiced launching high-precision missiles in the Atlantic after Biden said Ukraine could use U.S. weapons in Russia.

The Russian flotilla includes the frigate Admiral Gorshkov and the nuclear-powered submarine Kazan, a medium tanker and a rescue tugboat. Even without nuclear weapons, the frigate and the submarine are capable of launching Zircon hypersonic missiles, Kalibr cruise missiles and Onyx anti-ship missiles, Russia’s most highly touted modern weapons.

Several hours before entering the Havana harbor, Russian defense officials said, the flotilla completed an exercise in “the use of precision missile weapons.” Sailors used computer simulations to “hit” targets without launching actual missiles.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla. Lavrov affirmed Russia’s “continued support for Havana in its just demand for a complete and immediate end” to Washington’s 62-year embargo on most trade with Cuba and the removal of the country from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The visit came on Russia Day, when Russians mark the dissolution of the Soviet Union. State television highlighted extensive coverage of the event in the U.S. media, including clips from CNN. One Russian reporter described the visit as retaliation for Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia with American weapons.

“Last week, President Vladimir Putin made it clear that it reserves the right for a mirror response — that is, supplying long-range weapons to countries that feel the pressure of the United States,” the Russia 24 reporter said.

Cuba, mired in its worse economic crisis in years, is welcoming its longtime supporter.

Cubans lined the Havana waterfront Wednesday to see the Russian ships arrive. The Russians fired 21 salvos in honor of their hosts; the Cubans responded with an artillery salute from the San Carlos de La Cabaña Fortress.

Cuba’s foreign ministry said the visit reflects “the historical friendly relations” between Havana and Moscow, ties that go back to Soviet support for Cuba’s communist government and purchase of sugar, rum and other commodities. Cuba is currently mired in a dire economic crisis, including shortages of food, electricity and fuel, reminiscent of the so-called Special Period of the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed and support from Moscow sharply dropped.

Cuba emerged from years of deprivation with the support of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and improved relations with Russia under Putin. Lavrov said Wednesday that Moscow would continue to provide humanitarian support to Cuba.

The Russian foreign ministry thanked Cuba for its “principled position” on Ukraine. Rodríguez Parrilla, the Cuban foreign minister, said the country condemns “the increasingly aggressive stance of the U.S. government and NATO,” including sanctions against Russia.

Lavrov has been a frequent visitor to the region. He traveled in February to Venezuela, where he affirmed Russia’s support for the socialist government of Nicolás Maduro, Chavez’s successor. He stopped in Cuba during that trip also.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel visited Putin in Moscow in May.

The United States doesn’t see a threat, but is monitoring the visit.

The U.S. Defense Department has been tracking the Russian visit to Cuba since it was announced June 6. U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessels are “going to continue to monitor,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Wednesday. ABC News reported that three U.S. Navy destroyers, a Coast Guard Cutter and Canadian and French frigates were keeping watch.

Singh said the Russian exercises didn’t pose a threat to the United States.

“This is not a surprise,” she said. Such “routine naval visits” by the Russians, she said, have occurred “during different administrations.”

A spokesman for U.S. Southern Command said the organization routinely monitors “activities of concern” nearby. Authorities anticipate that the Russian vessels might also visit Venezuela. Maduro’s government, also under heavy sanction by the United States, has scheduled a presidential election for July.

Retired Adm. Jim Stavridis, who headed Southern Command from 2006 to 2009, said naval deployments to the Caribbean are “long and difficult” for Russian forces, and provide “good practice for our forces, tracking and monitoring them.”

Putin is showing he ‘still has the ability to operate in the U.S. sphere of influence.’

Russian forces have made several visits to Cuba and Venezuela in recent decades. In 2018, Moscow sent two supersonic, nuclear-capable Tu-160 bombers to Venezuela for a brief stop. The next year, as the Trump administration stepped up efforts to oust Maduro, Russia dispatched 100 troops and equipment to Venezuela and signed an agreement allowing it to send ships.

Of course, the most famous Russian visit to the region came in 1962, when the U.S. discovery of Soviet missile sites in Cuba brought the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev resolved the two-week Cuban missile crisis peacefully with an agreement that each side would withdraw missiles deployed near the other and that they would establish direct communications — the so-called red telephone — to forestall similar crises in the future.

Videos now of a Russian submarine arriving in Cuba, political scientist Vladimir Rouvinski said, help Moscow show that “efforts by the United States to diminish their presence everywhere, in particular in Latin America, are not working.”

“We have to see that Russia is not willing to abandon Latin America,” said Rouvinski, of Icesi University in Colombia, even as its military is consumed by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Putin aims to signal that “he still has the ability to operate in the U.S. sphere of influence,” said Cynthia Arnson, a distinguished fellow at the Wilson Center’s Latin America Program.

The United States stages similar exercises near Russia and China.

The United States has a long history of deploying the Navy and other forces to demonstrate its range and capabilities in support of allies and against adversaries.

In May, the Destroyer USS Halsey conducted what the Navy called a “Freedom of Navigation Operation” to challenge “restrictions on innocent passage imposed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan, and Vietnam.”

A spokesperson for China’s Eastern Theater Command accused the United States of having “publicly hyped” the ship’s transit through the Taiwan Strait, the Associated Press reported. Chinese Navy Senior Capt. Li Xi said the command sent naval and air forces to monitor.

Last year, the destroyer USS Nitze and the amphibious command ship USS Mount Whitney made separate port calls to Istanbul on the Bosporus. That’s roughly 20 miles from the Black Sea, where Ukraine has used sea drones and missiles to attack a Russian fleet.

The Washington Post · by Samantha Schmidt · June 13, 2024

​14. China-Russia-Iran-North Korea axis heightens the risk of WWIII

The axis of aggressors/dictators.

China-Russia-Iran-North Korea axis heightens the risk of WWIII

Simultaneous conflicts in Europe and Asia could become tomorrow's nightmare

HIROYUKI AKITA, Nikkei commentator

June 11, 2024 10:56 JST

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Comment/China-Russia-Iran-North-Korea-axis-heightens-the-risk-of-WWIII?utm

TALLINN, Estonia -- The war in Ukraine has reached a critical juncture, with the Russian military sharply intensifying attacks to expand its areas of control before U.S. military aid is fully disbursed in the country.

Ukraine's increasingly desperate battle against the invading forces is not the only bad news for the world. Equally disturbing is a sign that China, North Korea and Iran are deepening ties with Moscow to help Russia's war machine.

North Korea is furnishing Russia with short-range missiles and more than a million rounds of ammunition, while Iran has offered a vast arsenal of drones. But China's quasi-military support to Russia could have a much more profound impact in the medium term.

According to U.S. sources, while China, a major military power, has not transferred lethal weapons to Russia, it is providing Moscow with drones and satellite images, as well as machine tools and semiconductors that can be used to mass-produce weapons.

The formation of an anti-Western "coalition" or "axis" by Russia, China, North Korea and Iran marks a shift in the dynamics of Russia's aggression, effectively changing it from a conflict between Ukraine and Russia to a broader confrontation that essentially pits China, Russia, North Korea and Iran against the Western bloc.

Russia's reciprocal military support to North Korea and Iran has also become more evident, creating a vicious cycle of escalating tensions in Asia and the Middle East.

Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on May 16. (Sputnik via Reuters)

With tensions mounting, senior government and military officials as well as security experts from the U.S. and various European nations gathered in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, on May 16-18 for the Lennart Meri Conference, an annual regional security forum.

The atmosphere was palpable. Participants shared a sense of urgency about the need to help Ukraine but also to block China, North Korea and Iran from extending support to Russia.

At a May 18 session titled "Who Provides Russia Weapons and Technology?" participants focused on Russia's three axis partners and their military assistance. Some argued that the U.S. should impose additional sanctions on Chinese manufacturers and banks involved in exporting dual-use products to Russia as such shipments violate current anti-Russia sanctions.

The confrontation between the Western bloc and the four-party axis is escalating at a pace that threatens to ignite other parts of Europe and further raise tensions in Asia and the Middle East.

While history might not repeat itself, it is worth recalling the lessons from both world wars, which began in Europe and quickly spread to Asia.

In 1938, Nazi Germany demanded the cession of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia under the pretext of "protecting Germans." After Britain and France acquiesced, the Nazis invaded Poland the following year, starting World War II.

About two years later, Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, bringing the U.S. into full-scale conflict with the Axis powers and expanding the scope of the war, turning it into a global conflict with the Pacific region as a major theater.

More than 80 years after Hitler's Sudetenland demand, Russian President Vladimir Putin cited the "protection of Russian residents" as a reason for invading Ukraine.

At the Lennart Meri Conference, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and many other participants emphasized the importance of not repeating Britain and France's acquiescence.

In this context, it is crucial to monitor whether the ongoing conflict in Ukraine could escalate into a war involving NATO. Earlier this year, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned that Putin could attack NATO in five to eight years. His Danish counterpart, Troels Lund Poulsen, said it could happen within three to five years.

Although Russia's conventional forces are no match for NATO's, what worries the U.S. and its European allies are short surprise attacks by Russia to destabilize society.

According to defense officials in Poland and Estonia, Russia might attempt limited incursions into the Baltic region or elsewhere once it secures an advantageous cease-fire in Ukraine. In this strategy, rather than moving deeper inland, Russia would pull back quickly after inflicting a certain amount of damage. In this way, Russia would goad the U.S. and Europe into debating whether to declare war on Russia, with the end goal being to cause disarray and destroy NATO unity.

Martin Herem, commander of the Estonian Defense Forces, said that if Russia invades his country, "we will push them back immediately." But if any atrocities, such as massacres, torture and rape, are committed by the Russian military, that could trigger widespread criticism about delayed NATO action, shaking European cohesion, according to the Estonian general.

The "Russian goal will not be military victory, not taking the geographical part of our territory," Herem said. "Their goal will be to destroy our unity and trust, and to cause instability."

Facing significant losses in Ukraine, meanwhile, Moscow is racing to restore its military by increasing this year's defense budget by some 70% from the previous year.

Putin meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the far eastern Amur region of Russia on Sept. 13. (Korean Central News Agency via Reuters)

Kusti Salm, permanent secretary of the Estonian Defense Ministry, warns of the risk of underestimating Russia's ability to rebuild its military might.

"The Russian military has already reconstituted after suffering heavy losses in Ukraine," Salm said. "According to our military analysis, its capabilities are 15% higher than they were before the invasion. Russia is increasing its production of weapons many times faster than we initially expected.

"And they are also securing their soldiers through mobilization. Military support from North Korea and other foreign countries is also significant. The Russian military's capabilities have reached a level at or near which it can engage in sneak attacks and extend aggressive actions against European countries."

The possibility of Russia intensifying its nuclear threats to destabilize the Western bloc is another concern. On May 21, Russian forces started the first stage of exercises to simulate preparation for launching tactical nuclear weapons. China and North Korea must be closely watching NATO reactions to assess the effectiveness of nuclear threats.

If NATO recoils from action for fear of fueling the conflict, that could increase the risk of a European war. As Ukraine becomes increasingly desperate, sentiment is growing in some corners of Europe to send troops to Ukraine. One former U.S. official close to NATO said that if the situation escalates, considering such an option may be unavoidable.

To nip a possible World War III in the bud, it is imperative to make sure Russia's invasion of Ukraine fails. All Western nations must remind themselves that supporting Ukraine could only enhance their own security.

15. Kharkiv’s burned books.

Excerpt:

"What does it mean to be a Kharkiv publisher? It is to feel the pulse of history; it is to feel the voices of war, the voices of civilians, the voices of those who are in pain, and those who want to talk about love. All Ukrainian publishing houses are now living organisms, whose voices are getting stronger. Because with this voice, we choose the right for the future, return the truth, and defend it," Olena said.

Kharkiv’s burned books.

https://www.counteroffensive.news/p/kharkivs-burned-books?utm

If you love books, you’ll want to read this. Publishers reeling after missile strike on Factor Druk printing house: "swamp of cellulite." Russian attack reduces Ukrainian publishing by ~40%.

LILIIA DIDUKH AND MYROSLAVA TANSKA-VIKULOVA

JUN 13, 2024

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Words and Bullets by Natalia Kornienko – a collection of interviews with Ukrainian writers and journalists who became soldiers and volunteers. One of the books that was burned by Russians in Kharkiv on May 23. Photo from the official Facebook page of Vivat publishing house.

Olena Rybka remembers how terrifying it was to see that Factor Druk’s binding shop was destroyed by a missile. 

"Where the epicenter of the hit was, it was impossible to figure out what kind of book it was – there was a whole swamp of cellulose," Olena said. “Tons of water extinguished the paper so the fire would not spread to neighboring buildings. Further, there were burnt, stained, half-destroyed books.”

The pain of losing her colleagues was compounded by the sight she was confronted with: every book was destroyed, all of the works turned to ashes by the Russian attack in Kharkiv last month.

As a result of a Russian missile attack on the building of the Factor-Druk printing house, about 1,000 square meters of the shop burned to the ground. (Photo by Ivan Samoilov/Gwara Media/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

Olena is the deputy editor-in-chief of the Vivat publishing house, which prints many of its books at Factor Druk in Kharkiv. Vivat is one of Ukraine's three largest publishing houses – printing more than 23 million books since its founding in 2013.

Olena Rybka with the book Her War by Yevheniia Podobna – a collection of stories of 25 Ukrainian women. May, 2023, Kharkiv. Photo from Olena Rybka's Facebook page

Last month, Russia launched another massive strike across Kharkiv. One missile landed directly on the printing house, and two more exploded nearby. 

As a result of the hit on Factor Druk, seven printing workers died, and 22 others were injured. 50,000 books were also destroyed. 

The destruction of books is reminiscent of Fahrenheit 451, the classic dystopian novel about a world where books are banned.

The strike is one of a number of attempts by Russia to destroy Ukrainian literary culture. In annexed Crimea and occupied Donbas, Russia’s representatives conduct raids to destroy Ukrainian books, which they call "extremist literature,” and have replaced with 2.5 million Russian books. According to the Ukrainian military, Russians are now planning to a ban on Ukrainian literature in the occupied territories.

The strike on Kharkiv’s publishing house makes it clear: Russia is trying to destroy not only Ukraine's infrastructure but also its culture and identity. 

Rescuers working in the Factor-Druk printing house building hit by a Russian S-300 missile on May 23, 2024 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Photo by Ivan Samoilov/Gwara Media/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images

Kharkiv is considered Ukraine's book publishing and printing capital. Before the full-scale war, more than 80% of Ukrainian books were printed here. And even now, despite everything, Kharkiv book publishers continue to work.

On the eve of the full-scale war, Ukrainian publishers published over 21 thousand different books – and about 44.7 million copies. In the first year of the full-scale invasion, they published just half that number of titles, and about a quarter of the copies.

The printing house Faktor Druk has been operating for almost 30 years, and is one of the largest in Eastern Europe. According to Serhii Polituchyi, the head of the Factor group of companies, the production capacity of the printing house is about 50 million books per year. 

Almost every third Ukrainian book was printed there; and if you include non-book printing, this attack by the Russian army will lead to a decrease in the publishing capacity of Ukraine by 40 percent.

Ukrainians remain proud of their literary culture. Even after the shelling, when the metro is not working, people take taxis or walk but still get to book club meetings. During such moments, you understand why book publishers gather all their strength to continue working, no matter how difficult it may be.

According to an optimistic scenario, said Serhii Polituchyi, rebuilding the printing house will take four to five months. 

Many iconic books were among those destroyed by Russia. Some of them relate to the war: stories for adults and children, stories of military personnel.

"They were lined up on the shelves with covers, burnt, stained, half-destroyed books, and it's painful to look at," Olena said.

A recent exhibition at the International Book Arsenal Festival in Kyiv had a special exhibition about the strike, called ‘Books Destroyed By Russia,’ with a collection of titles damaged in the blaze.

Books that were burned by Russians hit Kharkiv. The stand on the 12th International Book Arsenal Festival is held from May 30 to June 2 in Kyiv. 

But among the abyss of book losses, there were also cases when books survived. One of them is Valerii Puzik's book, ‘Hunters for Happiness. If I Have to Die, I Will Wake You Up’ with at least 200 copies.  

As it went to press, Valerii wrote to her: "Olena, can I change something in my manuscript?" 

He only wanted one thing changed – to dedicate his book to Maksym Kryvtsov, a poet who had died on the frontlines in January of this year. 

“It was excruciating to think that this book devoted to Dali [may have] been destroyed," Olena continued.

It was an enormous relief to find that some copies of the book survived. 

Olena Rybka holds one of the surviving copies of "Hunters for Happiness," which will be delivered to the 12th International Book Arsenal Festival. May, 2023, Kharkiv. Photo from Olena Rybka's Facebook page

For Olena, the destruction of books is even more painful when thinking about how many of them were written for children.

"One of the first photos that made me cry was ‘The Club of the Saved.’ The second edition of the book. A book from which every 5 hryvnias go to the UAnimals fund to further save animals. These are stories for children to instill the idea that we do not abandon our own," Olena said.

Printed pages from the Club of the Saved – children's book destroyed by a Russian S-300 missile in the Factor-Druk printing house on May 23, 2024 in Kharkiv. Photo by Ivan Samoilov/Gwara Media/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images

"You see these covers that were pierced by the debris. You think this book could be picked up by someone who died. And she will never be able to finish it the way she wanted. This is what is lost forever," Olena said.

Olena shared a poignant story about a cat called Marusia, who lives at the Faktor Druk printing house. Marusia was loved by Tetiana Khrapina, a woman who worked in a bookbinding shop, and was killed by a Russian rocket. 

“The cat was usually next to Tetiana, sleeping nearby while Tetiana worked with foil and stamps... On that tragic day, Marusia obviously left. And now she is waiting for her Human, who will not return. She shrinks from loud noises, eats poorly – a cat that survived a rocket attack."

Left: Marusia, the favorite cat of Tetiana Khrapina, a woman who was killed by a Russian rocket. (Photo by Serhii Hnylytskij). Right: the cover of the Club of the Saved – one of the books Russians burned in Kharkiv.

There are strange coincidences in the destroyed book factory. A photo of Marusya sitting on the window sill is painfully reminiscent of the cover of the ‘Club of the Saved’, one of the books for children that had many of its copies burned in the fire. 

Olena writes that the printing house employees will not give the cat to anyone; they will feed her and continue to care for her because she is like a family member.

"What does it mean to be a Kharkiv publisher? It is to feel the pulse of history; it is to feel the voices of war, the voices of civilians, the voices of those who are in pain, and those who want to talk about love. All Ukrainian publishing houses are now living organisms, whose voices are getting stronger. Because with this voice, we choose the right for the future, return the truth, and defend it," Olena said.

After the paywall: Biden and Zelenskyy sign a decade-long pact, but it can be reversed if Trump becomes president again; and Myroslava visits a famous Ukrainian book festival called Book Arsenal — the first time she’s ever been able to go, since it was canceled in 2022 due to the war.

NEWS OF THE DAY:

Good morning to readers. Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands. 

RUSSIA EMPLOYED STARVATION DURING MARIUPOL SIEGE: During the initial phase of Russia's full-scale invasion, approximately 22,000 people perished in the besieged city of Mariupol. Within days, residents were deprived of essential services, including water, gas, and electricity, as temperatures plummeted below -10°C.

An investigation by The Guardian revealed that the Russian offensive unfolded in phases. It began with targeted attacks on civilian infrastructure, cutting off vital utilities. This was followed by a refusal to permit evacuations and direct attacks on humanitarian missions delivering aid. The report further indicates that around 90% of Mariupol's healthcare facilities and housing were either destroyed or damaged. 

DECADE-LONG UKR-USA SECURITY AGREEMENT: Biden and Zelenskyy are set to sign a ten year security agreement that will obligate Washington to provide extensive military assistance to Kyiv, reports The Washington Post. While officials hope the agreement will help bridge political divides within the United States, they also acknowledge that any future president, including Trump, could withdraw from the agreement.

RUSSIANS HAVE DECREASED THE SECURITY OF THE KERCH BRIDGE: The security presence at the Kerch Bridge has significantly diminished, according to the Ukrainian military. Previously, ten to 14 ships were stationed at sea to guard the bridge, but now none remain. The bridge is a critical link between occupied Crimea and Russia.

US SANCTIONS BITE MOSCOW: US sanctions on the Moscow Exchange have prompted a significant shift: the trading platform announced it will no longer conduct transactions in Euros and U.S. dollars – a further sign of the Russian economy’s disconnect from the West, and its increasing closeness with China. “We don’t care, we have yuan,” one Russian commodities exporter told Reuters. 

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK

Hi there – it’s Myroslava here!

Ever since I was a child, I loved to read. And if the book was interesting, I could "swallow" it in a day or two. I guess they used to call me a "bookworm". But over time, everything changed. Work, university, family life – there was less time for books. And now, for me, reading is not a routine, but a pleasure that I do when I can. 

When I was younger, I used to borrow real books from the library. Then, as a teenager, I downloaded them as e-books.Now, as an adult, I have started buying paper books again. There is something so special about picking up a new, untouched book, smelling the scent of its pages, and immersing yourself in a world of exciting adventure. 

I used to enjoy reading non-fiction, and think it made me smarter over time. But now my soul is drawn to novels that describe life in different periods. For example, I like to read about how people lived in Ukraine in the 1990s and early 2000s, and what life was like in the countryside back then. But it takes work to find what I like.

That's why I've been attending various book fairs lately, and I was looking forward to the Book Arsenal festival in Kyiv most of all. And finally I was able to visit it. 

Happy me at the Book Arsenal, May 31, 2024

So I went for the first time, excited to be there. But to be honest, I had mixed feelings after visiting. I was expecting pomp and circumstance. But everything was quite modest. I thought there would be so many booths with books that I could not breathe. Instead, there were only a few publishers, which felt a bit disappointing. 

However, thinking about it later, thinking about it, I wondered if something low key was more appropriate: war is not a time for entertainment and pomp. 

The Book Arsenal, May 31, 2024

Nevertheless, the number of books was still too many to count. I chose the book, ‘The Story of a Stubborn Man,’ by Oleksandr Budko, who goes by the nickname Teren. In his book, he tells the true story of how he tried to go to the front in 2022, but kept meeting obstacles that prevented him.

Nevertheless, Teren managed to go to war, took part in a counter-offensive operation in the Kharkiv region, and lost both of his lower limbs as a result. It is a sad story, but an important one.

Book and a flower I bought on the Book Arsenal, May 31, 2024. (Yes, I also bought a flower, I love them too much:))

In addition to buying a book, there was some entertainment at the Arsenal. An entire room was dedicated to guessing which information was fake or true. Sentences were written on the wall and you had to guess which ones were true. 

Next to them, on the wall, you could see which were true and which were false. There were also filters on the wall where you could smell different smells and see if you could guess which one it was. 

Or you could test your hearing. You had to put on headphones and adjust the sound of the noise, which was quite unpleasant. The quieter the sound, the better your hearing. On the one hand it seems like nonsense, but it's fascinating. It turns out that I can tell what coffee smells like, but I get lost in the scent of lavender. 

My friend tries to smell the fragrance at the Book Arsenal, May 31, 2024 (It was easy, she did it: it was the coffee fragrance) 

But what impressed me the most was a whole stand of burned books from the Vivat Publishing House. Everyone who passed by couldn’t help but be moved. Some considered the burnt books, some took pictures of them, and some tried to smell their smell. It's frightening to see tons of beautiful literature burned. 

After all, these are not just books, they are whole stories that the world could have heard about Ukraine. This is what Ukrainians publishers work for day and night, so that their countrymen can somehow get away from the war for a few hours and live their beautiful lives. 

Looking at photos of the burned books, I feel that my heart is exactly like these books right now. It is completely burnt, but at the same time alive. 

Today’s Dogs of War are these pups that our colleague Oleh saw outside a store in his neighborhood! 

Stay safe out there.

Best,

Myroslava

16. China and Russia Are Beating the US in Africa By James Stavridis

Excerpts:

So, what are the basic tenets of a sensible strategic plan for this vast continent?

First, understand the immense diversity of Africa. 

Second, concentrate efforts on several “anchor” countries in four distinct geographic areas.

Third comes improving ties with influential regional and global organizations. 

Fourth, Washington should coordinate more closely with its global allies.

Fifth is providing more security support. 

Finally, Washington must compete with Beijing’s Belt and Road.

China and Russia Are Beating the US in Africa

A new strategy for Washington should center on giving four “anchor” countries preference in economic and military support. 

June 13, 2024 at 12:00 AM EDT

By James Stavridis

James Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a retired US Navy admiral, former supreme allied commander of NATO, and dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-06-13/china-and-russia-are-crushing-the-us-in-rivalry-for-africa-influence?sref=hhjZtX76

Africa, with 60% of the arable land on the planet, 30% of the mineral reserves and a population approaching 1.5 billion, is an increasingly vital region for global security. Unfortunately, the US has not been adapting to a rapidly changing scene. In the latest blow, US troops have been forced to leave Niger, where the Pentagon had enjoyed a longstanding security partnership.

At the same time, Russia and China are consolidating political and military influence across the continent. Russian paramilitaries and mercenaries, using the model of the now-defunct Wagner Group, have been operating in Mali, Congo, the Central African Republic and other states. Autocratic leaders are hoping for economic benefits from Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative — and to purchase AI-enhanced versions of the equipment that has made China a surveillance state.

US Africa Command, charged with military-to-military cooperation throughout the region, warns that China is active in all the continent’s 54 countries. General Mike Langley, its commander, says that Beijing aspires to establish naval bases on the Atlantic and Indian oceans, and the Gulf of Aden. It has already built its first official overseas base on the Horn of Africa in Djibouti.

So, what are the basic tenets of a sensible strategic plan for this vast continent?

First, understand the immense diversity of Africa. The linguistic, historical and cultural differences are huge. Compare Ethiopia’s culture of longtime independence with South Africa’s tortuous colonial and apartheid experiences. Francophone Africa is very different than the handful of former Portuguese colonies. And all these countries had long pre-colonial historical experiences that shaped their national characters.

For example, during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the US became paralyzed and failed to react when Hutu militias killed roughly 800,000 Tutsis. We didn’t appreciate the simmering tensions between ethnic groups following Belgium’s colonial administration and were unprepared to intervene in the enormous human tragedy.

Second, concentrate efforts on several “anchor” countries in four distinct geographic areas. These are nations that have both regional and, in some cases, continent-wide influence. Incentives for them could include funding for key infrastructure through the US International Development Financing Corporation to compete with Belt and Road; military sales with preferential treatment for advanced systems such as fourth-generation fighter jets; military-to-military training, especially for special forces and counterterrorism; and more intelligence sharing.

Kenya, recently selected as a Major Non-NATO Ally, is the natural anchor in eastern Africa. Its president, William Ruto, was just hosted for a state visit in Washington — partly in recognition of his nation’s willingness to take on a complex security mission to Haiti that will benefit the US greatly.

Nigeria, the most populous country on the continent and boasting vast natural resources and Atlantic Ocean coastline, will be the key player in West Africa. Washington has had good military-to-military connectivity, but Nigeria could use more support fighting the Boko Haram terrorist group.

South Africa is also an obvious choice, despite the messy aftermath of last month’s election. The US ambassador, Reuben Brigety, recently told me, “It is in America’s interest of the US that South Africa succeed as a democracy that can deliver for its people." South Africa is a continental leader and has an outsized voice in the Global South; it is the only African nation in the G-20; more than 600 American companies operate there, generating revenue roughly equal to 10% of South Africa's GDP.

Ethiopia, with the continent’s second-largest population, is a natural partner in the north. But after a long period of stability, it has recently been wracked by civil war. The US deserves credit for being its top source of humanitarian aid, but we need to increase our diplomatic engagement. Given the flow of refugees from Sudan and Ethiopia’s desire to borrow $7 billion from IMF and World Bank, now is the time to be economically supportive.

Third comes improving ties with influential regional and global organizations. The most important of these is the African Union, headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Yet the US ambassador position has been vacant for more than a year. The State Department should appoint a foreign service officer with immense Africa experience to give the US continent-wide credibility.

Fourth, Washington should coordinate more closely with its global allies. A good example is France, which has retained strong connections with some of its former colonies. While France has also been suffering with withdrawals and expulsions of troops from some of these states (notably Niger and Mali), it retains strong business and military connections in Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Benin and Chad. Putting joint US-French missions together for military training or economic development projects makes sense.

Fifth is providing more security support. This means military-to-military training and equipment through Africa Command. This has been done on a piecemeal basis, but Africa is not a one-size-fits-all challenge. A more nuanced approach, for example, might be to send ground trainers from not just the Army and Marine Corps, but also from the US reserves and National Guard, who can perhaps relate better to the smaller militaries on the continent.

As for naval support, the USS Hershel “Woody” Williams, a massive Expeditionary Support Base — with heavy-lift helicopters, vast cargo capability and teams for special-forces training — began a deployment off West Africa in February. That’s good, but such initiatives should be constant, not sporadic. The US Coast Guard has conducted training in counterpiracy and drug interdiction with small coastal navies of West Africa, but this too needs to be on a more permanent footing.

Finally, Washington must compete with Beijing’s Belt and Road. China’s initiative has a mixed track record at best. While more than 40 out of 54 African nations are registered as part of BRI, some of the construction projects have turned out to be shoddy, and many loans have been canceled.

The US has institutions such as the Development Finance Corporation, which funds projects from a relatively small $1 billion budget, often working with the private sector and US Agency for International Development. For example, the DFC is now helping finance construction of part of the Lobito Corridor, a rail and road project traversing sub-Saharan Africa. Both the DFC and USAID are a fiscally smart way to engage in Africa, but they are hugely underfunded.

There is no overstating the strategic importance of Africa: By 2050, one in four people on the planet will live there. America’s great-power competitors have made deep inroads, and without a coherent strategy, the US will continue to lose influence and geopolitical advantage.

Stavridis is also vice chairman of global affairs at the Carlyle Group. He is on the boards of Fortinet and Ankura Consulting Group, and has advised Shield Capital, a firm that invests in the cybersecurity sector.

More by James Stavridis From Bloomberg Opinion:

• China Has 350 Warships. The US Has 290. That’s a Problem.
• Putin’s Next Target May Be the ‘NATO Lake’
• America Needs More Predator Submarines to Stop China

Want more Bloomberg Opinion? Terminal readers head to OPIN . Or you can subscribe to our daily newsletter.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

James Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a retired US Navy admiral, former supreme allied commander of NATO, and dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

17. The dangers of Taiwan’s ‘strategic ambiguity’

Conclusion:

To put U.S.-China relations on a sounder footing, the U.S. has a lot of clarifying to do with Beijing — and doing it, as Wang said, “consistent with the climate of the times.” Taiwan is now a vibrant, full-fledged democracy where the people rule, and they repeatedly choose freedom over tyranny. America must help defend that freedom. 

The dangers of Taiwan’s ‘strategic ambiguity’

BY JOSEPH BOSCO, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 06/11/24 10:00 AM ET

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4714695-the-us-must-end-its-dangerous-policy-of-ambiguity-on-taiwan/

When Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with his Chinese counterpart, Dong Jun, in Singapore late last month, he was treated to the usual litany of preemptive Beijing complaints alleging hostile U.S. intentions — “containment,” “encirclement” etc. — and U.S. bad faith by failing to honor the “one China principle.” Such charges have been repeated so often and so relentlessly that many Americans and others have come to accept them as historical fact. 

Whether China’s professions of injured sensitivities are feigned or authentic depends on whether the communist leaders believe their own propaganda.  

The bad-faith charge stems from the seminal document co-authored by Henry Kissinger and Zhou En-lai, the Shanghai Communiqué, the original sin of U.S.-China-Taiwan relations. Attempting to bridge the longstanding chasm between the Chinese and U.S. positions on Taiwan, Kissinger utilized what he, President Nixon, and many others considered “brilliant” wordsmithing. 

In the Joint Communique, China emphatically stated its position on Taiwan: “[T]he Government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government of China; Taiwan is a province of China; which has long been returned to the motherland. … The Chinese Government firmly opposes any activities which aim at the creation of ‘one China, one Taiwan,’ ‘one China, two governments,’ ‘two Chinas,’ and ‘independent Taiwan’ or advocate that “the status of Taiwan remains to be determined.” Over the last half-century, that language became encapsulated in Beijing’s “one China principle.”  

Kissinger apparently took no issue with China’s misstatement of history that Taiwan “has long been returned to the motherland.” In fact, after its surrender ending World War II in the Pacific, Imperial Japan, which had held Taiwan as a colony since 1895, simply relinquished its own claim to Taiwan without designating which country now exercised sovereignty over the island. 

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In the face of China’s unambiguous declaration, the U.S. side mildly stated: “The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves. With this prospect in mind, it affirms the ultimate objective of the withdrawal of all U.S. forces and military installations from Taiwan. In the meantime, it will progressively reduce its forces and military installations on Taiwan as the tension in the area diminishes.” The shorthand for the U.S. formulation is our “one China policy,” which Beijing routinely conflates with its own position.  

As a former Harvard professor perfectly fluent in English notwithstanding his background as a German immigrant, Kissinger surely knew that the term “acknowledge” has several meanings. 

Its first definition is “to admit to be real or true.” Beijing immediately accepted that meaning as expressing America’s agreement with China’s position. The second dictionary definition of “acknowledge” is “to express recognition or realization of.” That is the bottom-line view Washington has espoused over the decades — that it simply took note of China’s position without concurring in it. But Beijing and much of the world are not buying the semantics. 

Last week, President Biden was asked for the fifth time in the last two years whether the United States would defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack. On the first four occasions he answered unequivocally in the affirmative, only to have White House and State Department officials rush to dilute the message by saying there was “no change in U.S. policy” — without explaining what the policy is. 

This time, Biden did not state an ironclad commitment to directly defend Taiwan, only that he is “not ruling out using U.S. military force.” So far, no administration official has walked back Biden’s more equivocal statement. 

Given his 40-year record of foreign policy mistakes, from the first Gulf War to Afghanistan and Ukraine, China is justified in believing that when push comes to shove and it makes its overt move against Taiwan, Joe Biden will back down. His well-advertised fear of triggering World War III reflects the intellectual and moral paralysis that continues to inhibit his administration from giving Ukraine what it needs to defeat Russia. 

But as former Indo-Pacific Commander Harry Harris said last week, “Strategic ambiguity has had its day and it’s time to move to strategic clarity.” 

It was not the first time Harris has urged strengthening deterrence against Chinese adventurism. While serving as U.S. ambassador to South Korea in September 2021, he said “We should reconsider … our longstanding policy of strategic ambiguity.” 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken missed an opportunity to affirm an important public message to China when he met recently with Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Washington. Wang said the relationship required both countries to “behave in a way that is consistent with the provisions of the three China-U.S. joint communiques, international law and basic norms of international relations, and consistent with the climate of the times.” 

According to public reporting on the meeting, Blinken did not point out that China’s threatening behavior is not consistent with anything in that statement, including the three communiques in which the U.S. repeatedly states its position that Taiwan’s fate must be decided peacefully.  

Nor did Blinken invoke the Taiwan Relations Act requiring the U.S. to provide Taiwan with weapons to defend itself and for the U.S. to “maintain the capacity to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion.” Also neglected is the TRA language stating that U.S. recognition of the PRC itself “rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means.” 

To put U.S.-China relations on a sounder footing, the U.S. has a lot of clarifying to do with Beijing — and doing it, as Wang said, “consistent with the climate of the times.” Taiwan is now a vibrant, full-fledged democracy where the people rule, and they repeatedly choose freedom over tyranny. America must help defend that freedom. 

Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He is a nonresident fellow at the Institute for Corean-American Studies and a member of the advisory board of the Global Taiwan Institute.  

18.  Achieving digital integration across allies: Lessons learned from Project Convergence

Achieving digital integration across allies: Lessons learned from Project Convergence

​The success of Capstone yielded three major takeaways on government-industry partnerships.

BY

NICK WOODRUFF

AND

CHRIS COMPTON

JUNE 12, 2024

defensescoop.com · by Jon Harper · June 12, 2024

Today’s geopolitical tensions make digital interoperability among foreign allies paramount. But with the U.S.’s adversaries growing in size and technological complexity, our threat landscape demands even more than just interoperability. To effectively address today’s challenges and realize the impact of true Combined Joint All-Domain and Control (CJADC2), the U.S. and its allies and partners must strive for total seamless digital integration.

The effectiveness of this working toward and eventually achieving true integration was recently examined during Project Convergence Capstone 4 (PCC4), which took place over several weeks spanning February and March 2024. Hosted by the U.S. Army, PCC4 acts as an experimentation venue for joint services and multinational partners to test capabilities and concepts associated with CJADC2. This year’s exercise achieved a higher level of integration between mission partners than has even been achieved in previous CJADC2 experimentation — by, with and through experimental software that the U.K. largely championed to speed up the notoriously manual workflows around a coalition’s command and control of targeting.

While the inevitable “scripting” of outcomes for higher visibility of course took place, PCC4 served as a prime model for some key areas of defense-industry partnership that should be replicated in future exercises, experiments and actual missions to bring our allies closer together. Capstone is just one example of how the right technology and industry partner matched with the right government sponsors can generate mission-critical digital integration.

The success of Capstone yielded three major takeaways on government-industry partnerships:

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Lesson learned #1: Warfighter input is critical

Continuous warfighter input and corresponding agile development are critical in identifying rapidly achievable software improvements. At Capstone, industry operational and technical expertise listened to and understood the sponsor’s operational needs and employed an agile development process to ensure rapid and responsive software updates were conducted successfully throughout the event. Some software even required 10 instances of produced and deployed code on a single day PCC4 execution. This model demonstrated the powerful impact of agile development with warfighter input, specifically the speed and accuracy with which software can be modified and improved to align with warfighter needs. It also hit home the fact that this model will need to occur in conflict, not just experimentation. Industry will need to be at the edges of warfare, right alongside the users of their capabilities.

In preparation for future experiments, DOD leaders should establish structured and ongoing processes to gather continuous warfighter feedback. This feedback should be gathered from various operations and echelons of the chain of command to ensure all experiences are accounted for.

Lesson learned #2: Interoperability and security come first

Capstone specifically leveraged mature prototypes with proven data-centric security models, along with identity, credentialing, and access management (ICAM) capabilities, allowing partnerships to establish a zero-trust environment that empowered the secure sharing of data across the U.K. and the U.S. The real challenge wasn’t actually the interoperability between allies but between industry organizations. Without the U.S. Army (or anyone else) clearly defining and mandating a set of standards to govern data sharing, it was left entirely to industry to determine if they were willing to share, and why. Needless to say, allowing business calculus to impact experimentation outcomes was a losing battle.

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For future exercises, defense and industry leaders should collaborate on best practices to make more standardized protocols or guidelines for data sharing and handling, making a certain standard for interoperability and security a necessity.

Lesson learned #3: Avoid vendor lock-in

Many forget that experimentations like Capstone, by its nature, involve trial and error. This requires removing the layer of vendor preference that is ever-present at these events. Government and industry need to fully embrace experiments as a space to fail safely and explore new methods for testing integration capabilities — as well as to entertain other capabilities and industry partners to fill gaps. This approach underscores the importance of the DOD remaining flexible and agile, avoiding reliance on a single vendor for an entire problem area, especially in the software space, where any proficient software capability can become any solution with enough money and time. Additionally, to promote ongoing innovation, the DOD must continue to foster an environment where increasing competition ensures that the “best solution” is based strictly on performance, not just preference.

At Capstone, many can agree that U.K. participants were successful in part due to their openness to collaborating with a diverse range of vendors that were focused on a single problem (as in, not just a diverse range of problems each with a single vendor), as well as bringing their own solutions to bear. The U.S. should aim to convey this same openness within future experiments. This entails limiting pre-ordained outcomes and fully embracing a variety of software vendors, technologies and approaches.

PCC4 represented a golden opportunity for government-industry collaboration on real operational problems, leveraging emerging technology and capturing feedback to rapidly improve the technology to meet warfighter requirements. As CJADC2 continues to mature and improve, we must continue to reflect on our past successes and identify new opportunities to advance integration.

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Nick Woodruff is the chief strategy officer at Research Innovations Inc. (RII). He’s responsible for the development of partnerships, both domestic and internationally, and the leadership of select strategic initiatives in pursuit of global impact. He previously served in uniform for 14 years in organizations within U.S. Special Operations Command, including as a professional in information and unconventional warfare.

Chris Compton is the senior capture manager at Research Innovations Inc. (RII). He’s responsible for driving strategy and development of RII’s Joint Targeting Platform, a suite of software capabilities designed to enable joint targeting and employment of all-domain fires and effects. He previously served in the U.S. Army for more than 26 years, which included an assignment as chief of concepts development at the Fires Center of Excellence.

Written by Nick Woodruff and Chris Compton

In This Story

• Army
• CJADC2
• Project Convergence
• United Kingdom

defensescoop.com · by Jon Harper · June 12, 2024

19. Combatting Russian Lawfare with a Cognitive Shield

From a Ukrainian lawyer and also a combat infantryman.

Conclusion:

Whether local or global, conflict remains fundamentally a clash of wills, making it inherently a cognitive battle. Russian attempts to legally justify its invasion of Ukraine are a stark reminder of the vital role of cognitive resilience. Indeed, proactive and creative strategies necessitate relentless political commitment, but they are essential to safeguard the cognitive integrity of individuals committed to the ideals of freedom.

Combatting Russian Lawfare with a Cognitive Shield

irregularwarfare.org · by Armenak Ohanesian

On February 24, 2022, Putin formally announced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In his remarks, Putin attempted to justify his actions in part by citing the UN Charter and the right to self-defense. Putin’s argument was unpersuasive in a legal sense and widely condemned by the international legal community. Nonetheless, his attempt demonstrated Russia’s intent to present distorted interpretations of the law to create an illusion of legitimacy for the invasion. Since his speech, the Russian government has repeatedly abused and weaponized domestic and international law to support its war against Ukraine.

Russia’s weaponization of the law is part of its strategy to satisfy Russian domestic opinion, sow discord between Ukraine and its allies, and maintain international support for its activities. Perhaps most insidious, however, is that Russia’s disregard for the law is also malevolently anthropocentric, intended to both exploit and affect the most vulnerable target: the human being and its cognition. In this respect, Russia’s blatant abuse of the law is meant to degrade Ukraine’s will to fight by undermining justice and flouting accountability.

The essence of Russian lawfare is not the correctness of its legal arguments but how law and facts are used to shape the perception of its invasion of Ukraine among domestic, regional, and international audiences. When it comes to waging lawfare, Russia brazenly crafts and deploys malign narratives by manipulating facts, distorting the meaning of international obligations, passing nonsensical domestic legislation, and rendering ridiculous legal judgments. In this way, lawfare is just one part of Russia’s broader disinformation and propaganda efforts. The typology of Russian lawfare has been well-explored: some researchers distinguish up to 36 types of Russian lawfare, depending on the warfare domain and legal environment. These activities undermine the idea of justice and the rule of law and, in many cases, are presented as justifications for specific Russian military activities and objectives in Ukraine. 

Today, new technologies enhance the threat of Russian lawfare. Russia already abuses social media to spread disinformation about its invasion globally. New tools, such as large language models, make such campaigns easier, cheaper, and more effective. Disinformation campaigns can corrupt legal environments by undermining facts, biasing juries, or otherwise creating evidence-resistant beliefs and amplifying basic instincts like hatred. 

Consequently, effectively countering Russian lawfare requires recognizing human cognition as a battlefield and combatting Russian disinformation more broadly. Governments and the sources of international law—namely customary law, treaties, and statutes of international courts—should be designed to reflect a benevolently anthropocentric approach that prioritizes human cognitive resilience against lawfare and disinformation. Governments, militaries, and civil societies must erect a ‘cognitive shield’ to resist the Russian disinformation efforts that underpin its abuse of the law. This shield should focus on five pillars and be integrated into the grand strategy of multi-domain operations.

The cognitive shield includes the following:

Narrative Analysis: Governments should continuously monitor, gather, and organize sources of malevolent foreign narratives to track their activity and targets. For example, big data processing and sentiment analysis tools could do such monitoring. Indeed, such tools are already being developed, including several by Ukrainian experts directly responding to Russian disinformation campaigns. These tools have been successfully used in Ukraine to uncover and mitigate Russian attempts to promote pro-Moscow insurgencies in Ukraine. Debunking false narratives is central to combatting Russian lawfare, which frequently attempts to distort historical facts. Enhancing these capabilities would strengthen the international legal community’s ability to tell fact from fiction and blame Russia for employing such information campaigns. 

Proactive Information Campaigns, Educational Initiatives, and Civil-Military Cooperation: Governments should start or build upon existing efforts to promote ‘cognitive self-resilience skills’ like critical thinking and fact-checking techniques among all levels of society, cultivating media literacy and the ability to recognize disinformation on one’s own. This strategy paves the way for a pre-bunking approach, preemptively exposing weaponized narratives before they are deployed, including in legal environments. Several national governments and regional bodies are already working on these initiatives and should be considered models for other governments interested in doing the same.

Legislative Efforts to Protect Human Cognition: National and international legislative bodies should pass measures to protect mental health and the integrity of cognitive processes, including perception, memory, and decision-making. These functions should be considered fundamental human rights and principles protected by international humanitarian law. At the same time, legislative bodies must criminalize cyberattacks and AI-enabled disinformation campaigns. Indeed, implementing such protections in international law would require significant efforts within the United Nations, particularly the UN International Law Commission. This would include amendments to the Geneva Conventions and the Statute of the International Court of Justice or Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (2001). Similar provisions must also be reflected in international criminal law, such as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The goal of these efforts is significant: to introduce a new principle in the law of war that protects human cognition and to hold accountable the states that violate it.

Interdisciplinary Integration: New insights from neurosciences such as neurobiology, psychoneuroimmunology, and psychology will continue to help explain the specific neural mechanisms that must be protected from disinformation. Just as there are mechanisms capable of artificially inducing negative reactions like hatred, there are also mechanisms that can neutralize these reactions. For example, a recent meta-analysis of 42 studies found that psychological “inoculation” (e.g., teaching people about common misinformation strategies) can improve a person’s ability to assess the credibility of new information independently. Government and international legal bodies must maintain awareness of these scientific advances to create new means of protecting citizens against disinformation.

Military Cognitive Strategies: Besides building resilience among civilians, governments need to adopt strategies to combat disinformation in their militaries. A striking example of the importance of such strategies is the Russian attempt to exploit allegations of corruption at the highest levels of power in Ukraine to undermine Ukraine’s will to fight. Indeed, corruption in Ukraine is a long-standing and systemic issue. Many Ukrainians of military age who left the country after Russia’s invasion state that they do not want to fight for a corrupt government. 

From my personal experience—as both a lawyer and a combatant in Ukraine—I am disappointed about the absence of a robust justice system in Ukraine. However, it’s important not to overlook the paradox of ‘perverse transparency,’ when anti-corruption efforts expose previously unnoticed corruption, thereby creating a misleading impression of increasing corruption. Russian intelligence services have leveraged Ukrainian anti-corruption efforts to generate high-profile news stories, which Russian media channels further exploit to discredit Ukrainian authorities to Western and Ukrainian audiences, including Ukrainian soldiers. Military doctrines must account for information campaigns exploiting narratives designed specifically to undermine a population’s will to fight by emphasizing the importance of cognitive resilience among its troops and populations that may be called upon to serve in the future.

Notably, the pillars of the cognitive shield are mutually reinforcing. For example, narrative analysis tools developed by governments or private industry can be improved by incorporating new findings from neuroscience studies. These tools can then be better applied in resilience-building educational initiatives and inform the drafting of legislative and military doctrine.

Whether local or global, conflict remains fundamentally a clash of wills, making it inherently a cognitive battle. Russian attempts to legally justify its invasion of Ukraine are a stark reminder of the vital role of cognitive resilience. Indeed, proactive and creative strategies necessitate relentless political commitment, but they are essential to safeguard the cognitive integrity of individuals committed to the ideals of freedom.

Armenak Ohanesian is Ukrainian lawyer, practiced in litigation, international arbitration, and criminal law. Post-Russian invasion, he served in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including roles as an infantry soldier, combat medic, and artillery commander, notably in the Izium Counteroffensive and the Battle of Bakhmut. Decorated for his service, he now leads legal studies at IKAR, focusing on international law and cognitive warfare.

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.

Main Image: Photo taken at Protests in London against the war in Ukraine, February 25, 2022 (Garry Knight via Flikr)

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irregularwarfare.org · by Armenak Ohanesian

20. Sleepwalking Toward War

Excerpts:

Reining in economic confrontation and dampening potential regional flash points are essential for avoiding a repeat of the British-German scenario, but the rise of hostility between China and the United States has also made many other issues urgent. There is a desperate need for arms control initiatives and for dealing with other conflicts, such as that between the Israelis and the Palestinians. There is a demand for signs of mutual respect. When, in 1972, Soviet and U.S. leaders agreed to a set of “Basic Principles of Relations Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” the joint declaration achieved almost nothing concrete. But it built a modicum of trust between both sides and helped convince Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev that the Americans were not out to get him. If Xi, like Brezhnev, intends to remain leader for life, that is an investment worth making.

The rise of great-power tensions also creates the need to maintain believable deterrence. There is a persistent myth that alliance systems led to war in 1914 and that a web of mutual defense treaties ensnared governments in a conflict that became impossible to contain. In fact, what made war almost a certainty after the European powers started mobilizing against one another in July 1914 was Germany’s ill-considered hope that Britain might not, after all, come to the assistance of its friends and allies. For the United States, it is essential not to provide any cause for such mistakes in the decade ahead. It should concentrate its military power in the Indo-Pacific, making that force an effective deterrent against Chinese aggression. And it should reinvigorate NATO, with Europe carrying a much greater share of the burden of its own defense.

Leaders can learn from the past in both positive and negative ways, about what to do and what not to do. But they have to learn the big lessons first, and the most important of all is how to avoid horrendous wars that reduce generations of achievements to rubble.

Sleepwalking Toward War

Will America and China Heed the Warnings of Twentieth-Century Catastrophe?

By Odd Arne Westad

July/August 2024

Published on June 13, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by The Great Transformation: China’s Road From Revolution to Reform · June 13, 2024

In The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914, the British historian Paul Kennedy explained how two traditionally friendly peoples ended up in a downward spiral of mutual hostility that led to World War I. Major structural forces drove the competition between Germany and Britain: economic imperatives, geography, and ideology. Germany’s rapid economic rise shifted the balance of power and enabled Berlin to expand its strategic reach. Some of this expansion—especially at sea—took place in areas in which Britain had profound and established strategic interests. The two powers increasingly viewed each other as ideological opposites, wildly exaggerating their differences. The Germans caricatured the British as moneygrubbing exploiters of the world, and the British portrayed the Germans as authoritarian malefactors bent on expansion and repression.

The two countries appeared to be on a collision course, destined for war. But it wasn’t structural pressures, important as they were, that sparked World War I. War broke out thanks to the contingent decisions of individuals and a profound lack of imagination on both sides. To be sure, war was always likely. But it was unavoidable only if one subscribes to the deeply ahistorical view that compromise between Germany and Britain was impossible.

The war might not have come to pass had Germany’s leaders after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck not been so brazen about altering the naval balance of power. Germany celebrated its dominance in Europe and insisted on its rights as a great power, dismissing concerns about rules and norms of international behavior. That posture alarmed other countries, not just Britain. And it was difficult for Germany to claim, as it did, that it wanted to make a new, more just and inclusive world order while it threatened its neighbors and allied with a decaying Austro-Hungarian Empire that was hard at work denying the national aspirations of the peoples on its borders.

A similar tunnel vision prevailed on the other side. Winston Churchill, the British naval chief, concluded in 1913 that Britain’s preeminent global position “often seems less reasonable to others than to us.” British views of others tended to lack that self-awareness. Officials and commentators spewed vitriol about Germany, inveighing particularly against unfair German trade practices. London eyed Berlin warily, interpreting all its actions as evidence of aggressive intentions and failing to understand Germany’s fears for its own security on a continent where it was surrounded by potential foes. British hostility, of course, only deepened German fears and stoked German ambitions. “Few seem to have possessed the generosity or the perspicacity to seek a large-scale improvement in Anglo-German relations,” Kennedy lamented.

Such generosity or perspicacity is also sorely missing in relations between China and the United States today. Like Germany and Britain before World War I, China and the United States seem to be locked in a downward spiral, one that may end in disaster for both countries and for the world at large. Similar to the situation a century ago, profound structural factors fuel the antagonism. Economic competition, geopolitical fears, and deep mistrust work to make conflict more likely.

But structure is not destiny. The decisions that leaders make can prevent war and better manage the tensions that invariably rise from great-power competition. As with Germany and Britain, structural forces may push events to a head, but it takes human avarice and ineptitude on a colossal scale for disaster to ensue. Likewise, sound judgment and competence can prevent the worst-case scenarios.

THE LINES ARE DRAWN

Much like the hostility between Germany and Britain over a century ago, the antagonism between China and the United States has deep structural roots. It can be traced to the end of the Cold War. In the latter stages of that great conflict, Beijing and Washington had been allies of sorts, since both feared the power of the Soviet Union more than they feared each other. But the collapse of the Soviet state, their common enemy, almost immediately meant that policymakers fixated more on what separated Beijing and Washington than what united them. The United States increasingly deplored China’s repressive government. China resented the United States’ meddlesome global hegemony.

But this sharpening of views did not lead to an immediate decline in U.S.-Chinese relations. In the decade and a half that followed the end of the Cold War, successive U.S. administrations believed they had a lot to gain from facilitating China’s modernization and economic growth. Much like the British, who had initially embraced the unification of Germany in 1870 and German economic expansion after that, the Americans were motivated by self-interest to abet Beijing’s rise. China was an enormous market for U.S. goods and capital, and, moreover, it seemed intent on doing business the American way, importing American consumer habits and ideas about how markets should function as readily as it embraced American styles and brands.

Germany and Britain were on a collision course—but World War I was not inevitable.

At the level of geopolitics, however, China was considerably more wary of the United States. The collapse of the Soviet Union shocked China’s leaders, and the U.S. military success in the 1991 Gulf War brought home to them that China now existed in a unipolar world in which the United States could deploy its power almost at will. In Washington, many were repelled by China’s use of force against its own population at Tiananmen Square in 1989 and elsewhere. Much like Germany and Britain in the 1880s and 1890s, China and the United States began to view each other with greater hostility even as their economic exchanges expanded.

What really changed the dynamic between the two countries was China’s unrivaled economic success. As late as 1995, China’s GDP was around ten percent of U.S. GDP. By 2021, it had grown to around 75 percent of U.S. GDP. In 1995, the United States produced around 25 percent of the world’s manufacturing output, and China produced less than five percent. But now China has surged past the United States. Last year, China produced close to 30 percent of the world’s manufacturing output, and the United States produced just 17 percent. These are not the only figures that reflect a country’s economic importance, but they give a sense of a country’s heft in the world and indicate where the capacity to make things, including military hardware, resides.

At the geopolitical level, China’s view of the United States began to darken in 2003 with the invasion and occupation of Iraq. China opposed the U.S.-led attack, even if Beijing cared little for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime. More than the United States’ devastating military capabilities, what really shocked leaders in Beijing was the ease with which Washington could dismiss matters of sovereignty and nonintervention, notions that were staples of the very international order the Americans had coaxed China to join. Chinese policymakers worried that if the United States could so readily flout the same norms it expected others to uphold, little would constrain its future behavior. China’s military budget doubled from 2000 to 2005 and then doubled again by 2009. Beijing also launched programs to better train its military, improve its efficiency, and invest in new technology. It revolutionized its naval and missile forces. Sometime between 2015 and 2020, the number of ships in the Chinese navy surpassed that in the U.S. Navy.

Some argue that China would have dramatically expanded its military capabilities no matter what the United States did two decades ago. After all, that is what major rising powers do as their economic clout increases. That may be true, but the specific timing of Beijing’s expansion was clearly linked to its fear that the global hegemon had both the will and the capacity to contain China’s rise if it so chose. Iraq’s yesterday could be China’s tomorrow, as one Chinese military planner put it, somewhat melodramatically, in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion. Just as Germany began fearing that it would be hemmed in both economically and strategically in the 1890s and the early 1900s—exactly when Germany’s economy was growing at its fastest clip—China began fearing it would be contained by the United States just as its own economy was soaring.

BEFORE THE FALL

If there was ever an example of hubris and fear coexisting within the same leadership, it was provided by Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II. Germany believed both that it was ineluctably on the rise and that Britain represented an existential threat to its ascent. German newspapers were full of postulations about their country’s economic, technological, and military advances, prophesying a future when Germany would overtake everyone else. According to many Germans (and some non-Germans, too), their model of government, with its efficient mix of democracy and authoritarianism, was the envy of the world. Britain was not really a European power, they claimed, insisting that Germany was now the strongest power on the continent and that it should be left free to rationally reorder the region according to the reality of its might. And indeed, it would be able to do just that if not for British meddling and the possibility that Britain could team up with France and Russia to contain Germany’s success.

Nationalist passions surged in both countries from the 1890s onward, as did darker notions of the malevolence of the other. The fear grew in Berlin that its neighbors and Britain were set on derailing Germany’s natural development on its own continent and preventing its future predominance. Mostly oblivious to how their own aggressive rhetoric affected others, German leaders began viewing British interference as the root cause of their country’s problems, both at home and abroad. They saw British rearmament and more restrictive trade policies as signs of aggressive intent. “So the celebrated encirclement of Germany has finally become an accomplished fact,” Wilhelm sighed, as war was brewing in 1914. “The net has suddenly been closed over our head, and the purely anti-German policy which England has been scornfully pursuing all over the world has won the most spectacular victory.” On their side, British leaders imagined that Germany was largely responsible for the relative decline of the British Empire, even though many other powers were rising at Britain’s expense.

China today shows many of the same signs of hubris and fear that Germany exhibited after the 1890s. Leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took immense pride in navigating their country through the 2008 global financial crisis and its aftermath more adeptly than did their Western counterparts. Many Chinese officials saw the global recession of that era not only as a calamity made in the United States but also as a symbol of the transition of the world economy from American to Chinese leadership. Chinese leaders, including those in the business sector, spent a great deal of time explaining to others that China’s inexorable rise had become the defining trend in international affairs. In its regional policies, China started behaving more assertively toward its neighbors. It also crushed movements for self-determination in Tibet and Xinjiang and undermined Hong Kong’s autonomy. And in recent years, it has more frequently insisted on its right to take over Taiwan, by force if necessary, and has begun to intensify its preparations for such a conquest.

Together, growing Chinese hubris and rising nationalism in the United States helped hand the presidency to Donald Trump in 2016, after he appealed to voters by conjuring China as a malign force on the international stage. In office, Trump began a military buildup directed against China and launched a trade war to reinforce U.S. commercial supremacy, marking a clear break from the less hostile policies pursued by his predecessor, Barack Obama. When Joe Biden replaced Trump in 2021, he maintained many of Trump’s policies that targeted China—buoyed by a bipartisan consensus that sees China as a major threat to U.S. interests—and has since imposed further trade restrictions intended to make it more difficult for Chinese firms to acquire sophisticated technology.

A World War I–era trench in Massiges, France, November 2018

Christian Hartmann / Reuters

Beijing has responded to this hard-line shift in Washington by showing as much ambition as insecurity in its dealings with others. Some of its complaints about American behavior are strikingly similar to those that Germany lodged against Britain in the early twentieth century. Beijing has accused Washington of trying to maintain a world order that is inherently unjust—the same accusation Berlin leveled at London. “What the United States has constantly vowed to preserve is a so-called international order designed to serve the United States’ own interests and perpetuate its hegemony,” a white paper published by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared in June 2022. “The United States itself is the largest source of disruption to the actual world order.”

The United States, meanwhile, has been trying to develop a China policy that combines deterrence with limited cooperation, similar to what Britain did when developing policy toward Germany in the early twentieth century. According to the Biden administration’s October 2022 National Security Strategy, “The People’s Republic of China harbors the intention and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order in favor of one that tilts the global playing field to its benefit.” Although opposed to such a reshaping, the administration stressed that it will “always be willing to work with the PRC where our interests align.” To reinforce the point, the administration declared, “We can’t let the disagreements that divide us stop us from moving forward on the priorities that demand that we work together.” The problem now is—as it was in the years before 1914—that any opening for cooperation, even on key issues, gets lost in mutual recriminations, petty irritations, and deepening strategic mistrust.

In the British-German relationship, three main conditions led from rising antagonism to war. The first was that the Germans became increasingly convinced that Britain would not allow Germany to rise under any circumstances. At the same time, German leaders seemed incapable of defining to the British or anyone else how, in concrete terms, their country’s rise would or would not remake the world. The second was that both sides feared a weakening of their future positions. This view, ironically, encouraged some leaders to believe that they should fight a war sooner rather than later. The third was an almost total lack of strategic communication. In 1905, Alfred von Schlieffen, chief of the German general staff, proposed a battle plan that would secure a swift victory on the continent, where Germany had to reckon with both France and Russia. Crucially, the plan involved the invasion of Belgium, an act that gave Britain an immediate cause to join the war against Germany. As Kennedy put it, “The antagonism between the two countries had emerged well before the Schlieffen Plan was made the only German military strategy; but it took the sublime genius of the Prussian General Staff to provide the occasion for turning that antagonism into war.”

All these conditions now seem to be in place in the U.S.-Chinese relationship. Chinese President Xi Jinping and the CCP leadership are convinced the United States’ main objective is to prevent China’s rise no matter what. China’s own statements regarding its international ambitions are so bland as to be next to meaningless. Internally, Chinese leaders are seriously concerned about the country’s slowing economy and about the loyalty of their own people. Meanwhile, the United States is so politically divided that effective long-term governance is becoming almost impossible. The potential for strategic miscommunication between China and the United States is rife because of the limited interaction between the two sides. All current evidence points toward China making military plans to one day invade Taiwan, producing a war between China and the United States just as the Schlieffen Plan helped produce a war between Germany and Britain.

A NEW SCRIPT

The striking similarities with the early twentieth century, a period that witnessed the ultimate disaster, point to a gloomy future of escalating confrontation. But conflict can be avoided. If the United States wants to prevent a war, it has to convince Chinese leaders that it is not hell-bent on preventing China’s future economic development. China is an enormous country. It has industries that are on par with those in the United States. But like Germany in 1900, it also has regions that are poor and undeveloped. The United States cannot, through its words or actions, repeat to the Chinese what the Germans understood the British to be telling them a century ago: if you only stopped growing, there would not be a problem.

At the same time, China’s industries cannot keep growing unrestricted at the expense of everyone else. The smartest move China could make on trade is to agree to regulate its exports in such a way that they do not make it impossible for other countries’ domestic industries to compete in important areas such as electric vehicles or solar panels and other equipment necessary for decarbonization. If China continues to flood other markets with its cheap versions of these products, a lot of countries, including some that have not been overly concerned by China’s growth, will begin to unilaterally restrict market access to Chinese goods.

Beijing accuses Washington of maintaining a world order that is inherently unjust.

Unrestricted trade wars are not in anyone’s interest. Countries are increasingly imposing higher tariffs on imports and limiting trade and the movement of capital. But if this trend turns into a deluge of tariffs, then the world is in trouble, in economic as well as political terms. Ironically, China and the United States would probably both be net losers if protectionist policies took hold everywhere. As a German trade association warned in 1903, the domestic gains of protectionist policies “would be of no account in comparison with the incalculable harm which such a tariff war would cause to the economical interests of both countries.” The trade wars also contributed significantly to the outbreak of a real war in 1914.

Containing trade wars is a start, but Beijing and Washington should also work to end or at least contain hot wars that could trigger a much wider conflagration. During intense great-power competition, even small conflicts could easily have disastrous consequences, as the lead-up to World War I showed. Take, for instance, Russia’s current war of aggression against Ukraine. Last year’s offensives and counteroffensives did not change the frontlines a great deal; Western countries hope to work toward a cease-fire in Ukraine under the best conditions that Ukrainian valor and Western weapons can achieve. For now, a Ukrainian victory would consist of the repulsion of the initial all-out 2022 Russian offensive as well as terms that end the killing of Ukrainians, fast-track the country’s accession into the EU, and obtain Kyiv security guarantees from the West in case of Russian cease-fire violations. Many in the Western camp hope that China could play a constructive role in such negotiations, since Beijing has stressed “respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries.” China should remember that one of Germany’s major mistakes before World War I was to stand by as Austria-Hungary harassed its neighbors in the Balkans even as German leaders appealed to the high principles of international justice. This hypocrisy helped produce war in 1914. Right now, China is repeating that mistake with its treatment of Russia.

Although the war in Ukraine is now causing the most tension, it is Taiwan that could be the Balkans of the 2020s. Both China and the United States seem to be sleepwalking toward a cross-strait confrontation at some point within the next decade. An increasing number of China’s foreign policy experts now think that war over Taiwan is more likely than not, and U.S. policymakers are preoccupied with the question of how best to support the island. What is remarkable about the Taiwan situation is that it is clear to all involved—except, perhaps, to the Taiwanese most fixed on achieving formal independence—that only one possible compromise can likely help avoid disaster. In the Shanghai Communique of 1972, the United States acknowledged that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of China. Beijing has repeatedly stated that it seeks an eventual peaceful unification with Taiwan. A restatement of these principles today would help prevent a conflict: Washington could say that it will under no circumstances support Taiwan’s independence, and Beijing could declare that it will not use force unless Taiwan formally takes steps toward becoming independent. Such a compromise would not make all the problems related to Taiwan go away. But it would make a great-power war over Taiwan much less likely.

A Chinese soldier in Beijing, May 2024

Tingshu Wang / Reuters

Reining in economic confrontation and dampening potential regional flash points are essential for avoiding a repeat of the British-German scenario, but the rise of hostility between China and the United States has also made many other issues urgent. There is a desperate need for arms control initiatives and for dealing with other conflicts, such as that between the Israelis and the Palestinians. There is a demand for signs of mutual respect. When, in 1972, Soviet and U.S. leaders agreed to a set of “Basic Principles of Relations Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” the joint declaration achieved almost nothing concrete. But it built a modicum of trust between both sides and helped convince Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev that the Americans were not out to get him. If Xi, like Brezhnev, intends to remain leader for life, that is an investment worth making.

The rise of great-power tensions also creates the need to maintain believable deterrence. There is a persistent myth that alliance systems led to war in 1914 and that a web of mutual defense treaties ensnared governments in a conflict that became impossible to contain. In fact, what made war almost a certainty after the European powers started mobilizing against one another in July 1914 was Germany’s ill-considered hope that Britain might not, after all, come to the assistance of its friends and allies. For the United States, it is essential not to provide any cause for such mistakes in the decade ahead. It should concentrate its military power in the Indo-Pacific, making that force an effective deterrent against Chinese aggression. And it should reinvigorate NATO, with Europe carrying a much greater share of the burden of its own defense.

Leaders can learn from the past in both positive and negative ways, about what to do and what not to do. But they have to learn the big lessons first, and the most important of all is how to avoid horrendous wars that reduce generations of achievements to rubble.

• ODD ARNE WESTAD is Elihu Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University and a co-author, with Chen Jian, of the forthcoming book The Great Transformation: China’s Road From Revolution to Reform.

Foreign Affairs · by The Great Transformation: China’s Road From Revolution to Reform · June 13, 2024

21. China’s Do-Nothing Strategy in the Middle East

Excerpts:

In line with their view that American power is declining, Chinese leaders will continue to score easy diplomatic points in the Middle East where they can. Thus, in April, they invited members of the rival Palestinian organizations Hamas and Fatah to Beijing to foster reconciliation and to outline a possible unity government for postwar Gaza and the West Bank—however remote such a plan may be at present. As polling conducted by Michael Robbins, Amaney Jamal, and Mark Tessler in late 2023 and early 2024 indicates, Arab citizens’ opinion of China has improved since October 7, although few respondents agreed that China was seriously committed to safeguarding the rights of Palestinians.

Ultimately, China seeks in the Middle East what it is seeking elsewhere: to expand its trade ties, diversify its sources of energy and food imports, and assert its growing influence as a great power, all while avoiding military entanglements. Chinese leaders recognize that rhetorical opposition to Western dominance in the region is a low-cost way of soliciting broader support, especially in the global South. Their greatest priority is not to sow more instability but to guard China’s interests and adapt to a threatening geopolitical environment. To accomplish that, they may employ cynical and opportunistic methods, but these are based on managing, not creating, crises.

For the United States, this means that China will remain a diplomatic competitor in the Middle East. Washington should expect Beijing to continue to decry American hegemony and cast itself as a more benign and constructive great power. But contentious rhetoric should not deter U.S. policymakers from recognizing that China’s real interests lie in staying out of conflict and extracting what gains it can, leaving the responsibility of restoring regional stability to other countries. China won’t be willing to lay much on the line for peace, but it won’t stymie the process, either.

China’s Do-Nothing Strategy in the Middle East

Beijing Needs a Safe Red Sea—but Wants Washington to Deliver It

By Aaron Glasserman and Lauren Barney

June 13, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Aaron Glasserman and Lauren Barney · June 13, 2024

Since late 2023, the Houthis in Yemen have posed an extraordinary challenge to global shipping. As a result of the Iranian-backed group’s relentless attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea, intended to pressure the United States and its allies over Israel’s war in Gaza, several of the largest international shipping companies have been forced to reroute their vessels around Africa to avoid the sea entirely. According to one estimate, the freight costs of shipping from Asia to Europe rose by nearly 300 percent from October to March. In an effort to contain the crisis and defend this vital trade corridor, the United States and the United Kingdom have conducted hundreds of airstrikes against Houthi sites in Yemen.

Yet China, whose vast global trade accounts for a sizable portion of Red Sea traffic, has largely stood by. Beijing sends $280 billion worth of goods per year through the Red Sea’s Bab el Mandeb Strait, accounting for nearly 20 percent of China’s total maritime trade. And as a result of the Houthi attacks, it faces rapidly mounting shipping costs and supply chain disruptions at a moment when the Chinese economy is already under pressure. Nonetheless, Beijing has done little in response. In public, Chinese officials have limited themselves to affirming the importance of safe and open seas; in private, they have tried to negotiate with the Houthis and their Iranian supporters to secure the safe passage of vessels linked to China—although multiple such ships have been attacked.

China’s restraint in the Red Sea raises important questions about its larger strategy in the Middle East. Before the current war in the Gaza Strip, Beijing appeared to be asserting a growing role in the region, including by brokering diplomatic normalization between Iran and Saudi Arabia and expanding trade ties with Gulf countries. By claiming to stand up for the Palestinians, the Houthis aim to increase their standing in the Arab world. and some observers suggest that Beijing’s reluctance to confront the group is driven by a similarly cynical effort to enhance its regional clout. While the United States and its allies bear the burden and potential reputational costs of military intervention, China can posture as the champion of the global South. Other observers have gone further, suggesting that China tacitly approves of the Houthi attacks and is deliberately enabling them through its continued trade with Iran, the Houthis’ main backer, as part of a broader plan to foment chaos in the U.S.-led international order.

In fact, both of these interpretations miss Beijing’s deeper priorities in the region. Although China’s leaders are glad to avoid military entanglement—and to score easy diplomatic points with regional governments in doing so—they have no desire to see the Red Sea attacks continue. They know that their country has too many economic and military interests at stake. Rather than grow larger, they want the crisis to end—but without having to spend their own diplomatic, economic, or military resources to achieve that outcome. To expand its influence in the Middle East, China ultimately depends on stability, not chaos—a goal that holds important strategic implications for the United States as it tries to contain the war in Gaza.

RISKY BUSINESS

At a time when China’s economic position looks increasingly uncertain, instability in the Middle East poses an outsize threat to its economic stability. Given the region’s importance to China’s international trade, Beijing has signaled that it wants to secure its supply chains to states in the region. In an interview with Al Jazeera in April, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called the Red Sea “a vital international shipping corridor for goods and energy” and stated that “safeguarding its peace and stability helps keep global supply chains unobstructed and ensures the international trade order.”

Indeed, the Houthi attacks on commercial vessels threaten China’s supply chains in the region. The campaign has forced many international shipping companies to redirect their vessels to the far longer route around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, adding days to normal shipping times and raising fuel costs by some 40 percent. Moreover, roughly 70 percent of China’s exports to the United States normally pass through the Red Sea, and this trade now incurs significantly higher shipping costs in addition to the long delays. For Beijing, the timing could not be worse. Facing sluggish domestic consumption and an imploding property sector, the Chinese government is seeking to boost growth through high-value exports such as cars, electric vehicle batteries, and solar panels. Shipping makes up a relatively high percentage of these products’ overall cost structure, leaving them particularly vulnerable to price shocks.

Disruptions to global trade could potentially jeopardize China’s energy and food security as well. For the moment, the country’s imports in these two strategic sectors are sufficiently diversified to make a major crisis unlikely, even if the Houthis manage to bring Red Sea shipping to a complete standstill. Bumper grain harvests in recent years and the increasing use of electric vehicles and domestically produced clean energy give China additional layers of protection against an energy crunch induced by supply chains. Nonetheless, foodstuffs and hydrocarbons are traded on global markets and therefore highly sensitive to turmoil wherever it occurs. Alongside the Red Sea crisis, Russia’s war in Ukraine has caused major disruptions to grain shipments through the Black Sea, and droughts and low water levels have limited all forms of trade through the Panama Canal. The longer the Houthi attacks continue, the more these pressure points will drive up food and energy prices worldwide, including in China.

The Red Sea crisis has exposed Beijing’s ambivalence about its military presence.

Beijing knows that a prolonged crisis could jeopardize its growing economic interests around the Red Sea. China holds significant stakes in port operations near the Suez Canal— 20 percent at Port Said at the northern end and 25 percent at Ain Sokhna in the south—and has plans to invest in new port terminals on both coasts of the sea. Reduced shipping means reduced revenue for Chinese state-owned enterprises involved in port operations and for private Chinese firms moving cargo between China and Europe. Harm to Egypt’s economy, for which Suez Canal traffic has become a lifeline in recent years, is also bad news for China. Now Egypt’s fourth-largest creditor, Beijing has billions at stake in the country.

What is more, China has positioned itself as a key player in the Middle East’s clean energy transition, giving it a vested interest in the region’s own economic stability and supply chains. In June 2023, the Chinese electric vehicle producer Human Horizons signed a $5.6 billion deal with Saudi Arabia. And this spring, the United Arab Emirates and China signed a new memorandum of understanding under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative to deepen their economic engagement, particularly on green technology.

The Red Sea crisis has also exposed Beijing’s ambivalence about its military presence in the region. Since 2008, China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy has stationed a fleet of in the sea, including a destroyer and frigate, to conduct anti-piracy missions and buttress its status as a rising regional power. It also maintains its only overseas naval base in Djibouti, on the nearby Gulf of Aden. In theory, China could use its forces in the region to strike back at the Houthis or to escort commercial vessels into and out of the Red Sea. Yet China’s reluctance to protect its own commercial ships underscores its general aversion to military intervention—even in a case where it has a base close to the conflict and its own economic interests are at stake. The longer the attacks continue, the greater the risk that Beijing finds itself in a situation in which it is compelled to deploy its naval forces and become directly involved in the conflict. Paradoxically, given the priority it places on avoiding military entanglement, China’s naval assets in the region could prove a liability, if the Houthi campaign becomes prolonged.

LESS CHAOS, MORE CONTROL

Despite Beijing’s economic and military assets in the region, some in Washington have suggested that China’s leaders are profiting from the Red Sea predicament. In an essay published in Foreign Affairs in April, the former U.S. deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger and former U.S. congressman Mike Gallagher argued that Beijing’s inaction with respect to the Houthi attacks was part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “policy of fomenting global chaos.” According to this theory, China supposedly benefits from and seeks to fuel global crises that entangle the United States and thereby expose Washington’s weakness in managing the Western-led international order.

Yet this logic distorts China’s calculations. Indisputably, Beijing sees itself as a rising power, and Chinese leaders have made clear that they are dissatisfied with U.S. leadership of global affairs. And in the short term, China may derive some benefit from staying on the sidelines of controversial U.S. military interventions. But that does not mean it wants to encourage conflict around the world. This is especially true in the Middle East. Should the Red Sea crisis or the war in Gaza spiral into a wider war, this could further upend Chinese trade and investments across the region.

A Houthi rally celebrating the seizure of a cargo ship in the Red Sea, Sanaa, Yemen, February 2024

Khaled Abdullah / Reuters

The theory that Beijing is deliberately sowing chaos misreads its understanding of its own rise. In recent years, China’s flagship research institutions and think tanks have published theories on the “general laws” governing the rise and fall of great powers. According to these models, the world has passed through a series of great power “cycles” over the last half-millennium or so, including those of the Spanish and Portuguese in the sixteenth century, the Dutch in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the British in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Each of these, in the Chinese view, lasted for roughly 100 years and ended in disorder and upheaval, and the hegemony of the United States established after World War II is continuing this trend. In a 2021 essay, Wang Honggang, a scholar at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing, characterized the terminal stage of this cycle as “world crisis,” a decades-long period of destruction and fierce competition between states.

Xi has made clear that he subscribes to this theory. Since 2018, he has spoken constantly of “changes unseen in a century,” an apparent allusion to upheaval and innovation related to the erosion of American power, from the 2008 global financial crisis and ongoing populist backlash against liberal democracy to the rapid recent advances in biotechnology and artificial intelligence. China’s top officials and academics hope and may sincerely believe that these changes will enable their country to gain dominance in the post-American cycle. But they are also keenly aware of the challenges that Beijing must address to survive the tumult. Xi has mobilized the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda apparatus to promote “calamity consciousness” —a calm yet vigilant readiness to seize on opportunities arising from disaster—and ensure that party officials are prepared for the “major risks and challenges” lying ahead.

Chinese leaders will continue to score easy diplomatic points where they can.

As a result, Beijing has sought to minimize its exposure to global instability and maximize its ability to survive and adapt. At the level of grand strategy, this means diversifying supply chains and trade routes to provide ways around local or regional conflicts or to limit the impact of potential economic sanctions. As the geopolitical analyst Parag Khanna argued recently, Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping are a textbook example of precisely the sort of risk that Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative aims to mitigate: by building more and more diverse supply chains, China can better insulate itself from any given supply shock, whether caused by geopolitical events or climate change. The country is also promoting overland trade routes, such as a rail corridor through Central Asia to Europe, that can serve as backstops to disruptions along major shipping routes. In a similar vein, Beijing has labored over the past decade to offset its reliance on American corn, wheat, and beef by expanding its commodities trade with Argentina, Brazil, and other Latin American countries, as well as Asia.

These strategies are readily apparent in Beijing’s Middle East diplomacy. In 2021, China entered into a valuable energy and economic partnership with Iran. another vocal critic of the Western-dominated system. It also established and upgraded “strategic partnerships” with U.S. partners in the region, including the UAE in 2012 and Saudi Arabia in 2022, and continues to bolster its influence over Arab states through the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum. Beyond extending its diplomatic sway— as shown by its mediation of the Iranian-Saudi rapprochement in March 2023—Beijing sees these agreements as a means to secure reliable access to energy and build infrastructure.

STRATEGIC SHIRKING

For the moment, the Houthis are showing no signs of relaxing their stranglehold on the Red Sea. Testifying before a Senate committee in early May, the U.S. director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, predicted that the threat of attack was “going to remain active for some time.” The international shipping company Maersk expects the shipping disruptions to continue through 2024 and has reported that “the risk zone has expanded, and attacks are reaching further offshore.” Indeed, in a round of attacks the first week of June, Houthi rockets and drones struck several commercial ships, and the group also launched an attack on a U.S. aircraft carrier, though U.S. officials maintain that it was unsuccessful.

Although such strikes also threaten Chinese interests in the region, Beijing’s options are limited. It knows that any military response it might undertake would be no more successful than those of the United States and the United Kingdom. It also needs to maintain the support of Middle East leaders in its bid to fill gaps left by the West across the region. As a result, China is likely to respond with more of the same, doing what it can to safeguard its own interests, avoid further entanglements, and withstand future disturbances.

In line with their view that American power is declining, Chinese leaders will continue to score easy diplomatic points in the Middle East where they can. Thus, in April, they invited members of the rival Palestinian organizations Hamas and Fatah to Beijing to foster reconciliation and to outline a possible unity government for postwar Gaza and the West Bank—however remote such a plan may be at present. As polling conducted by Michael Robbins, Amaney Jamal, and Mark Tessler in late 2023 and early 2024 indicates, Arab citizens’ opinion of China has improved since October 7, although few respondents agreed that China was seriously committed to safeguarding the rights of Palestinians.

Ultimately, China seeks in the Middle East what it is seeking elsewhere: to expand its trade ties, diversify its sources of energy and food imports, and assert its growing influence as a great power, all while avoiding military entanglements. Chinese leaders recognize that rhetorical opposition to Western dominance in the region is a low-cost way of soliciting broader support, especially in the global South. Their greatest priority is not to sow more instability but to guard China’s interests and adapt to a threatening geopolitical environment. To accomplish that, they may employ cynical and opportunistic methods, but these are based on managing, not creating, crises.

For the United States, this means that China will remain a diplomatic competitor in the Middle East. Washington should expect Beijing to continue to decry American hegemony and cast itself as a more benign and constructive great power. But contentious rhetoric should not deter U.S. policymakers from recognizing that China’s real interests lie in staying out of conflict and extracting what gains it can, leaving the responsibility of restoring regional stability to other countries. China won’t be willing to lay much on the line for peace, but it won’t stymie the process, either.

• LAUREN BARNEY was a 2023 National Security Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy and is a Program Specialist at the U.S. State Department’s China Coordination Office.
• AARON GLASSERMAN is an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies and a China Fellow at the Wilson Center.

Foreign Affairs · by Aaron Glasserman and Lauren Barney · June 13, 2024

​22. Congressman accuses Army of political attacks over combat badge

As I recall the only personnel authorized to be awarded a CIB are Infantrymen and Special Forces soldiers. I think a Civil Affairs soldier would be awarded the Combat Action Badge. If that is the case the Army had no choice but to correct the error of having awarded it to him. It is not political but rather just following the regulations.

Congressman accuses Army of political attacks over combat badge

militarytimes.com · by Leo Shane III · June 12, 2024

Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, on Wednesday, accused Army officials of political attacks against him following questions about his continued wear of a Combat Infantry Badge that was revoked by military leaders last year.

In a letter to Army Human Resources Command, Nehls, an Army veteran, asked for an investigation into the handling of the award, given to infantrymen involved in ground combat operations. The 56-year-old served 21 years in the Army Reserve, deploying to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nehls was awarded his CIB while serving as a civil affairs officer with the 101st Airborne Division in Afghanistan in 2008. Last month, CBS News reported the award was revoked in 2023 after an Army review determined he was not eligible for the badge.

According to the CBS News investigation, Nehls’ Combat Infantry Badge was revoked because he was serving as a civil affairs officer and not as an infantryman at the time of his award.

But Nehls has continued to wear a CIB lapel pin while tending to business around Capitol Hill and on campaign stops, prompting scrutiny from a host of media outlets.

In Wednesday’s letter, Nehls accused Army officials of ignoring his previous requests on the issue and insisted that he was eligible for the combat badge.

“I further believe this is a concerted effort to discredit my military service and continued service to the American people as a member of Congress,” he wrote. He also urged officials to “get it right” in regards to revising his military records and reauthorizing the award.

Nehls did not respond to requests for comment on the letter or the badge.

In an interview with NOTUS this week, Nehls said that his service records show a designation as an infantry soldier and suggested that he was being targeted by Army leaders because he is “Mr. MAGA guy.”

Earlier this year, the Office of Congressional Ethics announced it would look into reports that Nehls improperly used campaign funds for personal use, unrelated to the combat badge controversy.

Nehls’ congressional website says he earned two Bronze Star medals during his time in the service, but CBS News also reported that only one of those awards is in his official military record. He retired at the rank of major in 2009.

About Leo Shane III

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

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